1 All Perceptions Are Reality by Dickasaurus

Worth a read – its an interesting take on issues all too often obfuscated by modernity’s tantalizing plate that is empty of values or meaning. I wish I had written it!

Triumph of the trivial life ·
John F. Schumaker · July 19, 2008

THE RESULTS of the cultural indoctrination stakes are not yet in but there is a definite trend — triviality leads, followed closely by superficiality and mindless distraction. Vanity looks great while profundity is bringing up the rear. Pettiness is powering ahead, along with passivity and indifference. Curiosity lost interest, wisdom was scratched and critical thought had to be put down. Ego is running wild. Attention span continues to shorten and no one is betting on survival.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Half a century ago, humanistic thinkers were heralding a great awakening that would usher in a golden age of enlightened living. People such as Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May and Viktor Frankl were laying the groundwork for a new social order distinguished by raised consciousness, depth of purpose and ethical refinement. This tantalising vision was the antithesis of our society of blinkered narcissists and hypnogogic materialists. Dumbness was not our destiny. Planetary annihilation was not the plan. By the 21st century, we were supposed to be the rarefied "people of tomorrow", inhabiting a sagacious and wholesome world.

Erich Fromm's 1955 tome, The Sane Society, signalled the debut of the one-dimensional "marketing character" — a robotic, all-consuming creature, "well-fed, well-entertained … passive, unalive and lacking in feeling".

But Fromm was also confident that we would avoid further descent into the fatuous. He forecast a utopian society based on "humanistic communitarianism" that would nurture our higher "existential needs".
In his 1961 book, On Becoming a Person, Carl Rogers wrote: "When I look at the world I am pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic." While acknowledging consumer culture's seductive dreamland of trinkets and desire, he believed that we — those "people of tomorrow" — would minister over a growth-oriented society, with "growth" defined as the full and positive unfolding of human potential.

We would be upwardly driven towards authenticity, social equality and the welfare of coming generations. We would revere nature, realise the unimportance of material things and hold a healthy scepticism about technology and science. An anti-institutional vision would enable us to fend off dehumanising bureaucratic and corporate authority as we united to meet our "higher needs".

One of the most famous concepts in the history of psychology is Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", often illustrated by a pyramid. Once widely accepted, it was also inspired by a faith in innate positive human potential. Maslow claimed that human beings naturally switch attention to higher-level needs (intellectual, spiritual, social, existential) once they have met lower-level material ones. In moving up the pyramid and "becoming", we channel ourselves towards wisdom, beauty, truth, love, gratitude and respect for life. Instead of a society that catered to and maintained the lowest common denominator, Maslow imagined one that prospered in the course of promoting mature, "self-actualised" individuals.

But something happened along the way. The pyramid collapsed. Human potential took a back seat to economic potential while self-actualisation gave way to self-absorption on a spectacular scale. A pulp culture flourished as the masses were successfully duped into making a home amid an ever-changing smorgasbord of false material needs.

Operating on the principle that triviality is more profitable than substance, and dedicating itself to unceasing material overkill, consumer culture has become a fine-tuned instrument for keeping people incomplete, shallow and dehumanised. Materialism continues to gain ground, even in the face of an impending eco-apocalypse.

Pulp culture is a feast of tinsel and veneer. The ideal citizen is an empty tract through which gadgets can pass quickly, largely undigested, so there is always space for more. Reality races by as a blur of consumer choices that never feel quite real. We know it as the fast lane and whip ourselves to keep apace.

Rollo May described it accurately in his 1953 book, Man's Search for Himself: "It's an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way." So it's largely business-as-usual even as the sky is falling.

Some critics did predict the triumph of the trivial. In his 1957 essay, A Theory of Mass Culture, Dwight MacDonald foresaw our "debased trivial culture that voids both the deep realities and also the simple spontaneous pleasures", adding that "the masses, debauched by several generations of this sort of thing, in turn come to demand trivial cultural products".

Today, the demand for triviality has never been higher and our tolerance for seriousness has never been lower.

