Causal Efficacy: Mind Over Matter

Mike Merzenich's studies with monkeys reveal the power of attention to change the brain. His experiments were set up so that two groups of monkeys were studied. While both groups received identical audio and tactile stimulation, they differed in that one group was taught to pay attention to the tactile stimulation and the other group was trained to give special attention to the auditory stimulation.

The results were revealing. The tactile group exhibited specific neural development only in the part of the brain associated with that function, and the audio group likewise showed significant change only in the part of the brain associated with that particular function. Though this study would seem to offer evidence for the mind's causal efficacy over the brain, many researchers instead explain it by deferring the power of attention to brain states that generate attention.

The Perennial Philosophy, however, views the results of this study as simply the natural outcome of the Great Chain of Being: Matter, Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. Each succeeding level of the Great Chain possesses inherently greater power than its junior levels, acting as a kind of attractor field upon the lower levels, so as to express evolutionary emergence. Each higher level solves problems that the lower levels are incapable of handling. For example, the second law of thermodynamics dictates that matter must decay and die, thus apparently ruling out the possibility of evolution. Yet we know that biological systems do, in fact, evolve; and they do so precisely because the level of consciousness in which biological systems arise (i.e., Body) is inherently more powerful than that of Matter and indeed operates according to laws which supercede those governing Matter. The science of biology, therefore, is able to explain and contain more of the findings of physics than vice versa.

The same is true concerning psychology and biology. Psychology is capable, I believe, of explaining more of biology than vice versa, simply because it is of a higher level of consciousness (while remaining intimately connected with biology). In the monistic view of Buddhism, they are simply different levels of the same thing, each higher level being subtler and less rigid than its junior. Each higher level of consciousness only seems to emerge out of (or be caused by) its junior simply because it was already present as a field of potentiality all along.

We also observe the same holarchical relationship between Mind and Soul, I believe, when witnessing many of the problems occuring in the field of psychology and conventional psychotherapy. As successful as cognitive-behavior therapy, for example, can be, it still often lacks the causal efficacy required to oversome deeper psycho-spiritual issues. The level of Mind alone is just not enough to do the job. The levels of Soul and Spirit, however, are capable of acting as powerful attractor fields that overcome the problems and illusions of the lower levels, and they do this by virtue of being the Reality of what is, to which there is no actual opposite. Sri Aurobindo, who witnessed the beginnings of psychoanalysis (and was, in fact, a contemporary of Freud's), advised his students to first become intimate with the innermost being (i.e., Soul) before attempting to tackle the unconscious impulses. In his view, the innermost being was more causally efficacious than the unconscious, and was thus needed to be contacted in order to prevent the mind from being overwhelmed by the unconscious.