A Physicist's Proof of God's Existence: Point and Counterpoint

Point. Physicist Amit Goswami "is convinced, along with a number of others who subscribe to the same view, that the universe, in order to exist, requires a conscious sentient being to be aware of it. Without an observer, he claims, it only exists as a possibility. And as they say in the world of science, Goswami has done his math. Marshalling evidence from recent research in cognitive psychology, biology, parapsychology and quantum physics, and leaning heavily on the ancient mystical traditions of the world, Goswami is building a case for a new paradigm that he calls 'monistic idealism,' the view that consciousness, not matter, is the foundation of everything that is."A professor of physics at the University of Oregon and a member of its Institute of Theoretical Science, Dr. Goswami is part of a growing body of renegade scientists who in recent years have ventured into the domain of the spiritual in an attempt both to interpret the seemingly inexplicable findings of their experiments and to validate their intuitions about the existence of a spiritual dimension of life. The culmination of Goswami's own work is his book The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. Rooted in an interpretation of the experimental data of quantum physics (the physics of elementary particles), the book weaves together a myriad of findings and theories in fields from artificial intelligence to astronomy to Hindu mysticism in an attempt to show that the discoveries of modern science are in perfect accord with the deepest mystical truths. (Link gone. Formerly at homepages.ihug.co.nz) Another link can be found here.

Counterpoint. "My main objection to Goswami's philosophy is that he has defined consciousness in such a way that it no longer has its normal meaning of mental consciousness, but instead is supposed to refer to something non-mental. We might call this 'Goswamian consciousness' or 'quantum consciousness', as opposed to 'mental consciousness'. He says, for instance:

...consciousness transcends both matter and mind ... [Hard Questions, Sect. II]

Conventionally, Western philosophers attribute properties of consciousness - experience and choice - to the mind. This has been corrected in quantum functionalism in which consciousness is defined to transcend both matter and mind. [Hard Questions, Sect. VI]

In so far as Goswami's philosophy is a monism at all, it is therefore a neutral monism, not a mental monism (or 'monistic idealism' as he calls it). As I have argued elsewhere, any neutral monism is actually identical to a version of physical monism, just because the physical world is already as neutral as a world can be. . . . You will not, for instance, spot any electrons by looking out of the window of the Clapham omnibus*: we are acquainted with the basic constituents of the physical world only through the propositions and formulae of physics. So, those extrinsic properties are the only properties possessed by those entities. Hence, physicalism itself is 'neutral' in the relevant sense. Therefore, to say that a metaphysical theory such as Goswami's is a 'neutral' monism is just to say that it is a 'physical' monism." (Link gone. Formerly at easyweb.easynet.co.uk) 

*(The man on the Clapham omnibus is a hypothetical ordinary and reasonable person, used by the courts in English law where it is necessary to decide whether a party has acted as a reasonable person would – for example, in a civil action for negligence. He is a reasonably educated, intelligent but nondescript person, against whom the defendant's conduct can be measured.)

My comments. In the counterpoint, an experiential approach is used. (Looking out the window of the Clapham omnibus.) For whatever it is worth, a different kind of experience consistently supports monistic idealism. All the accounts of mystics, be they Christian, Hindu, Buddhists, Sufi, share a pattern of description in terms of monistic idealism. People who report their experiences under hallucinogens also reveal a pattern of monistic idealism.

For a different perspective, I offer William James' classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience:

"Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. . . . And medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of all such personages is successfully undermined. . . . "

"According to the general postulate of psychology just referred to . . . scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see "the liver" determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. . . ."

"To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one has already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientific doctrines, not even our DIS-beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from the state of its possessor's body at the time."

Amit Goswami Physicist on Enlightenment Plus Jesus in Beijing

Chinese Jesus Nativity Scene

Jesus In Beijing; Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment; Knowledge Web

Jesus in Beijing. David Aikman's new book is Jesus in Beijing (Regnery). Aikman, the former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, charts admirably the fascinating, mercurial, and sometimes sadly instructive history of the Christian evangelization of China. It is a story of remarkable men and women: heroes, martyrs, eccentrics, and, yes—as elsewhere—dismal, even disgraceful heretics and apostates.