In this dense fog the meaningful and meaningless can easily get reversed. Losers look like winners and the lofty and ludicrous get confused. The caption under a recent ad for men's underwear read: "I've got something that's good for your body, mind and soul." Fashion statements become a form of literacy; brand names father pride and celebrity drivel becomes compelling.

Not even God has been spared. Once a potent commander of attention and allegiance, God has been gelded into a sort of celestial lapdog who fetches our wishes for this-world success. Nothing is so great that it can't be reconceived or rephrased in order to render it insubstantial, non-threatening or — best of all — entertaining.

The age of trivialisation has left its mark on marriage, family and love. In a recent AC Nielsen survey, when asked to choose between spending time with their fathers and watching television, 54% of American four to six-year-olds chose television. The same study reported that American parents spend an average of 3.5 minutes a week in "meaningful conversation" with their children, while the children themselves watch 28 hours of television a week. To which we can add mobile phones, computer games and other techno-toys that are inducing a state of digital autism in our young people.

Out of this cock-up comes the most pressing question of our age. Can a highly trivialised culture, marooned between fact and fiction, dizzy with distraction and denial, elevate its values and priorities to respond effectively to the multiple planetary emergencies looming? Empty talk and token gestures aside, it doesn't appear to be happening.

Some of the great humanists felt that there are limits to a culture's ability to suppress our higher needs. They assumed that we are ethical creatures by nature and that we'll do the right thing when necessary — we will transcend materialism given the freedom to do so.
That seems far-fetched given the ethical coma in which we now find ourselves. Yet the ultimate test is whether or not we can do the right thing by the planet and for future generations.

Ethics and politics have never sat well together. When "citizens" changed into "consumers", political life became an exercise in keeping the customer happy. The imperfect democracies we have today have never been tested with planetary issues such as global warming, which demand radical and unsettling solutions. In the race against the clock, politicians appear almost comical as they try not to disturb the trivial pursuits propping up our dangerously obsolete socio-economic system.
Global calamity is forcing us into a post-political era in which ethically driven individuals and groups race ahead of the political class. Soon centre-stage will belong to culture-change strategists who are able to inspire leaps of consciousness independently of hapless follow-the-leader politics.

One such person is Jan Lundberg (www.culturechange.org). Lundberg is an environmental activist and a long-standing voice for pre-emptive culture change. He understands that hyper-consumerism trivialises reality and numbs people, even to prospects of their own destruction. In his essay Interconnections of All in the Universe, he writes: "Unless we broaden and deepen our perception of both the universe and our fellow members of society, we all may perish in persisting to manipulate each other and our ecosystem with materialism and exploitation."

Culture-change strategists all agree about the urgent need to promote "global consciousness" or "cosmic consciousness" — a broad world view with a high awareness of the inter-relatedness and sacredness of all living things. It is thought that such a universality of mind leads not only to intellectual illumination, but also to heightened moral sensibilities, compassion and greater community responsibility.

BEHIND the scenes some noteworthy organisations are working towards the goal of global consciousness, including the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality (www.globalspirit.org), whose members include Nobel laureates, culture theorists, futurists and spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama.

The group points out the huge backlog of positive human potential that is ready to unleash itself once we assume control and carve healthier cultural pathways for people's energies. According to its mission statement, the fate of humankind and the ecosystem lies in our ability over the next couple of decades to revise our cultural blueprints in order to foster global consciousness and create new, more "mindful" political and economic models.

Even in the formal education system, a small but growing number of teachers are incorporating a "global awareness" perspective into the curriculum, aimed at dissolving cultural barriers and building a sense of global community (www.globalawareness.com). Some are even encouraging a "global grammar" that links students both to other human beings and to the entire planet.

In the war against trivialisation, some groups speak of "planetisation" — an expansive world view that can slow our cultural death march. It was the French philosopher, palaeontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who coined this term in calling for a global mind that fused our ecological, spiritual and political energies, and thereby paved the way for harmonious living and lasting peace.

