 these vivid dreams like thinking weird things what sort of things if you watch any of the popular TV shows or movies about the future of technology like this clip from Netflix's black mirror you know the future and you know it's not very good today's guest looks past the dystopia and sees something else where you're going and reaching towards with the shared near-death experience and Raymond Moody in the higher-ordered geometry is there the possibility to actually imagine a higher-ordered science that already exists and then where does that take us there may be I mean certainly one thing that you find when you study the history of science in the last 150 years is that you know scientists have been you know pretty committed to police policing the boundaries of their disciplines and one thing that they rule out is any kind of philosophical or even spiritual reflection right you see that in my first book that I mentioned earlier it looked pretty closely at the history of social sciences you know sociology psychology psychiatry sciences of mind and brain and one thing that the founders of the those disciplines really work hard at is you know squeezing out any any mention of any kind of spiritual thing or any even philosophical questions and you know maybe you're right that in the future when scientists and social scientists are less allergic to or less afraid of thinking about these other orders of existence or thinking about spirit maybe that opens up a whole new way of thinking about and doing science so I really enjoyed having dr. Chris white on skeptico today and we talk about other topics like how much of this dark dark dystopic apocalyptic science stuff is socially engineered is designed to make us feel even more isolated afraid alone it certainly keeps us away from any kind of deeper examination of spirituality so it's a great chat from a very distinguished and deep thinker stick around for my interview with Chris white today we welcome dr. Christopher G. White to skeptico he's here to talk about his new book other worlds spirituality and the search for invisible dimensions now I don't usually read a lot of book blurbs on this show but this is a really good one so let me read this in because it'll give you an idea where he's coming from for a long time people have argued that the rise of science has caused the decline of religion other worlds this book presents a different perspective showing that modern Europeans and Americans often use scientific ideas in imaginative ways to develop new enchanted views of nature the book examines the history and imaginative power of one scientific idea in particular an idea that has been crucial to modern physics as well as modern science fiction and that is the idea that the universe has a higher invisible dimension very very nice I should also mention real quickly that Chris I'm gonna call him Chris here has a PhD from Harvard and his professor and chair of religion at Vassar one of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States so in other words he's really really smart guy but you would have figured that out anyway as we go along but it's great to have your Chris thanks for joining me thanks for that introduction Alex you really you really you know raising expectations for your listening audience here so I don't know hopefully I won't disappoint well let's see how it goes okay okay I don't think you will you you have a terrific book here and I really thank you yeah well written you're covering a topic that you know a lot of people probably expect to either find very superficial or laden down with a lot of academic stuff and you don't fall in either one of those it's really light and it carries a lightness about spirituality with it that is great good yeah no I'm glad you liked it I I definitely worked hard on it you know there's there's a lot of pieces to put in together a book and you got to get all the information and do the research and then write it up and try to write it up in an interesting way and and like you say you know I tried to make it a book for students and for scholars and for everyone else who wants to read about sort of higher dimensions and how they're changing how we think about spirituality so yeah it was it was took a few years to do it but but I had fun with it for sure when I want to let people know that we're gonna talk about the book and I really want people to check out the book listeners this show I think will really really like it but you've also opened yourself up and are willing to kind of have a more free-ranging discussion because that's really what skeptical is about is kind of trying to figure out how your really smart guy like you how your work fits into these larger questions of who are we and why are we here and and how it fits into the other topics we've explored so that's really terrific that you're willing to do that but absolutely yeah thanks here are a couple of lead-off questions you're a science and spirituality guy and I am too so here's question what's something you've learned from science that's changed your life yeah well that's actually a really good question to start this discussion with because in some ways you know it's sort of science and my reading of science and popular science that that started me thinking about the book you know I'm you know in the book I talk a lot about you know the ways in which modern people who call themselves spiritual or spiritual but not religious are getting you know a renewed sense of awe and wonder by thinking about nature and I think I'm in that category too you know I think that that's where I begin my reflections in the book and I began my research in the book so you know I think I get that sense right when I watch a science documentary or when I read one of Brian Green's books he's a physicist at Columbia University and he wrote fabric of the cosmos and a couple of the books about the multiverse and then he's also you know you can Google him and watch his documentary on YouTube YouTube so but you know and he has that same sort of sense of sort of awe and wonder at how amazing and how big and how mysterious the universe of the multiverse is and so I think that in some ways I kind of started with that and I think science has given me that and it's not unlike a number of people in my book like C.S. Lewis or Madeline Engel or many other people in the other chapters who kind of get a re-enchanted worldview really from what I'm calling like fantastic scientific concepts so in some ways the book is biographical or autobiographical in that way. You know that's awesome was there any specific scientific discovery because I'll just share with you like I've been doing this show for a while and I had all these kind of questions and the same kind of thing you know wonder a science thing but I ran across the near-death experience science research peer-reviewed published stuff and it really changed me because I had lingering doubts about the survival of consciousness and when I was really able to finally pin that down for myself I'm not saying this applies to anyone else but it really kind of turned something in me I was like wow there's science the best way that I can understand it has changed fundamentally what I can accept about consciousness and death do you have any kind of similar parallel thing of something in science a scientific discovery that really led you to just a new