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Introduction
There has been a considerable dialogue between science on the one hand
and religion and mysticism on the other hand in recent history, culminating
perhaps in the pervasive physics-supports-mysticism New Age view promoted
by books like the Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu-Li Masters
[1]. Ken Wilber is a seemingly
lone dissenter to this view, presenting in Cosmic Questions [2] convincing evidence that the bulk of physicists responsible for
the 'new physics' took the view that while their physics did not invalidate
mysticism, neither did it support it: their mystical views were independent
of their physics. David Bohm [3] is clearly a counter-example to Wilber's argument, but the
argument is still worth making.
If we take Wilber's view that mystics don't need 'validation' from modern
physics but concede at least that there is a fruitful line of dialogue
here, what about the contribution of mystics to science? While it may
be that a mystic, also trained as a scientist, may do better science,
the more interesting question lies in the nature of the mystic's expertise:
the inner world. Studies in consciousness is a growing academic field
with contributions from both the sciences and the humanities. Perhaps
studies in mysticism can offer the insights of the mystics of three thousand
years or more into the questions emerging from studies in consciousness.
The Contemporary Debate on Consciousness
A number of popular science books on consciousness in recent years has
shown an increasing acceptance that consciousness has become not just
an acceptable field of study, but fashionable. Behind the lurch from poor
relative to hyped-up topic of the moment is a serious consensus within
and across a range of academic disciplines that a better understanding
of consciousness is needed for genuine progress, not just in the Western
world-view as a whole, but in specific areas that could lead to new scientific
understanding, and new technologies, such as in Artificial Intelligence.
The launch of the international Journal of Consciousness Studies
(JCS) [4] indicates the respect that the subject now commands, and its
first two issues and editorials are setting the tone for the debates,
both within and across disciplines.
The editors of the JCS include Robert Forman, known in studies
in mysticism for his work on Eckhart, and for The Problem of Pure Consciousness
[5]. The editors' introduction
to the first issue of JCS explicitly states that contributions from religious
studies are important to the debate, and in particular that a phenomenological
approach must be included:
The inclusion
of this phenomenological approach is essential, we believe, because
consciousness studies in one field perhaps the one academic field
where the experiential aspect cannot be ignored [6].
The first
issue of JCS contains a paper by Forman, focusing on the role of language
in mystical experience; a paper demonstrating that the paranormal poses
a theoretical problem for conscious machines; and a paper dealing with
a Buddhist perspective on causality. Otherwise the papers are largely
scientific papers with different degrees of sympathy to anything that
could be called a mystical approach to consciousness. In the second issue
there is one article explicitly dealing with mysticism; a paper discussing
Francis Crick's work from a religious studies perspective; and a discussion
between Oliver Sacks and Anthony Freeman, the recently sacked Church of
England vicar.
While the debates in studies in consciousness are largely within physics,
computing, biology, neurology, psychology and philosophy, it seems that
proponents of almost any viewpoint have to define their stand with respect
to the religious or mystical, even if only to mount an attack on it. It
seems that such attacks are rarely going to be of the deadly variety that
a Richard Dawkins mounts (enjoyable as they are), and that studies in
mysticism is going to have a genuine part to play in the debate.
Issues in the Contemporary Debate on Consciousness
It is only possible to give here a brief summary of the positions of the
key players and the key debates in the subject, but the positions can
be usefully categorised as materialist, dualist and idealist.
Francis Crick [7], famous for his part in the discovery of DNA, probably represents
the materialist or reductionist view of consciousness, summed up in his
'astonishing hypothesis' that we are nothing more than a pack of neurons,
and that all consciousness is merely neuronal activity. He seeks to find
the neural correlates of perceptions (he works mainly with the sense of
sight), thus tackling the qualia problem (i.e. explaining the 'redness'
of red), and eventually to find the neural correlate of consciousness.