The organisation Planetization Rising (www.planetization.com) sees this next phase as the only means by which we can ascend to a higher knowledge and thereby find a life-sustaining path for ourselves and the Earth: "It's the next watershed mark in our evolutionary journey which alone can provide us with the empowerment and insight needed to overcome the gathering forces of ecological devastation, greed and war which now threaten our survival."

The cultural indoctrination race is not over. The losers are still winning and the odds for a revolution in consciousness are no more than even. But is there an alternative — other than to drown in our own shallowness?

NEW INTERNATIONALIST
John F. Schumaker, a clinical psychologist in New Zealand, is the author of In Search of Happiness: Understanding an Endangered State of Mind (Penguin).

Thoughts about Being

©Dickasaurus 23 October 2007

Introduction

Douglas Adams may have gotten it right in “Life, the Universe and Everything” ... there is no meaning. As I age into the latter part of my life, I am probably doing what everyone does in facing mortality, trying to reconcile my beliefs about existence, purpose of life (if any) and my eventual step into the “great beyond” (or not). This “quest” is borne more out of curiosity than morbidity and is consistent with my basic Pitta dosha, or body type according to Ayurveda, the ancient Indian medical philosophy. I’m not sure I completely agree with Woody Allen’s comment: “It’s not that I’m afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” It could be that death may be the most interesting phenomenon in life!.... but, I’m patient and can wait a long time to find out. Meanwhile, I try to keep learning, even though it could spoil the surprise!

The Quest for Answers

Let’s back up for a moment and start in the middle. Sixteen years ago, when I was 50 years old, I did not have the “disease” called Peripheral Neuropathy. Or rather, I probably did, but it had not progressed to the point of becoming a rather severe annoyance in my life. Of course I had a different body then too since every cell in my body has since replaced itself. I’d sure like to go back to that body if I could.... which raises the question of why my little cell replacement guys have not replicated perfectly .... easily answerable by saying “that’s what getting old is all about” or in Darwinian terms, evolution. But isn’t “evolution” supposed to be about “survival of the fittest”? Of course at the “cell level” one would then necessarily ask “fittest for what?.... continued survival of the being of which the cell is a part or simply replication for replication’s sake at the cellular level?” Maybe there’s a process going on that does not include the ego-centric human view that we are at the center of the “purpose” of this thing called “life.”.... well, getting back to less philosophic quagmires, I’m basically looking for a way to stop my feet from hurting and to arrest or reverse the gradual continued deterioration in my sense of balance and coordination that accompanies the advance of Peripheral Neuropathy.

Refocus

Back to the basic cell. If my body today is all new cells from years past, and if that process of continuous cell replacement is ongoing, then it would seem that the “cure” I seek is sort of like the “Restore” function on Microsoft’s XP computer operation software; i.e., go back to a configuration in the past that worked correctly, or at least better. How to do that?

Supposedly my “body system” is determined by my DNA which has all the coding instructions for all of the cells of my body to grow and replace themselves in all their diverse functions and types.... when they don’t do that correctly, at best the replacement cells are less efficient, less effective in performing their functions (and we slow down, age), and at worst they succumb to replacement by disease or cancer cells that destroy function and become very good at replicating themselves. Does this mean that our DNA morphs into new configurations that cause cell reproduction to go bad? I don’t think so Tim! All the genetic research indicates that when it comes to DNA, what you see is what you get, as determined by genetic inheritance. That is not to say that it is not possible to go in and physically tinker with DNA and grow human ears on mouse backs, but basically, if it could change “naturally” it would not be usable for DNA forensic identification and millions of CSI type show actors and writers would be rendered jobless.

So if DNA doesn’t change, why do cells not continue to reproduce “correctly” as we get older? Because DNA is sort of like the central processor in a computer and controls, timing and access to other programs and assignment of workspace etc.... BUT it does not contain the specific “blueprints” of each and every cell type in our body... so where does the cell get the “blueprint” or pattern for its particular reconstruction/replacement? How does it “remember” how to reproduce itself? (Play “Jaws” theme music here because it gets very spooky).

