Brief Peeks Beyond

by Bernardo Kastrup

  Nobody has ever simulated any remotely complex, macroscopic phenomenon, starting from the basic laws of particle physics, to check if the simulated results would match up with the realities we ordinarily experience. In other words, nobody really knows if the weather, the oceans, forests, people, bothersome neighbors, office intrigues, illnesses, marriages and divorces, teenage delinquency, politics, history, etc., can really be reduced to the modeled behavior of subatomic particles. As a matter of fact, nobody knows even if the behavior of larger microscopic systems like protein molecules or DNA can be reduced to the basic laws of particle physics. Laughlin and Pines, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, went as far as to say that this can’t be ever known. Referring to the basic laws of particle physics as the ‘Theory of Everything,’ they wrote:

  [The] Theory of Everything is not even remotely a theory of every thing. We know [its] equation is correct because it has been solved accurately for small numbers of particles (isolated atoms and small molecules) and found to agree in minute detail with experiment. However, it cannot be solved accurately when the number of particles exceeds about 10. No computer existing, or that will ever exist, can break this barrier because it is a catastrophe of dimension.115

  We just assume that complex phenomena can be reduced to the basic laws of particle physics, because such an assumption is an axiom of the current paradigm. But who is to say that as-of-yet unknown and irreducible causal forces or organizing principles don’t kick in at higher levels of complexity? Who is to say that nature isn’t mostly governed by these higher-complexity principles or agencies, which only come into play when enough subatomic particles interact in a way too complex to simulate or test under controlled conditions?

  As such, the widespread cultural notion that science has explained most of the world is scandalously unjustified. For all we know, we’ve explained only very, very little; practically nothing. We just don’t know what kinds of fundamental causal forces and organizing principles may kick in when systems become complex enough to be seen with the naked eye outside a laboratory. Inability to acknowledge this represents a catastrophic failure of skepticism. We can only claim to have explained – and even then not completely – extremely simple microscopic systems for which most variables can be controlled. Unfortunately for the neo-priesthood of science (see essay 5.1), the world we all actually inhabit is visible and unfathomably complex. That we’ve come to believe that science understands how most of this complex world works is just a reassuring illusion; a wish.

  An argument often mentioned in defense of science is the broad and impressive effectiveness of technology. The contemporary world is driven by computers embedded everywhere, wireless communications, drugs designed at the molecular level and all kinds of machinery controlling every aspect of life. One might claim that this is proof that science correctly understands the larger world, not only laboratory experiments. Yet, a little reflection shows this argument to be very weak: technology is designed to eliminate – by construction – the influence of all but the potentially small set of causal forces that are understood by science. Electronics and computer engineering, for instance, are entirely dependent on techniques for increasing the so-called ‘signal-to-noise ratio,’ which ensures that the influence of ‘noise’ – that is, unknown factors deemed to be random – is reduced to negligible levels. We don’t need to understand those allegedly random factors in order to eliminate their influence in practice. And then, for all we know, among the discarded factors may lie undiscovered forces and organizing principles (see essays 4.3 and 4.6). Because technology is deliberately insulated from the unknown, its effectiveness in the larger world is no evidence that science has a significant understanding of that larger world.

  As a human activity, science embodies the human tendency to extrapolate the little we know and construct vast networks of inductive inferences to replace the mystery with; cocoons of mere hypotheses taken for facts. Culture goes even further: from the moment we begin to understand language, we start getting entangled in a web of uncorroborated assumptions and suppositions conveyed under the guise of knowledge. As a result, later in life we end up taking for granted that we are our brains; that our consciousness is a product of brain activity, even though there isn’t even a tentative explanation for how that could possibly be the case (see essay 3.1). We take for granted that all reality is amenable to our rationality and perception mechanisms, even though we know that earthworms can’t say the same. We accept that death is the end of consciousness, even though a growing volume of data published in leading medical journals seems to cast doubt on this notion.116 Clearly, our experience of the world has become largely a matter of education and culture – of inductively inferred hypotheses – not of hard empirical facts. If one looks critically and skeptically enough, there is precious little of the latter to go by.

  Reality is far too diverse, broad, elusive, ambiguous and complex for us to pin down. Even the limited empirical data we do manage to collect can only be interpreted within the framework of a subjective paradigm.117 It is, therefore, not really neutral. But in our desperate search for closure and reassurance we confabulate entities and explanations to construct huge edifices of assumed truths. They make up the world we actually experience; a self-woven cocoon of stories, not facts.

  4.3. Scientific dogmatism and chance

  Years after it was first aired, I watched a 1994 BBC documentary series called Heretics of Science. Episode 5 was about Prof. Robert Jahn, former Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science of Princeton University and the founder of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEARL), original home of the Global Consciousness Project. The documentary gave a fair assessment of Prof. Jahn’s work and his conclusion that mind can directly influence matter to a small degree. It then went on to expose the dogmatism of the scientific orthodoxy when confronted with such paradigm-breaking results. Inspired by this documentary, I want to share some thoughts here on the symbiotic relationship between scientific dogmatism and the always tricky interpretation of statistical data in science.

