Troubling Materialism, or What's the Matter With Matter?

The November issue of Wired contains an article called “The Church of the Nonbelievers” about a group of scientists, the “New Atheists,” who have declared war on religion. They are talking to you, dear reader, reasonable humanist/agnostic that you are:

“The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there’s no excuse for shirking. Three writers have sounded this call to arms. They are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.”

You mean, I can’t sit on the fence?

In a recent issue of Harpers, the writer Marilynne Robinson takes Dawkins to task:

“In his new book, The God Delusion, Dawkins has turned the full force of his intellect against religion, and all his verbal skills as well, and his humane learning, too, which is capacious enough to include some deeply minor poetry. Truly this book is a sword which turneth every way, to judge by the table of contents at least. There is no doubt in Dawkins’s mind that the evils of the world are to be laid at the doorstep of the church, mosque, and synagogue, and that science must be our salvation.

“There is a pervasive exclusion of historical memory in Dawkins’s view of science. Consider this sentence from his preface, which occurs in the context of his vision of a religion-free world: ‘Imagine…no persecution of Jews as Christ-killers.’ In a later chapter he condemns Jews for discouraging ‘marrying out’ and complains that such ‘wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness is ‘a significant force for evil.’ It is of course no criticism to say that he values the tradition of Judaism not at all, since this is only consistent with his view of religion in general. He seems unaware, however, that there was in fact significant intermarriage between Jews and gentiles in Europe as well as secularism and conversion among the Jews, and that this appears only to have fired the anti-Semitic imagination. While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale—Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.

“Dawkins deals with all this in one sentence. Hitler did his evil ‘in the name of…an insane and unscientific eugenics theory.’ But eugenics is science as surely as totemism is religion. That either is in error is beside the point.

“Granting for the purposes of argument that Dawkins is correct in the view that the majority of great scientists are atheists, we may then exclude religion from among the factors that recruit them to this somber work. We are left with nationalism, steady employment, good pay, the chance to do research that is lavishly funded and, by definition, cutting edge—familiar motives of a kind fully capable of disarming moral doubt. In any case, the crankiest imam, the oiliest televangelist, can, at his worst, only urge circumstances a degree or two farther toward the use of those exotic war technologies that are always ready, always waiting. If it is fair to speak globally of religion, it is also fair to speak globally of science.”

I must admit to a certain satisfaction at the way this debate has intensified. And I find Dawkins et al. condescending and parochial. Then again, perhaps their polemical tone is a natural response to the religious right in America.

But God save us all from the facile New Age reconciliations of science and religion that seems to always be occurring in Psychology Today and Yoga Journal. Stephen Jay Gould attempted to call a truce by calling the two world-views “non-overlapping magisteria,” but that won’t do for some people, until they’ve exhausted all possibilities. Or at least until they understand what “non-overlapping magisteria” really means. And good for them.

One such person is ex-Buddhist monk B. Allan Wallace, who was interviewed recently on Salon. Here, Wallace talks about the 2,500-year-old Buddhist tradition of examining mental phenomena systematically as well as subjectively:

“More and more, scientists are able to identify the parts and functions of the brain that are necessary to generate specific mental states. So these are scientific issues. But now let’s tap into what the philosopher David Chalmers has called ‘the hard problem’—the relationship between the physical brain and consciousness. What is it about the brain—this mass of chemicals and electromagnetic fields—that enables it to generate any state of subjective experience? If your sole access to the mind is by way of physical phenomena, then you have no way of testing whether all dimensions of the mind are necessarily contingent upon the brain.

“According to quantum field theory, string theory and quantum cosmology—cutting-edge fields of 21st century physics—matter itself is not reducible to matter. And Richard Feynman, the great Nobel laureate in physics, commented very emphatically, 'We don't know what energy is.' He said it’s not stuff out there that has a specific location. It’s more like a mathematical abstraction. So matter has been reduced to formations of space. Energy is configurations of space. Space itself is rather mysterious. And so when I introduce this theme of a substrate consciousness, it’s not something ethereal that’s opposed to matter. Matter is about as ethereal as anything gets. But could there be this continuum of substrate consciousness that’s not contingent upon molecules? From the Buddhist perspective, yes.”

Energy is configurations of space. Space itself is rather mysterious. Matter is about as ethereal as anything gets.

And now I’d like to introduce you to Greg Fuqua, an artist from Iowa who is exploring some of these ideas visually. He's the new artist-in-residence at the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames. Greg does these big, swirling charcoal drawings that convey lots of movement but also extraordinary precision. There's great passion as well as great cognitive energy in his work.

This first image is called “Passive/Aggressive,” and I think it could be viewed as a stunning depiction of the idea of “substrate consciousness” (which Wallace also calls "stem consciousness," as in stem cell). According to some Buddhists, this consciousness exists prior to the fetal development of the brain, and survives death.



The second image is called “Conscious Nature.”



You stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that the Void isn’t void but is pregnant with possibilities.

Here’s Greg’s statement:
“My work is a melding of my fascination of nature and the forces that shape the form and behavior of matter, and consciousness. In a sense my work represents a reflection between creative nature and creative consciousness. I have invented my own cosmological system, to express notions of inner/outer, notions of permeability, notions of connectedness to nature, energy and to creationary processes. My work has become an abstract expression of this interface between body, consciousness and nature.

“The process was born out of a gestural drawing approach, a sort of an emergent physical felt process that oscillates between clarity and chaos, refinement and obscurity. I am attempting to capture the essence of nature, the primordial drive, the organizational tendencies and forces of the universe.

“The images are inspired from within and are non-objective, but they do connect with reality and provide the link between other natural worlds and us. The specific identification of these forms are not evident, they reference the sense of intrinsic beauty, mystery and power of nature which can be thought of as a representation of inner and outer worlds that are inherently familiar to us all.”

Greg is indeed troubling the line between matter and consciousness, nature and science—and to brilliant effect. I think he’s articulating a kind of sacred immanence, a place where magisteria might overlap or find a common source. He’s got a website in the works (for a science geek, Mr. Fuqua’s knowledge of html leaves something to be desired), but for now, google him to learn more about his work.