But, first, let’s back up again for a moment for a couple of more questions that may help ease the entry into the spooky realm of quantum mechanics. We know that our body’s structure is a hierarchy of cells, atoms, sub-atomic particles etc. We also know that the world in which we see, feel, touch, hear and smell “reality” adheres to what we call the Newtonian or natural laws of Physics. And, we also know that at the sub-atomic particle level the natural laws of Physics give way to the unfolding field of Quantum Physics, which ultimately determine the physical reality of “the real world” and everything in it.

Stay with me now for an over-simplified theory on “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Let’s eat the elephant one quantum cell at a time. Quantum Physics is so strange as to evoke strong feelings of rejection as not possible. Even Einstein and couple of his buddies tried to discredit quantum physics back in 1935, by maintaining that some of its necessary conditions violated the theory of relativity -- specifically that all signals that communicate action from one body to another can travel no faster than the speed of light. Yet in quantum physics “bodies” (particles) do not exist as fixed entities in time and space. Particles in quantum physics exist as waves of potentiality. Einstein’s E=MC²establishes that there are two basic forms of “stuff” for lack of a better term, energy and matter. They have charge and mass, and they are interchangeable. (It is because they have charge that the “C” in Albert’s equation is squared… so that a negative charge does not result in the equation producing “negative” energy… interesting, no? Nevermind!) But in quantum physics there appears to be another or third kind of “stuff” which could be called “information or intelligence” that is somehow exchanged between entities. This could be the source of “blueprints” used by cells to know how to reconstruct themselves once DNA directs them to do so. Further, information/intelligence has no mass nor charge and hence, does not lend itself to measurement – it is unique.

Somehow, “information/intelligence” gets exchanged and it happens instantaneously, speed of light be damned, rather than being communicated by message traveling from one point to another. Time and distance are irrelevant; the distance can be angstroms or light years apart yet it is an instantaneous transfer. It is the quantum leap envisioned by Niels Bohr when electrons jump from one atomic orbit to another... they don’t “travel” through the space between orbits, but rather, disappear from the one orbit and instantaneously appear in the other. This is the concept of “discontinuity.” (More “Jaws Music”?) In other words, quantum objects don’t exist in one place or another, but exist as all possibilities, i.e. possibility waves that are in continuous motion spreading out until information is received that another object is trying to measure or observe it which then triggers a discontinuous collapse from spread-out wave to a specifically localised particle. There takes place a change from a multifaceted object to a single “actual” object, all in one spontaneous step. What Einstein and his buddies missed was the obvious answer that such quantum collapses take place outside of time and space which belong to the realm of natural physics phenomena. So far we haven’t a clue as to how one object “knows” another is observing it but experiments clearly show that when we, ourselves, are the observer object, the “observed object’s” possibility waves collapse into single particles. A hard concept to get one’s head around, but nevertheless proven fact!

Perhaps an example from quantum physicist Amit Goswami’s book “The Quantum Doctor” would help.

Consider an example. Suppose we release an electron in a room. The electron’s wave of possibility, if we are not looking at it, will spread in potentia. What this means is that the electron has the possibility of being all over the room in just a few moments. Each possibility, each possible position of the electron, comes with a probability forming a distribution. When we look, the wave collapses, the electron manifests in one of its possible places to be; an electron detector (for example, a Geiger counter) placed there ticks. In the realm of possibility, the electron is not separate from us, from consciousness. It is a possibility of consciousness itself, a material possibility. When consciousness collapses the possibility wave by choosing one of the electron’s possible facets, that facet becomes actuality. Simultaneously, the possibility wave of the electron detector also collapses, producing a tick; and the possibility wave of the observer’s brain collapses, also registering the tick. How the electron’s wave, the detector’s wave, or the brain’s wave spreads in possibility, what facets these waves assume, is determined by upward causation, by the dynamics of elementary particle interactions. This part is calculable by quantum mathematics, at least in principle.

(Added note: such calculations would be similar to those that could show the reinforcement and cancellation of wave patterns that intersect when two pebbles are simultaneously tossed into a pond and the two sets of outward flowing rings of ripples intersect, reinforcing each other at some points and canceling each other at other points...., but obviously a bit more complex in Goswami’s example.)

