Ahanu
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Yes, Lanza assumes multiple universes exist. Yes, I could be misleading by not making a distinction by what Lanza believes and Ahanu believes. The central idea in Biocentrism is this: "the animal observer creates reality and not the other way around." I could Baha'ify this thought.
Exactly. Science rests on the assumption that there is an external universe out there. This is also the assumption of Atheists.
Now to Baha'ify. By universe I mean a reflection of the Real (God) in human consciousness. Everything reflects the Real within its own degree and station, so the universe appears differently depending on the level of consciousness.
Where is this universe, the reflection of the Real?
"The answer in terms of image-location and neural mechanics is actually more straightforward than almost any other aspect of biocentrism. Because the images of the trees, grass, the book you're holding, and everything else that's perceived is real and not imaginary, it must be physically happening in some location. Human physiology texts answer this without ambiguity. Although the eye and retina gather photons that deliver their payload of bits of the electromagnetic force, these are channeled through heavy-duty cables straight back until the actual perception of images themselves physically occurs in the back of the brain, augmented by other nearby locations, in special sections that are as vast and labyrinthine as the hallways of the Milky Way, and contain as many neurons as there are stars in the galaxy. This, according to human physiology texts, is where the actual colors, shapes, and movement 'happen.' This is where they are perceived or cognized."
-Lanza
I also like this quote:
"The external world and consciousness are correlative."
Lanza also includes examples. Here is one:
"It is easy to recall from everyday experience that neither electicity nor magnetism have visual properties. So, on its own, it's not hard to grasp that there is nothing inherently visual, nothing bright or colored about that candle flame. Now let these same invisible electromagnetic waves strike a human retina, and if (and only if) the waves each happen to measure between 400 and 700 nanometers in length from crest to crest, then their energy is just right to deliver a stimulus to the 8 million con-shaped cells in the retina. Each in turn sends an electrical pulse to a neighbor neuron, and on up the line this goes, at 240 mph, until it reaches the warm, wet occipital lobe of the brain, in the back of the head. There, a cascading complex of neurons fire from the incoming stimuli, and we subjectively perceive this experience as a yellow brightness occurring in a place we have been conditioned to call 'the external world.'"
This brings us to another question asked by Bishop Shelby Spong:
"Will we evolve beyond self-consciousness into something not yet imagined?"
In fact, even if humans do not evolve beyond that point, what if another being in the universe reaches this state? The "mineral world" is an illusion and does not exist in relation to self-conscious beings. What if higher levels of consciousness render our perception of the universe as an illusion too? How would that change our view of "the universe" ending with the death of a self-conscious being? Or even death itself?
Even if biocentrism is wrong, I think Lanza is stepping in the right direction by merging biology and physics.
