V 5.1.0, 1 April 2008
by J. Harmon Grahn
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Copyright © 2008 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 of the parent work entitled "Appendix A. GNU Free Documentation License".
Contents:
Mythology
Although the title of the work, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World conveys from the outset a hint of the importance of the idea of mythology to the process of human thought and action, the profound importance, and widely diverse implications of this idea became apparent to the Author only gradually. Few people in contemporary culture, I believe – or possibly in any culture, or most cultures – are in the habit of considering their beliefs and convictions to be myths. And yet, when looked at squarely, what else can they truthfully be called? Every human belief is based upon an assemblage of relevant information, such as a collection of "known facts," which may support the belief with varying degrees of persuasiveness. Yet may it not be truthfully said that there are always additional "unknown facts" which, if known, might have a consequential impact upon the belief, and the previously "known facts" believed to support it? Is it not so that one additional "known fact" can sometimes have the effect of rendering a previously "self evident" belief untenable? And is it not so that such a newly disclosed "fact" may emerge at any time, and possibly overturn a belief so well settled that it is hardly doubted by anyone? As touched upon in
"The Edifice of Human Knowledge", section II.6, history is filled with such upsets – as is the life of every individual who ever learned anything new after the day he or she was born.
Therefore, I urge the interested Reader to devote some serious introspection to the question, "How do you know that you know what you know?" 1 And I suggest that the ability to acknowledge one's own "knowledge" to be a collection of myths will render numerous profound rewards that far surpass those offered by holding only "right," or "correct," or "accurate" convictions and beliefs, as opposed to entertaining "wrong," or "incorrect," or "inaccurate misconceptions."
Once one has relinquished her or his tenacious grip upon the conviction that what one "knows" is, by golly, "how it is, dammit," and acknowledges instead that one's belief, about anything, is actually a myth supported by such-and-such collection of assembled "known facts" – in exchange for one's formerly closed certainty, one suddenly finds oneself standing before a doorway which opens upon endless realms of possibility. Such acknowledgment does not threaten, or necessarily change one's beliefs – which are subject to change throughout life anyway; it only opens the possibility, formerly closed, that things may be otherwise than one had imagined; and beckons one into further exploration, filled with interest, wonder, and potentially endless discovery. This is a theme which runs throughout the work, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World, and I submit to your considered evaluation that it is sound, useful, and the source of many surprising and delightful benefits.
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"Civilization"
Another theme that runs through the work is the idea that "civilization" – what we've had for the past five thousand years as an organizing system for human societies – doesn't work, is on the way out, and is in the process of being replaced by "post-civilization;" which is whatever evolves after the failure and collapse of "civilization." This may be one of the less appealing features of the work, because it may be viewed as "negative," and therefore contrary to the evolution of a more "positive" outcome for global humanity.
Such criticism may be warranted; yet in amelioration, I would like to point out that I too have been a product of "civilization," and have been influenced by it in every possible way, from infancy. As is the case for the vast majority of humans now alive on this planet, "civilization" has been my ancestral heritage for the past five thousand years, and has saturated and surrounded my life as the ocean saturates and surrounds a sponge growing upon a reef.
Yet from a very early age I have endeavored in many ways to view this heritage as would a visitor from "somewhere else," and I have tried to understand exactly what it is about "civilization" that has always made me feel so uncomfortable and ill at ease. This effort has been no easier for me than it would be for a fish to seek a penetrating solution to the mystery of water. When I finally began to glimpse what it was that so set my teeth on edge, I was appalled, horrified, and angered by what emerged gradually to my awareness as the underlying essence of what I had always been taught to admire, trust, and honor. Although I am now moving beyond this emotional reaction, it is reflected in many places within the work as written; which I hope does not detract too severely from its otherwise more agreeable aspects.
I think a great many people share with me a keen desire for a "better world;" although there will probably be far less agreement among all of us as to how such a desire may best be fulfilled. If there is merit to any of my criticisms of "civilization," then even their "negative" aspects may contribute to a more "positive" outcome, eventually; for even if many of us agree that a "better world" is desirable, such a "better world" is not likely to materialize for any of us unless we are willing to change our habitual and accustomed ways of living. If "civilization" as practiced really is fundamentally flawed, as I perceive it to be, then the "better world" we all desire cannot materialize in our experience so long as we persist in our "civilized" habits. Similarly, an alcoholic or a drug addict cannot be rehabilitated unless he or she is willing to admit to being an alcoholic or an addict, and is motivated by a desire to be something else instead. Such recognition is not being "negative." It is taking a first positive step toward a more liberated, more effective way of living. Something analogous lies behind my "negativity" toward "civilization."
In The Myth of Inevitability, section II.8, I ask, "How do you like my myth, that I've been spinning out for you all this time: that our so-called 'civilization' is on its way to inevitable collapse, and maybe some of us will be fortunate enough to get out of it alive? No? Doesn't quite do it for you? It doesn't seem to do it for me either, anymore. Well, it's nice to know that it too is a myth supported only by partial information, and that there is plenty of basis for alternative myths which may deliver superior satisfaction. For as implied by the title of this subsection, inevitability is itself a myth, and there are any number of alternative ways our story here may eventually 'turn out,' or continue on."
