Later on, I thought of the deeper secret denied me at earliest dawn, when I had peeped through that little ice-crystal hole into the morning. “We are too content with our sense organs,” Loren Eiseley once said. It is not sufficient to watch at the end of a nerve the dancing of photons. “It is no longer enough to see as a man sees—even to the ends of the universe.” Our radio telescopes and supercolliders merely extend the perceptions of our mind. We see the finished work only. We do not see how things stand in community with each other as parts of a real whole, save for a space of perhaps five seconds on some glorious December morning when all the senses are one.
Of course, the physicists will not understand, just as they cannot see behind the equations of quantum reality. These are the variables that, standing on the edge of the pond in such a day in December, merge the mind with the whole of nature, that lurk concealed behind every leaf and twig.
We scientists have looked at the world for so long that we no longer challenge its reality. As Thoreau pointed out, we are like the Hindus, who conceived of the world as resting on the back of an elephant, the elephant on the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. We all stand on the shoulders of one another—and all together on nothing.
For myself, five seconds on a winter’s morning is the most convincing evidence I should ever need. As Thoreau had said of Walden:
I am its stony shore,
And the breeze that passes o’er;
In the hollow of my hand
Are its water and its sand . . .
16
WHAT
IS
THIS PLACE?
RELIGION, SCIENCE,
AND
BIOCENTRISM LOOK AT REALITY
T
he last several chapters discussed the makeup and structure of the universe. It’s amazing that we humans have the capacity to do this at all. One day, we each found ourselves alive and aware and, around the age of two in most cases, an ongoing memory track started recording selective inputs. In fact, years ago I carried out a series of experiments with B.F. Skinner (which we published in
Science
) that showed even animals are capable of “self-awareness.” At some point in childhood, most people eventually ask themselves, “Hey! What
is
this place?” It isn’t enough for us to just be aware. We want to know why, what, and how existence is the way it is.
We were still children when we started to be bombarded by competing answers. Church said one thing, school another. Now, as adults, it’s no surprise that if we discuss The Nature Of It All, we generally spout some combination of the two, depending on our individual inclination and mood.
We may struggle with attempts at merging science and religion, when, for instance, we watch the Christmas planetarium show,
Star of Wonder
, which purports to find logical explanations for the Star of
Bethlehem. This is also seen in such best-selling books as
The Tao of Physics
and
The Dancing Wu-Lei Masters
, which purport to show that modern physics says the same thing as Buddhism.
By and large, however, such efforts are futile and even trashy, even if they are popular. Actual physicists insist
The Tao of Physics
doesn’t talk about the actual science, but a barely recognizable flower-child version. The annual planetarium Christmas presentations, for their part, dishonor both religion and astronomy because all planetarium directors know that no natural object in the sky, whether conjunction, comet, planet, or supernova, can come to a screeching halt over Bethlehem or anywhere else. Only an object in the northern sky, the North Star itself, can appear to be motionless. But the Magi weren’t going north but southwest to get to Bethlehem. Bottom line: none of the offered explanations work. The directors know this, yet offer them anyway, because such shows have been well-attended holiday traditions for three-quarters of a century. Meanwhile, on the religious side of things, those who take the “star” story literally are being told that no miracle unfolded; it was merely some brilliant conjunction of planets that happened to occur at just the right time and come to a halt in the sky—as if this in itself wouldn’t be indistinguishable from a miracle. (If one doesn’t mind a digression here and happens to be curious about the answer, the explanation of the “star” almost certainly belongs to neither science nor religion. What’s left? At the time, the births of great kings were superstitiously believed to be accompanied by astrological omens, and when the Biblical account was written, a full lifetime after the event, someone clearly thought Jesus deserved no less. Because Jupiter was in Aries—the “ruling sign” of Judea—at the probable time of Jesus’s birth, an excellent match existed. So the story was astrological in origin—an explanation that would currently sit far out of favor with both science and Christianity, and hence gets little mention by either.)
Because science and religion make odd bedfellows whose offspring is usually malformed, let’s keep them properly separated as we summarize the various widely accepted answers to the most basic questions of existence: What
is
this universe? What is the relation of
the living to the non-living? Is the Great Computer’s basic operating system random or is it intelligent? Is it fathomable by the human mind? While we’re at it, let’s also review the fundamental questions with which each view has chosen to intertwine themselves, and then see whether these selected areas of emphasis, at least, have been answered successfully.
Classic Science’s Basic Take on the Cosmos
Everything started 13.7 billion years ago when the entire universe materialized out of nothingness. Expanding ever since, first rapidly, then more slowly, the expansion started speeding up once again some 7 billion years ago due to an unknown repulsive force, which is the main constituent of the cosmos. All structures and events are created entirely randomly, given the four fundamental forces and a host of parameters and constants such as the universal pull of gravity. Life began 3.9 billion years ago on Earth and possibly elsewhere at unknown times. It too occurred by the random collisions of molecules, which in turn are made of combinations of one or more of the ninety-two natural elements. Consciousness or awareness arose out of life in a manner that remains mysterious.
