GEORGIOS MAVROUDIS

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Research on Consciousness by the Aid of the Psychedelic E !erience

" E # R U A R $ %&&% ** *

"ORE'ORD
Bewilderment; confoundness; mystification; infantilism those are the words that best describe the contemporary condition in science when it comes to the issue of consciousness. In an age when we appear to have reached an immense sophistication of knowledge over the nature of matter, the cosmogonic evolution, the life, the society, we remain almost speechless against the slippery inquiry of the nature of consciousness. If mathematical formulation is to be the bedrock of ideological and scientific certitude then we have no certitude whatsoever in the realm of what is the mind. We endorse to all of kind of hypotheses unconsciously but when we are pressed, we cannot defend our position. It is not an e aggeration to report that all rationalistic formulas seem to fail on the probing of this strange, yet overwhelming, phenomenon. In contrast to the natural sciences, psychology is still suspended by the lack of dare or innovation to overcome the challenges, which come out from the mystifying darkness of consciousness. While physics have already made their great leap towards the quantum indeterminacy and biology has penetrated to the spinal cord of life, the !"#, psychology is still under their capitulation, with a deficiency of its own original methodology for the investigation of the phenomena that is concerned with. $f course, we can give the mitigation that psychology is still a young a science, an immature discipline against an incredibly perple ed problem% &he question of what mind is, what consciousness is and what behavior is for. &hose are not simple questions. &hose enigmas delegate the humankind to the dangling enterprise of discovering the truth for millennia. We are not really much progressed since 'eraclitus, #ristotle, and (armenides had postulated their first speculations on the nature of consciousness. We might have progressed in methods of probing the brain but our theories on the issue are, all in all, a drama of discrepancies and crudeness. $n this paper, the reader will find that there is a general apprehension against obsolete theories that govern stubborningly the field of psychology. Both )artesian dualism and cognitive theories will have to be strictly critici*ed. # new skepticism will stand against all present assumptions with the premise of a more radical revaluation of the mind and consciousness. "o doubt, it is a dauntingly difficult task to face most of the new cognitive doctrines and the physicalist map of the philosophy of science. &heir descendance from the traditional rationalism guarantees their full consistency and thus their undefeatable status to any rival theories. +es, naiveties of the embodied soul and the )artesian theater kind, as !ennett designated, are forlorn by their fallacy when they are put ne t to the reductionistic cartography of the brain. 'owever, the triumph of the cognitive research is surprisingly undermined by the parade of brand new ideas coming from the field of the natural sciences. While, ,ournals and books proclaim that the time of naivety is over and consciousness becomes accessible to ob,ective research, yet in compliance with the quantum physics, chaos theory and morphogenetic fields in biology, this very proclamation seems to ,oin the same naiveties. &he message that we got from new approaches in other levels of our reality is that any ,udgment which rushes to be established over an obsolete or yet incomplete conception of the universe and life is doomed to failure by a humiliating canceling. &hat and only that should keep us open to new approaches and ideas, to new theories and philosophies and at the same time uncommitted to any present ideologies. $therwise, our hopes for unraveling the nature of consciousness or any other phenomenon that stands beyond our grasp will be afflicted by a terrible suspension of progress. &herefore, in this paper the research will march in the darkness of consciousness equipped with a different verdict. &his verdict will be shaped by two inescapable factors that, in a way, condition the issue of consciousness. &he transcendental e perience and the quantum mechanics will intricate the question and will feed us with an abundance of new ideas and notions about the mind. &hey will send us farther away for a deeper comprehension of consciousness. &heir unanimity to each other and, most importantly, their unanimity to the sense of having a mind, their amenability to the old suppositions of our pristine imagination incite me to use them for the enterprise of transcending obscuring and disorientating notions on the scientific safari of consciousness studies. -ntil now, science has been regarded as the road that leads away from the traditional modes of thinking about the self and the universe. .cience is known as the highway to the truth, which is supposed to be

diametrically opposed to the archaic accepted wisdom, many times called superstitious or raw. But as more information is gathered from various sources, a cosmos is build that gets increasingly akin to the old good commencements on our nature. It is not an overstatement the fact that new scientific reports return humiliated to many initial theses that were held centuries ago. &hey do not proved necessarily identical to their initiations but analogous to them and that leads one to think that this highway is a roundabout, really. I do not take the position of an e tremely radicalism in the following pages. I do not imply that all the current science is square to one and, hence, that we need to return to mysticism in order to resolve the problem of consciousness. /y proposal is an attack against the reluctance of cognitive scientists to comprise on their investigation of mind the antipodes of human e perience that have been reported as long as we possess the linguistic capacity and the novel revolutionary knowledge that they, averagely, insist on refusing to use. 0uantum physics and the psychedelic e perience figure out as the most promising elements for the unraveling of consciousness1 nature. (erhaps, not all philosophers, scientists or trouble2free people can see the reason for the psychedelic or quantum usage in such a research. "evertheless, once they obligate themselves in a deep study of these issues they will concede that their hesitation was based on their ignorance on the offerings that those sources of information give to the pu**lement of contemporary epistemology and psychology on the issue. It seems that a big eureka waits us all there. &he enigma of consciousness can be thoroughly understood in a more substantial way, as long as we enlarge both the map of causalities in our theoretical analysis through quantum mechanics and the spectrum of our cognitive e perience by the use of psychedelic compounds. &herefore, the research will go hunting for a sufficient answer to the mystery of consciousness via the 3,ungle4 of the transcendental e perience and its verifying accompaniment of the quantum physics. It should be evident already that here we are talking about the spirituali*ation of science or, maybe, the scientific concreti*ation of spirituality. Well, that kind of compromise should transpose the problem giving us the chance to gather all the useful data in a landscape of dissipative ideas and to structure a theory of consciousness that will not steal away from us the uniqueness that we feel as human beings; neither the magnitude of our being. .uch an endeavor can only provide us both with an anthropical optimism and a set of knowledge that will be adequate to the probing of the meaningful nature of possessing a consciousness. &he paper is punctuated in three main parts that confess the problem of consciousness from three different perspectives. 5irst, cognitive theories, based on physicalistic notions, will give their own popular account. #s we will apprehend, though, their incompatibility and the wide variation of their direction gives a vacillating disposition that pilots not in a secure way to the understanding that we are searching for. #lthough, cognitive scientists like !aniel !ennett and .teven (inker have written powerful books that shed light to numerous previous uncertainties on how the mind works, nevertheless, their versions of consciousness are really superficial, as they neglect aspects of the issue that in any way defy e planation. 'owever, an e planation is not given, apart from a short comment of superiority against ostensibly naiveties that entrench the question. &hey are truly tentative on diving in for a deeper e planation of consciousness. #n e planation that will grant us the sort of approval that comes when an e planation really fits with the sub,ect of its inquiry. #nd since consciousness is not only the frantic firing of the neurons 6at least to our 3illusory4 e perience, as many scientists want us to believe, we will ,ump to the second part on an issue that still, in the dawn of the third millennium, remains largely une plored. &he psychedelic e perience, albeit as ancient as our species and our cognition, has not yet been e plored in an ample way. &he governments suspend our formal knowledge on the issue and hence we linger on in not a particularly more advanced level than the primates1 knowledge. We are infantile on the pu**le of the psychedelic ecstasy in an analogous way to our bafflement about the nature of mind. It seems that once we take the admission to go forward on such an eerie e periment, we will be able to unravel the greater mystery of them all. It is that revelatory the psychedelic e perience and that misconstrued from our contemporary culture. &he aim of this paper is to show evidently how psychedelics can reorient us in the study of consciousness and how can counter the questions that still have been left unresolved by the physicalism of cognitive science and psychology. &he transcendental e perience will e pose the partial meagerness of the physicalism on consciousness by introducing us to the undeviating method of introspection and its supremacy against neuropsychology. "o need to say that I do not e pect immediate approval, since any introspective approach is not easy to be, consistently, transferred to words, ,ust like neurological events cannot be consistently e posed to e perience. )onversely, I would not venture a research of consciousness from such a route, if I did not had a kind of backup, a stance that guarantees the verification of several daring propositions and speculations that dwell up from the hallucinogenic e perience. &his is the naturalistic approach that will close the paper. 0uantum mechanics, among other new2fangled scientific theories, have brought things upside2down quite impressively. &he twist of this novel theory has not left the epistemology and philosophy unaffected. &he conceptual changes on the nature of matter, brought by quantum physics and the recognition of the active participation of consciousness in any empirical observation of any physical e perience has settled an avant2

garde in the universal philosophy and epistemology. "othing is the same after the equations of Bohr, 'eisegger, and 7instein. "ot only technology shifted to colossal modifications through the invention of television, transistors, and the non2locality of many modern2day communication systems but philosophy too, gradually, turned its back to the absolutism of ideologies and doctrines. &he quantum heresy vitiated the realm of philosophy as no other movement ever achieved. &he uncertainty principle inspired numerous lovers of thought and attributed to every conceived facet of reality. By doing that, we gained a new standpoint of apprehending reality and mind. In addition, science is also introduced to this new physical reality and the changes here, although slow in their unfolding, are e pected to be spectacular. /atter has been proven a myth; in reality, matter is found to be frequencies of energy waves dancing under the principles of the uncertainty. #lso, mind, stunningly, has been discovered to be the primal substratum of being, the actual foundation of the universal isness. With those assumptions, psychology should be prepared for a flight and the inspection of consciousness should gloriously pass in another level, transcending the vicious circle of the physicalism. #lthough, psychologists and cognitive scientists still waver to take seriously the quantum theory and what it can offer, however, in the future a more homogenous acceptance is e pected to take place. When that happens, we should anticipate a profound flourishing of psychology that will deviate the meager state of consciousness studies to an e hilarating revolution both in the discipline of psychology and the probing of consciousness. But most importantly, the enrichment of the understanding of human nature will be the hallmark of such a bending. In few words, the implication of the paper could be abbreviated in the following sentence% Yes, consciousness is reduced to matter, but who said that the rigidity of matter could not be reducible to the fluidity of mind?

PRE(UDE &he 8everted Intrusion

In the perpetual turmoil of human history, on a planet of regular changes and cultural 3cooking4, there has been recorded a polarity between the centrali*ed 7uropean culture and the rest continents that were, for the most part, the background in the interaction between the civili*ations. 7urope was always more privileged due to its small si*e and its high density of its population. $n the other hand, #sia, #frica, and the pre2discovered #merica were too vast to allow its peoples to come together and labor their cultural gems. &he enormous distances isolated ideas that were ought to become known by their fermentation with foreign ones, something that did not happened, effectively, until fast transportation was invented. 7urope, though, flourished from the dawn of history until its culmination when its civili*ation e panded to all directions by the imperialistic purports of its ambitious citi*ens. &he short distances worked as a kind of a lubricant in its cultural growth, as ideas, philosophies, religious beliefs, and scientific dictums collaborated to each other, breeding new waves of knowledge and upgrading the life standards and the range of the 7uropean civili*ation. When the e plorers discovered the "ew World, when /arco (olo trekked the #sian depths, when #frica was mapped, the 7uropean culture, with all its vigor, met the other face of the world. &he less thriving continents, where people and customs were very different and the rationalism was somewhat at odds with the one 7urope inherited from the 9reeks. &he e otic beauty of the new lands was accompanied by e otic traditions, myths, and religions. 'owever primitive, they had an essence of truthfulness and precision that, unconsciously, pushed the 7uropean conquerors to violently dictate their own customs, religions, and truths. It is true that the "ative #mericans, or the #sians did not had any acceptable science 6their minds and their culture, according to early reports from the conquerors, were blurred by supernatural incoherencies. .adly, those assumptions were the trigger for one of the greatest lapses of the 7uropean civili*ation, and that is the horrific Inquisition against people who were forced to abandon their own belief systems for the superiority of their conquerors. In parallel with this, 7urope was arising from the superstition and demonology of the ages. :inneus initiated a process of scientific labeling of nature and rationalism soon overshadowed the 7uropean continent, and later, its colonies. We could conceive the e pansion of the Western civili*ation towards other continents as synonymous to the e pansion of rationalism towards the medieval darkness. (hysical laws, chemical reactions, astronomical calculations, medicinal therapies, anatomical probing, all were sources of a new light that was enlarging the scope of our understanding in the nature of the cosmos, the life and the psyche. $ur sight became less nebulous by the acquisition of coherent knowledge and, thus, any intuitional sense of the truth was to be surrendered to a misfiring state against the 3imperialism4 of science and rationalism. ;ust like the Incas, the /ayas, the /iddle 7asterners, the Indians and the #fricans did together with their cultural fruits. 'owever, as they say, time is the highest ,udge of all. 'istory is always flowing to the right pathways and sides with the ones that deserve of vindication. Beliefs and theories that do not have an acquaintance with the truth are troubled by the progression of the humanity. /ore or less, this is what is happening the last century in the world culture. I think that the Western world is at the point of a monumental regress from its convictions due to the emergence of several belying factors that happen to condition the scientific, philosophical, and social development. 5rom the beginning of the <=th century, the field of physics encountered shockingly the irrational core of reality by the reali*ation of the wave>particle state of the atom. #s if an alchemical process, physics pushed forward the revelation that the ostensible rigidity of matter has actually an almost metaphysical fluidity closely related to mind. &hat was a ma,or conceptual transformation, which brought a revolution in the natural sciences; a revolution that has not yet displayed its radical influential power to make a breakthrough in the epistemology. &hat is either because few scientists

cultivate an interest to keep up with the advancement in knowledge to physics or because they do not spend time to really understand the implications with an open and critical mind. &he Western world had to retreat and in the religious dimension apart from the philosophical. )hristianity loses ground, while 7astern religions ?apart from Islam@ gain the interest of westerners due to their softer dogmas and their tolerance. -nfortunately, )hristianity has proven to lack the ad,usting balance with the real meaning of its real teaching and, hence, unforgettable crimes have been committed out of bigotry and refusal to accept the beauty and the necessity of multiplicity and variance of cultures and their beliefs. &hose very mistakes together with the present insufficiency and utopianism of 7uropean religions, forced the people of this formerly supreme continent to seek for better solutions and salvation from distant cultures that once humiliatingly succumbed under the threat of the sword and the gun of the 7uropean conquerors. Buddhism, shamanism, &aoism, +ogic, and &antric practices, gradually, take a central position in the stage of our cultural interests. &he Western world opens the doors to a colorful parade of foreign ideas and habits. #ctually, it did opened the doors from the very beginning of the coloni*ation but not in the way it does today. +esterday this opening was mainly towards to trade and philosophies, although they never took them seriously. &oday this opening is a more significant one, since we do not only accept foreign influences, both in the -.# and in 7urope, but we renounce most of our own philosophies, religions, and cultural ethics. #s I did paralleled the 7uropean imperialism with the prevalence of rationalism and positivism in the field of science, I have no choice but to do accordingly and with the veering of these eventful historical circumstances. Indeed, what any reader of popular cosmology and physics recogni*es is the stunning meltdown of the western rationalism. #lmost forty years ago, this ama*ement was coupled with the announcement of the resurrection of the transcendental e perience via the use of hallucinogenic agents. In the beginning of the AB=s, famous ethnobotanologists rediscovered in the mountains of /e ico and the rainforest of #ma*on the properties of hallucinogenic plants and e cited claimed that, at last, we found the keys to open the (andora1s bo . &he secrets of consciousness and mind were no longer inaccessible to our introspection. #ccording to them, the hallucinogens offer an incomparable shortcut to the reaching of our e istential truth. &he far2fetched statements and reports of people who e perienced the psychedelic ecstasy were falsifying many of the rationalistic assumptions to which science is build on. $f course, they were never taken any seriously, but that does not prove their lack of validity, as the critici*ers of the psychedelic e perience were people who did never considered to see by themselves what it is all about. 'ence, their criticism was and still is sand2bo ed. With all that, in the first light of the <Cst century we find ourselves among new trends, new remedies, and new visions about reality and life. 'ow much the study of consciousness will be influenced by this imperialistic undertowD &his reverted intrusion seems to take place in an ever2accelerating way and the mingling of diverse philosophies and practices lead unavoidably to a new world, to a new science, to a new religion. In this transitory age, we walk upon a path that leads to new astonishing insights. (ut quantum physics ne t to the &aoist and the Buddhist teachings and you will be surprised on how many similarities there e ist on the nature of reality and mind. )onsider deeply the implications of the psychedelic e perience and you will be ready to salute an adieu to the rigidity of rationalism in the study of mind. It is tacit, it is ad,udicating, and it is happening. &he Western world and the rationalism witness the intrusion of more fle ible and imaginative currents against them, coming from all over the world. If we wish to be up2to2date with the progress of occurrences and if we wish to study consciousness on a historical perspective, we cannot but kick off this paper with this very prelude and continue accordingly.

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&'7 )$9"I&IE7 #((8$#)'

)
The Cognitive Battlefields
Lalande, or whoever it was, who searched the heavens with his telescope and could find no God, would not have found the human mind if he had searched the brain with a microscope. Geor!e "anta#ana $ philosoph# whose principle is so incommensurate with our most intimate powers as to den# them all relevanc# in universal affairs, as to annihilate their motives at one blow, will be even more unpopular than pessimism%&hat is wh# materialism will alwa#s fail of universal adoption. 'illiam (ames

I*+RODUC+IO* A Definition of Consciousness

)onsciousness is not a phenomenon that easily can be studied. If we consider that the presupposition of the study is the possession of consciousness, then what we really have is consciousness studying consciousness. &hat, as we will see in the ne t pages, is not an easy enterprise. It brings us to all kind of parado es and mysteries. $r then again, when we decide that we can do a more coherent study by probing the physical brain, then we end up with a deficient theory, which are poles apart with the answer that we actually seek. &hus, the mind2body problem places us in between of a forked theoretical pathway and the result is to get even more perple ed when we accumulate more knowledge on this disputed issue. &he phenomenon is so difficult that even e perts, devoted to its resolution, like neurologists, seem baffled by it. Before beginning piercing deeper in the problem, it would be much helpful if we make a first and rather simple definition of consciousness. 5irst, the most general portrayal would be the fact that all consciousness is consciousness of something; it always has an ob,ect. 7 perience and behavior intend, or are directed toward, an ob,ect, a goal, or a comple situation outwards in the world. #lthough, simple this description as it seems, 'usserl, the founder of phenomenological philosophy, regarded consciousness 3that wonder of wonders4. &hat conclusion was generated by the indefiniteness of the question. It is much easier to answer what an atom, a cell, or even an organism is but when we question the nature of consciousness, we marvel among slippery notions. We confusingly come upon the kernel of the e perience of our question, the source of our curiosity itself. )onsciousness is never merely a thing or event in the research field of the scientist; it is rather the condition for the possibility of research itself. It is that by virtue of which we can observe, classify, and interpret. &he consciousness of the researcher establishes a field of intelligibility within which observable facts emerge. &he ne t question that comes to mind is% Is consciousness a thing or an ideaD &he response of phenomenology is neitherF )onsciousness seems to be a third kind of phenomenon, for which our intellectual tradition does not prepare us to understand. .uch an idea is not always bad even for the cognitive scientists, regarding that they too accept that matter is not sufficient to generate consciousness without a certain kind of comple ity, which assists to e ceed its dullness. "evertheless, phenomenologists and cognitive scientists differ enormously on the further details of their study. $ne meaning of possessing a conscious mind, however, is simply the non2automatic responsiveness of an organism to its environment. #nyone reading such an e planation, though, would find it somewhat flat and scarce comparing to the whole of the human conscious e perience. &herefore, in a different sense, consciousness occurs when we not only see but see what we see, or have knowledge of seeing, inspected even more by metaknowledge of having the knowledge of seeing. &he phenomenon is considered as such when we are in a multilevel way self2aware of what we are about to do ?intent@ or of our preparation of events ?e pectancy@, or of our motivational or emotional conditions ?3wants4 and 3feelings4@. #dditionally, this comple reflection is not always directed towards the self but, most of the times, it is directed towards the outer world, as it is obvious from its openness. &o become conscious, ultimately, it means to have a world, to find oneself thrust into a macroscopic world of people, things, and events. #pparent as it is by now, the problem remains unsolved. We say that consciousness is the perception of the world and the self, the responsiveness to outer pressures and the willful settling of the behavior towards the environment. .omehow, we are still to scratch. .omehow, we have not walked even a meter away from our initial position. &he perple ion still remains, as we have not really grasped the fundamental essence of the phenomenon. What we rather described is the surface of conscious e perience, something that even an idiot can accomplish quite easily. #t such a moment, we do not have a better answer to the question than :ouis #rmstrong had when a reporter asked him what ,a** is. "aturally, this intricacy of the issue incites an analogous complicatedness in the field of psychology, which is the main science that has undertaken the solving of the problem. (sychologists and cognitive scientists are often daunted by many of the e asperating questions that concern this basic phenomenon. When they work out to give answers only by a phenomenological perspective, they are accused of inconsistency to the physical part of causalities; they are supposed to take a fictional position on the problem. $n the other side, when others devote their researches to a purely physical investigation of consciousness, they are regarded as missing the point of the wondrous e perience of the human individual. &hus, cognitive science has bridged those two e tremities to the so2called

heterophenomenology, in hope of a more in2depth probing of the mind and its qualia. -nfortunately, this position is also among ine tricable problems that drive us away from the actual matter. Because it is not enough to know how consciousness is channeled and e ploited in the physical brain, we need a more pragmatic e emplification that will validate our meaningful e istential e perience. &hose are issues that we will have to trace in detail at the following pages. &he bewilderment of science has a reason, no doubt, but it is not going to last for long. "ew perspectives are coming stormingly from various fields and once we will take decision to usurp them and interconnect them, perhaps we will elevate psychology and consciousness studies to an appropriate position for giving its real definition. &o understand this variability of opinions we ought to mention ;ulian ;aynes1 speculation that proposes us a new way of seeing things. &his is a proof of how radical theories can ,oin the battlefield and inspire us with entirely different orientations. ;ulian ;aynes claimed that consciousness is a recent invention. &he people of early civili*ations, including the 9reeks of 'omer and the 'ebrews of the $ld &estament, were unconscious and that the sense of ego is a new trait acquired in the last two three thousand years. 7ven !aniel !ennett is sympathetic to such, phenomenically, preposterous claim; he believes that consciousness might be a product of cultural evolution that gets imparted to brains with early training, something which is closely related to the above speculation. 9iven this fluctuation and instability, we should outline the ma,or theses that flirt with the solution. .tarting with the argument that consciousness is synonymous with its contents ?qualia@, cognitive scientists have initiated a thorough study to understand how mind represents those contents and how conscious cognitive e perience arises. It is a fact that they do a good ,ob, but they seem sometimes, as we said, to walk through a wrong territory. )onversely, another argument supports that one must address a more basic and fundamental pre2reflective level in order to truly understand its actual nature. 'ere there is a bursting of theories, not all deserving our attention since they bear the spirit of vagueness inherited by old disoriented theories. 'owever, there are some suppositions coming from transpersonal and folk psychology that do have to be scrutini*ed, as they are in compliance with new theories from other disciplines like physics. .artre refuses to consider consciousness as a function of character or of a person. &hus, .artre insists that consciousness is responsible for the totality of human e perience, and hence, it is the bedrock rather the epiphenomenon. &hat is not a fortuitous view. It is elicited by the genuineness of the conscious e perience and a philosopher who adapts an e istential approach has no choice but to embrace it. &he foremost point of this research will be to validate such an assumption. 7ven if currently the wind is blowing opposite to an endeavor like this, as cognitive science progressively gets attached to a conservative mentality ?if we neglect doctrines like emergentism), I e press my confidence that a surprise is around the corner. "ot only statements like .artre1s are closer to the truth, but I bet ones that are even more radical. .o, now that we have given a first definition of consciousness and its epistemology, we can begin the dispute between rivals, seeking for the best candidate to e plain us what consciousness and mind is beyond simple designations.

DUA(ISM VS, MO*ISM A #rid-eless Ga!

#s far back as we can recall in history, humankind was perple ed by an e tremely hard to tackle problem, over the issue of mind and consciousness. # problem that is permitted, by all kinds of logical deductions, to figure as almost not viable. It is not feasible to give an answer without boggling your mind, as it contains several contradictions or, simply, e planations that are derived without an e hausting thinking are incompatible with the consciousness2e perience. &hat is the old mind-body problem, which occupied philosophers for millennia, whom most of them end up with fruitless e planations. &he range of their opinions begins from vain dualistic notions, like the embodied soul and end to strictly and hyperbolic materialistic monism of the contemporary predisposition. &he e planation gap between mind and body remains as a chasm, a big ravine that separates, and yet connects, two essentially diverse substances% the mind and the body. # bridge needs to be build, and many have attempted to do so; but many failed and thus confined themselves on popular elucidations of no practical value, of no e perimental consistency. &he ghost in the machine is an idea that should be left in the

+,

museum long ago; we should be able to reali*e that the phenomenal gap between mind and body is a conceptual misunderstanding and nothing more. &his problem has both a metaphysical and an epistemological side. $n the former, there are arguments that purport to show that mental states could be reduced to physical states, and hence, some form of dualism must be sought in order to ,ustify this assumption. 'owever implausible this direction seems to the modern science, I do not intend to re,ect this side of the problem, as it is not completely erroneous and if it is e ploited in the right way, there are many chances that it will stand as useful to the e ploration of consciousness. $n the epistemological side, there are arguments that even if in fact mental states are reali*ed to physical ones, there is still a big problem about how we can e plain the distinctive features of mental states in terms of their physical properties. &herefore, this incapability of epistemology to suggest a powerful clarification, feeds even more the metaphysical side, inspiring various a decentrali*ed and dissipative condition of consciousness theories, until now. But lets focus on the nature of the problem per se. &he cra*e is caused to all of us when we come to the critical point to think what affiliation ,oins the physical brain with the empirical mind. In other words, we do not really know why our systems give rise to conscious e perience of any sort. 'ow a firing neuron can trigger a part of the thriving conscious e perienceD 'ow the cluster of neurons can generate the e perience of admiring a beautiful lady or of listening pleasantly to the Beatles1 songsD What is the intermediate that filters the dull physical motion to the elating mental e perienceD )onsidering these questions, it is not weird the fact that the gap augments and the bridge is becoming more difficult to be build on such a large ravine. &here are various responses to the e planatory gap. $ne view ?/c9inn, CGGC@ is that it reflects a limitation on our cognitive capacities. $thers argue that the gap is real but that it is to be e pected given the peculiarities that are associated with our first2person access to e perience ?:ycan, CGGB@. 'owever, no theory has achieved to penetrate deeply into the problem. &hey only assume, hypothesi*e, and make ,udgments ,ust as if a person would make them about a far mountain in the hori*on. -nfortunately, we have a long distance of anguishing efforts to cross before we are ready to say the long e pected% A#haF1

A Critical Dissension
/any features have been cited as responsible for our sense of the problem. 'ere I will concentrate on two% the apparent causal interaction of mind and brain, and the distinctive features of consciousness, which motivate us to believe that it is a separate substance. 5rom this dissension begins an old debate, a fluctuation that drives us between monistic and dualistic conceptions, unsettled yet to a definite conclusion. # long tradition in philosophy has held, culminating with 8enH !escartes, that the mind must somehow be a non2bodily entity% a soul or a mental kind of substance. &his thesis is called substance dualism or, most popularly, Cartesian dualism because it says that there are two kinds of substance in the world, the mental and the physical. Belief in such dualism promotes the metaphysical idea of the immortal soul and the free will, which seems to require that mind is a non2physical thing and thus it is not affected by the laws of physical nature, like decay. &o say that mind is a substance is to distinguish it from the physical world. &he term substance is used in the traditional philosophical sense% a substance is an entity that has properties and that persists through change in them. If we accept this notion, though, then we postpone the trouble and we find it a bit further when we ask ourselves% If there are such non2physical ob,ects, how do they interact with the physical onesD .ome philosophers have thought that mental states are causally related only to other states, and physical states are causally related only to other physical states. In other words, the mental and physical realms operate independently. &his 3parallelist4 view has been unpopular in the <= th century, as have most dualist views. We can rather say that the mental states have effects in the physical world precisely because they are, contrary to the appearances, physical states ?:ewis, CGBB@. )onsidering this option, we depart from the dualist version and we arrive to the monist view because it holds that there is only one substance and that is the physical one. In the divergence between those two views, we prefer to go after, for our understanding, the monist version, and that is because it is the most efficient way we can follow. We do not progress when we e plain the mind by an ever2shrinking continuum of homunculi. 5or one who has gained an elementary comprehension of the scientific thinking, this option to e plain things is close to idiocy. It does not lead us anywhere. &herefore, it should be stressed that mind is one and the same with the brain; mind is indeed physical in nature, albeit its phenomenal deviation from matter. "evertheless, the reader should

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not rush to ,ump to conclusions about the orientation of this paper. In the accumulation of more data, we will establish a different estimation on the dissension between the dualist and monist. &his quarrel is about to end, we are about to reconcile them and make them drink this glass of wine, at last, with a mutual toast. &o accomplish that, we ought, to vindicate, in some points, the dualist, and accept that he too has a kind of superiority over the monist. #ccording to many philosophers, physicalism is not the solution to the mind2body problem, but something that, actually, gives rise to a particular version of the problem. Because we know that the world is completely physical ?at least, to the limited perceptive spectrum@, if the mind e ists, it too must be physical, as any monist intransigently claims. 'owever, it is inconceivable to understand how certain aspects of mind 6notably, consciousness2 could ,ust be reduced to physical features of the brain. #s /c9inn ?CGIG@ puts it, neurons and synapses seem the wrong kind of material to produce the miraculous consciousness. .o here we face a grand2scale problem of intelligibility. Because we evidently know that the mental is sourced by the physical, consciousness must have its origins in the brain. But once we acknowledge that, we turn again against it by clinging to a more dualistic account, because we cannot make sense, in any way, of this mysterious fact. ;ackson ?CGI<@ successfully says that even if we knew all the physical facts about pain, we would not ipso facto know what it is like to be in pain. 7 perience of pain, or any other, emotional response, is not enough to be gained by the gathering of its causal properties, in any detail. &here is some knowledge of what its like which transcends the physical facts. )onsidering that, then if the mental is not physical then how can we make sense of its causal interaction with the physicalD But if it is physical, how can we make sense of the phenomena of consciousnessD &hese two questions define the dissension in the maddening mind2body problem. 9od, help those the dualist and the monist to reach an agreement, before we end up in infinitudes of new masochistic problems.

