International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness • Volume 4, Number 1, 2018

n recent centuries, scientists have found that many phenomena in nature obey physical laws that can be expressed precisely in the language of mathematics. Their successes have led scientific inquiry beyond the physical world to include Iwhat was previously considered metaphysical or non-material. Today, an increasing number of scientists are examining the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the human brain.

While most models of consciousness propose that it is a product of chemical and electrical behavior within the brain, no current theory resolves the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”—how physical processes in the nervous system give rise to Volume 4, Number 1 subjective experiences such as experiencing, thinking, feeling, analyzing, and creating. 2018 At the same time, it is undeniable that without awareness—without consciousness— we cannot think, perceive, dream, or love. On this basis alone, a scientific journal dedicated to exploring the nature of consciousness is timely and appropriate. Editorial Introduction to the Journal While consciousness can be studied within a variety of disciplines, mathematics especially lends itself to examine the relationship between consciousness and physical Tony Nader, MD, PhD, MARR phenomena. Mathematics is precise and rigorous in its methodology, giving symbolic expression to abstract patterns and relationships. Although developed subjectively, using intuition along with the intellect and logical reasoning, mathematics allows us Questions and Answers about the Theory to make sense of our outer physical universe. Mathematics is the most scientific representation of subjective human intelligence and thought, formalizing how that Consciousness is All There Is individual human awareness perceives, discriminates, organizes, and expresses itself. Tony Nader, MD, PhD, MARR

The scientific consideration of consciousness by itself is a formidable challenge, for consciousness is a purely abstract reality. But the study of what we might call “consciousness at work”— how consciousness expresses itself in our daily activity of Two Dogmas of Materialism thinking, analyzing, creating, theorizing, and feeling—is inherently more accessible. For this exploration also, mathematics is the ideal tool, because its ability to express David Scharf, PhD patterns of abstract human awareness helps us make sense of our physical universe. One could in fact argue that mathematics is the most scientifically reliable tool for the exploration of the dynamics of consciousness, for it alone can be seen as the symbolic representation of “consciousness at work.” Maharishi University of Management The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness will help to fulfill the Fairfield, Iowa need for a forum of research and discussion of consciousness and its expressions. The editors invite mathematicians, scientists, and other thinkers to present their theories of consciousness without restriction to proposed axioms and postulates, with the stipulation only that such theories follow strict logical argumentation and respect proven facts and observations. Articles that use factual or logical counterargu- ments to challenge commonly believed but not fully established facts and observations are also welcome. International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

Volume 4, Number 1 2018

CONTENTS

Editorial Introduction to the Journal Tony Nader, MD, PhD, MARR …………………………………….………. i

Questions and Answers about the Theory that Consciousness is All There Is Tony Nader, MD, PhD, MARR ……….…………...……………….……… 1

Two Dogmas of Materialism David Scharf, PhD ……….………………………………………………. 15

A Publication of Maharishi University of Management Fairfield, Iowa

Transcendental Meditation®, TM-Sidhi®, Maharishi University of Management, Consciousness-Based, Maharishi Vedic Science, and Maharishi Sthāpatya Veda are protected trademarks and are used in the U.S. under license or with permission.

ISSN 2376-6751

Founder and Editor-in-Chief Tony Nader, M.D., Ph.D. Maharishi European Research University

Executive Editor Catherine A. Gorini, Ph.D. Maharishi University of Management

Editorial Board

Philip Boyland, Ph.D. University of Florida

Paul Corazza, Ph.D. Maharishi University of Management

M. Anne Dow, Ph.D. Maharishi University of Management

John Hagelin, Ph.D. Maharishi University of Management

John Lediaev, Ph.D. University of Iowa

John Price, Ph.D. Conscious Capital Ltd

Johan Svenson, Ph.D. Maharishi University of Management

Managing Editor Karim Nahabet

The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness is a semi-annual journal dedicated to the mathematical description and understanding of consciousness. Address correspondence to: International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness, Department of Mathematics, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, 52556, USA; email [email protected]. EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL

Throughout history, natural phenomena have been ultimately mysterious. Some of these phenomena were explained by religious belief, others by philosophical analysis. Since the 17th century, the modern scientific approach has found that many phenomena in nature obey clearly describable physical laws. This success greatly widened the ambit of scientific inquiry beyond the physical into the realm of what previously had been considered metaphysical or nonmaterial. Today, the territory of scientific inquiry has expanded to include how matter leads to consciousness. Most common and popular models of consciousness share the postulate that physical activity in the brain is prior to consciousness. No current theory, however, has been able to resolve the problem of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. Even quantum mechanical theories, while suggesting potential mechanisms that might create “unexplainable” phenomena, fall short of answering the fundamental questions about subjective experience. This gap— between the objective, material brain and the intimately known, private qualia of subjective experience, or “what it is like” to experience something—has so far not been bridged. Some thinkers have even rejected qualia out of hand, asserting that we have insufficient knowledge of the physical world to evaluate their existence. Some believe that early Homo sapiens depended entirely on sensory experience as a reference for what does and does not exist, and that only as our understanding evolved did we come to challenge the evidence of our senses. Certainly, the discoveries of modern science changed the way we looked at the world. They gave us intellectual models of the universe that often seemed to contradict our sensory model but which provided in fact more accurate pictures and were eventually confirmed by experimental observation. Perhaps the most notable example is the shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric view of the cosmos as a result of the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo in the 16th and 17th centuries. More recently, inquiry into very small and very large time and distance scales in relativity theory, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and cosmology has radically changed our beliefs about the nature of matter and physical phenomena as our senses perceive and our intellects apprehend them. We may ask, what actually exists for us? And we may agree that everything is continuously changing; we may even agree that whatever appears not to change is only one of an infinite number of simultaneously existing possibilities. For example, in some models a particle can be everywhere at once, and the fact that we find it here and now suggests either that we have collapsed the infinitude of its possibilities in a single act of conscious experience or that it continues to exist everywhere in an infinite number of universes parallel to the one in which we experience it. In all this uncertainty, one fact seems undeniable: the fact of our own awareness. Without awareness, we can neither perceive nor apprehend, neither see nor think nor dream. Commonly, this awareness is called consciousness: the observer, the

i International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness witness, the experiencer. If indeed this is the one undeniable fact, then it is timely that a scientific journal be dedicated to the study of consciousness as primary. To be truly scientific requires that the journal obey rigorous methods of logic, research, and experimentation. At the same time, this requires that no a priori or unproven points of view stand in the way of new original postulates, previously explored theories revisited with new insights, or unconventional axioms. The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness is founded in part to fulfill this need. The Journal opens the door to all mathematicians, scientists, and thinkers to present their theories of consciousness and the consequences thereof. With the requirement that such theories follow strict mathematical, logical argumentation and respect proven facts and observations, articles can be submitted for review, without restriction to their proposed axioms and postulates. The Journal also welcomes carefully reasoned articles that challenge commonly held, but not fully established, theories and beliefs.

1. Consciousness and “Consciousness at work” Abstract concepts and subjective experiences such as love, friendship, beauty, devotion, happiness, inspiration, pain, despair, and deception, are, in and by themselves, hard to study scientifically because of their innate, subjective, personal nature. Even more difficult to study is the more abstract consciousness that seems to be like a screen on which these emotions, notions, and sensations are projected and experienced. Modern cognitive neuroscience identifies various neural correlates of these mental states. The discipline of psychology attracted great thinkers who proposed various theories and methods of investigation, mostly focusing on the manifestations, observable or subjectively reportable signs and symptoms, and causes and effects of such inner experiences. Physicists recently have attempted to bridge the gap between the physical world and conscious experience through various quantum mechanical models. Philosophy, metaphysics, and spiritual and religious studies delve into ontolog- ical, epistemological, and other fundamental questions, using more or less formal logic or a wide variety of opinions and postulates. In contrast, art forms such as music, painting, and fictional writing are outer expressions of inner experiences and creative thinking. All theories, concepts, and creative work, whether scientific, psychological, philosophical, artistic, or spiritual are the manifestations of “consciousness at work.” While it might be challenging to study “consciousness” as such, in and by itself, it may be easier to study “consciousness at work”—its dynamics and its manifestations. The postulates that can be made about consciousness as an abstract phenomenon or epiphenomenon are most amenable to investigation by scientifically analyzing and studying “consciousness at work.” The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness invites analyses of consciousness at work from various perspectives with a particular emphasis on mathematics.

ii Editorial Introduction

2. Mathematics Mathematics studies abstract forms, patterns, relationships, and transformations in an exact, systematic, and logical way. Forms and shapes like circles and triangles are the subject of geometry and topology. Patterns of number and operations lead to algebra. Relationships that change in time form the basis of calculus. Mathematics also includes the study of mathematics itself. The study of mathematical reasoning is undertaken by logic. Even questions about the limits of the mathematical method and the nature of mathematical knowledge can be addressed using the methodology of mathematics. Using mathematical models of experimental observations of the physical world makes it possible to give a purely abstract formulation of real-life phenomena. Sub- jective mathematical reasoning, which is nevertheless entirely rigorous, applied to these models leads to new descriptions and predictions about the world. Mathematics is fundamentally a method that finds patterns of orderliness in the subjective field of human intelligence and thought. Based on sets of axioms and postulates that are accepted without proof, mathematics gives a structure to the way our minds and intellects operate. It systematizes how individual human awareness perceives, discriminates, organizes, and expresses its own patterns of functioning. In our opinion, mathematics is certainly one of the most useful and scientifically manageable methods to study the interface between consciousness and physical phenomena. Mathematics is in essence a subjective discipline that nevertheless allows us to organize and make sense of the physical universe in which we exist. Though subjective, it is precise and effective in objective scientific explorations. It is a fundamental and indispensable tool of all sciences, and at the same time, it is an expression of abstract human awareness and intellect.

3. Mathematics and Consciousness The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness takes the position that methods of mathematics and mathematical modeling provide especially appropriate tools for studying the interface between consciousness and physical phenomena. As we have pointed out above, mathematics is a fundamental and indispensable tool of all sciences, and at the same time an expression of abstract human awareness and intellect. It is therefore the most precise scientiﬁcally reliable tool in the exploration of the dynamics of consciousness. It can be seen as the precise abstract representation of consciousness at work. The ways in which human beings explore and express the experience of consciousness are as varied as nature itself. The following list contains some of the relevant sciences and other forms of human inquiry: (1) Physics and chemistry (physical/quantum mechanical theories of consciousness at work) (2) Biology and cognitive neuroscience (biological/electro-chemical/neural correlates of consciousness at work) (3) Mathematics (abstract representation of consciousness at work)

iii International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

(4) Psychology and cognitive sciences (objectification of subjective experiences of consciousness at work) (5) Economics, particularly behavioral economics (production, distribution, and consumption of resources as models of the dynamics of consciousness at work) (6) Philosophy (discursive representation of consciousness at work) (7) Arts (subjective creative representation of consciousness at work) (8) Religion (individual/group belief in the origins and dynamics of consciousness and consciousness at work) (9) Spirituality (personal and totally subjective experience of consciousness at work) (10) Study of pure consciousness itself (the field or screen “phenomenon” on which or by which all aspects of consciousness at work take place) The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness maintains the position that of all such pursuits, mathematics, because of its rigor, depth, and effectiveness, is the most suitable discipline to study the interface between consciousness and the physical world. This Journal is devoted to exploring this interface using the rigorous approach of mathematics. We invite all mathematicians, scientists, and thinkers to submit papers using a mathematical approach to consciousness and “consciousness at work” in all its aspects.

Tony Nader, MD, PhD, M.A.R.R.

iv QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE THEORY THAT CONSCIOUSNESS IS ALL THERE IS

TONY NADER, MD, PhD, MARR

Abstract. In the paper “Consciousness Is All There Is: A Mathematical Approach with Applications,” we proposed an unprecedented axiomatic theory about consciousness and its relationship to matter. This paper discusses issues that were raised by that paper: the time duration of a Bit of Consciousness; the relationship between a triple and reality; the nature of Nothing, Nothingness, and Concept; An¯anda(bliss);¯ Pragy¯apar¯adh(mistake of the intellect); the self of an entity; the origin of space and time; S˙amhit¯a(togetherness of knower, known, and process of knowing); and the distinction between Singularity and Consciousness.

0. Introduction The paper “Consciousness Is All There Is: A Mathematical Approach with Ap- plications” [3,4] proposes an axiomatic theory concerning consciousness and its relationship to matter. The current paper presents answers to the following questions about the theory that were received by this Journal. (1) Is there a time interval associated with a Bit of Consciousness? (2) What does it mean to say a triple is real? (3) When we say, “Jane sees the flower,” where does the process of observation stop and the observer start? (4) A virtual triple is a triple with one or more zeros (0). A Concept is a virtual triple that plays the role of an observed in a real triple. How are Nothing and Nothingness related to this? (5) Pure Being can be characterized as Sat-Chit-An¯anda.Sat¯ is absolute and Chit is consciousness, and both absolute and consciousness are part of your theory. Where is An¯anda(bliss)¯ located in this mathematical theory? (6) What is Pragy¯apar¯adh(mistake of the intellect)? (7) What is the self of an entity? (8) Space occurs if you have two events happening at the same time. Time occurs if you have two events occupying the same space. In order to define space, you need to already have defined time. In order to define time, you need to already have defined space. Which one comes first? (9) Where in this theory is S˙amhit¯a,the togetherness of observer, process of observation, and observed?

c 2018 Maharishi University of Management. Transcendental Meditation R , TM-Sidhi R , Maharishi University of Management, Consciousness-Based, and Maharishi Sth¯apatya Veda are protected trademarks and are used in the U.S. under license or with permission. Received by the editors June 9, 2018.

1 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

(10) Why is it necessary to talk about Singularity (SNG) as different from Con- sciousness? Here, we give a short overview of topics from the original paper that are relevant to these questions. 0.1. The original problem: The relationship between mind and matter. The hard problem in the study of consciousness is to explain how consciousness arises from physical or material activity in the brain. The purpose of our original paper was to propose a solution to this problem. Everything in the original paper is built on the single hypothesis that consciousness is all there is and matter arises from consciousness. In our view, there is no reliable hint of how the physical can produce the non-physical subjective experience of consciousness. Thus, we have replaced the “hard problem” of how consciousness arises from matter with the problem of how matter arises from consciousness. 0.2. The axiomatic approach to the study of consciousness. We began our theory by recognizing that there is only one thing we can be sure of: We are conscious individuals. This idea is expressed in the first axiom. Axiom 1. Consciousness C exists, Consciousness is all there is, and Consciousness is conscious.1 This Consciousness is conscious of itself, and in the process of observing itself, it must assume each of the three roles of observer, process of observation, and observed. We denote Observerhood potential by the symbol OR; Observinghood potential by the symbol OG; Observedhood potential by the symbol OD. We introduced the symbol ALLR to denote all possible ways that Consciousness itself can be an observer; the symbol ALLG to denote all possible ways that Consciousness can be a process of observation; and the symbol ALLD to denote all possible ways that Con- sciousness can be observed or be experienced as an object. A Bit of Consciousness is a triple consisting of three roles: Or, Od, and Og. Our second axiom defines the Observerhood potential OR of Consciousness, its Observinghood potential OG, and its Observedhood potential OD. Axiom 2. Consciousness = Consciousness (OR = ALLR,OG = ALLG,OD = ALLD). Our third axiom established the nature of the self of an entity [3, p. 29]. Together, these axioms give the fundamental assumptions of our theory.

1. Time Duration of a Bit of Consciousness Q: Is there a time interval associated with a Bit of Consciousness?2 A: A Bit of Consciousness is not a quantity in time. Different Bits of Con- sciousness may involve different lengths of time in different situations for different

1As explained in the original paper, the phrase “is conscious” means that there is an observer, an observed, and a process of observation linking the observer and observed. 2See p. 11 of [3].

2 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory entities. For example, human beings typically require an interval of several milliseconds between two tones for the individual tones to be heard separately. Humans require a time interval of 40 to 60 milliseconds to perceive the separation between two visual images. Other aspects of perception may require longer time intervals. We perceive things happening continuously, but these perceptions are in reality a series of separate experiences that the brain combines into a continuous story. A person’s state of consciousness also affects the time involved in a Bit of Con- sciousness. For an alert person, a moment of perception might require only 60 milliseconds, but a drowsy person’s moment of perception could require more than one second. Our definition of a Bit of Consciousness allows for any interaction between any two entities, human or not [3, p. 12]. A Geiger counter can detect radiation very quickly, almost instantaneously. In contrast, for the Absolute, Brahman,1 everything in the past, present, and future is one Bit of Consciousness. Brahman’s attention flows from one Bit of Consciousness to another at infinite speed, so all is now and here. Present, past, and future melt into one eternal reality and time loses its relative meaning. In essence, time is not there; it does not exist. Time is no factor for Brahman: everything is experienced in a flash, or everything is experienced for eternity—it means the same thing from the Absolute perspective. “In a flash” means that everything is seen at the same time; “for eternity” points to the fact that everything is always there. So, in the memory of the Absolute (in the hard disc2), all is there simultaneously. What we see as “happened today,” “happened yesterday,” and “will happen tomorrow” are simultaneously present here and now in the consciousness of Brahman. Brahman reality sees everything in the past, present, and future as one image. That reality of wholeness—absolute pure Being, supreme pure Being—experiences everything in a flash. The time of Brahman feels immense; men experience reality in relative time, but Brahman sees it all at once. From the perspective of a human being, the time involved in a Bit of Consciousness ranges from almost nothing to almost infinite. Thus, a Bit of Consciousness might involve an infinitesimal length of time, a few milliseconds, several seconds, or much longer. Therefore, when we say Bit of Consciousness, we do not look at it from the perspective of time.

2. What is Real? Q: What does it mean to say a triple is real? A: A triple is real when it is a Bit of Consciousness, which means that an observer, an observed, and a process of observation are present. These three values together identify the moment of experience as a moment of being conscious. There is a diﬀerence between Pure Consciousness as a pure entity and Conscious- ness being conscious. In the ﬁrst axiom [3, p. 5], we said that the primary entity or reality is Consciousness; we also said that Consciousness is conscious, that there is an observer, an observed, and a process of observation linking the observer and observed. Because it is conscious, Consciousness is real in the same way we consider

1For a description of Brahman, the embodiment of totality, see [1, pp. 356, 430, 452]. 2See [3, p. 34] for a presentation of the hard disc analogy.

