Consciousness: The New Paradigm

Consciousness: The New Paradigm

by

Michael Bradford

Smashwords Edition

Consciousness: New Paradigm

Copyright © 2017 Michael Bradford

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 978-0-9959961-0-6

First Update: July 2018

Second Update: March 2019

Cover Image: The Large Scale Structure of the Universe. It shows a slice of the Universe 6 billion light-years wide, 4.5 billion light-years high, and 500 million light-years thick, containing almost 20,000 galaxies.

Cover Image Credit: Daniel Eisenstein and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III collaboration.

CONTENTS

1 The Questions

Life

Evolution

Reality

Consciousness

A New Approach

2 Paradigms

The Paradigm of Faith

The Paradigm of Science

The Newtonian Paradigm

Special Relativity

General Relativity

Quantum Theory

The Nature of Matter

Limitations of the Scientific Paradigm

Transcending the Current Paradigm

Consciousness and Evolution

The New Faculty

3 The Indian Spiritual Tradition

The Six Schools

The Tantric Tradition

Sir John Woodroffe

Brahman

Maya Shakti

Prakriti-Shakti

Prana-Shakti

Kundalini-Shakti

4 The Kundalini Mechanism

The Mystical Experience

The State of Enlightenment

Changes to Sensory and Perceptive Faculties

The Traditional Kundalini Model

Gopi Krishna’s Model

The Discipline of Yoga

5 Life

Mitosis

Protein and Enzyme Creation

Evolution

Meiosis

Epigenetics

The Origin of Life

Chirality

The Evolution of DNA

Science and Evolution

6 Reality, Mind, Mathematics, and Creation

Reality and Mind

Computer or Television

Mathematics

Creation

Life After Death

Other Forms of Life

7 Consciousness and Modern Science

Quantum Biology

Photosynthesis

DNA and Quantum Tunneling

Mutation Rates

Consciousness as a Field

Morphic Resonance

Consciousness and Quantum Processes

Quantum Electrodynamics and the Quantum Vacuum

Einstein’s Quantum Dilemma

8 Consciousness: The New Paradigm

The Answers

The Evolutionary Impulse

Acceptance of the New Paradigm

A New Methodology

Nomenclature

The Benefits of the New Paradigm

The Convergence of Faith and Science

References

About the Author

1

The Questions

Why is there a Creation? This is ultimately the most profound question that could ever be asked. Over the last several thousand years every faith that has come into being has tried to answer this question. More recently, science has devoted a great deal of time and effort to this investigation. But despite the tremendous increase in our knowledge of how the universe has unfolded since it came into being, neither faith nor science has been able to do little more than speculate about its ultimate origin—about why it exists at all.

The reason that this question is so hard to answer is because no matter what explanation we come up with for how Creation came into being—a deity, the ‘Big Bang,’ a spontaneous generation of the Void, etc., there always remains the question of how that cause came into being. If it was the ‘Big Bang,’ what created the conditions that led to this event? If it was a deity, how did that deity come into being? The term ‘First Cause’ has been coined to provide an explanation, but this term is only a label and, rather than answering the question, does little more than help us to feel less uncomfortable with it.

The root of the problem seems to be a consequence of the way that we perceive time, as time and causality are inextricably linked. Every event that happens must have a cause that precedes it. And every cause must have an effect. Science has speculated that time itself did not exist before the ‘Big Bang.’ But even if we accept this as true, there still remains the ultimate question of what brought time (and space) into being.

From the standpoint of logic and reason, which are rooted in time and causality, the very existence of Creation is an impossibility. Logically, there really should be no Creation at all—there should simply be nothing, as nothing would require nothing to create it. Why there is something, rather than nothing, is a profoundly disturbing question.

The principle of causality took a severe beating in the last century with the discovery of Quantum Theory. Subatomic events, such as the spontaneous decay of radioactive isotopes, seemed to be governed by laws of probability rather than causality. For instance, an atom of a radioactive isotope will spontaneously decay not because anything causes it to decay, but because the laws of probability dictate that it is time for an atom of this isotope to decay.

And this is by no means the only aspect of Quantum Theory that defies our notions of causality. Others will be discussed later in this work. There is a glaring contradiction between the way reality seems to work at the subatomic level and the way it seems to work at the level of our sense perceptions. Clearly our understanding of how reality works is seriously incomplete.

Causality is the very foundation of our intellect. It has given us the ability to determine how the Creation has unfolded since it came into being. It has also given us the power to predict how the universe will change in the future, and thereby given us the ability to dramatically alter the very environment of the planet we inhabit.

The main source of this power lies in mathematical models, which can be used to predict the behavior of the phenomenal world. Mathematics is far more flexible and less limited than our causality-bound intellect. For instance, it can be used to represent time flowing in reverse, or to model physical conditions that are almost impossible to achieve, such as the state of the universe just after the ‘Big Bang.’ It can even be used to describe additional dimensions that may exist, and are beyond our sense perceptions.

