What's Going On?: A Brief History

Why So Sick?

 

 

"The task of our generation, I have no doubt, is one of metaphysical reconstruction"

-E.F. Schumacher

A Short Story

It seems that a few passengers here on Spaceship Earth recently began thinking that the whole ship was made just for them. They think "all these insects and ibex, oceans and orangutans, are under OUR control and unimportant to the functioning of the ship." This hubris grows like cancer until the illusion of "owning and controlling" the ship seems self-evident and justified. Although small signs -- like broken parts and ugly walls -- sprouted up now and then, they were only seen by the sensitive types who weren't heavily invested in the illusion...and no-one listens to them. However they continued to grow and grow, eventually causing bigger systems to decay and fall apart, pushing the ship into shaky turbulence. Soon the passengers start to realize how their owning and controlling delusions have put the whole ship in jeopardy. The sensitive ones are becoming heard.

Every sickness has its roots, with the “s” being emphatically stressed. Some roots go deeper into explaining the malfunctioning of Sickness than others, and it's an open question as to just how deep it can go. I will be using an arbitrary time-period referred to by a few authors as a useful marker in trying to unfold the historical birth of the CULTumor (culture-tumor) that has led to this frail condition.

A Plausible Background

The “fall out” of an environmental shift from a fertile-lush landscape to a barren-desert landscape provides the conditions from which the CULTumor grows. Around 4000 BCE, the Saharasian region, an area of land encompassing Northern Africa and Asia, begins drying into a hyper-arid region that lacks rainfall and fecundity of life. It's interesting to note that that the year 4004BCE is, according to fundamentalist Christians, when the world was created; although this seems to be false, it fits perfectly with the start of the Armored Patrist World that exoteric Christianity espouses. Anyway, around this time Kurgan nomads begin dominating new areas in Old Europe & India, introducing a new social dynamic that emerged as a way to cope with the profound environmental changes. 


Armored Patrism/Dominator Culture emerges on the world stage. This dynamic stratifies the biological sexes into strictly defined rules and roles, introduces painful infant trauma & sexual mutilation techniques, inferiorizes women, institutes strict patriachal hierarchies, re-orients marriage towards compulsive monogamy, re-fashions religion into a MaleGod Oriented & Ascetic-PleasureHating enterprise, creates & reveres Warfare Art, and transitions from Technologies of Production (pottery, ornaments, & hunting tools) to Technologies of Destruction (weapons, fortifications, and slavery). Prior to this 4000BCE date, the archeological & historical record show that many cultures were of an Unarmored Matrist nature, a social dynamic based upon partnership rather than domination. Although these cultures were matrifocal in nature they don’t seem to stress the type of sexual hierarchy seen in later Armored Patrist cultures, rather they foster an egalitarian linking between the sexes. 

This period designates the birth of the CULTumor and the successive millenia foster its growth. A major period of growth occurs around 600BCE, when the dominant participatory mind, operating in a nonself-reflective manner, morphs into the detached-witnessing mind, operating in a self-reflective manner. This alteration in the functioning of human psychology leads to the rise of the Axial Age contemplative traditions, from Buddhism in India to Socratic methods in Greece. These new traditions seem to be an attempt to re-connect with the Felt Presence of Divinity that was a natural state of being in the earlier Unarmored Matrist cultures. The methods used to attain this experience were often Patrist Ascender --- ascetic, pleasurehating, antisexual, and This-World-Denying.

In the quest to reach Higher States of Consciousness, practictioners often denied the pleasures of this world to gain admittance to some “other world” distinct from direct experience. Conservative sects everywhere, from Christianity to Buddhism, carry this philosophy out to violent extremes; a fissure between self and Nature becomes more and more concrete, leading to actions that harm Nature, posit a split between Culture and Nature, and lead to the development of the “detached” scientific mind that tends to reduce nature to a simple machine devoid of consciousness. This new mode of being fosters the development of the Narcissistic Age of Politics, where we see an obsession with ruler’s deifying themselves & constructing elaborate statues to stand as testaments to their greatness.
    

The birth and early development of CULTumor encompasses a 4500 year period, from 4000BCE until 500CE. The death of Hypatia, the brilliant pagan woman scholar, by Christian Zealots in 415CE marks a fitting end to a period that saw a major shift in socio-political and spiritual trends for humanity.

