Meditation in the Material World: Why Contemplative Practice Doesn't Run Afoul of a Belief in Science

In the previous post, we explored the true promise of meditation. By examining our own conscious experience, we can discover our own innate qualities of mind—such as awareness, compassion, and wisdom—and in so doing get in touch with an unshakable source of wellbeing that is available to us regardless of what’s happening in our lives and the world.

However, many of us have the core belief that reality is fundamentally physical, and so everything in our experience is ultimately dependent on the physical circumstances of our bodies, brains and environment. If this is true, our wellbeing must be largely dependent on external circumstances that are mostly outside our control, and the idea of finding a stable source of wellbeing through meditation seems like wishful thinking at best. But what if this view turns out to be misguided, based entirely on a conception of science that is demonstrably outdated and inadequate? Is it possible that practices like meditation can help us discover something truly fundamental about ourselves and the reality we inhabit?

Physicalism and its Discontents

In philosophy, “physicalism” is the name given to the idea that reality is fundamentally made up of objective, independently existing physical objects, and that everything that appears to us, from objects or phenomena in the external world to our own inner thoughts and feelings, ultimately emerges from this base layer of fundamental physical reality. Usually, physicalism goes hand in hand with a reductionist view, which holds that there are only a few classes of things that are ultimately real, such as the fundamental forces and subatomic particles of physics, and that everything else we perceive or experience ultimately emerges from this fundamental level of reality. Our inner  experience rests upon biology, biology rests upon chemistry, and chemistry rests upon physics.

Many of us accept physicalism unquestioningly as the only view that is compatible with everything science has taught us about reality. We think that calling this view into question is equivalent to rejecting all the progress we have made in scientific understanding and taking a step backward into the superstitious beliefs of our ancestors.

Unfortunately, for many of us, this leaves us in a situation of profound hopelessness. We would like to think that there’s somehow more to us than the atoms that make up our bodies and brains, but we feel that any openness to this idea amounts to some kind of intellectual dishonesty. As a result, though we may find some kind of provisional meaning in living a good life, we are always haunted by the idea that whatever meaning we find is just some kind of illusion or mirage, a little oasis of temporary comfort in a desert of meaningless physical machinery.

Despite its profound negative effects on our state of mind, many of us accept this physicalist view with little or no examination. We never realize that if we begin to dig more deeply into exactly what it is we believe, the facade begins to crumble. And so, for the remainder of this post, we will do just that. Our aim here is not to prove that physicalism is right or wrong. Instead, it is to explore exactly what it is we are signing up for when we adopt a physicalist view, and thus to allow us to examine for ourselves whether there is good reason to accept unquestioningly a belief that causes us so much vexation. If the answer turns out to be “maybe not”, then we can perhaps find ourselves in a position where we are able to take a fresh look at our own experience and accept what we find with an open mind.

Looking Under the Hood of Physicalism

As stated above, physicalism is the idea that all phenomena ultimately reduce to an independent reality governed by the laws of physics and the entities, such as particles and forces, that those laws permit.(1) In examining this view, our first question might be “what laws of physics do we mean?” The laws of physics represent our own best understanding at any given time, and are therefore in constant flux. At the end of the 19th century, a physicalist might have believed that everything reduces to the classical laws of mechanics and electromagnetism, and likened our universe to the machinery of a clock.

Today, our understanding is very different. Our most successful theories describe a universe made up of a handful of quantum fields, repositories of energy that are able to interact and exchange energy with one another according to the strange laws of quantum mechanics. The fundamental particles we are familiar with from high school chemistry are themselves nothing more than energy packets within these fields. Like waves in the ocean, the particles are more like states of the fields themselves rather than independent entities.  This is a very different picture of fundamental physical reality than the one that was prevalent just a little more than a century ago.

Still, we might say that even if our understanding of the laws of physics is incomplete and still developing, we are nevertheless converging on the correct laws which, once discovered, will finally tell us once and for all what is at the foundation of reality. So, when we adopt a physicalist view, we’re not really sure what it is we’re signing up for. We implicitly assume that this yet undiscovered set of ultimately correct physical laws will look something like the physics we know today, insofar as it describes a reality that is fundamentally “material” in the sense that it exists objectively, external to ourselves and our conscious experience. But there’s no guarantee at all that the correct formulation of physics, if indeed there is such a thing, would look anything like the science of physics as we understand it today. In fact, as we discuss below, physics and other sciences have long been sending us clues that we need to profoundly alter our entire paradigm if we are to make further progress.

What Makes the Hard Problem Hard

To be complete, a final version of physics would have to explain exactly how our conscious experience arises from the laws and objects that it takes to be fundamental. After all, the existence of conscious awareness is an undeniable fact about the universe (some would say the only undeniable fact), so any theory that can’t explain consciousness could not possibly be correct and complete. In the language of philosophy, the final theory would have to provide a definitive answer to “the hard problem of consciousness”(2), a contemporary formulation of the mind-body problem which has been vexing philosophers since the dawn of human thought.