Everywhere we look in Nature we see structures and processes that can be described in tremendous detail by mathematical principles. For instance, the Fibonacci number series describes, among countless other things, the pattern of florets on the head of a sunflower, the curve of a curling wave as it approaches a shore, and the shape of the arms of a spiral galaxy. [1]

But the very existence of mathematics begs the question: where does it come from? And its prevalence in almost every aspect of Nature raises the question: why does the phenomenal world seem to be strictly bound by order, in the form of mathematics, rather than being dominated by chaos?

Many proponents of science are of the belief that we will eventually be able to construct a mathematical model of reality in its ultimate form—the ‘Theory of Everything’, as it is sometimes called. But a major problem with models is that unless they can be verified experimentally, they can only be regarded as speculative. A recent example of this is Superstring Theory. According to this theory matter, at its roots, is comprised of almost infinitesimally small loops of vibrating energy called strings. Although this theory has been useful in explaining some properties of matter, it cannot be verified experimentally because the proposed strings are far too small to be detected, at least at present.

Even assuming that such a model could eventually be constructed, would it give us an answer to the ultimate question of why there is a Creation? If it cannot give us this answer, then mathematics, at least as far as our mind is capable of apprehending it, may bring us no closer to the answer.

Another question concerning Creation for which we have no answer is why do the physical constants that determine precisely how the universe functions, such as the strength of the physical forces and the speed of light, have the specific values that they do? One of the biggest debates of recent times centers around the fact that even a tiny variation in the strength of some of these constants would have prevented galaxies and stars, not to mention life itself, from ever developing.

Many people believe that this ‘fine tuning’ of Creation could not have been an accident. Therefore, Creation must have been designed by some intelligence far greater than ours. The proponents of this ‘intelligent design’ theory are countered by proponents of the ‘multiverse’ theory, which posits that our universe is only one of an almost infinite number that exist, each with different physical laws and constants. Our particular universe, the ‘Goldilocks universe’, just happens to be one that had the right combination of physical laws and constants to produce galaxies, stars, planets, and life.

But even assuming that the ‘Goldilocks’ scenario is true, it does not answer the question of why Creation is bound by strict laws from end to end. Laws, be they human or universal, are rules that are imposed on chaotic systems to create order of some kind. In the case of universal laws, even in other possible universes, what agency has created them?

Life

After Creation, the next most perplexing and controversial area of inquiry is life. Like Creation, the most basic question is why it exists at all. Why is the universe not just a sea of dead, insentient matter from end to end? Although we do not know for certain that life exists on other planets in our solar system, or on planets orbiting other stars, there seems to be a growing consensus among exobiologists that there is a strong likelihood that it does. This is in large part due to the incredible range of environments within which life on earth flourishes, from super-heated volcanic smokers on the ocean floor or deep under the ground, to every environment on the surface of the earth – no matter how extreme. Also, there is some evidence to support the possibility that life in microbial form can survive in outer space, and possibly came to earth on comets or meteorites billions of years ago.

Life is so common that we often tend to forget how amazing, how almost miraculous it is. It is so complex, so tenacious, so creative, and has taken so many diverse forms since it began on earth that many people do not believe that it could have come about by accident. Others are of the opinion that it has developed through strictly mechanical processes. But despite much speculation, we still have almost no idea how the first self-replicating life forms came into being.

Yet there is another related aspect of life that gets almost no consideration, but is equally if not more important, and that is how life actually works on a day-to-day, and moment-to-moment basis. A single human body is composed of about 10 to 100 trillion cells, of hundreds of different types, all working together in near-perfect harmony. Our bodies are self-repairing (in the case of non-catastrophic damage), and self replicating. When we compare a human body with the most advanced products of human creativity and ingenuity, the latter pale into utter insignificance.

Those who view life as purely mechanical in nature will point to the fact that all aspects of bodily function, from overall systems like circulation and digestion, down to the processes going on inside a cell, are mechanical in nature. But what few people stop to consider is how these dynamic and complex processes are coordinated and controlled. Our brains are obviously involved in the control of some of these aspects of bodily function, but cannot be involved in all of them—particularly those that go on at the cellular level.

Another profound question, of which most people are unaware, is what is responsible for form in the process of gestation? Why do our bodies have two arms, legs and eyes, one nose and heart, etc.? Why are these limbs and organs located where they are? Recent developments in microbiology have shown that the information in the genetic code determines how cells function. But we do not know what determines form. For instance, the same genes are active in the construction of both our hands and our feet. What controls the development of the human embryo so that we have hands at the end of our arms, and not feet?

Then there is the age-old question of life after death. This topic is one of the most disputed amongst the various faiths, and the answers they give vary tremendously. It is hugely relevant to how we live our lives, how we treat our bodies before and after death, and how we behave towards others. For instance, if we believe that we have no existence after death, and that we will not have to account for our actions, then there is very little incentive to live a moderate, virtuous life and to help others. The only purpose for living would be self-gratification and enjoyment.

The final question having to do with life is whether it exists on other planets, either in our own solar system or around other stars. As a consequence of recent discoveries in astronomy, it is now believed that the majority of stars have a number of planets orbiting them, and that a significant proportion of these planets have environments that could potentially support life. The verification that other forms of life exist beyond our planet would be one of the most significant discoveries ever made.

