ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THE LIFE-WORLD:
A BIOGENETIC STRUCTURAL THEORY OF MEANING AND CAUSATION

by

Charles D. Laughlin*

All we can do is to gaze dimly at the infinitude of things, which lies beyond our finite apprehension.  Words are inadequate for experience, and experience is inadequate to grasp the infinitude of the universe.  Of course, this is a commonplace; but it cannot be repeated too often.

					Alfred North Whitehead

INTRODUCTION: CAUSATION AND MEANING IN THE LIFE-WORLD

	The world view of Euroamerican society is both shaped by and is active in shaping our life-world -- that is, our individual world of immediate experience.  This is as true for scientists as it is for everyone else in society.  And it is true for everyone on the planet, regardless of sociocultural background.  One of the characteristics of our life-world is that we experience events that require comprehension.  The most dramatic of these events include such things as aging and death, the origin of things, conception and birth, destruction, disease, transpersonal experiences of one sort or another, astronomical events, seasonal cycles, malevolence, catastrophes, etc. -- the sorts of events that Tillich (1963) called "matters of ultimate concern."  Of course everyday events also require comprehension, including events like planning a meal, getting to work, mowing the lawn, etc.  Without comprehension, death remains a terrifying enigma and planning a meal forever beyond our capacity.  
	In other words, our life-world is always meaningful.  It is so thoroughly meaningful that we take its elements and relations for granted as "the way the world is."  Our natural attitude (as Edmund Husserl 1977:152-153 put it) toward our own life-world is one of uncritical acceptance.  This is why my position in this chapter is by necessity a phenomenological one, for along with Husserl (1931, 1970, 1977) I would contend that a mature understanding of science requires a kind of "stepping back" (Husserl called this a "reduction") into consciousness to find out how much meaning is pregiven in the act of experiencing.
Hidden Forces
	When one contemplates ones own consciousness, or when one studies the world views of non-Euroamerican societies, one is struck by the fact that meaning in the life-world often requires that the hidden forces that produce or relate phenomena in experience be revealed in some way to consciousness.  By being revealed, these hidden forces may be anticipated and perhaps controlled and "matters of ultimate concern" may be psychologically resolved.  In "stepping back" into our own consciousness, we notice immediately that not all of the ingredients of meaning in our everyday experiences are perceptually apparent.  Anthropologists have noticed that all human societies espouse a world view which, often dramatically, reveals the more important hidden forces behind events.  The hidden forces are given symbolic expression as animated, often anthropomorphic characters that play an epiphanic role in myths, mystery plays, and other forms of ritual performance.  
The Problem
	Science has had a major impact on events both for Euroamericans and for people in more traditional societies that have intensive contact with Euroamerican society.  As John Cove (1987) notes, an absolute distinction between science and traditional world views may be more apparent than real.  However, there are differences between the two that have relevance to the problem being addressed by this volume (see Vine Deloria in this volume).  It is interesting that, whereas modern science is, like traditional world views, in the business of explaining phenomena by revealing hidden forces, science usually does not secure an integrated, meaningful life-world for most people influenced by the scientific world view.  Of course, the conceptual and technological byproducts of science influence our life-worlds, and have done so for three centuries or more.  But science typically usurps the cultural position of traditional world views and thereby exacerbates a general sense of anomia or alienation from the kind of world view that makes a totally integrated and meaningful life-world possible.  
	When we pause to ponder this failing on the part of science, we quickly come to consider the metaphysical foundations of science and how these may differ from the foundations of traditional views.  And when we examine these foundations in a cross-culturally comparative way, we are led to the crucial question of the relationship between meaning and causation in experience.  What exactly is causation, as contrasted with meaning, and why is it possible for science to produce models of the former without enriching the life-world of people with the latter in any deep or integrating way?  How do the fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world and how we come to know the world differ in science compared with traditional world views?
	In order to answer these questions, let us first examine how the brain constitutes its world of experience from a biogenetic structural perspective, and then consider within that context the relationship between meaning and causation and how this relationship reflects the metaphysical differences among systems of knowledge.  We will then discuss some of the problems encountered in changing the metaphysical foundations of science and will end the discussion by addressing the essential tension between creative science and the life-world.
THE COGNIZED AND OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS
	The principal function of the human nervous system at the level of the cerebral cortex is the construction of a vast network of models of the world.  Models are comprised of the organization of constituent cells and their patterned interaction, and this organization expressed as activity is "information" -- literally that which results from the cells' "in-forming" themselves (see Varela 1979, Young 1987:27, Klopf 1982).  We call this entire network of models an individual's cognized environment.  This term contrasts with an individual's operational environment which is the actual nature of that individual and its world.  Entities and events in the operational environment are called noumena (singular, noumenon).
	The cognized environment develops during the course of life by means of the entrainment of networks of cells that become active, that grow, that interconnect and interact, and that become progressively hierarchized into more complex organizations (Bruner 1974).  The prime function of the cognized environment is the adaptation of systems of knowledge and response to ever changing noumena in their internal and external operational environment (Laughlin and d'Aquili 1974, Neisser 1976, E.J. Gibson 1969, J. Gibson 1979, Popper 1972, Piaget 1971, 1985).  "Adaptation" in this sense means the development of models whose operations and motor responses assure the continued survival of the organism.
The Transcendental and the Zone of Uncertainty.
	The emphasis upon adaptation is important, for we make the fundamental metaphysical assumption that the operational environment is transcendental relative to the capacity of any individual or society to comprehend it.  We do not mean by this that the operational environment is unknowable, but rather that knowledge is always intentional, developing, incomplete, and limited by the capacities of the brain doing the knowing (see Michael Scriven in this volume).  The cognized environment is a system of points of view, and there is always more to know about the operational environment, or any noumenon within it, than can be known.
	The brain does not take passive snapshots of the world.  The operational environment is modeled in an active and adaptively isomorphic way.  This means there must always exists a set of boundaries to knowledge, a zone of uncertainty  (d'Aquili et al. 1979: 40, 171), formed by the limits to spatial discernment, and to the capacity of the individual or species to apprehend temporal and causal relations.  The zone of uncertainty is the directly experienceable junction between the transcendental nature of the actual self and world, and the limits of an individual's or culture's understanding (see Elster 1984: Chapter 4).
Neurognosis.
   	The networks comprising the cognized environment have their developmental origin in initial neurognostic structures that are present before, at, or just after birth, and that have an organization largely genetically determined.  The evidence for the neurognostically organized, cognitive and perceptual competence of older fetuses and newborns is now overwhelming (Bower 1989, Chamberlain 1987, Spelke 1988a, 1988b, Laughlin 1991).
	The development of these initial structures is neurognostically regulated as well; that is, the course of much of neural development is genetically charted.  Development of neural models involves a great deal of selectivity among alternative entrainments (Changeux 1985, Edelman 1987, Varela 1979).  Some potential organizations deteriorate, others become active and are augmented, and still others remain relatively latent and undeveloped.
Empirical Modification (EMC)
	The cognized environment and its models are self-constructing and self-regulating in the interests of adaptation to the polar demands of environmental press and organic integrity (see Brian Goodwin, this volume; see also Piaget 1971, 1985).  This requires that models interact with the operational environment in a feedforward manner.  This feedforward, cognitive anticipatory - sensory fulfillment process we have called the empirical modification cycle, or EMC (Laughlin and d'Aquili 1974: 84ff; see also Pribram 1971, Neisser 1976, Arbib 1972, Powers 1973, Gray 1982, Varela 1979 for consonant views).  The role of behavior (motor activity) within the activity of the cognized environment is also a feedforward one; that is, behavior operates to control perception so that the sensory aspects of the anticipated experience are fulfilled (Powers 1973).
	The developmental interaction between neural models and the operational environment tends to routinize functional processes relative to particular noumena in the operational environment (see Ogden and Richards 1923:56-57).  Using C.H. Waddington's term, neural models become relatively fixed in organization and structure, and thus produce creodes; i.e., become regularized, recursive and predictable in organization, content, function, response and interaction relative to the object of consciousness (Waddington 1957; see also Piaget 1971, 1985).
Intentionality.
	The ongoing, moment-by-moment operation of the cognized environment is essentially intentional in organization.  This fact is very important to our understanding of meaning and causation.  Neural networks tend to organize themselves, both spatially and temporally about a phenomenal object as a process.  The focal object is also mediated by a neural network and is, for the moment, the nexus of cognitive, affective, metabolic and motor operations for the organism (Neisser 1976: 20ff).
	Intentionality probably derives from a characteristic dialogue between the prefrontal cortex and the sensory cortex of the human brain.  This interaction is neurognostic and thus ubiquitous to human consciousness, regardless of cultural background (Laughlin 1988, Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:105).  Subsidiary structures entrained as a consequence of the dialogue between prefrontal and sensory cortical processes may be located over a wide expanse of cortical, subcortical and endocrinal areas.  The intentional organization of neural processes mediating experience has a lot to do with our sense of causation.
Experience and The Life-world
	Experience is a function of this intentional dialogue, and consists of the construction of a phenomenal world within the sensorium, the latter being a field of neural activity that arises and dissolves in temporally sequential epochs and that is coordinated with cognitive processes that associate meaning and form in a unitary frame (Laughlin 1988, Laughlin n.d.).  A point to emphasize here is that both the sensory and the cognitive-intentional aspects of experience are active (never static!) products of neurological functioning, and are exquisitely ordered in the service of abstract pattern recognition in experience (Gibson 1969).  The natural motivation of the human brain is toward an "effort after meaning," rather than an "effort after truth."  The brain at every moment of consciousness imposes an order in experience.  Part of that order is an interpretation of the relations among objects and events -- the essence of meaning.  We can schematize this interaction as a kind of Two Hands Clapping Model of experience (see Figure 1).