+o.ards a *e. +y!e of Dualis/

In the call for to accommodate both views, the monist and the dualist, psychologists and cognitive scientists seek out to find a more appropriate theory on mind that will encompass both requirements that dwell up from neuropsychology and phenomenology, in respect. "umerous ,ournals, the last decade, focus increasingly on the approval of a new type of dualism, which is flawlessly permitted by the austere physicalist criteria. 7ven some of the hard2core scientists begin to feel that they should not cease their partial engagement with the dualist view. It is not entirely comforting to advocate for a wholly physicalistic and monistic analysis, since the unreciprocated e planatory gap on the mind2body problem seems to demand a new viewpoint. /ore fle ibility is needed and less fi ation to observable specifics over the physical brain. Before we begin to scrutini*e such a new type of dualism, the obsolete )artesian kind must be discarded. &he idea of a ghost in a machine is ridiculous. It is shameful in the dawn of the <C st century to adhere to )artesian dualism, given all the epitomi*ed knowledge we have acquired in the microcosmos of the brain. &he information we have stored in the field of psychology, certainly, averts us from preserving our belief that inside our heads there is an even smaller self, a kind of homunculus that navigates us. "either we are allowed anymore to deem in the belief of a soul, which is encapsulated inside the machinery of our bodies. #t least, not in the way we are used to, traditionally. In fact, my own policy in this paper will be to hang around this notion, that is, the sense of having a soul inside a body, but in an essentially different fashion. I do not recommend, as many cognitive scientists do, to abandon totally the idea of the psyche. &he admonishment that I promote is that of revaluating old and new viewpoints by the assistance of novelties that come out from different disciplines. If we fail to conceive a new type of dualism, an e ample should work as a base for the further portrayal. Imagine that the brain is a guitar string and the mind is the sound waves that vibrate from the its bending. &he string is concrete and tangible, ,ust like the brain. &he sound, though, is abstract and elusive, very similar to the mental emergence. $bviously, here we are talking about two substances, or ob,ects. &wo very different to each other, albeit originated from the same source% the string. 8egarding this, we are faced a kind of 3dualistic monism4 or an 3anomalous monism4. It is strange and difficult to conceive, since we are not used to such ambiguous concepts yet. 'owever, this is what is really happening between mind and brain. /ind is generated ?or filtered@ by the brain, both the same, identical but, nonetheless, very diverse in nature. .till vagueD If yes, then it is time to suit the e planations to more concrete definitions. It is not a surprise the fact that even the most down2to2earth cognitive scientists, like the famous !aniel !ennett, support such a kind of dualism. In his book Consciousness Explained, he recogni*es that it is quite natural to think in a twofold way about the self. It is the brain and the self. /y brain and me.

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&wo distinct things, with different properties, no matter how they depend to each other. &herefore, if the self ?the very me@, has the sense that it is distinct from the brain, then it must be made from mindstuff ?!ennett, CGG=@. #lthough, !ennett read,usts his opinion as one goes on with his book, and he ends up decisively to a purely physicalist view by neglecting important and unusual features of the mind, his indication of mind2stuff is quite right. 'owever, his indication was based on a crude consideration of the matter; that is why he failed to see the importance of the quickly passed argument. &he fact that there is an abstract kind of mind stuff can be pointed out by the following deduction% &he sleepwalker, although, unconscious of his movements and his deeds, he is involved in various activities that could be performed by him consciously. 'e might kill somebody, if he subconsciously has suppressed a lot of anger and still be regarded as almost innocent, since his consciousness was absent during the murder. &hus, quite confoundedly, we reali*e that consciousness is something additive to the brain activity. It is not simply the resultant of enlivening activity in the neuronal level. &he e ample implies that, although triggered by the physical brain, consciousness must be something different from it. &his assumption leads one to think, literally, that mind is not after all totally reducible to the brain. .o, as !aniel !ennett correctly believes, the conscious mind is not ,ust the place where the qualia and thought are pro,ected, but it is the place where supplementary appreciation begins and verifies the pro,ected phenomena. &his sounds as a kind of dualism, indeed. +et, as we strongly supported, a diametrically opposed dualism to the )artesian one, since it prerequisites the physical source before the splitting. #t this point, I will make a step further to introduce another aspect of this new type of dualism that science and philosophy only the last decades start to recogni*e as substantial. &he e tension of the above consideration is to concede that this dualism has different counterparts than the traditional one. In this dualism, the separation is between the physical brain, meaning the neuronal activity, and the symbolic mind, meaning the 3software4 of language and ideas that are encoded in the synaptic level. In its broadest sense, in the brain we ,ust do not know how to find the high2level structures that would provide a read2out in 7nglish of the beliefs stored in the brain. $r rather, we do 6we ,ust ask the brain1s owner to tell us what he or she believes. But we have absolutely no way of physically determining where or how beliefs are coded. 'ence, we have the undeniable sense that we are different from our brains, as if we are rooted elsewhere. 'ow outlandish would it sound that we are mere language, our ideas, and our symbolic realm that inhabits the brainD It might be still early to give an answer. 'owever, though, we will see that this is e actly what cognitive science seems to argue by the meme2theory. &o those that this idea is not any progression for the improvement of the soulless mind, then I bet that the ne t aspect of the new dualism will be much satisfying, although to be grasped one needs to follow with the paper and see the direction that I actually suggest. It is not going to be evident from the first part. We need to pass throughout if we wish to ascertain the kind of suggestion that I signify. &here is empirical evidence that the stuff of consciousness is the interpenetration of its rich content, that is, the perceived e ternal world, and the hierarchy of cognitive and metacognitive conceptive ,udgments that established over it. &he stuff of consciousness is nothing but the properties of the "ewtonian in one level, and the 0uantum space, in another, channeled by commenting systems of the brain. &herefore, presumably, we are both the e ternal environment and the processing filtering of the brain over it, something that is broadly supported by the doctrine of super enience, as we will see. &his aspect of the new dualism brings together the environment and the receptive brain, in a sense that we are sited on both. &his idea remains largely une plored, due to the reluctance of psychologists to consider e ogenous features in the study of consciousness. &hey turn their back when they are pressed to adapt a position that gives a noteworthy importance on the environment to the origins of consciousness. (atience and the paper will prove that the environment and, generally, space, is the ma,or generator of the controversial phenomenon. &he implications of some very important data suggest that there is first scientific evidence for a dualist kind theory of consciousness. It is a theory that has a 3mind4 or 3life4 component that is of a very different nature than known physical systems, and thus implies that at least some transpersonal e periences are not merely interesting illusions, unusual patterns of neural firing, but actually give us confirmation about the potentiality for truly transcending our ordinary physical limits. I reiterate, though, that those assumptions are not related to the outdated )artesian dualism. &hey are forcefully verified by novel theories of the physical sciences. #ndrew 9reeley in his e periments found that JI K of his sample believed that they had e perienced telepathic, mind2to2mind contact with someone at a distance at least once in their lifetime. /any other kind of paraconceptual phenomena or 7.( occur, undeniably, in everyday life. &hese kinds of 7.( seem to fit with this type of dualism that I promote, and they are possibly very important in deciding between a monistic and dualistic view; but as we know, the scientific investigation of 7.( and related phenomena is not only not e actly in the mainstream of world psychology, it is an e tremely small2scale activity.

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7vidently, what consciousness requires, in order to become a more accessible issue for a suitable study, is some basic enlargement of the ontology of the physical sciences. #uspiciously, this will be the bumping of our finger onto to the light2switch. $nce the light is on, the new type of dualism or a rather mentalistic type of monism will be fully e posed beyond mere speculations. But before we get deeper to this issue, we need to pass by the essential evolutionary theory, if we want to walk on a stable ground.

+0E EVO(U+IO*AR$ SPEC+AC(E +he E1ol1in- Consciousness

"owadays, the theory of evolution is the prominent choice for the research of every conceivable phenomenon in the universe. &he biblical creationism has been substituted by a new breadth of understanding that has been set off after !arwin1s book !he "rigin of #pecies was published. 'is deduction inspired, the following decades, the natural sciences, as they proved to be much more reliable in comparison to the previous immature beliefs on the nature of life. #lthough, !arwin has not been faultless in his theory and much had to be revised, he did brought a new landscape in the marathon of science. # new era begun, as the mysterious comple ity of life, which discouraged many intellects for centuries, became more approachable to a consistently rudimentary analysis. )onsequently, an increasing number of living organism1s aspects are scrutini*ed and perhaps accurately e plained. 5rom this development of evolutionary knowledge, consciousness would not be an e emption, albeit, it is an impregnable phenomenon to any inquiring approach. 7specially the last century, evolutionary psychology has defined the role of evolution in the emergence of mind. If we disregard the fact that most of the assumptions of evolutionary psychology are based on yet unfinished data on the nature of reality, which should be considered as prerequisite on any verdicts over the issue, the range of its light illuminated several basic questions. &he doctrine of evolution has given critical answers and has offered valuable outlets to psychology. In a way, we now possess the guideline that guarantees an appropriate understanding of mind and consciousness. We no longer have to make far2fetched guesses that involve nebulous and impeding assumptions. We no longer walk in a dark territory. &he more knowledge we gain on evolution, the less indefinite the question becomes. 'uman consciousness, the one of the great reflectivity, is an emergent property, arisen from the e ceedingly comple edifice of the physical brain. &he brain2hardware is the vestige of the millenarian process of natural selection1s sculpting. &o reach this almighty convolution and sophistication the 7arth had to spin around the .un for almost a billion times. &he human brain is the actual depository of primordial memory, collected by reptilian, amphibian, mammalian, and hominid designs. &hrough the generations, the flower of human consciousness advances on the bedrock of brain due to the ever2 growing richness of the surrounding environment, both physical and linguistic. &herefore, it is hard to avoid the inference that consciousness is the cherry on the ice cream, a cherry that gets sweeter and sweeter as time unfurls.

"ro/ 0ard.are to Soft.are

Before we cover any further the evolutionary theory, we ought to make an important distinction between the brain and the mind with the help of an important analogy. &he computer provides a supportive illustration of how to envisage the mind2body problem, since it is generally accepted that it is an appro imate simulation of our brains. It is a brain machine, which functions in a very relevant way to the ob,ect of its simulation, nevertheless, with some crucial disparities. We all have used computers and we must acknowledge the difference between hardware and software. &he former refers to the arrangement and configuration of the apparatus, the interconnections of the cables, the capacity of the hard disk, the selection of the chips in the motherboard, etc. $n the other hand, the latter refers to the programs, structured by information that can be installed on the hardware without having any physical body, apart from its device. &hey are actual bits of information that can be imparted on the receptive division of the material equipment. -nlike hardware, software is defined by its fle ibility and its mutability of usage. )omparing them one reali*es that their relationship

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is akin to the relationship between mind and brain. &he brain is the unchangeable, in one1s lifetime, hardware where the patterns of neuronal arrangement are stable no matter how much the mind adheres to new habits. 'owever, mind, albeit closely related to the neuronal architecture, is the one that can turn the e perience from green to red, from tears to laughter, from arousal to dullness. ;ust like the software can make the hardware play a song, or play a good game of chess or process pictures, or write a te t. #s !aniel !ennett puts it, computers were originally ,ust supposed to be number2crunchers, but by now, their number2crunching has been harnessed in thousands of imaginative ways by the installment of the software. .imilarly, our brains were not designed for the activities we are now involved. :anguage, e tra reflectivity, poetic prose, visionary planning were not promoted in the level of the hardware, as much as in the software level, which has enriched the former in undreamed ways. &he reason I encompass this analogy on the section of evolution is that, perhaps, we require a better understanding of the distinction between mind and body. We need to deeply comprehend that mind is, primarily, information and that it is the fruit of a long and 3e pensive4 evolutionary process that took place over the physical brain. "ow, if we inspect the coalition of evolutionary knowledge together with the above analogy, we will come on a vital supposition. Beyond the discursive methodologies of neo2 !arwinian deductions and estimations, there is hanging a reali*ation of a strange emergent structuring, which is amenable to daring considerations.

"ro/ #ios!here to *oos!here

7volution of organic matter began millions of years ago literally from the soil. 8udimentary life forms, like bacteria, amoebas, and proto*oa were the only inhabitants of this primordial world. &here was utter simplicity on a dimensionless plane; there was no perception, no sensation and most basically, no consciousness in the form that we know. &he first multicellular organisms were lacking even of the simplest functional properties that define the possession of mind. &hey were not moving by any kind of ,udgment. &hey were, in a way, 3lifeless4 life forms. Whatever food was on their way, they were absorbing it and if not, they would not bother to search for any. #s the organic matter formed, by the millennia, comple organisms, this 3lifelessness4 turned to an animation of a more responsive type. &he fishes, the reptiles, the amphibians were possessors of a brain that was filtering, in a way, perceptually the environment for their own uncomplicated e perience. #t that point, the biosphere was dressed by a faint first light of some kind. &his is the so2called noosphere, which by years got more vivid and more functional over the bedrock of the biosphere, due to the emergence of mental reflectivity. We will keep compunctions for the hypothesis that mind emerged subsequently of matter, because an important part of the paper1s intentions is not yet been e posed. 5or now, I can only tell that there is a possibility that mind and matter, noosphere and biosphere might be identical. &herefore, the designation of noosphere might be ,ust the emergence of high and comple reflectivity, rather than the raw properties of mind and sentience. #nyway, as centuries went by and the hominid line passed to the point of super2comple ity, as the $omo sapiens began to communicate to each other with symbols and the fructification of culture started to emerge, this noosphere became increasingly more crucial to evolution. /ind, consciousness, language, all concreti*ed its essence and advanced it to the actual realm of human e perience. &oday the noosphere is passing to another level, that of the electronic dimension, where information travels all across the world in the speed of light and mind is been channeled to the digital realm, which is gradually growing in magnitude to our mental lives. It is not e aggeration to say that the noosphere is swiftly in the process of a kind of 3materiali*ation4. &hat is not something we would overlook; it is actually a very significant twist of evolution that concerns in a swamping way the human consciousness. #lready we can make guesses of the evolutionary track. &echnology, increasing mental agility, the coiling of the abundant information, scientific progression, they all lead to an ever2accelerating advancement of the noospheric field and, possibly, the transmutation of human consciousness. #ccording to &erence /cLenna ?CGGC@, the famous #merican scholar, the noosphere is a kind of an emergent platform, a structure destined to support an even higher dimension, which is assumed atopical. Without becoming unacceptable mystical, this is perhaps of what it most can be said at this ,uncture regarding the hypothetical function of the notion of noosphere and its evolving ontology. Whatever the true implications of such an emergent structuring and the hypothetic further emergence over the noosphere, via maybe the utility technology, it would appear that under its enormous shadow life on 7arth and conscious human life becomes but a substructure within some awesome pattern of growth,

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which is grasping and e tending itself to realms never dreamed of in traditional philosophies. &his is something that we will revisit on the issue of emergentism and there will still more left to say in my speculative approach of the assemblantism% $ne thing that we should have derived from such a hypothesis is the anchoring idea that consciousness, even though, perhaps, a subsequent property in the richness of the planet1s biome, is superior to matter. "oosphere is superior to biosphere. &he focal point of human and non2human e perience is on the mental emergence. &hat assumption is already in undisputed verification from the cognitive sciences through the meme theory. Indeed, evolutionary psychology regards that the comple of information digits, called by 8ichard !awkins memes, are the new genes of the noosphere. &hey propagate mind in an epidemiological manner and they are regarded as possessing their own independent purpose, which is the increase of their replication and, hence, their influence on the human minds. &heir policy is to e pand in culture, by building their own structures that find their nest in our brains, in the form of ideologies, attitudes, songs, recipes, religious beliefs, etc. !ennett has asserted that the human consciousness is formed by their influence, in a way, that what we are is the entirety of their organi*ation in the brain. &herefore, ,ust as genes are the kernel of our physical bodies, memes are the kernel of our mental e perience, the spinal cord and the flesh of our personalities. /emes are superior to genes and that can be proven by !ennett1s following e ample. &here are memes that push their carriers to their physical elimination. &hat seems as parado ical, since as we know from genes they promote the fitness for their survival. 'owever, memes seem not to be depended on the fitness and the survival of the physical vehicle. # meme, for instance, that would tend to make bodies run over cliffs would have to be eliminated from the meme pool. 'owever, this does not mean that the ultimate criterion for success in the meme pool is gene survival. $bviously a meme that causes individuals bearing it to suicide has a disadvantage but not a fatal one, since the suicidal meme can easily spread, as the well2published martyrdom is regarded virtuous and, thus, inspires others to die for a loved cause, and this inspires even more people, and so on ?!ennett, CGG=@. &his seems as a first class proof of the superiority of memes over the genes and of mind over matter. #t last, one more thing that we cannot pass over is the strange change of usability of traits in our species with the progression of the mental evolution. (art of the critical necessity of survival turns, auspiciously, to the en,oyment of the e periential aesthetics. &he civili*ed $omo #apiens is no longer struggling in the theater of natural selection, as many features of our culture, like advanced medicine, have build a protective wall around us. By the years, we become more independent and more privileged against the environment. In contemplation over that, we come to the unavoidable conclusion that evolution is a voyage to greater degrees of freedom. #t least, to our species and our culture we witness a constant increase of leniency towards the decisiveness of survivability. $f course, fitness and fitness ma imi*ers will never become obsolete in the evolutionary development, but by time, they turn out to be less 3e pensive4 to be obtained and their usefulness in the repertoire of our species clings to a rather aesthetic value, comforting away from the breathtaking game between life and death. &hat should be considered as very relevant to the evolution of consciousness, because many, if not all, of its features have been shaped by natural selection through the millennia. By that spectacle, we have to concede that the modern man uses relics of old weapons of survivability for mere benefit from pleasure. &he significance of staying alive has transfigured to the significance of staying happy. 5or instance, what we want when we sip a glass of wine is not the analysis of its chemical substances but rather the pleasure, which can be acquired from those substances. $ur preference is based from those biases that are still wired in our nervous systems, which their ecological significance has lapsed long time ago ?!ennett, CGG=@. &heir role was to inform our primates to avoid inedible foods, but now this function has degraded ?or upgraded@ to mere channels for hedonic labor. &he same is valid and for the colors. $nce they were in service for our survival in the massive forests of the prehistoric era. &he first signs of danger were perceived by the alarm of colors. +ellow for a tiger, emerald green for the serpent, red for the poisonous mushrooms, and so on. &hankfully, today we have became skilled at avoiding such dangers and, besides, our environments are more appropriate for a comfortable life, and hence for many centuries now the evolutionary usability of colors has digressed to mere aesthetic pleasure. Indeed, we do not need a second thought to reali*e that our world from a terrain of survival2battles has turned to a world of art. What does this mean for consciousnessD We should not underestimate this emancipation of evolutionary necessities. It is not accidental the fact that freedom is the crowning aim of the evolutionary teleology. &herefore, our species advance and reach a plane where evolutionary pressures decrease, rocked down by the counter2weight of the gratuitous gratification. 5rom that viewpoint, surely, we should e pect a radical surprise in the future of consciousness, an emergent which hatched among threatening forces, where it had to shield itself, and its evolutionary course, currently, seems to

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proclaim a forthcoming fundamental change on the rules of the game, where consciousness arises in an 7lysium of freedom and omnipotence, high above from any physical peril. "e t to such a potentiality, cognitive theories appear too conservative. &hey strive to e plain consciousness by reductionist methods, which are highly interdicting to such holistic postulations. 'owever, I suggest that once we will bridge opposed theories, in an attempt to wed them, the wish to bridge the gap between mind and body, phenomenology and physicalism will be, triumphantly, carried out.

DIGGI*G I* MA++ER On the Constellation of Physicalis/

&he heyday of science, which took place in the <=th century, is closely related to the repose in reductionism and physicalism. &hose two doctrines were, and still are, regarded as the only reliable methods for practicing the right investigation in any kind of research. 7ventually, this attitude suspended the vitalism and the essentialism that were influencing previously, mainly, the approach of any technical knowledge. $nce we penetrated our observation toward the microscopic scales and we accredited the causalities that function from a bottom2up way, the epistemology rushed to conclude that any knowledge that is not obtained from a reductionistic scrutiny and, therefore, is not concerned with the manifestation of the matter, is doomed to failure. &his dogma presides over any endeavor that begins the trip to give an answer in the perple ities of consciousness; in a way, that belief in an immaterial substance as a soul most possibly is a ludicrous idea. In the vocabulary of psychology, there are no longer concepts of immaterialities. "o one disagreeing with this would be considered a scientist. 'owever, albeit the route of matter is not an erratum, there is still an immaturity in the deductions that have been postulated there is much work undone and many surprises that can turn upside down the present conditions in scientific thinking. (hysicalism is the doctrine that everything that e ists in the space2time continuum is a physical thing, and that every property of a physical thing is either a physical property or a property that is related in some intimate way to its physical nature. $ntological physicalism denies the e istence of things like )artesian souls, supernatural divinities, entelechies, vital forces, and the like. (hysicalists, though, as we will see later, differ widely when it comes to the question of properties of physical ob,ects. &he kind of properties that concern the research on consciousness, are the so2called cognitive>psychological properties, which are the higher-le el ones, like the biological and the computational. &his broad sense of physical property seems appropriate to the discussion of the question how psychological properties are related to physical properties 6that is, the mind2body problem. In its broad sense, therefore, 3physical4 essentially amounts to 3non2psychological4. &his leaves our previous question unanswered, though. What is a physical propertyD /ass, energy, charge, and the like are of course important properties in current physics, but the physics of the future may invoke properties that are quite different from today1s physics. 'ow would we recogni*e them as physical properties rather than properties of another sortD &hat is, how would we know that future physics is physics? &his is something that we will face quite e tensively in the last section of the paper. #s noted, physicalism differs to higher2level properties in relation to lower2level, basic physical properties. &educti e physicalism claims that higher2level properties, including psychological properties, are reducible to physical properties and hence they turn out to be nothing more than matter. $pposed to this view is the non-reducti e physicalism, also called property dualism ?Lim, CGGJ@, which regards the higher2level properties as independent from the lower2level properties that form this irreducible autonomous domain. &his type of physicalism is related with the new type of dualism that I commenced in the previous pages, and which will become more e plicit as we carry on. In respect to this physicalistic dualism, we can presume that psychology must be a special science whose ob,ect is to investigate the causal>nomological connections involving the irreducible psychological properties and generate distinctively psychological e planations in terms of them. In this view, these laws and e planations cannot be formulated in purely physical terms. #ny dogmatic physical theory of consciousness and mind would leave out something important. In short, there is a kind of a 3civil war4 between physicalistic doctrines. &he controversy is hot and the final victory is still not visible. 'owever, we ought to make an estimation of the winner in this

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cognitive battle by the help of the conte t of the other components that are used in the investigation and e ploration of consciousness. But before we do that, let1s have a laugh with the hopeless incipient enterprise of physicalism.

#eha1ioristic #lunders
&he thirst for reliance that took place in the last two centuries in the scientific pursuit did not left unaffected the discipline of psychology. (ositivism and ob,ective assessment eradicated the ha*iness of the ,uvenile methodologies. Introspection was distrusted as a disorienting means to gain access to the functions of the mental machinery and, hence, to the true essence of the conscious manifestations. &hus, early psychologists sought a method that would give them the power to probe ob,ectively the mind, so that they could come up with trustworthy results with a status that could fit with the ob,ectivity of the natural sciences. Behaviorism, which ignores mental processes and declares that e ternal behavior that can be observed more easily and reliably, should be the main tactic of psychology, flourished for a short period. /any psychologists, however, still accept that position and define their science as the study of the manifestation of behavior, rather than the study of mind. &he appropriation for such a stance was given by the survey, which declared that C==K agreement among observers is possible, at least for simple behaviors, and therefore, this determined the fortune of the approach, which was widely preferred among other nebulous philologies over the nature of psyche. &hose familiar with .kinner1s radical behaviorism are well aware that he has provided a means for analy*ing the private events or e periences of people in the conte t of a non2dualistic, naturalistic science. &he ob,ect was to show that sub,ective behaviors and e periences are ,ust like any other behavior, to demystify the problems of consciousness, and to remove consciousness from a separate realm of the mind with which science is not supposed to be able to deal. .kinner, in a manner, has laid the ground for a revolutionary behavioral semantics capable of providing a behavioral account of cognitive functioning without mentalistic terms. But how well placed was this approachD Whoever believes that behaviorism is the eureka of the nature of mind, is a laughing2stock. We should not lose time on grasping the fact that consciousness is widely different from any other sub,ect we study. Its idiosyncrasy demands an approach that varies from purely materialistic methods of assessment we use to probe matter, in the natural sciences. )onsciousness is a matter of e perience, of emotional vigor, of visions, of beliefs and desires, of the relentless stream of thought and of the peculiar I2ness. It appears that it is highly unsuitable to investigate this prominent phenomenon mainly by the equipment of other physical sciences. What behaviorism achieves is merely the analysis of its e pressive surface. # third person approach ignores fundamental features of its reality, which are invisible to an e ternal observer. &herefore, one of the greatest blunders of the last century, was the naMve belief that behaviorism is the antidote to the ine orable mystery of consciousness and that we are behavioral robots, automata that are identified wholly with their e ternal behavioral manifestation, and hence lacking of any psychic depth. &his absurdity still pertains, partially, the cognitive sciences and psychology, in a powerful contrast to the sense of everybody1s personal e perience of consciousness, which is, actually, deliriously deep and rich. &he ne t step is to go for shooting any such blunders in cognitive doctrines, which haunt the vital study on consciousness.

Reductive Physicalisms2 Eli/inati1e Materialis/2 +he Illusi1e Mind

&he most e treme doctrine of physicalism is the eliminati e materialism or 3eliminativism4, as it is sometimes called. It is the claim that one or another kind of mental states invoked in commonsense psychology does not really e ist. 7liminativists believe that mental states are classified in the same category to the gods of ancient religions, witchcraft, alchemy. &hey simply deny the e istence of purely mental phenomena as ludicrous and superstitious. 'owever, far2fetched this thesis is, it has been accepted to a large number of psychologists the previous years. /ind, they think, is a non2e istent posit of a seriously mistaken theory. &he most widely discussed version of eliminativism takes as its target the intentional states, the beliefs, the thought, and the desires ?)hurchland, CGIC@. &he e istence of qualia such as pain and visual perceptions has also occasionally been challenged. $bviously, this premise leads

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us to the conclusion that all those states that pass from the spotlight of consciousness have no validity, no essence, and no meaning. &herefore, we are pushed to accept that consciousness is nothing but a fictional e perience without any particular significance on its content and on the 3illusory4 self. In other words, eliminative materialism is blind on important ingredients of conscious e perience, due to its preoccupation with the confirmistic physiological probing, which, as we mentioned before, are poles apart with the empirical facet. &he cognitive sciences that ultimately give us a correct account of the workings of the human mind>brain will not refer to commonsense mental states as beliefs and desires; these states will not be part of the ontology of a mature cognitive science, as eliminativism wants to believe. $ne family of arguments, which tries to bridge this chasm, follows Wilfred .ellars ?CGJB@ in maintaining that folk psychology takes thoughts and other intentional states to be modeled on overt linguistic behavior. #ccording to this account, common sense assumes that beliefs are quasi2linguistic states and that thoughts are quasi2linguistic episodes. But if this is right, one eliminativist argument continues, then either non2human animals and pre2linguistic children do not have beliefs and thoughts, or they must think in a kind of inner language of thought. #nother argument, though, notes that neuroscience has thus far failed to find syntactically structured, quasi2linguistic representations in the brain and predicts that the future discovery of such quasi2linguistic states is unlikely ?Ean 9elder, CGGC@. "evertheless, there are many cognitive scientists who support the view that semantical properties, and thus mental, cannot be reduced to the physical properties and, thus, cannot have a causal connection in between them. If this is true, here again we are taking a taste of a new dualism, thanks to this causal irrelevance ?Ean 9ulick, CGGN@. .ome authors have urged that the deepest problem with the folk psychology is that semantic properties cannot be 3naturali*ed4 6there appears to be no place for them in our evolving, physicalistic view of the world, and that is something we should stress because it troubles generally the ambitious enterprise of physicalism, in important conceptual ways. &he problem seems to require a completely different approach 2a crucial approach, which takes its chance in this paper.

