/ ____ / / /\ / /-- /__\ /______/____ / \ ________________________________________________________________ Leonardo Electronic Almanac volume 11, number 2, February 2003 ________________________________________________________________ ISSN #1071-4391 ____________ | | | CONTENTS | |____________| ________________________________________________________________ EDITORIAL --------- by Patrick Lambelet FEATURES -------- < The Scientific and Contemplative Exploration of Consciousness > by B. Alan Wallace < Materialism and the Immaterial Mind in the Ge-luk Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism > by William Magee < Project *Amala*: An Artistic Vision of Consciousness in Buddhism > by Kok Kee Choy < Samadhi: The Contemplation of Space > by Robert C. Morgan < On Audience Awareness: The “Empathy Factor” in the Work of Nell Tenhaaf > by Nina Czegledy LEONARDO DIGITAL REVIEWS ------------------------- < Mirror of Consciousness: Art, Creativity and Veda > Reviewed by Robert Pepperell ISAST NEWS ----------- < OLATS News > ________________________________________________________________ _______________ | | | EDITORIAL | |_______________| ________________________________________________________________ We often discuss consciousness in these pages as if it is a foregone conclusion that we understand what it actually is. By exploring fields such as artificial intelligence, artificial 1 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 11 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 ISBN 978-0-9833571-0-0 life, virtual reality and so on, we may discover and develop sophisticated means of replicating human behavior and thought, but if we ask exactly what is consciousness - a deceptively simple question - we may very well come up empty-handed. Scientific research, despite stunning achievements in investigation and measurement of brain activity, still leaves many unanswered questions about the mind. Is it merely a physical entity? Is it resident in the brain, the body, the neurons? Is consciousness exclusive to the realm of “living beings” or can it be created artificially? What is its nature and where does it come from? Although we may be tempted to regard science as infallible in its search for truth, if we look into ancient spiritual traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, we find extremely sophisticated and profound studies of these very questions. These inquiries, moreover, are not mere theories - they are experiential, based on active investigation of the inner workings of the mind and the practice of methods that help to develop and expand the possibilities of the mind. Recent scientific studies also increasingly indicate that such practices can have tangible effects on functions of the brain, improving mental and physical health [1]. Rather than thinking of these modes of thought as separate - “science” on the one hand and “religion” on the other - it seems to me an extremely worthwhile line of inquiry to study where these views overlap and complement each other, without ignoring their basic differences. This has, in fact, been a central concern of numerous symposia and studies in the past few years, one of the most notable being the Mind and Life conferences, an annual series of discussions between Western experts in neurology, psychiatry, cognitive psychology and other fields and experts on Buddhism, such as the Dalai Lama of Tibet [2]. A number of books have been published from these conferences, yielding fascinating insights into the different aspects of these debates. I have chosen articles for this issue representing a wide range of opinions and perspectives on this discourse. B. Alan Wallace, a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of science and contemplative spiritual traditions (and translator for many of the above-mentioned conferences), contributes an article addressing the question of why science is able to tell us so little about the subjective realm of the mind while making such astonishing discoveries in the realm of the “objective” world. William Magee looks into the relationship between body and mind as discussed in Tibetan Buddhist thought, comparing this to scientific views and to Cartesian notions of body/mind duality. Robert C. Morgan writes about *Samadhi* - an exhibition he curated that explores the notion of samadhi, or meditative concentration, through the eyes of 11 artists. Singaporean artist Kok Kee Choy discusses *Amala,* an interactive artwork presenting his vision of the highest level of consciousness as presented in certain schools of Buddhism. Nina Czegledy discusses the work of artist Nell Tenhaaf and how this sheds light on studies of consciousness and artistic practice. Finally, in Leonardo Digital Reviews, we include a recent review by panelist Robert Pepperell, which discusses a book about art and the Indian Vedic science of consciousness. In these turbulent times, it certainly cannot hurt to explore ways of thinking that could lead to greater balance and harmony among people in the world. Therefore, I hope that these articles FEBRUARY 2003 VOL 11 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 2 can contribute in some way to expanded discussion of these ideas, as opposed to holding rigidly to our ideas as the only ones of value. I would like to thank all the contributors to this issue, who have been very patient with my constant prodding and tight deadlines, as well as the peer-reviewers and LEA staff, especially Nisar Keshvani, who encouraged me to take this project on. Patrick Lambelet Managing Editor, LEA [email protected] REFERENCES 1. See Daniel Goleman, “Finding Happiness: Cajole Your Brain to Lean to the Left,” *New York Times,* 4 February, 2003. 2. See www.mindandlife.org for more information on the Mind and Life Institute. See www.InvestigatingTheMind.org for information on this year’s conference. ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ | | | FEATURES | |______________________________| ________________________________________________________________ < The Scientific and Contemplative Exploration of Consciousness > by B. Alan Wallace, [email protected]. As we enter the twenty-first century and look back on the past 400 years of scientific progress, who can fail to be impressed by the frontiers of knowledge that have been opened to human inquiry? The physical sciences have illuminated the realm of the extremely minute - the inner core of the atomic nucleus; events in the distant past - the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang; and phenomena on the far side of the universe - the constitution of galactic clusters billions of light years away. In the meantime, the biological sciences have made great discoveries concerning the evolution of life; they have mapped the human genome and revealed many of the inner workings of the brain. But in the midst of such extraordinary knowledge of the objective world, the subjective realm of consciousness remains largely an enigma. While neuroscientists examine the brain correlates to the workings of the human spirit, the actual nature of the mind/body correlation is still a matter of philosophical conjecture: there is no hard scientific evidence that explains *how* the mind is related to the brain. There is no scientific consensus concerning the definition of consciousness and there are no objective, scientific means of detecting the presence or absence of consciousness in anything, mineral, plant, animal or human. In short, scientists have not yet fathomed the nature of consciousness, its origins or its role in nature. How is it possible that something so central to scientific inquiry, namely human consciousness, remains so elusive? Is it because it is inherently mysterious or even impenetrable to scientific inquiry? Or have scientists simply failed thus far to devise appropriate methods for exploring the frontiers of the inner spirit? To seek an answer to this question, let us review 3 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 11 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 ISBN 978-0-9833571-0-0 the ways in which scientists have successfully explored other realms of the natural world. Looking first to the physical sciences, astronomy began to move beyond its medieval heritage when researchers such as Tycho Brahe devised instruments for making unprecedentedly accurate measurements of the relative movements of the planets. Whereas previous generations of astrologers were content to focus primarily on the alleged *correlations* between the movements of celestial bodies and terrestrial events, Brahe made careful observations of the planets themselves, albeit with the intention to improve the precision of astrological predictions. Similarly, Galileo made precise observations of falling bodies and other terrestrial and celestial phenomena. In short, careful observations of these natural phenomena themselves were the necessary basis for the subsequent explanation of *why* these physical phenomena act as they do. The life sciences developed in a similar way. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch naturalist Van Leeuwenhoek used the microscope to observe minute organisms, and over the centuries this combination of technology and precise observation of living organisms led to the development of cell biology, molecular biology, genetics and neuroscience. It is important to bear in mind, however, that what these physicists and biologists were observing were appearances to the human mind, not external, physical objects existing independently of consciousness. The mind has always played a central role in scientific observation and analysis, yet the scientific study of the mind did not even begin until