From: amrit sorli srecko
Date: 1/4/03
Time: 3:05:42 PM
Dott. Amrit Sorli Independent Researcher Podere San Giorgio 16 53012 Chiusdino (SI) Italy phone: 0039-3488127445 e-mail: spacelife@libero.it web site: www.directscientificexperience.com
CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE AND PEACE Scientific experience of the universe is rational. Perception and experience become separated through the rational activity of the mind. Let’s analyse the current, indirect way of experiencing. Information enters the senses, goes into the mind where it is processed, and becomes an experience.
universe - perceiving (senses) - processing (mind) - rational experience (mind)
The rational part of the mind processes the perception of an object or event through logic and mathematics: that’s how experience is formed. Let’s do a simple experiment. You observe for a few moments a plant in your room or one that is outside the window, and then close your eyes. Inside yourself you observe many thoughts, like how big the plant is, what colour it is, and so on. The mind’s elaboration creates a gap between perception and experience. The question arises: is it possible to experience the plant directly as perceived by the senses without the mind elaborating on it? Direct experience requires us to become aware of all thoughts, emotions and images that are associated with the object or situation that we experience. Humans have the capacity to watch how mind elaborates perception. One can close one's eyes and watch the stream of thoughts in one's inner space whenever one likes. Thoughts are coming and going, inner space remains there, unchanged. By watching thoughts you become aware that you are not thoughts, you are space itself. You discover consciousness, you become self-conscious. Watching the mind is the function of consciousness (1). By practising watching, consciousness gets activated and woken up; one can experience a plant consciously without mind's elaboration. Rational experience is indirect and happens through the mind, conscious experience is direct and happens through the consciousness.
universe - perceiving (senses) - conscious experience (consciousness)
Watching is an individual research method practiced by Buddhists for the last twenty-six centuries. It gives the possibility of conscious experience of reality and ourselves. With the expansion of Buddhism all over the world it is also becoming known in western culture. All techniques for awakening of consciousness are based on human capacity to watch and be aware of what is happening in the present moment: movement of the body, breathing, stream of thoughts that runs trough the mind. Awareness of external world rises up also awareness about inner space and vice versa. The result of practising awareness is development of cosmic dimension of the man. Also being alone on the top of the mountain you will feel at home. Awakening of consciousness transforms you loneliness into felling of being one with life. Finally you enter into non-dualistic experience of reality that in the East is called enlightenment.
Watching applied in time research shows that time can only be experienced, and not clearly perceived as can matter and cosmic space. There is no clear evidence of its existence as a physical entity. The question arises: How can time be experienced without being perceived? The answer is given by analysing the rational way of experiencing as presented above. The eyes perceive a stream of irreversible change of an event: change A is transforming into B, B is transforming into C and so on. Once elaborated by the mind, the irreversible stream of change is experienced as a linear running of time. Change A as past, B as present, C as future. Time is created by the rational part of the mind. Through time the perception of change of an object or an event can be elaborated scientifically. Consciousness can make distinction between reality that is perceived through elementary perception and reality that is created by the mind. Having conscious experience of time one has possibility to experience only what eyes are perceiving: a stream of irreversible change in space. On the base of conscious experience it can be concluded that Time When Experienced Consciously Exists Only As A Stream Of Irreversible Change In Space. According to conscious experience with clocks we are measuring the duration and numerical order of all change. The speed of clocks as well as all other change depends on the strength of the gravitational field in a given volume of cosmic space. The stream of change runs slower in those parts of the universal space where the gravitational field is stronger. Experiments confirm that clocks near the sea run slower than clocks positioned on top of high mountains. Gravitation is stronger at the sea than on the top of the mountain. Conscious experience brings clarity to the idea of travelling into the past. This idea has its origins in the understanding of time as a linear entity composed of past, present and future. The General Theory of Relativity allows speculation about time travel. Someone could travel with a space-ship trough a black hole, back into the past and kill his grandmother. The consequence is that he could never be born (2). According to conscious experience hypothetical time travel into the past through black holes is not possible, because past exists only as a memory of the human mind. Conscious experience makes clear that universe is eternal, has no beginning and no end. Time as a linear entity (i.e. past-present-future) exists only as part of the mind, it does not exist as a physical entity, so it cannot have a beginning as a physical reality. As there is no beginning of time, there is no beginning of the universe. Man