Author: japineda

Jaime A. Pineda is Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. He joined the Department of Cognitive Science at UCSD as a founding faculty member in 1989. Here, he remained for the rest of his 33-year academic career, impacting and inspiring generations of undergraduate and graduate students to take on hard questions in the neurobiology of the human mind. He is the author of many widely cited papers in animal and human cognitive and systems neuroscience. He edited one academic book (Mirror Neuron Systems: The Role of Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition). This is a collection of research on the functional significance of mirror neurons that includes Professor Pineda’s work on autism. It is one of the most cited and downloaded books in the field. He is the author of The Social Impulse: The Evolution and Neuroscience of What Brings Us Together. For the last twenty years, he became interested in spiritual matters as a bridge to a fuller understanding of the mind. This led him to explore Zen Buddhism, train with a master teacher, and develop his creative side. He has published two books of poetry (Quieting of a Mind; Dawning of a New Mind) focusing on mind-brain relationships with an emphasis on spirituality, mysticism, environmentalism, and social activism. Most recently, he published his autobiography (Piercing the Cloud: Encountering the Real Me), the story of his journey and bridging of science and spirituality. In his creative endeavors, Professor Pineda explores how true seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking can quiet the overactive monkey mind and how it allows silence to become the fountain of creative thought. He now shares these insights with others.

Moments of Perfection

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There are moments in life when we encounter, however briefly, something unexpected, beautiful, perfect, beyond description, in which we sense a larger beingness. We feel at the edge of a precipice transfixed, but connected to that larger sense of ourselves. I call these moments of perfection, wrapped in glory. Sometimes the overwhelming emotion can be positive but it need not be. It is, however, unforgettable. The following are my flash-bulb memories of some of those events in my life. I encourage anyone with such memories to share a short-version of them with me so that I can post on the blog.

Individuation

Although most of my life as a 3-year-old remains shrouded in mist, I vividly recall the day when I became a separate, distinct individual. Until then, I had no awareness of a separate me, only of an undifferentiated consciousness. That auspicious day, I recall wanting to play, but my 5-year-old sister Nora did not, and in that instant, shattered my world. It suddenly dawned on me, more a feeling than a conceptual understanding, that she and I were distinct, with different thoughts. It was, as I would later characterize it, a “crack in the cosmic egg of my existence.” Individuation is a normal process we all go through, but few remember. Psychologists call it the development of a theory of mind, referring to the ability to distinguish our self from others and to know others can think different thoughts. The unexpected and earth-shattering aware-feeling of becoming separate from those close to me produced a deep sadness in my young mind. It made me feel very alone in a large universe.

Going to the Moon

We were inseparable, doing everything together, including fighting like brothers. On a sunny day, when we were both four years old, we went to the moon. Hector lived next door and had become my best friend. I don’t recall how we chose our target, but the adventure did not seem beyond our childish imaginations. There was a small bed in the corridor that faced the backyard of my house, which we commandeered as our spaceship. On launch day, we sat side by side with me as pilot and Hector as co-pilot. Suddenly, the engines roared, and we were off. We took control of the ship and pointed it towards the silver silhouette in the sky. My eyes fixated on that silver moon and, ever so slowly, perceived us getting closer and closer. It seemed like the afternoon dragged on for hours as the size of our target grew bigger and bigger. I have never been able to see the “face” on the moon, but on that day I could see the craters on the surface as clearly as if only a few hundred feet above them. It was thrilling beyond words.

Finding My Way Home

I started undergraduate life at UCLA as a math major since I had done well in the subject in high school. But it quickly became apparent I did not know what I wanted to study, and switched to Engineering, then Premed, and Sociology. It did not help my confidence to be surrounded by kids much smarter than me. I struggled to get through freshman chemistry, earning a passing grade. In contrast, a friend got an ‘A’ even though he rarely studied because the material did not challenge him enough. I remember sitting side by side in class, feeling disheartened and depressed. Such feelings accompanied me to every class during that first fall and winter quarters. In spring, I enrolled in Introduction to Psychology and things took a different turn. That first day proved foreboding as I walked into a semi-circular auditorium holding 500 students, all talking at once. I settled down on a seat at the top of the auditorium, fortunate to have found one. For five minutes, I waited for the class to start. Then, a young, short-hair male with glasses and sandals, who I assumed to be the professor, approached the podium. The loud noise settled down from a roar to a murmur and then complete silence, as if a disk jockey had turned down the dial on loud music. Maybe it was the deep and mellow tenor of his voice or his charm, but soon enough, I lost track of everyone around me. Everyone literally disappeared, and I became mesmerized by the professor’s voice and stories. I had stopped thinking and just listened–totally fascinated by what he said. At the end of the class and while the auditorium emptied, I felt disoriented. What had just happened? After a few seconds, I experienced a warm feeling and a sense I had stumbled upon what had been missing. It felt like I had found my way home after being lost, and a sense of gratitude, excitement, and a budding awareness that I now knew what I needed to do. I would major in psychology.

