A materialist can say straightforwardly, as example, that if we administer an anesthetic to a person he or she will slip into unconsciousness. The person will not normally remember anything from the period anesthetized and the person is largely unresponsive to others externally while under the effects of drug. We can measure their brain activity while the person is anesthetized and find patterns quite different from the variable, mixed, and faster rates found during wakefulness. Clearly consciousness is caused by the brain which is physical because when we alter the brain with chemicals, we also alter consciousness.
The hard-core idealist has a difficult position to defend when it comes to the brain and consciousness. The idealist, in this example, must believe that the brain itself, the wave patterns it produces, and even the anesthetic that was administered are just mind. None of those things are physical despite what most of us would think. Everything works out the same as if the brain, its patterns, and the anesthetic were physical except they really aren’t. Clearly, it is all just mind because …
An interesting wrinkle on the idealist argument comes from Bernardo Kastrup, although I think it has been picked up by several others. The argument is based mainly on some interpretations about the effects of psychedelics discovered from fMRI studies that surprised many of the experimenters. What I will be referencing here are Chapters 11 and 12 in The Idea of the World. These chapters are largely reprints of two published papers, but they reflect also Kastrup’s views in other blog posts and articles.
The gist of the argument is summed up well in the title to Chapter 11: Self-transcendence correlates with brain function impairment. I’m not kidding. To phrase the argument a different way: we become more conscious the less we use the physical circuits of the brain. Consciousness and brain activity are anti-correlated at least at the point where the brain enters a self-transcendent state.
Kastrup gloms together a variety of experiential phenomena that purport to produce self-transcendence and finds a commonality: the brain is in some way impaired. The phenomena include hypoxic states during fainting and hyperventilation, near death experiences (NDEs), induction of an OBE using electromagnetism, trances, physical brain damage, and, of course, psychedelics. Self-transcendence is essentially the reporting of a mystical, mind-expanding, or otherwise unusual experience. Psychedelics are what are most key to the argument and chapter 12 is devoted to the discussion of fMRI studies with psychedelics. What is left out of this list are things like drumming, dancing, meditation, chanting, and prayer which would be unlikely to produce a self-transcendent state, according to this argument, since the brain is likely not impaired.
Of course, the phenomena in Kastrup’s list are all over the place as far as the effect they have on the brain. They are also wildly inconsistent in producing a self-transcendent state. Most people experiencing near death do not report any experience whatsoever if they live. We can’t be sure about the ones who die except we have found through both rat and human experimentation the brain undergoes a huge burst of activity shortly before it completely shuts down. OBEs can be induced by stimulating certain brain circuits with probes or electromagnetism, a finding not unexpected for a materialist believing in a physical brain, but whether a individual would find the experience self-transcendent or simply unusual would be largely up to the individual.
Psychedelics are at the core of the argument. When they burst into Western culture in the 1950’s and 60’s, they were tagged by their proponents as a form of instant enlightenment. The bright colors and distorted or hallucinated forms, the time dilation, the sense of deep meaning extending to everything, and, in higher doses, ego dissolution seemed to point to mystical experience for many early experimenters.
It came as a surprise when researchers hooked up people using psychedelics to fMRIs and found the brain had reduced activity during these mystical experiences. They had expected to find intense brain activity correlating to the psychedelic experience. For the idealist the result matches their intuition that the physical brain doesn’t correlate with mental activity; hence, the experience must be caused by something other than the physical brain.
There are never a good reason, however, to expect increased brain activity with psychedelics. Let’s go back and look at a very brief history of psychedelics to understand how the expectation got set up.
Usage of psychedelics in indigenous societies is widespread around the world and found in many different cultures. For the most part, this usage is tied to some form of shamanism. The shaman is primarily a healer, and the psychedelic is incorporated into the healing ritual. In some cases, the sick person takes it. In others, the shaman takes it. In other still, the shaman and sick person both take it. In many cases, the psychedelic itself will cause vomiting which can be healing by itself apart from the powerful placebo effect of the ritual. The potential healing aspect has been preserved in modern times with various forms of psychedelic therapy. The psychedelic may also be used as a tool by the shaman for communicating with the spirit world to find the cause of illness, locate lost items, and intercede on behave of a person or tribe for good harvests and hunting.
In the early Neolithic, psychedelics may have been employed in community rituals involving possibly communication with the dead. Forms of this continued to the various oracles and mystery religions that incorporated a visit to the underworld followed by a rebirth.