E!i!heno/enalis/2 +he #rain3s Shado.

&he traditional doctrine of epiphenomenalism is that mental phenomena are caused by physical phenomena but do not themselves cause anything. &hus, according to this doctrine, mental states and events are causally inert and impotent; their role is that of effects rather than causes. 'u ley ?CIOP@ earlier discussed that the implications of epiphenomenalism is that consciousness is an automaton because it lacks causal efficacy on the physiological generator. $n that assumption, 'u ley added his claim that epiphenomenal properties, like the mind, cannot be e plained in terms of natural selection, since they are non2functional and, therefore, invisible to the forces of evolution. &he standard philosophical meaning of the concept follows as such% 3Q is epiphenomenal means Q is an effect but itself has no effects in the physical world4 ?Broad, CG<J@. In understanding deeply the doctrine of epiphenomenalism, we cannot but complicate our research in silly speculations. It is a doctrine that entails the insignificance or irrelevance of mind in comparison to the brain. 8oughly, this pathway leads us to believe that mind is nothing but the brain1s shadow, with no influence on it. It is simply the passive subordinate of matter, powerless to impose any causality towards it. !ennett, who strongly disagrees with the doctrine, sums up his allusion by saying that if epiphenomenalism is absolutely true, in principle, then that would mean that a *ombie is indistinguishable from a conscious person. Indeed, epiphenomenalism is a shocking doctrine. If it is true then a pain could never cause us to wince or flinch, something1s looking red to us could never cause us to think, it is red, and a naggy headache could never cause us to be in a bad mood. 7piphenomenalism, vainly, suggests that although one thought may follow another, one thought never results in another. If thinking is a causal process, it follows that we never engage in the activity of thinking. #pparently, this view suggests that there is no gap between mind and body and that mind is identical to the brain processes, in a way, that its intuitive difference to it is fully plasmatic. $ne critical response, though, to this argument is that physical events underlie mental events in such a way that mental events are causally efficacious by means of the causal efficacy of their underlying physical events. &herefore, if the two states, physical and mental, are causally related this is so because they are absolutely identical. 9iven that causality, then mental states and events are causes and, thus the above version of epiphenomenalism is false ?!avidson, CGGN@. ). !. Broad ?CG<J@ characteri*ed the view that mental events are epiphenomena as the view that 3mental

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events either ?a@ do not function at all as causal factors or that ?b@ if they do, they do so in virtue of their physiological characteristics and not in virtue of their mental characteristics. In re,ection of epiphenomenalism, some philosophers argue that sensory concepts are rather equivalent to functional concepts ?White, CGGC@. #nd some argue that although sensory concepts are not equivalent to functional concepts or physical concepts, nonetheless, sensory properties are identical with neural properties ?'ill, CGGC@. &hat a nagging headache can cause a bad mood and that the scratching can cause one to itch seem to be intuitive cases of mental causation as one can find. 7piphenomenalism in comparison to our mental e perience seems to be out of tune. Its functional version is more intimate to truth and any attempts to e plain the mind should begin from that avenue. If we wish to avoid the devaluation of conscious e perience and, thus, the devaluation of the human e istence, then either we must eschew the traditional version of epiphenomenalism or to reform and e tend it to a more functional version as White suggests, because it is not ob,ectionable the hypothesis that mind can be accurately 3translated4 to the brain processes, but rather the implication that the mind is nothing more than the brain. (erhaps, the functional factor is the essential device where consciousness arises.

Su!er1enience2 +he "loatin- Mind

'ere we have a more suitable e plicative version of the problem, to the orientation of the paper1s approach. #uper enience is a determination relation, often thought to hold between physical and mental characteristics. In philosophy of mind, the concept of supervenience is sometimes employed as a way of articulating the metaphysical thesis of physicalism. &his concept was first formulated by !onald !avidson ?CGON@% 3It is impossible for two events ?ob,ects>states@ to agree in their physical characteristics and to differ in their psychological characteristics4 ?!avidson, CGON@. &his supervenience claim is weaker than certain other claims about physical2mental relations sometimes advocated in the philosophy of mind. 'owever, my belief is that this is so because we have a low appraisal on the functional role of the environment and of macro2temporal relations on the genesis of consciousness. #lbeit the concept of supervenience is a bit generic and lacks the focal consistency of other doctrines, it is more viable to new pioneering approaches that are offered from physics, due to its relation to the environmental influence. .upervenience inspires one to think that the environment is an actual e tension of the brain. It is the e tra space where information is stored, of an important functional role to the properties of consciousness. In short, the thesis includes certain relational connections between the person and the wider environment. 5or instance, the supervenience base for an intentional mental characteristic like wanting some water involves not merely the current intrinsic physical properties of the person who currently has this mental property, but also certain relational connections between the person and the person1s physical, social, historical, and evolutionary environment. .uch mental properties are said to have wide content, because the supervenience base for such a property e tends beyond the mere physical characteristics of the person. 5rom that perspective, beliefs, desires, emotions, and so on, are floating almost independently on the physical processes. In other words, the phenomenon of conscious e perience is only partially depended on the events that take place in the neuronal web. &he stigma of supervenience is the proposal that mind is something much more wider and e tensive from the machinery of the brain; something that in order to be understood we have to e pand the guiding field, in search for historical, environmental, and evolutionary causalities that supervene the frantic micro2 processes of the brain. #ll in all, we are one step closer from epiphenomenalism to the desired aim.

Non-Reductive Physicalisms: "unctionalis/2 +he S!rin-in- Processes

)omparing neutrons and neurons to pendula and planets, we, inevitably, confront a categorical distinction. Whereas neurons and neutrons must be composed of distinctive types of matter structured in ruthlessly precise ways, individual planets and pendula can be made of widely disparate sorts of differently structured stuff. &herefore, neurons and neutrons are e amples of physical kinds, while planets and pendula e emplify functional kinds. 5unctional kinds are not identified by their material composition but rather by their activities or tendencies. &hey are about the state and direction of motion, the effect of kinetic states. -nder that category, cognitive science puts the mind. &hat is because the mental e perience arises not from merely the neurons and the synapses but from their mutable activity. By virtue of this dictum, we must accept that the conscious e perience can be reproduced or replicated in a device that is not organic. .ince the function of the brain is the ground of consciousness, then it would not be an unreali*able dream to purport the carrying out of artificial

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intelligence and artificial consciousness. 5rom that we infer that the mental e perience can be made virtually from any kind of material as long as it is organi*ed to process information and support the sort of performances that are indicative to minds. )oncerning the fact that mind is a functional kind, the significance of functionalism is profoundly significant, for it liberates cognitive science from the question of how mind is embodied or composed by matter. &he study of consciousness passes to another level, which is more facilitating to the deductions that rationalism gives confidence to. 8egarding all the interconnectedness of the brain modules and their resultant comple power, it is not an overstatement to note that cognition1s most general features cannot be reduced to mere neurology. Before, though, we rush to ,ump in conclusions and postulate that functionalism is the mature resolution on the problem, it should be stressed that there are some serious flaws on the argument. Its e planatory power is not entirely satisfactorily, something that is proven by virtue of the skepticism that tested its faultlessness. $b,ections against functionalism indicate the disturbing inconclusiveness on its plausibility, especially on the matter of artificial intelligence. 5or instance, how could be possible that consciousness could arise by merely mechanical processesD &here are misgivings on the idea that we will be able to concoct a machine that will be sentient, simply because we lack the knowledge of how e actly this reflectivity comes to place. 5urthermore, the ob,ections are focused especially in the ignorance of the doctrine against the centrality of consciousness in cognition. #s a successful argument has claimed, two functionally identical persons could differ in how they feel, that is, in their conscious, qualitative, or affective states. 5or e ample, two isomorphic persons in the presence of a stimulus could react widely different, and that would e press the variance between of the two conscious e periences. If the conscious qualitative differences differentiate our mental states, functionalism would seem unable to recogni*e them. !espite the persisting debate, though, over the doctrine of functionalism, it figures as the most usable in cognitive sciences and in the research on consciousness. &hat is because it is certainly more open to a computational theory of mind, giving an impetus to the dream of artificial intelligence. In addition, it skips the overwhelming problems of how consciousness could be one and the same with the brain. &he idea that organi*ed functions spring up the conscious e perience appears to cognitive scientists as the boat that will help them cross the river of uncertain thinking. 'owever, here again we are confronted with the same problem. 'ow is it possible for functions to generate awareness and consciousnessD If the problem has been surpassed in the leap we made with functionalism, it is, nevertheless, waiting us a little bit further. Is mind, in a way, the sparks from the 3heat4 of the brain processesD &he question will be left open, as still the ace in the sleeve have not been e posed. 5or now, we partially discard the absolutism of functionalism and keep it back, until we put on the table more ideas about consciousness and gain a spherical view. (erhaps, then functionalism will find a place to serve us for an ample comprehension.

E/er-entis/2 *atural Ma-ic

&he doctrine of emergentism is very different from the rest theories that outsmart the study of psychology, although it is quite relevant to the theory of supervenience. What makes it distinct is its genuine version of reality, which we never met before in previous con,ectures. We do not have a long history of focusing on the self2organi*ing and non2linear systems. &he thorough study on ant colonies, societies, cities, software, and brains has bred new une pected notions, which enlarged the field of causalities. &he first British emergentists declared that the comple interaction between units that form a collectivity, under some conditions, tend to emerge a higher2order phenomenon with its own distinct superorganic properties by possessing a sort of independency. &he most famous e ample of an emergent phenomenon, which stimulated the interest of many philosophers, is that of the ant colony. It was a confounding reali*ation the fact that an ant colony e hibited a behavior of its own, widely different from the individual ants. &here were some resonant conclusions from observations that evidently indicated that a colony is an entity with its own volition, its own will, its own intelligence, and its own life cycle. !espite the fact that such a postulation came out of the blue and was not assorted to the traditional e pectations, both in philosophy and epistemology, however there were not few who embraced it and began to formulate the doctrine of emergentism, confident that they ,ust stepped on a new peninsula of knowledge. #s with the ant colony, which is now regarded as an individual organism, the same is valid with cities, nations, the Internet, and, of course, the brain. It is shockingly true that emergent behaviors are autonomous and alive. We have ,ust faced the manifestation of the rest of the spectrum, where

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individual agents of any kind are no more self2contained, but they are components of emergent phenomena that, in their turn, function and behave as units, in a higher2order. # better designation of emergence can be understood by the movement from low2level rules to higher2level sophistication. # system with multiple agents dynamically interacting in multiple ways, following local rules and oblivious to any higher2level interactions. But it would not truly considered emergent until those local interactions resulted in some kind of discernible macro2behavior. &he emergence is defined by a higher2level pattern arising out of parallel comple interactions between local agents. $ut of low2level routines, a coherent shape emerges. #le ander ?CG<=@ spoke of levels of qualities or properties, maintaining that 3the higher2level quality emerges from the lower2level of e istence and has its roots therein, but it emerges therefrom, and it does not belong to that lower level, but constitutes its possessor a new order e istent with its own special laws of behavior, that in turn have some influence in the form of downward causality. 5or instance, /organ maintained that through the process of evolution, which is also an emergent process, genuinely new qualities emerge that generate new fundamental forces that effect the 3go4 of events in ways unanticipated by laws that govern the lower levels of comple ity. 'owever, the kind of causality that takes place in such systems is the so2 called bottom2up causality, because it begins by the individual agents who determine by their comple interaction the collective behavior. In this way, local turns out to be the key term of any emergent superorganic properties. We see emergent behavior in systems like ant colonies when the individual agents in the system pay attention to their neighboring ones rather than wait for order from above. &hey 3think4 locally and act locally, but their collective action produces global behavior of an entirely different kind, which is superior to its components. .imply put, in any non2linear self2organi*ing system, the total is greater than the sum of its parts. )onsequently, the brain seems to satisfy the criteria to be categori*ed in the list of emergentism. It is composed by billions of neurons, each connected with thousands others and they interact frantically. While the individual neuron communicates in a simple language, by means of their firing state, the result in the bigger picture is quite astonishing. We observe multi2comple patterns that carry signs of a higher2 order. &he local interaction of neurons generates language, cognition, behavior, and 6why not2 consciousness. If a single unsuspecting ant, which is so simplistic, can co2create with others the admirable collective intelligence of an ant colony, then why should be absurd that a neuron in collaborations with others can co2create a conscious intelligenceD )ognitive scientists, currently, consider this doctrine as very promising for the improvement of functionalism1s flaws. #lthough, most of them are positive on the potentiality of gaining knowledge in the secrets of emergence, it is still a field that has not progressed at the level where we can confidently use it to such demanding issues, as the matter of consciousness. (erhaps, the natural magic of emergentism is not enough to give a complete answer, but nevertheless, it is the most futuristic theory that could upgrade our notions of what is intelligence, what is collective behavior, in a way that could smooth the progress of consciousness studies. 5or now, we can only draw e tensions from emergentism1s standpoints, by daring speculations that will open up the hori*on for further accomplishment. #t last, it should be noted that emergentism is the funeral of reductionism, since it proves the insufficiency of the dogmatic study on the isolated parts of a system. We rather have to adapt a more panoramic viewpoint because a system, primarily, functions in the basis of the comple interactions between its agents. &he quantum mechanical e planation of chemical bonding and the ensuing processes of molecular biology ?such as the discovery of the !"# structure@ led to the almost complete demise of the antireductionist, emergentist view of biology and chemistry ?/c:aughlin, CGG<@. &herefore, the new cognitive approaches seem to draw their bias towards a more holistic approach, something, which should be kept as the insinuation against e treme physicalisms, like the eliminative materialism. In a sort of way, an emergent phenomenon is an additional part to its components, no matter how much physical it is, it is characteri*ed by a kind of an 3ethereal4 quality, since it is triggered by states of events and processes, instead of states of matter. &he resulting picture we have from the doctrine of emergentism is that cognitive science, after all, however difficult it might be, can leave behind obsolete strategies of deduction to embrace new unfamiliar concepts that can show us the way to a new code of thought, much more ad,usted to the 3irregularity4 of consciousness.

Criti4ue on Physicalis/ and Reductionis/

#s we passed through the most outstanding cognitive doctrines, which allege the e planation of consciousness, we must have noticed the weaknesses and the limitations that obstruct their full2fledged declaration of victory over the mystery. #part from emergentism, the rest of them are too incongruous

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with the sub,ective sense that we get from the e perience of consciousness. &he reason that I differentiate the doctrine of emergentism is because it offers the margin to be less restricted in materialistic concepts. #s a matter of fact, it opens up a new hori*on of conceiving the relationship between matter and mind, where new ideas taken from chaos theory, as we will see in the ne t part, can makeup the way for an e otic understanding of consciousness in con,unction with cosmology. "evertheless, emergentism is still not studied as deep as to become familiar enough to psychologists, so that they can illuminate themselves in the desired level. &he implications of such non2reductive physicalisms is that we begin to entertain further the new type of dualism, the idea of anomalous monism, a thesis that mental entities ?ob,ects and events@ are, indeed, identical with physical entities, but under their mental descriptions mental entities are neither definitionally nor nomologically reducible to the vocabulary of physics. In that respect, we have the partial devaluation of the materialism1s intransigence and the indication of the futility of reductionism, at least in the investigation of mind. #t this point I will reinforce this argument and I will seek to prove that physicalism and reductionism might not only be the not e actly right approaches to probe the sub,ective mental states but the wholly unfortunate ones. &he thesis that I take is grudgingly opposed to this camp of potential cognitive solutions. Beyond doubt, any attempt to unravel the deep mystery of consciousness by merely materialistic methods is on the wrong way, with no chance to encompass the facets that, in principle, become manifest to empirical inquiring only by introspection. -nfortunately, there are many brain researchers today who pretend that the brain is ,ust another organ, like the stomach and the pancreas, which should be described and e plained securely in physical terms. &he actual essentiality of mind is e empted as nothing more than an irrelevant and e traneous shadow to the brain, or in the best case, an additional semi2functional floating emergent property. I counter this meager approach with the vitalist version of what mind is, in dealing with the blindness of materialism toward the rich depth of conscious and subconscious e perience. (erhaps, it is about time to leave behind our reluctance to dive deep, beyond the superficial appearance of mind, which happens to be ob,ectively observed. /aterialism is like a language that recogni*es only nouns; but reality, like language, contains action as well as ob,ects, verbs as well as substantives, life and motion as well as matter. "ew evidence from physics drives psychology to underemphasi*e the need to be limited in concepts of matter. &he theoretical development in physics in the last decades shows the beginnings of a change in direction. In the concepts of space and time, mass and force, action and reaction, as defined once by "ewton, the basic framework of physical reality seemed to be established once and for all. &oday, though, the immanent progress in natural sciences has opened up new destinations, radically different from what we were used to. In the place of a rigid ground of reality, we now have a fle ible and mobile one that does not allow the founding of rigid materialistic theories in the field of psychology. &hat change has brought the recalling of the independency of the concept. &he new perspective of physics, as we will reali*e in depth in the third part, has given back the importance to conceptual meaning. &he relationship between a physical ob,ect and its conceptual copy have been e amined and it showed that there is a necessity to evaluate the conceptual part as more significant than the ob,ect, because it is that which mind lives with and that which mind is filled with. &o that view, /ach, a physicist, psychologist, and epistemologist altogether, added that matter must be no longer regarded as a substantial something 6it should be understood as a comple of simple sensations and defined as their mere ,u taposition. &his was an attempt to correct the dogmatic materialism of "ewtonian physics by the help of psychology. &hus, in a way, the atom was replaced by sensation. #pparently, those were the ,uvenilia of a more mental2oriented science, in the study of mind and consciousness. It is a slippery topic, indeed, and it is quite easy to blur the distinction between mind and matter or to neglect mental terms altogether in mind1s e emplification. 'owever, this separation must be drawn when we want to e amine and analy*e the composition of mental phenomena, in their own right. If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological features must themselves be given a physical account. But when we e amine their sub,ective character, it seems that such a result is impossible. &he reason is that every sub,ective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an ob,ective, physical theory will abandon that view. #s "agel maintained, there are things about the world, life, and the self that cannot be adequately understood from a ma imally ob,ective standpoint, because a great deal has to do with a particular point of view and the attempt to give an account of consciousness in ob,ective terms detached from these perspectives inevitably leads to false reductions or to the outrageous denial that certain phenomena do not e ist at allF &hat is, the least to say, madness with the license of rationality; a dead2end in the understanding of mind, a suspension in the attainment of the skills to face the mystery of consciousness. /ost physicalistic theories are entangled with the methodology of reductionism. It is the position that holds that theories or things of one sort can e haustively account for theories or sorts of another kind. .o, for e ample, reductionism within the cognitive sciences holds that neuroscientific theories will

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e plain the psychological theories and, therefore, will reveal that psychological states and processes are nothing but bodily states and processes. &he reason that reductionism is used to be so thriving in the last decades is because, in its traditional form, it promotes a theoretical and ontological unity of science based on a series of reductive e planations of the theories at each level by the theories at the smaller scale level so that all theories in science, finally are reducible to the theories of physics. )onversely, this facilitation in the deductive systems of science should not stand as an obstacle to reali*e that, ultimately, reductionism is a curbing methodology, an unsubstantial way for any kind of synthetic deductions. &he analytic manner of making reductive theories about ob,ects locks away the holistic part. .ubsequently, reductionism is a dangerous view, since the way we respond to our fellow human beings is dependent on the way we conceptuali*e them in the our theoretical formulations. If we fell in the bad temptation to envision our fellows solely as animal machines, we lose the essential human richness and we turn to meaningless robots. 8adical reductionism offers very little in the area of morality. 5urther, it presents a wrong glossary of terms for a humanistic pursuit. .omeone who wishes to be conscientiously scientific and keeps an anchor to the humanistic foundation of research, must have already postulated that the study of physiology in the issue of consciousness reduces it to absurdity, undermining itself. &he results that loom are not positive. &he most important and characteristic feature of conscious mental phenomena is very poorly understood. /ost reductionist theories do not even try to e plain it. #nd careful e amination will show that no currently available concept of reduction is applicable to it. &herefore, a new theoretical form is e pected in the future to be devised for that purpose. &he way to escape this impedimental state of the consciousness studies is the adapting of a more holistic approach, which will be mainly supported by phenomenology. &he most adequate, the most promising way to correspond to the high comple ity of the higher2level phenomenon of consciousness can only follow such a route. While reductionism is the idea that of predicting the future from the past without regard to the 3goals4 of organisms, holism is the idea that only inanimate ob,ects can be so predicted. In contrast, in the case of animate ob,ects, purposes, beliefs, goals, desires, and so on are essential to e plain their actions. &his view is often called 3goal2oriented4 or 3teleological4 ?'ofstadter, CGG<@. )onsciousness belongs to this class of phenomena, since it moves toward goals in the future. "ow, if we apprehend mind from that perspective then surely soulism is not the naivety that reductionism and physicalism preaches so arrogantly. &he contemporary psychology and psychiatry maintain an absolutely negative attitude against any reports of e traordinary and supernatural mental phenomena. 8adical physicalism and reductionism declares that such ideas are the apotheosis of ludicrousness, unworthy even to investigate. 'owever, the truth must be somewhat reverted. It is the state of contemporary science, which is ludicrous due to its obstinacy on refusing to embrace the abstract, which is so much intertwined with the reality of consciousness. )ognitive sciences and the philosophy of science on the materialist and reductionist inspection of mind, the identity, and the sense of I2ness, fall in the ha*ardous trap to disregard the holistic, soulful meaning of our conscious e istence and e perience. In respect to the triviality and mechanical nature of the lower scales, we presume erroneously that this should be, analogically, the criterion for conceiving our macroscopical e perience. &his trap is dangerous because it devaluates our moral sense of selfhood by promoting a model devoid of meaning.

P0E*OME*O(OG$ VS, *EUROPS$C0O(OG$ +he Di1er-ence

Introspection and phenomenology are the oldest techniques in the use of e ploring the contents of consciousness. It has been practiced as long as our species arose in the light of self2articulation. &he observation of the inner landscape has been practiced by all classes of people and the personal conclusions vary from the reports of .ocrates1 inner demon to 9urd,ieff1s mental ma*e. 'owever, despite the millennia of involvement with phenomenology, we did not agreed on a common map of mind, something that fed the misgivings of contemporary science and led psychology to the ob,ective security of neuropsychology. &he sub,ectivity of inner e perience fluctuates enormously between individuals and thus introspectionism is considered as a multidimensional method that regardless of the insight that it offers, it leads us, e ceedingly, astray. #ccording to cognitive scientists, who dream a psychology that will be based on a purely physiological model, the inner universe is full of deceptions and the e perience

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of consciousness is nothing more than fictional. #pparently, we have a divergence between phenomenology and physiology, a gap that is as difficult to bridge as the gap between mind and body. &he dissension will keep on triggering opposed views, as long as we remain speechless on the issue of the mind2body problem. &he cognitive theories that grow like mushrooms on the field of research reproduce themselves blocked by the same obstacles and obscurities. &herefore, phenomenology is for once more in the focus, no matter how nebulous and deceptive. (erhaps, the reason that we disclaim the assumptions that come out from introspection is because we, really, have not grasped yet the essence of mind. (erhaps, we are still blundering as we distance our methods and our science from the long2desired destination% &he source of consciousness. &he single most significant divergence is the tendency of e istential2phenomenology and neuropsychology to emphasi*e different levels of analysis. &hey misinterpret each other. 7 istential phenomenology involves a passionate dedication to the phenomenal world, the macroscopic level, the primary level of everyday life. "europsychology, by definition, is concerned solely with the microscopic brain processes. 7ven if, though, we acknowledge that a behavior is neurally structured, that does not e plain away or refute the significance or meaningfulness of the behavior as a response to the macroscopic level. 'ence, the two opposed methodologies work on a completely different ground, and there is no hope that they will ever come in concurrence. .ome think that phenomenology serves the same corrective function for the psychology of consciousness that ethology plays for the e perimental psychology of animal behavior. -nfortunately, though, even this is a bad metaphor of the actual role that phenomenology can play if understood right. In condition of reali*ing the abyssal nature of mind, then phenomenology might not only play a corrective function to physiological probing, but much more than we can currently imagine. In cognitive science, the study of phenomenological features is regarded as a mere 3bubble4. &hey believe that it is not worth to develop a science that is engaged with only mental phenomena, released by physiological parallelisms. &o put it loosely, they see mind as abstract as the centers of gravity or the 7quator. But why should those abstract phenomena be disregarded from concrete scientific analysisD 7ven !ennett admitted that in the future empirical science might reach the level that the abstract will turn to concrete, if we manage to find methods and gather knowledge that will allow us to do so. 5or such a thing to be achieved we need first to ree amine and revaluate the fundamental nature of mental phenomena. We need to reconsider the tools of our probing and supply ourselves with a new terminology. But the most a iomatic prerequisite is to cultivate conceptually ourselves to have a sense of separation and independency between the mental and the physical realm or, in another way urge the supremacy of mental against the physical. (urporting to e plain the problems at the phenomenal level, the biochemical terminology at best displaces the problem to another level, without resolving them. .o it is actually a nonsensical transportation of the problem to an even more hard to tackle dimension. !o the basal ganglia truly serve as intentionality mechanisms ?(ribram, CGOB@D (erhaps, but the clarification of the modalities and forms of the organism1s intentional relationships to a field of events and others remains to be investigated, as does the topography of that field. +es, it is important to know which brain areas and functions are the conditions for the possibility of intentionality and consciousness, and, even more importantly, how they contribute to the total structure of intentional consciousness but the question remains% 3What is intentionality in its own rightD4 &o inquire about intentionality in its own right signifies, first of all, the suspension of all questions about real causes at another level of analysis, meaning the ob,ective environmental determinants or the relevant features that dwell in the same level, that influence it. It is very vital to take up conscious life without pre,udice, ,ust as it presents itself. In !ennett1s book, Consciousness Explained ?CGG=@ one witnesses the best possible advocating on the persuasion of the powerlessness of introspection ne t to the cognitive probing. It is a book, which its main aim is to argue against the confabulations that entrench the issue of consciousness. #lthough, it has been accepted by critics with great enthusiasm and it has been declared as the initiator of a new scientific revolution in mind, there are not few vociferous omissions that lead us far from the e planation of consciousness. (erhaps it is not the erroneous attitude of !aniel !ennett in his approach but the completely fallacious interpretation of the whole scientific mentality against the ambiguous phenomenon of mind. !ennett1s effort is to concreti*e scientifically the reductionist workings of the brain and, subsequently, to attain a more precise understanding in the nature of consciousness. What would describe best his ultimate intentions is the dispatch of a more sophisticated analysis on the physiology of the brain in order to gloss over any naiveties, such as the )artesian &heater and the )artesian !ualism. +et, this should not stand as an obstacle to appreciate the mental emergence as a mysterious property, still grossly undiscovered, despite the fact that we acknowledge its originating workings, at some e tend. &he thing is that this progressing sophistication and preciseness of cognitive sciences on the study of

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brain can breed even the verification of some old intuitional guesses on consciousness that in the beginning of the cognitive sciences course seemed preposterous. It seems that while he fires unceasingly against naiveties and mistakes other scientists have committed, yet in his own account of consciousness he is not any better from them. 'is efforts are focused on the understanding of how consciousness is channeled in cognition but that does not e plain the nature of consciousness, in any way. &herefore, the irony is that his endeavor starts with an impressive mistake, and that1s the very title of his book. .o let1s mark out some of those lavishly accusations of cognitive science against phenomenology and try to establish its vindication, where it is deserved. 5irst, !ennett identifies the introspective mode with fictional sets. $bviously, he does that in accordance to the actuality and concreteness of the brain processes. Introspection, in this way, can be regarded as fiction only in a clearly physicalistic view. 'owever, the qualia do have their own reality and that realm, which sets in consciousness, has its own ?non2fictional@ interpretation. &hat is because no matter how ine istent they are taken from the side of neuropsychology, they are the ingredients of our very alive and undeviating conscious e perience. In that sense and prose of thinking, we are driven in a psychology that becomes something different from the study of mind. It becomes a kind of brain physics and, hence, it gets blind in the rich variety and significance of the e periential events of consciousness. (eople like !ennett believe that phenomenology is not to be trusted and that the essence of mind wholly can be found on the underlying mechanical level of the physical brain. ;ust like !arwin did with evolution and "ewton with the )osmos. #lbeit, it is not wrong to adapt an analytical attitude, to discharge phenomenology from meaning, is to support the strictly reductionist approach, which denies all meaningful interpretations that structure the phenomenological methods. In short, meaning is alien to the microscopical levels. #s William ;ames said, we need to be pragmatists in our scientific e amination. &hat is, we ought to look away from first things, principles, categories and try to look towards last things, fruits, and consequent facts. Beyond scholastic and hyperbolic positivism, there is the question of pragmatism on the issue of consciousness. What are the effects, the consequences, and the implicationsD What is mind forD Where do we go from hereD We should not set our watches according to the cognitive view. "ot to the nature of consciousness. &he best argument that forcefully rocks down accounts like !ennett1s is that if we follow him and accept that most of our conscious performances are a trickery illusion, devoid of meaningful teleological functions then we are becoming non2e istent. "o matter how he tries to persuade us that our e perience should be left intact from those cognitive assumptions and that the richness and meaningfulness is still the hallmark of consciousness, he, nonetheless, swings down such an assertion when he proposed that mind is fictional. Is it that kind of consciousness what we really possess ?or consciousness possess us@D #nd why to discard that which is phenomenal to us as meaninglessD !ennett here makes me feel as a helpless resultant of my brain processes, constantly diluted. Is that petty our first2person role in consciousnessD &o which facet we are acquainted more, to the backstage process of fiction movie or with the movie itselfD &o what use is our knowledge of the film quality, camera2hardware, and the budget to the pro,ection of the screenplay per seD Well, some might say there is an enormous relationship but not when we wish to probe consciousness in its own right. We simply do not care about the hardware stuff when we watch the movie. #ll our attention is concentrated on the plot, and that is the crucial distinction that one has to make when compares phenomenology from mere physiology.

