Lately I’ve been reading Michael Grosso’s 1986 book The Final Choice: Playing the Survival Game. It’s an interesting overview of psi phenomena, afterlife evidence, and millenarian predictions. Grosso makes an effort to tie together several different strands of thought and ends up with an intriguing holistic interpretation.
One section that I found particularly worthwhile was Chapter 3, “Sketch of a Science of Transcendence,” in which Grosso makes the case for what has been called Mind at Large.
He begins by suggesting that psi exists mainly to help us navigate a nonphysical realm, and not to navigate the space-time universe:
If the function of psi is essentially otherworldly, then we need not be surprised how transient and marginal an effect we find it to be in this world. In this world, we normally rely upon the sensory-motor system for engaging the environment. Despite some evidence that occasionally psi serves the needs of the organism — sometimes without conscious awareness — its day-to-day survival value in the terrestrial struggle for existence seems to be slight by comparison with our bodily senses….
Gardner Murphy, the great American psychologist, wondered why, on Darwinian principles, living organisms did not develop increasing psi ability, which would obviously be of great survival value. For instance, an animal could escape a predator. If psi ability were genetically coded, moreover, we would expect natural selection to work toward a growing incidence of psi function, at least among some favored species. But there is no evidence of psi becoming a biologically stronger function….
Murphy suggests that there are two modes in which an organism is capable of functioning: one, the sensory mode, in space and time; another, the psi mode, independently of time of space and time. In the deeper psi mode, the paranormal is the normal, but this could only be a mode in which the sensory mode were suspended or, as in death, superseded. The psi that appears fitfully and elusively in the terrestrial environment would be the essential mediator of the transcendent environment.
In other words, psi comes into its own in the postmortem phase of existence. It is therefore a pre-adaptive function with limited utility during the stage of biological life. A little later, Grosso expands on the idea of pre-adaptation, defined as:
… the emergence of structures before they are used…. Consider, for instance, the mesosaurs which apparently never left the water, showing that the development of the amniote egg was not an adaptation for living on land but emerged before there was any need for it…. [Other examples are cited.] Indeed, as one of the great experts on the biology of amphibians, G. Kingsley Noble, says: "A detailed analysis of the many 'marvelous adaptations' in the Amphibia will reveal … that in most cases the modification arose before the function."
If such pre-adaptations are genuine, we could hardly account for them by natural selection. They look rather like expressions of a plan, as if they were produced for the sake of future use. Now our problem has been to account for psi ability in terms of evolution. What I wish to propose is that we think of psi ability as a pre-adaptive "structure" or "organ." Of course, these latter terms cannot be taken literally, since there is no evidence that psi functioning is anatomically based; thus only by analogy may we speak of psychic structures or organs.
As a side note, I would point out that many biologists argue that these modifications do serve a function when they are introduced, even if it is not the function they later acquire. For instance, the feathers of the archaeopteryx, not used for flying, may have been used to sweep up insects as food. The idea of pre-adaptation is controversial and may be invalid; the jury is still out.
In any case, pre-adaptation is not the only challenge to the natural selection theory as a comprehensive explanation of biological development. Grosso writes:
The English biologist, John Randall, has made several bold and comprehensive hypotheses concerning the parapsychology of life. Randall's overall strategy is as follows: first, he reviews problems in biological theory which Darwinian orthodoxy cannot handle. Second, experimental evidence is cited for the influence of psi on living systems. Third, a transcendent side factor — Randall calls it Mind at Large — is advanced as a hypothesis to account for aspects of life neglected by the orthodox view.
The possible role of psi in evolution is indicated when we consider that mutations may arise from single microphysical events. In the words of von Bertalanffy: "As can be shown by mathematical analysis of the experiments, one single hit into the sensitive zone of the gene suffices to cause a mutation. Therefore, the induction of mutations is subject to the statistical law of microphysics." This increases the theoretical plausibility of psi-induced mutation; psi might act on the "sensitive zones" in a gene.
Grosso, following Randall, summarizes the intractable problems in biology as the origin of life (abiogenesis) and the origin of species (macroevolution). Abiogenesis is simply not understood; so far, all attempts at formulating a theory have failed. (See Robert Shapiro’s book Origins.) Macroevolution arguably is not explained by neo-Darwinism, which accounts for relatively minor variations (microevolution) but not for wholesale changes requiring a large number of favorable mutations that occur almost simultaneously.
Grosso goes on:
Given the gaps in mechanistic biology and the experimental evidence that psi influences living systems, Randall states: "There is at least a possibility that parapsychology has discovered the missing factor needed to construct a general theory of life." Randall outlines several postulates for a general theory of life. The most fundamental and radical is that of a psi-factor he calls Mind at Large. Mind at Large is the transpersonal aspect of mind; it is distinct from but able to interact with matter. Although our individual minds are constantly interacting with their own bodies, Mind at Large does not normally interact with matter. Normally, matter behaves in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Though living organisms are self-regulating on a routine basis, Mind at Large intervenes a critical junctures: for instance, the origin of life, the development of new and higher species, instances of "paranormal" healing and in other circumstances where we observe psi at work. For Randall, this hypothesis is a kind of neo-vitalism empirically backed by the data of parapsychology …
Randall … makes it clear that Mind that Large is not identical with the traditional Western idea of God, which implies perfection. Randall's transcendent mind is more like an experimental artist-God who makes mistakes and scratches them out, discovering what it creates as it goes along. At least we can say that Mind that Large is mind; and minds are the kinds of process said to be conscious and to have purpose and intelligence. While it would no doubt be a mistake to anthropomorphize this Mind Factor and suppose that its mode of consciousness, purpose and intelligence were merely an enlarged replica of our own, we may take some comfort in the thought that being mental, it may be possible to engage Mind at Large in some type of meaningful dialogue.
