David Chalmers once asked, "How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter?"

Now there's a question worth devoting some time and thought to. Perhaps a lot of time and thought.

From April 26 to May 1, 2002, there was a gathering in Albuquerque, NM, intent on doing just that: thinking about and experimenting with the nature of consciousness. This International Science and Conscious Conference, titled "Consciousness Exploring Itself" included such speakers as Fritjof Capra, Rupert Sheldrake, Rudolph Ballentine, Lawrence Fagg, Peter Russell, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Matthew Fox. For more information about this conference, and to to check out future conferences, go to<http://www.bizspirit.com/science/index.html>.

Currently, today's author, Wolf Hass, works as an independent computer consultant for wholesale distribution businesses but regularly schedules time to keep abreast of the trends in science, religion and the fringe scenes. Wolf strongly believes our current religions are inadequate in the face of the knowledge and insights gleaned from the scientific explosion of the last century and this century to come but doesn't want to embrace much of what he sees as renewed superstitions in the new age movement. Yet he does recognize a core of wisdom in the major religions and the new age movement and has a sense for what some might call the ineffable. He is writing an inspirational book titled "The Cosmic Journey" in which he outlines the proverbial spiritual journey in a modern context and also articulates the dynamic core of the dawn of a new living religious vision that doesn't just encompass humanity but all of life in the cosmos. And he has been a member of the World Future Society since 1992.

Be enlightened!

-- Stacey E. Ake

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Subject: Comments on the International Science and Consciousness Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico 2002. From: Wolf Hass Email: <wolfhass@rogers.com>

Introduction

As I was flying towards Albuquerque for the International Science and Consciousness conference held from April 26 to May 1, 2002, while looking out the window I sacrilegiously let my thoughts intrude on the 'now' and began to ruminate on my own esoteric views.

I like to think that we belong to not just a global but to a universal village for which not just humanity but all of life has a membership.

For me life didn't just begin on earth. It began with the Big Bang.

And I can't help thinking that maybe life is evolving in all directions of the universe in countless earthlike incubators. After all, why should any particular corner be more biased to have life when it was all seeded from one Big Bang? I'm also tempted to think that life is inextricably connected throughout the cosmos, even across intergalactic space. This implies that life in the universe is evolving in a grand synthesis or grand symphony.

But is that really true or just a romantic notion?

It was from this rarified atmosphere that the aircraft and I made our descent upon Albuquerque.

I like to joke that I do not stand on the shoulders of giants but kneel at the feet of the cosmic trickster. This guru of holy madness zooms in on the wriggles in the outlines of our spheres of perfection, points out the contradictions in our little theories of the universe - including mine, exposes the emptiness in our lofty quotations, opens up the cosmic cracks in everything.

So spiritually speaking, I think there is no such thing as mastery even if you can quote the world's scriptures verbatim, triumphantly write down a universal equation or meditate yourself to enlightenment. In a sense we are always beginners. I think the 'unknown' is far vaster than the 'known'. How do I know? I don't know.

I also think we make too big of a deal of our capacity for self-awareness, consciousness. Sure we're on top of the heap for now but I think the future may reveal even greater heights for life's evolvement that will dwarf what we think consciousness is and make a mockery of our current conceit.

I do not comfort myself with comfort theories on life after death though I perceive my life as a miraculous gift. I'm an irrepressible optimist even though I know I'm history when I die. Though humanity may fail, life won't.

I must confess to you that my only peak experience at the conference was when I went up Sandia Mountain on the world's longest tram.

So with these provisos I'd like to invite you on a vicarious and perhaps precarious tour of the keynotes presenters Fritjof Capra, Peter Russell, Matthew Fox, Rupert Sheldrake and Rudolph Ballentine. Gary Schwartz, Lawrence Fagg and Steve Bhaerman also get a mention.

One of the interesting themes of the keynote presentations could be boiled down to the following question posed by Peter Russell who quoted from David Chalmers: "How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter?"

One school says consciousness is an emergent phenomenon; another says that consciousness had to be there from the beginning.

Ironically in spite of the name of the conference, there was a lot of science bashing going on; especially, by the more minor presenters, to the point I was tempted to call it the Anti Science Consciousness Conference. The new laboratory is supposed to be the inner, not the outer according to many of the prescriptions and proscriptions. Many scientists apparently just don't get it. They are admonished as 'fundamaterialists'.