I then suggest An Alternative Myth, which may be significantly more appealing; and I suggest further that if Readers find it so, that they seek additional information to support it, flesh out its details, and enhance its plausibility. "For we are ultimately the authors of our own worlds," I continue, "and what we seek, we find. Seek out evidence to support the idea that 'We're all a-goin' to Hell on a sled,' and you will surely find it, in abundance; and so if you believe that partially supported myth, that's where your world will indeed be headed. Seek out evidence instead that humanity at large is in the midst of the most profound evolutionary cultural leap in human history, and that is surely what you will find – leading, if you so choose, to the enhanced plausibility of that partially supported myth. Then it can be the course and eventual destination of your world."
If it is "so" – that is, if it is a plausible myth – that whatever we believe is a myth supported by partial information, and that this really is the closest we can ever come with our most penetrating observations, and our most disciplined analyses, to approximating an understanding of "what is really there," then we are surely at liberty to choose our myths with care (or not), and seek out the information that best and most plausibly supports them; for this is actually how we create the reality we experience anyway. As we think and believe, so our experience confirms. Therefore, it is important for us to construct our myths with care, discernment, love, craftsmanship, and creativity. If we wish to live in a "better world," then it is incumbent upon ourselves, nobody else, to imagine with clarity what such a world would be like, and to seek, and find the information that (partially) supports the plausibility of such a "better world" actually taking shape and evolving. The information is there; we simply need to find it, interpret it, and build our myths around it, to bring into the actuality of experience our favored "better worlds."
We actually do practically all of these things all the time already; for that is how (in the myth I am spinning out for you now) all our realities come into manifestation. Only, many of us have not developed the habit of being discerning and deliberate about our beliefs, and where and how we focus our attention. And lo! the worlds we experience reflect this lack of discipline – do they not? For one thing, practically everybody seems to pass our entire lives allowing others – parents, pedagogues, priesthoods, politicians, pundits, and other pretenders to "authority" – to fashion our beliefs and myths for us, instead of taking charge ourselves of our own myths. Well, there's nothing stopping any of us from changing that, any time we want to. Many of us learn at an early age that the myths of our parents, bless them, are not, as we had imagined in childhood, superior to our own; and so as we learn, without dishonoring them, we substitute many our own myths for those of our parents. Nobody needs anyone else's "permission" to assume ownership of our myths, or to alter them to suit our own preferences, and sense of plausibility; for this may be done within the privacy of our own minds, hearts, and spirits, silently, with no word spoken – yet the result can be a changed world. Isn't that plausible?
There is a surprising and delightful corollary to this myth; and that is that it doesn't require our respective worlds to be exactly congruent – or even similar. If each of us is the creator, respectively of "my world," by virtue of what we happen to believe about it, it doesn't follow that "my world" must be an exact duplicate of "somebody else's world." Nor does this prevent us, each "living in his own little world," from meeting on the street, sharing a beverage, becoming friends, and even intimately exploring, if that is our mutual choice, each other's worlds. There is no obligation, in other words, for feeling "threatened," or other adverse reactions, simply because we have discovered that someone else's world is not an exact duplicate of ours. Why should it be?
For what else can the worlds of our experience possibly be, other than the sum of all our beliefs about them? And of course, our beliefs are not all alike. Yet each of us believes something about the various worlds in which we live; and all of our beliefs are supported and confirmed by partial information. This is proven daily by the fact that every time we learn something new, because information of which we had previously been unaware comes to our attention, our belief about our world is thereby changed; for that is what learning is. And we immediately see our learning confirmed in the changed world we experience. This is happening in everybody's life, all the time, yet hardly anyone ever seems to notice it. Well, we can change that too, if we wish. Simply notice it; and then take charge yourself (if you wish) of your own beliefs. It's simply another habit. Like any new habit one wishes to cultivate, it may seem awkward at first, and you may often forget; but it forms with persistence – if you want it to; and like learning to play a musical instrument, proficiency comes with practice.
Meanwhile, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World proposes a number of suggestions for plausible myths, and some of the information supporting them, which might contribute to the emergence in your life, and in mine, of a "better world." Such myths take a "long view" of the context in which our intimate personal lives occur. This larger context also naturally consists entirely of mythology, and always has, and always will; for the only access we have ever had to it is via our myths.
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Syntropy and Entropy 2
In Syntropy and Entropy, section II.8, we reviewed a matter first discussed in The Molecular Microworld of the Cell, section II.6; in which we were led to the startling discovery that the membrane of every living cell on Earth is studded with a vast mosaic of sensing and effecting proteins which actually duplicate an imaginary mechanism proposed by pioneer physicist James Clerk-Maxwell (1831-1879) about 136 years ago. "Maxwell's demon," as it has been called, is an imaginary creature of molecular scale which supervises a molecular-scale gate in a barrier separating two chambers in a closed vessel. Both chambers (A and B) of the vessel are occupied by a gas (such as air) at ambient pressure and temperature. Maxwell's proposal was that this creature, capable of seeing the individual gas molecules bouncing around at various velocities within each chamber, opens and closes the gate so as to allow only fast-moving molecules to pass from A to B, and only slow-moving molecules to pass from B to A. "He will thus," Maxwell wrote, "without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics."
