Virgin Islands Humanities Council (VIHC)

Paper written by Orville Kean, Ph.D., President Emeritus, of the University of the Virgin Islands

Paper written by Dr. Carlyle Corbin, Representative for External Affairs, U.S. Virgin Islands Government

Paper written by Orville Kean, Ph.D., President Emeritus, of the University of the Virgin Islands

Exploring Reality with Genetically Engineered Senses

PREFACTORY NOTE

This article suggests that the acquisition of enhanced senses and new senses by genetic engineering could lead to insights that reveal new features of reality including an improved perception of the true nature of the brain/mind system. Some of the key terms and concepts used in the discussion are technology, genetic engineering, qualia, variation in the capabilities of the senses among humans, animal senses not possessed by humans, complexity, semantic frustration, epiphenomenalism, inner and outer models, dualism, entanglement, illusions, and things not real but true.

INTRODUCTION

Everything we know or think we know about reality is informed by our senses. They are our only links to reality; there are no other means to access what is real. Of course there is technology. Indeed, most of our current knowledge about what is real is the result of technology. But technology does not inform us about things by itself. It is coupled with our senses – mediated by one or more of them so to speak. When technology is used to investigate something, the results must be “read” by these senses in order to be interpreted and added to the corpus of our knowledge.

Technology simply enables us to extend the range and powers of discrimination of our senses. Telescopes, microscopes, X-ray and MRI machines, cyclotrons, cell-phones, television, satellites, computers, night-vision binoculars, planes, rockets, etc., extend our senses in time and space from the smallest to largest scales in ways that were unimaginable in the past. So, technology enhances the senses, which in turn inform us about everything we know or think we know about everything.

Of course technology will continue to extend our senses, and will always be indispensable in our drive to expand our knowledge. Most astonishing perhaps is that the advent of genetic engineering technology makes it plausible to envision the acquisition of nonhuman senses currently possessed by other living organisms or even designed from scratch. To understand how remarkable it would be to add a new sense to the senses we already have, think of how impoverished our picture of reality would be if humans could not see color, or could not see at all. Each sense adds a specific dimension to reality that is essential to our grasp and appreciation of things. The more senses, the merrier.

Not everyone will agree with this perspective on the acquisition of new or enhanced senses. Cogent arguments will be made about natural selection being the best arbiter for determining the human genome. But what comprises natural selection? Is the food we eat the consequence of natural selection? The truth is that cultural evolution, which is a derivative of biological evolution, is now a major force shaping the history of biological evolution on the planet. The competition of ideas, cultures, technologies, and economic and political structures is determining selection pressures for a significant number of species on Earth, including the human species.

Genetic engineering of plants and animals is already happening and because of its potential health benefits and quality of life benefits, it is inevitable that the practice will be extended to humans. Once the competitive advantage of senses that have been enhanced or restored by genetic engineering has been demonstrated, both individuals and nations will embrace the acquisition of enhanced senses and of new senses by genetic engineering.

CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES

What are some of the senses that might be considered for acquisition by genetic engineering? Before we attempt to answer this question it is useful to explore the relation between sensing and knowing a bit further. Many essential aspects of reality are unknown because they remain unsensed. They are not detected by man or machine. Sharpening or extending our existing senses, or acquiring new senses would widen our current windows to reality and open new windows. Understanding the genetic basis for our human senses and the senses other organisms possess, particularly those that humans do not, is now within the realm of possibility. This possibility makes the genetic engineering of enhanced or new senses plausible. Solving the technical and ethical problems regarding the genetic engineering of new or enhanced senses in humans will be extremely difficult, but there are no compelling reasons to believe that accomplishing this is impossible. Furthermore, the only possible approach to achieve an understanding of how subjective sensory phenomena emerges in the brain as a result of the workings of the neural networks is to undertake this line of research.

The emergence of qualia – sensory experiences – from the action of neural networks is perhaps the greatest enduring mystery in science. Additionally, once the rules describing the transition from objective reality to subjective experiences are known it might be possible to create new designer senses that provide insight and feelings about features of reality that possibly go completely unnoticed by existing organisms. These new senses would be new in every sense of the word, not describable by appealing to a vocabulary based on the existing senses. Attempts to do so would be as futile as trying to describe color to someone who was born blind but can hear well by talking or playing music.

Our senses are so effective in what they do that their magic and mystery go largely unnoticed. This is not surprising; we are genetically programmed to use our senses to survive and enrich our lives, not to understand how they work. Nevertheless, understanding how they work can lead to the acquisition of new senses that enhance our current chances for survival and add to the enrichment of our lives. An immense benefit that will derive from research on the genetic engineering of the senses will be the repair or restoration of senses that have been damaged or lost, or the genetic engineering of normal senses that individuals may have been born without. This should be the goal of the first phase of the research.

Efforts already in progress show promising results in reclaiming damaged senses using electronic devices.[1] Although the use of electronic devices and implants differs in principle and methodology from genetic engineering technology, both approaches should be encouraged. Each approach complements and informs the other, and working in tandem it will be possible for the reclaiming of damaged or lost senses to proceed at a swifter pace. Identifying the genes responsible for the construction of a specific sensory organ and the neural network that interprets and creates the correlate sensory experience is daunting to say the least. As was mentioned before, no suggestion is being made that this is a problem that can be easily solved. Nevertheless, unlike the solution of Fermat’s last theorem, the general solution for achieving this result for both humans and other organisms should not require 300-plus years. It should take much less time and, of course, its consequences are of much greater importance. A similar argument can be made for the development of successful genetic engineering technologies and the solution of ethical problems that they engender.

EXAMPLES

Once the ability to reclaim damaged or lost senses by genetic engineering has been solved the next step will be to enhance the existing senses in ways that open new windows to reality. There is much variation in the acuity of the senses among humans, much of which has a genetic basis. Perfect pitch is a good example. People with perfect pitch hear music differently from those like myself who don’t have perfect pitch. It is well known that perfect pitch confers a competitive advantage to musicians. Many musicians who do not have perfect pitch would probably opt to obtain it if it were available at an affordable cost. A related example in music is the jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, who is said to hear and play quarter-tone chromatic music that is revered by his aficionados but reviled by the average listener. His resolution of quarter-tone pitch that allows him to play between the semitones of the Western chromatic scale is probably genetic in origin. It enables him to write and play music that is neither understood nor cared for by many people. According to the jazz educator and author Gary Giddens, in Louisiana, in 1949, Coleman’s music so infuriated the audience that he “was summoned from the bandstand and beaten bloody by a mob which also destroyed his saxophone.”[2] Yet his gift opens a window to an aesthetic world that is closed to most of us.

Certainly there are many other examples where an individual’s ability to see, hear, etc., is far superior to the norm as a consequence of her or his genetic endowment. Although there may be no extensive records of people with such gifts, it should not be difficult to develop an inventory of them, with their consent of course. It is also imperative that legal procedures be developed to ensure that genetic property is not stolen.