is projecting his birth and death on to the universe, that's why he thinks that the universe was born, and will die one day. The universe simply exists, it was never created. This idea is supported by research done by Steinhardt from Princeton, and Turok from Cambridge. Their research introduces the idea of a cyclic universe that has no beginning and no end, big bangs are cyclic. The universe is timeless, eternal. Conscious experience confirms Kant’s statements. He was right in saying that time exists only as a structure of the mind: space and time are not realities existing in themselves. In a word, they are subjective forms (3). Linear time and three-dimensional space exist only as structures of the rational scientific mind. Through these mental structures science can elaborate an event happening in cosmic space. Understanding of time have changed during the ages. For ancient Greeks, Indians, and Mayans, time was considered a cyclic phenomenon; time is moving in circles, has no beginning and no end. When Judaeo-Christian civilization arose in Europe, another understanding of time became prominent - time going forward in a straight line. According to this civilization, time has its beginning with God’s creation of the universe and will have its end with the Last Judgement. In Newtonian physics, time is an independent physical quantity (absolute time), running uniformly throughout the entire cosmic space (absolute space). In the General Theory of Relativity, time is no more an independent physical quantity - it is linked with space into four-dimensional space-time.
The experience of cosmic space depends on which geometry is used for its description. Applying Euclid’s geometry in cosmology, space is assumed to be three-dimensional and infinite. With Riemann geometry cosmic space becomes four-dimensional and finite. Having conscious experience one becomes aware that cosmic space is not three or four-dimensional, not infinite or finite. It is empty and formless, its real nature is beyond rational description. This empty formless space in Buddhism is called true vacuum or Primordial Awareness. The Buddhist contemplative science, in parallel to Western physical science, describes two types of vacuums: (1) The false vacuum, or bhavanga, is the relative ground of becoming, out of which each individual mind stream emanates; and (2) the true vacuum, or Primordial Awareness, the absolute state of phenomena out of which space and time, mind and matter, everything in the universe, emerge (4). Man has the capacity to discover true vacuum. Practicing Vipassana meditation, sitting silently with eyes closed and watching the mind one becomes aware that inside there is a formless inner space - consciousness - true vacuum. Skin is not the border where inner space finishes, it exists inside as outside of us. The distinction between external and internal is an illusion; internal and external space are ultimately non-dual. This is the absolute space of phenomena. In Buddhist literature, this is the Great perfection out of which the entire universe originates (5). The idea that the absolute space is the origin of material universe is bringing new light into problem of appearance of the energy in the inflation phase in the first moments of the big bang. According to Stephen Hawking in inflation phase energy of the matter that is positive and the gravitational one that is negative are multiplying. Its sum remains always zero: E matter (Em) + E gravitational (Eg) = 0. In the similar way as (-1) + (1) = 0, (-2) + (2) = 0, (-3) + (3) = 0 (6). Hawking idea of multiplication of energy is not in accord with first law of thermodynamics according which energy can not be created and not destroyed. Explanation of the inflation phase with equations (-1) + (+1) = 0 and so on, is not of much help. Equations that function in mathematics does not necessary function in physics. Mathematics is useful for description of the universe, not for its explanation. The other possibility is, that the sum of energy of the matter and gravitational one is always constant: E matter (Em) + E gravitational (Eg) = E constant (Ek). In the first moment after the big bang Em = 0, Eg = Ek. In the subsequent moments of the inflation phase Eg is structured into Em, and the transformation is over when Eg and Em are balanced: Eg = Em (Eg = Ek/2, Em = Ek/2). With the formation of black holes, the transformation of Em into Eg starts, Em is falling towards zero (Em --> 0), Eg is rising towards Ek (Eg --> Ek). With disintegration of matter into gravitational energy is increasing the amount of gravitational energy. This process increases the gravitational constant and the gravitational forces between galaxy are getting stronger. The speed of expanding universe is getting slower, at the certain point the expanding stops and universe start to collapse in enormous black hole that explode into new big bang. Big bangs are cyclic, universe is a self-renovated system that has no beginning and will have no end. Energy of the matter and gravitational one are in a permanent dynamic equilibrium. Here gravitational energy is understood as the energy that creates cosmic space. It is gravitational field that constructs cosmic space. Without gravitation cosmic space can not exist. Experiments in weightlessness show that functioning of organisms is related with the changes of the strength of gravitational field, with the other words, of the roundness of cosmic space. Spaceflight induces a cephalad redistribution of fluid volume and blood flow within the human body and space motion sickness, which has a problem during first few days of spaceflight, could be related to these changes in fluid status and in blood flow of the cerebrum and vestibular system (7).