Having thus introduced ourselves to the particulars of Maxwell's thought experiment, we then followed the work of contemporary cell biologist Bruce Lipton in his discovery that the Integral Membrane Proteins (IMPs) of two varieties, receptors and effectors, cover the surface of every cell membrane, which is selectively permeable to a wide variety of molecular structures afloat inside and outside the cell. This selectively permeable quality is effected by the combined action of the receptor and effector IMPs embedded throughout all cell membranes.
Receptor IMPs are the cell's "sense organs," whereby each one is molecularly matched to a specific molecular shape of interest to the cell, and occurs in the cellular environment, either inside or outside the cell membrane. Some such molecules are nutritious, and when one is sensed outside the cell by a matching receptor IMP, this sends a signal to a nearby effector IMP, which is a usually closed pore perforating the cell membrane. The pore opens, however, upon receipt of the signal from the receptor IMP that has connected with a nutritious molecule, and admits the nutritious molecule into the cell interior, where it can be digested to energize the cell's metabolism.
Conversely, when a receptor IMP, whose molecular "sense organ" resides inside the cell, senses another specific molecular structure, which happens to be a byproduct of the metabolism of a nutritious molecule, and is no longer beneficial inside the cell, another signal is sent to a nearby effector IMP, causing it to open long enough to allow the waste molecule to exit the cell interior.
In this way cellular health is maintained, and nutritious molecules are allowed inside the cell, where they may be metabolized, and waste products within the cell are selectively expelled. Dr. Lipton did not mention the connection between Maxwell's proverbial demon and this ubiquitous process which is in constant action throughout all biological life, each IMP operating at hundreds of cycles per second; but it struck me as a prototypical implementation in real life of Maxwell's whimsical mechanism for lowering the entropy (or conversely, raising the syntropy) within each cell of every living organism – and it seems to work, just as Maxwell imagined 136 years ago!
This leads me to the speculation that, contrary to the myths of contemporary science, which hold that "the universe is running down," because the slide into ever increasing accumulations of entropy is a one-way street, I suspect that in the largest scale of things entropy and syntropy balance each other, and in consequence the universe is a stable system at large, and is not running down after all. For the entire sphere of biological life, consisting of countless cells, each one covered with a dense mosaic, in effect of legions of Maxwell's proverbial demons, are engaged constantly in the feverish endeavor of selectively and purposefully regulating the relative concentration of innumerable molecular components within and without each biological cell.
This myth – and it makes no pretense at being other than a myth – finds further support in a disclosure first discussed in this work in Cosmological Scale Expansion in section II.5; and again brought up for review in Syntropy and Entropy, section II.8.
Having described in the places just cited some of the details of the Scale Expanding Cosmos (SEC) under development by C. Johan Masreliez, I will not recapitulate them here; but only observe that the SEC cosmology, as distinguished from the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM) currently embraced by most contemporary cosmologists, furnishes a plausible cosmology for an eternal Cosmos, without beginning or end.
The SCM, in contrast, begins at an arbitrary moment in time with a "Big Bang!" about 12 to 14 billion (109) years ago, and ends with either an eventual frigid "heat death" after all the stars in all the galaxies consume the last of their fuel and burn themselves out; or the combined gravitational mass of Cosmos eventually slows its rate of expansion to zero, after which all the matter in Cosmos changes direction, and begins collapsing into its common gravitational center – ending, finally, in a "Gnab Gib," complementary counterpart to the "Big Bang" with which it began. In either eventuality, entropy ultimately prevails over syntropy, and awaits all things as the final destiny of "All That Is."
The only possible exception to this destiny offered by the SCM is that, having fallen back into the dimensionless singularity of infinite density out of which all the matter and energy that exists is believed to have emerged in the "Big Bang," the process will somehow repeat itself, and an entirely new Cosmos will once again emerge out of another "Big Bang," and commence another cycle of Cosmic expansion. That possibility yields a cyclical cosmology, which may be eternal; but nothing of the "heritage" of one cycle, in that eventuality, can possibly carry over into the next; for all that has been accomplished and learned during the billions or perhaps trillions of years spanning each cycle is irrevocably consumed in the "Gnab Gib" / "Big Bang" interchange that terminates each Cosmic cycle. The SCM offers no mechanism for what we would call "progress" or "evolution" in the largest Cosmic scheme of things. As SCM cosmologist Steven Weinberg has remarked, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."
