No Dimensions

The de facto goal of science, for most of its practitioners, has become not simply to explain our world, but to account for it completely in terms of physical processes. Before the scientific revolution, God, spirits and other kinds of non-material forces were evoked as explanations of natural phenomena. Even after the scientific method became established, and physical processes or mechanisms became provided for an increasing number of natural phenomena, an appeal to other explanations, often by scientists themselves, continued. It was not until this century that vitalism—the notion that living things are animated by a force not present in matter—was universally abandoned. And even today, some philosophers question whether science will ever be able to account for consciousness completely in material terms.

In other words, science from its beginning has been engaged in a relentless battle against all forms of dualism, the notion that there is ultimately anything other than material processes. Terrence Deacon is a scientist who is completely onboard with this program, but he thinks that science has been going about it in the wrong way. He argues that life and mind manifest a number of properties that, while originating from ordinary physical processes in a potentially explainable fashion, are nevertheless not material in the usual way that we think of that term, and need to be acknowledged as such.

He calls these properties absential, because they can’t be located in any purely physical process. We constantly acknowledge their existence; they include such features as function, purpose, goal, value, meaning and reference. Yet they seem to defy explanation in physical terms. Thus science tends to ignore them, implicitly or explicitly:

absential features must, by definition, be treated as epiphenomenal glosses that need to be reduced to specific physical substrates or else excluded from the analysis. The realm that includes what is merely represented, what-might-be, what-could-have-been, what-it-feels-like, or is-good-for, presumably can be of no physical relevance. (p. 5)

What makes ententional processes so cryptic is that they exhibit properties that appear merely superimposed on materials or physical events, as though they are something in addition to and separate from their material-physical embodiment. (pp. 56-7)

Chief among these absential properties is a phenomenon, or set of phenomena, he calls ententionality. It is closely related to intentionality, the human attribute of being oriented towards some goal or purpose, but Deacon coins it with the aim of a broader meaning that allows it to be extended to much simpler forms of life:

Ententional phenomena include functions that have satisfaction conditions, adaptations that have environmental correlates, thoughts that have contents, purposes that have goals, subjective experiences that have a self/other perspective, and values that have a self that is benefited or harmed. (p. 27)

For example, Deacon would say that a bacterial cell exhibits ententional behavior, because it functions to maintain itself. It is not simply a complex association of millions of molecules and macromolecules, organized in a very specific fashion, but behaves in a way to perpetuate this organization. It takes in substances that can be transformed into critical cell components, and resists environmental conditions that would threaten its integrity. All of its behavior is directed towards the preservation of this complex structure.

While this kind of behavior “is not a purpose in any usual sense,” Deacon acknowledges,

neither is it a chemical-mechanical relationship. Though subjective awareness is different from the simple functional responsiveness of organisms in general, both life and mind have crossed a threshold to a realm where more than just what is materially present matters. (p. 26)

The notion of purpose, however, has long been anathema to science. The great significance and success of Darwinism is that it is able to explain the appearance of new living forms, well adapted to their environment, as the outcome of processes with no goal or purpose whatsoever. While we commonly speak of living things and their processes as exhibiting purposeful behavior—when we say the function of the digestive tract is to begin the transformation of nutrients, or the function of the lungs is to take in oxygen, or a function of the brain is to think—this is generally understood as just a useful way of describing what happens. The organs behave “as if” they had a purpose. Yet the physical processes that compose them can apparently have none.

The problem with this standard scientific view, Deacon points out, is that goals, purposes, and other absential features do in fact exist, in some sense, at least for our species, and play a crucial role in our lives. We all have goals and purposes. We value some things more than others, distinguish good from bad, use symbols to refer to things, find meaning in life. Moreover, these absential features, whatever their relationship to the physical world, seem to interact with it. Thus we say that we act in certain ways because we are motivated by some goal or purpose, because of the way some situation seems to be, by something that isn’t but could be. Though somewhat controversial, most philosophers believe that notions like these are a cause of our behavior.

So where do absential features come from? If we are to reject a dualistic explanation, they must have evolved, and In Incomplete Nature, Deacon sets himself the task of showing how this happened. He argues that to understand this, we need to think not in positive terms—what is added to physical processes—but in negative terms, what is taken away from them. Specifically, he believes we should focus on constraints, barriers that limit the natural flow of physical processes, and thus have the potential to channel them in certain directions.

To take an extremely simple example, a whirlpool in a stream is formed as a result of some object that obstructs the natural flow of the water. It defies precise description in purely physical terms, because the individual water molecules that compose it are constantly moving about and shifting. There is no single configuration of them that we can point to and say, this is a whirlpool. We might define the whirlpool as a certain pattern of water molecules, but pattern, Deacon cautions us, is not an objective term. What is perceived as a pattern depends to some extent on the observer. This will not do for a scientific explanation.

Deacon argues that the most appropriate way to define a whirlpool is in terms of constraint. The obstacle in the path of the stream prevents the water from moving in certain directions that it otherwise would move in. Just how much the water is constrained—what directions it could move in, but is prevented from moving in by the object—can be precisely and objectively defined:

Constraints are what is not there but could have been, irrespective of whether this is registered by any act of observation. (p. 192)

order is commonly defined relative to the expectations and aesthetics of an observer. In contrast, constraint can be objectively and unambiguously assessed. (p. 195)

Thus to Deacon, “evolution is not imposed design, but progressive restraint.” (pp. 425-6). What has enabled more complex organisms to evolve is their ability to create successively more constraints on physical processes. The meat of the book is devoted to explaining in some detail how this occurs.

Order without Purpose
According to Deacon, there are two distinct stages that are essential in making the transition from non-living processes—what physical scientists would call thermodynamic phenomena–to the ententional features associated with living, intelligent organisms. The first step creates what he calls morphodynamic systems. The prefix morpho- refers to the fact that these systems take on a particular large-scale (relative to the size of individual molecules) geometry or shape; this shape can then have physical consequences quite independently of the underlying thermodynamics. Specifically, he defines morphodynamic systems by “the[ir] tendency to become spontaneously more organized and orderly over time due to constant perturbation.” (p. 237). He provides several examples of them.

I mentioned the whirlpool earlier, in which water molecules in a stream become organized in response to a perturbation of the naturally-flowing water. A slightly more complex example is provided by convection cells. When an open container containing a very thin layer of water is heated from below, the heat gradually spreads throughout the entire container, and is lost or dissipated from the system through radiation and vaporization into the air. If the intensity of heat is relatively low, this process occurs through purely thermodynamic processes. Individual water molecules, absorbing the heat energy, move faster, and collide with cooler, slower molecules above them, transferring some of the heat to them.

However, this is a relatively slow process, and if the source of heat is intense enough, this intensity in effect overwhelms the capacity of these individual molecular movements to dissipate the heat fast enough. In this case, the water molecules may organize in a fashion that allows faster heat dissipation. Instead of moving individually, large number of heated molecules coalesce in a group, and carry the heat upwards in ordered columns. The columns have a hexagonal cross-section because this maximizes packing, that is, the number of columns that can be formed in a given cross-section of water. These columns are maintained as long as heat continues to be applied to the water.

The key factor, then, is the constant perturbation of the water caused by the heat. Basic physical laws dictate that the system will attempt to dissipate this perturbing energy, so no physical laws are transgressed by the system. Yet with a strong enough perturbation, the system will organize in a way that seems to run counter to the flow of normal thermodynamic properties. Something new has appeared.

At this point, Deacon makes a distinction between what he calls orthograde and contragrade changes:

I will call changes in the state of a system that are consistent with the spontaneous, “natural” tendency to change, irrespective of external interference, orthograde changes. The term literally refers to going with the grade or tilt or tendency of things, as in falling, or “going with the flow.” In contrast, I will call changes in the state of a system that must be extrinsically forced, because they run counter to orthograde tendencies, contragrade changes. (p. 223)

The movement of individual water molecules in response to heat is an orthograde process; it is standard thermodynamics. However, the imposition of an external heat source creates a contragrade process. It results in a concentrated, or uneven, distribution of heat in the water, which in effect opposes the natural thermodynamic tendency for heat to be uniformly distributed. This latter tendency constrains the water molecules, opposing their orthograde tendency to move in a way that dissipates heat. The two forces, working together, are what creates the convection cells.

Deacon argues that all morphodynamic systems, as well as more complex forms of order, result from such a clash of forces:

Because the world is structured and not uniform, and because there are many distinct dimensions of orthograde change possible (involving different properties of things, such as temperature, mass, movement, charge, structural form, etc.), certain of these tendencies can interact in relative isolation from others. Contragrade change is the natural consequence of one orthograde process influencing a different orthograde process—for example, via some intervening medium. This implies that in one sense all change ultimately originates from spontaneous processes. It is simply because the world is highly heterogeneous that there can be contragrade processes. (p. 224)

The orthograde/contragrade distinction is somewhat relative. What is contragrade at one level may be orthograde at another. For example, when individual atoms collide with each other, their paths in space are altered. This can be considered a contragrade change at the level of these atoms. But at the level of thermodynamics, which involves the collective actions of enormous numbers of atoms, these contragrade changes are part of an orthograde process, as when a gas diffuses to fill a space.

The Emergence of Self
Morphodynamic systems are therefore capable of using certain constraints to create order, but is this the key to life? Deacon thinks an additional step is necessary. Morphodynamic systems, as I just emphasized, are dependent on some kind of continuous perturbation coming from outside of them. Convection cells must be sustained by constant heat of a certain intensity. If the heat lessens or stops, the order is disrupted. Likewise, the whirlpool’s existence depends on some obstacle outside of it that blocks or diverts the flow of water. The same general principle is at work for other examples of morphodynamic systems that he discusses, which involve light or movement of air in particular ways.

It’s clear that living things could not survive long if they remained so dependent on such chance conditions. In order to maintain morphodynamic organization against fluctuations in the environment, they need to be able to insure a constant input of energy and materials—in other words, to create their own constraints. A system that can do this Deacon refers to as teleodynamic. It “is organized with respect to its own persistence.” (p. 270). Now it is legitimate to say that its

processes are functions, not merely chemical reactions, because they exist to produce specific self-promoting physical consequences..[they] exist for the sake of preserving the integrity and persistence of these integrated systems (p. 273).

To illustrate this, Deacon discusses a prototype teleodynamic system, which he refers to as an autogen (“self-creating”). It is composed of two morphodynamic systems that couple together in a synergistic fashion. The first system is an autocatalytic set, a series of linked metabolic reactions in which one substance or substrate is progressively transformed into other substances (just as occurs, in much more complex fashion, in all living cells today). For any single metabolic reaction to occur at a significant rate, it is generally necessary for a catalyst to be present, another substance that binds to the substrate in a way that enhances the molecular rearrangements involved in its transformation. In all living cells, catalysis is performed by specialized protein molecules, or enzymes.

In the very primitive conditions in which life was first developing, there would have been no enzymes. However, other, simpler organic molecules may to some extent act as catalysts. Moreover, as has been shown by other researchers, particularly Stuart Kauffman, if enough metabolic reactions occur in close proximity, the odds are favorable that each reaction can be catalyzed to a significant extent by a substance that is produced by one of the other reactions. In other words, if there is a pool of many different substances, each one will have some ability to catalyze a reaction needed to form another. In this situation, the entire set of reactions is synergistic, and may proceed until the most basic substances, those needed to input into the network and begin the transformation, are exhausted. In this sense, Deacon says, “autocatalysis is thus self-promoting, but not self-regulating or self-preserving.” (p. 295).

The second morphodynamic system Deacon refers to as containment. In his autogen model, this is created by a certain kind of molecule that can polymerize, or join together with other like molecules, to form a large planar or sheet-like structure of repeating units. One might visualize this as a jigsaw puzzle that is formed by identically-shaped pieces that can fit into each other. If this structure becomes large enough, it may fold back on itself into a spherical form. It then has the possibility of enclosing the autocatalytic set, isolating it from the surrounding medium, somewhat as membranes enclose all living cells today.

At this point, according to Deacon, each morphodynamic system can potentially synergize with or complement the other. The containment structure, by enclosing the autocatalytic loop in a relatively small space, can in effect corral the reacting substances, preventing them from diffusing away from each other. The resulting increase in their concentration thus accelerates the individual reactions, and enhances the probability that a substance created by one will be accessible as a catalyst for another. In addition, the containment structure provides a protective barrier that reduces the possibility of autocatalysis being disrupted by inappropriate substances. Deacon speculates that when the autocatalytic network exhausts the supply of substances that it requires, the containment may allow it to enter a sort of latent or hibernating state, to be activated again when a fresh supply of substances is encountered.

Conversely, the autocatalytic loop, if it happens to produce the kind of molecule able to polymerize, can promote the formation of the containment structure by constantly supplying more of this substance. Thus each morphodynamic process enhances the other, and in Deacon’s view, produces a system for which the word “self” becomes appropriate:

the reciprocal complementarity of these two self-organizing processes creates the potential for self-repair, self-reconstitution, and even self-replication in a minimal form. (p. 305)

In other words, while this autogen is a very simple system, still falling far short of a living cell, it has the potential to evolve further. Once the basis for self sustainment has been put into place, it is not difficult to imagine ways that further modifications could occur that would enhance the stability of the system.

Does Life Have a Threshold?
To summarize, Deacon argues that evolution is a matter of “progressive restraint”, and that more specifically, there are two basic steps in the transition from non-living material processes to life, each involving a new relationship to constraints:

the orthograde signature of thermodynamic change is constraint dissipation, the orthograde signature of morphodynamic change is constraint amplification, and the orthograde signature of teleodynamic change is constraint preservation and correlation. (p. 324)

I think the insight that large-scale order or shape can have opposing or contragrade effects on thermodynamic processes is an important one. Conformation plays a key role in biological processes, for example, in the specificity of enzymatic catalysis and in the binding of key substances to cell membranes. However, the distinctions between thermodynamic, morphodynamic and teleodynamic processes are not as clear-cut as Deacon implies.

Consider the autogen example again. While Deacon refers to its two individual components–autocatalytic networks and self-assembly into containment structures–as morphodynamic systems, they are quite different from most of the examples of this kind of process he provided earlier. In the case of convection cells, and other examples, there was some kind of energy being inputted into the system—heat, light, or the kinetic energy of moving air—which is key to creating an ordered arrangement (constraint amplification) in the system. If the energy is removed, the order immediately collapses.

In the autocatalytic sets and containment structures, in contrast, there is order already present in the system, existing independently of any need for energy input:

both autocatalysis and self-assembly are morphodynamic molecular processes that are capable of occurring spontaneously in a wide variety of conditions. What they share in common is a dependency on molecular shape-effects and a propensity for promoting rapid self-amplifying regularities. (p. 302).

In other words, while simple water molecules or molecules present in air have no tendency to organize in the absence of some unusual conditions imposed from outside, the somewhat larger and more complex organic molecules present in both autocatalytic networks and containment structures do not require external energy sources to organize. Given the presence of enough of these molecules in close proximity, they will organize spontaneously. One might say that certain characteristics of the molecule, in effect, take the place of a constant input of energy in creating the “perturbation” that results in organization. The needed constraints are built into each individual molecule.

This is a very significant difference. It means that the distinction between amplification of constraints, the key feature of morphodynamic systems, and their preservation, in teleodynamic systems, is blurred if not dissolved. In simple systems like whirlpools or convection cells, the organized water molecules can have no effect on the constraints that are necessary for this organization. They are completely isolated from the obstacle in the stream or the heat source. In this sense, we can indeed say that such systems cannot preserve their constraints.

But in any system in which molecules organize spontaneously, this organization in itself does not simply amplify constraints, but promotes or preserves them. Thus in the absence of any containment structure, the autocatalytic network may still form and proceed to cycle substances through a series of metabolic reactions. Conversely, the containment structure is capable of forming in the absence of an association with an autocatalytic network. Neither system alone may be as stable or as self-preserving as their combination. But the difference is one of degree.

This being the case, what exactly is the threshold that an autogen crosses? We can grant that it is the product of more constraints, and that it has processes that tend to preserve those constraints, but that is a quantitative, not qualitative, difference. Deacon also describes teleodynamic systems in terms such as “reciprocal complementarity” and “dynamic circularity”. Both of these terms, it will be appreciated, are basically synonymous with “synergistic” and with “constraint correlation.” Synergistic systems are those in which the constraints of one process correlate with the constraints of another—that is, the existence of each help maintain the existence of the other–and in this way are mutually self-preserving.

In other words, the shape or form created by morphodynamics has effects in creating other constraints that help stabilize itself. But such synergism clearly exists as well in the autocatalytic set, in that each substance is necessary for the creation of another, and is in turn dependent on another. The constraints of one metabolic reaction, by producing the catalyst for another, correlate with and preserve the latter’s constraints. In a word, each reaction is necessary for the whole; none is sufficient. Synergism is also present, at least in a mild sense, in the self-assembly process that creates containment. As the structure grows, the opportunities for further growth are enhanced, because the reactive edges—the points where further additions can be made to the structure–increase in length.

In fact, the organic molecules that constitute pre-living processes like autocatalysis and containment have other properties that promote synergism and self-preservation. For example, amino acids are zwitterions, meaning they possess two or more molecular groups that can ionize, creating opposite electrical charges. This enables them to act as buffers, that is, to stabilize the pH, or hydrogen ion concentration, of their immediate environment. Since most biochemical processes proceed at an optimum rate in some narrow pH range, this property can enhance the probability that a variety of teleodynamic processes occur.

So teleodynamic systems, as Deacon defines them, can be extended to include at least some of what he claims are “only” morphodynamic systems. If an autogen can be said to behave in a way that promotes its own preservation, so can its isolated components. The difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Autocatalytic sets and containment processes are not as efficient at preserving themselves as their mutual combination, but nevertheless can do so to some degree. And most important, they do so by the same general process of reciprocal or synergistic interactions.

What about simpler systems, such as convection cells? As I noted earlier, these are quite different, in that they are composed of very simple molecules such as water or the oxygen/nitrogen/carbon dioxide molecules in air. These molecules do not possess the ability to organize spontaneously in the absence of specific kinds of energy input. So they can be described as having general characteristics that are quite distinct from teleodynamic systems.

But most of the examples that Deacon discusses, including not only convection cells but systems featuring resonance set up by air currents or light, are artificial, are made possible only by human intervention. Whirlpools are natural phenomena, but of course no one would suggest that they formed a plausible step in the emergence of life. Still other morphodynamic processes discussed by Deacon, such as those that result in natural patterns found in seashells, pine cones, and animal skin coloring, account for certain properties of already evolved organisms, but again, do not appear to be capable of facilitating the transition between non-living processes and life.

So these simpler morphodynamic systems have limited relevance to the question of how biological function evolved. While they do illustrate how inputted energy can create order, this does not happen in biological systems without the critical help of special kinds of molecules that are capable of using that energy in ways that very simple molecules cannot. The road to life could not even begin without these molecules—and conversely, it could proceed to some extent in the absence of such extrinsic sources of energy.

Yet even prior to the existence of organic molecules, there is evidence of somewhat similar processes. For example, the reactions that form very simple molecules essential to life such as molecular oxygen, carbon dioxide and water “are capable of occurring spontaneously in a wide variety of conditions” just as Deacon describes for the morphogenetic processes of autocatalysis and self-assembly. Of course, the former reactions are far simpler, but the question is, how different in kind are they? These simple molecules are both formed and preserved by means of certain constraints. Moreover, water molecules are capable of further organization that is the basis of the liquid properties of this substance. Water as a liquid is further constrained, and promotes further types of reactions among molecules that can dissolve in water. The shape of individual water molecules, which allows them to bond with each other, is critical to this process.

Can Purpose be Defined Objectively?
To summarize, I’m arguing that the distinctions between thermodynamic, morphodynamic and teleodynamic systems are not as clear-cut as Deacon implies. The creation of constraints is evident even in very simple chemical reactions. There is of course no question that the processes become more complex as we consider what he calls genuine morphodynamic, then teleodynamic, processes, but this to a large degree is a difference in kind.

Does this really matter? If the kinds of processes that Deacon describes really occur, does it make much difference whether we consider their emergence as gradual or relatively sudden? I think it does, because Deacon is committed to drawing a fairly sharp line between non-living and livng processes:

If everything is ententional in some respect, then we are nevertheless required to specify why the absential properties of life and mind are so distinctive from the properties exhibited in the non-living world. We still need to draw a line and explain how it is crossed. (p. 40).

Deacon, in other words, while not accepting dualism, believes that the world appears dualistic to us, and that we must explain how this appearance comes about. Thus he describes teleodynamic systems as ones that “exist for the sake of preserving the integrity and persistence of these integrated systems.” They

do not merely react mechanically and thermodynamically to perturbation, but generally are organized to initiate a change in their internal dynamics to actively compensate for extrinsic modifications or internal deficits. (p. 487).

