Tangled hierarchies and the creative evolution of consciousness

By Katinka Hesselink - All Considering | July 1st, 2009

The core of Amit Goswami’s argument in his ‘Creative Evolution’ is that consciousness is an active force in ‘creation’. And at the heart of that argument is the argument of tangled hierarchies. I had to reread what he says about it to be able to halfway understand, so I’ll just quote him here for easier reference (p. 121):

Behold the causal circularity of the role of the observer in quantum measurement. The observer, the subject, chooses the manifest state of the collapsed object(s); but without the manifested collapsed objects, including the observer, the experience of the subject does not arise either. This circular logic of the dependent co-arising of the subject and object(s) is called tangled hierarchy.

Goswami found this concept in a book that made quite a splash in the 80’s: Goedel, Escher, Bach: an eternal Golden Braid, by D.R. Hofstadter (1980). I read that book several times back then – or what I could understand of it. It contains an awful lot of difficult mathematics. I’ll be looking up the tangled hierarchy there and see if that helps our case.

The way Goswami goes about explaining the arising of consciousness is circular in a way that makes more sense to me than the way science explains the same.

Science basically says that consciousness arose as a side effect of evolution. Similarly the increasing complexity of nature – the arrow of time in biology (Ch. 11), which is opposed to the increasing entropy (chaos) in the universe – is explained by science as nothing more than a side effect of evolution. Science says this is powered by the sun. Amit Goswami counters that the energy of the sun is enough to maintain the status quo in terms of life being sustained, but not enough to explain increasing complexity. That takes more energy. Unless you’re with Goswami on this one: he says there’s unconscious processing that takes place (in local consciousness I presume) that suddenly leaps into a decision. Because it’s unconscious, it doesn’t take energy – says Goswami. Why doesn’t it take energy? Because as long as nothing is aware, the quantum waves aren’t collapsed and all the possibilities are still there.

As might have been predicted – I’m with Goswami on this one. I think explaining consciousness as a side effect of evolution, the result of mere chance, sounds like a spiritual form of perpetual motion. I have no problem with the sun as the mother of all life, indeed Blavatsky had her a mother to all life on earth spiritually as well. But her physical energy alone supplying everything needed for consciousness? I’m not so sure.

So far computer science and artificial intelligence are very good at creating all kinds of interesting computer programs and robots to make our lives easier. The big question is: can they be AWARE? Goswami quotes mathematicians who say that a computer cannot process meaning – it would simply take up too much calculation power. The next question of course is: how come we CAN process meaning?

Goswami goes right back to that first cell. It arose, he says, out of a blue print that is present in consciousness (sort of an archetype, or a Platonic Idea) that gets activated as soon as the proper ingredients and conditions are there. Consciousness then chooses to ‘collapse’ the necessary DNA, RNA, cell boundary and supporting proteins. It’s sort of a Jack in the Box causality going on here – the chances increased by the presence of consciousness. In essence: that first cell comes into being because it observes itself, collapsing a blue print already present in universal consciousness.

From a mathematicians standpoint the question here is: how to deal with statistics. Low probability events happen all the time. That is: throw the dice enough and you will see low probability events happening. A nice way to illustrate this – when they started to use computer shuffled card sets in bridge (a card game with four players) – the previously rare games became much more common. Hand shuffled cards have a far more regular structure than when they are truly randomly organized. When we think of a random set of cards, we expect there to not be too many cards of the same color in a line. From a computer’s perspective – and that of statistics – each possible order of the cards has the same probability.

To say that evolution and chance of this sort can explain everything, is at best a bit cold. But it’s also a bit like saying – anybody with a brush is capable (given enough time) to create a Picasso, so there’s no underlying intelligence necessary to make one. After all – evolution is a selection mechanism, not an actively creative force. But obviously a Picasso does need the help of the paints, concepts and culture of the day to be able to transcend them and come up with something new. Similarly, the creativity of Quantum Spirituality doesn’t stand in relation to creation like a magician who creates out of nothing. Instead it’s more like an artist working with the available material to create something new.