Snow in Frankfurt

It was the weekend and time to head downtown, to an area called Sachsenhausen, a part of the old town with a mix of late-night bars, clubs, and restaurants. I had been in Frankfurt, Germany, stationed at Rhein-Main Air Force Base for only a few months. The old town was a special hangout for US airmen during our time off. The coldness of winter gripped me as I pulled my light jacket tighter while waiting for the bus. In Sachsenhausen, my friends and I gathered at the Drop-IN club where we danced with German fräuleins, drank, laughed, and relaxed from our weekly chores. Around midnight, l headed home by myself feeling happy and light-headed. I stepped off the bus stop to switch to the one headed to the air base and sat on the bench to wait. I knew it would only be a few minutes, given the punctual nature of German public transportation. As I sat there, alone on a quiet night, during the bewitching hour, it snowed. I had never experienced a snow fall and as I looked up at the sky, the most beautiful pattern of white particles against a dark sky descended on me as if in slow motion. It was mesmerizing and for a long moment, time stood still, as I sat there watching and feeling blessed by God.

The Oscillation Between Mediocrity and Uniqueness

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Cal Ag/EyeEm/EyeEm Premium / Getty
I wish to be relevant.
I do not want my ashes
In the dustbin of history.
It is a terrifying thought!

To be invisible,
To be irrelevant,
Unable to add
To the human enterprise.

Amid a pandemic,
This consuming hunger
And accompanying fear,
Rears its head.

As I shelter at home
And avoid the world,
I feel less able to add
To the human existence.

The existential crisis grows.
My insignificance is clear.
I have no ground to stand on
And I disappear.

Then, out of the ashes,
Something new is reborn.
With a new relevancy,
The relevancy of being.

Nothing to do,
Nothing to be,
No more,
No less.

This poem captures two worlds colliding in my mind at the moment. One is the world of my ego in which I am feeling distressed at being ordinary, not standing out from the crowd, being ignored by my peers and others as uninteresting or unimportant, and not having done enough to make the world a better place. I compare myself to others and find myself inadequate, as if something is missing in my personality and competence. I feel a void in the pit of my stomach, and the state of “mediocrity” becomes a frightening possibility. Like the sword of Damocles, my ego obsesses with the sense that this state of being is about to drop into my soul any minute. And I dread the thought and the feelings it engenders, namely that I will recognize this as my true nature. I recognize I rooted such fear in my development, with high expectations and a lifelong effort to excel academically and in other spheres of life. In contrast, I occasionally oscillate to another sense – that of contentment, of being special, when thinking disappears, and the world seems absolutely perfect.

This oscillation between mediocrity and uniqueness, being special and not reminds me of what Harold Ramis, a well-known American actor, comedian, director, and writer, said about carrying two notes to remind you of who you are. The first note should read, “The universe was created for my delight.” The second note should say, “I am a meaningless speck of dust in the vastness of the universe.” His point was that life occurs in the rhythmic oscillation between these two opposite poles. Living happens between meaningfulness and meaninglessness, between creative and mundane living. The rhythmic oscillation of this dance occurs both outside and within conscious awareness, but in either case, we are participants. Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian guru, offered something similar. He said, “Between looking inside and recognizing that I am nothing and seeing outside and recognizing that I am everything–my life turns.” You, me, and everyone else are both nothing and everything; both special and not.

So, why do I yearn for uniqueness? To be special? And for whom is all this mental anguish and activity for? Psychologically, it is my ego’s soulful cry, created by an illusion of separateness, born out of my evolutionary drive for individuality. Spiritually, however, it is the aching sense to be united with my Source.

