Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
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Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World Abbreviated Synopsis Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007 by J. Harmon Grahn. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections; with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "Appendix A. GNU Free Documentation License".
What follows was originally intended as a draft for a live presentation covering some of the more important points introduced in the three-volume work, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World, consisting largely, although not entirely, of paragraphs lifted from the parent work, interspersed with additional commentary. At even date, that presentation may still materialize; but an additional request has meanwhile been made for an evening discussion by potential attendees of the larger presentation later, of the current draft; and it was further requested that an HTML version of the draft be made available on the Net, in anticipation of that more intimate discussion to be held 19 February 2007. Accordingly, "at a moment's notice," following is an HTML rendering of that unvarnished draft.
Preamble
Of the three concepts in the title, I am not sure which is of greatest importance: metaconsciousness, mythology, or post-civilization. The reason I believe these matters are important, and worthy of your attention, is that we passengers and crew aboard Spaceship Earth seem to have a "problem;" and unless we learn how to deal with it effectively "fairly soon," there seems to be a significant probability that we may – all of us – cease being residents of Spaceship Earth. The following considerations are aimed at contributing to the process of learning how to deal with our global "problem" effectively.
Perhaps to the uninitiated, of the three, the concept of mythology, as used in this work, may be initially the most challenging. I shall attempt to show that everything any of us believe about anything is ultimately a myth; and that this is nothing to be "ashamed of," or for which the least apology is appropriate. I shall also attempt to demonstrate that every human action, for weal or woe, follows directly from our myths, and that it is therefor of crucial importance that we submit our mythologies to critical scrutiny, and where necessary, amendment.
1. Mythology
The words "mythology," and "myth" seem to have a somewhat pejorative connotation in most contemporary people's minds – as in, "Oh, that's just a[n exploded] myth;" meaning something that is self-evidently false, and is, or was once believed only by children, star-struck dreamers, and "primitive savages." Therefore, it is with some trepidation that I harbor the hope that my audience may provisionally relinquish their grip upon this construction, and consider the matter from a quite different perspective.
As far as we can guess, or rationally surmise, "All That Is" is infinite – or in any event, there seems no conceptual possibility of viewing it "whole," from "outside." For if one were somehow to gain a vantage point "outside" of "All That Is," where would one be? And if we cannot possibly "see it whole," then the only reasonable alternative must be that we are at best seeing "it" (whatever "it" may be) only in part.
Additionally, there is the principle of complementarity, originally discovered by quantum physicists at the quantum scale, yet evidently applicable at all scales; wherein reality is composed of innumerable pairs of complementary properties, both of which are essential for a complete description of reality; yet observation of either of which excludes observation of the other. An example at the quantum scale of such a complementary pair of properties is the mutually exclusive relation between the quantum and wave properties of a beam of light. Observation of one prohibits observation of the other, and the whole beam of light defies complete description.
Expanding the principle of complementarity beyond the quantum scale, imagine two friends – call them Pat and Mike – who have been friends for years, and know each other well. Pat and Mike have many experiences in common over the course of many years, and have observed each other under many different circumstances. Both of them are intelligent, sensitive, and honest, about themselves, each other, and about the world in which they live. Each has a reasonable and realistic appraisal of himself, and of his longtime friend.
Now, given all that, here is a multifold question: a) Is Pat's self-appraisal perfectly congruent with Mike's appraisal of Pat? b) Is Mike's self-appraisal perfectly congruent with Pat's appraisal of Mike? c) Is either Pat's or Mike's self-appraisal, or their appraisals of each other, perfectly congruent with anyone else's appraisal of them who knows them, intimately or slightly, including their own mothers? d) If none of the above appraisals are perfectly congruent, which one(s), if any, are "objectively true?"
