Structure and essence: The keys to integrating ... · tion with meaning or value from the content of science. Of course individual scientists and scientific institutions have values

Structure and essence:The keys to integrating spirituality and science

Copyright c© 2001 Paul P. Budnik Jr., All rights reserved

Dolphin playing with a leaf.

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Our technical capabilities are increasing at an enormous andunprecedented rate. In contrast our spirituality and values are de-veloping much more slowly. This has created a perilous time andoften empty culture. We need a broadly accepted spirituality thatgives purpose and meaning beyond the necessities of daily exis-tence. Our scientific understanding has undermined many con-ventional approaches to spirituality at the very time we most needto strengthen these capacities. The source of the difficulty mayhold the key to the solution.

Science is widely accepted because it works. It looks at theworld as it is searching for the simplest possible description. Dis-covery of simple descriptive laws has led to enormous power tocontrol the phenomena the laws describe feeding our technicalprowess. It was only possible to do this by divorcing science fromfeeling and values so one could see what is and not what one wantsto see,

1 Science deals only with structure

The content of the hard sciences is formulated in mathematicallaws. In mathematics everything is built up structurally startingwith the empty set or nothing at all. For example the number 1is defined as the set containing the empty set. It is a set with oneelement.

Mathematics and contemporary hard science deal only with struc-ture (or how complex entities are built from simpler ones) and neverwith essence or the ultimate nature of a thing. This forces all as-sumptions to be made explicit. But doing so removes any connec-

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tion with meaning or value from the content of science. Of courseindividual scientists and scientific institutions have values that in-fluence what they do. It is the content of hard science that is valuefree.

Ultimate (as opposed to contingent) value exists only in con-scious experience. We value things only insofar as we see themimpacting our own or others’ experience. The connection betweenphysical structure and conscious experience is the key to connect-ing our scientific understanding to values and spirituality. Follow-ing the lead of science we look for the simplest possible descriptionconsistent with what we know to be true. This leads to two as-sumptions,

2 Physical structure is consciousness

Our first assumption is based on the recognition that consciousstates are mirrored by physical structures in the brain and body.Transformations of consciousness appear to be transformations ofphysical structure. The evidence for this while far from conclusiveis growing rapidly. We are able to measure the functioning brain inever greater detail and to compare what we observe with reports ofinternal state.

Another motivation for our first assumption is the continuousspectrum of conscious experience. There are no boundaries where

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human consciousness begins and ends. Consciousness grows asan embryo develops into a baby and adult. Consciousness fades asan adult mind slowly disappears from Alzheimer’s disease. It is thedevelopment or degeneration of the physical brain that embodiesthese changes in consciousness,

The simplest assumption is not that consciousness arises fromphysical structure. That creates an unnecessary duality. We as-sume the essence and totality of the existence of a physical structureis conscious experience. Space-time does not exist in space-time. Itexists in consciousness. All matter is soul stuff. The dust we comefrom and return to is a simpler form of consciousness reflected inits simpler structure. Many spiritual traditions see consciousnessas universal. Equating the existence of physical structure to con-sciousness is more novel.

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3 Consciousness is finite

The second assumption is that allconscious experience and thus phys-ical structure has a logical or math-ematical finite structure. There maybe no limit to conscious experiencebut no single conscious gestalt is in-finite. Direct immediate experience isalways specific and finite. It is logicalin the sense that what we experienceis either something or not something.Of course language can be ambigu-ous or inadequate to express what weexperience but the experience itself isalways a definite thing and not someother thing.

It is always finite. It may ap-pear to be continuous as in a visualimage but this is an illusion con-structed from discrete visual recep-tors in the eye. The brain and ner-vous system filters out the patternsof these receptors since the aim isto provide the brain with informa-tion about the external world. Ein-stein near the end of his life cameto suspect that all physical structurewas finite or ‘digital’[2]. This assump-tion about consciousness and physi-cal structure is subject to scientificinvestigation.

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4 A wider sense of self

One might object to identifying conscious experience with physi-cal structure by arguing that spirituality transcend space and time.Spirituality takes us outside of ourselves to a deeper and widersense of identity. It sees our oneness with our fellow humans, withall sentient creatures and with the creative process itself. Identify-ing conscious experience with physical structure is not in conflictwith this ancient wisdom. On the contrary it deepens our under-standing of these spiritual realities.

For it shows how artificial our sense of self is. It is created forpractical reasons as a baby learns the difference between self (thatwhich responds directly to ones wishes and can hurt) and not self(everything else). It is not the result of some unique soul each of usis infused with. We create our sense of identity and we can expandit as widely as we choose. We are the universe becoming consciousof itself. As we begin to feel that this is true we literally becomewho we truly are.

