Synopsis
Today began with a call to Kim Peek, “Rain Man,” the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman’s character in the movie of the same name. If Jesus indeed turned out to be the son of God, and we met face to face, he couldn’t be much more fascinating, or alien, than Kim. Kim has memorized over 12,000 books, two pages at a time, one with each eye. He knows every note played by each instrument of most classical music pieces.
2 weeks prior he’d asked me my birth date. He replied instantly that I was born on a Good Friday. We’d spoken at length twice. Previously, he’d noted my zip code was for Olympia, Washington, but my phone number for Tucson, Arizona. Correct.
This time I began with “Kim, this is Nyles Bauer.” He replied “Who?”
Rain Man couldn’t remember that we’d ever talked.
A few hours later I called Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, 82. Sasha is the most prolific inventor of psychedelics ever – and regularly partakes in his discoveries along with his underground followers. We had spoken by phone very briefly several months ago. He had since undergone a heart valve replacement, so I was hesitant to call him for a question or two. “Hello Sasha” I began, as slowly and clearly as possible, “this is Nyles Bauer; we had…”
“Oh, Nyles from Arizona!” Sasha replied, as lucid and vibrant as any twenty year-old, “Nice of you to call.”
This is the enigmatic nature of cognition and memory.
In 1969 Dr. Charles Tart wrote and edited Altered States of Consciousness, now long a classic in this nascent field. It included previously published papers addressing the various topics integral to the subject. Holistic Consciousness is being compared to Dr. Tart’s classic by people in the contemporary field of consciousness studies.
This manuscript is more scientifically grounded and less academically foreboding than Tart’s. It is entertaining and conversational without losing any scientific content. Scientists and other authorities in their fields have contributed original papers especially for it; they are not reprints, as in Tart’s classic. Each contributor believes there is need of a new generation of books addressing consciousness, cognition and memory, especially in light of the recent exponential rate of scientific and medical discoveries. Twenty-five percent of this book’s proceeds will go to humanitarian and environmental causes in their names, as “compensation” for their contributions.
HOLISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS begins with few preconceived notions and looks to the sciences and observable physical phenomena, presenting a logical footpath through the subject of consciousness. Readers are challenged along this path to question their assumptions about observable reality, from individuality to life to death. Esoterica is unnecessary; readers are presented common beliefs, reexamined one by one through scientifically accepted views. In a way, this manuscript is a current autobiography of the human mind, including the reader’s.
The manuscript’s second half, containing the invited original papers by authors well respected in their fields, presents current contrasting views on consciousness, providing a robust and diverse perspective on the topic. For example, when a proponent of psychedelic drugs, a Christian Nobel Laureate in physics, and a leader in longevity studies address the same topic from their different perspectives based on physical data, and build a foundation for the same general conclusions, this suggests we may be approaching a consensus, perhaps a truth. Many other questions are addressed this way.
HOLISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS is academically intact. The studies discussed are from peer-reviewed journals presenting reproducible results. Innovative material is offered in an academically rigorous manner, such as the separability of memory and consciousness — which has muddied the waters of philosophical discussions on consciousness since the days prior to Descartes.
The sincere intent of this work is to present the topic of consciences to the educated reader of popular books in an entertaining fashion without losing any of its scientific merit. If I have given myself a mission, it is twofold. One is to counter the many Sylvia Brown’s that publish in today’s market by clearly demonstrating that none of the magic of this topic is lost by taking a critical look at the topic through the lens of science, and two, to counter the academic writers by showing that exclusionary jargon and literary “dryness” is not necessary to convey the information normally contained between the covers of peer reviewed journals. I do believe that we are doing a disservice to the public by not giving them access to this same information. In the end, it’s simply fascinating topic but a major endeavor to compile for oneself.
HOLISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS Table of Contents
Preface…………………………………………………………………… 4
Introduction ……………………………………………………………… 8
Perception……………………………………………………………….. 14
Life in General…………………………………………………………… 17
What Do We Really Know about Consciousness?……………………….. 18
What Can We Infer about Consciousness?………………………………. 19
Cognitive Model…………………………………………………………… 26
The Adaptive Immune System and Cognition………….…………………. 30
Expanding our Consciousness versus Free Will …………………………. 41
A Demonstration of Compromised Free Will ……………………………… 49
A Little Bit about Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress………………………….. 52
Beyond Pavlov……………………………………………………………. 66
Reality………………………………………………………………………. 71
The Double-Slit Experiment……………………………………………… 79
Time………………………………………………………………………. 89
Sensory Capacitance……………………………………………………… 99
Consciousness Server Exercise…………………………………………….. 100
Conservation as a Fundamental Biological Principle ………………………….. 105
Danke Schön for the Fruit…………………………………………………. 111
Consciousness as an Epiphenomenon………………………………………. 113
Individuality …..……………………………………………………………. 116
It’s Life, Jim, but Not as We Know It……………………………………….. 120
Challenges to the Concept of Individuality……………………………………. 122
Karma?…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 130
The Religion of Quantum Mechanics……………………………………….. 131
Separability of Memory and Consciousness………………………………….. 140
Complete Sensory Experience as a Unified One Dimensional Representation…144
“ESP” and Information Transfer through Consciousness…………………… 149
Consciousness as an Academic Discipline…………………………………….. 154
The Ultimate Question……………………………………………………….. 157
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………… 164
Epilogue……………………………………………………………………… 167
Independent Contributions……………………………………………………… 170
Chapter Descriptions
Preface
Why this book was written and the circumstances, written outside an airport in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Introduction
Using the famous “Hundredth Monkey” controversy, this section argues against the need to look to the supernatural or paranormal for magic; that magic is all around us, but we are raised to accept it as mundane. “Experts” in any field of study can never be taken as absolute, simply because our minds are far too limited to encompass the vastness of any holistic reality. Too many experts result in a lack of wonder, thus, a lack of the true magic understood in childhood.
1. Perception
A brief reality check on the lives we truly lead and the humanness of the people we tend to idolize.
2. Life In General
A continuing reality-check on the existence we humans experience individually versus the lives we present to others. This section essentially justifies the need for the rest of this information presented in the rest of the chapters.
3. What Do We Really Know About Consciousness?
What we truly know about consciousness can be contained in fewer words than this sentence.
4. What Can We Infer About Consciousness?
Though seldom defined, the term “consciousness” is widely used with many different meanings and interpretations. This definition is clear and concise and based on the philosophical model of the human “zombie.”
The argument is proposed, which the rest of the book follows. Some common myths about our understanding of consciousness are dispelled. The “Big Question” is proposed for the first time “ Why have humans retained consciousness when it appears that we would do just fine as ‘automatons’ or meat-machines that act and react as we do, but have nothing inside that ‘experiences’?
5. Cognitive Model
A simple analogy of firing a gun at a target demonstrates proposed model connecting consciousness and cognition.
6. The Adaptive Immune System and Cognition
Immunology shows that the human immune system is also used to select mates, and dictates significantly how attractive we appear to others. This attractiveness is very much objective, though we may believe otherwise, and transcends cultural biases even without exposure to television and advertising.
A general background of the immune system is presented in an entertaining fashion, which is followed by clinical and scientific evidence of the immunological mind-body connection, the “Immunological Big Bang” that occurred in fish that forever changed human cognition, how Ebola and other viruses are likely viable remnants of our immunological and evolutionary past.
7. Expanding Our Consciousness versus Free Will
Why “consciousness expansion” is not likely a reasonable goal, but expansion of our free will may be. What free will is and how it can exist in a universe modeled in a cause and effect Newtonian manner. Evidence for and against free will are presented using such models as Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, chaos theory, and an unusual cold war electromagnetic device from the Soviet Union called “The Lida.”
8. A Demonstration of Compromised Free Will
An interactive subsection of the previous chapter that allows the readers to experiment for themselves and then reevaluate how much free will they may really have. Though benign and fun, this experiment is very revealing.