I submit to your considered evaluation the proposition that, just as the complementary quantum and wave properties of light cannot be simultaneously observed or described, just as uncompromisingly, no one can "know" himself as another "knows" him; and no one can "know" another as she "knows" herself. All such "knowledge" consists of partial descriptions of individuals who cannot possibly be fully described, either by themselves, or by anybody else.
The mission of classical physics has been to investigate and describe with precision the properties of "objective reality;" and so gradually, incrementally, to build an accurate description of everything. Although a lot of people didn't like it, the discovery of quantum theory precluded the possibility, both of complete descriptions, and of the "objectivity" of reality. Instead, we were left with limitless choices among partial descriptions of reality, at the cost of remaining entirely ignorant of the complements to the properties so described at the moment of observation. The pioneer quantum physicist, Niels Bohr (1885-1962) has been quoted as saying, "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." "What we can say about Nature" may be either "this," or "that," at any particular moment, in description of the results of any particular experiment or observation. Yet if, on the basis of experiment, we are able to say "this," we are thereby precluded from positively saying "that," a description of the complementary properties necessarily excluded from our experiment or observation.
In fact, before all of Cosmos, and given our extremely narrow horizon of observation, combined with the necessary exclusion of everything outside the focus of anyone's attention from moment to moment, and it is not too much to say that we all live in a universe consisting almost entirely of myth, all the time. That is, the universe each of us perceives at any given moment consists of content exclusive to our individual minds, brought fractionally up to date from moment to moment by whatever occupies our specific attention in a given moment. Hence, we are perpetually subject to surprise, because new phenomena are constantly entering the focal point of our ceaselessly shifting attention, potentially refreshing what we thought we knew, with what we are constantly discovering about reality.
That physics can no longer be claimed to inform us about "how Nature is" does not diminish its rational and experimental integrity; for quantum physics has disclosed that "how Nature is" is such that no mode of human analysis – physics, or any other – can inform us "how Nature is," and yield a complete description of Nature. This by itself is a priceless disclosure, for it brings to an end a futile and erroneously conceived quest. What physics can do, which capacity has in no way been impaired by the discovery of quantum theory, is to help humans distinguish between tenable and untenable myths about "how Nature is," and about how humans can best interact with Nature and one another in optimum, non-destructive ways. Living in partial ignorance about "how Nature is" does not preclude filling the vacant unknowns in our perceptions with myths about "how Nature is;" or even about "how Nature might be."
During the meteoric careers of "civilization" and classical physics, such myths have been widely equated with superstition and ignorance, and no effort has been spared in stamping them out, wherever they have been found. "Civilized" people everywhere have been extremely generous and forthcoming in correcting the "obvious errors" and "primitive superstitions" of indigenous peoples all over the world. During the past few decades, however, although most "civilized" people have continued to ignore it, others have discovered that "civilized" notions about "how Nature is" have been no less myths than those of the indigenous peoples they had taken it upon themselves to correct; and indeed that "civilized" people can do no better themselves in describing "how Nature is" than by fabricating myths about it. This, it turns out, they have been doing all along anyway, just as the "primitive savages" had been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Only... many of the "civilized" myths have proven to be catastrophically destructive to "civilization" itself, and to all Life on planet Earth.
Thus, in the work, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World, mythology consists of whatever we create in our imaginations to fill the vast spaces that lie over our horizons, and beyond our reach. It embraces not only the word's usual associations; it also embraces whatever anyone believes about anything – because no human belief can be decisively verified or falsified in the ultimate context of "All That Is."
I suggest the possibly novel proposition that the "truth" of our myths may ultimately be of less importance to us, practically, than our myths' effectiveness in contributing to harmonious and mutually beneficial social relationships. In sum, our myths are incalculably important to us, because all of our actions, and even our perceptions of ourselves and of the reality surrounding us, follow directly from our myths. We should therefore choose and formulate our myths with great care; because if we continue to believe what we have believed in the past, we will continue to do what we have done in the past, and we will continue to reap from our actions the results we have reaped in the past. And how much longer can we continue doing this before our global "problem" passes the threshold of "critical mess," and propels all of us where none of us wish to go?
