The Scientific Validity of Divinity

This is a research paper I turned in today for my writing class. It's kept me pretty busy for the last few days, but it turned out to be a well worth-it endeavor. I learned so much from studying this topic, and I highly recommend you look into the Biocentric Universe at Dr. Robert Lanza's website.

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“Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are,
for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.”

― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

It’s quite a romantic concept, isn’t it; the poetic notion that there is an eminent divinity coursing throughout everything that exists? It’s so romantic, in fact, that many of the world’s most renowned poets have directly addressed it within their work. Walt Whitman, Luise Glück, Robert Frost, and many others have all devoted some fraction of their poetic careers to verbally illustrating their appreciation for the divinity within all things; big or small. This is a divinity that they all felt; the sensation of somehow being connected to everything they perceived. This idea is really not that uncommon in the world, and multiple cultures have based entire religions on it. It’s well known that ancient India and China both seemed to be certain of a divine pervading field that existed within all things. India called it prana, and China called it chi, and Christianity refers to it as The Holy Spirit. But, is there any truth to this philosophy? In other words: are all of these poets and people just downright crazy for believing such a thing? For the majority of the time that Western civilization has been around, this idea has been more or less ignored, or entirely shunned. “God” was “up there”, and science couldn't offer an adequate rationalization to support it. However, it appears that lately there has been more and more reason to suspect that this might in fact be a worthwhile point of interest.

Have you ever seen a colony of ants and wondered how each insignificant little ant knows exactly what to do? The same question could be asked of flocks of birds, and schools of fish. Consciousness appears in such a wide variety of shapes and forms that it’s difficult to pin down a concrete definition of it, but essentially it can be used to describe the ability to perceive, and take action based upon what is perceived. Individual bacteria have a form of consciousness; they are capable of perceiving outside environmental circumstances, and modify their cellular activity accordingly. Likewise, all forms of life above bacteria on the food chain demonstrate their own unique array of consciousness; finding the most sophisticated varieties of consciousness near the top.

The current scientific model postulates that The Big Bang erupted with a near-infinite amount of energy from a singular point; creating matter and the universe as we see it. From this newly formed matter, it is assumed that eventually the necessary components came together probabilistically to create the precursors to life. It is this model which evolution is based upon, and this model which physics studies. Based off of the limited data generated up to just a few decades ago, there was no reason to scientifically conclude that The Big Bang was wrong; various sub-theories have existed, but all agreed that everything must have sprung from an infinitely-dense singular point. The notion of God was left for the religious, and no clear connection was seen between any physical objects that were not somehow physically involved with one another.

Scientifically speaking, our beloved poets, with all of their theories of being connected to others and the world at large, were talking to a wall.

But, what if our poets are correct and the scientific model is wrong? What if the entire concept of ‘The Big Bang’ is completely false altogether? This wouldn’t be the first time an entire field would have to be re-written, after all. The entire universe revolved around a completely flat plane called “Earth” at one point, remember?

There is a new theory of the universe that has been put forth by one of the leading geneticists and physicists of our time. This new theory takes everything that science thinks it knows and abruptly turns it on its’ head, and consciousness is the main ingredient.

The current model says that matter existed prior to the evolution of consciousness. This new theory says that in reality this is quite the opposite.

By integrating consciousness into the concepts of physics and biology, “Biocentrism” is capable of offering many reasonable answers to some of the most perplexing questions found in science. By examining this latest theory, and investigating some of the more exciting possibilities that it implies, a drastically new light may be shed on the words of some of mankind’s most valued and respected poets. 

Perhaps the scientific term consciousness has something to do with this eminent divinity so often spoken of in poetry and spirituality; this feeling of connection between the observer and the observed. If you consider the possibility of consciousness being responsible for this feeling of interconnection, then there could be a ring of truth to the philosophies and theories proposed within poetry. By looking at the work of Dr. Robert Lanza, the inventor of the Biocentric Universe Theory, one might be able to make a more accurate assessment as to whether there is any validity to this popular poetic topic.

Dr. Robert Lanza is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is one of the most well-known geneticists in the world, and has personally written multiple volumes such as “Principles of Tissue Engineering”, “Handbook of Stem Cells” and “Essentials of Stem Cell Biology,” which are considered the definitive references in stem cell research and biology in general.

