Can we understand reality as it is? On the level of ordinary perception, the neuroscientist and the Buddhist thinker say no: We never stop interpreting sensorial signals and constructing “our” reality. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this interpretation? Is it possible, with experimental and intellectual investigation, to shed light on the true nature of things? How do we acquire knowledge? Is there an objective reality independent from our perceptions? The first-person approach will be distinguished from second- and third-person exterior approaches. Is it possible to perfect our inner microscope, with introspection, and correct our distortions of reality and remedy the causes of suffering?
Wolf:
Both of our traditions are deeply involved in fascinating epistemic questions: questions of how we acquire knowledge about the world, how reliable this knowledge is, and whether our perceptions reflect reality as it is or whether we perceive only the results of interpretations. Is it at all possible to recognize the “true” nature of the things around us, or do we only have access to their appearance? We have two different sources of knowledge to call on. The primary and most important source is our subjective experience because it results from introspection or our interactions with the world around us. The second source is science, which attempts to understand the world and our condition by extending our senses with instruments, applying the tools of rational reasoning to interpreting observed phenomena, developing predictive models, and verifying our predictions through experiments. Both sources of knowledge, however, are limited by the cognitive abilities of our brains because these constrain what and how we perceive, imagine, and reason. Precisely because of these constraints, we don’t know where the limits of our cognition are; we can only posit that such limits are likely to exist.
Let me give a few examples to illustrate why I think that this is an inescapable conclusion. The brain is the product of an evolutionary process, just as every other organ and the human organism are as a whole. The brain is also the product of an undirected evolutionary game, in which the generation of diversity and selection has brought forth organisms optimized for survival and reproduction. As a consequence, these organisms are adapted to the world in which they have evolved. Life developed only in a narrow segment of the world as it is known to us: the mesoscopic range. The smallest organisms capable of autonomously sustaining their structural integrity and reproducing themselves consist of assemblies of interacting molecules that are confined by a membrane and measure only a few micrometers. One example is bacteria.
Multicellular organisms, plants, and animals reach sizes in the range of meters. All of these organisms have developed sensors for signals that are relevant for their survival and reproduction. Accordingly, these sensors respond to only a narrow range of the available signals. The algorithms developed for the evaluation of the registered signals have adapted to the specific needs of the respective organisms. Thus, the cognitive functions of organisms are highly idiosyncratic and tuned to a limited range of dimensions. For we humans, this is the world that we can perceive directly with our five senses and that we tend to equate with the “ordinary world.” This is the dimension in which the laws of classical physics prevail, which is probably the reason that these laws were discovered before those of quantum physics. This is the segment of the world for which our nervous system generates well-adapted behavior, our senses define perceptual categories, and our reasoning leads to plausible and useful interpretations of the nature of objects and the laws that govern their interactions.
It follows from these considerations that our cognitive systems have, with all likelihood, not been optimized to unravel the true nature of perceived phenomena in the Kantian sense. Emanuel Kant distinguished between a hypothetical Ding an sich—literally the “thing in itself,” or the essence of an object of cognition that cannot be reduced further to anything else—and the phenomenological appearance of that object, which is accessible to our senses. Our sensory organs and the neuronal structures that evaluate their signals have evolved to capture the information that is relevant for survival and reproduction and to generate behavioral responses according to pragmatic heuristics that serve these functions. Objectivity of perception (i.e., the ability to recognize the hypothetical Ding an sich) has never been a selection criterion. We know today that we only perceive a narrow spectrum of the physical and chemical properties of this world. We use those few signals to construct our perceptions, and our naïve intuition is that these provide us with a complete and coherent view of the world. We trust our cognitive faculties; we experience our perceptions as reflecting reality and cannot feel otherwise. In other words, our primary perceptions, whether mediated by introspection or sensory experience, appear to us as evident. They have the status of convictions.
Matthieu:
We believe that we experience reality as it is, without realizing how much we interpret and distort it. Indeed, a gap exists between the way things appear and the way they are.
Wolf:
Right. We have many examples illustrating this selective adaptation of our cognition to phenomena that matter for our life. One is our inability to develop an intuition about the phenomena that quantum physics postulates. The conditions of this microcosmos are difficult for us to imagine. The same holds true for the dimensions of the universe and the highly nonlinear dynamics of complex systems. Neither our sensors nor our cognitive functions have been adapted by evolution to cope with these aspects of the world because they were irrelevant for survival at the time when our cognition evolved.
Matthieu:
For example, it is quite difficult to imagine something that appears as either a wave, which is not localized, or a particle, which is localized depending on the way you look at it.
Wolf:
We also have difficulties with the cosmological scale. Take relativity theory: Our preconceptions resist the idea that the coordinates of space and time should be intertwined and relative because in the mesoscopic world, our ordinary world, we experience space and time as different and separate dimensions. It is interesting, though, that we are nevertheless able to explore dimensions of the world that are accessible to neither introspection nor our primary experience by extending our sense organs with instruments—telescopes and microscopes—and by complementing our cognitive abilities with the analytical and inductive power of reason. We make inferences, derive predictions, and validate them by experiment. However, all this occurs within the closed system of scientific reasoning, and there is no guarantee that the obtained insights have the status of irrefutability.
Matthieu:
But here you are referring only to an understanding of reality based on our ordinary sense perceptions. When Buddhism speaks of apprehending “reality as it is,” it does not refer to mere perceptions but to a logical assessment of the ultimate nature of reality. If you ask whether reality is made of a collection of autonomous, self-existing entities, and then conduct a proper, logical investigation, then you will come to the conclusion that what appear to exist as truly separate entities are in fact a set of interdependent phenomena devoid of autonomous intrinsic existence. However, even if one understands this mentally, that does not mean one’s senses will perceive outer phenomena as they are, without any distortion. In fact, the Buddha himself said:
Eyes, ears, and nose are not valid cognizers.
Likewise the tongue and the body are not valid cognizers.
If these sense faculties were valid cognizers,
What could the sublime path do for anyone?1
Here, the “sublime path” refers to a proper investigation of the ultimate nature of reality.
Wolf:
Before commenting on these deep insights obtained by contemplation, I would like to make a few additional remarks on the evolution of our cognitive systems, especially with respect to the transition between biological and cultural evolution. Our basic cognitive functions were initially selected to help us cope with the conditions of a presocial world. At the late stages of biological evolution, there was with all likelihood some coevolution between the emerging social environment and our brains, a coevolution that endowed our brains with certain social skills, such as the ability to perceive, emit, and interpret social signals. These abilities were then further complemented and refined by epigenetic modifications of brain architectures that occur during the development of individuals and are guided by experience and education.
Matthieu:
Epigenetics refers to the fact that we inherited a set of genes, but the expression of these genes can be modulated by influences that we encounter during our lifetime. These can be outer influences, such as receiving a lot of affection or being abused, or inner influences, such as enduring severe anxiety or having a mind at peace. Some of these modifications can even occur in utero. When pregnant rats are exposed to chronic stress, their children have altered stress responses and react more sensitively to stress. The reason is that some of the genes that code for proteins involved in stress-regulating networks become downregulated, meaning they become less active and produce fewer or none of the proteins they are coding for. Recent research has shown that meditation has a significant effect on the expression of a number of genes, including some related to stress.2
Wolf:
Yes, these additional modifications of brain functions are caused by imprinting and learning processes and serve as the major transmission mechanisms for sociocultural evolution. Thus, our brains are the product of both biological and cultural evolution and exist in these two dimensions. Through cultural evolution, those realities that we address as immaterial entities, as psychological, mental, and spiritual phenomena, came into being. These phenomena came into the world because of the special cognitive skills of human beings, which allow us to create social realities such as belief and value systems, and to conceptualize what we observe in ourselves and others, such as feelings, emotions, convictions, and attitudes. If all these phenomena are constructs of our brains—which is, to me, the most likely assumption—then their ontological status, their relation to “reality,” should be subject to the same epistemic limitations that constrain our brains when it comes to perceiving the deeper nature of the world. Thus, the possibility needs to be considered that not only our perceptions, motivations, and behavioral responses but also our way of reasoning and drawing inferences are adapted to the particular conditions of the world in which we evolved, including the world of social realities that emerged during cultural evolution.
Matthieu:
Let’s recall that epistemology is the theory of knowledge, the philosophical discipline that investigates the methods used to acquire knowledge and distinguish valid cognition from mere opinions and naïve perceptions.
Wolf:
From a neurobiological perspective, the distinction between “valid cognition” and “naïve perceptions” is not evident. We consider perception as an active, constructive process, whereby the brain uses its a priori knowledge about the world to interpret the signals provided by the sense organs. Remember, brains harbor a huge amount of knowledge about the world. Unlike computers—which possess separate components for the storage of programs and data and for the execution of computations—in the brain, all these functions are implemented in and determined by the functional architecture of the neuronal network. By “functional architecture,” I mean the way in which neurons are connected to each other, which particular neurons are actually connected, whether these connections are excitatory or inhibitory, and whether they are strong or weak. When a brain learns something new, a change in its functional architecture occurs: Certain connections are strengthened, whereas others are weakened. Hence, all the knowledge a brain has at its disposal, as well as the programs according to which this knowledge is used to interpret sensory signals and structure behavioral responses, resides in the specific layout of its functional architecture. The search for sources of knowledge is thus reducible to the identification of factors that specify and modify the functional architecture of brains.
