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p. 154-155: “If this analysis is essentially correct, then human beings have no choice but to construct myths peopled by personalized power sources to explain their world…. Once unknown or mysterious causes of strips of reality are perceived as persons or personalized forces, they can be dealt with as one would deal with powerful persons. They can be offered gifts in return for their beneficence…. Since it is unlikely that humankind will ever know the first cause of every strip of reality observed, it is highly probable that it will always generate gods, powers, demons, and other entities as first causes to explain what it observes. Indeed, people cannot do otherwise.”

RESPONSE: Can’t do otherwise? Really? I find that a rather startling as well as untrue conclusion! Obviously there is a significant component of the populations of modern societies who do not in fact explain any part of the universe by using God or other personalized forces. But I think it does put the challenge to a Science of Ethics in perspective because most of humanity does at this time fall into the above characterization. Can they be convinced to follow a better path is the question? I think the achievements of science have helped persons avoid personalizing the forces in the universe and a Science of Ethics should help extend this even more.

p. 155: “The development of higher cortical functions may be regarded as a blessing insofar as they allow humans abstract problem solving, an adaptive mechanism in any environment. These higher functions can also be regarded as a curse. Because humans can think abstractly and causally, they can transcend their immediate perceptual field…. [and this] makes them acutely aware of their own mortality and of the contingency of their existence in an unpredictable world. This realization is the basis of the existential anxiety that all humans bear within them. It is to relieve this ‘curse of cognition,’ this existential anxiety, that humankind first seeks mastery over its environment by attempting to organize it mythically and by attempting to control it through the intervention of personalized power constructs.”

RESPONSE: As I’ve said before many times and in many places, I think the “fear of death” so broadly discussed is basically BS. Humans are taught to fear death by their folk religions which use it as a means of control. Without this fear at least half of the power churches hold over the congregations would disappear. Our higher cortical functions can actually lead us to recognize there is nothing to fear in death. I remember even in high school being surprised that many of the kids expressed this great fear of death.

p. 155: “We maintain that this control aspect of religion is a self-maintenance system…. What is efficacious is the sense of control over the environment itself that such religious practices give. It is clear that the human psyche requires some sense of control over the environment in order not to become dispirited, discouraged, or even depressed. It has been noted by several researchers as well as clinicians that the essence of a clinical depression is a sense of loss of control over one’s life, over one’s fate, or over the environment. We have presented the hypothesis in a previous work, drawn from Sade’s observations of his macaque colony, that depression may have evolved in an attempt to give stability to primitive groups. This, when an alpha male is challenged in an antagonistic display, and when he loses the confrontation, he develops all the outward or behavioral signs of depression, complete with psychomotor retardation and movement to the periphery of the group. We have postulated that this state allows the new alpha male to maintain his control over the group in a way that is unchallenged by the former holder of that position. This acquiesance would seem to prevent prolonged and fierce power struggles that would disrupt the structure and function of the group. Whether this submission, in fact, is the origin of clinical depression among humans or not, it is certain that the sense of a loss of control of the environment is profoundly debilitating, paralyzing, and destructive.”

RESPONSE: And possibly this mechanism may help to explain those criminal acts performed by “losers” who by “taking control” keep themselves from moving into the pain of depression which appears to be one of the most hurtful states humans can experience.

And this is something Science of Ethics might attack directly by providing any interested persons a method to use their life in a constructive, useful way. However, I think there is another matter regarding depression of greater importance which could easily be related to the foregoing idea. I think the primary source of depression for humans is lack of physical affection. When we experience loss – whether loss of a loved one, or social standing – the greatest comfort is to be held in the arms of a loving friend. This behavior can greatly reduce and limit feelings of depression.

p. 156: “This control aspect of religion is a self-maintenance system par excellence in that it allows for a sense of control over the environment that preserves the necessary positive psychological outlook to allow individuals and social groups to perform the actual manipulations in the external world that, in fact, do lead to some measure of control and ultimately survival. This control aspect of religion, involving the brain generating gods, spirits, and powers and their manipulation through sacrifice, prayer, and other contractual situations, is probably the most primitive form of religion.”

