East and West . . . the 'Twains Must Meet!

If you do no more than visit your local bookstore and read the Introduction to Frances Vaughan's "Shadows of the Sacred," it will be well worth the effort - both for yourself and a world facing (or, rather, "not facing") immense challenges.

Never mind "sustainable development,"
we need to develop 'global sustainability.'

"Contemporary global culture is predominantly egocentric and materialistic," Vaughan notes, with the result that whole swaths of our society are "plagued by alienation and violence." And, so it seems, despite the much touted ideal of 'sustainable development,' little but lip service is being given even to this notion when, in truth, we should be putting all our efforts into 'developing sustainability.'

At times, Vaughn intimates, we all appear to be hypnotized by the same illusion: despite knowing that we live in a world with growing socioeconomic injustice and looming ecological disasters, we act as though these things will not impact us, or our loved ones.

(This attitude shows that our conceptions of 'love' may be much more restricted than we would like to profess. Of love for our fellow beings and our world, it seems we demonstrate a marked indifference.)

"Since the major threats to life on earth are caused by human behavior," Vaughan writes, "the need for changing consciousness is urgent." She continues:

"Global crises reflect values, beliefs and attitudes that seem to ignore our relationship to nature, Unexamined beliefs can be dangerous to ourselves, our children and the earth. Future generations will bear the burden of our addictions and illusions that promise salvation while threatening annihilation."

 Vaughan clearly advocates an informed religion that addresses our existential struggles in the modern world, rather than out-dated (perhaps dangerous) fundamentalist belief systems that do not reflect our modern 'realities.'

"Postmodern worldviews give scant support to the notion of a spiritual reality," Vaughan observes. "Yet a restless and persuasive hunger for living spiritually has led to widespread interest in new religions movements, ancient esoteric traditions and a variety of psychospiritual techniques that promise liberation or enlightenment. The spiritual quest is no longer the property of organized religion, nor is it a privilege of a few individuals who have made a formal commitment to religious life.

Consciousness: More than a byproduct of matter?

Yet, postmodern science, which places little credence on the potential that spirituality and higher consciousness might hold for a disaffected populace, continues to hold a nearly classical empirical view when it comes to the mind sciences. Meanwhile, much efforts has been spent in investigating in "debunking" viewpoints shaped by intuitive, subjective experience - viewpoints which are beyond the purview of science, as it is currently understood.

"The materialistic worldview that assumes consciousness is only a byproduct of randomnly generated matter is seldom questioned in secular society," much less by science, Vaughn notes. (A point made clear by Alan Wallace in a persuasive video urging that the Western mind sciences follow up on the research started by one of the deans of American psychology, William James, more than a centrury ago.) The inevitable result of this disparagement of the 'reality' of spiritual or religious experience is that religion "is presumed to be an opiate of the masses and spirituality no more than a palliative for those who cannot face the existential reality of our inevitable death," Vaughan observes.

But just as an aspirant on a spiritual quest "must traverse both the outer world of ego and the inner world of soul before reaching liberation," so 'outwardly-focused' Western science, which has afforded us a dubious 'mastery' of the physical world, must somehow synthesize the 'inwardly-focused' Eastern  knowledge about consciousness, psychologies and wisdom traditions that have been the subject of study for millennia, if we are to develop anything like "global sustainability." As Vaughan concludes:

"When we are willing to face our fears and make an effort to see through self-deception, a deeper awareness of the mystery of enlightenment leads us back to the practical task of nurturing spirituality as a source of healing and wholeness for ourselves and the earth."

Quantum Consciousness Effects: Is This What 'Wires' the Brain?

In a Google TechTalk (see here for video and analysis), Alan Wallace calls the predominant scientific paradigm,  a "consciousness-formed-inside-the-brain" perspective, "the retinal blind-spot in the Western scientific viewpoint." Now, his video is of a talk he gave to Google in 2007, and I understand that a lot of work is now being done with respect to seasoned meditators and brain MRIs etc. - a lot of this work being inspired by Wallace himself - yet, I wonder how much of this research is even investigating the opposite viewpoint (the traditional Eastern philosophical and psychological view) that consciousness is separate from, formative, and greater than the brain.

Neural Ridge (bottom and left)
Heart/Circulatory System (top)

On a related note. . . . Sometime ago I saw a video on the development of a human embryo. Shortly after the fertilized egg cell begins to divide - when there is a very minimal number of cells - a dark "neural ridge" appears. It will later "evolve" into the central nervous system and brain. Shortly thereafter,   a 'group' of cells begins to pulse, cells that will develop into the heart, lungs and circulatory system, as the ebryo grows through its amphibian, reptilian and mammalian stages to form a complete and viable human being.

(I know that this "recapitulation theory," or the "theory of embryological parallelism," is controversial; yet it seems indisputable that the developing embryo goes through various stages that mimic the evolution of humans from single cells to fully formed human individuals. Certainly, neuroscientists distinguish between the "reptilian" brain, the "mamallian" cortex, and the "primate's" neo-cortex.)

My question is: How is there some form of 'consciousness' built into the DNA that causes these developments to take place?