Yet metaphors were constantly ripped off from that misguided evil called, science. There were presentation titles such as: "The Genome Approach to Spiritual Transformation", "Personifying the Quantum theory: An Introduction to the Quantum Collapse Process", "The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Evidence for Survival of Consciousness After Death", "The Chakras of Telecommunications", "Mind over Genes", etc.

I also learned from one participant that if you don't believe in life after death, you're not evolved enough yet. More meditation is surely in order to purge such disbelief.

But nevertheless it was great fun. The participants were an eclectic bunch. They ranged from a believer in John Edwards's abilities, to seekers seeking a new relationship with the same or opposite sex, to the insightfully spiritually minded, to the open-minded scientist, to the earnest skeptic, to the inspiring presenter.

Fritjof Capra

The first keynote presenter was Fritjof Capra. He was perceived as the most conservative of the keynote presenters. Capra was sometimes disparaged by some of the other presenters for what was perceived as orthodox scientific views. Was Capra, the once formidable paradigm shifter, now stuck in an old gear? (I chuckled over the thought of imagining Steven Weinberg or Richard Dawkins giving humbuggery denouncing speeches here at the conference.)

I personally have identified with Capra in the past because he combines a respect for science with an appreciation for the mystical core or perennial philosophy behind all religions. He doesn't get flaky on new age superstitions. He has an appreciation for mysticism without the mistiness. He also stays away from afterlife theories.

I sensed Capra values respect from academia much more than devotion from the new age movement in spite of his esoteric leanings.

When I listened to him the mystic in him was cautiously suppressed; for that matter, so was the physicist in the presentation.

I found him interesting but yet surprisingly not that inspiring because he sounded a little too professorial - an unwise move in my opinion when you get into the realm of talking about spirituality. He also made no mention of the frontiers of genetics and its implications that I can recall.

He first made a name for himself with a book called "The Tao of Physics" back in the seventies in which he compares the unitive experience of the Eastern religions to quantum physics. This book has inspired a lot of imitators through the years and has made the physics area in some bookstores look like a religion section. He then moved on to transferring his paradigmatic shifting views to ecology, systems view of life and emergence of consciousness in books such as "The Turning Point" and "The Web of Life"

He also wrote a book called "Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People" which is a well scribbled in book of mine which once resonated with me. I was particularly intrigued with his meetings with Krishnamurti who like Capra had an influence upon me at an earlier stage in my life. He also did another number called "Belonging to the Universe" with a Christian mystic "David Steindl-Rast".

Capra also plugged his new book called "Hidden Connections". Capra got the title from a Vaclav Havel quote: "Education today is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena."

He took care to describe mind as a process, not a thing. He describes two types of consciousness: primary and reflective consciousness (self awareness).

He addressed what he calls the hard problem of consciousness, which he sees as a conflict of views between mechanists and vitalists.

Capra sees consciousness as an emergent phenomenon that can only be explained by non-linear dynamics of neural networks.

He asked, "How does consciousness emerge from neural activity?" A partial answer he gave is that it is due to resonance phenomena from groups of neural brain cells.

He pointed out that language is related to consciousness, that symbols evoke mental images.

From the study of chimps, Capra described the importance of gestures with the hands as a precursor to speech. In fact the same area of the brain controls both speech and hand movements.

I was struck by Capra's statement: "In a way, speech is a gesture of the mouth." Language evolved from gesture.

Capra moved on to describe what he called "Philosophy in the Flesh": Reason arises from our bodies and brains. Our thinking is literally embodied. The structure of our bodies and brains determine our way of thinking. Most human thought is metaphorical. Even in its most abstract, thinking is mired in the body.

Capra closed his presentation on spirituality. It almost sounded half-hearted, like a concession to the organizers and participants of the conference.

There was one awkward moment for him after the presentation when a woman asked a question about consciousness and atomic particles. Capra replied there is no consciousness at that level. Gary Schwartz in another presentation pounced upon Capra with glee for this New Age faux pas and valiantly came to the defense of this woman. Surely consciousness pervades everything and she will live forever because of it.

Peter Russell

Peter Russell was the second keynote presenter. His spiritual beginnings were with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi practising transcendental meditation. He has studied physics, computer science and psychology. He wrote, "The Global Brain" and "The White Hole in Time". He's your proverbial harmonic convergence theorist. Teilhard de Chardin influenced him; so did Olaf Stapledon, author of "Star Maker". When Russell talks of harmonic convergence, he doesn't just mean Gaia, He means earth, to galaxy, to super-cluster to Universal being.