belief system yeah well I think that you know when I started the project I was raised in the Baha'i faith so I'm a Baha'i and like one of the teachings in the Baha'i religion or the Baha'i faith is that there are that there are many worlds you know just the title of the book right that there are many worlds that the divine essence or the transcendent you know has has created or contains you know many worlds and so I think I had that sensibility going into it and then actually it's funny you mentioned the near-death experiences I did you know about ten years ago I got interested in reading Raymond Moody and kind of near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences and I got really interested in thinking about that you know and kind of in kind of inspired by that and that kind of changed my thinking I guess a little bit like you I'm you know thinking about many layers and many worlds and and then I guess the third piece was when I was doing research for my first book which is called Unsettled Minds which is more a history of psychology and sciences of mind and brain and how they influence American thinking about spirituality and religion but when I was when I was doing that that project I came across an awful lot of people you know who who are interested in science and religion and physics or science religion and cosmology and these were people who were talking more about higher dimensions right and using that that kind of fantastic scientific term higher dimensions parallel universes and so that that was maybe the third thing that you know got me excited like well wait a minute you know what's the relationship between all these different things what's the relationship between you know an idea a spiritual idea that there might be you know an afterlife or other worlds on the one hand and also you know the sort of near-death experiences on the other hand and then also you know more scientific ideas that there might be invisible spaces or layers to reality and you know what's the story you know and how people put those different categories together and that's really the book you know and I have a number of those different kinds of people in the book you know I have spiritual or religious people in the book who who have different ideas about an afterlife and then I have people who you know have afterlife experiences and have a more empirical kind of view and want to want to study these kinds of things scientifically and then I also have skeptics in the book right and as you know I have scientists and others in there who sort of push back on all that and say you know that's not really what we're talking about when we talk about higher dimensional spaces but that that conversation goes round and around and in the book I try to I try to turn it into a story great have you had any spiritual experiences that have really changed your life in a significant way yeah that's a good question I get that question you know I get that question when I'm doing a podcast or doing maybe a radio show or an interview or something you know and it's always it's always a letdown because because I you know I don't have you know I haven't I haven't had a UFO experience or I haven't I haven't heard a voice or seen a light and you know I know I know people that have had these experiences in fact I've talked to them right because because I study these kinds of experiences and at Vassar I teach about these experiences too and like ways of interpreting them but I mean aside from you know having my own sort of meditation and prayer life you know which is sort of more of a kind of a constant practice in my life aside from that no I don't really you know I've never had an out-of-body experience or these kinds of you know dramatic experiences or uncanny experiences that people that many people have had and I think you've had as well but um so I'm always interested in hearing them and talking about them and I write about them quite a bit in my book but I've I've never had one that's interesting because I know I really haven't had any super profound spiritual experiences but I found that when I really you know dig into it and probe it with people especially people like you and if I can say like me in terms of I have a steady spiritual practice a meditation practice a yoga practice because it works for me on so many levels but if I really dig into that and if I get past the need to have all the fireworks you know I have had spiritual experiences even if they're small ones that have kind of moved me on the course and does that relate to you because I think most people that are consider themselves spiritual they have to be getting some yeah crumbs that they're following along the path oh absolutely I mean you know when I remember being 14 or 15 and not really believing in God but but then sort of taking up the issue of prayer and just kind of being like open-minded and taking an experimental view and sort of saying you know I'm gonna do this practice and I'm just gonna see what happens I don't have to believe anything but I'm going to do it and I'm gonna and I'm gonna see and then as you say kind of along the way you do feel kind of a sense of change you know coming over you and a sense of being grounded in a certain way and a feeling that this is this is the right path you know and maybe it maybe those types of practices turn on parts of the self that we don't think about sometimes right maybe they turn on parts of the self that you know we use words like intuition to talk about right or you know intuition or feeling or religious emotions you know certainly you know I've had those types of kind of confirming experiences with those with those practices for sure and then and then you know when you ask the question another thing I think of about sort of spiritual experiences is you know I think this gets back to awe and wonder and maybe nature but also an element of of the beyond of the beyond nature is is things like you know the birth of my children you know you you have these kind of fantastic moments that happen to you in your life and they do kind of strike you as as revelatory right in a certain way you know and we all know the science behind childbirth right we could we could take a completely demystic we could take a completely scientific approach to it but I actually think that that that kind of approach it doesn't really I'm not sure that it really does take away from the the kind of fantastic and awesome nature of some of these things just like if we know the science and the geology of the Grand Canyon or these other kinds of experiences it's a bit different when you go there and you experience it right so I mean there definitely is something an experience that that has that's made it possible for me to feel a sense of transformation and I know for people who have more dramatic experiences right like maybe near-death experiences right who come out of those experiences and you know they feel completely trans trans transformed in various ways right no excellent so let's return then and talk a little bit about the book one of the points that you make and I've just read it in the blurb there that I'd love for you to talk about because I think we really need to hone in on it and that is this idea of invisible dimensions multiple dimensions and you really pull that apart and you have this kind of interplay between what science is discovering