What is interesting to me is that the events of collapse of waves of possibility are the results of some external choice, i.e., downward causation, because they can come from any source and hence are unpredictable to the events being collapsed. This may give some hope in “choosing” to be well when dealing with how one’s body’s cells replace themselves, or collapse into reality since they are but mere assemblies of particles whose entrance into our reality is not a fixed matter.

Hmmm, another “side-trip” thought has occurred to me in terms of Observer “choice” in collapsing probability waves into actuality. How can we reconcile that two different “competing observers” in looking, for example, at a rugby ball, are collapsing the ball’s particles’ probability waves into actuality, so that in the two observers’ temporal views they are seeing the same rugby ball... or is it the same ball, does it “appear” in the exact same spot for each of them, did one or the other observer prevail and actually cause the collapse of both the ball and the other observer into actuality? To answer these questions I would be getting a bit ahead of myself as such involves the quantum physics concept of a Tangled Hierarchy (discussed later) which means that no one “observing entity” (ball viewer in this example) takes precedence over another. Because the process of collapsing probability waves into actual observable particles takes place outside of time and space, the result may be the actualisation of simultaneous parallel universes in each of which both observers “see” the rugby ball and each other. Interestingly, experiments have been accomplished wherein the fixing of location for particles (the rugby ball in this example) from all possible probabilities by one observer creates a position that is measurably different from the locational position of the collapsed particles resulting from the other observer.... the difference in locations being infinitesimally small, but nevertheless measurable.

So where are we in this messy attempt to explain the phenomenon of “being?” Since our bodies are nothing more than cells obeying the quantum physics phenomena for actual existence, a number of interesting questions arise. How does “memory” work? If things that happened to us in the past are “stored in memory” where is that storage located since the brain cells I have now are new and different actual entities from those I had when the past “remembered” events happened. How can I “remember them?” It must be that the new cells either have the “memories” reloaded into them from “off site” or that “memory” itself is “offsite” and we merely access it based on the equivalent of “user codes” and “passwords” to continue the computer analogy. Either way, that “offsite” storage of information falls into the realm of vibrating waves of probability that are instantaneously accessible by our brains which themselves are also vibrating waves of probability which manifest themselves as actuality at any instant in time based on their mutual collapse into perceivable actuality... but wait a minute, that would mean that “memory storage” entities would then have to become observable entities... where? Clusters of tiny transistor like particles buzzing around one’s head like gnats on the golf course? I don’t think so Tim. Instead, perhaps the “downloading” of information from storage to brain cells takes place at the Unconscious level (non-observer level) and hence does not cause any collapse of “storage facility” or “brain memory.” Such would imply the existence of the mind as a quantum-self, external to the collapsed physical actual self at any instant of time. So then just where is this “storage facility?” – it is all that “empty space” in the universe that turns out not to be empty space at all, but an invisible sea of information/intelligence in the form of vibrating probability waves called the Zero Point Field (because it has no gravity, no mass, no observable actuality). More on this field, later. (More “Jaws music”!!!)

Sigh, my feet still hurt, and this train of thinking is becoming like a Pandora’s box of worms. Since my body’s cells are collapsed waves of probability one would think that they must have built into them some sort of capability to differentiate between roles as observer or observed in causing collapses or being collapsed. However, a rather neat thing in the event of quantum collapses is that not only does the object being observed appear in actuality, but also a subject appears looking at the object. This is the two people observing a rugby ball mentioned earlier. How can this be, which is collapsing which? It seems a paradox that neither can exist until the other causes it to collapse, or conversely that each evokes the other like Escher’s drawing of the two hands each drawing the other. But, for this to happen there can be no sequence, meaning that such a process happens outside of time and space. In quantum physics this is referred to as a Tangled Hierarchy. This differs significantly from a simple hierarchy where one level causally controls the others. We tend to think of ourselves as being separate from the rest of the world, but that has to be an illusion since we “see” the world as a result of our observation collapsing probability waves; yet as the observer, we are part of that world fixed in time and space by the same process of being collapsed probability waves (dum, dum, dum, dum).... we see ourselves as experiencing the world only because our brain is a part of a Tangled Hierarchy in a quantum existence wherein we are both subject-object. So, are we making a conscious observation or is it that the concept of “conscious observation” is really an omnipresent condition outside of time and space that is continuously manifest in our temporal awareness of self and world. As such it is a situation of (unconscious/unaware) self-reference which prevents us from seeing that we have no more conscious reality than a rock or tree. Huhhhh?