3 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness anything to be real in our lives. For us, reality is made of triples of speciﬁc values that we observe. As in our theory, what is real is a triple consisting of an observer, an object of observation, and the process of observation that connects them. Anything that is not such a triple is therefore virtual. For example, an electron is virtual until it is observed. At the moment of observation, the wave function appears to collapse into a particle located in space and time. The observer says there is an electron because the observer has collapsed the wave function of the electron into a real particle rather than a spread-out electron. We consider the spread-out electron to be a virtual entity; it is nowhere and it is everywhere. It is not present at all in real life, but it is present as a principle, as a virtual entity. This is why we include virtual entities in our theory. Under certain circumstances, the observer collapses the wave function—meaning he brings virtual value into real value—and then you have a particle. You might say the wave function is not real until it is conceived, understood, or studied. For whom is it real? It exists only for the observer in the triple. That means it is real within the triple for the observer, so the observer sees that the object actually exists and realizes that the process must have been there. Sometimes the observer does not know what connects the observer to the electron, but it doesn’t matter. The process is there because if there were no process connecting the observer to the electron, there would be no observation, and the electron would remain virtual. So, “to exist” is a relative term. Things exist only for the observer; they do not exist as such by themselves without an observer. Einstein once asked, “What do you mean—when we are not looking at the moon, the moon is not there?”1 The answer is yes, the moon exists only when someone is looking at it. If nobody is looking at the moon, if nobody is observing the moon or any particle of it, if there is no interaction between the sun and the moon, if the moon is just a concept, then the moon does not exist for anyone or anything. In order for the moon to exist, there must be some interaction. The molecules in the moon interact with each other, so they exist; that means they are observing each other. So for them, they exist. The moon exists for the sun because there is an interaction between them. In our theory, we have extended the understanding of being an observer to include not only human observers but also any aspect of reality interacting with any other aspect of reality. This means that the interaction of an atom with an elementary particle is an observation process. Therefore, without the presence of a human being, the atom can make the particle real and together they are real. They are real for each other, but are they real for us? For them to be real for us, we have to observe them. You can say, “Well, they interacted, so they are real.” But they are not real in absolute terms. When the atom observes the electron, automatically the electron observes the atom. They are real for each other, but to be real for us, we have to observe them.

1To put this in context, this question is an allusion by Abraham Pais to an account of a conversation that he had with Albert Einstein regarding quantum theory and the nature of reality: “We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.” [5, p. 9]

4 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory

This is how the original process takes place: Consciousness sees itself as an observer, a process of observation, and something observed. Then each one of these three takes on the roles of observer, process of observation, and something observed; and that is how a Cascade begins [3, p. 23]. All levels of a Cascade can be real; they can disappear from reality; and then they can return to reality for the observers who are present. This raises the question, “There was a Big Bang 14 billion years ago, and all of this emerged, and 14 billion years passed, and now we observe it. Is all this real or not real?” All of this process of evolution from the Big Bang to the present is part of the human concept of what has happened. We have to see things in the context of time and space, and therefore, we build up a continuity, which is real for us. It is absolutely real for all humans—and most likely for animals and trees and planets—that there was a Big Bang, and it happened this way. This is one out of all possible ways to experience the infinite unbounded field of all possibilities. To us, it is largely virtual, but we can experience it through what we are—our bodies, minds, feelings, and intellect—in a certain way, and go through it and pass through it and travel through it by creating a history. That sequence of events becomes real; that history becomes real. We have memories of things, and these memories become real because of our attention on the continuum of events in that history. We also have individual attention, collective attention, and different levels of experience. We said that for a human being the duration of a Bit of Consciousness is so many milliseconds, but that is on the level of the functioning of the nervous system. There are many other aspects of Bits of Consciousness for the human being, such as the levels of the organs, cells, and atoms in our bodies. One might say, “When one goes to sleep, one is not aware of anything. There is no consciousness, so there is no Bit of Consciousness. There is no reality.” However, this is not true. Our organs are indeed experiencing: they are feeling heat and gravity. Even if our mind and body function so that we feel as if we don’t have Consciousness—and on that level we don’t—this gives us an idea about stones and molecules. They don’t have consciousness the way we have it, but they are Consciousness, and therefore they are interacting with each other on a much more basic level of awareness. A problem in understanding comes when people hear that a stone is Conscious- ness, for example, and assign to the stone the same quality of consciousness that they would assign to a human being. A stone’s consciousness is quite different from human consciousness. When we drop a stone, we can say the stone feels the gravity that pulls it to the earth and the stone’s experience changes based on its speed. Every change is a new Bit of Consciousness in the sequence of Bits that comprise the experience. The stone accelerates, and the fact that there is acceleration and increasing speed means there are new situations, such as the changing proximity to the earth. These are all Bits of Consciousness, but they happen very quickly one after the other. In the Bits of Consciousness, the stone is not asking, “Oh my God! I’m falling! What is going to happen to me? What can I do about it?” It’s not like that at all. The stone doesn’t have the ability to conceive of present, past, and future. It doesn’t have the ability to feel pain or be afraid of falling—these are all human characteristics. The interactions between the stone and the earth are

5 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness dependent on stone and earth characteristics, and therefore their awareness is not like human awareness.

3. Connection between Observer and Observation Q: When we say, “Jane sees the flower,” where does the process of observation stop and the observer start? A: One can say the observer is Jane and the light is the process. The light is a vibrating electromagnetic field that is the process of observation connecting Jane to the flower. The flower is one entity and Jane is a different entity. They are different entities and the light connects them. The light goes to Jane’s eye, and as soon as it goes into her eye, it starts to be detected and analyzed, and then Jane decides it is a flower. One could also say that the eye is part of the process because it carries the light until it reaches a certain point. Alternatively, you could say the light is still traveling, going through certain nerves until it reaches the sensory system, where it gets processed and a decision is made about shape and color and distance. This new information is compared to past experiences and Jane gets the idea that she is seeing a flower. Seeing the flower happens at this later stage, when Jane thinks, “I see the flower.” One can consider all of these mechanisms that involve the body as part of the observation process. The body can be a process or a processing system. Therefore, the observer is present once there is conscious awareness on the level of “Oh, I am seeing a flower.” When Jane’s consciousness says “flower,” Jane’s consciousness is an observer experiencing the flower, and everything else is a process. One could also say that the eyes detecting the light is one level of observation— one level of an observer that is part of Jane. Jane sees the flower in different ways. Jane sees the flower through the eyes, which are not yet aware that it is a flower, but the eyes create a certain set of electrochemical reactions. In these reactions, the light strikes the retina and so on that level there has also been an observation: A conduction of electrical activity flows through the nerve and it goes to a synapse. At each of these levels, an observation of the flower takes place. If you dissect the seeing process, you will find the eyes don’t in fact see the flower; rather, the eyes see bits and pieces of the flower. One set of nerves detects the color; another set of nerves detects the distance by comparing what is seen by the right and left eyes. Other nerves are responsible for perception of volume and curvature. All of these are bits and pieces, and they are all Bits of Consciousness; however, some are on the nerve level, some are on the retina level, some are on a collection of levels, and then there is some higher, more complex level, which is closer to what Jane is—all ultimately creating a flower. Creating a flower is a higher level of experience. There, the observer is more holistic and is comprised of Modes, Patterns, and Networks, each of which can independently be an observer of something.1 These all come together, creating a wholeness of Jane that ultimately says, “I am Jane, and now I am seeing the flower.”

1See Axiom 3 of [3, p. 29].

6 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory

So Jane is all the Modes, but the individual Modes don’t necessarily represent Jane on their own. These Modes also have interactions with the flower. When the light strikes the retina, a chemical reaction occurs that affects nerves in the eye, nerves in the brain, and different cells. An electron that creates a chemical reaction leading to an electrical reaction is also an observer. The flower and the light have created these reactions, which are all observers in their own right. This leads to the more holistic observer Jane, who is the sum total of all of these interactions and who puts them all together and says, “This is a flower.” Where the process of observations starts and where it ends is on a continuum, and there are groupings of Modes and Patterns and Networks that are within a large grouping of Patterns and Networks that constitute what Jane is.

4. Nothing, Nothingness, and Concept Q: A virtual triple is a triple with one or more zeros (0). A Concept is a virtual triple that plays the role of an observed in a real triple [3, p. 61]. How are Nothing and Nothingness related to this? A: If you have an observer, an observed, and a process of observation, then you have a real Bit of Consciousness. What makes a triple virtual—what allows us to say that something is not real—is that a role is absent, in which case we can say the triple is virtual. Nothing is the absence of something. If there is no observer, there is no observation. We write zero (0) as the ﬁrst component of a triple to indicate that the role of observer is absent. In the absence of an observer, the wave function is nonexis- tent. If a person searches for an electron and the electron is not observed, then the wave function of the electron doesn’t collapse, and no process of observation takes place. We write zero (0) as the second component of a triple to describe a situation where the role of the process of observation is absent. We write zero (0) as the third component of a triple to indicate that the role of the object of observation is absent. Nothingness (0, 0, 0) is more than just 0; it means all three roles of a triple are absent. Nothingness is neither a real entity nor a virtual entity. Zero by itself says a role is absent; Nothingness says all roles are absent. When you put zero in a triple and you have other non-zero entities in the triple, then the triple is virtual. When it is in a triple, zero means the triple is not real. When you write (x, y, 0), there is no object and the triple is not real but is virtual. It is possible that x and y together can act on some object z giving the triple (x, y, z) or can act on the object w giving the triple (x, y, w), and so on. The observer x could use process y to see a ﬂower, to see a tree, or to see an atom as objects. What are the possible experiences? What are the things that x and y together can see? It depends on what x and y are; they may not be able to see an atom. The eyes can detect the atom, but the mind may not perceive the atom. As far as the observer is concerned, the atom is a concept, an idea. Nothing, (0), represents the absence of a role. Nothingness is virtual but it is not an entity; it represents the absence of an entity.1

1See [3, p. 6 and p. 12].

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When something is virtual, but is conceived in the mind, then we say it’s a Concept. You say “car,” for example; you’re not observing it; nobody is observing it; you’re just thinking about it. There is no real car, but there is an essence of a car, which we could write (0, 0, car). “Car” is an object in a triple. This object is not real, but I can think about it through the agency of my mind and my intellect. I am the observer, my mind and intellect are the process of observation, and they’re observing the virtual car, (0, 0, car). The virtual triple (0, 0, car) is the object of observation in the real triple Jane, thinks about, (0, 0, car) and the virtual triple (0, 0, car) is therefore a Concept in this context.

5. An¯ anda¯ Q: Pure Being can be characterized as Sat-Chit-An¯anda.¯ Sat is absolute and Chit is consciousness, and both absolute and consciousness are part of your theory. Where is An¯anda(bliss)¯ located in this mathematical theory? A: An¯andais¯ a subjective quality of perception that the observer experiences. The quality of experience that one gets from experiencing the Absolute is bliss. Bliss is the quality of the experience of the Absolute. Therefore, we can say the Absolute is An¯anda.¯ When the observer observes wholeness, the quality of the experience is An¯anda.In¯ the same way, other experiences such as pain, happiness, love, and joy have distinct qualities. When the experiencer sees something lacking, or something that the experiencer wants is absent, then the experience might produce the feeling of loss and the experiencer will feel sadness. Suppose someone says, “I experience a flower.” If there have been associations between flowers and happy occasions in the past, the person may feel happy. Then that individual may say, “I experience happiness by seeing the flower.” Not all flowers create happiness. As Maharishi says, someone might come to you with a flower, and you may say, “Oh, how many thorns this flower has!” Accordingly, the nature of one’s previous experiences contributes to the quality of the current experience. This suggests something new to consider: What subjective quality can an experience create? Abstract qualities like fear, happiness, deception, disappointment, joy, inspiration, and beauty can be the result of different types of experience. An¯andais¯ not a feature of Consciousness until Consciousness becomes conscious. Before that, it’s flat and undifferentiated, but it’s still Consciousness. However, when Consciousness becomes conscious, there is an experience that is a real triple. When someone experiences Pure Consciousness, Consciousness, it is the experience of bliss (An¯anda).Bliss¯ is the quality of this experience of Consciousness in human awareness. We can even extend this idea and say that whoever—human or not— experiences Consciousness will experience wholeness and bliss. Bliss is the nature of the experience of Consciousness, and therefore we can say that bliss is a quality of Consciousness.

8 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory

6. Pragyapar¯ adh¯ Q: What is Pragy¯apar¯adh (mistake of the intellect)? A: We can start by asking, when does Pragy¯apar¯adhhappen? The three values of observer, process of observation, and observed are inherent in the nature of Consciousness. They are not something new—they are inherent in Consciousness. They are inherent in the nature of Consciousness because Consciousness is conscious; it’s as simple as that. It’s part of the first axiom.1 If Consciousness is to be conscious, it has to have the three values. That’s how it works. Otherwise Consciousness is not conscious. If the three are there, does that mean we have Pragy¯apar¯adh?No, this doesn’t mean that we have Pragy¯apar¯adhbecause it’s Pragy¯apar¯adhonly when we look at it from the “outside” and say that the three are different from the one. That is Pragy¯apar¯adh.Pragy¯apar¯adhis not the existence of the three (observer, process of observation, and observed); but rather, Pragy¯apar¯adhis forgetting that each one of the three is actually the one wholeness. Ignorance is forgetting that the three are not different from the one. And therefore ignorance is a perception of individual Bits of Consciousness—individual elements of the dynamics of Consciousness—as different from Consciousness itself. Everyone is living in Pragy¯apar¯adhbecause everyone thinks the flower exists by itself, as an object independent of an observer. Everyone thinks, “I am independent; I am different.” One is different on the surface level, but when it comes to Consciousness, everything is Consciousness, even though the embodiment of different aspects of Consciousness is different in different people, in different trees, in different animals, in different objects. Yet the material out of which everything is made is Consciousness. And so, Pragy¯apar¯adhis that perception of the existence of something as if it exists by itself. Illusion or ignorance means that an observer looks at an object and thinks and assumes that the object exists by itself, outside of an observation process, and that it has a reality on its own. Any conception that things are real on their own is an intellectual mistake. The discriminating nature of the intellect separates things—this is a stone, this is a tree, this is a house, this is a person—and the intellect sees all of these as different objects. They are there by themselves; how they came, we don’t know. They are just there, and they exist on their own. This is Pragy¯apar¯adh;this is a mistake. The truth is that each such object exists only as a component of a Bit of Con- sciousness. Moreover, these objects are Consciousness just as the same gold makes a bracelet, a ring, or a necklace. The gold is gold, but the bracelet, ring, and necklace appear as different. We could say that the necklace is no longer gold, it’s just a necklace. But that’s ignorance. The necklace is gold, but in a different shape, which makes it appear different. That is what makes it different; so there is a difference. But the constituent is gold. The constituent substance of everything is that unbounded Consciousness, but it takes this form, that form, this shape, that small, that big, like that.

1See [3, p. 5]: Axiom 1. Consciousness C exists, Consciousness is all there is, and Consciousness is conscious.

9 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

7. The Self of an Entity Q: What is the self of an entity? A: The self of an entity has been defined1 to be a collection of Modes, Patterns, and Networks. The self of Jane, the holistic undivided aspect of Jane, could be written as the entity R G D self of Jane = sJane = sJane(O Jane ,O Jane ,O Jane ). In other words, the self of Jane is the entity whose observerhood potential OR is all possible ways Jane can be an observer; whose observinghood potential OG is all possible ways Jane can observe; and whose observedhood potential OD is all possible ways Jane can be an object of observation. In the state of ignorance, Jane has the possibility to look at her own Observerhood in many different ways. She may say, “I am a teacher,” “I am a mother,” “I am a driver,” “I am a pilot,” “I am a human being.” In Cosmic Consciousness, Jane always sees herself in one and only one way and that is, “I am Absolute.” Jane is completely sure that she is Pure Consciousness. She is the Self, the big Self, and the rest are objects—no longer the real Self. She can say, “I am that infinite pure Self, but I am also the body, I am also this particular person, this particular name.” However, in Cosmic Consciousness, the body becomes an object. Jane looks at her body as if she’s looking at an object. Her true Self is Transcendental Consciousness. In Cosmic Consciousness, when Jane looks at her own self, she sees herself as Pure Consciousness, the ultimate value2 an object of observation can have, represented by ULT: (Jane, looks at,OR) = (Jane, sees herself as, ULT). That is, Jane knows she is unbounded; that’s what enlightenment is. Once you become enlightened, you no longer say, “I am the body, I am this person with this name,” and so on. Jane in Cosmic Consciousness would distinguish her real Self from her body. See [3, p. 40].

8. The Origin of Space and Time Q: Space occurs if you have two events happening at the same time. Time occurs if two events occupy the same space. In order to define space, you need to have already defined time. In order to define time, you need to have already defined space. Which one comes first? A: Einstein’s theory of relativity requires time and space to be seen as one. They are intimately related; what happens in time influences space, what happens in space influences time. In terms of the intellect and the mind, you have to define space in order to have time; you have to define time in order to have space. The intellect and the mind experience unboundedness until they start to discrim- inate different values: Rishi, Devata, Chhandas—observer, process of observation, object of observation. If we consider the three to be the same Pure Consciousness, unbounded pure existence, then they cannot be three. This is where the intellect

1See [3, p. 29]. 2ULT is the ultimate ability of being an observer, process of observation, or object. See [3, p. 9]

10 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory

finds a solution and says, “Well, I’ll put one here, one here, and one there” and separates them in space. This is how space—Akasha—is created. This only appears to be a separation because these three values—observer, observed, and process of observation—coexist. The intellect has created the illusion, Pragy¯apar¯adh,that the three are separate. Space exists only when you see things as truly separate from each other and independent from Pure Being. In fact, everything is already within absolute Pure Being, and therefore exists in a reality independent of time and space. Pure Being is unbounded and has its own entities; these entities are virtual for us but present within Pure Being by its own nature to be conscious. So where is this reality of virtual entities located? It’s all in one point, in unbounded infinity, because there is no difference, no sense of time, and no sense of space. The sense of space is a sense of existence within outer creation; it comes after 1 Pragy¯apar¯adh. Space is one of the eight Prakr.iti that make objects appear in creation. For objects to be available in creation, they have to be separated one from another; that separation is what we call space-time. Let’s consider the concept of space. Suppose you have a big sheet of paper and you start drawing on it. You can’t draw things on top of each other; otherwise, you won’t see anything—everything gets muddled. So you have to put one next to the other. This juxtaposition comes from the functioning intellect, because the intellect discriminates and sees differences. Seeing differences, the intellect puts them in different places in space. So now we have created space. And now we say, “But I was here, and then the other guy came and he was here. How come? It’s my space!” Well, he came after you left. So that is time and you have created time. The same can be said about Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas—they’re each one unbounded consciousness.2 But then the intellect says, “What does this mean? If they are consciousness, they have to be conscious of something.” My intellect separates these three values in space. However, I realize that they are all consciousness and they are all myself. They are all unbounded Pure Being. I can bring them into my awareness one after another. I might first consider Rishi; and then forgetting about Rishi, I think of Devata; and forgetting about Devata, I think of Chhandas. My awareness is full of Rishi; I am unbounded Pure Being—I am Rishi. Then I am unbounded Pure Being—I am Devata. Then I am unbounded Pure Being—I am Chhandas. I can be the three in sequence and I have to give time for each. If I want to be the three at the same time, I have to give space for each.

1 The eight Prakr.iti, or eight primary processes, are the basic tendencies of nature: ego, intellect, mind, space-time, the gaseous process, the ﬁre process, the ﬂuidity process, and the solidity process. See [3, p. 27–29]. 2See [2, p. 14] for a discussion of Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas.

