BIOCENTRISM
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the seat of consciousness escapes from its jumpy, nervous, verbal
isolation cell and takes residence in some other section of the the-
ater, where the lights shine more brightly and where things feel more
direct, more real.
On what street is this theater found? Where are the sensations of
life?
We can start with everything visual that is currently being per-
ceived all around us—this book you are holding, for example. Lan-
guage and custom say that it all lies outside us in the external world.
Yet we’ve already seen that nothing can be perceived that is not
already interacting with our consciousness, which is why biocen-
tric axiom number one is that nature or the so-called external world
must be correlative with consciousness. One doesn’t exist with-
out the other. What this means is that when we do not look at the
Moon the Moon effectively vanishes—which, subjectively, is obvious
enough. If we still think of the Moon and believe that it’s out there orbiting the Earth, or accept that other people are probably watching it, all such thoughts are still mental constructs. The bottom-line
issue here is if no consciousness existed at all, in what sense would
the Moon persist, and in what form?
So what is it that we see when we observe nature? The answer
in terms of image-location and neural mechanics is actually more
straightforward than almost any other aspect of biocentrism.
Because the images of the trees, grass, the book you’re holding, and
everything else that’s perceived is real and not imaginary, it must
be physically happening in some location. Human physiology texts
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answer this without ambiguity. Although the eye and retina gather
photons that deliver their payloads of bits of the electromagnetic
force, these are channeled through heavy-duty cables straight back
until the actual perception of images themselves physically occurs in the back of the brain, augmented by other nearby locations, in special sections that are as vast and labyrinthine as the hallways of the Milky
Way, and contain as many neurons as there are stars in the galaxy.
This, according to human physiology texts, is where the actual col-
ors, shapes, and movement “happen.” This is where they are per-
ceived or cognized.
If you consciously try to access that luminous, energy-filled,
visual part of the brain, you might at first be frustrated; you might
tap the back of your skull and feel a particularly vacuous sense of
nothingness. But that’s because it was an unnecessary exercise: you’re
already accessing the visual portion of the brain with every glance
you take. Look now, at anything. Custom has told us that what we
see is “out there,” outside ourselves, and such a viewpoint is fine and
necessary in terms of language and utility, as in “Please pass the but-
ter that’s over there.” But make no mistake: the visual image of that
butter, that is, the butter itself, actually exists only inside your brain.
That is its location. It is the only place visual images are perceived
and cognized.
Some may imagine that there are two worlds, one “out there”
and a separate one being cognized inside the skull. But the “two
worlds” model is a myth. Nothing is perceived except the percep-
tions themselves, and nothing exists outside of consciousness. Only
one visual reality is extant, and there it is. Right there.
The “outside world” is, therefore, located within the brain or
mind. Of course, this is so astounding for many people, even if it
is obvious to those who study the brain, that it becomes possible to
over-think the issue and come up with attempted refutations. “Yeah,
but what about someone born blind?” “And what about touch; if
things aren’t out there, how can we feel them?”
None of that changes the reality: touch, too, occurs only within
consciousness or the mind. Every aspect of that butter, its existence
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on every level, is not outside of one’s being. The real mind-twister
to all this, and the reason some are loath to accept what should be
patently obvious, is that its implications destroy the entire house-of-
cards worldview that we have embraced all our lives. If that is con-
sciousness, or mind, right in front of us, then consciousness extends
indefinitely to all that is cognized—calling into question the nature
and reality of something we will devote an entire chapter to—space.
If that before us is consciousness, it can change the area of scientific focus from the nature of a cold, inert, external universe to issues
such as how your consciousness relates to mine and to that of the
animals. But we’ll put aside, for the moment, questions of the unity
of consciousness. Let it suffice to say that any overarching unity of
consciousness is not just difficult or impossible to prove but is fun-
damentally incompatible with dualistic languages—which adds an
additional burden of making it difficult to grasp with logic alone.
