Religion, Spirituality and Science – my perspective

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A few people have asked about my religious “beliefs”. If you just want a label then “Zen Buddhist” more or less fits so no need to read any further.

Background
I’ve spent my entire life puzzling over life, the universe and if there is something called “God”. In search of the answers I’ve studied sciences, principally physics, to degree level I also spent a year of my life as a Buddhist monk. Over the last few years (I’m now 49) a certain clarity has formed.

Religion vs. Spirituality
I draw a strong distinction between organised religion and personal spirituality. With organised religion you are given a “holy book” to swallow and to simply believe the contents. The particular book depends on where in the world you are born so you either believe the words of the Bible, Koran or other text. To me that is just a form of social brainwashing. Personal spirituality is looking for the answers to the big questions freely, without pre-conditions or assumptions. It is looking with an enquiring mind and not just accepting anything because some so called holy book or authority figure claims to hold “the truth”.

While studying the sciences it became clear that the biblical ideas of creation I’d been taught as a child were just mythology. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Similarly advances in physics, cosmology, astronomy and other scientific fields have helped to build up a picture of the formation of the Earth and the universe in general. There is still a great deal to understand in this area but again, it is clear that the biblical idea of creation of the Earth in a day is more mythology.

So where does this leave ideas about some sort of God? I’ll pick up on that again later.

Who am I
Another of the big questions is “Who am I”?
As a child it was clear to me that “my body” was where “I” lived. In other words I’m not the body. Remove my brain and put it into another body and the sense of “I” would be moved along with the brain. So am I the brain? What is the relation between the brain and the mind? Is there such a thing as a soul?

Science has provided a particularly valuable insight into the brain / mind / consciousness / soul debate that is well worth mentioning here. Some people have a severe form of epilepsy. This is like an electrical storm in the brain that can spread across the whole brain incapacitating the individual. The brain consists of two hemispheres with a narrow bundle of nerves connecting the two halves together (called the corpus callosum). To minimise the effects of epileptic attacks a number of people have had their corpus callosum completely severed. This surgery prevents an epileptic attack spreading to the other hemisphere. However, this drastic cutting of the brain into two halves has the effect of cutting the person into two! There are two streams of consciousness, each with its own personality, thought processes, memories and abilities that were stored in that half of the brain prior to the separation! One person has become two, each making their own decisions. Each “person” doesn’t know what the other is thinking about or knows. There are numerous articles on the subject. One link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain this of course raises big questions about what it means to be an individual. If a soul exists it implies a scalpel can cut it into two!

Investigation into the sense of self
So what is this sense of individuality - the feeling of “I”? Philosophers exchange lots of dry words on the subject but fail to leave anyone better informed. Similarly, scientists measure brain wave activity and can associate certain parts of the brain with certain aspects of mental functioning. While this is interesting it remains abstract. However, there is another more hands on way to investigate consciousness:

To give a little example, consider an apple. Philosophers could hold endless discussions about the merits of certain varieties of apples and their histories. Scientists can analyse apples and give you detailed information about their proteins, carbohydrates and mineral content. My personal investigation of an apple is to taste it. Neither philosophers nor scientists can convey to me what an apple tastes like.

Meditation
Meditation can be used as a form of inquiry allowing direct perception of the functioning of the mind akin to tasting the apple. It isn’t the mountain of words of the philosopher discussing the subject, nor is it a mass of abstract data and facts about electrical activity between neurons.

So what does meditation reveal? Some things may be apparent without doing a formal meditation practice; however meditation allows a deeper and clearer perception of mental processes.

At this point I’m not theorising, just stating what I perceive. Just as I’m aware that I’m not my body, observation of the mind reveals that I’m not my thoughts. The thoughts are objects of perception, they are not me. Thoughts come and go. My emotions are not me – the emotions are perceived. Similarly with all other mental activity, they are objects of perception, they are not me. They all come and go. You could then ask who is it that perceives these things? It is easy to make rash assumptions here and say the “soul” but that is just an idea. A word – you are back in the realms of philosophy and playing with words not direct observation. As the mental noise stills and perception goes deeper and deeper it becomes clear that I am consciousness itself. Consciousness “illuminates” all the mental objects such as thoughts, feelings, memories and perceptions. This mysterious consciousness is not separate from the objects perceived. This is a very difficult point to get across but is extremely important. There is no separate consciousness watching things. Consciousness and the thing perceived are like the two sides of a coin. Consciousness is always “of something” but never “by something”. It is not “my” consciousness, just consciousness. The idea of a separate individual “I” dissolves, it is just a fabrication, an abstraction of the mind.