While the genetic engineering of the human gene pool is being mastered in an effort to reclaim or enhance the 5 senses, efforts should be underway to use the gene pool of other animals and organisms to further enhance our existing senses or to add new senses that further our understanding and appreciation of the full breadth of reality including, especially, the ubiquitous world of subjective experiences. Many animals sense known features of reality that humans do not. In the case of birds, reptiles, and mammals it is safe to assume that the structure of their brains is sufficiently complex to enable them to experience sense data – subjective sensory experiences – in much the same way that humans do when we see the color red or hear a bell ring.

MORE EXAMPLES

The ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum provides a good case in point. Human vision is not sensitive to ultraviolet light but with their vision system birds can see colors in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. These additional colors are different from the colors that humans see-- colors generated by combining the colors red, yellow and blue.[3]

Additionally, birds can see more colors (or hues) than humans can in the range of the spectrum visible to humans. In a sense birds can see quarter-tones or other fractional color-tones that humans are unable to see. Compared to birds, humans are color-blind. That is to say, the ratio of colors that color-blind people see compared to normal people is much greater that the ratio of colors that normal people see compared to birds. Moreover, although birds see every color that humans see, most of the colors that birds see look nothing like the colors seen by humans. Were humans able to acquire the ability to see colors as birds do, the revolution that would take place in the world of art, fashion, commerce, etc., would be unprecedented.

More significantly, any new acquired sensory abilities that result in sensory experiences that correlate with known or discovered aspects of reality will alter the state of consciousness of the experiencer. It will also lead to the creation of a new vocabulary and syntax for describing or encoding reality. Again, it is important to reiterate that the new sensory experiences of which we speak cannot be perceived by any of the 5 human senses, even when these senses are aided or assisted by external mechanical or electronic devices. These are experiences that exist beyond the pale of the 5 senses. They will expand the richness and girth of sensory experiences and subjective phenomena, and because objective reality is derived from interpretations of sensory experiences and subjective phenomena, they will have the same impact on our views of reality.

Another sense possessed by birds that might be considered for addition to the human sensarium is the ability to “see” the Earth’s magnetic field. The protein cryptochrome which was discovered in the eyes of birds is believed to be a magnetoreceptor.

According to the science writer John Bohannon,

When light strikes this protein, it produces two possible

intermediate states differing in the configuration of a single

electron. Their ratio depends on the orientation of the

cryptochrome--and hence, the orientation of the organism --

relative to the ambient magnetic field.Because cryptochrome

is in the retina, (the biophysicist Thorsten) Ritz and other

scientists have proposed that it feeds magnetic information to

the brain through the optic nerves,(enabling) birds (to)

“see” the Earth’s magnetic field with a few turns of the head.[4]

Seeing the Earth’s magnetic field sounds like something from science fiction. Nevertheless, it seems certain that our sense of reality would be altered if we could see the Earth’s magnetic field with the shake of a head. There are a number of other sensory organs that animals are believed to have, including mechanoreceptors that can track movement or turbulence, and electroreceptors that can detect electric fields.[5] Obviously there may be many more senses that exist that we know nothing about.

COMPLEXITY

As each new sensory organ is identified, analyzed and genetically engineered, significant progress should be made in understanding how sensory experiences – qualia – emerge from the combined workings of the physics, chemistry and biology of the body and the brain. Then, with luck, we might finally discover what the mysterious stuff is that dreams and all things sensory and subjective are made of. Notwithstanding the claims of hard core reductionists in science and philosophy, the stuff is not made from the mass-energy and space-time vocabulary and syntax of Standard Model physics or M-Theory. It is made of things that are much more mysterious and complex.

To understand why this is so, it is helpful to borrow terms and concepts from complexity theory, and to add a new term and concept. Theorists believe that complex systems are characterized by the confluence of the following three phenomena: emergence, universality, and frustration.[6] Emergence refers to complex behaviors that arise in collective entities from simpler transition rules; universality refers to a given simple property that arises in different complex systems; and frustration refers to dynamical characteristics of a complex system that are necessarily at odds with each other.[7]

Emergence and universality apply readily to the senses inasmuch as sensory experiences are obviously universal phenomena that emerge in humans and other animals as a result of the working of their brains. The application of frustration is a bit less obvious. In complexity theory frustration is manifested as geometric frustration, scale frustration and computational frustration. No examples of these types of frustration need to be stated because none of them capture the nature of the frustration that applies to the complexity of the brain and its sensory outputs. I have identified a new kind of frustration that applies to the brain and its sensory outputs which I have named semantic frustration. Semantic frustration is the inability to create a vocabulary and logical framework that applies equally well to the brain as a physical entity and to its sensory and other subjective outputs in a way that illuminates the connection between the physics of the brain and its phenomenological outputs.

The problem is that qualia and other subjective experiences are a different kind of reality with no seeming common denominator; least of all, no common denominator that can be found in the mass/energy/space/time matrices of modern physics. Attempts to connect the language of subjective experiences with the language of science lead at best to correlations. Unfortunately, the correlations do not unravel the mystery of seeing, hearing, hurting, consciousness, etc., nor the mystery of how physical processes in the brain give rise to these phenomena. This is the essence of the semantic frustration experienced by neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, philosophers of the mind and others who ponder the mysterious connections that bind mind and mass/energy.[8]

This frustration has led to the theory of epiphenomenalism which is the belief that mental or conscious processes simply accompany certain neural processes but have no effect or subsequent influence on the neural processes. Epiphenomenalism runs counter to the following basic principle of cause and effect which is bedrock in science and philosophy; namely that every cause is itself an effect and every effect in turn causes something. According to epiphenomenalism subjective experiences are effects that are incapable of causing anything. This seems absurd to say the least; it suggests that responses to subjective experiences such as pain are nonexistent, that they are all illusions. In spite of the obvious absurdities inherent in epiphenomenalism, a number of scientists and philosophers are epiphenomenalists.

The philosopher Colin McGinn, who does not believe in epiphenomenalism, states that an impossible conceptual divide (which is an example of the semantic frustration that I have identified) separates inwardness, an introspection-based view of the mind and its mental attributes, from outwardness, a perception-based view of the brain and its physical attributes.[9] Emily Pronin provides a similar view in examining the closely related frustration experienced in trying to reconcile how we see ourselves and how we see others.[10] Pronin is hopeful that the frustration she describes can be ameliorated, whereas McGinn is certain that solving the mind/brain mystery is beyond the capabilities of the human brain as it is currently structured. He suggests genetic engineering as a way to solve the mystery, but unlike what is being proposed in this paper, recommends focusing, “on the brain centers that subserve the faculty of introspection.”[11]

Introspection is an odd choice of focus since it utilizes self-referencing which the logician Kurt Gödel showed gives rise to insurmountable obstacles that prevent a full understanding of semantic structures containing inferential substructures capable of self-representation.[12] The mind is certainly a semantic structure and introspection is simply a set of inferential substructures the mind uses to represent itself. So introspection seems unlikely to unravel the mind/brain paradox or solve the mysteries of qualia, consciousness and other subjective phenomena. If genetically engineering the brain centers responsible for introspection would not work, what other centers or senses might be considered?

