The Problem of Unconscious Bias in Need of Research Partnerships

The problem of bias and bigotry is related deeply to human cognition. There is no doubt significant overt bigotry, but there is also a whole lot of covert bigotry. According to eminent social psychologist researching racial bigotry, Jennifer Eberhardt of Stanford (Eberhardt, 2020), implicit bias becomes explicit without our awareness particularly in times of hurry or stress.

My experience of genocide and identity savagery resulting from interreligious bigotry at the time of the Indian partition in 1947 has shown me how critical the problem can be for peace and harmony in the world. There have been inquisitions, crusades, jihads, and world wars caused by our unconscious biases.

My lifelong search for a possible solution to the problem of interreligious bigotry has brought me to an understanding that the problem of bigotry in general lies in our unconscious fear of the other. Fear is a fundamental existential mindset. Survival being fundamental to life, life simply cannot exist without fear. It must be addressed in a hurry.

To the extent that we can address the problems of fear, hurry, and stress, we can address the problem of our unconscious biases. It underlies our physical, mental, learning, and executive function disorders. Addressing any one of these problems sets the stage for addressing them all.

A look at the evolution of life on planet earth shows that our cognition is rooted in the brain of primitive single-cell life forms beginning 3.4 billion years ago (Godwin and Cham 2014). Life came from matter, which in turn came from an infinite and infinitesimal field of nondifferentiation, termed spirit by the wisdom of ancient sacred literature and energy by science; the words may be different, but the essence is not. Just as interiority and

exteriority constitute an inseparable unity, mind and body and their principles, namely consciousness and energy, do too. Thus, where there is body on the exterior, there is mind in the interior. Where there is energy, there is consciousness; where there is a body, there is a mind.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). Earth is the metaphor for body and heaven for mind. Ineffable ultimate reality of Rig Veda is an inseparable unity of two principles: primordial energy, the principle of matter and consciousness, the principle of mind. Energy is defined by activity while its consort, consciousness by inactivity, steadfastness or stability.

There is no life without activity or energy. Rig Veda sees primordial energy as a balance of three attributes: activity dominance, it’s polar opposite inactivity dominance and activity- stability balance (Talwar, 2019, pp. 108-112). The first implies too much life happening automatically without any consideration at high speed, the second lifelessness, while the last, a desirable balance of activity and steadfastness.

Survival is central to life, while it is irrelevant to matter. Sustenance and procreation are implicit in survival. Single-cell organisms, or simply cells, each comprising a large number of atoms, are the building blocks of life in the same way as minuscule atoms are the building blocks of matter.

The brain of the single-cell microorganism was limited to survival, sustenance, and procreation programmed by nature in its phylogenetic memory. This preprogramming by nature of the mind of life defines its inbuilt natural instincts.

In time, cells learned to self-organize into physical systems, leading to multicellular life  forms such as little creatures. Then, nonmammalian animals with multiple abilities arrived around 2.8 billion years ago. In animals, the unconscious faculty grows to develop a subconscious dimension of emotions and identity. Simple sustenance and procreation develop into likes and dislikes, strengthening in time to become appetites, habits, cravings, and addictions on one side and biases, aversions, detestations, and hatred on the other. In  addition, simple survival grows into herd identity. Stimuli related to subconscious emotions and herd identity demand an immediate response.

Growth of the tree of planetary life from a seedlike microorganism is thus accompanied by a growth in the consciousness of the mind or brain as well. It took 3.2 billion years for consciousness of mind to evolve enough to begin creating a fully conscious faculty.  Then, mammals started to appear on the planet around 200 million years ago. Humans are mammals too. We started to arrive only 200,000 years ago. That is the history of our mind. Its unconscious faculty is 3.4 billion years old and its subconscious is around 2.8 billion years old, while the fully conscious human faculty has a history of only 200,000 years. In this light, it is no wonder that the conscious faculty of our mind is easily overcome by its unconscious and subconscious faculties, whose history stretches more than a million times longer.

The human condition of hurry noted above results from our inbuilt survival instincts which drive our behaviour in an instantaneous and immediate manner. In physiological terms, they are responsible for our sympathetic dominance (Sherwood Lauralee, 2013), a state of our autonomic nervous system in which the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is relatively more active than its parasympathetic counterpart. For health and wellness, we need to strike a desirable balance between both the divisions. This balance is termed autonomic stability. It is a modern expression of the Vedic a balance of activity and steadfastness.

Studying the physical biomarkers of sympathetic dominance can show us physical ways of addressing the problems it creates. Dr. Walter Cannon (Cannon W. B., 1929), (Cannon W. , 1932) and Dr. Herbert Benson (Benson & Klipper, 2000), both medical researchers at Harvard, led the way. We need to follow the trail they blazed as medical doctors in our areas of investigation.

According to Carl Gustav Jung (Jung: The Man and His Symbols), “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” An example of making the unconscious conscious is the age-old practice of conscious breathing. Breathing is an autonomic activity which lends itself to conscious regulation (Herrero, Khuvis, Yeagle, Cerf, & Mehta, 2018). Our nervous system is built in such a way that conscious regulation of breath regulates all the autonomic functions of our body and mind. Conscious breathing leads to mental calm, clarity, and friendliness in addition to health and wellness, outcomes which lend themselves to authentication with personal experimentation. It is the wisdom of Vedic system of yoga rediscovered by Gautama Buddha (Hanh, 1997). It has withstood the test of time by millions of practitioners but it was never subjected to rigorous academic inquiry without which it is not likely to be accepted and adopted by a critical mass of modern scientific minds.

conscious effort, we can learn to self-regulate our lives to exercise this dominion. The Bible advises us not to think only of good and evil, eating the fruit of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9). We just are unable to be good in the face of our compelling sympathetic dominance. It advises us to “take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Gen 3:22). In other words, we must also learn to be self-aware looking inwards and study the working of our own mind. Then, we can self- regulate our behaviour to exercise dominion over the unconscious and the subconscious.

In our effort to develop the definition of the problem

of unconscious bias and bigotry, we had recourse to many disciplines of knowledge. With over twenty years of full-time academic research and study, we have identified a body of knowledge integrating the wisdom of ancient sacred literature with modern natural sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We call this body of knowledge holistic science. A possible solution based upon this body of knowledge draws on the evidence of all three modern sciences and humanities as well as ancient spiritual science. As such, it has a good chance of validation with probing academic inquiry.

Figure 1 shows a visual representation of Holistic Science.

Figure 1  above is a visual representation of holistic science. Our research shows that holistic science can lead to one holistic solution of complex human problems such as disease, unhappiness, poverty, perpetual conflicts because of racial bias and interfaith bigotry, and environmental degradation.

The proposed project can be described as an inquiry, based upon a systems approach of interdisciplinary knowledge integration, into the working of our mindset determined by our phylogenetically inherited instincts and the strategies of conscious self-regulation of it for the individual and common good of humanity.

By enhancing society’s understanding of the causes and persistence of systemic racism and interfaith bias, we will help develop strategies to support greater justice and equity in the world.

For facilitation of partnerships on this project, email shivtalwar@spiritualeducation.org.

References

Benson, H., & Klipper, M. Z. (2000). The Relaxation Response. New York: Harper. Cannon, W. (1932). Wisdom of the Body. W.W. Norton & Company.

Cannon, W. B. (1929). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts.

Eberhardt, J. (2020). Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do. London: Penguin Books.