+estin- Out 0etero!heno/enolo-y

&he recognition that physiology by itself cannot offer the insights that we e pect from consciousness and the qualm against purely introspective approaches gave the impetus to cognitive scientists to bethink themselves on a better solution that would cover both phenomenology and neuropsychology, without consenting to either side. &he basic matter was to keep the balance between the two in order to avoid the vagueness of phenomenology and the deterioration of the consciousness1 content that characteri*es the physiological probing. &hus, the hybrid2doctrine heterophenomenology was born in proposition of an all2encompassing method. What triggered the inclination of cognitive sciences to heterophenomenology were some indications that were inspiring one to think that, in a sense, there was no chasm as such in between the neuropsychology and phenomenology, after all. &he phenomenal divergence is only a matter of misinterpretation of the relationship between the brain and the mind. $r probably it is a matter of our misunderstanding of the nature of the relationship. &he fallacy was to think that mental phenomena should be e emplified by the assessment of physiological phenomena. "ow psychologists recogni*e that

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the parallelism should not be taken literally but in a rather complementary way. &his means that heterophenomenology1s assistance is to e plain a mental phenomenon not in its entirety by the cognitive probing but only where it is required to be verified and attested. In the same fashion, a cognitive physiological phenomenon should not be probed without any verification, in a sort of parallelism, from the accompanying mental phenomenon. )onsequently, heterophenomenology shed light on the points that relate theoretically the two very dissimilar levels. (henomenology and neuropsychology proved to be complementary and compatible and, therefore, a breakthrough from either school is now considered as enriching for both sides1 research. &he difference between classic phenomenology and heterophenomenology is that the former is a first2person and the latter third2person investigation, neutrally e tracted information from a sub,ect1s report. 5or e ample, the researcher queries the sub,ect1s mental states and he elaborates them over the blueprint of the ob,ective information that has been acquired from the underlying physiological factors that took place during the performance of the mental phenomenon. &his method has boosted the confidence of the researchers by offering a more stable and precise principle where any conclusion can be based. 5ortunately, heterophenomenology gives us a partial solution to the uncertainty that blurs the nature of introspection in sub,ects. &o that assists the sympathetic neutrality of the researcher that compiles the definitive description of the world according to the sub,ects ?!ennett, CGG=@. &his interweaving technique reasonably declares the validity of the sub,ect1s beliefs, in respect to the ob,ective parameter. &herefore, any mistakes that obscure the phenomenological dimension pass this semi2ob,ective test. 'owever, the weakness of this new approach is that it denies the great difference between the brain events and the beliefs that we e press in our introspective reports. "o matter if they are related, it seems that we still neglect the fact that the functionality of brain and mind proves in some basic points, that they are parallel universes. &he mental phenomena, indeed, are resultants of the brain events but that does not mean that we can understand their full nature and intention even by the correlation to the physiological probing. !espite the fact that heterophenomenology helps to attain a useful understanding on their nature, still we do not accomplish to grasp, by our dependence on the underlying brain, their intentional direction and reason for e isting. #pparently, it does not serve the pragmatic analysis of consciousness. 'eterophenomenology should be utili*ed, and should be held as an important method even for the most fanatical phenomenologists, but this should not imply that consciousness and the multilevel rich parade of its content can be mapped satisfactorily in this way. It seems that it is about time to turn our interest at length to introspection and try to resurrect it from the elbowing of the cognitive sciences.

+he Vindication of Intros!ectionis/

We must reali*e that the problem of how to approach the nature of consciousness is not only methodological but, even more deeply, conceptual. &ypically, the literature of consciousness vacillates back and forth between materialistic and idealistic modes of e planation. $n the latter mode, traditionally, there are attempts to suspend all kind of questions about causes or reductionistic e planations and remain with an internal, descriptive, structural analysis of lived e perience. &hat is why, the heterophenomenologist account is not a substantial help. (henomenology is concerned with the articulation of organi*ational principles which govern the relationship of the conscious organism to the world. :et us consider the paradigmatic e ample of visual consciousness. (henomenology seeks to unfold visual e perience from within 6in its own terms2 and not to categori*e it as an effect of activity in the corte , or as an interaction between photons and light sensitive surfaces ?/arleau2(onti, CGB<@. 'uman vision, in its own right, involves a particular biological, but also e istential, mode of being. &he task of phenomenology of visual consciousness, then, is to describe that peculiar character of relationship of the seeing individual to the visible world, no matter what the microscopic interaction proves to be. &he primary concern here is the probing of the e periential synthesis. 'usserl ?CG<C@ divided the stream of phenomenological reality into a material and a noetic stratum. &o the latter belong all genuine problems of consciousness and meaning. &he noetic stratum is the place where consciousness maintains its importance but when we turn to the material stratum, consciousness loses all meaning and becomes a functional property, which does not bear any essential significance in correlation to the brain processes. )onsciousness is not a title for psychological comple es, for fused contents, for streams or clusters of sensations, which by themselves cannot yield a meaning. )onsciousness is a world apart from what sensationalism or reductionism wishes to be. It manifests properties that are paraconceptual by our ordinary concepts of space and time, and so requires a more sophisticated introspective understanding, than being reducible to physical e planatory concepts. "o

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matter how approved is to rationalism, consciousness is not meaningless matter. Introspection and phenomenology focus on that very realm of meaning, which is structured by the totality of all the impressions and that has no resemblance or association with the physicalistic notions. &he task of phenomenology is the descriptive enterprise to set a conceptual scene that is more appropriate to the mental sphere. When a biologist observes behavior, does he automatically become a practicing psychologistD When a computer scientist attempts to simulate his thought processes on computer software, is he addressing the problem that concerns a psychologistD #nd what about the e perimentalist who measures the electrical conduction of the skin, the heart rate, the movement of the eyes, or the electrical responses of the brain in a problem solving situationD Is he measuring behavior and if he is, does that matter to the real inquiry of an ideal psychologyD &hose questions should ponder us before we decide to make a better definition of psychology and its sub,ect. 'owever useful it is to probe the body and to make computer simulations, they do not really penetrate us into the very depths of mind. #nd that is the strong point of introspection, despite its non2ob,ective nature. &he shift to greater ob,ectivity, by any means, does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon. It takes us further away from it. #s we mentioned in previous pages, the strong point of introspectionism is, unfairly, shadowed by its weakness, which is the failure to establish a single settled method that everyone would agree on and the fact that we are not immune to error on our sub,ective estimations. &his weakness, though, would be repaired if we concede the mental nature is based wholly on the principle of uncertainty. /ind is not rigid as matter is. /ind is characteri*ed by its fluidity and its rapid leaps of states. &herefore, we should concoct an analogous technique of probing. /oreover, the immoderation that is caused from the erroneous estimations of the sub,ective introspection should not be regarded as a terrible obstacle. In contrast, the errors that the observer commits should be apprehended as useful information on the perspective of the mental phenomena per se. But if those mistakes are misunderstandings of how the brain works, then simply those mistakes do not concern the introspection that is truly meant here. We do not practice introspection to probe neural processes on their ob,ective appearance, but to peep in the unfathomable depths of that, which is represented by the neural processes. &his important distinction should cancel out the conception of the mistakes that ostensibly distort the validity of phenomenology. In addition, those weaknesses of introspectionism are unsubstantial if we consider that a numerically significant faction of psychologists, vicariously described as humanistic, transpersonal, and e istential2 phenomenologists, have decided that the ruling ma,ority paradigm in contemporary psychology, behaviorism, is enormously deficient. &he reductionistic, mechanistic, and uninspiring conceptuali*ation of the human reality, with a robot understanding of human furnishes a caricature vision of who we really are. &he turn within psychology, toward Western existential philosophical thinking, on the one hand, and toward the 7astern philosophico2religious wisdom, on the other hand, should be seen as a healthy attempt to revitali*e and reform the stifling structural scientific realities and the conception of what is consciousness. &his can only happen if we, like the old 9reek and $riental introspective approaches, insist on the importance of personal agency, the sense of the self, and the value of meaning. We have to emphasi*e the ultimate depth in the dimensions of the human e perience% the peak e periences, the mystical realities, the self2transcendence, and the e perience of transpersonal powers, or 3theo2 realities4. It is not an e aggeration to say that the analysis of internal states by purely cognitive or reductionist methods is like asserting that you can make a pretty good impression of the interior of a house by viewing the inside merely from outside by the open windows. #lasF .omeone who stands inside has a much better impression of the interior space, no matter how sub,ective his standpoint is considered. &he warmth of the interior space, which is manifested by the comple of the important human e periences, such as happiness, love, religiousness, and intentionality are features that belong to the interior sub,ective domain. )ognitive probing is of a particular limited value in dealing with altered states of consciousness, since they are mainly internal. # physicalistic approach, for instance, to the study of a ma,or psychedelic drug as :.! would lead to the conclusion that :.! is a sedative, a tranquili*er, since the behavior most frequently triggered is sitting still doing nothing. But from the internal viewpoint is ,ust the oppositeF What would an e ternal observer say about the state of the sub,ectD 5ew things compared to its surreal report. If we are to understand consciousness and its various states, introspection must become the prominent technique in psychology, in spite of the difficulties of its application. I believe psychology1s historical re,ection of introspection was a token of immaturity. In the search for general laws of the mind, too much was attempted too soon. /ental phenomena are the most comple phenomena of all. &he physical sciences, by comparison, seem trivial to what a sophisticated system of introspection can achieve. # science of mental life is as likely to become rigorous and respectable as a science of behavior or matter. &his does not mean that the models of psychological e perience and the laws of behavior will

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prove to be similar, anymore than the models of quantum physics resemble the laws of mechanics. (sychology, therefore, can readily encompass both levels of inquiry. Biology, as well as physics, has its molecular and molar divisions 6why not psychologyD !aniel !ennett wants to eliminate such a question by using the word fiction for the most of our theori*ing perception and thinking. What is the origin of this fiction, thoughD Would it not be possible that there are important and meaningful factors behind fiction that bear something important about consciousnessD &he phenomenon of mind is founded over the imagination, the integral thought, the subconscious modality, apart from logic, analytic thought, and so on. 'ow can we e plain those phenomena by merely reductionist methodsD If meaning that dresses consciousness is fiction then fiction is reality and fiction is all we care about. &he framework of meaning is the e periential, biographical, historical world, the world of human topography and chronography, and not the homogenous, isotropic, space2time of geometry and physics. I envisage that soon psychology will reali*e that and, consequently, it will force itself to an adoption of a more pragmatic attitude on the investigation of consciousness, by the help of traditional methods that long have been snubbed by science for many decades. )onsciousness1 mystery will be deciphered only and if only psychology turns to understand that what we care on the issue cannot be found on the roots but on the fruits. .uch a declaration of the superiority of introspection will confront us with the freedom to believe that anyone is suitable for applying straightforwardly himself to the pursuit of knowledge and can have the formal right to put his convictions to dispute, with the presupposition that he does so seriously. &his results to the unique empowering of the average individual to perform his own personal science. # development like that will lead to the rapid accumulation and fostering of various systems of thought and introspective inquiries. In effect of that, I can only see the fast structuring of novel introspective methodologies, theories, and schools, and the emergence of a rich language of mental states. It will be no surprise that, if we repose all our investigative attention to phenomenology, an e plosion of progress will take place. &he idea is that the understanding will be global in its nature due to the easy accessibility on the probing sub,ect ?the mind@ and the probing methods ?armchair introspection@. &hat will be enormously facilitated by the aid of mind2manifesting agents because they are known for their miraculous power to drive one to self2actuali*ing reali*ations. #pparently, in the vindication of introspectionism and pure phenomenology, the mystic gains his lost status. &hat is because both the scientist and the mystic are involved in empiricism. Both are committed to careful, truthful, and painstaking observation of reality% in the case of the physicist, to matter and energy 3outside4 himself, while in the case of the mystic, to their reality 3within4 himself. &he mystic seeks immediacy not in the things outside him but inside him. It is not the nature as the aggregate of ob,ects in space and time but his own ego where the e istential reality lies. If we wish to see reality free from refracting media, we must submit to the guidance of our inner instead of outward e perience. We have to scientifically concede that the ultimate element of reality will not be found in the things but in our own consciousness. &he analysis of consciousness is a bona fide ticket to the tour de force on the ultimate and original understanding of all reality. #t this point is where psychology meets metaphysics to fuse indissolubly. But what1s wrong with contemporary epistemology and we postpone this astounding rende*vousD

+0E A*+ICIPA+IO* O" A* IDEA( PS$C0O(OG$ On the Autono/y of Psycholo-y

(sychology has been considered autonomous science at least in two respects% its sub,ect and its methods. &he sub,ect it deals is very different from the one that the sub,ect of the natural sciences. 'ere we are talking about mind, consciousness, thinking, behavior. &hose are entities, properties, relations, states that cannot be dealt in terms of the any other science, e plicably. 'owever, the question of whether psychology is an autonomous science is still in elaboration of philosophy, which seeks to answer if the mind can be brought under the aegis of natural science. It is true that there are ine tricable difficulties to arrive safely on that conclusion. #s we mentioned already, mind differs widely from the phenomena in the world that can be classified in the category of material things. /ind is something that concerns the impalpable core of the living e perience, the foundation of our perple ing e istence. &herefore, until today, any attempt to e plain mental phenomena by the vocabulary of the natural sciences has been proven insufficient. Insofar as history has recorded, no positivist has actually succeeded in translating any psychological claims into the language of "ewtonian physics. &here have

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been many asserting that mental and physical properties are identical, and it sounds true, but they conceded that the language that we use to describe these properties has no relevance at all to the physical language. $bviously, claims like this, the ones who assert that mental and physical phenomena are identical, no matter their difference in their descriptive nature, securely imply that there is no such thing as a metaphysical principle in the sub,ect of mind. &he question of whether mind is a metaphysical ob,ect or not, seems to be faced with a negative answer and, hence, consciousness and mind figure as a viable phenomenon to positivistic science. )onversely, there are philosophers who support that psychology is concerned with a metaphysical ob,ect. &hat is because mind is regarded a multiple reali'ed ob,ect by underlying physical properties. &his is actually the hallmark of the doctrine of emergentism. &his is in contrast to the belief that mind is entirely identical to matter and results to a new type of dualism. 'ow can the logical and conceptual instruments, which were made for the description of physical being, the spatial being of things, apprehend the reality of egoD 'ow can we hope to come closer to the reality of consciousness when we are artificially interrupting its flow by dividing it into classes and genera ?)assirer, CGJO@D #ny kind of functionalist approach implies a certain degree of metaphysical autonomy because psychological properties are multiply reali*ed. &hat does not retrograde us, though, to the )artesian dualism, neither to a primitive psychology. &he autonomy of psychology from natural sciences and the acceptance that mind is, after all, a metaphysical ob,ect, does not mean that we must depart ourselves completely from the perspective of the physical sciences. It only gives the admission to adapt a more unconstraint science of mind, where all kind of creative theories can bloom. "otably, such an acceptance leads one to reali*e that emerging picture is of a 3layered world4. .uch a world allows the theories of different levels to have their independency, relatively. Whoever thinks that this 3layered world4 prevents psychology from having a properly scientific status, has not really registered the hidden sides of the above arguments. &he only thing that such an independency implies is that a psychological e planation has its autonomy in the sense that it does not need to be reduced to physical e planation, but, nonetheless, is properly scientific. What if, though, we have a proposal to make that will sooth down the arguments on support to the autonomy of psychology and, therefore, facilitate the wishful unity of scienceD What if, there is a logical outlet that leads to the actual spirituali*ation of physics, so that they become more compatible with the ob,ect of mindD By now, it should be more than evident that any purely materialistic enterprise to e plain consciousness is a dead duck. In an age where so much happens in science, when new brainstorming theories make their way in to the mainstream and our conceptions change faster than the weather, we try to pick the pieces and put them in an order which will match with our intuitional and optimal version of what is consciousness and how we shall study it. /ore or less, we are striving to get away from the label of the harum2scarum in the case we maintain the quite irrational beliefs of our e istential nature. We customi*e the scientific theories for our profit, our e oneration from dooming postulations of reality that dehumani*e us and forward us in a formidable future. "o matter how daunting a theory of consciousness is ?cognitive theories tend to become a thriller2series for the humankind@, we have the natural inclination to modify them in a more amiable form, which will not steal away the significance of selfhood and of the psyche. "evertheless, the good news is that nowadays we do not have to try much for such modifications since the substratum of reality, which is the universe, emerges with a new quality that betrays its devotee2theories. (atter is mind, is the crowning statement of the new physics, as we will see in the third part of the paper, and it humiliates all the materialistic theories that suspended the progression of psychology for years. In that conte t, I don1t see a reason for a complete autonomy of psychology from the natural sciences. We must reali*e that a good psychology can emerge if it is autonomous from the superseded mechanistic standards of the natural sciences or, otherwise, if it is communicated with the flu of the quantum level. Beyond doubt, psychology is preferred as autonomous only when it is faced with an obsolete epistemology of the natural sciences. &he wishful unity of science can only be achieved if we conceptually ad,ust our thinking and our theories to the new mentality that springs by the promotion of quantum physics, the relativity theory, the morphogenetic fields, the chaos theory and other pioneering systems of knowledge that figure as more well2matched with the nature of mind. If physics can be less rigid then what is the separation forD

3,

A Re1ision on the E!iste/olo-y of Consciousness

.ome of the mistakes that psychology have committed in the previous framework of conceived reality, before quantum physics become popular, was that consciousness was described in ob,ective terms; it refuted to see that consciousness is something irreducible and ultimate. 7ven sensationalism, whose basic epistemological intention is to break down the world of sensation and intuition into separate elements, was unable to disregard this original totality of consciousness. &he investigation of the nature of consciousness, which wholly reposes its trust on the cognitive probing of the physical brain, is similar to an idiot1s disillusionment to search for the fruits in the roots of a tree instead on the branches. #ny effort to investigate the phenomenon to its building blocks, where microprocesses take place, is square to one. &he dimension where all sensations emerge in a totality, where meaning and intuition color the human e perience is the valid one to be the field where psychology can make a fortunate investigation. &he main fault of contemporary epistemology is one% the endeavor to arrive at an e planation of the ob,ective consciousness is always stigmati*ed by the arbitrary transposition to modify the content of consciousness in some other way. In the end, neither theory captures the pure phenomenon itself. What we require is a new system of introspective methods that will be based on sub,ective reports, but they will be easily classified by ob,ective standards. 7quipped with an innovative conceptual language it will help us to dig in the very depths of consciousness. .anskrit language has many presumably precise words for internal states that do not translate well in 7nglish. &here are over twenty words for 3consciousness4, which carry different shades of meaning. In a similar fashion, it is essential to develop a more precise terminology for consciousness and its states. &he philosophical argument of :eibni* indicates us that a proper research happens only under the condition that we apprehend the unity of consciousness and apperception. 'e came to notice that the best route to study consciousness is not from the natural sciences but from the philosophy of language ?)assirer, CGJO@. &his conclusion can lead to a fructifying and revitali*ing power. If we take the linguistic meaning, which is irreducible, as our guide and model, we gain an entirely new picture of sensibility. We then recogni*e that the isolated sensation, like the isolated word, is a mere abstraction. #ctual living perception no more consists of colors, or tones, or neuronal firings, than the meaningful sentence consists of words, reduced to syllables, reduced to mere letters. )onceiving all that, we cannot maintain a neglecting attitude against the metaphysical theories that surround issue of consciousness. &hey are undeniably closer to the essence of meaning than physicalism. #lthough many metaphysical and theistic enterprises to e plain mind seem contrived or childish, they are not, obviously, more absurd than the popular scientific belief that the universe e ists in the form that it is, reasonlessly. If we want to develop a sophisticated introspective science, and want that science to go beyond our own cultural limitations 6if we want to mature the childish metaphysical theses, we must begin to recogni*e the limitability and arbitrariness of much of our ordinary state of consciousness ?&art, CGIC@. -nfortunately, until now, most psychologists are content to work within an established framework of thinking and do not usually question the presuppositions of their work. 'ence, most of the times, the very meaning of their activity becomes questionable, a crisis of identity in the whole discipline sets in, and such a situation inevitably leads to a situation of doubting and questioning. &his revision opens up a dialogue, and other worldviews, other anthropologies, metaphysics, and religions become interesting and important. # search for a new paradigm ?Luhn, CGB<@ begins. &he triviali*ation and marginali*ation of humankind is the leitmotif of science since the early postulations of )opernicus and !arwin. &his e istential ethos is threatening and debasing% It has alienated us from the universe that we live. Is it that the ultimate truth we are looking for by the medium of scienceD 5ar from it. We are not incidental products of blind forces. &he e istence of conscious beings, like us, is a fundamental feature of the universe. We have been written into the laws of nature in a deep and, I believe, in a meaningful way. .cience is not an alienating activity. .cience is a noble and enriching quest that helps us to make sense of the world in an ob,ective and methodical manner. It should not be identified with absence of meaning. /ore likely, this absurdity is something that characteri*es our age, but it is not a characteristic that will be eternally on the stage. &he conceptual modifications that will happen in the future will structure the right epistemology and the right framework to e plore the ma,or and so central phenomenon of consciousness. In the shadow of our century1s frantic scientific development, in the shadow of the rocket, the hydrogen bomb, the invention of television and the computer, the apotheosis of telecommunications, there are archaic truths about our conscious e istence that remain hidden and neglected. Beyond the behavioristic horror that throbbed in the laboratories in the recent years, somewhere in the wild forests there have been nomads that cognitively know for millennia that mind is something appalling, something much more fascinating than a mere brain epiphenomenon. &oday, there are individuals who have been

3+

influenced by them and discovered the magic of the psychedelic substances, attaining the reali*ation that mind is truly metaphysical and titanic. # real tool for incredible things to be achieved. &here are some individuals who have been practicing an awesome kind of introspection, akin to the e ploration of a new universe. &he inner universe, which pertains consciousness, that one that reductionistic psychology is so blind to see, is the sub,ect of a very serious e istential study for them. )all them 3psychonauts4. )all them e plorers of the new age. )all them makers of the future epistemology.

3-

**
&'7 &8#".(78.$"#: #((8$#)'

Psychedelic Quirks ***

RRR
R
3I feel we have the obligation to e plore the psychedelic domains and pass on that information to others interested in mapping the psyche. #t this time in our history, it1s perhaps the most awe2inspiring ,ourney anyone could hope to make.4 2&erence /cLenna 3&he new psychology will reveal in us a mental region incomparably wider than the intellect. &o e plore the most sacred and impersonal depths of the unconscious, is to labor in the subsoil of consciousness% that will be the principal task of psychology in the century which is opening. I do not doubt that wonderful discoveries await us there.4 2'enri Bergson

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A* EPIS+EMO(OGICA( PO(ARI+$ +he Radical Vitalis/ A-ainst the Conser1ati1e Physicalis/

In the study of human consciousness, psychology finds itself in the middle of an epistemological polarity, which conditions the debate of consciousness1 issue for many years now. #s noted in the previous part, the psychologist is between two very different directions. # decision for which way to go is not easy to be made 6and that is because scientifically and officially we are unable to declare a final ,udgment on its nature. /oreover, the main reason seems to be the fact that empirical evidence is at odds with most of the physicalistic notions, which dominate its e ploration. "otwithstanding the high status of cognitive sciences, there are certain e periences that challenge its postulations and lead us to question their validity and request a more satisfying trend of thought, which will be more compatible with them. 'ence, the polarity is charged and the lack of a centrali*ed ideology becomes a thorny issue that suspends the substantial facing of the mystery. 8easonable is the pondering over the perple ing matter of the transcendental e perience. If the physicalistic version of mind is true, then how is it possible for an individual to attain all those paraconceptual phenomena that characteri*e the e perience induced by hallucinogensD Beyond consideration, the idea that one can transcend himself, that one can experientially dissolve among energy waves right there where he sits, and the idea that one can communicate his fellows without any medium is outrageous from a conservative point of view. 'owever, if we choose to maintain a more vitalist kind of perspective then, perhaps, we are gaining a more fle ible attitude as we e tend our vision beyond the mere physical ob,ect and unusual phenomena like these become more accessible to research. &he polarity, as it appears, is between the conser ati e physicalism and the radical italism. &he former approach seeks to uncover the roots of behavior in pre2personal terms of physiological functions without appeal to the e perienced reality of consciousness and personal agency. &he physicalist2positivist approach is the serious attempt to simulate man as an assembly of variables and respond tendencies with general information2processing capability of an 3artificial intelligence4 with emergent properties. ?&art, CGIC@. &he ideal of such a view is the complete situation of man, the creation of the android under scientific management and control. $n the other side of the psychological spectrum, there are the 3soft4 humanistic and e istential approaches which insist on the reality of selfhood, self2reali*ation, and self2agency, and which emphasi*e the importance of personal consciousness of meaning and values. &he activities of each human individual require an 3intentional analysis4 and interpretation reading, a 3hermeneutics of e istence4, rather than a mere causal analysis. &he vitalist emphasis in psychology stresses the reality of embodiment, meaningfulness, and intensity of e perience. It is thus sympathetic with both the human potential movement in humanistic psychology and its accentuation on the e perience of body, and transpersonal psychology, which retains an appreciation for man1s vital connectedness with the realities of the .pirit, of values, and ultimately with the realm of the !ivine. &herefore, while physicalist2positivist psychologies aim the mastery and control by a professional scientific elite, the vitalist psychologies seem to favor the further emancipation, the self2development, and generally taking matters in one1s hands. $bviously, here the divergence is vast. 'ow a psychologist, who is committed entirely to the conservative view, can recogni*e and accept the word )i ine in his terminologyD Introspective descriptions of mental phenomena that bear an e traordinary essence are literally invisible from his point of view. &hey are no more than delusional states, which have nothing to confess for the nature of consciousness. &he growth of consciousness through self2actuali*ation and spiritual practices is no more than a ,oke to them. If one approves the conservative view of mind, where consciousness is no more than the product of the nervous system and brain, the degree of independence or ob,ectivity of the observer can only be relative. &he obser er may be semi2independent system with fewer characteristics than the overall system of consciousness as a whole, but it is dependent on the operation of neurologically based structures and so is ultimately limited and shaped by them; it is also programmed to some e tend in the enculturation process. In the radical view of mind, awareness is ?or can become@ different from the brain and nervous system. 'ere partial to total independence of the mind2brain can be attained by the

34

"bser er. &he ultimate degree of this ob,ectivity then depends on whether awareness per se, whatever its ultimate nature is, has properties that limit it. #nd indeed, we have evidence from quantum physics, already, that this is the case, as we will see in the following pages. -nfortunately, no matter how much cognitive scientists want to believe the opposite, the conservative or orthodo view of mind has not much to offer. It does not really e plain what consciousness is, but citing good evidence that physically effecting the brain alters consciousness, asks no further questions and simply believes that consciousness itself is a product of brain functioning. )onversely, in the radical view of mind, a person1s belief about the nature of reality may actually alter the reality. # fundamental part of this view is that basic awareness may have an independent real status itself, rather than being ,ust a derivative of physical processes in the brain. #nd, indeed, this is one of the profound revelations of the psychedelic e perience.