Put succinctly, the hard problem of consciousness asks, how can the qualities of our inner experience arise from the clockwork machinery of a universe governed by physical laws? Why does light of a certain wavelength striking our retinas and triggering a cascade of electrical activity in our neurons give rise to the felt sensation of seeing a clear blue sky? For a person experienced in contemplative practices, the question might arise in a slightly different form, such as “why do we have an inner sense of awareness or knowing of our own experience?”, thus shifting the emphasis away from the qualities of the experience itself to our conscious awareness of the experience.

What makes the hard problem of consciousness so intractable is the “explanatory gap” that exists between the objective world of physics and our inner conscious experience. The two seem to be completely different, non-overlapping phenomena. Nothing like the sensation of seeing the color blue exists in matter, energy, or their interactions in the physical world, at least as far as we understand them today.

Bridging the explanatory gap with the machinery of physics as we currently understand it seems impossible. Our current conception of physics doesn’t offer the tools to even approach or discuss the hard problem, much less solve it. This is our first clue that physics is due for a profound shift in paradigm. This insight has led many philosophers to explore alternatives to the traditional physicalist view, such as panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is a fundamental entity that exists alongside or as a property of the entities in physics, or idealism, the idea that the nature of reality itself is fundamentally mental or experiential rather than physical in the usual sense.

Physics and the Hard Problem

Other clues to the need for a fundamentally new approach come from the side of physics itself. While philosophers are more than happy to explore ideas like panpsychism, physics is still a long way from concluding that mentality or an experiential quality of consciousness somehow plays a fundamental role in the universe. However, there’s nothing that rules it out, and some recent developments in physics seem to be at least hinting in that direction.

To take one example, a full century after the discovery of the laws of quantum mechanics, no one yet understands why quantum systems seem to behave differently when we’re looking at them than when they are allowed to evolve on their own, a phenomenon referred to as the “quantum measurement problem”.(3) Quantum systems can be in a superposition of many states at the same time, but when we measure them, they always collapse into a single definitive state in a seemingly random way. Much work has been done on this problem of late that has clarified the question, but we still have no definitive answer on where the boundary between these two types of behavior lies.

Like the hard problem of consciousness, the quantum measurement problem remains one of the deepest mysteries in science today. It’s not difficult to see how these two problems might be related. Ultimately, the quantum measurement problem comes down to a mismatch between the world that we perceive and the one predicted by the equations of quantum mechanics in the absence of a measurement or observation. While most (but by no means all) physicists reject the idea that the conscious awareness of an observer plays a fundamental role, it cannot be definitively ruled out.

Is The World Ultimately Made of Information?

The much cited and often misunderstood phenomenon of quantum entanglement brings this mystery into sharper focus. Entangled particles or systems existing in states of superposition can be separated by vast distances, and yet when one of these is measured, the other will immediately collapse into a definitive state. Contrary to some sci-fi tropes, the rules of entanglement don’t permit information to be transmitted faster than the speed of light, but they do seem to allow some kind of instantaneous coordination between particles separated by long distances.

This property of non-locality points to the possibility of a layer of reality that is deeper than the physical world we observe—a layer made of pure information that exists at a more fundamental level than objective physical reality. If particles can be entangled over vast distances, and potentially every particle in the universe has such entanglement relationships, then where is the information about these relationships stored? It can’t be observed in the individual particles themselves, but only as a coordination of behavior between two or more particles, even if they are a great distance apart. In this sense, quantum information seems to transcend time and space. Moreover, quantum information doesn’t seem to be encoded anywhere in what we would normally think of as the physical world, the way bits of information in a computer are encoded by electrical charges.

These phenomena have led some physicists to discuss the possibility that reality may be made fundamentally of information rather than the types of material objects we’re accustomed to imagining.(4) According to an emerging thread of research in theoretical physics, not just matter but even space and time themselves might emerge from a more fundamental reality of quantum information.(5) While this formulation remains speculative and doesn’t necessarily involve or explain consciousness, it would bring physics one step closer to thinking of mental phenomena as somehow being a fundamental part of the fabric of the universe. The idea of disembodied information is not quite the same as consciousness or mentality, but it seems somehow adjacent.

Nowhere are these phenomena more dramatically demonstrated than in quantum computers. Though they’re in a very early stage of development, quantum computers are already able to lever the properties of superposition and entanglement to perform certain calculations much faster than would be possible on any existing classical computer. They can perform calculations as though the physical matter in their cores were in many states at once, leading some to claim that the calculations are actually taking place simultaneously in parallel universes before converging on the final answer.(6) Whatever one’s interpretation, these computations appear to be happening on a level of information that seems to exist prior to the appearance of matter in our universe in any definitive form. One might even be forgiven for saying that the calculations are happening “in the mind of the universe”.

