Alan Wallace: "The Retinal Blindspot in the Vision of Our Origins," Part 2

Among scientists, as polymath lecturer, Alan Wallace points out, it is still generally considered "impolite" to bring up the question of what 'consciousness' is. Consciousness, it seems, is still very much the 800-pound gorilla in the science lab or classroom.

Yet, as Wallace observes, William James (one of the fathers of modern psychology), in speaking on the subject of consciousness more than a century ago, remarked: "That which we ignore recedes from our experienced sense of reality." This is, of course, a danger that Wallace made clear in the first half of his extensive lecture (embedded below) highlighting the problem that consciousness still presents for the mainstream of Western science.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Wallace observes, we have more information about the 'Big Bang' and the nano-seconds thereafter than we do of the origins of human consciousness. "There are no scientific means," Wallace notes, "of detecting the presence or absence of consciousness in anything, including you or me right now."

It is odd, Wallace points out, that we have virtually no knowledge of something which is so intimate to each of us. "Right now," he observes, "if one were were to ask cutting-edge people, that is people working in the cognitive neurosciences . . . what are the necessary and sufficient causes for the origination of consciousness in a human being . . . the answer would be: 'We don't know.'"

Further, Wallace asks, what is the nature of matter? This, of course, is perhaps the great question - with 'some' solutions (matter is essentially the same as energy, Einstein demonstrated) - of the new physics that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century with the framing of both relativity and quantum theory. "There was something called twentieth-century physics," Wallace notes, "that makes the chunks of 'stuff' get very, very ethereal."

Wallace points out that "by the time you have the 'measurement problem' in quantum mechanics that makes at least suspect the very existence of quantum phenomenon before they are measured - in which the role of measurement remains a mystery in understanding the significance (and) the nature of the quantum realm - by the time you are speaking about probability waves that are being measured and that somehow collapse into actual particles . . . then matter has somehow become more ethereal than was assumed in the nineteenth century."

"You can," he notes, "(even) raise the question: 'Is there any energy in the nature of empty space itself?'" And the answer is, he points out, likely 'yes.' There is, he points out, a growing scientific consensus that the universe emerged from a quantum fluctuation and is imbued with 'dark energy'  and 'information' about the original fluctuation that we cannot even directly observe, although the mathematics indicates that it is there.

"As soon of you speak of the universe of space, time, mass, (and) energy as an emergent property arising out of a hidden (and) underlying dimension of information, the question of consciousness at least can be raised," Wallace observes. Information being, at least on its surface, a matter of the mind, the whole question of consciousness should therefore, according to Wallace, be once again kicked back into the scientific debate of just what the universe is. And yet, as he points out again, any scientific agreement that consciousness itself is a valid subject for scientific inquiry is still somehow lacking.

"Instead of simply assuming that the mind emerges from matter, Wallace concludes, it is possible now . . . and scientifically credible to consider the possibility that space-time and mass-energy all emerge from an underlying dimension of reality that may transcend the very duality of mind and matter."

And, it goes without saying, of course, that this very notion of a non-dual implicate order Wallace speaks of is the essential teaching of all the great Eastern (as well as some Western) wisdom traditions, a point that has not been lost on some of the leading-edge voices - scientific as well as spiritual - who, like Wallace, have probed the rarified and ethereal area where science and Eastern wisdom traditions seem to converge.

Transcendental Meditation and Consciousness

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the
Transcendental Meditation Program

"To understand meditation and consciousness, we need to understand . . . about the physical universe," says Dr. John Hagelin in his introductory video on Transcendental Meditation, below. "Modern science over the past fifty years has probed deeper levels of physical reality. Modern science has explored more fundamental level(s) of nature's functioning."

"From the superficial level of macroscopic physics - the sensory objects that surround us - to the world of the molecule, and the atom, and the nucleus, and  sub-nuclear natures of nature's functioning," he notes, "as modern physics has probed deeper level of nature's functioning it has revealed that more fundamental levels of nature are progressively more unified."

"The four forces of nature deep within the atomic nucleus become three, and two, and ultimately one unified field of all the laws of nature," he observes.

"From this fundamental perspective of modern science," Hagelin notes, "meditation properly understood and properly practiced is a systematic technique to experience deeper levels of mind, more subtle levels of thought, exploring deeper levels of human intelligence. And these deeper levels of human intelligence . . . correspond to the direct experience of deeper levels of intelligence in nature. This inward flow of the awareness quickly culminates in the direct experience of the unified field. . . . In this simplest settled state of human awareness - the most maximally expanded state of human consciousness - this is the meditative state."