THE OUTER MODEL

The answer to this question is perhaps best approached by citing the concepts Kurt Gödel and Paul Cohen used during the mid-20^th century to settle the two most outstanding questions in set theory. At the time set theory was considered a theory of everything by most mathematicians, equivalent in detail and scope to the M/string theories currently under development in the physics community. The questions of whether or not two properties of set theory known as the continuum hypothesis (CH) and the axiom of choice (AC) were consistent with or could be derived from the axioms of set theory were acknowledged as being among the most significant problems in mathematics. In 1948 Gödel proved that if set theory is consistent then CH and AC are consistent with the axioms of set theory. Gödel’s proof involved the construction of a substructure or inner model for set theory in which both CH and AC are true. In 1962 Cohen constructed a superstructure or outer model for set theory which he used to prove that if set theory is consistent, then CH and AC cannot be logically derived from its axioms. Additionally Cohen showed that no substructure or inner model for set theory can be used to prove that CH and AC cannot be derived from the axioms of set theory.

Most models for the brain/mind system favored by philosophers, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists are inner models that identify subjective phenomena as just the workings of substructures of the brain. But there is another way. Perhaps an outer model might be more useful than an inner model in considering how genetic engineering of the senses could be directed to gain insight on the true nature of the brain/mind system. We will construct such a model.

The outer model (OM) for the brain/mind system that will be constructed is inspired by the principle of radical conservatism which was championed by the theoretical physicist John Wheeler. The principle exhorts scientists to explore the most radical consequences of well-established theories of science.[13] One of the most radical consequences of Standard Model physics is the semantic frustration that emerges when attempts are made to use its vocabulary and inferential structures to explain the mind and its attributes. The OM embraces this radical consequence and explains its intrinsic nature by creating a model of the brain/mind complex that extends the inner model of the brain/mind by incorporating elements of dualism.[14] The model also extends the classic doctrine of dualism by positing how mind and matter are linked. Additionally, the model suggests how genetic engineering of the senses could result in experiences/experiments that confirm its validity and shed light on the true nature of the phenomenology of the brain/mind.

The basic properties of the OM are given below.

1. Mental entities and processes are not identical to physical entities and processes, but have equal footing as real entities and processes.

2. Mental entities, including the mind, qualia and consciousness are almost always entangled (or linked) with their correlate physical substructures in the brain. This entanglement is similar conceptually to entanglement in quantum physics where two entities can emanate from a single source and change their fundamental characteristics randomly as they separate from each other, but continue to maintain correlated characteristics even when they are vast distances apart.[15] In regard to the human brain/mind system it has not yet been established when consciousness first appears in a person’s life but when it does the mind and its correlate substructures in the brain become immediately entangled and changes in one result in correlated changes in the other.

3. For the most part the mind and brain remain entangled during a person’s lifetime, but in rare instances such as the occurrence of near-death experiences (NDE) the entanglement can dissipate and the mind and brain can decouple and become stand-alone entities.

4. When entangled the mind and brain usually occupy the same space and time; nevertheless, in very rare cases they can remain entangled and become separated in space and/or time.

5. There are specific areas in the brain where entanglement is mediated. Stimulation of these areas can give rise to the illusion that the mind and body have decoupled or that the mind and body have traveled elsewhere. These areas include the substructures that mediate the concept of presence – a feeling of being there, of being in some specific place and/or time.[16]

6. The entangled brain/mind has the capacity to perceive things that are not real but that are true. In particular a given sense may be able to perceive some truths only by means of illusions. The perception of motion provides perhaps the best example of this phenomenom. The retina can only register a finite sequence of still images when the eye sees something moving. Nevertheless the brain/mind does not perceive a sequence of still images, instead it perceives an object in motion. The motion is an illusion but it is also true.

In truth, many of the things we perceive are illusions that are imagined. The brain/mind adds, deletes, remembers, forgets, free associates, etc., when

interpreting information received from our sensory organs. This is why rabbit tastes like chicken the first time. The flip side is, as is the case with the perception of motion, that the brain/mind often “senses” the truth without receiving adequate information from our sensory organs. Such is the beauty and power of the brain/mind entanglement.

7. The perception of the truth based on sensory data may at times be inexpressible. This is easy to understand when one considers the possibility that someone could have a sensory organ that produces sensations which reflect the truth but are not experienced by the general public and consequently have no meaning. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out, language is a public tool.[17] There can be no private language that speaks about phenomena that others can neither experience nor imagine. Furthermore, language is a product of a theory of mind in which one assumes that other minds can experience the same qualia (sensations) that ours do.

8. The true nature of the brain/mind duality, the entanglements, correlations, symmetries, etc. may be perceived but cannot be captured in language that is sensible to someone who has not perceived the true nature of the duality. Indeed, those who perceive the truth may remain unable to explain the experience to themselves. This truth cannot be constructed from words or mathematics; it must be experienced and once experienced it cannot be shared in any meaningful way.

9. The sense (or senses) required to perceive this truth can be genetically engineered into the human genome. It is likely that we all have one or more of these senses but that they are very weak and overwhelmed by the other senses, except in cases where they have been enhanced by practices such as meditation, or super-activated by the appropriate drugs or severe physical trauma such as a near-death experience. Because they are weak and occur sparsely in the general population these senses are likely to be unreliable and prone to static and distortions. Genetic engineering could correct this problem by extending the horizons of the senses and increasing their acuity. When this happens standard procedures can be developed for confirming or deconfirming the properties of the brain/mind duality and new ways of knowing will emerge.

The model disallows any resolution of the semantic frustration currently experienced in trying to understand the brain/mind system. According to the model the dual nature of the system can be perceived but it cannot be explained with words or formulas. The complexity of the brain/mind system is genuine and, as is the case with all truly complex systems, the frustration is an inherent feature of the system.

The enduring character of the semantic frustration suggests that the ability to perceive the true nature of the brain/mind is by no means the last word on the subject. There are always deeper truths about what is being perceived that the perceptions do not reveal. For example, seeing colors reveals no information about the electromagnetic radiation that is responsible for the colors seen. The same can be said about the vibrations responsible for sounds or the chemicals responsible for scents. There are always deeper truths and there will always be unanswered questions.[18] Nonetheless, additional sensory capabilities will enhance our shared experiences and sensibilities as participants in this thing we call reality. And the richer and more profound our shared experiences and sensibilities, the richer and more profound our lives will be. Genetically engineering enhanced or new senses can contribute much to the realization of this possibility.

CONCLUSION

This has been a thought experiment on what might happen if new or enhanced senses could be acquired by genetic engineering. The indelible connection between what we sense and our concepts of reality was explored and the extensive variation in the range and powers of discrimination of human senses was validated. The potential benefits of certain animal senses not possessed by humans were cited. The complexity of the brain/mind system was examined and the concept of semantic frustration was introduced as a defining feature of this complexity. The basic properties of an outer model for the brain/mind were then outlined. The key elements of the model are the dual nature of mental and physical entities and processes, the concepts of entanglement and presence, the perception of things that are not real but true, the capacity to perceive truths not expressible with words or formulas, and the realization that the true nature of the brain/mind system may be perceived but cannot be articulated.