The problem with terms such as “for the sake of” and “actively” is that they are largely in the mind of the beholder, and thus not objective. It’s true that autocatalysis and containment processes, let alone simpler molecular reactions, can be understood in “passive” or “mechanical-thermodynamic” terms. Just add the ingredients and the reactions take off. But that is basically also the case for the autogen. As I noted in an earlier quote, Deacon concedes “that in one sense all change ultimately originates from spontaneous processes.” Spontaneous, in this context, means not free or unpredictable, but essentially the opposite: occurring under a wide variety of conditions, and therefore effectively inevitable. He makes the same point when he describes living processes as resulting from “falling into complexity”. (p. 457)

So where exactly is this line? Here is what I think is a sympathetic interpretation of Deacon’s thesis. From the beginning of existence on earth, if not earlier, there have been processes featuring constraints, creating molecules with a strong tendency to remain in their state. We do not ordinarily call such processes, or their products, purposeful. As these systems become more complex, however, involving shape effects as well as the interactions of several or more different processes, an increasing amount of energy is devoted to creating and preserving highly improbable states. We can call this a purpose, accepting that the line between purposeful processes and purposeless ones is fuzzy, just as is the line between life and non-living processes.

However, even if we concede this much–that purpose or function can be described in an objective manner—this still leaves a major gap in our understanding. It is not so much purpose that needs to be explained as the experience of purpose. This is the hard problem of consciousness, and I think Deacon misunderstands the distinction:

Reframing the concept of sentience in emergent dynamical terms will allow us to address questions that are not often considered to be subject to empirical neuroscientific analysis…Even the so-called hard problem of consciousness will turn out to be reconceptualized in these terms. (p. 487)

The hard problem of consciousness is a first-person phenomenon, not a third person phenomenon. Thus by its very definition, it is not something that can be described objectively, nor that is amenable to empirical analysis. Nor does providing an objective definition or description of purpose even bring us closer to understanding consciousness in this sense, any more than describing thermodynamic phenomena such as heat objectively brings us any closer to understanding our experience of heat.

Deacon seems to believe that because purpose or function is absential, it must necessarily help explain those aspects of mind or consciousness that also appear absential. But just because two different phenomena appear to be absent from physical processes does not mean they have a basic underlying similarity. And to repeat, merely by claiming that purpose is an objective phenomenon, one is conceding that it is something very different from conscious experience.

I understand why Deacon is so committed to taking this approach. Like most scientists, he sees no viable alternative in closing this gap between consciousness and the physical world. As I noted in the beginning of this review, the only alternative seems to be some kind of dualism, such as panpsychism. He considers this briefly, but rejects it because it seems to him to lead to a dilemma. If all forms of existence are conscious, why are some, such as human beings, far more conscious than others?

If the reason that human brains are a unique, intense, and persistent locus of absential properties (compared to rivers) is because they are differently organized, then organization is effectively doing all the work of explaining this fact. (p. 41).

In other words, if the greater degree of consciousness of human beings results from their much more complex brains, why is anything other than the brain necessary to explain consciousness?

But while there are some strong arguments against panpsychism, this is not one of them. Consider a simple metaphor. Imagine a variety of electric/electronic devices, ranging from the very simple—say, a light switch—to the very complex—a computer. The function of the computer, I think we can all agree, is much more complex than that of the light switch, and it is so just because of it’s structural organization—all the transistors and connections among them. In this sense, structure, or complexity of organization, is doing all the work in accounting for the differences in complexity of function.

But both the light switch and the computer share one critical feature that is necessary for them to have any function at all: the flow of electricity. Without electrical current, neither device, nor any other electrical or electronic device, functions. There is no ententionality or absentia at all without it.

We can extend the same metaphor using living systems. Consider what happens every morning of our lives when we awaken from sleep. Virtually instantaneously, we are conscious, aware of an external world of sights, sounds, and other sensory stimuli, as well as of our private thoughts, feelings, sensations, and so on. The scientific account of this is that certain neural pathways become activated. These pathways were present while we were asleep, but like the transistors in a computer or the wiring in a light switch, they lacked electrical activity.

So again, it is apparent that differences in structural organization—those in the portions of the brain that are activated when we are awake vs. those that are activated when we are asleep—underlie differences in our degree of consciousness. But there would be no consciousness at all, either of the waking kind or of the kind in sleep, if these neural pathways are not activated by electrical processes.

I want to emphasize that I am NOT claiming that consciousness just IS electrical activity. Electrical activity is just another material process, and fundamentally does nothing above and beyond structural organization to explain why we are conscious. But because we can make a conceptual distinction between the structure of the brain or a computer, and the electrical activity necessary to turn it on, the latter can serve as a way of thinking about how consciousness could depend critically on some fundamental property that is associated with structural systems.

So while the debate over consciousness will continue, I think we must firmly reject Deacon’s implication that panpsychism is impossible in principle. While it is profoundly unsatisfactory to most scientists and philosophers, because it seems to define the problem out of existence, I think one could say much the same about Deacon’s approach. Though he had provided us with a fruitful way of thinking about function or purpose in biological systems, it does not tell us anything about the much more difficult problem of how it is that we experience anything.

Donald DeGracia and I have several important interests and experiences in common: 1) we both have Ph.D.s and professional training in biochemistry; 2) we both have experimented with hallucinogenic drugs; 3) we have a long-time familiarity with occult teachings; and 4) we believe that a powerful tool for understanding many phenomena is by analogy to other phenomena that are at least in some respects better understood. All of these factors and influences play a key role in DeGracia’s book Beyond the Physical, so it was a given I would find the book interesting. Indeed, had the book existed about forty years ago, it would have undoubtedly been a major influence on my life. Discovering it now, some time after it was published, but a great deal more time after I first dropped out of the standard career path in science to pursue what I understood as higher consciousness, my enthusiasm for it is more restrained. In fact, I have a lot of criticisms of it, though I still think it is one of the better books on the occult I’m familiar with (my favorite remains P.D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous)

Occult teachings comprise a huge number of claims, observations, ideas and theories, but their essence is fairly simple: in addition to the physical or material world that we are all familiar with, and which is the subject of all conventional scientific investigations, there are several or more other worlds or planes of existence. Most people are unaware of these other worlds, which, according to DeGracia, are non-physical, but these other planes nonetheless can interact with, in fact interpenetrate, the physical world. Thus knowledge of the occult not only brings with it a much broader, more comprehensive view of existence than is possible through science, but may also allow us to appreciate our familiar world in new ways. Occult phenomena, in this view, should not be considered of interest only to a small group of curious seekers, but are potentially very relevant to everyone’s everyday existence. They constantly affect us, whether we are aware of it or not.

DeGracia wants to bridge the gap between the occult and science, creating what he calls a “hybrid scientific occultism” that will, he believes, marry the strengths and specialties of each into something far more comprehensive and useful than either alone. As should be evident from my opening description, he has a fairly unusual set of skills and experiences that make him more qualified than most for this undertaking. He seems about as capable as anyone to unify these two forms of knowledge, if in fact they can be unified. But that question is problematical, and the starting point for my criticisms.

Re-Visionist Science
The major problem most scientists have with the occult, of course, is that there is no way to verify most of its claims. Scientists study the physical world—indeed, generally believe there is no other—so any knowledge of phenomena that are, according to DeGracia, non-physical, is bound to be met with extreme skepticism by most of the scientific community. When they listen to descriptions of astral projections, out of body experiences, precognition, psychic action at a distance, and the like, they tend to roll their eyes. Even more open-minded observers, who don’t necessarily dismiss the possibility of such phenomena, are likely to point out that if one hasn’t experienced them oneself, there is no way to prove their existence to others.

One way DeGracia attempts to counter this problem is by arguing that some occult phenomena can be and in fact have been supported by observations made quite independently by scientists. As I noted earlier, most occult teachings hold that the non-physical planes of existence interact with the physical world we are all familiar with. The existence of these relationships, in principle, may give individuals the capability of not simply observing non-physical phenomena, but also observing physical ones in ways more powerfully than are available to the normal person. In other words, the claim is being made that occult powers allow one to observe physical phenomena that are ordinarily accessible only through the use of highly sophisticated scientific technology. If the occultist can demonstrate that he can see the same thing that the scientist, aided by this technology, sees, this could provide a powerful validation of the occult claims.

DeGracia provides several examples which he believes illustrate that occult observations are in fact confirmed by science. The problem with most of his examples, however, is that occultists simply verify existing scientific observations, rather than provide predictions of new ones. This leaves them vulnerable to the charge that they are—let’s be blunt here—cheating; that they provide the right answers because they already know what the answers are, or could be.

I will discuss just two of DeGracia’s cases here. First, there is the Seth material of Jane Roberts. Roberts was an American writer who, beginning in the 1960s, reported that she was able to communicate with a non-physical entity, Seth, through a process we now call channeling. Speaking through Roberts, Seth presented many insights into phenomena on these invisible planes of existence that are a central part of all occult teachings. One of the key ideas reported by Seth through Roberts was the notion that the world or universe consists not simply of realities, but possibilities. That in some sense, everything that is possible, that could have happened but which didn’t happen to our knowledge, exists somewhere.

DeGracia notes that this view has some similarities to a well known interpretation of quantum theory, first proposed by physicist Hugh Everett. The most widely accepted interpretation of quantum theory is in terms of wave-particle duality. Quantum entities are thought to have no definite location, but to exist in a probabilistic wave. When the quantum is manipulated in certain ways, however, particularly if it is subjected to measurement or even simple observation, the wave is said to “collapse”, becoming a particle with a specific location. Everett’s many worlds hypothesis avoids this problem of collapse by arguing that quantum phenomena exist in multiple universes, each universe manifesting a different possibility. In this view, what is interpreted in mainstream quantum theory as collapse is simply that we become aware of the particle’s location in one particular universe, the one we live in. The particle continues to exist in other universes, having a definite location in all of them as well, even though this location is of course not accessible to us.

DeGracia believes that Seth was referring to essentially the same idea:

Seth’s view of probable realities is almost identical to the Many Worlds view of quantum physics. Again, we have scientists and occultists saying essentially the same thing about Nature.(76)1

Hugh Everett’s many world’s hypothesis is a minority view; relatively few physicists take it very seriously (though those who do are quite ardent in their support of it). But more importantly, DeGracia never points out that Everett published his many worlds theory in 1957, and another physicist, Bryce DeWitt, began popularizing it in the 1960s. Jane Roberts published her first Seth experiences at the end of 1963, so she could easily have been aware of the many worlds hypothesis. In fact, as a writer whose works included, according to Wiki, “poetry, short stories, children’s literature, nonfiction, science fiction and fantasy and novels,” Roberts not only was likely to have followed current trends in science, but had the kind of imagination that would make it easy to incorporate them into some fantasy world.2

Ironically, DeGracia summarizes his discussion of Roberts by saying:

Seth introduces ideas into occultism that have no precedence in traditional occultism. That is to say, Seth’s ideas are very modern. (76)

DeGracia doesn’t seem to realize that to acknowledge Seth’s ideas as modern is not an endorsement of Roberts’ work; it’s a problem. If occultists are able to see things directly that are confirmable by science, why did someone not see these things before science found evidence for them? Why do “modern” ideas appear in occultism (and there are many other examples, some of which are discussed by DeGracia) only after they have been discovered or developed by science? What Seth seems to be seeing is not some true version of existence, but rather the one most currently held by (some) scientists. In other words, he seems to be tapping into the ideas of science, not the world that those ideas are intent on describing.

A second example of occultists claiming scientific validation after the fact is provided by the team of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater. DeGracia discusses at some length how they claimed to be able perceive, through a process called micro-psi, the structure of atoms. They published numerous drawings of these atoms, and according to DeGracia, many of their insights were later validated by scientific findings. I will consider some of these briefly.

First, they described atoms as very dynamic systems, in constant, complex motion:

The spinning and vibrating motions they describe here are very common notions today, but were utterly unthinkable given the state of scientific knowledge in 1895. (107)

This claim of novelty simply is not true. Lord Kelvin, several decades earlier, had suggested that atoms were a “vortex” in the “ether” that was widely believed to exist at the time. Annie Besant, as a former chemistry student, would have been expected to be exposed to this idea. In fact, the notion of a vortex, as well as other claims of Leadbeater and Besant, were incorporated into a book, Principles of Light and Colour, by Edward Babbitt written nearly twenty years prior to the Leadbeater/Besant micro-psi studies. Some of the latter’s drawings of appear in fact to have been borrowed from Babbitt’s book.3

A second point emphasized by DeGracia is that the drawings of various kinds of atoms published by Leadbeater revealed many kinds of shapes, such as cubes, tetrahedrons, dumbbells and octahedrons. According to DeGracia:

It was not until many years later that physicists discovered these same shapes in the equations of quantum theory. Today it is standard to attribute regular polygonal shapes to atoms (or more precisely to the orbitals of atoms) but again, in 1895, this was unthinkable from a scientific perspective.(108)

First, let’s note that these shapes were not novel. Three of the seven that DeGracia depicts represent Platonic solids, obviously known for a very long time. It is really not surprising that anyone immersed in occult ideas would find significance in these shapes. One of the shapes, the tetrahedron, does in fact represent, conceptually, the structure of the fully-bonded carbon atom, but Leadbeater claimed that carbon itself had a different structure. As far as I know, none of the shapes that Leadbeater and Besant claimed to see actually correspond to the particular atoms that they assigned them to. In any case, we know enough about atoms today to appreciate that if one could actually see them directly, they would not appear as these polygonal shapes. The relationships of the subatomic particles to each other may have a strong resemblance to certain kinds of polygons, but it is a stretch to say that if we could view the atom directly, as Leadbeater claimed to do, we would see polygonal solids.

The atoms that Leadbeater and Besant claimed to see were composed of smaller particles they called ultimate physical atoms (UPA) or anu, an Indian term. The structure of a UPA that they published bears a very close resemblance to drawings of atoms published nearly twenty years earlier by Edward Babbitt, whom I mentioned earlier. One way in which the Leadbeater/Besant atom differed from Babbitt’s, however, was that the UPAs came in two different forms:

Besant and Leadbeater consistently observed that every element was made up of large numbers of only two particles which were identical to one another except that they were mirror images of one another. (108)

Again, however, there was clear scientific precedent for this description. This idea is obviously closely related to J.H. van’t Hoff’s work on stereoisomers, which had been proposed years earlier. And again, Besant’s background in chemistry surely would have made her familiar with stereoisomers. Thus their visualization of U.P.A. has all the hallmarks of Babbitt’s notion simply embellished with the newer idea of stereoisomers.

Still another important aspect of the Leadbeater work was that the number of UPAs per atom correlated closely with the atomic weight of the substance:

In their investigations they discovered a curious rule, if they counted all of the U.P.A.s in an atom and divided this number by 18, then they roughly obtained the atomic weight of that element as ascertained by science. (109)

But the atomic weights of these atoms were of course known at this time. So how can one rule out the obvious possibility that Leadbeater and Besant simply made up this 18-fold rule?

What DeGracia finds most supportive of the Leadbeater/Besant work, though, is a version of subatomic theory proposed by physicist Stephen Phillips much later, in the 1980s. Phillips claimed that the configurations that Leadbeater and Besant had reported closely paralleled what he had independently found to be the sub-quark composition of atoms:

Indeed, the most curious, if not utterly profound thing that Dr. Phillips discovered is that Besant and Leadbeater’s clairvoyant descriptions of the chemical elements are completely consistent with the Quark, Quantum Chromodynamic and Super-String theories of modern subatomic physics. This he details in great depth in his 1980 book, The Extra- Sensory Perception of Quarks. In this book, Dr. Phillips literally reconciles Occult Chemistry with modern physics. Dr. Phillips has vindicated, probably as strongly as is possible (next to clairvoyantly seeing the elements for himself), Besant and Leadbeater’s Occult Chemistry. (110)

I have not read Phillips’s book, so I can’t comment on it. I’m not a physicist, and probably unqualified to critique his theory, anyway. As DeGracia notes, it’s just one interpretation among many in currency among physicists, and future studies will presumably determine its fate. But no matter how technical and complex his theory is, what it can actually owe to the Leadbeater/Besant work is limited by the complexity of their claims. And as far as I can see, all Leadbeater and Besant claimed that is relevant to Phillips’ work is that there is a fairly constant ratio of UPAs to atomic weight. This ratio, as noted above, was eighteen, though Phillips found a ratio of nine worked for his theory, which meant he had to postulate that in the process of viewing atoms, Leadbeater fused two of them together. This is bad enough, a kind of fudging of the facts to make the theory work (one imagines that if the discrepancy were a factor of three rather than two, Phillips would have claimed that in the process of viewing the atoms, three were fused into one). But the bottom line seems to be that all Leadbeater/Besant really contributed was the notion of threes. As DeGracia quotes Phillips:

The diagram of the “hydrogen atom” was especially curious and interesting, because I immediately recognized in it the physicist’s model of a proton as a triangular cluster of three particles that he calls “quarks.” (110)

Really? So because Leadbeater found clusters of three, and protons (not atoms) are understood as three quarks, this is strong evidence of directly seeing protons? If there is much more complexity to Leadbeater’s observations than this, DeGracia certainly has failed to convey it.

I might add that no one since has replicated the Leadbeater/Besant observations. Isn’t that a little strange? If it really is possible to see atoms directly, wouldn’t you think someone else would have done it? One also wonders, if Leadbeater and Besant were really capable of perceiving atoms, indeed, sub-atomic particles, would they not have found it even easier to perceive larger structures, such as molecules and intra-cellular organelles? For example, why couldn’t they have used their micro-psi to peer into cells and discover the DNA double helix, half a century before Watson and Crick? Or describe the shapes of proteins before the advent of X-ray crystallography? There is an immense wealth of molecular detail in living organisms that should have been easily observable to someone proficient at micro-psi.

In summary, while we will never know exactly what Leadbeater and Besant saw, or what Jane Roberts actually experienced, what is very clear is that at the time of their observations they had all the necessary information to formulate their claims. There is precious little evidence that they saw some aspect of reality that no one had appreciated before them, and which was subsequently confirmed by science. When one takes into account that Roberts was a writer of science fiction and fantasy, while Besant studied chemistry, the simplest explanation of their work is that they synthesized current ideas borrowed from others, embellishing the final product with a great deal of imagination.

These kinds of after-the-fact observations are not reported just by those trying to demonstrate the truth of occult teachings. Fairly reputable scientists have also been known to get carried away by the potentialities of direct experience. In the introduction to The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra claimed that he actually saw atoms one day while at the beach:

I ‘saw’ cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in which particles were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I ‘saw’ the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy.4

In Molecules of Emotion, opioid researcher Candace Bert asserted she could act on individual hormone molecules in her body:

the knowledge I had of physiology…had enabled me to consciously intervene and intentionally change my molecules5

When you have extensive scientific knowledge about a subject, it is very easy to visualize that knowledge, and fool yourself into believing that you are actually engaged in a direct perception of that phenomenon. As I will discuss now, DeGracia himself may have fallen into this trap.

Purple People Theater
DeGracia claims that he has on his own made many observations of phenomena on occult levels of existence. A great deal of these observations apparently come from his use of psychedelic substances. In his book, he describes one of these experiences in particular in some detail. I will quote it at some length:

One hallucinogenic drug experiment I performed with a friend was crucial in convincing me of the validity of occult claims…I was sitting on my bed looking at my wall, which was an off-white color, and the first thing I noticed was that it was breathing…Next I noticed the color and texture of the wall had changed. It had gone from an off-white to a neonish light green color and had taken on a “chalky” appearance or texture. That is, my entire visual field seemed to take on a “grainy” structure, as if everything I was seeing had been colored by chalk. And as well, I noticed that every so often a neonish purple splotch would well up out of nowhere then disappear again. I pointed out the change in the wall’s color and texture and purple splotching to my friend..

It was he who first noticed that what was really going on was that there appeared to be “pipes” and the chalky green color and purple splotches seemed to be liquids flowing through these pipes. I continued to stare at the purple splotches appearing on the wall and eventually saw that he was correct. But then I noticed that what was going on was that the chalky green color was the pipes and that the purple color was actually a liquid flowing through the green pipes. Upon staring further at the images, my friend agreed that this was indeed what we were seeing. And we sat there staring for some time at my wall which had turned into a network of green pipes, which appeared to us to be about one foot wide in our perception, with a purple liquid flowing through them. The green pipes were transparent, whereas the purple liquid was opaque. Both had a neonish texture to them.

Then as I stared harder and harder at these pipes, I began to notice new details, and then it dawned on me what I was seeing: that any given pipe we happened to stare at was actually made up of many, many little pipes, thousands of them, it looked like. It was the same way that a rope is made up of many fibers. And he noticed it too after I had pointed it out to him…

With all this going on in my vision, I noticed the most spectacular detail of them all…the purple liquid was not a liquid at all, but little purple bacteria-like creatures swimming around through the pipe structure. I was awe-struck!

