Experience Beyond Belief

by Christian de Quncey (Chapter 4 in Radical Knowing. )

However, the paradox is that in its search for empirical knowledge, science has excluded from investigation—even from its picture of the world—the very basis by which scientists know what they know: their own experience. They have exorcized mind from their world picture, so it should come as no surprise that when they look for any signs of consciousness in science, it is nowhere to be seen. By definition, mind is outside looking on, or else it doesn’t exist.

From Authority to Experience

Modern science emerged when naturalists and philosophers began to challenge the metaphysic of belief based on expert testimony. Instead of relying on the authority of Aristotle, St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and the Church fathers, the new approach to knowledge in the seventeenth century, proclaimed by Francis Bacon in England and René Descartes in France, established sense experience and reason, respectively, as the criteria and methods for achieving knowledge. The scientific method was born from this union. And from this, a new form of belief arose. Instead of faith, relied on by religion to anchor belief, science now honored a new god of objective, rational, sensory-based empiricism. The “empirical method” had arrived. From here on, belief would be validated by scientific evidence or else it would be discarded.

The irony is that the methodology of science has been so successful at delivering knowledge of the material world through a process of progressive specialization, compartmentalization, and fragmentation that ordinary people once again must turn to scientific “authorities” to tell them about matter and energy, and life and human behavior. In this sense, belief in the knowledge of science must also be based on trust. Scientific knowledge, then, becomes for the masses a matter of faith. If I talk of atoms, electrons and photons, or of genes, DNA and natural selection, or of archetypes, ids, and operands, I must trust in the accuracy, honesty and integrity of others to communicate to me the results of their work based on their experience in their experiments. I have never experienced any of these entities even indirectly. It is all second-hand knowledge to me. I take my science on faith, because the stories seem to fit. But I no longer believe them—not like I believe I am breathing.

And it is not just lay people who substitute faith for knowledge in science. Scientists, too, share this “unscientific” faith because a scientist is only a scientist within his or her own specialized field. When it comes to physics, a biologist is just as much a layperson as an art teacher, a priest, a factory worker or a journalist.

If pressed on this, many scientists will admit that they take the other guy’s science on trust and will point out that their trust is based on a belief in the efficacy of the scientific method. At this point the issue begins to get really interesting, contentious, and troublesome—because now the questioning must focus not on the scientific data, not on the theories, not even on the scientific method itself, but on the metaphysical assumptions underlying the whole edifice of science. This is where things get tricky, this is where many scientists tend to switch off, get confused, get excited, get defensive, and even occasionally get hostile. Whitehead noted: “Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.”

At this level of questioning the very foundations of science are being scrutinized, and if they are found wanting, the whole edifice may come crashing down. Understandably, this can be threatening to people who have invested whole careers in a particular way of doing science. When a scientist’s ego is enmeshed, even identified, with the structure of his or her science, the scientist will do almost anything to protect it. “Knowledge” gets redefined, confined to facts, evidence or theories that fit the metaphysical structure.

From Science to Scientia

To understand the significance of this redefinition of knowledge, we need to move deeper into our investigation of epistemology—the study of how we know what we know. The word “science” comes from the Latin scientia, which means “knowledge.” It is a relatively recent addition to our vocabulary and we would do well to examine its implications. This is not simply a philosophical exercise, remote from the concerns of everyday life. The implications touch our lives deeply and set the direction and limits to what we can know, for example, about health and healing, about soul and spirit, about our relationship to the environment - and, of course, they impact our education, our technology, our businesses, and our homes.

If science is about knowledge, and this knowledge shapes our lives to such a great extent, then it makes sense to at least inquire, “How do we know what we know?” What does it mean when say that any piece of information amounts to scientific knowledge? We should re-examine the foundations of science to see if it can and does yield the sort of information that we need to live lives rich in meaning, quality, and value. If science cannot meet this task, we are entitled to ask whether it deserves so dominant a place in our society, and whether it needs to be revised or expanded.