This leads one to the identification of the three major sources of knowledge about the world. The first, and certainly not the least important, is evolution because a substantial part of the brain’s functional architecture is determined by genes. This knowledge, which pertains primarily to the conditions of the precultural world and has been acquired through evolutionary adaptation, is stored in the genes and expressed in the functional architecture of a newborn’s brain. This knowledge is implicit—we are not aware of having it because we were not around when it was acquired. Still, we use it to interpret the signals provided by our sense organs. Without this immense base of a priori knowledge, we would be unable to make sense of our perceptions because we would not know how to interpret sensory signals. This inborn knowledge is subsequently complemented by extensive epigenetic shaping of the brain’s neuronal architecture, which adapts the developing brain to the actual conditions in which the individual lives.
The human brain develops many of its connections only after birth, and this process continues until ages 20 to 25. During this period, numerous new connections are formed and many of the existing connections removed; this making and breaking is guided by the neuronal activity. Because after birth neuronal activity is modulated by interactions with the environment, the development of brain architectures is thus determined by a host of epigenetic factors derived from the natural and social worlds.
A considerable part of this developmentally acquired knowledge also remains implicit because of the phenomenon of childhood amnesia. Children before age 4 have only a limited capacity to remember the context in which they have experienced and learned particular contents. The reason is that the brain centers required for these storage functions—we call them episodic, biographical, or declarative memories—have not matured yet. Thus, although young children learn efficiently and store contents in a robust way through structural modifications of their brain architecture, they often have no recollection of the source of this knowledge. Because of this apparent lack of causation, knowledge acquired in this way is implicit, just as evolutionarily acquired knowledge is, and often assumes the status of a conviction—that is, its truth is taken for granted.
Like innate knowledge, this acquired knowledge is used to shape cognitive processes and structure our perceptions. Yet we are not aware that what we perceive is actually the result of such a knowledge-based interpretation. This has far-reaching consequences: the genetic dispositions and, even more important, the epigenetic, culture-specific shaping of different brains introduce profound interindividual variability. Thus, it is not surprising that different persons, particularly those raised in different cultural environments, are likely to perceive the same reality differently. Because we are not aware of the fact that our perceptions are constructions, we are bound to take what we perceive as the only truth and do not question its objective status. This constructive nature of perception makes it difficult to distinguish between valid and naïve cognition.
Matthieu:
Sure, but logical reasoning and rigorous investigation can allow us to unmask the game played by mental fabricationsThe study of the evolution of cultures is a new discipline that has led to remarkable advances over the last 30 years, particularly under the impetus of two American researchers, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson. According to them, two evolutions occur in parallel: the slow evolution of genes and the relatively fast evolution of cultures, which allows psychological faculties to appear that could never have evolved under the influence of genes alone—hence the title of their book, Not by Genes Alone.3
Boyd and Richerson think of culture as a collection of ideas, knowledge, beliefs, values, abilities, and attitudes acquired through teaching, imitation, and every other kind of socially transmitted information.4 Human transmission and cultural evolution are cumulative because each generation has at its start knowledge and technological experience acquired by previous generations.5 Most human beings are inclined to conform to dominant attitudes, customs, and beliefs. The evolution of cultures favors the establishment of social institutions that define and reward respect for behavioral norms and punish nonconformity to ensure the harmony of communal life. Still, these norms are not fixed: Like cultures, they evolve with the acquisition of new knowledge.
Wolf:
Let me give an example of how extensively our a priori knowledge (i.e., cognitive schemata) determines what and how we perceive. The perception of a dynamic process and the derived predictions depend on whether the observer assumes that it is a process with linear or nonlinear dynamics. A prime example of linear dynamics is a mechanical clock. Each swing of the pendulum will, through a cascade of transmission wheels, cause a precisely determined advance of the arms—and if it is a perfect clock that is free of friction or other disturbing influences, then it can be predicted for an unlimited period of time how the arms will move and where they will be at a particular moment in time. The dynamics of the clock follow a continuous and fully deterministic trajectory. The function determining this trajectory is a combination of pendulum swings and the conversion of those swings into a rotation of the arms.
An example of nonlinear dynamics is a pendulum that swings over a surface on which three magnets are fixed in a triangular arrangement. Let’s assume the pendulum is free to swing in all planes. In this case, the movement of the pendulum is determined not only by the forces of gravity and kinetic energy but also by the overlapping attractions of the three magnetic fields. When one sets the pendulum in motion, it will move on extremely complex trajectories before it finally settles over one of the attracting magnets, but it is entirely unpredictable over which magnet it will come to rest. Even if the pendulum always starts from exactly the same position, it is not possible to predict where it will finally stop. Along the trajectory among the various attracting forces, there are many points where the pendulum could go right or left with equal probability; minute forces determine which way it finally goes. The pendulum’s trajectory would also remain unpredictable if it were kept moving by driving it gently with an oscillating force. In that case, the pendulum would rotate around the three magnets. One could calculate the probability with which the pendulum would be, on average, within the attraction field of one of the magnets, but it would still be impossible to predict when exactly the pendulum would be where. If one were to control a clock with such a “chaotic” pendulum, then one would observe highly unpredictable movements of the arms.
For normal human perception, assume linearity is a well-adapted strategy for two reasons. First, many of the relevant processes around us can be approximated by linear models. Second, because the evolution or trajectories of linear systems are much more predictable than those of nonlinear systems, it provides little advantage to develop intuitions about the dynamics of a nonlinear system if one wishes to make inferences about the future dynamics of that system. For these reasons, there has probably been no selection pressure to evolve intuitions for highly nonlinear processes. As a consequence, we seem to have difficulty imagining processes that have nonlinear dynamics and drawing the right conclusions about these processes. For example, because we intuitively assume linearity, we misperceive the complex dynamics of economic or ecologic systems, nurture the illusion that we can forecast and hence control the future trajectories of these systems, and then are surprised when the outcome of our interventions differs radically from what we had expected. Given these evolutionary limitations of our cognitive abilities and intuitions, we are left with the burning question of which source of knowledge we should trust, especially when we are confronted with contradictions among our intuitions, primary perceptions, scientific statements, and collectively acquired social convictions.
Matthieu:
Buddhism also emphasizes the fact that a correct understanding of the phenomenal world acknowledges the fact that all phenomena arise through almost numberless interdependent causes and conditions that interact outside of a linear causality.
Matthieu:
According to Buddhist views, it is quite clear that a gap exists between the way things appear and the way they are. Can we close this gap and, if so, how?
When one is thirsty and sees a mirage in the desert, one may run toward it, hoping to get water, but of course the water is just an illusion. Many such examples show that the way things appear quite often doesn’t correspond to reality. When the way we perceive outer phenomena is dysfunctional—we cannot drink the mirage water—in Tibetan Buddhism, this is called invalid cognition. If our mode of perception is functional, as when we perceive as water what we usually call water—something we can wash with and use to quench our thirst—it allows us to function in the world, and it is therefore called valid cognition. At a deeper level of analysis, which Buddhism calls ultimate logic, if we perceive water to be an autonomous, a truly existing phenomenon, this is considered to be an invalid cognition. Conversely, if we recognize that water is a transitory, interdependent phenomenon resulting from a myriad of causes and conditions, yet ultimately devoid of intrinsic reality, this becomes valid cognition.
At the level of perceptions, according to the Buddhist theory of perception, which has been debated by commentators for 2,000 years, at the initial moment of perception, our senses capture an object. Then comes a raw, nonconceptual mental image (of a form, sound, taste, smell, or touch). At a third stage, conceptual processes are set in motion: Memories and habitual patterns are superimposed on the mental image depending on the ways our consciousness has been shaped by past experiences. This gives birth to various concepts: We identify this mental image as being, for example, a flower. We superimpose judgments on it and interpret the flower as being beautiful or ugly. Next, we generate positive, negative, or neutral feelings about it, which in turn leads to attraction, repulsion, or indifference. By then, the phenomenon outside has already changed because of the transitory nature of all things.
So, in fact, the consciousness associated with sensory experiences never directly perceives reality as it is. What we perceive are images of past states of a phenomenon that are ultimately devoid of intrinsic properties. On a macroscopic level, we know, for instance, that when we look at a star, we are actually looking at what that star was many years ago because it has taken that many years for the light emitted by the star to reach our eyes. In fact, this is true of all perceptions. We are never looking directly at phenomena in real time, and we always distort them in some way.
What’s more, the mental image of the flower (or any object) is also deceptive because we generally perceive the flower as being an autonomous entity and believe that the attributes of beauty or ugliness belong intrinsically to the flower. All of this proceeds from what Buddhism calls ignorance or lack of awareness. This kind of basic ignorance is not just a mere lack of information, such as not knowing the name of the flower, its therapeutic or poisonous effects, or the way it grows and reproduces. Ignorance here refers to a distorted and mistaken way of apprehending reality at a deeper level.
In essence, we should understand that what I perceive as being “my world” is a crystallization triggered by the encounter between my particular version of human consciousness and a vast array of outer phenomena not fully determined in and of themselves and that interact in nonlinear ways. When this encounter occurs, a particular perception of these outer phenomena occurs. Someone with insight will understand that the world we perceive is defined by a relational process taking place between the consciousness of the observer and a set of phenomena. It is therefore misleading to ascribe intrinsic properties to outer phenomena, such as beauty, ugliness, desirability, or repulsiveness. This insight has a therapeutic effect: It will disrupt the mechanism of compulsive attraction and repulsion that usually results in suffering.