I cried out to my buddy, “There’s little bacteria swimming around in our brain!” Very quickly he saw it too and we were both marveled by this. (225-229)

To summarize, DeGracia and his friend both claim to have witnessed a network of green tubes in which moved purple-colored creatures that resembled bacteria. After continuing with this description, he eventually turns to the task of explaining it in scientific terms. After some background discussion, he suggests and rejects several possibilities (including one that would probably be the first to occur to most readers, that he was looking at the flow of cells in blood vessels), then comes to the conclusion that he was observing the turnover of synapses in neurons in his brain:

I would propose that what my friend and I observed as the transient breaking up and reforming of the little green tubes was indeed this process of the transient disconnection and reconnection of synaptic junctions. (245)

As a neuroscientist, I find this idea very interesting. DeGracia thinks the green tubes represent the terminals of nerve processes, or axons, which form connections with other cells. The purple creatures are synaptic vesicles, which contain the neurotransmitter substance that, upon opening of the vesicle and discharge of its contents near the receiving neuron, trigger the formation of electrical changes that lead to a new electrical impulse.

However, it’s one thing to speculate, to note similarities to what one has seen and what one might see if one could actually observe certain small-scale processes in the body; it’s quite another to offer this as scientific evidence that is “crucial in convincing me of the validity of occult claims.” DeGracia sounds quite positive of this:

Now, from an occult perspective, there is no question in my mind that one of the effects of the drug was to allow us to exercise the psychic ability which was also used by Besant and Leadbeater called “micro-psi” or anima, though we obviously did not have the degree of control over magnification that they did. (232)

So, from the evening’s experience, I am certain that there is a thing called a psychomagnetic force and I am certain that an ecosystem of creatures exists somewhere and at some level within our brains. (242)

As I scientist, I bridle a little at such certainty. Having taken hallucinogens myself, I do understand that such experiences often carry with them the feeling of truth, of seeing the world as it really is. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to ask, what other interpretations of this experience are possible?

Well, in the first place, since DeGracia is a scientist, he has knowledge of the microscopic appearance of living processes—just as Besant had some knowledge of the structure of atoms. That this knowledge might have played a role in what he saw is tellingly suggested by DeGracia’s admission that:

It was ironic that I saw these bacteria creatures because the previous quarter in school I had just taken a class in microbiology. In that class we looked under the microscope at bacteria many times. I immediately realized that what I was looking at right then on hallucinogenic drugs looked just like the bacteria that we saw under our microscopes. I could follow these little creatures in my vision easily. (229)

Hello? Isn’t this a serious warning sign? You have the image of bacteria fresh in your mind, and suddenly you see them in a drug experience? One of the most well-documented effects of hallucinogens is to increase greatly our capacity for visualization and imagination. Doesn’t it seemly highly plausible that under the influence of the drug the mind might have focused on this particular memory, embellishing it in various ways?6

DeGracia thinks the phenomena he observed were real in the scientific sense, because his companion on that trip had a similar experience:

both my friend and I seemed to see the same thing. One could say that it was wishful thinking, or that we each influenced one another somehow to make each other believe we were seeing the same things. First off, there was no belief involved. There was no imagining involved. We were quite literally seeing things. We were literally perceiving visual images. Nobody was making anything up. The whole experience was very exploratory, we were trying to make sense out of images we had never seen before. Thus, the question is: how come we both saw the same things? For if we think of these images as simply hallucinations, then there is no good reason that my hallucinations should look like my friend’s. (234)

Though this is what one would expect a scientist to point out, I find it a little ironic that DeGracia would take this approach. In another part of the book, he compares people to quantum particles, capable of resonating with each other. As I will discuss later, I think what DeGracia calls resonance can be quite adequately explained by known psychological and neurophysiological processes. But he is correct in pointing out that one person can influence what someone else perceives, and again, under the influence of a psychedelic, one would expect this effect to be enhanced.

Having used psychedelics myself, I have had the similar experience of finding that someone who was with me at the time was able to perceive, or claimed to perceive, what I did. I don’t necessarily interpret this as meaning that our perceptions were objective in the scientific sense. To me they might be explained by the vastly greater suggestibility and imagination we have when under the influence. Even in the normal state of consciousness, if someone describes something to us, we can visualize it to some extent. When taking a hallucinogen, we frequently can imagine it in a far more real sense.

DeGracia alludes to this when he notes:

An extremely interesting effect of these drug experiences is that my friend and I, and a third friend (not the third friend mentioned above) who has also had the same hallucinogenic perception, can all reproduce the effect, only at a much, much less intense level, when we are straight (i.e. not on any drugs at all). (232)

Why is the experience so much less intense, so less real, when not taking a drug? Well, most scientists would probably say because there are processes in the brain that evolved to distinguish “real” perceptions, those “out there” in the world, from ones we imagine. If such processes didn’t exist, we would not be able to discriminate phenomena essential to survival, such as predators, prey or potential mates, from some internalization visualization of them. Under the influence of hallucinogens, however, these processes may be inhibited or inactivated, with the result that we can no longer distinguish reality from imagination. Indeed, isn’t this basically the definition of a hallucination?

DeGracia says “nobody was making anything up”. But the brain is always “making things up”. Sometimes, as when we try to visualize something, we are aware of this to some extent. Other times, as when we observe something in the external world—or when we use language–we are largely if not completely unaware of this. The question is not whether something was being made up, but rather, the source of the information on which the making up process was based. Just because DeGracia and his friend were not actively trying to imagine or visualize something, just because some image came to them apparently spontaneously, says nothing about the processes that might have created that image, processes that they might not have been aware of.

I don’t want to be too hard on DeGracia here. I’m not accusing him of fraud, by any means. I’ve had enough experiences with hallucinogenic drugs to appreciate how real and profound perceptions in this state often appear to be, and I have great respect for someone who tries to come to terms with them scientifically. I’m not going to deny flat-out that he witnessed sub-cellular structures and events in his brain. Maybe he really did. But based on his descriptions, I don’t find it hard to come up with alternative explanations that, in the absence of independent proof for the possibility of micro-psi, seem far more plausible to me.7

Finally, I note that, as with the Leadbeater/Besant claims to see atoms, DeGracia’s observations don’t seem very reproducible. He claims that he and his friend experience these green and purple visions regularly, but I’ve never heard of anyone else seeing them. I certainly don’t recall an experience like this when I took hallucinogens. And in fact, in my view this is a fundamental problem with interpreting drug-induced perceptions as interactions with reality—that there is so little reproducibility from one observer to another.8 One effect that is quite reproducible is a state of higher awareness, in which one perceives the familiar world, but is much more aware of it than one ordinarily is. In this case, I think this does count as evidence for this higher state, and indeed, my drug-induced experiences of it were a major factor in my seeking a spiritual path. But almost everything else claimed to exist on the basis of drug experiences, it seems to me, is open to debate.

Unnecessary Worlds?
If DeGracia’s claims that certain occult findings have been confirmed by science seem to be exaggerated, what other means of validating them can he offer? At several points in the book, he takes a very different and unexpected tack. Rather than viewing the occult as mysterious, and largely beyond the knowledge or awareness of ordinary people, he suggests that evidence for it abounds in the kinds of experiences all of us have routinely in our lives. We just don’t appreciate it:

Here is a better illustration of a precognitive event: Let us say that during our above experiment the subject noticed that the experimenter was a bit pale, and seemed unusually tired. The thought passed briefly through the subject’s mind that perhaps the experimenter is coming down with a cold or something. Then, two days later, completely unknown to the subject, the experimenter is in bed with the flu. Indeed, the subject saw the future! Thus, by all rights this was a precognitive event. “But it is only common sense” you say. There was nothing particularly unique or special about the subject’s surmising that the experimenter was unhealthy. But the point here is that this is the essence of precognition. (131-132)

DeGracia follows this with other common, well-known examples of “precognition”, then concludes:

The essence of “mind-reading” in the above examples is this: In some sense or another, our minds can be likened to radio receivers and ideas can be likened to radio transmissions. When we think a thought we are literally broadcasting our thought into our mental environment. And there it floats ready for another mind to receive it. (135)

I have no problem at all with his claiming that these kinds of foretelling the future occur. The problem is simply, why do we need any reference to non-physical worlds into which we broadcast non-physical phenomena to explain them? Science is perfectly capable of doing the job. In the first example, you notice that the person is pale, through the process of vision. You associate paleness with poor health, perhaps unconsciously. You conclude that the person is sick, or may become so. If science can’t account for this sort of “mind-reading”, that is very big news to every scientist I know.

A little later, DeGracia quotes Leadbeater:

Thus, the social force between two people…arises from the thoughtforms emitted by the one and absorbed by the other. The thought-forms emitted by the first one make contact with the person that gave rise to them, and then they race across and make contact with the other person… The social forces between large scale objects is just the sum of these forces.” (160)

He then comments that

It is indeed uncanny that clairvoyant observations of nonphysical processes should resemble so closely the descriptions physicists use.(160)

And concludes:

Nonphysical psychological processes as described by clairvoyant observers follow the same general patterns as quantum mechanical processes. Or more generally, nonphysical processes appear to be describable by the same mathematical dynamic systems used in the descriptions of physical systems.(185)

But unless I missed something, he provides no evidence or mathematical equations to back up this statement. His actual evidence for comparing human communication to quantum communication seems based on rather superficial analogies. For example, in his discussion of his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs, he comments:

our perception that evening had a “frame-by-frame” quality about it. Thus, our perception is discreet, just the same way that we conceive matter to be in quantum physics. This is just one more observation that shows that quantum processes occur at the macroscopic level. (243)

There are lots of discrete phenomena in nature, that doesn’t make them particularly analogous to quantum effects. For example, though the electromagnetic spectrum is continuous, and we are capable of making very fine discriminations among wavelengths of light, we generally see the world in terms of discrete colors (Berlin and Kay 1969; Rosch 1973). Though vision certainly involves quantum processes, our experiences of discrete colors can be explained by the properties of the major types of cone cells in the retina (Lakoff 1987).

Similarly, we identify discrete objects in the world, though in fact the sensory information coming to us from the world does not resolve itself in this manner. Our perception of distinct objects depends on processing in the visual cortex and other parts of the brain. Again, while quantum processes are occurring, as they always are in molecular and cellular events, the macroscopic processes that create our experience of discrete objects bear no particular similarity or analogy to these processes.

Later, in a section called Ecological Quantum Psychosociology, DeGracia expounds on this idea further, arguing that individuals are like atoms, interacting through a quantum resonance process. I like this notion to some extent. As I have discussed at length in my own book, The Dimensions of Experience, there are significant analogies between communication processes among atoms, molecules, cells and organisms, including humans.9 But it seems to me to be completely unnecessary to postulate non-physical fields and resonance processes:

No physical communication need occur, these processes operate spontaneously on nonphysical levels. Simply bringing two personalities (or auras) in contact will result in a field interaction between them. (284)

Communication among humans can be explained quite adequately by the physiological processes underlying the expression and reception of postures, gestures, and language. While there is still much we don’t know about human communicative processes, particularly language, there is nothing about the problem that seems inherently intractable, that demands consideration of non-physical processes. For example. when DeGracia says,

It is through contexts that we understand and communicate with each other. Again, this is a very instinctive process, and we are usually unaware that our communication is actually contextual in its nature. Contexts are often implicit frames of reference in our day to day communication. The point here is that it is generally not acknowledged how complex processes of human communication are, and how dependent these are on unspoken factors. (160)

he doesn’t seem to understand that linguists are quite aware of contexts (see, for example, Lakoff’s Philosophy in the Flesh).10 Indeed the entirety of postmodern philosophy might be said to be based on this notion. All DeGracia is really entitled to claim here is that if such non-physical fields existed, they might provide a means for communication. But they are completely unnecessary as an explanation, which means that these communication processes provide no support whatsoever for the possible existence of these fields.

Why is DeGracia so intent on providing this alternative, and to nearly any scientist, completely unsupported view, of human behavior? Here he explains the benefit he sees in this notion:

The advantage of the occult view is that we can now appreciate the unique features of physical, etheric, emotional and mental phenomena as self-contained features inherent to each particular plane. That is, each particular level can be understood to be unique in its own terms, and it is not necessary to define one level in terms of the other, such as, for example, seeking a physical cause for mental phenomena or seeing a mental cause of physical phenomena. (151)

It is conceptually simpler if we can understand all the contents of our subjective awareness, our physical, emotional, and mental impressions, as sensory input from the respective planes. (155)

Is it really conceptually simpler? I would have thought it was conceptually simpler to explain everything in terms of the physical or material.11 Yes, there are major problems in understanding how emotional and mental events can arise from physical ones, but how has the occult view addressed these problems? By postulating what amounts to entire new emotional and mental worlds in which these events occur. Beyond the fact that this view is adding enormously to the conceptual baggage we need in order to understand the world, simply postulating the existence of these worlds does nothing at all to address the fundamental problems posed by the materialist view. If thoughts and feelings do not result from material processes, how do they originate? What is the origin of the other planes of existence? How do they interact with the physical world? A whole new set of problems arise, some of which appear to be every bit as intractable as those associated with the materialist view.

I think what DeGracia means, and here I agree with him, is that there is unifying elegance to the occult system, where every type of experience involves a subject interacting with some kind of object. Thus there are not only sensory objects but emotional objects and mental objects. The system is simple in the limited sense that the kinds of interactions are or may be analogous, not involving the layers of processing that science understands occur between a sensory impression and an emotion or a thought. If one understands a process at one level or plane, then through analogy one may understand what it is like at another plane.

But knowledge is ultimately based on observation, not on our feelings about how the world should be organized. A great deal is known about the complex processes in the brain that occur during thoughts and emotions, and even if the occult view that DeGracia presents were to be validated, it would still have to incorporate these processes into its system. So to the extent that science is complex, I don’t see that the occult view offers a way to simplify it much except in very general terms. In fact, DeGracia himself at one point describes the occult as “vastly complex”.

I also find elegance in the notion of what Gurdjieff used to call different degrees of materiality:

there is a definite relationship between physical and nonphysical matter. They are not distinctly different things, but gradations of the same thing. (181)

This again suggests a unity, where there really are no qualitative (I’m tempted to say, as a way of suggesting problems with this view, quantum) distinctions between phenomena, but rather only continuous or quantitative ones. But again, we have to address the phenomena we know. Currently, at least, it is hard to understand how our qualitative experiences can be considered material in a way that is continuous with the materiality of physical processes.12 It is one thing to say they are. It is quite another to imagine how they possibly could be.

Fringe Benefits
If I have been highly critical of DeGracia in this review, it’s because of that old saw, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. DeGracia has made a great many extraordinary claims in his book, and I find most of them not backed up by extraordinary evidence. Some of his claims may be plausible, but given the stakes involved, plausibility alone doesn’t cut it here.

To be fair, it’s important to keep in mind that DeGracia is really trying to defend two theses in this book: 1) that occult phenomena are real, they do exist; and 2) they can be understood to some extent (though certainly not in their totality) through science. I have mostly been arguing against 2). To claim that there is little or no scientific evidence for occult phenomena obviously is relevant to 1), whether they exist at all, but it is not compelling evidence. By DeGracia’s definition, occult phenomena are non-physical, so it’s hardly surprising that a system of knowledge based on observation of physical phenomena would fail to observe them.

Near the end of the book, DeGracia points out that observing the occult is associated with a personal transformation. I think he might have emphasized this more in this book. If all our observations involve both a subject and an object, then changing the subject is critical to changing the nature of the observations. Scientists must undergo a long period of formal training in order to be considered capable of making authentic observations. In mysticism, which has an uneasy relationship with the occult (DeGracia begins his book by drawing a distinction beween mysticism and the occult, yet later, all his examples of Eastern occult practices are ones in fact closely associated with mysticism) it is well understood that one can’t realize a higher state of consciousness without the practice of meditation.

Perhaps there is a set of practices—other than taking psychedelic drugs, and distinct from the meditative practice that leads to higher consciousness–that can enhance one’s ability to observe occult phenomena. DeGracia may discuss some of these practices in his other books, which I have not read. But by presenting the alleged observations of individuals like Roberts who claimed to have spontaneous encounters with the occult, and by describing his own relevant experiences almost entirely in terms of hallucinogenic drugs, DeGracia leaves the question of what exactly individuals are supposed to do hanging. He talks about changing our “relationship to our thoughts and ideas”, but doesn’t provide much insight into how this will happen, or for that matter, why it should happen. For a true synthesis of science and the occult to take place, large number of people, perhaps the overwhelming majority of us, would probably have to experience occult phenomena. Does DeGracia really think this is likely? It seems to me that if some of these phenomena that DeGracia discusses do exist, it is much more likely that they will never be experienced by more than a tiny proportion of humanity.

Beyond their belief in the validity of the evidence for occult phenomena, what motivates seekers like DeGracia is clearly an enormous dissatisfaction with the limits of science. Though it has been highly successful in transforming our practical circumstances, science continues to founder at the ultimate questions, two I think in particular:

1) Where did the universe come from? If it came from nothing, how? If it came from something, what was that something and where did it come from?
2) What is consciousness? How is it related to physical processes?

But as I alluded to earlier, the occult has no good answers for these questions, either. Perhaps such questions cease to exist or make sense in another plane of existence. Or maybe the answers become apparent to someone realizing one of the occult worlds, and simply can’t be communicated to those who are familiar with only the physical world. But if someone as intelligent, informed and knowledgeable about science as DeGracia is can’t make a better case for the occult, I think it will continue to remain a fringe endeavor.

ENDNOTES

1. In this and all following quotes from DeGracia, the number in parentheses refers to the page number in the online version.
2. Actually, the notion of a universe containing possibilities as well as actualities predates both Everett and Roberts. The Russian mathematician and philosopher P.D. Ouspensky, who had a keen interest in the occult and who is best known for his association with the mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, discussed a similar notion in his book A New Order of the Universe, published in the early part of the 20th century. And Ouspensky makes it quite clear that this idea did not originate with him. But Ouspensky’s version of this idea is sufficiently general that it hardly counts as being validated by Everett, and I think the same can be said about Roberts.
3. This and other criticisms of the Leadbeater/Besant work can be found at: http://www.chem.yale.edu/~chem125/125/history99/8Occult/OccultAtoms.html
4. Capra (1976), preface.
5. Pert (1997), p. 287.
6. It’s relevant to note in this connection that this is a well-known feature of many dreams. Often we have a dream that features a specific event from our waking existence, the day before we go to sleep, or maybe from some earlier time period. While no one knows why a particular event becomes incorporated into a dream, the fact that it frequently does illustrates the mind’s ability to take real life experiences and visualize them in some completely different context. DeGracia states in his book that he believes dreams are also experiences on a non-physical plane of existence. While I don’t agree with this, it certainly is highly plausible that a process that occurs in dreaming might also occur under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug. So it is not at all hard to believe that, having observed bacteria under a microscope for the first time, DeGracia later, after taking a drug, might have seen them in a “dream-like” state.
7. An additional problem with the entire notion of micro-psi is how to account for it in terms of what we know about the brain. DeGracia, if I understand him correctly, believes that we perceive these very small-scale events through some non-physical process. This alone strongly implies a dualistic system, with all the well-known philosophical problems that presents (in fact, given the multiple non-physical planes involved, the system contains multiple worlds that cannot, by any conventional scientific or philosophical understanding, interact with one another). Then, somehow, this small-scale information is translated into physical visual processes, apparently through coding into neural pathways. The latter must be the case, since after the drug effects wear off, the user still has the memory of the experience.
8. Tbough DeGracia is surely aware of this, he does not point out that most if not all of these psychedelic substances are neurotransmitter analogs; that is, they act by activating and/or inhibiting certain neural pathways in the brain. (As an aside, I found it incredible that DeGracia says he did not even know what substance he was taking; though I support the use of these drug, I do not advocate them for teen-agers, as apparently DeGracia was at the time). This means that their effects are quite general, having actions on very extensive areas of the brain. Thus one might expect that the specific content of these experiences might vary widely.
9. Beyond his belief in non-physical processes, I have some other problems with DeGracia’s attempt to draw analogies between quantum and human interactions. That is, even if we take the view that human interactions can be completely explained by physical processes, the analogy does not seem very convincing to me.

First, I think he’s making far too much of the similarities. Normal human
interaction is only like quantum interaction in the most superficial manner. If, for
example, no quantum theory existed, all the discoveries by physicists in the early
part of the last century had never been made, no one would be observing human
behavior today and coming up with a theory about it that resembled quantum
theory even in a very general way, let alone a highly specific, mathematical way.
As far as I can see, it’s only because quantum theory exists, and the notion of
resonating waves appeals to some theorists, that these theorists imagine
interacting humans to be like quantum phenomena. In other words, quantum
processes are a contemporary model out there that can be used to think about
human behavior. In this respect, they are something like the computer model,
except I would say the computer model is still a far more applicable and relevant
one.