                              X
      Cognitive/Intentional   5        Sensory 
           Processes          5          Processes
                              5                                                                 5
                              5
                              5                                                                5            
           S))))))))))))))))))J)))))))))))))))))))Q 

                          Experience
                         (Life-World)

Figure 1.  	The Two Hands Clapping Model of the Construction of Experience.  Sensory and cognitive/intentional processes rise to meet in the construction of the life-world in each moment of consciousness.

	The total field of experience -- the life-world -- arising each moment is mediated by what we call the conscious network, a continuously changing field of intentional neural entrainments that may include any particular neural network one moment and disentrain it the next (Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:94-95).
The Symbolic Function and Meaning
	To summarize, the life-world is the unfolding stream of direct experience mediated by the individual's conscious network.  The cognized environment is the entire "library" of potential entrainments from which the actual conscious network mediating each moment of consciousness may be entrained.  In other words, the cognized environment is a system of potential neural transformations within the individual's nervous system, while the conscious network is the actual transform in each moment, experienced as the life-world.  
	We can see, therefore, that the life-world is inherently symbolic.  Every aspect of the life-world is a construction mediated by models of noumena and intentional associations with those models provided from within the "library" of potential information.  The relative veridicality of these models and associations depends upon a continuous EMC dialogue between relatively pliant neural structures and noumena in an ever changing operational environment.  As implied by our Two Hands Clapping Model of experience, each moment of consciousness is a unitary field within which sensory form and meaning merge in an exquisitely ordered process of pattern recognition and signification (Gibson 1969, Grossman 1987).  This field is renewed in each subsequent epoch in a fluid stream of form and meaning.
BELIEF, MEANING AND THE CYCLE OF MEANING
	Most of the meaning that informs experience is, as we have seen, made up of tacit knowledge; that is, creodized entrainments that operate below the level of awareness.  Knowledge only becomes belief when it takes a relatively abstract conceptual or imaginal form and the truth value of the knowledge somehow comes into question (see Rokeach 1960:31-53).  In other words, belief requires some awareness of propositional knowledge and some practical or affectively loaded evaluation of the knowledge to be made (Goodenough 1990).  There is also a social and conversational aspect of belief, and perhaps, as Peter du Preez (1991:193-208) suggests, belief is generated by rhetoric, both in external conversation between people and in the internal dialogue between different parts of the being.
	Belief, on this account, refers to a model or set of models formed at the conceptual/imaginal level of cortex and are consciously held to be true (disbelief, of course, refers to the opposite).  Belief usually refers to knowledge mediated at the cortical level of neurocognitive association and at the highest order of abstraction from experience.  We become affectively attached to a belief, either because it works well within our frame of reference, or because our frame of reference requires its truth.  There may be an identification between the cognized self ("ego") and the belief:  "I know that Jesus lives!"  In fact, the ego may become thoroughly entrained as a system of beliefs and disbeliefs.  This is one way of understanding an individual as a "culture-bearer" insofar as the process of forming beliefs is produced by enculturation.
Belief and Evidence
	As we have seen, the human brain, and its cognized environment are conservative systems.  The brain regulates the adaptation of the organism by stabilizing the organism's models of the operational environment via the EMC and routinizing its interpretations and responses to events in the world.  This feedforward conservatism does not magically cease at the level of belief.  Although there is at least a modicum of awareness involved in belief, nonetheless actions taken in the operational environment as a consequence of a belief operate as tests of the truth value of that belief.  
	But there is no such thing as "pure" data upon which to base a test of belief.  Evidence of the truth or untruth of belief is always an interpretive process, especially within the everyday life-world of people.  Belief leads to affirmative or exploratory action in the world, and the action produces phenomenal feedback which is interpreted in terms of the belief that gave rise to the action in the first place.  Experience, as we have seen in the Two Hands Clapping Model, is meaningful precisely because of the intentional projection of knowledge upon sensory events.  Experience only becomes evidence when it is recalled (a cognitively selective process in itself) and interpreted relative to the belief in question.  In a very real sense, we see what we want to see, and we want to see because of what we have seen.  Thus belief, action, and experience interpreted as evidence participate as phases in a cycle of meaning in which beliefs result in experiences that cognitively operate to verify (confirm) and vivify (bring to life), or disconfirm and either transform or annul beliefs (see Figure 2).  

