Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness

by B. Alan Wallace

This book focuses on the relation between science and religion. Alan Wallace argues that for its adherents scientific naturalism has taken on the role of an ersatz religion, with scientism functioning as the fundamentalist branch of that creed. A former Buddhist monk, Wallace brings to bear the ideas of Buddhism about the ultimate non-duality of subject and object. He argues that the inquiry into the nature of consciousness can greatly profit by incorporating some of the methods of the great contemplative traditions of the world, including that of the Christian West.

Genres: Science, Buddhism, Philosophy, Spirituality, Religion, Nonfiction, Neuroscience

218 pages, ebook

Published February 16, 2012

Reviews

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

На цю книгу покликаються у багатьох працях, у яких досліджують медитативні практики. Одна із перших спроб повернути досвіду "від першої особи" значення у дослідженнях. Загалом цікава книга і читається швидко. У порівнянні із його іншою книгою, раніше оціненою у моїй історії читання, тут Алан Волес згадує багатьох класиків філософії науки. Тобто генеза думки та аргументація набагато чіткіша, ніж у "скептиці".

Однак є зауваження, які напишу собі тут на згадку, а може ще комусь згодиться.
Це надалі буддійське бачення контемплятивного досвіду, традиції і практик медитації. Звужу навіть більше, що не робить автор - це контекст буддизму у його тибетському форматі. Незначні згадки інших традицій у межах буддизму можуть сформувати думку, що існує і переважає лише та, до якої належить автор.
Протистояння догматизму науки і критика цього догматизму цілком справедлива, бо і самі науковці, філософи науки критикують наукове середовище за схильність (як і в інших сферах діяльності людини) обмежувати критику, ігнорувати непояснюване у власних категоріях, вимагати від усіх визнання єдиної "правильної" картини світу. Науковий матеріалізм, сцієнтизм як ідеології у межах науки - це історія, від якої немає куди втікати і немає чого ігнорувати. Однак ті ж аргументи і ті ж зауваги щодо догматичної природу середовища автору варто було би застосувати до власного середовища релігії, а конкретно до тибетського буддизму. Цілком справедливо зазначено, що у модерній епосі, контемплятивні індивіди були радше рідкістю на Заході (без уточнення, про який Захід йдеться.. США? Британія?), але чомусь не згадується, що у межах тибетської традиції так само мало зроблено було для розвитку індивідів із науковим світоглядом. Тибет до окупації був резервацією середньовіччя, теократичного феодалізму, де релігія займала визначальну і єдину роль. Я був би дуже втішений, якби у середовищі мислителів буддизму, безвідносно до конфесії чи школи, було би внутрішньо піднято проблеми, породжені догматизмом релігійним. Японія - мілітаризм дзену, Тибет - застиглість населення у середньовіччі із владою церкви, М'янма і Шрі Ланка - ксенофобія та геноцид щодо релігійних меншин.

І нарешті ще одна річ, власне це думка, яка мене супроводжує вже не у першій книзі, де "критикують догматизм". Автору йдеться не про індивіда, а про індивіда, який включений у традицію або більший дискурс. Чи це наука, чи релігія - тільки така "зареєстрована" людина вважається учасником розмови про природу досліджень свідомості. Чомусь ігнорується ще один варіант, яким може бути іронічна наука - філософія. Філософія, де важливу і здорову роль має відігравати власне скептичність щодо "гучних фраз", "догм" та "остаточних істин" незалежно від масштабності та історії окремого середовища. Коротше: у книзі є місце навіть для діалогу науки і релігії, але майже немає місця для окремої людини у цьому діалозі. Людини без "паспорту" науки/релігії.

[Tasshin Fogleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book that was recommended to me by a meditator at the Center for Mindful Learning. This meditator is a student of both Alan Wallace (the book’s author) and Shinzen Young (my meditation teacher).

Wallace’s thesis seems to be that scientific materialism allows for a religious worldview; that the metaphysical principles underlying scientific materialism create a duality between objectivity and subjectivity, where subjectivity is “taboo”; a principled study of subjectivity, using the tools of contemplative traditions in a form that matches the study of science, is necessary for the advancement of human knowledge and necessary for human goodness.

