Zen and Science

Every day Master Zuigan Shigen used to call out to himself, ``Oh, Master!'' and would answer himself, ``Yes?'' ``Are you awake?'' he would ask, and would answer, ``Yes, I am.'' ``Never be deceived by others, any day, any time.'' ``No, I will not.''

Introduction

One of the appealing things about Zen is that it does not clash at all with science. Indeed, Zen and science compliment each other. Occasionally Zen is portrayed as anti-science or anti-rationalism, often by people who think nothing of using a computer and a phone line to do so. I hope I can dispel some of those ideas here. First I discuss some physiological aspects of Zen. I then assume a scientific perspective and consider sensor systems and information flow as they relate to the human body. Finally, I consider science from a Zen perspective.

The Physiology of Zen

Zen and science both have empiricism at their core. The empirical aspect of science is, of course, experimentation. Scientists create models of the physical world, usually to predict or understand the behavior of physical systems. These models are implicitly judged by a variety of criteria, such as simplicity, accuracy, ease of use, suitability for a particular task, etc. And, as we all know now, things like fashionability and political acceptability also come into play. But, primarily, the model must agree with the physical situation observed in the real world.

In science, models are not necessarily exclusive. Different circumstances dictate different methods. For example, sometimes it is more convenient to describe matter as waves, while at other times a particle description is preferred. Similarly, there are many possible frameworks in which to view Zen. Different frameworks suit different people at different times, and looking at something from several different angles can often give a clearer picture of it. One perfectly acceptable way to view Zen is simply as a physiological training system.

The empirical core of Zen is zazen, or sitting meditation. The primary article of faith in Zen is that by regularly performing zazen one will eventually experience the same direct understanding and awakening the Buddha experienced when he became enlightened. This is not to say that people who do not practice zazen can get nothing out of Zen, or that other practices cannot have similar effects.

The Buddha emphasized the direct experimental approach, encouraging people to see things for themselves rather than just taking his word for things. Once a student became angry and frustrated after practicing for some time under the Buddha. He drew up a list of questions that were troubling him and took them to the Buddha, demanding he answer them, and threatening to leave otherwise. The Buddha said, essentially, "When you came here, did I ever promise I would answer these questions? You are always free to leave, or to continue sitting with us." The student decided to stay. (By the way, the Buddha was not simply refusing to give out the information.)

Usually zazen is performed by sitting cross-legged on a cushion with the knees on the floor. The back is held straight and one watches thoughts arise and fall. In some styles the attention is repeatedly brought back to a spot a few inches below the navel. This practice is performed for 15 to 30 minutes a day. Often there are rituals accompanying the practice, such as bowing and burning incense, but it is perfectly acceptable to view these as psychological aids or associations to help "get back in the spirit" of previous meditations.

It is well-known scientifically that such meditation practices cause definite physiological responses, such as a relaxation response. This can help in dealing with stress. In addition, the back and lower abdomen are strengthened and posture is improved. More importantly, though, the brain is trained to focus more on external sensations. These are akin to the body's direct experimental data. It is known that athletes often respond to sensations before they would report being consciously aware of them. For example, when runners hear the gun they start running before the "signal" reaches a conscious level. They mentally "compensate" for this to maintain a sense of conscious causality, but if they had actually waited they would have been last off the blocks. This type of "acting without conscious thinking" is known as samadhi in Zen. Meditation helps to cultivate and temper this ability. This is one reason martial artists often find Zen training useful.

Human Sensor Systems

One of the simplest Zen koans is "Who am I?". Who is this person peering out of my eyes and feeling my physical sensations? Let us consider this from a scientific perspective by considering the human body as a sensor system. For now we will consider this system as being controlled by a "self", or Atman, which we will call S. This self will be taken as an imaginary black box with a "virtual person" inside it. For concreteness, assume this black box surrounds a section of the brain responsible for our "consciousness" or "self-awareness". That is, assume an imaginary boundary around a region of the brain responsible for our sense of self and imagine what this self S must be doing inside this boundary.

Now S, inside the black box, receives huge amounts of data through the walls of the box. All the neurons outside the box are taken as part of the sensor system, and the firing patterns of the neurons passing into the box are taken as sensor data. S can also send signals out from the box to control movement, affect the environment, etc., though he can only indirectly measure these effects via his input neurons. S's job is to combine the data coming into his box into a model of the external world, and to use this model to send signals on his output neurons. This model may be explicit or implicit. I assume S's model may also include a model of the (possibly dynamic) internal reward system he wishes to maximize. Since this is a thought experiment I do not consider how S is able to get to this point initially, but it is interesting to note that if S has modeled the world as containing other "selves" then he may take some of the input data as representing new models to try. This is analogous to part of a stream of computer data representing executable code.