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9. Samhit˙ a¯ Q: Where is S˙amhit¯a,the togetherness of observer, process of observation, and observed, in this theory? A: S˙amhit¯ais Pure Being; it’s the original Pure Consciousness. Every time we put things together, it’s S˙amhit¯a.For example, when we look at a flower, we experience a sequence of Bits, the observers of which are the different components of the eye. What do they see? There are cells that respond to color, to shape, to distance, to curvature, and so on. Certain cells in the eyes only see color; other cells only see shape. That’s how the eye works. No flower exists in the eye, only different cells responding to different stimuli. So there are only bits and pieces. When these bits and pieces come to the brain and get put together, they create “flower,” and we say the flower is the S˙amhit¯aof all these different things. S˙amhit¯a means togetherness, the S˙amhit¯aof points, points, points, points put together. In the brain, the thalamus brings all the different points together. We say the thalamus is like Ny¯aya,1 the lamp at the door, which sees the outside and sees the inside. The outside is bits and pieces—specifics. The inside is holistic—putting things together. The thalamus, in the middle of the brain, takes all this information from the retina, collects it, and sends it to the brain; the brain puts it together and says, “No, no, I’m not seeing red and round, and this and that. I am seeing a flower. And it happens to be red, and has this distance and this curvature and this smell, and all of this, but it’s a flower. The flower is the S˙amhit¯aof all these points.” Thus, on the level of Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas, Pure Being is the S˙amhit¯a. It’s the togetherness of the three.

10. Distinction between Singularity and Consciousness Q: Why is it necessary to talk about Singularity2 SNG as diﬀerent from Con- sciousness? A: It’s a way to remind ourselves that Consciousness is one, that’s all. It is one, it is unity; we don’t want to forget this. When we experience Consciousness, we have an experience of the one3, Consciousness, ULT. But when we experience something, there are three—the observer, process of observation and observed. If I don’t experience anything, there is no reality (no Bit of Consciousness). But if I do experience something, the experience will require Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas. So ULT can play the role of object and experiencer both. We can put ULT as an object and say, “It doesn’t matter, you’re experiencing oneness—that’s what this Bit of Consciousness is when you transcend. Everything disappears and you experience oneness, but we have to write it as an experience.” We write it as (ULT, ULT, ULT), oneness experiencing itself. In this case, we have three values. But, if we write SNG, we cannot have three. It’s Singularity; it’s one. And to remind ourselves that it’s one, we have this symbol SNG.

1See [2, pp. 127–143], Section 11, Ny¯aya. 2SNG is the “Singularity” that is Consciousness and is non-physical and non-material. It is a self-aware and self-referral existence. See [3, p. 6]. 3ULT is the ultimate ability of being an observer, process of observation, or object. ULT is Singularity in the context of experience. See [3, p. 9].

12 Questions about Dr. Tony Nader’s Theory

11. Note from the Editors This discussion is a continuation of the research that was begun in the seminal paper “Consciousness Is All There Is: A Mathematical Approach with Applica- tions” [3] and presented in a course with the same name [4]. The Mathematics and Consciousness Study Group at Maharishi University of Management contributed to the editing of this paper. Catherine A. Gorini leads the group, whose members include Judy Bales, M. Anne Dow, Alexander Gabis, Susi Halley, Park Hensley, Karim Nahabet, Diana Rugh, David Scharf, Henry Simms, Thomas Slocombe, Scott Thompson, Rouzanna Vardanyan, and Charles Winter. The editors of this Journal look forward to more discussion that will advance this research into the relationship of consciousness and matter. Readers are invited to submit questions for Dr. Tony Nader to the editors at [email protected] or

International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness Box MR 705 Maharishi University of Management 1000 North Fourth Street Fairﬁeld, IA 52557 USA

References 1. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi’s absolute theory of government: Automation in administration, Maharishi Prakshan, India, 1995. 2. Tony Nader, Veda and the Vedic literature: Blueprint of the human physiology, Maharishi University of Management Press, Fairfield, Iowa, 2014. 3. , Consciousness Is All There Is: A Mathematical Approach with Applications, Interna- tional Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness 1 (2015), 1–65. 4. , Consciousness is all there is: A mathematical approach with applications, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/consciousness-is-all-there-is-a-mathematical-approach-part- one-online-registration-46698021038, 2017, course offered by Maharishi University of Manage- ment, Fairfield, IA. 5. Abraham Pais, Einstein and the quantum theory, Rev. Mod. Phys. 51 (1979), 863–914.

Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, IA

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14 TWO DOGMAS OF MATERIALISM: TOWARD A CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING MENTAL CAUSATION

DAVID SCHARF

Abstract. Materialism, as a philosophy of mind, is the thesis that consciousness and mind are entirely dependent on the brain, that they could not exist without the brain, and, in its strongest form, that consciousness and mind are held to be reducible to the brain and its electro-chemical processes. But even its most steadfast proponents acknowledge that materialism cannot account for the fact of consciousness and that materialism involves extremely unpalatable consequences for our sense of autonomy and moral responsibility. Moreover, the cognitive dissonance inherent in materialism makes it virtually untenable as a coherent theory of mind. How then should we account for its resilience as the default mainstream theory in contemporary neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the philosophy of mind? This resilience stems from the seeming plausibility of two central dogmas. First, that impairment to critical brain regions causes a degradation of corresponding cognitive function and that this proves that mind is dependent on the brain. And second, the physical domain is presumed to be causally closed, implying that mind is either reducible to the brain or else epiphenomenal and irrelevant. In this paper, I propose to show that neither of these dogmas stands up to critical scrutiny; and furthermore, that the result of this scrutiny can help delineate the outlines of a transmission model of the mind-brain interaction in terms of quantum field theory. The transmission model can be understood as a refinement of traditional Cartesian interactionism. There are a number of sophisticated versions of the transmission model, some of which we will explore sequentially here, including the consciousness-based paradigm in general and specifically Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism and Maharishi Vedic Science.

In this paper we will explore the model of consciousness central to Maharishi Vedic Science, according to which consciousness exists independent of the conscious experience associated with the nervous system of a particular individual. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi referred to the analogy of the sun, which shines everywhere the same, but is reflected differently in different glasses of water, depending on the purity of the water. We will make the case that like that, universal consciousness is the primordial basis for individual consciousness, which provides a more or less distorted reflection of its true nature. In the foundations of modern psychology, a comparable idea was at the basis of the transmission model of Frederick Myers [39], William James [31], and their colleagues. In defending mental causation against criticisms based on the supposed causal closure of the physical—the idea that only physical causes can have physical effects— we address the more pervasive principle on which causal closure is based. Namely,

I would like to express my appreciation to Ellen Metropole for her editorial and substantive improve- ments to the text.

15 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness that if mind and brain are such radically different substances (as René Descartes maintained) how could they interact? This leads directly to the monistic alternative to physicalism: the consciousness-based paradigm, according to which consciousness is primary and, in fact, everything is a manifestation of consciousness. As neuroscientist and Vedic scholar Tony Nader [40], proposes, “consciousness is all there is."1 In addition to the specific arguments of the two dogmas, a more general background condition motivating materialism is the pervasive sense that there is no viable alternative. For this reason, we want to outline the transmission model as providing just such a coherent alternative framework. In this model, the brain does not produce consciousness, which exists independent of the brain. Rather, the brain acts as a transmissive organ, receiving inputs from our larger consciousness and transmitting them into our familiar, sensory-weighted waking-state experience, as well as into bodily speech and action. The transmission model is a refinement of traditional interactionism—such as Cartesian dualism. Interactionism is based on the commonsense observation that physical inputs are transmitted by the brain and register as impressions in the mind and, conversely, desires and intentions, originating in the mind, are transmitted by the brain into bodily speech and action. In Cartesian dualism, the mental and physical domains are equally primary substances. In most versions of the transmission model, by contrast, consciousness is primary and, although the causal interaction goes both ways, the brain’s inhibitory function as a kind of filter is emphasized. In this conception, our human experience is a limited aspect of our larger consciousness. An explanation for how this filtering mechanism evolved via natural selection would be that, although consciousness is useful for learning and adaptability, its full capacity would be too overwhelming and could be counterproductive to survival.2 The consciousness-based paradigm and, specifically, Maharishi Vedic Science, is our preferred version of the transmission model, in which the physical domain generally, and the brain in particular, is not a substance distinct from consciousness. On this view, the physical domain is a gross or surface expression of consciousness, whereas mind, intelligence, and self are subtler expressions. It will help us to get a feeling for the depth and refinement of the consciousness- based paradigm to consider the “transcendental idealism” of Immanuel Kant, which was remarkably sophisticated for its time. We take up Kant’s transcendental idealism in the second half of the paper (Section 8 and following), where we consider its similarities to and differences from Maharishi Vedic Science, both of which are highly instructive. An especially significant theme—common to both Maharishi Vedic Science and transcendental idealism—is the sequential unfoldment of the laws of nature from their primordial basis in pure consciousness. Kant described a fundamental level of this unfoldment in terms of three archetypal Ideas of Reason: Purpose, Systematicity, and Free Will. At a more expressed level, Reason further differentiates into the 12

1As Max Planck put it, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness" (The Observer, 25 Jan 1931). 2But according to Maharishi Vedic Science, the nervous system can be cultivated to become more ﬂexible, allowing for higher consciousness to be lived in a fully life-supporting way.

16 Two Dogmas of Materialism

Concepts of the Understanding which give rise to space and time, as well as matter and causation as embodied in Newtonian physics. What is particularly suggestive for elucidating Maharishi Vedic Science is that Kant’s Ideas of Reason embody intelligence, wholeness, and spontaneity, as opposed to the mechanical interactions of the more surface, corporeal domain described by classical physics. Although Kant could have had no conception of the exotic nonlocal entanglement and self-interacting dynamics characteristic of advanced physics today, his levels of unfoldment help to elucidate the Maharishi Vedic Science understanding of advanced physics as having gone beyond the material domain to a subtler level in which wholeness, nonlocality, and self-interaction predominate. And it is at this subtler level that mind is situated. From the perspective of Maharishi Vedic Science, therefore, the interaction of mind and brain—postulated by Cartesian interactionism as well as by common sense—is not a diﬃcult-to-understand interaction of entirely distinct substances. Rather, the interaction of mind and brain represents an exchange between diﬀerent levels of reality, both of which are expressions of consciousness itself.

1. The transmission model Descartes famously introduced a radical demarcation between mind (incorporat- ing consciousness as well as the religious and moral dimensions of soul) on the one hand and matter on the other. From one perspective, this radical demarcation made sense because the mechanistic physics Descartes was pioneering had dramatically different constraints than the autonomy intrinsic to mind. But from another perspective this radical demarcation appears to be untenable. Contemporaries of Descartes objected to his idea that mind and matter—as radically different substances—would be able to interact. In a charming and famous exchange of letters with Descartes, the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia made precisely this point. She asked Descartes “how the mind of a human being, being only a thinking substance, can [produce] bodily actions."3 Although Descartes did not have a good answer, we will consider approaches founded on the consciousness-based paradigm. The consciousness-based paradigm is a perennial philosophy with important representatives in both Eastern and Western thought, some of whom we will consider here, especially Immanuel Kant. Maharishi advanced a sophisticated, contemporary model, which has come to be called Maharishi Vedic Science, and which brings together the deepest Vedic insights about the comprehensive and inclusive nature of consciousness and the results of advanced physics. Advanced physics involves significant departures from the familiar notions of space, time, matter, and causation that underpin the physicalist paradigm, and there seems to be a reasonable case for concluding that these departures can best be understood as indicating a consciousness-based structure. In a recent essay, Nader [40] has explored the central theme of Maharishi Vedic Science in which he postulates “that consciousness is all there is, reversing the customary paradigm of modern science that matter is all there is." The interaction between mind and matter calls for some sort of an explanation in terms of physics, an explanation which accounts for the interchange of psychic

3Quoted in Kim [36, p. 47].

17 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness energy and the electro-chemical energy involved in the neural firing mechanisms in brain circuitry. Unfortunately, contemporary philosophy of mind has been mired in the mechanistic assumptions inherent in classical physics and accordingly has seen no viable way for mind, as distinct and independent, to interact with the brain. Increasingly, however, there is an awareness that advanced physics may provide a basis for investigating more subtle realms of existence, supporting cognition and consciousness. In the nineteenth century, imaginative scientists such as Frederic Myers and William James worked on developing a transmission theory to explain the interaction of mind and brain. As noted above, in the transmission model, the brain does not produce consciousness. Rather it transmits, delimits, and focuses consciousness as needed for survival of the organism. Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century [33] is an excellent contemporary discussion of a wide range of scientific evidence supporting the transmission theory. The transmission model is a form of mind-brain interactionism and suggests that not only does the mind have an independent existence, but the mind is much larger than the waking-state of consciousness, with which we are familiar in ordinary experience. The role of the brain, in this model, is two-fold—it both stimulates and inhibits consciousness. In contrast to the prevailing (materialist) production model, the transmission theory emphasizes the inhibitory role of the brain in filtering and reducing the presence of consciousness in ordinary experience. The transmission model may be part of the larger consciousness-based paradigm in which the interaction between mind and brain happens within consciousness, since both mind and brain are regarded as manifestations of consciousness. Several metaphors are helpful for understanding the transmission theory.4 (1) A chemical compound, such as water, is a combination of independent elements, in this case hydrogen and oxygen. Analogously, universal consciousness and the nervous system may together generate individual awareness. This leaves an unresolved question: what is the relationship between the nervous system and universal consciousness? If they are independent substances, then we have a form of Cartesian dualism. In the consciousness- based paradigm, and particularly Maharishi Vedic Science, the nervous system itself is an expression of consciousness. It is the outward representation of a self-interacting dynamics within consciousness itself—the capacity for self-limiting. (2) A prism acts as an interface between an incoming beam of white light and the outgoing spectrum of colors. The prism doesn’t produce the light, it modulates it. Analogously, rather than producing consciousness and mind, the brain acts as an interface. The brain may re-express the preexisting larger consciousness in terms of our familiar, but limited, waking experience.5 This

4Joseph Mendola (personal communication January 24, 2019) helped to articulate the distinctions inherent in the various metaphors. 5A variation of this metaphor—more representative of the filtering dynamics suggested by the sun/reflector analogy of Maharishi Vedic Science—would be white light impinging on a colored surface. The surface absorbs (filters) most of the incoming wavelengths and only transmits (reflects) the wavelengths determined by the color of the surface.

18 Two Dogmas of Materialism

leaves the same question as in (1) above: what is the relationship between the nervous system and universal consciousness? And Maharishi Vedic Science offers the same answer. (3) Another metaphor is suggested by radio-receiver dynamics. Invented in 1895, the radio was exciting and familiar to scientists of the time such as Myers and James. The radio doesn’t produce the signal, which has an independent existence in the pervading electromagnetic field. The radio receiver picks up the signal and modulates and expresses it in the form of sound. Again, this raises the same question as in (1) and (2), and Maharishi Vedic Science offers the same answer. (4) The fourth metaphor is simple and straightforward. The sieve filters out unsuitable material and transmits the remainder, allowing it to pass through. Similarly, the brain’s role may be to filter out a large portion of the wider consciousness—in fact the vast majority—and only allow us to experience what we need for survival and adaptation to our environment.

Beyond the basic interactionist outline of Descartes, what these metaphors contribute is that, although the brain both stimulates and inhibits consciousness, the inhibitory role may be much more signiﬁcant. This insight regarding the inhibitory role of the brain is largely unaccounted for by the physicalist production models. The question raised by all of these metaphors is: what is the status of the brain and nervous system generally? And the answer provided by Maharishi Vedic Sci- ence is that the nervous system is the objective manifestation of a self-limiting or self-constraining capacity of consciousness itself. We as individuals are etched into the fabric of universal consciousness. The vast majority of universal consciousness is ﬁltered out by our nervous system, but universal consciousness is still there, underlying our sense of self. In Maharishi Vedic Science, this is expressed in the aphorism, “The individual is cosmic."

2. Solution to the binding problem in the transmission model One immediate theoretical advantage of the transmission model over a production model (physicalism or materialism) is that it provides a ready solution to the otherwise intractable binding problem in neuroscience. The binding problem is the difficulty of explaining how the brain binds together the data from different sensory modalities to form a unified and meaningful perception. On the transmission model there is no binding problem because it is not the brain which does the binding in the first place. The different brain regions support various interface and transmissive activities related to the unified perception, but they do not constitute the perception, which happens at a subtler level. As Nobel Laureate John Eccles explained in How the Self Controls Its Brain [17, p. 20], “It is proposed that the unity of conscious experience comes not from an ultimate synthesis in the neural machinery, but in the integrating action of the self-conscious mind on what it reads out from the immense diversity of neural activities in the liaison brain." Now that we have outlined the two competing paradigms—the transmission model and the materialist production model—let’s examine the two dogmas, the two

19 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness main lines of reasoning that are taken to provide decisive support for materialism, and why they do not stand up to critical scrutiny.

3. The first dogma: the argument from neurological impairment Neuroscience continues to advance our understanding of the brain and nervous system, and detailed identification of the neural correlates of consciousness and cognition is one of the most important aspects of this work. In addition, should the transmission theory be proven correct, these neural correlates will provide the scientific foundation for discovering the mechanisms for interaction between mind and brain. A contemporary transmission theory could view the mind—and especially consciousness which is the deepest level of the mind—as a quantum mechanical psychic field. The interaction of this field with the electro-chemical processes of the brain will involve quantum signatures of the kind that are becoming increasingly evident in a wide variety of biological phenomena as our methods become more sophisticated.6 The precise identification of the neural correlates of consciousness and cognition is therefore an essential prerequisite to a quantum theory of the mind-brain interaction. This is analogous to the way in which empirical advances in thermodynamics at the end of the nineteenth century were the prerequisite for Max Planck’s original discovery of the quantum signatures in black-body radiation. But materialists go beyond the evidence for neural correlates and want to insist on the dependence of mind on brain function. Cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars [5], for example, writes: In philosophy the quest for the brain basis of consciousness is often called the ‘neural correlate of consciousness’. That is because many philosophers have convinced themselves that science is merely able to find correlates, not causes, of consciousness. But that makes no sense. If we knock someone on the head until they lose consciousness, we have engaged in a true causal manipulation. If we shake a sleeping person awake, we have again manipulated consciousness. We know of scores of such manipulations that causally affect consciousness .... The goal is therefore to understand the Neural CAUSE of Consciousness, and that goal is coming closer to realization every year. By “neural cause of consciousness" Baars is throwing his weight behind the production model, implying that neurology causes consciousness, and that without this neural basis consciousness would not exist. But in showing that physical causes affect experience, Baars is a long way from showing that physical causes produce consciousness. He is overreaching, going far beyond what the evidence actually

6The significance of quantum physics for biology has been extensively debated since the advent of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century. Max Tegmark [50] wrote an influential article maintaining that the brain is too chaotic to support quantum superpositions for longer than a brief fraction of a second. Hagan, Hameroff, and Tuszyński [21] responded soon after, disputing Tegmark’s calculations and conclusions. In recent years, quantum processes have been identified in many biological systems, including photosynthesis, olfaction, and retinal detection of photons. Arndt, Juffmann, and Vedral [4] provide a thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the role of non-trivial quantum physics in biology, including the possibility of dynamically refreshed entanglement that could be maintained indefinitely. (See also Cai, et al. [11].)