+ranscendin- Conser1atis/
# main landmark of the paper1s content is the merit of the transcendental e perience in this a research. &hat is because it is the most resonant aspect that can reveal at great length the essence of consciousness. It is the vibrant substantiation that mind is not limited in the framework of the brain but goes well too far and thus incites a less physicalistic attitude on the research. &he fact that for centuries transpersonal e periences have convincingly been reported is something that should not be overlooked. It literally fuels the dispute against the materialistic agenda of psychology. &herefore, if we commit ourselves to such a transpersonal introspection, the study of consciousness passes to another level and the limelight falls to the radical approach, which yields a vitalist outlook in the issue. What do we make of such transpersonal e periencesD #s we know mainstream Western psychology has made no particular effort to e plain them. #s a result, the typical psychologist unconsciously avoids coming across them and casually dismisses them if he does come across them. But why this strong dismissal among the community of psychologistsD I think an important part of the answer lies in considering the implications of transpersonal e periences. &he prefi trans- conveys the idea that these e periences goes beyond the individual, not merely in an abstract sort of way, as we might say that democracy goes beyond a single person, but in a very real and important sort of way. &hese sorts of e periences seem to imply that consciousness may not always be restricted to the body and brain, that there may be other kinds of consciousness than human that with which we may interact. #side from many historical reasons, such as the old conflict between science and religion, for re,ecting these implications, a more immediate and formal reason is that monistic, physicalistic philosophical views about the nature of consciousness are dominant in modern science. $f course, the reason for re,ecting to adopt the radical viewpoint is the traditional reluctance of epistemology to compromise with the flaws and the limitations of transpersonal psychology. It is a fact that most people find it comforting to adhere at various psychological illusions for the sake of their psychological health, and so it might be useful to learn how to induce transpersonal illusions deliberately in order to reinforce irrational belief systems that, nevertheless, allow people to function well. (olitically speaking, this is also a convenient path to social respectability for transpersonal psychology, as it will seem to fit e periences which tend to be regarded as disturbing into the physicalistic, monistic status quo. .ince psychologists have always been a little bit insecure about their status as 3real scientists4, we should not underestimate this political aspect of things. /oreover, my belief is that the cognitive e perience of transcendence, no matter how illusive it might be considered, demolishes the conservatism1s rigidity at one blow. #s we will see, the psychedelic e perience, which is the most viable way to trigger transcendence, raises provocative questions that demand a more radical probing of the phenomenon. In other words, if we compare the conservative postulations of cognitive scientists with the direct e perience of the transpersonal 3miracles4 then I am afraid that those very postulations will immediately become humiliated as their deficiency in their understanding of consciousness will become annoyingly evident. #n almost universal theory in Western scientific circles, sunk to the level of an implicit belief, is that awareness is a product of brain functioning. &his conservatism as an implicit belief is dangerous for two reasons% 5irst, many e periences in various altered states of consciousness are inconsistent with this theory, but the conservative1s view implicit belief makes us liable to distort our perception of these e traordinary phenomena. In effect of that, sometimes the sincere report of their manifestation makes one appear as if being at the threshold of mental derangement 6something which inhibits their e ploration in ob,ectively scientific terms. .econd, parapsychological data suggests that awareness is at least partially outside brain functioning, a condition that leads to very different views of human nature.

35

&he radical view of the mind sees awareness as this something e tra and postulates that physical reality can sometimes be directly affected by our beliefs systems. We must be open2minded about the radical view to guard against maintaining too narrow and too culturally condition a view of mind. #s psychology increasingly deals with the phenomena of altered states of consciousness, it will have to deal with phenomena that do not fit well in a conceptual scheme that says awareness is only a by2 product of the brain. 7 periences of apparently paranormal abilities like telepathy, of ecstasis, of mystical union with aspects of the universe that cosmologists never dreamed of, the reception of supernormal knowledge spontaneously given in psychedelic states, fit more comfortably into schemes that do not assume that awareness is only a function of the brain. I have nothing against competent attempts to fit such phenomena into our dominant Western scientific framework by elucidating them as distorting phenomena, but the attempts I have seen so far have been utterly inadequate and seen to work mainly by ignoring in a basic way the ma,or aspects of altered states phenomena. I believe that an e amination of human history and our current situation provides the strongest argument for the need to develop state2specific sciences. &hroughout history, man has been influenced by the spiritual and mystical factors e pressed in the religions that attract the masses. .piritual and mystical e periences are primary phenomena of various altered states ?&art, CGIC@. Because of such e periences, untold numbers of both the noblest and most horrible acts of which men are capable have been committed. +et in all the time that Western science has e isted, no concerted attempt has been made to understand these altered states phenomena in scientific terms. )onversely, many hoped that religious thinking is simply a form of superstition that would be left behind in our 3rational4 age. "ot only this hope, though, has failed, but our own understanding of the nature of reasoning now makes it clear that it can never be fulfilled. 8eason is a tool, a tool that is wielded in the service of assumptions, beliefs, and needs that are not themselves sub,ect to reason ?!avies, CGGN@. &he irrational, or better, the a2rational, will not disappear from the human situation. $ur immense success in the development of the physical sciences has not been particularly successful in formulating better philosophies of life or increasing our real knowledge of ourselves. &he sciences that have been developed up to date are not very human sciences. &hey tell us how to do things, but give us no scientific insights on questions of what to do, what not to do, or why to do things. #t this point, I am forced to e hibit how cognitive theories can open a channel to transcendental e perience, in a way that in the future we might be in the lucky position to see a more integrative psychology. !aniel !ennett indicates how people who train themselves in music accomplish by time to attain a state where they can acoustically discover new kind of beats that would not normally perceive. .hortly, he implies that because of their training their conscious experience has changed ?!ennett, CGGC@. /ore specifically, it has been augmented or even e panded% they are now conscious of things they were not previously. &he case of blindsight belongs to the same class, in a sense that here too we have the accomplishment of e pansive consciousness. 7 perimentally, !ennett notes, it has been proved that sub,ects suffering by partial blindsight can train themselves to make, statistically, right guesses on the ob,ects that are not seeable. 7vidently, that entails a certain capacity of individuals to transcend their restricting physical deficiencies in order to perceive things that normally they cannot. I wonder, if such a thing is generally accepted by such hardcore scientists like !ennett, then what indisposes them to detain the wholly transcendental e perience with similar verdictsD "eedless to say that mostly it is a matter of mentality. &hey skip those phenomena due to their fi ated weakness to deal with them, as they are so overwhelmingly dissimilar to what they are accustomed to study, so that they prefer to neglect them altogether. 'owever, this is not e pected to be the case for long. $nce people start to report seriously their unfamiliar e periences, and as more accounts accumulate, a general impression of the transpersonal realm will be shaped and the taboo of scientists on addressing formally their curiosity towards them will ,oin history.

PA*DORA3S #O5 "(U*G OPE* An E1olutionary Ally

(sychotropic substances interfered to the evolution of our species since the age of the australopithecine. "ew evidence in paleontology suggests that the hallucinogenic plants were one of the main components of our primate1s diet, something that occasioned to the change of our evolutionary development due to a number of important factors. In studying the implications of the e perience that those agents induce, we would instantly deduce that, indeed, in the scale of the millennia, ma,or

36

changes in the biological and cognitive level are reasonable. In the minds of preliterate people, the lines between drugs, food, and spices are rarely clearly drawn ?/cLenna, CGGJ@. &he strategy of the early hominid omnivores was to eat everything that seemed foodlike and to vomit anything that was unpalatable. (lants, insects, and small animals found to be edible by this method were then inculcated in their diet. .uch an ever2shifting diet automatically means to an ever2shifting chemical equilibrium. #n organism may regulate its internal processes but, ultimately, mutagenic influences will fatally be increased and thus a greater number of genetically invariant individuals will be offered to the process of natural selection. &he results of this are accumulated changes in neural organi*ation, states of consciousness, and behavior. &he ma,or contributor to these mutational changes in our species, due to our diet, was the psychoactive plants. &hrough the scrutiny of anthropological research, we have found that they used to be plentiful in the environment of our primates. Both the setting of the natural surroundings and the climatic conditions were very friendly to the emergence of abundant hallucinogenic plants, especially, among them, the psilocybin2containing mushrooms. &heir outstriking appearance was an attractor to the eyes of the hungry primates, who were not hesitant to eat them. &he effects of the cognitive changes that were induced functioned as habitual and hence they formed the pattern of returning to repeat the e perience. In result of that, the psilocybin mushrooms were included to their diet for centuries and became a significant part of their everyday food. &erence /cLenna1s ?CGGJ@ contention, a famous ethnobotanologist, is that mutation2causing, psychoactive chemical compounds in the early human diet directly influenced the rapid reorgani*ation of the brain1s information2processing capacities. #lkaloids in plants, specifically the hallucinogenic compounds as psilocybin, dimethylotryptamine ?!/&@, and harmaline could be the chemical factors in the protohuman diet that cataly*ed the emergence of self2reflection. &heir action enhanced our information2processing activity, or environmental sensitivity, and thus contributed to the sudden e pansion of the human brain si*e. #t a later stage in this same process, hallucinogens acted as catalysts in the development of imagination, fueling the creation of internal stratagems and hopes that may well synergi*ed the emergence of language and religion. .uch speculations should not be considered outlandish. It was very natural for our primates to encompass in their diet psilocybin mushrooms, which are still abundant all around the world, and were even more thousand years ago. .ubsequently, their activity over the brain is booming, meaning that they cause ma,or conceptual changes to individuals. "ow, that considered in geological scale of time should be a prominent factor for the dramatic change of our brain and cognition. It is confounding the fact that with $omo habilis began a sudden and mysterious e pansion of the brain si*e. I put the boot in the e plication of the chemical interference of e opheromonic mutagens, like the psychotropic substances found in various plants and I believe the reason that biologists disagree to notice that induction is based wholly to ethical compunctions, which is imposed by the world governments. &he real missing link to our evolutionary leap in the si*e of our brain can be found in the hallucinogenic flora, the number one ally of our cognitive progress. It seems that the most recently evolved areas of our brain, Broca1s area and the neocorte , which are devoted to the control of symbols and language processing, have been hugely influenced by the often psychedelic e perience of the nomads and gatherers. &hat is because those compounds, as we will see further, cause transcendence at all levels of cognitive activity and transcendence leads to creative solutions of problems. Besides, this is the greatest lesson the doctrine of evolution offered us, considering the way birds evolved from dinosaurs or the way primates began to communicate with vocal symbols or even the way inorganic matter bred organic cells. It all happened in through a transcendental leap of nature. &he conclusion, hence, is that the highly organi*ed neurolinguistic areas of our brain, which were influenced by psychotropic compounds, have made language and culture possible. .o, are we the offsprings of a primordial symbiosis, that one between the ape and the plantD We still cannot tell for sure, but the fact is that hardly we will find a better e planation of how we made this rapid transcendence, both from the caves to culture and from mere glossolalia to poetic prose. .urely, our linguistic abilities and our enhanced self2reflection must have evolved in response to enormous evolutionary pressures 6but we do not know for certain what these pressures are. 'owever, what we know from undeniable evidence, like cave2drawings, petrifying tokens of digested food, and other various evidence, is that where psychoactive plants use were present, hominid nervous systems over many millennia would have been flooded by hallucinogenic realms of strange and alien beauty. 8egarding that assumption, then it is simple mathematics to deduce that our change as species, and our change as conscious beings, was hugely influenced by psychedelic substances. &herefore, on the study of mind the comprising of their action and their potentialities should be deemed as very relevant to the ob,ect per se% Indeed, the kinship between consciousness and hallucinogens is great and that should be an impetus to e amine this vital issue with curiosity on the profits we can gain by adopting a positive

37

attitude against those chemical agents; especially when resonant implications lead us to reali*e that those very compounds used to be our evolutionary allies.

Returnin- to Our Roots

'owever, this ecstatic and much profiting symbiosis with psychotropic plants did not lasted. .cientific speculations regard that this happened due the change of climactic conditions, which brought the change in the pattern of flora2growth, which happened to become distanced by the lands of the primates. In matter of fact, this cessation of the symbiosis was the cause for enormous psychological, and therefore, cultural properties. 5irst, the hallucinogens are known for their ego2thrusting power. &hey dissolve boundaries. &herefore, the break of this relationship led to the shift from partnership to the patriarchical model, which is the aegis of male2dominance, egotism, dogmatism, and animosity against the "ature. -nfortunately, even the remains of this nurturing profit got vanished by fanatical supporters of the patriarchical model. &he 7leusinian /ysteries of the 'ellenistic period were known of their famous portion, a somewhat hallucinogenic substance ?the psychotropic ergot2beer@ that was sponsored to citi*ens for the ritualistic worship of goddess !emeter. &he enthusiastic )hristians, though, regarded such events as demonic and decided to burn 7leusis together with the sacred archives of an intriguing data that was held there. 5ormally, they brought the end to such rituals by e tinguishing forever the secrets of their mystery. .ince then, we are led to think that the psychedelic substances are a dangerous trap. &he governments, as they feel menaced by them, have made an e pensive crusade to eliminate them by outlawing their use. &his hostile attitude was elicited after the reawakening of our interest on altered states of mind. When the lights were going out in 7urope, a fundamental breakthrough occurred. In CGPO #lbert 'offmann synthesi*ed the first d2lysergic acid, diethylamide tartate 6:.!2<J. 'is chemical invention set the cultural stage for the truly surreal emergence of society1s awareness of :.!. &he e traordinary discovery of such a megahallucinogen, which is active in the microgram range, soon surfaced in the social environment. #s #ldus 'u ley wrote in !he )oors of *erception, the cultural breakthrough of such a drug recalled the true dimension of consciousness and the cosmos once again. In an age when behaviorism and the significance of materialism were culminating, a new current of spiritualism was intruding the Western world. .uddenly, the youth was pushed to restore our relationship with "ature and our conception of the self. &he reminiscence of our symbiotic relationship with ecstatic indoles was highlighted and the concept of consciousness quickly passed to a new level, widely different from the shadowy mentality of the scientists who succumbed to the grayness of the epoch of mass destruction and moral devaluation. :ater on, Ealentina and 9ordon Wasson published in their now famous article in +ife maga*ine the announcement of the rediscovery of the psilocybin mushroom comple . &his article introduced into mass consciousness the notion that certain plants could cause e otic, perhaps even paranormal, visions. &hat, among other promotions of psychedelics, was a shaker of the 7stablishment. &he turbulent situation of the AB=s in #merica showed that the opposition between the conservatism and the growing open2 mindness of the people was, the less to say, acute. &he sudden introduction of a powerful deconditioning agent such as :.! had an effect of creating a mass defection from community values based on dominator hierarchy accustomed to suppress consciousness and awareness ?/cLenna, CGGJ@. &he wide distribution of :.! dissolved the social machinery through which it moved. &his effect bedeviled it to the political agenda and soon became illegal and ostensible dangerous to the social stability. -nluckily, this hysteria caused as an after2effect all kinds of psychedelics to ,oin the black list and that overshadowed the profits that we can gain from serious e perimentation with them. 'owever, the fact is that the human curiosity cannot be restricted by any means. &oday, we are still, and probable even more, acquainted with hallucinogenic substances and the growing interest has much to tell about the nature of reality and consciousness. /any e pect that they will be legali*ed again ?already in some freedom2loving countries they are@ and the scientific interest will be stimulated on the implications of the psychedelic e perience in our psychological researches. 5or P= years now, we lack of the proper ground to commit a sophisticated research on the effects of psychedelics in consciousness and, therefore, to advance our introspecting knowledge to undreamed levels. We have missed the chance thusfar but evidence shows that it will not going to last. &he revolution of the B=1s was nothing but the hors dSoeuvre. &he main plate will be the formal scientific and cultural recognition of the potentialities those compounds offer and that will be the set2up for the initiation of a new psychology, which will celebrate the rediscovery of the long2forgotten secrets that dwell in the abyssal depths of consciousness. &he dessertD (erhaps the fulfillment of #ldus 'u ley1s dream, cherished in his works% # new 7den for an ideal humanity.

3)

Analysis on the Psychedelic Pheno/enolo-y

Before we begin the scrutiny on the psychedelic e perience I ought to notify in advance that the sub,ect is an overwhelming oddity. $ne has to know that the study of transpersonal e periences, induced by psychedelics, is not an uncomplicated enterprise, as they are characteri*ed by the rupture that they cause on ordinary reality. Indeed, psychedelic substances have the capacity to elicit strange cognitive phenomena, which confound us with their unforeseen effects 6effects that seem to imply dramatic conceptual changes in the notions of reality and mind. .eldom individuals can guess accurately where such an e perience can lead and seldom they remain unchanged after the e perience fades away. &he most significant modification of such a startling event is the genesis of a vivid impression that there must be a ma,or misinterpretation in our ordinary conception of reality. &his forces one to attempt to figure out creatively a more pertinent model of reality to the revelation. 5ollowing this way and e perimenting further you find yourself in unrecogni*ed pathways, as soon as consciousness becomes manifest of its fundamental position in the universe, and as reality turns to a fluid medium which mind acts on in diametrically opposed ways as we traditionally acknowledge from science. )onsequently, it does not take a lot of time to bump on the reali*ation that psychedelics inspire us not of entirely alien notions and models of the cosmos but rather of old archaic conceptions that have been buried in the soil under the Western civili*ation1s professed enlightenment. &he landscape of the psychedelic e perience is dubious to the people who chose to keep their distance from those substances, but the ones who did embraced them, that landscape is the inescapable destiny of the humanity. &hey open up the window to the part of the spectrum that our minds cannot normally perceive. 7volution has customi*ed us with a short2range perception in order to ad,ust with the needs of our survival. 'owever, there is much more that can be comprised in our vista; the manifestation of the hidden aspects of reality can boost our intellects to the point of having, at least, reasonably the immense aspirations of reali*ing the nature of consciousness and the true essence of our being. &he alkaloids of psychotropic substances act directly on the neuronal synapses of the brain. &hey are known as pseudo2neurotransmitters, as they function in a facilitating way to the communication between the brain cells. &his intensification of the neuronal firing potentiality causes some profound changes in the macroscopic level of e perience. :oosely put, they act as additional vehicles of information and, therefore, a larger surface of the reality becomes manifest in the perception of the sub,ect. &he increase of serotonin2activity augments the emotional magnitude, the linguistic sharpness, and mainly the visual precision. #s the dosage increases, though, those changes become even more dramatic. &he emotional state turns to a sequence of epic rhapsodies, language transfigures to synesthetic visible articulation of an odd geometric nature, and vision startlingly penetrates one to a new plane where the rigidity of matter is no more than reminiscence. If up until here, the reader feels that he hardly can conserve his beliefs in the paper1s premise, if he starts losing contact with the implications of the content, then I suggest that this bi*arre nature can soon become a routine of our scientific e plorations, ,ust like the weird subatomic realm became, or the deciphering of !"#. $f course, to accomplish that we nave no choice but to invent and apply a novel psychology with an open eye to altered states of consciousness, equipped with a potent terminology, which will concreti*e the abstract and will pour light on the dark side of consciousness. I sympathi*e with anyone who finds himself re,ecting the radical view of mind. I suggest, however, that he honestly ask himself% 3'ave I re,ected this view as a result of careful and e tensive study ?or e perience@ of the evidence for and against it, or because I have been trained to do so and rewarded by social approval for doing soD4 Before I start sketching the psychedelic phenomenology at depth, I have to note that while much of what I write about here is intellectual or theoretical knowledge based on reports from others and on the e perimental literature, some of it comes directly from my own e perience. &hat means that the approach clearly makes sense to me, even though many of its ramifications are beyond the scope of my personal e perience. 5irstly, the psychedelic e perience should not be considered as a particular predictable process. Its variability is wide, so much that sub,ects question themselves each time, if they have taken another substance different from last time. We should avoid terms like 3the :.! state4. We should not believe that the statement, 3Q tool :.! ?or any powerful psychedelic substance@, tells us much about what happened to Q1s consciousness. In matter of fact, the mind finds itself to realms that always differ, in accordance to the emotional set, the 5reudian repository of personal history, the environment1s setting, and even the pulse of the epoch. &hose realms, which repeatedly propel the mind, have been variously described and named by investigators, such as for :eary ?CGOO@, 3post2terrestrial4, by Bucke ?CGO=@ as

3*

3cosmic consciousness4, by 9rof ?CGOB@ as 3suprahuman4, by ;ung ?CGO=@ as an 3archetypal, transpersonal dimension4, by 'illman ?CGOJ@ as the 3polytheistic4 realm of the psyche, by #ssagioli ?CGBJ@ as the 3super2conscious4, and finally by /cLenna as the 3overmind4. &he e ploration of this transpersonal realm with hallucinogenic agents has been conceived as a first2class proof for the insufficiency of contemporary psychology. &he impact of the psychedelic e perience in our rationalistic habituated ways of seeing catapulted us perhaps more dramatically than the modern scientific discovery and formulation of the unconscious toward the recognition of a profound and separate 3reality4. &his 3reality4 has been described as a ,ourney to new realms of consciousness and as limitless in scope. Its characteristic features were the 3transcendence of verbal concepts, of space2time dimension, and of the ego or identity ?:eary, /et*ner T #lpert, CGBP@. It was the conviction of these early e plorers that it was not the drugs themselves which produced the transcendental e periences, but that they acted to open our mind to e periences which were not ,ust distortions of ordinary consciousness, but were themselves evident of human capacities that were not well understood in the framework of current theories. &he e perience is one in which the normal concepts of time, space, logic, and causality are relinquished, permitting the individual to e plore his own 3inner space4 of personal and collective meanings in a dynamic and philosophical way. -nfortunately, the curtailing of research by legal restrictions has meant that the e perimentation has gone little further than the mere e planatory stage. What research there is, however, suggests that psychedelics could open up completely new areas of psychology. It has been said that the study of :.! might provide for unification and a new orientation in psychology, in a similar way to what occurred in the biological sciences with the discovery of the !"#. In contrast to the potentialities that wait there, very little knowledge has been gained about psychedelic e periences. Indeed, it is very difficult in the present climate to write about such e periences without risking an emotional reaction. #s we mentioned above, perception passes through ma,or modifications under the ingestion of a psychedelic molecule. It is a condition which puts you in contact with the raw data of perception, and this makes perceptions e ceptionally beautiful, vibrant, and alive. By contrast, usual perception in the ordinary states of consciousness seems lifeless, abstract, with all the beauty of reality removed in order to satisfy various needs and blend in with consensus reality. .ome psychologists argue that perception is the actual reality. But what does 3realistic4 meansD We like to believe that it means perception of the real world, the physical world; but the world we spend most of our time perceiving is not ,ust any segment of the physical world, but a highly sociali*ed and culturally conditioned part of the physical world. &he world of the cities, the automobiles, the television sets. .o our perception may indeed be realistic, but it is with respect to a very tailored segment of reality, a consensus reality we have agreed as 3real4 and 3important4. &his is a way of saying that our perceptions are highly selective and filtered. &hus, the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is mainly eliminati e and not productive. #ccording to this view, my own conviction is that during the psychedelic e perience the valve of perception opens and lets in e tra information, which is not practical for our survival. &he nature of this information varies strikingly from the ordinary content we are used to perceive in daily life. In low doses the matter vibrates and 7instein1s equation, 7Umc< becomes evident in a straightforwardly empirical way. 'owever, once the dosage increases, mind perceives a completely different environment, which reminds of a dream2like matri . :iterally, imagination becomes visible and the rules of causality seem akin to the undisciplined and agile rules of the inner space. &herefore, one hardly can distinguish the inner from the outer, the rational from the fantastic. &hose transfigurations affect and the patterns of thought. &he closer illustration to what actually happens would be that thought turns from analytic to integral. It is as if the spotlight of conscious attention becomes enlarged and thus a wider content of internal behavior becomes visible to the inner eye. With one shot, you catch hundred fishes. /iraculously, a thought2stratagem or sequence of contemplations upgrades to a geometrical2kind of conceptual representations, which are accessible for a rapid understanding. #t that point, I have to say that it is not an easy business to transfer the content of a psychedelic e perience. It is like struggling with an infinitude of vague assumptions. 'owever, that should not be an obstacle to a serious enterprise of coming to grips with the phenomenon. &he reason that I find psychedelic introspection so much more sophisticated than the observations of physical sciences is because of the e tensive bi*arreness that intrudes the theater of consciousness. &he synergy of polygonic thinking and of the emerging plasticity of perception indicates that psychologists are bound to face a new sub,ect of inquiry, and they are e pected to make their best in order to give a satisfying account of those phenomena. /ost likely, a good answer on these would be equivalent to a good answer on the mystery of consciousness. &he other thing that a psychedelic e perience offers is the stunning metarepresentational power. By means of this facilitation, one apprehends that consciousness is a running stream and hence the phenomenal static nature of the ego is washed away from the augmented dynamic of the flow. 5rom the

4,

cognitive and heterophenomenological perspective, this seems to be due to the chemical e pansion of the awareness to the fluid and temporarily anomalous activity of the brain. In deduction of this, we can rather say that the psychedelic substances induce the e pansion of consciousness toward the inner dimensions of mind and the full2fledged e position of the processes that take place behind2the2stages of the conscious awareness. &he plasticity of the mind performs like a virtuoso comple reflecting processes. &he self2observational capacity increases to the millionth, meaning that one can inspect automatically micro2elaborations of the conscious content in the scale of a microsecond. In a sense, a binocular vision enhances the self2reflectivity and thus consciousness1 content becomes a prismatic kaleidoscope of chaotic events that do not really concern the normal attention. .omehow, this metarepresentational augmentation causes a lot of subconscious content to float on the light of consciousness. Intentional and motivational webs of information become manifest and, subsequently, the phenomenological causal roots of behavior are accessible to the e panded attention. (sychedelic e plorers, like #ldus 'u ley and #lan Watts, have asserted that the psychotropic agents, indeed, open up the gates to the subconscious and, perhaps, lead one even further to ;ung1s non2personal collective unconscious, the repository of all human e perience. &he psychedelic e perience induces the awareness of that unconscious level of mind and thus generates a kind of super2conscious awareness, which arises by the merging of conscious attention and unconscious content. 7ven more e citing is the fact that the non2linearity of consciousness pertains in the most undeniable way the e perimenter. -nanticipated happenings can baffle anyone who has applied himself to a heroic dose. &here have been reports that indicate the abolition of the concept of time. 5or instance, one may perceive in advance something which is about to happen in the immediate future. # word from a fellow right before its articulation, or generally the vivid intuition of a forthcoming event. "ot less astonishing is the clima of synchronicity between inner and outer events; an issue that ;ung studied quite e tensively. /oreover, statistically psychologists in the 'arvard of the AB=s have proved that telepathy is a very frequent phenomenon during the e perience, and that is an argument that I would polish, regarding my own personal evidence. &he thing, though, that transcends every conceivable skepticism is the fact that after a high dose of a psychedelic substance one slips out of his body. "o need to guess the reactions to this for someone who ignores the issue; yet this is what surely happens. &he concept pass-out becomes literal as one e pands outside the edges of his body in an orgasmic burst of ecstasis. .elf2transcendence is not a metaphorical word of the advanced psychedelic e perience. "o, the shattering self2transcendence is a reality for shamans, sorcerers of the #ma*on2basin and chasers of the adventure, and it has been for millennia. &he reason that we neglect to comprise this concept in the agenda of mainstream psychology is because we do not have a token of such an e perience in our modern lives. +et, it is something that one can easily trigger ,ust by the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances shockingly true, indeed, if we deduce that such an evidential e perience demolishes the so2called triumph of traditional rationalism in science. &his leads me to the following train of thought% ;ust because the weirdness of the psychedelic phenomenology is not plausible to the rationalistic structure of science should not guide scientists to skip the deep scrutiny of the e perience but, in contrary, should force them and inspire them to seek for methods to retool their intellectual inventories so that they will attain a more fle ible and advanced epistemology. &hey should ponder on how such supernatural e periences are possible if we maintain the view of mind as derivative of the brain processes. Would not be reasonable to scratch our heads and make the leap to decide to see a bit more seriously the speculations of the radical vitalism in the matter of consciousnessD &hat would be the best venture for reaching the level that we will be able to e plain these peculiarities. I believe that this will be the first step towards a sophisticated science of mind 6an esoteric science that will launch us to a new dimension of investigation, where individuals will become /agellans, e plorers of a new realm, in their own living2rooms; the frontiers of reality of a new epoch. -nder such a setting, I cannot see but one thing, the brisk blooming of the science of consciousness.

