Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Chapter 3 | Contents | Chapter 5
When we move our attention from the microbial scale to the quantum scale, we encounter rich and abundant opportunities for the potential presence of metaconsciousness. A well known quantum effect related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle1 is the phenomenon of nonlocality, or "action at a distance," which classical physics declares categorically impossible; yet it has been observed and documented. Complimentary particle pairs, which may be spatially separated by any distance, from picometers to light-years, have been experimentally verified to change state in perfect synchrony; e.g., when one of the pair is observed to change from "+" to "–," its compliment instantaneously changes from "–" to "+," with no interval in "time," even if the "space" between them is miles or light-years.2 This demonstrated phenomenon makes conceptually possible the instantaneous sharing of information, and hence metaconsciousness, at any distance in Cosmos.
That is, if as in a digital computer, the changing of a bit "here" from a "0" to a "1" has the immediate effect of changing a complimentary bit "there" from a "1" to a "0," then voilà! we have the potential for the sharing of information between "here" and "there," anywhere in Cosmos, without any consequential effect of the (classically) intervening factors of "time" and "space." It gets even better; for quanta enjoy the "classically peculiar" property of exhibiting their "quantum properties" (e.g. "+" or "–") only under observation, i.e. in the presence of consciousness or metaconsciousness. Otherwise – i.e. "unobserved" – they are "smeared out" as wave phenomena, which occupy many "spaces" at the same "time."
Such "quantum weirdness" has since its discovery been very difficult for the "classically entrained" mind to grasp; for classically, in order for anything to get from "here" to "there," it must unavoidably traverse the space between "here" and "there," and this takes time. This is regarded as the most elementary common sense, and anything that appears to contradict it takes on the aura – to the "classical mind" – of hallucination, or "Voodoo." As discussed in my 1998 essay, however, "The quantum scale discloses a landscape filled with surprising paradoxes and ambiguities," and, "...at the quantum scale, particles are waves, and waves are particles; and that takes some getting used to."3 In that essay I also wrote that "subatomic particles evidently don't really 'come' and 'go' in the common sense in which these terms are usually applied; but that's getting into this rather more deeply than is strictly necessary here." Well, maybe here is the place to pursue that thought in somewhat greater depth.
At the macro scale of people and planets, it is intuitively sensible to us that objects like the Moon, or the many smaller satellites we humans have placed in orbit about the Earth, may potentially change their orbits by either gaining or losing kinetic energy. That is, by using a rocket to give an orbiting satellite additional energy, it is possible to boost it into a higher orbit. Conversely, if the satellite encounters drag from the upper fringes of Earth's atmosphere, it looses energy, and descends to a lower orbit – where it encounters stiffer drag, its orbit decays further, and it eventually plummets to the surface, or more likely burns up like a meteor in the atmosphere. At the macro scale, all these processes are apparently continuous and occur in smooth graduations; and this is intuitively very sensible to us.
At the quantum scale, however.... Well, in 1913 Danish physicist Niels Bohr discovered something very "peculiar" about atoms; which in 1911 New Zealander Ernest Rutherford had discovered to be miniature analogs of the Solar System, consisting of a massive nucleus surrounded by swarms of lighter particles, much as Earth is today surrounded by swarms of orbiting satellites. Only, what Bohr discovered was that the particles orbiting an atomic nucleus do not change orbits continuously, but rather in "quantum leaps." That is, when a subatomic particle gains sufficient energy, say by absorbing a photon, it too is boosted into a higher orbit – but in a highly "peculiar" fashion. Instead of moving sedately and "sensibly" along a curved trajectory to join its higher orbit, as all "right thinking" people would expect, it leaps instantaneously from its lower orbit to its higher orbit, with no time interval, and without physically traversing the intervening space between orbits. The orbits of subatomic particles about their atomic nucleus are invariably spaced in "steps" which occur in multiples related to Planck's constant.4
Further, these so-called "orbits" of subatomic "particles" about their nucleus are not, like those of satellites orbiting Earth, describable by trajectories that can be plotted through space. Rather, they take the form of a wave function – which is not even what could be called a physical wave, like ripples on the surface of a pond, or sound waves. The best description we have of them is as probability waves, which delineate a region in space where the "particle" is most likely to be found at any discrete moment. Where it is actually located may be anywhere in the universe – until and unless it is observed, or detected by a metaconscious entity. Observation is said to collapse the wave function, which then manifests as a discrete particle with a particular location in space-time. However, as mentioned above, where it "came from," and where it is "going," are then complete unknowns, as the "particle" once again dissolves into its inscrutable wave function.