RESPONSE: Unfortunately, the “religious” ways of “controlling the environment” boil down to fantasy within one’s brain. Science of Ethics would work to develop ways to help persons in fact control their environment to the degree that this is possible at the given place and time.

p. 156: “We maintain that the attempt to control the environment via the positing of and control of personal power sources is sufficient in and of itself to constitute religion. In fact, almost all religions comprise other elements, which we will address shortly, but this aspect is never wholly absent, and in and of itself, generates behaviors that can properly be called religious without any admixture of other elements. We are somewhat arbitrarily restricting the noun religion and the adjective religious to attempts to control the environment via personalized power sources. We should note that the causal operator may also impose a spurious causality relating inanimate objects directly to each other, not through the mediation of personalized power sources. This process we have chosen to call magic and not religion. Thus, when a direct causal connection is seen between sticking a pin in a doll and a victim’s having a heart attack, we would call this magic in our system. Religion understood in the sense we are presenting it requires the mediation of the personalized power constructs. Thus the ex opere operantis theory of sacramental efficacy of classic Protestantism would be seen as a religious model whereas the ex opere operator theory of classic Roman Catholic sacramental theology would be seen as magical by this analysis.”

RESPONSE: I would not agree with the distinction between Catholic and Protestant sacramental theology that the authors make above, though I agree that the point they raise is important in other ways. From my perspective what the authors call religion I call magic. For them religion is still about those perceptions that take place in the brain of individuals with no identifiable component that can be found in the real world. The distinction they make does not seem relevant to me since in both situations it is the beliefs of the individuals that produce the effects; i.e., everything that happens is happening only within their brain.

Furthermore, I do not accept their definitions of religion which is restricted to the mystical dimension which is of course the focus of their attention, and for me the path of error. In my analysis the thing that actually defines a religion (meaning of human life) they totally leave out of their discussion. But for good reason since they make the “mystical mind” the key element of their discussion. To me the meaning of human life issue is of more fundamental importance than the issue they focus on. But if we look to the meaning of human life as being more basic and understand how it has employed the “mystical mind,” this would totally blow their conclusions, the relevance of their findings to their conclusions, and what they hope to accomplish with their project.

p. 159: “It is clear that all these experiences [of the different folk religions] involve self-transcendence in one way or another. We believe that this is the second manifestation of religion.”

RESPONSE: I wouldn’t disagree with the above. I think a natural religion would provide this self transcendence by helping persons realize that the primary goal of human life is to work for the perpetuation of the human species in such a way that all persons are able to fulfill their full positive potential.

p. 160: “It is easy to see why self-transcendence is highly prized. To a greater or lesser extent it makes an individual invulnerable to the exigencies of life and to the effects of evil in the world.”

RESPONSE: For a Science of Ethics self-transcendence would actually help to provide guidance so the individual could use their life to correct any activities that were standing in the way of human fulfillment.

p. 160-161: “It is not so immediately obvious why those religions that are primarily mystical in nature tolerate a significant admixture of the first manifestation of religion [attempt to control the environment]. The answer is probably that human beings are human beings. Religions are not primarily composed of mystics or people who have attained advanced spiritual states. They are composed by and large of ordinary people who must face ordinary problems in life. For them the control of the environment represents a necessity of day-to-day living…. For the ordinary person such experiences, and the testimony of mystics, function to support the power of the gods or personalized power sources.”

RESPONSE: And, of course, what has been overlooked up to this point in folk religions is that the efforts of the mystics is counter to their own well-being. So rather than being “protected” by “God,” they are oppressed by “God.” It is this concept that permits the growth and maintenance of corruption, crime, war, and all else that works to prevent persons from becoming their own best self.

p. 161: “Self-transformation is not so much a third manifestation of religion as it is a consequence and corollary of self-transcendence. As individuals move up the unitary continuum and impose ever more holistic views on reality, there is noted an increased emotional discharge via the rich connections which Gary Schwartz, Richard Davidson, and Foster Maer [4] have described between the non-dominant hemisphere and the limbic system. This increased emotional discharge (especially when associated with a high arousal state) is known to cause a certain degree of neural instability, allowing for the forming of new connections between neurons. If the new connections form in a certain way, the result may be a realignment of one’s understanding of one’s self and the world in relation to the mystical experience.”