The Butterfly Effect

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A monarch butterfly

              … here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
             i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) 
                                                            e.e. cummings

What would our world be like if, instead of training the young to value money and material things, they would learn to value truth, creativity, and love? If they could learn to carry the heart of the other in their own heart? Why is such a world only theoretically possible? Obviously, it is the way we have structured rewards and punishment in our dysfunctional society. That money is the basis for purchasing goods and services makes materialism, if not inevitable, then highly likely. Those with the most money get the most toys. But what if goods and services were available regardless of money? What if we rewarded nonmaterial values? We can all imagine a society where hard work, honesty, teamwork could guarantee a child a free high school and college education. Such a society could guarantee a reasonable income and work once they completed their education. Why do we consider these things noble yet highly unlikely to occur? What must we change to move us in that direction?

Let’s begin with the young and the learning they undergo. On the optimistic side, schooling, when done right, is mainly a positive thing. Children learn to be social. They get interested in science. We encourage their curious ways. Whatever goes wrong with this expectation and outcome is correctable without having to rethink what education is. I would even argue that the competition that is fostered in grade school is a good thing as well. Whether in athletics or academics, competition is a healthy motivating force. It goes wrong when it becomes entirely a selfish endeavor, with no consideration for others. Is that the clue to what takes us in the wrong direction?

Some argue that selfishness is a part of human nature; that children are the ultimate narcissists; and unless society counterbalances that drive, things will go awry. If true, then what are the social forces that provide such counterbalancing drives. I would argue that things like church, group associations, a multi-ethnic, diverse culture are important. And what is at the core of what these institutions teach? I would say they teach us empathy; to put ourselves in the shoes of the other; to carry their heart in our own heart. Empathy is the counter to selfishness. Unfortunately, these countervailing forces in society are currently losing authority or producing an unnatural backlash. This is the root of the problem. The lack of a counter to our selfish drive is creating narcissistic individuals not interested in others. Of course, we are talking about massive generational, value- and age-based changes going on in the world. Is there one small thing that can change this inevitable storm?

Some argue that the world is a chaotic, dynamical system. In such a system, the fluttering of a butterfly in South America can have a significant effect on the weather in North America. Perhaps this essence of chaos theory applies to the chaos of social turbulence we are experiencing. Many answers about which behavior would be most effective are possible. But the one that rings most true, and which lies at the root of the root of the answer, is love—unconditional love. Love is empathy in action. Learn to love in this way. Teach others to love without judgment. This small beating of your wings might just change the turbulence you and all of us are experiencing.

Meditations for a Sunday Afternoon

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The human and divine. Once in a while, the idea of my human and divine nature rears its head. I know for sure that I am a human being, with all the attributes it implies. I had human parents who passed on their genetic attributes to me. Still, I have accepted that my essence is part and parcel of a fundamental energy that is, for the lack of a better description, divine. However, the schooling I received as a catholic youth regarding the attributes of such a divine essence, and later learning about Zen Buddhism, interfere with my adult understanding. Catholic training attributed a type of perfect, sinless nature to my divine self, a nature granted only through the grace of salvation. From my Buddhist training, this pure, essential nature was innate in me from birth. Unfortunately, many of my thoughts and actions appear to contradict that pure, sinless nature. The lack of trust in what I am creates this conflict. Am I both human and divine? Why do I have such a hard time reconciling these two thoughts?

The meaningless purpose of life. Daily evidence has convinced me I am both meaningful and meaningless. I feel special in God’s eye, but I also equate myself to a grain of sand in a universe of sand. My ego biases my thoughts toward the special, and I am surprised when the meaningless perspective sneaks up. This morning I wrote a blog post titled, “I Am Here” and felt inspired and special. Later, as I drove to the store listening to the KPBS radio channel, I heard an interview with Sonya Renee Taylor, author and poet, currently living in New Zealand. The interview basically hit me like a brick to the head. Ms Taylor summarized all the ideas I had written about in the blog but did so in a more polished, deliberate, attention-grabbing, and better way. Her unique wisdom struck me like a thunderbolt. My self-centered importance gave way, and I felt like a grain of sand-tiny and unimportant.

The limits of being human. The slight pressure behind my left eyeball, while not a full-blown headache, is uncomfortable. I experience it when my blood pressure is high; when I am drowning in financial difficulties; and when I ponder whether I should do something more meaningful than sitting and watching the world go by. It reflects anxiety about being productive; about being active and not passive; about giving back to society versus taking up space in a world already full of people. This drama plays out mainly during moments of anxiety and uncertainty. Because I feel the pressure mainly on the left side of my head, I assume it involves parts of my brain involved in language and conceptual thinking. It is my monkey mind messing with me.

