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It is an undeniable fact that our contemporary conception of nature is, to a large extent, shaped by science. For many educated people, for example, the basic idea of relativity theories and quantum theory, big bang cosmology and cosmic evolution, the origin of life, evolutionary theory, molecular biology and genetics, physiology and neuroscience, computer science and artificial intelligence, and many other widely popularized scientific ideas, have played an important role in their conception of the world. According to this science-based conception, all phenomena, all objects that we have encountered in the world, must have their material embodiment. Nothing is primitively immaterial. Even consciousness, the most immaterial entity, can also be shown to be lodged firmly within the brain, a material organ. When the brain is injured in certain ways, consciousness is impaired. This simple fact clearly indicates that consciousness has no existence independent of brain. In general, according to this conception, whatever phenomena we have encountered in the world, or imaginable in our mind, are, in the last analysis, only different forms and manifestations of the entities, originally present at the very beginning of the universe. That is, they are different manifestations of elementary particles, whose behavior is governed by physical laws described by fundamental physics. Thus, this conception endorses, not only the unity of the world or monism, but also, as some scientists and philosophers would argue, the unity of science.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2614-6_4

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