----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 6:03
PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Death and
experience
My question is:
out of all the myriad complex systems in nature, on what
basis should we suspect that the particular complex system we call
"consciousness" has any unique ability to persist when separated from the
context of its material substrate?
As much as I
would dearly wish it to be so, I see no reason besides such wishes that
we have to suppose that consciousness occupies this unique status.
Perhaps, though,
this is where we make the transition from scientific knowledge to another form
of knowledge: mysticism, which RR discussed in the manuscript
"The Limits of the Limits of Science".
Regards,
Tim
I just noticed that I neglected to include the note at the end
of the last post, on death and consciousness...
What I had intended to discuss was related to the fact that one
of my father's favorite things to do was point out what "nobody knows" in
many our various discussions. All my life, he did that; talking in great
depth about what some of the beliefs are and the controversies, but pointing
out not only what isn't known but how it effects other things we THINK we
know. There is often a domino effect similar to what he discovered when he
retraced the steps leading to the current reductionist approach in
mainstream science, only to discover that some of those steps were poorly
thought out.
Many of our discussions involved human physiology. My
father talked about the fact that human bodies are
able to perceive the proximity of other human bodies in ways not
related to our conscious perceptions. He cited as one proof of this the
well-documented fact that adult women living together will entrain their
menstrual cycles. "Nobody knows how that happens," he said. He further said
he had never heard of anyone trying to study the phenomenon,
not even in Obstetrics or Gynecology. I asked why, and he said he presumed
that nobody thought it important enough to study. However, he pointed
out that the mechanism at work behind it could be very important,
indeed. How does one human body "read" another? How does it detect something
as subtle as an internal model (an anticipatory model,
incidentally) that controls timing of a menstrual cycle-- or
perhaps even just the timing of the menstrual cycle itself? Even more
fantastic, how and why does one body make changes in its own cycle to
begin to achieve simultaneity?! How many steps are there to achiving
a synchronous cycle? (I can attest to the fact that it really does
happen, from personal experience throughout my life.) Another aspect to the
phenomenon is that one woman's cycle seems to be "chosen" as the dominant
one, and her's doesn't deviate. Instead, all the others will alter to match
hers. So, how is this subtle but crucial complex information being
communicated, back and forth???? It is not connected to volition. It is a
completely independent mechanism from the conscious mind! If medical
science can answer these questions, it will be a breakthrough on all kinds
of other things that have so far eluded researchers.
The reason I think this pertains to the question about
consciousness and whether the organization of that particular complex system
can persist after the death of a human being's body is because the
above example is a glimpse at the kinds of things that we don't
know about something so familiar as our own bodies and minds. I can
certainly be accused of watching too much Star Trek in my life, but the fact
that the example mentioned is not even being studied raises huge credibility
issues for me with regards to how medical science approaches learning about
human physiology. It doesn't sound all that farfetched that there may be
life forms that live off ambient energy the way plants use sunlight to make
sugar. If consciousness is a stable complex system that only requires energy
to maintain its cohesion, then the metamorphosis from using visceral
sources to ambient sources isn't out of the realm of possibility to me.
If it IS possible, then what sort of existence would that be
like? My only certainty on that subject is that it would be very different
from what life, as we experience it, is like. So much of our knowledge of
the universe is bounded by what our human perceptions are capable of
perceiving-- and how our senses perceive it.
Judith