What Does It All Mean?

The question of what conscious awareness is and what role it plays in the universe is one that goes directly to the heart of what it is to be a human being searching for meaning in a seemingly inexplicable life. Philosophers and scientists have been pondering these questions for millennia, yet somehow for all our recent advances in knowledge, we seem in many ways to be no closer to a solution than we were at the outset. The ideas discussed above are speculative and some are outside of mainstream science, but the fact that many serious scientists are exploring these ideas reflects how deeply mysterious these questions remain. By all indications, we may need to profoundly overhaul our entire conception of physical reality before we make any meaningful progress.

We’re certainly not going to try to answer these questions here, but we have at least attempted to shed some light on the issue, and in so doing have tried to introduce a level of reasonable doubt to our default physicalist picture of the world. Ultimately, when we commit to a physicalist worldview, we’re tying our fortunes to whatever future developments may occur in our best theories of physics. We have made the case here that our current conception of physics can’t possibly be complete or correct, not least because it can’t explain consciousness. If we remain committed physicalists, we may one day find the ground of physics shifting under our feet into something we never imagined. In any case, there’s certainly no reason to commit ourselves to a view of physics that already seems outdated and inadequate, especially when doing so causes so much existential anguish.

Contemplatives and spiritual seekers have also been pondering these questions for millennia, but rather than using a purely intellectual approach, they have sought answers through direct examination of their own conscious experience. While they cannot directly communicate their findings to us in words and equations the way philosophers and scientists can, they can at least offer us their assurance that this type of inquiry is deeply worthwhile and encourage us to follow in their footsteps.

Like the seekers of the past, if we are able to loosen the grip that the physicalist worldview has on our thinking, we open ourselves to the possibility of finding real meaning through direct examination of our own conscious experience. What we discover about ourselves – awareness with limitless possibilities, boundless kindness and goodwill, wisdom which naturally opens up deep insights, and a profound sense of peace and wellbeing that underlies all our experience – need not be presumed to be random phenomena that happen to emerge from electrical activity in our brain. When we look into our own experience of awareness, we can be open to the idea that we will discover something truly fundamental about ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Footnotes:

(1)   This argument closely follows from Frank, A., Gleiser, M., & Thompson, E. (2024). The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience. The MIT Press.

(2)   This term was coined by philosopher David Chalmers in 1995. See https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/ for a deeper discussion.

(3)   See Rosenblum, B., & Kuttner, F. (2006). Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness. Oxford University Press, for an excellent treatment of this material

(4)   For example, the “It from Bit” hypothesis put forward by Princeton physicist John Wheeler

(5)   For example, see Aldegunde, Clara. “Knitting Space–Time Out of Quantum Entanglement.” Physics World, September 13, 2022. https://physicsworld.com/a/knitting-space-time-out-of-quantum-entanglement/.

(6)   For example, Swayne, M. (2024, December 16). Google's quantum chip sparks debate on multiverse theory. The Quantum Insider. Retrieved from https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/12/16/googles-quantum-chip-sparks-debate-on-multiverse-theory/

From Memes to Meaning: Existential Dread and The Real Transformative Promise of Meditation

I’m a fan of internet memes. It’s one of my guilty pleasures. These tiny snippets of social media humor are a convenient way to get a quick dose of laughter and sarcasm when we need it most. As I sit down to write my first blog post, somewhere in the back of my mind is the subtle urge to pick up my phone and catch up on the latest posts from my favorite meme accounts. 

Apart from their value as an entertaining distraction, I find that memes can often reflect a thread of the zeitgeist of our culture, whether it’s our obsession with celebrities or our shared frustration with the boredom and stress of workaday life. Often, the most popular and viral memes show more than a hint of nihilism and existential angst, funny though they may be. A few recent examples: A tweet questioning why iCloud storage could ever be full when 'nothing is real,' a cosmic perspective showing our place in the galaxy labeled simply 'you are here, crying in the shower before work,' and a Sunday brunch tweet that captures how even our leisurely moments are haunted by existential dread. While these memes make us laugh, they point to something deeper - a widespread sense that nothing really matters in our vast, scientifically-explained universe.

While it can certainly be healthy and therapeutic to make light of these feelings of meaninglessness and futility, these kinds of memes tell a deeper story about a spiritual crisis that’s besetting our time. Many of us have a hard time identifying with the religious beliefs of our parents or grandparents. We are taught to see life as some kind of scientific accident, and are prone to believe that our lives are completely futile and pointless. It’s no wonder we are facing an epidemic of mental health problems like anxiety and depression.