Classic Science’s Answers to Basic Questions
How did the Big Bang happen?
Unknown.
What was the Big Bang?
Unknown.
What, if anything, existed before the Big Bang?
Unknown.
What is the nature of dark energy, the dominant entity of the cosmos?
Unknown.
What is the nature of dark matter, the second most prevalent entity?
Unknown.
How did life arise?
Unknown.
How did consciousness arise?
Unknown.
What is the nature of consciousness?
Unknown.
What is the fate of the universe; for example, will it keep expanding?
Seemingly yes.
Why are the constants the way they are?
Unknown.
Why are there exactly four forces?
Unknown.
Is life further experienced after one’s body dies?
Unknown.
Which book provides the best answers?
There is no single book.
Okay, so what
can
science tell us? A lot—libraries full of knowledge. All of it has to do with classifications and sub-classifications of all manner of objects, living and non-living, and categorizations of their properties, such as the ductility and strength of steel versus copper, and how processes work, such as how stars are born and how viruses replicate. In short, science seeks to discover the properties and processes
within
the cosmos. How to form metals into bridges, how to build an airplane, how to perform reconstructive
surgery—science is peerless at things we need to make everyday life easier.
So those who ask science to provide the ultimate answers or to explain the fundamentals of existence are looking in the wrong place—it’s like asking particle physics to evaluate art. Scientists do not admit to this, however. Branches of science such as cosmology act as if science can indeed provide answers in the deepest bedrock areas of inquiry, and its success in the established pantheon of other endeavors have let all of us say, “Go ahead, give it a go.” But thus far, it has had little or no success.
Religion’s Take on the Cosmos
Needless to say, there are many religions, and we’re not about to get into their endless distinctions. But two general schools exist, each with billions of adherents. They are so oceanically distinct in outlook and stated goals that they must be treated separately.
Western Religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)
The universe is entirely a creation of God, who stands apart from it. It had a distinct birth date and will have an end. Life was also created by God. The most critical purposes of life are twofold: to have faith in God and to be obedient to God’s rules, such as the Ten Commandments and other rules as outlined in the Bible or the Koran, which are generally regarded as the sole source of total truth. Christianity generally says that acceptance of Jesus Christ as savior is necessary as well—all with the goal of experiencing heaven (or being “saved,” as opposed to being damned) because the afterlife is what ultimately matters. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, the creator and sustainer of the universe. He can be contacted through prayer. No mention is made of other states of consciousness, nor of consciousness itself, nor of direct personal experience of finding an ultimate reality, except in mystical sects, where the exalted state is generally termed “Union with God.”
Western Religions’ Answers to Basic Questions
How did God arise?
Unknown.
Is God eternal?
Yes.
Basic science inquiries (For example, what came before the Big Bang?)
Not spiritually relevant; God created everything.
What is the nature of consciousness?
Never discussed; unknown.
Is life experienced after one’s body dies?
Yes.
Eastern Religions (Buddhism and Hinduism)
All is fundamentally One. The true nature of reality is existence, consciousness, and bliss. Appearance of individual separate forms is illusory, called
maya
or
samsara
. The One is eternal, perfect, and operates effortlessly. One of its aspects is an all-knowing and omnipotent God, accepted or central to most but not all branches of Hinduism and Buddhism. Time is illusory. Life is eternal; most sects believe this operates through reincarnation; but others (for example, Advaita Vedānta) maintain that no birth and death actually occur. The goal of life is to perceive cosmic truth by losing the false sense of illusion and separateness, through direct ecstatic experience, variously called nirvana, enlightenment, or Realization.
Eastern Religions’ Answers to Basic Questions
What was the Big Bang?
Irrelevant. Time doesn’t exist; the universe is eternal.
What is the nature of consciousness?
Unknowable through logic.
Does the experience of life persist after the body dies?
Yes.
Biocentrism’s Take on the Cosmos
There is no separate physical universe outside of life and consciousness. 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. Space and time exist only as constructs of the mind, as tools of perception. Experiments in which the observer influences the outcome are easily explainable by the interrelatedness of consciousness and the physical universe. Neither nature nor mind is unreal; both are correlative. No position is taken regarding God.
Consider again the seven principles we have established:
First Principle of Biocentrism
: What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An “external” reality, if it existed, would—by definition—have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.
Second Principle of Biocentrism
: Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.
Third Principle of Biocentrism
: The behavior of subatomic particles—indeed all particles and objects—are inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.
Fourth Principle 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.
Fifth Principle of Biocentrism
: The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The “universe” is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.
Sixth Principle of Biocentrism
: Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.
Seventh Principle of Biocentrism
: Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.