The lack of trust. One constant in moments of monkey mind madness, when I feel impatient with others, life, and God, is my desire for immediate gratification. That desire overcomes my thoughtful self. I cannot wait for either human or divine responses. And those unanswered questions make me lose trust. Trust in myself and trust in something greater than me. At that point, the pressure behind my left eyeball increases and I feel a tension develop. Sometimes I feel the discomfort in the pit of my stomach, just below the rib cage. Sometimes it’s just a feeling of impatience. When the unresolved issue lingers, there is a restless anxiety that settles over me. It’s interesting, though not unexpected, that mental concerns should so affect my physical body. It’s only recently that I’ve understood their identities are the same.

The desire to do. One recurring thought I have is the desire to do constructive, meaningful things. I recall reading that any act done with full attentiveness and in a loving way is the most meaningful act possible. I feel the urge to help others. But also feel constrained by circumstances, the pandemic, those around me, and not wanting to endanger people who still have not received the vaccine.

The Triumph of the Human Spirit

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“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5.

The last two years are without question the most unusual years of the 21st century. With surprise, alarm, disorder, and panic as a backdrop, the ordinariness of life stands out. I want, therefore, to celebrate the normal rather than the above-normal. To that end, I want to recognize someone who didn’t just go above and beyond this last year, she also went below and beneath. By this I mean she kept and maintained normalcy in the day-to-day life during a very chaotic time. She is someone who in her normalcy provided a glimpse for why the human spirit will triumph in the end.

Like a large portion of working professionals, her employers required my wife Jane to switch to working from home. It was psychologically and practically a disruptive event. Yet, her only real complaint was that she was less productive at home because the wi-fi speed of our internet was slow. Gradually, however, she adjusted to the slower rhythm even though it produced longer times spent at “work.” After a few weeks, she appreciated the rewards of being home. These included things she could let go, such as the need to commute, to dress-up, to be punctual. It also included things she didn’t know she missed, such as the comfort of being home, taking a break, snacking, catching up on the news at any moment. The result was a gradual switch and change. She was still not as productive, but she was enjoying her routine much more.

My wife suffered health problems following a trip to Australia in 2018. She was, therefore, in a high-risk group for catching the coronavirus. Because of this we decided, from the start of the pandemic in March 2020, to have her avoid contact with people as much as possible. She stayed home and away from crowds, and did most of her social contact through phone and zoom. It fell to me to do the grocery shopping and other activities requiring leaving the house. She went along with little complaining, and once again transformed the normal and naturalness of her social life into a constricted and cartoonish version of it. As the months rolled by, it became clear this new life would be less temporary than we imagined. She adjusted and did not grow depressed or anxious. She turned to her faith to provide the strength to bear the negativity and transmute it into a hopeful future. Her adaptiveness was a show of strength that bolstered my spirit.

I want to recognize my wife, Jane, whom I love and admire, as someone who did the nearly impossible – maintain a normal life and a confident purpose these last two years of the pandemic. By doing so, she showcased the strength and resiliency in all of us. In a similar way, many of you persevered and now look forward to a more normal future. Likewise, the triumph of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this year was a victory of the American spirit over the darkness that had descended over our country. While the dark clouds have not totally dissipated, it is easier to see the sunlight.

We have been through a lot during this pandemic, but there is clearly a human spirit that is indomitable. We must, above all, keep the optimistic flames going by celebrating every act of normalcy we can, along with acts of kindness and acts of love!

Is Love a Slippery and Intangible Thing?

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Lunch with friends

Genuine love is that which holds without holding on;

That which creates and lets go of its creation;

That which accepts without judgment and yet transforms.

In a recent New York Times essay, the novelist Celeste Ng writes that “Love is a slippery and intangible thing, and sometimes we can only pin it down in these mundane, bodily needs.” She is referring to everyday ordinary and extraordinary moments, food, texts, dozing off, and emails from friends and loved ones. But every day, mundane things are ALWAYS facing us, and thus the possibility of love is ALWAYS available to us. There is no slipperiness, intangibility, or rareness in this readily available bouquet. Love is and always has been the entirety of what we are, what we do, what we see, feel and think—EVERYTHING. What Celeste Ng and most of us don’t normally realize is that it is recognizing this love that is slippery, intangible, occasional, and temporary. This lack of awareness may be because of our inability to maintain constant openness and focus. Because if we could do so, we would recognize that we are never without it, that it surrounds us as much as the ocean surrounds the fish within it. Love is the ordinariness of life itself. It is the joyful lunch with friends, but also the lonely feeling when no one is around. It is both the happiness and the pain experienced. Love is life itself—we just need to recognize it.