and what spirituality is discovering if we can apply that word to spirituality do you want to talk about that some yeah sure I mean you know the the book begins you know a hundred years ago or so with with people who I think consider themselves scientific but then who you know start to through the mathematics and through their physics they start to think about the possibility that they're invisible spaces or dimensions to reality and some of them are interested in that as scientists right higher dimensions as even a physical space and then and then others get interested in these spaces as you know possibly spiritual spaces or spaces where there might be spirits or ghosts and so on and you can have scientists who themselves who pursue that pursue those ideas you know is it possible to to have a scientific perspective on the afterlife is it possible to study spirituality scientifically or empirically right these are all questions that some of these folks raised when they started to think about higher dimensions and maybe I can just say a quick word about what dimensions are just to sort of make that clear in our conversation but I think there's a number of different ways of talking about other dimensions or other universes or parallel worlds and so on and I try to take up some of those in the book the main the main thing I'm I engage in the book though is just this idea that there might be a higher a higher spatial dimension so in our world we have we have three spatial dimensions you know I'm basically you know if you'd imagine drawing a line on a piece of paper that's a one-dimensional object just a straight line you know that has one dimension that we call link you know and then if you were to take that line on that flat piece of paper and take all the points in that line and stretch them in it in a new direction that's perpendicular to the perpendicular to the line you would have a two-dimensional object an object a flat square right that would have length and width those would be its two dimensions or directions and then if you do the same if you do the same thing if you take that flat square and you take every point in the square and you stretch it in a new direction that's perpendicular to the other two directions you would stretch that flat square into a three-dimensional cube so that cube has three spatial dimensions alright it has length width and height now this is where it gets tricky right so you know every everything in our world apparently has three spatial dimensions that's the world that we seem to live in but geometers mathematicians and physicists in the 19th century started to incorporate a fourth spatial dimension into their equations because they it seemed to simplify the laws of nature and allowed them to do things that were interesting to them mathematically so you know that this would be this would be you know if you were to think about what a fourth space and again this fourth spatial dimension is not a dimension that we can perceive although a number of people in my book say that there are practices that you can do to actually see into a fourth dimension but you did this would involve you know this dimension would involve taking that three-dimensional cube like that Rubik's cube and taking all the points in the cube and all the points on the surfaces of that cube and stretching it in a fourth direction or dimension right and that direction would have to be perpendicular to the other three and if you know your listeners sit there and try to imagine what that direction would be it's a pretty hard thing to do it's a pretty hard thing to imagine and that's because we don't we apparently don't have that spatial dimension but nevertheless you know physicists cosmologists some mathematicians they do use this idea of there being a fourth dimensional space or a fifth dimensional space to reality you know maybe this is a space that we can't perceive because the limitations of our consciousness and so that that's sort of the beginning of the book and then these ideas get taken up by lots of different kinds of people there are other ways of that we might think about dimensions like today you know we have multiverse theory right this is a theory that not so much a theory of other dimensions as a theory of parallel universes you know maybe there are other universes that exist outside of our own there's other kinds of theories that have other layers or worlds to them right and I'm sure your listeners are familiar with these other kinds of theories but string theory which is a modern theory and among mathematicians and physicists that it tries to account for it tries to come up with one set of equations that can accommodate all of the all of nature's all of nature's forces basically and string theory incorporates many extra spatial dimensions there's also something called brain theory Lisa Randall at Harvard a physicist talks about brain theory a number of others talk about brain theory this is the idea that there are membranes or brains in the cosmos right and our visible universe is just one is just on one of those membranes spread out on one of those membranes or one of those layers in reality and that there's other layers in reality or other brains or membranes to reality that we can't perceive so there's a lot of different reasons that mathematicians and physicists have posited the existence of these other dimensional spaces parallel worlds and there's even other theories that haven't mentioned like like the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which says that they're that our universe is constantly branching into other additional constantly creating new additional parallel worlds so there's mathematical and scientific reasons that these theorists are coming up with these ideas I should say there's no proof you know there's no there's no mathematical or scientific proof that these higher dimensions exist so that these parallel worlds exist but many physicists and mathematicians are actively pursuing the mathematics of these of these higher dimensional worlds and they're also trying to figure out ways to empirically confirm whether or not they exist so that's a big that's a big you know that's a big sort of excursus into higher dimensions we can talk more of that about that if you want but so there's a lot of scientists who talk about them but then there's a lot of people in pop culture who use them to and that that of course is in the book all of the sci-fi writers all the comic book artists right all the people who create TV shows like the Twilight Zone and the outer limits and films like interstellar and right and so many people use these ideas of there being other dimensional realities and then Chris of course what you do is you link that to a lot of spiritual people if we use that category mystic thinkers or experiencers who have kind of come at it from a different way and there's this interplay of cross fertilization and forming each other kind of thing right that's the other part of this and then tell us how you researched obviously you're smart enough to go read the science and understand that but you also researched the writings and understandings of the spiritual people as well right oh yeah yeah sure I mean yeah I think I think you're right that people came out of from two different directions you know the mathematicians the scientists sort of were intrigued by you know