Science & Spirit

JUDGE HANDS SCIENCE A DEFEAT
A New Essay by Greg Stone

Introduction

Consciousness Studies and Cosmology, the study of the origin of the universe, are the two primary frontiers facing science today. The last great mysteries, the most notable unknowns, lie within these two disciplines.

From an idealistic viewpoint, understanding cosmology requires an understanding of consciousness; the two are intimately linked. Until the mystery of consciousness is solved, the origin of the universe will not be fully comprehended.

When these last two remaining "great mysteries" are solved, a common link will be revealed.

A third scientific discipline demands a new look as well--- the origin and nature of life forms; a subject covered under the umbrella of Evolution.

An alternate to evolutionary theory, called Intelligent Design--though much maligned and often confused with Creationism--is gaining notice. A new look at Intelligent Design appears in Under the Tree.

Consciousness Studies

Though the study of consciousness within the scientific community is in its pioneer stage, the reader may wish to become acquainted with the current literature.

One worthwhile attack on the problem can be found in Evan Harris Walker's The Physics of Consciousness. Unlike most physicists who begin their texts assuring readers they are card-carrying realists who would never dare consider spirit-body dualism, Walker does not close doors prematurely.

"Though the similarities to religious ideas are only slight (at least at this point in our story), what we have in the quantum mechanical picture is closer to a conception of a soul-like consciousness inhabiting and animating the machine. (I didn’t start out with this as a goal; it is just the idea that seems to work best at present.) The classical machine cannot have consciousness, and it cannot have any identity of its own. It is we, of course, who anthropomorphically imbue the collection of mechanical parts with its machine identity. But there is a transformation that takes place with the onset of consciousness."

We have searched back to the beginning of time and to the origin of the universe to find the first thought, the first word of God springing into existence as consciousness and physical matter. Consciousness, will, mind—these were the first moment, the potentialities that continue to this day. Our consciousness, our mind, and the will of God are the same mind."

The Physics of Consciousness by Evan Harris

On the opposite end of the spectrum, one finds a materialist tour de force in philosopher Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained.

Dennett resembles nothing if not the great Casey at bat with "Materialist" stitched onto his jersey in large bright letters.

Like Casey at bat, Dennett unleashes powerful swings, misses the ball, and goes down swinging. There's no joy in Mudville; no material explanation for consciousness.

Nonetheless, Dennett's book is an important addition to the literature: in his failure to arrive at a material explanation for consciousness, he clears the way for a dualistic model.

"This fundamentally antiscientific stance of dualism is, to my mind, its most disqualifying feature, and that is the reason why in this book I adopt the apparently dogmatic rule that dualism is to be avoided at all costs. It is not that I think I can give a knock-down proof that dualism, in all its forms, is false or incoherent, but that, given the way dualism wallows in mystery, accepting dualism is giving up."

Scientists and philosophers may have achieved a consensus of sort in favor of materialism, but as we shall see, getting rid of the old dualistic visions is harder than contemporary materialists have thought."

Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett

Dan Lloyd, author of Radiant Cool, is another contemporary philosopher who discovers establishing a material ground to consciousness is more difficult than assumed.

Radiant Cool consists of two sections: the first is a novel in which ideas regarding consciousness are presented in crime story format.

The second half is a nonfiction account of contemporary consciousness studies, from the point of view of the phenomenologist.

Lloyd's account is excellent; his lively story- telling makes reading his work a pleasure.

"Yet, for all that progress and promise, when the target of explanation shifts to human consciousness, the many tools available seem not quite to fit the job.On consciousness,not only is the work unfinished, it is not even off the drawing board, despite the many hands that tinker with it. Some who survey the worksite are skeptical about the prospects for any scientific theory of consciousness; several philosophers (and even a few neuroscientists) argue on diverse grounds that in principle science-as-we-know-it will never achieve the complete explanation of consciousness..."

Radiant Cool: A Novel of Theory and Consciousness by Dan Lloyd

Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, narrated by Daniel Goleman, explores the intersection between Buddhism and consciousness studies.

Buddhism, with its ancient tradition of the empirical exploration of consciousness, is contrasted with Western concepts in this text.

"How from the Buddhist point of view, he [Matthieu Ricard] continued, 'does one distinguish between constructive and destructive emotions? Fundamentally, a destructive emotion—which is also referred to as an 'obscuring' or 'afflictive' mental factor—is something that prevents the mind from ascertaining reality as it is. With a destructive emotion, there will always be a gap between the way things appear and the way things are."

Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama

Physicist Roger Penrose attempts to understand consciousness in Shadows of the Mind.

If Penrose could be liberated from his inhibitions toward mystical or supernatural thought, he might make significant progress toward the goal of understanding consciousness. Instead, his thinking, derailed by the materialist prejudice of science, comes up short; he exits scratching his head.

Nonetheless, his realization that consciousness is not equivalent to computation is an important and valid thought, a thought from which a new attempt to understand consciousness can spring.

(The text includes introductions to quantum theory which may seem daunting to the uninitiated; for others the introduction will be well received.)

"It will be an important feature of my later discussions that there is indeed a clear-cut distinction between genuine intelligence (or genuine understanding ) and any entirely computationally simulated activity. ... It will be one of my purposes, in later arguments, to show that there is indeed an aspect of 'genuine understanding' that cannot be properly simulated in any computational way whatever."

Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness by Roger Penrose

Gary Schwartz's recent book, The Afterlife Experiments, should be noted once again as it addresses the key idea of survival of consciousness.

Evidence that consciousness survives body death, when given the attention it deserves, will change the entire focus of the research effort.

Researchers, once they understand consciousness does not come from parsing brain structure, will be forced to turn to contemplative methodologies such as Buddhism.

The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death by Gary Schwartz

The Holographic Universe, a classic by Michael Talbot, presents speculative views regarding consciousness and the mystical or spiritual.

"In a wide-ranging speculation [physicist William] Tiller even suggests that the universe itself started as a subtle energy field and gradually became dense and material through a similar ratchet effect. As he sees it, it may be that God created the universe as a divine pattern or idea. Like the image a psychic sees floating in the human energy field, this divine pattern functioned as a template, influencing and molding increasingly less subtle levels of the cosmic energy field 'on down the line via a series of holograms' until it eventually coalesced into a hologram of a physical universe."

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

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Cosmology

The metaphysical question of "First Cause" overlaps the scientific question of the origin of the physical universe.

The two approaches, the one metaphysical and religious, the other scientific, vary little as, inevitably, both must end up in the realm of metaphysics. (Many physicists fail to recognize this fact.)

Materialists, including most physicists tackling the cosmic origins question, postulate a naturalistic or material origin.

Problems arise, however, when they speak of the universe arising from nothing into something in a Big Bang event. If one holds a naturalistic view, the Big Bang must evolve out of a prior material condition which, by definition, is not nothing. It is already a something.

Thus, a naturalistic Big Bang explanation must posit a universe with no beginning. The model demands an eternal universe with no origin. A naturalistic explanation demanding a material origin to material conditions ends up in infinite regress with no explanation for "first matter."

The only way to address a beginning is through a universe of supernatural origins.

In a materialistic model it is impossible for there to be a transition from nothing to something. Nothing, or the void, is not a material condition--it is the absence of all material conditions.

There are those who have "cheated" a solution by equating a vacuum with nothing and postulating a "quantum fluctuation" origin. However, a quantum fluctuation is only possible in the presence of prior material conditions, at the very least a container emptied to create a vaccuum.

Quantum theory assumes a background space and time, thus the theory, as presently configured, does not start from a void. The "quantum fluctuation" explanation falls short.

In the end, those who argue the universe began with a Big Bang event as a transition from nothing to something must accept a supernatural origin.

Spiritualists and others who hold religious views believe the universe had a supernatural origin; there was nothing , then there was something. (Note: This nothing is an absence of material conditions, not an absence of immaterial conditions)

Idealism is the only philosophy which can account for this nothing-to-something transition, as Idealism argues material conditions are the thoughts of immaterial beings.

One text that attempts a material theory of origins, much as Dennett makes a failed attempt at a material theory of consciousness, is Vic Stenger's Has Science Found God?

Stenger's attempt falls apart as the solution involves the "cheat" of redefining the void as a quasi void (a vacuum). By claiming a vacuum as a special kind of nothing, he hopes to preserve the possibility of a material origin.

However, the question that prompted the inquiry in the first place—what creates the something?—goes unanswered as one must now ask who or what created the vacuum state.

Has Science Found God? by Vic Stenger

None of the following books present accurate theories of our origins; all miss the mark, some more than others. And yet, they are valuable references for the reader interested in entering into discussions on cosmic origins, or those simply interested in expanding their knowledge of theoretical physics.

They are listed in the order in which I pulled them off the shelf. (Note: some are considerably more math intensive than others):

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