SYSTEM OF BELIEF

      INTERPRETATION OF                     OPERATION OR ACTION
   EXPERIENCE AS EVIDENCE                 AS EXPRESSION OF BELIEF

DIRECT
EXPERIENCE

	Figure 2.		The Operation of Belief within the Cycle of Meaning.  The system of belief leads to activity in the world that in turn leads to experiences interpreted as evidence of the truth or untruth of the belief system.

The Conservatism of Belief Systems
	As we have seen, intentionality devoted to constructing belief structures also produces constraints upon the range of experiences we will "allow in" as evidence.  Barriers to anomalous evidence are very common in culture, and are quite lawful in their operation (Rokeach 1960:54-70).  Because the cycle of meaning is fundamentally conservative, and exerts an "effort after meaning," rather than a pursuit of truth, anomalous experiences are either not allowed to arise, or if they arise are usually either interpreted in such a way as to confirm the belief or are held in memory without being assimilated into the belief structure until a pattern of anomaly is cognized over time (see Rubinstein, Laughlin and McManus 1984:77). 
COSMOLOGY
	There is an important distinction to be drawn between systems of belief encountered in traditional societies and those found in Euroamerican industrial societies.  Traditional world views tend to be cosmological in organization, whereas modern Euroamerican world views are usually not cosmological (see Vine Deloria, this volume; see also Laughlin et al. 1986, Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:214-233).  Despite the ethnocentric and ethnographically inappropriate use of the word "cosmology" by some physicists (e.g., Wheeler 1983, Barrow and Tipler 1986) and philosophers (Toulmin 1982, Lucas 1989) to refer to what I would call "quasi-cosmologies," science does not actually produce a living cosmology for most people, not even for most scientists themselves.  A quasi-cosmology is a theory of the universe as a system, perhaps even a purposeful system, but the theory does not, perhaps cannot, relate to the matters of ultimate concern and life-world of people.  Indeed, science was largely responsible for the demise of the cosmological world view that once prevailed in our culture three centuries ago (Burtt 1932:4-11).
	A cosmology is a culturally patterned and socially transmitted cognized environment which is systemic in organization, is divided into multicameral domains, and is populated with entities that may be either visible (e.g., horned toad, coyote, the sun, etc.) or normally invisible (e.g., souls, radiant deities, subterranean worlds, divine messengers, etc.) to perception. Furthermore, a cosmology is dynamic (it develops or evolves) through time and constitutes an organic whole.  It is often experienced as a space filled with objects and features (e.g., rocks, trees, mountains, rivers, stars, sun and moon, etc.) conceived to have both an outer (physical) and an inner (spiritual) nature.  A cosmology is an account of all the significant elements and relations that make up the universe, and defines the position of an individual, the group, or all of humanity within that universe.  A cosmos is a living totality which provides a frame of reference for all meaning, and the sacred source of all meaning.  Not only is meaning a living reality, but so too is the cosmos a palpable, living fact of existence, made manifest in every moment of the individual's unfolding life-world.
	Cosmologies are typically somatocentric.  That is, the human body is conceived as a microcosm that is placed at the very center of the cosmos (Neumann 1963:41; see Burtt 1932:6 on the loss of this motif in the Euroamerican world view).  The body is often appropriately oriented relative to the cardinal directions of the universe.  Anatomical parts such as organs and joints may signify features in the greater cosmos.  The axis mundi of the world may be equated with the spinal column, and dismemberment of the body at the joints may be associated with fragmentation of the cosmic relations.  
	A cosmology will frequently offer an explanation for the origin of the world, as well as its significant elements and relations.  It may also predict the future course of the world (Eliade 1963:54-74).  Explanations of matters of ultimate concern are couched in mythological terms.  That is, they are encoded within a set of stories with highly symbolic, even archetypal characters, features and events.
	The closest one can come in most traditional societies to what Euroamerican philosophy means by "metaphysics" is an account (usually highly symbolic) of the cosmos, and the (usually highly ritualized) procedures by means of which one may directly experience the reality (perhaps even meta-reality) of that account.  In other words, "metaphysics" for most people on the planet is a process of integrative interpretation of the individual life-world within the society's cosmological frame of reference.  This interaction between the socially defined and transmitted cosmology on the one hand, and the direct experience of the reality of that cosmology by individual members of society on the other hand, is modeled as a cosmological cycle of meaning in Figure 3.

COSMOLOGY

                                                Shaman
                                                   intervenes

      INTERPRETATION OF                        MYTHOPOEIA
   EXPERIENCE AS EVIDENCE                 (MYTH, RITUAL, DRAMA,
                                               ART, ETC.)

   Shaman
     intervenes

DIRECT
EXPERIENCE

	Figure 3.		The Cosmological Cycle of Meaning.  The cosmology as symbolically expressed through a society's mythopoeia leads to activity in the world that in turn leads to experiences interpreted as evidence of the existence of the cosmology. The shaman, or adept, structures the conditions leading to, and the context of, the interpretation of experience.

	The interdependence of cosmology and direct experience in traditional societies cannot be overemphasized, for it is the crux of the solution to the problem posed by this chapter.  It suggests the operative difference between traditional, cosmological "metaphysics" and scientific "metaphysics" with respect to the everyday life-world of people.  The operative difference is that the traditional life-world arises as a consequence of what we might call cosmological consciousness in which the cosmos "comes alive" in direct experience (see Eliade 1959:116-117).  Cosmological consciousness is at once grounded in, and appreciative of the sacred nature of the life-world.  And the sacred nature of experience derives in part from an integrative interpretation of the life-world and its features and aspects as the production of normally hidden, but intuitively adumbrated "divine" forces.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION
	Were human beings actually rational automatons and able to automatically drop or transform their beliefs in response to anomalous evidence, then science would no doubt conform to the logical positivist program.  But in this post-Kuhnian era, no one who is familiar with the history and philosophy of science holds this fictional account of science to be anything like an accurate picture of how science is actually carried out (see Suppe 1977, Feyerabend 1975, Lakatos 1970, Toulmin 1972, Giere 1984).  
Science and the Cycle of Meaning
	After all, scientists are human beings, and they are thus naturally, and largely unconsciously, culture-bearers.  Science, itself, is a Euroamerican sociocultural institution.  Theories may become socially favored and take on the status of belief, and because they are found to be useful or because they become affectively charged and evaluated within an institutional cycle of meaning, they are frequently the very devil to change or supplant.  Theories are influenced by the rest of knowledge in the scientist's cognized environment, and egos can become so thoroughly associated with theories and the procedures for verifying those theories that anomalies are disregarded or missed altogether.  Just as cosmological systems produce creodes in the individual cognized environment, so too do scientific theories.  Scientific theories, in other words, are involved in a cycle of meaning, and thus contribute to, and are influenced by their own cultural content (see Figure 4.1).

THEORETICAL SYSTEM
(OR PARADIGM)

      INTERPRETATION OF                       METHODOLOGY
   OBSERVATIONS AS EVIDENCE            (AN EXPRESSION OF THEORY)

OBSERVATIONS
(A TYPE OF EXPERIENCE)

	Figure 4.		The Operation of Scientific Theory Within a Cycle of Meaning.  The system of theoretical belief leads to methodological activity in the world that in turn leads to observations interpreted as evidence of the truth or untruth of the theoretical system.