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Have you ever become so taken by a book that the experiencedescribed was more real than your everyday life? Sandburg’s Lin-coln had that effect for me. The people the poet described livedagain in the writing and live over and over in the reading. Ourconsciousness is not individual and unique but universal and allencompassing. For it to exist at all it must be specific but theboundaries that make it specific are not limits on our experienceput pathways to unbounded consciousness. Each movement intime leads to the next. Each experience leads to other places otherpeople and ultimately the creative evolution of the universe.

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5 Consciousness is irreducible

One might object that identifying conscious experience with phys-ical structure does not explain consciousness. Our scientific un-derstanding cannot begin to explain the experience of the colorblue. The essential nature of conscious experience is not subject toexplanation. We can analyze the structure of experience but neverits essence. We are not trying to explain the inexplicable or re-duce consciousness to something else. We are only looking for thesimplest possible description of the reality we experience.

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6 Levels of structure and consciousness

The descriptions of science are widely accepted because of theirutility. Our assumptions have the potential for similar practicalresults. The psychologist, Carl Jung, had an intuition that numberwas the archetypal mediator between the physical world and thehigher world[1, par 778][3]. Mathematics can help us understandspiritual truths that have previously been only intuitions.

Central to the evolution of consciousness is the development ofever more subtle and complex levels of self reflection. This has cul-minated in the human mind aware of its own mortality and ableto develop science and mathematics. We can understand aspectsof these structures in mathematical hierarchies of iteration or selfreflection. Our assumptions establish a structural equivalence be-tween consciousness and these mathematical hierarchies.

An implication of Godel’s famous proof of the incompleteness ofmathematics is the absence of any single finite formulation thatcan capture the potentially unlimited levels of ever more powerfulforms of self reflection that can exist in a mathematical system.The only way to explore all these possibilities is through a diver-gent process that follows an ever increasing number of paths asbiological evolution has done in creating the human mathematicalmind.

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7 Unbounded creativity

Godels result and our assumptions imply that there is no limitto evolutionary creativity provided evolutionary diversity expandswithout limit. Of course the universe itself may be finite but weare very far from knowing this. Every boundary we have foundhistorically has eventually disappeared. This may be true forever.If the universe is potentially infinite then whatever is will always bethe merest hint of a shadow of what can be. God is a never endingcreative process not a destination and we are the eyes of God withthe power to create the world.

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We are at a critical point in the evolution of consciousness. Evo-lution has become conscious of itself and is developing the tools totake conscious control of its own future development. This is aninevitable transition but it is a dangerous time. Without an under-standing of the structure of creativity we will almost certainly followa path of bounded rather than unbounded creativity or worse.

Our assumptions establish a basis for the required understand-ing of the structure of creativity. They allow us to quantify thetrade offs between diversity and concentration of resources thatare so central to the structure of creative evolution whether it bebiological, economic or spiritual.

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8 Toward an objective spirituality

God is not a completed being but an ever expanding process ofevolving consciousness. We, as the highest form of consciousnesson this planet, are the eyes of God with the power to create theworld through conscious control of future evolution. We cannotmake decisions about this based on religious or spiritual feelingalone. History teaches us how badly our feelings and instincts canlead us astray without objective tests. Science has shown whatmiraculous progress is possible with the guiding star of objectivity.

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Equating the existence of physical structure with conscious ex-perience is the starting point of an objective spirituality. It es-tablishes a framework for reconnecting scientific understanding tovalues by connecting structure to essence.

It implies that we are and always will be the merest hint of ashadow of what will be. Precisely because there is no ultimate orfinal goal but only an ever expanding horizon we must always valuethe experience of the moment for that is all that will ever exist.

References

[1] Carl Gustav Jung. Civilization in Transition, volume 10 of Thecollected works of C. G. Jung. Princeton University Press, 1970.9

[2] Abraham Pais. Subtle is the Lord. Oxford University Press, NewYork, 1982. 5

[3] Marie-Louise von Franz. Number and Time. Northwestern Uni-versity Press, 1974. 9

9 Author

Paul Budnik was an Acting Assistant Professor at UCLA beforecompleting his PhD in computer science from the University ofIllinois. Since then he has been a computer consultant. He hasbeen passionately pursuing a series of related ideas on conscious-ness, evolution, physics and mathematics since he was an un-dergraduate. He is writing a book that more fully explores thesetopics. A partial preliminary release of this book is availible atwww.mtnmath.com/willbe.html.

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