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Gambling and sports betting: Are we calling a public health risk ‘entertainment’? (Letters)
“Now consider modern gambling. It is available 24 hours a day, in every pocket. It is aggressively promoted across broadcasts and social media. It is designed for seamless engagement, with in…
4 Bad Reasons to Get an MBA
One of the top reasons people choose to pursue an MBA is the career advancement that the degree can offer. But sometimes the reasons spurring enrollment in business school programs aren’t good ones. Here are four bad reasons to enroll in an MBA program. 1. You Want the Letters Behind Your Name, But ...
The decline in healthy life expectancy in Britain should shock us all
Letters: Alan Walker and Ian Garner respond to the news that healthy life expectancy of both women and men has fallen
Letters: Cori Close and UCLA women delivering excellence
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on UCLA and USC basketball teams as well as the Lakers, Dodgers and Angels.
Readers respond: Give Lloyd Center a destination sports complex
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Letters to the Editor - Primary voting, political mailers, UNT layoffs, peace, tariffs
Readers don’t like separate primary voting, call political brochures nonsense, aren’t happy about the layoffs at UNT, ask if the president truly wants peace...
Concerns over funding for science in the UK
Letters: In response to an article by Jon Butterworth, Prof Michele K Dougherty writes that the council is putting its portfolio on a sustainable footing
Letters to the Editor: I’ve received healthcare all over the world. The worst was in the U.S.
'Next time I need dental work, I'll fly to Buenos Aires, have my crown put on, stay a month, enjoy the malbec and I'll be money ahead,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Populism is plain to see all around us
Letters: The characteristics include attachments to authoritarian regimes including the one based in the Kremlin, writes Kevin Lloyd; plus a letter from Peter Gray
From no wins to MVP, this Jefferson Parish school is in the playoffs for the first time ever
Joshua Wilkins felt the buzz of his phone and saw three letters from his coach: MVP.
More doctors voice concerns over Confluence Health cancer center
WENATCHEE — Two different open letters submitted by Confluence Health physicians and former leaders continue to raise concerns about the health system's planned cancer center.
Readers respond: Shift city money for students, not sports
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Letters to Sports: Apology or not, UCLA coach Mick Cronin must go
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on Mick Cronin and his coaching style, Luc Robitaille and the Olympics, as well as other topics.
Fan Letters: Concerns Surrounding Sunderland’s Wheelchair Ticketing Policy
RR reader Niall Taylor is concerned about a lack of accessibility for Lads’ fans when following the team away from home
Understanding the Proposed Health Insurance Cut in HB 500, the Kentucky House Budget - Kentucky Center for Economic Policy
As introduced, the House Budget (HB 500) inserts new and unprecedented language that caps the state’s contributions to employee health insurance, shifting costs to current and former state and school employees. In letters sent to lawmakers and to the 310,000 members of the Kentucky Employees Health Plan (KEHP), the state Personnel Cabinet indicated this cap […]
Readers respond: Help all business, not just Blazers
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Letters to Sports: Sam Darnold and his Super Bowl odyssey
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports Section give their thoughts about Sam Darnold leading the Seahawks to the Super Bowl win, Bad Bunny and more.
Funding cuts will devastate the next generation of scientists
Letters: Physics research drives technological innovation, from medical imaging to data processing, write Dr Phil Bull and Prof Chris Clarkson; plus letters from Tim Gershon and Vincenzo Vagnoni, and Prof Paul Howarth
Los Angeles voters are moving ever leftward, shifting election politics in America’s second-largest city
By Jim Newton, CalMatters This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. How liberal is Los Angeles? That question is very much on the minds of political insiders and observers these days as the city turns to its municipal elections and makes important decisions about its
Capital One Seizes Control of Discovery Behavioral Health After Defaulting on Debt
Capital One has taken over Webster Equity Partners’ portfolio company, Discovery Behavioral Health. Court documents show that Capital One and its
Victory Lap with Jessica Lapachinski: What happened to the three-sport athlete?