	Realizing all of this, Paul Feyerabend (1975) has argued for a proliferation of competing theories and against the establishment of exclusive methodologies in scientific disciplines.  He has done so in recognition of the inevitable narrowing effect that theories, methodologies and techniques exercise upon clear and unobstructed exploration of the world.  Methodologies and observations derive their meaning in part from the theories that originally give rise to them and which they continue to serve.  In that respect, theories are analogous to traditional world views and methodologies are analogous to rituals.  
Science and the Zone of Uncertainty
	However, I do not wish to imply that science is just another world view among many.  In many respects science is quite unique as an institutionalized system of inquiry (see Michael Scriven in this volume on this issue).  What makes science progress, when it does progress, is a socially enhanced importance of evidence in producing and evaluating knowledge.  Science exhibits more ritualized reverence for the zone of uncertainty than do most of the planet's traditional epistemologies.  However, even with this institutionalization of the importance of direct, observational evidence, the tacit, unconscious, pre-scientific processes that produce the cognized environment and its systems of belief continue to operate in the scientific consciousness and may significantly obstruct the quest for truth.  Indeed, so much has this been the case in the history of science that some rather more self-aware researchers and philosophers have come to consider the anomalies produced by theories to be far more valuable to the progress of science than the theories themselves (see e.g., Kuhn 1970, Pribram 1971).
CAUSATION
	At the heart of most scientific theorizing is some model of causation -- that is, some view about the necessary interconnections among events in the world.  It would be well, therefore, to look into the attributes of models of causation and the role they play in scientific explanations and meaning.
The Usual Attributes of Scientific Causation
	There are four attributes of this classic description of causation that are particularly worth noting: (1) the cause and the effect are usually conceived to be distinct events, (2) the cause and the effect are conceived as occurring in time with the cause always preceding the effect, (3) the cause and its effect must either occur within the same location in space, or have a trajectory of interaction traceable within space, and (4) teleological, or purposeful causation in nature is often considered at best to be normatively suspect, and at worst to be blatantly "religious" or "metaphysical" (see Suppe 1989:284-285).
	The view of cause and effect as distinct events occurring at two points in time forms part of the natural attitude of science because it is the common sense view of causation held in Euroamerican culture (Jaspars, Hewstone and Fincham 1983:4).  Reference to processes is lost in this delineation of temporal location, and thus ideas like that of "backward causation" are considered absurd (Faye 1989:9).  
	Of course, there are models of causation in science that are more complex than this simple lineal notion and that conceive of simultaneous reciprocal causation among different parts of a system (see Roger Sperry in this volume; see also Ackoff and Emery 1972, Blalock 1969, 1985).  However, even this more complex view of causal reciprocity does not abrogate the natural attitude among Euroamerican thinkers that the different parts of a system are discrete, or that an effect occurring earlier in time than its cause is absurd.
	The idea of "causation-at-a-distance" (or "non-local causation") is also considered absurd, for, like "backwards causation," it runs counter to our materialistic natural attitude about the possible relations that may obtain among events in the world (see Jahn and Dunne on this issue, this volume).  A scientific model in which this type of causation-at-a-distance is successfully introduced is to be found in David Bohm's (1980) theory of the implicate order.  Bohm suggests that the world of phenomena (the "explicate order") unfolds out of and enfolds back into a reality (the "implicate order") that is essentially whole, a-temporal, and admitting of causal relations outside of observable explicate order spacetime.
	The historical trend in science has been to separate models of causation from anything approaching a philosophy or theory of purpose.  Of course there have been exceptions to this trend.  For example, the inclusion of an "anthropic principle" in astrophysical theory suggests that the essential organization of the universe in its first moments of existence necessitated the eventual evolution of our kind of sentience (see e.g., Carr and Rees 1979, Barrow and Tipler 1986).  Also, recent reformulations of evolutionary theory away from neo-Darwinism and toward a structuralist account of phylogenesis often include a teleological conception of causation (see e.g., Brian Goodwin 1989, 1990, see also this volume; also see Lima-de-Faria 1988, van der Hammen 1988).  But generally speaking, unless a theory is able to stipulate the mechanism of causation, teleological conceptions of the causal relations among events are considered suspect.  They are suspect because they are reminiscent 
of divine plans and "written in the Great Book" metaphysical and religious accounts of the universe to which institutional science is an epistemological reaction.
CAUSATION, THE LIFE-WORLD AND THE BRAIN
	Most scientific models of causation fall unwittingly into what Alfred North Whitehead (1964) called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness; that is, they reify rational conceptions of causation upon a process that is essentially transcendental.  Contrary to the classical view of David Hume (1960), causation is demonstrably an attribute of the organization of perception (Whitehead 1947, 1964, Michotte 1963, Mandelbaum 1977, Jaspars, Hewstone and Fincham 1983), and is such from the earliest stages of childhood development (Piaget 1974).  In other words, causation is "already there" to perception prior to any rational reflection upon it.  Causation is, as Whitehead (1947, 1978:175-177) rightly taught, an "aboriginal," or primitive aspect of the organization of perceptual awareness.  If one turns to the exploration of ones own stream of consciousness, one may quickly ascertain that causation is an essential element in the construction of experience.
The Phenomenology of Causation
	Perhaps the most complete phenomenological account of causation in the Euroamerican philosophical literature is to be found in Part Two of Maurice Mandelbaum's book, The Anatomy of Historical Knowledge (1977:49-142).  In that work, Mandelbaum demonstrates that the apprehension of causation in the everyday life-world involves an inherent awareness of interrelations among elements and phases of a process, and not the rational attribution of a cause-effect covariation among distinct events.  These interrelations may occur simultaneously, as when the interaction between two opposing football players during the course of a "play" results in a "tackle" and the end of the "play."  The interaction between the players causes the tackle, but is simultaneous within a single process.  In actual experience, the interaction is the tackle which is the end of the play.  Or, the sense of causation may derive from adumbrating a pattern of regularity in a sequence of events -- "adumbration" in this case being a kind of intuitive leap from experience to recognized pattern.
	The interweaving of movements among objects within a single process is what Michotte (1963:217) termed ampliation.  What we are aware of is both objects and their interrelated movements within a contextual perception of a process.  Moreover, because consciousness is essentially intentional, in some moments of consciousness it is the object awareness that is predominant and in other moments of consciousness it is the overall movement ("kinematic integration" in Michotte's terms) that predominates.  In the latter case, it is the awareness of the covariation of the different phases and elements comprising a movement that is of essence.  
	Of course, upon reflection we may interpret the covariation of phases within a movement, or the adumbration of regularity in a sequence of phases, in an analytical way (Mackie 1974:230).  Abstract patterns of causal relations encountered concretely in perception may be projected upon experience in the absence of actual ampliation or adumbration -- a process Whitehead (1955:101-109) called "extensive abstraction."  We might say that x occurred and then y occurred as a consequence, or that every time x occurs, y also occurs.  But this abstraction derives, whether consciously or unconsciously on the part of the abstractor, from direct apprehension.  And the process of extensive abstraction may result in an over-simplification of the model of causation.  Where there are multiple types of causation in direct experience (Hart and Honore 1959:17), perhaps a single pattern becomes abstracted and elevated to the status of a logical necessity.  Among other things, failure to recognize the roots of causation in experience may result in ignoring the precise contextual variables that must be considered in order for an explanation to successfully account for an actual event (see Scriven 1958).