This creativity is used to explain significant jumps like the creation of the single cell, multicellular organisms like ourselves arising out of single cell organisms like yeast, land animals arising out of sea animals etc.

Scientists would say that everything except that first cell (which they can’t really explain) can be reduced to environmental stresses. It’s no stretch to believe that in a stressful environment a lot of processes in the cell get threatened. But an organism has very little room for variety in essential things like how to process food, or maintaining the cell wall. Any organism that saves energy on those will simply die out. So the only wiggle room as it were is in the reproduction of the genes. So a higher rate of mutation in stressful circumstances is very easily explained from the perspective of evolution. No need for unconscious processing etc. Just environmental stresses leading to increased mutation rates, leading to a lot of death (which was likely anyhow) and a few evolving to adapt to the new circumstances. And then thriving.

I think I’ve given enough examples now to show that some of Goswami’s arguments are convincing, or at least more convincing to me than those of science. On the other hand he does seem to attack evolutionary theory on more fronts than necessary. This does not threaten his main point though: that quantum mechanics combined with the theory of evolution is a viable interpretation of the scientific data that keeps room for consciousness and awareness as primary forces in the universe. The conclusion: there is a goal to evolution – the evolution of consciousness to ever higher levels of complexity and wisdom.

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Creating the universe: consciousness choosing to observe

By Katinka Hesselink - All Considering | June 24th, 2009

I’ve been postponing seriously taking on Amit Goswami’s book about Evolution for a while, but it cannot be postponed any longer. The long and short of it is: I have mixed feelings about it. I admire the effort, but the way it’s done isn’t entirely to my taste.

Since the author is a quantum physicist, I should perhaps start with my issues about the underlying quantum mechanics. First off: I’m very glad to see someone take on the logical consequences of quantum mechanics for our world view. It’s tempting to stick with Newtonian physics, but let’s face it: it’s outdated. And physicists have gone too long without trying to explain their craft to ordinary people or even themselves. I had some very smart friends when I studied chemistry in college and they were very happy to not understand what the formula said, as long as they knew how to use them in their calculations (I think most of them must be scientists by now).

This never seemed like a reasonable option to me. And if physicists and theoretical chemists refuse to explain these things, they can’t blame others for trying or for facing up to the philosophical consequences of quantum physics.

Unfortunately though, I think Amit Goswami oversteps his bounds a bit. He doesn’t do much quantum physics in this book – after all, it’s about evolution – but what he does give is just not all right. I’ve learned some quantum physics in college and it just doesn’t jive with what I’m reading here.

Schrödinger’s cat. It’s probably the most famous of quantum experiments – or thought experiments, because there’s no ethical way of doing this experiment. But the point of the experiment is that until observed, the cat is BOTH alive and dead. Goswami goes one step further and suggests that it’s the observer that CHOOSES whether the cat’s alive or dead. So it would make a difference to the cat if the observer were a cat lover: more chance of being alive. And that if there were two observers there’d be a theoretical problem. But the way I’ve always understood the experiment is different: it’s the ACT of observing that does it, not the choosing of the outcome.

However, and this is where it gets interesting: this experiment does make it clear that there’s an explicit duality in quantum physics of observer and observed. This duality cannot be resolved by saying what most scientists say: that all is matter. Even though, the observer contains matter too. The thing is: something CHOOSES to observe or not to observe. That fundamental choice has – Amit Goswami suggests this convincingly in my opinion – created the universe. That is: the wave of possibilities didn’t collapse till there was life to observe it – and that explains why this universe fits life so perfectly.

How do more conventional physicists explain this? They say that a combination of chance and the laws of physics are at play here. No guiding intelligence wanting to express itself, but chance and luck.

Critics of the quantum spiritual approach say that Goswami has reduced God to a being that plays with dice. They have a point: God is Universal Consciousness in Amit Goswami’s world. And universal consciousness doesn’t do all that much, except at crucial moments choose among the available outcomes. In other words: where physicists see chance, Goswami sees the guiding hand of God. But only there – Goswami acknowledges that evolution selects and prunes what is chosen by consciousness. He acknowledges that consciousness sometimes chooses evolutionary dead ends.