RESPONSE: For a Science of Ethics self-transformation is a critical issue since this is essential to one’s being able to achieve a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning. How relevant the above process would be to this process is problematical. As indicated before unless this process could be used without leading the practitioner to succumb to the mystical, it would prevent rather than promote Enlightenment.

p. 161: “In other words, a state of relatively sustained emotional excitement can facilitate the reorganization of our cognized environment. This is akin to what Anthony Wallace [5] called mazeway resynthesis and to what the great psychoanalyst Franz Alexander [6] called a corrective emotional experience. Any intense emotional arousal such as ‘hitting bottom’ in Alcoholics Anonymous can facilitate a personal transformation. Such an experience is accompanied, however, by a surrender of the ego in one way of another to a higher power. This may be to the general process in psychoanalysis, to the higher power in ‘Alcoholics Anonymous, or to a more traditional concept of God. But there is no doubt that heightened emotionality in a context of surrender increase the possibility of self-transformation. One does not have to move far upward along the unitary continuum for the possibility of transformation to become more and more probable. Indeed, at the extremes of the unitary continuum, transformation of one’s life becomes almost inevitable. We know of no mystic, properly so called, who attained the levels of either cosmic consciousness or absolute unitary being, whose view of himself and the world was not radically transformed.”

RESPONSE: What can “surrender of the ego” possibly mean other than abdicating consciously taking responsibility for one’s choices and allowing them to be made by the unconscious? I think this analysis cries out for a new approach.

For a Science of Ethics this seems all wrong. Finding oneself seems more the issue than surrendering oneself, though the issue is really about interpretation. If one has a very self-destructive image of oneself which has moved them to the brink of destruction, and they realize this image must be given up, then to do so might feel like surrender: to the parents who told them they were wrong, their church, society, etc.

But if they can accept that it was through their own search that they reached this point and were now in fact ready to give up the old self and become someone new, it is not surrender it is re-birth. And re-birth has the potential to be a very positive thing if one is able to move in the direction that is in fact best for them.

p. 162: “One final point regarding the neuropsychological basis of religion and ritual is that there are many activities that may be perceived as more or less religious or having a religious flavor. This is particularly the case since such activities likely utilize the neurophysiological mechanisms that are manifested most strongly in either the first or second aspects of religion just described. That is, insofar as a human activity exerts control over the physical environment or involves the union of the self with other persons or things, such an activity can be perceived as having a religious flavor or even as being strongly although not essentially religious. Sports, politics, science, or almost any human activity that utilizes the mechanisms either of control of the environment or of imposing relative unity over multiplicity can be considered religious under certain circumstances.”

p. 162: “Furthermore, any activity, whether or not it involves control of the physical environment or the theme of unity, can be perceived as religious if it is perceived as contributing to humanity’s fundamental sense of well-being. This is because religion, in either its first or its second manifestation, is paradigmatic in this regard. All religion tends to fulfill the fundamental needs of an individual as often defined by the culture in an absolute or transcendent way. Since this fundamental need-fulfillment role is essential to religion, any activity that participates in satisfying fundamental needs can be seen as participating in the religious paradigm.”

RESPONSE: Science of Ethics which is able to provide the basis for a natural religion would agree that all behavior has components which are relevant to such a religion as well as to ethical behaviors; i.e., those that relate to meaning of human life. This is totally divorced from mystical behavior which can only prevent, not enhance, a person’s achieving a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning. Everything that moves one toward achieving a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning is moral behavior, and anything that prevents it is not moral behavior. The same thing applies relative to natural religion.

p. 163: “In this chapter, we will consider in detail how various aspects of neurophysiology and neuropsychology manifest themselves in theology. In particular, we will examine how the cognitive imperative, the cognitive operators, and our model of mystical experiences relate to theology. It is important to mention that we will not consider any specific theological constructs in detail, but rather will explore how general concepts in theology may be derived from an analysis of neurophysiology. This approach will lead to the development of a metatheology that does not have specific theological content, but explains the essential components of any specific theology.”