I was intrigued to see what he would be like. Would he be a flake or a pseudo-enlightened fake? Russell turned out to be an articulate, rational, very likable speaker in spite of his beyond Capra esoteric leanings.

Key points in his keynote address were:

He asked, "How did hydrogen evolve into us?"

He said that everything is really just the light of consciousness. He quoted what he called the hard problem from David Chalmers: "How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter?"

He humorously pointed out that paradigm shifts really only occur when the old die out.

But Russell isn't just a paradigm shifter. He's a meta-paradigm shifter:

According to Russell, the anomaly for the current meta-paradigm of science is consciousness itself for consciousness is in all; consciousness is primary; all is in consciousness.

The world out there is not like the images we perceive in our brains.

Maya means delusion, not illusion. We mistake our internal for the external.

Russell humorously described scientists as 'fundamaterialists' when it comes to metaphysical thinking.

He remarked that the statement "the world is in you and not you in the world" would be considered rubbish according to fundamentalists of all persuasions.

Russell's transcendental meditation roots expanded further when he asked the question, "What happens when you stop thinking?"

His answer is that you discover inner science, peace and love. Matter is derived from mind, not mind from matter. Consciousness is fundamental. In meditation, we discover divinity and reject God made in man's image. Science has no need for 'God of the Gaps, nor do we since God is experiential.

Russell ends with a Judeo-Christian heresy when he states that the ultimate realization is: "Atman is Brahman. I am God."

As you can see, Peter Russell has come a long way from his original studies in physics and computer science.

Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox was the third keynote presenter. Now I'm not religious but I like Matthew Fox. He appeals to my mystical instincts: mysticism without the new age 'mistiness'. He doesn't seem to confuse religious metaphors with spirituality. His presentation did not disappoint. I found him to be the most inspirational of the presenters.

Matthew Fox is an excommunicated Roman Catholic Dominican priest who has a special fondness for the medieval Christian mystics; such as, Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart in contrast to the proclivities of some other priests. Radical ideas can get you excommunicated by the Vatican. Fondling youthful parishioners can get you a transfer to another parish.

Major books of Fox's are "The Original Blessing" and "The Cosmic Christ".

Fox sees life as a blessing, not as a curse caused by the original sins of Adam and Eve to be overcome. He defines the spiritual, mystical, transformative journey as moving from via positiva, to via negativa, to via creativa and finally to via transformativa.

But Fox isn't just enamored with mysticism. That would be like mistaking an essential vitamin pill for the spiritual food itself. Fox also sees the importance of cosmology. He isn't just transfixed on the inner.

Fox has a panentheistic view of God. That is to say that God is both immanent and transcendent. Creation is not separate from divinity.

Fox's presentation was chock full of notable observations:

Poetry is to be in love with the world is spite of its history, Taliban or Vatican.

Hell is the opposite of creativity. Hell is hiding our light.

Creativity is our participation in the divine life. It also involves fierceness, wildness. Who wants a domesticated God? Let's give up this teacup God. Creativity is an encounter where the divine and the human meet.

PhD's are a big cause of grief in this world.

All neurosis is based on the failed artist within us all.

The old religious paradigm says the universe is completed. We need only to be obedient to fit in. The new paradigm says that from the beginning the universe has been and is birthing.

If you left hydrogen gas alone for 13 billion years you get life. (Quoted from Brian Swimme)

Advice on how to awaken: Learn to praise the noise that joy makes.

Our professions are all lacking the divine spark of creativity.

We must also face the darkness, the via negativa for creativity comes from chaos. When the human breaks, the whole universe breaks through.

The nearest thing to contemplation is play.

Don't kill the dragon but dance with the dragon.

Our species has updated the ante for novelty. Creativity is not in short supply.

The opposite of evil is not goodness but sacredness.

Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake, a Cambridge trained biologist, was the fourth keynote presenter. Sheldrake is another scientist who has taken a mystical, spiritual sojourn - a province among scientists that seems to be normally reserved for theoretical physicists. Sheldrake's transformational experience comes from his ashram days in India with Bede Griffiths, a Christian-Hindu mystic.

Sheldrake challenges the orthodox views of evolution and mechanistic theories on origins of life even though they've proven highly successful as in the cracking of the human genome. He's renowned for his largely speculative theory on morphic resonance that proposes there are no fixed laws of nature, that nature is habitual. It postulates that all natural systems, including non-life, inherit a collective memory that influences their form and behavior. This influence is largely vitalistic and animistic than mechanistic. Morphic resonance does not fall off with distance and is not a transfer of energy but of information. Living organisms not only inherit genes but morphic fields.