9. A Little Bit about Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress
If antioxidants were absolutely effective we would all be dead. Why did the clinical studies on beta-carotene raise cancer rates in smokers instead of protecting them? Why does the “barbaric” practice of bloodletting reduce arthrosclerosis, gout, and symptoms caused by lupus? Why do people with deformed chests tend to have a higher IQ’s than the rest of us?
Neuroplasticity diminishes with age, as do our abilities to learn truly new tasks unrelated to our established talents. Oxidants and free radicals are required for this type of learning and may be one reason why neurorigidity tends to set in as we age. Melatonin seems to decrease with age along with neuroplasticity. Melatonin is a tryptamine as are many psychedelic drugs. Is this a reason that many older people that use psychedelics cautiously seem to retain much more youthful thinking than those that do not?
All these topics are intimately related to antioxidants and oxidative stress.
10. Beyond Pavlov
A challenge to our accepted notions of our central nervous system and brain defining who we are. Severed spinal cords and severed brains can act in a very autonomous manner, learning and behaving independently and subjectively outside of our awareness. Have we created new entities by splitting the central nervous system? It appears so, but what implications does this hold for who we are? In the previous chapter on the immune system and cognition it’s shown that the immune system is actually best viewed as an extension of our nervous system. Further evidence is illustrated in a scientifically reproducible experiment in which rats could become immunosuppressed to the extent that a small infection could kill them simply by training them to believe that a saccharine solution had this power.
11. Reality
Our reality allows for our very survival in the world. It does not, however, logically follow that our reality is in any way experienced as a truth about our universe and the world we live in.
“Is that apple red?”
“Does it matter so long as we survive?”
One’s view of the world is different from others’ who are simply standing in a different place. This seems simple until we consider what this “frame of reference” change has done to our model of the universe.
12. The Double-Slit Experiment
A subsection of the chapter on reality that clearly demonstrates that we do not know what our objective reality is, nor what rules dictate our world. This “simple” physics experiment is accepted by all, but understood by none.
13. Time
“Time isn’t what it used to be.” Experiment after experiment shows that we do not live in the “present” as universally assumed. We may watch ourselves stub a toe thinking we feel pain simultaneously. This is in fact impossible — the eyes deliver an image to the brain much faster than the toe does.
The brain indeed revises history as we live our lives. This can seem bizarre when we need to act quickly, say to hit a fastball pitch in the game of baseball.
If these biological examples seem trivial, we consider an experiment that shows a pulse of light exiting a container of gas before it even enters the container. There is no subjectivity in this experiment.
14. Sensory Capacitance
How our minds edit reality to remove “trivial” information such as the darkness we experience when we blink. This is important for concepts presented later.
15. Consciousness Server Exercise
A thought experiment using a central computer as an example, showing it’s impossible to tell whether we “own” our own consciousness or share it. This illustrates the major shortcoming of self-reporting and observation no matter how simple, obvious, or objective it may appear. As a biological example Anton’s Syndrome is described in which apparently cognitively intact and intelligent people report being able to see their surroundings despite being completely blind. They may get up and walk into walls but compensate for this by changing their view of the room though they have no idea that they are doing so.
16. Conservation as a Fundamental Biological Principle
A look at the biological concept of conservation of resources. A molecule will take on completely different, sometimes opposite, functions because it was released at a different time or different place within the body. If a minor change to this molecule is made, it may take on an entire new function and metabolic pathway. This is far more the rule than the exception. This concept of conservation is also applied to our universe and accepted by science.
The often misused and abused second law of thermodynamics is introduced. It is introduced since this is one major reason for biological conservation. It is often used to “disprove” evolution and the possibility of life extension which are both fallacious arguments when the second law of thermodynamics is cited. Though this law seems cumbersome to understand, this chapter introduces it in an entertaining manner, as a barroom brawl. It loses none of its meaning or significance when presented in this fashion but it is far more likely to be understood by the reader.
17. Danke Schön for the Fruit
A subsection chapter illustrating how history and physics might have radically changed had a non-conserving model to a well-known phenomenon been adopted.
18. Consciousness as an Epiphenomenon
Consciousness as an attribute apart from the physical body; some arguments against this model. This chapter also examines whether empirical evidence supports the assumption that consciousness resides solely in the brain.