Why? Language was created to work exclusively through sym-
bolism and to divide nature into parts and actions. The word water
is not actual water, and the word it corresponds to nothing at all in the phrase “It is raining.” Even if well acquainted with the limitations
and vagaries of language, we must be especially on guard against
dismissing biocentrism (or any way of cognizing the universe as a
whole) too quickly if it doesn’t at first glance seem compatible with
customary verbal constructions; we will discuss this at much greater
length in a later chapter. The challenge here, alas, is to peer not just
behind habitual ways of thinking, but to go beyond some of the tools
of the thinking process itself, to grasp the universe in a way that is
at the same time simpler and more demanding than that to which
we are accustomed. Absolutely everything in the symbolic realm,
for example, has come into existence at one point in time, and will
eventually die—even mountains. Yet consciousness, like aspects of
quantum theory involving entangled particles, may exist outside of
time altogether.
Finally, some revert to the “control” aspect to assert the funda-
mental separation of ourselves and an external, objective reality. But
control is a widely misunderstood concept. Although we commonly
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believe that clouds form, planets spin, and our own livers manufac-
ture their hundreds of enzymes “all by themselves,” we nonetheless
have been accustomed to hold that our minds possess a peculiarly
unique self-controlling feature that creates a bottom-line distinction
between self and external world. In reality, recent experiments show
conclusively that the brain’s electrochemical connections, its neural
impulses traveling at 240 miles per hour, cause decisions to be made
faster than we are even aware of them. In other words, the brain and
mind, too, operate all by itself, without any need for external med-
dling by our thoughts
, which also incidentally occur by themselves.
So control, too, is largely an illusion. As Einstein put it, “We can will
ourselves to act, but we cannot will ourselves to will.”
The most cited experiment in this field was conducted a quarter-
century ago. Researcher Benjamin Libet asked subjects to choose a
random moment to perform a hand motion while hooked up to an
electroencephalograph (EEG) monitor in which the so-called “readi-
ness potential” of the brain was being monitored. Naturally, electri-
cal signals always precede actual physical actions, but Libet wanted
to know whether they also preceded a subject’s subjective feeling of intention to act. In short, is there some subjective “self” who consciously decides things, thereby setting in motion the brain’s elec-
trical activities that ultimately lead to the action? Or is it the other
way ’round? Subjects were therefore asked to note the position of a
clock’s second hand when they first felt the initial intention to move
their hand.
Libet’s findings were consistent, and perhaps not surprising:
unconscious, unfelt, brain electrical activity occurred a full half second before there was any conscious sense of decision-making by
the subject. More recent experiments by Libet, announced in 2008,
analyzing separate, higher-order brain functions, have allowed his
research team to predict up to ten seconds in advance which hand a
subject is about to decide to raise. Ten seconds is nearly an eternity
when it comes to cognitive decisions, and yet a person’s eventual
decision could be seen on brain scans that long before the subject
was even remotely aware of having made any decision. This and
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other experiments prove that the brain makes its own decisions
on a subconscious level, and people only later feel that “they” have
performed a conscious decision. It means that we go through life
thinking that, unlike the blessedly autonomous operations of the
heart and kidneys, a lever-pulling “me” is in charge of the brain’s
workings. Libet concluded that the sense of personal free will arises
solely from a habitual retrospective perspective of the ongoing flow
of brain events.
What, then, do we make of all this? First, that we are truly free to
enjoy the unfolding of life, including our own lives, unencumbered
by the acquired, often guilt-ridden sense of control, and the obses-
sive need to avoid messing up. We can relax, because we’ll automati-
cally perform anyway.
Second, and more to the point of this book and chapter, modern
knowledge of the brain shows that what appears “out there” is actu-
ally occurring within our own minds, with visual and tactile expe-
riences located not in some external disconnected location that we
have grown accustomed to regarding as being distant from ourselves.
Looking around, we see only our own mind or, perhaps, it’s better
put that there is no true disconnect between external and internal.
Instead, we can label all cognition as an amalgam of our experiential
selves and whatever energy field may pervade the cosmos. To avoid
such awkward phrasing, we’ll allude to it by simply calling it aware-
ness or consciousness. With this in mind (no pun intended), we’ll see how any “theory of everything” must incorporate this biocentrism—
or else be a train on a track to nowhere.
To sum up:
First Principle of Biocentrism: What we perceive as reality is a
process that involves our consciousness.
Second Principle of Biocentrism: Our external and inter-
nal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different
sides of the same coin and cannot be separated.
6
BuBBles In tIme
Time’s existence cannot be found between the tick and the tock
of a clock. It is the language of life and, as such, is most power-
fully felt in the context of human experience.
My father had just pushed her aside. Then he struck Bubbles
again.