+rue 0allucinations
&he hallmark of the psychedelic e perience is the total sensory distortion that, sometimes, in a spectacular way forces the sub,ects to ponder seriously over the nature of reality. 'allucinations are the chemical2induced changes that destabili*e perception and thinking so much that the environment bends to all kind of alterations. It is true that with the increase of the dose, those perceptual deformations go out of one1s hand, leading to an awesome deconditioning of ordinary reality. &he reports of hallucinations vary widely; there are times that the distortions can only be characteri*ed as pseudo2hallucinations, in which the effects of the substance gives rise to a mere vivification of colors and vibrations of light; other times, people astonished refer to melting ob,ects, fleeting lights, subterranean or high2pitched sounds

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coming out of the blue. 7ven more perple ing accounts have been reported by sub,ects who dared to apply themselves to the so2called heroic dose, in which the hallucinations gain literally a supernatural magnitude. Beyond any compunction, at that level is where one loses the marbles from his head. .pectacularly, matter dissolves as if it is a kind of liquid and there can be a pure light bla*ing all around. .uper2comple patterns of an artful composition adorn the visual field, so beautifully that makes one wonder. &he classical e perience is to encounter an e tra depth in space, something that was not perceivable before the substance began running in the brain. It is not proverbial to say that the essence of infinity becomes visible even to the smallest ob,ects. (hobias may turn to reality and wishful thinking can obtain an ob,ective dreamlike dynamic. Imagination intrudes reality and as they merge, words become a handicap for an utter e planation of the events. I confess that it is truly bewildering the fact that the intense hallucinations can turn from phantasms to concrete reality which bears clusters of meaning that requires psychoanalytic thinking in order to be deciphered. # hallucination is not a mere noise on the sensory channels. 5ar from it. # hallucination for the introspectionist of the psychedelic e perience is a real problem, in a sense that its phenomenal plausibility is hand and shoulders over any attempt to give an account on which an e istential assessment is missing. &he implications of the true hallucinations can dramatically modify our notions of reality and mind. I dare to say that the word distortion seems to be the wrong kind of attribution towards the emerging sensory fluidity during the hallucinogenic activity on the brain. Individuals who do not have a personal e perience of hallucinogens tend to think that the accounts of e perimenters are usually boosted by wishful e aggerations or even that they are mere confabulations of semi2psychotic people. I recogni*e this as a healthy reaction from their side, since they have no evidence of the reality1s quirks. &hey fully ignore how much wider is the spectrum of potentialities both of their minds and the spatial fabric. I am not surprised on the fact that a ma,ority of them tends to be conservative nee2sayers, narrow2focused scientists, materialistic philosophers, readers of outdated books in physics and cosmology, and mere average thinkers who prefer to follow the herd. !efinitely, they have the mitigation that they were raised in a cultural environment where education suffers from severe blindsight against the transcendental and transpersonal realms, which simply have been elbowed as outmoded conceptions for reality and thus they bear no more relevance to the growth of the self ?if there is anymore such a process in contemporary psychology@. "evertheless, those very realms, the realms of the spiritual awakening, of dreams, and of hallucinations is there waiting to be e plored. 'owever, they are a consensus among the aficionados of psychedelics, and generally, among the people who prefer to have a positive attitude against such abstract notions. 'ow do cognitive scientists see all thisD If we ,udge from !ennett1s orientation, I think they do not see at all. &hey are pretty blind. !ennett1s book, Consciousness Explained dedicated a number of pages to the issue of hallucinations. In fact, he opened up his book by tackling those strange phenomena with the premise that they are nothing more than illusions, a kind of positive2feedback sensory noise, which ends up to a theatrical e hibition of the subconscious content. 'e denies seeing the e istential aspect of this phenomenological problem, something that should not surprise us anymore, considering that this is the crowning verdict of his whole career. In other words, what he scarcely begins to admit loses its weight as he ignores to reali*e it due to his blindness against the meaningfulness of human e perience. It seems that philosophers like !ennett unconsciously acknowledge the fact that psychedelics challenge the materialistic doctrines on the nature of mind and that is, perhaps, why he embarked his book upon the matter of hallucinations. I am afraid he has not accomplished much, though. 'is cognitive and mechanistic account of perceptual alterations is based on a metaphor of a game. 'e introduced the psychoanalysis party game as the most proper model to identify the method by which dreams distort the conscious reality. Briefly, he designated the hallucination as the synergistic effect between the elaboration of the partial idleness of the perceptual system and the deep2stored concerns of the hallucinator. &o put it in another way, the interaction between the lapsing brain ?synaptic enhancement@ from its routines and the 3sticky4 meaningful content ?wishes, e pectations, intentions, fears@ produce ever2growing in comple ity hallucinations. -nluckily for him, he did not hesitate to regard that e plication in a wider framework of causalities. By basing his assumptions on the factors that function from the ground of chance and randomness, he deduced that a hallucination is ,ust a simple derailed process. 'ere is where he reminds me of his predecessors, the first inspirers of shortsighted rationalism. !arwin chose a similar e planation for the evolutionary track of life. 'e asserted that an important part of the foundations of the life1s emergence is mere chance; ,ust a lucky fluke. 'e deduced that chance is the architect of the rich biospheric comple ity. # comple ity so perfect and admirable that inevitably forces one to revision the notion of chance. We scarcely can compromise with such an epistemological policy, because by following our nose, we find ourselves struggling with new superlative concepts, which begin to arise in the natural sciences. # quick look on chaos theory would convince us that randomness is that by which the actual becomes possible. 8evolutionary ideas from that field inspire

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us to think that there is a peculiar determination hiding behind the fortuitous events that happen to structure the universe at all scales. It is not a hyperbole to state that a somewhat blueprint seems to attract processes 6while from our point of view they ,ust heuristically scan for ideal pathways. )haotists, today, support that there are attractors who shape the world by the medium of randomness. We will come back to this astonishing view at the end of this part, where consciousness will be presented in a way as never before. &he reason I included the above on the issue of the hallucinogenic processes is because I find it as a derivative of a general way of thinking. !arwinian notions of randomness in evolution begin to fade away 6if respectable !ennett cared at all to encompass in his study such newcomers he would, inevitably, suspect that his interpretation of hallucinations is not demystifying them at allF ;ust as the error is the architect of evolution, the derailment of cognitive processes in the brain can be the novelist of a valuable spiritual meaning, which has much to tell about the nature of consciousness. By inspecting the reality1s shifts and the meaning that they cling to, through the process of hallucinating, I believe we knock the door of a new stage in psychological assessment. #mbitious endeavors over that direction can only move us forward to bump up the scientific trade of ideas on the sub,ect. (ersonal e perience and reaffirmation from worldwide resources on accounts of the psychedelic e perience forcibly convince me that full2blown hallucinations have a bi*arre reality of their own 6they appear to be indicators of subconscious meaning. "umerous individuals have e pressed their confoundness on the fact that during the e perience there seems to be a superior agent organi*ing the perceptible content. &here is a dissension at this point, which is referent to the dispute between ;ungian and 5reudian psychologists. &he formers believe that indeed a superior agency manipulates our cognitive e perience either way, into icated or not. &he reason that we are sightless on this is because we are mainly preoccupied with e ternal conditions and, thus, a bias eliminates such a reali*ation. ;ung has called this agent, the psychoid, an autonomous driving force which dwells in the depths of the human psyche. $n the other hand, 5reudians and their shortcomings draw their boundaries to the se ual sphere and they deny making a step toward spiritualistic concepts; therefore, their e planations of hallucinations would not be very different from the cognitive version. )onversely, psychedelics are famously known as the celebrating verifiers of the ;ungian psychology I e press my confidence that something profound happens on those states of mind. &erence /cLenna ?CGG<@ chose to resurrect the concept of +ogos from the 'ellenistic philosophy, in order to make ends meet with the phenomenon. 'eraclitus has presented the :ogos as a higher force of intellectual vigor, which dresses with meaning all representations. &he :ogos is the speech of 9od, which emancipates consciousness from darkness. In respect to that, it is a fascinating speculation to think of the human mind as a true pipeline to the !ivine realm of 9nosis. (silocybin mushrooms in the range of five dried grams can very reliably and repeatedly elicit this set of occurrences. !uring the e perience, there always a certainty hanging for a kind of ultra2intelligence surrounding one1s being, with which he can interact. (silocybin mushrooms and other similar tryptamines are famous in the millennia for their capacity to manifest in one1s cognition the aliveness of the surroundings. &hey introduce one to an animate universe; a universe that is not ,ust alive but also mindedF I do not know how much painlessly this can be undertaken by the scrutiny of science, but it is the honest confession of steadfast scientists and philosophers, e cept from average people. #ldus 'u ley, #lan Watts, &imothy :eary, &erence /cLenna, 9ordon Wasson, William Burroughs, 8obert #nton Wilson, and many others have demanded a better e planation of the psychedelic phenomenology that will be equivalent with the insightfully spiritual events that take place on those states of mind. "e t to those startling reports, psychologists are fiddling while 8ome burnsF

In Praise of Psychedelic Intros!ectionis/

(eople who cultivate an interest on psychedelics and endorse on their itchy curiosity to e plore the e perience, always inescapably reach the need to translate the eerie content to philosophical contemplation. It is simply impossible to come out of this as impassive. &he typical reaction is to begin a process of a radical revisioning on ma,or issues concerning the selfhood. # large part of uncharted consciousness that becomes e posed by the light of self2observation provokes the initiation of the long process of a drastic inner e ploration. #s a result of this, scientific dictums that deny the self, as a reality and re,ect spiritual side of the coin become nothing more than an e hibition of the contemporary stifle vision of human and life. 5rom the spectacle of the psychedelic e perience, the purposelessness that science dictates with such an assurance seems as a maddening sign, fully e pressive of our age1s morally sterile condition. &he fact is that every /ar ist, fundamentalist )hristian, nuclear physicist, physiologist, would all find themselves deeply questioning their own beliefs, postpsychedelic. &he

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inevitable aftermath of the e perience is the standard reaction that leads to monumental changes in the conceptual landscape of every conceivable individual. &he good news is that such an e istential shock, as the psychedelic introspection, leads the ma,ority of people to positive reali*ations, which help to revert the falling tra,ectory of our culture to the desirable uplifting for the fulfillment of an ideal civili*ation. /oreover, a better vision of humanness emerges, due to several potentialities that come out from the use of such substances 6potentialities that reestablish in one1s mind the notion of spiritual awareness and indicates that 9od is not ,ust an idea but a whole continent in the human mind. In our culture, we have no e periential token of the hidden aspect of consciousness. We have been customi*ed to re,ect as improbable all kinds of philology devoted to numinous issues. .cience, the leading social conductor, preaches that logical positivism is the only way to attain the ideal interpretation of nature1s mysteries. 'owever, what is clear from several observations is that individuals e hibit a finite set of transcultural behavior patterns while they are in a drug2induced or meditative2 induced altered state of e perience. .uch kind of evidence leads to support ;ung1s concept of a 3collective unconscious4 dimension of the human mind and, furthermore, provides the theoretical basis from which these various states might be more adequately comprehended. I find e tremely unfortunate any endeavor to do so by purely positivistic and materialistic methods. "eurotransmitter drugs, 7insteinian relativity, the !"# code are so alien to ;udeo2)hristian2/ar ist conceptions of the human nature that they have been repressed. We are familiar with the tendency to place under taboo facts, which disturb orthodo dogmas. .uch is the case and with abstract notions against the rationalistic scrutiny. &he latter simply is incapable to admit any glimpse of truth from the opposed side. In dealing with the misconstrue of the Western civili*ation against psychedelic agents, one reali*es that there is a wide open door waiting, which leads to a room full of new potentialities that can facilitate our present state, but unfortunately few dare to step inside. (erhaps it is the insecurity of the modern individual to face his ma,or e istential questions; perhaps it is all about misinformation, meaning that people misinterpret the role that psychedelics can play in a society in their wise use. "onetheless, it might be that we are so in love with the trip of searching the answer that with the announcement that this answer can at last be found much faster than one e pects, we go faint. In spite the fact that transpersonal phenomena are frequently reported and are of obvious relevance to many crucial areas of human life ?9rof, CGOJ@, little has been done to make sense or to integrate these e periences to the theory and practice of the human sciences. &he message of paramount importance that researchers as :eary have e tracted from their own e perimentation is that consciousness is far deeper than previously thought, and that it is possible to cut beyond ego2consciousness, to tune in to the neurological processes and to become aware of the enormous treasury of ancient racial knowledge welded into the nucleus of every cell in our body. #s the voyage inward begins, more and more energy becomes focused on the realms of e perience totally alien to the superficial ego2crust. If we do not recogni*e that today, the chances to remain in the future fi ed in that position is close to *ero. &he human curiosity, which nowadays has almost conquered all the material manifestations, is bound to become increasingly stimulated by the unknown of the human mind.

CO*SCIOUS*ESS REVA(UA+ED Unfoldin- the Su!!ressed Potentialities of Consciousness

#t this point, I think it is essential to present an e tract from .teven (inker1s book $ow the (ind -orks ?CGGG@, in order to depict the outrageous attitude of cognitive science against the potentialities of human consciousness. .adly, this domain of science, which is regarded as the future triumphant of the mental mystery, presents a claustrophobically narrow illustration of mind, so much that one begins to feel a mere automaton destined to meet nothing more than the apparent and the calculatedly e pected. .teven (inker, confident for the superiority of his thesis says%
We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. $ur minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life2and2death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness or answer any question we are capable of asking ?@ we cannot see in ultraviolet light. We cannot mentally rotate a four2dimensional ob,ect. #nd perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience.

I understand well that it is not the time or the paper in which I would challenge those assumptions at great length, considering that the scientific knowledge of altered states in consciousness is really

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infantile. +ou simply risk your academic solemnity by rushing to ,ump on postulations you fished in the advanced level of the psychedelic introspection. +ou find yourself in the same position in which )opernicus, Lepler, 9alileo, and others strived to ascertain their own radical convictions. "o doubt that in the near future we will witness such audacious endeavors but today we should focus inclusively on the theoretical method by which we will counter on such eliminativist theses, like the above. 'ow does (inker see the human mindD #s a mere organ that have been shaped reasonlessly by the evolutionary forces. #n ob,ect of no particular potentiality for spiritual performances. By e perience, I am forced to go up against his argument, word by word. 'e says we are organisms and not angels. I would veer the case by asserting that inside the ape body of the humankind must be a somewhat angel. &he linguistic activity, the fascinating imagination, the visionary planning, and the foresight of the future, the e pectations, and the hopes, the co*iness of religious emotions and the psychological miracles that come out from them seem to be an attribute of an angel. I do not find a reason to discard the angel within the animal by the poor and irrelevant evidence of physicalistic probing. #nother thing that causes disbelief on the not so nurturing thesis of (inker is his statement that mind is not a pipeline to truth. 'ow bad for him not to acknowledge thisF (eople who meditate and practice spiritual disciplines would laugh at his face, concerning that this is a very familiar reality to them. &he most significant potentiality of consciousness is the capacity to receive knowledge from the deep channels of the subconscious. #ny descent e istential2phenomenologist or depth psychologist knows that .nosticism was an approach build over the continuous involvement with a flowing knowledge that comes out of the blue. #nd a more precise attack would be on the fact that (inker thinks that his position is supported by the evolutionary theory. 'e thinks that the fact we now know that we have been shaped by natural selection closes all windows to metaphysical thinking. Well, consciousness might have evolved by life2and2death matters, but it has not done this for mere reasonless survival. "o matter how far2fetched to his ears it would sound, consciousness have evolved to reach something yet unknown; consciousness has grown in capacity to deal with moral correctness and solve the pu**le of e istence by only placing questions to the self to be answered by the self. 5ree will and sentience are notions yet une plained but how timid is the ,udgment to re,ect all possibilities of reaching one day their full understandingF .cientists like him are deliberate victims of a general truth. :ogic is only one product of the total functioning of the mind and therefore it is no wonder that we cannot arrive at a logical definition of consciousness or awareness by standing all the e planatory power on it. &here is a long time now we acknowledge that the part cannot define the whole. /ost of us know how to do arithmetic, speak 7nglish, write a check, drive an automobile, and most of us know about things, like behaving socially, thinking analytically, and so on. "ot many of us, though, were trained early in childhood to enter an altered state of consciousness, where we can be, for e ample, possessed by a friendly spirit that will teach us songs and dances, as it is done by some cultures. "or were most of us trained to gain control over our dreams and acquire spirit guides that will teach us useful things, as the .enoi of /alaysia and the #ma*onian shamans are. 7ach of us is simultaneously the beneficiary of his cultural heritage, the victim and the slave of his cultural narrowness. :ike almost all people in all cultures at all times, we think our local culture is the best and other peoples are uncivili*ed or savages. We better be cautious about labeling other e traordinary states as 3pathological4 and other cultures as 3primitive4. &he #ustralian aborigines, for e ample, are almost universally considered one of the world1s most primitive cultures because of their nomadic life and their paucity of material possessions. +et (earce argues that, from another point of view, these people are among the most sophisticated in the world, for they have organi*ed their entire culture around achieving a certain altered state, which they refer to as the e perience of )ream !ime% $ur bias toward solely material concepts, however, makes us unable to see this. &he conclusion is that psychology should turn its interest on the necessity to give sophisticated e planations on such unnoticed facets of the consciousness2reality. &he human capacity surpasses all present speculations. &he human capacity is a sequence of surprises waiting to be e plored. &he least that modern scientists can do is to tag on with a more holistic orientation in which multicultural views of consciousness will be focused. &he key to the solution is to keep an open eye to sub,ective, to global, and to irrational e perience. It is time for change.

+he Reli-ious E !erience

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&he thing that gives the psychedelic e perience all the importance in the world is because it is seen as the means by which people can augment their religiosity by attaining a more direct contact with the realms we know traditionally as spiritual. &he word contact seems to be a key2word of the novelty that the human mind often encounters in those states. Beyond doubt, there is a kind of an intelligent agency interfering subtly with individuals who reach the e perience1s overwhelming level. It makes you wonder, how would rationalism e plain thisD .keptic individuals might use as an opposing argument that there is no evidence to support such a belief. 'owever, the answer would be that apart the strange certainty that one feels at such moments, there are some times that things can become a lot more wondrously, if we recogni*e the fact that there are accounts which talk about the hair2raising trespassing of the fantastic towards reality. #n often account is that of peculiar lights of no physical evidence on the sky, or rapid changes of weather conditions by the influence of one1s beliefs. .trange synchronistic events are a routine for the psychedelic e perience. !epth psychology has attempted to deal with them by reali*ing synchronicity as alternative physics. We are still awkward, though, on how we will respond to that yet dark matter. ).9. ;ung has dedicated many ,ournals and a famous book on the issue of synchronous ?coincidental@ events between the inner and the outer world. If, though, he had an acquaintance with the psychedelic e perience, most likely, he would have reached a more satisfactorily comprehension. &hat is because psychedelics repeatedly cause an undeniable dialogue between one1s thought and the e ternal events. &hat principle 6the e ploitation of synchronous events, elicits the religious e perience, which is frequently deployed during the action of mind2manifesting substances. &he obstacle on transferring and populari*ing the e perience is the fact that we cannot e press precisely the content of those eerie quirks that take place on that state of mind. If the mere psychedelic e perience is a slippery floor, then the religious revelation is an untrodden sea. #lbeit speculation, e pression, and immediate mystical e perience are essentially interdependent and mysticism requires the vehicle of language to unfold, yet the e perience never e hausts itself in finished language. "o matter how much one tries to illustrate the events that marvel one1s mind, he is bound to meet insuperable obstacles. (erhaps, science will never manage to chart those areas, those frontiers of both mind and reality. &he least to say, there seems to be some kind of a shocking surprise. &he e pression 3mystical e perience4 is often used by religious people, or those who practice meditation. &hese e periences, which are undoubtedly real enough for the person who e periences them, indeed, are said to be hard to convey in words. /ystics frequently speak of an overwhelming sense of being at one with the universe or with 9od, of glimpsing a holistic vision of reality, or of being in the presence of a powerful and loving influence. /ost important mystics claim that they can grasp ultimate reality in a single e perience, in contrast to the long and tortuous deductive sequence of the logical2 scientific method of inquiry. 7ven 7instein spoke of a 3cosmic religious feeling4 that inspired his reflections on the order and harmony of nature. Indeed, regular mystical insights, sometimes induced chemically, can be a useful guide in the formulation of scientific theories. &hose e periences are direct and revelatory. 8ussell .tannard writes of the impression of facing an overpowering force of some kind, 3of a nature to command respect and awe there is a sense of urgency about it; the power is volcanic, pent up, ready to be unleashed4. $thers have perceived this force as the source of meaning and another portion of people who e perienced it prefer to remain speechless, recogni*ing that any attempt to codify it words is vain. (rehistoric evidence suggests that some of the e periences people have had in altered states of consciousness, generally called mystical e periences, have formed the underpinnings of all great religious systems and of the stable societies and consensus realities that were formed from them. &erence /cLenna is forced by evidence to claim that in the world of prehistory, all religion was e periential, and it was based on the pursuit of ecstasy through plants. &he psychedelic e perience was the first light at the beginning of history. It is that which pushed the animal mind towards the human mind. #lready, researchers like #lbert 'offman have discovered the noetic archeology of 7leusis, a place where people had rituals with ecstatic potions for centuries. &his is like a discovery of a skeleton on a closet. &his is the skeleton in the closet of the human origins and of the origin of religion. If we come up in terms with this, we can begin to understand the shape of the human future and the destiny of the human consciousness. 9ordon Wasson1s ?CGBO@ idea is that religion actually originated when an omnivorous protohuman encountered alkaloids in the environment. /ircea 7liade, the most brilliant e positor of the anthropology of shamanism, agreed with him and regarded that the absence of ecstatic drugs by a culture is probably a token of a decadent phase. &he religious e perience that is triggered by the responsible use of psychedelic agents introduces to consciousness a world of miracles. $ne comes to admit that, as 'oyle believed, there is an organi*ation in the cosmos controlled by a superintelligence that guides its evolution through quantum processes.

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'oyle1s and de )hardin1s teleological 9od, who directs the world toward a final state in the infinite future, becomes a celebrative realism. If we do not turn our backs to this eventful and e ceedingly meaningful reality, which is regularly e perienced by some background people, should we adopt the approach of the pragmatic atheist who is content to take the universe as given, and get on with the superficial cataloguing of its propertiesD #nd what about consciousnessD 'ow ridiculous are deniers psychologists against those very e istent theo2 realities, as /aslow designated themD We have but one choice, if we really want to probe substantially consciousness; that is to keep an open mind about the value of such e periences. /aybe they provide the only route beyond the limits to which science and philosophy can take us, the only possible path to an ultimate e planation of nature1s most mind2boggling mysteries.

(o-ically Pro1in- the Illo-ical

#pparently, this paper disputes the generic methods that have been traditionally supported as the compass of the scientific research. $n the issue of consciousness, scientists seem certain that a right e planation can only come through the use of logic, in the way that we have learned to use it in the inquiry of other sub,ects. &hus, they e pect that, eventually, they will have in their hands a full2fledged e planation of consciousness, which will be akin to the models we have from other fields. &hat e pectation leads them to the insistence of denying e periential accounts of consciousness that challenge the 3infallible4 system of logic. 8ationalists react cynically against individuals who describe their outlandish e periences. &he religious revelation is nothing more than a charade; the visionary e perience induced by psychedelics is a sheer ludicrousness. &he various bi*arre phenomena that defy an e planation are seen as mere misinterpretations of purely normal events. &heir policy is to regard them as pro,ections of wishful thinking by individuals who report them. &herefore, there is a big debate between 3rational4 and 3irrational4 people. &his debate is here for ages, as the certainty of the latter struggles to come in terms with the consensus of logic. It is very unsettling the fact that those challenging e periences are no less real than the undefeatable status of rationalism, which is the spinal cord of scientific investigation. 'owever, when we are referring to consciousness and selfhood the familiar logic becomes deeply troubled. I think that now is the time to show that even mathematics can give us the permission to believe that reality functions in a noticeably different gear on the sphere of mind. I mean that logic becomes altered when it moves from reference to self2reference. &he humdrum nature of normal rationalism becomes wiped out by the parado of referring to one1s self. In another way, the reference to one1s self entails to the dissolution of e pected commonsensical deductions. &herefore, consciousness, as a number one token of a self2referent phenomenon, comes under that class of mathematical formulation, and that means that consciousness is pertained by another kind of causality, phenomenally parado in comparison with the plain logic of reference. 'ofstadter speculates that the critical level of comple ity appears to occur when the system becomes capable of making statements concerning itself, or, in other words, capable of self-reference. .elf2reference speaks directly to the issue of human consciousness. When humans e plore the e ternal world, the world of ob,ects, events, and their interrelationships, the system of logic and scientific reasoning being used is not self2referent. 'owever, the mathematician 9odel has shown us through his famous equations that when we attempt to e plore the nature of our own thought processes and consciousness ?that is, the nature of ourselves@, we act in a self2referent manner. #t this point, 9odel1s theorem takes on metaphorical relevance. It suggests that when the human individual attempts to understand himself, truth must have a definition apart from logical provability. Where does this awareness of the nature of self2reference lead usD It here suggest us that it lead us to a classic borderline between the rational, thinking, conceptual mind, the realm of the ;ungian masculine, the phenomenal divider, the sub,ect2ob,ect dichotomi*er, and the intuitive, feeling, wisdom2 seeking higher faculty, the realm of the ;ungian feminine, the noumenal congealer, the dissolver of all apparent difference ?&art, CGII@. Lurt 9odel proved a sweeping theorem that provided an irrefutable demonstration that something in mathematics is actually impossible, even in principle. &he fact that there e ist undecidable propositions ?!avies, CGGG@ came as a great shock, because it seemed to undermine the entire logical foundations of the science. Indeed, the great mathematician and philosopher Bertrand 8ussell demonstrated that the e istence of such parado es strikes at the very heart of logic, and undermines any attempt to construct mathematics rigorously on a logical foundation. 9odel1s theorem of self2reference warns us that there will always be truth that lies beyond, that cannot be reached by familiar rationalistic methods. We do not have to contemplate much to reali*e that such is the nature of consciousness.

47

If we do not conceive the implications of 9odel1s theorem fleetingly, we are bound to start a revision of the way we understand mind. 8oger (enrose, a famous physicist, has decided to attack the computational theory of mind with such a verdict. 'e followed a very different track in the issues of logic and physics, much akin to the path that we follow in this paper. #s a pioneer, he avoided to fall in the trap to conceive the human mind as a mere computer program. 'e found it an impasse and a clichV. With the weapon of 9odel1s theorem, he asserted that not all aspects of consciousness could be e plained as logical computation. 'e regarded the operation of neurons as too narrow to support the whole phenomenon. $n such a premise, the cognitive scientist and victim of the computer age, .teven (inker, has reacted saying that the security of the computational theory fits so well to our understanding of the world that in trying to overthrow it, thinkers like (enrose have to re,ect most of contemporary neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and physics. /y own reaction on this fulmination is that (enrose is much closer to the truth than (inker. (enrose argues that mind has strange properties derived from the quantum level and that seems to be much more comforting to the events users of hallucinogens and spiritual practitioners encounter. (inker attacks (enroses1 thesis by asserting that he incites us to abandon the contemporary ne us of data in science; but did he questioned himself that it is not a matter of abandonment but rather of further progressD .cientific disciplines have always been in the position to change radically their mentality; why not nowD #ccording to the parameters gathered already, we should be convinced that a plain computational theory of mind is not enough. Whoever thinks the opposite is walking towards a diametrically opposed direction from where the answer lies. $ur approach to consciousness is successful only when we tailor the computational theory with the unorthodo facets of late discovered innovations in logic and physics, in association, of course, with the introspective accounts, no matter how heretical at first seem. &he stage is set now for more daring propositions in the study of consciousness. It is time to face the answer and announce the new vision of humanity. It is not a utopianism to believe that a satisfactorily solution in the problem of consciousness will most likely lead to the inspiration of a new ecology of inner and outer space. &here are some unorthodo ideas stalking to fascinate us once and for all 6ideas that have been e pressed in the archaic ages but later our hyperbolic love to the shallow waters of rationalism, due to intellectual insecurity made them seem foolish. &here are old ideas, which in their revivification will be flammable to the drybrush and deadwood of our age1s decadent intellects. Before I present my speculative approach of the cosmological evolution, which is decidedly pertinent with the nature of consciousness, I have to quote some words, which seem to mirror both the (latonic doctrine of disembodied eternal 5orms and the ;ungian notion of archetypes 6ideas that are prerequisite of the following hypothesis. 9odel ?CGPP@ himself once said% 3)oncepts and classes may be conceived as real ob,ects ?forms, archetypes@ e isting independently of our definitions and constructions. It seems to me that the assumption of such ob,ects is quite legitimate and there is much reason to believe in their e istence.4 #nd 'eraclitus one shiny day had had postulated% 3 .osmos seems to develop by means of a reverse motion4

Asse/blance and #ac6.ard Causality

)urrently, we have in our hands a number of theories that allow us to believe that in the hori*on some shifts will bring our conceptual understanding of the universe upside2down. "ovel theories inspire us to think very different from yesterday. &hey give us the impetus to be daring to request the truth in a somewhat grotesque way. &he fact that we have begun acknowledging the mechanics of non2linear self2 organi*ing systems and that we glimpsed the impressive notion of emergent properties have pushed us to a new way of thinking, widely different from the traditional methods of deduction. It is true that we have not been used to contemplate on non2linear, parallel processing systems. #ll we could do appro imately fifty years ago was to study systems that worked in a linear fashion. In addition, we were not e actly e perts on understanding substantially the dynamic systems and the turbulent phenomena, which so often we meet in our universe. #ctually, the universe, life, and the human mind almost in their entirety come under this class of phenomena. &hat is because they are fluid, ever changing, dynamic, and unstable. .ince a lot of theory and practice have been accumulated in the study of emergent properties and the dynamic systems, suddenly many unanswered questions reemerged to the agenda of psychology. What we reali*e is that chaos theory and emergentism can help in an unanticipated way the problems that confound this discipline on the issue of mind and consciousness. Beginning from emergentism, I would say that this theory promises a forthcoming breakthrough in our conceptions of evolution and life, and the way it works. In a nutshell, emergentism claims that local processes can manifest a higher2order