But let’s return to the initial question. Yes, it is possible to transcend deluded perception and achieve a valid understanding of the true nature of the flower as being impermanent and devoid of intrinsic, autonomous existence, as being devoid of any inherent qualities. Achieving this understanding is not dependent on our sensory perceptions or past habits. It comes from a proper analytical investigation of the nature of the phenomenal world, culminating in what is known in Buddhism as all-discriminating wisdom, an insight that apprehends the ultimate nature of phenomena without superimposing mental constructs on them.
Wolf:
Can I just make a comment on how this would fit well with modern neuroscientific views? Evidence from psychophysical investigations of perception and neurophysiological studies on perceptions underlying neuronal processes suggests that perceiving is essentially reconstructing. The brain compares the sparse signals provided by our eclectic sense organs with the vast basis of knowledge about the world that is stored in its architecture and generates what appears to us as a percept of reality.
When we perceive the outer world, we first arrive at a coarse match between sensory signals and knowledge-based hypotheses about the world, and then we usually enter an iterative process to obtain approximations that gradually converge to the optimal solution—a state with a minimal number of unresolved ambiguities. We perform an active search for the best matches between signals and hypotheses until we obtain results with the desired clarity. This latter process of active search-and-match requires the investment of attentional resources, takes time, and is interpretative in nature. What is actually perceived is the result of that comparative process. It appears as if this scenario is fully compatible with your views! It suffices to replace what I address as “a priori knowledge” with what you term “consciousness.”
Matthieu:
There are two different ways of phrasing that: one from the third-person perspective, in the language of neuroscience, and the other from the first-person perspective, based on introspective experience. You described how our perception of the world is shaped by evolution and the increasing complexity of the nervous system. From a Buddhist perspective, one would say that our world, at least the world we perceive, is intimately intertwined with the way our consciousness functions. It is clear that, depending of their configuration and their past history, different streams of consciousness, whether human or not, will perceive the world in a different way. It is almost impossible for us to imagine what the world of an ant or a bat looks like. The only world we know results from the interdependent relation between our particular type of consciousness and the phenomenal world, which is a complex set of relations among countless interdependent events, causes, and conditions.
Just take the example of what we call an ocean. On a beautiful calm day the ocean appears to us like a mirror made of water, whereas on another day it might be the scene of a wild storm. We can relate these two conditions and still call these various states ocean. But what will a bat make out of the ultrasonic echoes sent up from a perfectly flat sea one day and from a chaotic sea filled with gigantic waves the next day? This is beyond our imagination in the same way that quantum physics eludes our ordinary representations. Thus, Buddhism says that our phenomenological world, the only one we perceive, depends on the particular configuration of the consciousness we have and is shaped by past experiences and habits.
Wolf:
This is perfectly compatible with the Western perspective. The philosopher Thomas Nagel stated clearly that it is impossible for us to imagine how it would feel to be a bat.6 The qualia of subjective experience are simply not translatable. Although we humans are endowed with a highly differentiated communication system, our language, and with the ability to imagine the mental processes of the respective human “other,” it is still difficult—if not impossible—to know exactly how others experience themselves and the world around them.
Matthieu:
We may not be able to bridge the gaps between the way things appear and the way things are in all cases, such as in an optical illusion. Other kinds of gaps, however, perhaps more essential ones, can be bridged. For Buddhism, bridging the gap has essentially a pragmatic goal: to become free from suffering because suffering necessarily arises when one’s perception of the world is deluded and at odds with reality.
Wolf:
Let’s pursue further the possibility of distinguishing between appearance and reality. You seem to assume that this epistemic gap can be bridged under certain conditions, whereas I would tend to deny this, maintaining that perceiving is always interpreting and hence attributing properties to sensory signals. In this sense, perceptions are always mental constructs.
Matthieu:
Sure. I fully agree with you about sense perceptions. But it is not the same when one engages in an investigation of the ultimate nature of reality. This is why it is important to clarify the domains of knowledge in which it is or is not possible to bridge the gap between the way things appear and the way they are. When we think, “This is truly beautiful” or “This is intrinsically desirable or detestable,” we are not aware that we project these concepts onto outer phenomena and then believe that they intrinsically belong to them. This gives rise to all kinds of mental reactions and emotions that are not attuned to reality and will therefore result in frustration.
Imagine a fresh rose that has just bloomed. A poet finds it exquisitely beautiful. Now imagine that you are a small insect nibbling on one of its petals. It tastes so good! But if you are a tiger standing before this rose, you are no more interested in the rose than in a bale of hay. Imagine that you are the rose at the atomic level: You are a whorl of particles passing through nearly empty space. A quantum physicist will tell you that these particles are not “things” but “waves of probability,” arising in the quantum void. What is left of the rose as a rose?
Buddhism calls phenomena events. The literal meaning of samskara, the Sanskrit word for “things” or “aggregates,” is “event” or “action.” In quantum mechanics, too, the notion of object is subordinate to a measurement, hence to an event. To believe the objects of our perception are endowed with intrinsic properties and autonomous existence is, to take again a comparison with quantum physics, like attributing local properties to particles that are entangled and belong to a global reality.
Buddhist thinkers believe that by using a proper method of investigation, one can fathom, intellectually and experientially, the correct nature of phenomena and free oneself from a mistaken, reified, and dualistic apprehension of reality. Recognizing clearly the mechanisms through which we delude ourselves and adopting a view that is much more attuned to the true nature of phenomena is a liberating process based on wisdom. It doesn’t mean that one is not going to be fooled by optical illusions anymore, but that one will not be fooled into thinking that phenomena exist as autonomous, permanent entities.
Wolf:
This is interesting because when you talk about delusions, you add qualities to them, emotional qualities such as disgusting or beautiful, attractive or repulsive. I had in mind perceptual delusions for which we can obtain objective data by using a physical measuring device in addition to our perception. Without an independent measure, there would be no way to disclose a delusion as such. This is the way science tries to go about recognizing these delusions and finding out why the brain makes these false interpretations. In most cases where delusions or illusions have been investigated thoroughly, it turns out that they are the consequence of an interpretation or inference that serves the perception of the invariant properties of objects.
Without these mechanisms, for instance, we would not be able to perceive the color of a flower as constant irrespective of the conditions of illumination. The spectrum of the illuminating sunlight changes constantly, and so does the spectrum of the light reflected from an object. Without interpretations, the perceived color of a particular rose would not be the same at dawn and dusk. Our brains correct for this problem. They infer the spectral composition of the illuminating light from the relations between the reflected spectra and prior knowledge about the likely color of an object and then compute on the basis of this analysis the actually perceived color of the object. Thus, depending on context, physically different signals may be perceived as similar, and, conversely, physically identical signals may give rise to different percepts. These inferential mechanisms can give rise to “illusions,” but they have an exquisitely important function for survival—the extraction of constant properties from an ever-changing world. An animal that uses color to distinguish edible berries from other slightly more violet and poisonous berries cannot rely on an analysis of the “true” or actual spectral composition of reflected light. It first has to assess the spectral composition of the light source—the sunlight—and then must reconstruct the perceived color.
We are completely unaware of the complexity of the computations that ensure constancy and thus survival in our changing world. In essence, all these operations are based on the evaluation of relations. We rarely perceive absolute values such as those that are measured by physical measurement devices, be they intensities of stimuli, wavelengths of sound, light waves, or chemical concentrations. We mostly perceive these variables in relation to others, as relative differences, relative increments, and relative contrasts, and these comparisons are made across both space and time. This is an economical and efficient strategy because it emphasizes differences, permits for coverage of wide ranges of intensities, and, as mentioned, allows for constancy. Given the advantages of these well-adapted mechanisms, it is questionable whether one should call the resulting perceptions “illusions.”
Matthieu:
I am not speaking of the perceived qualities of objects but of the capacity to dispel cognitive delusion, such as the belief that ugliness is an intrinsic quality of the object you behold. As you said, some illusions help us to adapt to the world, but this is not the case with believing in the existence of permanent phenomena or of an autonomous, unitary self within each person.
Wolf:
Now, what is an illusion or a delusion in your view or in a Buddhist view? You stated that even in cases where there is no objective measurement device and one can rely only on one’s introspection and perception, it is still possible to distinguish between delusion and reality. I don’t see how this is possible.
Matthieu:
The perceptual illusions that you describe can be useful to function in the world, as you rightly pointed out, but they don’t have much impact on our subjective experience of happiness or suffering. The cognitive delusions I described have an opposite result: They cause us to act in dysfunctional ways that produce suffering. The illusions you are talking about are highly adaptive and can be considered wonders of nature. The ones I mentioned are curses that keep us in a state of deep dissatisfaction. The mind might not be a reliable measuring device or a faithful perceptual device, but it is a powerful analytical device. This is true of Einstein’s thought experiments, for instance, and it is also true of Buddhism’s in-depth investigation of the interdependent, impermanent nature of phenomena.