What prevents us from recognizing it? Our spinning, monkey mind — the aspect that cannot settle down and which engages each and every thought it creates, distracting us from what is real. Paradoxically, love is always communicating to us, “I am here.” But our mind storm drowns out its voice and obscures recognition of its reality. STOP the spinning mind and realize that love is there—it has always been there in all its wonder. For love is not a slippery and intangible thing—it is the essence of all that is.

Is Love a Slippery and Intangible Thing?

En Nepantla*

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Kaveri Raina | Pagalpan Aur Tehrav, Before | 2018
 Sometimes the difficult part of living
 Is in the moments between events,
 In the in-betweenness of life.
 Whether life flows, 
 Successfully or not,
 Depends on such sacred poetic moments.
  
 These are moments of waiting,
 Of pausing,
 Of reflection,
 Of starting over.
 It is here that the architects
 Of self-centered thinking live.
  
 Boredom, agitation, 
 Expectations, mind wandering, 
 Doubts, questioning, and anxiety.
 It is here that our untutored mind
 Gives free rein to the fantasies 
 Hindering the free flow of life.
  
 It is here, en nepantla, however, 
 That the opportunity for growth
 Is optimal.
 For it is here,
 In these sacred poetic moments,
 That we get a chance for freedom.

* En nepantla is a Nahuatl word for a state of in-betweeness. Nahuatl refers to a group of peoples native to southern Mexico and Central America.

My Unease With Science

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From https://study.com/academy/lesson/skepticism-definition-types.html

I don’t know how my smartphone works. But I am not bothered by the limits of my knowledge since there is at least one engineer or a small group of engineers who know the inner workings of this miracle machine. If the phone breaks, I know I can find someone to repair it. And as long as I am able to use it to perform useful functions, I feel content.

What, then, is my “unease with science”? I would say it’s more about the attribution of knowledge in a larger sense. I am concerned that individually and socially, we are rapidly outgrowing the ability to comprehend all that we know.  The invention of books and computers has allowed us to maintain the façade that knowledge is captured in a way that is accessible and understandable.  My discomfort is that soon, if we haven’t already, we will be unable to fully comprehend that accumulated knowledge.  Answers continue to get more and more complex, and knowledge so widely distributed that for the most part, we will be at a point where no one, not a person, groups of individuals or even computer systems will know how things work. If something breaks, no one will be able to fix it. This is the limit and consequence that is making me anxious.

As a newly minted neuroscientist in the 1990s, I embodied the optimism of youth that through science we would find answers to all problems. In my particular case, I was certain neuroscience would learn everything about how the brain worked in the 20-30 years following my Ph.D. It was simply a matter of time and increased knowledge. This exciting and limitless vista stretched before me as I settled down into building a career, a lab, and a reputation.

Thirty-plus years later, I remain optimistic about the power of science to answer a multitude of questions. But the vast panorama of unanswered questions remains limitless. While we seem to have learned a lot, the most interesting questions remain unresolved. I feel my frustration wrapped in a thinning veil of optimism. In turn, I have become sensitive to the limits of what once was science’s limitless potential. And what are those limits from my neuroscience perspective? The primary and most notable problem I see is a lack of holistic comprehension. Science has uncovered a multiplicity of independent bits of knowledge but no sense of how to fit it all together. I blame this on the lack of a language of integration, one related to the workings of the holistic mind. I have an intuition about what awareness, attention, and consciousness are, but have little understanding of their underlying neurobiology and how they relate to the rest of what I know. Most troubling, I have no or at least a very primitive language to talk about such processes.