RESPONSE: Being able to understand theology as a product of the natural functioning of the brain is definitely a valuable tool for a Science of Ethics. It allows a more in-depth understanding of folk religions and possibly about some of the desirable elements of a natural religion.

p. 163-164: “A reason for theology: To begin with, neurophysiology helps explain why theology exists at all. In its most general definition, theology is a deductively reasoned analysis applied to some foundational myth of a given religion or culture. In particular, theology can be approached in a number of ways. It must always begin, however, with a foundational myth, and then, from that, theology derives various concepts and conclusions based on rational thought processes. One might wonder why human beings create theology in the first place. For this answer, we turn to the notion of the cognitive imperative. We proposed this concept early in this book and described it as the ingrained need in human beings to organize their world cognitively. This need is applied to both internal and external stimuli from the world. From the evolutionary perspective, the cognitive imperative seems adaptive for Homo sapiens since it is human cognition that has provided an invaluable tool for finding food, avoiding dangers, constructing shelters, and surviving in general. But if the cognitive imperative is applied to whatever things are experienced in the world, it is also applied to religion and God. In other words, the cognitive imperative is an absolutely general function of the human mind/brain.”

p. 164: “Thus, human beings seem destined to use their rational mind/brain to wonder about God and the mysteries of religion. Whatever myths arise regarding God or some other power source, and however irrational such myths may be, nevertheless, these myths can be considered rationally and conclusions can be derived from them. In fact, once there exists a foundational myth that includes a power source, then the cognitive imperative, which created the myth in the first place, necessarily begins to analyze the myth rationally. Cognitive operators such as the causal and holistic operator are then brought to bear on that myth.”

RESPONSE: It seems to me an important way to put the above in perspective is to ask, If theology exists, why then do we have philosophy? Why do we have science? In my mind both of these fields exist because of the deficiencies of folk religions. If folk religions “worked” there would be no need for philosophy and science. As it turns out now that Science of Ethics exists there is no longer a need for theology.

Whatever foundational myths need to be understood must look to anthropology, sociology, psychology, and Science of Ethics for the answers. Any answers from theology can only confuse the issues because theology takes the myths as true, rather than as what they actually are, and as a result gets lost in one blind alley after another. And since theology uses mysticism to justify its processes it spirals ever deeper into a realm that only psychology grounded by Science of Ethics can provide answers for.

p. 164: “The Cognitive Operators and Theology: We can now turn to an analysis of theology and theological constructs from a neurophysiological perspective. In particular, theological concepts can now be interpreted based on the specific operators that might be manifesting themselves either singly or in combination with others. Thus, in the remainder of this chapter, we will use the notion of cognitive operators to help explain the development of various theological concepts.”

p. 164-165: “We mentioned in the beginning that theology concerns itself with that which us ultimate. Thus, it certainly seems appropriate that theology should involve some supernatural power being that is considered to be the ultimate cause of the universe (if derived from the causal operator) or the ultimate unity of the universe (if derived from the holistic operator). We would argue, however, that the driving force behind this desire to seek out ultimate things is based partly on the cognitive imperative and partly on the experience of the absolute functioning of various operators on all of reality. In fact, whenever there is a total functioning of the operators, we derive some sense of the ultimate, since when an operator is functioning exclusively, no other analysis of the external world can occur. The entire world is a manifestation of that operator. Since the conditions that exist within which an operator can maintain absolute function require unusual activity of the arousal and quiescent systems, there is usually a strong affective content to these experiences. After these experiences, the cognitive imperative again takes over such that we have the burning desire to understand what the experience actually represented. Thus, there is a strong emotional drive to explore the ultimate since these are perhaps the most emotional states that can be achieved. Furthermore, the drive is derived from the strong evolutionary selection for the cognitive imperative.”

RESPONSE: Where these explorations have always broken down is re: ultimate. The ultimate and its tie to the supernatural is obviously dependent on human brain functions. But when this is denied as d’Aquili and Newberg do, then all scientific guidance is lost and answers must come out of our “tribal” propensities rather than our “wisdom” potential.

By recognizing the functioning of the brain as the true ultimate as Science of Ethics does, it avoids the trap that theology falls into when it projects the functioning of the brain back onto the universe and thereby places the answers beyond the reach of science. If we turn the “mystical mind” over to psychology to study, understand, and inform us about then we have a basis to accumulate useful, usable knowledge rather than questionable, not understandable mish-mash that theology attempts to interpret using tools totally inadequate to the job.

