I’ve been reading some books about human consciousness over the past two years (the serious ones, not the new-age stuff), and I’ve noticed that most of the authors don’t have much regard for God or religion. I suppose they figure it would be bad for their academic careers to mix metaphysical hope with such a strange and uncertain topic, as consciousness certainly is. The ones who posit that consciousness may be more than a materialistic process, at least beyond any material physics that we now know, seem especially assertive in asserting their atheism (e.g. John Searle, Colin McGinn, David Chalmers). Their “dualism” arguably leaves a gap through which God’s presence might arguably enter the world and be shared in and through our realization of it. But to even consider that possibility seems beyond the pale of any serious mind scholar right now. Even the most “science-friendly” concepts of dualism are attacked by many as naive, wishful thinking.

At least one consciousness researcher, Dr. Susan Blackmore from England, speculates that practitioners of Buddhist “mindfulness” find our conscious mind to be an illusory (Consciousness: An Introduction, 2004). Buddhists claim to know that the self and free will are illusions. They realize there to be no distinction between ego and experience. They experience nonduality. Well then, consciousness is certainly not real, and God is obviously toast too.

Right now I’m finishing a book by another ‘Dr. Susan’ from England, Dr. Susan Greenfield (The Private Life of the Brain, 2000). Dr. Greenfield makes an interesting point about meditation, the primary practice informing Buddhist metaphysics. Dr. Greenfield explains that the electrochemical processes which correspond to deep meditation create very large neuronal constellations which are remarkably stable and distributed, so as to deeply diminish the mind’s need for sensory stimulation. A different kind of consciousness ensues, one that is not in need of the usual external reassurances that we seek from our environments (the company of other people, conversation, music, food, etc.). At that rarefied point, the normal kind of egotistic self that we are used to becomes unnecessary. Thus, it becomes easier for those who have known such meditative experience to speak of how we don’t actually exist, how mind and earth are one, how nothing more is needed. It’s just an impression created by a certain mental state made possible by a certain combination of chemicals and electrical signals.

What I find interesting about this is how similar it is to the arguments being used by other mind analysts to disregard the opposite notion, that we are different from the earthy world beneath us, and that our difference is a half-way step to the ultimate principle represented in God. Daniel Dennett, Samuel Harris and Richard Dawkins have recently released books explaining those feelings to be nothing more than accidents stemming from certain chemical and electrical patterns in the brain, patterns that may have spun-off from useful evolutionary processes. Dr. Greenfield (who herself seems to have little sympathy for the religiously inclined) ironically identifies a similar pattern as the basis for non-belief.

So, it would appear that Dr. Blackmore’s fashionable Buddhist anti-dualism and its implied atheism are just as illusory and physically explainable as the processes which seem to push most people in this world, except Buddhists, toward the consideration of a “higher metaphysical principle”. (And a whole lot of Buddhists aren’t all that dismissive of higher metaphysical principles after all; the practice of Pure Land Buddhism, quite popular in Asia, has various elements that a Christian or Jew or Muslim would find familiar). Dr. Blackmore doesn’t seem satisfied with a dryly logical approach to the God-or-not question. She wants something a bit more deeply felt. But if so, then why would her Buddhist ‘anatta’ be any more compelling or intellectually respectable than my longing for ultimate universal hope?

It looks to me as if we wind up right on the fence, as always. The glass remains half-empty and half-full. It’s up to you what to call it. Despite the bad name that various political factions have given the notion of Abrahamic faith within the past few decades, I’ll stick with the hopeful view, but I’ll keep the ‘God-politics’ aside. And I hope that the consciousness analysts can likewise learn to disregard the politics and fashions of modern academia, and be able to think and write freely on whether or not their research leaves room for the notion of God. It would certainly be nice if discussions about God could be brought back to the intellectual circles without all the politically-correct fear.