EPILOGUE

Consciousness, Spirit, and Conscience in Science

Einstein once described the theory of relativity by saying, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”1

Objectivity and Subjectivity

This unusual explanation is usually considered humorous, but on a deeper level it embodies a major challenge faced by Einstein and modern frontier scientists: the fundamental challenge of objectivity. Since its inception, modern science has espoused the axiom that is absolutely objective and independent of the presence of people. This belief is reflected in Newton’s framework of time and space. Both are considered to be absolute and unaffected by whether they are being observed or not.

Einstein first introduced the fiend of the subjective observer into the temple of science. From then on, time and space were no longer absolute but relative and dependent on the state of the observer. In the special theory of relativity, time and space depend on the speed of movement of the observer. As the observer’s speed increases, time slows down and distances are reduced. The general theory of relativity introduces the acceleration of the observer. We are the observers that warp time and space and confound the revered objectivity of science.

Both Einstein’s theories of relativity referenced simplified movement in a straight line. Given that the simple movement of an observer can have such profound implications for time and space, the influence of the observer’s state of mind also needs to be considered. Developing the theory of relativity to encompass the study of complex systems, such as living systems and the body-mind system, poses a complex challenge, and a solution was not possible during Einstein’s lifetime. The challenge of developing the theory of relativity to address these requirements is left to those who follow in his footsteps.

The problem of the influence of the observer was also encountered by quantum physicists, including Bohr and Heisenberg. They found that the atom, the instrument, and the observer are an inseparable system. Heisenberg expressed this as: “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our mode of questioning.”2 It is impossible to establish a scientific theory that is completely objective—it is always relative to the subject’s interaction with the people observing.

Interestingly enough, the problem of the inseparability of observers and the objective world was discussed by the famous Zen Buddhist Huineng about 1,500 years ago. As an illiterate underprivileged youth, Huineng joined a temple in a low position, but his abilities were recognized by the fifth Great Master of Zen Buddhism, who secretly gave his kasaya (Buddhist robe) to Huineng and chose him as a successor. The master knew that Huineng would be in great danger from jealous senior apprentices and asked him to flee the temple for his own safety.

After living in seclusion for fifteen years, Huineng participated in a large conference on Buddhism, where he heard two Buddhists arguing about a waving flag. One said, “Look, the flag is moving,” and the other responded, “No, you are wrong—the wind is moving.” Huineng said, “It is not the flag or the wind; it is the mind that is moving.” Hearing his comment, the other participants realized he was the sixth Great Master of Zen Buddhism, who had been missing for fifteen years.

Huineng’s response became encapsulated in the fundamental principle of Zen Buddhism that “nothing is reality, but mind.” It is worth noting that this principle is the polar opposite of materialism. Let us compare it to Lenin’s definition of material, discussed in chapter 2, which he formulated to rescue materialism from the challenge of consciousness: “Material is objective existence which is independent from the consciousness.”3 This new definition included energy in the realm of matter but did not provide a definition for consciousness or mind. In contrast, Zen Buddhism holds that mind, or consciousness, is much more fundamental than matter, energy, or field.

For a long time, the terms mind and consciousness were not considered part of science. Anyone talking about mind or consciousness in a scientific context would be regarded as superstitious and dismissed, but the last twenty years have seen dramatic changes in the way that mind and consciousness are considered. The terms have lost their stigma and their use has spread in many fields of science, but despite wide discussion, no one can say exactly what they mean.

The major change in scientific acceptance of consciousness was initiated by brain research projects in the United States. In the late 1980s, the U.S. government launched a relatively ambitious national program in brain research called “Decade of the Brain.” The thinking was that, given the rapid development of biology, particularly molecular biology, the only remaining unclear corner of the body was the brain. The government believed that if enough money was dedicated to the research, all the biological questions about the brain could be answered during the twentieth century.

The initial goal of the project was simple. The brain was essentially considered a computer, and given a sufficiently powerful computer, which existed at the time, and the appropriate programming, it would be possible to imitate any ability of intelligence. After a couple of years, an insurmountable barrier appeared: no computer possessed self-awareness. In other words, while every child possessed the awareness of “I am,” computers did not have the consciousness to do so.

Scientific stigma notwithstanding, renowned physicist Erwin Schrödinger (fig. 16.1) discussed the problem of consciousness from the viewpoint of science over half a century ago. Physics students are familiar with his name because the Schrödinger equation forms the basis of quantum physics. Similarly, even nonphysicists are familiar with the analogy of Schrödinger’s cat. But relatively few scientists are aware that in 1944 he wrote a book titled What Is Life?, with the final chapter titled “What Is I?”

Figure 16.1. Erwin Schrödinger, the first scientist to seriously consider what life is from the viewpoint of physics.

In the book, Schrödinger predicted an “aperiodic crystal” that carries all the genetic information for living systems. He used data on mutation rates under alpha radiation and also calculated the size of an individual gene. It is particularly impressive that the size he calculated is exactly the size of the triplet code in DNA. It is evident that the aperiodic crystal he speculated about is the subsequently discovered DNA, which plays a profound role in biology today.

In the last chapter of his book, Schrödinger discussed the definition of I. He concluded that I is merely a singular memory. As such, the recognition of the world is only the accumulation of memory. The common sense of the world represents the consensus of many individual memories. In other words, science is only the agreement of many individual observations, namely the subjective experiences of many observers. Consequently, science represents only a common agreement of many individual experiences, not the objective truth of the world. That being said, it is still the most elegant body of knowledge created by humanity.

