Maybe impermanence works faster in science than in poetry. I learned recently that the initial singularity model for what led to the Big Bang is already outdated. Who knew? It will take a lot longer, though, for poetry about it to be outdated. A case in point is Marie Howe’s poem Singularity, which I mentioned in a previous post.
The emotion she conveys so elegantly is valid no matter how the universe began or even if it never had a beginning. I recently wrote to her requesting permission to use the poem in the book I’m working on. She graciously replied she’s happy for the poem to be in the world and shared with people. So, before returning to the world of science, I’ll share her poem here and recite it in the accompanying audio recording.
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity we once were? so compact nobody needed a bed, or food or money— nobody hiding in the school bathroom or home alone pulling open the drawer where the pills are kept. For every atom belonging to me as good Belongs to you. Remember? There was no Nature. No them. No tests to determine if the elephant grieves her calf or if the coral reef feels pain. Trashed oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French; would that we could wake up to what we were —when we were ocean and before that to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was liquid and stars were space and space was not at all—nothing before we came to believe humans were so important before this awful loneliness. Can molecules recall it? what once was? before anything happened? No I, no We, no one. No was No verb no noun only a tiny tiny dot brimming with is is is is is All everything homeCopyright © 2019 by Marie Howe. Used with the permission of the poet.
Now might be a good time to pause, breathe, and reflect before continuing.
Modern visionaries are combining philosophy with science, especially quantum physics and artificial intelligence, to grope for models of reality. I find the ideas of physicist Federico Faggin, who designed the first microprocessor, and Bernardo Kastrup, who holds PhDs in philosophy and computer engineering, fascinating and almost congruent with Buddhist teachings. I thank subscriber Mike Kirkpatrick for alerting me to Faggin’s work.
Kastrup draws conclusions solely from science and logic, with no patience for anything else. His model is one worth wide consideration. This is from his Why Materialism Is Baloney:
My hypothesis is that mind is a broad and continuous medium unlimited in either space or time; a canvas where the entire play of existence unfolds, including space and time themselves. Your egoic mind — that limited awareness you identify yourself with — is, in this context, merely a segment of the broad, universal canvas of mind….
He sees Mind (I’ll give is a capital M) as creating an overall reality and, within that, forming individual, egoic minds (those are our minds, in lowercase) along with our brains and bodies, which have limited access to Mind. Then he adds:
…if reality is a kind of shared dream, then it is your body that is in the dream, not the dream in the body. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to think that your consciousness will end when your body dissolves into an entropic soup; at least no more reason than you have to believe that you physically die when your avatar in a dream dies within the dream.
Kastrup builds his model entirely out of logic. He strongly believes that our minds continue to exist after our bodies and egos stop functioning.
My limited knowledge of quantum mechanics and my inability to read Italian prevent me from saying much about Faggin’s ideas1. From what I understand, his theory of consciousness is based on quantum physics theorems that lead him to believe that our bodies are controlled by our consciousness, which is integrated with greater overall consciousness and continues to exist after our bodies no longer do.
It's up to each of us to decide how much of modern science to find credible, how much of ancient wisdom to believe, and how much the two fit together. The Dalai Lama has been a spokesperson for that sort of exploration and in 1987 helped launch the Mind and Life Institute to “bring science and contemplative wisdom together to better understand the mind and create positive change in the world.”
At that time, the Dalai Lama said:
It is most important for the traditions of Western science and Eastern mental development to work together. At some stage, people gained the impression that these two traditions are very different and incompatible. In recent years, however, it has become clear that this is not exactly the case…. I…think that it is very important for Buddhists to understand the latest scientific findings concerning the nature of mind, the relationship between mind and brain, and the nature of consciousness, these sorts of things. Whether consciousness does or does not exist as a discrete entity, for example. So I would like to introduce some of these Western explanations to Buddhists in general, and to Tibetan Buddhists in particular.”
Why does the Dalai Lama single out Tibetan Buddhism there? I suspect it’s because Tibetan, or Vajrayana, Buddhism emphasizes the nature of mind.
The Nature of Mind Is Beyond Words
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He proposes his theory of consciousness in Irriducibile. La coscienza, la vita, i computer e la nostra natura (Mondadori, 2022).
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