Understanding how the cognitive operators cause the brain to work provides us the basis to expand psychology in ways making it of great value to Science of Ethics.

p. 165: “Indeed, we have proposed that the sense of what underlying reality “really is" in various philosophies, and derivatively in various theologies, originates in a sudden flash of insight in a thinker. We maintain that the flash of insight arises from total deafferentation of any given cognitive operator. We suspect the sequence of events is something like the following: The philosopher or theologian thinks very intensely in a particular way. Let us say that the person is thinking, almost meditating, about how things are caused. The intensity of this use of the causal operator eventually may produce total deafferentation of the causal operator. Suddenly, our thinker experiences a profound sense of all of reality as cause and effect. This sensation is not yet a philosophical concept. It is initially more powerful than a concept. It is the profound sense that one has had a glimpse into the ultimate and that, in this case, it is cause and effect. After our philosopher's or theologian's flash of insight (when he or she recovers from the total deafferentation of the causal operator, in this case), he or she develops philosophical or theological concepts, derived from the experience. The philosopher or theologian then goes about constructing a logical system in the firm certainty that he or she has fundamentally comprehended what is "real." Of course, as we shall see, this can happen with any cognitive operator, generating diverse ultimate realities and diverse philosophies and theologies.”

RESPONSE: Surely the foregoing also applies to scientists and all other thinkers. Richard Morris, [7] comments, “During the late sixteenth century, Galileo became a firm believer in Copernicus’ idea that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the solar system. Galileo insisted that the earth moved, that it revolved around the sun while rotating on its axis.” And then Morris asks, “But how did he know that it did? It wasn’t until 1851 that an experiment was performed that demonstrated that the earth did indeed rotate.” Further on he says [8], “Galileo is not the only one who experienced this kind of faith. Albert Einstein became convinced of the correctness of his theories long before any experiments were possible. In fact, he sometimes expressed the opinion that if an experiment appeared to contradict the results that he had worked out mathematically, then it was the experiment that was at fault.”

This sounds very like the above description of the individual’s certainty about comprehending what is “real.” Of course both Galileo and Einstein proved on occasion to be wrong in their proposals. But fortunately their mistakes could be determined because science has a way of correcting the errors of its practitioners. Unfortunately, selecting from the “ultimate realities” of theologians is more difficult since they are always untestable.

But the working of the cognitive operators could well be the source of the motivation that has driven science’s “search for Truth.” Also, it remains an open question as to whether this dynamic can be altered to accommodate the Science of Ethics paradigm.

p. 165-166: “Now that we have gained insight into why humans are driven to seek out the ultimate, various problems in theology can be reframed in terms of the function of the mind/brain. Since we have already described theology as a rational deduction from a foundational myth, we must consider how this rational deduction arises. Rather than selecting specific theological concepts and describing them from a neurophysiological perspective, we will examine each of the cognitive operators individually to determine how theological concepts, in general, might be derived. Further, the derivation of various theological concepts seems to arise from the absolute function of a number of cognitive operators. Specifically, the implication is that, at any given time, only one of the operators functions, and it appears to function on all of reality. In order for this event to happen from the neurophysiological perspective, the structures of the brain that underlie any give operator have to be deafferented from the rest of the brain. This deafferentation has already been described in the chapter regarding the neurophysiological model of meditation in which the orientation association area is totally deafferented. We have proposed, however, that other operators and association areas may also be deafferented, leading to the ultimate development of various fundamental perceptions of reality and concepts about reality based on these perceptions. In terms of overall theological constructs, there likely needs to be some degree of absolute functioning of an operator to generate a profound sense of the underlying nature or reality and consequent ideas about the ultimate. Many ‘lesser’ theological derivations may require lesser degrees of deafferentation (i.e., partial) of a given operator, thus focusing its function on a smaller strip of reality. Lesser theological concepts may also result from the combination of the function of two or more operators. Either way, these operators must eventually be brought to bear on the foundational myth for theology to arise. For the purposes of this book, we will focus primarily on the absolute functioning of the operators and, thus, on more general or universal theological issues.”

RESPONSE: It seems worth commenting on the point about theology being a “rational deduction from a foundational myth.” I think the authors are correct in their analysis on this point. However, I think the conclusion must be obvious, that if you start off with a myth that has concrete details, the rational deductions that can be made from it are in fact limited in their rational value, and if it has no concrete details it provides no guidance in understanding.

The reason science is superior to theology is that its foundational myths can change to accommodate the increasing knowledge the processes of science makes possible. Hopefully, it might even be able to change to the degree that it could accept the idea that science is the search for congruency and that human beings are the ultimate reference system. From there it might be recognized that the value of all knowledge is judged by its ability to help individuals achieve a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning.