Remember back when the first human embryo was successfully cloned? Yea, he was there. A guar, a wild ox, and a variety of other critters have all been cloned for the first time by Lanza as well. Essentially:

“Robert Lanza is the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in the movie “Good Will Hunting.” Growing up underprivileged in Stoughton, Massachusetts, south of Boston, the young preteen caught the attention of Harvard Medical School researchers when he showed up on the university steps having successfully altered the genetics of chickens in his basement. Over the next decade, he was “discovered” and taken under the wing of scientific giants such as psychologist B.F. Skinner, immunologist Jonas Salk, and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard. His mentors described him as a “genius,” a “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein,” (1)

Currently Dr. Lanza is pursuing an even greater goal than even he has ever dared to take on before. You see, Robert Lanza is attempting to arrive at his own “Theory of Everything”. This theory takes a stance against the current theories and models out there in that it’s entirely based upon life; earning it the title of Biocentrism. Biocentrism is a very recent development in the scientific community, and is a very ambitious step forward for Robert Lanza. After all, while he may be a biologist and savant geneticist, he is no physicist by trade. In order to properly understand any explanation of Dr. Lanza’s theory, a brief history lesson is in order.

A famous experiment was performed by a guy named Thomas Young back in the early 1800’s called the Young’s Double-Slit Experiment. This experiment proved that light behaves according to wave-like properties, yet also demonstrates properties attributed to solid particles. This anomaly became known as the Wave-Particle Duality, and was in complete opposition to the strictly particle-based theory perpetuated by students of Newton. These days the “wave-particle duality” is common knowledge to anyone who ever took a general chemistry class, and multiple variations of the double-slit experiment have been performed. Obviously, the control over the double-slit experiment is much better with modern technology; Young was forced to use the light of the Sun, and his filtration techniques was understandably primitive. Science now commonly knows that individual photons, electrons, and a variety of other subatomic particles all demonstrate this wave-particle duality.

In the 1920’s a guy named Werner Heisenberg took this fundamental concept a step further. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that the more you know about the position of a quantum particle, the less you know about its’ momentum, and vice versa. These two characteristics, position and momentum, correspond to particle and wave properties respectively. By knowing where a particle is located, it is physically impossible to simultaneously know the momentum with which it is moving. Inversely, by knowing the momentum, or rate of speed a quantum particle is moving, the less you can simultaneously know about its’ exact position. Essentially, based upon the form of observation made, the scientist determines which set of rules their wave-particle will play by; wave, or particle.

Both the Wave-Particle Duality and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle help compose the very foundations of quantum physics, and understandably both concepts are often taken a bit for granted in modern experiments because of how ubiquitous they are in physics. In many experiments the only reason these concepts are even addressed is in that they are accounted for in experimental error; wave-particle duality tends to interfere with the collection of exact data. In mathematical equations, these concepts find their place as variable when calculating both cosmic and subatomic properties.

Notice how mundane this stuff is to modern science. Knowledge of these things is so pervasive; so complete that it feels odd to try and probe them any further.

To a physicist, the answers to the Big Questions must lie “out there” somewhere. We have taken to our telescopes in order to look further and further away; consequently viewing the state of the universe further and further back in time in our attempts to whiteness the beginning of it all. Surely this must be the way; how else could we observe events so distantly in the past? Well, Lanza disagrees. One might say that geneticists and physicists tend to have a different perspective on things.

“The uncertainty principle in quantum physics is more profound than its name suggests. It means that we make choices at every moment in what we can determine about the world. We cannot know with complete accuracy a quantum particle’s motion and its position at the same time—we have to choose one or the other. Thus the consciousness of the observer is decisive in determining what a particle does at any given moment.” (2)

Lanza points out that it is the observer who decides which way a given quantum duality behaves. Thus it is the observer, based on their measurements, who generates the particular reality they behold; a crucial talking point when taken in context with our discussion of the beginning of the universe. How so? Let’s address one of the oldest and most cherished things that we humans like to measure: Time.

“It’s important here to address a fundamental question. We have clocks that can measure time. If we can measure time, doesn’t that prove it exists? Einstein sidestepped the question by simply defining time as “what we measure with a clock.” The emphasis for physicists is on the measuring. However, the emphasis should be on the we, the observers. Measuring time doesn’t prove its physical existence. Clocks are rhythmic things. Humans use the rhythms of some events (like the ticking of clocks) to time other events (like the rotation of the earth). This is not time, but rather, a comparison of events. Specifically, over the ages, humans have observed rhythmic events in nature: the periodicities of the moon, the sun, the flooding of the Nile. We then created other rhythmic things to measure nature’s rhythms: a pendulum, a mechanical spring, an electronic device. We called these manmade rhythmic devices “clocks.” We use the rhythms of specific events to time other specific events. But these are just events, not to be confused with time.” (3)

Time, and more importantly our perception of time, is entirely based upon comparisons; therefore it is an arbitrary measurement. In Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, it was established that time is influenced by particle matter. Pretend that you and a friend both had atomic watches, and started them at the same time, and your friend stayed here on Earth while you magically teleported out somewhere in space; with no form of planet or star anywhere nearby. Einstein mathematically proved that if you waited a year out in the void of space, and then returned to Earth to find your friend, you would probably not even recognize what you came home to.