Many will argue this kind of criticism of science reflects a defeatist attitude, i.e., giving up the fight while it is still too early to concede. Such obstacles, they will argue, are solvable by the old strategy of acquiring more knowledge and/or constructing the right vocabulary. Investigations can still produce revolutionary ideas about what questions to ask and how to ask them. This optimism arises from the fact that scientists have encountered limits before and have consistently overcome them. For instance, we learned to re-conceptualize the universe and matter. This occurred in classical physics and led to quantum mechanics. Likewise, we learned to analyze brain function using non-invasive methods like fMRI, allowing scientists to study the living, working brain. In this and many other examples, we breached and expanded boundaries. Yet, my pessimism persists since things are feel different now. But how?

My argument is not that new ideas, revolutionary concepts, and methods won’t allow us to penetrate boundaries. This is different from what John Horgan argues in his book The End of Science. Rather, the limit I am concerned about is that the understanding we need is already beyond our capability to absorb it conceptually. The limits of science are limits in our own processing capacity. The accumulation of scientific knowledge during the last one hundred years already crossed that boundary long ago. Yet, we have persisted because of the power of distributed knowledge, computational capacity, and especially the illusion that “if others know, then I know.”

The latest savior to delay the inevitable crash into this limitation of science is artificial intelligence or AI. But inevitably, AI will change from a tool we use for our benefit and that we control, to a system that will be impenetrable to human understanding and beyond our control. Perhaps we have already crossed aspects of this AI threshold – such as the one where at some point in a health crisis, I may become more dependent on artificial life than on other humans. It’s not yet true in most aspects of life, but comes pretty close in others, such as in the automation of tasks across a broad range of industries. I feel an unease about crossing this threshold. It is the same uneasiness about reaching the limits of science knowledge.

At its core, my unease with science is really my unease with not-knowing, the sense that answers lie beyond my comprehension. Trusting what we don’t understand, and trusting a “science” that is beyond us, is difficult for most of us. We see examples of this in the hesitancy to m-RNA based vaccines in this time of the coronavirus pandemic. Interestingly, it may be the most intelligent – those especially trained to be skeptical and to question everything – who experience this unease the most. For it raises issues of control, agency, and faith in technology. All these are crucial issues for our society to discuss before making the ultimate commitment to paths where there is no possibility of return. Individually, and later socially, we can become comfortable with not-knowing, lose the uneasiness with science, and simply enjoy the process of trying to find the answer!

As John Horgan points outs in his book: “No matter how much they learn, biologists will never really know how matter first became animate, just as cosmologists will never know how the universe began. Moreover, we will never find a final, definitive answer to the question of who we really are. Science-lovers should be grateful for the persistence of these mysteries. As long as they endure, so will our quest for self-knowledge.”

Science and Faith: From Skepticism to Wonder

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Image from Clayton, J.N. (2017). Science and Theology, May 19, By DGE?

For many of us, faith implies the belief in a Deity and powers that emanate from such a being. We conceive of such beliefs as beyond the reach of the intellect, and see science and faith, like oil and water, as not mixing very well. This creates a mindset in which we judge scientists as incapable or unwilling to express faith, and those who express faith as unable to understand the scientific viewpoint. Valid or not, many reasons have led to this unusual, unhelpful, and twisted logic. In an attempt to bring these two polar opposite views into synchrony, I describe a perspective on the path from skepticism to wonder and back that may provide a small beginning.

What is “truth?” How we arrive at that answer creates a multitude of feelings, thoughts, and approaches. Most of us, at the dawn of the 21st century, reflect the thinking which conceives of truth based on faith in opposition to that based on science. Science is a unique method requiring proof to an almost legalistic level, i.e., overwhelming circumstantial evidence that is beyond a reasonable doubt. We arrive at this type of truth by gathering data from what we experience. We then generate a best-guess explaining the accumulated evidence, test this hypothesis, and recalibrate the explanation based on the feedback. This is a painstaking, time-consuming, third-person, communal perspective. History has validated the worthiness of this approach, such as when evaluating pre-scientific explanations of diseases. For millennia, we considered disorders the work of unseen forces, evil spirits, or the devil. Applying the scientific method, scientists discovered that biological phenomena, including bacteria and viruses, and psychological events such as stress, were better explanations for these dynamics.

In contrast to science, faith is the willingness to accept things unexperienced. It rests on an individualized, first-person feeling based on trust and conviction, and less on evidence or proof. It is an extrasensory set of feelings and ideas in an individual, regardless of how others may react. I cannot, for example, convince others with data or reasoning that I experience God every day because, right or wrong, this is a private, individualized, and exclusive experience. It becomes more communal only when others experience similar things.