	Our perceptual system is neurognostically organized to perceive the entire movement as an integrated process -- to re-cognize the process as both a complex of interacting parts and a whole.  "Taking a sip of coffee" is not normally experienced as a series of distinct, causal events (although it can be rationalized as such after the fact).  It is rather an integrated whole which may involve phases of movement occurring simultaneously (lifting the cup and opening the lips) or over time (lifting and then tipping the cup).
	The awareness of objects within an integrated process involving kinematic integration, ampliation and adumbrated significance of covariation and regularity is fundamental to human consciousness.  The weight of evidence suggests that this is so from, or near birth.  Moreover, there exists an important literature in the neurosciences pertaining to the possible structures mediating causation.  Some of this work involves the structures of internal time consciousness and there remains a good deal of controversy on findings and interpretations in this field.  Nonetheless, this research is suggestive of the neurophysiological substrate of perceptual epochs and processual/causal relations across bundles of epochs.  There is substantial evidence for some sort of central temporal processing mechanism based upon a minute perceptual unit within which temporal discriminations cannot be made (see Sanford 1971, Harter 1967, Steriade and Deschenes 1985, Efron 1970 and Childers and Perry 1971 for relevant reviews).  Stimuli of different durations that appear to be phase-locked to cortical rhythms and presented within an epoch will be perceived as simultaneous, whereas stimuli presented across epochs will be perceived as sequential, continual and processual (Varela et al. 1981), or in apparent motion (Ramachandran and Anstis 1986).  The duration of an epoch seems to average around 100 msec (1/10 of a second) and is equivalent to the wavelength of the EEG cortical alpha rhythm (Childers and Perry 1971).
	The more abstract interpretations of causation informing the life-world involve many of the very processes that mediate the intentionality of conscious experience.  In fact, the adult human brain seems to be uniquely capable of abstracting causal relations from perceptual experience and is thereby able to model relations among objects and events experientially distant in both space and time.  The ability to track causal processes over lengthy durations was clearly significant in the evolution of the hominid line and is probably due to the remarkable advance in the relative size and complexity of the prefrontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. 
	The "causal operator," as my friend and colleague, Eugene d'Aquili (see d'Aquili and Mol 1990:142-146), likes to call it, is the complex entrainment of various parts of the cortex that mediates the continuity of long-term processes and temporal sequencing of neurocognitive operations.  There is considerable evidence that the "causal operator" in its most rational, conceptual, conscious guise is mediated by the reciprocal interaction between the left hemisphere prefrontal lobe and the inferior parietal lobule located in the left parietal cortex, an area that mediates the formation of concepts (Luria 1966, Pribram and Luria 1973, Mills and Rollman 1980, Swisher and Hirsch 1971, Fuster 1980, Stuss and Benson 1986).
Causation and Meaning
	It should be obvious that we cannot answer our central question by drawing a simple distinction between scientific causal explanation on the one hand and non-causal meaning in the life-world of people on the other hand.  This tactic will not work because, as we have seen, scientific models of causation are rooted, however unconsciously on the part of scientists, in the essential, neurognostic structure of the life-world.  The sense of causation is "already there" in the acts of perception, intuitive adumbration of perceptual regularities, intentional cognition and action.  Causation is already an essential ingredient in the cognition of "plans" and in the ampliation of motion.  Thus, causation is an inherent ingredient in the construction of meaning for all people, regardless of cultural background.  In a word, we operate upon (usually tacit) causal relations all the time in our everyday lives.
CONCLUSION
	So, why do scientific explanations not produce integrative meaning in the life-world of people, even when causation is a primary ingredient of both?  And what is it about the metaphysical assumptions behind scientific explanations that so effectively inhibit the production of integrative meaning in the life-world of people?  We have already come far in answering these questions.  Scientific explanations usually incorporate models of causation that are both limited to the products of conceptual abstraction and alienated from their experiential roots in the primordial sense of causation.  As such they usually isolate objects and events, including the observer from the observed.  Causation within its context of process is ignored.  Scientific causation and life-world causation are mediated differently by the brain, the former by left hemisphere conceptual structures, and the latter by various areas throughout the entire structure of the conscious network.  Causation in the life-world is largely a pre-rational perceptual and intentional primitive mediated by a number of structures over wide areas of neural tissue, while scientific models of causation are mathematical-linguistic propositions produced by the structures mediating conceptualization and symbolic communication.  
Fragmentation of the Cycle of Meaning
	However, there is more to the schism between scientific explanation and the life-world than just differences in views of causation.  Scientific explanations often pertain to domains of experience not encountered by people in their everyday life-world.  Scientists become interested in things like the dynamics of ice flow in the Arctic, the migration patterns of hummingbirds, and the interactions among subatomic particles.  Any such interest leads to a history of experiences on the part of the scientist that is divorced from the normal life-world of people around the scientist -- perhaps even divorced from the scientist's own everyday life-world.  
	This is especially true for explorations that involve experimentation rather than naturalistic observations.  Experiments amount to artificial experiential domains that by their very nature distort the natural flow of the life-world.  Experimental psychologists may close themselves off from the natural world and spend hours running rats through mazes.  Chemists may spend hours ensconced in a laboratory mixing chemicals and reading computer outputs.  These activities produce experiences for the scientists that are removed from the flow of life-world experiences unfolding for most people all the time, and for the scientists themselves when they are not in their labs.  These factors tend to produce what Whitehead (1978:289) called a "bifurcation of nature" -- a discrepancy between the life-world and the world according to science.  This bifurcation of nature is attended by a fragmented cycle of meaning; or perhaps more accurately, multiple cycles of meaning.  One system of knowledge is related to experiences in the everyday life-world, another system of knowledge to experiences in the field or experimental lab.  My hunch would be that the fragmentation for the naturalist may be less severe than that for the experimental physicist or rat-running psychologist, but that is an empirical question beyond the scope of this inquiry.
Technology and Fragmented Cognized Environments
	Science presents views of the world that counter the universal motifs of traditional cosmologies.  We are taught that the universe is not somatocentric, that things are not interdependent, that hidden, anthropomorphized forces do not in fact exist, and that there is no purpose behind the evolution of the world.  Meanwhile, science produces technological changes in the operational environment which in turn result in changes in the life-world of people.  Technology, after all, is the expression of knowledge, in this case the artifacts of scientific knowledge.  And technology as an expression of knowledge produces life-world experiences for people.
	The disparity between new experiences and the lack of comprehension may disrupt the natural cycle of meaning to the extent that the traditional world view of people may be seriously called into question, and even eradicated.  Yet scientific knowledge contributes little or nothing in the way of a replacement.  Much less does science address the "matters of ultimate concern" at the roots of traditional belief systems.  It is the understanding of the disruptive influence of technology upon traditional world view that underlies the anti-scientific, anti-technological attitudes of such communities as the Amish, Mennonites and Christian Scientists who resist the encroachment of scientific technology upon their lives and cultures.
