The Sage Age Blog

Archive for the ‘Consciousness’ Category

On September 9, 2010, Larry King interviewed Stephen Hawking and Cal Tech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who together co-authored The Grand Design. In this book, they propose that “God may exist, but science can explain the universe without a need for a creator.” They go on to say that “The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary.”

While these statements may seem controversial, Hawking and Mlodinow are not the first theoretical mathematicians to attempt to remove God or theology from the halls of science. Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton all did the same thing with varying degrees of success.

It’s important to realize that none of these men stated that God did not exist. What they said was that everything about the workings of the universe could be explained by mathematics. In fact, Newton did such a splendid and thorough job of explaining the clockwork of the heavens, and other topics of physics, that many scientists of the day declared that the last volume had been written on those matters and there was nothing new to learn.

If the history of scientific discovery teaches us anything, it’s that there is
always something new to learn and it either overturns previous certainties,
or shows them to be true only under a limited range of circumstances.

Hawking also presented the idea that ours was not the only universe. In fact, he stated that there are a “great many universes” and all of them were created out of nothingness. He went on to state that “these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science.” Hawking isn’t the first to suggest that idea. It began to gain acceptance as the notion of inflationary cosmology took hold, which describes how the universe took shape from its earliest moments to what we see now. It’s also been criticized as a theory invented solely as a way for cosmologists to remove God from the equations. (Note: the multiverse theory is a fairly recent development and completely different from the Many Worlds theory, which was proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957.)

Something from Nothing

During the panel discussion that followed the one-on-one interview with Hawking, both Father Robert J. Spitzer, (Jesuit priest and author of New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy) and Deepak Chopra (spiritual teacher and best-selling author) took issue with the idea of something from nothing. They are not alone. Several physicists, including those who study quantum theory, M theory (of which string theory is a part), and the multiverse theory, are trying to write the equations that will explain the existence of both time and matter prior to the Big Bang. (A side note. One of my favorite physicists on this topic is Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics at Harvard, who authored Warpped Passages.)

In response, Mlodinow briefly touched on the subject by suggesting that quantum theory upholds the old axiom that nature abhors a vacuum by stating that, “You can have nothingness in quantum theory. But from that, things will arise.” Basically, things pop into and out of existence so rapidly that we don’t even notice. He somewhat deflected the question about nothingness being the beginning of existence and cited the time-before-time problem as the reason there is no satisfactory answer to that question yet.

Consciousness

From out of left field, King asked Mlodinow what happens to us when we die. After recovering from being stunned at the question, he deflected it a bit, but it led to a very interesting response about consciousness and the limits of science to quantify it. He said, “there’s no physics explanation for consciousness. And as far as I can tell, I’ve never seen consciousness defined in a way that a scientist can really deal with.”

One of the TV shows I enjoy is Closer to Truth, which deals with many of the same questions presented in this King interview, including cosmology, consciousness, and God. In each episode, the host, Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, asks a question from one of these topics and then presents interviews with 4-7 leading thinkers in those areas giving their perspective. One of the elements I most enjoy about the show is the diversity of those Kuhn interviews and the balance of ideas it brings forth. Kuhn never draws a conclusion for his audience, although he does tastefully interject his own opinion and commentary between interviews.

The reason I bring up this show is that I’ve been watching it for a couple of seasons and I’m impressed with the wide range of ideas held about what consciousness is. During the time I was researching The Sage Age, I came to the conclusion that each individual branch of study has its own working definition of consciousness, but there is no over-arching definition, and certainly nothing concrete enough for science to quantify outside of measuring the shadows of consciousness, which is brain activity.

The Limits of Science

Given that is the case, Mlodinow was wise to respond that, “physics is not an axiomatic system. Meaning that you state a few mathematical principles and derive everything using mathematics from those principles. That’s not what science is. Science is based on ideas that come from observation and consequences.” And, he was also wise to re-emphasize that the book he and Hawking wrote was fundamentally about answering two questions, which were where the universe came from and why the laws of nature were as they appeared today.

By stating that “God was not necessary to create the universe or to make the laws what they are,” neither author is attempting to do away with the existence of God or to explain every mystery. As Kuhn says in the episode, What Things are Conscious?, when all the great answers of physics have been found, we will not have begun to unravel the mysteries of consciousness.

I am satisfied that consciousness, or Mind, can exist without theology or the need for a personified god being. I also acknowledge that we often marvel at the abilities of our intelligence to recognize patterns in something as vast and complex as the cosmos almost as much as we marvel at the cosmos itself.

We are More than Physics

The comment Father Spitzer made toward the end of the discussion sticks in my mind, which was, “[Humans] want to know who they really are at their deepest level, whether that be empirically obvious or not. Perhaps there is something more to human beings than merely physics or M Theory.” He goes on to say, “We’re constantly inquiring because we want the most out of our lives. And so basically we don’t quash the mystery. We enter into the mystery. Most of the time, we enter into the mystery by asking questions.”

The book that Hawking and Mlodinow present is what they, and many other scientists, believe to be the answers to their questions about one aspect of the mystery. It doesn’t answer everything and it doesn’t completely close the doors to other possibilities. In fact, when King asked Hawking if he could travel through time, which way would he go, Stephen replied, “I would go forward and find if M theory is indeed a theory of everything.”

Everywhere you look now there are oodles of ads for books, DVDs, and conferences that will teach you the secret of attracting your heart’s true desires. They contain two key ingredients, which are clarity of vision followed by taking action. Some folks confuse clarity of vision with omniscience; that you can see, know, and understand all with perfect precision. But that’s not what clarity of vision is.