Science as currently practiced is failing us because it does not address the realm of inner experience, nor does it question the methodology that removes the observer’s consciousness from the world being observed (see chapter 7, “Shafts of Wisdom”). To develop a true science of inner experience, of consciousness - a science of the soul - we need a radical revision of the epistemology underlying science. We begin by asking, “How does consciousness know what it knows?” “How can consciousness know itself?” We can go further and ask: “How does consciousness work in the world?” The fact of our own experience, the undeniable existence of consciousness, almost compels us to engage in this task. In pursuing such questions, we will find ourselves overturning one of the very cornerstones of modern science: the fundamental metaphysical assumption of universal physical causality - the idea that all events everywhere and at all times in the universe are caused exclusively by physical processes.

The new epistemology must open the way for scientific exploration of phenomena relating to consciousness and inner experience. Until now, the metaphysical assumption of physicalism—that everything in the universe is ultimately made up of physical stuff— along with the methodology of objectivity and replicability have prevented science from investigating mind. Consciousness has been excluded from science on two major counts: First, subjective experience does not meet the requirement for valid scientific data and analysis because it is not public or objective, and therefore cannot be measured. Second, the assumption of universal physical causation precludes the possibility of volition or freewill—of consciousness having any causal agency, of intention having any effect whatsoever on the course of events in the world. Both of these scientific limitations fly in the face of our daily experience.

Transformational Science

In our quest to explore the basis of knowledge and belief, then, we encounter a dramatic gap between the beliefs of science and our own experience. We encounter, also, the centuries-old conflict between religious and scientific worldviews. Although some questions remain exclusive to each camp—for instance, science has nothing to say about the nature of God, and neither religion nor theology has anything to contribute to the study of, for instance, chemical bonds—areas of overlap emerge when we allow consciousness a place within science. For example, both religion and science would be interested in the phenomena of meaningful coincidences, such as synchronicities, miracles, healing effects following intentional prayer, the sense of “second sight” or a “guardian angel” that seems to forewarn of danger, and other psychic phenomena. In addition, both science and religion would be interested in the phenomenon of states of consciousness, such as mystical or religious experiences, or “alternative realities.”

Both science and religion also share a common interest in questions concerning the origin of the universe and the evolution or creation of life and human beings. These three areas will require agreement from science and religion if we are ever to develop a scientia, a form of science based on what William James called “radical empiricism”—leaving out nothing that falls within the range of human experience, and excluding anything that falls outside it.

Such a science would be bigger than knowledge-as-final-truth. Like a religion, or spirituality, based on experience rather than on the authority of dogma, the knowledge of this new science would also be beyond belief. Neither science nor religion, in this new worldview, would lay claim to ultimate truth, or to be the ultimate arbiter of real knowledge. In the mutual co-causality of a self-organizing universe, truth will always be in flux, and knowledge likewise needs to evolve in phase. With this approach, we would have a much broader base of knowledge involving all four epistemological “gifts”: an understanding of physical determinism (combining the Philosopher’s Gift of reason and the Scientist’s Gift of empirical observation and method); an appreciation of psychophysical synchronicities (the Shaman’s Gift of participatory feeling); as well as a form of “knowing-through-being” involving acts of creative intentionality and the grace of communion (the Mystic’s Gift of spiritual practice).

As long as we restrict knowledge to a combination of reason and empiricism, we will remain trapped in the “catch-22” at the heart of science. In order to have confidence in the scientific view of reality, we need an adequate epistemology. But an adequate epistemology implies a prior understanding of the mental processes underlying observation, and for that we already need the scientific epistemology.

Breaking out of this predicament will require a much more open and participatory approach to scientific research—especially when the object of exploration is consciousness itself. Indeed, investigators of consciousness need to be willing to be transformed, to be open to metanoia—a transformation in experience, in their sense of who they are, the nature of the world, and the relationship between the two.

It is important to acknowledge the nature of this transformational shift and its impact on epistemology—on the relationship between the knower and the known. The central issue in any rigorous investigation of consciousness concerns a shift from concept-based epistemology—models and metaphors derived from cognitive and intellectual modes of thought—to more experiential modes of knowing. Without this shift, it will be “business as usual” in science, albeit with new sets of concepts and new models. We would remain stuck in the old concept-based epistemology and miss the essential point of consciousness study.
The nature of this transformation shifts epistemological exploration to a different level. It involves a different kind of knowing, a different way of knowing. It arises from knowledge rooted in the being of the investigator, dissolving the usual distinctions between knowledge and the knower. It is not knowledge as usually conceived in science, consisting of discrete facts resulting from precise measurements of selected variables. It is not conceptual or sensory knowledge. As an experience, it is not communicable solely through the typical media of words, formulas, mathematical symbols, and other images. Any such description is, at best, a metaphor or model of the experience, and not the experience itself. Yet a skilled and trained scientist or teacher would be able to communicate the experience to students prepared and willing to undergo a transformational experience themselves.