"This experience of the unified field constitutes a fourth major state of human consciousness, distinct from waking, dreaming and deep sleep. And this fourth state of consciousness has the most profound implications for health, for brain development, (and) for virtually every area of human life."





Contemplatives and yogis have explored this fourth level of expanded human consciousness for thousands of years. Now with modern technology, brain scientists are confirming the claims of seasoned meditators and enlightened teachers like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation program.

"Brain studies of expert meditators while in 'peak states' have become increasingly sophisticated and better controlled," note a group of researchers whose findings on the effects of distinct, yet related Therevadan Buddhist meditation practices were generally confirmative of Dr. Hagelin's claims.

Much of the research on meditation and the brain involves Buddhist or TM practitioners. A wide selection of the available scientific literature is available on the WiseBrain.org website, an organization founded by Dr. Rick Hanson Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and affiliate faculty member of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and Rick Mendius, M.D., a neurologist, author and teacher, formerly on the teaching faculties of UCLA, Oregon Health Sciences University, and Stanford University.

Brain Science and Non-Duality

One of my first spiritual teachers had to have a leg amputated. While he was recovering, he told a wizened elderly nurse who was near retirement how his "phantom limb" felt cold. The nurse brought him a heated blanket and put it over where the missing leg would have been. In minutes, the coldness of the missing limb was gone. It goes to show that the mind is a mysterious instrument that is far more perceptive, perhaps, than the brain and the central nervous system.

Similarly on the audio-recording of Wayne Dyer's "There Is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem," Dr. Dyer describes an experiment in which an act of kindness was performed for one group of individuals, the act was witnessed by another group and a third group acted as a control. Seratonin levels of all individuals were recorded both before and after the experiment, and not surprisingly the seratonin levels in the group that received the act of kindness went up markedly. (Seratonin is one of the "feel good" neurotransmitters in our brains that tells us all is well with us and the world.) More interestingly, seratonin levels also jumped in the witnessing group but not in the control group.

The experiment made sense to me. After all, who doesn't feel good when they witness a spontaneous act of kindness? It is why we make saints of the Mother Theresas of the world.

Now, however, in a riveting Ted.com lecture delivered by renowned neuroscientist V.S. Ramachadran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, Ramachadran gives a satisfactorily plausible explanation of these phenomena. In describing how  "mirror neurons" in the human neo-cortex work, Ramachadran accounts not only for how human civilization and culture has been able to 'evolve' in the astoundingly short evolutionary time-frame they have, but also how humans have developed their capacity for empathy.

Further, and perhaps most interestingly, Ramachadran relates these latest findings in neuroanatomny back to what ancient Eastern wisdom teachings and psychologies have expounded for thousands of years. It is possible, he says, "to absolve the barrier between you and other human beings."

"There is no real independent self aloof from other beings, inspecting the world and inspecting other people," he observes. "You are, in fact, connected not just by Facebook and by the Internet, you are actually quite literally connected by your neurons, and there are whole chains of neurons connected around this room talking to each other. And, there is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from somebody else's consciousness."

"And this is not just mumbo-jumbo philosophy, it emerges from our basic understanding of neuroscience," Ramanatha points out.

"For the longest time, " Ramachnadra concludes, "people have regarded sciences and the humanities as being distinct. C. P. Snow spoke of the 'two cultures' - sciences on the one hand and humanities on the other - and never the twain shall meet. So I'm saying that the mirror neuron system lies at the interface, allowing you to think about issues like consciousness, representation of self, what separates you from other human beings, what allows you to empathize with other human beings, and also even things like the emergence of civilization and culture, which is unique to human beings."

The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness

Dr. David Chalmers: "There is more to
consciousness than a physical process in
the brain. You could know all there is to
 know about the physical processes in the
brain and you wouldn't know all there is 
to know about consciousness."

From the time of Newton and the rise of positivism, scientific empiricism has tried to 'objectify' the world, eliminating all subjective views of what we and our world are all about. This approach falls short, however, when it comes to the 'hard problem' of what consciousness itself is, observes philosopher, Dr. David Chalmers, director of the Centre for Consciousness at Australia's National University. After all, how can we deal objectively with a subject matter - consciousness - which is inherently the essence of subjectivity?