Given this setup, what can be said about S and his task? First of all, he has at his command a powerful collection of sensors and effectors, the human body. Even so, he receives only a tiny, tiny portion of the vast amounts of data in the world. For example, many animals experience a vastly richer world of smells and sounds than do humans, simply because their sensory organs are more sensitive. Once past the basic sensory organs the data is transformed and preprocessed by largely hardwired early neural processing stages. While adapted by years of evolution, this preprocessing or pre-model may nonetheless eliminate or obscure useful data. All real sensor systems also introduce noise into any measurements they make. Finally, there are phenomena which human sensor systems cannot normally register or measure. For example, radio waves are only inferred by their effects on measuring equipment we have built. Clearly, then, S's input data is only a relatively low-dimensional, noisy shadow of a vastly complicated world-system.

Even though S's input data is low-dimensional relative to an external world-system, it is nonetheless a huge amount of data for S to cope with. In practical terms, S's model must have some sort of attention mechanism, or some way to compress and/or eliminate large amounts of the incoming information. He must also have a model that can be implemented to run fast enough to handle real-world data rates on his input data streams and to produce his output data streams. S obviously has an extremely difficult task.

What can be said about S's knowledge of the external world? He clearly cannot model it exactly, for the many reasons given above. He cannot even tell if his model is an accurate "shadow" of the true world-system, or if another model might not be more efficient or useful in his present conditions. For that matter, he cannot even tell if there is some "true" world-model out there or not! Whichever way he decides, it has no bearing on how he goes about his business. Just as mathematical systems at some point depend on axioms, at some point S must take his models on faith.

Boundaries of the Box

Now let us look more closely at the black box we defined for S to live in. Recall that we took it as enclosing a portion of the brain. But how can we set the boundaries? The brain is made up of hundreds of millions of neurons, and, more importantly, each neuron is an individual living cell. The body provides each neuron with a flow of oxygenated blood and removes its waste products, but a neuron is essentially like an amoeba in a dish. The primary difference is that each neuron is connected with thousands of others via axons and synapses. This results in billions and billions of connections, many of which are adaptive over time. It is this slow, ongoing adaptivity which allows for changes in brain structure which we interpret as memories. Where is the unified sense of self and awareness in this collection of cells? How can we separate out one section of brain tissue to represent S?

First of all, we may be able to push any "side" of the box back or forth by a few neurons without making any difference. Where does this process stop? And why can we not divide S into two "selves" S1 and S2 by simply dividing it down the middle? Both S1 and S2 now have the same sort of neural structure as the original S did. A neural signal is a neural signal, regardless of where it comes from. There are no tags in the brain for auditory data versus visual data versus internal language processing data.

Furthermore, there is no definitive way to separate an organism from an environment, only convenient or useful ones. S1 does not know or care if the signal it receives came directly from S2 or if S2 fired a sequence of motor neurons to strum a guitar to create sound waves to vibrate the eardrum to stimulate auditory neurons to finally signal S1. These sorts of feedback loops are ubiquitous and interconnected; they occur both within the brain and by reaching out through the environment and back. Indeed, we could postulate another neural "self" S3 in another person's brain. S2 could strum a guitar to affect S3 who in turn could strum a guitar to affect S1. Has S2 affected S1, or has S3? In these types of feedback loops these questions do not make much sense and causal analysis is often not helpful.

So where is the self? It is not clearly well-defined as a region of the brain. We could perhaps place the black box around the perimeter of the body, along the skin, but the same sorts of problems arise. What if I cut my fingernails or eat a large meal? What if my dance partner and I get really going? What about when we use tools or wear glasses? Perhaps the problem is that we are looking for some direct physical correlate for the self. We could take a dualistic approach here and assume there is a self existing apart from the physical world. Alternately, and the approach I take here, we could assume that the self is purely a linguistic, social, and legal construct that need not have any direct physical correlate. It is an illusion.

This is not to say that the concept of separate, interacting individuals is not useful. Our language is rooted in the concept, and few would doubt its usefulness. Our legal system is founded on the ideas of personal responsibility and individual liberties, and I am not suggesting that change. In law it is useful and does not trouble us to consider corporations as people, and so it should not trouble us if science cannot point definitively and unambiguously to a self. At the same time, we should keep in mind that we are a part of the interconnected whole.

The Zen of Science

Now that I have considered Zen from a scientific perspective, I will briefly consider science from a Zen perspective. Simply put, there is no such "thing" as science. Science is a word we use to describe a human institution that is not fundamentally distinct from any other human behavior. Science is about scientists going to labs, writing proposals, brainstorming in the hallways, poring over confusing data. It is about petty rivalries as much as intellectual triumphs. It is humans being human.

Scientists are united by a common scientific training and language. Many are also united by a commitment to work together toward understanding and describing the world, and a commitment to maintain open minds regarding new ideas. Science is much more than what is written in a science book. When someone explains something in a tone which makes it perfectly clear, or when someone shows you a technique in a lab that is not written in any book, that is pure Zen.