Critic on Biocentrism
Juan A. Guzmán Martínez
UPRRP, Puerto Rico
Humanities Faculty, Philosophy Department
Philosophy of Time
Course: Time, Prof. Alexis Jardines
The proposition that time & space are internal tools of
the mind for the creation of reality is central to Lanza's theory, it is in
fact his second, sixth & seventh
principle: "Our external internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined",
"Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception.
It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe",
"Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent
reality", but for the sake of argument and explanation I'll hold them in
first account, the seventh related we be touched las. One may notice, as he
states, a similar interpretation made by many philosophers in the past of it's
internal function on understanding reality. He stresses particularly on Kant's
case on time & space being concepts of pure reason on which without, no
synthetic knowledge is susceptible, not only this, but experience itself would
be null. Yet Kant makes another turn stating that it cannot be pure concepts
for then it would lack any real entanglement to the real world (noumena), so
the case of space becomes completely related to the forms of objects in our
pure reason to our external senses. In the case of time, it's property is
internal and so our way of ordering nature, but the succession of it is
determined by the movement of objects in space. Kant can only represent this by
drawing a line. So we do see time as a central role in human cognition and a
viewable role it has in it's interpretation's reality, in Kant: the possibility
of experience. It may be suspicious a first interpretation on such account,
that Lanza is stating that we impose a sort of solipsism of what material is,
in a idealist manner, when he mentions than an observer changes intrinsically a
particle's behavior; not so, he changes the particle's behavior in the form it
is studied, it's interpretation, therefore the term: observer. Heisenberg's
experiments demonstrate a kind of relative effect on matter when it is even
thought on; and Schrödinger's cat describes that we can never know the true
reality of an event unless we actively interact with it in anyway. He coins the
possibility of the cat's state in this experiment: an "entanglement",
on both reason and matter's reality and it's determinacy under rational,
irrational or undeterminate. But what can be called here "reality"?
Certainly we can only know what we consciously somehow have interaction with,
something that can be determined by it's actual existence. But how can we know
that something exist in brute moment? Because we have an actual object that we
can interact with and ever express from it and towards it. Such a view is also
being stated in anthropology of a communication with materiality in an
entangled manner in which it suggest notions, and later-after an idea. This is
so by a pragmatic induction. But this anthropologic view stated by the likes of
Renfrew and Shults, is not what Lanza is exposing in biocentrism.
His first principle: 'What we perceive as reality is a
process that involves our consciousness' may echo Berkeley's "The only
thing we perceive are our perceptions" and it is with no less rigor his
statement in case. He describes the non-existence of sound and light without an
ear receptor or an eye-brain system. As we saw, so it is with time. He
continues with an example on rainbows, and the only way to encounter their
existence is actually by the geometrical position of the observer, similar to
the psychedelic colors in car oil; it depends on the position you take that the
reflection of the sun will make visible the colors. Nonetheless he assures that
the components from the natural world are still needed for such a visual, the
raindrops, the sun, but most importantly consciousness. Now I purpose that such
formulation is beyond necessity. If the moon were striking a lake, it's
reflection on the water would be visible differently from different positions.
If we were to gather all these reflections we would see that the whole lake is
shining bright, the universe does not have a perspective, it is all possible
experience (phenomena) at one occurrence, surpassing time, this all possible
experience is not that in which 'all that can happen is happening' as states
the Many World Interpretation thesis in the form of parallel universes, if not
'all the possible experience we as observers can have is happening'. So
therefore, there is no need for an experience to occur to confirm the existence
of whatever the Real is, for it is an assumption on this argument that a
confirmation is null in it's instance and that all consciousness is not needed
for the existence of the universe but only for it's reality (in a worldly
sense, the only sense we can encounter for). We can only use the term 'Real' as
a trope to what we 'hope' to mean. It is this hope that we as humans have
encountered and it is our only refuge for knowledge, in so far knowledge is
hope.
If fine tuning is to be a concern into which all determinable
efficiency is to be measured, how sure are we to be of the observed value? It
should either be by the exact parameters thought and theoretically measured or
by an idealist anthropic principle in which a certain relativity should embark
such tuning and though it shall not be exact it shall be efficient for the sake
of understanding of the experiment and it's result. As so to speak, it most be
spoken as in "-the determined relative position of (such and such)…"
This is equally met when speaking of position and/or velocity.
The principle in Lanza's theory, that is also principle in
quantum theory, of the change in particle behavior by the observer/measurer
shall be met with constraint unless the reason, which is unfamiliar, is
explained. He states the third principle: "The behavior of subatomic
particles -indeed all particles and objects- is inextricably linked to the
presence of an observer". Now, the behavior of a particle is in-itself a
duality of wave/particle function in which De Broglie's thesis of wavelength is
inversely proportional to momentum of particle and it's frequency is
proportional to rest and kinetic energy, and that when an determined relative
position of a particle is measured it's determined relative velocity is lost,
and vice-versa, as shown by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it shall be
thought as dependent on it's own. Wave property function in Heisenberg's
experiment: it is in this case that a cluster shot of photons and even
electrons create a pattern by pond like interference with each wave of the
particle when passed through a double slit. When triggered independently a
photon or electron they don't have interference yet they create the same
pattern, in this way it's the probability of each individual wave/particle who
interferes with itself to create such occurrences. Even if one polarized twin
photons the result would be the same unless observed, in such case it would act
as a particle an would pass thru one slit and not the other. The factor in
which the observer/measurer interacts is only in so far as it's measurement
(which is still mathematically valid) becomes variant not by an idealist
superstition of "my intrinsic nature of consciousness in which, therefore,
everything is relative to my understanding of it", but the actual physical
interaction caused by the measuring, i.e. the measurement of the volume of
water is dependent on the vase in which is measured, in which by the
measurement of such liquid must have had it's own placing before and it's
putting on the measurer vase no longer contains the full exact volume of water
as in it's original containment as will happen when put back again. Similarly,
in fiction, if a body is teleported from point X to Z, it's defragmentation and
re-a-semblance of data in it's original resemblance will no longer be 'original'
for the change that occurs in succession point Y.
