Religions, Science and Consciousness
Religions assert the
existence of an immaterial principle, parallel to the physical body, which
somehow generates both consciousness and the sense of identity. Mystery solved
for religions! But there are differences between doctrines as to the course
that takes such a principle when someone dies.
Buddhists are reborn
in an extension of the current life span and the fate of the new life
manifestation is determined by karma, the good or bad actions accumulated until
the moment of the transition. Hinduists reincarnate in another body but with
the same soul of their previous stage. Christians, after staying in
intermediate heavens or hells, will resurrect with their same identity on the
day of the final judgment.
For most scientists,
in contrast, consciousness is a physical phenomenon, though there is no
satisfactory explanation as yet of how it works. "There is no ghost in the
machine," says English philosopher Gilbert Ryle with humor. And when death
arrives, we are gone forever.
opposing positions, the religious and the scientific, there are two interesting
approaches, we want to highlight. The first is by Max Tegmart, cosmologist and
physicist from MIT; the second one is by Matthieu Ricard, a former molecular
biologist and now an active Buddhist monk.
Max Tegmark's theory
is quite novel. Physicists and chemists have for decades studied molecular
arrangements with countless variations, and have found that the behavior of the
whole depends on the way the components are arranged. "The difference
between a solid, a liquid and a gas, the three commonly recognizable states of matter,
does not depend on the molecules themselves, but on the way they are
organized," Doctor Tegmark says. Ice, water and steam are H2O
molecules but we see and feel them differently.
Swedish-American scientist suggests that consciousness is equivalent to another
state of matter, besides the three commonly recognized; all humans feel this
fourth state or phase but do not realize its existence. Perceptronium, the
assigned name, is the state of matter that makes consciousness and the
experience of subjectivity arise. The scientist adds that "this state not
only stores and processes information but it does it so that it forms a unified
and indivisible whole." Dr. Tegmark's hypothesis, which has been formally
revised in the scientific world, is imaginative yet controversial.
Let us now see what
the Buddhist monk says. The process of rebirth involves the flow of a
continuous stream of consciousness that connects deaths (or dissolutions) with
rebirths (or reappearances). "This chain", according to Matthieu
Ricard, "is like the fire of a log that passes to another log, which in
turn ignites a third, and so on. The flame of the last log is not the same from
the initial one, but neither is it a different one either."
And he adds:
"There is no thread going through the beads of the necklace of rebirths.
Throughout the successive rebirths, what is maintained is not the identity of a
person but the conditioning of a stream of consciousness”. My interpretation?
The monk is talking about something measurable (the conditioning} and about a
variable (a stream of consciousness) that could perhaps be calculated as a
physical property. Is there in the monk's approach any influence from his
scientific background as a molecular biologist? Doctor Ricard says nothing
Consciousness is a
yet unexplained phenomenon that we, humans, experience. The absence of
understanding, however, does not make it a metaphysical enigma. As an example, dark matter and dark energy are two mysterious substances, both invisible
but real, that make up ninety-five percent of all of what exists in the
universe; nobody would dare to consider
such strange entities as supernatural. Similarly, many ancient cultures,
illiterate in physical sciences, worshiped the Sun as a divinity. No one does
hypothesis like doctor Tegmark’s or metaphors such as doctor Ricard’s, lights
emerge that could illuminate the unknown. Are they correct? Perhaps not, but
the proposals of consciousness as a result from unknown molecular structures or
from subtle flows of something not yet known could be both sparks of creativity
that will contribute to the future understanding of consciousness, by far the
most complex of the many mysteries that humanity has yet pending to resolve.