In the first chapter, “Four Dimensions of The Scientific Tradition,” Wallace makes helpful distinctions between science, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Science is “a discipline of inquiry entailing rigorous observation and experimentation, followed by a rational, often quantitative, analysis; and its theories characteristically make predictions that can be put to the empirical test, in which they may turn out to be wrong, and the theory is thereby invalidated.” Its ideals are objectivity, skepticism, and pragmatism. (17-19)

Scientific realism is “a philosophical interpretation of scientific knowledge and its relation to the world…[its adherents] believe that the formulation of scientific theories aims to give us a literally true story of what the world is like and that the acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true.” It is a form of metaphysical realism “if ‘the world’ is regarded as the universe as it exists in itself, independent of human concepts and language.” (19) Wallace compares this view to scientific anti-realism.

Scientific materialism is an ideology that often accompanies science and scientific realism. To me, this was Wallace’s most helpful contribution: identifying some of, if not all of, the metaphysical underpinnings of scientific materialism. The metaphysical, a priori statemnets are these: “the principles of objectivism [scientific knowledge is equated with objective knowledge], monism [‘there is one unified universe consisting of generally one kind of stuff, which can be described by physics’; this stuff is ‘elementary particles of mass/energy’], universalism [‘natural, quantifiable regular laws govern the course of events in the universe uniformly throughout all of space and time’], reductionism [macro-phenomena, such as cells, are the causal results of micro-phenomena, elementary particles; ultimately, ‘there is nothing that living or nonliving things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.’], the closure principle [‘the physical world is causally closed—that is, there are no causal influences on physical events besides other physical events’], and physicalism [‘in reality only physical objects and processes exist. In other words, only configurations of space and of mass/energy and its functions, properties, and emergent epiphenomena are real. A closely related principle maintains that everything that exists is quantifiable, including the individual elements of physical reality, as well as the laws that govern their interactions’].” (21-26)

Scientism is the final division, which “subsumes scientific materialism (and, thus, scientific realism and science), but it is normally equated by its proponents with science itself.” It is “the doctrine that science knows or will soon know all the answers and has been said to judge disbelief in its own assertion as a sign of ignorance or stupidity.” Scientific knowledge is viewed as a unified whole (!), and as the only source of genuine knowledge about nature and humanity’s role in nature. Wallace compares this perspective to dogmatic religions, as “an absolutist perspective on reality...[that] denies the value of all other avenues of inquiry.” (37-8)

Wallace seems to think that these four divisions can be present together, but that not all are necessary for each other. Wallace seems to be committed to the thesis that science is necessary for the other three divisions, but that those three are not necessary for science, which Wallace seems to want to take by itself, albeit, in a new form which is not restricted to objectivity, and can thereby investigate subjectivity. I’m sympathetic to these claims, but I’m not sure if science can be removed from the others, especially the metaphysical principles Wallace claims underlie scientific materialism. Additionally, I wonder if others can think of any other metaphysical principles related to any of the four divisions Wallace makes.

Wallace links the four-fold division of science into science, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism, to a worldview that is caused by science. This passage, and his account of its effects (160ff.), is well worth a read. If the physical world is the only reality, then human life is an accident, the world is meaningless, life is suffering, there is no life after death, etc. (160) Wallace compares this view and our situation to that of Carvaka’s materialism in the seventh century B.C.E., which is said to lead to rampant hedonism. (161-3) While that episode is viewed as an anomalous, “misguided aberration in the rich history of Indian philosophy,” ours is no anomaly: despite increased scientific knowledge and resulting technologies, societal and ecological problems abound from the accompanying worldviews. Wallace’s strongest claim isn’t just that scientific materialism and/or scientism are dogmatisms; it’s that they are stealth dogmas, which violate the First Amendment by serving as “the de facto state religion in the United States” and other countries, and distort our systems of education, just as any other religious dogmatism has and would.

I sympathize with this account, although it does raise another question of mine: given claims like these, that ideas can affect how we live as individuals and communities (a related claim which I am also sympathetic to), what is the causality at work of that process? Obviously, this question is outside the scope of Wallace’s work, but it does seem to be a relevant question for a subjective science, albeit not directly related to that of a subjective science investigating contemplative results.

