Hacking a wider path into deeper consciousness

trying to widen the ancient mystic’s lonely path into a super highway

I’m not convinced.

But I acknowledge that the revealing and well written New York Times article called How to Hack Your Brain (for $5,000) is my only insight into this movement called FLOW. I also spent a little time on the website, The Flow Genome Project.

“Flow,” is associated with six neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, norepinephrine, anandamide and endorphins. Knowing the neurochemical profile of flow means, in theory, people can devise ways of achieving it more often, more reliably and more quickly.

The new generation of flowsters are excited, perhaps, that using the advances of neuroscience, they might not have to meditate every day for 10 years to gain access to these layers of their brains.

I started my practices in martial arts in 1990. While I certainly understand the anxiety-inducing, fragmenting pressures of our current lifestyles, and the growing desire to ‘peak experience’ our productivity, success and wealth via things like Flow, flow dojos, micro-dosing, or even DNA tweaks, this approach strikes me as potentially misguided.

It is likely resonating because it’s appealing to people who are genuinely in search of ways to improve themselves, sometimes out of desperation. It all seems a bit breathless, though. Sugar highs are always suspect when it comes to spirituality and consciousness.

“They are tapping into spiritual intelligence that before now was only really talked about in a religious context.” — Kristen Ulmer, sitting outside the Dojo Dome one morning.

Realizations that can occur during Flow Dojo camps and by adopting ‘brain hacking’ practices like these, simply will not yield the same results and realizations obtained during consistent, lifelong mind-training practices. Despite the charms of the latest savvy gurus, there are no short cuts for the so-called long term ‘work.’ To the rational, intelligent man or woman who sincerely adopts a serious retrofitting of the nervous system, I suggest you’ll reach a point when you question the point. Then again, if the point is all about you than maybe that’s the entire point, right there.

To be fair, we are in urgent need of ways to address the desperate global social issues facing us, including the immense stench and horror of despicably concentrated wealth, and the time bomb called global warming. It is clear that many current approaches and practices have failed and will continue to fail. The status quo is past its expiration date. The dominos keep falling just as reliably as the wealthy who keep jetting off to their glorious third, fourth or fifth home.

It is clear that the single Hero of the past is no longer sufficient to get us there. The Hero can’t do the heavy lift alone. In part because his/her inner journey travels a narrow, solitary and unmarked path. We need super highways instead. That being said, how do we achieve this elevation in consciousness without also giving into the greed, selfishness and self serving interests that have dominated us so far?

I will suggest a solution. A solution based on experiences. Deeply subjective experiences, undertaken objectively.

Moving the bar toward a deeper experience

A deep, inner experience can be life-changing at a very fundamental level. We see glimpses of this in Near Death Experience (NDE) accounts, psychedelic usage, and from the tales of the ancient sages and mystics.

But let’s fast forward and assume we have truly found ways to make all this far more accessible. With a sufficiently deep glimpse or experience, one that is capable of providing a deeply motivating and life-changing insight, each individual could then go about studying further as well as doing their life’s work.

What is your life’s work? Well, for one thing, in my opinion, it is not a guess. Some of us might consider guessing to be a function of intuition. And maybe it is. But it leaves us with maybes: Maybe I guessed it, but maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’m kind of on target, but maybe not dead center.

The deeper experience will reveal what the deeper work really is. In a sense, that’s flow. What is your deeper work? That’s a reasonable question. In fact, what does the word ‘deeper’ actually mean? How deep is deep? What’s deep enough?

Talking shop with a quantum philosopher

Let’s be sustainable, and develop a far more holistic approach, one in which the mind and consciousness are not seen as the mere result of the brain in action, but that they proceed the brain.

In his article, Does Consciousness Cause Quantum Collapse? we are able to sit down at the table with Dr. Kelvin McQueen and talk shop about these things.

“The notion of ‘consciousness’ is poorly defined. The hypothesis cannot solve the measurement problem since ‘consciousness’ is as poorly defined as ‘measurement’. Accordingly, it cannot offer any new testable predictions.” — Kelvin McQueen, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Chapman University in California.

In the world of quantum physics, “the notion of consciousness” is so vexing, so “poorly defined” as to often be marginalized or ignored. Yet experiments and results don’t seem as ready to cooperate by hoisting up the white flag of surrender.

McQueen continues:

“The ‘consciousness causes quantum collapse’ hypothesis — at least when combined with modern neuroscience — is a viable theory of physical and mental reality, which offers a clear research program and distinctive experimental predictions. It proposes a solution to the measurement problem by defining when and where collapse occurs. And it provides a place for consciousness in nature by giving consciousness a causal role. Developing this theory may well enable us to answer even deeper questions; questions such as why consciousness causes collapse and why consciousness exists at all.”

Fundamental flow can’t really be hacked

If we want to effectively ‘life hack’ the brain, we need to expand our research to include the mind and to include consciousness. To suggest that ‘Flow’ is no more than a predictable biochemical brain mix is to ignore not only the role of the mind but also its proper seat, and to marginalize consciousness as nothing more than some kind of physical equation or outcome. That position, if widely adopted, will end up resulting in an extraordinarily ineffective hack, and the defining characteristics of ‘Flow’ will be deeply handicapped and flawed.

Additional reading: Can Science Explain Consciousness?