Finally, the ability to perceive the true nature of the brain/mind will not reveal all the truths about the brain/mind as a participant in what we call reality. Nevertheless, genetically engineered senses-- enhanced or new -- will increase shared experiences and sensibilities and enable our lives to be more profound and perhaps more rewarding.

NOTES

I decided to try to deal with both of these elements, and provide some examples to clarify the points.

For us in the US Virgin Islands, perhaps the major distinction between the creation of a constitution and the development of a political status is that the constitution would organize our internal structure of government, while the political status is much broader, and deals with territorial-federal relations. More on this in a moment.

A constitution would deal with issues such as the number of legislators and whether they would continue to be elected at-large from each island, or rather by electoral district drawn up for each island. A constitution could also deal with how long the members of the legislature would serve, and establish qualifications for office.

A constitution would most likely confirm issues presently in the existing Revised Organic Act of 1954 such as the length of the term of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the limitation of two consecutive terms (Puerto Rico does not have this limitation, by the way); and the two-year term of the Delegate to the US House of Representatives ( Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner to Washington has a four-year, rather than two-year term).

A constitution would confirm the structure of the judiciary, such as the number of judges and related matters. A constitution would address the need for the decentralization of government, perhaps through the creation of forms of municipal government – although the recent resolution of the Legislature would have the Congress amend the Revised Organic Act to give this authority to the territory. In this case, municipal government would most probably be enshrined in any future constitution.

A constitution could also create a system of elected mayors. Mayor of Frederiksted, mayor of Christiansted, mayor of Charlotte Amalie, mayor of Tutu – with their own budget and administrative machinery.

A constitution would probably deal with voter eligibility and the system of government. Our present system is the republican form of government, with the three branches of executive, legislative and judicial.

This is unlike the ministerial Westminister model in the British territories which combines the duties of the legislative and executive. If we were somehow to adopt this form, our senators would also be the commissioners (interesting prospect), and the very structure of the legislature would be fundamentally different (picture the debates in the House of Commons in London).

A constitution could even deal with cultural issues such as protection of land, the disposition of artifacts which may be discovered, such as shipwrecks and remnants of settlements of the indigenous people of these islands, and the preservation of Virgin Islands culture. It could even deal with matters such as beach access (you may recall that many of these items were contained in previous draft constitutions).

Some of these elements are contained in the existing Revised Organic Act, which is silent on many other elements. In any event, whatever changes a constitution might make to the present Revised Organic Act would ultimately have to be approved by Congress.

The main point is that a constitution would be designed to organize our internal structure of government, within the existing political status. It would not be designed to deal in any appreciable way with the relationship between the territory and the United States.

In the original 1976 federal statute authorizing the creation of a constitution, which was amended in 1980, it is clear that any constitution which we adopt in the US Virgin Islands must be consistent with the present political status as an unincorporated territory under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the US Constitution. Specifically, the law states that a constitution for the US Virgin Islands:

“shall recognize, and be consistent with, the sovereignty of the United States over the (US) Virgin Islands ..., and the supremacy of the provisions of the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States applicable to the (US) Virgin Islands ..., including, but not limited to, those provisions of the ... Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands ... which do not relate to local self-government.”

An in-depth legal explanation of these issues was given by Attorney Judith L. Bourne at a panel discussion held in the Legislature during Transfer Day 2005 when she pointed out that the federal legislation which granted us the authority to write a constitution also emphasized that the constitutional conventions which would be formed would be restricted to matters “within the existing territorial-Federal relationship.”

So, perhaps therein lies the possible brevity of the explanation on the linkage between the local constitution and the political status development of the territory. It is clear that the US Congress meant us to write a constitution, but only one which is linked to the present status as an unincorporated territory.

Writer Gaylord Sprauve expressed his perspective on this issue when he told the 25th Legislature’s Committee on Government Operations in 2003 that a constitution “would not put under local control the vast land and marine resources currently under the management and control of the Virgin Islands National Park system.”

He pointed to the some 30,000 acres of submerged lands that were now off-limits to local fishermen and boaters, except by special permit issued by the park and for limited use. He concluded that a constitution alone would not “restore our recreational fishing grounds to local control,”

On the matter of political status, my colleague Dr. Paul Leary wrote in his Daily News column last September that under the present political status “the Congress can govern the Virgin Islands as it wishes, with the sole exception being violation of basic human rights.

Dr. Leary went on to point out that “a major irony created by the Virgin Islands status is that we are subject to the will of a legislature (the Congress) in which we do not enjoy a vote.”

Dr. Leary in his article went on to say that “the achievement of statehood would erase (such) political inequalities.” But he also reminded that “unincorporated territories are not eligible for statehood (and) are condemned to a perpetual political limbo, attached to a country in whose affairs they can never fully participate.”

Indeed, this unilateral federal authority is the hallmark of our present political arrangement – these territorial arrangements were never meant to be permanent. They were always meant to be transitional to what Governor Turnbull referred to in this year’s Transfer Day ceremonies as “the ultimate achievement of a permanent political status.”

These are all interesting and critical points, not generally discussed in our daily political dialogue, certainly not in a sustained fashion. We have a few important panel discussions put on by interested organisations, with the “usual suspects” in attendance. But nothing sustainable, over a period years like, say, in the case of Guam which has a standing governmental commission for the purpose of dealing with the political status future.

The Humanities Council under the dynamic leadership of Ms. Mabel Maduro has done the most to bring these items to the attention of the community in the last several years, through in depth seminars and a fine documentary that I understand is being used as a teaching tool for our young people who would be the most affected by decisions taken regarding this entire process of political development.

Interestingly, these issues are the very basis of the political dialogue in neighboring Puerto Rico where, of course, the political parties “live and breathe” issues of political status on a daily basis. The three main political parties support either political integration for Puerto Rico as the 51^st state, independence or enhanced commonwealth (such enhancements can only be achieved under Free Association, according to the White House Task Force Report released last December. In fact, I will probably miss the final days of Carnival because of House of Representatives committee hearings on Puerto Rico status in the coming week).

At this point, it is also useful to note that these three options: integration, free association and independence have long been considered under international law as the three alternatives providing for a full measure of self-government with absolute political equality for all remaining territories, including the US territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.

Now I know that many would say that there is no interest in changing the status quo, and in any event, the voters in the 1993 political status referendum voted to retain the present status. I offer two clarifications in response to this assessment.

Firstly, the law required 50% plus one vote of the electorate to legitimize the result of the 1993 referendum. The turnout was 27.4 %, rendering the result null and void. Thus, we reverted to the status quo, by default. We did not vote for it. I am not arguing that the majority of people would not choose the status quo in a referendum if they were asked today. I am only saying that the 1993 referendum did not confirm this.

Secondly, the majority of the 27.4% voted in favour of a category which contained not one, but three options: an autonomous commonwealth status, the status quo, and a compact of federal relations. It could therefore be argued that the majority of these voters were voting for the autonomous commonwealth status, or the compact of federal relations, just as much as retaining the status quo. We will never know. The only way to find out would be to revisit the issue again, this time, with a far more sustained public education programme. The political will of our future leaders will determine when we do revisit this issue in the future.