where the mathematics was leading them and then they asked questions like well you know if I'm if I'm using a fourth spatial or fifth spatial dimensions in the context of my mathematics could there actually be a real fourth space or fifth space so some come at it that way and then as you say others come at it from a spiritual side let's say someone has an out-of-body experience yeah I talk about a number of people I think it's in chapter six in the book where which is a chapter about people who have dreams that seem to predict the future right in that chapter I talk about a person who or a couple of people who have out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences and so these kinds of things happen to them and then they go to the science right so they this kind of strange stuff happens and they say well is there any possible way I could explain what happened to me you know and then they turn to they turn to popular science books that might be about Einstein science or quantum mechanics or you know a lot of different things so you're right it goes kind of in both directions in the book so you know maybe that's a good way to launch into one of the kind of points I want to talk about in kind of a more free-wheeling interactive discussion and I have three of them but the first one relates directly to what you're saying there and it relates to a quote I pulled out of the book and it was the chapter that you were dealing with Raymond Moody who you mentioned earlier the real pioneer of near-death experience research and you know most recently I love that you pulled out that he's really gotten into shared death experiences that is not just the experiencer who has the cardiac arrest or whatever but people that are with them in the hospital bed who also share that experience quite remarkable and quite evidential really and yeah what you point out in the book is that a lot of these people are reporting alternative geometrical understandings or visions or experiences like alternative geometry so you want to talk about science I mean it's very sciency so the way I'd frame up this topic is spiritually transformative experiences there's an app for that so I guess my point is you know one way to take what you're doing is to suggest as some people do that our understanding of spiritually transformative experiences is going to change dramatically as we have a better understanding of technology and science and what we you know you're kind of playing nice with spirituality and spiritual people but eventually all that will be assumed by technological advancement so I just throw that on the table as a topic that we might kick around yeah yeah I yeah I think that's a I think that's a good observation I mean I think it kind of I think you can talk about that in a number of different ways I mean I think you could say you know technological advancement changes how people talk about spiritual experiences I think you could say technological advancement gives people new metaphors or ways of thinking about spiritual experiences you know I think you know I'm not sure I'm not sure what the direction of the causal arrow is right I mean you know because you could also argue that people's religious and spiritual questions leads them to different forms of scientific investigation and technological innovation so you know a number of people in history of science look at look at the direction of that arrow going both ways you know I mean there's no question that scientific innovation and technological innovation comes from a cultural context so it's not just that new science and technology comes out of a like a discovery vacuum and then it produces new new kinds of religious people there's a kind of a more dynamic quality to it but I definitely agree with what you're talking about you know in general that that's I think what I'm trying to do with the book is I'm saying given the fact that in the West fewer and fewer people are going to church and reading the Bible or going to synagogue and participating with traditional religious congregations what are the ways that they're now thinking about what ghosts are and what spirits are and where are they getting their new ways of talking about or experiencing these things and and that's where in the book you know things like higher dimensions you know moves in right to kind of see but that's but that's one question but I guess what I'm getting at is the underlying nature of spiritual experiences do they exist or are they somehow being counterfeited in some artificial way or do both or is both true is there both an underlying reality to spiritual experiences and we could talk about you know the implications for that in terms of higher spiritual beings and if you're saying higher you're implying a hierarchy in which case you're talking about God I guess at some level and then so what does that mean or or are we saying that intelligences be they on this planet or another planet if you're willing to you know expanded to that or even if you're willing to go into spiritual dimensions and spiritual things are they somehow able to manipulate our experience in order to create the illusion of a transformative spiritual experiences so you know that I think rather than just kind of focusing on you know oh wow people are now spiritual but not religious and how might they go forward what's the underlying nature of these spiritual experiences well that's a good question you know I I don't know if I can answer I would say that you know I think that there there is that there there is reality to it you know I mean my personal view is that there is a kind of a spiritual reality and that Pete when people talk about being inspired or having near-death experience of these kinds of things I think that there's that there's truth to that you know so I wouldn't be I wouldn't be the person who would be reducing all those things to to brain chemistry right or to FMRIs where you can look at the brain or whatever so I I definitely think that you know we are we are body mind and spirit so I think all of those things are smashed together in a package and I think you certainly can look at the scientific side of people's religious experiences now some scientists will do that and they will then they will then make a more reductive move and they'll say that well the this is the cause of the spiritual experience the cause is actually in the body or the causes in the material thing some scientists will make that reductive move I wouldn't make that reductive move myself I think that all kinds of brain states and mind states and even spiritual states have analogs in the physical body for sure but I wouldn't want to reduce them to the physical body so I would be more on the side of people who would be open to the reality of real spiritual experiences you know and then you raise other questions in your comment to which is you know where do they come from you know do they come from other dimensions or extra trust rules or gods or whatever right it beyond that you know where I thought it was really interesting where you took us in the book and I think what you were where you were going and reaching towards with the shared near-death experience and Raymond Moody and the observers in the higher-ordered geometry is that you know we are so stuck in this materialistic scientific dogmatic thing and we'll talk about that in a minute but once we