The Fighting 44s

I looked this Lanza guy up, and apparently he’s a scientific super-star, so I say everything with the proviso that I know he’s probably way smarter than me. I agree with his thesis as presented here to the extent that he says properly understanding consciousness is crucial to understanding the universe. I do have a problem with his argument, though, as well as the fact that he says he has an explanation without seeming to have one.

A few quick points. First, Wilber states that the universe is, in a very real way, made up of perspectives, and I think Lanza would agree. This explicitly takes subjectivity, or consciousness, into account. What Wilber means is that before any object can arise in awareness, we need the perceptual apparatus to perceive it. So regardless of what we’re perceiving, a tree, anger, organizing principle, economic transaction, it only arises when we establish a prior perspective in which it can arise. Perspectives exist prior to perceived objects (although a perspective is in itself an object, I think, in that it arises in awareness); as such, it’s crucially important to understand any perspective we’re using, as it defines the parameters of what we can perceive.

Secondly, Wilber says that consciousness is a fundamental thing in the universe: that is, it is the interior aspect of every holon. It does not just pop out at a given stage of evolution, but is the correlating interior manifestation of every exterior structure. Though I’m not sure this can be proven, it makes a lot of sense, as it allows for gradations of complexity (which certainly exist: witness humans, apes, dogs, lizards, shrimp), and a concept of consciousness which does not require our more sophisticated human characteristics. (An atom isn’t “conscious” in the conventional sense, but it does possess “consciousness” to the degee that it can: that is, way less than an insect, which has way less than a dog, which has way less than us.) I’m not sure where Lanza would stand on this, but I think he would probably agree, given his position that consciousness is THE fundamental building “material” of the universe.

Thirdly, when we study pure awareness, or non-duality, we find that there is only the timeless present: it is never not the present, and time and space, past and future, this and that, all only arise within this vast, timeless, spaceless awareness. In this sense, “time” (and space, and subjects/objects) are illusions, or delusions, since all that exists arises within this moment, this awareness, and they are ultimately not-two. I believe that Lanza would generally agree with this, though like me, I don’t think he’s had a lot of first-person experience with it, and I’m not sure he even understands the theory behind non-dual awareness, as well as I do (and I’ve only gained a really decent and explainable understanding in the last six months, after years of trying to get it).

Fourthly, Wilber believes in Sheldrake’s theory of morphogenetic fields, as well as a general “Eros principle” (perhaps a force, I’m not sure), which says that the universe is actively evolving toward higher consciousness and complexity, and that once something exists, it creates a “groove” in the fabric of the universe which facilitates more of that thing existing. So in a sense, the universe intrinsically moves in the direction of greater complexity and conscious life. Lanza would also probably agree here.

So far, he, Wilber, and I would probably agree on the principles laid out in the last four paragraphs: that understanding consciousness is necessary for “unified” or “integrated” understanding; that the universe is made of perspectives; that consciousness is an inherent property of the universe; that time and space and boundaries are contingent on the timeless and spaceless and unbounded, and these are not-two; and that the universe has a tendency to evolve.

I think that he, as well as many others, kind of goes off the rails when he starts trying to prove his point with quantum physics. His argument starts to sound solipsistic: there is nothing but consciousness, which makes the world, and without us there is, or would be, nothing. Well, no. Without us there would still be all sorts of stuff, we just wouldn’t perceive it. Yes, it takes a perspective for me to say that (an objectivist one), but it’s true: human or life consciousness, while intrinsic to and supported by the universe does not generate the universe. He seems to be privileging subjectivity (the left-hand quadrants) as fundamental, whereas it only co-arises with objectivity (the right hand quadrants). As such, it looks to me like he’s swinging the pendulum to the other extreme: instead of being a material reductionist, he’s doing a post-modern subjective reductionism, but attempting to do so with right-hand objective theories and analysis.

While I’m not sure if I’m right here, this seems to present a severe theoretical difficulty, summarized by his phrasing: “From the beginning, Copenhagen adherents realized that nothing is real unless it’s perceived. This makes perfect sense if biocentrism is reality; otherwise it’s a total enigma.” I don’t know if he’s aware of this and means something other than the way I’m interpreting him, but this is a huge contradiction: nothing is real unless it’s perceived, but biocentrism is an absolute reality? So this is real regardless of whether or not it’s perceived (and, I assume, always has been, and always will be)? Doesn’t this imply the existence of some objective universal rules, independent of perception? “Nothing is real unless it’s perceived, except this.” This is of course a variation of Wilber’s “performative contradiction” critique of extreme post-modernism: you’re relying on an objective reality you deny.

Now, I don’t know whether this critique truly applies, because Lanza presents his arguments very simply, and he might be getting at something more sophisticated (like a Wilber theory without such an obvious contradiction), but it sounds like he’s one of those well-meaning consciousness/spirit-focused scientists like Fritjof Capra who doesn’t have his shit straight (Capra was at least a physicist. Note that Lanza’s arguments on reality rely on his descriptions of quantum physics, and he’s an M.D. and cell biologist. I tend to distrust anyone who tries to use QM in their views of reality who isn’t a physicist). This appears most obvious to me when he says this: “This ‘Is it really there?’ issue is ancient, and of course predates biocentrism. Biocentrism, however, explains why one view and not the other may be correct. The converse is equally true: Once one fully understands that there is no independent external universe outside of biological existence, the rest more or less falls into place.” I may have missed something in what he wrote here, but as far as I can tell, nothing has really fallen into place: he’s simply said that consciousness is fundamental to the universe, and the universe seems to exist to support life and consciousness. Well, this doesn’t really resolve the big bang, or quantum entanglement, or love, it just says there’s something funny going on which we don’t understand. Now, this might be all he’s trying to say, as he’s only giving a starting point, but still, to say that everything is explained by accepting that consciousness makes the world (something he hasn’t explained adequately in itself), and then not following up with any real explanation, is deeply unsatisfying.

P.S.: Whoops, I should add that the co-author, Bob Berman, is an astronomer. I’m sure their layman descriptions of the QM experiments and findings are fine, but my issue is not with the accuracy of description, but with the applicability of these precise scientific findings to life and the universe. Finding that our observations and expectations affect the outcomes of experiments, and that information can somehow be passed instantaneously, is a far cry from explaining how life and consciousness generate a universe.

P.P.S.: Oh and the authors also make points about language and its tendency to create subject/object boundaries. While I agree with this, I also wanted to emphasize that it seems to be an intrinsic part of how our brain/bodies develop. When we’re born, everything is fused, and there is no differentiation between subject and object (note that this is not non-dual realization, or mystical integration, but a primitive fusion state), and the first thing the baby has to do is delineate a subject (the physical self) against everything else in the world. Then, as we develop, we embrace more and more things into our own subject, until we end up relating to not just manifest existence, but the timeless, spaceless unmanifest (”God,” the Witness, Brahman, the Tao, etc.).