My father was an old-school Italian with archaic ideas about
child-rearing, so it is difficult now for me to write a record of this
episode from so long ago. The indignity Bubbles suffered that day
(not an isolated event) was so shameful that, four decades later, I still
remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.
The affection I shared with Beverly—“Bubbles”—was a strong
one, for being my older sister, she had always felt that it was her job
to protect me. It touches me painfully even now to look back into
the days of my childhood.
I can remember the morning of what was as cold a New England
day as you would ever want to feel at your toes’ ends. I was standing
at the school bus stop at my usual time, with my little mittens and
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lunchbox, when one of the older neighborhood boys pushed me to
the ground. What exactly happened I can’t recall. I don’t profess to
have been wholly innocent. But there I was on the sidewalk—help-
less, looking up. “Let me go,” I sobbed. “Let me up.”
I was still on the ground—and very cold and hurt—when, lift-
ing my eyes, I saw Bubbles running up the street. When she reached
the bus stop, she gave this older boy a look that I could see created
instant fear for his own safety. I feel indebted to her for that alone.
“You touch my little brother ever again,” she said, “and I’ll punch
your face in.”
I had always been a favorite of hers, I suppose; in fact, the earli-
est remembrance I have of my childhood was with her, in her play-
doctor’s office. “You’re a little unwell,” she said, handing me a cup of
sand. “It’s medicine. Drink this and you’ll feel better.” This I did, and
as I started to drink it, Bubbles cried out “No!” and then gave a gasp,
as if she were swallowing it herself. (Afterward, it occurred to me
that it was only make-believe, and that I ought not have done this,
but at the time it all seemed quite real.)
It is difficult for me to believe that it was me, and not her, who
went on to become the doctor. She was very bright and tried so hard
to do her very, very best—an “A” student, I recollect. All the teach-
ers loved her. But that was not enough. By the tenth grade, she had
dropped out of school, and had entered on a course of destruction
with drugs. I can only understand that this happened because of
the poor conditions at home. The ill that was done to her had little
remission and occurred in a cyclic, almost mindless manner. She
was beaten, ran away, and was punished again.
How well I recall Bubbles hiding under the porch, wondering
what she was going to do next. I remember the terror that hung
about the place; I shiver at my father’s voice upstairs, penetrating
through the walls; I can see the tears running down her face. I some-
times wonder, when I think about it, that nobody intervened on her
behalf. Not the school, not the police, not even the court-appointed
/> social worker could do anything about it, apparently.
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Sometime later, Bubbles moved out of the house—although I am
conscious of some confusion in my mind about the exact events—I
learned that she was pregnant. I only recollect that through some
loose-fitting dress, I felt the baby moving in her body; when all the
relatives refused to go to her wedding, I told her: “It’s okay! It’s okay!”
and held her hand.
The birth of “Little Bubbles” was a happy occasion, an oasis in
this life in the desert. There were many faces that I knew among
those who visited her in the hospital room. There was my mother,
my sister, and even my father looking on. Bubbles was so kind-
hearted and had such a pleasant manner that I should not have been
surprised at seeing them all there. How happy she was, and when I
sat down by her side on the bed, she asked me—her little brother—
if I would be the godfather to her child.
All this, though, was a short event, and stands like a wildflower
along an asphalt road. I wondered on that occasion what cost she
might pay for this happiness; I saw it materialize at a later date when
her problems reappeared, when her lithium treatments failed. Little
by little, her mind began to deteriorate. Her speech made less and
less sense, and her actions took on a more bizarre quality. I had seen
enough of medicine then to have gained the capacity to stand beside
myself, aloof from the consequences of disease, but it was a matter of
some emotion to me, even then, to see her child taken away. I have
a deep remembrance of her in the hospital, utterly without hope,
restrained and sedated with drugs. As I went away from the hospital
that day, I mingled my memories of her with tears.
Bubbles knew of no place anywhere so comforting as the house
of our childhood during the rare times of peace, no place half so
shady as its green apple trees. They had been planted there more
than fifty years ago by my friend Barbara’s dad. On one occasion,
long after my parents had sold the house, the new owners saw Bub-
bles sitting on the sidewalk with her elbows on her knees. The bed-
room windows were all open to let in the blossom-scented breeze.
Wild roses still dangled from the old trellis on the side of the house.