At this point, it is important to recall that while there were four attempts to draft a local constitution, there were actually three attempts to address our political status.

The first began in 1980 with the establishment of the first Virgin Islands Status Commission headed by former Senator Earle B. Ottley, and chaired by Hon. Verne Hodge, two stalwarts in the political evolution of our territory. This Commission was formed as a result of a federal policy review of the Jimmy Carter Administration which gave authorization to the US territorial governments to make recommendations or modifications in their political status relationship with the United States. Senator Ottley’s 1981 Report of this first Status Commission served as the genesis of much of the present international organisation participation of the territory.

As a result of a lack of resources, however, the public education phase leading to a referendum on various political options was never implemented and the Commission was dissolved in 1982 – the same year that the electorate decided in a non-binding referendum held simultaneously with the general elections of that year that the political status should be addressed before a constitution was written.

The following year, Gov. Juan Luis introduced legislation to create a Fifth Constitutional Convention, but it was not adopted by the Legislature, mainly for budgetary reasons.

Also in 1983, a number of new proposals were introduced to deal with the status issue, and by 1984 a Select Committee on Status and Federal Relations of the Fifteenth Legislature was created under the chairmanship of the Hon. Senator Lorraine L. Berry. This Committee held a series of public hearings that year, and published an important report in 1985. However, the subsequent 16^th Legislature did not re-create the Select Committee.

It was three years later, in 1988, that the (U.S.) Virgin Islands Commission on Status and Federal Relations was created under the late Gov. Alexander A. Farrelly to conduct a comprehensive program of public education leading to a referendum which was to have been held in 1989. Of course, Hurricane Hugo had other plans. The Commission resumed again in 1990 with considerable activity, leading to the first and only political status referendum in our history. We have already discussed the outcome of that event which in retrospect was an important step in our dealing with this issue in the future.

Early in this presentation, I mentioned that constitutional development in other territories is viewed somewhat differently. In the interest of time, I will only deal with the Caribbean, but would be happy to answer any questions on the Pacific territories.

In our region, five of the six British territories in the Atlantic/Caribbean – BVI, Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and Anguilla– are in varying stages of constitutional review, while Bermuda is in the midst of organised public discussion on independence.

Under the British system, the constitutions for the territories are written by the British, following consultations with the territories. In 1999, for the first time, the British Government decided to permit their territories to review those existing constitutions that had been written for them.

The caveat was that no changes would be considered in these constitutions that would remove any of the powers of the British representative in the Territory, known as the Governor. (Herein lies some difference in nomenclature, as the British territories have governors appointed from London, while our governor is elected. This causes some degree of confusion, from time to time. It is the Chief Minister or Premier in the case of Bermuda who is the highest elected official in the British territory, not the appointed governor).

Ironically, all of the British territories agree that the powers of the London-appointed governor need to be reduced and devolved to the elected government. Recommendations for these reductions in the powers of the British in these territories are featured in all of the constitutional reviews emerging from the British territories.

Further, with the notable exception of the Cayman Islands, the leadership of the other four territories do not dismiss ultimate independence “out of hand,” but rather see it as an eventuality and a natural political progression. They insist on the need for further devolution of power from the British as an essential preparatory phase, which must be open-ended. The British counter that further devolution of power must come within the context of a rather short timetable for independence. This is the basis of the ongoing discussions between the British territories and the United Kingdom.

Constitutional evolution in the Dutch associated countries has an even more complex meaning, given that the five-island grouping of the Netherlands Antilles is scheduled to be fragmented by 2007. Present negotiations between the Dutch Government and the island governments of Curacao, Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius, and Sint Maarten, in a roundtable format, are quite intense.

In these cases, it is the continued autonomy which is the basis of the discussions, particularly for Sint Maarten and Curacao both of whose people have voted for separate country status in the Kingdom. The Dutch, however, do not wish to grant each of two islands the same autonomy they previously enjoyed as part of the Netherlands Antilles. Neither Sint Maarten nor Curacao wish to relinquish these powers. This is basis of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Saba, St. Eustatius and Bonaire would opt for an integrated status, as overseas provinces of Holland. But since such a status does not exist at present, they are seeking to create it, with a keen eye on the political rights which they would gain.

Of course, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana are fully integrated as overseas department of France, whose people have full political rights – perhaps this would ultimately serve as the model for future Dutch overseas provinces.

As you can see, the debate on constitutional evolution and political status development means different things in different places. For us, constitutional development means a locally written constitution based on the present status and under the territorial clause of the US Constitution. The issue of political status development is not discussed in any sustained fashion at this point of political evolution. But this could change.

On the other hand, constitutional evolution and political status in other Caribbean territories is viewed as inter-connected, with much broader and more long-term implications to achieving a permanent status.

In a practical sense, we are operating under the present local law which has mandated that we go the route of the Fifth Constitutional Convention, after significant public education. The Univ. of the Virgin Islands has been tasked with that responsibility, and I wish them all the best in this important work.

If there is any advice that I would offer regarding this chosen approach, it is to remind that it should be made clear to the people that the adoption of a local constitution does not end the quest for a full measure of self-government, although it is an important incremental step in that direction.

In the year 2000, the Congress made this very same distinction in legislation introduced by Congressman Don. Young of Alaska (the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee), joined in co-sponsorship by our Delegate to Congress Donna Christensen and the American Samoa Delegate Eni Faleomavaega. The legislation entitled Virgin Islands and Guam Constitutional Self-Government Act of 2000 made the following clarification:

“Establishment of local constitutional self-government pursuant to this Act shall not preclude or prejudice the further exercise in the future by the people of Guam or the Virgin Islands of the right of self-determination regarding the ultimate political status of either such territory.”

It is my concerted view that this realisation must be central to the discussions which to be generated by the constitutional convention in 2007.

With the adoption of a constitution, which I remain confident we will achieve, we must be mindful that this would not be the end of political advancement, but rather one more significant step towards a full measure of self-government.

WHEN ILLUSION IS TRANSCENDENCE Paper written by Orville Kean, Ph.D., President Emeritus, of the University of the Virgin Islands

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that the mind plays tricks, but the truth is much deeper than this. The mind, it seems, is itself a trick, perhaps the biggest trick in nature. The mind is both real and an illusion. To be more precise, the mind is real but can only be understood as an illusion. Therein lies the beauty and transcendence of the mind.

The scholarship on the mind is confusing. There is the mind, the psyche, the self, the soul and the spirit, which are conflated, associated, differentiated or claimed not to exist in every combination imaginable. Then there is consciousness, the unconscious mind, the collective unconscious, the id, the ego and the superego to contend with. Nevertheless, because consciousness, the mind, the self and the soul are so entangled in the literature on the mind, it is useful to give examples which use these concepts in an effort to understand how the mind can be a real phenomenon that can only be understood as an illusion.