Years ago, I had the opportunity to speak with an Olympic athlete. She earned 12 varsity letters throughout her highly decorated high school career as a multi-sport athlete and then proceeded to win two conference championships in her main collegiate sport. She was also voted a three-year captain of her college team, which is beyond […]
Decent or disastrous? Starmer’s judgment and leadership divide opinion
Letters: Readers respond to a piece by Polly Toynbee in which she says she cannot understand the reason for this level of public dislike
Don’t buy Broward Health’s ‘better’ hype | Letters to the editor
A Sun Sentinel reader smells another backroom deal involving Broward’s two public, tax-supported hospital district.
Letters to Sports: Dodgers visiting White House fires up usual debate
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on myriad topics, with a majority not wanting the franchise of Jackie Robinson visiting the White House.
Inside Will Campbell's Friday morning news recaps during team meetings
Patriots rookie Will Campbell's Friday morning newsletters have become many of the players' favorite part of the day.
San Antonio’s prized student-athletes celebrate National Signing Day for Class of 2026
Student-athletes across the 210 area code signed their financial aid agreements, formerly known as National Letters of Intent, on Wednesday’s National Signing Day to continue their careers at the collegiate level.
Letters: Claims using data about environment and health should be viewed skeptically
A website called Louisiana Health Facts has been circulating recently, presenting parish-level health statistics to argue that concerns about Louisiana’s industrial corridor are overstated. The site relies on broad indicators
Readers respond: Bipartisanship not holding Legislature back on health care
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
CVS Health Faces Antitrust Scrutiny As Valuation Flags Undervaluation Risk
U.S. House Judiciary Committee alleges CVS Health restricted independent pharmacies from using competing digital pharmacy hubs. The investigation cites cease and desist letters and network rule changes as potential antitrust issues. CVS Health disputes the findings and says some policies have been revised. For investors watching CVS Health (NYSE:CVS), the focus is shifting to regulatory risk around how its pharmacy network operates. The company’s shares closed at $74.52, with a return of...
Letters to Sports: Rams came so close to proving Bill Plaschke right
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the Rams' playoff loss and Bill Plaschke's prediction as well as UCLA, USC, the Lakers and Dodgers.
These Utah businesses will close — or donate from their sales — Friday to protest Minnesota immigration crackdown
One Salt Lake City bookstore will be closed Friday, but will reopen in the evening so people can gather to write letters or make safety kits. Another will stay open and donate a portion of its sales to a west-side school.
Contractor data breach nay have exposed the protected health info of thousands of Central Oregonians
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Thousands of Central Oregonians soon will receive letters in the mail to inform them of a data breach at TriZetto Provider Solutions last fall that may have exposed the personal health information of more than 700,000 people around the country. TPS is a third-party contractor that provides insurance-eligibility verification services to
Google DeepMind launches AI tool to help identify genetic drivers of disease
AlphaGenome can analyse up to 1m letters of DNA code at once and could pave way for new treatments
Google DeepMind launches AI tool to help identify genetic drivers of disease
AlphaGenome can analyse up to 1m letters of DNA code at once and could pave way for new treatments
Letters to the Editor: Yes, political extremists are dangerous, but more so when they’re in power
'Wingnuts are dangerous, but mainstream wingnuts even more so. It’s time we all wake up to the reality that there is nothing conservative about MAGA populism,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Anti-science atmosphere provokes doctor shortage
Letters to the editor for Sunday, January 25, 2026
Letters to Sports: Readers debate whether the Dodgers are ruining baseball
Readers of the Los Angeles Times give their thoughts on the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker, the Rams, the LeBron James-Jeanie Buss rift and college football.
Kate Hudson reveals letters Daniel Day-Lewis used to send to her dressing room
Kate Hudson is remembering the 'flattering' letters that Daniel Day-Lewis used to send to her dressing room that were written as his character Guido Contini when they filmed their movie musical, 'Nine.'
When policing, football and politics collide
Letters: Readers reflect on the West Midlands police chief stepping down after the row over banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
Readers respond: Don’t become a pawn to politics
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
The playground politicking around Robert Jenrick’s jump
Letters: Madhan Street reflects on the language used to talk about Robert Jenrick’s defection and Dr Anthony Isaacs calls for cooperation to counter a Conservative/Reform alliance
Not bowled over by male sports chat
Brief letters: Cricket analogies | Deep south | Traitors overreaction | Bless my soul | Fit for purpose
Timothy Busfield's wife Melissa Gilbert, 'Thirtysomething' costars offer 75 letters of support amid sex abuse claims
As Timothy Busfield faces charges of child sex abuse, his wife, Melissa Gilbert, and former 'Thirtysomething' costars are standing by him in a new filing that includes 75 letters of support: 'Tim has the strongest moral compass of any human.'