Second, if one is going to claim that analogies exist on different levels, I believe
one should support that by showing that they exist on all levels, not just a select
two. In The Dimensions of Experience, for example, all the analogies I discuss
and take seriously apply to three consecutive levels: atoms and their interactions in molecules, macromolecules and macromolecular complexes; cells and their
interactions in tissues and organs; and organisms and their interactions in societies
of organisms. As one example, scale-free or small world networks, describable
with the identical mathematical equations, exist on all three of these levels. I do
not, as yet, take the quantum world seriously as an analog of processes on other
levels, because I don’t see those analogous processes on other levels: not in interactions among cells, nor in interactions among organisms, including our own species. Maybe DeGracia is onto something here; I would be very interested and sympathetic if he were. But based on what he says in this book, I remain quite
unconvinced.

10. I do give DeGracia credit, though, for his perception of this issue. When his book was written, in 1993, the role of contexts in communications was less appreciated than it is now.
11. As, for example, in E.O. Wilson’s book Consilience (1999). Whatever the problems with the materialist view that Wilson promotes—and I am strong critic of his view–it does provide a unifying synthesis.
12. This raises yet another problem. According to DeGracia, thoughts and emotions are experienced differently from sensations, because while the latter involve our interaction as physical beings with a physical world, the former involve non-physical interactions with non-physical worlds. But even simple sensations give rise to qualia, which seem just as divorced from the physical world, just as difficult to explain in terms of physical processes, as emotional or mental experiences. Indeed, what is most difficult to explain about thoughts and emotions is precisely what is difficult to explain about sensations. Other aspects of thoughts and emotions—their content as opposed to their raw feel—seem quite tractable in terms of science. So while the existence of a non-physical world might seem demanded by our experience of qualia, there does not seem to be a requirement for multiple kinds of such worlds.

REFERENCES

Berlin B, Kay, P (1969) Basic color terms: their universality and evolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Capra, F. (1976) The Tao of Physics (Boulder, CO: Shambhala)

Lakoff G (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff G, Johnson M (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh (New York: Basic Books)

Ouspensky PD (1961) In Search of the Miraculous. (New York: Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich)

Ouspensky, PD (1971) A New Model of the Universe (NY: Vintage)

Pert, CB (1997( Molecules of Emotion. (New York: Touchstone)

Rosch C (1973) Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 4: 328-350.

Wilson, EO (1999) Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Vintage)

Al Gore is indelibly associated with the phrase “an inconvenient truth”, but the ideas that Sam Harris promotes as truths are resisted far more than global climate change. His first book, Letter to a Christian Nation, was a scathing indictment of organized religion, putting him in the company of other outspoken atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. Atheism is a minority view in America, even among scientists apparently, and in most of the rest of the world, and these “four horsemen of the apocalypse” have received heavy criticism even from some of science’s staunchest defenders. Some, like Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of Unscientific America, seem to think science and religion could get along just fine if people like Harris didn’t point out the conflicts.
In his most recent book, The Moral Landscape, though, Harris attempts to push religion even further out of the picture. He argues that science can not only tell us the way the world is, but the way it ought to be—indeed, he claims that the distinction between is and ought, traditionally the great dividing line between science and morality, is an illusion. That just as there is a correct, fact-of-the-matter way of understanding natural phenomena, there is also a correct way for both individuals and societies to act. In so doing, Harris challenges not simply religion, which of course has long been considered by many as a major if not sole origin of moral values, but much if not most of academia, which has frequently argued that we have no right, and no basis, to say that one moral perspective is superior to another.
The moral guidance that Harris says science can provide us takes the form of utilitarianism, or more precisely according to him, consequentialism. Utilitarianism, long associated with the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, seeks to create the greatest “good” for the greatest number of people. Consequentialism simply states that our actions must ultimately be judged by their consequences, the impact they have on ourselves and other people. For Harris, the key consequence to be maximized is “well-being”, and this, according to him, is something that science can address:

Questions about values—about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose—are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood: regarding positive and negative social emotions, retributive impulses, the effects of specific laws and social institutions on human relationships, the neurophysiology of happiness and suffering, etc. The most important of these facts are bound to transcend culture—just as facts about physical and mental health do. (1-2).1

Utilitarianism/consequentialism has been criticized extensively by many philosophers and ethicists. I will not attempt to discuss all of these objections here2, but focus on two issues, very closely related, that I believe are key: 1) what is good, or what Harris refers to as well-being? Can it really be objectively defined, that is, in a manner that holds true universally in the same way that scientific facts are regarded? And 2) how can we take into account all the possible consequences of any action? That is, even if we accept that certain actions or forms of behavior have consequences that are preferable to others, how can we know that in the future there will not be additional, more negative consequences?

Morality and uncertainty
Consequentialists come in many different flavors. Any act is likely to have numerous consequences, so one of the most important distinctions among them is based on what kind of consequences they regard as morally significant. The most basic version, more or less held by Bentham and Mill, regards pleasure, pure and simple, as the ultimate good or value. An act is morally correct to the extent that it creates a more pleasurable experience. This version is referred to as hedonistic consequentialism, since pleasure-seeking is often described as hedonism (though that term tends to be pejorative today).
This view, however, is open to several criticisms. It has been pointed out that some people may find pleasure in situations that most of us would regard as negative, e.g., in acting cruelly to others. Another problem many philosophers find with hedonistic consequentialism is that it is potentially divorced from external reality. For example, if people could somehow be stimulated to receive constant pleasure, perhaps through the use of certain drugs, this would seem to count as a great moral advance. This is an issue I will return to later. For now, the point is simply that considerations such as these have led many philosophers to propose variations of consequentialism that find value in something other than simple pleasure.
While clearly sensitive to some of the weaknesses of hedonistic consequentialism, Harris does not specifically align himself with any particular alternative. If I understand him correctly, he wants science to determine exactly what the components contributing to well-being are. However, he does not discuss in any detail how science could do this. He draws an analogy with medicine, where people clearly accept that some forms of behavior and treatments are healthier than others, and willingly submit to a doctor’s advice. But though modern medicine is highly technological, and the average layperson often has to take a specialist’s word that a certain treatment or test has value, medicine is ultimately grounded in physical health that everyone can appreciate and understand. We all accept that death is something to be avoided, and we are all also familiar with many common symptoms of ill health, which no one enjoys. So to the extent that we believe that various medical treatments help us avoid or ameliorate disease or death, we don’t have a problem ceding authority to specialists. But does morality have such standards? Are good actions and bad actions or situations as easily distinguishable as healthy and unhealthy ones frequently are?
Harris seems to think so. Before discussing his reasoning for this, though, we need to consider another issue that has long bedeviled ethicists: just because we can clearly define some actions or situations as having greater well-being than others does not necessarily mean that we can unproblematically rank all possible actions or situations. We might agree on several or more factors that have moral value–good health, economic well-being, and physical security, for example—and we might also agree that one situation or life has more of all of these than some other situation. But we might still disagree about situations that have some but not all. Is it better to have good health at the expense of poor security, or vice-versa? Recent events in America, where a ballooning deficit has forced leaders to make uncomfortable choices about cutting social services, shows how critically important it can be to have a way of comparing different values. But some philosophers have argued that some values are incommensurable, that is, they constitute an apples-and-oranges situation that can’t be compared in a manner that allows them to be ranked (Chang 1997).
Harris does not deny that these problems will arise, but asserts that such questions have definite answers, even if we can’t always determine these answers precisely. He draws a parallel with the world of facts—something he does frequently throughout the book when attempting to show that morality is just as amenable to science as our view of the natural world—observing that the answers to some questions can never be answered, even though we accept that they do have answers. Thus we can never know how many birds are in the air all over the globe at one time, even though there is some definite number.
I have two problems with this. First, it is not clear that there is always a definite answer to such questions of value. If thinkers like Chang are correct, there are not. In any case, simply stating that there are unanswerable questions of fact that have definite answers does not prove that the situation with values is similar. Indeed, since the notion that morality is like science is his novel proposal, it could be argued that he is engaging in circular reasoning here. I think it is incumbent on him to prove that morality has parallels to science, rather than to support some point by assuming that it does.
Worse, though, even if there is a close parallel between science and morality, it would not necessarily be a reason to believe in an unambiguous universe of values. Not all questions in science that are unanswerable have definite answers. The example of birds in the sky is obviously a trivial one; the answer doesn’t really matter. But what about the path of a quantum particle? This has no definite answer, but can only be described in probabilistic terms. In pointing this out, I don’t mean to imply that moral values may be uncertain in much the same way. This example just illustrates that not all uncertainty that we have reflects limitations of our technology or effort. Some of it appears to be intrinsic to the way the world is.
There are still other questions is science that may in fact have no answers, not even approximate or probabilistic ones. Consider the causal origin or basis of consciousness. The scientific worldview that Harris accepts assumes consciousness emerges from patterns of neural activity. Indeed, this assumption is critical to Harris’ view that science can provide answers to moral questions, since he believes well-being is ultimately a question of conscious experience. But this question may not be simply unanswerable now; there are philosophers, like Colin McGinn and Thomas Nagel, who believe we will never be able to answer it. There are still other philosophers, like David Chalmers, who believe that consciousness in fact does not have a neural basis, at least in its most primordial form, but is a feature of the universe more fundamental than the brains that manifest it.
One might argue that this second objection does not impact the validity of Harris’ view that morality can be based in science. It just suggests that this view might in some situations not be capable of being put into effective practice. Just as science may be incapable of answering all our questions, perhaps a scientific approach to morality will prove unable to help us make important moral decisions. But a key premise of Harris’ view is that our values are grounded in conscious experience. If we can never demonstrate exactly how conscious experience is related to the neural processes that science studies, this could be a problem for his view of morality.

What do we want and what do we need?
The preceding discussion raised the issue of just how well we can map what Harris calls the moral landscape: how good our estimates are of the height of some peak of values. A deeper question that some critics of Harris are sure to raise is whether we can construct a map at all; that is, whether we can define any situations or actions or behavior as clearly having greater value than others. Harris thinks that it should be quite obvious that we can. In fact, he anchors his moral landscape by contrasting two extreme views, one of a very bad or poor life and one a very good one. Here is his description of the good one:

You are married to the most loving, intelligent, and charismatic person you have ever met. Both of you have careers that are intellectually stimulating and financially rewarding. For decades, your wealth and social connections have allowed you to devote yourself to activities that bring you immense personal satisfaction. One of your greatest sources of happiness has been to find creative ways to help people who have not had your good fortune in life. In fact, you have just won a billion-dollar grant to benefit children in the developing world. If asked, you would say that you could not imagine how your time on earth could be better spent. Due to a combination of good genes and optimal circumstances, you and your closest friends and family will live very long, healthy lives, untouched by crime, sudden bereavements, and other misfortunes.
(15-16).

While the point Harris is trying to make here is quite clear, I find this description rather naïve. It incorporates all the trendy, Hollywood visions of what the good life is: a perfect spouse, perfect health, unlimited finances, a meaningful profession, and apparently a life totally free of any conflicts. All the bases seem to be covered: we not only feel good, but are acting compassionately to help others; So set up, we live happily ever after.
What’s wrong with this? Isn’t this what everyone really wants? A life “untouched by crime, sudden bereavements, and other misfortunes”?
Well, that’s certainly what a lot of people think they want. But is a life like that really a moral ideal? What about all the people whose lives have been touched by various misfortunes, and as a result have grown in ways that would have been impossible otherwise? Couldn’t one make the argument that someone who has had to undergo great hardships to reach a certain status is in a better moral position than someone who has not faced such a struggle?
Consider cancer, for example. A major goal of the modern medical system, to which everyone subscribes, is to find cures for the various forms of this disease, so that no one ever has to die from it. Even people who don’t die from it, who do recover, frequently undergo an enormous amount of suffering, and again, a universal goal is to eradicate this suffering. In fact, as I noted earlier, Harris makes a strong analogy between medicine and morality. He points out that just as no one questions that a goal of medicine should be to improve one’s physical health, no one should question a morality designed to improve one’s moral health or well-being. We don’t regard doctors as dictators when they recommend certain courses of action; likewise, Harris suggests, there is nothing inherently authoritarian about a moral system that strongly recommends that everyone behave in certain ways.
But then what does one say about cancer survivors, and they are legion, who insist that having the disease has made them a better person, sometimes to the point where they say they are glad they had the disease? Do we abandon the search for treatments and cures? Presumably not. We might tell people who are diagnosed with cancer that this is an opportunity to grow, but we would be very reluctant to tell someone recently diagnosed that he or she is fortunate. Yet the fact is that it sometimes seems to work out that way.
This objection to consequentialism obviously touches as well on the second issue I mentioned earlier, that of sorting out all the consequences, positive as well as negative, of a specific act or event; a diagnosis of cancer may have very negative immediate consequences, yet very positive ones in the long-term. So in determining the consequences, we have to ask: over what period of time? An act or situation that has immediate consequences of one sort or value may have longer-term consequences of a very different value. What is the cut-off point at which we decide? Is there in fact any cut-off point? In the scientific worldview to which Harris subscribes there is an endless chain or network of cause-and-effect, so presumably some effects of the original cancer diagnosis will manifest themselves indefinitely. How could we ever even know what all these effects were, let alone evaluate them all, and even if we could, how could we do so at the moment of diagnosis?
Harris is aware of this problem. He notes that philosopher Daniel Dennett raised the issue with regard to a major social event, the failure of the nuclear reactor at Three-Mile Island. While there were some very immediate and negative effects of the reactor failure, over the longer run it led to changes in America’s approach to nuclear power, and energy usage in general, some of which might be regarded as very beneficial. So was the reactor failure a good thing or a bad thing? But while Harris takes note of this objection, as far as I can see he never provides a satisfactory answer to it.3
It’s not difficult to see that the problem of unintended or unanticipated consequences extends to a great many situations that impact individuals as well as societies; in addition to disease, there are many other major traumas individuals suffer—losing a job, divorce, end of a friendship, going to jail, even death of a loved one—which are generally considered negative and to be avoided if at all possible, yet through which we frequently grow and by our own judgment and that of others, enhance our well-being. This is so well-recognized today that most professional advice given to people in such situations includes the plea to use it as a path to personal growth.4
Nor is this process of turning suffering into well-being limited just to major life events. It’s interwoven throughout all the most mundane aspects of daily existence. People often suffer enormously in the process of trying to attain some goal—maintaining a marriage, raising children, holding a job, acquiring and developing some skill. Of course in this case the suffering is usually anticipated at least to some extent, and rationalized as a necessary price that one willingly pays for the sake of the goal. But that simply raises a still more fundamental question: is it possible, absent unusual luck or circumstances, to achieve anything without suffering? Isn’t suffering a necessary part of life, one that actually enriches it?
Harris takes note of this problem when he mentions a scenario in which someone sees her child die accidentally before her eyes, then immediately takes a pill which completely alleviates the normal suffering one would experience in those circumstances. He seems to believe, as most of us probably would, that there is something bizarre if not actually pathological about this. That one should have to feel some grief at such a momentously terrible moment:

Given a choice—and this choice, in some form, is surely coming—I think that most of us will want our mental states to be coupled, however loosely, to the reality of our lives.
(84)

The question is, does “wanting” our mental states to be coupled to reality constitute an overwhelmingly compelling reason for them to be so? As Harris is well aware, the history of science has provided numerous examples where our common sense view of reality proved to be false. A morality based on science is likely to reveal, analogously, that what we want is not always in the best interests of our well-being. How do we decide?
The acid test here is the situation where individuals are stimulated in such a manner so as to receive constant pleasure. While this scenario was once mostly a thought experiment to help philosophers judge the implications of consequentialism, as Harris implies, science has reached a stage where the possibility is not at all far-fetched. As I noted earlier, this is an implication of hedonistic consequentialism that bothers many of its critics, and it has spawned a large number of modified versions of the philosophy. Harris does not take refuge in any of these, but simply observes that excessive dependence on some drug, for example, might result in ignoring physical reality to the point where we couldn’t survive. In other words, the argument is not simply that we shouldn’t, but that we can’t uncouple our conscious states entirely from reality.
But that supposes that a blissful state in which one is fully cognizant of reality is not possible. What if it is? What if by taking some drug one could avoid all the negative aspects of life—or at least enormously reduce their impact–without losing one’s capacity to make judgments about what to do? Or what if we could program computers to take care of the messy details? Doesn’t Harris’ consequentialism lead us inexorably to this?

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t
Let’s consider the situation Harris finds himself in more carefully. To say that we can’t divorce our mental states completely from reality seems tantamount to conceding that we have to feel some negativity; it’s biologically necessary for us in order to avoid certain situations which will ultimately be detrimental to our well-being. In the extreme case, we have to avoid situations which would threaten our existence as individuals or as a species; by definition, these situations are negative, and if we don’t feel this negativity, we won’t be motivated to avoid them. In fact, this is why negative emotions presumably evolved.
In other words, according to this view, we need such emotions; but if this is the case, then some suffering is inevitable. If suffering is inevitable, then the goal of morality can’t be to eradicate it, but to reduce it. Is this Harris’ intention? He never says, but I imagine he would argue that while perhaps we can’t eradicate some of the pain of ordinary existence, we can and should eradicate the enormous suffering endured by the wretched of this world.5
But can we really draw such a clear-cut distinction? If the effect of suffering is to motivate us to avoid certain situations and seek other situations, then isn’t it the case that more suffering will result in greater motivation, and greater potential for beneficial change? Don’t all the stories about horrors in some undeveloped country ultimately make it more, not less, likely that people who have the power will act to change conditions in this country? Would the people in Tunisia or Libya or Syria have finally revolted if their life had been a little more tolerable?6
So it seems to me that as soon as one accepts that a certain amount of suffering is not only inevitable but necessary to our survival, it becomes very difficult to argue for the possibility of reducing suffering at all. The nature of suffering may change, and its distribution, but whether total suffering in the world7 by any reasonable definition has changed or can change seems to me highly debatable. Obviously the answer depends to a large extent on how we rank various forms of suffering, but as I discussed earlier, that in itself is problematic. Suppose we could eradicate hunger and other effects of poverty throughout the world, but only at the cost of a drastic change in the lifestyle of everyone in the developed world. The very fact that so many people resist this notion suggests that they believe their lives would have much less value.
At this point we might bite the bullet and argue that the goal has to be the eradication of all human suffering. In other words, we take the view that as long as negative emotions exist, then the purpose of morality remains unfulfilled. And if this is not possible through changes in external reality, it could be achieved through manipulation of the human brain. Through drugs, electrical stimulation or other forms of technology, let’s suppose that we could maintain a high level of pleasurable existence for everyone on earth.
What’s wrong with this? If everyone, through sophisticated manipulation of the brain, could be provided with positive experiences, while maintaining the necessary physical support system, wouldn’t this have an outcome exactly like what Harris envisions? The greatest well-being for the greatest number of people?
We have in fact a sort of pilot experiment on hand to evaluate this possibility: the community of drug addicts. Most people take psychoactive drugs, of course, precisely to maximize what they consider their well-being: increase positive experiences and avoid negative ones. The standard criticism of drug abusers is that they are indeed divorcing themselves from reality, and this is why this kind of life so often ends tragically. But we are assuming that this objection has been addressed, and that people are free to seek pleasure in this manner without threatening their relationship to the physical world or even (assuming scientifically very sophisticated programs of brain manipulation) their health. Would this work?
I think there are two problems with this approach. First, it might well not be possible. We know that drug addicts become tolerant to the drug (this is part of what addiction means), so that they require larger and larger amounts to induce the same degree of effect. Brain stimulation or some other form of manipulation is likely to result in the same problem. In other words, there may be built-in processes in the brain that make it impossible to eradicate all suffering.
In any case, by eliminating all negative emotions, we surely also eliminate a major motivation for change. If people are in a constant state of pleasure, why will they want to seek to improve their lives? What could improvement even mean in such a situation? Seeking of greater pleasure, but why would one want to do that if one was not experiencing dissatisfaction in the current state?