Our Answer in Brief
	Science, by virtue of its own historical and metaphysical blinders, is therefore rarely able to produce comprehension relative to matters of ultimate concern, and is thus usually unable to produce cosmology in the traditional sense.  Moreover, science is rarely reflexive (Ihde 1990:22).  Scientists -- even really creative ones -- rarely look as closely at the processes of their own observation as they do at the object of their scrutiny.  In short, scientific knowledge is too fragmented, linked to experiences far too esoteric, too unrelated to the matters that concern people the most, and too unreflexive for such knowledge to effectively produce integrative meaning in the life-world.  In addition, scientific models of causation tend to be alienated from life-world meaning.  Scientific models of causation are often mechanical and isolate phenomena, life-world causation is inherently processual and holistic.  Combined, these factors give us most of the answer to our root question, and suggest the directions that must be followed in the future for the bifurcation between the scientific world view and the life-world to be bridged.
SHALL WE ELIMINATE SCIENCE?
	As understandable as the anti-scientific attitudes of the Amish or Christian Scientists may be in terms of effective cultural and religious conservatism, the facile rejection of science will not resolve the bifurcation problem.  There are a couple of good reasons for this.  
Science Works!
	In the first place, as Edmund Husserl (1970) noted in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, science has gained its history of success because it works.  Despite flaws in its metaphysical assumptions, its alienation from its roots in experience, its bifurcation of nature, and its disruptive influences upon the culture that spawned it and other traditional cultures that embrace it, science does what it does better than any other such social institution in human history.  The reason why it works so well is not hard to fathom as long as we keep in mind that science progresses, when it actually does progress, by applying an "effort after truth," rather than the traditional "effort after meaning."  The essence of creative science is attention to paradox and the truth-value of views.
	Science opens up the world to a mind-boggling array of explorations.  Only science has allowed us to see the reconstructed face of a 2500 year old mummy, to put people in space and to send probes to Mars, to understand the genetic processes that produces our body, to build up a picture of the age of the dinosaurs, to develop an effective treatment for diabetes, to see the inner workings of our brain, and to light our houses with electricity.  Science does what it does well, and that is to open up the transcendental operational environment to exploration, explanation and utilitarian control.
Mind-Body Dualism is Pre-Scientific in Origin
	In the second place, the roots of the bifurcation are grounded in the pre-scientific mind-body dualism of Euroamerican culture.  That is, Euroamerican culture's separation of things mental and things physical derives from the reified conceptual rift between the largely rational mental faculties and the body, a schism which derives historically from both the Hebraic and post-Socratic Greek cultures, and which becomes elaborated in Cartesian philosophy.  The schism between mind and body, so much a part of the Euroamerican "natural attitude," characterizes the entire human condition and finds its way into such absolute theoretical distinctions as mind vs. brain, culture vs. nature and the notion of cultural dominion over nature.  Even scientific disciplines are split into the "physical" sciences like chemistry, biology and physics, and the "social" sciences like psychology, anthropology and economics.  Knowledge is hierarchized and the highest level is considered to be rational knowledge (rather than say intuitive or imaginative knowledge).  The preeminent value of causation in explanation is usually the "control" of the data (i.e., prediction and retrodiction via specified causal links) -- this being the equivalent of the mind exercising control over the body and the physical world, and the domination of nature by culture -- all hallmarks of Euroamerican cultural values (Burtt 1932:307). 
	And in philosophy the mind-body schism occurs in distinctions such as free will (associated with rational decision making and choice) vs. determinism (associated with the body, instinct and necessity).  It is difficult for Euroamerican philosophers to resolve the question of free will without alienating the mind from the body (Searle 1984).  The body may be determined, but the mind is potentially free.  Even the traditional bifurcation of metaphysics into "epistemology" (the mental question:  how do we come to know what we claim to know about the world?) and "ontology" (the physical question: what is the world like "out there" apart from our knowing of it?) reproduces this schism.
	In theology, of course, the distinction is elevated further to a dualism between body and soul: the body may die but the soul lives on.  It is my opinion that mind-body dualism represents Euroamerican culture's own distinct adaptation to the fundamental problem described so eloquently by Ernest Becker (1973) in The Denial of Death; that being the problem inherent in coming to terms with the awareness of our own "creatureliness."  As Becker notes, the existential problem faced by all human beings everywhere is the recognition that we are creatures that apparently die.  Different societies have developed different bodies of knowledge to resolve this dilemma.  The resolution usually involves in one way or another the denial of, or reassuring interpretation of, the empirical fact of death.  Some societies, such as most Euroamerican societies, resolve the existential problem of death by separating an immortal aspect of mind from the obviously mortal body.  Such societies posit the existence of a normally hidden, but essential attribute of being (the "soul") that is in one sense or another immortal.  
	Naturally the metaphysics of any such society will be tainted by this fundamental schism.  A familiar theme in Euroamerican metaphysics, reflected for example in Cartesian metaphysics, has been the divorcing of rational conceptions of the world from the data of raw experience.  In various ways knowledge is said to exist as mathematical and linguistic propositions about the world, not in the life-world itself.  Truth is to be found through the exercise of reason, not from meditation upon the "nature of the things themselves."  In some idealist metaphysical systems, reality or sense data are considered to be a kind of chaos that only becomes ordered with the application of the rational mind.  In other systems, such as naive realism, the mind is considered to be independent of the reality being observed.  No matter how solipsistic, sceptical, or realistic are these and other more complex versions of the relations between mind and reality (including even the phenomenology of Husserl), they nonetheless tend to be conditioned by different transformations of the same mind-body dualism that also informs Euroamerican theological and scientific views.  It should be obvious that as long as scientific views are unconsciously conditioned by this dualism, there is no possibility of eliminating its divisive effects upon research, explanation and models of causation, and the impact these have on the life-world of people.
The Continuum of Empirical Commitment
	In placing the significance of science both as a social institution and as an enterprise within the context of cross-cultural approaches to knowledge, it helps to realize that all healthy humans everywhere on the planet are to some extent empirical in evaluating their beliefs.  This is an important consideration, for it was once the vogue of generations of social theorists to consider "primitive" thought to be fundamentally different than "civilized" thought (see e.g., Levy-Bruhl 1923, Levi-Strauss 1966).  This view is no longer tenable in the face of modern ethnographic research to the contrary (see Horton and Finnegan 1973, Cove 1987).  Rather, it is more accurate to focus attention upon the relationship between belief and evidence in human thought, whatever the sociocultural background.
	It perhaps may help our understanding of the relationship of science to traditional world-views to imagine all approaches to knowledge, whether they be individual or social, or whether they be directed toward "inner" reality (knowledge of being and consciousness) or "outer" reality (knowledge of events in the phenomenal world),  on a single continuum defined by their relative openness to evidence; that is, by the importance of empirical verification to the construction of beliefs (Rokeach 1960:54-70; see Figure 5).