20 Two Dogmas of Materialism shows. Notice also that Baars focuses on only one side of the mind-body interaction— the effect of physical causes on consciousness—ignoring the effect of knowledge and intention on behavior. In the same article, Baars writes: Now simply wait for him to fall asleep and become unconscious. Is the state of his brain responsible for the fact that he can no longer answer your questions? If you doubt it, attach simple electrodes to his head to show that his entire brain is in an utterly different state than before. Wake him up, and notice that his brain state changes back, and that he can now answer your questions again. This is all you need to show that sensory consciousness requires brain processes to represent the world. [Italics in the original.] The concluding sentence is a non sequitur. Baars cites physiological evidence which shows that someone’s ability to answer questions is dependent on brain processes. He has not shown that “consciousness requires brain processes." One may be unable to answer questions and yet still be conscious. This is not a trivial point, since the issue is precisely whether consciousness and cognition can exist independent of brain processes. Philosopher Paul Churchland [13, p. 20] also makes the mistake of drawing materialist conclusions beyond what the evidence actually shows: If there really is a distinct entity [an immaterial soul] in which reasoning, emotion, and consciousness take place, and if that entity is dependent on the brain for nothing more than sensory experiences as input and volitional executions as output [an unrealistically strong form of the transmission hypothesis], then one would expect reason, emotion, and consciousness to be relatively invulnerable to direct control or pathology by manipulation or damage to the brain. But in fact the exact opposite is true. Alcohol, narcotics, or senile degeneration of nerve tissue will impair, cripple, or even destroy one’s capacity for rational thought .... And the vulnerability of consciousness to anesthetics, to caffeine, and to something as simple as a sharp blow to the head, shows its very close dependence on neural activity in the brain. All of this makes perfect sense if reason, emotion, and consciousness are activities of the brain itself. But it makes very little sense if they are activities of something else entirely. Churchland is setting up a straw man by committing the dualist to an unrealistically strong form of the transmission theory. That physical causes can affect a wide range of conscious experience and cognition is not in doubt for any serious interactionist. Reason, emotion, and other aspects of conscious experience are all certainly affected by brain functioning—and the transmission model takes this into account—but it does not follow that consciousness as it is in itself depends on the brain.7 One popular metaphor for dualism, which we already considered, is a chemical compound. Just as two chemical elements have very different properties in combination than when

7It is the task of the consciousness-based paradigm (which would include the transmission model as the framework for how the mind and brain interact) to explain what consciousness as it is in itself signiﬁes. Immanuel Kant and Maharishi Vedic Science both have well-developed accounts of this, discussed later.

21 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness they are separate, so consciousness and body are very different when in combination than when they are separate.8 Thus consciousness as it is in itself may be different from conscious experiences, which are influenced by the condition of the brain. So Churchland is overreaching by implying that physiological effects on reason, emotion, and other aspects of consciousness show that they are nothing but activities of the brain. And his claim that physical interventions (direct control, pathology, manipulation, brain damage, etc.) show that consciousness itself is a product of the brain, or depends for its existence on the brain, is a non sequitur because physical interventions are a part of the transmission model as well as the physicalist model. Let’s examine this more carefully. We’ll refer to the basic argument of Baars, Churchland, and like-minded materialists as the argument from neurological impairment (Neurological Impairment), which is the first dogma: (Neurological Impairment) Impairment of the neurological activity of critical brain regions degrades the corresponding cognitive function (conscious experience, memory, cognition, and the like), which proves that mind is a product of the brain. A corollary to (Neurological Impairment) is that appropriate stimulation of these critical brain regions can produce the corresponding cognitive function. On the transmission theory, impairment of critical brain regions can degrade the linkage of consciousness and mind to the brain without destroying their essential integrity. Is this merely an abstract logical stipulation or are there empirical reasons for doubting the force of (Neurological Impairment)? The first thing to notice is that the relationship between the extent of neurological impairment and resultant loss of cognitive function is not linear and straightforward. Consider the hippocampus, which is a critical node for memory. An intact hippocampus supports normal memory function and, as one would expect, a lesion to the hippocampus will cause the degradation of memory. But here is where it gets complicated: further lesions to the hippocampus or complete removal of the hippocampus can, in some cases, restore memory function. On the transmission theory this would not be surprising as the brain’s function is partly to stimulate and partly to inhibit consciousness and cognition, as the filter metaphor suggests. Thus, the initial lesions to the hippocampus could impede its ability to stimulate memory while leaving intact its inhibitory role. Further lesions or removal of the hippocampus altogether would get rid of this inhibitory function, thereby liberating memory to invoke alternative brain mechanisms. Alan Gauld in his chapter on “Memory" in Kelly, et al. [33, p. 263] discusses the significance of this finding (see also Baxter [6]): In a meta-analysis of visual recognition experiments (delayed match- ing to sample) with monkeys, Baxter and Murray concluded that lesions limited to the hippocampus have a small but reliable effect, ones limited to the neighboring perirhinal cortex have a larger but still modest one, and lesions including perirhinal cortex plus at least one other component of the hippocampal complex have a larger one

8Philosopher C.D. Broad used the sodium chloride (table salt) metaphor in his discussions of the mind-brain relationship. See also Kelly, et al. [33, p. 624].

22 Two Dogmas of Materialism

still. A further, and curious, finding was that the greater the hippocampal damage, the less the impairment of memory .... [Italics in the original.] In fact, a partially-functioning hippocampus can interfere with memory more than complete removal of the hippocampus. Materialists often point to the fact that lesions to specific brain regions cause predictable degradation of the corresponding cognitive function as decisive evidence that mind is dependent on the brain. So the fact that this relationship is not straightforward complicates the materialist’s argument. Of course, the production theorist can still speculate that critical brain regions (such as the hippocampus) have an inhibitory or competing function relative to other brain regions, rather than relative to an independent mind, as the transmission theorist would argue. But the question becomes scientific, rather than strictly philosophical, and the materialist does not have unlimited wiggle room to assume the cause of cognition is a function of brain mechanisms. As neuroscience progresses it may be possible to subject this and related issues to critical test. For example, as neurophysiological research methods become more precise, it may be possible to empirically establish whether certain types of cognitive function are enhanced by reducing or turning off neurological activity, without compensatory activity elsewhere in the brain, thus supporting the view that the brain is acting as a filter. Recent research by Carhart-Harris et al. [18] on the neurological effects of psilocybin appear to support just such a narrative. Psilocybin is reported to enhance personal insights and is being studied for its potential in the treatment of depression. But the authors report that this enhanced cognition is surprisingly correlated with decreased activity in the correlated neural regions: Arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI were used to map cerebral blood flow and changes in venous oxygenation before and after intravenous infusions of placebo and psilocybin. Fifteen healthy volunteers were scanned with arterial spin labeling and a separate 15 with BOLD. As predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal were seen, and these were maximal in hub regions, such as the thalamus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (ACC and PCC). Decreased activity in the ACC/medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was a consistent finding and the magnitude of this decrease predicted the intensity of the subjective effects. Based on these results, a seed- based pharmaco-physiological interaction/functional connectivity analysis was performed using a medial prefrontal seed. Psilocybin caused a significant decrease in the positive coupling between the mPFC and PCC. These results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain’s key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition. [My italics in both instances.] The fact that the authors report “only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal" and that they interpret this as “enabling a state of unconstrained cognition" lends support to the transmission hypothesis and specifically the view that, for certain types of cognition, the brain’s ordinary function is inhibitory. To be perfectly

23 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness explicit, rather than being produced by the brain, these types of cognition seem to be enhanced when the brain gets out of the way.9 Needless to say, committed materialists are unlikely to accept the possibility of brain-independent consciousness and cognition. Nevertheless, reports of near-death experiences (NDEs) have long been thought to have the potential for providing a scientifically crucial experiment in favor of the transmission theory. In recent years, there has been considerable improvement in the standards for documenting the medical parameters relating to NDEs. One case that has gotten a great deal of attention within the mainstream neuroscience community is that of Dr. Eben Alexander III, himself a prominent neurosurgeon. Due to a rare form of bacterial meningitis, Dr. Alexander was in deep coma for more than a week in 2008 and was not expected to recover. His entire neocortex ceased functioning. Even so, during his coma he experienced a rich and enhanced inner life, much of which he has been able to remember, leading him to conclude that, “We are conscious in spite of our brains" [2]. He reported his experience in his book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife [3]. Let’s pause and take stock of where we are in the argument. Many materialists seem to have a simplistic, linear view of the relationship between neurological structures and their activity on the one hand and the consciousness and cognition they supposedly produce on the other. But the evidence indicates that the relationship is not linear. For example, as we have seen, some damage to the hippocampus degrades memory, but more damage seems to restore memory. Also, the enhanced personal insights produced by psilocybin are associated with diminished neurological activity. The production model would suggest that enhanced insights would be a function of enhanced neurological activity. And near-death experiences (NDEs) occur when the brain is severely impaired and perhaps even nonfunctioning. All this is consistent with the transmission model, according to which part of the brain’s function is to inhibit consciousness and enhanced cognition. This and related evidence is harder to square with the materialist production model, in which the brain produces consciousness and cognition. Part of the reason materialists have a hard time taking opposing evidence seriously is that there is no well-defined empirical path from ordinary waking-state experience to what brain-independent consciousness and cognition might be like. Of course, sleep and dreaming provide familiar material outside of the waking state. In his famous soliloquy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet contemplates death as providing relief from “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Shakespeare uses sleep as a metaphor for death: “...by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep ...." But just as sleep does not put an end to conscious experience, so death might not either: “To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub ...."

9Maharishi advised against the use of psychedelic substances to attain expanded awareness because those substances may strain the nervous system. His Transcendental Meditation program cultivates the nervous system to support transcendental awareness in a natural way, thereby upholding personal evolution for the long term in an integrated way, including ego development and moral maturity. This in no way invalidates the scientific significance of Carhart-Harris’s research findings regarding the brain’s inhibition of expanded awareness.

24 Two Dogmas of Materialism

The unfavorable implication for the materialist dogma (Neurological Impairment) is this: when we go to sleep, there are neural correlates associated with our loss of consciousness. Our waking-state persona controls our verbal and non-verbal behavior, and sleep is a state of unconsciousness to our waking-state persona, in that we typically don’t remember experiences occurring while we were asleep. But the fact that we can sometimes recall our dreams and can cultivate that ability suggests that there is a subconscious part of our personality which, although unconscious to our waking persona, is not unconscious to itself. This is an important point to consider. Even if decreased or impaired neurological activity did cause a reduction in consciousness and cognition (which as we have seen is not necessarily true), it may be that this reduction is only a reduction in our familiar waking-state abilities, with their ready access to our verbal and expressive systems. (Neurological Impairment) argues from the impairment of neurological activity causing a loss of consciousness and cognition (c&c) to the conclusion that c&c are totally dependent on this neurological activity and that without it they would not exist. What the analogy to sleep suggests is that all we are justified in saying is that the link between c&c and our waking-state personality has been impaired. We are not justified in concluding that c&c are annihilated when we shut down their usual neurological supports. By extension, the degradation of cognitive function due to brain injury does not prove elimination of the cognitive faculty, but merely shows that the cognitive faculty is not linked to our waking-state activity as readily as it used to be. This more conservative interpretation is all that is actually proven by the evidence. There is in fact a great deal of reasonably accessible evidence that consciousness and cognition still function even when dissociated from our waking-state personality, thus undermining the force of the argument embodied in (Neurological Impair- ment). Perhaps the most dramatic case is the dissociated centers of perception and communication due to split-brain commissurotomy. The two disconnected brain hemispheres seem to support separate conscious and responsive personalities. And multiple personality disorder/dissociative identity disorder (MPD/DID) also shows us that a substantial capacity for consciousness and cognition can be separated from—and even unknown to—our normal personality, the personality in control of our verbal and nonverbal expressive behavior. MPD/DID is an extreme expression of a natural, and presumably adaptive, capacity of mind.10 This offers a legitimate alternative explanation for the evidence that the materialist brings forward concerning brain lesions, anesthetics, senile degeneration, sharp blows to the head, and the like. This evidence demonstrates inaccessibility of the corresponding cognitive capacity but does not prove its elimination or its absolute dependence on the brain. The evidence from split-brain commissurotomy and MPD/DID suggests that there is a hiding capacity—a capacity for concealing or separating—inherent within consciousness itself. By extension, therefore, we may suppose that our ordinary, everyday conscious personality is associated with, but unaware of, our larger self,

10See Braude [10] for a thorough and well-informed discussion of MPD/DID and the philosophical issues it raises.

25 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

of which we are typically unconscious. Manipulation or damage to the brain which limits or even destroys the ordinary conscious experience of our waking-state personality would not, on this view, destroy our larger consciousness, which would remain intact. So, the physicalist argument (that evidence based on manipulation or damage to the brain proves that consciousness is dependent on the brain and would not exist without it) is a non sequitur. Maharishi Vedic Science refers to this larger self as J¯ıva, our individual soul, of which our ordinary waking-state personality is only a small part. And underlying the J¯ıva—as the ocean underlies the wave—is the universal conscious totality, referred to as Brahman. The Bottom Line. The evidence from brain damage or, more generally, from control of cognitive function through brain manipulation is consistent with a transmission model—perhaps even more consistent than with a production model. Firstly, there is neurophysiological evidence supporting the view that a primary function of the brain is to inhibit consciousness and cognition. And secondly, evidence of the apparent dependence of consciousness and cognition on the brain (brain damage, anesthetics, sharp blows to the head) does not necessarily mean that consciousness (and cognition) would not exist without the support of the brain. Such evidence can be explained as a dissociation of consciousness from our waking-state personality, rather than as its obliteration.

4. The J¯va in Maharishi Vedic Science Maharishi Vedic Science proposes a relationship between (1) our ordinary waking- state personality, (2) our larger individual soul or J¯ıva, much of which is unconscious in ordinary daily life, and (3) the universal consciousness which is at the basis of all the J¯ıvas. In this connection, two verses from the Bhagavad-Gita are illuminating. The first, Chapter 2, verse 18, refers to “the dweller in the body". Here is the context: These bodies are known to have an end; the dweller in the body is eternal, imperishable, infinite. Therefore, O Bharata,¯ fight! In his commentary on this verse, Maharishi [37, p. 97] explains: ‘Dweller in the body’: this verse brings out a distinction between the body and the spirit that dwells within it. There is no aim here of classifying the different aspects of the spirit within, but only of drawing a line between the unchangeable inner content of life and the destructible nature of the outer body. One aspect of the spirit that dwells within is unchanging and impersonal. The other aspect, J¯ıva, is the personal, individual aspect of the spirit. Maharishi continues: “Jiva¯ , then, is individualized cosmic existence; it is the individual spirit within the body" [37, p. 98]. The second verse is verse 20, also from Chapter 2: He is never born, nor does he ever die; nor once having been, does he cease to be. Unborn, eternal, everlasting,

26 Two Dogmas of Materialism

ancient, he is not slain when the body is slain. [37, p. 99] The J¯ıva survives the death of the body and exists independent of the brain and the body. The universal and impersonal aspect of spirit is pure consciousness, and can be experienced as transcendental consciousness during the practice of Transcendental Meditation. TM is a dynamical process with an inward phase— the experience of pure consciousness—and an outward phase, which involves the integration of pure consciousness. These phases may occur either sequentially or together. Transcendental experience is considered to be higher cognition, not only because of its immediate value in terms of spiritual awakening but—increasingly important over the long term—because its integration over time results in personal evolution, including psychological ego development and moral maturity. Research on Transcendental Meditation illustrates the interesting complexity in the relationship between the brain and higher cognition. One of the first things early TM researchers observed was the reduction of metabolic rate, indicating a state of deep rest.11 What especially distinguishes TM is that it produces a state of restful alertness, not just rest. Compared to sleep, (1) TM produces alpha1 EEG, whereas sleep produces delta activity. (2) TM produces higher blood flow to the front of the brain and lower blood flow to the brainstem; sleep lowers blood flow to both the front and brainstem. (3) TM increases serotonin production whereas sleep produces no change in serotonin. (4) And most important, the subjective experience of pure consciousness is a state of heightened awareness and alertness. Contemporary research emphasizes the brain correlates of the heightened awareness associated with transcendental experience. Alpha EEG is considered an “idling" frequency, suggesting minimal brain activity consistent with being awake. Moreover, alpha EEG coherence across the entire cerebral cortex is characteristic of transcendental experience and is correlated with numerous positive cognitive and developmental qualities. Fred Travis and his research group [51] identified not only alpha EEG but a broad set of parameters characteristic of TM practice, indicating a style of neurophysiological functioning referred to as a “default mode network," which they describe as the brain’s natural “ground state." This suggests that a state of least excitation supports transcendental experience, consistent with the transmission model. According to the transmission model, the brain both inhibits and stimulates

11See Wallace [53] and Wallace et al. [54]; and Dhanaraj and Singh [15], who noted that “the drop in oxygen consumption during the Transcendental Meditation technique was signiﬁcantly larger than that occurring during rest...." Although Kesterson and Clinch [34] did not observe a diﬀerence in oxygen consumption between TM and eyes-closed rest, a meta-analysis by Michael Dillbeck and David Orme- Johnson [16] concluded that TM produces a state of deeper rest than ordinary sitting with eyes closed, as indicated by a reduction in respiration rate, a decrease in plasma lactate and an increase in basal skin resistance. Orme-Johnson subsequently commented, “The interesting thing about Kesterson and Clinch’s results is that they found evidence that the uniqueness of the meditative state has more to do with the brain than with whole-body metabolism." See http://www.truthabouttm.org/truth/TMResearch/ TMResearchIssues/index.cfm#Kesterson.

27 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness consciousness, and the inhibitory mechanisms are downplayed and inadequately accounted for by the materialist production model. The brainstem is a key region for maintaining wakefulness, so the fact that TM produces lower blood flow to the brainstem—which correlates with heightened awareness—is paradoxical from the perspective of the production model. On the transmission model, however, researchers can be more open-minded about whether key brain regions are engaged in stimulating or inhibiting consciousness, or perhaps both under different circumstances. Alpha EEG coherence has long been considered one of the most important signatures of transcendental experience, and it suggests a widespread integration of information across the brain. One interesting fact is that it appears to be a very strong form of EEG coherence involving zero-lag phase synchrony [28]. If, as the transmission model suggests, consciousness—especially in higher cognition—is directly intervening in the brain, one would expect to encounter neurophysiological phenomena that are difficult to explain on the basis of strictly classical physics processes. Zero-lag phase synchrony may be such a phenomenon. For example, a classical physics explanation might suggest that EEG coherence over the whole cortex could be explained as a thalamo-cortical loop. In other words, periodic signals originating from a central structure such as the thalamus would travel to all parts of the cortex, producing coherent EEG activity. However, the distance varies from the thalamus to different parts of the cortex, so we would expect to see phase lag in the EEG. Zero-lag would suggest a subtler mechanism, therefore, and might prove to involve quantum correlations.12 Quantum mechanisms, in turn, might be the footprint of consciousness intervening in the brain. This leads us to consider the second dogma of materialism, namely that consciousness intervening in the brain would violate conservation of energy (or one of the other conservation laws).

