Why science and spirituality are at a standoff

by Vic Shayne
author
Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence

As of late I have been reading a number of online discussions with people who are wondering how close science is to explaining the origins of consciousness, thought, expressions, ideas, memories, the subconscious, the unconscious, and so on. I find it curious that people look to science for such answers, and here’s why…

Four or five good reasons why we can’t look to science
First, people, including brilliant scientists, are as heir to baseless beliefs and suppositions as anyone else. Materialists attribute everything that exists to chemistry and physical causes. For this reason, and others, Bernard Kastrup wrote his aptly titled book, Why Materialism is Baloney. So if there is existence and awareness that is not chemical or so-called physical, materialist scientists simply believe it cannot exist. They are arrogant in their belief and defend it by citing possibilities and probabilities of the physical world while using logical fallacies coupled with derisive comments about religious people, the New Age movement, Easter Bunnies and Santa Claus. The internet is riddled with such expressions by materialists. They think that by throwing enough stuff against the wall something is bound to sound like a credible argument.

Second, science (neuroscience, et.al.) can only find correlates to emotions and thoughts. It cannot find causation. The two are different things. Just because the brain lights up when a person feels sad does not mean that the brain is causing the sadness. Just because a steering wheel is in a car that is in a wreck does not mean that the steering wheel is the cause of the wreck. If part of a subject’s brain lights up when he thinks of swimming in a cold lake, this doesn’t mean that his brain is the storehouse for the emotion. And, when scientists say that stimulation of the angular gyrus portion of the brain causes a feeling of dissociation, this does not mean that it is an explanation for out of body experiences.

Third, millions of people have had, and continue to have, experiences in which they are aware of their surroundings and their existence without being contained within a body or brain. Unless this has been a scientist’s personal experience, he/she is okay with denying that such occurrences are possible. But this denial is based upon belief and not actual firsthand knowledge. Mainstream science has the arrogance to think that it has the right to define what is real and what is possible. I am reminded of Peter Venkman’s line in Ghostbusters: “Back off, man, I’m a scientist.”

Fourth, most scientists do not understand consciousness. They are just scientists, not gurus, psychonauts, shamans, deep meditators, Buddhists, Hindus, or philosophers. Perhaps to know what consciousness really is would be in conflict with the preconceived ideas of materialists relating to what reality is. So what we commonly get are definitive statements based on no more than beliefs. And these beliefs are defended as being superior to other people’s beliefs because…well, because scientists are superior people, right? “Back off, man, I’m a scientist!”

Mainstream science regards consciousness as an artifact of the brain. Still, science has no way of explaining how it is that one knows what it feels like to exist. And there are countless other things that science has no way of explaining that millions, if not billions, of people experience every day and night.

Fifth, science has no instrumentation to measure what is outside of measurement. Thus, it cannot measure or explain reality, consciousness, or any number of phenomena such as out of body experiences, formless meditative states, pure awareness, etc.

Okay, science may be getting interesting
Some quantum physicists recognize consciousness to be the totality of the universe that is prior to time and space. As such they are quicker to understand that physical, Newtonian laws are old and outdated ideas that fail to explain the phenomena that we now know exists. Physicist John Hagelin, PhD, for example, has concluded that Einstein’s unified field is the same as consciousness. And physicist Amit Goswami, PhD, tells us that consciousness is the ground of all being, something that is prior to material existence. Hats off to these people!

Science has value, don’t get me wrong
Wait a minute! I may be accused of hating science and thinking that all scientists are wrong and worthless. Not at all. Science has resolved a great many of our problems as a human species — energy, communication, transportation, housing, and so on. It’s a long list. Science is great. Of course, it is imperfect and has frequently caused worse problems than it has fixed, and it has often been railroaded by corporate interests. However, science is useful, helpful, and practical. But because science has been such a great help over the centuries, as an institution it has elevated itself to the status of god (or God, if you prefer the formality of a capital “S”). Science has become such a big and glorious god that many scientists say with absolute certainty that there is no God and anyone who thinks there is is a moron. How do they know for sure? They don’t. I don’t know either, and the idea of god sounds like a misunderstanding of metaphor to me. Or, at best, an anthropomorphized version of consciousness. But absolute statements by scientists really aren’t that helpful when it comes to judging things that are beyond the ken of science.

Maybe you don’t exist
Certain Eastern schools such as Vedanta, have taught for thousands of years that the egoic mind (the persona, or sense of an individual self) does not really exist (except as a belief) and that consciousness is the totality of all that is. This is known by way of observation without the judging-rationalizing mind. Scientists who do not do the work of persistent observation and meditation are relying on the very mind that is the obstacle to understanding what they pretend to know does not exist.

Yes, I realize the last sentence is a bit intense, so here’s a simpler version: It is very unscientific to claim that something does not exist based only on the fact that a person is a scientist. If we keep going back and back and back, before the body, before matter, before the mind, before thought, and so on, then what remains? This is the stuff of self-enquiry, and what comes out of self-enquiry is the mystical reality that sages have been talking about for millennia.