A Greater Psychology

2

The Scientific Study of Consciousness

Three Prerequisites for Consciousness Research

Having examined and explained Matter by physical methods... — it is not really explained, but let that pass, — having failed to carry that way of knowledge into other fields beyond a narrow limit, we must then at least consent to scrutinise life and mind by methods appropriate to them.... Adhering still to the essential rigorous method of science, though not to its purely physical instrumentation, scrutinising, experimenting, holding nothing for established which cannot be scrupulously and universally verified, we shall still arrive at supraphysical certitudes.¹

— Sri Aurobindo

During the past nearly three decades, several factors — especially the wide use of psychedelic drugs and the spread of various Eastern psycho-spiritual disciplines in the West — have led an increasing number of Western scientists to view consciousness as something more than what can be learned about from the study of behaviour — the subject-matter of mainstream psychology today. These scientists have been posing certain fundamental questions about consciousness hitherto dealt with only by mystics and philosophers: What is consciousness? What are its major dimensions or levels? What is the nature of the various altered states of consciousness? Is consciousness individual or cosmic? How can the ordinary consciousness, which is fraught with psychological difficulties, be exceeded or transformed? For the majority of scientists who are interested in such questions, however, the interest has been a personal rather than a scientific one. As Charles T. Tart has observed, "...very large numbers of scientists are now personally exploring ASC's [altered states of consciousness], but few have begun to connect the personal

Page 315

exploration with their scientific activities."² Consequently, questions about consciousness such as those just mentioned, observes Robert E. Ornstein, "have not yet had a full treatment within academic science."³ Having begun with a bold redefinition of psychology as the science of consciousness, Ornstein, too, subsequently gave an attenuated definition of psychology as the science of human experience,⁴ seemingly stating, in Sri Aurobindo's words: "Psychology ought to be rather than is the science of consciousness."⁵ This essay, drawing from Sri Aurobindo and from recent scientific thought, presents some of the chief impediments to the scientific study of consciousness, and explicates some of the requirements for such a study.

As has been pointed out by several scientists during the past nearly twenty years, one of the chief obstacles in pursuing a scientific study of consciousness is the dominant paradigm of modern science. The term 'paradigm', derived from the Greek word paradeigma, meaning 'pattern', has been used by Thomas S. Kuhn⁶ in his analysis of the history of science to connote "the collective set of attitudes, values, procedures, techniques, etc."⁷ that constitute the generally accepted framework of a particular science. Two chief aspects of today's ruling paradigm in science which prevent a scientific study of conciousness consist in its materialistic view of consciousness and its inappropriate methodology vis-à-vis the study of consciousness.

Most neuro-scientists today, states Fritjof Capra, subscribe to the view that matter being the primary reality, consciousness is merely "a property of complex material patterns which emerges at a certain level of biological evolution".⁸ (For an elaboration and critique of such a materialistic view of consciousness, see the next essay on "Consciousness: the Materialistic and the Mystical Views".) Sri Aurobindo has summed up this materialistic view of consciousness as follows:

In the theory of the sole reality of Matter, consciousness is only an operation of Matter-energy in Matter, a secretion or vibration

Page 316

of the brain-cells, a physical reception of images and a brain-response, a reflex action or a reaction of Matter to the contacts of Matter.⁹

One crippling consequence of such an epiphenomenal view of consciousness is the attempt to study consciousness — or mind, as it is generally called in Western psychology, — by studying solely its manifestations in the body and its expression in behaviour. However, if consciousness is not an epiphenomenon but the essential reality — as maintained by yoga and as some recent consciousness research¹⁰ and emerging thought based on subatomic physics¹¹ tend to corroborate — then the attempt to study consciousness through some of its superficial manifestations, whether physiological or behavioural, is, to use an inadequate analogy, like trying to discover the contents of a house by looking at it from outside or trying to understand a book by studying the properties of its paper and ink: one has to go inside the house or the book to discover its contents. Regarding an attempt at understanding consciousness by examining some of its superficial appearances, Sri Aurobindo writes:

Consciousness is not an unaccountable freak or a chance growth or a temporary accident in a material and inconscient universe.

It may so appear on the surface and physical science, since by its very terms it is limited to the examination of appearances and must start from the surface phenomenon, may choose or may have no alternative but to treat it on that basis. But surface appearances are not the reality of things, they may be a part of the truth but they are not the whole reality. One must look beyond the external appearances of things before one can know things in themselves....