Letters to the editors: ‘Trump’s Wager’ and politics out of line with faith | Chattanooga Times Free Press
Pascal's Wager coaxed non-believers to accept Christianity on the basis of what they had to lose by not doing so, i.e., eternal damnation versus eternal bliss.
Letters to Sports: Charging out of the NFL playoffs, again
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the Chargers' playoff exit, the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker, the, Lakers, Clippers and Chloe Kim.
Letters to Sports: Charging out of the NFL playoffs, again
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the Chargers' playoff exit, the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker, the, Lakers, Clippers and Chloe Kim.
Letters to the Editor: Some people will always find a way to downplay the importance of science
'Periodically, I’ve had chats with neighbors about the heat. Most of the talks have been thoughtful, but some have veered into cuckoo territory,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Trump administration abruptly cancels grants for NH mental health providers and school districts
NAMI New Hampshire and the Concord and Manchester school districts received letters announcing the termination of grants through the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants
The Trump administration sent hundreds of letters Tuesday terminating federal grants supporting mental health and drug addiction services.
Ascension Health reports data breach: What patients need to know
Patients of some Chicago-area health care facilities have receiving letters, warning of a potential data breach. NBC 5 Responds' PJ Randhawa reports.
Letter to the Editor: An affordable option for health and accident insurance
In response to David Williams’s article on rising health insurance and care costs, I wanted to share information about an affordable supplemental health and accident insurance option that has helped me personally: Family Heritage. Family...
Letters to Sports: Time for Mick Cronin to fix UCLA's problems
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the state of UCLA basketball, USC football, the Lakers, Angels and Dodgers.
Readers respond: Good neighbors can transcend politics
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Letters to the Editor: Trump’s politics of unpredictability will have serious consequences
'We enter a period where intimidation replaces leadership, and spectacle substitutes foresight,' write an L.A. Times reader.
Covenant Health patient data breach numbers skyrocket
According to a revised breach notification, the provider sent out an additional 470,000 letters for a ransomware attack initially reported last year as affecting upwards of 8,000 individuals.
Letters to Sports: Times are tough for Lincoln Riley and his Trojans
Readers of the L.A. Times Sports section share their thoughts on USC losing in the Alamo Bowl, Lincoln Riley's coaching job, college bowl games, the Lakers and Bill Plaschke.
Friday letters: Leadership and health care concerns
What kind of leader do we want for America? One passes a major infrastructure bill that benefits the states that voted against him slightly more than states that voted for him, but overall helps the...
The Athletic has free newsletters across many sports. Sign up here!
Did you know The Athletic has a bunch of email newsletters with millions of subscribers? Well, now you do!
The RACER Mailbag, December 31
Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.NOTE: The...
Letters: Take the political detox challenge
Our nation is currently politically hyperpolarized, threatening the continuing internal peace of our democracy.
Letters to Sports: Playing the blame game in USC-Notre Dame debacle
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section share their thoughts on the USC-Notre Dame rivalry, the Rams, UCLA, Angels and college football.
Friday letters: politics, media, public discourse and more
Reflections on Trump’s address I hope everyone had a chance to watch Trump’s address to the country on Dec. 17. If not, you should easily be able to find it on the internet. If you...
Letters: Lawmakers should work to help small business
As a small business owner, I believe it is critical that we have a seat at the table when our elected officials are deciding policies that affect our businesses, our
Party politics: Defining ‘conservative’
Re: “Partisanship: ‘Elections have consequences’ ” (Dec. 18, Northwest Voices): I question the boilerplate use of the label “conservative” as the opposite of “progressive” in articles and opinion pieces discussing party politics. “Regressive” would be a more accurate label in most...
2025 Health Care Delivery Snapshot
In 2025, MSMS advanced physician interests through advocacy, collaboration, and direct support on payer, legal, and regulatory issues. MSMS submitted letters, individually or jointly, to federal and state legislators and regulators on issues including Medicare payment, Medicaid funding, telehealth, physician-owned hospitals, downcoding policies, out-of-network care, substance use disorder home health, ACA premium tax credits, immunizations, and medical student loans. MSMS met...