The cosmology of the Scale Expanding Cosmos does not bear this blemish; for it proposes a Cosmos which never had a beginning, and therefore is never required to come to an end. Its perpetual expansion is not the product of an explosive event at a moment within the matrix of time, but is instead the product of the expansion of the matrix of space-time itself. Inches, feet, meters, light-years, seconds, minutes, millennia, atoms, and galaxies are growing larger all the time, as is the (not-empty) space within, between, and among them – and always have been, and always will be. There is nothing known about Cosmos which gives it a preference for any particular scale of time and space over any other; therefore, there is no fundamental reason for the scale of space-time to be changeless. Accordingly, the SEC makes the assumption that the scales of space and time are constantly expanding in synchrony with each other; and makes predictions about the observable consequences of this assumption, many of which have already been confirmed by actual observation.
So far, the SEC has not been overturned by observation or analysis, and invites further research in many domains of cosmology to flesh out its details. Meanwhile, it provides persuasive basis for an emerging cosmological myth which dovetails appealingly with complementary myths offering striking alternatives to widely held "civilized" mythologies.
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Evolution
Looking around the sliver of Cosmos available to our close examination, it is difficult to bring to mind an example of a completely unique specimen, or phenomenon. Even in instances of discovery of something no one had ever seen before, it appears virtually certain that other examples of the same kind will before long make their appearance. Are there any exceptions? For awhile, perhaps; but sooner or later, it may be relied upon that other examples of the same kind will eventually join the "unique" specimen.
One such unique specimen – so far – is our planet Earth: the only planet in all of Cosmos known (by us) to harbor biological life (and incidentally, humans). As far as we know, neither we nor our planet have any peer – but although we have flattered ourselves for thousands of years that this is so, our vanity most likely rests upon the Cosmic probability that "as far as we know" has never been after all very far.
The anomalous planet Earth, the anomalous presence upon it of biological life, and the anomalous presence among living beings of what we like to call Homo sapiens sapiens, "wise, wise Man," have always presented formidable challenges to human comprehension; and from our earliest "prehistory" humans have created myths with which to account for these incomprehensible anomalies – a practice that continues to the present day.
The myth of panspermia, discussed briefly in section II.5 is one of these: the idea that biological life did not spontaneously originate and commence evolution on planet Earth at all, but was seeded here from extraterrestrial sources near the moment our planetary surface achieved conditions under which biological life could survive, thrive, and evolve. The main appeal of panspermia is that it potentially provides a plausible explanation for the otherwise inexplicable presence of biological life on Earth. For the probability of the spontaneous generation of the complex fabric of functional living organisms taking place on the sterile surface of a virgin Earth, composed only of inorganic minerals, and oceans of distilled water, seems on examination so remote as to be indistinguishable from a stark impossibility.
The myth of an eternal Scale Expanding Cosmos changes this virtual impossibility into a rather high probability – especially if it is also true that viable biological microbes are found in comets, meteors, and interstellar dust. In that eventuality, it becomes plausible that any "Earth-like" planet – that is, bearing oceans of liquid water – is likely to harbor nascent biological life at an early date following the achievement of stable conditions conducive to biological evolution. With limitless time at its disposal, the SEC cosmology turns the incomprehensible improbability of biological evolution, on Earth and elsewhere, into a virtual certainty – since, being biological beings ourselves, we "know" as plainly as we "know" anything, that Earth does in fact harbor biological life. And by the principle that other examples of the same kind will eventually join any "unique" specimen, we are even furnished reason to expect to meet others like ourselves, sooner or later, after we mature beyond our present infancy, and develop the knack of interacting intelligently and symbiotically with other intelligent, symbiotic beings. So far, the human race on planet Earth have only taken our first baby steps toward a potential destiny hardly even imagined by anybody.
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Metaconsciousness
The plausibility of this growing complex of, shall we say, "post-civilized" mythology is further enhanced by the myth of metaconsciousness, first briefly described in What I Mean by Metaconsciousness in the Prologue, and elaborated much more extensively, with annotations, in Elements of the Myth of Metaconsciousness in section I.11.
As discussed in I.3. Metaconsciousness Among the Microbes, the self-organizing metaconsciousness that spontaneously emerges among large populations of information-sharing entities is not tied to the individual intelligence of the entities among which it emerges. Howard Bloom points out the differences in individual intelligence between chimpanzees and baboons – the former are endowed with significantly greater brain power, and about twice the brain size, of the latter – and the surprisingly opposite differences in group adaptability, decisively favoring troops of baboons over troops of chimpanzees.3 Chimps are on the edge of extinction, while baboons mount from strength to strength in their ability to cope with the shifts in their habitat, caused mostly by humans. What Bloom calls Group IQ, and I call metaconsciousness, can be measured in terms of the adaptability of the group, or swarm, or colony displaying it; for adaptability to the challenges of shifting circumstances is the ultimate test of any individual's, group's, or specie's intelligence and resourcefulness in the real world. On that scale, small-brained baboons are significantly more "intelligent" – or more precisely, in my lexicon, metaconscious – than large-brained chimps. And microbes, collectively, may be the most metaconscious life forms on the planet.