In none of these cases, however, were psychedelics regarded as tools for enlightenment. They were not regarded as potential consciousness expanders. They were tools for interacting with a spirit world. The idea for psychedelics as tools for enlightenment came in modern times out of the collaboration of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond. I dealt with this extensively in another post but let me sum it up here. Huxley had already become interested in Eastern philosophies and had his own guru. Osmond thought psychedelics could be used to unleash the untapped psychic powers of the mind. Huxley reasoning from some ideas of Bergson came to believe that the brain acted like a filter to hide reality and that psychedelics could remove the filters. Once the filters were removed, an unchecked reality could flow into the mind and cosmic consciousness – enlightenment – could result. This is exactly the view of the idealist and became conventional wisdom among many psychedelic experimenters.
Nothing in Eastern philosophy really suggested the conclusion that Huxley reached. In fact, many gurus, including Huxley’s own, came forward and said taking a psychedelic wasn’t the same as achieving enlightenment. The closest parallel in Eastern culture to a psychedelic may have been the mysterious soma lauded in the Rig Veda. Nobody yet has figured out exactly what soma was, but some have suggested the purpose of yoga and other Eastern spiritual practices was to provide techniques for achieving enlightenment without the drug. In any case, references to it appear in early Indian writings and then vanish. It could have been nothing more than a strong alcoholic beverage such as mead. Huxley resurrects the name as a recreational drug consumed in Brave New World.
The expectation had been created that psychedelics could expand consciousness; hence they would logically correlate with increased brain activity. The results of the fMRI studies showed otherwise, so there seemed to be a problem. But was there?
Looking at the effects of psychedelics without the preconception of mind expansion, aspects of the psychedelic experience suggest reduced rather than increased brain activity. Among these experiential elements are the sense of time slowing or timelessness, simplification of reality in distorted objects, cartoon characters like elves, and at higher dosages ego dissolution and unconsciousness. Even many of the detailed visual images of vast cities and landscapes sometimes reported usually consist of simple visual structures multiplied many times to fill up a scene.
What I am suggesting is that psychedelics like LSD, DMT, mescaline, and psilocybin, act in part like weak anesthetics. At sufficiently high doses the subject effectively becomes unconscious. Ketamine, which is sometimes included in these studies as psychedelic in low doses, is already known and used as an anesthetic at high doses. This may not explain all the effects. There are certainly variations in effects across the agents which might eventually tell us something useful with additional research. But this explains the reduced brain activity.
What about self-transcendence? The term, of course, is vague but there seems little doubt that people can undergo a variety of experiences, such as those in Kastrup’s list, and come away significantly changed. There is a straightforward explanation for it: neural plasticity. When habitual brain circuits are disrupted, the brain loses its world model. It must scramble to create a new one. Some of the same studies showing reduced brain activity also showed increased communication across wide areas of the brain. Plasticity already begins to work while the experience is still happening and can continue long after the effects are worn off. Brain function impairment doesn’t produce self-transcendence. It is the breaking and modifying habitual circuits and the brain forming new ones in response to brain function impairment that produces self-transcendence. It’s the brain after all.
Broad Speculations 
Damn, you are good! Well done sir! I owe you a beer for this one!
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Well said. When taking psychedelics, or any mind altering drugs, our ability to introspect ends up just as impaired as anything else, perhaps more so, so any judgments we make about that condition, either during it or afterward, should be held even more suspect than normal.
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” When taking psychedelics, or any mind altering drugs..”
Or reading about quantum mechanics… apparently from some of the comments. The realer than real effects of some psychedelics can provoke a sort of schizophrenia that leads one to believe everything is happening inside one’s mind. If you can avoid that trap, you might find something useful with them.
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Actually the way consciousness works is you clear mind of thoughts, open your heart for the experience of loving yourself and there you are. You can enter consciousness and a feeling of Heaven and Earth. Simple but not that easy. You have to work at getting rid of the ego. There in lies the challenge but the actual bliss is real.
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I don’t think Kastrup refers to this decrease in brain activity as enlightenment, but a rich and meaningful experience that normally equates with more brain activity. I like your point of view though and it’s a good objection… but there is a contradiction in the science. It automatically comes with a materialist assumption, but what is that assumption if you reason it out beyond the accepted norms? You have imaginary quantum fields with imaginary particles (ripples) that only exist after measuring them, then assumed those quantities create the conscious qualities of experience to begin with. If you have a theory that all experience is due to brain activity, the point where in low brain activity we have more experiential states puts into question the theory. And already our senses are inadequate to see the world as it is. If we had to fully comprehend any phenomena, like a blade of grass, we’d never get anywhere. It’s too complex. There is an entire unseen side of reality and who knows if psychedelics actually give us a glimpse of that or not? I don’t know.