free ourselves from that is there the possibility to actually imagine a higher ordered science that already exists and we're observing in those situations and then where does that take us in terms of if they really do have a higher order then is there a whole parallel kind of science to to that that we have yet to explore yeah there may be I mean certainly one thing that you find when you you know when you study the history of science in the last 150 years is that you know scientists have been you know pretty committed to police policing the boundaries of their disciplines and one thing that they rule out is any kind of philosophical or even spiritual reflection right you see that in my first book that I mentioned earlier it looked pretty closely at the history of social sciences you know sociology psychology psychiatry sciences of mind and brain and one thing that the founders of the those disciplines really work hard at is you know squeezing out any any mention of any kind of spiritual thing or any even philosophical questions and you know maybe you're right that in the future when scientists and social scientists are less allergic to or less afraid of thinking about these other orders of existence or thinking about spirit maybe that opens up a whole new way of thinking about and doing science right well that is one of the conclusions you have in the book or you have specific examples of where that's happening right and we all hear these stories of famous and fantastic scientists who just come right out and say hey it was it was a spiritual inspiration that led me to that discovery which makes us kind of wonder actually that's kind of a lead-in to the second topic that I wanted to kind of throw on the table for discussion and that is the cathedral predates the city and I always like to give credit to Gordon White for this because he's the first one who really brought my attention to this quote that was that is attributed to Klaus Schmidt who was the guy who you know did the whole go peckly teppy thing in Turkey where they discover this enormous and amazing archaeological dig that is ten thousand at least at least ten thousand years before Egypt and the pyramids and all that stuff and of course one of the takeaways that no one wants to kind of focus on very much is that now we've turned this whole myth of progress thing on its head and we always had this idea that okay well people get together and their hunter gatherers and then they finally get enough stuff together where they can build a city and then after they have a bunch of leisure time then they start sitting around and thinking about God like a maslow's a hierarchy of needs or whatever exactly and what what now the archaeological evidence is unfolding is telling us exactly the opposite which we were just talking about a minute ago that the spiritual impulse from everything we can tell is the impetus for all of this and it kind of makes me wonder in some ways are we looking through the wrong end of the telescope when we focus so much on science and how science has informed spirituality is it really the other way around and and we can balance them out and say oh well they're informing each other but if we kind of take a stand one way or another it kind of does give us a different perspective on the whole thing yeah no that's a that's a great point i mean i agree i think that you know there just there seems to be something in human cultures around the world that that people seem to be born with you know they seem to be born with an interest in finding that orienting point or that kind of spiritual connection or the or or maybe a sense of wonderment about what exists beyond and you know i'm not surprised right that you're pointing to the sort of the temple being the first the first consideration um people seem to pursue that of course you know you know scientists do come they'll come around and have an explanation that's secular for that right which is that you know well this is this is sort of a you know an artifact of evolution that you know that people who have this kind of instinct will will be will be adapted better to the environment and they have better survival skills and so on so you know some religious people have actually you know made religious arguments about that impulse and said that this is an impulse that is the starting point and that is sort of a god given a starting point c s lewis actually made this argument many many people make this argument but scientists do turn it around you know they end to say that well no this is just kind of an artifact of evolution and uh it doesn't actually point to anything real it doesn't actually point to any real beyond um or the existence of a real beyond supernatural so doesn't that kind of beg the question though i mean that they want to use that as the arbitrary starting point then in terms of the the evolutionary process which doesn't make any sense but you know i feel like those debates kind of go in circles uh what they don't really wind up anywhere but i i do have to interject there because i think what's important about that discussion and about materialistic science and its complete failure scientifically not only that but philosophically which we can talk about in a minute is i go back to the consciousness thing yeah and the near-death experience thing so that little bit of science tells me okay the neurological models that we have are either a completely wrong or b suggests that they can't handle the evidence that we have because clearly the evidence we have is that people have states in which they aren't supposed to be able to form memories have experience let alone have the most significant experiences of their life yeah so their their brains their physiology isn't supposed to be able to do that and yet scientifically we can match their reports of those experiences with being in that body state so again the the whole skeptical thing i don't know why we have to try and balance the scales they don't really have any substance to their arguments consciousness as far as we can tell from the evidence at hand seems to survive bodily death or at least compromised brain states in a way that undermines the kind of knit-wit neuro neurological model that we have isn't that a case closed kind of thing well unfortunately as you know it's not because you know like a lot a lot of a lot of scientists you know maybe for some of the reasons we've already talked about in terms of you know the ways that scientists psychologists neurologists you know kind of police the limits of their discipline but whenever something like that comes up i think they you know you might either kind of you know rule it out as saying well i can't talk about that because it's not quote-unquote scientific as i've as i've defined what scientific it is or or they'll try to develop an alternate explanation now i think like you i don't really find you know the alternate explanations as persuasive as as some scientists do right because i mean as you know scientists will come up with you know their own explanations for you know how it might be possible in the last moments of life to have these kind of experiences and so on like you i don't find those persuasive so what can you say it's sort of like you said it's that kind of go you can kind of go around and around but i do think that on the issue of consciousness you're right i think that