According to the morphic resonance theory, if an individual in a species learns a new ability, it is easier for the next individual to learn it. As more individuals learn it, it becomes progressively easier for the rest of the individuals in the species to learn it.

"A New Science of Life" is Sheldrake's definitive book on the theory that was published in the early 1980's. He has since written "The Presence of the Past", "The Rebirth of Nature" and "Seven Experiments That Could Change the World." He's also co-authored a couple of books with Matthew Fox, "Natural Grace" and "The Physics of Angels".

In his keynote address, "The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence" Sheldrake offers evidence for the paranormal and unusual abilities of animals.

Sheldrake opened with the idea, in contrast to Peter Russell, that the image of an object is really where it seems to be.

He went on to present the basics of his morphic resonance theory.

Sheldrake then went on to describe some simple experiments he made on the paranormal; for example, the ability of people to anticipate who is phoning them. According to Sheldrake's numbers, the more intimate one is with a person, the higher the ability to predict when that person will call. Sheldrake claimed that though the percentages of correct predictions were much lower that 100%, they were still higher than what would be predicted through normal probability calculations.

Sheldrake made the outrageous remark that this would be an acceptable result in any other scientific endeavor. Lawrence Fagg, a former physicist who was sitting beside me, and I looked at each other with incredulity. (Surely we must be 'fundamaterialists'.)

Sheldrake went on to show a video of a dog anticipating the return of its owner. The video purported that the dog went to the window in anticipation at the precise time the owner made a conscious decision to return home even though the owner was miles away.

I am a pet owner of two cats. I will acknowledge that they seem to have supernormal powers to condition me rather than me them but I'm afraid I was skeptical of Sheldrake's results.

What was my reaction to Sheldrake? Perhaps actions speak louder than words: After Sheldrake I played hooky from the conference and took the tram up Sandia mountain.

Rudolph Ballentine

Rudolph Ballentine gave the final keynote presentation on "Radical Healing and the Rebirth of Science". Ballentine used the term science loosely and in spite of tutelage under a spiritual guru still let his fangs spew out anti-science venom.

He says that our labs must turn from the outer to the inner. Orthodox scientists just don't get it. Don't they see the value of homeopathy and other alternative medicine? Linear time is no longer to be assumed. Space is not a property of all phenomena.

He really turned me off when he said that he knew of a swami that could move objects with his mind even when separated by a barrier. He claimed that a science colleague of his would not confirm the observations because it would ruin his career. Hmm.

Forgive me for being judgmental, but I find that people who believe in this stuff or who believe in miracles like weeping Virgin Mary statues or milk spewing elephant statues are really cynics at heart. They don't see the true miracle that is already in the seemingly ordinary world around them in front of and behind their very eyes.

Conclusion

Inspirationally I found Matthew Fox to be the best keynote presenter.

Amongst the other presenters I truly enjoyed the comedian Steve Bhaerman and his alter ego, Swami Beyondananda on Tuesday evening. This guy played the conference's cosmic trickster taking the proverbial fool's journey, ironically sometimes the door to the greatest wisdom. I also had the pleasure of a personal impromptu conversation with him.

There were other notable minor presenters that also deserved some positive comments, notably the unassuming Lawrence Fagg.

Regrettably I think that the word science in the naming of the conference is a bit of a misnomer. Some 'hard' scientists should be invited in the future to provide balance - or alternatively the name should be changed.

I enjoyed the participants. They were an intelligent, delightfully eclectic group - even the ones who corralled me when I whispered that I didn't accept Gary Schwartz's afterlife theories.

Yours now enlightened, ...err or is that enheavied, Wolf Hass

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This publication is hosted by Metanexus Online http://www.metanexus.net. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Metanexus or its sponsors.

Metanexus welcomes submissions between 1000 to 3000 words of essays and book reviews that seek to explore and interpret science and religion in original and insightful ways for a general educated audience. Previous columns give a good indication of the topical range and tone for acceptable essays. Please send all inquiries and submissions to . Metanexus consists of a number of topically focused forums (Anthropos, Bios, Cogito, Cosmos, Salus, Sophia, and Techne) and periodic HTML enriched composite digests from each of the lists.

Copyright notice: Except when otherwise noted, articles may be forwarded, quoted, or republished in full with attribution to the author of the column and "Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science ". Republication for commercial purposes in print or electronic format requires the permission of the author. Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Metanexus Institute.

Published   2002.06.20