BIOCENTRISM

BIOCENTRISM- I

What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and can’t be separated.                                          – Robert Lanza

First let us consider the biocentric view which regards consciousness as the center of the universe.

The world around us is made up of a variety of things. Most of these are material and inanimate. Then there are entities which are animate: from viruses and vermin to monkeys and mammoths. An ancient question has been: Which came first? Atoms or animals? Leptons or life?

From many religious perspectives Life – especially human life – is primary in the world. But even they grant that God started the project of Creation with Light before Life, sun and stars before Adam and Eve, Prthví before Prajápati.

From time immemorial humans have regarded the earth as the center of the universe (geocentric model). This shifted to a sun-centric (heliocentric) world. As per current cosmology, even this is not true: There is really no absolute center for the universe. The philosopher Blaise Pascal described the universe as an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere: sphère infinie dont le centre est partout, la circomférence nulle part.

For the past few centuries physics has held that the universe consists only of what may be called momergons (entities with momentum and energy). In isolated niches (mostly some planets, of which the earth is the only one currently known) there are also biological blobs. In other words, the world is primarily momergonic (i.e. made up of matter and energy).

One might ask, which is more fundamental, matter or life? The answer would depend on from whose perspective. As far as humans are concerned there is good deal more to the universe than molecules and mountains, satellites and stars. The world is much more than the air we breathe and the food we eat. It includes all the experiences that come with living, from poetry and plays to music and mathematics, with lots of emotions thrown in between. These don’t have any palpable material bases.

Yet, all these are sustained in a material substratum. Now this basic idea, emerging from our common sense perception of the world and substantiated by classical physics, has recently been called into question by a new vision. Robert Lanza’s Biocentrism (2010) goes beyond arguing that “life and consciousness are keys to understanding the true nature of the Universe.” Lanza is a biologist of high repute who has made significant contributions to stem cell research and human cloning. His book turns topsy-turvy the standard model of science regarding matter and life when it asserts in effect that not only is life more fundamental than matter, but that the material universe is actually a creation of conscious life.

Biocentrism argues that this thesis is not radically different from certain aspects of quantum physics, as it is based on the idea that ultimately what matters is not objective impersonal data collected by an abstract science, but the collected findings of conscious observers. No consciousness would mean no observer would mean no data, no theory, and no science.

Ultimately it all reduces to perceptions, thoughts, and ideas in human brains. This positivist thesis is not really a great scientific discovery. However, even while recognizing this, earlier philosophers and scientists spoke of an objective external world independent of our existence. The biocentric view is that every aspect of what we call reality is a creation of consciousness. This is in essence a return to the ancient Hindu vision of consciousness as the root cause of everything.

One aspect of the thesis of biocentrism is understandable: After all, crocodiles and cockroaches which have significantly different brain chemistry than ours perceive the world very differently than we do. More non-trivially, there are aspects of the universe that are in a silent deep, as it were, that only human perception unveils: such, for instance, are the beauty of the sunset, the fragrance of flowers, and the melody of music. At an even more profound level, but for human consciousness the ellipticity of planetary orbits, the transcendence of e and pi, and the inverse square law would all be like symphonies in the orchestra pit in a hall with no audience, or an encyclopedias buried in the sea.

However, there is a significant epistemic difference between regarding human consciousness as an instrument through which many hidden features of the world are made palpable through cerebral experience and interpretation, and the contention that every feature of the physical universe is a creation of consciousness, as biocentrism contends.

Had this idea been proposed by a philosopher, it would have been laughed out of court by the scientific establishment. But it has been cogently argued by a highly regarded scientist. So it has been receiving  thunderous applause from many in the scientific establishment. That is a necessary, but not a sufficient step towards paradigm shifts in science.

Biocentrism is fascinating as a perspective on life and our experience of the world. It suggests that the phenomenon of life is central to the planet at this stage of its history, and this is an important observation. It reminds us that many of the things that we perceive and experience such as color and music, smell and taste, have no objective existence, for they are entirely dependent on our nervous system and brain chemistry. It makes us realize that all experiences of joy, sorrow, appreciation of music come about only because of human consciousness.

However, when biocentrism goes on to proclaim that it is human consciousness that gives rise to everything, that even space and time are but creations of the human mind, then there is the implication that there was no mound or mountain before matter matured to man and mind. This is too much for most present-day scientists to swallow. To say that there was life before leptons, and consciousness before carbon is a stretch that may be allowed in philosophy, but it so tears apart the scientific fabric that has emerged during the past four centuries that most scientists – certainly many physicists – find the thesis annoying, irritating, and plain unscientific.

So, though Lanza’s well-argued publications on this subject have been generously lauded by a number of scientists, there still are a good many more who are quite skeptical about his theses. Some have vehemently critiqued this idea, some have even described it as pseudoscience. In my view, it is not pseudoscience in any sense, but an insightful perspective on the ultimate nature of physical reality: a perspective that informs and illumines without providing any additional explanation of any specific natural phenomenon for standard science to work upon. In this respect it is not exactly a scientific theory.

Two things stand out in the historical perspective: First, this is not the first time that an idea like this has been proposed. From Plato to Bishop Berkeley, from Shankara to Madame Blavatsky, many classical philosophers have argued for the primacy of consciousness. Their ideas have inspired millions, but haven’t helped in the discovery of new knowledge about our wondrous world.

Secondly, many revolutionary insights about the nature of reality were first ignored and even chastised, before they eventually became a new paradigm. So it is premature to declare biocentrism dead before even a decade had passed.