The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World

I gathered this intelligence at the Eugene home of Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Studies at the University of Oregon. I arranged this special interview because of Goswami’s new book, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. (Tarcher/Putnam). I wanted to meet the person who authored such a book and to make sure I was correctly understanding its many profundities. At first glance, the book appears to be one of those "new science" books that have become so popular. It does describe quite well the basic experiments of quantum physics, the ones that produce such paradoxes as the dual identity (wave and particle) of electrons and their ability to communicate at a distance with each other instantaneously (non-locality). But rather than simply leaving us with a "Gee, whiz, isn’t this incredible?" impression that the real world isn’t as we assumed, Goswami boldly, yet very thoughtfully, introduces us to monistic idealism and suggests we accept it as a foundation for a new, and quite compelling, worldview. Monistic idealism is the academically correct name given to a philosophical position that once was considered pre-scientific. It existed before the advent of what philosophers today label as materialistic dualism,. or what we might call the current official scientific world view. Materialistic dualism is the assumption that physical matter is the primary reality and that mind is separate from, but dependent upon, matter. In this view, mind is a secondary phenomena, or, to use the favored term, is an "epiphenomenon," meaning that it is some kind of separate, extra stuff that bubbles harmlessly out of brains. Monistic idealism, however, turns things around. In this position (dating back to Plato in the West, to Hinduism and Buddhism in the East), there is but one mind and it is the primary reality. Matter is an expression of mind, not separate from mind, but mind manifested materially. The worldview expressed in Edgar Cayce’s psychic readings is a perfect example of monistic idealism. Cayce’s formula, "Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, the Material is the Result," for example, gives consciousness a very creative role in manifesting the material world. Goswami’s book basically says, "Look, if you’ll adopt the viewpoint of monistic idealism, then everything–the paradoxes of quantum physics, the puzzle of individual consciousnesss and free will, the enigma of psychic abilities, the universals in spiritual teachings–everything falls into place!" His book is a journey of creative thinking, providing the most credible and complete tour of the worldview we call "The New Paradigm" that I’ve yet read. One of the early warning signs of this new paradigm, which Goswami refers to as the "consciousness revolution," was Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: The observer affects the observed. The scientist looks into the microscope at nature to find nature responding to the observation. How did nature know there was a scientist looking? It takes an electron, it turns out, to know an electron. When the scientist flashes a light on atomic structures, the photons of light disrupt the atoms observed. This simplistic explanation, however, is misleading because it hides the greater truth. Goswami points out that we habitually use materialism to assume that there is a fixed material reality–independent of the observer–one that is simply rebuffed by our gaze. Reality is not fixed, however, and that is where the observing consciousness makes a difference. There is literally a quantum leap of creativity that comes into play as the observer, searching for the material electron "thing" within the etheric electronic wave activity, forces the many possibilities into a single, manifested actuality by the very act of observation The quantum leap is, according to Goswami, like an act of grace–creative, unpredictable, synchronistic and "non-local" (psychic). In talking with him, I realized that it took a quantum leap in my own imagination to fully digest all the implications of monistic idealism. It was easy to understand the ethical implication that we each have to take responsibility for our choices. Goswami emphasizes that it make a difference which ideals we live by, because they determine which potentialities in the unmanifest, quantum mind will materialize through the channel of our individual lives.
Individuality, by the way, especially in the context of a universal consciousness, becomes an intriguing question. Edgar Cayce once had a dream envisioning the mind as being like a single star with spokes radiating out to form individually functioning conscious minds. This model expresses exactly the transcendent, unitary mind assumed by monistic idealism. The spokes even anticipate Goswami's formulation as to how and why the unitary mind creates the impression of separate individual minds. Why, if consciousness is truly unitive and singular, do we have the experience of separate minds? The brain, according to Goswami, is a measuring instrument. It collapses the non-local (a.k.a., infinite and eternal) quantum mind into concreteness and specificity as manifested through individual experience. Our individual "minds" are necessary to "realize" (make real) the material world. We are co-creators of reality, yet created ourselves to help reality become aware of itself. Goswami refers to the theory of "