Daniel Dennett [8], a philosopher,
is a more moderate materialist who rejects the Cartesian duality of mind
and brain, and wishes to replace the concept of a Cartesian theatre (where
all sensory input are ultimately unified into a holistic perception) with
the Multiple Drafts Model. This only accepts that perceptions are conscious
when 'noted down' in memory, and proposes a continual editorial process
as a model for consciousness. Some of the researchers that can be placed
in the materialist camp are best characterised by the term 'epiphenomenalist'
in that they see consciousness as an epiphenomenon or emergent phenomenon
(though these are in themselves distinguishable positions).
The dualists in some way or other are forced to accept Descartes view
of a 'ghost in a machine', or some kind of distinction between brain and
mind. Roger Penrose [9], is not happy with the term dualist, arguing that scientific
advances since Descartes, particularly quantum theory, make the term less
useful than in an era of Newtonian mechanics. Penrose believes that quantum-mechanical
effects in the brain allow for the entry of important aspects of consciousness
that cannot be explained by the 'classical' science of Crick and Dennett,
these being indeterminacy (allowing for free will) and coherence (allowing
for the holistic nature of consciousness). Penrose suggests that the transfer
of quantum mechanical phenomena into the classical region of the brain
is a result of physics that we do not yet understand, and proposes that
structures called microtubules are the location for these effects. Note
that he term dualist is used here in a specific way and is not directly
related to its use in mysticism. The basic problem that dualists face
is this: how to explain that a non-material entity such as mind can influence
the brain as matter.
The idealist position is that there is only mind and no matter. It is
included here for completeness, but finds few adherents in the scientific
community. It may be that some scientists have a perception that this
is the position of the mystics, i.e. that mystics deny the material as
vigorously as the materialists deny the spiritual. This is probably a
category mistake: the idealist position (as stated here) is more likely
to be a poetic or pedagogical device in mysticism than a valid proposition
in an academic sense. However, for a rounded debate in consciousness studies,
the idealist position needs expansion and clarification.
The following is a brief list of some of the issues arising in studies
in consciousness:
· the binding problem / Cartesian theatre / awareness
· free will / causality problems
· the ghost in the machine problem / Cartesian cut
· other-minds problem / zombies
· qualia
· 1st person vs. 3rd person methodologies (introspectionism vs.
behaviourism)
· relationship between thought and consciousness
· links with quantum theory
· implications of the paranormal
· problems surrounding artificial consciousness.
Mysticism and Consciousness
There is a reasonable consensus that one can divide the world's mystical
literature into two broad camps: love-mysticism and awareness mysticism.
There may be a large number of texts that appear to move effortlessly
from one of these poles to the other, but this does not detract from the
contention that a group of scholars in the subject could fairly easily
dispose of the texts into two large heaps corresponding with these poles,
along with a smaller heap containing the genuine hybrids and don't-knows.
The point of saying this is that scholars looking for material that deals
with consciousness would sensibly start with the large pile labelled 'awareness-mysticism'.
This includes many Buddhist and Zen Buddhist texts, Patanjali, Ramana
Maharshi, The Cloud of Unknowing, Krishnamurti and Douglas Harding,
to choose just a tiny selection. This is not to say that these authors
do not deal with love, or that so-called love mystics have nothing to
tell us about consciousness: it is just a starting point.
Few scholars in mysticism have concerned themselves directly with the
issues of consciousness as formulating at the present time outside of
religious studies. In some ways many of the issues in studies in mysticism
are related to consciousness, but to ask the same question a different
way can reveal hidden threads and congruences in a body of material, in
this case the mystical texts.
Contributions from Mysticism
As we have seen, the contemporary debate on consciousness involves a range
of issues and methodological assumptions, which can broadly be categorised
as materialist, dualist, and idealist. It is unlikely that studies in
mysticism can make a contribution in the first category, but likely that
they can in the second two. There are perhaps three main types of contribution:
1. A body of knowledge about consciousness.
2. Empirical techniques for introspective experimentation in consciousness.
3. A range of additional problems in studies in consciousness.
Knowledge
In the editorial in the first issue of JCS the editors' list the
disciplines that contribute to studies in consciousness and go on to add:
The latter [phenomenological category] is best exemplified by the transpersonal
and contemplative traditions, who have focused not so much on knowledge
'about' consciousness, but on transformative techniques that claim to
reveal its true nature in a more experiential way.
