Reality Begins with Consciousness: A Paradigm Shift That Works

REALITY BEGINS WITH CONSCIOUSNESS: A PARADIGM SHIFT THAT WORKS (E-book) by Vernon M. Neppe and Edward R. Close. 2nd edition. At: brainvoyage. com, March 2012. Vernon Neppe and Edward Close's book Reality Begins With Consciousness is an interesting exercise in speculative metaphysics by two physicists. However, this is not the way they envision their work--they consider it a meta-paradigm that has philosophical implications but which belongs in the realm of science. Theoretical physicists are fond of writing philosophical metaphysics in the name of science, for example, David Bohm (1980), Amit Goswami (1995), and Fred Alan Wolf (2011). These physicists usually make use of the alleged implications of quantum mechanics to make broad claims about the nature of reality as a whole: reality is "inconnected," "everything is one," "consciousness made the physical world," or "we made the physical world. "An alternate approach is offered by the biologist Rupert Sheldrake in his theory of morphic resonance, a view with affinities to the philosophical theory of forms, although unlike Plato and Aristotle's forms, his "morphic fields" are dynamic and evolving. What these systems have in common is a tendency toward metaphysical monism (often in some version of panpsychism or pantheism). The physics-based systems use nonlocality enshrined in Bell's Theorem in quantum mechanics to assert the interconnectedness of all things. Sheldrake's morphic fields perform a similar role. The physics-based systems focus on the role that consciousness plays in quantum mechanics and assert a strong causal role for consciousness in the formation and functioning of the universe. Neppe, a neuropsychiatrist, and Close, a physicist, have developed what they label a "metaparadigm," which is a large-scale research program for the scientific enterprise. Their program is in the general tradition of metaphysical monistic systems that are based on alleged implications of quantum mechanics, although it is broader in scope. For those interested in psi, they discuss in detail how their theory allows psi phenomena to occur. The authors label their paradigm the "Triadic Dimensional-Distinction Vortical Paradigm model (TDVP)" (Neppe, "Author's Preface"). This begins one of the chief difficulties with understanding their work--the number of neologisms. Neologisms may be justified, and a revolutionary theory may require multiple neologisms, but when they are used they should be sufficiently clear. Neppe and Close's stipulative definitions of their neologisms are often no clearer than the neologisms themselves. The authors use so many neologisms because they believe that introducing consciousness into the science of nature changes the paradigm that has dominated science since the 17th-century scientific revolution. Their model posits a unified reality of space-time-consciousness. Reality is an infinite unity, nonlocal on a finite level, [existing] as a reality essence (a metareality) involving a persuasive consciousness (information expressed through meaning as metaconsciousness) and order (ordropy [another neologism, M.R--"ordropy" is defined as the opposite of "entropy"]) with "metalife" (all encompassing life in the infinite: potential life--"polife")--which then manifests as physical life in the finite when linked with the correct current physiology. (p. 2) Now nonlocality is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, and the view that the universe is infinite may or may not be correct, but it is a defensible philosophical position (Neppe and Close's interpretation of "infinity" will be discussed below). "Metaconsciousness" is unclear. The system posits consciousness at the lowest levels of reality, including inanimate objects. It is difficult to understand what it means for a subatomic particle in a rock to be "conscious. " "Consciousness" is notoriously difficult to define, but Thomas Nagel makes sense when he states: "But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism--something it is like for the organism" (Nagel, 1974, p. …