Wolf:
But can you really extrapolate this view to all cognitive functions, to perceptions of social realities, social relations, and belief and value systems? I think the psychophysical examples I just mentioned teach us that we construct what we perceive and tend to experience the result as real. We probably do this not only in the case of visual or auditory perception of tangible objects but also when perceiving social realities. How can we distinguish between right and wrong when different people perceive the same condition differently, each taking the perceived as real, as correct?
Matthieu:
That is why we need logical reasoning and wisdom. If I recognize that no one wants to suffer, then it seems quite straightforward to conclude that harming others is wrong.
Wolf:
Sure, but if our intuitions and perceptions of the outer world depend on neuronal processes—and I think there is no way around assuming that the “inner eye,” too, is a function of neuronal interactions—then the contents of cognition are determined by the way our brains work and ultimately by genes and postnatal experience. All humans have a rather similar genetic makeup, and therefore we have consensus on many of our perceptions and interpretations. But still we may have rather different experiences, especially when raised in different cultures. Two people observing the same social situation may perceive it in completely different ways. They may come to grossly diverging ethical or moral judgments, unable to convince the other through argument that he or she is wrong because both experience what they experience as the only reality.
The problem is that in the case of the perception of social realities, there are no “objective” measurement devices. There are only different perceptions; there is no right or wrong. This has far-reaching consequences for our concepts of tolerance. Solving such problems with majority votes is clearly no fair solution. Assuming that one’s own position is correct and granting others the right to stay with their “wrong” perceptions as long as they do not disturb us is humiliating and disrespectful. Still, this is what is considered “tolerant” behavior. What we should do instead is grant everybody that her or his perceptions are correct and assume that this attitude will be reciprocated. Only if this agreement on reciprocity is violated have the dissenting parties the right to exert sanctions.
I take from what you said that you have a recipe for addressing such cases, and this would of course be of utmost importance to settle cultural conflicts arising from diverging perceptions. Do you think that the mental techniques designed by Buddhist philosophy are able to help in such cases of cognitive dissent, of conflicts between different perceptions that both parties experience as real and true? Can people, through mental practice, find the “correct” solution—in case it does exist—or at least become aware of the fact that the world can be perceived in different ways?
Matthieu:
As you rightly pointed out, one must be fully aware of people’s ingrained beliefs and moral values and take them into consideration. That being said, social and cultural perceptions can be as deceptive as cognitive delusions, and they are built up in similar ways. We sometimes perceive people from other races, religions, social ranks, and so on as “superior” or “inferior.” You might perceive someone as a friend one day and as a foe the next. A person from the Himalayas will probably find most modern art meaningless. All these are mental fabrications. That’s where many of our human-made problems arise.
The purpose of the Buddhist approach is not to confront people’s views head on by imposing another view that one considers to be superior but to help people see that all such views can be misleading and that we should not casually take them for granted. For example, when refuting belief in the existence of a self, it does not help to merely proclaim, “There is no self.” Instead, after having thoroughly investigated the purported characteristics of the self and concluded that it does not exist as a separate entity, one would simply invite others to conduct such an investigation and find out for themselves.
So the idea is not to coerce people into seeing things as we see them or adopt our own aesthetic and moral values and judgments, but to help them reach a correct view of the ultimate nature of things as being devoid of intrinsic reality.
In truth, people from different cultures are all superimposing their particular mental fabrications on reality. The problem can be solved if these people investigate reality through logical reasoning and realize that they are simply distorting reality and that neither the object they are looking at nor the subject who perceives it exists as an independent, truly existing entity. As for “right” and “wrong” and ethical judgments, various forms of conditioning and delusions, as we would say in Buddhist terms, lead to various ethical views and systems—some people think, for instance, that taking revenge on someone, even to the point of killing that person, is ethical. But is it logical to kill someone to show that killing is wrong? Sound reasoning can help to identify some universal principles based on benevolence and compassion that may help us reach a consensus about fundamental values that includes care, openness of mind, honesty, and so forth.
Let’s remember that the goal of Buddhism is to put an end to the root causes of suffering. Buddhism considers different levels of suffering in depth. Some forms of suffering are obvious to all: a toothache or, more tragically, a massacre. But suffering is also embedded in change and impermanence: People go for a joyful picnic and suddenly a child is bitten by a snake; someone eats a delicious meal but ends with food poisoning. Many pleasurable experiences soon turn neutral or aversive.
A much deeper level of suffering also exists that we don’t usually identify as such and yet is the root cause of all sufferings: As long as the mind is under the influence of delusion and of any afflictive mental state such as hatred, craving, or jealousy, suffering is always ready to manifest itself at any time.
To take the example of impermanence, at each moment everything changes, from the change of seasons and of youth to old age, to the subtlest aspects of impermanence that take place in the shortest conceivable period of time. Once we have recognized that the universe is made not of solid, distinct entities, but of a dynamic flow of interactions among countless fleeting phenomena, it has major consequences in weakening our grasping onto the reality we see before us. A proper understanding of impermanence helps us to close some of the gap between appearances and reality.
Wolf:
What is reality? Is it not that people look at the same thing in different ways?
Matthieu:
How can one be sure of that? There is no way to prove that a reality exists out there behind the screen of appearances, a reality that exists in and of itself, independent of us and the rest of the world. To assume a substrate beneath appearance may seem rational, but it surely needs to be questioned. Even before the advent of quantum physics, the mathematician Henri Poincaré said, “It is impossible that there is a reality totally independent of the mind that conceives it, sees it or senses it. Even if it did exist, such a world would be utterly inaccessible to us.”7 Simply measuring what we can apprehend in the world does not prove that what we observe exists from its own side and has intrinsic characteristics. Perceptions, appearances, and measurements are just events. While looking at the moon, if one presses one’s eyeballs with one’s fingers, one will see two moons. One may do that a thousand times, without the second moon being any more real for all our efforts. But we should also ask ourselves whether the first moon is ultimately real in the way it seems to us to be.
This is especially true of the qualities that we ascribe to phenomena. If something could be intrinsically beautiful, independently of the observer—an object of art, for instance—it would strike everyone as beautiful, whether it be a sophisticated New Yorker or a reclusive forest dweller who has never been in touch with the modern world.
Wolf:
So you have a constructivist approach, and you consider that everybody constructs the world in his own way.
Matthieu:
Yes, and that way is deluded because we all keep on assigning an element of truth to our superimpositions on the world. What Buddhism does is deconstruct ordinary perceptions by conducting an in-depth investigation of the nature of what people see to make them understand that they are all distorting reality in different ways.
Wolf:
I would not say “distorting” because if there is no objectivity, you can’t distort anything—there is nothing objective to distort. People simply give different interpretations.
Matthieu:
Objectivity is not just one of the many versions of what various people perceive but the irrefutable understanding that all phenomena are impermanent and devoid of intrinsic characteristics. This applies to all appearances, all perceptions, all phenomena. Distortion, therefore, is not defined in comparison with a true, self-existing reality. Distortion is to attribute any kind of intrinsic reality, permanence, or autonomy to phenomena.
A nondistorted view is not one of the many ways that things appear to us ordinarily. Rather it is an understanding of the process of delusion, the realization that the phenomenal world is a dynamic, interdependent flow of events and the knowledge that what we perceive is the result of the interactions of our consciousness with these phenomena. That understanding is correct in all situations.
Buddhist texts use the example of a glass of water. They point out that water could be perceived in countless different ways. We perceive it as a drink or something to wash with, whereas for a fish water is like space. Water is known to terrify someone stricken with rabies, whereas it appears to a scientist like a great number of molecules. According to Buddhist cosmology, some sentient beings may perceive water as fire and some as delightful ambrosia. However, behind all these perceptions, is there a true, self-defined glass of water? The Buddhist answer is no.
When a complex set of phenomena interacts with our senses and consciousness, a particular object crystallizes in our mind. We might see this object as something to drink or we might find it utterly terrifying if we are suffering from rabies. At no point in time and space can one find autonomous objects or subjects existing in and of themselves. The glass of water has never been there on its own, endowed with a true, separate reality. It only exists in a world of relations. What Buddhism calls “reality” is not phenomena such as self-existent water but the realization of their impermanence and lack of intrinsic reality.
Wolf:
This notion fits well with the constructivist position of contemporary neurobiology. Still, the world has certain properties, and animals seem to share the same criteria for the definition of objects and qualities. In our ordinary mesoscopic world, solid, nontransparent objects are called rocks behind which animals can hide, roll down if placed on a slope, and so on. Evidence suggests that all mammals use similar gestalt principles (i.e., similar rules and hypotheses to construct their percepts).
Matthieu:
Sure. Different types of consciousnesses that are similar enough—those of human beings and some animals (great apes, dolphins, elephants, and others)—will perceive the world with a corresponding degree of similarity. The more the structures of these consciousnesses differ, the more their world is different. The point is that when you free yourself from cognitive delusions first through an analytic investigation and then through integrating the resulting understanding into your way of relating to the world, you will gradually gain freedom from the compulsive attraction and repulsion that usually result from delusion. Thus, as you get closer to understanding the true nature of phenomena, you get closer to understanding the root causes of suffering and to freeing yourself from these causes. This freedom brings about a more optimal way of being that is much less susceptible to suffering.
Wolf:
This is interesting: First you take a constructivist stance and then you question the validity of your constructions and conclude that this epistemic turn, this switch in your cognitive approach, leads to the reduction of suffering.
Matthieu:
That’s the goal of the Buddhist path.
