Introduction to a Participatory World-View

David Lorimer

The scientific world-view dating back to Galileo established a sharp distinction between primary and secondary qualities, effectively defining consciousness as secondary and excluding it from science. Descartes reinforced this with his distinction between res extensa (primary) and res cogitans (secondary). This is turn laid the foundations for epiphenomenalism or the view that mind or consciousness is derived from and entirely dependent upon brains and physical bodies. The reductio ad absurdum of this view came with behaviourism, but since then science has gradually become more interested in consciousness. Many people are now arguing that a science of consciousness cannot meaningfully exclude the subjective dimension, but the question is how to incorporate it: does science continue to restrict itself to the objective, outer perspective, or does it now develop a complementary science of the subjective? The danger with the first alternative is that it limits its analysis of subjective experience by defining it simply as pointer readings.

A participatory world-view suggests that the distinction between subject and object is less absolute and clear-cut than assumed above. It acknowledges the basic post-modern insight that the world as we perceive it is a construction, but questions its accompanying relativism. Levels of the construction of reality include the neural, mental, emotional, social and cultural. Suggestive parallels are provided by the role of the observer in quantum mechanics (although sometimes the observer is deemed to be a measuring apparatus), the co-creation of the environment in Gaia theory, and the interdependence implied in systems theory and ecological thinking.

Consciousness is inherently participatory in all its manifestations. This is perhaps clearer in relation to altered states than in normal sense perception. For instance, the sense of self in the NDE and mystical experience is extended or even merged with its ground. The existence of different levels or states of consciousness suggests the possibility of developing one's consciousness through spiritual disciplines, a path already pursued by mystics and contemplatives of all traditions. The evolutionary process has been mapped by Richard Tarnas, while Mark Woodhouse's energy monism and Ken Wilber's integral approach to consciousness suggest possible formulations of a wider and deeper world-view. I hope that our discussions will fill out the emerging picture.