Physical science — and psychology in its present methods is only an extension of physical science — conducts its search into things from down upwards; it regards Matter as the foundation and the bottom of things and having searched into that foundation, got as it thinks to the very bottom, it believes, or once believed, it has by that very fact understood their depths, their centre, their

Page 317

height and top. But this is a naive error. The truth of things is in their depths or at their centre and even at their top. The truth of consciousness also is to be found at its top and in its depths or at its centre.... ¹²

It is not sufficient to examine the material, the physiological processes accompanying the functioning of consciousness and attempt to explain the functioning by its physical processes. This leaves consciousness itself unexplained; if it accounts to some extent, but imperfectly, for sense phenomena or mechanical thinking, it does not account in the least for the most important powers of our conscious energy; it does not account for reason, understanding, will, creative thought, conscious selection, the conscious intellectual and spiritual action and self-development of the human being.... To see how the body uses consciousness may be within limits a fruitful science, but it is more important to see how consciousness uses the body and still more important to see how it evolves and uses its own powers. The physiological study of the phenomenon of consciousness is only a side-issue; the psychological study of it independent of all reference to the body except as an instrument is the fruitful line of inquiry.¹³

To be able to "look beyond the external appearances of things" and discover the real nature of consciousness, the first prerequisite is a new paradigm which, as a tentative hypothesis, regards consciousness as a reality in its own right rather than as a byproduct of matter. Such a view, states Sri Aurobindo, can possibly create an opening for undreamed discoveries which have eluded the purely materialistic paradigm.

Its [physical science's] first regard is on Matter as the one principle of being and on Energy only as a phenomenon of Matter; but in the end one questions whether it is not the other way round, all things the action of Energy, and Matter only the field, body and instrument of her workings. The first view is quantitative and purely mechanical, the second lets in a qualitative and a more spiritual element. We do not at once leap out of the materialistic

Page 318

circle, but we see an opening in it which may widen into an outlet when, stirred by this suggestion, we look at life and mind not merely as a phenomenon in Matter but as energies and see that they are quite other energies than the material, with their own peculiar qualities, powers and workings.... Only a limited range of the phenomena of life and mind could be satisfied by a purely biophysical, psycho-physical or bio-psychical explanation.... To know more we must have studied not only the actual or possible action of body and Matter on mind and life, but explored all the possible action of mind too on life and body; that opens undreamed vistas. And there is always the vast field of the action of mind in itself and on itself, which needs for its elucidation another, a mental, a psychic science.¹⁴

The second prerequisite for the study of consciousness is an appropriate methodology. The inadequacy of the quantitative and inferential methods of conventional science as applied to psychological studies has been recognised in recent years by several scientists:

[In the methodology of conventional science]... data are gathered by observation and measurement, and are then interconnected with the help of conceptual models that are expressed, whenever possible, in mathematical language.... Such a science is inadequate for understanding the nature of consciousness and will not be able to deal with any qualities or values.¹⁵

[In studies of perception]... scientific methodology in psychology tended to become identified with measurement alone.... This methodological dam has recently been cracked, largely through research in social and clinical psychology, where the effects of subjective factors on perception are especially obvious.¹⁶

Blackburn... noted that many of our most talented young people are "turned off" to science: as a solution he proposed that we recognize the validity of a more sensuous-intuitive approach to nature, treating it as complementary to the classical intellectual approach.¹⁷

Page 319

We associate "Psychology" with people in laboratories, performing experiments with quantitative methods. Many... have challenged the usefulness of a purely quantitative science, arguing that an entire dimension of man's nature is omitted in such an attempt.¹⁸

According to Sri Aurobindo, the fundamental methods of all science — observation and experiment — are equally applicable to the science of consciousness. He writes, in the notes entitled "Towards a True Scientific Psychology":

When the ancient thinkers of India set themselves to study the soul of man in themselves and others, they... proceeded at once to a process which resembles exactly enough the process adopted by modern science in its study of physical phenomena.... For there is no difference of essential law in the physical and the psychical, but only a difference and undoubtedly a great difference of energy, instrumentation and exact process....

Exact observation and untrammelled, yet scrupulous experiment are the method of every true Science. Not mere observation by itself — for without experiment, without analysis and new-combination observation leads to a limited and erroneous knowledge; often it generates an empirical classification which does not in the least deserve the name of science.¹⁹

Sri Aurobindo states, however, that the study of consciousness calls for "intuitive and experimental knowledge"²⁰ and "a direct observation of mental operations."²¹ Such a direct observation and a direct or intuitive knowledge of consciousness requires a yogic or inner development, including the development of inner, subtler senses²²; the gross senses and the intellect employed in the natural sciences can yield only indirect or inferential knowledge.