4)

phenomenon of superorganic properties, meaning, the properties that emerge over the local processes are distinct in nature and in purpose by those that support it. #s we saw in the previous part more e tensively, emergence appears to be a widely manifested phenomenon. We can observe it to an ant2 colony, which becomes a kind of superorganism composed by the interaction of ants; we can observe it in the way a human personality emerges from the chemical and electrical interaction of mere neurons, the way a city and its distinct cast of features emerges from the interaction of its citi*ens, etc. What I suggest we should hold from that theory is the fact that an emergent phenomenon seems to be the point which pulls toward it physical processes. )rudely put, the superorganic properties, by which a new phenomenon emerges with its own behavior and its own distinct reality, seem to demand a kind of comple ity and order from the underlying processes so that they assemble. "ow I know, they way I have put it is too abstract to be accepted as a concrete presumption. 'owever, here is where I speculate and I only sketch a possible orientation for conceiving the notion of emergence. 8ecalling the hypothesis of 9odel, who conceived concepts and classes as real ob,ects e isting independent from our conceptions and definitions, I propose to look at the issue in a similar fashion. In my point of view, I do not find it forbidden to perform such speculations. I believe that the abstract point of comple ity, which triggers the concrete emergence of superorganic properties in a non2 linear system is a kind of law, a kind of stance which e ists always no matter if the processes will reach that demanding point or not. /any philosophers have engaged themselves to painstaking thinking about whether the universal laws, which shape and give orientation to the evolving cosmos, are independent and transcendent from the physical plane. (aul !avies ?CGG<@ in his fascinating book !he (ind of .od has focused on that with an intense interest as if an answer on that would breed immense implications in the contemporary philosophy. Indeed, if a law en,oys a transcendental e istence and if it is no less tangible than the physical phenomena that it mobili*es then we are revered to assemble with a new way of thinking, a palpable transcendental philosophy in which we decide in favor of (lato and (lotinus. &he reason that I was infused to coin that speculative approach as assemblantism was due my insight1s reaffirmation by reading some neuralgic data of chaos theory. /y insight was that there is a transcendental reality of no physical evidence, which interferes closely with the evolving processes of the material world. I reali*ed the rise of emergent properties as a point of partial assemblance between the two planes. In other words, I conceived the non2linear processes as a kind of 3ritual4 whose goal is to 3invite4 the approach of higher properties that are stored in a higher2order reality. When that is achieved, I begin to talk about an assemblance where the two levels initiate a direct interaction. "eedless to try hard to guess the reaction of the reader. /ost likely, he finds the speculation a bit unpractical and surrealistic. "evertheless, here is the point where chaos theory will support my argument and will invite one to think more open and less culturally2restricted about consciousness. )haos theory has cancelled away the notion of randomness in many fields, especially biology. 5amous pioneers, like 'ubbard and !1#rcy, have claimed that chance serves only as a tool in the process of evolution. 7mpirical evidence forced them to believe that the results of any so2called 3random4 process in non2linear systems is deterministic and predictable. &hat is because they have been led to understand that behind those processes there is a fractal ob,ect of no physical evidence that shapes the flowing patterns and directs them. &hat ob,ect has been called attractor% #n attractor cannot be found anywhere in any scale of the universe. It is invisible information that works as a cosmic blueprint for the turbulent state of matter. It is the actual map of the ideal pathway for any positive2feedback process. )haos theorists today believe that the successful comple ity of biological evolution is a result of this e tradimensional mould. #n e ample will make this notion more intelligible% When we go into a new room, our eyes dance around it in some order which we might as well take to be random, and we get a good idea of the room. &he room is ,ust what it is. &he ob,ect e ists regardless of what I happen to do. &he attractor 6the /andelbrot set as chaotists call it2 e ists in the same way. It is there waiting to be e plored and to be actuali*ed by the heuristic scanning of self2organi*ing systems. It e isted before we understood its mathematical essence and formulation, before /andelbrot discovered it, even before ?and that is the most important@ evolution in earth began from the organic soup of the oceans. &he attractors e isted earlier than nature began organi*ing itself by means of simple physical laws, repeated with infinite patience. &he astonishing conclusion is that behind the particular, visible shapes of matter must lie ghostly forms serving as invisible templates ?9leick, CGIJ@. If we wed emergentism with chaos theory and its bi*arre fractal attractors, then the option of reali*ing the emergence of superorganic properties as a point of assemblance is widely open. &he backward causality becomes an important term for any ambitious theorist. If the universe and life evolve by the shaping intervention of an attractor then we must welcome the notion with an open heart. 'ow much this twist would change the way we conceive consciousnessD I believe it would blow a profound change with spectacular results. 5irst, a significant implication would be that higher consciousness is a universal phenomenon stored somewhere in the folded up aspects of space. # brain evolutionary

4*

advances its organi*ation and its convoluted comple ity to assemble with that sphere. $bviously, this speculation guides as to apprehend the universe as multidimensional and hierarchical. If the process of the sentient matter of the human brain was attracted by the plane of consciousness then there must be more consciousness to be acquired in the progress of the future. In that manner of thinking, it is very tempting to believe that the crust of matter, the three2dimensional surface of the cosmos, is structured around a center of pure consciousness, of pure mental energy, and insatiated flu . &he emergent structuring seems to be the teleological function for the conquest of higher2realities. .cientists who take a cynic position against such speculations should revision their attitude. Beyond doubt, they appear negative due to their ignorance on the rapid flow of new information that upgrades the field of physics. #lready physicists talk about a hierarchy of dimensions, about wormholes in space, about time2travel. &he future is here and the ones who cannot compromise with the bree*e of this new epoch, the ones who cannot modify their heritage with innovations of this new hori*on, are the ones who will not participate in the reformation of science and society. /a,or conceptual changes coming from all directions set a new vision for humanity. )ynicism and narrow2mindness are not fashionable anymore. &he openness is the new trend and whoever negates that, means that has forgot his mind sometime back in the fren*y condition of the <=th century. &he cock is singing for the awakening at a new dawn. We better all react against the idiocy of devaluating scientific dictums by putting forward our most promissory to e cel ideas. &he surprise is that, today, in such an enterprise we have more allies than ever.

5,

&'7 "#&-8#:I.&I) #((8$#)'

***

The Quantum Revelation

3Whoever is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it4 2"iels Bohr

5+

+0E VI+A(I8A+IO* O" P0$SICS "ro/ *e.ton to #ohr

&he purport to comprise in a descent research of consciousness the psychedelic e perience one century ago would be a preposterous enterprise. &he e traordinary states of mind are known for their anarchic and uncompromising nature toward the traditional mode of rationalism. # scientist who would e press his interest on the sub,ective accounts of the reality1s meltdown would simply be seen as a romantic poet and not someone who thinks in the framework of the scientific morale. &he acceptance of such e periences as true would automatically mean the demolishment of the reality1s firm stratum. 9iven that the philosophy of reality is hugely influenced by the concepts of physics, the "ewtonian logic, which was so prominent more than a century ago, would be a low ceiling to such high speculations. "ewton had presented us a universe much fordable to our e pectations of reality, meaning that there were no big diversions between his formulation of physical reality and what we observe with naked eye. 5or him gravity was gravity and light was light, mass was a composition of particles and the forces were ,ust dynamics caused by electricity, magnetism, microcosmic nuclear pressures. "obody would regard "ewton1s e planations as simplistic at that age, but in comparison with today when physics have penetrated to alien territories the name of "ewton sounds a bit primitive. In the course of the last bountiful century, we have been slapped by many une pected surprises, as several additions in our conception of reality have altered our vision of the universe in a wondrous way. &oday the hori*on gives the impression of a shaking destiny, which will bombshell even our most unbridled fantasies. &he world of "ewton tends to become the world of a poet. &he classic mechanics of physics present a world of predictability, plain determinism, and ignorance on the role of consciousness in physical reality. &his immature and childish approach of physics held that the phenomenology of matter depicts its true essence. &he conception was that matter is as rigid as it seems to our macroscopical realities. &he atom was a particle as physical as an ob,ect of our scale. &he electron was revolving around the nuclear in a similar fashion to the revolution of the planets around a star. /oreover, the status of an observer of any physical event was taken for granted, as the first physicists thought nothing of this. &o my point of view, this was an indication of the clima of the total scientific promotion to deflate the self. $ur role in the universe was secondary if not entirely feeble. &he effect of e treme rationalism and conformism was the gradual negation of our role in the universe as active agents, who would have the potency to interact with it by mere observation. "evertheless, this was the condition that characteri*ed the belief systems of the archaic people whose attitude eventually was doomed due to the facile intelligibility of rationalism. &his twist of fate overshadowed the sense of interactivity we had with the universe and brought the blindness of classic physics on covering that crucial aspect of reality. # storm of conceptual changes in physics the previous century, though, changed radically the parameters of reality. It is not an amplification to say that the whole science of physics had to be retooled in front of a new landscape that nobody would dream to be discovered by guardians of positivistic thinking. &he physicists1 aspirations in the beginning of the <= th century were very different to what they were destined to meet. 7mpirical evidence, through repetitive e perimentation, showed that our formal scientific beliefs on the nature of matter and reality were a silly estimation. 5rom the 7instein1s equations and onwards, "ewton passed to the museum as ,ust the initiator of a ,uvenile theory of physics. &he day that quantum physics emerged in some of the brightest minds of this epoch was the day that we departed towards a new domain of unfamiliar, yet familiar, theoretics. .ince then, the equations appear to be alive, vital, vivid, essential, as if 9od breathes fire on them. 0uantum physics changed our conception of the microscopic reality dramatically. 5irst, it introduced us to a new kind of motion of the electrons around the atomic nuclear. 7 periments showed that the rules of the macroscopic reality do not apply in microcosmos. :ogical e pectations found a closed door 6a new modality was emerging in the observations, which represented an alien logic. &he thing that astonished physicists was the reali*ation that the electrons do not revolve in a linear fashion around the nuclear but they rather make leaps between different tracks. #t one moment they are in the tracking periphery #, the ne t moment they are in the periphery B. 7lectrons proved to be blinking spots that miraculously could ,ump from one energetic field to the other. &hat was deeply troubling to even the most pioneering ones who witnessed the breakdown of ordinary logic and the disproval of classical atomic physics. $f course, that has some crucial implications in the macroscopic level, regardless of some natural philosophers that want to annihilate such a supposition.

5-

&he other thing that caused an earthquake in the domain of physics was the empirical reali*ation that an atom is both a particle and a wave. "eedless to say that such a novel estimation led many solemn thinkers to the edges of insanity. It was a parado no one dreamed to encounter in physics. $n that point, through quantum mechanics the program of rationally understanding nature has at last reached been pushed so far that we have reached the irrational core of nature herself. &he postulation that a particle becomes a fluctuated wave when it is not observed initiated a long process of revision in the realms of philosophy and epistemology. It was the proof that our mental states have an intimate interference with matter, something that opposed to the "ewtonian physics where the observer is simply ine istent. 8epetitive e periments confirmed that we are participants in the process of observation and hence we progressively focused on the role of consciousness in the physical reality. In addition to this, 7instein1s formulas had as their topmost sermon the devaluation of matter. In his life, he accomplished to demonstrate mathematically that the phenomenal rigidity of matter is a delusion of our perceptive systems. "owadays, it is a consensus to the lovers of physics that the physical reality is nothing but pitches of energy frequencies. Besides, the last decade a new forceful theory reinforced this argument. &he hypothesis of the superstrings seems to be the decisive end of "ewtonian matter. (hysicists appear to be guided by evidence on a purely energetic vision of matter. In the G=s, many books have triumphantly proclaimed that the day of the unified theory is close, as the tiniest particle has been, at last, deduced. &he emerging conclusion is that all matter, atoms, photons, quarks, gluons, tachyons, positrons are shaped by a variety of vibrations of super2small strings that swim in the unimaginably undersi*ed (lanck1s length. .o here we are, matter is music. 'owever, the greatest shock came by the dual nature of particle>wave. #s already mentioned, matter appeared to be mystically schi*oid. (hilosophers fed by this incredible development, broke their heads to understand the implications of this. Is it possible that reality is in a state of uncertain flu if unseenD Is there any reality in the absence of an observer, after allD &he pu**ling wave2particle contradiction was solved in a very surprising and une pected way, a way that called into question the very foundation of the mechanistic, "ewtonian world2view 6nothing less than the reality of matter itself% #t the subatomic level% matter does not e ist with certainty at definite places, but rather show 3tendencies to occur4. In quantum theory, these tendencies are e pressed with probabilities 6 mathematical quantities which take the form of waves. &his is the way in which matter manifests itself as both particle and wave at the same time% &hese same tendencies are not actual three2dimensional waves ?like sound or water@ but are rather 3probability waves4 6abstract mathematical quantities which are related to the probabilities of finding the particles of particular points in space at particular times. #ll the laws in atomic physics are e pressed in terms of these probabilities. &he /nterpretation of Copenhagen illustrated that whilst in classic physics we imagine a system of interacting particles to function with the accuracy of a clock, regardless if we are observing or not, in quantum physics the observer has an effect on the system in such a grade that we can not conceive that this system has an independent e istence. By choosing to measure accurately the position of a particle, we force it to develop an even greater uncertainly on its surge. $n the other hand, if we choose an e periment for measuring its waving properties we efface the particle2characteristics. &here is no e periment that can manifest simultaneously both the wave and particle mode. .ubsequently, we have to admit, ,ust like physicists did, that the performance of observation of an event changes it and that we, the observers, are literally part of the e periment 6there is nothing functioning independent of its conscious observations. "othing that is not captivated by an observing eye is happening in a concrete wayF &he artist by sculpturing the marble reveals according to his foresight a hidden form. )ould this be the way by which our beliefs shape realityD &he philosopher and physicist 7ddington said in the mid AN=s, after the discovery of the neutrino% 3I do not believe in the neutrino. But I dare to say that e perimenters are enough intelligent to create one.4 In contemplation of this, one would reali*e that the world is not really made from particles but from concepts and language. #pparently, the change is so immense with quantum physics that one has to reinvent the world that he lives by hastening to recogni*e mind and its properties as the leading edge of reality. If it is generally accepted that consciousness influences the material processes in the microcosmos, I do not find a reason why not to apprehend the macroscopic reality as such. "o matter how outrageous it sounds to traditional rationalism, I believe that we have ,ust found the first glimpses of gold. $ur active role in the universe at last becomes a sub,ect of inquiry in science. By means of quantum physics, soulism takes its revenge. 7 periments that respect the importance of mind, like the .chrodiger1s )at, should be the hallmark of such a destination and should inspire with awe all ambitious psychologists who want to give back the importance of selfhood in the study of their field. #lthough, natural scientific disciplines have been traditionally considered as irrelevant to the investigation of consciousness and human e perience, after the surfacing of revolutionary ideas in physics, we have found that the constructs discussed in diverse fields bear a remarkable semblance to

53

the very issues that are central to the psychological study of consciousness. 0uantum theory and relativity, dissipative structure in chemistry, morphogenetic fields in biology, 9odel1s theory in mathematics, all have striking implications for understanding both the structure of consciousness and the process of self2reali*ation. 'ow can you e clude psychology from the celebration of this new knowledge, when nowadays in the natural science it is generally accepted that physics give rise to observer2 participancy; observer2participancy gives rise to information; information gives rise to physicsD ?!avies,CGG<@ &his rather cryptic statement is rooted in the ideas of quantum physics, where the observer and the observed world are closely interwoven. It is only through acts of observation that the physical reality of the world becomes actuali*ed; yet, this same physical world generates the observers that are responsible for concreti*ing its e istence. &he observer thus became involved in establishing physical reality and the scientist lost the role of the spectator and became an active participant ?!avies, CGG<@. With the further development of quantum mechanics the word 3 /0 took a very important connotation, since the role of the observer became an even more central part of physical theory, an essential component for defining an event. :iterally, person and world proved to co2constitute one another, they actually make each other up. &o sum up, until now, mainstream psychology has patterned itself after the apparent successful method and the underlying philosophy of the natural sciences. .pecifically, it has undertaken the e perimental method basing it on the foundation called empiricism. &he method and base of thinking, in particular, have come from classical physics we learned so well in our school days. "ewtonian physics have provided us nothing less than a 3way to think4, an implicitly enculturated view of reality, a prereflective assumption of what the universe really is. +et, within the field of psychology, there has always been a stream of discontent with this natural scientific grounding. &he humanistic, growth psychologists, the e istential phenomenologists, and, most recently, the transpersonal psychologists are a few of many who have cried out something akin to% 3.topF &here is more in being a humanF4 # different ground is needed, a different look at the nature of what is, what was, and what could be. It is from this cry that the application of e istentialism and 7astern philosophies and doctrines has, for e ample, provided new insights and understanding to the multifaceted nature of human behavior, human e perience, and the world situations that a person find himself thrown into. &he cry however continues and given the humanistic and ecological crisis, it is e pected to culminate in the near future. &he ground that natural scientific psychology stands ?i.e. the "ewtonian worldview@ has been discarded and left behind by the physicists themselves as too narrow and too limited in its conceptual scope ?'eisenberg, CGB=@. What has come out of thisD What has come is the beginning of a whole new way of e amining some very old but still equally crucial questions% 3What is the true nature of consciousnessD4 3What is the place of the human being in the known universeD4 3What role does mystical and religious e perience play in human evolutionD4 and perhaps most importantly, 3'ow much certain can we be for the validity of such e periences after the quantum revelationD4

An E!iste/olo-ical Circle
.omething monumental happens in epistemology the past hundred years. &here is a clash between the traditional certainty of reductionism and the new conceptions that emerged in the field of physics. &he fact is that not many up until now appear to give significance on this, but it is something that sooner or later they will be forced to do. Biologists at the beginning of the <= th century developed an increased interest on the nature1s hierarchy that materialism sponsored. .oon physics became the primary science of reality and reductionism the only method by which truth could be approached. .imultaneously, though, with this developing tendency of the biologists, physicists were moving away from the strictly mechanical models of the universe and they found that a holistic approach to physics, with the crucial contribution of mind, is a much more progressed view. #pparently, two opposing views were spreading ambitiously to conquer the title of the predominant methodology on the scientific mentality. !uring that time, there was no bridge to connect them, since biologists delayed to hear the ringing bells of the quantum implications. &he physicists1 turn to holism and mentalism and the biologists1 decision to approach life in a reductionist way, was a reversal of roles that left psychologists in an ambivalent position. &he study of life in modern times has been relied on reductionism, an approach that is oriented in the smaller scales of reality for the validity of any e planation. &herefore, in the vocabulary of psychologists words like consciousness, perception, awareness, and thought were obsolete terms. &he only reliable terms were words like synapse, lobotomy, proteins, etc. &hat led to the devaluation of mind per se and to the transference of the academic spotlight to a hard2core vision of the material

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dimension. &he "ewtonian physics became the leading science of reality and the science that studies the mind was left as the one which brings up the rear. If we combine psychological and biological reductionism we are led from mind to anatomy and physiology, to cell physiology, molecular chemistry, to atomic physics which are laid on the bedrock of quantum mechanics; something that biologists and psychologists failed to notice then. &hey were largely unaware of the new mode of reality that was emerging in the conceptions of physicists; a reality much more fluid than the obsolete version that was still drawing the attention of other disciplines. &he most shocking postulation of quantum physics was the establishing of a new reality, which held the role of the observer in an e periment as a significant factor on the material processes and changes. &he scientist from a spectator became an active participant and an important part of the e periment. Eery fast the role of mind uplifted as a rocket. It emerged as necessary element in the structure of all physical theories ?/orowit*, CGIO@. 'eisenberg stressed that after the quantum revelation, the laws of nature no longer dealt with elementary particles, but with our knowledge of these particles 6that is, with the contents of our minds. &he philosophical thinking and speculations that arose from this startling shift in physics incited a revival of the mystical of view of the universe. &he sterile version of materialism une pectedly became an impasse to the natural sciences in front of a profoundly important return to esoteristic philosophy in the framework of natural philosophy. &he !ao of *hysics from )apra, .chrodinger1s sympathy with 7astern philosophical thought, )assirer1s perennial philosophy, and others, was an indication of such a vitali*ation of epistemology. 0uantum physics showed us that a physical event and the content of the human mind are inseparable. &he linkage forced many researchers to seriously consider consciousness as an integral part of the structure of physics. .uch interpretations moved science toward an idealist view of life, in contrast to the realism that was still pertaining philosophy. &he ultimate reality is consciousness and nothing can happen without its participation. &his is a conclusion that rattles in everybody1s mind that has comprehended the magnitude of the new physics1 implications. &he space opens for the emergence of many fle ible mottos that were banished some centuries now due to materialistic compunctions. &he epistemological circle from mind to mind is probably the weightiest change that has appeared the last N== years. &he human mind, including consciousness have been e plained in terms of the central nervous system, which, in turn, can be reduced to the biological structure and function of that physiological system. &hen, biological phenomena can be e plained in terms of atomic physics, meaning, through the interaction of carbon atoms, o ygen, hydrogen, and so on. 'owever, the arrival of quantum theory has illustrated to us that beneath atomic processes, mind, as the primitive component and inspector, is the agent of physical change. &hus, we have gone around a striking epistemological circle 6from mind, back to mind again ?/orowit*, CGIO@. #nyone who has paid attention to this is on the track to accept psychology as the primary science of reality and to understand physics as a subordinate of mind. In my understanding there is not e en an epistemological loop; what we have is nothing but a solely element, whether the research is addressed to cells, molecules, or atoms. &here is only one element and that is mind 6matter is a misconception, maybe the most remarkable false impression of all the ages.

+0E RESPIRI+UA(I8A+IO* O" CO*SCIOUS*ESS A Di1ision2 Sentience and Consciousness

Before we move any further and begin to manifest the nature of consciousness in its own right, we ought to make an important distinction. &his distinction happens to be very practical for the establishment of the argument that will follow. #t this point the reader must keep in mind that the paper is going to close the issue with a radical suggestion that reinforces all the content that have proceeded. It is not easy to accept the miracles and wonders of consciousness if you put your bets on the narrow mode of mind. I believe that it is clear up to now that the narrow mode of mind presents a different picture of consciousness than the one that is held millennia before science bloomed on a positivistic ground of thinking. In the opposed side, we have the large mode of mind in which brain is not its generator but its conductor. If we accept this view as serious and reali*e that it deserves an e tended research then we come to the sparkling conclusion that the awareness is not confined strictly to the organic nature but it might be something that pertains all matter, organic or not. &hat line of thought shows the way to form the vital distinction between consciousness and sentience% If we really wish to have an open dialogue with cognitive theories and functionalistic doctrines that currently appear to

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contact the issue in a very promising way, then we must not let ourselves go forth in fallacious postulations that may cost the reliability that depth psychology wants so much to have. It is not going to be an elegant move if we reali*e consciousness as something that emerges painlessly from the dull matter. &he physical brain is definitely the critical station where human consciousness is concocted. "evertheless, we should not give up our weapons in the idea that consciousness is fully coming to place by the events and processes of the central nervous system. I feel that this idea is very akin to the idea that the Big Bang has e ploded out of nothingness. .cientists meet insuperable obstacles and ob,ections with this kind of thinking. I find the notion that we are descended from ant2people who came out of the urine of a sky god when he got out of his canoe to relieve himself more palpable than we are derivatives of the Big Bang 6a moment when the whole universe sprang from nothing and for no reason at all. &he same goes and for our unsubstantial convictions that consciousness booms only from the processes of matter. &he less to say, it is cra*y to accept this kind of e planations and is much more easier to orient the study towards more essentialist views. &herefore, under those conditions one is forced to wedge the notion of sentience in the story. .entience must be reali*ed as something different from consciousness. I think that by comprising this difference in the attempt to formulate a superlative theory we are facilitated in an important way. 0uantum physics have already comforted us to understand mind as something much more universal and unlimited from the brain. #ccording to this view, mind is an overwhelming and oceanic feature of the cosmos ?if it is not the cosmos per se)% .cientists deduce that consciousness is a derivative of the brain ,ust because physically they can alter it, but that does not e plain away its source. &hinking deeply this would convince that such an attitude is infantile and, perhaps, overblown. We need to distinguish consciousness from awareness. .ome kind of 3pure4 sentience may be a basic from which we start. $rdinarily, we e perience consciousness, as basic sentience, e istent in all space, which is channeled and vastly modified by the machinery of the brain. In the approach of transpersonal psychology, awareness is given a real and separate status. We must put a dividing line between awareness>sentience and consciousness as we e perience it normally. .entience is that basic, but hard to define property that makes us cogni*ant of things; consciousness is awareness as it is modified, enhanced, and embedded in the structure of the brain and the nervous system. )onsciousness is awareness transformed by the brain2body machine so that awareness loses some of its own innate properties and gains certain properties from the structure that is channeled. &his would ,ustify us many of the paranormal or gestalt properties that we maddeningly try to e plain without attaining anything important. If our conscious e perience is the amalgamation between the all2encompassing property of matter ?sentience@ and the e tremely comple function of the brain, then this new dualism opens up the doors to a fascinating thinking. #s far as I can understand psychologists discard the )artesian &heater in a sense that there is no time and place in the brain where all processes come together in a kind of bundle. 'owever, my suggestion is that if sentience is the basic underlying stuff by which the world is made, there is still something )artesian in the case. &hat )artesian element is defined not from where 3it all comes together4 but from where 3it all begins4. &he implications of this outlook mean that each of us individually is greater than his phenomenal e istence. /oreover, the nihilism of death is passing to a re,oicing revision of our moral and cultural attitudes against it. :ets be straight% 7 periments in quantum physics have indicated that mind is the substratum of being and the leading edge of reality. It is not the resultant of being but its very causeF /ind is the foundation of matter; or perhaps I would be more well2aimed to say that mind is indistinguishable from matter. +es, cognitive scientists are right to scream against )artesian naiveties; mind is a property of matter. 'owever, it seems to be the vice versa. It is not ,ust it doesnt matter neither ,ust ne er mind, it is both. &herefore, albeit, the ghost in the machine is light2years away from truth, it still bears a kind of an essential correctness. &he dyadic nature of consciousness is a fact, although not the way we are customi*ed to acknowledge. &he distinction between sentience and consciousness, which is inferred from the astonishing discovery of quantum physics presents not a ghost in the machine but a somewhat ghost machine or, in another way, the machinery of a ghost. &he vital motivation that triggered the contribution of the naturalistic approach is the necessity to evade usual and ordinary aphorisms in the issue. $ne of the dominating proposals is that if we clearly understand in a philosophical and holistic way the implications of quantum mechanics then we are in the position to accept and applause the following suggestion% 3(sychology should cease its awkward attempts to e plain the origins of consciousness and should reali*e that this enterprise is to be handed in the field of physics4 Indeed, all presages prearrange a future, in which physics obtain a vitalistic tinge and matter a spiritual *est. )onsciousnessD Its evocative respirituali*ation.

+he 9uantu/ Per/ission to Esotericis/

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(resently, we are still too unsettled and dissipated intellectually to establish a new conceptual setting in our lives. #lthough, the developments in science and philosophy are frantically fast and the changes are sometimes breathtaking, the ma,ority of people is unaffected and unenlightened by the insinuations of the novel theories. In matter of fact, there are people who practice spiritual techniques and maintain a strong belief in a 9od, and when they are faced against the stern cynicism of a hard2core scientist, they back off as if they agree that the power of rationalism can sweep away their intuitive knowledge. &he truth is that in the framework of the Western rationalism1s system there is no way that a believer can support his convictions. 'owever, the new naturalistic approach that has arose after the reali*ation that consciousness is an important parameter of an observation, definitely permits us to conceive mind as something much greater than previously thought. 5or reasons that have been mentioned in previous pages, the Western rationalism meets its dead2end, while a new system of thinking shows us a hori*on full of possibilities and solutions to old problems. &he spirituali*ation of matter is a monumental initiation of the forthcoming concreti*ation of mere belief. .piritualism is in the track to become a concrete science, although, a very different one from what we have today. &he compass indicates us the une plored destination of consciousness, for to be mapped and e plored. In times like this, when the natural sciences support the primary role of mind in the universe, the accusations of the rationalist against the spiritual pursuit sink down as too limited in their scope. It is time to understand that people who apprehend consciousness as a medium for spiritual actuali*ation, for growth, and for reception of gnosis, are not naMve fellows who ignore the truthfulness of science and thus sanction their imaginations to take them over with irrational e pectations. "o, it is the other way around. It is science, which is the discipline of organi*ation that should be organi*ed, as Bacon insisted, and it should be organi*ed under this profound change in physics. When all scientists decide to become less rigid so that they can embrace the new developments with deep understanding, it will be the time that the spiritualist will be respected as the most commendable model for the quest of valuing consciousness. &here is a vast array of belief systems about the mind and the brain. &here are those primarily in religion who believe that the mind is something greater than computations done by a biocomputer, which demonstrates an implicit faith that the human mind somehow is connected with a human spirit or soul that transcends the everyday operations of the normal standards. .uch concepts generate a 3mind unlimited4 belief. 'owever, it seems to be more than a belief. &here are empirical proofs that this is the reality that one will fully face after his or her biological death. -nder the influence of anesthetics, psychedelics, in states of trance, or being in an isolation trunk, one can enter into states of being in which the mind seems apparently to be indeed unlimited. &he constraint of a body and a brain faints away, allowing the titanic dimension of the cosmos to be perceived directly as if it is part of the selfhood. !epth psychology always knew this, although in a kind of abstract way. &hey depicted this unlimited feature of mind by making models that represented the wide content and the e tension of consciousness. &hey worked them in consideration of space2time, inwards2outwards, spiritual hierarchy, etc. #nother thing that led us to the reali*ation of an unlimited mind, apart from mere intuition or naturalistic e perimental evidence, are the rather frequent paraconceptual phenomena. .everal times psychologists have carried out e periments in which one person, whom we shall designate the sender, has been given some randomly selected stimulus, such as a number to concentrate on or a picture to look at, and is asked to try to mentally 3send4 it to another, sensorially isolated person 6the receiver. What if over a series of e perimental trials, the receiver1s behavior shows sufficient correlation with the randomly selected targets presented to the senderD It would be foolishly stubbornness to dismiss it as coincidence, because using appropriate statistical tests, we find that there is at least some transfer of information at a statistically significant level ?&art, CGII@. .uch paraconceptual phenomena do not fit in any way to the narrow mode of mind. It is stupid to believe that the brain has some kind of hidden antennas by which it sends signals. )onversely, it becomes plausible when we accept the spatial fabric as a mental substance by which our individuated minds can communicate in a subconscious level. In addition to all the above, another factor that reinforces the point of esotericism in the consciousness studies is the influential power of belief. In dealing with the microcosmos, the particle level in physics, the observer cannot be taken for granted, for the process of observations alters the phenomena being observed. If we relate this micro2reality to our macro2reality then we end up with the conclusion, that mind can alter events in the world by the belief2factor. #lready, much has been written about it. !r. Wolinsky, a famous growth2psychologist, has initiated the first steps of 1uantum psychology, in which his crowning enterprise is to sway people to understand that the belief has an immense power over reality 6something that is ascertained by eminent e periments in the field of physics. &he idea held in many spiritual systems of thought that have dealt with altered states of consciousness, is that physical reality is not a completely fi ed entity, but something that may actually be shaped in some fundamental

57

manner by the individual1s beliefs about it. I am not speaking here simply of perceptions of reality, but of the actual reality. (earce ?CGOO@, for e ample, describes an e perience as a youth where he accidentally entered an altered state of consciousness in which he knew he was impervious to pain or in,ury. In front of witnesses, he ground out the tips of glowing cigarettes on his cheeks, palms, and eyelids. 'e felt no pain, and there was no sign of physical in,ury. &his is something many spiritual practitioners attempt to do with miraculous results. 5rom the radical point of view, their beliefs about reality in the altered state actually alter the nature of physical reality. In the near future, we will increasingly be coming to grips with the intangible nature of mind. &he aspects that have been underemphasi*ed in our epoch will forcibly come to focus once again. &he parado is this% the more nearly physics have approached the <Cst century, the closer it seemed to got to the cosmology of the remote past. &hus, the scientific discoveries of our own time are moving us toward ideas in many ways indistinguishable from those held by the sages and seers of India and 9reece. Beyond doubt, a growing fashion for mystical thinking and archaic philosophy makes deep and meaningful contact with fundamental physics.

