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Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality

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"Embracing Mind" is a work of incredible brilliance and insight - think "Divine Matrix" on steroids!! Beware, the concepts in this book range from classical and quantum physics to "The Middle Way" approach to Buddhism with a good rational argument for linking science and spirituality, and specifically studying the mind/consciousness. As each concept in the book would take volumes to completely explore, the reader is given a rather "down and dirty" overview of each, with the purpose of showing clearly that scientific materialism has merely supplanted religious dogma with a more insidious form of mind and attitude control. This well written book is deep, rich, logical and has benefits for scientists, theologians and people like me: those that would like to bridge the two disciplines. Well worth every penny and every second!

Let me say first off I was kind of troubled by this book, as it is the first I've read by Wallace, but I have listened to many of his lectures (in mp3 format) and found them extremely interesting and stimulating. This book however, one of his most recent, didn't strike the same chord with me.

The slightly tedious first part of the book is a detailed criticism of 'scientism' and/or scientific materialism in particular. It is an interesting and needed criticism of a rather boneheaded worldview (when you think of it), and Wallace and Hodel do a good job of pointing out the usually unspoken (and unsupported) assumptions underlying much of modern scientific inquiry.

But then somewhere into 100-odd pages of ranting and railing against science for not providing enough evidence for its materialist leanings (though himself admitting that scientific methods have been incredibly successful and fruitful), Wallace starts making bizarre claims with hardly any 'evidence' at all. He 'cites' the purported telekinetic ability of certain martial arts masters - yet looking it up in the notes, I found the 'reference' describing this 'nonphysical' ability is to a PBS television series! He then seems to gloat that science has been forced to admit the effectiveness of such 'nonphsycial' treatments for illness as meditation, herbs, and acupuncture. What exactly is nonphysical about the brain paying attention to itself? How is an herb introduced into the body a 'nonphysical' intervention? What is nonphysical about puncturing someone's body with dozens or hundreds of needles?

He then steps it up and suggests that science is on its way to confirming the notion of reincarnation. The citations to the 'research' on this topic are to popular books authored by Ian Stevenson. Stevenson's books are little more than anecdotal accounts, and were undertaken about half a century ago!

As a student of neuroscience, Wallace's unmitigated attacks on this discipline are particularly hollow, but I won't get into the details of all that here. What I will say is that lambasting such a fruitful and earnest discipline because of its (possible) philosophical shortcomings and then throwing in your own dogma (reincarnation must be true because my teachers said so! Martial arts training leads to telekinetic powers!) and 'supporting' it by referencing TV shows and pop religion books reeks not only of a poor argument, but nearly intellectual dishonesty.

I still appreciate Wallace's talks and his efforts in the realm of bridging science and spirituality - but he is no scientist, and the flimsiness of his arguments, however clever at a superficial level, demonstrates this.

Wallace (and Hodel) do a very good job in "Embracing Mind." They break the book down into three parts.

In Part One, Wallace takes another look at science, and where science may drift off into scientism. Wallace (page 22) tells us where scientific materialism carries hidden metaphysical assumptions - " what did that interpretation boil down to? The five principles examined previously: objectivism, metaphysical realism, the closure principle, universalism, and physical reductionism." Without going into detail what the principles entail, I will merely summerize what Wallace (page 23) concludes: "So strong was their enthusiasm for an all-embracing scientific worldview that they often allowed their hopes, dreams, and beliefs to masquerade as facts. They were especially impressed with Darwin's theory of natural selection. According to their own interpretation, natural selection meant that organisms best suited to win the competition for scare resources survived, passing on their advantageous traits to succeeding generations."

Wallace (page 24) writes: "Social philosophers influenced by scientific materialism created social Darwinism, the view that nations and individuals competed for economic supremacy in an arena where only the `favored races' or toughest individuals would succeed. There was no room here for any softness or idealism and, of course, such a philosophy gave at least tacit approval to war, imperialism, and racism. In like manner, Karl Marx reduced all aspects of culture to economics."

Writing on modernity, with its scientific progress, Wallace (page 25) writes: "We have been exposed to this philosophy throughout our lives - in the classroom, in the media, by our doctors, and through the decisions of government agencies ruling on health, the environment, and elsewhere. It has been pounded into us consistently for so long that we've come to accept it as common sense. This, we are told, is what `non-believers' accept as truth."

Wallace (page 75) writes on the study of mind and brain: "It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that science attempted a formal study of the mind. Given the enormous influence of scientific materialism, it is not surprising that a physical approach - the study of behavior and the brain, the `gray matter' - held sway. By the early twentieth century, nonmaterial qualities attributed to the mind (thoughts, feelings, images, dreams, and so on) were neatly avoided by correlating them to the physical brain, with its internal physiology, and to physical behavior. This, mind was simply redefined as the brain."

Wallace (page 82) writes: "By relying on the argument of mere correlations between mental phenomena and brain physiology, cognitive psychologists remind us of astrologers, who rely on correlates between patterns in the heavens and events on earth, rather than astronomers, who have actually explored the skies scientifically with telescopes."

Wallace (page 83) writes: "Shouldn't cognitive scientists first be experts on their own consciousness, deeply exploring their subjective nature, before they tackle the complexities of the mind-brain connection? Given the rigors of science, wouldn't such self-knowledge be useful for scientists in general? After all, the scientific mind behind the eyepiece of a physical instrument (and behind the devising of theories) is the fundamental instrument of all science. Must not this ultimate black box be opened and carefully examined if science wants to be certain that its theories and data are something more than complex imaginings or projections?"