The paradox inherent in this science-faith discussion arises from theology and philosophy, namely the idea of the transcendence and immanence of God. This dichotomy reflects a pair of truths which appear to contradict each other. Imagine a continuum. At one end is the notion that God is separable from His creation. Or to put a theological spin on it, “God is transcendent and not imminent.” He created things, but those things do not define Him. He is beyond them. However, to believe in God’s transcendence and to neglect His immanence is to fall into the belief of a Supreme being and creator who does not intervene in the universe. At the other end of this continuum is the notion that nature expresses the Divine. God is nature. Or, to put it another way, “He is imminent (in nature).” But to believe in His immanence and to neglect His transcendence is to fall into the belief that reality is identical to divinity. Interestingly, modern Christian theology falls somewhere along this continuum. It argues that God is both transcendent and imminent, although imminent in only a few circumstances, such as the incarnation of Christ, the Bible, expressed love and caring. But He is not imminent in nature, pain, or inappropriate behavior.

Scholars have argued that the influence of Greek philosophy had a vast impact on early Christian theology and on the transcendence-imminence of God. It saw the world of physical objects as an inferior reality. Because of this influence, any human experience of God, which is physical and inferior to the spirit, would only be a poor mirage of the true perfection of the godhead (Crotty, 1982). The result of such thinking was an emphasis on the transcendent over the immanent God. Several scholars tried to reject these Greek ideas. Aristotle, and later Dietrich Bonhoeffer, believed that God is “out there” with ordinary life. Bonhoeffer’s “God is everywhere” concept, however, morphed into “God is not here” for everything with God meant nothing is God. Logical reasoning, such as this, unfortunately, never seems to get anywhere.

During the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th century, the precursor of the scientific method was Scholasticism. Its distinguishing characteristics were inclusion of the teachings of Christian faith in pursuing truth. The goal of this approach was more about uncovering the wonder in nature by refining the questions posed, rather than expecting a conclusive answer. The result was an understanding that forces existed beyond the intellect but which harnessed a unique understanding. Such insightful thinking morphed into one that focused more on the answers than on the wonderment surrounding the answers. This gave birth to scientism and the prevalent method of science used today. While we have learned much from this modern approach, we have lost that most valuable part of life—an appreciation of the mystery and wonder that surrounds our “answers.”

Reconnecting wonder to God’s creation paradoxically resolves the science-faith conundrum. Science becomes the study of creation, wonder and all, and faith reflects communion with this wonder. This is the uneasy answer most organized religion and organized science ought to seek. Not a return to classic Scholasticism, but a new scholasticism suited to modern sensibilities and intellectual needs. It is an uneasy answer because history shows that we have and will continue to find scientific explanations for what was once the domain of the Divine. Yet, scientists grow skeptical that the scientific method can provide answers to all problems. And those mysteries that remain, e.g., death, love, and guilt, appear to be the most fundamental ones. Hence, we cannot continue to ignore the wonder of creation, or we will not gain true insight.

I have argued in a previous blog that science and faith-based knowledge are two distinct strategies to know the world. Our brains synchronize these two approaches. Rather than using them as opposing strategies, they are complementary, facilitating and enriching each another. True faith results from questioning. Faith stripped of skepticism is brittle and breaks easily. We must confront and wrestle with paradoxes—not just believe them unquestionably. It is the wrestling that produces insight, grace, and enlightenment. Along with wonder, we need to regain the willingness to face these contradictions and the false certainty they create.

Can Science Explain Auras?

Posted on by japineda

Radiant Human aura photography by Christina Lonsdale. Photo courtesy of Radiant Human/the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In medicine, the term aura refers to a perceptual disturbance experienced by someone suffering from epilepsy or migraine. This is not, however, what I want to talk about today. Rather, the focus of this essay is on the psychic aura. As a boomer wading through the 1960s and 70s, I associated the term “aura” with spirituality and the visible energies around a person. But I had thought little about such things for the past 40 years. That is until I read Michael Crichton’s short story “Cactus Teachings” in his book Travels during this past Christmas holiday. It was a book given to me by my brother-in-law, Roger, who had enjoyed it and found Crichton’s stories resonant with what he heard in my poetry.

