Swerdloc wrote:
After listening to Art’s interview with Dr. Robert Lanza, I found myself less than fully satisfied with his references to consciousness. It seemed as though he thought of consciousness as something that could exist without any particular entity being conscious; that is, although consciousness was required in order for anything to exist, he didn’t really focus on who or what was conscious. That conscious entity could be individual or collective, it seems to me, but there needs to be somebody who is being conscious.
This led to his sort of dancing around the whole notion of the Big Bang; I get that, from his perspective, the important thing about the Big Bang is that there is someone now who is aware of it, and that more or less extends that awareness/consciousness back to the event itself, since time is a kind of manufactured notion. But this only brings me back again to the question of who. You? Me? Everybody or anybody? God? Does this make us God?
I’ve been reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Soul Music, and at one point there is mention that scientists have been able to uncover the sounds that occurred just before the Big Bang. Apparently there was a voice, which said, “One, two… one, two, three, four.” That works for me.
When Lanza was talking about the multiverse[s], in which any possible reality already exists, I couldn’t help thinking of George Carlin’s routine about growing up Irish Catholic, in which he explains that the important thing about sinning (or not sinning) was a person’s intent, the “wanna.” You had to wanna sin, or else it really wasn’t, and the wanna itself constituted a sin. “So if you get up in the morning and say to yourself, ‘I’m going down to 42nd Street and commit a mortal sin,’ save your carfare, man. You already did it!”
That was the only real problem I had with it, too. But then, I have always felt that your question: "Does this make us God?" has an answer of "yes." The universe itself is conscious, and we are just a part of that. That consciousness itself is what is felt as "God," but it is not something separate from us. And it doesn't either exist, or not exist. It just IS.
In most major religions, and some mythologies, there is a "something" in their cosmogonies that exists in an eternal state, from which all else emanates in some way. For instance, to the Chinese Confucianists and Daoists, it was called Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate / Origin of Existence), and to the Judaic Kabbahlists, it was called Ein Sof (the Ultimate / Everything and Nothing). From Taiji, come Yin and Yang (duality), from which all matter emanates in a progressive schematic, and from Ein Sof comes first Keter (a singularity), then Hokhmah and Binah (duality), from which matter also emanates in a progressive schematic. I believe these two cultures are both talking about the same "thing," but just perceive it in slightly different ways due to culture. And these aren't the only cosmogonies that present "creation" in this way -- these are merely two easily correlated examples. There is a universal idea of chaos to order. But there is always a "something" that is eternal from which all else comes. That "something", IMO, could very well be consciousness itself. It just IS.
What I think is important about Lanza, perhaps, is that his work represents a bridge of sorts, even though he apparently doesn't see that. People like Lanza, who are working within the current framework of science, are seeing beyond the framework, but having to contain their work within that framework to be taken with even an ounce of credibility within the scientific community (and to make "sense" to themselves). I think this is why he was having trouble articulating when Art would ask him questions that edged toward spirituality. He didn't have the words to answer these questions in a way that satisfied the framework he is working within.
I personally believe there really IS no divide between spirituality and science, that as we come closer scientifically to that "theory of everything" that we will necessarily come to realize this. It's not that science will somehow "prove" the existence of God, but more that we will come to see that what we have perceived as "God" in the innocence of our youth as a species is as scientific as it is spiritual. Science and spirituality must merge for us to truly advance as an enlightened species in the universe.
Hope that made sense in some way! LOL Even though there are some holes in Lanza's work, I feel it will be important in the grand scheme of things that will get us collectively as a species to that point of epiphany beyond which we may finally begin to "see."