when you consciousness for the last 50 years has been a kind of um you know an inflection point for science i think it's been a a category that that creates a lot of tension and and hand-wringing you know now right with a quantum mechanics and the ways that it is moved subjectivity human subjectivity and consciousness to the foreground i think that creates so many so much anxiety right for for scientists right because of the issue that i mentioned earlier which is that you know they've been pretty determined to kind of keep out keep keep out outside of the boundaries of of science these kind of questions about you know things that might transcend the material world and consciousness really provides you know a lot of trouble right you know all these theories and physics and quantum mechanics about the role of the conscious observer you know it seems to have some sort of role in shaping or influencing physical reality at the quantum level and and then all kinds of ways of trying to interpret you know or explain away you know how that could be possible right in the history of quantum mechanics or just what you had in the 1950s 1950s 50s and 60s just a lot of people saying look just forget about that you know just you know let's just be physicists and kind of calculate and not talk about you know those things that we don't understand one of which is the role of subjectivity in shaping physical reality let's just not talk about that and let's just do our work you know the equation seems to work so again that that's a group of scientists who are just sort of ruling out a conversation and consciousness is it is a tricky issue and and as i'm sure you know you know some of these what what makes it worse for some of these businesses some of the some very prominent businesses within their midst right they start to go off and have these kind of spiritual and philosophical reflections you know and say things like you know like well i think you know in order for our world to exist like it does you know we must we must have a god that's the ultimate consciousness and god you know observed the universe and provoked it into into a concrete existent you know like Eugene Wigner snowball prize winning physicist who makes that kind of statement right that even causes more anxiety for the for the physicist right saying oh my god you know you can't talk we can't talk like this um so but but you're right consciousness has become a real thorn you know and a real difficult issue for scientists who want to rule out broader philosophical conversation you know i actually think the shut up and calculate yeah assertion is kind of a more intellectually honest approach that the only problem i see with it is that they then forget that they've done a philosophical bypass of the whole problem i mean it's no there's there's no issue for me in reaching an impasse and saying you know what let's set that aside so we can go do our calculations and build our iphone that's great but you can't then pretend like you didn't do that sidestep you you know you have to kind of go back well you know yeah exactly but as you know this i have all kinds of ways of you know reasoning out reasoning themselves out of these things one and one thing they say is like well as i define science those questions don't fit in with with my definition so you know i don't talk about them but you know that's just a way of punting the ball and giving up you know and it's it's not a very and then the other issue is you know that often materialist worldviews kind of sneak in the back door or or they're operating at all kinds of levels that these scientists scientists are not willing to admit that they are actually privileging a metaphysical system you know it's it's it's materialism you know it's it's um or physicalism or whatever you want to call it um with a high degree of faith really so if you look at it from that perspective they've chosen a starting point yes and they've chosen an unproven theory that is scientific materialism and they've put that above experience right so how everyone has the experience of being conscious of there being a reality to their conscious experience so if we set aside whether that is real or whether you should trust your experience at least we have to acknowledge that that's your experience and then so philosophically if you're choosing something different what are you choosing well you're choosing a theory well that's okay has that theory been tested and proven well no it really hasn't been proven in terms of in a real robust way in terms of establishing scientific materialism and you and I are talking about as a matter of fact the data the more you look at it suggests that that theory really has been falsified over and over again so it's kind of a strange situation we find ourselves in yeah I think so I mean I think you know people do have a metaphysical starting point which as you say is not really a proven thing but is more just these are the set of assumptions I am accepting and um you know they include the they include that there all there is is matter you know in the world give me one miracle and I can explain the rest you know and that kind of leads into the the third and the the last big topic I had and then we can talk about other stuff anything that interests you but and this is kind of a tough one I'm going to pull you into the deep waters here Chris but these have all been tough Alex what are you talking about now you knock them out of the part I mean those were the easy ones consciousness it's a softball stuff for you softball stuff absolutely here's how I've labeled it scientific materialism social engineering and the spirituality of dystopia and I want to throw out the idea that this wacky scientific materialism and it is wacky yeah has its roots in a social engineering project in a project that in a lot of ways if we look at the I don't want to say deep state and shadow government because it kind of throws people in a lot of different ways but if we look at the remote viewing research that's done at Stanford Research Institute okay that's just solid stuff you can trace the money in Stanford Research Institute and they really did all this stuff or if you look at the MK ultra stuff which is really sinister but it's still real they did it and we have the documents and all that stuff it's clear that these guys didn't believe in scientific materialism they were way off the reservation on this so that brings me back to the understanding or the idea or at least willing to consider that what this scientific materialism is about is really social engineering however you want to kind of put that it's it's part of a of a meme that makes people more I don't know controllable or just heads culture in a way that certain groups think might be advantageous for culture to move to for whatever reasons but linked with that and this is really the troubling part that I see is this this dystopia that you know I we shared a link because you're pop culture guy and you know I shared a link to the Black Mirror show which is really a cool show and I just very with my wife that we just watched the latest episode which was really cool but it's also freaking depressing it you just want to take a shower afterwards and it's like you know this is the vision for where this advancement this technological advancement this scientific advancement this is where it will