This acceptance that knowledge 'about' something is not the be-all and
end-all of academic endeavour is highly encouraging. In the second issue
of JCS G. William Barnard from the Religious Studies Department
at the Southern Methodist University takes the transformative idea further
[10]. He argues that academies must accept scholar-mystics
in their midst, rather than see them as a threat to academic cosiness.
However it would be wrong to assume that knowledge about consciousness
can only reside in the living beings of those somehow transformed in their
quest for its better understanding, and the same is true in mysticism.
There is a body of knowledge in mysticism, and at the very least
it should prevent the making of category mistakes. For example Eleanor
Rosch presents a discussion of the four types of causality in Madhyamika
Buddhism (a thing may arise out of itself, out of something other, out
of both, or out of nothing) in relation to the ideas of modern cognitive
psychology [11]. While discussions
of causality are undoubtedly part of a philosophical debate in the East,
it is also true to say that these four types of causality are also metaphors
for states of consciousness in the mystic: e.g. to see that all things
arise from nothing is a poetical way of expressing a state of samadhi.
Rosch's analysis of causality would be more complete with an acknowledgement
that a category shift would transform the meaning of the original statements.
Techniques
Barnard's proposal that active mystics become part of the academy, and
that studies in consciousness needs an introspective as well as a behaviourist
approach opens up the profoundly difficult question of a first-person
methodology. William James's Radical Empiricism is an attempt to broaden
scientific empiricism to experience, while Husserl's Phenomenology, requiring
us to 'bracket out' concepts relating to our pure experience of phenomena,
also tries to extend empiricism. However, the behaviourist schools of
psychology in their various forms won the argument over 'subjectivity',
demonstrating that advances in knowledge best came from the 'black box'
approach, where the subjective experience of the individual was discounted.
Dennett devotes a whole chapter to the problem of first- vs. third-person
perspectives and even proposes a new methodology called heterophenomenology
as some kind of hybrid, with little evidence however of any successes
to date [12].
One reason for the possible failure of various types of introspective
or phenomenological approach may be that the subject (and object!) of
such empirical investigation is not necessarily trained. In third-person
science one expects a rigorous training lasting many years before the
scientist can make any substantial contribution to knowledge, so why not
in a first-person science? In most religious and mystical traditions training
is expected to be at least as lengthy and as arduous as in science, with
perhaps a similar 'hit-rate' (many mystics deny a causal link between
training and liberation, but plenty of well-trained scientists also fail
to make substantial contributions to science).
If this principle is accepted then we are faced with the problems of the
confessional aspect of any mystical training, which brings in pre-packaged
assumptions from that tradition about the nature of reality. If we wish
to borrow a training in introspection from any mystical tradition, for
the purposes of investigating consciousness, then we must be aware of
all the assumptions that come with it.
Problems
As well as offering a body of knowledge and a range of introspective techniques,
mysticism also offers studies in consciousness an additional range of
problems to tackle. These mainly lie under the heading of the problem
of pure consciousness, though pure consciousness can be variously defined,
leading to a range of questions to tackle, rather than a single one. An
additional but unrelated problem lies with the doctrines of reincarnation
and anatman (no-self). One could view the Eastern understanding
of reincarnation as a way of stating that consciousness accrues
to organisms; this is a radically different view to that of epiphenomenalism,
and assumes a Cartesian duality. The doctrine of anatman, on the
other hand, denies that anything as central or profound as consciousness
is reincarnated, merely a set of tendencies (which include, for some,
memories of past lives, and for all, the karmic predispositions). A complete
theory of consciousness needs to address these issues.