Bloom describes how colonies of microbes have demonstrated the ability to adapt to circumstances requiring them to re-engineer their genomes in several-step sequences which produced disadvantageous interim results before they were able to reach the pay-off of successful adaptation to radically changed circumstances.4 Conventional biologists have insisted that this is impossible, because of the Neo-Darwinist myth that biological evolution is driven "mindlessly" by opportunistic exploitation of fortuitous developments, and decidedly not by any mechanism resembling planning or intention. The observed circuitous evolutionary path Bloom describes could never happen if contemporary Neo-Darwinist myths were "the whole story."
In the Inconclusion to section II.6 I make the following observations:
I don't believe anybody will argue against the proposition that all "normal" humans possess a profound capability for creative thought and purposeful action aimed at intended results – even if some are more gifted in this regard than others. Yet I doubt it is an exaggeration that 999,999 or more out of a million humans living today, or at any period of history or prehistory, if asked how they would like to see their lives improved, as well as the world in which they live, will frame answers involving only minor modifications of existing circumstances. When human inventive genius brought into manifestation, for example, mechanical means of replacing the horsepower of actual horses with engines more compact and efficient than horses, capable of much greater horsepower, that same inventive genius immediately applied itself to turning out a succession of "horseless carriages" very similar in appearance and function to contemporaneous conveyances that were still being hitched to living horses. Nobody built, or even imagined, anything remotely like a 2007-model Toyota, or Cadillac.
This is hardly surprising. The Wright brothers built a motorized box kite; they didn't build a wide-bodied jet airliner, and neither did any of their immediate successors. To the surprise of nobody, countless similar examples may be brought to mind; yet over time, the evolutionary process of human invention has eventually materialized a wealth of astounding inventions through a succession of minutely incremental improvements upon already existing mechanisms.
Today, contemporary biologists seem virtually without exception to agree that the biological process of evolution through natural selection is a "mindless" affair which advances solely by means of fortuitous adaptations to accidentally encountered circumstances. It has no "purpose" or "intent," or sense of "design," and anyone suggesting otherwise is immediately branded an irrational "mystic," or "heretic," or worse. Yet the process of human invention, which is universally acknowledged to be guided by purpose, intent, and creative design, seems to follow exactly the same incremental pattern exhibited by "mindless" evolution at large.
Moreover, as we have seen, patterns of astonishing complexity and functionality emerge spontaneously in endless variety, everywhere we look, once our perceptions are attuned to them, in circumstances in which nothing resembling what we customarily recognize as "mind" is anywhere evident. Examining the membrane of a single cell, we find nothing but a forest of clockwork molecular mechanisms which individually open and close pores in response to comprehensible mechanical stimuli. Yet their aggregate effect is the reduction of entropy throughout the entire fabric of all biological life. Examining a human brain, we find a dense tangle of interconnected neurons whose actions, although not entirely understood, seem at bottom to be no less "mindless" than the mechanical contraptions that populate cell membranes. Yet out of them have sprung the works of Bach and Beethoven, among countless human inventions and sublime creative works.
Conversely, even the entirely human-engineered Internet, which facilitates with high efficiency the swift circulation and proliferation of information throughout the planet, has taken its form not in consequence of deliberate human intent, but in response to countless local individual human decisions which have combined to produce a comprehensive result utterly beyond anyone's conscious imagination.
Such patterns are constantly and spontaneously emerging everywhere, and always have been, with human agency, and without; and I submit that the contemporary declaration, on the basis of unavoidably partial information, that they are the result of "mindless" processes is no less a myth than any other human belief that has ever been held by anyone.
Bloom's disclosures, coupled with those of Lipton, revealing the cell membrane, not the cell's genome, to be the seat of individual microbial intelligence, or "processing power," and the vital metaconsciousness with which the IMPs embedded throughout each cell membrane combine to keep each microbial cell nourished, healthy, and free of the toxic byproducts of molecular metabolism, furnish persuasive plausibility to the myth that metaconsciousness may have always been a spontaneously emergent property of "All That Is," without beginning or end, present everywhere, at all times, and absent nowhere, and never.
As discussed in Emergent Behaviors, section II.6, "Once the mystery has been taken to pieces, and all its parts analyzed and understood – and each of them taken to pieces in turn, if necessary, and similarly analyzed and understood, and so on – there often emerges the still-mysterious synergy of, as Buckminster Fuller was fond of pointing out, 'behaviors of whole systems unanticipated by the behaviors of their parts.' This is a phenomenon that exhibits itself everywhere, and describing it (partially) is not the same as 'explaining' it. There may be those who claim to understand these things, but I remain awed and transfixed by what appears to me their inherent mystery. Such, it seems to me, is the emergence of human awareness out of 'the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.' To me, it is impenetrably mysterious and wonderful, and I have no more idea how to account for it than I imagine a protohuman out of the Pliocene may have had, had s/he ever thought or wondered about such things."
Taking these observations from the microbial scale to the unimaginably more granular (and more universal) quantum scale, as discussed in I.4. Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields, we are given even more persuasive reasons to believe all components of "All That Is" to be instantaneously and universally "wired" together into a seamless and indivisible whole in which no part lacks a functional, instantaneous, reciprocal relationship with every other part, and with the entirety of "All That Is."