Wallace also makes some helpful suggestions for meditation, although I would have liked to see more along these lines. Although the passages I have summarized are very persuasive, and the book as a whole is very good, it does have some noticeable flaws. Like many non-fiction books, it could use some more editing, especially for concision. More problematically, Wallace makes some poor rhetorical choices. He emphasizes spirituality and religion over phenomenology—which itself is only alluded to, but one wonders how much of a command Wallace has of it (not that I have any command of it myself). Moreover, he talks about certain specific contemplative practices that are very foreign to our worldview, and are sure to detract from his otherwise persuasive account that meditation and contemplative traditions have a lot to teach us, especially in a more scientific setting and discipline. Finally, for a book emphasizing subjectivity, I can’t help wishing Wallace was a bit clearer about himself, his history, and his own opinions. Clearly he thinks science (in his division) is good; that its associated ideologies are unhelpful and/or false; that consciousness exists; that contemplatives find truth. But what about the God he keeps alluding to, or the specific Buddhist traditions Wallace was trained in? I’m sure Wallace has comments about these elsewhere, but they seem relevant to his argument.

Still, despite these qualms, I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. It makes me agree with, and hope to live by, a quote of Aquinas’ that Wallace brings up: “It is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation.” (187) Additionally, I will be recommending the book to several others. I hope they will read it generously, and find it fruitful.

[Gerardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

(IN SPANISH BELOW)

The Taboo of Subjectivity is Alan Wallace's colossal take on scientific materialism and its opposition to any study of the mind from a first-person perspective.
Throughout its pages, Wallace points out the basic metaphysical assumptions of scientific materialism, aswell as drawing very clearly the difference between this way of seeing the world and what true scientific inquiry is. Moreover, he uncovers the historical origins of this materialistic bias, showing how and where was the study of consciousness was relegated to a forgotten realm. From there, he calls for a drastic change in methodologies, proposing a radically empirical approach to the study of consciousness, and providing some already existing techniques found in the great contemplative traditions of the world (and especially in Buddhism) to accomplish such a quest.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, from beginning to end. It's as challenging as thought-provoking, for it goes against most of our preconceived ideas about the relation betwen the mind and the brain. And still, Wallace does a brilliant work in showing where we are dogmatically stuck, leaving the reader with the need for a second, or even third, re-reading of this book for fully grasping all the data and ideas presented in it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's already read "Embracing mind" and wishes to go deeper into the topics presented there, though in a much less mainstream-friendly way of putting them. This is an academic work wrote by Wallace during his staying in Stanford University, so you can expect a dense, yet extremely rich presentation about the way in which science could begin to really study consciousness.

El tabú de la subjetividad es el colosal estudio de Alan Wallace sobre el materialismo científico y su oposición a cualquier estudio de la mente desde una perspectiva en primera persona.
A lo largo de sus páginas, Wallace señala los supuestos metafísicos del materialismo científico, así como la diferencia entre esta manera de ver el mundo y lo que es la auténtica investigación científica. Además, pone de manifiesto los orígenes históricos de este sesgo materialista, mostrando cómo y de qué manera el estudio de la consciencia fue relegado a un reino olvidado. Desde aquí, Wallace llama a un cambio radical de metodologías, proponiendo un enfoque radicalmente empírico al estudio de la consciencia, y dando algunas técnicas ya existentes para ello presentes en las grandes tradiciones contemplativas del mundo (y especialmente en el Buddhismo) para lograr esta empresa.

He disfrutado completamente de este libro, de principio a fin. Es tan desafiante como generador de ideas, porque va contra la mayoría de nuestras ideas preconcebidas sobre la relación entre la mente y el cerebro. Y aún así, Wallace lleva a cabo un trabajo brillante en mostrar en qué lugar estamos dogmáticamente atascados, dejando al lector con la necesidad de una segunda, e incluso una tercera, relectura del libro para comprender del todo todos los datos e ideas presentadas en él.