At the genetic level that DNA proteins form (from adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosene, as I remember from High School biology), we are very close in degrees of magnitude to the atomic and sub-particulate levels where quantum effects begin to be the determinative factors. As quantum "events," sub-particles continually flash into and out of 'existence' seemingly instantaneously. 

Yet we "know" that a quantum event need an "observer" and "observation" in order to collapse the probability wave that is all - apparently - that is "real" in any sense before an initial act of "observation" takes place.

How is there an "observation" that collapses the "probability waves" of the particles and sub-particles from which DNA is constructed at an atomic level?

Of course, the biggest challenge for modern physics is probably how to square the quantum dynamics that can be observed at the microscopic and cosmic level with relativity theory that operates at the macrocosmic level. (I like to think, as Sri Ramakrishna observed, that "God is in the microcosmos and the macrocosmos," a conclusion Einstein would undoubtedly support.)

I can only conclude that there is a pervading "consciousness" throughout our universe that is, in a quantum theoretical sense, the "observer." The renowned physicist  (spiritual seeker and colleague of both Einstein and Krishnamurti), David Bohm, as explained in "The Dancing Wu Li Masters," said that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about a quantum system that is smaller than the universe itself. It is all part of an explicate "Whole" beneath which an "Implicate Order" operates. This is, of course, the conclusion that Eastern yogis and sages came to many thousands of years ago. It is certainly the view of the Buddhist Abidharma which, while old, is not as old as the Upanishads that express this holistic and cosmic perspective quite clearly.

Or, as Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita (Chap. X:42):

". . . Know that with one single fraction of my Being, I pervade and support the Universe, and know that I AM."

Dawkins' Lecture both Profound and 'Spiritually Uplifting'

Reichard Dawkins, Emeritus Fellow, Oxford Universtiy
(Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science)

Richard Dawkins, the noted biologist and critic of all things 'religious,' gave what has become a bit of a 'stump speech' (entitled "Queerer than We Can Suppose: The Strangeness of Science") on Ted.org several years ago. Dawkins - whom I would describe, having been one, as an "evangelical atheist" - along with Christopher Hitchins, is in the forefront of an all-too ideological battle against what comedian Bill Maher has called "religiousity."


While many "religious critics" have found Dawkins' pitch antithetical to their ideas and beliefs about God and the universe, I don't share that view. Dawkins is both an eminent scientist and influential social critic, but while many found Dawkins evolutionary critique of fundamentalist religious teaching challenging, I found it profoundly inspiring.

Perhaps the fundamental conflict that Dawkins and others have with "religion" or "God," per se, (Dawkins' formal religious critique is, after all, called "The God Delusion") consists of a definition of terms. Dawkins and Hitchins rail against an "anthropomorphic God" - i.e., a man-like God behind the universe somewhere, 'pulling the levers,' so-to-speak, like an eternal 'Wizard of Oz.'

While this anthropomorphic view may be a popular conception of what "God" is, or may be, it is an old and disavowed view which, nonetheless, continues to hold some capital with those who have not given much thought to what such metaphysical terms might mean. I suspect it is still informed somewhat by the iconic images on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. Nonetheless, it has been disavowed by most authorities, including the Vatican and the Pope, himself.

If one examines experiential religion - what the founding father of introspective psychology, William James, called "inner religion", as opposed to the "outer religion" of dogma, creeds, temples, vestries and incense - there is no inherent conflict with the evolutionary scientific perspective of Dawkins and Hitchins. Their choosing to oppose fundamentalist, outer and anthropomorphic theism with science is just that, a choice. Yet even the Vatican's chief astronomer has said that the 'Big Bang' is the most likely version of the Creation. And the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict, besides lifting the ex-communication of Galileo, has said that the debate between evolution and creationism is "an absurdity," pointing out that the two can co-exist.

A more informed debate would occur if there were agreement as to the terms and concepts being discussed. More's the pity since this does not appear to be likely even though such a debate would likely prove to be beneficial to both science and metaphysics. (A point made by Alan Wallace, an accomplished scientist and Buddhist practitioner, in a fascinating, if lengthy, "Google TechTalk.")

Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955)

Rather than engaging in a debate with 'fundamentalist' religious types (and stereotypes) over the 'usefulness' or 'social harm' caused by organized religion, a more utilitarian debate informed by the works of modern theologists, philosophers and scientist, like the Jesuit paleontologist, Teihard de Chardin (that's right, a Jesuit paleontologist) or progressive spiritual leaders like Andrew Cohen, who teaches what he calls "Evolutionary Enlightenment," would add much good to both the public discourse and to science.

While we wait for such a debate, as an inwardly-focused yet not "outwardly religious" spiritual aspirant, I find Dawkins' lecture to be both immensely informative and profoundly inspiring. I suspect that many, if not most, seekers after authentic, inner religious experience who are at all informed about the wonders of evolution, relativity theory and the uncomprehendable (not 'incomprehensible') wonders of quantum mechanics, may find that Dawkin's "polemic" is both profound and, dare I say, spiritually uplifting.

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.