Our first example is based on Buddhist teaching. The idea that the self or mind is an illusion appears to be central to the Buddhist way of thinking. For example, in his highly regarded book, The Art of Living, his holiness the XIV Dalai Lama states that, “the doctrine of no-self or anatman is common to all schools of Buddhist thought…(and) is understood in terms of the denial of an independent and permanent self or soul.”[1] He goes on to say that the Buddhist teacher Nagarjuna in his foremost philosophical work, The Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way, explains that the self is an illusion we create, “…as a result of grasping at our aggregates: our body, mind and mental functions.”[2] Nagarjuna’s student Aryadeva believed that our “ignorant conception of consciousness” is the reason we fail to recognize the illusion of self.[3] The well-known Zen master Shunryu Suzuki is more blunt. “You think the mind is like a pond that you throw things in, and they sink to the bottom like old shoes, and later they rise to the surface,” he said, “But actually there is no such thing as the mind.”[4]

Doctrines that there is no individual self or mind predate classical Greek philosophy; were embraced by leading Greek philosophers such as Parmenides and Zeno; and have been espoused by some of the most brilliant thinkers in history. Moreover, their arguments remain as powerful today as those of their contemporaries who believed otherwise. Furthermore, the tradition is not dated. There is a lively, erudite cadre of thinkers in the intellectual community that hold similar or equally non-standard views about consciousness and about the mind.

The science writer Tor Norretranders claims that, “consciousness is a fraud.”[5] Susan Blackmore, a psychologist, writer and lecturer based in Bristol suggests that, “Instead of asking how neural impulses turn into conscious experiences, we must ask how the grand illusion (of consciousness) gets constructed.”[6] Another perspective is presented in The Mysterious Flame, a seminal work on conscious minds written by the philosopher Colin McGinn. Consciousness is real, McGinn claims, but it will never be understood. He argues that consciousness is, “a deep mystery, a phenomenon of nature”, that the human brain is incapable of demystifying.[7] Roger Penrose, a prominent mathematician and cosmologist believes that consciousness arises out of quantum mechanical effects that occur in the brain.[8] Quantum mechanical effects have been referred to as weird, strange and spooky by physicists, many of whom claim that nobody truly understands quantum physics. It is simply used to derive the right results in experiments and technology.

THE ILLUSION/TRANSCENDENCE PHENOMENON

Perhaps the best example of the illusion/transcendence phenomenon is motion. The Greek philosopher Zeno proposed that motion is an illusion. The moving arrow never moves Zeno said. In a sense Zeno was both right and wrong. Motion is a product of the space-time continuum. Understanding it requires the differential calculus which is based on the continuum, a mathematical entity that is at least one order of infinity greater than the Natural Numbers. The Natural Numbers is the infinite set comprised of the numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3,…

The brain is finite. It is finite in mass, neuronal connections and duration, and its synapses fire in finite sequences. Therefore the brain cannot truly perceive motion. Consequently, the motion we perceive is an illusion. It is the same illusion that enables us to perceive motion on a movie screen or on television. In both the movies and on television the moving arrow never moves, the motion is simulated by a finite sequence of still photographs of the arrow. The brain creates the illusion of motion. The creation of this illusion is the transcendence that enables the mind to explore the continuum; an infinite set that cannot be perceived or apprehended by a finite brain.

The idea that the brain creates illusions that enable the mind to believe that it is experiencing something that is transcendent makes sense from a human development point of view. In the case of motion, the illusion led to the development of the calculus, classical physics, General Relativity and quantum physics. The intellectual fall-out created the scientific and technological infrastructure on which the modern world is based.

There is practical value in the brain’s ability to create illusions that enable the mind to experience things that transcend the brains’s capability as a finite computer. How the brain creates these illusions is a mystery. The brain is logically equivalent to a finite computer, yet it is also capable of creating meaning or semantics that transcends the computing power of the syntax computers process. We know that meaning transcends the words and symbols we use to describe things because of the Gödel Incompleteness Theorem. In proving this theorem, the logician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that any consistent, finitely generated symbolic language that is powerful enough to prove the obvious theorems in arithmetic cannnot capture the true meaning of something as obvious as the whole numbers we use when we add, subtract, multiply or divide. No finite combination of the symbols or words we use to represent things or ideas can encompass the true meaning of those things or ideas. Our finite brains cannot process the meaning of the things we say or write. Therefore, meaning must also be an illusion the brain creates in the mind.

The benefits of meaning to human development also seem to be beyond equivocation. Nevertheless, meaning seems to be a more difficult illusion to understand than motion. Motion is understood in terms of the calculus. Granted it took over 2000 years after Zeno for Newton and Leibnitz to create the calculus and another 200 years to plug the logical holes. Nevertheless, today the calculus connects the finite sequence of still pictures of the moving arrow that never moves very well with the moving arrow that is always moving. To date there is no generally accepted thesis that connects words and sentences to their meaning.

MEANING AND INFINITY

Many scholars connect meaning with the mind’s ability to recognize the infinite and understand some of its properties. For example, the proof of the Gödel Incompleteness Theorem mentioned earlier requires the use of properties the Natural Numbers possess because they comprise an infinite set, and the stipulation of possible worlds in the semantics of the philosopher Saul Kripke opens up seemingly infinite possibilities for meaning in a given discourse.[9]

The phenomenologists and post-modern philosophers focus much of their attention on the tension that exists between the finiteness of language as it is spoken or written, and the infinite potential for using language, past, present and future, and, subsequently, the infinite potential for ascribing meaning in interpreting the most simple and seemingly straightforward texts. According to Peter Dews in his book Logics of Disintegration, Jacques Derrida’s use of the terms difference “suggests the impossibility of closing off the differing and deferral of meaning in language”, and builds on Ferdinand de Saussure’s “insight into the differential structure of language, according to which the meaning of each term depends on its contrast with all others.”[10] “This entanglement of texts, the necessary deferral of meaning, and the fundamental unclosability of the horizon of meaning” have bedeviled Derrida and other hermeneutic scholars in their struggles to develop a coherent theory of meaning.[11] But as was mentioned before, no generally accepted coherent theory of meaning has been achieved by them or anyone else.

Our final thought on the possible link between meaning and the infinite comes from Alan Watts and Jiddu Krishnamurti. Watts, a Zen scholar and author, believed that knowledge and meaning are both grounded in the infinite and the conscious self. He states in his book, The Supreme Identity that, “The conscious Self… transcends the various objects of its knowledge as the infinite transcends the finite.” He states further that “the very notion of Self having knowledge of itself is actually quite meaningless – one of those concepts that comes into being as a result of playing with Words. From the viewpoint of metaphysic, objective knowledge of the Self is not only impossible, but unnecessary.” The connection between consciousness, meaning and infinity is summed up in his statement, “We shall see that in metaphysic there is the closest connection, something more than mere analogical resemblance, between the Self, as the irreducible ground of knowledge and the infinite.”[12]

The Indian mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti’s perspective on the mind, consciousness, thought, knowledge, space, time and the infinite, reflects the age-old paradigm that places materialism and spiritualism in opposition to each other. He claims that “Thought is material and its activity, outer or inner is materialistic.” As a result, “consciousness is matter”, as are memory, experience and knowledge.[13] According to Krishnamurti’s metaphysics, the mind transcends the conscious self. It is a vast immeasurable space that lies outside the measure of thought and meaning.[14] Consciousness, thought, knowledge, time and space are material. The mind, the infinite and all things immeasurable are spiritual. This is his version of the dual nature of reality.