lead lead us your book is refreshing it's uplifting and it's certainly inspiring but I don't get that from what our culture is telling us about science and where science is going and I do suspect that there's another agenda behind this yeah what are your thoughts yeah those are those are big questions I mean a couple of things I would say that you know just to divide you know American history over the last 150 years you know and maybe we divide it around you know 1950 or something but I would say that you know between 1850 and 1950 you know you have the rise of science you know when you go back and read people from that period there's a lot of euphoria about about science about social sciences about biology you know chemistry physics there's a lot of euphoria and a lot of hope and optimism and a sense of that if we just keep working and get better and better and and devote more more funding to big science that we're going to be able to solve problems and we're going to be able to you know this gets back to your question about social engineering but we're going to be able to solve human problems we're going to be able to raise better babies we're going to be able to raise better people we're going to be able to you know have a lot of success in technology and I think it I think we should say that a lot of that was true I mean I think we should say that science does is amazing and done amazing like antibiotics you know prosthetic limbs you know new technologies like the iphone I mean there is a way in which between 1850 and 1950 a lot of amazing things did happen I mean telephones right television electric light so science was this thing that people embraced with awe and wonder and people were fully on board with and many of the cultural authorities in this country right we're embracing and putting tax dollars behind and all the way through to through the wars for sure right which were the wars themselves were great incubators of new medical science and other kinds of technologies and obviously wars are not great examples of what what technology can do but so I think technology and science there was this real euphoria a lot of optimism about it and I think if you watch the sci-fi equivalents of you know stranger things for instance right back in 1940 it looks different I think you know even some of the twilight zone you know you have these kind of heroic lab white lab coded figure male scientists who basically you know save the day so I think science back then was one thing and then I think what's happened now since 1950 is a maybe a slightly different picture that we're getting from artists and cultural elites on television film and you're right it looks very dystopian you know stranger things or you know a lot of sci-fi about other dimensions you know the matrix a lot of these shows or even the new film interstellar from 2014 a lot of these films are about dystopias and the dystopias are created by science got run amok I mean or technologies run amok and they've destroyed the world you know global warming you know has has destroyed the world right and so and since 1950 or 60 I think there's been a kind of a turn and much more skepticism about science and what it what it's bringing us much more skepticism about technology and and about nuclear power and nuclear weapons and so I think I think you know there is a there is a turning point there you know but but I have to wonder in the same way that your book explores the you know the interaction between science and spirituality there's definitely an interaction between the the social engineering project and the evolving of culture you know so I just wonder which comes first I think there's a there was a certain awakening within our culture that exposed the bullshit of the perfect 1940s 50s lab coat scientist that's the 1960s exactly so they become unmasked and one thing that we know from studying the social engineering project is those guys are sharp and they're one step ahead of the game so then the game shifts to what's the ultimate co-opt is to then jump on that side and go yeah those guys in the lab coats they're not so great there is this dystopic future but then that is co-opted as well to tell a different story you know that then leads to something else the example I often use because it's such a great one and people so many people aren't aware of it is like feminism and gloria steinham because she's totally been outed as a ci operative not just during her little feminist project but a lifetime player who's still involved with these kind of bizarre women's rights for syria you know one of the most secular countries in the middle east the point being there's nothing to get upset about of course feminism had a just cause a just purpose a just goals behind it but the co-opting of it is the interesting part how they get in there and then they they just want a foot in the door to be able to shape things the way that they want and I just wonder and worry if that's what we're seeing with with science and the way scientific materialism even though it's fails again and again and again it gets propped up and it gets re-energized and and and like you said it you know it never seems to die there's always another explanation as bizarre as it can be and there are those explanations always come from our quote-unquote top scientists and meanwhile you know we're being told that the result of all this what it's going to lead to is not very good and not very positive so I'm long-winded there but is this transition that you're talking about which I see and I think everybody sees is that potentially another co-op move you know where that's been co-opted yeah yeah it's a good question I mean I think that I think that when we talk about you know what what they're doing in terms of you know those people who are doing the social engineering I might want to break that down a little bit and talk about different types of people you know I might want to talk about you know artists people involved in the media you know you might want to talk about government because you know you might want to talk about corporations and advertising you might you might want to talk about big business and I think everybody has a different you know a different angle on this but you know when I when I think about like the dystopian fiction which is in novels and in television and films I mean I see something different there I I don't know that I see that as an effort by elites to kind of get our attention by by playing out our dystopian sort of fears or fantasies I see that more as kind of a reflection of kind of a skepticism about big big business or big government you know I kind of see some of those visions as pushing back right rather than co-op you know I see those visions in some ways as kind of pushing back in the same ways that people in the 60s sort of push back and said you know what big government is not it doesn't have our best interests at heart right or the US military is kind of in it for itself so I see some of the artistic and fictional and television well I see some of that stuff as pushback against you know against the the older idea of the heroic scientist who just has our best interest or or right or the American government that just has our best interest I think that I think that's why you have a lot more conspiracy type thinking a lot more skepticism now about the government and about big