5. The second dogma: mental intervention in the physical domain would violate conservation of energy Since Descartes’s time interactionism has come under fire for postulating mind and matter as radically distinct substances since, if they were so different, how could they interact? As the structure of classical physics took its canonical shape, with the conservation laws at the foundation, the problem for interactionism came to be formulated in terms of violation of conservation of energy or momentum. Daniel Dennett [14, p. 35], in a section titled “Why Dualism is Forlorn" gives this objection a typical expression: Let us concentrate on the ...directives from mind to brain. These, ex hypothesi, are not physical; they are not light waves or sound waves or cosmic rays or streams of subatomic particles. No physical energy or mass is associated with them. How, then, do they get to make a difference to what happens in the brain cells they must affect, if the mind is to have any influence over the body? A fundamental

12It is possible that, although the coherence appears to be zero-lag, there is a small phase lag which our instruments are not yet able to detect. This issue will be resolved as our measuring instruments become more precise.

28 Two Dogmas of Materialism

principle of physics is that any change in the trajectory of any physical entity is an acceleration requiring the expenditure of energy, and where is this energy to come from? It is this principle of the conservation of energy that ...is apparently violated by dualism. This confrontation between quite standard physics and dualism has been endlessly discussed since Descartes’s own day, and is widely regarded as the inescapable and fatal flaw of dualism. Conservation of energy stipulates that in a causally closed system, energy is conserved. But Alvin Plantinga [44] argues that the idea that the physical world actually is causally closed goes beyond what the physics conservation laws say. In Dennett’s challenge, then, what he is really arguing is that intervention by mind in processes in the brain would imply that the physical domain is not causally closed. The most straightforward response would be: “So what?" And this is the essence of Plantinga’s Figure 1. Mind-brain interactionism argument. The physical domain may be open to interventions by our minds and, as Plantinga explains, by “special divine action" (Plantinga, 2011, chs. 3 and 4). Here, Plantinga understands mental processes and divine actions to be nonphysical—external to the physical domain—but nevertheless able to interact with it. So, denying the causal closure of the physical is the basis of Plantinga’s answer to the conservation-of-energy argument against mental causation, allowing for the possibility of mind-brain interactionism. An interactionist schema is depicted in Figure 1, where Pa, Pb, Pc, Pd represent a sequence of physical events, in which Pb and Pc are neurophysiological events in the brain. Mental events M1 and M2 are causally interacting with each other and with the physical domain. Physical event Pb causes M1, M1 causes M2, and M2 together with Pb cause Pc to occur. In contrast to Plantinga, Jaegwon Kim [35, pp. 15–17] takes causal closure of the physical to be a postulate: The causal closure of the physical domain. If a physical event has a cause at t, then it has a physical cause at t. On the assumption that the physical domain is causally complete, every physical event will have a sufficient physical cause or be without a cause (allowing for quantum mechanical randomness) and this will exclude the intervention of mind in the physical domain, if mind is understood to be a non-physical substance. Agustín Vicente [52, p. 150] describes causal closure more bluntly as: “physical effects have only physical causes." But causal closure seems to make the interactionist description impossible and appears to deprive mental phenomena of causal efficacy in the physical world, which defies common sense. One popular way to finesse this issue—and preserve causal closure of the physical while still allowing for mental efficacy in the physical domain—is referred to as the

29 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness mind-brain identity theory. Every mental event is also a physical event, according to this theory, with a description within physics explaining its causal interactions within the physical domain. Figure 2 again depicts the physical cause-effect sequence Pa, ..., Pd, where Pb and Pc are neurophysiological events in the brain and correspond to mental events M1 and M2 respectively. But, whereas in the interactionist schema (Figure 1), the M1/Pb pair and the M2/Pc pair are causally related, now they are related by identity: M1 = Pb and M2 = Pc. Since evidently mind interacts with physical entities, there is some prima facie plausibility for the idea that mental events or processes should be described as having physical properties— energy, momentum, charge, and so on— which will permit the description of the mind-brain interactions within physics. Therefore, it is suggested, by the mind- Figure 2. Mind-brain identity theory brain identity theory, that these mental processes are also physical processes, embedded in the physical causal nexus. But Kim doesn’t believe that the mind-brain identity theory succeeds in saving our common-sense understanding of mental causation. His assumption of the completeness and self-sufficiency of the physical descriptions renders the mental properties causally irrelevant and epiphenomenal [36, p. 208]: The point ...is that it is an epiphenomenalism of mental properties— we may call it “mental property epiphenomenalism"—in that it renders mental properties and kinds causally irrelevant .... Mental properties play no role in making mental events either causes or effects. To make this vivid: If you were to redistribute mental properties over the events of this world any way you please—you might even remove them entirely from all events, making all of them purely physical—that would not alter, in the slightest way, the network of causal relations of this world; it would not add or subtract a single causal relation anywhere in the world! The essence of Kim’s critique is in this sentence: (Counterfactual) If you were to redistribute mental properties over the events of this world any way you please ...that would not alter ...the network of causal relations of this world .... In the case of Kim’s counterfactual statement above, he is implicitly presuming that mental properties—such as knowledge and purpose—are irrelevant to physical causation. While this is certainly true of classical physics, it does not seem to be true in the case of modern physics—quantum mechanics or perhaps even relativity theory. According to the narrative Kim—as well as most of his interlocutors—has in mind, mental events are identifiable with electro-chemical processes in the brain. In the context of this narrative, Kim is right that the mental side of the equation is causally irrelevant and epiphenomenal because electro-chemical processes are

30 Two Dogmas of Materialism embedded in the sequence of cause and effect as described by classical physics, which makes no reference to mental phenomena such as knowledge or intention (purpose). There is no room for extraneous causal influences. In the worldview in which classical physics is embedded, the descriptions of physics and the causal laws they elucidate are independent of mental phenomena. This perspective on physics is sometimes called “realism," meaning that physical phenomena are real and exist independently of mind. But it is not so clear that realism of this sort is the proper framework for modern physics. Even relativity theory—the first major departure from classical physics—invokes reference to a mysterious “observer" or “reference frame of an observer." Many physical properties such as length and duration have definite values only in relation to an observer. Whether this reference to an observer implies an actual sentient being, such as a human observer, has been extensively debated and is still controversial. However, it does seem to suggest that physical properties are dependent in some way on knowledge or the possibility of knowledge. This reference to the “observer" in relativity theory has been carried over into the essential role of “measurement" in quantum physics. Like the observer in relativity theory, measurement in quantum physics is in need of elucidation. But it does suggest a role for knowledge or the possibility of knowledge in the foundations of physics. This is evident in the way potential knowledge of “which-path" information determines the outcome in quantum experiments.13 Something like purpose is also evident in quantum phenomena. For example, a system consisting of an entangled pair of particles may have a combined spin angular momentum of zero. If the spin of one of the particles is measured to be spin-up along a certain axis, then the other particle will necessarily exhibit spin- down when measured along the same axis. This has been widely discussed as a nonlocal transmission of causality, but it also illustrates a kind of purposiveness in nature. The two spatially separated particles behave in a way to maintain a property of the whole—in this case spin zero—and this property of the whole determines the coordinated behavior of the apparently separated particles. This suggests that the quantum system is—or is embedded in—an information field or, perhaps better, a field of intelligence.14 The outcome of the spin measurement on the first particle was strictly random—it could have been spin-up or spin-down. But once this result registered, the state of the second particle was determined—its spin state would coordinate with that of the first particle in order to maintain the spin-zero state of the combined system. A remarkable example from quantum field theory, in an interesting application of the uncertainty principle, provides an illustration for how nature can create

13This is true even in the simple two-slit experiment, where potential knowledge of which-path information at the slits determines that a particle-like outcome will appear at the detection screen, and the absence of such potential knowledge determines a wave-interference pattern at the detection screen. More recent experiments have shown that the potential knowledge of which-path information can be indirect and even delayed in time. But the result is the same—physical experiments are sensitive to knowledge or the potential for knowledge. 14I prefer “ﬁeld of intelligence" to “information ﬁeld" because the concept of information has been ap- propriated by computer science to mean bits of information—which is usually interpreted mechanistically, as not involving a knower.

31 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness energy, seemingly out of nothing, at a certain location and still maintain energy conservation in the larger physical context. Here is Stephen Hawking’s synopsis of his theory of black hole radiation, which is based on the emergence of virtual particle/anti-particle pairs from the vacuum in the vicinity of the black hole’s event horizon [27, p. 118]: Quantum theory means that fields can’t be exactly zero even in what is called the vacuum. If they were zero, they would have both an exact value or position at zero and an exact rate of change or velocity that was also zero. This would be a violation of the uncertainty principle, which says that the position and velocity can’t both be well defined. All fields must have a certain amount of what are called vacuum fluctuations .... In this case it is helpful to think of vacuum fluctuations as pairs of virtual particles that appear together at some point of spacetime, move apart, and come back together and annihilate each other. ‘Virtual’ means that these particles cannot be observed directly, but their indirect effects can be measured .... If a black hole is present, one member of a pair of particles may fall into the black hole, leaving the other member free to escape to infinity. To someone far from the black hole, the escaping particles appear to have been radiated by the black hole. Interestingly, the mass/energy of the escaping particles is exactly compen- sated by a loss of mass in the black hole singularity, thus preserving conservation of mass/energy on the large scale— even though the radiation at the event horizon appears to be spewing off particles out of nothing. For a large black hole, the singularity at the center can be thousands of miles from the event horizon.15 So the bookkeeping that balances Figure 3. The subtle domain mediates the radiation at the event horizon with between the transcendent and the gross a loss of mass at the singularity appears physical to be maintained by some sort of nonlocal intelligence. Speculations about the detailed mechanisms maintaining this balance are largely guesswork, at this point, but one thing is clear—the spacetime fabric inside the event horizon will be so intensely warped and contorted that classical assumptions about spatiotemporal limitations on causation will be largely irrelevant. David Bohm, a prominent quantum physicist, developed the idea of a nonlocal intelligence underlying and guiding expressed physical phenomena. Bohm’s idea that quantum theory involves an underlying nonlocal intelligence was anticipated

15Bohr, Kramers and Slater [7] had explored an analogous idea in the early days of quantum theory, whereby conservation of energy was violated locally, in individual interactions, but was maintained statistically, on the large scale.

32 Two Dogmas of Materialism by Wolfgang Pauli, who coauthored a book about synchronicity with psychologist Carl Jung. Synchronicity concerns meaningful coincidences that are not causally connected in the ordinary mechanistic sense. Pauli was one of the principal architects (along with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg) of the mainstream Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, whereas Bohm’s thinking derived from the competing approach of Einstein, for whom hidden variables underlie and mediate the quantum laws. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that both Pauli and Bohm arrived at a similar conclusion, namely that some sort of field of intelligence or meaning underlies quantum phenomena. It is a straightforward extrapolation of this idea, that the field underlying quantum phenomena is not just an abstract mathematical space16 but is a real, mind-like domain in which individual minds reside. Philosopher of physics Robert Boyer [8] summarizes Bohm’s “neorealist" interpretation of quantum theory as follows: It proposes a real, nonlocal, non-physical information field of mental space or mind underlying and permeating the physical world— called the ‘implicate order’ .... This subtle implicate order is described as the basis of the ordinary, familiar, gross, local physical world or ‘explicate order.’ In this theory the gross explicate order and the subtle implicate order both emerge from a ‘super-implicate order’ akin to an ultimate unified field. This theory extends causal relations into the underlying nonlocal field .... It is an expanded model of causality without the spatial and temporal limitations of the local particle interaction or ‘billiard ball’ model in classical physics. Deeper levels of nature are posited that generate and causally influence the physical world in a wider-angle, nonlocal view of causality that includes the mind. (p. 21) There are a number of themes in Bohm’s model that are parallel to Maharishi Vedic Science. For example, the Maharishi Vedic Science idea of three levels of reality—gross, subtle and transcendental as shown in Figure 3—corresponds in important respects to Bohm’s delineation of the explicate, implicate and super- implicate orders. Boyer [9] explains, “In simple terms, the levels are the ordinary gross physical level, the unified field, and a subtle level in-between" (p. 164).17 For our present purposes, let’s focus on the implicate order as the subtle level, which is where the mind resides and which is characterized by a more exotic spatiotemporal and causal structure. This idea of an underlying field of intelligence (the implicate order) which intervenes in the physical domain (the explicate order) is made explicit in Bohm’s theory. The physical influence of intelligence, consciousness, or mind is suggested by the role of the observer in relativity theory, the role of measurement in quantum mechanics, and the long-range correlations evident in entanglement and the

16Physicists call it a Hilbert space. 17Diﬀerent commentators may disagree as to where the gross level leaves oﬀ and the subtle begins and, indeed, there may not be a precise boundary but, rather, a gradual phasing from one level to the next.

33 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness bookkeeping in black hole radiation.18 Bohm advances the discussion by making the concept of an underlying field of intelligence explicit. Moreover, this provides a framework within mainstream physics for how to understand the traditional idea that mind causally interacts with the brain. In his book, How the Self Controls Its Brain, Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiolo- gist John Eccles advocates a scientifically modern form of interactionism [17]. He invented the term “psychon” to mean a unit of experience and, in collaboration with physicist Friedrich Beck, proposed that quantum tunneling mechanisms at the synapses are part of the process by which psychons intervene in the brain.19 Contemporary neuroscience has documented in detail the electro-chemical circuitry of the brain, which forms a network of neuronal units poised like dominoes waiting for an initial impulse. A set of quantum mechanical triggers at key points in this circuitry could set off a sequence of signals, amplifying the initial input signal from the mental domain and resulting in observable output in the form of verbal and non-verbal behavior. In addition to this proposal by Eccles and Beck, other prominent scientists have proposed possible quantum mechanisms by which the mind intervenes in the neurophysiology of the brain. Henry Stapp [49] has suggested the calcium ion channels as the site for hair-trigger quantum interventions from the mental domain, and Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are focusing on conformal changes to the protein dimers making up the microtubules in the dendritic spines. Whether any or all of these mechanisms are involved in mediating between mind and brain remains to be seen. But it is worthwhile keeping in mind an insight that Penrose [43] makes repeatedly: Quantum physics is relatively difficult for us, and its discovery in biological processes is relatively recent, but it is neither difficult nor recent for nature and it would be surprising if natural selection is not making use of quantum mechanisms throughout the biological domain, including neuroscience. As our efforts in quantum neuroscience gather momentum, it would not be extraordinary therefore to find that quantum signatures are prevalent throughout the brain. But, supposing that quantum mechanisms are involved in mind-brain interactions, how do we address the objection that interactionism violates conservation of energy? Based on our discussion so far, there are evidently two ways a scientifically modern form of interactionism could respond to a conservation-of-energy objection such as Daniel Dennet’s. Firstly, the interactionist could simply argue, as Plantinga has, that the conservation of energy only applies to closed systems and, since the physical domain is not causally closed when mental processes intervene—or in cases of special divine intercession—conservation of energy is not applicable in these cases. So, if neurophysiological processes are partly caused by interventions from the mental domain—by psychons, to use Eccles’ expression—conservation of energy is not

18The role of the observer in relativity theory is strictly passive and the long-range correlations exhibited by entanglement and other quantum phenomena do not permit the transmission of a usable signal. A crucial question is whether these limitations are absolute or whether stronger forms of causal intervention from an underlying ﬁeld of intelligence may be discovered as physics progresses. 19Note the similarity between John Eccles’s psychon and Tony Nader’s Bit of Consciousness, to be discussed below.

34 Two Dogmas of Materialism applicable. Thus, energy is not conserved in physical systems interacting with the mental domain. Secondly, another answer available to the interactionist would be that conservation of energy is maintained on the large scale although it may be violated locally— like the case of black hole radiance. Perhaps psychon interventions in the brain are another example of local violations of conservation of energy which are compen- sated for elsewhere, in the larger environment. This approach has the advantage of being consistent with mechanisms already employed in quantum physics. The Bottom Line. In either case, the interactionist has a viable response to the conservation-of-energy objection, and it is not “the inescapable and fatal ﬂaw" that Dennett supposes. For both dogmas we have considered—the argument from neurological impairment and the argument from conservation of energy—the case for materialism appears compelling only if we assume what we are trying to prove.

6. The “pairing problem" and the objection to mental causation In the previous section we argued that the supposed violation of conservation of energy is not “the inescapable and fatal flaw of dualism" that Daniel Dennett supposes. Nevertheless, both answers to Dennett that we considered involve rejecting the causal closure of the physical. Let’s look at the issue of mental causation and causal closure more closely. David Hume famously cast doubt on physical causation and argued that our reliance on cause and effect is based on a psychological habit that gives rise to an expectation: namely, that effects of an appropriate kind will follow the advent of their usual cause. Based on past experience of a “constant conjunction" between cause and effect, we are led by a psychological tendency, an association of ideas, to expect the effect whenever we are confronted with the cause. Association is what Hume calls a “gentle force" (by which he means a psychological force) which leads the mind to expect an accustomed outcome. The important point for our present discussion is that Hume regarded psychological causation—association of ideas—as primary. Association of ideas is a real force. Physical causation, on the other hand, has no firm foundation and is merely a function of expectation. Contrast this with Jaegwon Kim and like-minded physicalists, for whom physical causation is primary and for whom there is no independent basis for mental causation. For physicalists, it is mental causation that is suspect. Kim [36, pp. 50–54] outlines what he refers to as the pairing problem for mental causation. He asks, “What principle causes the ‘pairing’ of the right cause with the right effect? There must be a relation R that grounds and explains the cause- effect pairings .... What is this R, the ‘pairing relation,’ as we might call it?" He suggests that “spatial relations do the job of pairing causes with their effects." He continues, “It seems plausible that ultimately spatial relations—and more broadly, spatiotemporal relations—are the only way of generating pairing relations. Space appears to have nice causal properties; for example, as distance increases, causal influence diminishes, and it is often possible to set up barriers at intermediate positions to block or impede the propagation of causal influence."