We will now examine some authorities in mysticism to give some illustrative
flesh to the notion that studies in mysticism can contribute to studies
in consciousness.
Forman
Robert Forman is a distinguished academic in religious studies, and, as
part of the JCS philosophy of promoting a first-person approach,
we are told in the first issue that he practices a form of new-Advaitan
meditation daily [13]. The book The Problem of Pure Consciousness, of
which he was the editor, presents something he terms the Pure Consciousness
Event (PCE). In his introduction he states that this is a state of consciousness
devoid of content, and that articles in part 1 of the book demonstrate
its existence, while papers in part 2 show that the contextualist approach
to mystical experience (which argues that all experience is mediated through
language and concept) cannot explain it, and is therefore incomplete.
The contextualist approach, arising from modern thinking on the role of
language, denies the validity of the concept of pure consciousness, and
fits well with Dennett's Multiple Drafts Model of consciousness.
While it is hard to overestimate the importance of The Problem of Pure
Consciousness, its arguments are open to attack on several grounds.
Firstly, the essays in Part 1 are probably too disparate in their approach
to convince the sceptic of the existence of PCE, and secondly, there is
too little illustrative material regarding it. To characterise the PCE
as one devoid of content is problematic because of its rarity, even in
the lives of the mystics. The PCE is close to a fit of abstraction or
trance, or to the state of catatonic schizophrenia, requiring the complete
suspension of the operation of the sensory apparatus. We do have descriptions
of Socrates and Ramakrishna in such states (we even have a photograph
of Ramakrishna requiring the support of his devotees because of his ecstasy),
but Forman gives us little clue as to how, for example, sounds are shut
off from this particular state of consciousness. We know that by staring
at something long enough the picture breaks up and we can lose the sensory
data of sight, but sounds are not so amenable, and Socrates' fits of abstraction
must have been accompanied by at least some birdsong. This is not to argue
against the PCE, but to propose a more general case of pure consciousness:
where sensory percepts are normal, but where thought ceases. This
is a more widely encountered state in mysticism, and poses a more generalisable
set of problems in the study of consciousness.
Krishnamurti
As an advocate of pure consciousness based on the absence of thought rather
than percept, Krishnamurti serves as an excellent case study. There is
not space here to give his credentials as one of the 20th century's greatest
mystics, other than to say that he was trained for 20 years to be a Buddha,
experienced enlightenment under similar circumstances to the Buddha, and
taught like the Buddha up to his death at an advanced age. His teachings
can be summed up in the phrase 'choiceless awareness'. While his advocacy
of silence of the mind is strongly reminiscent of Zen Buddhist 'no-mind'
teachings, he refused to allow any comparisons with his teachings, and
in particular denied the value of the spiritual teacher or guru. This
paradoxical position becomes even more puzzling in an extraordinary conversation
with the physicist David Bohm, where he persuades Bohm that the important
part of their communication is at the unconscious level.
Bohm: To reach the unconscious you have to have an action which
doesn't directly appeal to the conscious.
Krishnamurti: Yes. That is affection, that is love. When you talk
to my waking consciousness, it is hard, clever, subtle, brittle. And you
penetrate that, penetrate it with your look, with your affection, with
all the feeling you have. That operates, nothing else [14].
Krishnamurti, despite the apparent role-inversion of guru and disciple,
gives the game away: he is admitting that it is the charismatic power
of the teacher (comprising looks, affection, feeling, love) which enables
a transformation in the disciple.
Krishnamurti leaves little in the form of a body of knowledge, or of technique
(other than choiceless awareness), but leaves us with a new version of
the no-mind problem. He claimed once to have walked for a whole hour without
a single thought. Knowing that he was fond of dogs, and that his dog may
have been with him at the time, one can then pose (the Krishnamurti's
dog) problem: what was the difference between his state of consciousness
and the dog's?