While you spent your nice year out in space, decades have have transpired on Earth. This is because of the influence particle matter has on the way time is perceived, via mechanisms involving gravity and one’s movement relative to gravitational fields. On Earth there is an abundance of available reference points, and a multitude of subconscious observations and measurements made by the mind every day. This “quickens” time by introducing the mental construction of particle matter, and therefore gravity, into the reality of the observer. To put things simply, our perception of time can be whittled down to being the rate at which the individual mind makes observations, because observations influence the expression of any given quantum duality, which changes the universe into something that it previously was not; therefore defining the Biocentric stance on the concept of time.

Dr. Lanza is the first scientist to offer a comprehensive theory of the universe that takes these important points into full consideration. In order for there to be a reality, that reality must be observed. Observation is measurement; a comparison of some kind, and measurement transforms quantum duality into a singular outcome. If no observation is made, quantum duality remains constant; nothing exists but a cloud of probability. In order for anything in the entire universe to be observed, and therefore reduce the infinite cloud of probability into a singularity, there must first be consciousness to make an observation.

Likewise, Lanza persists, in order for there to even be a universe, a consciousness must have been present to observe it. In light of our initial musings on the poetic idea that God is eminent in all things, this begs a curious connection between science and spirituality. If consciousness is what is actually observing the universe into reality, could it not be reasonable to think of this mass gestalt of consciousness as God? Let’s hear some more from Lanza on this strange matter:

“Explained another way, the brain turns electrochemical information from our five senses into an order, a sequence—into a face, into this page—into a unified three-dimensional whole. It transforms sensory input into something so real that few people ever ask how it happens. Stop and think about this for a minute. Our minds are so good at it that we rarely ever question whether the world is anything other than what we imagine it to be. Yet the brain—not the eyes—is the organ sealed inside a vault of bone, locked inside the cranium, that “sees” the universe. “What we interpret as the world is brought into existence inside our head. Sensory information does not impress upon the brain, as particles of light impress upon the film in a camera. The images you see are a construction by the brain. Everything you are experiencing right now (pretend you’re on the subway) is being actively generated in your mind—the hard plastic seats, the graffiti, the dark remnants of chewing gum stuck to the floor. All physical things—subway turnstiles, train platforms, newspaper racks, their shapes, sounds, and odors—all these sensations are experienced inside your head. Everything we observe is based on the direct interaction of energy on our senses, whether it is matter (like your shoe sticking to the floor of a subway car) or particles of light (emitted from sparks as a subway train rounds a corner). Anything that we do not observe directly, exists only as potential—or mathematically speaking—as a haze of probability.” (4)

The fact that such a widely respected scientist is proposing to incorporate the phenomena of consciousness, and therefore life itself, into a Theory of Everything is gaining it a great deal of attention from many key figures in spiritual communities. An example of one such spiritual figure is a man named Deepak Chopra; a very well known and rather controversial author, speaker, and spiritual icon of sorts. Throughout the years of Chopra’s career, his unverified twists on quantum physics have invited an endless stream of criticisms upon himself. Many scientists have accused Chopra of bogus science in the past; saying that he uses an inaccurate understanding of quantum mechanics to generate massive profits. Nonetheless, he is beloved by many around the world because of his convincing message of love, peace, and unity.

In an interview with Dr. Lanza on his radio talk show, Chopra gives voice to what sounds a bit like a “Told you so!”, towards those that mocked and criticized him. You can see Chopra’s relief upon hearing a master geneticist give such sentiments the scientific time-of-day:

“DC: So you know we’re right at the frontier at the amazing understanding of reality but what you’re saying which has really interested me for a long time. In fact that’s why I left the world of medicine and went onto, on my own and started speaking about consciousness almost 25, 30 years ago I was considered an outcast. At least in my circles. So I stuck with the general public hoping I would be able to share my ideas which weren’t my ideas, which were part of a wisdom tradition that I had grown up with, with people that were not experts. But what you’re saying right now in your book Biocentrism is that the physical universe would not exist unless there was a consciousness in which it could be conceived, constructed, and came into existence. That consciousness is primary and everything else is secondary to that.