"Quantum events at the scale of atomic orbits, or that span galaxies, occur alike in 'no time,'" I write in Nonlocality, section I.4, "and unite all of Cosmos into a single, indivisible whole. Bohr's position was confirmed [by the experiments cited], and complementarity and nonlocality were decisively disclosed to be accurately described in a complete quantum theory. Like it or not, we live and have our being in a non-local quantum universe. Get used to it."
Returning to the more familiar human scale, as discussed in On Networks, section II.6, these mysterious emergent behaviors of self-organizing systems seem to appear spontaneously at all scales, in endless variety, and bewildering interrelated complexity. They may involve human agency, as in the example explored in I.6. The Hacker Tribe, or not; and may be described as "intelligent" (or not) depending upon the myth describing them.
Pulling these diverse elements together into a single comprehensive mythology, as I write in Emergent Behaviors, section II.6, "I am able to extrapolate that if the kind of metaconsciousness I experience as creativity, self-awareness, intellect, intuition, love, fear, sensation of sound, color, shape, texture, taste, smell, touch, etc., are able to emerge from 'a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules' – which seems, as far as it goes, plausible enough to me – then it seems no less plausible to imagine that analogous forms of metaconsciousness may just as easily, just as mysteriously, emerge from the interstices amongst the atoms and molecules of the animals and trees, the rocks, the rivers, the mountains, the wind, the Sun, and the stars... and that these other forms of metaconsciousness might blend and mingle with mine, and we may all be one vast 'Being' (or network!), without beginning or end, that fills and animates 'All That Is' – possibly with something on the order of 'six degrees of separation' between anything and anything else in the 'known universe!'"
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Symbiosis and Predation
Such a "post-civilized" mythology strikes me as bearing a potential for contributing to the evolutionary emergence of many potential improvements upon the various and diverse "civilized worlds" many humans are experiencing at present. If it is plausible, for example, that every component within the overarching "All That Is" exists in "functional, instantaneous, reciprocal relationship with every other," then it can be no less plausible that every biological being exists in relationship with all others as well; and in Symbiosis and Predation, section II.8, I make the following observations:
[N]o living organism can live for very long in the absence of other living organisms. There is no such thing as an entirely self-sufficient living organism. This means that we all live in relationship with others like, and unlike, ourselves, and that we depend for our very lives upon the nature of our relationships with other organisms.
There are two, and only two, kinds of relationship possible between or among living organisms: a) symbiotic-social, and b) predatory-parasitic. Both are naturally occurring kinds of relationship, and both are vital to the health of ecological systems; but a is not b, and it is a fatal error for any organism to mistake b for a.
An "ideal" symbiotic-social relationship among organisms is one in which all participating organisms benefit, and no organism interferes with the free choice of another within the symbiotic-social relationship. This translates into a kind of "social law" which may be expressed in words as something like, Live however you wish, come and go as you please; and allow all your peers the same liberty. Otherwise, you damage the social fabric, and become their enemy. The reason symbiotic-social relationships form and are maintained is that they provide advantages to each constituent not otherwise available, and therefore provide survival and life-enhancing value to all constituents. Therefore, anything that damages or threatens the social fabric damages or threatens the life of each constituent. To their constituents, symbiotic-social relationships are worth the effort required for their maintenance.
A pack of wolves, for instance, maintain symbiotic-social relationships amongst themselves, although they are predators in relation to other creatures. They do not prey upon each other, nor do they pretend to have symbiotic-social relationships with their prey; and their prey usually "understand" this clearly. To a rabbit, a wolf is an unambiguous enemy, and this is clearly "understood" at some level by wolves and rabbits alike – which never (usually) share social relationships.5
Parasites are a more subtle, more highly specialized variety of predator, inasmuch as they succeed in their predations by disguising their presence to their prey, or host. But the actual relationship between parasite and host, whether or not this is clear to the host, is exactly the same as that between wolves and rabbits – which is to say, it is not symbiotic-social; it is predatory-parasitic. In broad strokes, it may be observed that mistaking predatory-parasitic for symbiotic-social relationships during the five-thousand-year course to date of "civilized history" is the error that has perpetuated the "human predicament" in which we find ourselves today.
This is naturally a gross oversimplification. Every organism is necessarily a predator in relation to at least some other organisms, because all organisms have to eat, and there is nothing on Earth to eat except other organisms. As populations grow, they naturally come into competition with one another for food and living space; and so it is possible that some symbiotic-social human populations, which until about six thousand years ago were the prevailing norm among the Neolithic peoples of Old Europe, may have at times profited at the expense of others. Those peoples were not Utopians, and like all beings, had to deal with the rough-and-tumble of real life, which at its best is never entirely free of conflict. Even among wolves socially disruptive conflicts are not unknown. The salient point being underlined here, though, is that any symbiotic-social structure degenerates swiftly when its constituents begin preying wholesale upon each other. This began happening among humans when the first hierarchies appeared.