business as you you have a many decades of kind of pushback and some of that is some of that is created by these artists and writers who are creating these dystopian stories I mean you're you're right it it is depressing the dystopian stuff and I've actually also wondered like you where is this coming from I've also you know Cormac McCarthy or films or whatever it is I've also kind of wondered you know what is the great appeal today of the dystopian novel and you know and maybe it maybe it speaks to kind of the way in which people have lost hope you know people have lost faith they've lost hope you know I don't know I mean maybe I sound kind of old-timey with that explanation oh I don't I don't think you sound old-timey at all and and I think you make a couple of great fantastic points that I want to come pull out and highlight because they're new to me and one is that we do have to be very careful when we say they and or even when I say social engineering project you know it's multifaceted like you said corporations are clearly doing it with with just one goal and that's just to make money you know a coke and a smile and all that and we get that and then there's other parts that are valid in terms of protecting our way of life however uncomfortable that is there are other forces and we don't want to be some of the other countries or cultures that we see we like our thing better so all that stuff is really good I'm glad you bring it you know on your last point though I really want to kind of jump on that and kind of get a little dialogue and a little bit of time we have left on that is that the thing that your book does so beautifully is it weaves together the stuff that really is there all these threads that we might overlook and says you know there really is a spirituality to science there really is an interplay and if we start with spirituality or we start with science we kind of wind up in the same place and isn't that interesting isn't that something we should pay more attention to and perhaps put our attention towards and I contrast that with what I get from the social engineering project that is scientific materialism in my opinion and the conclusion is the absolute opposite of that it's a pulling apart of those threads it's the spirituality of dystopia yeah yeah I think that's true I do see I do see that and and that's I think that's disheartening too you know and I don't think it's I don't think it leads to you know hope right I don't I think it leads to optimism or hope but yeah I mean I I appreciate what you're saying about the book in the sense that it does try to weave a story through science and pop culture about the possibilities of a new type of science and I think that you know in some ways that that new type of science has arrived in some ways I think that they're scientists themselves especially when you see them you know get on television or write a popular a popular science book you know they they traffic and all of these kind of fantastic scientific ideas now right and they have a sense of kind of excitement and a sense of wonder and I mentioned Brian Green earlier but you know there's also Michio Kaku and there's many scientists who have a real sense of kind of on wonder about nature and it's many mysteries right whether that's entanglement or non-locality or dark matter or dark energy or the multiverse or or higher dimensions you know um or the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics you know there there have been in the last 50 years these kind of fantastic pieces of science that have kind of come back in the back door yet even even even while scientists themselves have tried to have tried to keep them out so I think they kind of have come back and I think science some scientists especially scientists who write popular science they in many ways they can't help themselves they have to bring these things in because you know people doing popular science need and want buy-in that they want to sell books um and you know the way to do that is to is to sort of have this kind of excitement right have this kind of more open-ended science have these kind of more fantastic scientific notions or more mysterious scientific notions um which may be in an earlier era scientists are more quickly to kind of sweep under the rug so I think it's possible that in the coming decades you will see more of this you know you will see more kind of open reflections about you know physics and consciousness studies right or you know different kinds of combinations um that that many scientists before in in some ways because they were professionalizing and building their sciences were kind of against but now maybe there's who knows maybe there's going to be a new openness to this I hope so great well it's great work our guest again has been Dr. Christopher White the book that you're going to want to check out other worlds spirituality and the search for invisible dimensions now you can find the book in the normal ways right Chris Amazon yeah you can get it from Amazon you can uh if you like it leave a review on Amazon you can get it through Harvard University Press's website they sell the book um as well it's published by Harvard University Press and if anyone wants to reach out to me they can find me at Vassar they can also follow me on Twitter um I'm at chris underscore G's and George underscore White so happy to happy to communicate with people if they want to reach out great well I'm sure there'll be a bunch of people reaching out on the forum after this show so if you have a minute I'll set you up so you can pop over there and see what people are saying because that'd be great sure oh that'd be great for us it's it's right up our alley and you've you've just amassed some amazing work in this area so it's been great having you on I thank you again so much for coming on Skeptico thanks so much Alex it was great great talking to you for for an hour okay let's do it again all right let's do it again thanks again to Dr. Chris White for joining me today on Skeptico I guess I'd have one question to tee up from this interview and that is what do you make of the premise of Chris's book is there a subtler deeper interplay between science and spirituality and is it being revealed to a certain extent in technology advancement I think that's a really interesting topic to explore and I'm really interested to see what you have to say about it because there's so many different directions we could take and I'm not even sure where I stand on it so that's why I do these shows by the way is I need y'all to straighten me out what you do so often and clarify my thinking on these things I can't tell you enough how often that occurs I learn from you that's what this show is all about that's the payoff for me so join me over on the Skeptico forum or other places and tell me your thoughts have a couple of really cool shows coming up please stay with me for all of that and until next time bye for now so thanks for watching this video and if it wasn't really a video but just an audio start as a video I apologize but there's more videos out there as well but please check out the Skeptico website you can see it here we cover a lot of different stuff you might be interested in relating to controversial science and spirituality a lot of shows up there over 350 of them or so all free all available for download so do check it out