RL: Yes, yes. That’s absolutely correct. . .”

“DC: You know what you say is just totally music to my ears. You know in the tradition I grew up in: Vedanta they had these beautiful expressions. I’m not in the world, the world is in me. I’m not in the body, the body is in me. I’m not in the mind, the mind is in me. As I curve back within myself I experience my mind in my consciousness I experience my own body in my consciousness and I experience my whole world in my consciousness.” (6)

The confidence with which Lanza responds to many of the more esoteric questions and remarks made by Chopra is definitely noted throughout the interview. This is significant, because saying things like, “. . . consciousness exists outside of space-time because it actually conceives and constructs space-time as well and therefore being outside of space-time, transcendent it has no beginning and time, it has no edges in space and therefore it has no ending in time as well,” (7) to a world famous scientists doesn’t usually receive a response like, “Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it any better than you just expressed it. We’re arriving at exactly the same point in the book Biocentrism, basically I’m taking all of the existing science and basically I’m arriving unequivocally at the same end point that you’ve just described.” (8)

Lanza doesn’t hesitate to support such scientific blasphemy; obviously he must feel quite confident in such a stance. Coming from a man of Lanza’s reputation, this is big news to those in the more fringe cultures of metaphysics and spirituality. Often times words are thrown around in different communities that all describe identical phenomena with slightly different terminology. Could it not be that consciousness is divine?

“Divine” is defined as being “of or pertaining to a God.” God is defined as being “the creator of the universe”. Consciousness, as we have discussed, cumulatively creates the universe by making measurements and actualizing a singular reality from a field of probability. Consciousness, by definition, therefore is “of or pertaining to God”; making it Divine.

“Modern science cannot explain why the laws of physics are exactly balanced for animal life to exist. For example, if the big bang had been one-part-in-a billion more powerful, it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies to form and for life to begin. If the strong nuclear force were decreased by two percent, atomic nuclei wouldn’t hold together. Hydrogen would be the only atom in the universe. If the gravitational force were decreased, stars (including the sun) would not ignite. These are just three of more than 200 physical parameters within the solar system and universe so exact that they cannot be random. Indeed, the lack of a scientific explanation has allowed these facts to be hijacked as a defense of intelligent design.” (9)

This is an argument that is pretty hard to contest, thus it has usually been met with silence and sheer avoidance by the scientific community because, well, nobody really knew how all of these fragile constants actually ‘just happened’ to fall into place perfectly. Biocentrism offers the first scientifically-originated theory to offer some form of comprehensible explanation to questions like this.

In Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman says, “I am large, I contain multitudes,” and according to Dr. Robert Lanza’s Biocentrism Theory, ol’ Whitman couldn’t have been more right. What was realized by Walt Whitman in the 1800’s with the stroke of a pen has also now been realized by science 200 years later. 

The gestalt consciousness observing the universe into reality, otherwise known as God or The Divine in many circles, is not without a sense of irony, it seems.

Where do you stand on all of this mess? Has Dr. Lanza gone mad to allow himself to subscribe to such fringe, sketchy, and esoteric theories about the universe? Many knowledgeable people, both physicists and biologists alike, are being forced to raise an eyebrow or two at that question. Who knows, we may in fact be at the cusp of a dramatic paradigm-shift that will forever alter the way we perceive outer-space, our planet, and even our own minds. The true implications of what Biocentrism actually means are only now being thought of and investigated with experimental precision, but time will tell if this new Theory of Everything should have been left in the hands of the poets and spiritualists.

References

¹ Fischer, Joanne. “The First Clone”. U.S. News and World Report. U.S. News and World Report, L.P. Nov 2001. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.

^2,3,4,9 Lanza, Robert. “A New Theory of the Universe.” The American Scholar. Spring, 2007: n.pag. <theamericanscholar.org> 16 Nov, 2013.

^6,7,8 Lanza, Robert. Interview with Deepak Chopra. Deepak Chopra Wellness Radio. 15 Aug 2009. Web 19 Nov, 2013.

⁵ Wadhawan, Vinod. “Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe.” Nirmukta. 14 Dec, 2009.  <www.Nirmukta.com> 19 Nov, 2013.