Wolf:
Let me try to understand this. I think many of us who were raised after the Age of Enlightenment assume that suffering can be reduced if we find out how things work and how we can manipulate them for improving our condition. For this strategy, it is imperative to be able to distinguish among delusion, false beliefs, and superstition, on the one hand, and valid interpretations, on the other.
In medicine, for example, we try to find causal relations between events, identify infectious agents, and then develop treatment. These concepts are competing, however. Adherents of allopathic medicine would agree that you need a certain dosage of an antibiotic to make it work. Homeopaths, in contrast, would maintain that it is dilution that matters more than the drug, even if the dilution is so high that it becomes highly unlikely that a single molecule of the drug is actually left in the bottle you buy at the pharmacy. They claim that the treatment is still effective because the water or the pill is supposed to keep the memory of the molecules that had been there before dilution.
We could leave it there rather than trying to find out which treatment is more effective. Or we could perform a double-blind study8 and discover that placebos are as effective as the homeopathic treatment whereas the antibiotic is much more efficient. In doing so, we assign a property to drugs and verify by experiment that the property is causally related to an effect and therefore with all likelihood relevant to the effectiveness of the treatment. By repeating the experiment and establishing dose-response curves, we establish causal relations and ensure that the property of the drug is constant. However, if I understand your approach correctly, you would deny that the drug has this invariable property, or you would say that it has the defined property only in the special context of this assay.
Matthieu:
That is not exactly what I meant. What you describe refers to the difference between what Buddhism calls correct relative truth and erroneous relative truth.
Wolf:
Explain that to me.
Matthieu:
In Buddhism, absolute truth refers to the recognition that phenomena are ultimately devoid of intrinsic existence. Relative truth is to acknowledge that these phenomena arise not in haphazard ways but according to the laws of causality. Far from refuting them, Buddhism is based on these laws. It even emphasizes that these laws are ineluctable and should be understood and observed if one wants to escape suffering. Of course phenomena do have relative properties that allow them to act on other phenomena and be acted on by them through mutual causation. However, according to Buddhism, to believe that penicillin is intrinsically good, no matter what the circumstances might be, is incorrect. For instance, some people happen to be allergic to penicillin. Although in most situations penicillin is beneficial for people at a correct dosage, it’s not beneficial in itself because it can be poison for someone who is allergic to it.
What Buddhism concluded after investigating the fundamental nature of the phenomenal world is that these properties are not intrinsic to the object but arise through particular relations between phenomena. Heat can only be defined in relation to cold, high in relation to low, the whole in relation to its parts, a mental concept in relation to its base of designation, and so on. The same substance could be curative to someone and poisonous to someone else or, like digitalin for the heart, curative in small quantities and poisonous in large quantities. This is also true at the fundamental level of quantum physics, with the absence of local properties in elementary particles, a notion that bothered Einstein and yet has since been proven to be true.
This is all the more true when it comes to judgments, such as beautiful and ugly, desirable and hateful. Yet ordinarily we do reify the world, attribute intrinsic properties to what is around us, and react accordingly in dysfunctional ways that ultimately cause suffering. That is what I meant. Valid cognition should withstand the most thorough and in-depth analysis. Apparent properties of phenomena don’t. There is a difference between apparent, relative, conditioned properties and intrinsic ones, but typically we ignore it. This is not a mere intellectual distinction—ignoring it causes us to act in ways that stand at odds with reality and are, therefore, dysfunctional.
Wolf:
When you conduct “thorough and in-depth analysis,” does that include experiments?
Matthieu:
It can, of course. In the example that you quoted, the experiment would consist of conducting a double-blind study looking at the effect of penicillin on a large sample of individuals and doing the same with homeopathic medicine. This experiment would lead to the conclusion that you mentioned, which is that penicillin is an active substance, whereas homeopathic remedies are not less but also not more efficient than placebos. That would be considered to be correct relative truth, that is, valid knowledge of the phenomenal world. But no matter what the results of the study are, ultimately penicillin is still an impermanent phenomenon, the properties of which differ depending on circumstances.
Wolf:
Is it then that we should detach ourselves from the reality that we perceive, including the social reality with its ethical and moral value systems? Should we abandon the belief that there is anything reliable and constant out there and content ourselves with the insight that “in reality” there are no invariant properties attached to anything, neither to inanimate objects nor to plants, animals, or persons? What do we gain if we abandon the idea that things have invariant properties that allow us to recognize and categorize them and instead adopt the view that properties are merely assigned and permanently changing in a context-dependent way? To avoid the attribution of properties is one strategy to avoid falsification because right and wrong lose their antinomy. However, I cannot see why this relativism should reduce misconceptions and suffering.
Matthieu:
What you describe would rather fall into the extreme of nihilism. Buddhism clearly acknowledges the workings of the laws of causality and accepts the idea that, at the relative level, some properties or characteristics of some phenomena might endure for a while so that we may rely on these characteristics to function in our daily life in a coherent way. Stone and wood remain solid long enough, for instance, for us to build our houses with them. But it still remains that they are fundamentally impermanent. The same piece of wood that makes a useful chair for us is desirable food for a termite. Wood will eventually disintegrate into dust. Even now, wood is not fundamentally made of “wood” stuff but of particles or quarks; to view it from the perspective of quantum physics, it is the result of ungraspable quantum events. It all depends on how you look at it. Although we can use a tool made of wood for a long time in a skillful and useful way, ultimately it is devoid of intrinsic existence. So the relative, conventional truth is not in opposition with the ultimate truth about the nature of phenomena. The latter is simply the ultimate nature of the former.
To conclude that phenomena are impermanent and interdependent is the only outcome of a careful, logical investigation. Any other proposition stating that there must be entities endowed with permanence and intrinsic properties, whether that might refer to atomic particles, the concept of beauty, or the existence of a creator god, cannot withstand such a thorough investigation.
Why would it reduce suffering? When you take the way things appear as being reality, what Buddhist scriptures call “happily taking things for granted without any analysis and investigation,” you are heading for trouble because being at odds with reality will inevitably lead to some kind of dysfunction. For instance, when you cling strongly to something, assuming that it will last, that it is truly yours, and that it is in and of itself desirable, you are not only at odds with reality but putting yourself in a vulnerable situation because all your relations to the object of your grasping are warped. Frustration and suffering will ensue when it turns out that the object is in fact impermanent, it can be destroyed or lost, and it can never be truly yours. It may also suddenly appear to be undesirable simply because your projections onto it have taken a U-turn.
However, if you think, “Phenomena appear as interdependent events devoid of autonomous, inherent characteristics and existence,” because such understanding is congruent with reality, you are much less likely to relate to objects in ways that lead to disappointment and suffering.
Wolf:
Your epistemic scheme resembles the position of radical constructivism. Brains construct their views of the world on the basis of inherited and acquired knowledge. Because different brains have different knowledge bases, they may arrive at different views. Neurobiologists would agree so far. We perceive the world as we do because our brains are the way they are. Because the genetically and culturally transmitted cognitive schemata (priors) are quite similar, we tend to perceive the world in similar ways. You go one step further, however: You stated that one major cause of suffering is that people are not aware of these facts and continue to believe that perception reflects reality. Consequently, if perceptions differ, the respective other is perceived as being wrong and attempts to correct the apparently wrong perception inevitably cause suffering on both sides. Is the Buddhist position that neither right nor wrong exists because the conflict arises only between conceptual attributions that should not have been made to begin with and that there is therefore no point in trying to convince each other through argument?
Matthieu:
Not quite. When people holding various opinions and entertaining various perceptions deconstruct their respective delusions, they cannot but agree on the correct understanding of the ultimate nature of phenomena.
Wolf:
Okay, but they would not be able to deconstruct their perceptions. For them, what they perceive is real. They would, however, agree at a metalevel and consent that, irrespective of our idiosyncratic perceptions, the objects of the perceivable world are impermanent, devoid of intrinsic qualities, and only defined in terms of relations.
Matthieu:
People may still perceive as reality something that is, for instance, nothing more than an optical illusion, but at the same time they will recognize that this illusion does not reflect the true nature of the object perceived. The goal is not to agree on sensory perceptions but to understand that these perceptions result from constructing a fictitious reality. All parties can free themselves from cognitively deluded ways of apprehending reality.
Wolf:
In other words, they would continue to see what they see, but they would become aware that this is not the only way it can be seen. This epistemic stance also pervades most of the occidental philosophical schools and agrees perfectly well with what we know about the neurobiological underpinnings of perception.
Matthieu:
Yes, that’s right, but it does not stop there. They would further acknowledge that their way of seeing is fabricated. Analytical meditation and mental training would allow them to recognize that their habitual tendencies cause them to attach various qualities to objects even though these qualities are not invariable attributes of the objects. Thus, through training, insight deepens, and one can come to understand the constructed nature of the cognitive processes that take place in our minds. This, in turn, makes it easier to detach oneself from grasping, attraction, and repulsion and achieve greater inner freedom.
Wolf:
I find the idea fascinating that the brain, by cultivating insight, should be able to arrive at a level of metacognition that allows it to discover the nature of its own cognitive processes. By “metacognition” I mean a process by which the brain applies its cognitive abilities not to the investigation of objects in the outer world but to the investigation of its own operations. The architecture of the human brain could well allow for such metacognition because its multilayered organization permits it, in principle, to iteratively subject its own processes to scrutiny.