    1              2             3            4            5

Uncritical				Balance				Novelty of
adherence					between				pure
to belief					evidence				experience
and ritual				and belief			without
											compre-
											hension

Figure 5.		The Continuum of Empirical Commitment.  Human approaches to knowledge, whether personal or cultural, and whether of inner being or outer world, may be distinguished by the extent of their openness to evidence and commitment to empirical verification.  Approaches lying between 1 and 3 tend to be "efforts after meaning," while those between 3 and 5 tend to be "efforts after truth."

	Openness to empirical input into models of self or world inevitably results in paradox.  Paradox may be kept at bay by at least partially closing belief systems to empirical modification.  At the left hand extreme of the continuum (#1) are to be found beliefs about the self and the world relatively closed to empirical modification.  These are the ones that will interpret any potentially disconfirming experiences so that they either verify the beliefs or are deemed irrelevant.  The balance point of the continuum (#3) represents those belief systems that remain both confident of the truth of their views of the world and open to dynamic modification relative to changing evidence about the self and the world.  Such systems may indeed be changed by novel experiences and apparent paradox.  A.F.C. Wallace (1966) called this process of culture change "revitalization," especially when it effected the world view and religion of a society.
	Between these ideal types lay most of the planet's traditional world views.  These are systems of belief and practice that are relatively conservative of meaning and are characterized by their heavy reliance upon ritualized procedures for assuring experiences that verify and vivify the system.  And because they concern themselves most with matters of ultimate concern that rarely change, paradoxical experiences may have little effect upon the innermost core symbolism upon which the integrity of the system depends.  Yet, when required by novel circumstances these systems do "revitalize" themselves by rearranging their symbolism and standard interpretations in order to accommodate the new circumstances.
	Approaches to knowledge lying between the balance point (#3) and the right hand extreme of the continuum (#5) are systems that value empirical exploration as much or more than they do conservation of meaning.  Creative science lies somewhere between the balance point and #4 where the evaluation of the truth of beliefs is ideally being tested in the crucible of empirical observation.  The area between #4 and #5 is intended to represent those rare phenomenological traditions that require mature contemplation and that eventually drop the reliance upon belief systems altogether and pursue the nature of "pure" experience. 
	And obviously the range of conservatism and empirical commitment varies enormously among individual scientists.  When I place science between #3 and #4, I am generalizing about creative scientists, and not about the numerous members of the scientific community who call themselves "scientists" and who merely do what they were taught to do and who are not actually creative.  It is my impression that most of the creative science is carried out by a fraction of the individuals that call themselves "scientists."  As Kuhn (1977) and others have pointed out, creative science proceeds as well as it does only against the resistance visited by the inherent cultural natures of the people making up the scientific community.  Indeed, the dialectic that produces creative science depends upon the tension between the "effort after meaning" and the "effort after truth."  Merely creative science respects the zone of uncertainty inevitably generated by any system of knowledge.  Leading edge, creative science seeks to expand the zone of uncertainty so as to generate the maximum amount of paradox and question.
CAN SCIENCE BETTER INFORM THE LIFE-WORLD?
	In conclusion, assuming what I have said about the metaphysical foundations of science is an accurate picture, let us now ask if this ironic situation may be minimized or eliminated by future science?  In my opinion, the answer is a qualified "yes."  After all, the limitations I have discussed are largely tacit cultural loadings upon the metaphysical foundations of scientific explanation.  And culture can be changed.  Within the limitations suggested by a biogenetic structural theory of knowledge, it is entirely possible for the schism between scientific explanation and the life-world of people effected by science to be greatly reduced  -- under certain conditions, of course.
	There are numerous signs that some disciplines within science and philosophy are tending in that direction.  Apart from the obvious concern of the contributors to this volume, the signs include an increasing emphasis upon interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge, an expanding reflexiveness on the part of disciplines and self-reflection on the part of many scientists, a return to the concerns of cosmology and systematic philosophy, a greater appreciation of the role of phenomenology, and a growing transpersonal movement.  For example, developments in the philosophy of science continue to be away from ideological views of science (represented by logical positivism) and toward empirical studies of how science and scientists actually operate (see Suppe 1989, Toulmin 1982, Rubinstein, Laughlin and McManus 1984).  Elsewhere in philosophy there is both a return to a serious consideration of systematic metaphysics and cosmology (for example, in the process metaphysics of Whitehead; Lucas 1989) and an increasing interest in phenomenology (Ihde 1986). 
	In science itself there is a greater awareness that the act of observation influences the results of experimentation and field research (see Michael Scriven in this volume).  This is notable in quantum mechanics (Zurek, van der Merve and Miller 1988) and the more recent chaos theory (Gleick 1987) in the physical sciences, and in the postmodern critique of the social sciences (Woodiwiss 1990, Lash 1990).  And there is a small, but growing and significant interest in transpersonalism in the sciences; that is, in what extraordinary states of consciousness have to teach us about ourselves, the world, and our accrual of knowledge (Wilber 1980, 1983, Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990, Harmon 1988, 1991).  There are also indications that science is producing new, more holistic and experientially accurate models of causation (e.g., see Willis Harmon, this volume, and Roger Sperry 1987, this volume; see also Bohm 1980).
Toward a Self-Aware Science
	Science has not been particularly reflexive over the course of its history.  Science has progressed, when it has progressed at all, more from the inherent creative drive of human sentience than from any real understanding of how creativity operates.  In other words, like intentionality, ampliation of movement, internal time consciousness and other such essential attributes of consciousness, creativity in the production of knowledge is "already there" for consciousness.  Creativity is inherent in the neurognostic structure of the nervous system.  Indeed, if Whitehead (1978, Rapp and Wiehl 1990) is correct, creativity is ubiquitous to the nature of the universe.  A fundamental error that scientists have made for generations is to reify their conceptual models of the "scientific method" upon their experience of the transcendental fact of their creativity. 
	Bringing awareness to bear on scientific consciousness and activity can only help to alleviate the conditions that produce the bifurcation of nature.  Therefore, any activity that increases the self-awareness of people qua scientists will have the inevitable effect of decreasing the gap between scientific knowledge and the life-world.  Any disciplined approach to self-awareness inevitably brings the contemplative in direct touch with their own life-world and its essential structures -- including the truth of totality.  A good example here is Arne Naess' (1989:28, Devall 1985:65-77) distinction between the fragmentary world view produced by the "shallow ecology" movement in science with its concern for solving particular problems (e.g., polution, erosion, resource deprivation, food distribution, etc.) and the "deep ecology" movement marked by the intuitive awareness of the totality of existence and the transformation of consciousness and lifestyle produced by that intuition.  The former focuses on rational problem-solving, the latter in a radical transformation of the individual life-world.
	If disciplined contemplation is carried out over the course of years, a process of maturation may occur in self-awareness not unlike that of the "seasoning" that occurs in any other occupation (e.g., cooking, carpentry, atomic physics, philosophy, etc.).  The awareness of the structures of one's own experience involves the interpenetration of sensory and cognitive networks within conscious network, just as does any other act of intentionality.  Let us remind ourselves of this fact with the Two Hands Clapping Model (see Figure 6):

                              X
      Intentional Processes   5   Structures of Sensory 
      (awareness, cognition,  5   Processing (form, ampliation,
      affect, arousal, etc.)  5   temporal epochs, etc.)                Directed at Conscious-  5
      ness                    5
                              5
                              5
                              5     "now" point                                                 5            
           S))))))))))))))))))J)))))))))))))))))))Q 

                          Life-World
                         (Experience)  

Figure 6.  	The Two Hands Clapping Model of Self-Awareness.  The contemplative grows in self-knowledge as a result of studying the structures of experience operating in each moment of consciousness.  Maturing self-knowledge changes the life-world, even as it is being studied.

