Resonant Reading (Saturday)-Materialism and Subjectivity-Karr
An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.
The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.
Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.
The reading for this session: Saturday May 16
Mind has a cognitive primacy that materialism doesn’t see. The “physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology” is known only through cognition, whether it is observed directly or inferred by the mind from observations of scientific instruments and computations. The objective world described by science is a construct of the mind. All scientific theories and models are mental models. They are not part of the furniture of the world. …
The belief that only science reveals reality is theological, not scientific. Scientists and philosophers steeped in neuroscience are deeply invested in scientific methods and conceptual models. Because of this, many assume that all knowledge must be scientific knowledge and that anything that is not susceptible to scientific inquiry has no reality.
Science studies objective reality: things that are measurable, quantifiable, and independently observable. Neurons and brains, quarks and galaxies, and skyscrapers and iPhones are objective realities. Subjective reality is the realm of phenomenal experience. Colors and sensations, feelings and awareness are subjective realities. … Subjective reality is the realm of first-person inquiry.
Materialism is blind to the realm of subjectivity.
–Andy Karr (2024, Fall), Between Neuro-Skepticism and Ultimate Liberation. Tricycle, 34(2).
How to join:
- Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/91019857324, passcode 227385
- Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
- Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
- Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,91019857324# US (San Jose)
- Phoning in, but not in the bay area? Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT
This is the Zoom link for Saturdays. For the Wednesday Zoom link, go to the Calendar and click on a Wednesday session.
Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.
*This activity was formerly called “Sacred Text Reading.” That proved misleading–for one thing, more often than not our sources are secular–but it’s worth describing the qualities of a sacred text, which we still look for in the readings we choose. It is any reading that helps us to:
- connect to something of supreme importance to us
- feel more connected to other beings or to the universe
- feel more intensely alive
- align our lives with our values,
- perceive or feel more deeply
- be more fully and authentically ourselves.