Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality

298 Pages·2011·4.835 MB·English

by  Harald Walach (auth.), Harald Walach, Stefan Schmidt, Wayne B. Jonas (eds.)

Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality
Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness
and Spirituality
Volume 1
Series Editors
Harald Walach, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
Stefan Schmidt, University Medical Center, Freiburg and European University
Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
Editorial Board
Jonathan Schooler, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Mario Beauregard, University of Montreal, Canada
Robert Forman, Jerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies, Israel
B. Alan Wallace, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, CA, USA
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/10195
Harald Walach  •  Stefan Schmidt
Wayne B. Jonas
Editors
Neuroscience, Consciousness
and Spirituality
Editors
Harald Walach Stefan Schmidt
Institute for Transcultural Health Science Department of Environmental
European Universtiy Viadrina Health Sciences
Frankfurt (Oder), Grosse Scharrnstr. 59 University Medical Center Freiburg
15230 Frankfurt (Oder) Breisacherstr. 115b
Germany 79106 Freiburg
[email protected] Germany
European University Viadrina
Wayne B. Jonas
Frankfurt (Oder)
Samueli Institute
Germany
King Street 1737
[email protected]
Alexandia, VA 22314
USA
[email protected]
ISSN 2211-8918 e-ISSN 2211-8926
ISBN 978-94-007-2078-7 e-ISBN 978-94-007-2079-4
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2079-4
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011936020
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
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Foreword of the Series Editors
“Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality” was born out of the vision to build
bridges and get different disciplines to talk to each other. We have been observing
these disciplines for quite a while, doing empirical research in the field of mindful-
ness meditation, conceptual, psychological and philosophical issues, as well as spiri-
tuality. We were struck by the lack of communication between different pockets of
research cultures. We thought that neuroscience researchers could learn from phi-
losophers and from those dealing with issues around spirituality and mystical expe-
rience, and vice versa. We felt that the philosophical discourse around the issue of
what constitutes consciousness and how it can be explained would benefit from
hard neuroscientific data on the one hand and from insights stemming from first-
person experience on the other hand, as it is the currency of spiritual traditions.
Science within the comfort zone of unidisciplinarity is always nice and easy, and
cosy, too. Stepping beyond is not only challenging, it is nothing short of madness
and professional suicide. Yet, we felt it is necessary. Spirituality seems to be a nec-
essary ingredient in the scientific debate. Talking about consciousness without tak-
ing into account exceptional experiences and personal accounts of conscious states
that are beyond the ordinary is a bit like trying to do physics with the constraint of
only studying crystal lattices. That won’t yield a valid theory of matter. Neither
will philosophising about consciousness without taking into account different
aspects, especially extraordinary and even rare states of consciousness. Plasma
states of matter are rare and not normally observed in our everyday world. Yet, they
teach us a lot about matter. In the same sense, extraordinary states of consciousness
as reported in the spiritual literature, by those practicing spiritual methods such as
meditation, can teach us more about consciousness than thousands of discussions of
what consciousness is like in a normal day in the supermarket.
Meditation research is a kind of focal point that has established itself as a
new scientific “hot topic” over the past decade. It is done from various angles:
Neuroscientists try to map different meditation states using various imaging methods.
Sometimes psychologists join in or neuroscientists also use psychological methods
trying to tap into the experience of those having such meditation experiences.
William James marked the beginning of the scientific study of psychology by
v
vi Foreword of the Series Editors
defining it as the science of consciousness, and the beginning of consciousness
research by studying spiritual experiences. It is this unifying approach which we are
trying to regain by fostering dialogue and discourse across the boundaries of
disciplines. It has to be regained, because in the beginning of the scientific study
of consciousness, in the legacy of Wilhelm Wundt and Sigmund Freud, the study of
such exceptional experiences was explicitly banned and this ban has haunted the
field like a posthypnotic command.
Consciousness studies cannot be complete without also facing the philosophical
question: What, actually, is the stuff consciousness is made of? Is the current main-
stream model that favours some sort of emergentist approach that has consciousness
arise as an emergent property of complex neuronal systems sufficient to explain
conscious experience, especially if we look at spiritual experiences from a phenome-
nological point of view? Does this phenomenology suggest otherwise? If so, how
could we envisage such a model of consciousness? Can we align it with what we
know from neuroscience?
Since these are important questions, we will, every now and then, also digress
into the philosophical field and discuss models of consciousness that challenge the
mainstream view or bridge gaps. We do not do that out of a spirit of dissidence, but
of constructive criticism and dialogue.
We developed these ideas a couple of years ago and found sponsors, the Samueli
Institute in Alexandria, VA, USA and the Theophrastus Foundation in Germany,
both of which were enamoured with them. So it happened that we were able to
invite a small and select group of scholars and scientists to our first meeting in
Freiburg in 2008 for an open discussion, the proceedings of which we present here.
Some guests elected not to publish their ideas and others have changed them
considerably in the face of the discussions. We were able to follow on with a second
meeting 2010 with the specific topic of meditation research, and we hope to be able