35 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

Kim is thinking of classical physics laws, such as the law of gravitation m m F = G 1 2 r2 in which the causal influence diminishes as r2, or Coulomb’s electrostatic force law, which is likewise an inverse-square law, and which, in addition, allows for blocking or impeding forces. However, quantum entanglement effects do not diminish with distance and constitute what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance." Nor is it possible to block or impede entanglement effects. Quantum entanglement suggests a level of causation which is more fundamental than spatial limitations, at least as usually understood by Kim and other physicalists. Kim’s analysis assumes a model of causation based on the classical particle dynamics of billiard balls and bullets, for which spatial orientation, continuous trajectories, and precisely localized points of contact all figure in causal determinations. But quantum phenomena are governed by a state function, Ψ(r, t), which provides a probability for finding the quantum system at a given location. In the absence of measurement, the quantum system is not localized. It is typically characterized as amorphous and cloudlike, rather than localized and, in many instances, there is a nonzero probability of finding it almost anywhere. Likewise, trajectories are not typically well-defined or continuous. Kim’s point in tying causation to spatial properties is to differentiate physical objects from souls which, according to Descartes, are immaterial and outside of space. Thus, Kim continues his argument: “Consider the possibility of immaterial souls, outside physical space, causally interacting with material objects in space." And, “Since souls, as immaterial substances, are outside physical space and cannot bear spatial relations to anything, it is not possible to invoke spatial relations to ground the pairing. What possible relations could provide the causal pairings across the two domains, one of spatially located material things and the other of immaterial minds outside space?" And finally, “Causality requires a spacelike structure, and as far as we know, the physical domain is the only domain with a structure of that kind."20 Although Descartes regarded minds as existing entirely outside of space, this is not typical of those who take minds and the mental domain seriously. So, to this extent, Kim’s critique is directed at a straw man. 21 Consider, for example, the depiction from Taittir¯ıya Upanis.ad of five layers or sheaths (“kośas") surrounding atman. (See Figure 4.) Atman is the subtlest, transcendental level of the soul. Annamaya kośa is the physical layer and would correspond to the brain and physiology. More subtle than that is pra¯n. amaya kośa, which represents the life force—what Aristotle characterized as the nutritive soul, or the

20Kim continues, “In any case, giving locations to immaterial minds will not in itself solve the pairing problem. As we saw, spatial locations of physical objects help solve the pairing problem in virtue of the principle that physical objects can be individuated in terms of their locations. As was noted, this is the principle of the impenetrability of matter: Distinct objects exclude one another from spatial regions." Here again, Kim is relying on outmoded physics. Fermions are governed by the Pauli exclusion principle, which provides the grounding in fundamental physics for the familiar notion that, “distinct objects exclude one another from spatial regions." But bosons do not behave this way and, indeed, can and do occupy the same space. 21 Taittir¯ıya Upanis.ad, 2nd Valli.

36 Two Dogmas of Materialism

nutritive aspect of the soul, and which Maharishi Vedic Science refers to as the body’s inner intelligence.22 Manomaya kośa is the discursive mind, vijñanamaya¯ kośa is the intellect or deciding faculty, and anandamaya¯ kośa is the ego which, in its most wholesome condition, is the source of bliss. Only annamaya kośa is physical in the sense of Jaegwon Kim and like-minded physicalists. All of the layers, however, have a spatiotemporal representation. Only atman is transcendental to space and time. So if we want to understand the basis for mental causation, we are not limited to the binary dilemma of reducing mind to brain or positing mind as entirely nonspatial, as Descartes supposed. But consider Kim’s contention that, “Causality requires a spacelike structure, and as far as we know, the physical domain is the only domain with a structure of that kind." We have seen that entanglement and other quantum phenomena point to a level of “spacelike structure" and causation subtler than the classical physics dynamics of billiard balls and bullets that Kim has in mind. Moreover, speculations on the leading edge of physics suggest that Figure 4. Taittir¯ıya Upanis.ad: Five science is ready to consider embedded sheaths surrounding atman layers of spatiotemporal structures, in which the familiar domain of our physical universe is only one relatively superficial layer. For example, there are thoughtful questions about what existed “before" the Big Bang, indicating that our spatiotemporal universe is causally embedded in a more fundamental and encompassing spatiotemporal structure. And some scientists are discussing the concept of the “multiverse," according to which our universe— with its intrinsic spatiotemporal structure—is only one of many, again suggesting an encompassing spatiotemporal structure which embraces all the universes. Also, the discrete universes of the multiverse are probably not entirely causally separated from each other, otherwise what sense would it make to posit their existence? And the “many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics has long been a serious contender for understanding quantum probabilities. So the relationship between spatial properties and causation becomes increasingly complex and increasingly distant from the simplistic model Kim has in mind. And, therefore, it is well within the range of legitimate scientific conjecture to suppose that our minds are embedded in a more subtle domain, with its own intrinsic spatiotemporal framework and causal dynamics, and that this mental domain interacts with the physical domain. It is in the context of an interactionist theoretical framework like this that scientific progress on the mind-body problem may be possible.

22Some researchers are speculating about the existence of a biofield, understood to be a subtle field of energy and intelligence which supports the body’s integrity and health. “The biofield or biological field, a complex organizing energy field engaged in the generation, maintenance, and regulation of biological homeodynamics, is a useful concept that provides the rudiments of a scientific foundation for energy medicine ..." (Rubik, et al., [46]).

37 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

Jaegwon Kim’s argument—that causation must be grounded in a spacelike structure (more generally a spatiotemporal structure) and that only the physical domain has a structure of that kind—is problematic on two counts. Firstly, there is evidence that causation is metaphysically prior to—more fundamental than—space and time, as ordinarily understood; that is, as understood to be a unitary framework for matter to exist and for causal events to occur. Phenomena from advanced physics—quantum entanglement for example—suggest that causal connections exist largely outside the unitary spatiotemporal framework of the physical domain and only acquire a physical spatiotemporal footprint when forced to in the context of measurement. Secondly, it may be that, contra Kim, the mental domain does have a spatial, as well as a temporal, structure of some kind. Kim relies heavily on Descartes’s view of mind, and Descartes maintained that, although time is characteristic of mind (thoughts occur in time), space is not. But Descartes’s restricted view of mind is not universally shared—certainly not in the Vedic conception—and even Descartes seemed to ﬁnd a spatial location for the mind, at its point of interaction with the brain (at the site of the pineal gland). The Bottom Line. We have seen that neither the objection that mental causation violates conservation of energy (it doesn’t) nor that it violates causal closure of the physical (so what?) constitutes a suﬃcient reason for denying the mind’s causal intervention in the physical domain. Moreover, Kim’s argument that causation requires grounding in the physical spatiotemporal framework, regarded as more fundamental than matter and causation, likewise does not stand up to scrutiny.

7. A third dogma? Another line of argument against the causal efficacy of the conscious mind rests on a comparison between involuntary processes and processes which seem to be under our conscious control. In the case of involuntary processes, unconscious physiological causes provide a sufficient explanation, therefore—so the argument goes—physiological causes should be sufficient to explain conscious processes as well. A recent article [26] in The Conversation by psychologists Peter Halligan and David Oakley developed a version of this argument against “a binary split between conscious intentional processes versus non-conscious involuntary processes ...." This argument relies on a fallacy of hasty generalization, assuming that the same physicalist explanations that work for non-conscious processes will prove to be all that science needs to explain conscious processes as well. Here is a statement of their argument against subjective causation: The key driver behind this traditional distinction [between conscious and non-conscious processes] stems from our own powerful belief that causality links subjective awareness with the daily experience of appearing to have control over our thoughts, feelings and actions .... [However] ...[t]here is now increasing agreement that most, if not all, of the contents of our psychological processes—our thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, emotions, intentions, actions and memories—are actually formed backstage by fast and efficient non- conscious brain systems.

38 Two Dogmas of Materialism

In other words, not only is our conscious, mental life causally ineﬃcacious, but it itself is a passive byproduct of “fast and eﬃcient" neurophysiological processes. This is a well-known point of view in the philosophy of mind, called “epiphenomenalism"— according to which mental processes are passive byproducts of neurophysiological events—and it is fraught with problems. One of these problems is that epiphenomenalism wreaks havoc on our concept of free will and, thereby, our understanding of moral responsibility (see Noble [41]). Another problem is that it undermines the validity of reliable reasoning of any sort, including science itself (see Scharf [47] and [48], and Plantinga [44]). Nevertheless, Halligan and Oakley [26] plunge fear- lessly into the epiphenomenalist thicket:

[W]e propose ...that subjective awareness—the intimate signature experience of what it is like to be conscious—is itself a product of non-conscious processing. This observation was well captured by pioneering social psychologist Daniel Wegner when he wrote that, “unconscious mechanisms create both conscious thought about action and the action, and also produce the sense of will we experience by perceiving the thought as the cause of the action."

The brunt of Halligan and Oakley’s argument [26] is based on a hasty generalization from “the fact that non-conscious automatic brain systems reliably carry out all of our core biological processes (such as respiration and digestion) eﬃciently, and often without our awareness." This kind of overconﬁdent generalization of the methods and explanations that work for one set of phenomena (respiration and digestion) to another class of phenomena (conscious and purposive action), has a long and ignominious history. A particularly striking example of this type of hasty generalization occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, when William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) delivered a famous lecture entitled, “Nineteenth-Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light," in which he maintained that, because of its many successes, classical physics would soon be extended to account for everything in the natural world. He noted just two small “clouds" on the intellectual horizon and, by coincidence, these clouds gave rise to relativity theory and quantum mechanics—two extraordinary departures from the classical physics paradigm. The point is that, just as Lord Kelvin anticipated the generalization of classical physics to phenomena which ultimately required new science (relativity and quantum mechanics), so new science may be required in order to explain consciousness and mental causation. To suppose that the same neurophysiological framework that explains respiration and digestion will also apply to consciousness and intentional action is making an extraordinary leap. Here is another line of argument that Halligan and Oakley adduce to support their epiphenomenalist position:

In the natural sciences, complex and intelligent design in living things are not assumed to be driven by conscious processes. Instead they are thought to come from adaptive processes which accrued through natural selection.

39 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

Halligan and Oakley’s reliance on natural selection (together with random genetic mutation) is controversial for two reasons. Firstly, since they regard our consciousness and intelligence as epiphenomenal, they create an apparent inconsistency— between their commitment to both natural selection and epiphenomenalism. For, if consciousness and intelligence are epiphenomenal, it becomes puzzling why these capacities would have been selected for in the first place. William James [30, p. 138] made precisely this point 130 years ago, in a justly famous passage: It is very generally admitted, though the point would be hard to prove, that consciousness grows the more complex and intense the higher we rise in the animal kingdom. That of a man must exceed that of an oyster. From this point of view, it seems an organ [meaning consciousness], superadded to the other organs which maintain the animal in the struggle for existence; and the presumption of course is that it helps him in some way in the struggle, just as they do. But it cannot help him without being in some way efficacious and influencing the course of his bodily history. The physicalist response to James has been based on the proposal that consciousness may be connected to some physical property which has survival value and which, therefore, contributes to the evolution of species. Consciousness would be dragged along, on this proposal, even though it is epiphenomenal. But to anyone who is not a committed physicalist, this response will seem arbitrary and ad hoc. Consciousness and intelligence are adaptive in so many different environments, and they have so many different neural correlates, that it seems more likely that consciousness is primary, and the physical correlates are dependent and secondary. The next section will explore the consciousness-based paradigm, in which consciousness is taken to be fundamental, and its physical manifestations are secondary. Secondly, Halligan and Oakley are preaching to the (physicalist) choir and while there is widespread agreement that natural selection and random mutation play an important role in biological evolution, the claim that evolution is entirely un- guided remains controversial. There are still big gaps in our understanding of the evolutionary chain, and it is not apparent that these can be accounted for without the aid of guiding intelligence. Unless one is already committed to the physicalist paradigm, the claim that there is no underlying intelligence at work will not be obvious or uncontroversial. So their comparison of epiphenomenalism with natural selection invites the reverse conclusion, namely that intelligence is not only needed in evolutionary biology, but it is also necessary to explain conscious and purposive behavior. And this leads us to our closing observation. The transition from light-sensitive “eye spots" to a fully functional and complex organ like the eye is an example of a big step in the evolutionary process (Plantinga [44, Ch. 2]). Halligan and Oakley’s arguments against mental causation are not logically compelling. They will only seem convincing to someone who already assumes causal closure of the physical—that physical effects have only physical causes. If one doesn’t take causal closure for granted, why would the argument generalizing from automatic and unconscious physiological processes have any force at all? Just as the argument from conservation of energy turned out to surreptitiously rely on causal closure of the physical, the same is true for

40 Two Dogmas of Materialism

the argument generalizing from physiological explanations of automatic behaviors. Therefore, Halligan and Oakley’s claim does not qualify as a separate, third dogma: there are only two dogmas of materialism.

8. The consciousness-based paradigm: from Immanuel Kant to Maharishi Vedic Science As we have shown, the specific arguments against mental/physical interaction are not compelling. Still, many commentators seem to feel that the causal closure of the physical should be assumed, considering it to be almost a tautology—if something intervenes in the physical domain it must be physical. So if mind intervenes in the physical domain, as it certainly seems to do, then it must also be physical, despite appearances to the contrary. This leads to a kind of monism, according to which there is only one sort of substance in the universe, and that is physical substance. Of course, there is another kind of monism, namely that everything is in some sense mental, and this suggests an alternative causal closure principle—if the mind intervenes in the physical domain, then the physical domain, in some sense, must also be mental. This leads us to a consideration of the consciousness-based paradigm generally and, especially, its contemporary depiction in Maharishi Vedic Science. In this connection, it will be useful to look at the recent work of two leading representatives of the Maharishi Vedic Science perspective, neuroscientist Tony Nader, whom we have already introduced, and quantum physicist John Hagelin. By way of comparison, we will also look at a few important representatives of the consciousness-based perspective in the history of Western philosophy, such as George Berkeley (1685–1753) and especially Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), where this perspective is commonly called “idealism." We should mention that there is a third kind of monism, the currently fashionable “neutral monism." But we won’t explore neutral monism here, except to comment that it tends to reduce either to physicalism or to the consciousness-based point of view, depending on whether the “neutral" field, underlying mind and the objective world, is considered to be a field of intelligence (in which case it would be a variation of the consciousness-based perspective) or is insentient and mechanistic (in which case it is a type of physicalism). Tony Nader’s paper [40], “Consciousness Is All There Is," is not primarily addressing the issue of mental causation, although it has a direct bearing on that question. He is concerned with presenting an answer to what has come to be called “the hard problem of consciousness." As it is usually characterized, the hard problem refers to an explanatory gap between the neuronal activity of the brain and the fact of subjective experience, to which it supposedly gives rise. There is a second aspect to the hard problem and to the explanatory gap on which it is based, namely that it is not just subjective experience which cannot be explained, but also the cognitive and referential properties inherent in consciousness. Cognitive properties include our intelligence, creativity, and capacity for recognizing and generating order. “Referential properties" of consciousness mean that consciousness and its products (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and so on) are typically about something. In this connection, Franz Brentano, writing in the late 1800s, emphasized what he

41 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness called the intentionality of consciousness and mental phenomena generally. He high- lighted the fact that all mental phenomena are directed “toward an object." (This is what he meant by intentionality.) Brentano explained, “Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself ...."23 Jaegwon Kim consolidates these cognitive and referential capacities of the mind under the label “cognitive/intentional properties." So the second aspect of the hard problem of consciousness is that cognitive/intentional properties—as well as the fact of subjective experience itself—are resistant to explanation on the basis of neuronal processes. These are among the reasons for rejecting physicalism and for why it is necessary to explore the primacy of consciousness.24 From a historical perspective, the hard problem may be viewed as an application of Gottfried Leibniz’s famous principle of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason affirms that the proposed explanation for a given phenomenon (in this case, conscious experience as well as its inherent cognitive/intentional properties) should provide a sufficient reason for it. Neuronal activity seems to fail this test because we can perfectly well suppose that the neuronal activity occurs without there being any corresponding subjective experience, and we can likewise suppose that the neuronal activity (and concomitant behavioral outcomes) occurs without there being any cognitive/intentional properties. So how should we address the fact of consciousness and its inherent cognitive/intentional properties? Nader proposes that consciousness does not need to be explained on the basis of material processes because it is self-sufficient and primary. On the contrary, it is matter that needs to be explained on the basis of consciousness. This outlook is what we are referring to as the consciousness-based paradigm. Maharishi coined the term Consciousness-Based education to refer to “an educational approach that adds systematic development of higher states of consciousness to the school and university curriculum" [1]. Underlying this educational approach is the consciousness-based paradigm, according to which consciousness and its inherent cognitive/intentional properties are primary. Maharishi doesn’t use the term “cognitive/intentional properties," but he emphasizes creative intelligence, which is a dynamical principle at the basis of our cognitive/intentional properties and is also at the basis of natural law, as it manifests in the phenomenal world. For Nader, as for Maharishi, the existence of consciousness is axiomatic and needs no explanation. Matter, in this view, is an expression of consciousness. Central to Nader’s presentation is the notion of a Bit of Consciousness. A Bit of Consciousness is represented mathematically by a triple consisting of an observer, an observed, and a process of observation. In his conception, “nothing can be said to be real unless it is a triple," where all three components must be present. Nader uses the mathematical notation (x, y, z) to interlink the components. “In other words, real existence requires an observer, a process of observation, and an observed" [40, p. 4]. The triple is a way to represent the interdependence of observer, observed, and process of observation. Of course, this perspective resonates with

23Quoted in Wolfgang Huemer’s article on Franz Brentano in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano. 24I explore the resistance of cognitive/intentional properties to explanation in physicalist terms in [47] and [48].

42 Two Dogmas of Materialism important philosophical currents in the Western, as well as the Eastern, intellectual traditions. We have already considered the example of Franz Brentano who drew attention to the inherent intentionality of mental phenomena, namely that they are directed toward an object—they refer. This referential capability of consciousness (where the observer exists in relation to an object of observation) is half of the interdependence connecting observer and observed. Putting Brentano’s insight in Nader’s terms, the observer does not exist independently since it is directed toward something observed. Brentano was considering the mental phenomena of sentient beings. But Nader means by observer something much broader. “[A]ny object can act as an observer," he writes, “since all objects detect or respond to their environments" [40, p. 6, n. 1]. Another important philosopher who noted the interdependence or entanglement— to borrow a term from quantum physics—of observer and observed is George Berkeley, who is famous for the principle esse est percipi, to be is to be perceived. An object doesn’t exist in isolation—it exists in relation to a perceiver. The distinguished contemporary philosopher Hilary Putnam [45, p. 33] remarks on the dependence of an object on being observed, in Nader’s broad sense, but he makes the point tentatively, in the form of a question: “[I]f any entities do not interact with us or with the empirical world at all, then doesn’t it follow that everything would be the same if they didn’t exist?" Thus, the consciousness-based perspective has notable backers, both historical and contemporary. The role of the observer, in Nader’s conception, is broader than that of the perceiver, in Berkeley’s, however, since Berkeley means a sentient being, while Nader intends observer in the broad sense, noted above, according to which any object can act as an observer. It is interesting that, whereas Brentano is emphasizing the dependence of the observer on the observed, Berkeley is emphasizing the dependence of the observed on the observer. Both aspects of the interdependence or entanglement are captured in Nader’s use of the mathematical triple. But Berkeley’s version of the consciousness-based paradigm involves a radical empiricism—“to be is to be perceived" implies a primary dependence on sensory experience—whereas Nader’s conception also takes into account the higher intellectual faculties and, especially, the capacity for transcendental experience. In Nader’s conception, space and time emerge from transcendental consciousness as an application of the intellect’s inherent capacity for differentiation. As a result of the intellect’s discriminating apparently different entities within the unified state of transcendental consciousness, space and time emerge as a natural consequence. Thus, Nader writes, “Different entities ...can be observed simultaneously (two or more together) or sequentially (one after the other). The simultaneous observation is Space and the sequential observation is Time" [40, p. 24]. For Nader, space and time are relational properties of entities, and the spatiotemporal framework arises concomitantly as entities are differentiated. Not all forms of the consciousness- based approach are committed to a relational conception of space and time as arising from the differentiation of entities, but they all agree on the causal primacy of consciousness.

