Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality

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Letters from the Frontier, May 6, 2007 By  Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) – See all my reviews
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This is an extraordinary collection of essays that grew out of a series of events in different British Universities arranged by the Scientific and Medical Network between November 2001 and July 2003.

The editor – David Lorimer – assembled an impressive list of contributors from the fields of physics, neuroscience, psychology, theology and moral philosophy.

His editorial introduction is an excellent summary of the papers that follow. David is one of the most well-read and erudite people that I know, and he offers a number of valuable insights.

Here are a few high points that I particularly liked: Bernard Carr from Queen Mary College in London, advances powerful arguments that rather than being a neurological accident, human consciousness is integrally involved with the total fabric of reality. He supports his position with a review of investigations into paranormal phenomena.

Peter Fenwick from the Institute of Psychiatry in London suggests that brain events should be regarded as the consequence of the activity of the mind rather than its cause. The natural implication is that consciousness is something wider than and different from the physical. Part of his evidence comes from his extensive studies of the near death experience, that have lead him to conclude that there is a material world that a liberated consciousness can view from the “outside,” and that there is a permanent self that is doing the viewing.

David Fontana from Liverpool John Moores University makes a strong argument for a transpersonal perspective in psychology, and argues that if we reorganize our view of experience using Ken Wilber’s four quadrants, we can do justice to objective science and also investigate the wider frontiers of consciousness.

There are four contributions that argue that the ultimate reality that reconciles science and consciousness is Christian theism. Christianity has two apparently incompatible versions of life after death, the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul.

Keith Ward, who was for many years Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, provides a sophisticated philosophical analysis that offers a reconciliation of these beliefs. Alan Torrance from the University of St. Andrews analyses the contradictions of materialism as applied to science and psychology and suggests that theism provides a clearer answer to what consciousness is.

Ravi Ravindra from Canada suggests that we can use our own consciousness as the instrument to investigate reality. That means that we must pay attention to the limitations of the instrument and seek to discipline and purify it, which leads directly to the practice of yoga. He talks about yoga as a path through which the body, the emotions and the physical world are left behind as consciousness attains union with the Universal. In this way science and consciousness are merged into ultimate reality.

All of the essays in the book are at the cutting edge of the ultimate questions of human existence. A common theme running through them is that reductionist materialism is just a working hypothesis of limited practical use, and that there is growing evidence for a much grander view of the universe in which mind plays a central role.

For anyone with any interest in the mind, consciousness and psychology, this is an excellent, well-written collection that is guaranteed to make anyone think.

Highly recommended.