Matthieu:
You can perceive something as being permanent while understanding at the same time that it is utterly transitory. In this way, you can cease to attribute solid, unchanging qualities to what you see. Consequently, you would not react in deluded ways. To deconstruct the world of appearances has a liberating quality. You are no longer entangled in your perceptions and cease to reify the phenomenal world. This has profound impacts on the way you apprehend the world and consequently on your experience of happiness and suffering.
When all mental fabrications are unmasked, you perceive the world as a dynamic flow of events, and you stop freezing reality in various deluded ways. Take the example of water and ice. When water freezes, it forms solid shapes that can cut your hand or break your bones if you fall on it. Now, you could think that this is the nature of water: It has a particular shape, it is hard, and so on. You could also make various forms out of ice—flower, castle, statue of a loved one, or representation of a deity. I have even heard music played on instruments made of ice! But with just a little heat, all these different, well-defined forms melt into the same fluid, shapeless water. If you remain mindful of this at all times, then when you see a flower made of ice, you are fully aware of its impermanent nature, that there is nothing intrinsic in either its “flower” quality or its “beauty.” Water is neither a flower nor a castle nor a god. It is a dynamic flow that can momentarily assume seemingly stable configurations. Likewise, if we don’t freeze reality, we will not be caught in reifying it as something solid, endowed with true, intrinsic existence, and we will not be deluded.
Wolf:
Water is indeed a nice metaphor: A river is never the same at two different moments. This represents the experience of an ever-changing world that will never ever come back to the point where it was before. The same holds true for the brain. It is also constantly changing and will never come back to the same state. This permanent and never-repeating flow of changing states is probably the reason that we perceive time as directed.
But why do you say “true”? Why should the ever-changing water be truer than a statue of the Buddha made out of ice or stone? The distinction among ice, liquid water, and vapor is fundamental to the understanding of the properties of matter as it describes different aggregate states of the same molecular constituents. What is the meaning of “true” here?
Matthieu:
One is not truer than the other. Neither water nor ice is endowed with true existence. What is true, however, is that all these aspects—solidity, fluidity, form—are impermanent. You could deconstruct water into molecules and particles and particles into merely interconnected events, quantum probabilities, not “things” standing on their own.
Such understanding comes from deeply investigating the way our own mind functions and requires a mind that is clear and stable enough to follow a rigorous process of introspection and make proper use of logic to deconstruct our naïve perceptions of reality.
Wolf:
I consider it quite surprising that contemplative techniques lead to insights into the nature of the world that actually contradict our primary perceptions.
Matthieu:
Even in the domain of physics, Einstein’s thought experiments and his visionary insights led him to formulate the theory of relativity, which also contradicts our primary perceptions. The same is true, even more so, with quantum physics.
Wolf:
Intuition and introspection have not proven to be particularly effective tools when it comes to understanding phenomena not directly accessible to our senses. This even holds for the organization and functions of our own brain, an epistemic problem that we shall have to discuss at some stage. In science, we have certain rules or strategies to validate what we believe to be the case. We postulate reproducibility, predictability, consistency, and an absence of contradictions. Sometimes we even apply aesthetic criteria such as beauty because we consider simple explanations as more trustworthy or powerful than complex ones. I can see the point that one can obtain insights through the investigation of the way one’s own mind functions. But how can one validate this process? How can one communicate to others how reliable one’s own introspective evidence is? What is “right” in this context of self-inquiry? I would like to learn more about this.
Matthieu:
Let’s take the example of the telescope. There are two reasons that you would not be able to see something clearly through a telescope: either the lens is dirty or not properly focused or the telescope is unstable and shaking. So when you lack either clarity or stability (or both), you can’t see the object properly.
Wolf:
In the case of the telescope, it’s clear. There are objective criteria for what constitutes a sharp, high-contrast image. Modern cameras use these criteria to adjust the focus automatically. But what are the criteria in the case of introspection? How does it feel when the cognitive system is properly adjusted?
Matthieu:
Well, similarly, you need to make the mind’s telescope more focused,9 clear, and stable. Introspection has long been discredited because the subjects who were asked to engage in it in laboratory studies did so with minds that were distracted most of the time. Distraction creates an unsteady mind. In addition, an untrained mind lacks the limpid clarity that allows one to see vividly what is happening within oneself. So whether the mind is carried away by distractions or sinks into a cognitive opacity, it will not be able to pursue proper introspection.
Wolf:
So stability and clarity would be the two main criteria?
Matthieu:
Yes. To use your expression, it certainly “feels” different when the mind is agitated, distracted, and murky versus when it is stable and crystal clear. A clear and stable mind brings not only inner peace but deeper insights into the nature of reality and the mind itself. These effects are not just imaginary but well-defined mental states that can be experienced again and again.
Wolf:
Does reproducibility also figure as a criterion, just as in the scientific approach?
Matthieu:
Whenever a contemplative whose mind is not constantly carried away into a whirlpool of thoughts investigates a particular aspect of mind through introspection, he usually comes to similar understandings and insights, which is not the case for one whose mind is wild and deluded.
Wolf:
In scientific terms, that would be noise reduction—stabilization of your cognitive system.
Matthieu:
That’s right. You need to get rid of both mental cloudiness and agitation.
Wolf:
Is this a quality your “inner eye” can acquire?
Matthieu:
Yes, this is the result of sustained practice. Many techniques and meditative practices can help you to progress toward achieving a clear and stable mind. When you thus train your mind, you also perceive and understand mental phenomena more accurately. At the same time, you realize that the boundary between mental events and outer phenomena is not as solid as it seems. This approach is phenomenological because what you are investigating directly is your experience. What else could you investigate anyway? Your experience is your world.
Wolf:
Is your advice to consolidate your insight and resist contextual influences?
Matthieu:
You will of course still perceive all outer and inner phenomena. You will actually perceive them more vividly and with a penetrating insight because you will have stopped superimposing mental fabrications onto them. This allows for an interindividual consensus among trained contemplatives, which is not the case for untrained subjects. We may compare this process to that followed by mathematicians who, having undergone common training, can understand each other as they reach similar insights and speak the same language. Unless you are trained in mathematics, it would be hard to grasp their concepts and follow their discussions. Likewise, trained contemplatives come to similar conclusions about the nature of mind and about the fact that phenomena are impermanent and interdependent. This verifiable intersubjective agreement confers validity on their understanding.
Wolf:
Mathematicians can take a pencil and write down a formula and then develop a proof using logical rules. How can you, with your teacher—I assume you need a teacher to tune your instrument, your inner eye, your microscope—know that you are going the right way?
Matthieu:
The way to know that is through what Francisco Varela, Claire Petitmengin, and others in the field of cognitive science call the second-person perspective, in complement with the first- and third-person perspectives. The second-person perspective involves an in-depth, properly structured dialogue between the subject and an expert who leads the dialogue, asking appropriate questions and allowing the subject to describe his or her experience in all its minute details.
In the Tibetan tradition, for instance, the meditator will from time to time report about his meditative experiences to his teacher. The difference here is that the second person is not just a skillful psychologist but someone who has a deep experience of meditation achieved over many years of dedicated practice and whose experience has culminated in profound, clear, and stable insight on the nature of mind, something often referred to as spiritual realization or accomplishment. On the basis of his genuine and vast experience, a qualified teacher will be able to appraise the quality of the student’s meditative practice and see whether it reflects genuine progress or mere self-deceptions.
You could argue, “From a third-person perspective, how can I verify the validity of such judgments?” Well, you can actually verify all this by yourself, but not without training. A similar process exists in science. If you don’t know much about physics and mathematics, then you begin by trusting the experts because you assume that they are reliable. Why should you believe them? In the beginning, you trust them because they agree among themselves after having carefully verified each other’s findings. But you don’t have to stop there. You also know that if you were to train properly in their discipline, then you would be able to check all this by yourself. You don’t have to trust these experts forever on the basis of blind faith, which would remain unsatisfactory.
Meditation is not mathematics but rather a science of the mind, and it is conducted with rigor, perseverance, and discipline.10 Thus, when experienced contemplatives come to similar conclusions about the workings of the mind, their cumulative experience has a weight comparable to that of expert mathematicians. As long as you have not personally involved yourself in your own investigation and experience, a gap will always exist between what you are told and what you know through direct experience, but that gap can be gradually bridged by enhancing your own expertise.
Wolf:
Doesn’t this apply to all strategies of gaining insight? You have to agree on certain criteria, you have to agree on certain procedures for the acquisition of knowledge, then you explore, and finally you sit together and try to find out whether you reach a consensus.
Matthieu:
It seems appropriate to speak of a “contemplative science” because these are not vague descriptions based on mere impressions. In the Tibetan contemplative literature, one finds entire treatises that describe various steps for analyzing the mind and offer a detailed taxonomy of the various kinds of mental events. They also describe thought processes, how concepts are formed, what the qualities of pure awareness are, and so on. These treatises also teach meditators how to avoid misconstruing fleeting experiences as genuine realization. All these phenomena are described by people who have acquired a penetrating insight into what is going on in their minds. You could argue that they are all deceiving themselves, but it would be a bit strange if a whole cohort of people with sharp acumen who have refined their introspective faculties to such an extent deluded themselves in exactly the same way at various times in history and in various places, whereas untrained people with wild, confused minds somehow had a more reliable picture of the workings of the mind.