However, understanding how the cognitive operators lead to theology’s conclusions should help us to generalize beyond theology and understand their role in all areas of human thought, and what that might mean to a Science of Ethics.

p. 166: “The holistic operator has already been related to the notion of the experience of deity with the subsequent development of a concept of God. This operator is fundamentally important, since it continually forces theology to account for God’s omnipresence, omniscience, and ability to bind together and maintain the entire universe. Thus, any serious consideration of the implications of the absolute functioning of the holistic operator necessitates, at least, considering the expansion of any foundational myth to apply to all of reality, including other people, other cultures, other animals, and even other planets and galaxies. In fact, as human knowledge of the extent of the universe has evolved, the notion of God has evolved to incorporate the expanding sense of the totality of the universe. The holistic operator requires that whatever new reaches of the universe astronomers can find, God must be there. No matter how small and unpredictable a subatomic particle might be, God must be there, too.”

RESPONSE: However, when we remember that all this ultimately goes back to the foundational myths of the culture this means that all these holistic efforts are bound by the limits of the foundational myths. So how other people, and other cultures are included depends on the limits of the foundational myths which normally require conquest and/or conversion.

In addition since the symbols in the foundational myths are also limited by the period in which the myth developed, they restrict the relevance of these symbols to the world as it is currently understood. So God which is the whole meaning of theology no longer has a place in the modern world and only serves to confuse our understanding and prevent individuals from being able to accept a Science of Ethics, and to work toward their own achievement of a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning and thereby working to maintain and develop the species.

p. 177: “We are now almost ready to see how neurotheology can generate a metatheology and a megatheology. By metatheology, we mean the most overarching approach to fundamental religion comprising the general principles that regulate and constrain the construction of any and all concrete specific theologies. In this sense, a metatheology is devoid of all theological content (although not of neuropsychological content) in that it describes how any theology, regardless of its content, must be structured.”

RESPONSE: However, all of this is within the limits of theology based on “the mystical mind.” Therefore, its relevance to a Science of Ethics is that it provides a great model for how and why theology works and possibly ways these insights might be helpful to Science of Ethics.

p. 177: “By megatheology, we mean the most overarching theological content available in terms of current knowledge. Such general and basic theological content derived from neurotheology, is what we have called megatheology. Megatheology can serve as the basis for a new and more universal specific theology by which human beings may guide their lives. Or, because of its generality, it may serve as a fundamental elaboration of most, if not all, of the existing specific theologies of the world’s great religions.”

RESPONSE: But again this is of limited value to Science of Ethics because it fails to reach to the foundation issue of meaning of human life rather than only the mystical answer to this problem.

p. 177: “The generation of a metatheology and a megatheology seems to be a heavy task to place upon neurotheology. Nevertheless, we are firmly convinced that neurotheology is clearly the best and most effective approach to attacking the problems of a metatheology and a megatheology. We hope to demonstrate the basis for this conviction in the next chapter. But before we can do so, it is essential that we consider, in some detail, first, the relationship of consciousness to external reality and, second, what the concept of ‘reality’ can possibly mean. Once we have considered these ancient philosophical problems within the context of neurotheology, we will be equipped to consider seriously the problems of a metatheology and a megatheology.”

RESPONSE: These models seem well-grounded to me, and if one doesn’t get hooked into the authors’ theories about “reality,” very useful in understanding some very important things about how the human mind works. They are very helpful in understanding the history of religion up to the present day.

p. 178: “The relationship of consciousness to the mind/brain is anything but clear. Therefore, to understand the problems of consciousness, it is first necessary to understand the problems that consciousness poses in general, and particularly how it may relate to any physical realty. To an adult human being with a normally functioning mind/brain, reality at first pass, seems to be composed of two vividly real categories. The first is the conscious self and the second is external reality composed of things that appear to have an inherent reality separate from the conscious self. The things in external reality also appear to be represented in, or known by, the conscious self. Thus, the classical philosophical problem of subjectivity versus objectivity is only a problem because the mind/brain, under ordinary conditions, insists on processing reality in this manner. To the naïve observer, there is an absolutely certain sense that there is reality external to the self that appears to be characterized by a heavy, substantive reality often termed matter or material reality. The naïve observer also has the absolutely certain sense of a conscious self that seems to have a light, changeable, and ethereal quality often termed mind, spirit, or sometimes soul. The naïve terminology is anything but exact.”