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“where in low brain activity we have more experiential states puts into question the theory. And already our senses are inadequate to see the world as it is. If we had to fully comprehend any phenomena”
I don’t think it puts the theory into question at all. The brain will build a world model to the best of its capability. Psychedelics reveal to us a unique tier of world model in its ego dissolution, lights at the end of the tunnel, experiences of heaven or hell, K-hole, the salvia zipper experience, etc. For all we know, there may be thousands of experiential states spread across biological organisms. It is what the theory would predict.
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Of course it can be explained to your liking, but it does not account for other phenomena like savant syndrome. Less brain function can equal tremendous mathematical calculating power, extraordinary memory, artistic qualities spatial skill and often in areas the person had no prior expertise. Here again we see less than normal function mirroring the audacity of a psychedelic trip.
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Different function, yes, and caused by different brains. Einstein had a normal sized brain overall but a parietal lobe 15% larger than normal. You’re equating different to lesser.
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Not at all. Is somebody has a brain tumor removed and the surrounding tissues is damaged or removed, or shot in the head, epilepsy, etc, this isn’t proof but it is a trend. How could that lead to an inherited savant level math or memory skill with less brain function, or less brain matter?
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I don’t see how any of what you are saying demonstrates that something beyond the brain is responsible. The best theory is that there are disruptions in global connectivity and strengthened local connectivity in the brains of savants.
Brains are like fingerprints. Everybody has them and they are all similar but each is uniquely different and some are more different than others. Think of a bell curve with outliers on various scales on each side of a more normative middle. The differences arise from genetic and epigenetic factors and frequently result in actual structural differences. Some recent studies have shown how much the brain firing patterns are determined by physical structure.
The logical conclusion of “less is more” would be that we could gradually lop off chunks of the brain and with every slice we would grow more intelligent and more aware. Everybody should have a lobotomy. Or maybe have their third eye opened by carving a tunnel back to the pineal gland.
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There are people running around today with no brains.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3679117/scientists-research-man-missing-90-of-his-brain-who-leads-a-normal-life-1.3679125
This on top of any evidence science has produced to link any specific function with any conscious experience. Zero.
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Funny you should mention that>
See
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We mustn’t jump to conclusions. Neuroplasticity is a catch all for “we don’t know” but there is a materialist assumption from the get go even though the assumptions have internal contradictions.
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If you begin with the premise that the brain alone is responsible for every possible aspect of our awareness and every experience of existence, you can easily explain everything as a mechanism and all existence as simply physical phenomena. Materialists often confuse and conflate the MECHANISMS of cognition with the holistic fullness of the awareness which we refer to as consciousness.
Applying an anesthetic to a brain interferes with the normal functionality of that brain. Being consciously aware that we exist–being awake and alert–with our perceptual functions in effect–requires a particular level of brain functionality for processing perceptual input. Taking note of the effects of interfering in particular ways with perception does not (a priori) infer that consciousness is CAUSED by the brain, but rather, that we UTILIZE brain functionality to access the various levels of consciousness which are, in my view, more likely to exist as a fundamental feature of the universe like electromagnetism and gravity. We can argue about the true nature of existence and what constitutes the fundamental nature of reality, but positing that the physical brain can account for self-transcendence is just ludicrous.
We don’t alter the broad range of consciousness by ingesting chemicals–we alter our ability to access perception and the general run of cognition. Brain functions are the MECHANISMS by which we become aware of our own existence as well as the existence of the physical universe.
With just our human eyes we see only a limited range of light. There are now mechanisms which have expanded our awareness of the full spectrum of light. Our investigations into the quantum world have expanded our awareness of a fuller nature of the foundations of the physical universe. The early hominids, with a very similar brain architecture, did not immediately enjoy the fullness of modern consciousness.
Ingesting chemicals is not necessary to achieve self-transcendence and neural plasticity is a natural characteristic of physical brains sufficiently evolved to enhance survival in species which utilize them, not a way to account for significant changes in our expanded awareness. It’s NOT the brain after all.
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These MECHANISMS that you want to emphasize aren’t really mechanisms as you and most people typically think of them. They aren’t something fixed or rigid or completely determined. Consciousness is like a storm that arises when two weather fronts meet. It is where the brain meets the world.
I am sometimes perplexed that so many proponents of idealism fail to recognize the inherent dynamisms and beauty of nature that they can’t believe mind can arise from it. Instead, they must invent something beyond nature. It is a lack of imagination and a form of hubris.