The Nestorian Christians—whose descendents are the Assyrian churches of Iraq—arrived in A.D. 635. Aikman traverses the subsequent history, ending with an analysis of the startling missionary vision of millions of Chinese Christians of the 21st century: to wend their way along the old Silk Road, gathering in the churches, converting the Muslims as they go, and then at last "to preach the gospel in Jerusalem." He includes superb mini-biographies of some of the most important historical figures and house-church leaders of the past half-century, as well as of dynamic current leadership. Jesus in Beijing at Christianity Today 

The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist’s Guide to Enlightenment, by Amit Goswami (2000, Quest).Most scientists today do science for career motives. Many who dream of a paradigm shift want to discover that one new idea that will bring them instant fame and fortune. The paradigm that integrates science and spirituality is not based on a new idea. Thus these scientists are reluctant to accept that the “new” idea for the paradigm they seek—the idea that “consciousness is the ground of all being”—has been around for millennia. Yet once one sees the validity of this idea, the authenticity of the quantum window also becomes clear. To appreciate the primacy of consciousness a scientist must investigate consciousness directly. Not with concepts, not only with public experiments in experimental metaphysics (important as these are), but also through direct experience. “Consciousness is closer than our jugular vein,” said the great sheik Ibn Arabi. We have to look at ourselves.

Traditional science demands from its practitioners strict objectivity: scientists must not become subjectively involved with their field; that is they may change the field of their practice, but they must not allow their research to change them. One must argue compellingly for scientists of the new science to radically extend their methodology in this regard. . . . . Scientists will continue to miss the very profound insight that consciousness is the ground of all being if they don’t delve into transformation. . . . .

The point is that the transformation in experience which the scientist would undergo while exploring consciousness is essential for the kind of direct and deep insight required to gain knowledge of the psyche. Without that, the scientist would be blind to the phenomena and processes under investigation. Such “inner vision” is the starting point—the sina que non—of any true consciousness science; it is the source of data which, later, the scientist can build into a communicable model. 

The knowledge web. With the knowledge web, humanity's accumulated store of information will become more accessible, more manageable, and more useful. Anyone who wants to learn will be able to find the best and the most meaningful explanations of what they want to know. Anyone with something to teach will have a way to reach those who what to learn. Teachers will move beyond their present role as dispensers of information and become guides, mentors, facilitators, and authors. The knowledge web will make us all smarter. The knowledge web is an idea whose time has come.

Free Will Illusion: Goswami, Balsekar, Benjamin Libet

The Illusion of Free Will: Physicist Amit Goswami, Sage Ramesh Balsekar, and Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet

Balsekar: [On free choice:] A personal awareness of that choice comes about 1/2 second later than a "readiness potentia" that appears in the brain wave, per brain surgeon Benjamin Libet. Thus there can be no free will, that most precious "possession" in the West. The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi said the same thing. You see the way I interpret it, in simple language, is this. In the ocean of consciousness there are possibilities. And quantum mechanics as I understand it, what is going to happen then is not really known. . . . And in that pool of consciousness which particular possibility becomes a fact, is not known. So if I say, "I have a thought," this means, as I understand it, what it really means is that thought has occurred half a second before I say, "it is my thought."

Goswami: That's right. That identity takes half a second to come about.

Balsekar: My interpretation as a layman is this . . . that a thought comes as one of the actualities from the pool of possibilities, and what comes from the pool of possibilities is outside my control, there is nothing I can do. And that thought arises, the brain reacts to that thought, and the reaction of the brain is what I choose to call my action, whereas it is not my reaction. It is a reaction of the brain to a thought that occurred a half-second earlier. Which I say is my thought!

Goswami: One can say that there is a choosing consciousness but certainly that's not the ego function.

Balsekar: Yes. Quite. So from the pool of consciousness, consciousness selects a particular thought.