A few forms of non-dualistic meditation require resting the mind on something, perhaps an object. Clarity is achieved when the mind takes on the shape of that on which it is resting without any distortion. One can then say, “I am that.”

Neuro-science maps the shape of the mind holding a clear thought another way; by using functional MRI (fMRI). It literally constructs a topology showing the active areas of the brain while it is engaged in various tasks.

Many ancient belief systems contain narratives of beings who can manifest anything just by thinking about it. What’s not so popularly known is that some of these narratives also state that such beings are a little envious of the human capacity to play with a multiplicity of ideas before settling on one, and delaying the enactment of it. In other words, we can play within the confines of our imagination. Or can we?

The idea that our thoughts create our reality is a very, very, very old one. It has been resurrected into pop culture by clever marketers capitalizing on the New Age Thought movement and the mind-bending notions of quantum physics. Even if folks don’t fully understand these ideas, most everyone is attracted to being in the mystery they present.

Once folks realize they can think their way into a better reality, the target then becomes to master thought control. One tool used to achieve this is known as setting an intent. The result is that once the thought is perfectly clear, it will manifest.

While contemplative meditation focuses primarily on the being side of existence, most of us spend our time thinking about the how, where, when, why of doing. That includes what we are doing now and what we want to be doing.

Over the years, it has become increasingly important to me to develop clarity of vision in all ways as a tool to learning and growing. About a decade ago, I began to notice that whatever I had become clear about manifested within a short period of time, usually in a matter of days.

What I’m experiencing now is that the clarity in long-range vision is much more difficult to achieve. When it does manifest, it’s usually before I’m ready. These days, if I’m standing anywhere near the pool when clarity comes, a universal wind gust throws me into the deep end. In other words, when clarity comes, I don’t have to motivate myself to take action. It’s an automatic coping response to manifesting.

I’ve begun to consider why those beings who can instantly manifest their thoughts might envy us. Some days that instant-manifestation thing seems a little like a Midas touch problem.

I’ve also wondered if the change is with me and if I’ve moved into a place of power that carries with it another level of responsibility. Once my ego finished playing with that idea, I noticed that those same sorts of upheavals or deep-end diving changes are happening with most everyone I know. It’s almost like the universe saying, “Here’s the new life you asked for. Deal with it.” All of this is a side-effect of living during the Shift. It’s not about lack of clarity as much as an under-estimation of how fast things are changing.

There’s no omniscience with my clarity these days. I used to be able to easily recognize the manifestation. Now I often only know it in hindsight; after I’ve unwrapped the box, taken it out, and played with it in the sandbox for a while.

So, maybe there is no real downside to clarity of vision, but I am having to learn to adapt and adjust more quickly as the manifesting changes come, including those that are personal as well as global. And, having to adapt to recognizing the package wrapping that the manifestation comes in now is not always so pretty. I think about Hawaii. That lush place is so beautiful, but the volcanic land didn’t look that way when it was first manifested.

How are you doing with the changes and how has it affected your clarity of vision?

There is no doubt that what we say is a reflection of how we think. In fact, what we think becomes our belief system, that becomes our philosophy, and shifts the culture we live in every day. That is one way our thoughts become reality.

Most every adult in the U.S. remembers when the term politically correct turned into the verb being PC. We began to wholeheartedly embrace the fact that being mindful of our language changes attitudes.

While most of that thought reformation has been targeted toward social justice in recent decades, it’s worthwhile to note the changes it has brought to our rational understanding of reality as well.

It took many years for folks to come to terms with the principles set forth in Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his work Opticks, which is about the nature of light. After that, scientists were ready to close up shop, stating that everything that needed to be known in physics had been revealed.

Thankfully, human curiosity cannot be so easily satiated. About 100 years later, Einstein showed that Newton’s laws were merely a subset of a larger truth. Einstein’s bold statements began the quantum revolution that ensured we would never stop investigating because the new theories clearly demonstrated the profoundness of our ignorance.

Most of us weren’t alive in 1905 when Einstein released his first papers that changed everything. We have no way to remember what it was like to live through an intellectual revolution of Copernican magnitude. Most believe that E=mc2 was as popular then as it is now. Unfortunately, Einstein suffered the same shunning and disbelief as Newton until others could check the math and see the truth for themselves.

We are sentimental creatures who are hard-pressed to relinquish what brings us pleasure or security in our world. For instance, even though we know full well that we live in a solar-centric system, we are still enamored with the words sunset and sunrise. When folks in the U.S. and in Australia both point up, they are actually pointing in different directions out. And, think about our casual use of the word universal when, thanks to Einstein and every astrophysicist since, we clearly have evidence to show that what we experience on this planet is anything but universal.

Language is a living thing. Currently, there are two key words in cultural flux that are shifting us into another revolution. They are heart and brain. Material realists would have us believe that without a brain, or another physical processing center, there would be no thought. The other philosophy vying for dominance right now is that consciousness is the basis of everything and both matter and energy are an epiphenomenon of it.

The tenuous compromise being struck is that perhaps the organ in the head is not the only intelligence processing center. The term emotional I.Q. came into vogue a few decades ago and now the term heart intelligence is gaining in popularity.

With recent advancements in technology, science has been able to start measuring the subtle energy fields emanating from the hands of healers and Qigong masters. Even molecular biologists are jumping on the bandwagon by showing how our thoughts affect us at the cellular level.

The fact is, the physical body is a sophisticated, multi-faceted antenna system that transmits and receives all manner of informed energies. That’s what the first four chapters of The Sage Age are all about.

We may very well be adopting the language that will lead into another Copernican-level revolution. And our great, great grandchildren will think that all these theories and ideas must have been as popular with us as it is to them. And, they will be able to clearly see that what their great, great grandparents knew was merely a subset of a larger truth.