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Broadly speaking, when considering physical space and time, there are three competing perspectives. The first is the view that space and time constitute an absolute, or “substantival," framework for material objects and events. By substantival, it is meant that space and time have an independent existence, regardless of whether or not matter, or entities of any kind, are present or causal interactions are occurring. This view is usually associated with Isaac Newton and classical physics. The second is the relational view of space and time, according to which objects and their causal interactions are primary, and space and time emerge as the relations between objects and events. According to this relational view—typically associated with Leibniz—space and time do not have an independent existence. Both the absolute and relational views of space and time are usually considered “realist," in the sense of space and time as independent of mind or a subjective observer. Leibniz’s relational view, for example, is usually presented as a form of realism, but his position was actually more nuanced. He viewed the relations between objects and events as ideal, as existing in the mind. Moreover, as we will see, the relationship between the spatiotemporal framework and its material content and causal interactions will be an issue for the idealist as well as the realist. In any case, physicalists in general, and Jaegwon Kim in particular, for whom spatiotemporal properties are needed to “ground" causal relations, implicitly assume a realist interpretation. The third is the “idealist" view, according to which space and time are in some way constructed by the mind. In the history of Western thought, “idealism" is the term usually associated with this position, although the term suggests that ideas are what is fundamental, whereas Nader sees consciousness itself as the fundamental principle. Most people would agree that consciousness is the deepest, most abstract, and most purely subjective aspect of mind. Therefore, “consciousness- based" seems to be a better characterization; nevertheless, we will use the two terms interchangeably, since “idealism" has historical significance in the West. The range of positions—absolute, relational, and idealist—extends from afford- ing space and time a maximum of independent existence to no independence at all. However, Andrew Janiak [32] points out that, within the idealist perspective, a form of the absolute/relational dichotomy reemerges, since one can view space and time as being mind-dependent and yet still debate whether they have an existence independent of matter (which would also be mind-dependent in the idealist perspective). Kant’s transcendental idealism is not entirely clear on this point. On the one hand, Kant viewed space and time as the “forms of sensuous intuition," which initially seems to suggest that they provide the framework within which matter can be perceived, thus apparently making them prior to, and independent of, material content. But on the other hand, he argued that the spatial center of the universe is empirically determined as the center of gravity of the totality of matter in the universe. This would seem to make matter and its spatiotemporal framework intertwined. This reading of Kant—in which the spatiotemporal framework and its material content are inextricably intertwined—has the additional recommendation that it would be consistent with the perspective of contemporary physics. Thus, according to general relativity, the gravitational force emanating from a massive object is the

44 Two Dogmas of Materialism warping of spacetime geometry. As a continuation of this integration of spacetime and matter, Einstein tried to develop a unified field theory which aspired to extend the geometrical interpretation of a force field to electromagnetism (which was the other fundamental force known at the time). The contemporary theory of vacuum fluctuations provides a further indication of the integration of spacetime and matter. And to consider another contemporary example, dark energy, which is fueling the accelerating expansion of the universe, is also postulated to be an intrinsic feature of spacetime itself, perhaps even another manifestation of the vacuum fluctuations. By now, the interconnectedness of spacetime with matter and causation has been well established. Therefore, whether or not Kant appreciated the full extent of this interconnectedness, it will be a natural aspect of a contemporary consciousness- based perspective. And Nader’s explanation of space and time as a manifestation of the differentiation of entities provides a theoretical basis for this interconnectedness within Maharishi Vedic Science. For Nader, as already noted, the spatiotemporal framework emerges as an essential aspect of the differentiation of entities, which he does not restrict to material objects. As we further consider the possibility of a subtle domain, this will become important since the spatiotemporal fabric may be richer at that level than the spatiotemporal properties familiar to us from ordinary experience of the physical domain. Kant, on the other hand, considered only the familiar forms of space and time. Another layer of complexity for the consciousness-based perspective arises as to whether space and time are empirically determined (given to us by sense perception) or determined a priori, by a faculty more fundamental than the senses. On this point, Kant is in agreement with Nader. Kant contrasts his “transcendental idealism" with the empiricist idealism of George Berkeley, where space is characterized as empirically given, as if it were like any other sense perception. In Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science Kant writes: Space and time, along with what they contain, are not things, or properties of things, in themselves [the realist substantival or relational views], but belong merely to the appearances of such things [idealism]; thus far I am in agreement with the previous idealists. But these idealists, and among them especially Berkeley, saw space as a merely empirical representation, a representation which, just like the appearances in space together with all of the determinations of space, would be known to us only by means of experience or perception; I show on the contrary, first, that space (and time too, to which Berkeley gave no attention), along with all its determinations, can be cognized by us a priori, for space, as well as time, inheres in us before all perception or experience as a pure form of our sensibility and makes possible all intuition from sensibility, and therefore all appearances. [Quoted in Janiak [32]] For Nader, it is the faculty of intellect (more fundamental than the senses) which brings about the differentiation responsible for the emergence of space and time. As we will see, this is a deep point of agreement between Nader and Kant, for whom space and time are a priori, more fundamental than sense experience, and ultimately

45 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness a function of what Kant calls the “concepts of the understanding." We will further examine, below, the important role of the concepts of the understanding, which correspond to the differentiating capacity of the intellect in Maharishi Vedic Science and the resulting cascade of manifestation, not just of space and time, but also the laws of nature governing the phenomenal universe. One point needs clarification because it has received an enormous amount of attention in the literature on Kant. Kantian metaphysics has come under a lot of criticism because he held that the geometrical structure of space—which he supposed was Euclidean—is synthetic a priori, and thereby supposedly immune to revision in light of scientific developments. But now that the non-Euclidean curvature of spacetime has turned out to be standard science, the wholesale rejection of Kant’s conception of synthetic a priori knowledge has become axiomatic, especially among analytical philosophers beginning with the logical empiricists of the early twentieth century. This is a classic instance of overreaction, and Kant’s basic insight has been underappreciated, namely that higher cognitive faculties play a more substantial role in the advancement of science—and even in the determination of ordinary experience—than can be accounted for by empiricism, with its reduction of knowledge to sense experience. For Kant, as well as for the later logical empiricists, synthetic is contrasted with analytic (which means true by definition). A priori is contrasted with empirical (which is knowledge based on sense experience). By rejecting the category of synthetic a priori, analytical philosophy has limited a priori knowledge to analytic propositions. But, under the weight of numerous internal contradictions, analytic philosophy has been forced to evolve since the early days of logical empiricism, and what sentences count as analytic has also evolved and become much more obscure in the process. Analytic no longer means simply “true by definition" or “self-evident", or even “self- evident as a result of analysis."25 Indeed, the gap between Kant’s understanding of a priori knowledge and that of contemporary analytical philosophy is no longer as stark and easily described as it once seemed to be. Analytical philosophy’s conception of what counts as analytic truth or a priori knowledge has become quite opaque, and equally obscure is the role of the higher intellectual faculties—reason or understanding—in science and everyday life. A proper treatment of these issues will require a separate article on the philosophy of science. What Kant should have said is that, even though the deep roots of our knowledge of space and time—as well as the fundamental laws of nature governing the phenomenal universe—are a priori, it doesn’t follow that they are obvious or immune from fuller clarification or revision as science progresses. Thus, the progress of science is not just an accumulation of new empirical facts, it is rather—in the consciousness-based perspective—an uncovering of the deep a priori principles embedded in the structure of our own consciousness. This is an important part of Maharishi’s famous axiom that knowledge is structured in consciousness. The correspondences are striking between Kant’s conception of knowledge that is scientifically meaningful and that has its foundation in consciousness—which he

25In his famous paper, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism" published in 1951, Willard Quine argued against a rigid analytic/synthetic dichotomy.

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terms synthetic a priori knowledge—and the principle from Maharishi Vedic Science that knowledge is structured in consciousness. These correspondences make it worthwhile to explore the similarities, despite Kant’s error in ascribing too rigid an interpretation. In Kant’s model (see Figure 5), the subjective observer appears separate from the objective world on the surface, but they both have a common basis in the transcendental or “noumenal" realm, which is the source of both. This basic characterization also under- pins the unified field charts, which are primary instructional materials for Consciousness-Based education. For example, John Hagelin, in conjunction with Maharishi, developed a unified field chart for physics (see Figure 6) de- picting the unified field at the basis of contemporary physics research as also Figure 5. Kant’s transcendental idealism being the field of pure, transcendental consciousness, which underlies the conscious mind. (See Hagelin [22], [23] and [24].) As part of his explanation for why we should regard mind and the world of physics as having a common source, Hagelin references the leading twentieth- century physicists Albert Einstein and Eugene Wigner. Einstein famously remarked, “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." And in the same vein, but this time focusing on the success of mathematics in helping us understand the world, Wigner published an influential article in 1960 entitled, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." Kant’s explanation for the comprehensibility of the world is the same as that of Maharishi Vedic Science: both the world and our consciousness have a common source in the transcendental realm. Mathematician Catherine Gorini [20], in explaining the Maharishi Vedic Science perspective, writes: Mathematicians and scientists have for a long time tried to understand why mathematics, a subjective creation of the human intellect, is so effective in the sciences, which study the objective, physical world. Satisfactory reasons have not been found because there has not been a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the subjective and the objective aspects of life. In this paper we will see that Maharishi Vedic Science, by explaining the link between the subjective realm where mathematics is located and the objective world that science examines, can resolve this problem in a natural way.

9. Deriving physics from consciousness Nader describes the emergence of phenomenal diversity from the singularity of pure consciousness. “The Singularity," he writes, “has an inﬁnite diversity of

47 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness

Figure 6. The uniﬁed ﬁeld chart for physics

Concepts cascading into" the phenomenal world as we experience and understand it. Nader further explains, “Singularity is ONE, but unlimited diversity emerges within its nature as Consciousness" [40, p. 23]. In Maharishi Vedic Science, there is a set of principal concepts, which Maharishi has characterized as the “forty aspects" of consciousness, which sequentially unfold or “cascade" into the phenomenal world as we experience it. There is a striking similarity to Kant’s model, according to which the generation of the phenomenal world also derives from “the unity of consciousness lying at the basis of the categories."26 What Kant here describes as the categories—he also refers to them as concepts of the understanding—are dynamical principles which give rise to the laws of nature. They could even be characterized as the laws of nature themselves in their most primordial form. Additionally, as the fundamental concepts of the understanding, they are the deep organizing principles which enable us to have coherent experience. The coherence of phenomena, and their organization in accordance with the laws of nature, are characterized by Nader in terms of “Modes, Networks and Patterns," which present the Bits of Consciousness as the experience of an intelligible world. As science progresses, we develop a more profound comprehension of these fundamental organizing principles and their various expressions. Kantian scholar

26From Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, quoted in Friedman [19, p. 604].

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Michael Friedman [19, p. 604] further explains the deep subjective source of these categories: “In considering the soul as subject," he writes, “transcendental philosophy ...establishes a characteristic perspective on the categories and principles of the understanding, viewed as products of the spontaneity of the subject...." Plato is famous for his theory of the ειδε—Forms or Ideas—which underlie the objective world on the one hand and our experience and understanding on the other. Aristotle’s categories play the same role in his philosophy. So Kant’s categories, or concepts of the understanding, should be viewed against the background of this longstanding tradition in Western philosophy of innate ideas. Phenomenal reality, according to Kant’s transcendental idealism, is constructed in layers from the underlying transcendental, or noumenal, realm. This construction, or “schematization," is brought about by the “concepts of the understanding" which, as we have seen, are dynamical principles with the dual function of constructing objective phenomenal reality in accordance with the laws of nature and of serving as innate ideas giving the observer an a priori basis for scientific knowledge. As an illustration of these concepts of the understanding at work, consider the three “relational" concepts: substance, causation, and reciprocity. The idea of substance has a long history in philosophy, both Eastern and Western. Consider the sentence, “The leaf was green, but now it is yellow."27 The properties change: green is superseded by yellow. The leaf—that which stays the same and underlies the transition from green to yellow—is the substance. Thus, substance is a principle of stability and permanence, both in ordinary experience and in science. Indeed, as Einstein remarked, “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." In the science of his time, Kant identified the conservation of matter as an expression of the concept of substance. In a Kantian spirit, we could say that the conservation laws of contemporary physics and—even more fundamentally—the principles of symmetry are manifestations of the concept of substance. Similarly, the concept of causation has its expression in the force laws: Newton’s laws were of course paramount for Kant and, in a neo-Kantian spirit today, we could stipulate that the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and gravity) are physical manifestations of the category of causation. Finally, Kant identified the concept of reciprocity as the basis of Newton’s third law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Today, we might characterize quantum entanglement as a more advanced expression of the concept of reciprocity. Kant identifies these same three relational concepts—substance, causation, and reciprocity—as being at work in creating the modes of time (duration, sequence, and simultaneity). Thus, substance—the principle of stability and permanence—is the basis of duration. Causation is the basis of sequence. And reciprocity is the basis of simultaneity. Similar considerations allow for the derivation of space from concepts of the understanding. If the consciousness-based paradigm generally and Maharishi Vedic Science in particular is to be recommended as providing a fruitful scientific foundation for progress, the striking parallels to Kant’s transcendental idealism are certainly

27This example was used by Frederick Copleston to illustrate the concept of substance.

49 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness productive and worthwhile.28 It is also instructive to consider the divergences. For example, we have already noted that Kant’s understanding of synthetic a priori truth was too rigid, and led him into error regarding the geometrical structure of physical space, which has turned out to be possibly non-Euclidean. But, even though Kant’s treatment of space (and time) has proven to be too simplistic, that should not discredit his fundamental insights about the deep-rooted, transcendental connectedness of subjectivity and objectivity, and the cascading unfoldment of the Kantian categories into the laws of nature, and their expression in a coherent experience of the phenomenal world. A sort of neo-Kantian approach could be developed, which would accommodate the fact that empirical science is able to help us uncover or refine truths, even though these truths ultimately derive from the structure of consciousness itself. Scientific progress can help us get a clearer understanding of what the synthetic a priori really consists of. And in terms of Maharishi Vedic Science, even though knowledge is structured in consciousness, the scientific method can provide a modality for uncovering just what that structure of consciousness is.29 One of the suggestions of this paper is that as science has moved beyond the rigid structure of space, time, matter, and mechanistic causation of classical physics, it has begun to move into a subtler domain, more representative of mind and mental phenomena. In this conception, the physical domain is the domain of classical physics. That is why physicalists typically appeal to bullet trajectories and other localized phenomena to underpin their arguments against mental causation. But it may be that mental phenomena generally, and mental causation in particular, are embedded in a richer and more exotic spatiotemporal framework, and that advanced physics is encountering this subtler framework. With its discoveries of quantum tunneling, nonlocality, and entanglement—as well as its speculations about hidden spatiotemporal dimensions, wormholes, retrocausation, time prior to the Big Bang, and universes “outside" or “next to" ours—science has left the physical domain behind. (Or at any rate it has left behind the “gross" physical domain—there are terminological decisions here that need not be settled definitively now.30) In any

28Just as Kant identified the categories as operative at different levels, Maharishi Vedic Science views the aspects of consciousness as operating at various levels of reality. For example, John Hagelin correlates these aspects with features of the Lagrangian of the unified field and Tony Nader correlates the same aspects with features of the human physiology. This is very Kantian in spirit. 29The deep structure of consciousness is at the root of scientific progress, but extends beyond science—as narrowly construed—to all fields, including the arts and humanities. In fact, the theme for the 2019 Society for Scientific Exploration conference is “Consilience: Developing the Founda- tions of a New Scientific Paradigm." The conference organizers define consilience as “the principle that evidence from unrelated sources, especially science and the humanities, can converge and produce unified conclusions," and further explain that, “The conference will bring together researchers and leading thinkers ...interested in investigating how findings from edge science can advance us towards a new paradigm for science and a deeper understanding of the foundations of reality." https://www.scientificexploration.org/conferences/2019 30Physicist Park Hensley [29, p. 57] comments on “a progression toward concepts of matter and its background, space-time, becoming more and more abstract, even toward the elusive and the ill-defined. We started out with macroscopic objects—hard, massy, separate, and impenetrable. We are now left with objects that we cannot see, which are described as both particle and wave, matter or energy, or as even a simple collection of properties that somehow cohere over time in a space-time, where space-time itself may be a manifestation of some pre-space quantity which is even less well-understood."

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case, it is suggested that science has happened upon a subtler domain, characterized by knowledge, meaning, purpose, and what Kant called “systematicity"—unity and organizational wholeness as it applies to life and especially cognitive life or mind. The suggestion that this subtler domain is characterized by a more exotic spatiotemporal framework, as well as a more comprehensive view of causation, seems to harmonize with Kant’s model in which space, time, matter, and causation are “constituted" by deep dynamical principles underlying the laws of nature—the categories of the understanding. Perhaps the Newtonian spatiotemporal framework and laws of physics are just a surface expression of the powerful categories and, in the subtle domain, their expression is richer, more uniﬁed, and closer to their source in the transcendental realm from which they derive. But Kant himself did not draw this extrapolation from his model, at least not where space and time are concerned. Friedman [19] explains that, for Kant, the categories of the understanding are restricted to physical space and time. “The categories and principles of the pure understanding," he writes, “still need to be realized within the forms of pure intuition, space and time" (p. 591). Could the forms of pure intuition be applied to a more inclusive spatiotemporal framework, and therefore to the subtle domain? There doesn’t seem to be any principled reason why not, but Kant never considered an extension of his model along these lines. Interestingly, Kant does lay the groundwork for what could be considered a subtle domain; it’s just that, the way he understands it, it is not spatial and is not susceptible to mathematical physics. In this connection, consider Friedman’s description [19, p. 591] of Kant’s “regulative use of the faculty of reason": In order to extend the constitutive grounding of our experience beyond this domain [corporeal nature] we need additional a priori principles belonging to the regulative use of the faculty of reason [as opposed to the corresponding concepts of the understanding which apply only to empirical intuition and are thus bound up with spatial determinations], and this faculty, unlike the understanding, cannot be schematized within the forms of pure intuition.31 This regulative use of the faculty of reason is not only beyond the domain of corporeal nature, which is embedded in the spatiotemporal framework of Newtonian physics, it is unlike the understanding because it cannot be schematized within the forms of pure intuition—meaning the space and time of classical physics. Reason, in Kant’s rendering, is the comprehensive cognitive faculty responsible for order and coherence in all its manifestations. At the expressed level of corporeal phenomena and their mechanistic interactions—embedded in the spatiotemporal framework— reason is referred to as the understanding. But reason has deeper manifestations as well, including the principles of systematicity, purpose, and free will, as will be explained below. We can fruitfully point to a correspondence between reason, in Kant’s transcendental idealism, and intellect in Maharishi Vedic Science. In both cases, this higher cognitive faculty is contrasted with the sensory level, which provides the basic content of experience. Friedman goes on to clarify the diﬀerence for Kant between the categorical principles of the understanding (which are linked to the spatiotemporal framework and

31Square brackets in the original.