Goswami: And that consciousness is what we variously call God, or the universal God.

Balsekar: On this particular thing, would you like to expand it? As it says, "the most prized possession of the West."

Goswami: I'd like to just make the Western view a little bit more palatable, by saying that the West does not make a complete mistake of this, because the very good thinkers of the West recognize that the action of free will is actually the action of surrender. There is action of free will by the human because human beings are separate from God, so the only way the only status the human being can have is to surrender to God's will. And there is no real distinction because there is only one world operating, so as soon as we learn to surrender then we are actually accepting free will.

Balsekar: So that means, what you are really surrendering is your concept of living . . . isn't it? What else do you have to surrender, what capital do you have to surrender to God from whom you have received everything? You have only the concept that you have free will to surrender. So that is why I often say, my only point is that nothing is in your control. Anything that happens is part of the impersonal functioning of the totality of consciousness, or the will of God.

Goswami: Libet is a very good neurophysiologist. He had done another experiment, related to the other experiment which shows clearly what you are saying. First of all, people are asked to will to raise their hand when they choose. So they will to raise their hand. Of course as indicated by the other experiment, half a second before they are willing, the experimenter looking at the EEG machine of course already knows that. But let me tell you. Then he said, "even after you become aware of your willing, try to see if you can stop yourself from raising your hand". So they did the experiment, and they found that when they were given the choice of negating the action, they could do it. So the conclusion is that the only little amount of escape hatch that consciousness retains in a state of identification with the ego is the ability to say no to a conditioned action. There is no free will there. We can stop ourselves even at that ego identification. More from The Online Bulletin of Science Within Consciousness
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My comments: Given that, as Libet's experiments suggest, the sense of conscious will is illusory, what then? His findings have implications for both belief in conscious will and for disbelief. Conditioning changes, depending on belief or disbelief. Belief in the sense begets one kind of conditioning; disbelief, another. Belief that one does have conscious will has brought about the conditions which provided for technological and political advances of the West. The essential point: even if conscious will is an illusion, belief or disbelief in conscious will has consequences conditioned by mind set toward the issue. These conditioned consequences shape individual lives and whole cultures.

Apart from illusions, the question of belief value arises. If something is judged as illusory, does that mean it is not valuable? It certainly had evolutionary survival value. If valuable in the context of human effects, illusion or not, it profits humanity.

The effects of Shakespeare or an elegant mathematical formula can be regarded as illusory. (Eastern thinkers would brush aside such effects as part of the dream called life. This is not the Western temperament. In his later years, Mark Twain was deeply troubled by questions of reality, exploring them in his works. In The Mysterious Stranger, the story's conclusion yields a Western, not Eastern, perspective. He wrote, Dream bigger dreams and better.)

Also note that Balsekar says that Consciousness chooses ("selects a particular thought"). No chooser, only the sense of choosing: this concept need not be fatalistic, but taken in the context of Balsekar's other writings it must be construed as fatalistic. Balsekar has said that his life has already been "chalked up."

But Quantum Theory indicates no fatalism in the universe. Rather, its evidence reveals indeterminism (Bohr) or determinism (Bohm), depending on the theorist, and this is an entirely different understanding. Nothing is already "chalked up." To use Balsekar's concept that Consciousness chooses, one can also infer that choice occurs in the moment, that nothing is predetermined. (See Daniel Dennett and choice machines, 8 January article above.)

Goswami points out that Libet's subjects can negate a hand's rising, "telling" it not to rise. This ability to negate an action is significant in that it accords with Eastern teachings, which stress attention to one's thoughts, deeds, and movements. Attention is taught as the only escape from ignorance. With attention, one can be alert to thought, deeds, and movements; by this alertness, he can stop their arisings and eventually decondition himself.

Goswami says this negation in Libet's subjects is not free will. Why is it not? If he means actions are not initiated and freely selected out of a field of opportunity, yes, he is correct. But it can still be considered a form of free will in that it either ratifies or vetoes an action arising in the sequence of conditioning. (As a term, free will has become too all-encompassing.)