It should now seem evident that many well respected scholars have been convinced that a crucial number of ideas with which the mind is commonly engaged such as the infinite and the idea of the mind itself transcend the creative capability of the finite brain. Yet these ideas are created by the brain in a manner that defies explanation except, perhaps, by illusion.

THE QUALIA ILLUSION

The most obvious mental illusion, but also the most difficult to understand is the illusion of qualia, the sensations we experience that we associate with our five senses. The redness of the color red is a quale. So is the saltiness of the taste of salt. Most people experience qualia in their dreams or in other altered states of consciousness without the presence of the natural stimuli ordinarily associated with the sensations. Additionally, qualia are experienced by artificially stimulating the brain. Qualia must therefore be an illusion.

There is no physical theory that comes anywhere close to explaining qualia. Even the most ardent supporters of the view that the mind and consciousness will eventually be explained in terms of the brain processing finite inputs in computer-like fashion, acknowledge that currently qualia seems beyond the pale of human understanding. Oliver Sacks reflects on this situation succinctly in, “In the River of Consciousness”, New York Review of Books, January 15, 2004.

Something beyond our understanding occurs in the genesis of

qualia, the transformations of an objective cerebral computation

to a subjective experience. Philosophers argue endlessly over how

these transformations occur, and whether we will ever be capable

of understanding them. Neuroscientists, by and large, are content

for the moment to accept that they do occur, and to devote themselves

to finding the underlying basis or “neural correlates” of consciousness,…

Clearly there is a need for an organizing principle that provides a basis for a better understanding of the illusions of motion, meaning, mind and qualia that all seem to transcend the finite computing capabilities of the brain. In the next section we shall introduce a number of ideas taken from theoretical physics that suggest how these illusions could possibly emerge, without providing any specific understanding of the emergence of these illusions as physical phenomena.

EMERGENT UNIVERSAL PHENOMENA

The ideas in this section are taken from R.B. Laughlin’s article, “The Cup of the Hand”, Science, 5 March, 2004. Laughlin analyzes collective organizational phenomena in terms of insensitivity to microscopics, phases, phase transitions and emergent universality.

The principle of insensitivity to microscopic detail applies to collective organizational phenomena that cannot be predicted from the detail at the microscopic level. A phase is any of many ways in which a thing or entity of varying modes or conditions can be observed, sensed or experimentally characterized. Solid, liquid and gas are three phases of matter. A phase transition is a transition from one phase of a given thing to another, say the transition from water to ice. Emergent universality is the emergence of universal phenomena in collective entities, particularly self-organizing collective entities that cannot be deduced from microscopic detail or first principles. These emergent universal phenomena are believed to result from a collective effect that emerges at a phase transition. They are insensitive to microscopic detail.

The brain is obviously a self-organizing collective entity, and consciousness with its five senses and attendant qualia is a case of universal phenomena that emerges in the collective entity that the brain is. Even a strong advocate of strong artificial intelligence (AI) such as Nobel Laureate Francis Crick admits that consciousness emerges at sometime in the development of the brain, “perhaps something that doesn’t begin at birth, but gradually emerges.”[15] Also, the emergence of qualia seems impossible to deduce from the microscopics of the brain.

Gerald Edelman, another prominent neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate believes strongly that the conscious mind works in accordance with the principle of insensitivity to microscopic detail. He states that “To reduce a theory of individual behavior to a theory of molecular interactions is simply silly, a point made clear when one considers how many different levels of physical, biological and social interactions, must be put in place before higher order consciousness emerges.”[16] The generation of qualia, the perception of motion, the illusions of the infinite and of meaning may be examples of the occurrence of emergent universal phenomena arising in the brain that is insensitive to microscopic detail. This could explain why these phenomena are such a universal aspect of human experience; nevertheless, seem impossible to understand or to be derived from microscopic detail or first principles in physics, biology, psychology or neuroscience.

The idea that self-organizing collectives such as the brain exist in different phases and undergo phase transitions that result in the manifestation of different qualities and characteristics appears to be obvious. It is certainly the case that altered states of consciousness emerge as a result of changes in the brain induced by sleep, meditation, injuries to the brain, drugs, etc. It is easy to interpret these changes as phase transitions.

Emergent universality opens up many interesting possibilities regarding theories of the mind and consciousness. For example, both the collective unconscious and specie-specific archetypes can be explained as emergent universal phenomena that exist but cannot be deduced from the interactions of single minds. Furthermore, there may be endless hierarchies of collective entities that are conscious, or other phenomena with truly incredible properties growing out of the consciousness of the mind, that satisfy the principle of emergent universality and are therefore insensitive to the workings of our individual conscious minds. In other words, we may contribute to the consciousness of other entities but are totally unaware of our contributions. Oddly enough, this is exactly what mystics and near-death experiencers (NDE) say about reality.

NOT SIMPLY COMPLEXITY FROM SIMPLICITY

Emergence is often used to refer to complex phenomena that derive from simple rules. It is well known that a number of startlingly complicated properties and characteristics can arise in systems that are governed by a set of simple rules. Perhaps this point of view is most forcefully exposited by Stephen Wolfram in A New Kind of Science, his revolutionary book in which he claims that the entire workings of the universe “can be embodied in simple computer programs.”[17]

This principle of complexity arising from simple rules or programs must be taken very seriously. It is powerful, persuasive and applicable to almost everything we study. So pervasive is this principle that what has to prove itself is the idea of emergent universal phenomena in collectives that cannot be explained in terms of rules that apply to their parts. Fortunately, we have already given the example of the subjective experiences of the senses as an excellent example of emergent universal phenomena that seemingly can be deduced from neither microscopics nor first principles. It is important to keep in mind how complexity deriving from simplicity differs from emergent universality. Complexity arising from simplicity is a reductionist concept, whereas emergent universality is not reductionist in nature.

In a sense both complexity deriving from simplicity and emergent universality have analogs in mathematics. Mathematicians use rules of deductive inference to prove complex statements called theorems from a finitely generated set of simpler statements called axioms. Therefore, theorems may be considered as an example of complexity deriving from simplicity. On the other hand, because of the work of Kurt Gödel, we know that there are an infinite number of true statements about structures defined by finitely generated axioms that are beyond the pale of proof. The true statements that cannot be deduced from finitely generated axioms are excellent examples of emergent universality. Gödel’s results also enabled the logician Alonzo Church to demonstrate that no algorithm or computer program can determine if a statement in mathematics can or cannot be proved. Then Alan Turing, a founding father of computer science, showed that there is no way to determine if an arbitrary computer program will halt or compute indefinitely. Mathematicians considered these discoveries to be a boon. It meant that the study of mathematics would continue without end, requiring more and more innovative and creative methods to achieve progress. Emergent universality confirmed mathematics as a creative discipline, a work of art so to speak. Mathematicians were elated to find out that computer programs could not replace them.

However, there is a downside. Gödel also proved that it is impossible to show that structures in mathematics such as the Natural Numbers are internally consistent without using principles that are both more powerful and more speculative than the principles embodied in the axioms used to define the structures. In other words, Gödel proved that mathematics may be just an illusion. My bet is that mathematics is as real as are motion, meaning, the infinite, and qualia.