In weightlessness there is a decreased activity of spinal ganglia neurons of the hypothalamic nuclei producing arginine, vasopressin and growth hormone releasing factor. Structural changes of the somatosensory cortex and spinal ganglia suggest a decreased afferant flow to the somatosensory cortex in microgravity. The results characterise the mechanisms of structural adaptation to a decreased afferant flow in microgravity by the neurons in the hemisphere cortex and brain stem nuclei. So, under microgravity there is a neuron hypoactivity (8). Microgravity has a direct influence on bone fracture healing because of poor production of bone callus in microgravity : there is an increase volume of osteoid and a decrease in the number and activity of osteoblasts (9). Experiment carried out at the University of Lubiana, Slovenia in 1987-1988 with Californian worms (Latin name is: Lumbricus Teresticus) shows that the weight of living Californian Worms bigger than of the same dead ones; force of gravity is stronger on the living worms than on the same dead ones (10). Duncan MacDougall experiments, carried out in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1908, shows decreasing of the man’s weight at the time of death; force of gravity is stronger on the living man than on the same dead one (11). Studies by Penrose and Hameroff (12,13) suggest that the force of quantum gravity acting on the mass of neurones within the brain may be responsible for the emergence of consciousness. The process is fundamentally related to the influence of quantum gravity on microtubule networks within the neurones. The components of quantum gravity are described by Penrose as twistors (14). These are described by a branch of mathematics known as complex algebra and are otherwise known as objects that exist in complex or 'imaginary' space. Loss of the weight at the time of man’s death supports studies by Penrose and Hameroff; it shows that gravitational force is acting on the mass of living neurones stronger as on the mass of the same death ones. According Duncan experiment the weight difference between living and dead man is around 20 grams. Duncan carried out also experiment with fifteen dying dogs that did not show the weight difference. Difference between weight of living and dead man is around 0,025% of his living weight. By Californian worms the difference between living and dead weight is 0,0001% of living weight. It seems that by animals the difference of the weight at the time of death is much less; scales of Duncan were not precise enough to measure it. Duncan’s experiments were not done in the mass close system where all physical circumstances can be measured and so do not fulfil scientific standards. By experiment with the worms physical circumstances were measured. Both experiment show that the weight of the living matter is bigger than the weight of the same dead one. More evolutes is the organism, bigger is the difference. Relation between gravitational field and consciousness is supported by the fact that man is the only mammal with the spine parallel to the gravitational force. At a certain point of evolution some mammals evolved into homo erectus; position of the spine has changed from horizontal to vertical. Beside some monkeys man is a mammal with most vertical spine. Gravitational force works on his spine nervous system in the direction parallel to spine. By other mammals that in evolution did not stand up, the gravitational force works on the spine under the angle of around ninety degrees. Evolution of intelligence and becoming conscious corresponds with changing of gravitational force working on spine nervous system. Relation between consciousness and gravitation suggest that evolution on the planet Earth is a part of an universal process. This idea is supported with discovery of around hundred basic organic molecules necessary for development of life in whole observable universal space. It means that the whole universe is in the phase of chemical evolution which on Earth has developed into life. Universe is physically homogeneous, the physical circumstance for development of life are equal in the whole universal space. In the universe there are many