+0E COSMIC CO*SCIOUS*ESS ARGUME*+ God and Physics

&he problem of consciousness begins with sentience. #lthough, we have enough knowledge on the nature of the machinery and the way mental representations parade in the brain, we are absolutely to scratch on our understanding of the awareness and sentience and how it is generated by the brain. .entience seems to float in its own plane, high above the causal chains of neuroscience. If we could ever trace the neurocomputational steps from perception through reasoning and emotion to behavior, the only thing left missing would be the understanding of sentience itself. #lready, I have clarified the paper1s thesis, and that is the suggestion that the study of sentience or unmodified consciousness should be handed to physics. But what are the implications of such a radical and a great deal daring argumentD If the brain is a subordinate of consciousness and not a superordinate, then we must face the most shocking prospect of all times. 0uantum physics support that the intangible notion of mind and consciousness is something much more broad than previously thought. It is something much more fundamental to the universe. &he spatial continuum is mental in nature and, therefore, the whole cosmos is but a mind. In other words, the te ture of consciousness is one and the same with the te ture of space. #lthough, it is awkward to our usual modes of thinking, it is yet legitimate to say that the world e presses itself within human consciousness. &he world seems to act on us. )onsciousness is equally comprised of our activity in orienting ourselves to the world, and the activity of the world in e pressing itself within human consciousness. We are intimately connected with the peculiar spatiality of the environment. &he conscious human being does not reside in his head; the mind rather inhabits the space of the world. 'ow can we correspond to the repercussions of such monumental postulationsD If physics turn upside down, then chemistry, biology, medicine, sociology, philosophy are in the chrysalis for a historical change that will transform the whole conception of humanity. #nd what about psychologyD In the recognition of such a mentalistic reality in the universe, then psychology has no choice but to ascend as the dominating science. 'ierarchy will be reverted and the ethics will find their lost ground, regained from the materialistic deadwood of the last centuries1 sterile condition. (erhaps, it will take many decades to conceptuali*e at depth this but once we will entertain the idea of a cosmic consciousness, most likely, we will throw a big global party. &he idealist point of view in epistemology declares% 3essence precedes e istence4; that is, ideas are there a priori and meaning emerges by virtue of the structuring power of ideas. &he secular and atheistic e istential position counters% 3e istence precedes essence4 ?.artre, CGBN@; that is, the categories of knowledge are not given a priori but arise from the primacy of vital processes, of sensuous and perceptual involvement which can become refle ively heightened toward conceptuali*ation and universali*ation. In previous pages, I presented my speculation of the backward causality and the strange assemblance between striving material processes to reach and a state of higher order stored always in a higher plane. I believe that this argument comes under the former class, so as the argument of cosmic consciousness. #ny reveries over such notions would lead to such a manner of thinking about the world. &he resonant evidence for establishing as valid the precedence of essence from e istence comes straight ahead from the e perimental proofs of quantum mechanics. We are forced to visuali*e a universe in which the idea is the kernel of e istent order.

5)

&he famous e periment that drove us in such a hair2raising situation in both epistemology and philosophy was the .chrodinger1s )at. 'e placed an imaginary cat in a sealed bo . &his cat was facing a gun, which is connected somehow to a piece of uranium. &he uranium atom is known for its unstableness and how often it undergoes through radioactive decay. If a uranium nucleus disintegrates, it will automatically trigger through a mechanism put in the bo the gun to fire, whose bullet will kill the cat. 5rom outside and with absolutely no knowledge of what have happened inside the bo , we must open it and observe the state of the cat. With an ally of much quantum evidence, .chrodinger questioned about the state of the cat before we observe her. #ccording to quantum theorists, we can only describe the state of the cat by a wave function that describes the sum of a dead cat and an alive cat. 5or many this idea was the apotheosis of absurdity, yet nevertheless the e perimental confirmation of quantum mechanics forces us to this conclusion. #t present, every e periment has verified quantum physics. &he parado of .chrodinger1s cat is so bi*arre that e pects us to think that before we see any event or state it is a sum of all possibilities flashing in the frequency of the uncertainty principle. .ubsequently, consciousness seems to be the creator of a fi ed reality. In respect to that rule, which is very predominant in quantum physics, we must apprehend all reality, before living observers were bred by the cosmogonic evolution, as a flu of a non2elected lottery. # perpetual wave of probabilities without a final output. #nd here is where physicists have encountered a great obstacle for accepting this reality. 'ow is it possible for a universe of all possibilities without a final output to produce evolution and living organismsD &here is something wrong hereF "ow, whether they had to close their eyes in the e perimental validity of the quantum indeterminacy or they had to give their scientific benediction to the e istence of some sort of universal cosmic consciousness. Because all observations imply an 3observer4, and an observer implies the genesis of certain reality, then the universe must be some kind of consciousness, with a self2observing capacity. &his argument was first initiated by some physicists, like "obel laureate 7ugene Wigner. &he most embarrassing feature of quantum theory is that an observer is necessary to make a measurement. &hus before the observation is made, cats can be either dead or alive and the moons may or may not be in the sky. -sually, this would be considered cra*y, but quantum mechanics have been confirmed repeatedly in the laboratory. .ince the process of making an observation requires an observer, and since an observer requires consciousness, then the disciples of holism rightly claim that a cosmic consciousness must e ist in order to e plain the e istence of any ob,ect. 8egarding all the new evidence we have in our hands, is it irrational and immature to believe in a somewhat higher being, in which we live insideD 5or .pino*a, consciousness appears as an attribute of the infinite substance and thus seems to be defined as eternal and necessary. 'owever, he left no doubt that this consciousness has no more than the name in common with the human ego2consciousness. #ctually, there is no greater kinship between the two 3consciousnesses4 than between the dog and its barking.

+he Oneness of Consciousness

&he other thing that physics have implied is the basic oneness between the universe and the self. &here is no plurality of consciousnesses but one consciousness which is individuated by the species. &hat means that a person is a version of cosmic consciousness, only trapped by the individualistic process of its nervous system. If the brain and the physical universe are seen to share this implicate order, each organism, for instance, must in some sense represent the whole universe. In turn, the universe must imply each organism, each of us. (hysicists have been drawing such conclusions for a half century ?)apra, CGOJ@, but they are new to biologists and e perimental psychologists. &hese conclusions are counter2 intuitive and e tremely difficult to comprehend, although in the western philosophical tradition they have been enunciated from pre2.ocratic times onward by such eminent thinkers as (lato, (ythagoras, :eibni*, .pino*a, 'egel, and Whitehead. In addition, they sound so much like those described by mystics on the basis of the religious transcendental e periences, that hardheaded, mechanistical2oriented scientists are apt to shy away from formulations derived from an enterprise so totally different and foreign to the ordinary scientific methods. )onsciousness is generally believed to be a relatively private matter; that is, each one of us is 3conscious4 but each consciousness is unique to that person and is in no way shared by others. In 'indu thought, however, individuali*ed ego2consciousness is considered to be only a partial manifestation of a more global condition. &he universe and all that it comprises it is made up of pure impersonal consciousness. &hat is the thesis that quantum physics want us to hold. &his new theory has demolished the classical concepts of solid ob,ects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature. #t the subatomic level, the solid material ob,ects of classical physics dissolve into wavelike patterns of probabilities, and these patterns, ultimately, do not represent probabilities of thing but of interconnections. # careful analysis of

5*

the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an e periment and the subsequent measurement. 0uantum theory reveals to a basic oneness of the uni erse and hence of consciousness. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently e isting smallest units. #s we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated basic building blocks, but rather as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. /oreover, another thing that entails the oneness of consciousness in the universe is the annihilations of the borders between the sub,ect and the ob,ect. "atural relationships always include the observer in an essential way. &he human observer constitutes the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic ob,ect can be understood only in terms of the ob,ect1s interaction with the observer. &his means that the classical ideal of an ob,ective description of nature is no longer valid. &he )artesian partition between the I and the world, between the observer and the observed, cannot be made. We can never speak about nature without, at the same time, speaking about ourselves ?)apra, CGOJ@. .cientists like Wukav ?CGOG@ believe that the ancient philosophers of the 7ast were right all along in their insistence that the observer and the observed are fundamentally one; that when we study nature there is no way to avoid the fact that nature is studying itself. (hysicist .aul2(aul .irag puts it this way% 3If what we can know of the world is a function of the structure of the mind, then what we are elucidating in doing fundamental physics is the structure of the mind4. #lso, we should consider .ir #rthur 7ddington, a renowned British astronomer, who once proclaimed that 3the stuff of the world is mind stuff4. 7vidence supports that we have a unified field of being, in a self2conscious universe reali*ing itself to be integrally whole and interconnected. By analogy with field physics, the reality might be as well termed field consciousness% Lnower and known thus are falsehoods% crude constructs based on abstraction. &hey are unwarranted by the way things really are, namely, the monism of Bohm claims is most fully compatible with the message of modern physics. We are one and we share one consciousness, although, shaped by different attributions.

A Secret "lirt
Whether we are narrow2minded scientists, forsaken philosophers, holistic thinkers, or mystics, we are all under the influence of our subconscious minds. #lternatively, should I say, we are all influenced by the collective unconsciousD &he thing is that we disdain to accept foreign ideas and we tend to protect our own as if they are part of ourselves. 'owever, it seems that the ideas that contain a grain of truth always annoy in a subconscious level the ones who disregard them. &hey are left like pins on the hostile ideological grounds. $n the other hand, they become remnants that affect the ways of thinking, no matter how opposing to them. In the age of rationalism and positivism, where the industrial dreams have substituted the necessity to cling on a higher reality, under the dust something shines. It shines even to the most arrogant thinkers, who turn their backs ostentatiously to boundary2dissolving arguments, like the one of the cosmic consciousness. .harply sometimes, they themselves do not notice that from their own pen sometimes they concede the e istence of a much more magnificent reality than their ego wants from conformism to believe. &here is much evidence in the bibliography of cognitive science and particularly psychology, that the notion of a cosmic consciousness is not entirely alien to them. &hey envision it in an indirect way, although they never allow themselves to shed the light of research to it in wholly way. &hey ,ust imply it rather fleetingly. ;ohn .earle conceded that once we admit that some computational systems might have e periences, that would be a (andora1s bo and all of a sudden 3mind would be everywhere4 6in the churning of a stomach, in livers, in automobiles1 engines, and so on. 'e believes that any system whatsoever can be ascribed beliefs and feelings, if it is an instantiation of #I. &hat commits us to a panpsychic vision of the world. It is true that #I tries to define the nature of consciousness in order to simulate it, but it is noteworthy, that they have no better solution than psychology, all those years. &herefore, if ever an advanced thinking machine is made, then we are on the verge to believe that consciousness is not needed to be concocted; ,ust to be channeled with the right devices. .earle1s thinking here seems very clearly to be referring to an underlying consciousness, which is superordinate to brain machineries. 'owever, .earle is known as a soft scientist, a holistic philosopher, and hence it is not such a surprise from his behalf to follow such a way of thinking. #part from him, though, many others who are committed to materialistic thinking have endorsed in a subtle way the e istence of a universal consciousness. 5or instance, !aniel !ennett, an individual whose books are models for conservative thinking, in some way has sided with the option that consciousness is an unlimited feature. #mong pages

6,

that are hostile to radical vitalism, one would find him being positive on the assumption that consciousness can go beyond the personal boundaries. 'e agreed that this is true, psychologically. 'e referred to car drivers and how their first2person identification includes their vehicle. &he enlargement of the boundaries can happen in any case in which we feel that we own something, therefore, I do not see a reason for putting limits on this inclination. If we feel that we own the universe then the universe can be included to the self2identification. #lthough, this e ample is a bit symbolic, I believe that in the use of language we can observe the pattern of the reality, which concerns issues like that of a consciousness. &he innate tendency that we have to treat every changing thing as if it has a soul ?.tafford, CGIN@, I believe is not fallacious, as !ennett wants to believe. #ccording to him, it is a biological trick that served to our survival, but I think that this is wrong. /y assumption is that this is the sheer intuitional conception of the animate universe we are into. If rationalism cautions us not believe in that, then all it is left to us is to comprise it in our language and in our thinking only in a subtle and subconscious way. &o that no rationalist is an e ception. 7ven the most hardheaded thinkers, in philosophi*ing they indulge in positing questions that are derived from a cosmic sentience perspective. &his is an unconscious belief stubborningly surviving under the most antagonistic ideas. Inevitably, the things that are true have an eternally stable value, whether under dust or not.

EPI(OGUE A Model of Consciousness

.o far, we have seen consciousness in a different way than mainstream psychology renders to conceive. &he usage of quantum physics and the serious consideration of transpersonal e periences rush us to establish a new model of consciousness, in which the spirituali*ed matter will play a crucial role for the solution of previous hard to tackle problems. &heoretically, it has been considered that the actual meaning of consciousness is the awareness of the awareness. /ore or less, it is the reflection of a self2 reflectory process, which generates the sense of dual being. &he best way to depict this mysterious set of reflections is by viewing a visionary model. &he mind2body problem is parado ically easy to solve out, no matter how scientists find themselves uncomfortable against this issue. It is only because we have not yet adapted to a quantum2like thought to confront such problems. In reality, there is no dualism, in a sense that two distinct qualities come together and form a two2edge phenomenon. &here is only one thing and that is either matter as physicalism claims or mind, according to quantum theory. +es, there is both mind and body, but it is one. .urely, we are talking about two qualities that in a way holographically mingle to each other. It is like a coin with its two sides, or it could be two colors fused to produce a third one. &o understand what consciousness is we ought first to distinguish it from mere sentience. #s we saw, sentience is something basic, underlying, and fundamental to organic matter. #lbeit, though it is a priviledge of all the living forms, I find it very possible to be a property which is not confined only in the organic world. #n elementary sentience could be en,oyed by all matter in the universe. &he personal tinge is obtained only by processes that cause emergent properties; for instance, an ant2colony, a human brain, a city, a country, a planet, and so on. &he sentient matter that has no processes to channel it and structure intelligence of some kind, it has an impersonal and uncentrali*ed consciousness. .ince the universe with all its gala ies and its stars is a structured phenomenon, then cosmic consciousness is its flower. &he basic sentience is not self2reflectory because in simple non2metaboli*ing mater, like the rock, there are no processes over it to captivate its essence by reflection and reproduction of image by multiple reali*ation. (erhaps, there could be small consciousness, which is generated in the atomic or subatomic le el. # great deal of the mystery could be hidden in the dyad of matter2antimatter, something that will certainly attract the interest of the ones who have committed their carriers to the deciphering of the enigma. &he plants are more advanced than the rocks. &heir sentience is enhanced due to the organic processes. I assume that this sentience is cellular or subcellular% In higher animals, however, we are talking about a more e plicit kind of sentience that reaches the standards of conscious awareness. &he brain plays an important role because it elaborates a multi2 reflectory process. Imagine the neurons elaborating in the billionth every single cellular sentience. "eurons talk their own language by fusing all microscopical senses in various ways in order to produce an

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artifact made out of mirrors. #nimal consciousness. It brings me to mind a rich visually tower made out of mirrors that perple es the eye with all its distortions and its manipulated reflections. When someone asks about the main building blocks of what he sees, the answer would be 3,ust mirrors and <= stones4. But 3wowF 'ere I see millions of stones4. /anipulated reflection would be the answer. &he human consciousness is super2comple . It seems that our species has inherited inside our body a model of an hierarchical self2reflectory sentience stored inside us. &he basis of human consciousness is the material sentience, which is the most elementary as mentioned above. It is the material from which we are made from, which is unaffected by our physical death, ,ust because it is beyond the organic mould. "e t is the cellular sentience, which is the reflective process of the inorganic sentience. &his vegetative sentience is again reflected in a syntactic way by its messages that end up to the traffic ,am of the brain. &he brain, it turn, by reflecting those cellular messages produces the ne t set of sentience, which is the animal consciousness. #t this point, this 8ussian doll self2reflectory sentience is filtered by the neuronal high interactivity. &he information suddenly passes to the frantic business of the neuronal web, a level where comple ion stands beyond any human calculation. 'ence, I cannot see the reason why we break our heads to solve the mind2body problem. .uch a superastronomical value in the connectivity of the neurons could naturally create something as astonishing as the human conscious e perience with the vivid sense of duality. &his neuronal consciousness, shared by all higher animals, is upgraded and enhanced even further, when we pass to the realm of symbol2cultivation. :anguage boosts consciousness by giving it a form that is fostered by the enriching vocabulary of notions, concepts, and ideas. Eerbular consciousness is the crowning sentience of humans and it is the leading edge of our being. It is apparent, that the human consciousness begins from the monad of the basic physical sentience and by the addition of *eros, we have the entirely 3ethereal4 quality of our minds. Without this monad in the beginning, no matter how many *eros follow, it would still be to scratch. What does this hierarchical process meansD I can only say that ecology is building with matter organic features in order for them to become the launching pad of a higher phenomenon called mind, which transcends space and time, step2by2step, reaching and concreti*ing a whole new dimension% the noosphere. # iomatically, consciousness is the process which functions reflectory to the fundamental processes that underlie below. 'uman consciousness is the sum of all the set of sentiences ?material, vegetative, animal@ altogether interreflected at the millionth by the linguistic modality.

Selfhood Re-ained
&he most dangerous thing that can happen in a civili*ation is the impairing of high values, as the importance of self2agency and the solemnity towards life. In the abdication of such ideals, it is not a surprise to watch the whole planetary culture regressing in a state of no foresight, in which all kind of ,eopardi*ing habits are imminent. What has accomplished the <=th century from all sides is the transmogrification of human values to robotic and life2less concepts that are elaborated in academic knowledge for academic knowledge. &he necessity of self2discovery, of illumination, of growth has been neglected as irrelevant to the collective quest of truth. .trangely enough, this habitual situation is not challenging any demur against the people who have promoted it. &hey find themselves more comforting among an epistemology that focuses on superficial questions. 0uestions like the depth of consciousness, the nature of death2process, the spiritual pilgrim, the nominal religious enlightenment, and a lot more are formidable taboos for them, concerning that the infallibility of science feels threatened by such a bending towards humanistic issues. "evertheless, the ontology of the universe and the conception of mind have radically changed last century by quantum physics. /any postulations are oppugning to the sterili*ation of human agency to the world. &he stamp of new physics is the fact that they brought back the limelight on the human consciousness. &he central role of the universe is once again our drama. We are not passive but immensely active and we have a lot of responsibility on the outcome of our evolution. -nfortunately, we already have committed innumerable mistakes; unforgettable crimes against our future; so many that we now have to strive to change our doomed destiny. $ur approach to nature as conte tual and our declaration of war against her, our underestimation of the 2lan ital for a mechanistic understanding, and our cynicism against spiritual ideals, which today are latent, have brought in the tragic threshold of a collective destruction. &he apotheosis of this devaluation has brought the agoni*ing mass death, the chauvinistic neurosis and racistic psychosis. We live in an age where the dollar is our messiah and the stock market is our temple. We live in an age in which we come to understand that the world we have prepared to hand to the generations of the future is no more than a mess of broken pottage. If we want to be sincere with this madness, for the sake of the mission to save our planet and our species, we have

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to concede that science and philosophy are the conductors of such a ,unction; and that is because we worship our ideals in the fashion that scientific knowledge dictates. &reating behavior as the only ob,ective aspect of people has led psychologists to a profound reductionism. In the name of e periment, the search continues for the cause behind any effect and the cause in one instance becomes the effect in the ne t. &his reductionism is a participant to the ethical crime against humanity. 'owever, this same reductionism is a participant to the ethical resurrection of humanity. &hat is because the further we have penetrated in the submicroscopic world, the more we have reali*ed how the modern physicist has come to see the world as a system of inseparable, interacting, and ever2moving components, with man as an integral part of this system ?)apra, CGOJ@. &he aftermath is that ,ust as mechanistic "ewtonian atomism was found to be too narrow in scope to encompass the findings of the new physics, so our ob,ective behavioristic psychology, which is based on this "ewtonian approach appears as far too restrictive a model to deal successfully with any human phenomenon other than e ternal behavior. &his seems especially true in the light of the above noted similarity between the e istential2phenomenological insight that the individual and world co2constitute one another, and the conclusion reached by the new physicists that the observer and the observed are fundamentally one. It recurs that those grand conceptual changes in physics, together with the renascent significance of consciousness, seem to give confidence to the revitali*ation of psychology, to the respirituali*ation of mind, and most importantly, the revivification of selfhood. It is a matter of time to accommodate psychology according to this new hori*on. &he only thing that could stop us from that is our adoration to pessimism and fatalism. (sychology has at last found an encouraging setting for a more daring progress to the future. $ur null meticulousness is about to change to a substantial e istential research that will shed plenty of light to the darkest areas that have left une plored due to our trivial concern to gain money, power, and prestige. 0uantum physics is a model for future psychology. We could modify the vision of the psyche according to what we observe in the cosmos, something that would vindicate /ircea 7liade1s belief that the difference between man and cosmos is not a difference of essence but of degree. 5or instance, is the meditative 3one2pointness4 of mind analogous to the speed of light 3c4D 8ecogni*ing that the breaking of a particle bonds in an atom1s nucleus releases tremendous amounts of energy, will breaking the bonds of ego through meditative and psychedelic practices, have an analogous and equally dramatic effectD /oreover, quantum physics will facilitate other kind of questions, like the debate between phenomenology and neuropsychology. #ccording to this view, the strict determinists ignored the 3wave4 nature of human e perience, they only allowed themselves to see our 3particle4 side; and those clinging to strict free2will interpretations ignored the 3particle4 side of human e perience 6their introspectionist methods allowed them to see only our 3wave4 side. $ne can venture even further and hypothesi*e that knowing more of our 3particle4 side in any given situation necessitates in principle knowing less about our wave side and vice versa. .urely, this should remind us of the cleavage between phenomenology and neuropsychology. 0uantum physics testify for the mind2body problem; we could envision our mind state as the wave2side and the body as the particle2side. )ertainly, this new way of seeing things will assist us to answer effectively in the years to come big questions and consciousness will be seen in an entirely new light. #ccelerating the conceptual change in physics will have an analogous and equally disruptive parallel in psychology. /ore specifically, psychologists will e perience a dramatic change in their world2view including drastic alterations in concepts like the strictly causal nature of behavioral and e periential phenomena ?something that would much facilitate the deciphering of the psychedelic mystery@, the notion of a person, and the ideal of an ob,ective description of human nature. #s the 3"ew #ge4, or the 3#rchaic 8evival4 according to others, progresses, watching psychology slowly evolve into a relativistic quantum psychology will be, as .tar &rek1s /r. .pock so often said 35ascinatingF4 We live in an age where storming changes shape a future in which all noble e pectations are stimulated. We have to reali*e that a noble world is not going to come inclusively by technological wonders, by the boosting of technical knowledge, or by the gaining of power. 'istory is a process that focuses mainly on the humane level; the level where the most vital game is been played in the millennia. We are a species that is immensely dependent on the morality, on hope, on belief, on sacredness. If we lack those properties then a human is nothing regresses to an ape. We are self2articulators, pursuers of gnosis, inspirers of art, enterprisers of the emancipation from the physical forces that keep us prisoners in the hard game of life. We are amusingly self2aware and we progress by means of the further increase of that very self2awareness. :ets admit it, we are beings that dwell in consciousness, in language, in meaning, in anticipation; if we steal away those convictions by the recommendation of the scientist1s cynic attitude against the significance of this domain, then our hopes will certainly become a sadly reminiscence. &he far future will belong to the insects and our collective aspirations to transcend the physis and meet up with our imagination, where the human destiny belongs, will be doomed for good. We

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are facing the greatest opportunity of all history. &oday we have an epitomi*ing past to teach us of previous mistakes, an enchanting technology to e pand the spectrum of possibilities, and the scientific capacity to reach an ideal model of humanity. #ll we lack is the moral ground, the ethical certitude to actuali*e our gracious futuristic dreams. We can go nowhere without the supplement of spiritual consciousness. Without it, we are brutal rapers of nature and of ourselves. We are betrayers of our children, se ists, racists, mass criminals, disensouled golems. #nother hundred years of business as usual is inconceivable. !ogma and ideology have become obsolete; their poisonous assumptions allow us to close our eyes to our hideous destructiveness and to loot even those resources that properly belong to our offspring. $ur materialistic toys do not satisfy us anymore; our religions are no more than manias; our political systems are a grotesque aping of what we intended them to be. $ur birthright is to actuali*e our potentialities, which are inborn and available to anyone who is willing to use them, in an age where not much belief has left to us all. .cience has proved to be a violator of the human nature, an inelegant propaganda to settle a human vision that is soulless, passive, and hacked by the cosmos as beings alien to it. $r even worse, we begin to become alien even to ourselvesF We must understand that consciousness is not another piece of machine, another block of chips, or another mathematical equation. )onsciousness is the highway to higher faculties that have been aimed by our ancestors for too long. )onsciousness is a ladder that leads to our spiritual salvation; a well that pumps up magnificent information; a token of the cosmic hierarchy of wonders. .ome misguided individuals scan the heavens for friendly flying saucers that will intervene in profane history and carry us to paradise; others preach redemption at the principles of a misanthropist science and a pathological psychology. .ome others saddened assert that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, we are up n1 end. 'owever, some searchers have waken up in and work to effectively prove that life in this universe is much more fascinating and meaningful than we normally think in our routines. &hose are depth psychologists, botanologists, anthropologists, who have reali*ed the spiritual dimension of consciousness. &o that assisted and the research on the e periential aspects of indole hallucinogens. &hrough them, we have had placed into our hands a tool for the redemption of the human enterprise. /oreover, physics gradually become more and more something different from the study of matter; it becomes the study of mind. &he answer has been found. It is no longer something to be sought. It has been found &ime to steer the wheelF

#I#(IOGRAP0$

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(etaphors of Consciousness, edited by 8onald Ealle T 8olf von 7ckartsberg, (lenum (ress 6"ew +ork, CGI< #tates of Consciousness, by )harles &art, !utton T )o, Inc. 6"ew +ork, CGOJ Consciousness 3East 4 -est, by Lenneth 8. (elletier T )harles 9arfield, 'arper Books 6"ew +ork, CGOB Emergence, by .teven ;ohnson. (enguin Books 6:ondon, <==C !he 5rchaic &e i al, by &erence /cLenna, 'arper T )ollins 6"ew +ork, CGGC 6ood of the .ods, by &erence /cLenna, Bantam "ew #ge Books 6"ew +ork, CGG< 7uantum *hysics 4 &eality, by ;ohn 9ribbin, $rora (ublications 6CGIP, :ondon !he *hilosophy of #ymbolic 6orms, !he *henomenology of 8nowledge, by 7rnst )assirer, +ale -niversity (ress 6Westford, CGJO Consciousness Explained, by !aniel !ennett, (enguin Books 6"ew +ork, CGGC !he (inds /, edited by !ouglas 'ofstadter T !aniel !ennett, (enguin Books 6 "ew +ork, CGIC Chaos, by ;ames 9leick, Eintage Books 6:ondon, CGIO !he #tory of *hilosophy, by Will !urant, Washington .quare (rints 6"ew +ork, CGBO !he (ind of .od, by (aul !avies, (enguin Books 6"ew +ork, CGG< $ow the (ind -orks, by .teven (inker, (enguin Books 6"ew +ork, CGGO

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