51 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness subject to mathematical treatment) and the regulative principle of systematicity and even more fundamental principles of purposiveness and morality (implying free will). Arguably, these more fundamental principles of reason—like the categories of the understanding—are all part of the same unfoldment or cascade from pure consciousness that has such central importance in Maharishi Vedic Science. Friedman [19, p. 594] writes: We move from categorical principles, to the regulative principle of systematicity, to the principle of reflective judgment governed by the idea of purposiveness, and finally to moral principles governed by the idea of the highest good. Here the increasing distance from mathematical principles corresponds to an increasing distance from the faculty of sensibility and the pure intuitions of space and time. Whereas categorical principles require spatio-temporal schematization in order to have determinate content, the regulative principle of systematicity is capable of no such schematization but only the idea of a maximum of unity in the spatio-temporal conditions of the understanding. The principle of reflective judgment leads to the idea of essentially purposive natural objects (living organisms), whose existence in space and time is inconceivable on purely mechanical principles. And the principles of morality, finally, have determinate synthetic a priori content entirely independently of space and time. By characterizing systematicity as a “regulative" principle, Kant means that in our efforts to understand the world, our thinking is guided by this principle that nature is a system—an organized whole—constituted by an underlying unity. In modern philosophy of science, commentators have frequently noted that, in their most important breakthroughs, scientists are often spontaneously guided by a sense of theoretical elegance or simplicity and, especially, by a sense that progress will involve an underlying explanatory unification. While these principles may not provide the scientist with determinate content, nevertheless the scientist has a sense when she is on the right track. These seemingly subjective principles have been utterly baffling for empiricist philosophy of science but, from a Kantian perspective, they derive naturally from his broader epistemological outlook, in which subjectivity and objectivity emerge from a common transcendental source. This is the consciousness-based point of view, and it provides the basis for addressing Ein- stein’s famous challenge: “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." In the next section, we will consider an important example of this regulative principle at work in the steps of progress toward a comprehensive unified field theory. It has been natural for the physics community to think in terms of a unified field, although there has been an energetic debate about the most promising approach. In Kant’s system, the ideas of reason are more fundamental than the categories of the understanding responsible for the corporeal world. (Even though the understanding is an aspect of reason, sometimes Kant seems to contrast them, in which case, reason is the deeper principle.) The regulative principle is one of these ideas of reason. Two others include morality, which implies free will, and purpose—essential to understanding biological organisms as well as desire and intentional action.

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Purposiveness, by extension, would include the wider meaning of events, reﬂecting their purposes for a divine intelligence. These ideas of reason contribute principles which we innately consider to be valid, even though they seem out of place in the corporeal domain, with its rigid spatiotemporal framework and mechanistic causation. Biological phenomena have been resistant to the reductive approach, according to which a living system is nothing but a complex machine. Kant doesn’t believe this dilemma can be resolved in terms of mathematical physics and certainly not on the basis of reduction. Biological organisms are not machines and will not be explained on the basis of the mechanistic laws of Newtonian physics. It is worth noting that the resistance to reductive explanation (in terms of mechanistic interactions between the parts) may be a general problem for complex phenomena, not only for biological organisms. Systematicity is a separate and deeper contribution of reason and does not emerge naturally from the meaningless causal interactions of corporeal bodies. And, likewise, purpose is not derivable from mechanistic processes. So Kant’s answer to the problems and persistent lack of success of reductive physicalism would be that physicalism is a manifestation of the categories of the understanding, while systematicity, purpose, and free will are all expressions of deeper principles of reason. And both the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason have their source in the transcendental realm of pure consciousness. Maharishi Vedic Science is consistent with Kant’s stipulation that systematicity, purpose, and free will spring from a deeper level than the corporeal domain. In Maharishi Vedic Science, this deeper level is this subtle realm. But Kant believed that mathematical physics—and the spatiotemporal domain within which it is embedded—is limited to the corporeal. He could not have anticipated that relativity theory would make use of non-Euclidean geometry, the interconnectedness of space and time, and the warping of the spacetime curvature. Nor could he have anticipated quantum physics with its exotic causal implications such as the uncertainty principle, probabilistic limits to mechanistic causation, or nonlocal entanglement and retrocausation. The open question for science is whether these exotic phenomena from contemporary physics should be understood as just an extension of the mechanistic assumptions dictated by the categories of the understanding—to put it in Kantian terms—or are they rich with systematicity, purpose, and meaning? In other words, is advanced physics ultimately just more of the same—meaningless corporeal processes? Or has advanced physics encountered a qualitatively more subtle domain, characterized by Kant’s principles of reason? If the latter, then this subtle domain combines both: (1) a spatiotemporal fabric—albeit more exotic than classical physics— with an expanded conception of causation, whose processes and interactions are subject to mathematical analysis, and (2) systematicity, meaning, and purpose. Kant could not have anticipated a subtle domain with these two attributes which, for him, seemed irreconcilable from a scientiﬁc perspective. For Kant there are principles from which systematicity (wholeness) and purpose emerge, but these cannot be understood on the basis of mathematical physics. Keep in mind that the

53 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness physics of his time was Newtonian physics—Kant did not foresee the adaptability of mathematical physics as it has developed new structures to accommodate relativistic and quantum phenomena. We have seen that Kant conceived the laws of Newtonian physics and, indeed, the spatiotemporal framework in which these laws operate, as resulting from the powerful concepts of the understanding. But a deeper faculty than the understanding is required in order to encompass the principles of systematicity and purpose. From the perspective of Maharishi Vedic Science, however, subtler domains, in which meaning, purpose, and systematicity are more evident, are also subject to scientific investigation by mathematical physics—at least to some extent. These domains are spatiotemporal and causal (although in a more complex sense than Kant would have thought possible). This expanded interpretation of space, time, and causation is a consequence of comprehending the unfoldment of the principles of reason and the understanding, closer to their source in the transcendental domain of pure consciousness. Closer to their source, these various principles are not as sharply distinguished, and their underlying unity predominates over their apparently diverse manifestations. As we get closer to the transcendental domain, space, time, and causation become increasingly exotic and increasingly rich with meaning, purpose, and wholeness. From the perspective of Maharishi Vedic Science, mind resides at this subtle level, and its interactions with the brain and nervous system involve quantum mechanisms, at the very least, and probably branches of physics that have not yet been discovered. It is against the development of these themes that we will consider the proposition, of Maharishi and Hagelin, that the proposed unified quantum field is the field of transcendental pure consciousness, considered by many philosophers Eastern and Western to be at the basis of conscious mind as well as the natural world.32

10. Transcendental pure consciousness and unified quantum field theory Recent developments in quantum field theory tend toward a description of nature that integrates all the phenomena of the material world on the basis of a single, comprehensive unified field, which represents the most fundamental level of natural law. James Clerk Maxwell unified electrical and magnetic phenomena into a single electromagnetic field in the 1860s and Einstein spent the last 30 years or so of his life in pursuit of what he called a “unified field theory," which would unite electromagnetism with gravity. Electromagnetism and gravity were the only two forces known at the time. Since then, the strong and weak forces have been discovered and a unified field theory would be expected to bring together all four fundamental forces in a single theoretical framework. As we saw in the last section, Kant’s “regulative use of the faculty of reason" represents a deep-rooted capacity of reason reflected in the scientific pursuit of

32Hagelin [25, p. 19.5] remarks that there is a prediction of string theory, referred to as hidden sector matter, which includes very light bosons displaying “scale invariance" and “macroscopic quantum coherent effects," which “make hidden sector matter suitable as a possible ‘thought body.’ Many of the subtle qualities of thought are difficult to understand on the basis of the material brain alone. But if our material bodies were supplemented by bodies made of hidden sector matter, that could explain a lot about thought—including the ability of human awareness to experience, and function at, the superunified scale."

54 Two Dogmas of Materialism systematicity—the principle of hierarchical unification. In actual scientific practice, this is reflected in the convictions of the leading scientists of the time. These are the people who define the scientific enterprise, and their sense of where science needs to go becomes very influential. In the present case, the overwhelming belief that nature must be fundamentally unified, and that science will progress toward this unified understanding through sequential steps of integration, has become a guiding principle in fundamental physics research. Einstein himself was not ultimately successful in his efforts in developing a unified field theory, but since then, there have been two important steps of unification. The first was electroweak unification, combining electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force. The Nobel Prize was awarded to Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam in 1979 for this work in quantum field theory. Second is grand unified theory, which unifies the electroweak force with the strong nuclear force. John Hagelin’s flipped SU(5), which bases grand unified theory on the superstring, is considered the most promising version of grand unified theory, although the theory itself is still awaiting decisive experimental confirmation. What remains to be unified is gravity with the grand unified force (electromagnetism plus the strong and weak nuclear forces); this is the most far-reaching and difficult step. Virtually all leading physicists today working on fundamental physics subscribe to the idea of a unified field. This in itself lends support to Kant’s conclusion that the deep structure of reason is guiding—if not determining—the direction of science toward unification. There is considerable debate about the most promising approach to unification, but not to the principle of unification itself. For example, Peter Woit is well-known for his critique of string theory in his caustic book entitled Not Even Wrong [55]. He argues that string theory has not made any testable predictions and does not deserve the attention and funding that has been devoted to it. Likewise, Lee Smolin argues that loop quantum gravity deserves more attention as the basis for unified field theory, although he thinks that ultimately loop quantum gravity and string theory are basically two aspects of the same theory. Roger Penrose’s “twistor theory" is a third approach to unified field theory. The main difficulty with all these approaches is that, in attempting to unite gravity with quantum field theory, seemingly unsolvable paradoxes arise. Although there is far from unanimous agreement that string theory will be the ultimate theory of everything, it is still the leading approach. Let’s go deeper into the logic of sequential unification. We will see how it is an application of more fundamental dynamical and generative principles that give rise to the phenomenal world. From our discussion of Kant and similar themes in Maharishi Vedic Science, it is natural to suppose that subtler levels are not only more delicate, but they are unified physically and are also more replete with intelligence, including what Kant characterized as systematicity and purpose. An extension of these themes is that the unified field itself is a field of intelligence. If this is right, the final stroke of unification in physics will be accompanied by the unification of subjectivity and objectivity. Physics started out by modeling the objective world as given to us in our sensory- based, waking outlook at the surface level of ordinary experience, where subjectivity and objectivity seem to be starkly differentiated and opposed. At this level, the

55 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness intelligence of nature was assumed to be embodied in natural laws, but the status of natural law seemed ambiguous, between being immanent in the empirical phenomena, transcendental in its own realm outside of space and time, or intellectual, in the mind of the scientist. This ambiguity is itself a clue to the deeper unification of subjectivity and objectivity. Kant was keenly aware of this underlying unity and this is a central theme in Maharishi Vedic Science as well. As science has progressed—especially mathematical physics—the physical and mathematical models have become increasingly unified and precise, based on uncovering deeper and deeper symmetries of nature. Symmetry—in an extension of its precise technical meaning—may be understood as the underlying sameness inherent in what science progressively has come to understand as more superficial or surface-level differences. The great conservation laws can be understood as early and powerful examples of this principle of underlying symmetry. Thus, for example, Lavoisier’s discovery of conservation of mass showed that there is a sameness of substance underlying the various manifestations of chemical matter. Kant’s understanding of this eighteenth century application of the category of substance was profound, but he would not have been able to extend the substance principle to deeper levels and especially not to the unified field. He would have regarded the hypothesized unified field as transcendental and (thereby) not accessible either to the categories of the understanding or to mathematical physics. But science has moved on beyond what Kant could have anticipated as being possible for mathematical physics. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 shows that mass and energy are different manifestations of the same thing—arguably this is a new application of the idea of sameness underlying apparent diversity, which is implicit in the Kantian category of substance. And, foreshadowing the powerful steps of unification in contemporary quantum field theory, the electromagnetic field, discovered by Faraday and Maxwell in the nineteenth century, unified elec- tricity and magnetism—two classes of apparently very different phenomena—by demonstrating that they are both surface-level expressions of a single, underlying field. In general, the various degrees of freedom which characterize macroscopic physical reality—including mass and energy, the three spatial dimensions and time, the electric and magnetic fields, and so forth—have all been progressively unified as physics has advanced. Kant, for whom mathematical physics is necessarily embedded in the rigid space-time framework of classical physics (together with its associated assumptions regarding mechanistic causation), could not have foreseen these steps of unification. This pace of unification has accelerated in the last few decades and can be seen as converging in a unification which will include subjectivity and objectivity, as indicated by the Maharishi Vedic Science principle that consciousness is the unified field. Superunification—the final phase of unification—not only unites the four fundamental forces, it uncovers a deep and far-reaching symmetry underlying Bose fields (representing forces) and Fermi fields (representing matter). The distinction between force (responsible for action, dynamism, change) and matter is basic to our conception of the physical world. Even our language is based on the distinction between nouns, representing things, as opposed to verbs, representing activity and

56 Two Dogmas of Materialism

change. So the extent to which superunification involves a departure from our common-sense assumptions about reality can hardly be overstated.33 Against this backdrop, the subject/object identification, implicit in the thesis that consciousness is the unified field, is an obvious extension of this inexorable drive toward unification. If this is right, the apparently unbridgeable dichotomy between consciousness and matter resolves on the basis of a deep symmetry underlying the inner dimension (mind and consciousness) and the physical world. So what Maharishi and Hagelin are proposing—and this is consistent with the conclusions of the present analysis—is that the unified field of advanced theoretical physics is actually a field of intelligence. Hagelin [23, p. 5] explains, “Vedic Science, like modern science, seeks to identify and explore the most fundamental and universal principles of intelligence at the basis of nature’s functioning." So in his view what unified field theory is describing is ultimately consciousness. The fundamental difference from the physicalist theories is that, for Maharishi Vedic Science, an individual mind is only a surface-level manifestation of consciousness. In transmitting the larger field of consciousness, the brain and nervous system are also filtering it—drastically reducing its scope, power, and depth of comprehension. As we have already seen (see Figure 4 above), the nervous system is not necessarily limited to the brain and physiology. This contrasts sharply with the physicalist approaches, which start from the assumption that consciousness is only a localized phenomenon, dependent on a particular individual’s brain. Maharishi Vedic Science, as well as Kant’s transcendental idealism, describes the steps by which pure consciousness expresses itself and, for both, the subtler levels are replete with intelligence, meaning, purpose, and systematicity. And this is especially true of the transcendental level itself, which Kant refers to as the “noumenal" realm, meaning a field of pure intelligence. But, although Kant placed the subtle levels beyond the reach of mathematical physics, this restriction does not apply to Maharishi Vedic Science. On the contrary, given the drive toward a unified field theory in physics today, a paradigm which regards consciousness as primary would provide a foundation for identifying consciousness and the unified field. On this basis, such an identity has become obvious, and it has been advanced by Maharishi and John Hagelin since the early 1980s (Maharishi [38] and Hagelin [22], [23], and [24]; also see the unified field chart for physics in Figure 6). And, in the final analysis, it is not at all surprising that physicalism in all its manifestations has failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of consciousness. The reason is that consciousness is not an offshoot of the brain—it is the unified field.

11. Appendix: A brief note comparing Kant and Maharishi Vedic Science on pure self-awareness Descartes thought that mind is more fundamental than the physical world in the sense that, while we could be skeptical of the existence of the physical world, we could not doubt that we exist as thinking beings. For Kant, as for Descartes, while

33Robert Oates [42] makes a strong argument for the conclusion that, with each step in its advancement, physics has become increasingly non-physical.

57 International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness time is a characteristic of mind (our thoughts occur in time), the physical domain is distinguished by having both spatial and temporal dimensions. While Kant avows that time is the more universal parameter, characteristic of both our minds and the objective world, he nevertheless argues against the coherence of Cartesian skepticism and the ensuing implication that, because of the possibility of that doubt regarding the physical world, mind must be more fundamental. (Kant makes this argument in a famous section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled “Refutation of Idealism," where he proposes to refute problematic idealism, or Cartesian skepticism.) In brief, Kant argues that time by itself is ﬂuid and inconstant and, therefore, we can only have coherent mental experience by reference to a stable background, provided by the objective physical world embedded in space. In contrast to Kant, Maharishi Vedic Science maintains that consciousness itself is the stable, absolute background against which all relative experience occurs (including inner mental phenomena and outer objective phenomena). So the principle of Maharishi Vedic Science, according to which mind is part of a domain subtler than the physical, does not succumb to Kant’s line of reasoning. The prevailing view in Kant scholarship is that Kant cannot avail himself of consciousness itself, inner subjectivity, as the stable reference that allows us to have meaningful experience in time, because for Kant—according to this prevailing view—consciousness itself is merely a unifying point of view, what he calls a “unity of apperception." For Kant, pure self-awareness, fundamental in Maharishi Vedic Science, is not something we can experience. Philosopher Kenneth Chandler [12] argues against this prevailing view, however, and suggests that this seeming diﬀerence between Kant and Maharishi Vedic Science is overstated and misleading. Although Kant does maintain that pure self- awareness is not an experience, whereas for Maharishi Vedic Science it certainly is, this may be largely a semantic disagreement. If “experience" means continuity of awareness, then Maharishi Vedic Science is right that we can have experience of pure subjectivity—the self by itself—in the sense of pure self-awareness, without empirical content. But if “experience" is taken to mean having awareness of empirical content then, of course, self-awareness would not be an experience, in this sense, and perhaps this is all that Kant means. But the fact remains that Kant believed that inner, mental experience needs a stable reference which must be provided by experience of the outer physical world.

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60 n recent centuries, scientists have found that many phenomena in nature obey physical laws that can be expressed precisely in the language of mathematics. Their successes have led scientific inquiry beyond the physical world to include Iwhat was previously considered metaphysical or non-material. Today, an increasing number of scientists are examining the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the human brain.

While consciousness can be studied within a variety of disciplines, mathematics especially lends itself to examine the relationship between consciousness and physical phenomena. Mathematics is precise and rigorous in its methodology, giving symbolic expression to abstract patterns and relationships. Although developed subjectively, using intuition along with the intellect and logical reasoning, mathematics allows us to make sense of our outer physical universe. Mathematics is the most scientific representation of subjective human intelligence and thought, formalizing how individual human awareness perceives, discriminates, organizes, and expresses itself.

The International Journal of Mathematics and Consciousness will help to fulfill the need for a forum of research and discussion of consciousness and its expressions. The editors invite mathematicians, scientists, and other thinkers to present their theories of consciousness without restriction to proposed axioms and postulates, with the stipulation only that such theories follow strict logical argumentation and respect proven facts and observations. Articles that use factual or logical counterargu- ments to challenge commonly believed but not fully established facts and observations are also welcome.