{"id":84939,"date":"2019-01-16T22:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T04:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=84939"},"modified":"2019-01-16T15:00:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T22:00:20","slug":"leading-neuroscientists-and-buddhists-agree-consciousness-is-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/01\/16\/leading-neuroscientists-and-buddhists-agree-consciousness-is-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading neuroscientists and Buddhists agree: \u201cConsciousness is everywhere\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0SAM LITTLEFAIR\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0LION\u2019<\/span>S ROAR<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
Neuroscientist Christof Koch discusses scientific theories of consciousness with the Dalai Lama.<\/div>\n

New theories in neuroscience suggest consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything, just like gravity. That development opens a world of opportunity for collaboration between Buddhists and neuroscientists.<\/p>\n

The heart of consciousness,\u201d says neuroscientist Christof Koch, is that it\u00a0feels like<\/em>something. How is it that a piece of matter, like my brain, can feel anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, Koch, one of the world\u2019s leading experts on consciousness, went to a monastery in India to discuss that question\u00a0with a group of Buddhist monks. He and the Dalai Lama debated neuroscience and mind\u00a0for a full day.<\/p>\n

They had different approaches. Koch offered contemporary scientific theories on the subject, and His Holiness\u00a0countered with ancient Buddhist teachings. Yet, at the end of their discussion, the two thinkers agreed on almost every point.<\/p>\n

\"Christof<\/p>\n

What struck me most was his belief in what we in the West call \u2018panpsychism\u2019 \u2014 the belief that consciousness is everywhere,\u201d says Koch. And that we have to reduce the suffering of all conscious creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panpsychism, the idea of universal consciousness, is a prominent thought in some branches of ancient Greek philosophy, paganism, and Buddhism. And it has been largely dismissed by modern science \u2014 until recently.<\/p>\n

In his work on consciousness, Koch collaborates with a researcher named Giulio Tononi. Tononi is the father of the most popular modern theory of consciousness, called Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which Koch\u00a0once called<\/a>\u00a0the only really promising fundamental theory of consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tononi\u2019s theory states\u00a0that consciousness appears in physical systems that contain many different and highly interconnected pieces of information. Based on that hypothesis, consciousness can be measured as a theoretical quantity, which the researchers call\u00a0phi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tononi has a test for measuring phi (the amount of consciousness) in a human brain. It\u00a0is similar to ringing a bell; scientists send a magnetic pulse into a human brain and watch the pulse reverberate through the neurons \u2014 back and forth, side to side. The longer and clearer the reverberation, the higher the subject\u2019s amount of consciousness. Using that test, Koch and Tononi can tell whether a patient is awake, asleep, or anesthetized.<\/p>\n

There are already pressing and practical needs for a way to measure consciousness. Doctors and scientists could use phi to tell if a person in a vegetative state is effectively dead, how much awareness a person with dementia has, when a foetus develops consciousness, how much animals perceive, or even whether a computer can feel.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s more urgent,\u201d asserts\u00a0Koch. We\u2019re witnessing the birth of computer intelligence. Is a machine conscious? Does it feel like anything? If it does, it may acquire legal rights, and I certainly have ethical obligations towards it. I can\u2019t just turn it off or wipe its disc clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"koch\"<\/p>\n

Christof Koch speaking at\u00a0TEDxRainier Seattle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

IIT also marries these practical applications with profound ideas. The theory says that any object with a phi greater than zero has consciousness. That would mean animals, plants, cells, bacteria, and maybe even protons are conscious beings.<\/p>\n

Koch sees IIT as promising because it offers an understanding of panpsychism that fits into modern science. In\u00a0an academic paper<\/a>, Koch and Tononi make the profound statement that their theory treats consciousness as an intrinsic, fundamental property of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modern research and recent dialogues between Buddhists and scientists have focused mainly on understanding the physical brain. But scientists have barely begun to\u00a0develop an understanding of mind \u2014 or consciousness \u2014 itself.<\/p>\n

On the Buddhist side, however, this is a discussion that has been going on for thousands of years. Buddhism associates mind with sentience. The late Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche\u00a0stated<\/a>that while mind, along with all objects, is empty, unlike most objects, it is also luminous. In a similar vein, IIT says consciousness is an intrinsic quality of everything yet only appears significantly in certain conditions \u2014 like how everything has mass, but only large objects have noticeable gravity.<\/p>\n

In his major work, the\u00a0Shobogenzo<\/a><\/em>, Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism, went so far as to say, All is sentient being.\u201d Grass, trees, land, sun, moon and stars are all mind, wrote Dogen.<\/p>\n

Koch, who became interested in Buddhism in college, says that his personal worldview has come to overlap with the Buddhist teachings on non-self, impermanence, atheism, and panpsychism. His interest in Buddhism, he says, represents a significant shift from his Roman Catholic upbringing. When he started studying consciousness \u2014 working with Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick \u2014 Koch believed that the only explanation for experience would have to invoke God. But,\u00a0instead of affirming religion, Koch and Crick together established consciousness as a respected branch of neuroscience and invited Buddhist teachers into the discussion.<\/p>\n

At Drepung Monastery, the Dalai Lama told Koch that the Buddha taught that sentience is everywhere at varying levels, and that humans should have compassion for all sentient beings. Until that point, Koch hadn\u2019t appreciated the weight of his philosophy.<\/p>\n