"We're so hooked on the idea that to do proper science you have to be objective, you have to eliminate anything subjective from the picture to build up a scientific framework," says Dr. Chalmers, "that every last remnant of consciousness, of subjective experience in the data, gets eliminated. In the scientific theory, for example, of heat or light, you give a theory of molecules moving fast in a hot object. One gives a theory of everything it seems, all the objective aspects of heat, (but) one leaves out the very central subjective aspect of 'hotness.'"

"Science," Chalmers observes, "is actually built up on the idea that one has to eradicate the subjective to give these objective theories. If so, then when . . . it comes to giving a theory of consciousness itself, which is the paradigmatically subjective phenomenon, it may be that the methods of science have to be expanded."





"For the most part, people don't talk about it," Chalmers notes, "at least until very recently. And, in recent years people have actually started to talk about consciousness a little bit more centrally. And some of these problems are being brought directly into people's attention."

"Now," he observes, "I think were coming to a point where we are going to see a concerted effort from a number of people from different disciplines."

In a related video (below), Dr. Chalmers goes further into the hardest, of the 'hard problems' in science - what consciousness is, why it arises and what its 'qualia' is.

Echoing other leading voices in consciousness studies, such as Alan Wallace and Rupert Sheldrake, Chalmers observes that, "(t)here is more to consciousness than a physical process in the brain, because you could know all there is to know about the physical processes in the brain and you wouldn't know all there is to know about consciousness."

Meditation and the Neuroplasticity of the Brain

Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

In a world that is quite obviously "on the edge of the sword," says contemplative neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson, "(p)eople are way too driven by greed, hatred, and delusions," the 'three poisons' identified by the  Buddha. Worse, yet, Hanson observes: "Our caveman brains are armed with nuclear weapons."

Hanson, who holds a doctorate in neuropsychology and is co-author (with Richard Mendius, MD) of "Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom," is, however, quick to assure us that all is not lost. Far from it.

Due to the neuroplasticity of the brain - the brain's ability to grow and continually form new neural connections throughout an individual's lifetime - Hanson notes, our ability to exercise "neural networks of happiness, love and wisdom" may be precisely the saving grace that takes us out from under the existential 'Sword of Damocles' that seems to loom so large over our lives at times.

"Neuroplasticity (also known as cortical remapping)
refers to the ability of the brain to change as a result
of one's experience." (Source: Wikipedia)

It is only in the past several decades - during which time our knowledge of the brain increased a hundred-fold, according to Hanson - that neurologists and neuropsychologists have examined the ability of the adult brain to make new neural connections, an ability that may stay with us well into our 'golden years'. Prior to the 1990s, brain-wise, it was widely felt that it was all downhill after age 20-or-so.

Now, Hanson remarks, research amongst so-called 'contemplatives' (primarily seasoned Buddhist and Transcendental Meditation practitioners) has shown that the brain changes significantly as a result of prolonged meditative practice.

"One of the enduring changes in the brain of those who routinely meditate," Hanson notes, "is that the brain becomes thicker. In other words, those who routinely meditate build synapses, synaptic networks, and layers of capillaries (the tiny blood vessels that bring metabolic supplies such as glucose or oxygen to busy regions), which an MRI shows is measurably thicker in two major regions of the brain. One is in the pre-frontal cortex, located right behind the forehead. It’s involved in the executive control of attention – of deliberately paying attention to something. This change makes sense because that’s what you're doing when you meditate or engage in a contemplative activity."

"The second brain area that gets bigger," he further notes, "is a very important part called the insula. The insula tracks both the interior state of the body and the feelings of other people, which is fundamental to empathy. So, people who routinely tune into their own bodies – through some kind of mindfulness practice – make their insula thicker, which helps them become more self-aware and empathic. This is a good illustration of neuroplasticity, which is the idea that as the mind changes, the brain changes, or as Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb put it, neurons that fire together wire together."

"Buddhism teaches that the mind takes the shape of whatever it rests upon," Hanson notes; "or, more exactly, the brain takes the shape of whatever the mind rests upon."

Because of its neuroplasticity, Hanson posits, prolonged meditative practice with happiness and compassion as its objects will breed evermore happiness and compassion, and through this we may find the necessary escape from the Buddha's "three poisons." Meditative practice that trains the mind of the comtemplative towards ever greater compassion and happiness, due to the brain's plasticity, therefore breeds a repetitive and positive cycle leading towards enlightenment, just as the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago.