That’s why the Buddha encouraged contemplatives to practice assiduously by saying, “I’ve shown you a path, and it’s up to you to travel it by yourself. Don’t believe what I say simply out of respect for me, but examine the truth of it very thoroughly, as when examining the purity of a piece of gold by rubbing it on a flat stone, beating it, and melting it.” We should take not things for granted without verifying them for ourselves.
Some things are not accessible to your knowledge. Some elude your direct experience forever. When believers of theistic religions speak of the “mystery of God,” for instance, they accept the fact that they will never fully know the nature of God through their limited, imperfect experience. In the case of Buddhism, it is said that other aspects of reality are not accessible to your present cognitive capacities but that are by no means inaccessible forever. What is not clear to you now can become completely clear in the future through investigation and training.
Wolf:
This would also imply that those who have not adopted these practices should not rely on their firsthand intuitions, their immediate internal judgments, because they haven’t tuned their instrument. They all have to be considered naïve and deluded by blurred perceptions.
Matthieu:
Yes, but they have the potential to do so. They remain naïve as long as their potential for understanding remains untapped.
Wolf:
Because most of us have untrained minds, because only a small minority has gone through the process of tuning the inner-eye microscope, this situation seems fairly depressing. In the West since the Age of Enlightenment, we have focused on science as the definitive source of knowledge, but because we are all naïve, the great minds—Plato, Socrates, Kant—included, how can we trust our findings and conclusions? This reminds me of a curious conundrum that illustrates how insights derived from introspection and scientific inquiry can diverge. Consider the many and widely differing theories about the organization of our brains that have been derived from introspection and observation of the behavior of the respective other. Most of them turn out to be incompatible with what we observe once we start to examine cognitive functions with quantitative psychophysical methods and subject brains to scientific investigation. To the best of my knowledge, this holds for all prescientific theories of the brain, whether formulated in the framework of Eastern or Western philosophies. Does this discrepancy imply that our intuitions are simply naïve because they are untrained? In this case, one would expect that those who have experience with mental practice, who have tuned their inner eye, might come to more valid conclusions about the way their brains function. Trained Buddhist minds should experience the working of their brains in a more “realistic” way than that suggested by our untrained Western naïve intuition.
Matthieu:
It would be more correct to say that trained contemplatives experience the working of their minds in a more realistic way than untrained people. This does not mean that you will relate your experience with specific areas of the brain as an fMRI machine would do. Whether you are naïve about the functioning of your mind or a trained meditator, in both cases, as you know well, you normally cannot even feel your brain, much less know what is going on in its various areas and networks. That being said, the collaboration between contemplative and brain scientists that has unfolded over the last 15 years or so has shown clearly that these fields can mutually enhance each other’s understanding and correlate first- and third-person perspectives.
Through pursing a first-person approach, a contemplative will not find out directly which areas of the brain are involved in compassion or focused attention. However, a trained contemplative will be highly aware of his cognitive processes, of the way thoughts unfold, and of the way emotions arise and how they can be balanced and controlled. The meditator will also have some experience of what is known as pure awareness, which is a clear and lucid state of consciousness devoid of mental constructs and automatic thought processes. The meditator may also understand that there is no such thing in the mind as a central, autonomous self, which I think fits quite well with the views of neuroscience.
The recent development of what is now called contemplative neuroscience explores how this contemplative knowledge and mastery of the mind relates to specific brain activities and how the meditator may or may not be able to monitor and control these at will. The experience of contemplatives can also be harnessed to better interpret findings about the workings of the brain, particularly in the field of emotions, well-being, depression, and other heightened states of mind.
Matthieu:
To say that most of us are somehow deluded is not fundamentally a pessimistic attitude because there is a way out of our delusion; we are not stuck here. The doctor who diagnoses a sickness or an epidemic is not pessimistic. He knows that there is a big problem, but he also knows that this problem has causes that can be identified and a cure for these ailments may exist. In the Buddhist scriptures, one often compares the Buddha to a skillful physician, sentient beings to sick patients, the teachings as the doctor’s prescription, and the practice of these teachings as the treatment. The main reason not to be depressed is that the mind has the potential to change and cure itself of delusion, so as to perceive reality as it is.
Wolf:
The reality you are talking about is then essentially an internal state devoid of delusions and misconceptions because there is no such thing as a true outer reality.
Matthieu:
It is the reality of recognizing the nature of pure awareness, as well as the nature of suffering and its causes—the mental toxins—and the possibility of getting rid of these causes through cultivating wisdom. But it is also apprehending outer reality in a more correct way, as interdependent events devoid of intrinsic existence. It is not about gathering detailed information about everything through exploring the intricacies of natural phenomenal realities, as science does, but rather about understanding the fundamental nature of phenomena to dispel basic ignorance and suffering.
Not all knowledge has the same utility in terms of dispelling suffering. A curious person kept asking the Buddha endless questions on all kinds of subjects, such as whether the universe was finite or infinite. The Buddha often kept silent instead of answering. On one of these occasions, he took a handful of leaves and asked his visitor, “Are there more leaves in my hand or in the forest?” The inquisitive person was a bit startled but nevertheless answered, “Of course there are fewer leaves in your hands.” The Buddha then commented, “Likewise, if your goal is to put an end to suffering and reach enlightenment, some kinds of knowledge are useful and necessary, while others are not.” Many things might be quite interesting in and of themselves (e.g., knowing the temperature of stars or the way flowers reproduce) but are not directly relevant to freeing yourself from suffering.
Not all information is equally useful. It also depends on your purpose. Valid knowledge about the process of cognitive delusion is immensely useful if one falls prey to compulsive attachment or hatred because this will help dispel suffering.
Wolf:
I think we are in agreement that one cannot derive ethical values from scientific exploration alone. Science helps us to distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations of the observable, but it does not liberate us from the burden of making ethical judgments.
Matthieu:
This is understandable because those ethical values are not the primary goal of science. Knowledge obtained through scientific inquiry has no moral value on its own. It is the way we make use of such knowledge that morality comes in. By contrast, the primary goal of Buddhism is to get rid of suffering, which is obviously linked with ethics.
Wolf:
Is it possible then to derive values from introspection, from mental practice? To me it appears that values emerge from collective experiences and become condensed in either religious commandments or systems of law. Communities found out, by trial and error over generations of experimentation, which attitudes either reduced or increased suffering. They then extracted rules of conduct and codified their cumulative experience. These rules were either projected as God’s will to increase their authority and the community’s compliance or were incorporated in legal systems. In both cases, remuneration and punishment are common tools to obtain obedience.
Matthieu:
It can be true in some cases. In Buddhism, which invokes no divine authority, ethics is a set of guidelines derived from empirical experience and wisdom to avoid inflicting suffering on others and yourself. The Buddha is not a prophet, a God, or a saint but rather an awakened one. Ethics is really a science of happiness and suffering, not a set of rules proclaimed by a divine entity or dogmatic thinkers. Because ethics is all about avoiding inflicting suffering on others, having more wisdom and compassion, together with gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms of happiness and suffering and the laws of cause and effect, will foster ethical systems and practices that are more likely to fulfill their purpose.
Wolf:
So far we have been dealing with three aspects of Buddhist philosophy; please correct me if I have misunderstood something. One is the philosophical, epistemic position of Buddhism, which is clearly a rather radical, constructivist position that declares most of what we perceive outside of our own mind, and for untrained, naïve humans, also most of what one experiences with one’s inner eye, as delusive.
The second aspect is the conviction that it is possible to fine-tune one’s inner eye through practice to experience what one’s mind and reality are all about.
Finally—and this seems to be the most important point and the consequence of the first two—if the goal to purify one’s mind is achieved and perception is no longer contaminated by false beliefs, then one changes basic traits of one’s personality and thus becomes a better person who can contribute more effectively to the reduction of suffering.
Thus, Buddhist philosophy is partly a sophisticated science of cognition and partly a pragmatic educational system. Unlike Western epistemology, however, it is considered to be an experimental discipline that tries through practice and mental training to clarify the conditions of our cognition and thereby to discover the essence of reality: first fine-tune your internal microscope and then learn about the world.
Western science disclaims that it is able to derive any moral values or formulate rules of conduct based on its observations. All it claims is that ethical choices usually yield better results if they are based on secure evidence and guided by rational arguments rather than by beliefs, superstitions, or ideological dogmas. It further promises that suffering can be reduced by identifying its causes and developing tools for their eradication.
Buddhist philosophy also claims to apply the criteria of an experimental science, but it goes one step further by promising that one is able to derive values from its practice, that practitioners are transformed for the better, and that suffering is reduced in this way.
Matthieu:
Well said. Yes, an ethical dimension is embedded in the whole Buddhist approach because knowledge is used to relieve suffering. For this one needs to distinguish the kinds of actions, words, and thoughts that will cause suffering from those that will bring fulfillment and flourishing. There is no such thing as absolute good and evil, only the suffering and happiness that our thoughts, words, and actions bring about for others and ourselves.