In summary, humans have accumulated very persuasive experimental and observational evidence in support of the following mythological elements:
It is therefore not beyond the pale of reason to speculate that the sum of all quantum fields in Cosmos constitute a metaconscious matrix of information-sharing agents of transcendent richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty; and constitute in ways that may be humanly apprehended, if at all, only in mythological terms, what some have called the ground of all being, and others call the gods.
As if to underline this speculation, I have lately learned that quantum effects may be vital to the functioning of the human, and presumably of many nonhuman nervous systems. The classical model of the brain holds that neurons share their electrical impulses with the neurons with which they are synaptically connected, entirely by means of biochemical processes. Goswami cites Walker as challenging this view, and suggesting instead that quantum tunneling may be of vital importance to the transmission of nerve impulses.6 Quantum tunneling exploits the sometimes wave properties of quanta, enabling them to "pass through" otherwise impenetrable barriers. Goswami further cites Bass,7 and Wolf,8 who have separately discovered the need for nonlocal quantum effects to account for the speed with which cascades of synaptically connected neurons are able to proliferate nerve impulses across the macroscopic scale of cortical brain tissue.
Additionally, there are enormous volumes of fully documented so-called "paranormal," or "psychic" human experiences which have no classical explanation whatsoever; and which might find satisfactory explanations in terms of nonlocal quantum information-sharing, outside the dimensions of "time" and "space."
One of the most compelling of these, and perhaps one of the most rigorously researched as well, is the science of kinesiology,9 developed in the 1970s to study the relationship between mind and body. Hawkins writes, in Power vs. Force:
Kinesiology exposed, for the first time, the intimate connection between mind and body, revealing that the mind "thinks" with the body itself.10
Dr. Hawkins is referring to a study of universal relationships discovered by numerous investigators to exist between the human body and an evident metaconscious presence transcendent of individual human opinions and biases. From a "classical" viewpoint these studies, and their implications, simply "do not compute," and they have not been well received, for instance by the "mainstream" medical fraternity. They have nevertheless produced consistent and experimentally reproducible results among widely representative samples of the global human population, by investigators all over the world.
By means of a very simple technique, which I shall describe, it is evidently possible to obtain in effect "yes" and "no" responses to questions on any subject, with an uncanny accuracy which transcends the knowledge and opinions of the individuals asking the questions, and giving the answers. By referring to a numeric scale between 1 and 1000, it is possible to refine a simple binary "yes / no" response, by means of a series of questions, to a succession of responses with exquisite composite gradations of meaning.
The technique requires the cooperative effort of two individuals, one (a) "asking the questions," the other (b) "giving the answers." The second of these (b) extends his or her arm out horizontally, and holds it rigidly parallel with the floor. The first (a) poses a "question" in the form of a declarative statement, pressing down with two fingers upon the extended wrist of b, and giving the instruction, "Resist." If the statement is "true," "positive," or "beneficial," b will have no difficulty resisting the downward pressure upon his / her wrist exerted by a's two fingers. This is designated a "strong" response, and is interpreted as affirmative. If the statement is "false," "negative," or "deleterious," b will "go weak," and will not be able to resist the downward pressure exerted by a. Results of this simple test have been found to be uncannily accurate, regardless of the relative physical strength of participants a and b, and regardless of either of their knowledge or opinions regarding the subject of the "question(s)" being "asked."
