Publisher's Synopsis
One of the most significant discoveries of modern science is that the world we perceive around us is not as it appears. Rather, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and quantum physics have demonstrated that our day-to-day reality is a relative construct, built upon a scaffolding of information bits that betray their real origin and causation. For instance, the other day, I remarked to my oldest son, Shaun, that the ocean water around Catalina Island looked exceptionally blue. But, given his deep knowledge of science, my son responded that such "blueness" was actually not in the water at all, but how different light waves get absorbed and refracted. The colors we see are due to the spectral properties of light. The longer wavelengths of light (such as red, orange, and yellow) are more readily captured by H20 whereas the shorter wavelength of light (such as blue) gets refracted and thus we see the color blue, particularly if the water is clear. But the scientific explanation for why an ocean is blue or a sunset is red is precisely not how we tend to experience such at first glance. In other words, the way we apprehend the world around us is not necessarily how we later comprehend it through scientific analysis. And herein lies the great divide, the great deception, or what early Indian rishis insightfully called "Maya." We live in a magic land, where all that manifests and appears real and certain is anything but. Perhaps the study of consciousness has an inherent limitation, similar in import to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics or Gödel's incompleteness theorem in mathematics. Perhaps we are like seasoned travelers on a Mobius strip in quest of the "other" side of the band who after long and arduous circular travels come to realize that no matter what route we take we will always only be touching the same surface. If this is so, then a specialized version of Niels Bohr's complementarity may be an instructive insight for us as we venture forth: "In any given situation, the use of certain classical concepts excludes the simultaneous meaningful application of other classical concepts." In the study of consciousness it appears we may have to confront an epistemological complementarity where any objective study (via third person analysis) of qualia must by necessity lose in translation a fundamental feature of the very phenomenon under inspection. Conversely, any purely subjective endeavor to explore consciousness must by its very act forego any attempt to maximally objectify what is experienced, lest the experience itself be lost in attempting to exteriorize that which is de facto interior. To mistake a wave (and what it brings forth) with the totality of the ocean is like confusing a state of awareness (and its implications) with the ultimate reality of all that exists. A broken down melody is, to quote one distinguished musician, no longer a melody. Similarly a broken down consciousness is no longer itself and therein lies the present conundrum in consciousness studies. My own hunch is that the most fruitful avenue for the scientific study of awareness is to fully exhaust a physical explanation of it first. This does not mean, of course, that such an endeavor will be successful or that consciousness is merely the result of a neural net, but only that if our efforts fail we will be left with a most interesting remainder which in itself will be highly instructive about the nature of self-reflective awareness. More precisely, unless we fully option a materialist approach, we run the very real risk of prematurely championing something as spiritual when, in fact, given better instrumentation and technical prowess it may well have been the result of subtle neuronal discharges. I don't say this lightly as I know from my own personal experience how increasingly advanced diagnostic methods can unearth hitherto hidden physical variables. This book combines the Oceanic Metaphor and the Cerebral Mirage.