Wallace (page 84) concludes: "The preceding discussion should make it clear that science's attitude toward the mind has been hampered by historical baggage. According to the dictates of its Christian background, science explored outer, objective phenomena and avoided the inner, subjective realm. Lack of self knowledge hampered scientists by blinding them to subjective distortions that have prejudiced the scientific enterprise."

Wallace (page 102-103) writes: "What of those students who do take an interest in science, believing that the practice of science follows the open-minded, exploratory spirit of the scientific method? They study textbooks that either imply or boldly declare that as-yet-unproven theories are definitely true or will certainly be proven true in the future. They are exposed to an attitude toward science that promotes conformity to the foregone conclusions of scientific materialism even as it pretends to favor free inquiry. Those people who see the contradiction are left with the choice of buckling under or striking out on their own. Alternatively, they may become discouraged with science altogether and choose another career."

Wallace (page 105) writes: "The materialist approach to medicine has led to the desire for a `quick fix' - just pop a pill and let chemicals take care of it. Drug, tobacco, and alcohol addiction follow the same logic. There may be more to mental and physical illness than just chemicals, but the physical bias of scientific materialism has largely marginalized alternative therapies that show promise."

In Part Two, Wallace looks at a more promising science that can study the mind. Wallace (page 142-143) writes: "Through intense and lengthy practice, the attention can be honed into a precision tool that, figuratively speaking, lights up the mind's interior. First one undergoes a sustained, rigorous training in developing stability and vividness of attention. One then uses one's enhanced powers of mental perception to learn to distinguish between the phenomena that are presented to the senses (including the sixth sense of mental perception) and the conceptual superimpositions that one under normal circumstances compulsively projects upon those phenomena."

Wallace (page 144) writes: "A guilty conscience is no more conductive to contemplative practice than nervous agitation or drowsiness."

Wallace (page 155) writes: "The Middle Way proposes an alternative explanation for the appearance of phenomena of the universe - regularities. Certain things tend to occur together or in a sequence. Whereas causes imply to us some power to affect, the Middle Way defines appearances as mere regularities."

Wallace (page 156) writes: "If we conceive of one stage as an absolute, permanent, independent entity, by definition it cannot have any relationship to anything else. By definition, two completely self-contained, independent, permanent, absolute things cannot affect one other. If they did, they wouldn't be self-contained, independent, and so on. But if we back off that position and say that there is simply a `relationship' between them, Middle Way philosophers will point out that we are now viewing these things (such as seed and sprout) as relative, conventional realities. A relationship composed of regularities doesn't require absolute realities or absolute causality, and the relationship itself lacks any such inherent existence independent of the things that are related. Seed and sprout and their causal relationship, though existing conventionally, are now seen as `empty of' absolute existence."

In Part Three, Wallace takes up "tools and technologies of a Buddhist science of contemplation."

Wallace (page 213) writes: "From a Buddhist standpoint our mental afflictions, or distortions, stand in the way of enlightenment. From an empirical or scientific standpoint, such biases impede the search for truth, especially since the mind is truly the primary scientific instrument. Whether we are trying to use the mind and scientific instruments to probe stars and galaxies or we wish to understand the nature and workings of the mind itself, our mental projections and illusions of knowledge cloud the picture."

An excellent if somewhat scholarly approach to reconciling the Western scientific and Buddhist theories of the mind and consciousness. Wallace writes and is never dismissive in his commentary about traditional scientific approaches to the subject. If you enjoyed the Joy of Living this is your kind of read.

The central theme of B. Alan Wallace's work is that the empirical study of consciousness requires the integration of both the third-person perspective (i.e. the scientific method) and the first-person perspective (i.e. introspection or contemplative practice). In this book, he continues that theme.

To begin with, Wallace discusses the theological underpinnings of science. He avers that the third-person perspective of science was actually based on the theological notion of a "God's-eye view" or God-like objectivity. This, he believes, is what eventually led to the rise of scientific materialism.

Secondly, Wallace discusses in detail the following terms (which are not to be conflated with each other): 'science,' 'scientific materialism,' and 'scientism.'

Thirdly, he discusses how the new physics, wrought by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, undermine the materialistic worldview. Wallace stresses the point that mental phenomena have no physical property and that consciousness cannot be scientifically measured; and yet, it is commonplace in the scientific community to assume that consciousness is physical.

Next, Wallace argues that the only way to fully study consciousness is to employ the first-person perspective (i.e. introspection or contemplative practice) and the second-person perspective (i.e. the experts in contemplative practice training and communicating with those learning the practice). Wallace likens the second-person perspective to peer-review.

Then, Wallace discusses the Buddhist contemplative practices of 'shamatha' (meditative quiescence) and 'vipashyana' (insight meditation). And finally, he discusses the Buddhist 'Middle Way' philosophy (Madhyamaka) and the way of the 'Great Perfection'(Dzogchen).

What I especially enjoyed in this book was Wallace's discussion of the Buddhist concepts of 'substrate consciousness' (i.e. the individual's mindstream) and primordial consciousness (i.e. Dharmadhatu or Buddha-nature). Also, I found the glossary located in the back appendix to be particularly beneficial.

The bottom line is that this is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it to those who are interested in science and mysticism and the common empirical or experiential method that both share.