Imants Baru š s

Analysis of the social-cognitive substrate of scientific activity reveals that much of science functions in an inauthentic mode whereby a materialist world view constrains the authentic practice of science. But materialism cannot explain matter, as evidenced by empirical data concerning the nature of physical manifestation. Nor, then, should materialism be the basis for our interpretation of consciousness. It is time to move beyond scientific materialism and develop transcendent theories of consciousness. Such theories should minimally meet the following criteria: they should be based on all of the usual empirical data concerning consciousness, including altered states of consciousness; they should take into account data about anomalous phenomena and transcendent states of consciousness; they should address the issue of existential meaning and provide soteriological guidance; and they should be consistent with the most accurate theories of physical manifestation, such as relativistic quantum field theories. Speculating within a quantum-theoretic context, consciousness could be inserted as a primitive element into reality by providing a role for intention in the selection process of observables, the collapse of the state vector, or the ordering of quantum fluctuations. But consciousness could be more fundamental, in the sense of a deep consciousness coinciding with a pre-physical substrate, from which intention shapes both mental experience and physical manifestation. If any significance can be attached to the mathematical formalism of relativistic quantum field theories, perhaps creation and Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17, No. 7–8, 2010, pp. 213–31 Correspondence: Imants Barušs, King’s University College, 266 Epworth Ave., London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 2M3 Email: [email protected] C op yr ig ht (c ) I m pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 3 Fo r p er so na l u se o nl y -no t f or re pr od uc tio n annihilation operators, which determine the fluctuations of a quantum field, can metaphorically be regarded as the avenue through which intention acts. Morphic fields within the pre-physical substrate could hold in place patterns that shape the reality that we experience. Among such morphic fields could be ones that correspond to the world view of scientism. By becoming authentic, one could break from such constraints and consider alternative possibilities that can include various forms of radical transformation. Questioning Assumptions In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger (1962) distinguished two modes of being, the inauthentic and the authentic. The inauthentic mode of being is characterized by compliance with the expectations of others for our interpretation of reality. Since the time of Heidegger’s writing, humanistic psychologists have presented the same idea using somewhat different conceptual schemata (e.g., Rogers, 1967), and social psychologists have identified mechanisms of influence through which compliant behaviour is elicited (e.g., Cialdini, 1988). Inauthenticity, by its nature, is such that it usually functions unacknowledged, although some of its features are more readily noticeable in cults. For instance, there is tacit acquiescence by cult members not to question the fundamental beliefs upon which the cult is based. In a UFO cult, for example, it could be unacceptable to question whether or not the Ashtar Command is really sitting behind the asteroid belt waiting to save the true believers during the upcoming apocalypse. Asking such questions could lead to retribution against the apostate in the form of intensified brainwashing (Barušs, 1996). Scientific activity, since it is embedded within a social framework, is not exempt from social pressures. Indeed, much of science functions in an inauthentic mode, which is sometimes called scientism. At the core of scientism is the belief in materialism (Barušs, 1996; cf. Tart, 2009), which is held in place through the politics of science (cf. Kellehear, 1996). For much of scientific activity, belief in materialism makes little difference. But that is not the case with the scientific study of consciousness, which naturally intrudes on the protected territory of the fundamental beliefs of scientism. Questioning these beliefs can lead to ostracization of anyone doing such questioning, so that the heretic cannot get academic promotions, receive research funding, supervise graduate students, publish in the top journals in her field, and so on (cf. Jahn, 2001). It is in this way that science itself can function as a cult (Barušs, 1996). 214 I. BARUŠS C op yr ig ht (c ) I m pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 3 Fo r p er so na l u se o nl y -no t f or re pr od uc tio n Authenticity involves acting on the basis of one’s own understanding rather than following the dictates of social norms. This translates into scientists pursuing research springing from their own knowledge, which itself is based on the empirical evidence that is available to them, in part, through the scientific community. In particular, in its essence, science is about asking questions and seeking answers to them, including questions about socially protected assumptions, rather than simply accepting authoritative statements about the nature of reality (Barušs, 1996). In consciousness studies, questioning assumptions can include questioning functionalism as a useful way of thinking about consciousness. Jerry Fodor, for instance, has said that he ‘would have thought that the last forty or fifty years have demonstrated pretty clearly that there are aspects of higher mental processes into which the current armamentarium of computational models, theories, and experimental techniques offers vanishingly little insight’ (Fodor, 2000, p. 2). Logicians, such as Jon Barwise (1986), have questioned the very basis for such an enterprise. For instance, as Dan Dennett has pointed out, for computationalism to work, there needs to be a formal language running in the brain, which he dubbed mentalese (Dennett, 1978). But such a language has never been found, nor, from what I have heard from them, do computationalists believe that such a language will ever be found. And there is no recourse to be sought in connectionism, given that connectionist models are all probably Turing-computable and, hence, formally equivalent to conventional computational models (Pylkkö, 1998). If we disregard the need for mentalese then we just end up with dynamical systems theory, in which differential or difference equations are used to simulate cognitive processes (Giunti, 1995; van Gelder & Port, 1995), and we are back to where we were historically before the promise of functionalism. This is the sort of thing that we open up if we start to question our assumptions. Maybe we are looking for consciousness at the wrong level by assuming that consciousness must somehow arise from cellular interactions, as we do in computationalist, connectionist, and dynamical models. For instance, Patricia Churchland’s efforts to understand mental events did not rest at the neurological stratum. She said that, ‘for purists, the real bottom will of course belong not to neuroscience but to physics’ (Churchland, 1980, p. 207). So let us consider the real bottom. BEYOND SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM 215 C op yr ig ht (c ) I m pr in t A ca de m ic 2 01 3 Fo r p er so na l u se o nl y -no t f or re pr od uc tio n