Recomiendo encarecidamente esta obra a cualquier persona que ya haya leído "La ciencia contemplativa de la mente" (aunque "El Taboo..." no ha sido traducido al español, hasta donde sé) y desee profundizar en los tópicos que se presentan en él, aunque presentados en una manera menos accesible para el público general. Este es un trabajo académico escrito por Wallace mientras estaba en la Universidad de Stanford, así que puedes esperar una presentación densa, aunque extremadamente rica, sobre la manera en la que la ciencia podría comenzar a estudiar, realmente, la consciencia.

[Bernard English · Rating 4 out of 5]

A groundbreaking work warning us not to assume that the success of science in general implies that consciousness has been satisfactorily explained by science. This is however the impression one gets when reading about the cognitive sciences in the popular press or in scientific journals. Partly it the result of the fact that scientific materialism, according to Wallace, has all the trappings of a religion, especially its fundamentalist tendency of silencing dissent. As some clergymen purportedly refused to look through Galileo's telescope for fear of disturbing their world outlook, nowadays scientists refuse to investigate or simply dismiss the accounts of advanced meditative states experienced by contemplatives. Even worse, ironically governments such as the Russian and the U.S. have funded research into mind-control, i.e. controlling other people's minds rather than showing an interest in how one may control one's own mind. This attitude has been institutionalized in the U.S. and other countries. For example, in some American universities, religious departments are "prohibited by law from promoting the truth of their subject matter, except insofar as they report the truth of what other people believe and practice." And of course, the communist countries have literally gone as far as killing religious folk in their zeal to promote the "scientific" materialist viewpoint.
Wallace's point is that by the very selfsame scientific methods espoused by most intellectuals, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that scientific materialism or reductionism can explain consciousness. He gives several reasons for believing that consciousness and so-called qualia have as of yet not been explained:
1. the mystery of the placebo effect (search for the Mr. Wright case of 1957);
2. "there is no one-to-one correspondence between the frequencies and intensities of objective light and the qualia that make up our visual world";
3. according to some physicists, quantum mechanics (as far from a pure materialistic worldview as you could get) "cannot be understood without understanding consciousness"
4. brain scans of emotions such as sadness could not be explained purely by neurophysiological processes since without the subject's first-person declaration that he was experiencing sadness, the researchers wouldn't even know the images they see "represent" sadness;
5. Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg is cited as saying that matter has lost its central role in physics and "all that is left is principles of symmetry."

Wallace repeatedly accuses the scientific community of having a double-standard: faith among contemplatives and their first-person accounts are dismissed, but the element of faith and frequent lack of empirical rigor regarding science's claims about consciousness, for example, faulty claims of consciousness as merely an emergent phenomenon or information processing, are taken seriously in the absence of critical inspection.
Our denigration of spirituality and contemplation is in stark contrast with St. Thomas who wrote that "it is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation." After all, nowadays some will even claim that our emotions simply aren't even real!
Whatever you think about religious experiences, its worth considering Wallace's arguments.

[notformebabesbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly detailed and intelligent analysis of the way in which religion, but largely science, has come to shape our world. There is a taboo of subjectivity which pervades our society, and while everyone claims to know the answers, the science of the modern world has reached an almost dogmatic state in which consciousness and subjectivity are virtually equivalent to heresy. Alan Wallace does not claim to know either; we simply must come to realize that we have only looked outside, and there may be much more to know by looking in.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugely underrated book. This is one of the best books I have ever read about the difference between subjectivity and objectivity as it relates to our interpretation of science. Wallace goes into great detail about the history of western philosophy and where reductionism came from in the time of Descartes. He has a good understanding of the logical progression that materialism, reductionism, and dualism took. He is a logician and knows how important science is. In America, where we're still fighting the battle of separating church and state so our classrooms don't end up teaching creationism, his words don't sink in the way they would if we could afford to be more open minded.

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and engaging, if not a little difficult (quite difficult) to understand. If you are planning to read this, read with an open mind, as it may challenge you to question things you have always considered as certain. I would love if it were a bit more accessible, but it certainly is interesting.

[Shashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still digesting and revisiting this book. World changing.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff! A bit repetitive towards the end though.