RESPONSE: The authors point to a key problem that begs for better answers than have been available in the past. This is an issue that Science of Ethics deals with by proposing that human beings are the ultimate reference system. I think this takes us beyond “naïve” observation and terminology without falling into the carefully constructed trap suggested by the authors (which in comparison make the “naïve” observer look like a fountain of wisdom).

p. 178: “These two senses of reality are so vivid and appear so real that early philosophy did not seriously question the fundamental nature of this duality. For the first thousand years of its existence in the West, philosophy began its work by concentrating primarily on the substantiality of reality. This was the heyday of ontology. Beginning with Rene Descartes, followed by the radical empiricism of Bishop George Berkeley, among the British empiricists, and with Immanuel Kant, on the Continent, the shift to the emphasis on the mind as the philosophical starting point and how we can ‘know’ external reality, or anything at all for that matter, began. Since the seventeenth century, therefore, we have seen the dominance of epistemology with its emphasis on how we know, and in its extreme manifestation, with the assertion that all reality is mind. At first modern science entered in on the side of the old ontology, naively assuming the existence of external reality as represented in consciousness. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, and particularly since the development of quantum theory, science finds itself caught between ontology and epistemology with the old certainties vanishing like smoke.”

RESPONSE: Science of Ethics claims to provide a way to sidestep the many pitfalls uncovered by the various interpretations of mind and reality. In my mind Science of Ethics provides the correct solution to this problem and allows us to focus our efforts on what is in fact the key issue, the individual and our species, existing in an unknown but understandable universe.

p. 179: “Edmund Husserl, [is] often called the father of phenomenology…. Husserl began his work trying to develop a specific procedure for examining the structure of intentionality, which, of course, was the structure of experience itself, without making any reference whatsoever to a factual empirical world and especially without any assumption of its actual existence. This rigid formal procedure he called epoche or ‘bracketing,’ for it required that one bracket, or suspend belief in, one’s ordinary judgments about the relation between experience and the world ‘out there.’ Husserl maintained that these ordinary judgments, which must be temporarily suspended or bracketed, represent a ‘natural attitude.’ When this natural attitude is raised to the level of a philosophical school, it is called ‘naïve realism.’ By bracketing what he came to see as the ‘hypothesis of the natural attitude,’ Husserl attempted to study the intentional contents of the mind purely internally, that is, without tracing them back to what they seemed to refer to in the external world. By this approach, he claimed to present a new domain of knowledge that was absolutely prior to any empirical science. Starting with pure experience, and eschewing all assumptions implicit or explicit about the nature of reality, Husserl embarked upon a sort of philosophical introspection which he called Weschenschau or ‘intuition of essences.’ By this process, Husserl attempted to reduce experience to essential structures and then demonstrate how our human world was generated from them. We can now see how far Husserl’s rigorous approach to subjective awareness eventually led him from Descartes’ and [Franz] Brentano’s mental representationalism. Husserl’s vigorous phenomenological approach had put an independent isomorphic external world on very shaky ground, indeed.”

RESPONSE: Or, from my perspective it has placed Husserl’s conjectures on very shaky ground, indeed.

p. 180: “The relationship between the apparent inner and the apparent outer ‘is probably the most important general scientific and philosophical problem of our time.’”

RESPONSE: I submit that “human beings as the ultimate reference system” is the best solution to the problem of inner vs. outer we are likely to find.

p. 181: The “Binding” Problem: “Perhaps the biggest problem currently faced by neurophysiologists and neuropsychologists is how recognition or awareness of sensor inputs comes about. This has come to be known as the “binding” problem…. For recognition of a sensory input, it is necessary to somehow bring together at least the essential recognition features both within a given sensory modality and then across modalities.”

p. 182-183: Blindsight: “The phenomenon of ‘blindsight’ is a rare but well-documented pathological condition…. In this disorder, the primary visual area (the calcarine cortex) is left intact, but there is destruction of most of the visual association areas. Patients claim that they are totally blind. They can, in fact, see nothing, at least consciously. However, such patients can walk through rooms of furniture, through doors, up and down staircase, and even on busy streets without ever bumping into anything or taking unusual chances…. There is some evidence that a similar condition may obtain with other sensory modalities when their association areas are destroyed, but when their primary cortical areas are intact. If further evidence bears this out, especially in sensory modalities other than vision, it is reasonable to assume that subjective awareness arose with the evolution of secondary sensory association areas.”

