Deep Mind

http://www.thegreatonwardpress.com/9974/03/index25article6.html

What is consciousness? And where does it come from? As far as Western science is concerned, consciousness is a great enigma. That we are conscious beings is the most obvious fact of our existence. Yet there is nothing more difficult to explain. Why should the complex processing of information in the brain result in a corresponding experience? There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that predicts any of us should have an interior world. Paradoxically, science would be much happier if there were no such thing as consciousness—yet without consciousness there would be no science.

Today, largely as a result of a growing understanding of the human brain, a number of psychologists and philosophers are investigating the mystery of consciousness. Some believe that a deeper understanding of brain chemistry will explain how consciousness arises. Others look to quantum physics. Some explore cybernetics; others find sources of hope in chaos theory. Yet whatever idea is put forward, one thorny question remains unanswered: How can something as immaterial as consciousness ever arise from something as unconscious as matter?

… [W]e are in a situation similar to that of the medieval astronomers who tried in vain to explain the irregular motion of the planets with a complex system of circles rolling around circles. Copernicus realized that if the Earth were not the center of the universe but a planet orbiting the sun, then the wandering motion of the planets could be easily explained. But the Church did not take kindly to his ideas. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for supporting the Copernican model (and for referring to God as “she”), while Galileo was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

In present times we may be approaching a similar paradigm shift with regard to consciousness. Most scientists assume that consciousness emerges in some way or other from brain activity. But if this approach is getting us nowhere, perhaps we should consider an alternative worldview—one found in many metaphysical and spiritual traditions, where consciousness is held to be an essential quality of the cosmos, as fundamental as space, time, and matter.

Interestingly, expanding our worldview to include consciousness as a fundamental quality does not actually threaten any of the conclusions of modern science. Mathematics remains the same, as do physics, biology, chemistry, and all our other discoveries about the material world. What changes is our understanding of ourselves. If consciousness is indeed fundamental, then the teachings of the great sages and mystics begin to make new sense.

Those who have penetrated to the core of their minds have frequently discovered a profound connection with the ground of all being. The sense of being an individual self—that feeling of I-ness that we all know so well but find so hard to define—turns out to be not so unique after all. They claim repeatedly that the light of consciousness shining in me as my self is the same light that shines in you and in every other sentient being.

Some have expressed this realization in the statement “I am God.” To modern science, such statements are nothing more than self-delusion. Physicists have looked out into deep space to the edges of the universe, back into “deep time” to the beginning of creation, and down into “deep structure” to the fundamental constituents of matter. The majority have found not only no evidence for God, but no need for God. The Universe seems to work perfectly well without any divine assistance.

But when mystics speak of the divine, they are not speaking of some supernatural being who rules the workings of the universe; they are talking of the world within. If we want to find God, we need to look into the realm of “deep mind”—a realm that science has only begun to explore. As we learn more, we may find that we have embarked on a course that will lead not only to a much fuller understanding of ourselves, but also to that long-sought synthesis of science and spirit.

— Peter Russell,
in the introduction to
The Quiet Center,
by John C Lilly