Crucially though – this God plays by the rules of science, but is also the ground of the universe: because consciousness came FIRST, according to this quantum spiritual view.

So far, so good – but it does remind me of what one of my philosophy of religion teachers said when we were discussing God and science. He said: if you choose a God of the holes (the holes in science that is), your God is always retreating. In other words: is this God of Amit Goswami merely a way of explaining what science can’t yet explain, or is it a valid scientific interpretation? Although I think fundamentally Goswami’s theory doesn’t clash with quantum physics as scientists understand it, I’m also not sure it’s quite capable of uniting biology the way he seems to hope.

I hope to go into the biology of Quantum Physics in another blogpost.

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What makes us human – about evolution and religion

By Katinka Hesselink - All Considering | June 17th, 2009

Let’s get back to basics

Since I’ve been digging into the theory of Evolution with the help of Amit Goswami, I’ve decided to take a look at precisely what that theory is. The Scientific American issue May 2009 is partly devoted to evolution. It has a column by a scientist visiting a creationist conference for instance. He notes, the dismay is kept very light in his piece, that they don’t think humans and animals have a common ancestor. Amit Goswami sits comfortably on the side of scientific opinion on this one: he does think humans have animal ancestry.

Looking at our closest relatives – from a genetic standpoint – chimpanzees share 99% of our DNA. This means that any one trying to prove we’re not related will have a hard time. By the way, Blavatsky maintained we ARE related, but that chimpanzees and other great apes are in fact descended from the first humans, not the other way around. Since she proposes a non-physical humanity coming BEFORE a physical one, her theory is rather hard to prove.

Let’s get back to those genes: When they started looking at that one percent of genes we don’t share with chimps, they found the following:

  • The HAR1 DNA sequence is the same for chickens and chimpanzees, but very different for humans. It plays an important part in how our brain develops, specifically the cerebral cortex which is responsible for abstract thought.
  • Another brain related part of DNA has to do with simply the size of it. ASPM it’s called. The human brain is a lot larger than that of other animals – compared to our body size.
  • The FOXP2 DNA sequence differs significantly from chimps and is involved in our speech. It probably enables us to talk and was already present in Neanderthals.
  • HAR2 is a DNA sequence that has an impact on the way the wrist develops enabling us to use complex tools (like me typing ten fingered).
  • AMY1 is a gene sequence that helps digest starch. Compared to other primates, humans have particularly many of these. This probably helped early humans digest a large variety of foods. Cooking food also helps us digest plant derived foods, but early humans also developed the ability to get more out of them without that help. Similarly there is a very recent gene development helps humans from Europe and Africa to digest milk. This gene, LCT, is only present in part of the human population and not in chimps at all. This accounts for the inability for people with Asian ancestry to digest milk – we would usually call that a milk allergy. But the fact is: it is simply a very new ability that humans elsewhere have acquired, but hasn’t spread throughout the whole human population yet.

All of these things are, of course, physical characteristics of human beings. That is after all the only thing genetics can say anything about. From a spiritual perspective all of this may be true, but it is hardly satisfying. Our instincts tell us that what makes us human isn’t the wrist-hand abilities, our speech or even our large brains. Yet from a biological standpoint: those are the only things that can be said at present.

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Osel Hita Torres – aka Lama Osel goes on to make movies

By Katinka Hesselink - All Considering | June 15th, 2009

This is a true story that someone emailed me because it reminded them of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s story. That is: someone raised to be a teacher, steps outside the tradition that he was brought up in to do something totally different. Lama Osel was born to Spanish parents, but brought up as the reincarnation of Thubten Yeshe. In keeping with traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings he only met his teachers and other children who were thought to be reincarnations of important lamas. Kept away from TV, movies and modern music.

His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?” [The Guardian]

Lama Osel then studied film and went back to using his Spanish name: Osel Hita Torres.