I must make clear that the above quoted phrase shall be
pointed out as an intrinsic statement towards extreme relativism and
subjectivism, though Lanza's thesis is to comprehend a conscious that is both
making and interpreting a world as his own will but using as basis the physical
matter. But his fourth principle in which without conscious all "matter
dwells in an undetermined state of probability" leaves no room for a
concrete aristotelian reality but settles in for "the universe begins with
life, not the other way around", meaning that it is therefore by the mind
that one can say "the universe exist" since without out it there will
be no knowing what existence is and everything, for him, will dance in a state
of probability. Though this may be thought as cohesive with the anthropic
principle the extreme turn Lanza uncovers is that materiality (noumena
wouldn't) exist only in while a conscious reflects and interprets it. In this
understanding of the mind it so creates it's reality and it's reality reality
(inferring the Real). He also states that change in your cells by genetic
engineering can make the consciousness interpret differently, therefore reality
differently. It's very clever to distinguish between what 'is' and what's
'observed' as the semantic artifact view proposes, but let this not be thought
so compelling as to switch the whole wave/particle duality into smithereens.
Such a view only embarks how it should be induced logically. The fact of
occurrence dependent of the context of experiment shall remain clear: the
wave/particle duality exist in so far as has been studied, inferring here that
it exist only while interpretation, for when it is observed as a wave form by
one observer and when observed by another, a particle form is observed. It may
be correlated to what H. Bergson, G. Deleuze and A. Jardines calls
"virtuality". Bohr stated, "When we measured we did so on what
is undeterminable and forcing a relative value, therefore creating it…" In
this case I agree with Lanza's third principle and his fourth principle only by
it's understanding as stated above. Lanza's preceded conscious universe as
state of probability is so, yet it is infinitely embarked in a range of
probability in a space continuity with or without consciousness. As P. Lynds
says "…there is a necessary trade off of all precisely determined physical
magnitudes and values at a time, for their continuity through time…"
though it may be able to measure possible determinations.
In this instance we cannot, not even by intuition, say that
we act or conceive immediately, if not only mediate, for the interpretation of
reality must pass through consciousness. He does so quoting Emerson,
"maybe there are no physical objects and these are only materialized by
the imagination", there putting intrinsic value on the mind powering the
senses. But if Lanza's fifth principle is thought (the fine-tuning by laws and
forces and it's constants for the universe to create life) to be correct then
we most accept that there is actually a noumena world and that it is only
unknowable to us, the observer/measurer by the effect we pertain when getting
physically close to the object and our perception and interpretation of it's
phenomenon (both the noumena and our correlation in it's study).
The final metaphysical statement in Lanza's book is that the
universe seems to be superseded in fine-tuning phenomena in so that it was it's
goal to create life and more specifically conscience. All this as in not an
arbitrary way, I ask Lanza: then, if so, wouldn't it end in a objective
solipsism of itself, why then does the universe superposed in such a way? His
answers towards the likeliness of the universe process towards life and
consciousness, understanding that if the explosion of the big bang where one
part in a millionth more powerful, or the nuclear force would decrees two
precent, or the gravitational constant would change (any of these events into
variables), galaxies, stars, few elements, and life would not be possible. He
assembles over to two-hundred of these parameters to prove his universe's
will-to-conscious. The last piece for the unification needed for the theory of
everything, Lanza states, is man himself as for his consciousness, between the
macro general relativity and the micro quantum mechanics. The proposition I
propose is that even though the experimentation that the observer/measurer does
becomes instantly interpretative and determinately relative there is an actual
Real, though it can never be known in it's totality exact, however it cannot be
negated. This Real is composed not of time but un-cognitive space. This must
not weary the faulty for it is only by negation that another thesis may arrive.
The noumena world of reality, what maybe called the Real, does necessarily
follow some laws of casualty, these ever more altered by our involvement to
know it. Meaning so that the negation of a physical materialized world would be
out of context but the negation of intrinsic knowledge of it by our perception
and reasoning shall still have a certain validity however precautious. So now I
can add: knowledge is hope in so far it's possibility.
References:
1. Biocentrism - R. Lanza, R. Berman, BenBella Books
2009
2. Critica de la Razon Pura - I. Kant, Losada 2003
3. Physics and
Philosophy - W. Heisenberg, Prometheus Books 1999
4. Memoria y Vida - H. Bergson, Alianza 2012
5. Time and Classical
and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity - P. Lynds, Foundations
of Physics Letters 2003 - Article
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