2. Metaconsciousness
I find in metaconsciousness a very useful term which relates to matters people have been experiencing, contemplating, and discussing, probably for as long as we have had inquiring minds. We have used many words to describe these transcendent subjective experiences and introspective speculations, including "God," "the gods," "spirit," "ESP," "parapsychology," "collective unconscious," "synchronicity," and many others. Metaconsciousness has the advantage of applying to all these concepts, yet it does not bear the traditional mythological freight attached to many of them.
What I mean by metaconsciousness, briefly, is "the overarching phenomenon which is, or can be, analogous to, yet less or greater than, what we humans experience as consciousness, intelligence, and creativity." It is an emergent behavior which spontaneously exhibits itself in complex information-sharing systems of all kinds, and at all scales, under conditions of sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, as a capacity for learning from experience, or its functional equivalent. Metaconsciousness, like the existence of the universe, or of you, or me, is fundamentally mysterious and inexplicable; yet like the universe, and you, and me, is undeniably present. How, and why this is so is woven, actually and potentially, into the fabric of countless myths.
The information-sharing agents associated with metaconsciousness may be swarms of quantum fields anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe; or of subatomic particles combining in atomic nuclei; or of atoms in molecular combination, or of molecular structures in a microbe, microbes in a colony, neurons in a nervous system, microprocessors in an artificial neural network; fish in a school, birds in a flock, and / or an enormous variety of alternative components in systems of virtually limitless description; observed, unobserved, or unimagined by you or me.
Metaconsciousness appears to manifest and evolve massively, expansively, "deliberately," on an ever-expanding arc, wherever / whenever conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty are found, in all Cosmic regions, at all scales, under any and all circumstances in which such conditions prevail. Indeed, it may be reasonably imagined that the "individual agents" of metaconsciousness are "really" inseparable parts of an indivisible and singular whole which non-locally and instantaneously includes "All That Is," and excludes nothing whatsoever.
Accordingly, the metaconsciousness of the whole is entirely transcendent of that of the "local agent" at any particular scale; and in general, the metaconsciousness of any entity, at any scale, is entirely transcendent of that of the individual agents that combine in its manifestation.
The spontaneous tendency of metaconsciousness is to expand and evolve, and to proliferate the conditions which favor its emergence and evolution, namely richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. As such, it constitutes the Cosmic complement to the second law of thermodynamics, defined as "the tendency for entropy to increase in closed systems." Entropy is defined as "the measure of randomness and disorder in a system." Metaconsciousness brings emergent order out of chaos; entropy invades orderly systems with chaos. Metaconsciousness manifests the Cosmic impulse for generation, growth, and creativity; entropy manifests the Cosmic impulse for disassembly, decay, and recycling. Metaconsciousness produces, shares, and proliferates information, understanding, and wisdom; entropy degrades, fragments, and isolates information, and proliferates ignorance. Together, the myth of metaconsciousness and the second law of thermodynamics may be said to be yet another complementary pair of partial descriptions of "objective reality."
The Scale Expanding Cosmos, discussed in II.5. The Myth of Objective Reality, exemplifies perfect balance between such complementary Cosmic impulses in a changelessly dynamic system without beginning or end: in which the scale expansion of time produces a net energy increase, which is absorbed by the complementary scale expansion of space – resulting in a net energy change perpetually equal to zero (0). That is, viewed from the expanding time dimension, "seconds are getting longer," so dynamic systems appear to be "speeding up," or "getting warmer," or "gaining energy." Conversely, viewed from the expanding space dimension, "inches are getting longer," so dynamic systems appear to be "slowing down," or "getting cooler," or "losing energy." The sum of these two effects is zero (0) – perpetually; and the eternal Scale Expanding Cosmos never has to "run down." This does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because the SEC is not a closed system.