Readers respond: Get past politics; connect with humans
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Letters to Sports: No defense for the Rams, or Bill Plaschke's prediction
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section share their thoughts on the Rams, Dodgers, UCLA and Mick Cronin, as well as the NBA Cup.
Letters to the Editor: For-profit healthcare, not the ACA, is to blame for our sky-high costs
'Until we stop hiding behind euphemisms and take steps to change, our healthcare costs will continue to escalate,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Friday letters: Reading, giving, politics, civic engagement and more
Why letters still matter When we write letters to the editor, what is our intent? Who is the audience? Who reads? Who learns something and changes their mind? I recently heard that fewer than 2%...
Letters to the Editor: Members of Congress should look at their own healthcare plans before cutting ours
'What is so hypocritical and unfair about the Republicans’ desire to slash health programs that serve most Americans is the fact that American citizens provide most of the money for the generous health benefits of Congress,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Letters to the Editor: Readers remember Rob Reiner’s contributions to both Hollywood and politics
'Rob Reiner's work has impacted generations of Americans. The characters, dialogue and visuals he brought to life in film and television are woven throughout our culture,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Readers respond: Business-friendly Oregon falters on land development
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Readers respond: Political noise is drowning out proven science
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to letters@oregonian.com with full name and place of residence.
Taylor Swift gave her Eras Tour crew bonuses in amounts that literally made their jaws drop
In the new Eras Tour docuseries, Taylor Swift distributes bonuses and handwritten letters to her dancers, musicians, and crew members.
Senator Demands Federal Agencies Halt Small Business Contracts, Citing Investigation of Native Hawaiian Firm
Joni Ernst, chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, sent letters to 22 federal agencies saying the no-bid contracts granted through a Small Business Administration program are a “fraud magnet.”
Scientists have been studying the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e. Could it harbor alien life? : Short Wave
Want to be a top notch candidate for hosting alien life? Then there's a few key requirements you should be aware of: Ideally, you're a large object like a moon or a planet; scientists suspect you also have an atmosphere and water; plus, you should orbit your star from a nice mid-range distance — in the "Goldilocks Zone" of habitability. Until recently, you would be competing against TRAPPIST-1 e. It's a planet outside of our solar system. TRAPPIST-1 e is also only 40 light years away, rocky and the same size as Earth, which prompted researchers to investigate whether it also has an atmosphere — and the potential for alien life. A team of researchers has been investigating TRAPPIST-1 e to learn more about its potential. Their answers, recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, say a lot not just about this exoplanet, but about how scientists should refocus their hunt for alien life.Interested in more space science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Trump Confronts His Political Reality
The president has entered the lame-duck era of his career.
Expanding our newsletter lineup with five new must-reads
Business Insider launches five new newsletters: Work Shift, Inside Business, Driverless, Side Hustlers, and Desk Confessions.
Letters to Sports: Rams are overthinking the process
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the Rams' loss to the Panthers, UCLA-USC football, UCLA basketball and the Lakers.
Residents confused after getting letters from City of LA saying they owe business taxes
If you're a gig worker, independent contractor or anybody who gets a 1099, you may have gotten a letter in the mail from the City of Los Angeles -- saying you owe a business tax.
Grupo Vidanta courts advisors as VidantaWorld grows
Vidanta is set to launch commissionable booking access, new hotels and entertainment elements at VidantaWorld, starting next month. Highlights include the BON Hotel and Jungala Hotel opening, Cirque du Soleil's "Ludo" debut and the BON Luxury Theme Park.
Letters to the Editor: Politics, policy and law are the very things that make up the world we live in
'Wake up, buddy — politics, policy and law will determine the world you and your family will live in, a world that is heading for catastrophe under the current lawless regime,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Letters to the Editor: As production moves overseas, it’s American entertainment workers who suffer
'As with any business that goes to other countries, people here start losing their incomes and life possibilities. This leads to a downward spiral of any household, community, town, city or state now missing spending potential and tax benefits,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Science must move from materialism to mystery
Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.
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