Values can also be related to a correct understanding of reality. We would say, for instance, that the pursuit of selfish happiness is not attuned to reality because it assumes that we can function as discrete, separate entities minding our own business, which is not the case. We are bound to fail in that pursuit. On the contrary, understanding the interdependence of all beings and phenomena is the logical ground for growing altruism and compassion.11 To endeavor in achieving your happiness and that of others simultaneously is more likely to succeed because it is attuned to reality. Selfless love reflects some understanding of the intimate interdependence of all beings and all beings’ happiness, whereas selfishness exacerbates individualism and increasingly widens the gap between others and us.
Wolf:
You say that these negative attributes are actually deluded perceptions of reality. So you argue in a sense, like Rousseau, that reality is good in its essence.
Matthieu:
Reality is neither good nor bad, but valid and invalid ways of apprehending reality exist. These various ways have consequences: A mind that does not distort reality will naturally experience inner freedom and compassion, instead of craving and hatred. So, yes, if you are attuned to the way things really are, then you will naturally adopt behavior that will be conducive to less suffering. Mental confusion is not only a veil that clouds our understanding of the true nature of things. Practically speaking, it also prevents us from identifying the kind of behavior that would allow us to find happiness and avoid suffering.
Wolf:
Obviously, if you act in agreement with the true conditions of the world, then you will have less trouble because there will be less contradiction, less conflict—
Matthieu:
Right. That is why the investigation of the nature of reality is not just pure intellectual curiosity: It has profound repercussions on our experience.
Wolf:
Hence, one should sharpen one’s cognitive tools to perceive reality more correctly.
Matthieu:
If you recognize that reality is interdependent and impermanent, then you will adopt the right attitude and be much more likely to flourish. Otherwise, as Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”12
Wolf:
We could also express this in Darwinian terms: If one’s model of the world is correct, then one will experience fewer contradictions, make fewer false judgments, cope better with the fallacies of life, and inflict less suffering. Thus, one should try to get a realistic model of the world. I think all cultures have in common the urge to try to understand the world, but the motives and strategies differ. Reducing suffering is certainly one goal, but there are others, too—those who know have better control over the world, they can dominate others, they have privileged access to resources. Realistic models of the world increase fitness.
One way to obtain knowledge is science. The resulting insights can be made explicit and the reasons can be made transparent. Another source of knowledge is collective experience. The insights obtained in this way often remain implicit—one knows, but the origins of one’s knowledge remain opaque. Then there is the strategy that you have explained, which attempts to use introspection and mental practice to learn about one’s condition. Finally, there is the evolutionary, pragmatic strategy to arrive at better models of the world. As creative creatures, we have the option to imagine and test models. We can then select those that work best for us, adhere to those that reduce suffering, and drop those that increase it.
Matthieu:
This is crucial.
Wolf:
And you can optimize your models—
Matthieu:
—through analytical meditation, logical investigation, and valid cognition. Going back and forth between your inner understanding and being confronted with the outer world, you will be able to integrate this deeper understanding into your way of being.
Wolf:
The implication is then that the brain can impose on itself a training procedure that induces lasting changes in its own cognitive structures?
Matthieu:
That’s why a mere theoretical understanding will not work. Training implies cultivation, repetition that leads to slowly remodeling your way of being, which will be correlated with a remodeling of your brain. You need to acquire a correct understanding and then cultivate that understanding until it becomes fully part of yourself.
Wolf:
It’s interesting to investigate how this process can be initiated. You probably need a teacher who tells you that there is something to discover, or is there an internal drive, built into our brains, that motivates self-exploration and promotes self-improvement?
Matthieu:
The internal drive arises from a deep aspiration to free oneself from suffering. This aspiration, in turn, reflects the potential that we have for change and flourishing. A qualified teacher plays a crucial role in showing and explaining to us the means to achieve that change, in the same way that the guidance of an experienced sailor, craftsman, or musician is invaluable for those who want to learn those skills. You may wish to reinvent the wheel, but it is senseless not to benefit from the vast accumulated knowledge of those who have mastered their arts and skills, such as mountaineers who have climbed the highest peaks and sailors who have navigated the seas for 40 years. Wanting to learn everything from scratch without benefiting from others’ wisdom is not a good strategy. Many generations of sailors have tried all kinds of ways of navigating and have drawn maps of the many places they have visited. Likewise, Buddhist contemplative science has 2,500 years of cumulated empirical experience of investigating the mind, beginning with Buddha Shakyamuni, and it would be silly to ignore it.
Wolf:
I begin to understand you. Longing for happiness and minimizing suffering is the drive, but to get there, you need to make your internal model concordant with the “real” conditions of the world. Accordingly, we should be able to identify some of these wrong views and wrong ways of thinking.
Matthieu:
To eliminate wrong views is one of the chief goals of the Buddhist path.
Wolf:
Matthieu, we had a wonderful morning. I would just like to recapitulate what we discussed. We had an in-depth discussion of epistemic questions comparing Western and Buddhist sources of knowledge, the latter being mainly introspection, mental practice, and observation of the world after having purified one’s mind…
Matthieu:
…and pursued an analytical approach to reality.
Wolf:
An analytical approach that requires one to first fine-tune the inner eye of the mind to purify one’s own cognitive system. This, as I understand it, has far-reaching consequences. One consequence is that it allows one to avoid taking for granted what one perceives and helps one to perceive reality as something that is transitory, not endowed with fixed, context-independent properties. This in turn would permit construction of more realistic models of reality, reduce conflicts between false models and reality, and thereby lead to a reduction of suffering.
One important aspect of this is to learn to disengage to avoid emotional grasping. By realizing that objects have no fixed qualities per se, we detach those qualities from our understanding of the objects. If I understood you correctly, this also applies to the emotions that we associate with social situations and other sentient beings. Clinging and attachment act like distorting filters on one’s perceptions that prevent us from perceiving the real world—and should therefore be avoided.
I can see the point. We all become victims of our emotions: If one is overwhelmed by deep romantic love or furious hatred, then one is bound to misperceive conditions by misattributing biased qualities to objects. If one is able to disengage from these misperceptions, then reality loses these assigned qualities and becomes easier to handle.
So, mental practice, introspection, and cultivation of the mind are used to attain more objectivity. In addition, this “science of the mind” can serve as the basis of an ethical system. This seems to differ from viewpoints cultivated in Western societies where objectivity is thought to be attainable only from the third-person perspective by relying on criteria such as reproducibility, confirmation of predictions, and so on, and where ethics is not an integral part of scientific exploration, at least not in the natural sciences.
Matthieu:
Provided we understand ethics as a science of happiness and suffering, not as dogma disconnected from lived experience.
Wolf:
The premise is that mental practice leads to the construction of realistic models of oneself and the world. These novel insights, together with the effects of the practice, would then entrain changes in attitude, which, if shared by many in the long run, could improve the human condition.
Matthieu:
This will arise from a way of being that has become free from those biases and mental entanglements, and therefore naturally expresses itself as altruism, compassion, and concern for others. This is in particular based on acknowledging that others want to be happy and avoid suffering, just as you do. Such a way of being will express itself spontaneously in ways that are beneficial to others. Your actions will be a spontaneous expression of your way of being.
Wolf:
Provided everybody gets his model of the world right, this might work out.
Matthieu:
If you maintain proper understanding or perspective, proper view, proper motivation, proper effort, and proper conduct, then it will certainly work in the best possible way. Even if life events and circumstances are unpredictable and beyond our control, we can always try to maintain our direction using the inner compass of right view and right motivation. This is the best way to achieve the goal of freedom from suffering for oneself and others.
Wolf:
How can you harvest the wisdom that we believe is collectively gathered over generations and is codified in religious and legal systems—wisdom about how to behave that no single individual can gather in one lifetime? Certain attitudes may be beneficial for the individual’s own life trajectory but may have long-lasting detrimental consequences for society that the individual will never experience. Such knowledge can only be harvested collectively across generations and cannot possibly be obtained by introspection alone.
Matthieu:
Although you may not see the final outcome of your actions, as a fundamental principle, you can always check your motivation: is it a mostly selfish motivation based on exaggerated self-cherishing or a genuinely altruistic one? If you keep on generating such a motivation and then use the best of your knowledge, reasoning, and skills to act in that direction, then the effect is much more likely to be positive in the long run.
A correct understanding of reality leads to a correct mental attitude and moment-by-moment behavior that is attuned to that understanding. This in turns leads to a win-win situation of flourishing oneself while acting in a way that is also beneficial to others. Such an optimal way of being will have positive effects first in the family and then in the village or local community and gradually in society at large. As Gandhi said, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”
Wolf:
This is a profound insight on which probably all spiritual people would agree. However, in a highly interconnected societal system, it matters how others react to the transformation of individuals. Unless a substantial fraction of individuals follow the path of individual transformation, the danger remains that those clinging to power and selfishness will usurp the benevolence of a peaceful minority for their interests. We need normative systems that constrain the power and influence of defectors. Individual transformation and the regulation of social interactions will have to go hand in hand. Here we see the same complementarity of strategies that we encountered when we investigated differences between contemplative and natural science or between first- and third-person approaches toward a better understanding of the world and a betterment of the human condition. At some stage of our conversation, I hope we will explore to what extent convergence exists between the insights gained from contemplative science, the humanities, and the natural sciences. This comparison should be particularly interesting because the methods applied in the natural sciences are now also applied to investigate psychological phenomena accessible only through a first-person perspective, such as perceptions, feelings, emotions, social realities, and, last but not least, consciousness.