He’s facing the very issue Tibetan Buddhism is facing: how to combine tradition with modernity. This dillemma is wider than that: any and all religions are facing this problem. Islam fundamentalism is one response and Christians too are having to battle with this. What makes Osel’s story all the more poignant is that he was born into a modern western family. If his parents had chosen to raise him Buddhist, but not as a lama, things would have turned out very differently. Or so we can guess.

In Krishnamurti’s upbringing Besant and Leadbeater decided very quickly to make him aquanted with Western mores and habits. To give him a Western education, aside from his spiritual training. That did not prevent him from defecting, but perhaps it’s not too much to say that it helped him in his path.

Osel’s teachers on the other hand decided to keep modernity away from him. As Robert Thurman notes in the Time article about Osel:

Robert Thurman, a Buddhist scholar, former monk and friend of the Dalai Lama, recounts that when told years ago that Hita was to receive a traditional Buddhist education in India he expressed concern. Thurman’s argument: “If he wanted Tibetan traditional [education] he could have reincarnated in a Tibetan family in exile.” The result of the misplacement, he says, is that Hita “has broken away in a full-blown identity crisis.” Thurman thinks that after some time in our “busy postmodern world,” Hita may see the value of the Tibetan tradition, “which he will then be able to approach or not, of his own free choice.” And, he adds, “More power to him!”

The FMPT, the organisation that Osel was selected to be the leader of, is a curious mix of traditional Gelugpa Buddhism (a branch of Tibetan Buddhism) and modernity. It has taken on the conservation of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship by teaching lay people what in earlier times monks learned. It’s therefore a very scholarly tradition. Students (that is the proper word) are expected to not only meditate and take what vows they feel able to take, but also learn Tibetan, learn Gelugpa philosophy and the traditional ways of discussing Buddhist philosophy.

Fate has made sure I know several people active in this foundation in The Netherlands. The following is based on what they told me: while it’s clear that the FMPT is instrumental in keeping a knowledge of the scholarly tradition of Gelugpa Buddhism alive, it is not very successful at bridging the gap to Western people. That is: Westerners, especially Dutch Westerners, aren’t averse to discussing what they learn. In fact, they’re predisposed to do so. BUT to expect them to discuss in the regimental ritualistic way of the Tibetan Lama’s is too much. It’s attempted, but never very successfully. From the perspective of Buddhist history this is only natural. The Tibetan debating tradition started out as just that: people debating Buddhist philosophy. But with the isolation of Tibet, the debates cristalized – and they became memorized.

Now that Tibetan Buddhism has been liberated from Tibet (forgive the expression, will you?), it needs to face the world and reinvent debate. Perhaps, when Lama Osel is finished making films and documentaries, he can come back to the FMPT and help them modernize the forms while retaining the essence? But, from what’s published on the FMPT website, perhaps we may expect even more radical attempts from him. He says there:

Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being. There is no separation between myself and FPMT – we are all working together in so many aspects and terrains. Humanity is our office. Besides, I don’t really qualify very much in Buddhist studies, because I didn’t finish them, so working together is the clue.

So I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques. In a movie you can condense so many different stories. You can put in music, you can put in different situations and messages. Even just the sunset can be enough to give you peace to find a moment of meditation in yourself. There are so many different millions of possibilities in movies.And not just movies, but documentaries actually going somewhere and interviewing people who may have reached a level on their path where they are at peace with themselves, and so much more….!!!

That first sentence does remind me of Krishnamurti’s radical perspective. So let’s repeat it: Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being.

Osel , I’m very curious to see where you’re headed and wonder if you’ll ever step into the shoes of ‘Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche‘ again. But let’s close off with two quotes from the original article in a Spanish magazine that got the whole thing going:

“Osel gets emotional when he sees the Dalai Lama take the floor. If Buddhas really exist. He would be one of them. He is an enlightened one.”

“The responsibility of teaching has always weighed on him. His heart tells him that for the moment he should learn. The literal translation of lama is teacher, and I’m no teacher. A good lama is a person for whom it doesn’t matter what others think about him, and who thinks about others before thinking about himself. That, to me, is being a lama, a good person.”

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