This is where meditation enters the picture. While countless studies have shown meditation can provide some relief from these kinds of mental health challenges, there's a deeper story to tell. Rather than just alleviating the symptoms, meditation can actually help us address the root causes of our spiritual malaise in a way that is completely compatible with a scientific worldview. 

The fact is that there’s actually great wisdom hidden in these nihilistic attitudes (who would have thought memes could be repositories for deep insights?). Ancient wisdom traditions teach us that everything we encounter, from objects in the material world to our own thoughts and feelings, are impermanent and ultimately devoid of inherent, lasting existence. Material things are made of arrangements of smaller parts, ultimately fundamental particles, that will eventually go their separate ways, and thoughts and feelings are insubstantial and in constant flux. So all things are constantly changing and have no meaning in and of themselves apart from what we impute on them. In that sense, ancient wisdom traditions would agree that the world we inhabit and everything we do in it are ultimately meaningless.

But these wisdom traditions go a step further by encouraging us to examine our own minds and look deeply at our own conscious awareness, which is the foundation of all our day-to-day experiences. If we do so carefully and with proper guidance, we will gradually discover that this awareness itself is fundamentally whole and complete, and deeply infused with qualities of peace, compassion, wisdom, and joy. In fact, the same insights that lead some of us to nihilistic views can also be used as an impetus to undertake this exploration, as was the case for me when I first started practicing meditation (more about that in future posts). As the great 19th century Tibetan master Patrul Rinpoche says, “The starting point of the path of liberation is the conviction that the whole of samsara is meaningless.” (1) A contemporary reading of this quote might say “The starting point on the path toward a meaningful life is the conviction that, from our habitual perspective, life is meaningless.” 

It is in this exploration that the true promise of meditation lies. When we begin to discover the real nature of our own minds, we tap into an inexhaustible source of peace and wellbeing that is available to us regardless of our life circumstances. Gradually, we can learn to recognize that our own awareness, the ground of all our experience, is ever-present and unchanging, unaffected by the ups and downs of daily life. We can begin to notice our innate love and compassion, genuine care and concern for ourselves and others, which motivates everything we do at the deepest level. And we can discover our innate wisdom, our ability to see things clearly as they are when we quiet our minds and look beyond our habitual reactions and preconceptions. 

As we develop these insights, we will discover a richness and meaning to our lives that somehow transcends the apparent futility of our daily struggles. Embodying these qualities of mind and trying our best to bring them into everything we do becomes a purpose in itself in what might otherwise seem like a purposeless existence. 

The more we are able to show up in the world in this way, the more we are able to live our lives with joy, confidence, and a deep sense of peace with who we are. More and more, we will be able to transform our initial dread of impermanence and lack of inherent meaning into a source of inspiration. Impermanence means that we are never trapped with the way things are. Lack of enduring existence means we are free to shape our lives however we choose. 

Importantly, none of this requires us to abandon our belief in science. The path of meditation doesn’t demand that we believe or disbelieve anything in particular. We just need to be willing to examine our own experience with honesty and curiosity. While many philosophical insights and meditative techniques derive from the Buddhist tradition, they can be put to use completely independently of any religious context. The only proof we need to accept is that of our own experience and insight.

By now you might be asking some version of the question “How can this be true if conscious awareness is just a byproduct of activity in the brain?” We’ll have a lot more to say in future posts about how and why an openness to these seemingly miraculous qualities of mind is entirely compatible with an acceptance of everything we know about science. For now, we can set that question aside and trust to our own experience in meditation. We can also look for guidance and inspiration to people of various contemplative traditions who have gone before us. The 9th century Chinese Chan master Huang Po assures us of what we’ll find when we carefully examine our mind:

It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy—and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awaking to it yourself. (2)

Or we can look at a more contemporary account from the Tibetan / Nepali master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche:

Our fundamental nature is wholesome, complete; it is pure; it is beyond concepts, beyond suffering, beyond problems. (3)

Of course reading these words alone is not enough. We need to do the work ourselves and cultivate these insights within our own experience. As a Zen proverb tells us, “A painting of a rice-cake cannot satisfy hunger.” 

I’ll delve into more detail on these topics in future blog posts. Everyone is different, and different traditions will resonate more with some individuals than others. I hope by sharing some of my insights and experiences, I can help you find a path that works for you.

Until then, the next time you find yourself crying in the shower before work, remember your existential dread might just be the first step on a profound and fulfilling journey. 

Footnotes:

1.  Patrul Rinpoche. Words of My Perfect Teacher. Translated by Padmakara Translation Group, 2nd ed., Yale University Press, 1998. P. 33

2. Huang Po. The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind. Translated by John Blofeld, Grove Press, 1958. P. 35

3. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Innate Well-being with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. YouTube, uploaded by Tergar Meditation Community, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5chZ7CGdzlw.

   Memes sourced from Instagram and Reddit