*SCIENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS & ULTIMATE REALITY

Towards an Agnostic Spirituality
For any reader of the "Network" this is a compulsory read. The title has it exactly right. It is an examination of exactly how far we are compelled to go in the exploration of consciousness in the quest for ultimate reality. The articles compiled here are taken from a series of university seminars given by the SMN and funded by the John Templeton Foundation. That university staff and students have been exposed to these ideas is a justification for the existence of the SMN without anything else.

David Lorimer's editorial introduction is a lucid summary of all that follows. Those who skip read might be tempted to stop at this point except that they will miss valuable insights if they do. Bernard Carr places our modern knowledge of man and cosmos into a full perspective. Sometimes a diagram can contain more meaning than a thousand words. Carr's tail swallowing snake, the Uroborus is a mandala that does that. It demonstrates that though the cosmically vast and infinitesimally tiny are separated by 60 orders of magnitude, they yet lead directly into each other. What is more, human consciousness is not an irrelevant accident on the fringe of the cosmos, but something integrally involved with the total fabric of reality. What then is the precise connection between the inner dimension of mind and the outer dimension of matter, and exactly how wide are the dimensions of the mind? Carr points the importance of the investigation of paranormal phenomena.

Chris Clarke takes up these themes, though he begins by pointing out that the moral bankruptcy of contemporary culture is directly related to the cult of reductionist materialism. However when we look into matter using the most powerful insights we possess in quantum physics, we discover that the energies of matter and the fact of consciousness are inseparably intertwined . Reductionism is logically self-contradictory. Regardless of all else this contribution also provides a brief, clear layman's guide to present issues in quantum physics.

Following Carr and Clarke, Peter Fenwick suggests that neuro-physiology should be turned round and brain events should be regarded as the consequence of mind activity, not its cause. This means that consciousness is something wider than and different from the physical. The scientific evidence for this is available to the impartial observer in the accounts of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and telekinesis. In particular he gives his own research into experience at the point of death. Those dying often experience, or cause, visions of others who are not in their presence which are inexplicable but veridical. Also when the brain is dead, or totally inert, people can vividly experience a liberation from their body, a picture of their surroundings from above their body, and then a movement into another intensely meaningful dimension of existence. This suggests that like space and time, consciousness may be a universal dimension. Carr, Clarke and Fenwick argue powerfully that scientific understanding has gone beyond the limits of reductionism and it is necessary to examine the wider and wilder shores of conscious experience. The remaining contributors take up this challenge. Guy Claxton is acutely aware that whatever we say we are imposing a pre-existing framework of ideas. Thus Peter Fenwick is assuming there is a material world that the liberated consciousness is viewing from the outside, and there is a permanent self that is doing the viewing. Claxton queries both assumptions. From a Zen perspective there is just a flow of conscious experience and the divisions we impose on it are arbitrary. This poses the problem of what it is which looks into its mind and discovers that it is not there. However the question remains whether it is worthwhile asking those who have had an NDE whether they have read the message on top of the filing cabinet, or whether we just accept that they have passed into another form of experience.

David Fontana argues that if we reorganise our view of experience in the manner of Ken Wilber's four quadrants we can do full justice to the triumphant progress of science and yet investigate the wider frontiers of consciousness. Mary Midgley points out that the Cartesian dualism of mind and body cuts us off not only from our own physical and emotional being, but also from our fellow human beings and the rest of life and existence. Ridding ourselves of this dualism reveals a more open view of life and its purposes.

Four very different contributions all argue that the ultimate reality which reconciles science and consciousness is Christian theism. Christianity is saddled with two incompatible versions of life after death, the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul. Keith Ward provides a sophisticated philosophical analysis which offers a reconciliation of these beliefs. Interestingly, he does not consider any experimental evidence from psychical research which might indicate what, if anything, might survive physical death. Alan Torrance analyses the contradictions of materialism as applied to science and psychology and suggests that theism provides a clearer answer to what consciousness is. Denis Alexander shows the confusions of materialism and sociological relativism when an attempt is made to apply them to moral issues and human purposes. He argues that any moral vision requires Christian theism. John Habgood examines what it means to be a human being, and what is the nature of human subjectivity. Again he argues that subjectivity cannot be fully understood except in terms of a Creator God.

Does theism therefore offer an answer to the problem of ultimate reality? None of the contributors subject Christian theism to the same forensic logic with which they examine alternative positions. It is not quite certain that it offers an insight into ultimate reality equivalent to that which quantum physics gives to the understanding of matter. Despite, or more precisely, because of such conflicts such as that between Einstein and Bohr, quantum physics has vastly advanced into a deeper understanding of matter in the 100 years since Max Planck. Judaic, Moslem and Christian theism have been a loggerheads for most of two millennia and have achieved no advance at all.

Ravi Ravindra offers a different approach. We use our own consciousness as the instrument to investigate reality. Should we not therefore pay attention to the limitations of the instrument and seek to discipline and purify it? This leads directly to the practice of yoga. Yoga leads to a self-transcending ascent whereby the body, the emotions and the physical world are left behind as consciousness attains union with the first person universal. In this way science and consciousness are merged into ultimate reality. Such exalted yogic intuition rises above pedestrian reason. However the ego-bound intellect may remark that in its flight upwards beyond space and time yogic intuition has failed to observe such interesting things as the moons of Jupiter, the cholera bacillus, and the laws of electromagnetism. It is only half an answer to say that it was not concerned with such trivial phenomena.

These essays are at the cutting edge of the ultimate questions of human existence. Where are we now? What is the self? How does everything fit together? Reductionist materialism is just a working hypothesis of limited practical use, though it may take orthodox science a little while yet to realise this. We are therefore faced with exploring consciousness as a dimension of existence in its own right. That leads to understanding that at the deepest level we all one of another, and that we face a realm of self-transcending experience that is more ourselves than the limited ego within our skulls. The hedonistic morality of the late 20th century is clearly dated. What is the vision of ultimate reality that makes sense of our situation? Two dominant metaphysical alternatives are on offer, Christian theism and Vedantic monism. They are clear, precise, confident, cosmic in scope, mutually incompatible, and slightly unbelievable. The dominant climate of advanced thinking in the 21st century may be a form of agnostic spirituality akin to early Buddhism.