Coming back to psi’s biological utility (or lack thereof), Grosso asks,
… if psi is a reality, why is it not exploited in the struggle for existence? If Randall is right, the answer is that organisms, though originally expressive of psi-mediated information, normally work like self-regulating machines. Psi may indeed come into play in the struggle for existence under special circumstances. But its overall function, if I understand Randall, is to direct and oversee the upward thrust of the evolutionary process and to maintain the total balance and ecology of life….
The function of psi may be to mediate the origin, evolution and regulation of life, though the sheer maintenance of life, the conservative mechanisms, would be governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. Since the mass of observable life processes is conservative, mechanists can suppose they hold the key to all of life, as long as they ignore the discontinuities, the puzzles of creativity and the paranormal.
From here, Grosso transitions to the issue of life after death.
Puzzling survival data complement puzzling data about the origin and evolution of life. Mechanism fails to account for certain features of the terminal phase of biological existence, just as it fails to account for certain features of the originating phases of biological existence. Psi-oriented theories of life concur in referring to an overall plan, template, original impetus and directedness of life. The survival hypothesis calls attention to the farthermost reach of an overall plan and directedness: the struggle of life to become radically independent of the physical environment as such.
This struggle reaches its climax when the organism dies. In the survival hypothesis, death is simply a transition to a new nonphysical environment, and it is this environment in which psi will come into its own. In this sense, psi is a pre-adaptive function, one that comes pre-installed but achieves its full utility only after death. Grosso:
My guess is that psi ability is oriented toward adaptation of a new ecological environment, an environment that Telhard de Chardin christened the Noosphere….
At the … postmortem layer of the Noosphere, the purely noogenetic component of organisms, now extricated from the machinery of the physical world, would rely wholly on psi, the pre-adaptive "organ" or function now essential for a new mind-dependent ecology. This particular view of the role of psi in nature is compatible with the pre-adaptive nature of psi in our ordinary terrestrial existence, the fact that we don't need it to survive as biological organisms. It would also account for survival data now understood as reflecting interactions with the postmortem "layer" of the Noosphere. The present hypothesis might also explain why certain types of behavior are psi-conducive, that is, the inverse of behaviors oriented toward survival in the biosphere….
Living organisms are normally self-regulating and have efficient sensory-motor equipment for coping with the terrestrial environment. An unusual increase of psi capacity would disrupt routine performance. It is easy to imagine how a sudden influx of psi would disoriented organism. Too much information can be as confusing as too little.
The confusion would extend further than the individual. If there is a master plan or cosmic intelligence acting upon the biosphere, it probably wouldn't permit the untrammeled use of psi among living organisms. Untrammeled psi would wreak havoc on the ecological system. For instance, if large numbers of animals could use psi to escape their predators, the great food chain of natural being would be broken…. The suggestion, then, is that restraints upon psi ability are built into the ecological system, which explains the elusive, marginal, unharnessable and doggedly unlearnable character of psi. Yet psi does erupt into terrestrial experience. But under what conditions? If there is anything to our hypothesis, those conditions are apt to be transbiological. Conditions disruptive of normal biological functioning that reduced attention to life might tend to release restraints on side ability. The most dramatic instance of this discerption from biological functioning is being near death.
Hence the reports of near-death experiences, and the efforts of mystical ascetics to overcome the body’s natural demands for food, sex, and pleasure in order to bring on a kind of voluntary near-death state. Grosso oberves that:
… the compulsion to survive as a bodily organism apparently blocks our inlets to transcendent psi. Most researchers agree that excessive striving and egocentric effort tighten the filter and squeeze off access to our psi-potential. We have heard similar things from spiritual teachers: he who struggles to save his life will lose it; he who is willing to give it up for the sake of God or the Higher Cause may save it.
The author sums up:
The creative psi factor, Mind at Large, the transcendent field we postulate would (1) account for the origin and evolution of life and (2) explain, in a peculiar sense, the data of spiritual experiences….
The hypothesis of transcendence will also (3) cover data indicative of postmortem survival. We would now assume that some survival data — hauntings and apparitions, mediumistic phenomena, reincarnation memories — express genuine interactions with inhabitants of Minded Large. Finally, psi would (4) make sense as a pre-adaptive function destined to unfold truly in the postmortem Noosphere.
There can be no single argument or crucial experiment to decide if this synoptic view is correct. I recommend it as a way of looking at several sets of problematic phenomena and as an incentive to further survival research.