TESTS FOR EMERGENT UNIVERSALITY

Emergent universality may help in explaining why the mind is able to experience transcendence in ways that can be explained only as illusions. It could also explain why the mind is fooled so easily by trickery into believing it is experiencing transcendence. It is therefore desirable to develop tests that are able to determine whether emergent universality is real when a phenomenon is suspected of manifesting this property. If emergent universality were demonstrated to be a general feature of reality, it would be a blessing for science as it has been for mathematics. The fundamental principles of science would be endless, with no theory of everything ever occurring. Scientists could search forever for new cases of emergent universality in the laboratory and the cosmos.

The first true case of emergent universality in science occurred with the development of quantum physics about 80 years ago. Early on in quantum physics, which takes place on the scale of atoms, it appeared to be the case that particles had no specific positions or any specific velocities at a given time. This was very different to everyday or “classical” physics where things are always in specific locations and move with specific velocities at a given time. Quantum physics seemed weird and not every physicist agreed with its principles. Albert Einstein believed that quantum physics was wrong, that it was an unfinished theory where all uncertainties were based on ignorance, and that in the future this ignorance would be dispelled and the world of quantum physics would be understood to behave in the same way as the world of classical physics, where his brilliant General Theory of Relativity ruled supreme. There was much heated discussion on the subject. Perhaps the best response to Einstein’s objection was given by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli who is reported to have said, “One should no more rack one’s brain about the problem of whether something one cannot know anything about exists all the same, than about the ancient question of how many angels are able to sit on the point of a needle.”[18]

The beginning of the end of the debate occurred in 1964 when physicist John Bell discovered a test that could be used to determine if the uncertainties in quantum physics were real and not just a product of ignorance.[19] Experiments in the 1970s and 1980s used Bell’s test to confirm that the uncertainties were real and that Einstein was wrong. The surprising thing about the reality of quantum physics as confirmed by Bell’s test, is that it is the physical properties of the ordinary world in which we live that are emergent universal properties and are therefore strange. This strangeness is still not understood by scientists. At a recent retreat where physicists, philosophers and historians of science gathered to discuss the odd implications of quantum physics, Gerard Milburn, a physicist at the University of Queensland in Australia exclaimed, “In fact, no one knows how our boring old ‘classical world’, in which a thing can be in only one place at a time arises from the weirdness of quantum theory. The fundamental question remains, why do we have classical behavior in a quantum world?”[20]

Paraphrasing Milburn with a twist, we can assert that no one knows how our minds arise from our boring old “classical” world, and the fundamental question remains, why do we have conscious minds in a physical world? A test that could be used to confirm that conscious minds are emergent universal phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of the physics, chemistry or neurology of the brain would contribute much to settling the debate on whether or not the mind is simply a sum of parts that comprise the brain.

Not surprisingly, Gödel is claimed to have suggested such a test. According to the mathematical logician Hao Wang, Gödel suggested that it may be possible to demonstrate scientifically that “there aren’t enough nerve cells (in the brain) to perform the observable operations of the mind.”[21] But as Wang observed, this test is problematic.[22] The number of neurons in the brain is so large, estimated to be perhaps one trillion, and the number of connections between the neurons is much larger. The sheer number of possible neural correlates that could give rise to operations of the mind is therefore of staggering proportions. Additionally, we have a very limited understanding of how the enormous scale of neural activity taking place in the brain relates to the operations of the mind. Finally, we have no idea how to count the operations of the mind. Nevertheless, as more is learned about how brain activity correlates with mental activity, it may be possible to develop a realizable test based on Gödel’s idea.

CONCLUSION

We have demonstrated that a number of common, everyday things that the mind perceives or understands seem beyond the processing capabilities of a finite computer, which the brain clearly appears to be. The motion we see, the meaning we ascribe to things, the colors, sounds, tastes we experience, and the mathematics we use are in a very real sense illusions. This does not mean that these things are not real. It means only that the finiteness of the brain suggests they can only be understood as illusions. The capacity to perceive or understand these (and many other) things transcends the computing power of a finite computer. This is why we say that these illusions are really transcendence.

We have suggested emergent universality as a hypothesis that may contribute to a better understanding of how the brain can create a mind that seems able to transcend the brain’s computing capabilities. Emergent universality is the emergence in collective entities of universal phenomena that cannot be inferred from first principles or microscopic detail. Finally, we believe that a concerted effort should be made to develop a test that could determine if the creation of the mind is the result of emergent universal phenomena occurring in the brain. The reverberations from the successful application of such a test would have a seismic impact in every sphere of human activity.

NOTES

[1] His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama, The Art of Living, Thorsons, London, 2001, pg 149.

[2] Ibid, pg 150.

[3] Ibid, pg 153.

[4] To Shine One Corner of the World, edited by David Chadwick, Broadway Books, New York, 2001,

Pg 72.

[5] This is taken from George Johnson’s review in the May 3, 1998, New York Times Book Review of

Tor Norrestrander’s book, The User Illusion, Cutting Conscious Down to Size.

[6] Blackmore, Susan, “The Grand Illusion,” New Scientist, 22 June 2002.

[7] McGinn, Colin, The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds In A Material World, Basic Books,

New York, N.Y., 1999, pg xi.

[8] Penrose, Roger, “Must mathematical physics be reductions?”, Nature’s Imagination, Oxford University

Press, new York, 1995, pg 21.

[9] Soames, Scott, The Age of Meaning: Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Princeton

University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2003, pp 336, 354-356.

[10] Dews, Peter, Logics of Disintegration, Verso, London, 1987, pg 11.

[11] Dews give a good exposition of these struggles in Chapter 1 of Logics of Disintegration.

The quote is from page 12 of the paperback edition.

[12] Watts, Alan, The Supreme Identity, Vintage Books, New York, 1972, pp. 47, 48.

[13] Krishnamurti, Jiddu, Krishnamurti’s Journal, Harper San Francisco, New York, 1982, pg. 78.

[14] Ibid, pp 72, 73.

[15] Wertheim, Margaret, “After the Double Helix: Unraveling the Mysteries of the State of Being”,

New York Times, April 13, 2004, D3.

[16] Edelman, Gerald M., “Memory and the individual soul: against silly reductionism”,

Nature’s Imagination, Oxford U. Press, N.Y., 1995, pg 201.

[17] Wolfram, Stephens, A New Kind of Science, Wolfram Inc, Champaign, Il, 2002, pg 1.

[18] Greene, Brian, The Fabric of the Cosmos, Alfred A. Knopf, Random House, Inc, New York, 2004,

pg 103.

[19] Ibid, pp 103-115.

[20] Cho, Adrian, “Elite Retreat takes the Measure of a Weirdly Ordinary World”, Science,

25, June 2004, pp 1896, 1897.

[21] Wang, H. “On ‘computabilism’ and physicalism: some subproblems”, Nature’s Imagination, edited by

John Cornwell, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, pp. 164,, 165.

[22] Ibid, pg 165.