A hierarchy in this context is a pseudo-social structure in which those higher in the hierarchy prey upon those lower. In this connection, "prey" is any deliberate action that benefits one entity at the expense of another. Naturally, there are innumerable ways of doing this short of, but not excluding, slaying and devouring. A hierarchy creates a chain of predation from top to bottom, in which every member above the bottom is a predator, and every member below the top is prey. Hierarchies masquerade as symbiotic-social relationships, but that is not what they are. Top to bottom, a hierarchy is predatory-parasitic; and the emergence of hierarchies among humans marks the point at which humanity fell into the fatal error, or the cruel snare, the final consequences of which are taking their due course throughout "civilization" today.
As is described in The Revised History of Old Europe, and Lessons From Old Europe, section I.8, and further developed in Symbiosis and Predation, and in How We Got Here, section II.8, the foundation for hierarchical ranking takes the prototypical form of domination of women by men – which unavoidably transforms a symbiotic-social structure into a predatory-parasitic structure. It cannot be otherwise. "For once again," I write, "women, not men are the biological progenitors of the species, as is the female of every species, and are the nurturers of every succeeding generation. Absent the dictatorial supervision of men, women can and will resuscitate gylanic values and mythologies at the expense of androcratic6 values and mythologies. This the androcratic 'masters' cannot and will not voluntarily allow, for it means the end of androcracy and the predatory-parasitic way of life established five thousand years ago by the 'first civilizations' (so called)."
The violent metamorphosis of symbiotic-social structures into predatory-parasitic structures evidently did indeed take place, about five thousand years ago, during the "prehistoric" preemption of the widespread and well advanced evolution of nascent symbiotic-social civilizations in the Levant, Anatolia, the Fertile Crescent, and Old Europe, by mounted invaders out of the Eurasian steppe, misnamed the "Indo-European" founders of the predatory-parasitic "civilizations" whose evolutionary descendants dominate the world today.
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Inconclusion
I believe these are potentially valuable and illuminating insights – at least, I find them so. I no longer believe, however, that they, or parallel insights – or even "perpendicular" insights, or "180° out" insights – have any likelihood, by themselves, of motivating a swift metamorphic evolutionary advance from "civilization" to "post-civilization." The reason is that evolution itself seems to be a metaconscious process, involving the combined participation of all its constituents – which means, ultimately, everything included within "All That Is." Very little of "All That" is visible, or even imagined, by you, or me, or by the most sublime team of "experts" ever assembled; yet we are all active participants in the evolutionary process of "All That Is."
By analogy, how much "awareness" do you suppose a single neuron has of the thoughts, emotions, sensations, motivations, and creativity of the human mind in which it participates with a few hundred billion other neurons? Or of the larger concerns that single mind shares, or doesn't share, in relation to other human minds? A single neuron is in communication with perhaps thousands of other neurons with which it is directly connected; and with hundreds of thousands, or millions of additional neurons with which they are connected in turn. The exchange of bits of information among these hundreds of billions of individual neurons is evidently the "source"7 of the sensations we, individually, record as thoughts, feelings, emotions, insights, flashes of creative genius – as well as all those "subconscious" contents of which even we are unaware. So how much "influence" do you suppose a single neuron, or even a delegation of directly connected neurons, have over the choices a single human makes during, say, the course of an hour, or a day, or a year?
Yet the individual human does learn, and grow, and mature, and evolve, over the course of a lifetime, yes? At least, usually. Maybe not as swiftly as some of the neurons might "wish," or necessarily in the direction some of them might "prefer" (if neurons have the analogs of wishes or preferences); but there is change, evolution, discovery, learning. This strikes me as a plausible analog to the processes of human, biological, or even Cosmic evolution. You and I may have opinions about how it should all unfold, but human evolution takes its course at its own pace, regardless what you, or I, or the President, or the King, or the Emperor, or the Pope, think about it – and regardless what any of us, or all of us, try to do about it.
Well... but not entirely regardless; for each of us participates in the evolutionary process, and influences its course every moment, by the choices we make. Each of us adds our unique flavor to the "great pot of stew," so to speak, that comprises the totality of Cosmic evolution. This may suggest that whatever influence anyone might have, at best it doesn't amount to very much, and in a perpetual, infinite Cosmos is probably unmeasurable; but this is not necessarily so.
On the basis of the principle of self-similarity mentioned in section II.5, it seems plausible to me that the microcosm may be an analog of the macrocosm; or as the old alchemists used to say (and the new alchemists confirm), As above, so below; as below, so above. If so, then what we experience at the level of our individual minds may share analogous properties, or qualities, with "All That Is."
Now, is it not so that in the course of an hour, or a day, great multitudes of thoughts cascade through your conscious mind? Yet how many of these do you actually put into action? Very few, wouldn't you say? Some of them are idle fancies which you do not consider worthy of a second thought; some may have some appeal, but for many reasons are impracticable, and are therefore inconsequential; some are total fantasies; some you dismiss as "bad ideas" from the outset; some may be amusing to think about, but would be considerably less so if actually put into action. Others (a few, perhaps) are brilliant.