  In the documentary, a Nobel-laureate physicist directly dismissed Prof. Jahn’s results – instead of criticizing his methodology or analysis – by stating that, were the results to be correct, they would invalidate four centuries of refinement of our current scientific paradigm. I don’t think this conclusion follows at all from the results but, be it as it may, the unspoken suggestion is that observations cannot be right if they don’t fit our current expectations. Is this scientific?

  To be sure, evidence in favor of a small mind-over-matter effect does not invalidate the scientific edifice built over the past four centuries. It only invalidates certain subjective extrapolations and interpretations of it. Pure science is about investigating and modeling the consciously observable patterns and regularities of nature. None of the patterns and regularities we’ve discovered and verified empirically over the years would suddenly vanish if the effect were confirmed. They would simply be shown to be incomplete, which would hardly be a surprise. None of our technology would stop working. Only certain scientific prejudices – like the primacy of matter and the epiphenomenal character of consciousness – would have to be revised. Revolutionary indeed, but in no way a negation of four centuries of work.

  We would like to think that science is immune to dogmatism; that the neutrality of data provides us with a fail-proof basis for judging the truth, independent of psychological biases. Yet we’ve known since Thomas Kuhn that, in fact, such an idealized picture of how science works is not at all true.118 The difficulty of interpreting statistical data compounds the problem, which is vividly illustrated by the reactions to Prof. Jahn’s work. You see, all modern science is based on statistics. It’s not enough to observe an effect only once. After all, different kinds of unforeseen circumstances could potentially produce the effect by chance. So to tie the effect to a specific cause – or exclude a certain cause – one ne
eds to observe it a sufficient number of times. This is where statistics come in.

  The experiments carried out at the Princeton lab tested whether mind can directly influence the data produced by random number generators – electronic coin flippers – thereby inducing a discernible pattern in what should otherwise be a patternless string of numbers. The problem is this: although random data is defined in information theory as lacking pattern, there is a non-zero theoretical chance to find any pattern in truly random data. This contradiction renders the interpretation of statistical results highly vulnerable to subjective biases and prejudices. Allow me to elaborate.

  If one’s statistical conclusions are in accordance with the reigning scientific paradigm, it is enough to demonstrate that the odds of a certain effect occurring against chance are very small. However, if the conclusions contradict the reigning paradigm, critics can always dismiss the evidence on the basis that, theoretically, any pattern can be found in the data if random effects can’t be completely ruled out. This, obviously, is a double standard that injects bias in what should be objective science. For instance, the results from the Princeton lab are now claimed to have odds against chance of more than a trillion to one.119 If this claim holds true, then, according to any unbiased scientific standard, it should be enough to conclusively prove the effect. Yet, critics continue to dismiss the results on the basis that any pattern can theoretically be found in random data.120 Shouldn’t we then reconsider the reality of certain subatomic particles whose celebrated discoveries entailed odds against chance of only about a million to one?121 You see, if we stretch such double standards a little further, we can make the reigning paradigm virtually unfalsifiable.

  As an activity carried out by people, science is as vulnerable to psychological biases as any other human endeavor. The tricky and even contradictory nature of chance and randomness, as discussed above, renders scientific judgment vulnerable to bigotry and dogmatism, particularly when it comes to statistical evidence. Though scientists may fancy their art as something above human shortcomings, they themselves are still just humans. It is up to the rest of us to remain cognizant of this and maintain critical judgment of what we hear from the bastions of science.

  4.4. Science and the defacement of reason

  I once elaborated upon how, in my view, true science differs from the way it is presented to the public today.122 My concern back then was to defend science from the defacement I believe it is suffering at the hands of those expected to protect and promote it. Since I wrote those words, however, I’ve come to realize that my archetypal view of science is more a personal ideal than an objective reality. More than a kind of Platonic Form, science is what scientists do in practice. As such, the reality of the situation may be the opposite of what I had wished it to be: actual science may be the culprit, not the victim. To distinguish my archetypal, idealized view of science from the reality of science today, I will follow my friend Alex Tsakiris and refer to the latter as ‘science-as-you-know-it.’123

  Archetypal science is metaphysically neutral: it is a method for unveiling and mathematically modeling the consciously observable patterns and regularities of nature. But science-as-you-know-it implicitly adopts the materialist metaphysics, which is merely one way to interpret these consciously observable patterns and regularities. For example: a consciously observed regularity of nature is that objects fall when dropped, which can be modeled through a simple mathematical equation. One possible interpretation of this regularity and its respective mathematical model is that there are material bodies fundamentally outside conscious observation, which attract each other and also give rise to conscious observation itself. This interpretation is the metaphysics of materialism. As such, materialism isn’t itself an observation; it is a metaphysical interpretation that seeks to make sense of observations. It is a philosophical inference, not a scientific conclusion. The problem is that many scientists – and even philosophers – today seem to conflate science with materialism, observation with interpretation. This is exemplified in a book by Alex Rosenberg.124

  Of course, not all scientists conflate science with materialism. Perhaps even only a minority does. But this minority is vocal and influential. It controls how science-as-you-know-it is presented in the media, in school curricula and in the culture at large. This is how it has turned science-as-you-know-it into a synonym of materialism. The spokespeople of this minority are prodigies of rhetoric and specialized puzzle-solvers who often ignore rigorous logic, epistemology and ontology. And the institutions of science seem to be in no hurry to correct the situation. As such, they and their members are guilty, at least by omission, of this sorry state of affairs.