...the greater part of existence is either above or below mind, and mind can know only indirectly what is above or what is below it. But the one true and complete way of knowing is by direct knowledge.²³

Page 320

...the intellect sees only the phenomenon, it cannot go back behind it; when it tries, it only arrives at other and more occult phenomena. The truth of things can only be perceived when one gets to what may be called summarily the spiritual vision of things and even there completely only when there is not only vision but direct experience in the very substance of one's own being and all being.²⁴

An important point for consciousness research lies in what Sri Aurobindo says about the procedure to be followed in Yoga: "As in Science, so here you have to accumulate experience on experience, following faithfully the methods laid down by the Guru or by the systems of the past...."²⁵ As Lama Govinda states: "Without the presence of a tradition, in which the experiences and knowledge of former generations are formulated (philosophy), every individual would be compelled to master the entire domain of the psychic, and only a few favoured ones would attain the goal of knowledge."²⁶ Though self-evident in the natural sciences, the necessity of founding one's research on knowledge already established is hardly recognised in the field of consciousness research. This brings us to the third prerequisite for the study of consciousness — a schema of consciousness derived from the knowledge already acquired in the past. Such a schema is needed to serve both as a map for the exploration of the unknown territory and as a framework into which all findings through personal observation and experiment can be meaningfully fitted.

The need for a framework in the form of a comprehensive theoretical model has been expressed by Charles T. Tart in relation to the study of parapsychological phenomena. He states:

Aside from the effects of paradigm clash, psi phenomena are difficult to accept because there is no comprehensive theory for understanding them.... ²⁷

A further need for theories and models is to organize the data

Page 321

of parapsychology: there are so many scattered observations and literature that the investigator cannot hope to digest it all.²⁸

The need for an integrative conceptual framework in the field of contemporary psychology and psychotherapy has been well stated by Stanislav Grof who remarks:

All the systems involved may represent more or less accurate descriptions of the aspect or level of the unconscious which they are describing. What we need now is a 'bootstrap psychology' that would integrate the various systems into a collection of maps covering the entire range of human consciousness.²⁹

Alluding to the well-known story of the blind men and the elephant, Robert E. Ornstein, besides pointing out the need for an overall view, states further that such an all-embracing perspective requires a different mode of knowledge. He writes:

...we cannot understand the nature of an elephant by combining 'scalyness', 'length', 'softness', etc. in any conceivable proportion. Without the development of an overall perspective, we remain lost in individual investigations. Such a perspective is a province of another mode of knowledge and cannot be achieved in the same way that individual parts are explored.³⁰

The study of consciousness thus calls for a comprehensive schema of consciousness based on a direct and experiential knowledge already acquired. Such a schema, states Sri Aurobindo, "has to be formulated... the results, though data of experience, being at first taken as a working hypothesis, subject to verification.³¹

Notes and References

1. Sri Aurobindo, "Materialism" in The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (hereafter SABCL), (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970-75), Vol. 16, pp. 255-56.

Page 322

2. Charles T. Tart, "States of Consciousness and State-Specific Sciences" in Robert E. Ornstein (Ed.), The Nature of Human Consciousness (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), p. 60.

3. Robert E. Ornstein (Ed.), The Nature of Human Consciousness (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), p. XI.

4. Compare the following:

"Psychology is, primarily, the science of consciousness. Its researchers deal with consciousness directly when possible and indirectly, through the study of physiology and behaviour, when necessary." (Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, First Ed., San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1972). "Psychology is, primarily, the science of human experience. Its researchers study secondary phenomena — such as behaviour, physiology, and 'verbal report' — as they relate to the central questions of consciousness." (Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, Second Ed., San Diego: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich Inc., 1977).

5. Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 1994), p. 332.

6. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1970).

7. Arthur S. Reber, The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, 1987, s. v. "paradigm".

8. Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1989).

9. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL Vol. 18, p. 440.

10. Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious (New York: Dutton, 1976).

11. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Berkeley, Calif.: Shambala, 1975).

12. Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human, pp. 337-38.

13. Ibid., p. 291.

14. Sri Aurobindo, "Materialism" in The Supramental Manifestation and other Writings, SABCL Vol. 16, pp. 254-55.

15. Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom, p. 145.

Page 323

16. Hadley Cantril, Adelber Ames, Jr., Albert H. Hastorf and William H. Itelson, "Psychology and Scientific Research" in Robert E. Ornstein (Ed.), The Nature of Human Consciousness.

17. Charles T. Tart, "States of Consciousness and State-Specific Sciences", in Robert E. Ornstein (Ed.), The Nature of Human Consciousness, p. 41.

18. Robert E. Ornstein (Ed), The Nature of Human Consciousness, p. 213.

19. Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human, pp. 331-32.

20. Ibid., p. 321.

21. Ibid., p. 322.

22. Ibid., p. 340.

23. Ibid., p. 300.

24. Ibid., p. 337.

25. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 22, pp. 190-91.

26. Lama Govinda, "The Two Types of Psychology" in Robert E. Ornstein (Ed.). The Nature of Human Consciousness. p. 236.

27. Charles T. Tart, "Preliminary Notes on the Nature of Psi Processes" in ibid., p. 470.

28. Ibid., p. 492.

29. Quoted in Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom, p. 102.

30. Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, pp. 11-12.

31. Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human, p. 329.

Page 324