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I suppose these days I’m not as interested in the arguments about consciousness and its causes. At s certain level of understanding, language begins to falter and collapse to the extent that it doesn’t transcend itself.
Obviously, one might say, the universe, or whatever idea use to model all that is, is conscious to the extent that we recognize ourselves as features of its domain.
As you and others have noted, we can’t get underneath, above or beyond the limits of the nature of our being.
Personally, I’ve experienced the alterations of psychedelics. I’d say their affect on me was a not only a reframing but an ongoing ability to reframe as the takeaway of the experiences was not any particular framing but framing itself.
Years later, after entering into a dedicated practice of meditation, once again, a quite intense bodily experience seemed to also affect my sensibilities.
These personal experiences suggest to me that there are multiple influences on our levels of awareness. Maybe whatever limits the body has perceptually, are more varied than can be measured.
I suppose too, I’d say that as the years roll by, I appreciate the subtleties, depths and a practice of seeing meta, alongside the literal, factual, practical, functional view.
One takeaway for me now is to recognize that there’s plenty of unknowns, and perhaps even the idea of exhaustively knowing Everything, needn’t be the goal, and perhaps goal seeking itself might not be nearly as beneficial as is an attentiveness to quality of life, how and when I participate in that, for myself and others.
Thanks, James, for the post.
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Very nice essay Jim. Setting Idealism aside; I am equally perplexed that the physical sciences fail to recognize that this inherent dynamism and beauty of nature is the very definition of life itself all the way up and down the ladder of complexity; as our entire physical universe is a living system.
This lack of imagination and hubris is a systemic psychosis on both sides of the divide. Sciences’ narrow mindedness is the main reason that Idealism is so appealing to many people. Simply put; the paradigm of materialism/physicalism as it stands today is a bankrupt model that desperately needs to be reformed to reflect the “true nature of reality”.
All it takes is a little intellectual maturity for both parties; maybe a little bit of collaboration, understanding and good will instead of doubling down on two diametrically opposed notions, both of which reduce to absurdity. 😢
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Scientists can overplay their hand and their success has led to hubris too many times.
Still there is a difference between believing what arises in the world – including consciousness – comes from the world and believing the world as it is somehow inferior to some greater world of mind only. I am not sure how much collaboration you will get from those two standpoints since the second viewpoint explicitly puts consciousness off the table as anything explainable.
The positions of idealism and materialism in the form of physicalism are really asymmetric rather than opposite. Idealism makes mind fundamental and the explanation for everything but unexplainable in itself. Physicalism doesn’t really have a fundamental. It is just tries to explain mind as best we can from what we know and can measure.
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“It is just tries to explain mind as best we can from what we know and can measure.”
Right on…… The measurement problem is the stone wall for sure however, what we can know is ultimately constrained by the grounding assumptions that we make. Those assumptions have to be revisited and rigorously assessed using synthetic a priori analysis.
I would say that the inability to recognize the efficacy and intellectual supremacy of synthetic a priori judgements followed by synthetic a priori analysis over simple a priori methods is our Achilles heel.
However, after doing extensive research on my part, synthetic a priori judgements followed by rigorous synthetic a priori analysis is considered by the so-called experts to be ineffectual and not really useful in this regard.
I disagree with that assessment and have taught myself how to use this method. Furthermore, I would label this technique the synthetic scientific method……….
Whoa, did I just write that or did I just think it? 😳
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‘In none of these cases, however, were psychedelics regarded as tools for enlightenment. They were not regarded as potential consciousness expanders. They were tools for interacting with a spirit world.’
What? Have you taken LSD? This is important.
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Why is it important?
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I’m not religious, I was part of the ferment anti-religious moment. But that transcendental time on LSD in my youth made me see what was really going on. If you are going to comment on it, you should at least know what it’s like. The abundance of evidence of people awakened who have recovered from previous illnesses psychological or from spiritual torment is obscene.
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Okay. Well, read this.
But a number of other psychedelics besides ayahuasca including LSD. The salvia zipper experience I mentioned can be counted among some of the more startling experiences despite its short length.
I’m not doubting the potential benefit of it at all. Neural plasticity is good anyway you can get it and psychedelics can be the best way for some people.
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Thank you, I will read it. The life as I interpret it is a dream within a dream anyhows.
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Don Luis’ response you could refer to reality as well. I think perception and reality is way off kilter. The only thing I have seen getting down to the meat and bones of it is…is magic in the air. Even if you try to second guess it, it is way ahead. John Stewart Bell’s theorem suggestion of nature is second to none. We conjure particles into their existence.