In the "length and breadth" of the infinite, ageless, dynamically changeless, Scale Expanding Cosmos, there may be innumerable mechanisms for proliferating metaconsciousness; just as there are innumerable mechanisms for proliferating entropy. Here on Earth, the biological evolution of life seems to be one of the former, and if some of we humans are able to survive our global "problem," which appears to have reached its crisis stage in the approximately present generation, Homo sapiens may yet evolve into a particularly potent agent for the proliferation of metaconsciousness. If surviving humans and future generations are able to establish a stable stasis at peace, rather than war, with Earth's biological systems, and the metaconscious fabric of life throughout the planet, then there is no reason for humanity not to continue evolving on Earth indefinitely into the future. As Earth-humans have already glimpsed, the course of such sustainable human evolution is likely to expand, sooner or later, beyond the envelope of Spaceship Earth, and into the wider Cosmos; whence it may imaginably combine and intertwine eventually with the metaconscious evolution of other entities....
I therefore suggest that the myth of metaconsciousness may provide the basis – or a basis – for a significantly altered pattern for human action, in response to our globally shared "problem." It may provide the foundation for something "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike" the "morality" we have traditionally used to guide and evaluate human behavior in the past – not by providing an alternative means of distinguishing "good" from "evil," but by providing a means for distinguishing between "constructive" and "destructive" human actions; which is to say, between actions which promote the evolution of metaconsciousness, and those which promote the expansion of entropy. I lay before you for evaluation the proposition that human actions which favor the evolution of metaconsciousness are vastly more advantageous to all of us than are actions which favor the expansion of entropy. This brings us to the third leg of the tripod upon which my mythology rests.
3. Post-Civilization
"Houston, we've got a problem," might be the silent distress call, or its analog, from the passengers and crew aboard Spaceship Earth. Only... there is no "Houston" to receive our distress call, or to contribute anything at all to a "solution" to our "problem." We're on our own out here, whirling through Cosmos, and if our spaceship has sprung a leak, we're either going to fix it ourselves, or it won't get fixed.
Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Nixon administration, once made the trenchant remark that "Things that can't go on forever don't." I submit to your evaluation the proposition that civilization, as it has defined itself, and exhibited itself in every corner of the world for at least the past five thousand years, is a prototypical example of "things that can't go on forever;" and is instead the chief vehicle whereby our global "problem" has accelerated to its present stage of development toward "critical mess."
In fairness, it must be acknowledged that the causes of our global "problem" cannot be laid entirely at the feet of what we call "civilization." There seems to be a fundamental hazard inherent to "being human," and its manifestation can be found in archaeological traces dating back two million years or more, when the first members of genus Homo evidently began migrating out of Africa, and colonizing other parts of the planet. For it seems that dating from the time of our earliest human and protohuman ancestors, the appearance of genus Homo in new environments, or ecological niches, coincided with the extinction of significant numbers of species indigenous to these "virgin" ecologies. Wherever humans have appeared on Earth, many species immediately began disappearing, and this is a pattern that precedes by many hundreds of thousands of years at least, the emergence of what we like to call "civilization" – which has nevertheless exponentially accelerated the process throughout its much shorter, and more recent career.
An observant higher metaconsciousness might have anticipated our "problem," which in the larger scheme of things may be quite familiar: that is, that this bipedal creature, genus Homo, with an extraordinarily well-engineered hand, with opposable thumb; stereoscopic vision, excellent hand-eye coordination; an expanded brain with a capacity for complex verbal communication, and inventiveness; and a capacity for cooperative social organization, might well represent a significant ecological threat to other species in the biosphere. In the course of time, this threat might have been anticipated to expand into a formidable threat to the biosphere itself – unless the new species learns to self-regulate our actions, and govern ourselves so as to operate sustainably on the planet. This self-disciplined habit was evidently not "wired into" us from the outset, and the process of evolving it may have been what the past couple of million years has been all about for genus Homo.
