Civilization and Beyond
A Metaconscious Mosaic Outline
I have a hunch that after whatever is going on now among global humanity has run its course, however long that may take, whoever and whatever are left standing "after the dust begins to settle," are going to have a fundamentally altered view of things from what we have had for the past ten thousand years. In particular, I imagine that no one who has gone through all that, and survived, will ever again countenance the thought or the possibility of allowing anyone or anything else to pre-empt his or her sovereign free choice, about anything. And I imagine future generations will carry this principle forward as the foundation upon which they erect their mythologies and social organizations.
Given this principle as a starting point, and put into practice in every human endeavor, it is easy for me to imagine people – that is individuals – everywhere living by two bedrock principles:
- Do whatever you like;
- Allow all others the same liberty.
This is the simple pair of rules by which every individual may choose to conduct his or her life – not because some (unavoidably bogus) "authority" declares these principles as some kind of "law," but because every surviving individual knows by hard experience that this is the only basis upon which a social structure that works can possibly be erected. Together, they act as an automatic "governor," or "thermostat" to keep social organizations on every scale in dynamic balance.
A governor on an engine is a mechanical device which automatically reduces the fuel supply, or closes the steam valve, as engine RPMs climb toward the upper limit of a "safe running speed," resulting in a reduction in RPM. A thermostat monitors the temperature and turns the furnace down when it gets "too hot," turns the furnace up when it gets "too cold." The tandem rules, Do whatever you like / Allow all others the same liberty, operate in the same way in any social structure to which they apply.
A social structure is a relationship of any kind between or among two or more individuals. If any one of them is not at liberty to do whatever she or he likes, the social structure, sooner or later, will fail. Conversely, if any individual is able to pre-empt the liberty of any others to act likewise, and "get away with it," the social structure, sooner or later, will fail. Both principles are essential, and it is the responsibility of each individual to make it so. The alternative is war, and destruction of the social structure; and I think by the time any of us are able to crawl out from under the wreckage of collapsed civilization, there won't be anyone alive willing to do that again.
Okay; given this much as a foundation, what might surviving humanity build upon it? Well, if the two principles, Do whatever you like / Allow all others the same liberty, really are the common understanding among surviving humans, then there is no reason not to trust each other, and cooperate with each other, and build strong and lasting relationships and alliances with each other, is there? No one is about to trespass the sovereignty of anyone else, because no one would tolorate it for a moment if anyone did; so there is no reason not to get close, and really share each other's consciousness, intelligence, and creativity. Hay! how about that: metaconsciousness in the making!
Up to now, when we have contemplated metaconsciousness, we have usually been talking about something taking place at a "lower level" than that of human individuals. That is, we have been talking about the metaconsciousness of a colony of bees, or a school of fish, or a neural network of simple CPUs in a massively parallel computer. These are manifestations of metaconsciousness we may be able to apprehend, at least conceptually, because they (presumably) lie somewhere "below" the threshold of the metaconsciousness of the trillions of neurons and other cells in our own bodies which manifest in what we experience as the consciousness, intelligence, and creativity of individual humans. So far, we have not attempted to imagine the metaconsciousness that might emerge from totally unfettered relationships among significant numbers of sovereign human beings; and I'm not sure I am equal myself to the imaginative task.
In other words, what happens when the individual "cells" forming the "synaptic connections" that synergistically ignite into metaconsciousness are not swarms of insects, or fish, or "marginally intelligent silicon processors," or neurons, but are in fact highly conscious, intelligent, and creative human beings? What order of metaconsciousness might emerge from combined humanity that bears a relationship to ours, individually, as ours bears to that of the individual neurons in our nervous systems? As Bertie Wooster used to remark from time to time to his man Jeeves, "The mind boggles."
To carry this entirely into the realm of speculative fiction, let us imagine rebuilding the Leaver world.
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* Source: The Metaconsciousness Myth.
Civilization and Beyond copyright 2004, 2005 by J. Harmon Grahn. Copying and redistribution, in whole or in part, are permitted in any medium provided this notice is included.