Science, it seems, at least Hanson's rapidly growing scientific discipline of contemplative neuroanatomy and neurospychology, is catching up with the evidence garnered from the world's oldest wisdom traditions. And, in this field at least, mind science is starting to pick up "the gauntlet thrown down by William James" over a century ago now. Hanson's research, along with the innovative research of many others in this growing filed, it seems, is starting to probe just what 'consciousness' is, and how higher states of consciousness forge not just our mental 'reality,' but also how they shape our physical 'reality' as well.

Consciousness: The "Retinal Blindspot" of the Western Scientific Vision

B. Alan Wallace

In a 2006 Google TechTalk, Alan Wallace, noted Buddhist scholar and polymath scientist, challenged neuroscientists to "pick up the gauntlet thrown down by William James" (the father of American introspective psychology and author of The Varieties of Religious Experience) and shift their investigations to the nature of consciousness itself, rather than narrowly focusing efforts on the search for the neural correlates of mental phenomena and emotions.

Wallace stresses that a synthesis of Eastern consciousness and contemplative training with Western scientific methodologies holds the potential for the first real "revolution" in the mind sciences" - a revolution equivalent to that sparked in the physical sciences by Galileo's challenge to Thomas Aquinas' medieval Christian 'scholasticism.'

The problem of exactly what consciousness "is" looms large, particularly given the integral roles that "the observer" and "observation" play in determining the results of quantum effects. Yet, as Wallace notes, 'consciousness studies' has really only emerged as a distinct field in the last 20 years or so.

Even now, however, pure consciousness studies are largely restricted to finding the "neural correlates of consciousness" - the set of functional properties and structures existing amid the neurons in the brain which are sufficient to bring about a conscious experience - which, is a bit of a fool's errand or wild goose chase in Wallace's view, given that there is not even a "scientific definition of consciousness." "How can you study consciousness," he asks, "if you don't even have a definition for what you are studying?"

Calling consciousness "the retinal blindspot in the scientific vision" he challenges the predominant scientific and psychological view that all "things" can be reduced to a physical cause - what Wallace calls the "Limitations of Physcial Reductionism." He notes that:

·      Mathematic theories alone do not define, predict or explain the emergence of matter and energy in the universe.

·      Physical theories alone do not define, predict or explain the emergence of life in the universe.

·      Biological theories alone do not define, predict or explain the emergence of consciousness in living organisms.

·      Psychological theories alone do not define, predict or explain the emergence of religious experience in conscious beings.

It is in the "emergence of religious experience" that Wallace proposes a way out of what many analysts have called "the hard problem" of the neurosciences: Does the brain produce consciousness, or does consciousness produce the brain? As yet, and largely because the latter half of the problem has not been examined at depth, there is no answer to this "hard problem."

(Cristof Koch - perhaps the leading authority amongst neuroscientists working on the neural basis of consciousness -  has observed that, " (t)he characters of brain state and of phenomenal states appear too different to be completely reducible to each other." He suspects, however, "that the relation is more complex than traditionally envisionsed.")

Wallace believes, however, that a truly scientific study of the focused states of higher consciousness achieved by seasoned contemplatives and meditators schooled in Eastern wisdom traditions, may hold the key to breaking open the problem of just what consciousnsess is exactly.  In contrast to Western science, which had its origins in Greek philosophers taking a "God's-eye view of matter," Eastern wisdom schools, typified by (but not limited to) Buddhism, started from the perspective that " the investigation of the mind was primary, (as) there is no world of expereience without consciousness.”

The vital 'religious' or 'spiritual experiences' reported by William James in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" have been reported in all ages in virtually every culture. For Wallace, they hold the key to any revolutionary breakthrough into what the "nature of consciousness" is. In the past, he notes, there was "too much dogma suppressing the empirical study of mental phenomena." With the advent of "the Information Age" and the meeting of Eastern wisdom traditions, such as Daoism, Buddhism, Sufism and Advaita Vedanta, with the Western scientific perspective, there is a potential for a breakthrough, Wallace believes.

It should now be possible, Wallace asserts, to "(i)ntegrate rigorous first-person and thirdl-person methodologies in collaboration between cognitive sceintists and contemplatives with exceptional mental skills and insights resulting from rigorous, sustained, mental training in observing and experimenting with states of consciousness.”

This has, of course, been the direction of a great number of studies in the intervening five years since Wallace presented his views to Google, including studies by Wallace's Santa Barbara Institute. Cracking the fundamental nature of what consciousness "is" and how it helps to form both our physical and mental realities may well turn out to be the key to a truly integrated scientific "theory of everything," uniting physics with psychology and a true metaphysics.