For example, Hawkins describes a demonstration he has made routinely while on the lecture circuit. To an audience of 1,000 individuals, Hawkins distributes 1,000 identical envelopes, 500 of which contain a sample of artificial sweetener, and 500 of which contain a sample of organic vitamin C. The audience then divide up into pairs of as and bs, and test each other against a proposition to the effect that "The contents of this envelope are good for you." When the audience open their envelopes, they are invariably amazed, according to Hawkins, to discover that they had tested unanimously "strong" to the vitamin C, and unanimously "weak" to the artificial sweetener. "The nutritional habits of countless families across the country were changed," Hawkins writes, "due to this simple demonstration."11
At the time of writing, I have not myself experimentally verified the technique described above; yet it seems to me clear that Hawkins's claims for it may be easily verified or falsified by any pair of experimenters willing to duplicate his described technique.12 Assuming experimental results are as easily duplicated as Hawkins claims, this kinesiological technique may open the door for anyone to make their own experimentally verifiable investigations into what has, under the "classical model," heretofore been labeled "the paranormal," and what I prefer to include under the rubric of metaconsciousness. One does not have to be "psychically gifted," in other words, in order to perform these experiments, and receive "answers" of verifiable accuracy.
As mentioned in the Prologue, in discussing metaconsciousness we are not talking about anything "new," but only applying a contemporary lexical innovation to something humans have been speculating about, and discussing, time out of mind. This may seem like not very much; however, a shifted vocabulary can sometimes open the way for patterns of thought which would not otherwise rise into conscious awareness. One may think about the gods, for instance, in entirely different (from "classical") ways, if one interprets their myths in terms of the always / everywhere presence of nonlocal quantum events metaconsciously observed – the more so, as only a tiny fraction of all quantum events are observable by one's local self.
Through the above considerations, additional contours of the metaconsciousness myth emerge, which may be summarized as follows:
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1. I discussed some of the "peculiarities" at the quantum scale in "Knowledge," August, 1998.
2. This was persuasively demonstrated in a 1982 experiment by Alain Aspect, et al., at the University of Paris-Sud. See Goswami, 1993, 1995, pp. 113-121, for a discussion of this experiment, and some of its implications.
3. Grahn, 1998.
4. Planck's constant is a very small, yet discrete number discovered by Max Planck in 1900 to be of enormous significance at the quantum scale: 6.626176 × 10-34 joule-seconds, to be precise.
5. See Adams, 1980, Chapters 9 and 10, for a fictional exploration of some of the hypothetical consequences of the existence of a quantum field of limitless potentiality. The relevant discussion is on the "Infinite Improbability Drive."
6. E. Harris Walker, 1970, "The nature of consciousness," Mathematical Biosciences, 7:131-78, cited by Goswami, 1993, 1995, p.167.
7. L. Bass, 1975, "A quantum mechanical mind-body interaction," Foundations of Physics, 5:155-72, cited by Goswami, loc. cit.
8. Fred Alan Wolf, Taking the Quantum Leap, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1981, cited by Goswami, 1993, loc. cit.
9. G. Goodheart, Applied Kinesiology, 12th Edition, Privately Published, Detroit, 1976, cited in Hawkins, 1995, 1998, 2002, p. 41.
10. Hawkins, 1995, 1998, 2002, p. 42.
11. Ibid., p. 59.
12. Hawkins gives additional refinements to the technique, in order to avoid known sources of misleading "answers," such as cautioning participants not to wear jewelry during testing, particularly quartz wrist-watches, as these evidently skew results. Serious investigators may do well to consult his book.
13. Grahn, Civilization and Beyond, in The Gods & the Law of Life, Humanity's metaconsciousness, 2004, 2005.
14. James Thurber, The 13 Clocks, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1950, p. 31.
Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Chapter 3 | Contents | Chapter 5