Heresy!!! The idea of subject-object being split yet co-arising from a quantum collapse seems to require some different language to sort out understanding. The problem becomes more apparent when we examine the language we use to think and talk about these weird concepts. When we speak of ourselves as being “conscious”, of a “conscious reality”, we are trapped in the self-referent basis of awareness for a particular instant of collapsed actuality. “Consciousness” in the realm of quantum physics seems more to apply to the mysterious manner in which information or intelligence is instantaneously available to two quantum objects. Consciousness in quantum terms, therefore, refers not to actualised human awareness, but to quantum object awareness.

In the parlance of subject-object, the subject is not collapsing the object and the object is not collapsing the subject but rather the concept of Tangled Hierarchy would suggest that “consciousness” operates behind the scene to collapse both to become actualities simultaneously – a phenomenon which is plausible given that there is no time as time is a natural physics concept based on the actualised realty in which the theory of relativity governs behaviour. “Consciousness” would then seem an always present phenomenon in the quantum realm and our use of it in terms of describing the human mind is somewhat a misnomer.... what we really mean when discussing thoughts is “presence or absence of awareness” rather than “conscious or unconscious.” In classical Freudian terms, a “conscious thought” would be the “presence of awareness of information/intelligence” in an actualised (collapsed) brain. An “unconscious thought” would be the “absence of awareness” as the brain and the information/intelligence remains in the uncollapsed quantum universe. What is fascinating is that even when the brain is “collapsed into reality” the information/intelligence it becomes aware of is a matter of access to, rather than removal from, its “storage” in the quantum mind. Information/intelligence is unique compared to matter and energy which can transform into one another. Information/intelligence can’t become something else, nor can it be destroyed – the process of access does not move or change information/intelligence (I/I) any more than using one candle flame to light another has any kind of diminishing effect on the original candle flame. But new information/intelligence can be created when existing quantum I/I is accessed, combined and transformed by processing in actualised brains and then “restored” as new information/intelligence in the quantum realm, in the same way that “memories” are “stored.” There’s no need to get hung up on this discussion of “consciousness” except to be aware that it further supports the concept of existence of “the mind” as something external to the brain and which operates on a quantum physics basis according to a Tangled Hierarchy in which simultaneous collapses lead to the awareness of brain and thoughts.

Ok then. So what?! So if we only exist on a collapsed probabilities basis with the state of our physical well-being dependent on the current set of regenerated cells, then what can we do if we are not happy with our current state of health? Western medicine takes a Newtonian natural physics approach of hierarchical diagnosis and treatment. It is a mechanistic approach to fixing things.... cut out, replace, screw back together, fuse, brace, or take a chemical or radiological approach to kill bad cells and/or bacteria and viruses damaging cells and bodily functions. This is both expedient and appropriate in being able to get on with one’s life. But it does

not address the nature of illness itself that is the result of improper cell reproduction due to proliferation of existing flaws in genetic instructions or flawed cellular blueprints, or the natural decline in accuracy and conditioned learning that perpetuates or increases decline in subsequent accuracy of cell reproduction as we age and muck-up systemic efficiencies with the effects of lifestyle. This is where the so called “alternative medicine” approaches may be the solution. And “alternative” may be the wrong descriptor; ancient Chinese and Indian medical philosophies and approaches might better be thought of as complimentary medicine as opposed to alternative.