Where does this observable feeling of “I” come from?
To communicate it is necessary to use words like “you”, “me” and “I”. Logically speculating now based on what I’ve perceived during deep meditation. I think this illusion of “I” is a normal function of the brain. It is a label that has evolved in the brain of humans – and probably most other animals.
Having a concept of self is a handy label for the brain to use to distinguish the particular human/animal it belongs to from other humans / animals or objects in the environment. Having an “I” label is useful for planning actions. “I” am hungry. “I” will go to the kitchen and “I” will get some food.
The brain has built up a massive number of rules on how to interact with other people and in particular circumstances. The common name given to the mass of rules is simply “personality”.

I don’t exist!
The bottom line is that there is no “I”; it is simply an abstraction created by the brain, a label. My real essence is consciousness itself. Your real essence is consciousness. The consciousness illuminates all the thoughts, feelings and emotions that occur in each brain. The accumulation of memories in the brain gives a storyline and a seeming continuity to idea of an “I” in each brain. Ever wonder why you were born as you? You weren’t! Consciousness makes each brain think it is the one and only “I”.

Hindus have a good analogy of this. Think of an ocean. At the bottom of this ocean are millions of jars, cups and other (open) vessels. The water flows freely in and out of these containers but it takes the shape of each container while inside. Consciousness is the ocean; each vessel is a person. Consciousness looks out of each individuals eyes and believes it is that particular person.

What is this consciousness? Is it an emergent property associated only with brains? I don’t know. Hindu’s say that this consciousness is God. Again I don’t know. The word “God” has been used and abused in so many different ways that it has no specific meaning for me.

Shift in perception
This awareness of the illusory nature of “I” has changed “my” perception of the world and everyone in it. There is often the feeling of not being separate from any other living beings on the planet. On the television news I see a Palestinian woman grieving over the death of her son, and I am that woman; the news article continues and there is a Jewish mother grieving over the loss of her soldier son, and I am that woman. My dog nudges my arm and looks at me longingly to be taken a walk, and I am that dog.

What is the universe, where did it come from?
I have a wild theory about this. It always struck me while studying physics how mathematics is the backbone of reality. I have a suspicion that maths goes deeper than this. At the most fundamental level I don’t think maths describes the universe. Instead I think the universe is mathematics. This may sound wacky or mundane but I think the entire universe is actually some abstraction of mathematics and data / information. If nothing physical existed, the rules of mathematics would still exist. Pythagoras’ theorem for right angled triangles would still be true independent of whether the universe exists or not, even if there are no living beings to discover the mathematics. Similarly you could say that the Mandlebot fractal set exists as pure mathematics even if nobody existed to generate the image on a computer. I have a hunch the entire universe is a complex mathematic abstraction. Time will tell. I wouldn’t be surprised if consciousness was related to this mathematical data at some level too.

Sorry this was so long. It is hard to condense forty years of scientific and spiritual enquiry into a few paragraphs.

There is much that you say that echoes in my own convictions and much that I find inadequate and misinterpretation. I have no experience with meditation and have only the vaguest idea as to what it is about. But at least I find your quest genuine and worth consideration. At almost 84 I too have tried to find sense and nonsense in most people's beliefs and unfortunately the nonsense seems not only overwhelming but depressing and frightening at a time when the power of humanity to change the world has advanced to the point where the short sighted rewards are defeating the very basis for existence of life on this planet. I have grandchildren who must survive through the oncoming disasters and I am frightened and depressed.

Great post, TallyMan. Consciousness has thus brightened my day a bit ... and how could that be possible? Why has the experience of this read seemed to have changed (improved) the taste of today's apple?

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I know you were speculating that some people would find this post far out or alien; I'm not sure who though. Its just carefully measured reality, I might have a few things to add but there's very little, if anything, that you said that I'd disagree on.

Hitting a brick wall at high velocity and momentum can only result in frightful disaster.

Very cool TallyMan - I'm so glad you came forth with your views. Please feel free to challenge anything I happen to say around here because I've been looking for a healthy debate for a while. I was at a buddhist centre for a while on and off and unfortunately my dysfunctional tendencies were way too discordant amongst all the serenity and discipline of the other buddhists. Screaming out 'Anarchy!' in the middle of a group of buddhists in a silent meditation retreat was a poor way of communicating my inability to confine myself to one or two of their rules. So I've missed being able to discuss views which I thought was a necessary part of development. For a long time I've just had to debate with myself. So I've come here to see if I can really clarify my views - if not to anyone else but myself. So yeah, just putting my understanding to the test, and maybe gain some new perspectives would be good too.

So anyhow I like your equation: consciousness = abstract mathematics

And I read a really cool book - The Zen Teaching of Hui Hai on sudden illumination
It's the only zen book I've read. You most likely know it. (haha - 'know it' - wouldn't that be good?!). My main practice is from the Tibetan tradition although they are thoroughly complimentary.

Depends which heads

Thanks Tallyman. I agree with much of your post.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY[/youtube]