In pursuit of selfishness
I have been basically arguing, as have many ethical philosophers, that a simple definition of “well-being” is not adequate as a basis of morality. There really is more to life than seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, no matter how broadly we may conceive of these states. Harris may be aware of this, and perhaps he intends his definition of well-being to address it, but if so, he has been very vague as to just what it would mean. What exactly is missing from the usual concepts of this term?
An obvious place to seek an answer to that question would be in individuals who seem most clearly to be exceptions to the rule of seek pleasure/avoid pain. Earlier I discussed cancer survivors, many of whom have come to regard their disease as a blessing rather than a curse. What did they discover that trumped pleasure? I suggested that the short answer, though the term is vague and over-used, is personal growth. In the process of dealing with cancer, or other life-threatening diseases, many individuals have developed a new and enlarged understanding of both themselves and the world, one that they have found far more valuable and worthwhile than personal comfort.
Survivors like these make this discovery by accident; they are forced to learn it against their will. But it is possible to access this experience of growth purposefully. The essence of spiritual practice, according to Buddhist teachings, involve struggling with our desires, and in the views of some schools intentional suffering—seeking out situations that are bound to be experienced as uncomfortable or painful by an individual. In other words, there is an understanding or a belief that there are certain states of enhanced well-being that can only be realized by discarding our conventional views of pleasure and pain.
How can we incorporate these notions into a more comprehensive view of morality? The key concept is the sense of self. Let us accept, with consequentialists like Harris, that the purpose of morality is to enhance well-being. But then we should further ask, the well-being of who? Conventional ethicists, beginning all the way back with Plato and other Greek philosophers and continuing right up the contemporary theorists like Harris, assume that well-being always refers to individuals. Moral behavior is defined as that which enhances the well-being of particular individuals, ourselves and others. But our sense of self is not confined to the individual, and this is why any moral system based exclusively on individual well-being ultimately will be incomplete.
If we consider the evolution of life, the sense of self certainly emerged as closely associated with an individual. If an organism does not recognize itself as somehow different from the rest of the world, it will not take appropriate actions to maintain its integrity as an organism—seeking prey, avoiding predators, and so on. While we would not describe survival-oriented behavior in simple organisms as having a moral basis, we can see in their behavior the development of a self that eventually will require morality in order to preserve. An organism is an integrated being that is somewhat independent or autonomous with respect to the environment, and this autonomy is basically what traditional systems of morality have taken note of and attempted to respect.
However, the sense of self began to enlarge with the evolution of the higher vertebrates. These are the first organisms to experience pleasure and pain, as judging from the fact that they have the same brain areas in which we known that these emotions are localized in ourselves. Emotions of pleasure and pain serve as powerful signals motivating survival-oriented behavior, and thus further enhance individual well-being. But in these same organisms, the effect of this behavior is not always limited to survival of the individual; it may also enhance the survival of other members of its species. Most higher vertebrates live in families, and many in larger communal groups composed of several or more families. In these organisms, the sense of self is to some extent identified with the larger group. Much of their behavior—for example, mothers putting themselves at risk for the sake of their offspring; individuals warning the group of the presence of prey or predators—only makes sense if this larger sense of self is recognized.
As human beings, we evolved in this same context of families and small groups, but of course have taken it much further. As human societies have become larger and more complex, so has our sense of self. While most of us today have considerable identity as individuals, and some identity with our families, most of us have also come to identify ourselves to some extent as members of a much larger group, such as a nation. Again, we can see evidence of this expanded sense of self in some of our behavior—individuals who risk their lives in war, for example.
Any morality that is based on increasing or maximizing well-being, then, needs to take into account that our sense of self is not entirely confined to the individual. In fact, one could define morality as a system designed to teach individuals exactly that, to expand their sense of self beyond the individual. Most if not all traditional moral systems prescribe certain ways of behaving towards others—the Golden Rule is the outstanding example—that involve forgoing certain individual pleasures and pains for the sake of a larger group. The goal is not to become “selfless” so much as to redefine our self. Ethicists like Harris need to recognize these larger senses of self, for which well-being is very different from that for individuals.

ENDNOTES

1. Quotes from the book under review are from the kindle version, with locations given in parentheses.
2. For a good overview, see the entry on Consequentialism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A very valuable aspect of this essay is that it shows that for virtually any criticism of consequentialism that has been proposed, there is some modification of the basic philosophy designed to address this issue.
3. Philosophers have proposed modified forms of consequentialism to address this issue. For example, one might argue that what counts is not the actual consequences of some act, but rather the intended or expected ones. However, one could argue—and as will be clear in the above discussion I do—that every act has unexpected consequences, and that some of these consequences (always) are positive and some are negative. In other words, someone who does something believing that it will have no negative consequences is acting naively, out of ignorance.
4. And conversely, someone whose life is too easy, too pleasured—a spoiled child is the classic example—is arguably being set up for negative consequences later in life.
5. Note that this view implies that morality is in one very important respect different from science. The goal of science is perfection in our understanding; we expect to see the world, and its underlying causes, in increasingly greater clarity. The natural analogy to this in the moral sphere would surely be an end to all suffering (at a minimum; one could also argue that it would imply a constant increase in the well-being of everyone, beyond any basic level).
6. Harris notes a well-known paradox: that while one person’s suffering generally gets our attention, we tend to tune out at the news of mass suffering, so obvious on the nightly news. It might be argued, therefore, that situations of massive deficits in well-being do not in fact stimulate anyone to take corrective action. But while people in general may be less inclined to take action against massive suffering, some people are mobilized, and eventually, sometimes, the situation is remedied. At the very least, we can note that without such massive suffering nothing at all would be done.
7. There are versions of consequentialism that do not depend or base themselves on total suffering or well-being, but these versions are not necessarily compatible with Harris’s views. He does discuss the distinction between total and average suffering, and notes the problems with both.

  

As a child of the ‘60s, I vividly remember one of the commonest criticisms directed at my generation by the older one: all you want to do is tear down the system; you have nothing to replace it with. This wasn’t entirely true; the radicals of my day had a vision of a more participatory democracy. But this vision was vague, and there was virtually no plan at all of how it was to be actualized. Like Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks—whose current concern over the power and secrecy of the state suggests that much has not changed in the past fifty years–many activists of the time seemed to believe that if the current system collapsed, anything that emerged in its place would be better. 

I thought of this while reading Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza, with Bob Berman (Dallas TX: Benbella). Lanza, a prominent researcher in the stem cell field, has discovered–along with, oh, I don’t know, ten or fifty or one hundred thousand other scientists, philosophers, and scholars–that there are serious problems with the prevailing scientific worldview. Quantum physics, of all things, has shown that the observer determines reality. These results, along with some simple logic that indicates the objects we see in the external world are no more real than rainbows, virtually compels us, Lanza thinks, to formulate a new worldview. 

What, exactly, is this new worldview? Lanza doesn’t tell us very much about it, except to say that consciousness, not matter, is foremost. “There is no separate physical universe outside of life and consciousness,” he says. “Nothing is real that is not perceived. There was never a time when an external, dumb, physical universe existed, or that life sprang randomly from it at a later date.” (p. 159)

So how did the universe begin, then? If there can be no material existence in the absence of observers, then there must have been observers around at the creation of the universe–which, according to the prevailing scientific worldview, occurred with the Big Bang, about fourteen billion years ago. Lanza, not surprisingly, doesn’t buy the Big Bang scenario: 

Contemporary science asks us to believe: that the entire universe, exquisitely tailored for our existence, popped into existence out of absolute nothingness. Who in their right mind would believe such a thing? (p. 91) 

I’m tempted to reply, who in their right mind would believe many of the things physics has told us in the past century, including, as we shall see, many of the key findings that Lanza thinks demand we formulate a new worldview? Lanza, in a rare moment of uncertainty, warns us that some aspects of biocentrism seem “inconceivable”. No kidding. If anything is clear at this point, it’s that any scientific explanation of our origins is going to defy what we have long been conditioned to believe is common sense. Yes, something from nothing seems impossible; but so does what, in the final analysis, is the only alternative: there was always something. 

What is this something, according to the biocentric view? “Neurons–not atoms–lie as the bedrock and base of our observer-determined world,” (p. 149) Lanza says, ironically adopting without challenge another troublesome aspect of the scientific worldview–that perception is all in the brain or mind. But neurons are composed of atoms, and did not evolve until approximately thirteen billion years after the Big Bang. So unless Lanza is completely denying all the very substantial evidence of evolution that we have, he must be suggesting that some other, non-human form of consciousness–not depending in any way on neurons–existed from the very beginning. 

This idea is not new, of course. Many Eastern philosophies believe that the only thing real is a higher form of consciousness, from which everything else, including ourselves and our familiar world, was created. Lanza is well aware of this, and comments on it, but he seems to believe biocentrism holds a distinctly different view. But I found trying to tease out this view from his book a difficult task. While he enunciates seven general principles of biocentrism, he is very short on specifics. Given our state of knowledge, one could argue, perhaps it would be wise not to speculate too much. On the other hand, if you are going to challenge the conventional scientific worldview, it seems to me, credibility demands that you be at least as specific about details as that worldview itself is. 

The Limits of Detection
Lanza’s attack on the scientific worldview is based to a large degree on the very well known paradoxes of quantum physics, in particular, the famous two-slit experiments. In these studies, a photon beam is directed at a barrier with two openings or slits in it; following passage through these slits, the photons strike a screen which records their position. If the photons behave as discrete particles, each one must pass through either one slit or the other, and the result is a pattern of random hits on the screen. Most of the hits are concentrated in a small circular area right behind the two slits. The circle is not sharp, though, but fuzzy, because some of the photons randomly strike the screen a little further from the central area. 

If, however, the photons behave not as particles, but as waves, the observed pattern is very different. A wave can, in effect, pass through both slits simultaneously, creating an interference pattern on the screen. This pattern consists of alternating dark areas, where the waves that pass through each slit reinforce each other, and light areas, where the two portions of the wave cancel each other out. Thus the two patterns, one a random or Gaussian distribution of hits, the other an interference pattern, can be used to determine whether the photons are behaving like particles or waves. 

In a simple two-slit experiment, as I have just described it, the photons behave like waves–an interference pattern is observed. This is true, remarkably, even when the photon beam is very weak, so that individual photons pass through the slits. It is, as Lanza notes, as though an individual photon is a wave, able to pass through both slits simultaneously and interfere with itself. 

But when detectors are placed somewhere in the path of the photon beam, so that the position of the photon can be determined, the result changes. Somehow, recording or “knowing” where the photon is destroys the wave pattern. The photon now behaves like a particle. This is known as collapse of the wave or probability function. 

The real weirdness, however, begins when one studies not one but two photons, which have been entangled. Entanglement, another great mystery of quantum physics, refers to the fact that two particles from a common origin may be correlated with respect to their behavior or properties. A particular property of one is associated with an opposite property for the other. For example, two correlated particles may have opposite spins, or polarize light in opposite directions. In fact, two entangled particles may move apart, at enormous distances from each other, and still the behavior of one is tightly associated with that of the other. They in effect communicate with each other instantaneously, exceeding even the speed of light. 

Another way of expressing entanglement is to say that two quanta such as photons share the same wave function. So when two such photons are directed through two separate slits, it turns out that if we arrange the apparatus so that the position of one photon can be detected, collapsing its wave function, this operation also collapses the wave function of the other. Since we know the position of the first photon, and since its properties are correlated with those of the second photon, we also learn the position of the second photon. It now behaves like a particle, even though we did not in any way interfere with it, but only with the other photon. 

Even stranger, the detection event associated with one photon beam can occur after the other photon beam strikes the screen. Even under these conditions, the detection of beam 1 results in collapse of beam 2. “Our knowledge of the photon or electron path alone caused it to become a definite entity ahead of time…The photons somehow know whether or not we will gain the which-way information in the future.” (p. 72; 79) 

From this Lanza concludes, “Our mind and its knowledge or lack of it is the only thing that determines how these bits of light or matter interact.” ( p. 79) He generalizes this conclusion in the fourth of seven principles of biocentrism: “Without consciousness, ‘matter’ dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.” (p. 81) 

Nobody knows, of course, just what it would mean for the universe to exist in a probability state. Presumably there would not be cosmic aggregates of matter like stars and planets, but would there be anything worthy of the name matter at all? Or is it meaningless to speculate, if there is no observer to experience this matter? 

But here is where Lanza’s thesis begins to suffer from vagueness. If an observer is necessary to bring the universe into its familiar state, what form does this observer have to take? Obviously, the observation process does not require the sophisticated detection apparatus used in the double-slit studies. That has only been around about a century, whereas we humans have lived in a very tangible material world for tens of thousands of years. I also doubt very much that Lanza would argue that the entire universe, including the earth, was in a probability state before the evolution of human beings. Presumably, the perception of other conscious organisms was enough to create the familiar material world we live in? 

But what about before the evolution of conscious organisms? Suppose, for the sake of argument–a premise the vast majority of scientists would be very happy to accept–that consciousness is a recent feature in evolution, that simple invertebrates, for example, lack consciousness. Does this mean that the earth prior to the evolution of vertebrates did not exist in any meaningful sense, that it was just a huge probability state? But if that’s the case, how can we even talk about evolution at all? Was evolution up to that point just “implicit”, not actually manifest, but ready to spring into existence, with all the myriad varieties of unconscious invertebrates suddenly appearing as the first vertebrates evolved consciousness? 

Some scientists, incredibly, seem ready to believe something very much like this. Lanza notes that the late John Wheeler thought ‘the universe was filled with ‘huge clouds of uncertainty’ that have not yet interacted with either a conscious observer or even with some lump of inanimate matter.” (p. 179) I am not really sure whether Lanza accepts this or not. He seems to believe that consciousness was a part of the universe from the very beginning, yet he is sufficiently vague that one could finish his book wondering if he doesn’t believe in the possibility of some pseudo-creationist scenario in which everything popped into existence with the emergence of conscious organisms. 

It turns out, though, that no such scenario is necessary. Consider again the Wheeler quote in the preceding paragraph: “or some lump of inanimate matter”. While Lanza, as noted earlier, concludes that consciousness in certain circumstances is sufficient to collapse the wave function, most physicists, I think, would maintain that it is not necessary for collapse. Seth Lloyd (2006), a leader in the area of quantum computing, believes that all interactions in the physical world result in the creation and/or transfer of information. When two quanta such as photons or electrons interact, he argues, they gain information about each other, and that information is what results in the wave collapse. In Lloyd’s view, then, it is not necessary for a conscious observer to detect a quantum event to result in collapse to a particle-like state. The physical interaction of one photon, electron or other quantum entity with any other form of matter is sufficient. 

And indeed, I think this view is widely accepted in the scientific community. One of the main reasons that quantum theories of brain function are not popular is because it’s difficult to understand how probability states could be maintained for any significant length of time in the brain. Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose (1996), authors of one of the best known quantum theories of mind, go to great lengths to argue that within microtubules in the brain there is an environment in which quantum events can be sheltered from random interactions with other matter. These theorists must make this argument precisely because in the view of most physicists, such interactions are enough to collapse the probability wave. 

If this is indeed the case, there is no need to postulate that consciousness, in anything resembling that of the human form, existed at the origins of the universe. Detection and measurement events were always occurring, simply through physical interactions. One might argue, if one wished, that such interactions constitute a very primitive form of consciousness, so that even at this very early state, there were both observers and observed. I will return to this notion a little later. But as far as I can see, it is not necessary to view the collapse in this manner; certainly Lloyd doesn’t. So one major argument in support of biocentrism is seriously weakened. 

Lanza might argue that in the absence of perceiving organisms, there still is nothing like the universe that is familiar to us today. Without the basic senses of sight and touch, for example, there is no solid matter. In fact, it is rather difficult to imagine what the universe would “look like” if there is no one to look. But there would still be matter, independent of any observer, as opposed to a probability state. We could say that what did exist at that point could be seen by a human observer, without any collapse having to occur in the process. Nor would the presence of the observer change this material world.

Our Just So Universe 

While the heart of Lanza’s argument is based on quantum phenomena, there are other discoveries by physics that he believes also support a biocentric view. He notes, as have many others before him, that for our present-day universe to exist, many parameters or values have to be set in a very narrow range. For example, if the strong nuclear force were slightly more or slightly less than it actually is, it would not have been possible for atoms much heavier than hydrogen–particularly carbon, which of course is the essential building block of life–to evolve. There are literally dozens of other key parameters which turn out to have just the right values to enable matter to evolve to support life. If any of these values were different–sometimes, only a tiny fraction different–organic life would have been impossible. 

Lanza refers to this as a “Goldilocks” situation, not too hot and not too cold: 

If the universe is created by life, then no universe that didn’t allow for life could possibly exist…So you have either an astonishingly improbable coincidence revolving around the indisputable fact that the cosmos could have any properties but happens to have exactly the right ones for life or else you have exactly what must be seen if indeed the cosmos is biocentric. (p. 91) 

I personally find this evidence against the mainstream scientific view quite compelling, stronger than the “something from nothing” argument–that the universe just popped into existence through some quantum fluctuation–that Lanza also mentions. One can always argue that the limitations of our mind prevent us from understanding the concept of nothingness, or how the “something” we see today could have resulted from this nothingness. But the exquisitely fine-tuned values of so many physical parameters is something that our logical minds are quite capable of grasping, and these values do seem far too coincidental to be the result of chance. 

Yet there is an alternative explanation. The universe we are aware of may be only one of many. Other universes may have evolved, universes which did not create life for precisely the reason that the values of certain parameters were not appropriate. The universe we see today, in other words, may have been the product of selection, much as our improbably complex brain evolved over a long period of time during which many other adaptations were created but died out. Physicist Lee Smolin (1999) has attempted to outline a scenario like this. 

In any case, it seems to me that Lanza’s own argument could just as easily be turned against him. How did life and consciousness, “exquisitely tailored for our existence, pop into existence out of absolute nothingness?” As difficult as it may be to conceive of matter evolving into life and eventually sentient organisms, is it really any easier to believe that some form of consciousness evolved (or always existed?), and that this consciousness was able to create a universe with all the necessary parameters? It would seem that this consciousness had to be highly intelligent, more so than today’s brightest physicists. In other words, Lanza seems to be smuggling in God. 

The need for a God-like intelligence is also suggested by a curious irony in Lanza’s thesis here. He refers to his view as “biocentric”, meaning life came first. But life is not the same as consciousness. There are many forms of organic life that, in the view of most scientists, are not conscious. Science may be wrong about this; it may be that all living things are conscious. But as far as I can see, Lanza nowhere takes a definitive stand on this issue. His writing does suggest that he believes that indeed all organisms are conscious, but assuming this is so, one could always ask, why draw the line at life? If even the simplest organisms are conscious, why not the simplest forms of matter? In fact, this is about the only alternative available for Lanza other than the scenario in which the physical universe springs into existence with the evolution of conscious organisms. 

But if consciousness can indeed exist in simple matter, actually preceded matter, why did life need to evolve at all? If consciousness existed prior to organic life, why was it necessary that this consciousness, somehow, create just the right parameters for carbon, organic molecules, and all the rest to evolve? Wouldn’t any physical universe do the trick? In the mainstream view, organic life did not have to evolve, but once it did, it started down a path eventually resulting in consciousness. In Lanza’s view, in contrast, it seems that consciousness knew ahead of time that life–in the sense of complex associations of organic molecules capable of growing, reproducing and maintaining themselves–could realize a still greater consciousness. 

It’s Not All in the Mind 

While the puzzles and paradoxes of physics make up the bulk of Lanza’s argument for an observer-centered universe, he also finds neuroscience highly supportive of the same conclusion. Here the evidence, he thinks, is even simpler: there is no external world separate from a perceiving brain. In fact, all perceptions are ultimately located in the brain: 

“the actual perception of images themselves physically occurs in the back of the brain…the visual image…exists only inside your brain…The’outside’ world is, therefore, located within the brain.” (p. 36)

 

Lanza here is repeating a major tenet of the prevailing scientific worldview. I find this highly ironic, for while his entire book is written as a challenge to another tenet of this worldview–that the universe began with bare, dumb matter, which is independent of any observer–it does not seem to occur to him that the view that perception is “all in the brain” might also be challenged. In fact, it has been challenged, by several scientists and philosophers (Lakoff and Johnson 1999; Thompson and Varela 2001; Noe and Thompson 2004). According to the so-called embodied view espoused by these researchers, perception or consciousness is not localized to some “neural correlate of consciousness” (Chalmers 2000), but emerges only from a dynamic interaction of the organism with its environment. This view has been supported by several studies (Bach-y-Rita 1972; Hurley and Noe 2003). 

By ignoring this challenge to the mainstream scientific view of consciousness, it seems to me, Lanza is missing an actually better argument in support of his biocentric view. Lanza’s point is that since all experience is in the brain, everything that we call the external world is created by consciousness; this world is not stable and independent of our experience of it, but is determined by this experience. This view seems paradoxical, though, because the brain itself is part of what we call the external world. Our evidence that consciousness is localized to the brain is based precisely on the assumption that there is an external world stable and independent of our consciousness. 

In the embodied paradigm, the brain or nervous system is only one player in a complex set of interactions resulting in consciousness. The embodied view, far from arguing that the external world is a creation of consciousness, claims that these two—the world and consciousness—are equal partners, inseparable. A radical but I think conceivable implication of this is that the brain might not even be essential to consciousness, but simply the most recent and most sophisticated addition to the mix. Suppose consciousness has always existed, in some very rudimentary form, in association with interacting forms of matter. We might think of it as that information that Seth Lloyd (2006) believes is involved even in the most basic interactions of quanta. Brains then evolved as amplifiers; they allowed organisms to interact much more strongly and specifically with certain aspects of their environment, generating a far higher degree of consciousness. 