Two million years ago, genus Homo emerged as the most effective predator that had ever walked the Earth, and there was no species able to withstand us. This meant that, unique among the living species on Earth, humans lacked a predator, or any other condition capable of keeping us in balance with the rest of Nature; and this has turned out to have been the most serious challenge involved with being human, even from the very beginning. Polar bears and orcas are similarly placed, in that they are at the top of their food chains, and they eat what they like. Nothing eats polar bears or orcas. Yet the arctic climate polar bears adapted to, and the aquatic habitat of orcas, keeps their numbers within bounds, so runaway populations of predatory polar bears and killer whales do not threaten to overrun the Earth. It may even be so that the massive-brained orcas have long since evolved the self-discipline necessary to regulate their populations voluntarily. In any case, Humans have never had such environmental or predatory constraints placed upon us, nor have we yet evolved such self-discipline; and we have successfully adapted to virtually every climate on Earth.
It must be noted that there is nothing inherently "wrong" with being a predator, and that this is not, by itself, the source of our "problem." Every living being lives at the expense of other living beings; for naturally the only nourishment available for anything living must be supplied by other living things. That's the way the web of life is set up: we all eat each other, and our nutrition is in endless circulation. Yet although virtually all living beings are, in this sense, predatory, either directly or indirectly, it nevertheless appears that there is often an added dimension to human predation, not observable among other species. It may be that this added dimension is simply one of scale; that the "metaconscious swarm" we identify with the label, "bobcat," pouncing upon the "metaconscious swarm" we identify as "rabbit," is the same in kind, but not in scale, as the "metaconscious swarm" identified as "United States," pouncing upon the "metaconscious swarm" identified as "Vietnam," or "Iraq."
However, there is one additional difference between the predation conducted by humans at the scale of war and the "natural predation" practiced by all other species. The effects of "natural predation" never threaten, and indeed combine to enhance the metaconscious web of life on Earth and throughout Cosmos, by proliferating the conditions which favor its emergence and evolution, namely richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. The predation of human warfare, on the other hand, universally diminishes the conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, and proliferates entropy on a massive scale; and so threatens the metaconscious web, and the life-sustainability of the entire planet. Herein lies the "leak" which constitutes the "problem" confronting global humanity aboard Spaceship Earth.
Further, warfare occupies such a fundamental place at the bedrock of "civilization" that few "civilized" people have any conscious awareness at all of the astounding frequency with which ordinary people commit acts of war as a matter of daily routine. An act of war may be defined generally as "the act, or attempt, or intent of one 'social entity' to impose preemptively his, her, or its will upon that of another, by any means, at any scale, in any context." That is, an act of war is an act of unprovoked aggression among humans, aimed at securing some benefit for the actor at the expense, or loss, of the act's recipient. Again, there is nothing inherently "wrong" with this kind of human behavior, for it is simply a generalized form of predation. However, humans, like many other species, are social beings, and acts of war among humans universally destroy the advantages of social congress; and no one placed by a predator into the position of prey is obliged to treat the predator as a friend.
Thus, all forms of theft, i.e. appropriating the property of another without the other's awareness, permission, or will, are acts of war. Virtually all forms of taxation fit this description. All lies, that is deliberate, informed misrepresentations of what is known or believed by the actor to be true, which damage the interests of those thereby misled, are acts of war. This includes the malicious withholding of truthful information, which results in misleading the entities from whom the information is withheld into making damaging (to themselves) decisions or choices. This is standard operating procedure among the big players in the world media, including corporate advertisers; and among governments, large and small, it is routine.
The "protocol pollution" described in I.8. Street-Smart Savvy, aimed at sabotaging the universal protocols upon which open-source software depends, to the intended advantage of monopolistic corporate vendors of proprietary software, are acts of war – although doubtless considered by their perpetrators as nothing more than "sound business practice," and all in an honest day's work. Similarly, the practice of large corporate department stores, as they used to be called, or "Big Box" stores, entering small town markets, and using their vast capital resources to undersell and drive out of business their "Mom & Pop" competitors, then raising their prices to whatever the traffic will bear, is the practice of waging war upon and within their target markets.