19. Individuality
What is an individual? What determines “self”? The questions are addressed through the examination of memory and our physical bodies. At this writing Baseball Great Ted Williams’ head sits in a tank of liquid nitrogen in Arizona in the hope he will one day be revived. Where is the essence of Ted right now, and if he is revived in the future, will this be the same Ted?
Also presented are examples of life-forms that challenge our very notions of what an individual is — without need to deviate from how a basic biology text would present the same animal. This includes humans.
20. “It’s Life, Jim, but Not as We Know It”
A playful exercise using Captain Kirk from Star Trek and his transporter challenges us to determine whether the transported Kirk is the same individual. What starts simply soon becomes a complex question on the nature of individuality.
21. Challenges to the Concept of Individuality
Another subsection of Individuality that presents three concise examples of the animal world that unambiguously challenge our very notions of what an individual is.
22. Karma?
The shortest chapter asks us to consider all the previous arguments presented and briefly examines their positive and negative connotations.
23. The Religion of Quantum Mechanics
“Probabilities” were conceived as a branch of mathematics to compensate for our ignorance of certain mathematical problems in the real world. This chapter begins with an example where a statistician and God sit down for a game of cards. The statistician, representing humans, is clearly at a disadvantage by using statistical methods. Quantum mechanics was proposed as a relatively new model of the universe, one in which we were asked to accept probability as a matter of fact, not ignorance.
This chapter delves into quantum mechanics in an amusing way, documenting the scientific infighting as well as some proposed idiosyncrasies continuing on to actual products on store shelves today that rely on quantum mechanics for any reasonable explanation for their ability to function at all.
24. Separability of Memory and Consciousness
An essential philosophical proof. This original consideration is necessary for further constructive debate over consciousness. Mixing the two concepts has muddied the concept of consciousness since well before the time of Descartes.
25. Complete Sensory Experience as a Unified One-Dimensional Representation
The brain appears designed to compress our sensory data; our sensory organs do just that – essentially no different from the compression of a larger computer document to fit a smaller storage space. This biological compression is explored: why would the brain compress visual data together, and auditory data separately? Wouldn’t it be more likely that the brain compresses all the different sensory data together as one? An argument is made for this model of compression which, though not intentional, has ramifications on consciousness itself that may prevent it from ever being fully understood.
26. ESP and Information Transfer through Consciousness
Can consciousness be a force in which extrasensory data can be transmitted from one person to another? We first look at the other four known forces in the universe and analyze the possibility that if there is some sort of extrasensory perception what is the likelihood that each of these are playing a part. Then we look at the possibility of consciousness being a carrier of information between living beings.
27. Consciousness as an Academic Discipline
Since we are all conscious in probable degree, why isn’t it taken seriously by the “hard” sciences? Within philosophy and religion it is debated on an academic level. That is not the case in physics and biology. The subject is marginalized there, and too often left to “marginal” investigators in and out of the academic community.
28. The Ultimate Question
When it comes to life itself, and our lives in particular, can we really hope for a significantly extended life while remaining cognitively intact? It is likely that life will soon be extended at a rate greater than we are aging, in theory allowing for immortality, in reality allowing this generation to enjoy substantially increased life spans. Some promising discoveries are discussed, and some caveats. We need greater political and environmental stability to realize any substantial gains in longevity.
When we die, disregarding religious dogmas for a moment, what likely happens to our conscious selves? Strangely, it is likely that death is one thing we have all already experienced on a continuous basis.
29. Conclusion
Taking a deconstructionist approach to consciousness will not yield constructive answers. Only when taken holistically can we begin to address consciousness and its associated phenomena in a meaningful and applicable way, as we don’t experience consciousness in an isolated fashion. To consider each associated phenomenon as separate from the others presents only fragmentary evidences. We need to view the entire picture synergistically.
30. Epilogue
Here the Preface continues, being “trapped” in Mongolia. It is a reevaluation of life’s priorities based on living in a third world country that has made human life and health nearly valueless in an effort to discard traditional values and trade them in on a Toyota Land Rover.