In other words, one version of the embodied view could argue that consciousness and matter evolved together. This would ensure that observers, in some essential sense, were always present. Consciousness would not be restricted to organic life, so it would not be necessary for organic life to evolve for a physically manifest universe to emerge. One would still be left with the problem of how the correct parameters allowing for organic evolution were created, but this problem at least would be no more intractable for the embodied view than it is for the biocentric view. 

The notion that consciousness could exist in the absence of a highly specialized organ like the brain may seem very radical, but in fact it is the premise of the philosophy of mind known as functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness can emerge from any system, living or non-living, if it features the appropriate interactions (Dennett and Hofstadter 1981; Dennett 1991; Chalmers 1996). Functionalists generally argue that computers can become conscious, if their architecture mimics in the key ways that of a human brain, or other brain that is believed to be conscious. 

Most functionalists do not believe that very simple systems are conscious in any meaningful way. But meaningful is a relative term. Very simple forms of matter presumably lack consciousness in the way that we experience it; yet they still might exhibit consciousness to the degree necessary for collapse of the wave function. Indeed, as I noted earlier, most physicists seem to accept that simple physical interactions are sufficient to collapse the wave function. If one puts this conclusion together with the evidence that consciousness alone is sufficient for collapse (as shown by the double slit experiments), one could have a novel argument for the notion that consciousness in some form is found in even the simplest forms of matter. 

In other words, try this on for size: Consciousness is associated with the interaction of material systems. So when any two forms of physical matter interact, consciousness is present. Conversely, when consciousness is present, it involves interaction of material systems. This is a re-statement of the embodied view of consciousness. But it is also a unifying explanation of the double slit studies. The conventional scientific view is that interaction with physical matter or with a conscious observer can collapse the wave function. Two distinct ways in which this can happen. The embodied view say that they are the same thing. 

Lanza, I think, fails to see the other side of the coin. He sees the world in the absence of consciousness as nothing but a probability state, and concludes that consciousness must have come first. But one could flip this around and say, whenever consciousness exists there is matter, so matter must have come first. Even in the double-slit experiments, a strict interpretation of the data does not demand that we conclude that knowledge or measurement of the photon’s position caused it to manifest as a particle. One could just as well claim that the photon’s becoming a particle caused our knowledge of its position.² All we know for sure is that the two–matter and knowledge–go together. This is basically what the embodied view of consciousness says. For some philosophers, this view takes the form of property dualism (Chalmers 1996; Seager 1999; Griffin 2001).³

In any case, the notion that consciousness is localized exclusively to a brain is obviously problematic for Lanza’s thesis. Given that no brains have existed for most of the universe’s existence, what was the source of consciousness that allowed the universe to come into existence? One possible answer, which I have already discussed, is the very weird notion that the universe did not come into existence until conscious creatures evolved–leaving us to wonder what meaning evolution could even if have if the universe prior to conscious organisms was in a probability state. 

Another possible answer is idealism, in which consciousness is primary, and everything is created by it. This would presumably include the brains themselves, which as I noted earlier, seems paradoxical, or at least a little odd. Why would consciousness create something ( a brain) that provided the appearance of creating it, consciousness, when in fact the relationship is the opposite? But Lanza apparently does not reject this view out of hand. Indeed, he refuses even to rule out solipsism–the notion that there is nothing any of us can be certain of except the existence of our own perceptions. Along with such off-the-wall statements as “The mathematical possibility of your consciousness ending is zero” (p.189), Lanza gives the impression of being ready to accept almost any view of consciousness other than the mainstream scientific one. 

The Observer Dependence of Time and Space 

So far, we have seen that Lanza believes the universe was created by consciousness. If we accept the vast body of evidence that this creation occurred billions of years ago, and that life forms evolved only much later, then it seems that either a) some form of consciousness has always existed, or at least has existed prior to matter; or b) the universe as we know it popped into existence only recently, with the appearance of conscious organisms. 

One way to avoid these difficult implications might be to argue that our understanding of time is deficient or distorted; that the billions of years history of the universe is in some important sense illusory. Moving from the very small of quantum theory to the very large of relativity theory, Lanza notes that both space and time are not immutable, but change according to the conditions of the observer. From this he concludes that, like matter, they are not independent features of the universe, but also created by the observer. He points out that distances in both three-dimensional space and time shrink for an observer traveling at speeds approaching that of light. And logically, “If one could travel at life speed, one would find oneself everywhere in the universe at once. This indeed is what a photon of light must experience if it were sentient.” (p. 104) 

Though he doesn’t come right out and say so, I think Lanza is implying that the origin of our universe, in some profound sense, may not lie in a distant past, but is right now in the present. That there is a point of view, like that of the photon, from which there is no time and no space; everything is here and now. This, again, is very much like the Eastern view. 

There are really two issues concerning time here, though, which I feel Lanza does not distinguish very clearly. One aspect, as just noted, is that the extent of time (and space) experienced by an observer depends on the speed at which that observer is travelling, essentially disappearing entirely for an entity, like a photon, traveling at light speed. All of this follows from relativity theory, and is, I think, non-controversial. 

The other issue is the flow of time, the sense of moving from a past to a present to a future. Most physicists (including Einstein) believe that the flow of time is an illusion, created by the way we perceive or experience the world. According to this notion, which is known as the tenseless view of time, what we call past, present and future is all there, even though we have immediate access only to a moment that we call present. Lanza not only accepts this view, but treats it as an established fact, like the relationship of time experienced to an observer’s speed. But the tenseless view of time is actually quite controversial; there are many philosophers who argue for a tensed view, in which the flow of time is a real part of the universe (Oaklander and Smith 1994; Mellor 1998).

The larger question, though, is whether, or how, these issues about time are relevant to the biocentric model. Lanza’s main reason for discussing them, to re-emphasize, is to drive home the conclusion that the observer creates time and space. Certainly we understand that time and space are not so fixed as we once thought they were, but I’m not so sure that this evidence constitutes a very strong case against the mainstream materialist worldview. If it really does, why do most physicists accept both the tenseless view that the flow of time is an illusion, and the well-known equations of relativity theory, yet nonetheless regard time and space as basically independent features of the universe? 

The answer, surely, is because while time and space may be observer-dependent, relativity theory says that they are the same for any observers on earth, or for any observers not moving at speeds approaching that of light. So for all practical purposes, time and space might as well be regarded as independent of anything alive on earth. Rather than saying the observer creates time and space, I think most physicists would simply say that pre-existing time and space is experienced differently by different observers. 

Again, however, there is another line of thought that I believe could be more supportive of Lanza’s case. As I discuss in my book The Dimensions of Experience, an enormous amount of research in animal behavior indicates that different forms of life experience their world in different numbers of dimensions. In other words, not only is the extent of spatial and temporal dimensions observer-dependent, but so is the number of dimensions themselves. And here we are not talking about special cases traveling at speeds approaching that of light. These animal behavioral studies demonstrate that right here on earth, in their ordinary life, different observers experience time and space differently.

This, it seems to me, raises serious doubts about the independent existence of three dimensional space and time that go well beyond relativity theory. If some organisms can experience only one or two dimensions of space, how can we be sure that the three dimensions of space that we experience are all that exist? Likewise, if the experience of time is vastly different for different organisms, what can we confidently conclude about time based on our own experience? 

Conclusion 

It seems to me that a book on any topic is only justified if it has a new idea or new evidence or arguments in support of an old idea. Biocentrism, as far as I can see, provides neither. The notion that the universe might have begun with consciousness instead of or in addition to matter has been proposed many times before, not simply by religious or spiritual worldviews, but by philosophers and scientists. The entire philosophical thesis of dualism, including property dualism, is an example.

Likewise, the arguments Lanza uses to attack the mainstream scientific worldview are for the most part well-worn. An umpteen number of books have been written on the paradoxes of quantum physics, the strange world of relativity, and the remarkable fact that certain physical parameters are just the right values to support life. The arguments from neuroscience used by Lanza, such as the work of Ben Libet, have also been widely discussed not simply by specialists, but in popular books.

Lanza might at least have provided a useful service by distinguishing among the various types of theories involving consciousness, and how each might fit in with the current state of knowledge. I can understand his desire to avoid excessive speculation, but there is no crime in outlining the various alternatives. In particular, I think his argument would have greatly benefited by discussing a few key questions. Has consciousness always existed, or did it evolve from something else? Did it originate by itself, or in association with matter? Did it originate billions of years ago, when according to mainstream science the Big Bang occurred, or is it best understood as existing outside of time? Was consciousness in its original form simple–perhaps nothing more than the information created when two quanta interact–or complex, a higher intelligence as believed in religious and spiritual worldviews?

In the final chapter, Lanza discusses possible future studies, such as experiments to determine if quantum phenomena can be observed in the macroscopic world, that might provide more support for biocentrism. Perhaps, but Lanza seems unaware of the central problem standing in the way of future understanding. Consciousness, as distinct from all the mental phenomena we observe in conscious creatures like ourselves, has thus far proven impossible to quantify. We can distinguish levels of consciousness, such as sleep, dreaming and awake, and alternative states and, I would say, higher states, but we can’t measure them.

The problem, as always, is that we have no direct evidence of consciousness in anyone except ourselves (this is why Lanza refuses to rule out solipsism). All the evidence we have of consciousness in others comes from their behavior, which we assume is very closely correlated with consciousness. Without being able to observe others’ consciousness directly, we can’t measure it. And if we can’t measure it, it’s very difficult to assess its relationship to the rest of the world.

Consider those two-slit experiments again. Do they really prove that consciousness can collapse the wave function, determine whether quanta manifest as particle or wave? No. In principle, there is no reason why the same result would not occur if, instead of a human observer, a zombie observer was involved. A zombie, in the philosophical sense, is a creature just like a human being, except that it has no consciousness (Chalmers 1996). It is rather like a sleep walker, behaving just like a waking being while having no awareness at all of what it’s doing. If a zombie can collapse the probability function, then consciousness is not necessary at all.

Some physicists or philosophers might argue that a zombie would not collapse the probability function, but the very fact that we can debate this illustrates the problem. We have no way of knowing that consciousness–as opposed to some mental process that could occur unconsciously–is playing a role in the quantum world. Likewise, we have no way of showing, experimentally, that consciousness is necessary for anything else.

Early in the book, Lanza says that he will stick to science, avoiding the “murky swamp” of philosophy. Maybe if he had been willing to venture just a little ways into that swamp, he would have a greater appreciation for the magnitude of the problem we face.
　 

ENDNOTES 

1. Page nos. refer to the kindle edition, but I believe they are the same for the print version. 

2. Lanza, and any physicist, is likely to protest that the conscious experimenter is the active agent here, setting up the apparatus for detection ahead of time. But all this does is provide the conditions for consciousness and matter to interact; it says nothing about causation. After all, Lanza is committed to the point of view that if there is no observer present to record the detection, there is no collapse to be detected. 

3. One of the problems with a “consciousness first” view is that we have no evidence of the existence of consciousness in the absence of matter. As far as science knows, consciousness only exists in association with physical life forms. 

4. As in other parts of the book, Lanza provides I think a quite one-sided view, discussing evidence or theorists that support his position, while ignoring controversies. He declares Zeno’s famous paradox solved, though many philosophers still argue about it. He claims that time is simply our perception of change: “Clocks are rhythmic things, meaning that they contain processes that are repetitive…but these are just events, not to be confused with time.” pp.106-107). This argument ignores the question of why some events are perceived as rhythmic, while others are not, if we have no experience of time. 

　 

REFERENCES 

Bach-y Rita P. (1972) Brain Mechanisms in Sensory Substitution (New York: Academic Press) 

Chalmers, D. (2000). What is a neural correlate of consciousness?, in Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Empirical and Conceptual Questions Metzinger, T., Ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) pp. 18-39. 

Chalmers, D. (1996) The Conscious Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 

Dennett, D.C. (1991) Consciousness Explained (New York: Little, Brown) 

Dennett, D.C., Hofstadter, D.R., eds. (1981) The Mind’s I (New York: Basic) 

Griffin, D. (1998) Unsnarling the World Knot: Consciousness, Freedom and the Mind-Body Problem (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press) 

Hameroff SR, Penrose, R (1996) Conscious events as orchestrated spacetime selections. J Consciousness Studies 3, 36-53. 

Hurley S, Noe, A (2003) Neural plasticity and consciousness. Biology and Philosophy 18, 131-168. 

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic) 

Lloyd, S (2006) Programming the Universe (New York: Knopf) 

Mellor, D.H. (1998) Real Time II (London: Routledge) 

Noe, A., Thompson, E. (2004) Are there neural correlates of consciousness? J Consciousness Studies 11, 3-28. 

Oaklander, L.N., Smith, Q,, eds. (1994) The New Theory of Time (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) 

Seager, W. (1999) Theories of Consciousness (New York: Routledge) 

Smith, A.P. (2009) The Dimensions of Experience (X-libris) 

Smolin, L. (1999) The Life of the Cosmos (New York: Oxford University Press) 

Thompson, E., Varela, F.J. (2001) Radical embodiment: neural dynamics and consciousness. Trends Cogn Sci 5, 418-425. 

　 

　 

　 

.” 

In my most recent post, a review of Thomas Metzinger’s book The Ego Tunnel, I emphasized that I thought his discussion would have benefited from engagement with the so-called embodied view of mind or consciousness. In contrast to the prevailing scientific view that consciousness is created entirely within and by the brain, which Metzinger assumes, the embodied perspective argues that it comes into existence only through a dynamic interplay between the whole organism and its environment. A major proponent of this view is philosopher Alva Noe, whose book Out of Our Heads is intended to present it to an audience of non-specialists.

No scientist would disagree that our conscious experience generally involves interaction with the environment, of course. Our waking experience is always of ourself situated in a world, and depends on receiving sensory stimuli from this world; so in this sense consciousness always involves interaction of the brain with something outside it. When we see a tree, for example, light energy from the tree is focused on the retinas of our eyes, resulting in a sequence of neural processes culminating in our experience of the tree.

But in the mainstream scientific view, the world does not actually have to exist for us to have this experience. Though sensory stimuli trigger the activation of certain pathways in the brain, most neuroscientists hold that the activation itself is solely responsible for consciousness. So in principle, one could generate any conscious experience—seeing a tree, talking with another person, driving a car, and so on–simply by stimulating the appropriate portions of the brain. The portion of the brain activation of which is necessary to generate any particular experience is called a neural correlate of consciousness and though it is fairly widely believed by neuroscientists that such correlates exist, Noe specifically denies that the concept is meaningful. “Consciousness,” he writes, “is not something that happens inside us. It is something we do or make…Consciousness is more like dancing than it is digestion.” (60-67, kindle version)

Taken seriously, the embodied view provides a radical challenge not just to science, but to our most basic understanding of ourselves. One way of looking at the history of science is as the overthrow of a series of long entrenched beliefs, and in particular, a process of progressive decentralization. The work of Copernicus, Galileo and others forced us to the realization that the earth is not the center of the universe. After Darwin, we could no longer view our species as the center or purpose of creation. Twentieth century physics, overturning commonsense views of space, time and motion, showed that there is in fact no privileged point in the universe. The embodied view could be seen as a continuation of this tradition, challenging the idea that each of us has a core—our conscious experience—that is completely separate from the rest of the world. Noe, I think it’s fair to say, wants to decentralize consciousness. He wants to put consciousness out in the world.

He is fighting a long history. The mainstream view of consciousness as an inner phenomenon goes back to Descartes. The French philosopher is famous for his dualistic view, that mind is separate from the body, and composed of a nonphysical essence. Very few brain scientists, and probably not many philosophers, accept this today; most view the brain in material terms, believing that all our mental life, including consciousness itself, is the result of physical processes. But as Noe points out, most scientists still assume unquestioningly the Cartesian notion that mind or consciousness is separate from the rest of the world. It’s part of their background worldview, and so has long gone unchallenged. Indeed, the scientific method is based on this view; it assumes that an investigator can separate himself from other phenomena, and observe them objectively.

Noe has published several scholarly articles on his work in this area, and I thought this book might provide an overview and an update of this debate. But though he makes a few highly provoking observations, I found much of the discussion somewhat disappointing. This may be due partly to the fact that Noe’s intended audience is laypeople, not scientists; most of the research findings and ideas that he provides will be well known to any neuroscientist. But Noe presents this information as though it obviously supports his case, when in fact much of it, I believe, is irrelevant.

For example, in the early part of the book he discusses such topics as clinical cases of totally unresponsive individuals who were mistakenly thought not to be aware of their surroundings; recognition of kin by nonhuman primates; and French air controllers, who keep track of incoming planes not by computers, but by the decidedly low-tech means of writing down pertinent information on slips of paper. He seems to think that observations like these have implications that most scientists have missed, that they provide strong support for an embodied view; but if they do, he does not explain very well why they cannot be accounted for by the standard understanding of consciousness. Far too often, he even offers as evidence everyday notions that will be fairly obvious to most readers—for example, that we don’t treat our pets as purely mechanistic entities, but assume they have a certain understanding of our actions.

I feel that in his desire to promote the embodied view, Noe is perhaps trying too hard. This view may be consistent with a lot of scientific and everyday observations, but that is not the same thing as saying these observations clearly favor it over the traditional view. Moreover, sometimes, in his zeal to remake the landscape of consciousness research, he sets up some straw men. He spends an entire chapter extolling the importance of having good habits, because he believes that we cling to the Cartesian view of ourselves as intellectual creatures that “rise above mere habit and act from principle” (1544-53). He emphasizes, as though reporting breaking news that only a handful of people are aware of, the very well-known fact that experts accomplish tasks with a fluency lacking in novices–because, again, he thinks that Descartes’ hold on us is so strong that we imagine experts must act from careful deliberation, not from habits developed from extensive experience. I think most people understand and embrace the importance of good habits, and anyone who has ever watched an Olympic or pro athlete knows that experts do things automatically and subconsciously that come, if at all, to the rest of us only with great effort.

In another sense
There remains, nonetheless, some very powerful evidence for the embodied view, and Noe is at his best when he finally addresses it. This takes the form of several key studies described in Chapter 3. The most important of these studies began several decades ago, when the neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita developed a remarkable device that allowed blind people apparently to see. The device made use of a camera that recorded information about the individual’s immediate surroundings. This information—the size, shape and location of various objects near the individual–was then transformed into activity of a closely spaced array of vibrators placed on the back or other part of the person’s body. By feeling the pattern of vibrations, the individual could sense the forms of objects in front of him—just as you might spell out words to someone by tracing out the letters on his body. Moreover, by moving in various ways, so that the position of the objects changed in relationship to the camera, the subject could sense that the objects were in three-dimensional space–so well that individuals could actually reach out and grasp objects in front of them. This is an extremely important point I will return to shortly.

The original device required that the blind person be confined to a chair, but more recently it has been modified in the form of a small strip of material that is placed on the person’s tongue—one of the most sensitive tissues of the body—and provides the pattern in terms of electrical impulses. Thus the individual is now free to move about. As shown in this video, blind people can actually navigate through their environment with this device. Bach-y-Rita described the results in this way:

After sufficient training with the TVSS [tactile vision substitution system], our blind subjects reported experiencing the images in space, instead of on the skin. They learned to make perceptual judgments using visual means of analysis, such as perspective, parallax, looming and zooming, and depth judgments.

This basic concept, known as sensory substitution, has also been used to help people with disorders in other senses, such as balance (originating from damage to the critical receptors for balance in the inner ear). In each case, a sense that the person has lost is substituted by making use of another sense, which is perceived as the original, missing sense.

Sensory substitution studies have also been carried out on laboratory animals. Noe describes work in which infant ferrets were surgically operated on in such a way that developing neurons from their eyes, which would normally send processes to connect to neurons in the visual centers in the back of their cerebral cortex, instead were re-routed to the auditory cortex—that portion of the brain which normally elaborates the sensation of sound. The ferrets were able to see perfectly well, basically confirming Bach-y-Rita’s studies. Just as his blind patients could “see” using parts of the brain (in this case, for touch) that normally are not used for sight, so could the ferrets see using other non-visual centers in the brain. Noe summarizes this conclusion by saying,“there isn’t anything special about the cells in the so-called visual cortex that makes them visual” (896-904). Other parts of the brain can substitute for them.

The findings with ferrets, though certainly remarkable, are perhaps a little easier to understand than those with the blind patients, because the animals were still using their eyes to capture light. But how do patients “see” using their sense of touch? In what I feel is the key to his entire philosophy, Noe explains it as follows (969-979):

What does Back-y-Rita’s sensory substitution system actually do? At the most basic level, it sets up a relation between the perceiver and objects in the scene around him where there was no relation before…What governs the character of our experience—what makes experience the kind of experience that it is—is not the neural activity in our brains on its own; it is, rather, our ongoing dynamic relation to objects…We see with Bach-y-Rita’s system because the relation that system sets up and maintains between the perceiver and object is, in ways that can be made precise, the sort of relation that we bear to things when we see them.