Naturally, individuals who participate, knowingly or unknowingly, in the warlike actions of larger entities, such as nations and corporations, with which they, the individual humans, identify, or by whom, or with whom they are employed, or are in fiscal partnership, are complicit in daily acts of war, and are therefore participating in the obliteration of the ground upon which they themselves stand. Thus in this mythology, the perpetration of acts of war is not considered "morally reprehensible." It is considered suicidal.
Out of long habit, and somnambulant complacency, few people at present seem to view their routine daily actions in this light; although this may be changing, and some people seem to be awakening to the wider consequences of their daily acts. Meanwhile, the net consequence of warfare, in any of its guises and masquerades, is to narrow the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty upon which metaconsciousness at every scale depends as a prerequisite to its ongoing expansion and evolution. This is the decisive factor in the definition of warfare: that which preempts the choices of others, and narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. This is the net accomplishment of human warfare. Is there any other phenomenon in Nature that has a similar effect? I don't think so; if you can point to an example, be sure and let me know.
This is why warfare is the implacable foe of metaconsciousness, and the destroyer of the very fabric of life. There is no one and nothing on Earth, or in Cosmos, which ultimately benefits from warfare; for once the fabric of life is unraveled on a planetary scale, even the most "heroic warriors" must perish at last. In such an eventuality, as Jared Diamond has noted in his book, Collapse, the rich and powerful may be the last to starve.
Yet warfare has for the past five thousand years been the cornerstone of "civilization," which expands and is maintained entirely and universally by means of conquest and armed might. This is dyed into the wool of which the entire fabric of "civilization" is woven, and into every mythology upon which it is based; and it is ultimately fatal. For the mythologies of warfare and "civilization" create an unending self-perpetuating cycle, whereby conquest is viewed as the legitimate means of "progress," and in turn begets population expansion; which necessitates further conquest, which begets further expansion, which necessitates further conquest... forever. Only... on a finite planet – in a finite spaceship – it cannot possibly go on forever; and "Things that can't go on forever don't."
Therefore, I submit to you the proposal that it is now appropriate and timely for aware individuals to turn our attention to "post-civilization," the social fabric which must emerge among survivors (if any) of the inevitable collapse of "civilization." Post-civilization is something none of us have ever experienced, and may, because of our existing "civilized" mythologies, be almost impossible for us to imagine or visualize. I can testify that it is not an easy task, for I have been struggling for many years against my inherited mythologies, and have been slowly, desperately, groping my way toward a vaguely imagined post-civilized mythology. I have been motivated by the gradually growing conviction that, "Houston, we've got a problem," and that no "solution" to this "problem" may be be expected to emerge from the mythologies of "civilization."
In the course of this struggle I have managed to bring into a blurry kind of "focus" some vague outlines of what a post-civilized mythology, and consequent "post-civilization" might be like; among which is the conviction that, whatever I, or any other single individual or small constituency may think about it, post-civilization will not emerge from the genius or revelation of a single individual or small constituency. It will be the combined product of everyone who survives "civilization," and participates in the "imagineering" of post-civilization. Like metaconsciousness, post-civilization will emerge, miraculously, mysteriously, from the swarm of surviving humans who combine our efforts willfully in harmonious, cooperative social interaction, to create something that has never been seen before on this planet: something "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike 'civilization'."