This endless cascade of every sort of brilliant, idle, silly, fanciful, beautiful, profound, etc. thoughts are all tied in somehow with the constant exchange of information among the individual neurons in your brain, and throughout the rest of your nervous system. So if what goes on in your mind is an analog of the "Metaconsciousness of All That Is," you have reason to believe that there is probably some kind of discriminatory process at work within the "Cosmic Metaconsciousness." All thoughts are not equal, either for you, or for "That;" and surely, not every idle thought works its way into actuality. That's plausible, isn't it?
If so, then a penetrating question emerges: What kind of thoughts, opinions, and emotions are most likely to attract the attention of the "Cosmic Metaconsciousness," and actually influence the course of human / Cosmic evolution? It could easily furnish the focus of extended meditation and introspection, could it not? I am not going to venture any suggestions here, but leaning upon the principle of self-similarity it occurs to me to consider the kinds of thoughts, opinions, and emotions I am most likely to focus on, and translate into substantial experience. We all do it, all the time; and sometimes, if we're paying attention, we can notice that it is not always our "best thoughts" that materialize into actuality. This is something that may bear considerable pondering.
In any case, it seems to be manifestly possible – although it doesn't always happen – for an individual to take charge of his or her own thoughts, and myths, and direct them at will. This isn't necessarily easy, as many people attest, but with practice and persistence it can be done; and it can yield rewards which make the effort worthwhile.
What do you think? Might this offer a fruitful means for you to make a substantial contribution toward the emergence of a "better world," if that is what you want to do? Think about it (if you wish).
Myself, I think "the world as it is" is well nigh perfect; and the most perfect thing about it is that it will never run out of opportunities for improvement. If that sounds like a contradiction, perhaps you might like to back up, and think it through again? What if "the world as it is" couldn't be improved? What if, somehow, things had reached their penultimate degree of refinement and perfection, and there was just no way, anywhere, anyhow, to make anything even just a tiny bit "better?" How would you like that?
Sounds to me like a perfect formula for Hell on Earth. At the very best, it would be the occasion for endless boredom. What would anybody do, for Pete's sake? One wouldn't even want to breathe, because that little breath of air might change something – would certainly change something; and any change to something that cannot be improved could only blunt its perfection, and that would be catastrophic! In fact, in a world that couldn't be improved, change would be impossible; because every possible change would make such a world "worse," not "better," and that would be a blemish, an imperfection, a contradiction of its unblemished perfection.
Fortunately (Whew!), there's no danger of anything like that ever happening in our world, is there? And everything and everyone in it is ripe for improvement, every minute of every day. Isn't that inexpressibly fortunate? Another fortunate circumstance is that each of us "in our own little world" is at liberty, and empowered, to improve our respective worlds in any ways we wish, and can. If we make changes that appeal to others, they may make similar changes to their worlds as well – and so the metaconscious process of evolution continues to unfold. It is "a wheel that grinds slowly, but exceeding fine," so to speak.
We humans haven't been at the game very long here, as a glance at the chart in The Past 245,000,000 Years, section I.8 should make clear. In terms of the evolution of life on Earth, we're definitely the "new kid on the block," and have hardly had time yet to get the lay of the neighborhood; so we shouldn't be too dismayed at falling into such obvious blunders as dominator civilization in the course of one of our early outings. I know, the five-thousand-year history of so-called "civilization" seems to us like almost forever; but this is only a child's view of our actual context. From a wider perspective, our flirtation with what we have been calling "civilization" is a mere episode, and "this too shall pass." We, and "the children of our children's children," will learn our lessons from it, and carry on – probably into other blunders, which our future descendants will eventually correct in turn.
Meanwhile, each of us, like all living things everywhere, have our chance to live here, for awhile, in this ceaselessly changing, perpetually evolving, astounding, astonishing, perfect Cosmos, and play whatever part(s) we decide upon in its ongoing evolution. WOW! What else can I say? WOW!
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1. See "Knowledge" by J. Harmon Grahn, The New Paradigm, vol. I, 22 August, 1998.
2. Entropy is the tendency for chaos and disorder to accumulate in closed systems. Syntropy, a word of my own invention, is entropy's complementary opposite.
3. Howard Bloom, Who's Smarter: chimps, baboons, or bacteria? The Power of Group IQ, in Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, Mark Tovey, Ed., Earth Intelligence Network (EIN), Oakton, Virginia, pp. 251-260.
4. Ibid., pp. 252-3.
5. In those rare instances where, in effect, "the lion lies down with the lamb," a traditional predator and its traditional prey can have a symbiotic-social relationship; in which case, of course, the predator is no longer predatory within the relationship. Unusual, but not unheard of. [Footnote in original.]
6. See Dominator and Partnership Civilizations in section I.8, p. 95, for a brief discussion of the respective meanings of gylanic and androcratic.
7. See Elements of the Myth of Metaconsciousness, item 3, section I.11, for qualification.