Ayurveda, the Indian approach, having evolved over thousands of years, is now clearly becoming a quantum physics approach to medicine. It has at its essence the correction of disease and ill health through restoration of appropriate functional balances within the body (including brain) coupled with actions to restore cellular reproduction to original good health blueprint structure. It accomplishes this through herbal, nutritional means, exercise and mental means. Often the herbal/nutritional means are focused on individual body types and ailments and designed to affect cell replacement by almost shock therapy to jolt the cell out of following a conditioned response to reproduce according to a faulty blueprint. It is sort of like using a 2 x 4 to get the mule’s attention before trying to reason with him. Following the initial effort to stimulate change, adjustments are made to lifestyle, particularly exercise and food and drink to better facilitate proper regeneration of cells in all the various bodily organs and tissues. And, equally if not more important, a mental effort through meditation to break through the self-referent focus on one’s existence, to overcome years of conditioned response, to get one’s brain more receptive to being in tune with that greater external quantum physics based “consciousness” consisting of all the probability waves of all potential actualities... whoa Nellie! That last comment is a doozie and sounds like I’m ready to shave my head and opt for saffron coloured robes and set of finger cymbals.

What I have just alluded to is in quantum physics what has come to be called the Zero Point Field, best described as an unlimited ocean of microscopic vibrations in the hither to thought to be empty space between things. It is that place where memories and information/intelligence are “stored” in the form of an infinite sea of vibrating waves. In terms of an analogy, think of “The Field” as flash memory storage is to a computer – just with infinite capacity. It seems that empty space is not empty at all, but a vast quantum field of probability waves that enable everything to be connected to everything else. We are made of such stuff. On the most fundamental level we human beings, like all living things, are nothing more than packets of quantum probabilities, continuously and on a simultaneous basis, exchanging information with this infinite sea of quantum probabilities. Bodily activities from the most basic cell development to every higher level of cognitive function (thinking, feeling, smelling, hearing, seeing) have to do with quantum information exchange from the Field and resulting collapses of potentialities into observable actualities; actualities which are no more than our self-referenced perceptions of the world, ourselves and universe in which we “exist.” Our human perceptions occur because of interactions of subatomic particles of our brain and the quantum universe in which we ourselves are but continuous collapses of quantum probabilities weighted by conditioned learning that Darwin labeled as Evolution.

So we have energy, we have matter, and we have information/intelligence all existing as probability waves that invisibly fill all of the space of the universe in a collective consciousness, the Zero Point Field, of potential realities waiting to be brought into being. There are those who would call this cosmos, The Field, a Superior Intelligence but I am hesitant to do so as our classic use of the term intelligence goes beyond the meaning of capacity to learn and develop from experience to imply an overarching intent to do so for some particular end. I would be more comfortable to think of it as an interconnected life-force ebbing and flowing throughout the universe. The Force if you will, Luke!

Life-force?

Ed Mitchell, the 6^th man to walk on the moon had an epiphany during that voyage in which he experienced a feeling of connectedness with everything in the universe and all people of all times as if they were all attached in some invisible field. As he floated in space, weightless and with Earth but a tiny speck in a greater cosmos, Ed has described the feeling that everything he did and thought would affect the entire cosmos, and vice versa. It was like feeling The Force, not in a religious sense but rather that some collective intelligence that had been ongoing and accumulating for billions of years was forging his very being. The experience was so strong that Ed, who had studied astrophysics and quantum physics at MIT left the space program and went on to serve as a catalyst to draw together researchers to focus on bringing together the application of quantum physics to better explain the biological model – a model which is a Cartesian view of the body as separate from any sort of mind or soul. It was clear to Ed that the human body was more than just a machine that it was quantum and connected to all things.

Did I just mention “soul?” Is there such a thing? Until recently I would have predisposed it out of my mind due to association with religious bull shit. But wait a minute! If the mind does not exist as an internal part of the brain, but as information/intelligence “stored” in The Field, the collective consciousness of the universe, then what happens to that part of the mind that is unique to the individual when the individual’s bunch of cells and probability waves generating them give up the ghost in our temporal reality, pun intended!? Do those “memories” continue on until perhaps accessed as unconscious (unaware) thoughts in other brains?... or under extremely focused conditions (hypnosis?) actually collapsed into actuality as aware thoughts? Is that the concept of soul? Could that be a form of or the concept of reincarnation? Is that perhaps the explanation for reported “out of body” experiences where clinically dead people are revived to describe how they saw themselves on the table and what was going on in the room around them.... brain cells retaining the ability to access probability waves and collapse them into an actuality observed through collapsed probabilities of simulated surrogate eyes and ears?