Crichton is a Harvard-trained doctor who gave up the practice of medicine to write. And he has produced some of the most popular and iconic stories of the past half-century, including Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and The Terminal Man. I admire and respect him as a scientist, medicine man, and writer. I was, therefore, fascinated to read that in the 1980s, he had encountered and learned the art of seeing auras. He did this as part of a two-week experience in personal growth, meditation, and psychic healing. His experience intrigued me and triggered my old curiosity regarding auras. Suddenly, the topic became top-of-mind.

As part of my daily walks and hikes, I began trying to visualize auric energies around those I encountered. Unexpectedly and delightfully, even though I had to convince myself they were there, I experienced subtle light rings right away. I caught glimpses of greens and blues initially. The experience reminded me of a faded but partial rainbow around the head of some people. I saw auras around animals and trees, although these were more monochromatic and usually just a simple light band around the object. I observed nothing around non-biological objects such as cars or cement telephone poles. Nor could I detect the bands surrounding people on television or on my computer screen. But an eye blink, saccade, or attentional blink, and the faint tracings would disappear.

As I continued the practice, things changed quickly and significantly. I perceived more colors, typically yellow, green, violent, and blue bands of light. It was easier to see these bands with the sun over my shoulder. And if I successfully held the view of the aura constant for more than a second, the energy bands intensified and got brighter. Unexpectedly, I began observing light bands around non-organic things and faint traces of them on television figures. Everything seemed surrounded by an aura, if only I made the effort to see it. I was unprepared for this experience and didn’t know what to make of it.

On one of my outings, I noted that bicyclists racing down a hill seemed to extend the auric field slightly, both in front and behind them. The colors were more pronounced in the front than in the receding stream of air. It was then I realized that one explanation for this phenomenon might be the simple experience of light being refracted by particles surrounding our bodies, including water molecules.

I had purposely avoided reading the scientific literature until this point. When I started reading journal articles, I found that there were no real scientific studies because scientists deem the phenomenon not replicable. Neurologists contend people perceive auras because of defects within the brain itself because of epilepsy, migraines, synesthesia, or the influence of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD. However, when tested appropriately, researchers could not verify the findings related to the psychic aura. Hence, studies done under laboratory conditions have shown that this experience is best explained as either a visual illusion, or an afterimage.

Yet, those with no known clinical abnormalities or drug use, like Michael Crichton and I, cannot deny our experiences. There are several potential explanations. First, scientific tests may be incorrect. As an example, one test used to prove the unreliability of the phenomenon is to have someone stand (or not) behind a screen that blocks the body. The screen does not block the space around the body, and thus a person being tested ought to perceive the aura when someone is behind the screen. Researchers testing individuals claiming to detect auras beforehand found they could not correctly identify auras without knowing if someone was actually standing behind the screen. A second explanation is, of course, that the phenomenon is the product of imagination processes and therefore uniquely individualized.

There are problems with these hypotheses. First, the type of test described may be inappropriate because the auric phenomenon may depend on lateral inhibition in the visual system, which would require viewing of a body. If the body is not present to provide the contrast, there is no lateral inhibition and no aura. Lateral inhibition is something that happens because of how cells in the retina and other visual regions connect. So, when one cell is excited and fires action potentials, it turns off or provides inhibition to its surrounding neighbors. This lateral inhibition explains a well-known visual illusion phenomenon known as Mach bands, named after their discoverer, the physicist Ernst Mach (1838–1916). Mach bands reflect the exaggerated contrast between edges produced by the anatomy of lateral inhibition, by triggering edge-detection in the human visual system. Hence, a simple and testable explanation for auras is that lateral inhibition, combined with light refraction by particles surrounding our bodies, creates edge enhancement and rainbow-like experiences.

A rainbow requires water droplets or small particles floating in the air. The sun must be behind you and the clouds cleared away for the rainbow to appear. When sunlight strikes a water droplet, it refracts, and changes the direction of light because of the surface of the water. The light continues into the drop and reflects from the back of the drop to the front. When the beam hits the front, it refracts again. The water drops act like prisms to separate the light into its different wavelengths and as the color spectrum we experience in a rainbow. Science has shown that clouds of water droplets and other small particles surround our bodies. These can perform a similar light-refractory function and voila—a rainbow-like aura is visible.

Auras are a subtle visual experience. They may indeed require imagination to see. This may be why we need time to learn how to perceive this natural and wonderful phenomenon. On the other hand, photography can capture auric differences, so it can not be entirely imagination. The question I want to leave you with is: If science can explain psychic auras, are they any less fascinating?