p. 183: “The binding problem and the specific function of the sensory association areas are two major research issues that neuropsychologists are currently investigating to obtain an understanding of subjective awareness either of the external world or of imagined gestalts. All of this discussion refers to the mechanisms underlying awareness of something.”

p. 183: “Over the years, we have become interested in understanding pure consciousness, that is, consciousness devoid of content, sometimes described as a clear and vivid consciousness of nothing, or perhaps of everything at the same time…. We have proposed that total deafferentation of the posterior superior parietal lobule, especially on the right, results in this state.”

RESPONSE: And of course here we get back to the authors’ supposition that this experience of “pure consciousness” represents any more than what is happening in the brain under the conditions described.

From my perspective they do not present a convincing reason to accept their position and every argument they bring up to support their contention that something else is going on only goes to demonstrate that they have chosen to see something mystical in phenomena and structures that can better and more simply be explained in naturalistic and non-mystical ways.

p. 184: “If we look at the traditional Aristotelian four types of causality that were considered necessary to explain a phenomenon fully – efficient causality [the effecting, mobile operating force that produces changes], material causality [matter, the stuff of which a thing is made], formal causality [the plan or structure inlaid into a thing], and final causality [a goal, the end state toward which a thing is drawn] – we find that our scientific explanation of awareness satisfies only one of the four requirements, efficient causality. Efficient causality is knowledge of a phenomenon in terms of anterior sequential causes. It is what we ordinarily mean by casualty in modern parlance. Material causality is knowledge of the constitutive substance of the phenomenon. Clearly, we do understand what the stuff of awareness actually is. Formal causality is knowledge of a phenomenon in the organization of its constituent parts. Awareness itself has no constituent parts. The contents of awareness are its objects and not part of what it is itself. It would seem that awareness itself is simple and hence has no formal cause. Final causality is a knowledge of things in their purpose or in modern terminology, in terms of their adaptive function. Although final causality as originally formulated is subject to the critique of teleology, its reformulation as teleonomy has an important function in the philosophy of science.”

RESPONSE: Let’s start by examining teleonomy. TELEONOMY: the element of apparent purpose or possession of a project in the organization of living systems, without implying any vitalistic connotations. Frequently considered as a necessary if not sufficient defining feature of the living organization. (Maturana and Varela, 1979)

Certainly for a Science of Ethics purpose or adaptive function is a critical issue since it defines “meaning.” This has been a primary area of confusion throughout human history. The “mystic mind” has led individuals to believe their purpose has been provided by a cosmic ruler that provides them guidance in following that purpose.

Science of Ethics teaches that our purpose comes out of our existence as a species that has evolved over the course of millions of years. That purpose includes a unique attribute (the language ability) that allows us to think about purpose rather than automatically follow the purposes embedded in our genes; i.e., as a product of our evolutionary history.

But as indicated before this “purpose” is embedded in the matter of which we are made and the ways this matter interacts in such a way that trying to bring back Aristotle’s formal and final causes would confuse thinking rather than clarify it. And although this is an issue of central importance to Science of Ethics it can be dealt with in terms of the foundation provided by the seminal thinking that produced modern science as laid down by Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon and the other scientists of that period, except expanded to include mind/brain within that framework.

When the authors talk about Aristotle’s four laws they are playing around with the basic assumptions of modern science in ways that I think betray the thrust of their efforts. Descartes convinced science that formal causality and final causality were not appropriate for the studies science is able to make and they have been discarded from consideration by scientists since that time. The authors obviously want to return to that decision and follow closer to the path of Aristotle, which can accommodate mysticism while science cannot.

I think Descartes’ decisions about the issue of cause do need to be restudied and expanded in order to recognize that human beings are the ultimate reference system. This re-examination would include recognizing that the findings of science must be understood not in terms of some Platonic Truth, but empirically in terms of their value to human beings.

As discussed earlier I think this can be done by formulating science’s two causes (matter [material cause], and motion [efficient cause]) in an expanded way. In this approach meaning is part of efficient cause (matter-in-motion) since this is where the ability to formulate and pursue goals comes from. They do not come from outside the human brain.

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