Man in the Mirror of Nature: Science and Living Consciousness

The argument is presented that Nicolaus Copernicus was right about the planets, but not about a person, and the person is indeed a centre of the universe. This assumption explains the otherwise unexplainable magical components in the picture of the physical universe, such as the fine-tuning of fundamental physical constants and the role of measurement in the ‘wave function collapse’. The chapter argues that scientists build their knowledge of nature and society by projecting properties of their living consciousness onto the physical and social universes. A similar projection of living consciousness onto the outside world takes place in biology. The more scientists study animal behaviour, the more they see it as a reflection of their living consciousness. The point is made that the role of science in human life, for all its importance, is auxiliary, epistemological, whereas the role of living consciousness is basic, ontological.