to present this volume soon as well. The third in the series is likely to be a piece of
discussion by one of us, Harald Walach, that puts forward the argument that spiritu-
ality has to be taken into the realm of discourse within academia to proceed with the
program of rational and scientific enlightenment. Only if spiritual enlightenment
meets scientific enlightenment can we really progress, we suggest. We hope to be able
to proceed with our Freiburg meetings, and we also invite volumes and contributions
from the wider scientific community touching upon these issues.
We have no hidden agenda, no tacit creed, no criteria for participation in this
discourse other than two very pragmatic ones: The submitted contributions need to
be interdisciplinary and touch upon the three topics of neuroscience, consciousness
and spirituality or use two of these different disciplines to throw light on the third
one in particular. And they need to be of good quality, with stringent argumentation
and clear style of writing. All contributions are peer reviewed, and the whole volume
will again go through review. So expect good quality work addressing an emerging
new topic. We are looking forward to contributions, to discourse and discussions.
Freiburg and Frankfurt (Oder), Germany Harald Walach and Stefan Schmidt
Contents
Neuroscience, Consciousness, Spirituality – Questions,
Problems and Potential Solutions: An Introductory Essay......................... 1
Harald Walach
Mindfulness in East and West – Is It the Same? .......................................... 23
Stefan Schmidt
Setting Our Own Terms: How We Used Ritual
to Become Human ........................................................................................... 39
Matt J. Rossano
Neuroscience and Spirituality – Findings and Consequences ..................... 57
Mario Beauregard
Consciousness: A Riddle and a Key in Neuroscience
and Spirituality................................................................................................ 75
Daniel Jeanmonod
Generalized Entanglement – A Nonreductive
Option for a Phenomenologically Dualist
and Ontologically Monist View of Consciousness ........................................ 81
Harald Walach and Hartmann Römer
Complementarity of Phenomenal and Physiological Observables:
A Primer on Generalised Quantum Theory and Its Scope
for Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies ................................................ 97
Hartmann Römer and Harald Walach
Hard Problems in Philosophy of Mind and Physics:
Do They Point to Spirituality as a Solution? ................................................ 109
Nikolaus von Stillfried
Brain Structure and Meditation: How Spiritual
Practice Shapes the Brain .............................................................................. 119
Ulrich Ott, Britta K. Hölzel, and Dieter Vaitl
vii
viii Contents
Neurophysiological Correlates to Psychological
Trait Variables in Experienced Meditative Practitioners ............................ 129
Thilo Hinterberger, Niko Kohls, Tsutomu Kamei,
Amanda Feilding, and Harald Walach
Reconsidering the Metaphysics of Science
from the Inside Out ......................................................................................... 157
Jonathan W. Schooler, Tam Hunt, and Joel N. Schooler
Mindfulness Meditation: Deconditioning
and Changing View ......................................................................................... 195
Henk Barendregt
Endless Consciousness: A Concept Based
on Scientific Studies of Near-Death Experiences ......................................... 207
Pim van Lommel
The Hard Problem Revisited: From Cognitive
Neuroscience to Kabbalah and Back Again ................................................. 229
B. Les Lancaster
Towards a Neuroscience of Spirituality ........................................................ 253
Wayne B. Jonas
Sufism and Healing ......................................................................................... 263
Howard Hall
An Emerging New Model for Consciousness:
The Consciousness Field Model ..................................................................... 279
Robert K.C. Forman
Index ................................................................................................................. 289
Neuroscience, Consciousness, Spirituality –
Questions, Problems and Potential Solutions:
An Introductory Essay
Harald Walach
Abstract Science and spirituality are often seen as two incompatible approaches to
reality. This chapter is designed to start bridging this gap. We define science as a
joint effort of humans to understand the world and to prevent error, using our senses
and invented instruments enhancing our senses. This we call experience of the world
in its material aspects. Spirituality can be understood as an effort to understand the
general principles or structure of the world through inner experience. There are a
few requirements for such an epistemological framework to function. One is that
consciousness is understood as complementary to its material substrate, the brain, and
hence as capable in principle of having its own access to reality. The other require-
ment is that dogmatism, both on part of science and on part of religions is put aside and
spirituality is understood as a hitherto neglected area of investigation that needs to
become part of science as a method of inner experience. Some historical efforts – Roger
Bacon’s system in the middle ages or Franz Brentano’s attempt at the beginning of
the history of scientific psychology – can serve as examples. Preconditions and
open questions are discussed to pave the way for a better understanding.
Definitions and Explanations
All definitions are provisional. Already Aristotle taught that a definition comes at
the end of a long process of understanding. I submit that all terms used here are
only incompletely understood at this time. Hence I use these definitions more as a
H. Walach (*)
Institute for Transcultural Health Sciences, Viadrina European University,
Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
Samueli Institute, European Office, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
H. Walach et al. (eds.), Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality, 1
Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality 1,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2079-4_1, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011