4. Inconclusion
This is an "Inconclusion," rather than a "Conclusion," because the myth I am sharing with you about how I believe "Nature is," has no beginning or end, and stretches far beyond my narrow horizon. Yet each of us – you who so choose, and I – have a part to play in it, at least potentially, right here, right now. I believe the "solution" to the "problem" shared by every contemporary resident of Spaceship Earth will emerge, if at all, out of a metaconscious consensus entirely transcendent of the individual perceptions, "blind spots," hopes, fears, and biases of any one of us, or of any narrowly circumscribed group of us, such as "Americans," "Chinese," "Blacks," "Hispanics," "Christians," "Buddhists," "Muslims," or "Jews." I believe that the survivors of the eventual collapse of "civilization" will have walked through fire, and will not emerge unchanged; and that one of the changes such survivors will share in common, whatever may be their many differences, is the common conviction that the paths of conquest and war all lead to catastrophic dead-ends, and that friends are of incalculably greater value to each of us than enemies.
There was evidently a time on this planet, during the long "pre-civilized" Neolithic era, when conquest and war were not, as they have been for the past five thousand years, the bedrock upon which human society was based. Conspicuously absent from the arts and cultures of the widespread Neolithic peoples, from Anatolia to Western Europe, were weapons of war and scenes of battle, conquest, and tribute; which are of course highly conspicuous throughout succeeding "civilized" arts and cultures. This is a condition which is archaeologically evident for many thousands of years preceding what we call "civilization," during which peace, not war, was the prevailing human condition.
However, as Andrew Bard Schmookler makes clear in The Parable of the Tribes, this idyllic circumstance of peace among the human tribes was not able to withstand the emergence among them of a single tribe which had developed a lust for conquest and war. According to Schmookler, in the presence of one aggressive tribe, the outcome for any of the neighboring non-aggressive tribes can be one of four, and only four, alternatives: a) the tribe is conquered, and all its inhabitants are annihilated; b) the tribe is conquered, and its surviving inhabitants are forced to subordinate their wills to the will of the conquering tribe; c) the tribe flees to an inaccessible or inhospitable region, abandoning its territory, which is appropriated by the conquering tribe; d) the tribe resists conquest, and defeats its would-be conqueror.
The point of the parable of the tribes is that all four possible outcomes to this situation result in the expansion of the ways of power, or the ways of war among humans, at the expense of the ways of peace. In order for option d to take effect, the conquest-resisting tribe is forced to adopt at least some of the ways of war initiated by the would-be conquering tribe, because according to Schmookler, power can only be countered with power.
The parable of the tribes [Schmookler writes] is a theory of social evolution which shows that power is like a contaminant, a disease, which once introduced will gradually yet inexorably become universal in the system of competing societies. More important than the inevitability of the struggle for power is the profound social evolutionary consequence of that struggle once it begins. A selection for power among civilized societies is inevitable.
At the time I first encountered Schmookler's book, I did not welcome his message; yet upon further consideration, I was unable to deny the validity of his argument. I think now that it is unrealistic to expect that there will be no predators among the human survivors of the collapse of "civilization," and that even with the widespread metaconscious consensus well established that "friends are of incalculably greater value to each of us than enemies," the post-civilized peoples will, sooner or later, have to deal with Schmookler's parable of the tribes. Predators are a universal part – but only a part – of life, and every successful species develops means of dealing with them. Therefore, I expect that one, but not the only, formidable challenge for post-civilized people will be how to maintain peaceful social relationships over extended periods of time without relaxing vigilance or losing the ability to respond effectively to predatory challenges from peoples or societies that opt for war and conquest.
I rest my case; not at anything resembling a "final conclusion," but at an arbitrary point of development which requires metaconscious collaboration, and input from many and various sources for further development. We have come so far, we humans aboard Spaceship Earth, and have discovered by bitter experience that conquest and war are not viable means of getting where we, and the children of our children's children, hope to go – which I suggest is simply on and on, if possible, forever. This means we must learn to live sustainably, not only on Earth, which we currently presume to be our planet of origin, but wherever we eventually explore throughout Cosmos. This is our challenge; and if we meet it, our incalculable blessing.
Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
"Dear Friends" | Contents