What exactly is the nature of this “relation to objects”? Noe argues that it emerges from our continual interaction with them. When we move in particular ways in the environment, the appearance of objects changes. If we move towards them, they appear to become larger, for example; if we move to one side or past them, we see another aspect of them that was hidden from the frontal view. In fact, as Noe recounts in a review article on the subject, this was discovered by accident:

In the earliest trials with the TVSS device, blind subjects generally unsuccessfully attempted to identify objects that were placed in front of the camera, which was fixed. It was only when the observer was allowed to actively manipulate the camera that identification became possible and observers came to “see” objects as being externally localized… though initially observers locate stimulation on the body part which is stimulated, with practice, the observers locate objects in space, and not on the skin…

An interesting example shows that the localization of objects outside the body is not just a cognitive strategy but truly resembles visual experience. In an anecdote reported by Bach-y-Rita, the zoom control of the camera being used by a well-trained subject was moved, causing a sudden magnification or “looming” of the tactile image. Bach-y-Rita states…: “the startled subject raised his arms and threw his head backward to avoid the ‘approaching’ object. It is noteworthy that, although the stimulus array was, at the time, on the subject’s back, he moved backward and raised his arms in front to avoid the object, which was subjectively located in the three-dimensional space before him.

What Noe is claiming is that any neural system that provides this kind of information will be experienced as visual, even if it comes to us through another modality. More generally, he is claiming that every sensory modality involves certain relationships to the world around us. Depending on how stimuli change according to our actions, we experience the stimuli as sight, sound, or some other modality.

This is a truly remarkable conclusion—one of the most important ever made in brain science, I believe–and it could and perhaps should have been the focus of the entire book. It forms the real meat of Noe’s argument, a phenomenon that can’t be easily dismissed as consistent with the standard view of conscious experience. One question that these results simply beg, though, is: Do these blind people really have the experience of seeing? I can certainly understand how Bach-y-Rita’s device could help blind people navigate through the environment. I can imagine being blindfolded, and perhaps after extensive practice, learning to locate objects around myself through the patterns of tactile sensations. But would I actually experience these sensations as vision? Do blind people who have used the device have the same experience that those of us who can see?

Noe, surprisingly, never grapples with this question in the book, critical though it is to his theory. However, he does have this to say in the previously cited review article:

Do blind people actually see with the TVSS? The question has been raised by Bach-y-Rita who prefers to put the word “see” in quotes. One justification for this, he claims, is the fact that people who have learnt to see with the device are disappointed when shown pictures of their loved ones, or erotic pictures: they have no emotional reaction. Bach-y-Rita interprets this as a failure of the device to provide true visual experience. An alternative, however, is to admit that the device does provide true visual experience, but that emotional and sexual reactions are strongly linked to the sensations that are experienced during the period when emotional attachment occurs and sexual interest develops. If, during the course of development, these experiences are initially non-visual, then they will remain nonvisual.

Presumably, it is questions about what blind subjects actually experience using the TVSS that allows those who hold the mainstream view of consciousness to discount these studies as evidence for the embodied view. Because, to the extent that these subjects really can see, it is very hard to believe in the existence of a defined neural correlate of consciousness. These results suggest, rather, that different neural pathways in very different regions of the brain might conceivably be associated with a single conscious experience. But Noe simple concludes (in this article) that “There are many aspects to seeing, and the TVSS provides some but not all of them.”*

The meaning of meaning
I wish Noe had discussed more studies of sensory substitution. Beyond its implications for our understanding of conscious experience, the field obviously holds great promise for people missing or deficient in a sense such as vision, hearing, or balance. Also relevant are devices that enable paralyzed individuals to move by simply thinking of the appropriate motions. Given Noe’s claim that movement is essential to conscious experience, such research is likely to provide further evidence bearing on the embodied view.

Most of Noe’s book, though, consists not of the presentation of provoking new findings such as sensory substitution, but rather arguments that more well-established research findings should be re-interpreted. In Chapter 7, he takes on two of the most honored and respected names in neuroscience: David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Hubel and Wiesel carried out a long series of studies, mostly on kittens, that are now considered classic in the science of vision. Among their most important discoveries, for which they eventually won the Nobel Prize, was that many individual neurons in the visual cortex respond to specific features in the animal’s environment, such as lines or edges oriented in a particular direction. These studies were carried out by inserting microelectrodes into randomly selected cells, then determining what, if any, visual input to the animal resulted in increasing their activity, that is, sending electrical discharges to other cells.

From this work has come the key insight that vision in the brain is built up through hierarchical stages. The process begins when light strikes the retina, and is detected by cells sensitive only to its intensity in a small portion of the visual field. This intensity discrimination is preserved as the retinal cells contact, by synaptic transmission, cells deeper in the brain, in an area known as the lateral geniculate. The geniculate cells then send this information to the visual cortex, and at this stage, integration of information begins. Processes from several or more individual geniculate cells converge on a single cortical neuron. This individual neuron, by virtue of being in touch with several intensity-sensitive cells, is sensitive not to a single spot of light, but to an array of closely positioned spots—in other words, a line or edge. These cells that are sensitive to lines or edges, in turn, may converge on cells further along the pathway into the visual cortex, providing them with still more complex information about the visual field. Eventually, cells, or at any rate networks of cells, are reached which put all this information together to form our experience of objects, faces, and so on.

Noe, however, does not buy into this view at all, dismissing these much-revered findings with surprising vehemence (2580-2590):

we really have no reason to think Hubel and Wiesel’s discoveries tell us anything at all about the brain basis of vision

His objection begins with the starting assumption of neuroscientists like Hubel and Wiesel that the brain is a kind of computer, which processes information. Hubel and Wiesel, in adherence to this view, believe that the neurons in the visual pathway extract information from the environment. Thus retinal cells extract information about light intensity from a small point in the visual field. Visual cortical cells extract information about the presence of lines, edges, or contrasts of light in a somewhat larger portion of the field. Still more complex cells extract more detailed information.

Almost any scientist would accept this view, but not Noe (2466-87):

We know what it means to say that a detective, for example, extracts information about an intruder from a footprint, or that an oceanographer gathers information about a prehistoric climate by studying fossils of unicellular organisms that she dredges up from today’s ocean floor. These are nice examples about “extracting information” about one thing from another. The explanation of the fact that the footprint and the fossils contain information about the intruder and the climate, respectively, is the further fact that there is a definite causal relationship between the character of the intruder and the properties of the footprints, or between the climate of millions of years ago and the fossil chemistry of foraminifera today. And what makes it the case that the detective and the oceanographer can extract this information is that they are each armed with knowledge of the way in which what they have access to now (the footprint, the fossils) was shaped by what they want to learn.

Things are different, though, when it comes to the brain and the retinal image. No doubt the retinal image is rich in information about the scene before the eyes; after all, there are reliable and well-understood mechanisms by which the former is brought into being by the latter. Presumably, then, a suitably placed scientist would be able to extract that information. But the brain is no scientist or detective; it doesn’t know anything and has no eyes to examine the retinal image. It has no capacity to make inferences about anything, let alone inferences about the remote environmental causes of the observable state of the retina. How, then, are we to make sense of the idea that the brain is an information-processing device?

In other words, Noe thinks the information-processing model of the brain is guilty of the homunculus fallacy. It assumes there is an intelligent little being inside the brain that can do the very things that we are trying to explain. We want to know how the brain extracts information about the environment from sensory input, but to be capable of doing this it has to know things that it initially can’t know.

Information, you might say, is sort of like money: you need to have some to begin with in order to acquire more. We can look at a computer screen, or listen to a radio, or talk to another person, and obtain information from such interactions. Other animals, however, cannot; to them it’s all just be visual or auditory noise, providing no information at all. This is because they lack certain essential knowledge, particularly language, which provides a context in which the sensory input becomes meaningful. (And of course, until we began to study animal communication carefully, much of their behavior had no meaning for us, either).

Noe believes this logic points us again to the embodied view, in which conscious experience must involve interaction with the outside world. An individual brain lacks the context, the background information, that would allow it to recognize meaningful information in incoming sensory stimuli. “Meaning,” he says, “is not internal. Meaning is relational.” (2530-2540)

I find this argument curious. I agree with Noe that meaning is relational. I don’t agree with him that viewing the brain as an information-processor precludes the existence of such relational properties. I think the fundamental flaw in his reasoning is that he–in common with a very large number of other philosophers–conflates meaning with consciousness. Part of his argument is that computers, which are assumed to be unconscious, cannot understand the meaning of their processing, so therefore, if our brains are simply computer-like information processors, neither could we.

Let’s approach this by considering the best example of a relational phenomenon, human language. Language, as Wittgenstein famously pointed out, can have no meaning for an isolated individual. It’s difficult to see how such an individual, assuming we could imagine one, could even conceive of language. Meaning comes into existence only as individuals attempt to communicate with each other. I have no need to name an experience such as of a tree, except to communicate that experience to someone else.

Indeed, some linguists, such as Terence Deacon, argue that there can be no real neural correlates of language, because meaning only exists in the communicative interactions of multiple individuals. That is, when any individual uses language, it is as a way of pointing to the shared meaning, rather than actually experiencing it himself. When we use words, we certainly have definite experiences, but on this view, we don’t experience their real meanings. The latter are outside of us, and referred to by us rather than experienced. If the real meanings of words were not in fact outside of us, if they really were private to our own experience, they could not be shared with others.

So I think Noe is reasonable to argue that information or meaning is acquired only through organisms interacting with their environment, and particularly with each other. But I see no reason why this view is inconsistent with the notion that these interacting organisms function in good part as information processors. All organisms interact with their environment. Natural selection biasses these interactions so that organisms that sense certain stimuli, and respond to them in certain ways, are more likely to survive. In this way, these stimuli become meaningful.

To put the situation in the starkest possible terms, let’s replace the organisms with real computers. Computers can be programmed to recognize human language, including speech. We could imagine a hypothetical world in which computers–probably not the silicon kind, but organic beings that were pure information processors of the kind Noe wants to deny is the case for natural brains–evolved the ability to use language by sensing and responding to the environment in certain ways. (If someone finds that far-fetched, this argument will work using computers that were first programmed by humans to use language, then left on their own). Noe, along with many other philosophers, (following the famous “Chinese room” argument first proposed by John Searle) would probably contend that despite this ability, the computers would not understand the meaning of the words that they responded to in their communications with other computers. Not all philosophers by any means accept this argument, but for the sake of discussion I will grant Noe this claim.

But to say that the computer does not understand the meaning of the words, I argue, is simply to say that it has no conscious experience of the meaning. It isn’t to say that there is no meaning. “Understand” (in this sense as used by philosophers) simply refers to a conscious process. If these computers or organisms with computer-like brains all used language in a consistent way—that is, in a way so that they could communicate effectively with each other, promoting their survival and general well-being—I think one would have to agree that the words had meaning. They would have meaning for precisely the reason Noe gives: because the computers interact with each other, with meaning emerging from their relations. But this meaning could exist independently of consciousness on the part of the computers.

I’m really trying to make two points here. First, a population of computers–which we can accept as a model of organisms possessing information-processing brains–is perfectly capable of acquiring information or meaning. The fact that they are not conscious of this meaning is irrelevant. Meaning, by Noe’s own stated definition of it, is not a subjective property. It does not depend on an individual organism or computer understanding it. It emerges from behavioral interactions of organisms or computers.

The second point, which I mentioned earlier, is that consciousness should be clearly distinguished from meaning. Just because we humans are capable of consciously experiencing meaning does not mean that consciousness is meaning–any more than consciousness is the experience of the color red, or of a tree in front of us. As I also said earlier, very few philosophers seem to understand this distinction, including Noe. Yet the distinction is crucial to some of Noe’s arguments, as we will see in the following section.

Expanding embodiment

The traditional view of consciousness existing within the brain has been around a long time, of course, and like any long-lasting theory or paradigm has acquired powerful arguments against alternative views. Near the end of the book, Noe engages with some of these arguments. Studies involving brain stimulation seem to demonstrate that conscious experiences can in fact be produced simply by activating certain parts of the brain, independent of what is happening in the outside world. And the familiar phenomenon of dreaming shows that we can have conscious experiences even when we are largely cut off from sensing the external world.

I felt that some of the arguments Noe used to counter these points were fairly weak. In discussing brain stimulation, for example, he never mentions the classic observations of neurologist Wilder Penfield, made more than half a century ago, in which stimulation of certain areas of the temporal lobe in unanesthetized patients sometimes induced vivid visual or auditory memories of earlier life. And I think one of his main arguments against the implications of dreaming—that there is no evidence that we can dream about anything that we can experience while awake—misses the point. One does not have to demonstrate that dreaming, or brain stimulation, for that matter, can evoke any possible experience. One only has to demonstrate that they can evoke some conscious experiences. If they can, then surely this is evidence that such experience does not necessarily require interaction with an external world.

There is, moreover, other evidence for this claim. Consider bodily experiences, such as a toothache. Does our experience of a toothache depend on our having certain relationships with the external world? Surely not. We can feel the pain regardless of what we are doing, and most significant, when we are effectively doing nothing, lying still in minimal interaction with our surroundings. Granted the pain may be greater or lesser depending on what we are doing, but this is not inconsistent with the notion that there is a specific region in the brain associated with this pain. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that the pain of a toothache can be eliminated or alleviated by drugs that affect specific parts of the brain.

Noe gets to the heart of the matter, I think, when he argues that what brain stimulation may do is change the nature of, rather than create, conscious experience (2650-57):

when we produce an episode in consciousness by direct action on the brain, what we really do is modulate already existing states of consciousness…By intervening in this way, we affect consciousness; we don’t generate it out of nothing.

This is certainly the case in studies like Penfield’s, where the patient was conscious to begin with. However, in taking this approach, Noe is now pushing himself into precisely that corner towards which I was pointing earlier: that a crucial distinction needs to be made between what we are conscious of—the contents of our experience–and consciousness itself. If Noe wants to argue that brain stimulation modifies existing conscious states, rather than generating consciousness itself, one could appeal to the same logic to conclude that such modification is all that brain-body-environment interaction does as well. The sensory substitution studies, as important as they are, certainly do not provide evidence to the contrary; they do not establish that consciousness is generated by brain-body-environment interaction. All they really indicate is that the specific nature of some conscious experiences is not associated with a unique region of the brain.

As I noted earlier, very few philosophers seem to make this distinction when discussing consciousness, and it’s easy to see why. Consciousness understood in this way is an extremely slippery term, and very difficult to investigate. There are no scientific studies that address in a definitive manner how consciousness in this sense is “generated”. There is abundant evidence that certain areas of the brain or nervous system are critical to having any conscious experience at all, and based on these studies, most scientists assume that consciousness is generated within the brain. However, one could argue—presumably Noe would—that these parts of the brain don’t create consciousness itself, but function as essential links to the outer world. If consciousness requires interaction with the external world, than any part of the brain required to link to this outer world will be required for consciousness.

The question, then, is what is there outside of us that is really critical for consciousness? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that consciousness exists independently of any particular interaction of an individual organism with its environment. This is not necessarily a view of consciousness as a non-physical, supernatural phenomenon. We could argue that consciousness in some manner emerges from all the biological activity on earth–much as, in the conventional view that Noe is arguing against, it emerges from neural activity in the brain. Individual organisms, through interaction with their environment, would tap into, or participate in, this consciousness. In this scheme, the individual organism interacting with an environment would be critical to manifesting a particular form of consciousness, yet consciousness itself would be generated by processes beyond it.

In conclusion, I think Noe, and the embodied view he argues so passionately on behalf of, is on to something very important when he insists that consciousness is not within the brain. And certainly many of our conscious experiences do depend on the ways in which we interact with the world. But just what it is “out there” that provides the key to consciousness remains mysterious.

*One of the subjects in Bach-y-Rita’s studies has written about his experiences (Guarniero, G. (1974) Experience of tactile vision. Perception 3, 101). Unfortunately, I could not access this on the internet.

Thomas Metzinger’s The Ego Tunnel is an easily readable tour through some recent advances in understanding human consciousness, particularly emphasizing how our sense of self and subjectivity develops. It’s organized around several well-known but still very difficult to explain characteristics of consciousness, including its unified appearance; the feeling of now; its transparency, that is, our inability to experience how consciousness is actually created from sensory input; its ineffability, or indescribability; its functional purpose, that is, the benefits it provides above and beyond unconscious intelligence that allowed it to evolve; and the problem of who, that consciousness is associated with a self, a first-person perspective.

I feel that the book is enriched by the fact that Metzinger, a philosopher by training, claims to have had several out of body experiences (OBEs). This makes him more sympathetic to not only these but other so-called fringe phenomena—such as meditation, lucid dreaming and hallucinations–that might tell us much about consciousness but which have tended to be ignored or dismissed by many scientists. In fact, the book brings together some very interesting recent research–including some conducted by himself– bearing on how our sense of self is created. These investigations include not only the just mentioned areas, but studies of phantom limbs and alien body parts, many of which one might not find in most general treatments of consciousness.

If brain creates consciousness, how can consciousness create brain?

That said, Metzinger clearly accepts the standard scientific view that consciousness is a product of the brain. “As soon as certain properties of your brain are fixed,” he states, “everything that you are experiencing at this very moment is also fixed” (363-370; numbers refer to the notation system in the kindle version, with the length of the book 4896). In this view, every conscious state must correspond to some unique pattern of activation in the brain, for which philosopher David Chalmers has coined the term “neural correlate of consciousness”, or NCC. If one accepts this premise, then someday “we will in principle be able to activate these states by stimulating the brain in an appropriate manner”. (333-339)

While this view is held by many scientists and philosophers, though, it’s not universal. Some researchers believe that consciousness in an important sense includes events in the external environment, that phenomenal experience is not purely what Metzinger calls an “internal affair”. The embodied view, as it is often referred to, is described in the following way by Alva Noe and Evan Thompson:

If the content of perceptual experience depends crucially on the environment, as well as on skillful motor capacities and capacities for directed attention on the part of the perceiver as a situated agent in the environment, then it cannot be assumed without argument (as the NCC programme does) that there is any such thing as a minimal neural substrate sufficient to produce conscious experience. Rather, the substrates of consciousness — in particular of visual perceptual consciousness— seem to cut across the brain–body–world divisions

While the embodied view is probably advocated by only a minority of scientists and philosophers, and while it is debatable whether it really rules out the notion of an NCC, Metzinger’s discussion of consciousness I feel would have been strengthened by making some mention of it. In fact, some of his points seem to offer support for the embodied view, particularly his emphasis on the critical role of movement in constructing the image of self.  In the chapter The Empathic Ego, he discusses studies of so-called canonical neurons, which code for very general movements in our interaction with the environment, such as reaching, grasping or holding. These neurons also respond to the visual perception of objects, suggesting that we see these objects as potential subjects of our actions upon them:

Our brain does not simply register a chair, a teacup, an apple; it immediately registers the seen object as what I could do with it…Everything we perceive is automatically portrayed as a factor in a possible interaction between ourselves and the world

(2674-2688).

This notion clearly resonates with the embodied view of consciousness as a dynamic phenomenon that is constantly adjusting itself as it interacts with the external world. What makes an organism conscious, in this view, is not simply the activation of some particular region of the brain, but an ongoing process in which this activation and events in the environment feedback on each other. The embodied view—and particularly the evidence that experiencing something is intimately related to acting on it–is also at the heart of philosopher George Lakoff’s theory of metaphors–that many of our abstract notions have roots in simple physical interactions with the world, and that these roots constrain how we are actually able to think. Metzinger himself alludes to this idea when he notes that communication among humans might have begun with shared motor representations, and I found it strange he never mentions Lakoff.

In any case, there are several problems with the standard view of consciousness presumed by Metzinger that I believe might be fruitfully illuminated by taking the embodied view more seriously. Some of these problems, which I will discuss later, are the main subject of Metzinger’s discussion, but to begin, there is a more fundamental one that I feel he glosses over. As he notes early in the book, the notion of an NCC or neural correlate of consciousness implies that our view of reality is not direct, but virtual. We only know what the brain creates. Thus he says, “there are no colors out there in front of your eyes…[color] is a property of the internal model created by your brain.”

This creates a paradox, though. If colors don’t really exist in and of themselves, then by the same token, nothing else that we claim is part of reality—including our body and brain—really exists, either. Everything is a property of the internal model. But then what exactly is it that creates the model?  The claim is that everything we know is a virtual view of reality created by the brain, but what we call the brain is itself part of this virtual world.

Without getting into difficult philosophical arguments, we can just say that there is a tension between two scientific tenets that don’t exactly fit together smoothly. One is that there is an external, objective reality; what we experience is closely correlated with what happens in this outer world. But the other bedrock principle is that we can only know this reality internally, and even more significant, that this reality can be mimicked or duplicated completely in theory by stimulation of the brain.