solar systems with planets similar to our. Life could been developed there also. Probably we are not alone in this vast universe. Evolution of man develops towards consciousness that is his cosmic rout, his real nature, Zen says his real face. Discovering consciousness, becoming self-conscious being, is the peak of the evolution on the planet Earth. There are some hints that life could have been brought to earth from elsewhere in our solar system or even galaxy. Life tends towards more complexity but Homo Sapiens is not the pride of creation but rather an accident in evolution. Humans may disappear as they have come but evolution will continue. Life as such is not an accident but a function of our universe (15). The discoveries mentioned above are surpassing the geocentric approach and introducing a cosmic one. According to the cosmic approach all the phenomena on the planet Earth are happening in the universe and have a cosmic dimension. For man to be integrated it is necessary to grow beyond the mind into consciousness that is the cosmic dimension of his being. Without being rooted in consciousness man remains deep in his unconscious an animal, aggressive, ready to fight in the name of god, race or nation. To support development of cosmic approach, astronomy and cosmology have to be introduced as basic subjects in high-schools. This will grow understanding that we are on the first place living in the universe, on the second on the Earth, and at the last as Muslim, Christian, German or Indian. This understanding is essential for overcoming tensions between different cultures and religions. According to cosmic approach human evolution develops from believing, to understanding, from understanding to knowing. The religious experience of reality is the most primitive, it is based on improvable beliefs and stories. The scientific experience of reality is one step ahead, based on the logical interpretation of reality. Conscious experiencing is direct, without belief and without interpretation. It is a realization of man's cosmic dimension. The last century proves that the scientific approach to life can not bring peace and harmony. By including in educational programs the awakening of consciousness man will discover his inner peace that is the only guarantee for harmony and peace on Earth.
Amrit Sorli
References:
1. Sorli (2001), Watching the Mind As an Individual Research Method, Frontier Perspectives, Temple University, Philadelphia, Volume 10, Number 1 2. Paul Davis (1995), About Time, Chapter 11, Time Travels: Reality of Fantasy?, Orion Productions 3. Immanuel Kant (1999), Critique of Pure Reason, Amazon 4. Alan Wallace (2001), The Potential of Emptiness: Vacuum States in Physics and Consciousness, The Scientific and Medical Network Review, No 77 5. ibid 6.Stephen Hawking, 1988, The Brief History of Time, Routlege & Kegal Paul 7. US Army (1993), Madigan Army Medical Centre, Tacoma, Washington “ Cerebral blood velocity and other cardiovascular responses to 2 days head down tilt. Journal of Applied Physiology, 74 (1): 319-25 8. Krasnov IB.(1994), Institute of Biomedical Problems, Moscow, Russia. “Gravitational neuromorphology”, Advances in Space Biology and Medicine 4:85-110, 9. Durnova G.N., Burkovskaia TE. Voraotnikova E.V., Kaplanskil A.S., Arustamov O.V., (1991),“The effect of weightlessness on fracture healing of rats flown on Biosatellite Cosmos 2044”, Kosmicheskaia Biologiia I Aviakosmosmicheskaia Meditsina 25 (5):29-33, 10. Sorli (2001) Additional Roundness of Space-Time and Unknown Vacuum Energies in Living Organisms, Frontier Perspectives, Vol.10, Nr. 2 11. Duncan MacDougall M.D. (1907), ‘Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental Evidence of The Existence of Such Substance‘, American Medicine, April ( www.artbell.com/duncan.html ) 12. Penrose, Roger (1994), 'Shadows of the Mind' (Oxford) pp377-391. 13. Hameroff, Stuart (1994), 'Quantum Coherence in Microtubules: A Neural Basis for Emergent Consciousness?' , Journal of Consciousness Studies Vol.1, No.1, pp91-118 14. Peat, F. David (1993), 'Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything', (Abacus) pp237-274 15. Stephan Krall (2002), Life and Light, Network, Number 78