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“We conjure particles into their existence”
This is hubris of idealism – to think it’s in our mind or heads or God’s mind or whatever. On the one hand criticizing science while on the other hand using quantum physics to make the case. Hardly any physicist believes this.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this view. It’s logical conclusion would be that the branch that falls from the tree and whacks you on the head was conjured into existence by you.
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John Stewart Bell’s theorem suggests that the nature of reality is that only as conscious observers do we we conjure particles into existence. Photons only become real when we observe them (This is discussed at 33:00 in the video ‘The Secrets of Quantum Physics 1 of 2 Einstein’s Nightmare – Jim Al Khalil).
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Okay. Let me assume for the sake of argument, we conjure particles into existence. Do we also conjure oncoming trains? Would you be willing into stand on the tracks in front of one since it has only been conjured into existence with mind? Even if the quantum world works this way (it doesn’t), that doesn’t help us out with the classical world where we live.
The idealist position, while wrong, is somewhat understandable. Critical to consciousness is a world model that mimics spacetime with the brain’s own spatial-temporal dynamics. The world model is the interface projected externally that an organism uses to interact with its environment. The world model seems so real that we are tempted to believe it is only thing that is real. Yet any collision with a train should give a clue that it isn’t.
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Consciousness bears witness. If you are not conscious, do you see oncoming trains? Would there be oncoming trains there? Do they exist? Only with observation and empirical evidence (from my conscious being) do I know. I think the view that consciousness only makes something real could be viewed through a ‘panpsychism’ lens. And I bet you hate that term. So, you are implying that Physicist’s Neils Bohr, Copenhagen, John Stewart Bell and Jim Al Khalil are downright wrong? You are talking about consciousness (the brain) as though it is a separate entity from what we we observe. Those aspects you write about only comes into form / being when we have borne witness through consciousness. Like right now, I could go outside and my perception of reality changes. What went on before without my knowledge? It’s too early to rule out the Copenhagen Classic Interpretation:
the moment ‘conscious’ observation is realised we don’t know where the particle is, except that it is acts as a wave function. There is only probability and vibration in the quantum field. But what is observing the wave function collapse by an atom, a rock or inanimate object? We know as ‘conscious observers’ that the wave function collapsed, and ‘we’ are able to locate the position of the particle at that instant.
Moreover aren’t we as humans seeing and interpreting from our delayed conscious reaction the wave function collapse in whatever we do, see and experience? Our consciousness based on ‘probability-awareness’ extrapolates sense of the wave function for ‘Darwinian fitness‘purposes.
At the microscopic level we as conscious beings can only identify the position of a particle the moment it is consciously observed by ‘us’. So that which is observed; the location and extrapolated ‘sense’ about the state of matter at the macroscopic and indeed the microscopic level can only be done by the ‘conscious’ observer – ‘Us’. We can make better predictions, but no better than 50% at the microscopic level of the path an electron; whether it is moving clockwise or counter clockwise. At the macroscopic level in this actual world and despite the self locating uncertainty of the branching of the wave function we interpret what we need to know for ‘Darwinian fitness’. Probability to us is everything!
Consciousness is everything because unless the state of matter is observed (entanglement) from the cat at the macroscopic level and the particle at the microscopic level, the matter just is. Without consciousness the cat is alive or dead or the particle is here or there. Position-less is what we don’t see, but we know it is there in all of its probability of being here or there – but that doesn’t serve our purpose for longevity of the species, at least for now. High entropy is not deterministic, whichever way you look at it or try to want to make it so.
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Bell’s theorem has multiple interpretations and yours isn’t one many physicists would agree with.
How are we observing and measuring particles anyway? Not with consciousness but with instruments. Where does the measurement take place? In spacetime. The physical is unavoidable.
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Did you see the experiment Jim Al Khalil presented to find out if Bohr or Einstein was correct?
Instruments are just a medium or gauge if you will. We are measuring particles through bearing witness – our consciousness. Instruments can’t run themselves or build themselves or extrapolate meaning. I agree the physical is unavoidable. I don’t know what that’s got to do with what we are discussing. Any-hows thanks for taking the time to correspond with me. Cheers.
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At 44:30 specifically. You will like this.
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At (53:00) it shows 2.53 in the experiment. A number greater than 2 proves Einstein was wrong and Neils Bohr was right. ‘The significance of this result is enormous. The two entangled properties are only summoned into existence only when we measure them…Photons do only become real when we observe them’.
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