How Do We Incorporate Non-Linearity Into The Scientific Method?
Before we discuss non-linearity, we need to understand what linearity is and how it shows up in the scientific method.
Current scientific method protocol:
Observation: Notice something in the natural world
Question: Ask a question about the observation
Hypothesis: Form a testable explanation or prediction
Experiment: Design and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis
Analyze data: Compare the results of the experiment to the hypothesis
Iterate: Shift experimental protocol, apparatus, etc. to re-evaluate or double check results
Draw conclusions: Decide if the hypothesis was correct and summarize the findings
This is a wonderful setup, and as someone with a background in STEM, I have great respect for this protocol. Replicability and efficacy is key in delivering scientific results.
I want to focus on the experimentation/iteration piece. When we design and construct an experiment to analyze data and results, we are working with linear time. What is linear time? A construct of past —> present —> future. While entropy presents a solid case for measuring the arrow of time, let’s incorporate some discussion around esoteric wisdom around consciousness:
Brahman = super-intelligent embodiment of everything that is, undifferentiated knowledge, universal set of consciousness which pervades the cosmos
Atman = your highest self which exists outside of spacetime, a fractal finite subset of Brahman
Maya = illusion; makes us experience reality linearly.
When tackling experimentation in consciousness studies, we often make the mistake of applying the same experimental structure that is applicable in systems where isolation, reduction of external factors, decoupling, etc. come naturally in 3D reality, where entropy clearly follows an arrow of time, but consciousness does not. Consciousness, as a field, may not follow entropy, but the biological apparatus that filters consciousness does.
Reality-Based Disorders™ are a perfect bridge between non-linear effects and linear experimentation and why scientific rigor can drop off here. We are constantly in search for a physical answer that aligns with current devices and human perception, which aims to be deterministic. Scientists know that nothing works in absolutes. Our answers are only as good as the probabilistic range they land in. We may never have a way of knowing every angle of a situation. And that’s okay.
Considering caring for individuals suffering the negative experiences of schizophrenia seems to be a deep pull in my soul, I want to walk you through my vision with me.
Imagine floating in the cosmic ether, with an infinitely large plane in front of you, presenting as a wall. Behind this wall is the super-complex beast that is schizophrenia. We are trying trying trying to break this wall so we can finally see the beast on the other side and take it down. Mind you, we appear as tiny dots in front of this wall. Now, after trying with all our might to break this wall down, we are able to puncture a hole in it and see something on the other side. We cheer at being able to figure things out, forgetting that we punctured a hole that was the size of our eye level—a dot, forgetting that this wall is infinitely big, and forgetting that because this wall is infinitely large, we have no way to really go on the other side to confirm that there’s more to the story.
Punching a hole in the wall here represents stopping at pharmaceuticals and western diagnostics of arbitrary symptoms designed to categorize individuals into whole groups, when it is a hybrid of collective symptoms + individual vibrational diagnostics.
The wall here represents how we get stuck at going beyond the human consciousness spectrum, which I liken to the visible light spectrum, but for how we can encode environmental data. There are just some things we cannot determine purely through our five senses, and my concern is that we dumb down the cosmos rather than work to expand our consciousness. Reality doesn’t need to always meet us, sometimes we need to meet reality.
The beast on the other side is schizophrenia or any seemingly complex and horrifying consciousness-related ailment beyond our current scientific understanding of reality which lacks completeness.
This wall is also solid to one who approaches it with purely linear, left-brained scientific inquiry, but it would dissolve with psychedelics, near death experiences, tantric practices, etc. Our current mindset would make us believe we have to either break this wall or find a way to get to the other side, but it seems that this wall mirrors our consciousness back to us. If we let our egos dissolve in our approach, so does the wall.
Remember when I brought up Atman and Brahman? Those definitions are related to consciousness, which we still don’t have a proper defined meaning for in Western science, and is yet still a part of our lived experience, but often dismissed because it is constituted by an inner subjective experience. If every living entity is experiencing this inner subjectivity, is that not objective enough to study properly? The challenge is how scientific experimentation can validate Atman while still operating under the constraints of Maya. According to tantra philosophy, vibration precedes physical manifestation and consciousness is directly linked to cosmology, which we know alters in spacetime, so why are we acting as if consciousness behaves on PURELY PHYSICAL linear time?
An argument for including non-linearity into scientific experimentation:
The Buddhist philosophy of Pratītyasamutpāda suggests dependent origination, which means nothing arises independently in this world. Everything is interconnected. I’m currently reading Quantum Reality and the Theory of Śūnya (fantastic book by the way, HIGHLY underrated), which is where this topic was discussed. The two most fascinating links to this were:
How deeply Pratītyasamutpāda resembles quantum mechanics’ non-separatability theory (a property of quantum systems in which the states of individual particles cannot be described independently of one another)
Nāgārjuna, an Indian monk and Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school [Wikipedia], explaining dependent origination through the example of refuting the idea that an acorn causes the growth of an oak tree. This argument explicitly denies cause-and-effect as part of reality, suggesting that is more of a human illusion. It is not necessarily the acorn alone causing the growth, but also the soil, animals grazing, rain cycle, people walking around, and by looking at the oak tree and saying the root was the acorn, you reject and dishonor the interdependence of anything in this world.
I like to think of interdependence as nodes on a grid/graph—where the nodes represent everything that exists in the world and the grid lines represent the connections to one another. If you pick any node and pluck it out of the grid, the surrounding nodes will also fall down, causing a exponentially rippling effect of nodes surrounding now multiple nodes falling off. Crazy to think about how every little thing is important, because if we went far enough with the domino effect of this example, everything in that whole world dissolves. This isn’t just some surface-level platitude. This is rediscovering reality.
What does this have to do with non-linearity?
Cause-and-effect is also a form of linear thinking. We cannot truly isolate a system, and we cannot truly account for every factor affecting apparatus. Normally, this is fine, because following phonon behavior in solid-state physics/condensed matter physics, the density of a system locks in the reality of something in our 3D environment (like an apple), which outpaces and outinfluences any quantum fluctuations and their effects. This is not the case for consciousness. As an emergent property of the universal field of consciousness (Brahman) and building upon my assumption that the brain is a filter, not a generator, of consciousness, consciousness may heavily be interacting with the quantum field, which does not follow the human metric of linear time. Quantum mechanics allows for a particle to be in a superposition of states, meaning it can exist in multiple locations or with multiple speeds at the same time. This can lead to a phenomenon called "quantum time dilation" where a particle in a superposition experiences a different rate of time compared to a classical particle.
So how do we successfully incorporate non-linearity?
Right now, I can’t give you an exact answer. This is part of my ongoing research and self-experimentation. What I will say is that I focus on results. I would need to design experiments that are multi-directional rather than sequential, which may need to include probabilistic retrocausality (the idea that future measurements affect past events, which is hinted at in quantum mechanics). I have seen the completeness that Non-dual Shaiva Tantra philosophy, sound healing, and somatic therapy provide outside of left-brained talk therapy, which only helped until almost all narratives were healed out of me (remember, human beings are literally learning machines, and being taught skills in therapy, when approached with mindfulness, enables you to recursively self-heal). For all this talk that society has about dismissing spiritualists who put in as much, if not more, of their souls, minds, bodies, and hearts into helping people, there sure aren’t people who are willing to put into the work of dismissing or proving their theories. What is pseudoscience? There’s only what’s been proven/disproven and not proven/disproven…yet.
That’s the beauty of science.
That’s the beauty of establishing a new frontier.
It is endless. It is limitless. It is magic.
And I don’t plan on ever giving up on discovering the truth.