The limitations of objectivity in science have been discussed by Heisenberg and many other outstanding physicists, including Bohr and Einstein. Bohr and Heisenberg found that the observer, the instrument, and the microworld are actually an inseparable system. Heisenberg formulated this mathematically in the uncertainty principle, which earned him a Nobel Prize. Einstein’s humorous statement about relativity alludes to the idea that the interaction between our consciousness and the rest of the world is dependent not only on the observer’s movement but also on his or her physiological state.

The absence of pure objectivity is not only a fundamental problem for science; it also represents a perpetual challenge for art and aesthetics. For instance, beauty is neither purely objective nor purely subjective—it is an interaction between object and consciousness.

Consciousness, Spirit, and Conscience

This book’s discussion has focused on the dissipative structure of electromagnetic fields and its ability to bring the ancient wisdom of acupuncture, chakras, and many other holistic forms of medicine into modern science. In doing so, it also considered the objective measurement and quantitative evaluation of harmony, which also enables the wisdom in ancient philosophy and art to be modernized. However, the discussion did not extend to serious consideration of life, consciousness, spirit, and conscience from the perspective of modern science. Frankly, the nature of life and spirit currently exists outside rigorous scientific understanding. That being said, the names of some branches of science, such as biology and psychology, proclaim that they have knowledge of life and soul.

Ancient Indian philosophy holds that an individual has seven bodies, or seven body-levels. Let us consider science’s present and potential future understanding of the human body, mind, and consciousness within the context of this framework. The solid structure of the body, including the organs, tissues, cells, and the molecules, belongs to the first level, namely the chemical body.

At the level of the chemical body, the scientific law of the conservation of mass applies: mass is neither created nor destroyed in any normal chemical reaction. It means that the atoms in a body will continue to exist eternally, assuming they don’t become involved in a nuclear interaction, even after the person had died. They will be recycled into the world, some forming other people’s bodies. In some ways this can be considered a kind of reincarnation, as discussed thousands of years ago in Buddhism and in the Christian Bible.4

The dynamic dissipative structure of electromagnetic fields in living systems belongs to the second level of body, the electromagnetic body, usually inseparable from the chemical body; they are interdependent and interact continuously while an individual is alive. At this level, the law of conservation of energy applies. While energy changes from one form to another, the amount of energy remains constant. This essentially amounts to a quantitative law for the reincarnation of energy.

Albert Einstein discovered the law of transformation between matter and energy. In doing so, he merged material reincarnation and energy reincarnation into a single reincarnation principle. The reincarnation of energy poses a small complication: unlike matter, energy always transforms from higher forms to lower forms. For example, electrical energy will be dissipated as heat energy; the reverse process never occurs automatically. It seems that energy is not comprehensively conserved, at least in terms of its form or structure.

To describe the irreversible process of energy transformation quantitatively, we look to the second law of thermodynamics, which holds that overall, entropy will always irreversibly increase. Entropy means the degree of disorder, in essence the opposite of structure. Structure will irreversibly decrease and eventually disappear. In other words, there is a perpetual trend toward degeneracy in structure.

In the 1970s, almost one hundred years after the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics, the opposite phenomenon, the dissipative structure, was discovered. It showed that as the disorder of energy increases, a new order, in the form of dissipative structure, simultaneously arises. They counteract each other and suggest the possibility of a new transformative relationship between order in energy and order in dissipative structure. In other words, the permanent degeneration of structure might be balanced by the newly developed structure.

Perhaps conscience exists in the highest level of a human body. Throughout the history of science, the problem of scientific development applied for good or for evil has troubled scientists. This raises an even more fundamental question: what is good and what is evil? For instance, the decades-old debate as to whether nuclear energy is good or evil still continues. Similarly, modern developments like genetic engineering pose the same question.

It is worth noting here that conscience is somewhat opposed to Darwinism in that it is at odds with the fundamental Darwinian principle of ruthlessly fighting for survival. A Russian friend of mine said; “If there is some truth in Darwinism, it is at most a half theory, like the second law of thermodynamics. There must be another half. If we say Darwinism is the ugly and cruel half of evolution, there must be a beautiful and virtuous half of evolution.” If this is true, this other half must provide some scientific and quantitative criteria to differentiate what is good and what is evil.

The Limitation of Our Senses and Language

Perhaps the goal of incorporating consciousness into scientific theory is too ambitious. The limitations of our senses, discussed in chapter 1, provide a significant impediment. While we can construct instruments to extend the abilities of our senses, such as telescopes and microscopes, these act as transformers, thereby introducing distortions. The more instruments we use, the more distortions arise. In the end, we would approach a limitation of distortion, which would be the boundary of our recognition.

We have known quite a few boundaries in the textbooks of physics. The speed of light constant is a typical boundary for us, as is Planck’s constant. There are many others. In fact, most constants are the boundaries of our limitations.

Besides the limitations of our sense organs, we have serious problems in the limitations of our language. Our daily language was developed with only the experience of the first level of body, the physical body. We have seen in this book how difficult it is to describe the second level of body, the electromagnetic body, with the language of the physical body. Proceeding into higher levels of body would make using our daily language to describe them even more problematic. The great philosopher Lao Tzu clearly expressed the limitation of language when he said, “The word that can be spoken is not the real Word. The name that can be named is not the real Name.”5 It is worth noting that the “Word” Lao Tzu is referring to can be regarded as the same as in the Christian Bible’s “In the beginning was the Word,”6 as well as “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of glory and truth.”7

Therefore, the more we know the limitations of our language, our senses, and our intelligence, the closer we are to glory and truth.