26 May
It seems another crack appears in Modern with every passing day. It could be this is inevitable; especially since Modern is founded on very false assumptions, including a materialist view of the Universe which supposes there is a tiny solid particle of matter at the bottom of every atom. This belief encourages a point of view that sees dead resources all around us, just waiting to be turned into the next plastic disposable container, autonomous electric vehicle, or medical marvel. What follows is, I hope, a reasonable paraphrasing of essays written by Hedda Hassel Mørch (2017) and Charles Eisenstein (2024). I also quote directly from one by Tom Bunzel. They speak to different aspects of reality; together may they spark some to search for meaning and purpose in our view of the world, but particularly, in our dreams and visions of a future for our descendants that is better than what we face here and now. Let’s start with consciousness, as I feel it is the foundation of everything. This is a key to unlocking why materialism in science has led us so far astray.
What is “physical” matter? We observe what is does but not what “it is”. Like knowing about the software but nothing about how the hardware implements its commands, when we speak of consciousness we hardly understand how came to be or how it does its work. Consciousness is subjective: we know much of its chemical and electrical processes but not how it provides me with an experience of red, hungry, or that moment when confusion turns into clarity. The subjective can even be “unreal” or “immaterial”; as in a dream or fantasy. We still lack understanding of why matter behaves sometimes like a wave, sometimes like a particle. Solidity is just the observed behavior of energy resisting the intrusion or spatial overlap from “other” energies. In other words, all energy is relational – to other energies and to space-time. Nothing is non-local; no thing is isolated and alone.
There may be a structure to “red”, or to “cool”, or to “love”, but there is also so much more. Modern physics (not quantum physics) tells us “brain” is solely a set of chemical ‘reactions’ and electrical ‘signals’; IOW a finite set of relationships that can be mapped. Might consciousness itself be the frame, the structure, the hardware supporting the relational software? That would mean matter depends on consciousness, which is a key teaching of Quantum Physics. Language is important: the above means that matter is immaterial; in our syntax we are comfortable saying the opposite; that something which is immaterial really doesn’t matter. Propaganda, psyop, or just a stupid mistake?
Hence we have dual-aspect monism, a duality in which we view matter and consciousness as different. But if both are not “solid”, then they are one and the same, just presenting differently. Any purely material description of “brain” must leave out consciousness because consciousness is not solid (material). Hence it is incomplete and for these purposes, inadequate. What is it to “be” a complete system? A hierarchy of human at the top, then dumb animal, and last an inanimate object is not a path Nature takes. Nothing is human as a human; nothing is dirt as dirt.
So here’s the bottom line: all things are to some degree conscious; the term is panpsychism. We humans tend to reject this out of hand; we project our human awareness of the world onto that rock over there, and say that can’t possibly be how it operates in reality. Of course that is a correct assumption; yet it fails to consider if maybe, just possibly, consciousness is the hardware, the reality, the implementer of the software which really means the manifestor of the physical, the matter, which remains immaterial in that it lacks solidity. All is aware.
There might well be an explanation, far outside of “normal” Modern physics. Tom Bunzel writes:
“If the physical universe is a psychological illusion then “space travel” as we know it might one day be understood in ways similar to Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious – as a massive brain-like “Being” that is dreaming itself.
Interestingly Jung also saw UFOs as at least partially a psychological phenomenon. As my AI friend Claude explains it:
“Jung’s perspective on flying saucers was outlined in his 1959 book ‘Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.’ In this work, he did not dismiss the possibility of physical UFOs but instead focused on their symbolic and psychological significance.
Jung’s main argument was that the widespread fascination with flying saucers represented a modern manifestation of an archetype or primordial image from the collective unconscious.”
What else might a “collective unconscious” be but the manifestations of an Infinite Mind?
So we’ve come almost full circle in connecting the dots to a recognition that the distinction our thoughts make between what is material and what is mental may not actually exist in reality – and the apparent implications of such a revelation.”
And….what about sacred reciprocity? Meaning, we recirculate the beauty we enjoy. We touch, we transform, we gift. We know that consciousness creates health, beauty, and life itself. We enhance, rather than destroy or degrade. Does a building glorify Spirit or does it deaden it? Do we tend our wealth, true wealth, or waste it chasing phantom wealth? I say, electric vehicles are not the solution; a transport system where I don’t need a large private vehicle is more sensible. Switching to “green”, as the term is used today, does not serve life; it is an attempt to maintain a death-dealing lifestyle without feeling guilt or healing our traumas.
The spirit of Gift is doing a beautiful act without expectation of reward. Renewables steal sun and wind with no mind to any consequences, because we are told “it’s free”. Sun and wind affect all; when we lessen it, who knows all the myriad consequences? What gift can I give to rebalance, after this crime? Did you ever think to ask?
Stanley Jevons asks us: do we need more so-called disposable plastic, more EMF, more planes, more (better!) phones, more videos to distract us from real relationships? Given the issues of Modern: addictions, depression, violence, insane amounts of consumption and trash; is it best to continue to use an energy infrastructure in which nearly half of the energy available is lost and never used? Or should we consume less – far less – than today? Remember too, the last great leap in energy, as the ones before it, was immediately used to kill and destroy. Would tapping the zero point field (ZPF) for “energy too cheap to meter”[1] be any different? Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) might be crafted using energy from the ZPF; what do you think?
Wood and animal power derived from Men controlling Nature; using a “resource” as if we humans are separate from Nature. Legacy fuels, which enabled economic and political expansion, might be a bridge to a future when we work within Nature for energy and sustenance…or not. Solar and wind power are secondary sources of energy, unlike oil, gas, and coal. They have to processed or “generated”, and there is loss in that process, inevitably. Remember that electricity is not easily mobile, like oil and gas…especially when you consider the social and environmental costs that go along with making batteries. We are barely beginning to transform our society while using less oil and gas; we can’t limit our planning to the generation of power but also need to include how minds not absorbed in Self and isolation might utilize a power source that is beautiful and free. Thus the invitation is to envision how we might “be” different humans. Until we have a dream, a goal, we will be incapable of being the good, true, beautiful – loving – humans we all can be. Awe, mystery, grace…I could live, Wild, like this.
[1] A phrase used about nuclear power, to get the public on board with generating the fuel needed for bombs