Or not? But I digress. Perhaps we should leave this side trip to Stephan King and others who might better spin such possibilities into entertaining reading.

Back to Better Health

The real questions with regard to my hurting feet and increasing clumsiness are two-fold. First, how do I get my “feet cells” to begin to replace themselves with copies from the most original blueprints that must exist somewhere in the matrix of consciousness? And, Second, how do I correct any flaws in the instructions coming from my inherited genes (DNA) that may be causing “bad copies.”? And, third... ok that’s three-fold, and third, what can I do to fix any flaws that may have accumulated in the blueprints ‘stored in memory” in the matrix of consciousness (the result of conditioned response and evolution from the potentially billions of people from whom they have been recycled/reincarnated for use in my set of potentialities.... I mean a human liver cell is pretty much a human liver cell, isn’t it)?

It means a search for the best “original” blueprints and that would mean a deep, deep meditation to allow one’s cell frequency vibrations to more accurately attune to frequencies of original “blueprint memories” stored in the sea of probability waves of which we are all a part. It means transcending the thought patterns which collapse inferior blueprint probabilities, it means to clear the brain of activity so that stored information in the cells themselves can be the observer that collapses the most original blueprints.

The “most original” blueprints? Isn’t there bound to be an “original?” Well, is there an “original bible,” the single, absolutely fact driven bible from which all others have been derived – doesn’t some little monk somewhere have this “original” sequestered deep in a catacomb only to be used as a quality control for making accurate copies? It’s ludicrous and just as ludicrous to expect the quantum universe to have some “quantum catacombs” in which it jealously guards the original, perfect blueprints for every cell to be collapsed out of all the probability waves in the Field. Actually, if such were true, it would be the quantum equivalent of the Fountain of Youth as we could be immortal if our bodies continuously replaced all our cells based on an unflawed, perfect blueprint. No, Virginia, there is no Quantum Santa Clause. The human body is the result of billions of years of cellular reproduction and evolution and as such there is no “original” perfect blueprint... unless you want to believe in Adam and Eve and the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, George Bush and, and.... well that almost certainly has pissed some readers off. Am I saying there’s no place for “God?” No, all I am saying is that Quantum Physics ratchets-up the mystery a couple of more notches as the question now becomes, how did all of this “quantum stuff” come to be? As mentioned earlier, a “superior intelligence” implies an intent or purpose and clearly the universe as we are coming to understand it does not reduce to a purpose as defined by self-referenced temporal man awash in a sea of ignorance and stupidity coming from blind faith in flawed copies of books regarding the nature of mankind and God’s intentions for him and his lot. So there! Now, back to improving my body!

So, like medieval monks cranking out copies of bible copies, our bodies can only search for the best cell versions and hope for no mistakes. Ultimately, though, evolution occurs and over time our individual cellular reality deteriorates to the point of inability to maintain life. In the end, the stuff of which we are made no longer collapses into a temporal, self-reflective actuality, critical cells just quit!... not ashes to ashes, but probability waves to probability waves. The accessible blueprints no longer suffice.

Perhaps it’s time that people also give up the Bible, Torah, Koran, etc as blueprints for living in the actualised world as they are obviously flawed copies of flawed copies of flawed copies that have evolved and are as diseased as the final set of evolved body cells that result in human death as we know it.

Somehow we’ve got to do better than making copies of copies to live longer, more healthy lives, but nevertheless, in the end it inevitably can lead only to the end....

“OH GOOD LORD... the word is CELEBRATE!”

– Bro. Damien, Head Monk and keeper of the oldest original copy of the Bible.

And thanks for all the fish!