Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe Paperback – Import, January 1, 2010

In “Biocentrism,” a prominent biologist teams with a prominent astronomer to tackle the most fundamental set of questions science can ask: “What explains the existence of anything?”I love and respect science. All the tremendous, beneficial and downright fascinating discoveries we have made on behalf of mankind! I trust deeply upon my Christian faith and understanding of Scriptures to make overall sense of everything I take in. I probably should pay more attention to both faith and science. This book provided a wonderful incentive to do just that.“Biocentrism” made the most recent discoveries of quantum physics accessible to a person who never had to take a single physics course to graduate high school, college or post-graduate studies. Fascinating evidence that nothing truly “exists” in the absence of a conscious observer, except as waves of probability.Lanza writes with honesty and in places, surprising humor. He gives us glimpses of the parts of his own consciousness a Christ-believer such as I might call “soul” – as when he tells of the loss of two loved ones, and how he relates his thoughts and experience of these losses to his theory of biocentrism.Lanza and Berman consistently eschew “religion,” preferring to insist on scientific method, undergirded by secular philosophy, as the keys to understanding ultimate reality (make no mistake, this is about ultimate reality). This is a respectful treatment of the epistemological gap between empiricism and faith, from the empiricist’s viewpoint. Lanza even provides us with a plausible scientific basis for belief in an afterlife, though he encourages us to realize it’s his own speculation. I think of the authors as looking across that narrow but very distinct chasm between what St. Augustine called the “city of man” and the “city of God.” And longing for what’s on the other side.Lanza peers into the realm of what science does not know. He admits that quarks, seemingly pure energy and the smallest, most indivisible particles we’re aware of, have observable features suggesting that even they may have a knowable structure of sub-parts. He says “… one must consider the endless ongoing attempts at creating GUTs- grand unified theories… without much success except as a way of financially facilitating the careers of theoreticians and grad students. Nor have they even “felt right.”At least in this book, that step (not a leap!) across the narrow chasm is not taken. To what extent is that because the authors felt pressure to hold to a certain decorum in order to not completely lose standing among their scientific peers, or is it truly the state of their soul? I find myself cheering for them to play Nicodemus, the Pharisee who was so intrigued with Jesus that he waited until night so he could visit him, undetected. Nicodemus, the apostle John tells us, helped to embalm the crucified Christ’s body.Most intriguing to me in this book, were the connections I found between the discoveries of quantum physics over the last 20-30 years regarding the prerequisite of an observer in order that matter “materialize” from probability waves of energy, and the Judaeo-Christian Bible’s description of the things we can know about God.Is there a place for the honest scientist to consider Lanza’s perception that the best “theories of everything” have not felt right? In a biocentric universe, consciousness is everything and “feelings” are indeed a component of consciousness. Even the most rigorously empirical scientist must allow that at the end of the data analysis, it is her “feelings” about those empirical findings that lead her into the next set of questions, the next area of inquiry.As a person of faith, I read with interest the details of the double-slit experiment and the simultaneously opposite behavior of entangled photons even when miles apart. I could not stop my mind from going to the Nicene Creed and its teachings on the nature of the triune God. Or to the first chapter of John’s gospel, which spoke of Christ’s ultimate nature 1900 or so years before mankind’s capacity to study quantum physics:“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind… the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”Lanza’s Biocentrism would seem to require an omniscient, omnipresent and eternal observer. On the other side of the narrow gap between empiricism and theism, which can be negotiated with a rational step as well as with Kierkegaard’s desperate leap, we call that observer, “God.” It is consistent with Biocentrism that the distance to cross, is a matter of what each person perceives it to be.I left Lanza and Berman’s work wondering if the more we learn from today’s quantum physics, and the more we acquaint ourselves with the millenniums-old Judaeo-Christian teachings on God, the easier that step to take.

For more than 7 decades I have had a passion for reading and learning. My interests have taken me from Astronomy to cosmology, and my search continues even into my senior years. This is why when I was browsing on Amazon, and I saw this 214-page soft cover book (Biocentrism: How life and consciousness are key to understanding the true nature of the universe by Robert Lanza, MD and Bob Berman) I decided to purchase it.Even though this book was published in 2009; nevertheless, the information is still relevant and important. This excellent book covers the many mysteries of the universe, quantum physics, philosophical considerations and how consciousness relates to it all. I found this book to be a fascinating and thought provoking read.The twenty chapters cover a lot of interesting and educational material. For example, “Muddy universe, in the beginning there was...What? The sound of a falling tree, where is the universe, the most amazing universe, Goldilocks universe, no time to lose, windmills of the mind, mystery of consciousness, death and eternity, where do we go from here” and other intriguing chapters.In conclusion, I loved reading this book and it is certainly thought provoking.Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Tactical Principles of the most effective Combative Systems).