  As argued in essays 2.1 and 2.2, materialism is a fantasy. It’s based on unnecessary postulates, circular reasoning and selective consideration of evidence and data. Materialism is by no stretch of the imagination a scientific conclusion, but merely a metaphysical opinion that helps some people interpret scientific conclusions. Yet, the emperors with no clothes who promote the materialist belief on TV, in books and what not, present themselves as spokespeople of science itself. When these people promote their flawed logic in the media as an expression of reason, the irony is painful. As such, science-as-you-know-it, with all the funding and respect it has accumulated as enabler of technology, has become the chief promoter of a philosophical worldview that is not only false, but corrosive, demeaning to the human condition and a threat to a sane and healthy future for our children. As much as its continuing positive contributions to civilization cannot be ignored, science-as-you-know-it has also made itself part of a great threat.

  The materialist belief that is now intrinsically associated with science-as-you-know-it limits the horizons of scientific research. Many interesting and promising phenomena do not get studied because, according to materialism, they are a priori decreed to be impossible. Interesting data, which could point the way to entirely unexpected and promising avenues of research, get discarded because, according to materialism, they cannot be valid. By adopting materialism, science-as-you-know-it has surrendered its openness. How many healing methods, amazing technologies and ways of improving our lives will not be discovered because of this? How many new horizons that could bring great meaning, excitement and unimagined possibilities to the human condition won’t be opened? Instead of being a force for impartial exploration, science-as-you-know-it is turning into a strait jacket for the human spirit. By projecting all reality onto abstract matter and then denying the value of philosophical inquiry,125 science-as-you-know-it is sucking the meaning out of the human condition.

  It is true that we have to be extraordinarily careful. To simply get rid of science would be a catastrophe, setting us back hundreds of years. A quick look at the fringes of the culture shows the dark tides of delusion, hysteria, nonsense and fundamentalism waiting at the sidelines. But this real risk cannot justify accepting the prospect of slow but sure spiritual annihilation that scientific materialism now presents us with. The human spirit cannot tolerate the starvation of meaning and the limited horizons that science-as-you-know-it is forcing upon us. The collective human psyche will rebel. When it does, our challenge will be to channel those erupting energies in a way that balances their destructive and constructive aspects. It is most definitely a good idea to prepare for it starting already now. Future generations will be thankful.

  4.5. The taboo against meaning

  Many people, scientists included, believe that the greatest taboo in science is the one against ‘magic.’ After all, science is a method for explaining things and phenomena in terms of measurable, concrete causes. ‘Magic,’ on the other hand, entails an appeal to undetectable or ethereal causes, only their effects being concretely observable.

  Defined this way, however, one can find many historical precedents for the acceptance of ‘magic’ in science. For instance, during the Renaissance, scientists attempted to explain electrostatic attraction by postulating the existence of an invisible substance
, called ‘effluvium,’ stretching out across bodies.126 Needless to say, effluvium was undetectable by any direct means, only its effects being concretely observable. As the Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment, scientists began trying to explain every phenomenon in terms of interactions between concrete material particles through direct contact. Any explanation that did not conform to this template was considered ‘magical’ and, therefore, invalid. That is why the ideas of an English scientist called Isaac Newton were ignored and even ridiculed at first: Newton dared to propose that objects attracted one another at a distance through an ethereal force he called ‘gravity.’ Yet we know how that story developed.

  You see, magic is not really a taboo in science. It has never been. After all, the chain of reduction has to end somewhere. One cannot keep on explaining one thing in terms of another forever. Eventually, one must postulate primary facts of nature that are not reducible to, or explainable by, anything else. These primary facts are what they are simply because that’s how nature is. At their level, science must necessarily accept ‘magic.’ Electromagnetic waves vibrating in a vacuum sounds pretty much like magic – after all, what is it that vibrates? – but that’s just how nature apparently behaves. Imagining the fabric of space-time twisting and bending in the presence of matter also sounds like magic, but who are we to judge it? It’s just the way things apparently work. Throughout the history of science we have chosen different things to consider primary facts, many of them entirely abstract. Each time this choice changed, the previous one was made to look like silly ‘magic.’ But at all times have we accepted ‘magical’ primary facts of nature. Moreover, with the advent of quantum mechanics, string/M-theory and multiverse cosmologies in recent times, the list of undetectable, ethereal, wholly abstract phenomena that science considers legitimate has become seemingly endless.