Evolution

Then there is the controversial issue of evolution. The fossil record makes it virtually indisputable that all forms of life we see on earth today evolved from other, often more simple, forms of life that preceded them. Although Darwin’s theory of evolution is generally regarded in science as the best explanation for how evolution has proceeded, it is by no means universally accepted. There are some aspects of the theory that do not tally with data gained from genetic studies, and many in science do not regard it as a complete explanation.

For instance, the Darwinian model has no explanation for why life has tended to proceed, in a general way over great spans of time, from more simple to more complex life forms. This is a most distinct trend in evolution that should not have happened as a consequence of a purely random process.

The other major problem with accepting Darwin’s theory as an explanation for the existence of life is that it is based on the principle of natural selection—that genetic variations in offspring are preserved or discarded according to how much they contribute to the life form’s ability to survive. It is therefore useless when it comes to explaining how the first self-replicating life form or forms came into being from constituent elements. The origins of the current system of DNA-based life are still an almost complete mystery.

The issue of the mechanisms driving evolution has now become far more than just an academic question. Our intellect has become so powerful that it is now bringing our very survival into question. Threats such as over-population, nuclear war, climate change, depletion of natural resources, and environmental degradation are becoming more and more problematic with every passing year. If evolution is not random, but is governed by laws of which we are currently unaware, then it is imperative that we discover what those laws are so that we can conform to them. The human race modified its behavior when the threats posed by microbes and bacteria were discovered. If the course of evolution is being affected by laws that we are currently unaware of, a similar revision of our behavior to conform to these laws may be our only hope for survival in the long term.

Reality

Most people take it for granted that what we perceive with our senses is actually real. Our senses give us a picture of a world that appears to be solid, consistent, and dependable. This picture is generally confirmed by information we receive from others. So are there any substantive reasons why we should question the reality of this picture?

One field of inquiry that tells us we should not take the reality of the external world for granted is research into brain function. We do not actually experience the external world directly in our brain. What we experience is fluctuations in electro-chemical impulses coming through nerves from sense organs that have been stimulated. Much of what we perceive, such as colors, sounds, odors, tastes, or sensations, is largely a construct of our brain.

For instance, when we perceive a viewed object as being red, it is not because the object is intrinsically red. Our perception is actually due to the fact that the object reflects the red frequencies of the light striking it, and absorbs those that are not red. What we experience as the color red is, for the most part, a construct of our brain and mind. How, then, can these sense perceptions be treated as truly ‘real’?

Despite much research, there are still many aspects of brain function that are understood only poorly, or not at all. For instance, we do not know where memories are stored. We do not understand the mechanism or mechanisms behind aspects of brain functions such as creativity, genius or flashes of inspiration. Although it has long been recognized that our subconscious has a huge impact on our behavior, there is no clear understanding of where in the brain it is located, or how it works. We do not even know how our consciousness, our very sense of self, is generated.

Some species have sense perceptions that far exceed our own in range and sensitivity. The sense of smell in dogs is vastly superior to our own. Other species have altogether different senses. The hammerhead shark, for instance, can track and locate prey by sensing minute electrical currents in the water. Our eyes perceive less than one hundredth of one percent of the electromagnetic spectrum, whereas other species can perceive infrared or ultraviolet.

Given that we perceive only a small percentage of the physical world, and that our experience and understanding of reality are largely a consequence of brain function, and that our knowledge of so many aspects of brain function is poor at best, how can we be certain that the picture of the phenomenal world presented to us by our senses is truly real?

The second main reason we should question the reality of what we perceive is because of what Quantum Theory tells us about the nature of the subatomic particles that make up the universe. One of the basic tenets of this theory is that these particles have two different states in which they can exist. In addition to the actual physical particles, they can also exist as waves of potential, spread out over a larger volume. It is the very act of observing these waves of potential that causes them to adopt a particle state with a particular location. If these particles exist only as waves of potential with no physical form until they are observed, then how can the objects of which they are composed—the objects of our sense perception—be considered ‘real’?

A related tenet of Quantum Theory is that the manner in which an observation of a quantum event is made can affect the results of the experiment. But recent experiments seem to indicate that the mode of observation determines not only what is happening in an experiment, but also what has happened prior to that moment! These results, if valid, call into serious question the way that we perceive not only physical reality, but time as well. [2]

Consciousness

Upon initial examination, the questions raised in the sections above do not seem to be closely linked with each other. There is, however, one aspect of our being that is central to all of them, and that is our consciousness.

As with the phenomenon of life, the generally accepted viewpoint in science is that consciousness is simply a consequence of brain function, and vanishes without a trace when we die. The involvement of the brain in many aspects of mental and physical function has been confirmed by advances in imaging technology in the last 50 years. But as with life, there are certain aspects of consciousness, such as psychic abilities, and instinct in animals, that cannot be explained by treating it strictly as a consequence of brain function.

As mentioned above, Quantum Theory has shown that consciousness, through the act of observation, forces subatomic particles to abandon their