Robert Lanza (page 30) writes about his boyhood curiosity: "I rolled logs looking for salamanders and climbed trees to investigate bird nests and holes in the trees. As I pondered the larger existential questions about the nature of life, I began to intuit that there was something wrong with the static, objective reality, I was being taught in school. The animals I observed had their own perceptions of the world, their own realities. Although it wasn`t the world of human beings - of parking lots and malls - it was just as real to them."Lanza then turns to the question of consciousness, and what looks to be reality. He (page 36) writes: "Some may imagine that there are two worlds, one out there and a separate one being cognized inside the skull. But the two worlds model is a myth. Nothing is perceived except the perceptions themselves, and nothing exists outside of consciousness. Only one visual reality is extant, and there it is. Right there. The outside world is, therefore, located within the brain or mind. Of course, this is so astounding for many people, even if it is obvious to those who study the brain, that it becomes possible to over-think the issue and come up with attempted refutations."Lanza (page 38) notes Benjamin Libet`s famous timing experiment, where "unconscious, unfelt, brain electrical activity occrred a full half second before there was any conscious sense of decision-making by the subject," and then Lanza misinterprets the results (in my view) by clinging to the classical notion of cause-and-effect. Lanza (page 39) writes: "What, then, do we make of all this? First, that we are truly free to enjoy the unfolding of life, including our own lives, unencumbered by the acquired, often guilt-ridden sense of control, and the obsessive need to avoid messing up. We can relax, because we`ll automatically perform anyway. " In other words, we are free because we are not free! And this tacit support for a one-sided cause-and-effect comes even as Lanza later claims that time is an illusion and while he is found rejecting an irreversible and on-flowing continuum of events (where cause precedes effect)! Clearly, if cause-and-effect is declared real enough to interpret Libet`s findings, then time must also be real enough.Nevertheless, Lanza does come to a correct conclusion in regard to Libet`s experiments. He (page 39) writes: "Modern knowledge of the brain shows that what appears out there is actually occurring within our own minds... Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be separated."Without saying it, Lanza is found endorsing a type of idealism (the belief that mind is fundamental), seemingly as extreme as George Berkeley`s idealism. It is this idealism that Lanza calls "biocentrism,"and it is the wellspring of life.Lanza turns to quantum mechanics to support his view of idealism. He (page 49) writes: "When studying subatomic particles, the observer appears to alter and determine what is perceived. The presence and methodology of the experimenter is hopelessly entangled with whatever he is attempting to observe and what results he gets. An electron turns out to be both a particle and a wave, but how, and more importantly, where such a particle will be located remains dependent upon the very act of observation."Lanza explains the fine tuning of universal constants. He (page 90) writes: "If the universe is in a non-determined state until forced to resolve by an observer, and this non-determined state included the determination of the various fundamental constants, then the resolution would necessarily fall in such a way that allows for an observer, and therefore the constants would have to resolve in such a way as to allow life. Biocentrism therefore supports and builds upon John Wheeler`s conclusions about where quantum theory leads, and provides a solution to the anthropic problem that is unique and more reasonable than any alternative."After treating quantum theory and relativity theory, Lanza (page 106) asserts that time is an illusion: "That time is a fixed arrow is a human construction. That we live on the edge of all time is a fantasy. That there is an irreversible, on-flowing continuum of events linked to galaxies and suns and the Earth is an even greater fantasy. Space and time are forms of animal understanding - period. We carry them around with us like turtles with shells."To say that time is not well understood is one thing, but to assert that time is therefore an illusion seems unfounded to me. When forced to summarize his conclusion, he (page 111) backtracks from the bolder statements and writes only that: "Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe." I could add that time is real because mind and change are real.Lanza treats space the same way he treats time. He (pages 112-113) writes: "... Space and time are neither physical nor fundamentally real. They are conceptual, which means that space and time are of a uniquely subjective nature. They are modes of interpretation and understanding. They are part of the mental logic of the animal organism, the software that molds sensations into multidimensional objects."Lanza (page 181) writes: "Sights, tactile experience, odors - all these sensations are experienced inside the mind alone. None are out there except by the convention of language. Everything we observe is the direct interaction of energy and mind. Anything that we do not observe directly exists only as potential - or more mathematically speaking - as a haze of probability."The danger is to over prescribe Lanza`s brand of idealism, while ignoring more generalized varieties like Hegel`s idealism, or the monistic idealism described in Amit Goswami's "The Self-Aware Universe." The danger is to get caught up in word games, e.g., asserting that time and space are illusions because they are in the mind and while claiming the primacy of mind that underwrites idealism thereby partly contradicting the assertion. One can start with idealism and then immediately fall into a solipsism that asserts that the only real mind out there is my own; all others being illusions with time and space. The distinction between "materialism" and "idealism" is equally troubling because ultimately mere definitions are secondary to what is intended and what is self-evident. It may be productive to skirt this distinction, and merge Lanza's idealism with a A.N. Whitehead`s panpsychism. Good references would be Christen de Quincey`s "Radical Nature," and Henry P. Stapp`s "Mindful Universe."Lanza`s book is not a rigorous scientific treatment, but the science he refers to is rigorous. Neither is his book a comprehensive philosophical development. Rather, Lanza has a colloquial style that is typical of good popular books, and his book can be understood by non-experts. This is a very important book for the right audience.