	The overall effect of contemplation upon scientific consciousness is signified by the ancient motif of the snake eating its own tail -- the uroboros.  Self-awareness alters the neural entrainments in the brain of the self-aware.  We must always remember that the nervous system is made up of living cells, not microchips.  The living cells that comprise neural networks will reorganize themselves around any new tasks placed before them.  To redirect the intentional processes of the brain toward their own activities is to set a new and challenging adaptation before the society of cells comprising these processes, and they will eventually reorganize themselves in order to master the demands of the inquiry.  In becoming self-aware, one transforms that process within one of which one is aware, including eventually the intentional structures themselves.  
The Advantages of a Contemplative Scientist
	Because we have elsewhere discussed the various advantages of, and resistances to incorporating mature contemplation into science (see Laughlin 1989, Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:296-333), I will only briefly suggest here a few advantages as they relate to the topic of this volume.  I predict that there will continue to be an increasing incorporation of mature contemplation into science, and that this merger of contemplation and science will have at least the following general effects:
	1.  Pre-scientific mind-body dualism will be alleviated.  Direct experience of the totality of ones being tends to eliminate views of an absolute distinction between the mind and the body.  Direct experiences of the unity of being produce dramatic and paradoxical data before a consciousness conditioned by a natural attitude characterized by mind-body dualism.  As the natural attitude changes to become harmonious with experience, beliefs and scientific theories based upon that natural attitude become perceived as "unreal" and untenable.  
	2.  Consciousness will be understood to be transcendental.  The contemplative can no longer take consciousness for granted.  Consciousness is directly experienced as having a determining influence upon phenomena, their context and their relations.  How one views the world depends upon the state of consciousness within which the world arises for the subject.  What the contemplative understands by concepts like "objective," "observe," "empirical," etc. may undergo considerable shift in meaning.  Any notion that naive realism is an accurate representation of the real world apart from our observation of it becomes self-evidently absurd.  Consciousness itself (and its cognized environment) becomes an indispensable ingredient of any theoretical stance relative to the operational environment.
	3.  Causation will be understood to be transcendental.  As the contemplative experiences the dissolution of the mind-body schism and gets more "in touch" with their transcendental being, and as the contemplative comes to appreciate the integral part played by consciousness in the construction of the life-world, the contemplative's understanding of causation becomes likewise changed.  The contemplative's model of causation comes to more and more approximate that encountered in the life-world.  Indeed, causation itself may become the object of study.  In some contemplative traditions, the adept is given a set of exercises specifically designed to develop awareness of causation (see Kalupahana 1975 on Buddhist practice).
	4.  The discrepancy between scientific models of causation and life-world causation will be eliminated, as will be the fiction of the independence of objects.  When awareness of causation by the contemplative sufficiently matures, two transformations of comprehension may occur.  In the first place, there will no longer exist for the contemplative qua scientist a serious discrepancy between models of causation in scientific explanations and meaningful causation as encountered in the life-world.  The former becomes the result of adumbration of and extensive abstraction from the latter.  The contemplative qua scientist ceases to reify abstract models of causation that are disharmonious with causation experienced in the life-world.  In the second place, the contemplative qua scientist no longer takes as true the naive realist's belief that objects exist independently of each other, and that causation only occurs among spatiotemporally proximate objects.  In keeping with the lesson of quantum physics, the lesson of mature contemplation is that the process of experiencing a noumenon involves causation at multiple levels between the observer and the observed, and may occur over considerable distances and durations (on this issue, see Arthur Zajonc in this volume).
	5.  The insights and findings of contemplation qua science will become grounded in the neurosciences instead of traditional ideology.  With the rapid development of interdisciplinary neuroscience, there now exists the possibility of combining phenomenological explorations and insights with what we are coming to know about the structures and functions of the nervous system.  As I have argued elsewhere (Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:13-14), contemplative discoveries about the essential structures of consciousness and neuroscientific discoveries about the structures of the nervous system may be considered as two views of the same transcendental reality.  My prediction is that when mature contemplation becomes combined with the neurosciences, the resulting neurophenomenology will constitute the most powerful approach yet to the study of consciousness.
The Essential Tension
	I have given a qualified "yes" to the question of whether the dualism between scientific explanation and the life-world of people can be bridged.  But as we have seen, the cycle of meaning operating to produce meaning in the life-world, and that operating to produce creative science, are not grounded on the same principle.  The former is the result of the "effort after meaning" and the latter the result of the "effort after truth."  In some respects the requirements for creative science are antithetical to the conservative nature of belief systems.  Indeed, creative science often requires a welter of paradox and anomaly.  Thus, as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Imre Lakotos and others have so ably shown, the production of creative science is inherently a revolutionary process.  Creative science really depends upon the maintenance of an "essential tension" (Kuhn 1977:225-239) between the conservative need for certainty and meaning in peoples' life-worlds on the one hand, and the radical demands of the pursuit of truth on the other hand.  
	An example of the kind of paradox that eventually results in paradigm-transforming theory in science is that produced by the lengthy series of experiments carried out by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne (1987, this volume) on the influence of consciousness upon the performance of machines.  The results of these experiments appear to demonstrate both causation at a distance and backwards causation.  No current general theory of spacetime can fully explain these paradoxical data.  These data thus stand as a challenge to our understanding of both mind and world.
	As long as human beings inherently struggle for meaning in their lives, and continue to cling to their world views in order to maintain a meaningful life-world, there will always be some bifurcation and tension between the world according to science and the life-world of people -- even among scientists.  As I have argued, the human brain tends to creodize its comprehension and responses to the operational environment; it tends toward the "hardening of the categories," if you will pardon a trite phrase.  As I have taken pains to show, novelty challenges creodic acts, and is thus threatening to conservative systems of knowledge.
	This tension can be (and I predict will be) alleviated by eliminating some of the unconscious aspects of the pre-scientific natural attitude of scientists, and thus some of the tacit cognitive underpinnings of the metaphysical foundations of science.  But as long as some humans insist upon pushing outwards into the zone of uncertainty beyond the point where knowledge readily produces comfy, conservative meaning in the life-world, there will always exist some tension between these polarized fulfilments of intentionality and their institutional expressions in culture and society.

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NOTES