Douglas Harding
Douglas Harding is another great mystic of the 20th century, still alive
and teaching. Unlike Krishnamurti, Douglas is fond of relating his teachings
to those of other mystics, although his teachings are on the surface of
it far more unconventional than Krishnamurti's. Douglas teaches a version
of no-mind that he calls 'headlessness'. The origins of this lie in his
own experience in the Himalayas at the age of 33, following a prolonged
period of self-enquiry along lines similar to Ramana Maharshi's suggested
meditation on the question: what am I?
What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular:
I stopped thinking. A peculiar quiet, an odd kind of alert limpness or
numbness, came over me. Reason and imagination and all mental chatter
died down. For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away.
I forgot who and what I was, my name, manhood, animalhood, all that could
be called mine. It was as if I had been born that instant, brand new,
mindless, innocent of all memories. There existed only the Now, that present
moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough, and what
I found was khaki trouserlegs terminating downwards in a pair of brown
shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and
a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in absolutely nothing whatever!
Certainly not a head [15].
This is probably a description of the more common type of pure conscious
experience, as opposed to the PCE, and is probably also a description
of a spontaneous and complete 'bracketing out' (of memory and imagination)
that Husserl was vainly groping for. What is unusual in Harding's case
is his latching on to the no-head observation as central to the experience,
and as a central pedagogical device. Since this experience some fifty
years ago, Harding has evolved a toolkit of first-person experiments to
demonstrate headlessness, all of which at first sight seem absurd, but
may in fact be highly useful as a starting point for a methodology for
a first-person scientific investigation of consciousness [16].
Conclusions
From the discussion so far it would seem reasonable to assume not only
that studies in mysticism can contribute to studies in consciousness,
but that the reverse may also be true. Studies in mysticism can contribute
a body of knowledge, a body of introspective techniques (and a comparative
study of them), and pose a range of problems for studies in consciousness
(or formulate existing problems in new ways). In turn, studies in consciousness
may reformulate existing problems in studies in mysticism, directing studies
of the mystical texts with a different emphasis. Lastly, if studies in
consciousness makes genuine progress in promoting and legitimising first-person
scientific investigation in consciousness, then why not in mysticism?
References
[1]
Zukav, Gary The Dancing Wu Li Masters London: Fontana, 1979
[2] Wilber, Ken, Quantum Questions
- Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists, Boston and London:
Shambhala, 1985
[3] Bohm, D. Wholeness and
the Implicate Order, London: Ark Paperbacks (Routledge), 1980
[4] Journal of Consciousness
Studies - controversies in the sciencies and humanities, Thorverton
UK: Imprint Academic
[5] Forman, Robert K.C. (Ed.),
The Problem of Pure Consciousness, New York, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990
[6] Journal of Consciousness
Studies - controversies in the sciencies and humanities, Thorverton
UK: Imprint Academic, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 6.
[7] Crick, Francis, The Astonishing
Hypothesis - The Scientific Search for the Soul, Simon and Schuster,
1994
[8] Dennet, Daniel C., Consciousness
Explained, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1991
[9] Penrose, Roger, Shadows
of the Mind - A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford
University Press, 1994
[10] Journal of Consciousness
Studies - controversies in the sciencies and humanities, Thorverton
UK: Imprint Academic, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 256 - 260.
[11] Ibid, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.
50 - 65.
[12] Dennet, Daniel C., Consciousness
Explained, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1991, pp. 66 - 100.
[13] Journal of Consciousness
Studies - controversies in the sciencies and humanities, Thorverton
UK: Imprint Academic, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 3.
[14] Krishnamurti, J. The Awakening
of Intelligence, Victor Gollancz, London, 1973, p.538.
[15] Hofstadter, Douglas, and
Dennett, Daniel (Eds.) The Mind's I, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England,
1981, pp. 23 - 24.
[16] Harding, D.E. The Near
End - The Science of Liberation and the Liberation of Science, Shollond,
Nacton, Ipswitch IP10 OEW
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