Such an approach can break through the circularity of requiring a prior epistemological methodology in order to explore or develop an epistemology of consciousness. It lifts the exploration out of the closed-circuit of concepts in the mind of an observer observing the process of observation in order to know how he or she knows. When the knower and the knowledge become indistinguishable in the transformation of experience, the conceptual loop is short-circuited and a new kind of knowledge emerges in lived experience.

If at this point it sounds like we are talking religion or spirituality as much as science or philosophy that is because the new epistemology we are indicating transcends that distinction when it comes to an investigation of consciousness. However, we are not simply talking religion any more than we are simply talking science. We are taking an approach to knowledge that combines a transformation in consciousness (“religious” or spiritual experience) with rigorous empirical investigation, reporting, and testing (scientific methodology). As always, the experience of consciousness itself will be ineffable (whether gained through religious or scientific practice); but that does not exclude it from the domain of scientific investigation.

The transformation in experience that the scientist undergoes while exploring consciousness is essential for the kind of direct and deep insight required to gain knowledge of the psyche. Without it, the scientist would be blind to the phenomena and processes of our “inner worlds.” Such “inner vision” is the starting point—the sine qua non—of consciousness science. It is the source of data that, later, the scientist can build into a communicable model. Like all abstract concepts and models, neither the recipe nor the menu is ever the experience of the meal. The model is not the reality, but it enables scientists to intersubjectively agree on translatable elements of the experience, and to communicate them in ways that may be further tested and explored.

However, as in any other scientific activity, there comes a point when, no matter how sophisticated, the theory must be tested empirically if it is not to remain an intellectual game. Consequently, the scientific process of data gathering, hypothesis and model formation, and empirical testing applies equally to investigations of consciousness as it does in any other area of science. The work of a theoretical particle physicist requires years of training to know how to devise experiments to test, say, theories of quarks or superstrings. Likewise, the work of the consciousness theorist requires dedicated and lengthy training in psycho-spiritual discipline in order to test conceptual models of consciousness against the sharp edge of direct experience.

Toward an Open Paradigm

The purpose of this re-investigation of the epistemological basis of science is not to hasten the advent of a new paradigm. Such a shift would only displace the problem. It would mean substituting one set of beliefs (physical causality, reductionism, objectivity, determinism) for another set of beliefs (co-causality, synchronicity, holism, subjectivism, self-organizing principles). Even if the new paradigm were an improvement on the old, it would still confine us to a blinkered view of the world.

The aim of this work is to create epistemological openings for a multiplicity of worldviews. This does not mean opening the floodgates to an undisciplined hodgepodge of ideas and flights of fancy. I am not advocating “smorgasbord epistemology.” The point is to create an open-ended paradigm unanchored within the confines of any conceptual system, while being accessible to all.
The “open paradigm” (or “meta paradigm,” as Peter Russell calls it) would rigorously and continually re-examine - through direct experience - its metaphysical underpinnings and, whenever possible, uproot any that seemed to be settling into a system of fixed beliefs. The aim of such an open paradigm would be to transcend all belief systems, while not negating them. It would recognize that anyone who engages the question “How does consciousness know itself?” must source the vitality and growth of their knowledge in experience, and move beyond the authority of belief. The open paradigm, then, is not a matter of any particular set of concepts - it is about experience beyond belief.
Next, we will focus on the topic of experience itself, and lay a foundation for the difficult task of exploring consciousness through words and ideas. We will find out how to avoid the greatest pitfall in this work by clarifying the different meanings people use when talking about “consciousness.”

Endnotes

1. This topic will be explored further in Book Three of my “Radical” trilogy.

Posted: August 8, 2004.

Return to the preceding chapter, Intention Creating Reality.

LINK to Christian de Quincey: www.deepspirit.com