This tension becomes very apparent, to me at least, when Metzinger discusses future forms of intelligent life that might be designed by humans. He argues strongly against creating what he calls “bliss machines”—intelligent forms of artificial life that have been designed to have mostly pleasurable experiences, free from suffering. His rationale is that “There is more to an existence worth having, or a life worth living, than subjective experience.” (3120-3126). He insists that “we want to be happy for a reason…consciously experience existence as worth having. We want an extraordinary insight into reality, into moral value or beauty as objective facts.” (3134-3141) But if consciousness is a purely internal affair, and any conscious state can in principle be induced by stimulation of the appropriate parts of the brain, what’s the problem? Surely such states include ones involving “extraordinary insight into reality, into moral value or beauty as objective facts”?

I’m not arguing for a solipsistic view of existence here–that nothing exists outside the brain. I’m simply suggesting that the scientific view that everything we know is created by the brain encourages the notion that we not only can create bliss machines—or forms of life that experience anything, and only anything, that we design them to experience—but that there should be no objection to doing so. By raising objections, Metzinger is implying that there really is more to reality than what the brain creates. And this, it seems to me, opens the door to an embodied view, or possibly to an even more radical view that has attracted the attention of some scientists: the notion that the brain, rather than creating consciousness, acts simply as a receiver for the phenomenon. Both of these views, or types of views, explicitly deny that we can explain consciousness completely in terms of patterns of brain activity.

Some bodies are more virtual than others

One topic in the book that would have served as a natural springboard for introduction of these alternative views, even if Metzinger’s attitude to them were totally critical, is OBEs. As I said before, many scientists would rather not discuss such phenomena, and some perhaps even deny their occurrence. Metzinger, to his credit, understands that they can and should be incorporated into the scientific worldview, but he never clearly distinguishes the scientific way of understanding them from what is probably the more common view of the general public.

The scientific view is that the second body, and its perspective, are constructed from previous memories and other data. So for example, if you have an out-of-body experience while in bed or on an operating table, and find yourself above the bed or table and looking down at your original body, what you see is based on your knowledge of what your body and the rest of the environment should look like from that perspective. In other words, it is not a real view, but an imagined one. This possibility is completely consistent with what science knows about the brain, and is supported by laboratory studies, including pioneering ones by Metzinger himself, in which OBEs are actually induced in subjects by appropriate conditions.

The alternative view, taken by many believers in paranormal phenomena, is that you really do see that scene—that your perspective is transported in space. So that even while your body, or your original body, remains in bed or on the operating table, some aspect of your being is able to shift physical locations. This obviously is not consistent with the current scientific worldview, and if actually possible, would require a major revolution in science.

There is some anecdotal evidence for the latter view, for example, stories that patients while under anesthesia and being operated on were able to describe in detail the surgeon’s instruments. But to the best of my knowledge, whenever attempts have been made to study OBEs rigorously, the scientific view is supported. For example, if a patient on an operating table were able to leave his body and watch it from above in real time, she should be able to identify the writing on a simple sign positioned so that it would be visible only from that perspective of above. Since this sign was not part of her previous experience, there would be no way it could be incorporated into an imagined scene. But no OBE that I know of has yet satisfied such a criterion.

Metzinger, it’s quite clear from his tone throughout this book, holds the scientific view. But he never makes this clear in his discussion, nor even explains that there is an alternative. He thus misses a chance to highlight the difference between the two views, and perhaps even leaves some readers wondering if he really believes in ESP, telekinesis, and related phenomena. He also does not discuss the studies of Pirn van Lommel, who reported out-of-body or the related near-death experiences of patients who were verifiably brain dead. These studies are particularly germane here, because they would provide direct support for the view that consciousness is not necessarily associated with the brain. Again, I emphasize that I’m not demanding that Metzinger accept such research uncritically, only that he point out its existence and implications.

Evolving by involving

I said earlier that such alternative views might help in understanding some of the major problems associated with consciousness that Metzinger discusses in this book. Consider the question of evolution. Why did consciousness evolve, that is, what survival value did it provide above and beyond the sophisticated perception of and interaction of the environment that an intelligent yet unconscious organism might have? Survival is primarily about functioning in the environment in an appropriate manner. Why is it necessary for the functioning organism to experience that environment?

Folowing Bernard Baars and others, Metzinger suggests that consciousness is critical to our unified view of the world: “It makes classes of facts globally available for an organism and thereby allows it to attend to them, to think about them and to react to them in a flexible manner” (981-988). It does this in particular by allowing us to distinguish reality from simulated reality, to separate what is actually going on in the external world from our memories, plans or visualizations of what has happened, will happen or could happen: “It allowed animals to represent explicitly the fact that something is actually the case.” (1003-1010)  So when we encounter another person, for example, our consciousness of this person is decidedly different from the experience we have when we remember or imagine an encounter with this same person. The actual encounter has an intensity, a vividness, to it that signals to us that this is real.

But this does not solve the evolution problem. Why couldn’t unconscious brain processes do the same thing? Why couldn’t an actual encounter with another person result in a pattern of activation distinctly different from a remembered or otherwise visualized encounter? In fact, there is no question that it does result in a different pattern. The parts of the brain that are activated when we encounter some particular individual may overlap to some extent with those parts activated when we remember or imagine such an encounter, but they are clearly distinct. There is no reason in principle to think that this distinction could not be, indeed is not, the basis on which we experience something as real.

What Metzinger and so many others who think they can explain why consciousness evolved seem to miss is that the evolution problem is intrinsic to the mainstream scientific view of consciousness. It goes hand-in-hand with the view that every possible experience has a specific neural correlate, a unique pattern of activity in the brain. Given this intimate connection between the two, any functional benefit claimed for consciousness could just as well be attributed to the associated pattern of activity. If consciousness makes information globally available to us, it must do so by virtue of its association with a pattern of activity connecting these various sources of information. The pattern itself would be sufficient to bring about global availability. Consciousness is superfluous.

Contrast this with the embodied view of consciousness, where it emerges from the interaction of brain activity with events in the environment. In this view, consciousness is not associated exclusively with any particular pattern of brain activity, but also with what is happening in the external world. It thus has the potential to provide information that brain activity alone could not furnish. While I freely admit it would take a great deal more work to develop this view into a plausible theory of how consciousness evolved, surely it provides a new approach to the problem that should be explored.

The singular aspect of experience

Another of the major puzzles of consciousness addressed by Metzinger that I believe would benefit from thinking beyond the conventional view of an NCC is its ineffability. Fundamentally, this is simply the mind-brain problem, how physical events in the brain can give rise to the experience of consciousness, or what philosophers often call qualia. Metzinger begins by noting that to make any headway with this problem at all, we must have a way of unambiguously identifying different qualia, so that we can correlate a particular qualium with a particular pattern of brain activity. But he then goes on to argue that such rigorous identification is frequently impossible. There are numerous examples of our inability to identify qualia unambiguously.

As a case in point, we can distinguish two highly similar shades of green when we see them side by side, yet when shown either one alone, we can’t say which it is. From this fact Metzinger somehow finds support for Paul Churchland’s eliminative view, that there are no qualia, or ineffable properties of experience. If we can’t unambiguously identify something, he argues, there is no point in claiming that it actually exists.

But obviously, most people, including most scientists and philosophers, believe that qualia do exist, that the term is a meaningful one. I think the reason Metzinger ends up with his highly unintuitive conclusion stems from the standard conception of qualia, as distinct states of consciousness, each corresponding so some unique sensory or even emotional or intellectual experience. An alternative view is that there is only one qualium, and that is consciousness itself. What philosophers commonly call different qualia—different shades of color, or texture, or sounds, and so on—are certainly different events, but their differences are purely describable in terms of neural processes, much as Metzinger/Churchland maintain. For example, the difference between the experience of one color and another color is entirely the result of the difference between one pattern of activity and another. But what makes the experience ineffable is something that is common to both of them.

In other words, what is ineffable is not some particular shade of green or other sensory experience, but something far subtler and also far more general, that transcends the particular. On this view of qualia, there is no problem with our inability to identify certain shades of colors or other experiences. We can acknowledge that it results from limitations in our neural discrimination, without denying that the experience nonetheless remains ineffable.

To claim that consciousness is associated with something different from any particular pattern of brain activity, something common to all of them, is not necessarily to point to an embodied view. Consciousness could be associated with some general brain process that exists in conjunction with the specific patterns of activity that distinguish one experience from another. But clearly the embodied view, or the more radical view of consciousness as something outside the brain that simply receives or transduces it, lends itself particularly well to this understanding of qualia.

States’ rights

The final two chapters of The Ego Tunnel are devoted to speculation about the future, and here Metzinger turns from questions of what is to what ought to be, from knowledge to morals and ethics. I noted his views on “bliss machines” earlier. He in fact thinks we need to be very concerned about conscious states, not only in any forms of artificial intelligence we may create, but also in ourselves. He discusses in some detail the question of which states should be allowed and whether some should not be, and concludes that we need to define a “good state of consciousness”, in much the same way we have traditionally been concerned with defining a “good life”.

Metzinger is advancing into some very difficult territory here, and clearly knows it. He emphasizes that he is not trying to advocate a particular view of what conscious states should be allowed or encouraged so much as raise awareness of the general issue. Yet in one of the major recommendations he makes we can see how intractable the problem is likely to become. Metzinger believes that one criterion of a “good state” of consciousness is that it reduces suffering.  We can surely agree that we want to end poverty, hunger, torture, various forms of abuse, wars, and all manner of other blights of humankind–but do we want to end all suffering? Doesn’t suffering have a critical role to play in our lives? Don’t we often learn from it as much as, if not more than, we learn from joy or pleasure? Can little children really develop into adults without suffering? And can adults continue to grow throughout their lives without suffering? Didn’t Metzinger suffer sometimes in the process of writing this book (if he didn’t, he certainly is blessed among members of his profession)? Does he think that suffering of that kind can and should be minimized?

The Buddha taught that suffering is inevitable for ordinary humans—that the only way to end it is to realize a higher state of consciousness. I think if one wants to define a good state of consciousness, that would be a good place to begin.

The mystic says: the ordinary world we live in is an illusion. There is a higher state of existence in which can know reality.

The scientist says: prove it!

Or as David Lane, a professor of philosophy and sociology at Mt. San Antonio College in southern California, suggests:

Why can’t you produce something in our present state of awareness which would give us confidence that your claims are true?

Lane, a sympathetic observer who claims to have experienced higher awareness himself, is not denying that it may have value. He’s questioning whether it’s anything more than a personal—or if one likes, transpersonal—experience, with no wider relevance to our understanding of the universe. If the mystic really does see a higher reality, let alone the only reality, shouldn’t he/she be able to provide some evidence, in the form of phenomena observable by scientists?

The traditional response to this is that such evidence is impossible. Higher consciousness can no more be proven to those in the ordinary state than our ordinary waking state can be proved to someone who is fast asleep, or dreaming. Perhaps it would be better to leave it at that. But as science expands its scope, driven by the assumption that everything must have an explanation in material terms, some become tempted to accept this challenge.

A recent example is one Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, whose claim of “unique gifts” has caught the attention of integral philosopher Ken Wilber:

Mr. Trivedi has an empirically demonstrated capacity to alter the atomic and molecular structure of phenomena simply through his conscious intentionality. The number of experiments done on this capacity (known in Sanskrit as shaktipat) that have been done in coordination with Mr. Trivedi is quite extraordinary—so far, over 5,000 empirical studies by universities and scientific research organizations all over the world

Really? Five thousand studies? And none of them managed to find their way into, say, Pub Med, or Google Scholar? So I went to Trivedi’s website. There weren’t five thousand publications listed, but there were five (with promises of many more to come).

I looked at one of them, “Impact of an external energy on Yersinia enterocolitica [ATCC –23715] in relation to antibiotic susceptibility and biochemical reactions: An experimental study”, published in the Internet Journal of Alternative Medicine. Basically the same study was reported in a second paper published in the Journal of Accord Integrative Medicine. At the journal’s website, it’s stated that this is a peer-reviewed journal. The Editor-in-Chief, Gerhard Litscher, has published many standard, non-controversial studies, and appears at least superficially to be a scientist in reasonably good standing. So far so good.

So what exactly did Trivedi do? Y. enterocolitica is related to, but not as deadly as, Y. pestis, cause of the bubonic plague or black death. The study began with two sealed packages of the lyophilized (freeze-dried) bacteria. The contents of one pack were put into a tube and “revived”, i.e., cultured in some medium. No details given about the medium.

Mr. Trivedi then held the culture tube in his hand for a couple of minutes (0.5 to 3 minutes, it says), while “treating it through his thought intervention process by communicating and instructing the experimental object within the tube in order to undergo the change.” He did the same with the second, unsealed lyophilized package, after which its contents were also transferred for growth in medium. Following ten days of incubation, the bacteria were then analyzed in two ways:

1) the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of several antibiotics was determined on the bacteria. That is, the lowest concentration of each antibiotic necessary to inhibit bacterial growth.
2) the identity or biotype of the bacteria was determined, that is, the specific types of sugars that it can metabolize.

These measurements were made on both Trivedi-treated and untreated or control bacterial cultures. Both types of measurements were made in an automated apparatus (Microscan Walkaway System) that is widely used by researchers who want to identify and determine the antibiotic resistance of various bacterial strains. Briefly, samples of the bacteria are inoculated into little wells that contain different concentrations of the antibiotic or one of the sugars. The faster the bacteria grow, the more turbid the medium becomes, and this turbidity is determined by absorption of a light beam passing through the well. The machine automatically processes all of these readings to determine the amount of bacteria in each well, and from these data in turn the machine can calculate the concentration of antibiotic necessary to achieve a certain inhibition of growth, as well as the effect of various sugars on growth.

The study reported that many of the treated bacterial samples became more resistant to antibiotics, more than a dozen different kinds of which were tested. (Why one would want to make disease-causing bacteria more resistant to antibiotics, rather than less resistant, is not addressed! Elsewhere, Trivedi’s effect is described as “blessing”. Perhaps he was being compassionate to the bugs). Also reported was a change in the biotype of the samples, i.e., the pattern of sugars which they metabolized was changed.

What does one make of a study like this? I have seen other studies of this kind, some at the institute where I work, where researchers—not professing any particular spiritual powers—pray or otherwise tender beneficial thoughts towards bacteria, or other forms of life. Some of these studies have found significant effects, and have been published. But they are never replicated at other labs, as far as I know. Data like these are sometimes obtained by chance, particularly if researchers, wanting to demonstrate an effect, select their best data. No tests of statistical significance were carried out, rather surprising for a peer-reviewed journal, I would say.

Most of the reported MIC data demonstrated a doubling of concentration, e.g., from 8 to 16 micrograms of antibiotic per milliliter, or from 16 to 32, when the bacterial cultures were handled by Mr. Trivedi. I am not familiar with the apparatus used here, but it appears that concentrations are only determined to multiples of four or eight. If this is the case, then basically the change amounts to moving the MIC from one level to the next highest level. So for example, a concentration of 7.5 would be recorded as 8, while one of 8.5 might be recorded as 16. This might make the reported changes, which are not that high to begin with, even smaller.

In order to carry out statistics, one generally needs to replicate an experiment, and this wasn’t done. For example, each test of a particular antibiotic should have been carried out on a minimum of three different samples, and the mean and standard error of the three results (MIC) compared with the mean and standard error of the controls. Lacking that, there is no way to determine whether a change from, for example, a MIC of 8 in the control to 16 in the treated is significant.

The authors do not say but presumably intend to imply that since differences between control and treated were observed for more than a dozen different antibiotics, this result must be significant. But since each antibiotic constitutes a different condition, it’s difficult to apply a rigorous statistical test to these results. This goes back to what I said previously about selecting the best values. It’s possible that multiple experiments were run with each antibiotic, but the results of only one, presumably the one with the greatest difference, are shown. If it seems unfair of me to suggest this, this is precisely why running replicates with each antibiotic is so important–it‘s the way to avoid this criticism.

I don’t know what to make of the biotype data. They just seem weird, with almost all of the sugars now positive, that is, metabolized. Multiple changes in the cell’s metabolism would have to occur. These results really don’t engender a lot of confidence in the results, for me. (Not that I had any to begin with, but I’m trying very hard to approach this study neutrally).

A thorough study would want to do more controls. In addition to replicate samples, for example, 1) vary the amount of time the sample is treated; 2) vary the amount of time between treatment and analysis; 3) have the sample treated by people other than the person having the supposed effect; 4) try to achieve the opposite effects, i.e., make the bacteria more sensitive to antibiotics. Again, I’m surprised the journal would accept such a superficial look at the phenomenon.

From a methodological point of view, then, these studies are not even up to the standards of most research into the paranormal. Most, or at any rate, many investigators of the paranormal make a great effort to adhere to standard scientific protocol. They focus on a single phenomenon, study it in a carefully controlled manner, use blind methods where possible and appropriate, and perform statistical analysis on the results. All of these basic methodologies are lacking or performed in a substandard manner in Trevedi’s studies. Indeed, he has taken a scattershot approach, claiming to have carried out a great many studies in genetics, microbiology, materials science, and agriculture, among others.

The biggest problems I have with this study, though, are conceptual. Like so many attempts to prove the existence of the paranormal, this study is based on wishful thinking—literally as well as figuratively. Sure, it would be nice to wish that something could happen, and have it happen (every five year old’s dream), but everything we know about the physical world indicates it doesn’t work that way.

What exactly was Trivedi supposed to be doing that resulted in increased resistance of the bacteria to antibiotics? When the article says that he was “communicating and instructing” the bacteria, I assume it is not meant that the cells and their molecular processes could respond to intelligent communication; presumably, the results are supposed to demonstrate that Trivedi manipulated certain phenomena by applying energy to them (though even this is never made explicit in the paper). But even supposing Trivedi could harness and focus some form of energy, this energy wouldn’t change the bacteria’s antibiotic resistance. It might kill them, or make them grow abnormally, but antibiotic resistance involves very specific genetic changes. No such changes are demonstrated in the paper, though Trivedi claims to have carried out other studies in which he has changed gene sequences (like most of his other studies, these are briefly described on his website in a sentence or two, but do not appear in a listed publication.) How could energy manipulation accomplish this?

The development of antibiotic resistance by bacteria is a very well-known phenomenon. A spontaneous mutation occurs in some gene which confers some resistance, and since the resistant bacteria have a survival advantage, they grow and reproduce more readily in the presence of the antibiotic than do bacteria lacking the mutation. In this small-scale manifestation of Darwinian selection, they take over the colony, so that soon all the bacteria express the mutation. According to well-established theory, whether this mutation occurs or not is a purely random event; it doesn’t depend on whether the antibiotic is actually present (there are some studies by researchers that suggest that isn’t always the case, but I won’t get into that here). So mutations for antibiotic resistance are always appearing in bacterial species, but most of them die out, since they have no adaptive value.

So Trevedi would not have had to induce the right mutation in one of the bacteria—or even assuming he somehow did, that would not have been sufficient. What he would have had to do is create the conditions for the mutation to spread in the bacteria. We can’t begin to imagine a scenario explaining this. Inducing a specific mutation in a bacteria seems impossible enough—no machine in the laboratory can do it, that’s why these mutations are called random or spontaneous—but at least we could conceive, in a sci-fi way, of beaming energy precisely on the right nucleotide to create the right mutation in the right gene. But why would this mutation then spread if there were no antibiotic in the medium? What would select it? One of Rupert Sheldraks’s morphogenetic fields? The only alternative, even further out, is that Trevedi induced the mutation not just in one bacteria, but in all the teeming millions of them, simultaneously. It is virtually inconceivable that this could be done in any kind of scientific experiment, even in a sci-fi scenario.

In other words, there is no attempt in the paper to explain the results in terms of current scientific theory—on the contrary, the authors seem to think that no theory can possibly explain them is some kind of recommendation: “These results cannot be explained by current theories of science, and indicate a potency in Mr.Trivedi’s energy…” Yet if he is claiming physical effects, there has to be a link somewhere with physical theory, and even a minimal theory base is lacking.

No attempt even to recognize, let alone engage with, these issues is made in the paper. It’s basically just, this is what we found, believe it or not. I understand this is a preliminary study, but given how radical this finding is, it demands a far more thorough analysis even before publishing. The paper reads more like a quick-and-dirty study that can be referenced to prop up Trevedi’s grandiose claims. It’s very telling that he is apparently making claims in all kinds of other fields—materials science and agriculture, for example—rather than taking the scientifically far more astute approach of focusing on a single phenomenon and exhaustively studying it.

So there are really three huge leaps of faith here: 1) that a human being can harness energy and focus it on cells in culture; 2) this energy, unlike any form known to science, can have very specific molecular effects on these cells; 3) these effects are propagated to—or impacted initially on—every single one of the millions of these cells. The same criticism can be made of the other papers listed at his site, in materials science, where he claims to have altered the physical structure of several elements. I haven’t looked at these in detail, but it’s the same basic claim. On the one hand, he wants to claim that he is emanating energy that has specific physical effects, which by definition makes it physical. On the other hand, he wants to claim that it can do things that physical energy has never been shown capable of doing.