So You Tryin' to Learn More?

http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia.htm

http://www.metahistory.org/READING/NIHI.php  

Navigational Map Part 4

The Anthropos Template

  

 

"The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine”

-Sir James Jeans 

Nestled within a layer of paint coating the top floor of all that has ever been, inside that last four minutes before midnight is where the human story resides --- The Anthropos Template.  Although tiny within the context of the Cosmic Shabang, this small chapter in the Grand Narrative can be magnified to reveal distinct features.

The "What is History" Interlude

Humans and the objects they leave in the psyche and environment make up the identity of what history is. This identity gets made whenever subjective interpretations of current experiences or subjective re-interpretations of past experiences become recorded. This process has been taking place all over Spaceship Gaia since at least the Symbolic Revolution of 50,000 BCE. Reality impressions have been plucked from life and compressed into containers (art, song, text, ritual etc.) that are handed down to the unborn. Alfred Korzybski calls this process "time-binding".


To totality of containers integrated together would create a "complete history". This narrative would have to weave together every single person's impression of all events viewed from all angles and expressed in all ways -- resembling an alive and eternally growing hologram. Since this seems highly unlikely, most history is, perforce, incomplete.


A compelling reason to string together a historical narrative is to sketch out recurring archetypes in the collective mind that will provide motivation for navigating where we want to go. 

Contextual Scratchings

Deep in the recesses of time, The Anthropos Template first scratches itself into the software of life here on Spaceship Gaia. Since then a few distinct phases of being have popped up, co-mingled, and disappeared like the eternal saki of Omar Khayyam's verse.


In A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber outlines four stages of human evolution. 

Each is composed of an interior collective dimension which becomes the software organizing the inner creative forms of people (belief systems, taboo's, world-orientation etc.) and an exterior collective dimension which becomes the hardware organizing the outer creative forms of people (social stratification, artwork, architecture etc.).

Foragers: Pre-agricultural people with an archaic interior collective dimension emerging around 1,000,000 to 400,000 BCE. Living within an alive biosphere where spirits imbue all life-forms, these small bands of people gather and hunt to provide all they need.

  
    Horticulturalists: Agricultural people with a magical interior collective dimension emerging during the start of the Agricultural Revolution of 10,000 BCE. Living within a matrifocal culture and a biosphere that requires appeasement of spirits, these tribal villages plant and tend fields to provide all they need. 

    Agrarians: Post-Agriculture people with a mythical interior collective dimension emerging around 4,000 to 2,000 BCE. Living within a male-dominated culture that begins splitting from the matrix of nature, these early-state communities rely on plowing/planting fields and controlling animals to provide all they need.


    Industrialists: Post-Agricultural people’s with a rational interior collective dimension emerging during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. Living within a dominator culture split from the matrix of nature, these industrialized nations rely on mechanical agriculture and wage slavery to provide all they need. 

Currently a new phase seems to be wrapping its internal and external dimensions around us. Wilber sees the emergence of an informational society that is planetary in scope, echoing Teilhard de Chardin’s notion of the Noosphere and The Omega Point.  

I Dub Thee...

As horticultural villages morph into Agrarian states, a major transition in the human psyche occurs. Earlier pre-patriarchal societies with egalitarian ethics become patriarchal societies with dominator ethics. 

Saharasian author James Demeo writes of a conflict between two polarized world-orientations, the Unarmored Matrists versus the Armored Patrists. The twentieth century thinker Wilhelm Reich described how an individual's relation with Orgone Energy --- an erotic life-force that organizes micro- and macro- cosmic forms --- determines the nature of an individual's character armor (neuro-muscular rigidity or ease). 

To put it simply, the Unarmored Matrist says “Yes!” to this life-force and the Armored Patrist says “No!”. 

Prior to 4,000 BCE Unarmored Matrist cultures in the lush North African and Asian landscapes live a mostly egalitarian existence with deep reverence for Mother Goddess figures --- they embrace Orgone Energy. In Europe, uncovered sites at Crete, Jericho, and Catal Huyuk reveal cultures that were highly developed, non-violent, and linked the sexes in harmony rather than stratified them in disharmony. 

This was the age of the Magna Mater Annointers who confer power unto certain males in rituals of sexual union called hieros gamos. They were, perforce, more powerful because it was from these sacred prostitutes that men would gain a position of importance within the culture. However, this powerful ritual soon changes when Patriarchal Annointers delete the role of sacred prostitutes and, through force, deem themselves the new priest-kings. And --- for fear of the stick --- they all Hail.

Don't Leave Me Dry

Due to climactic forces, the process of desertification begins. As the previously fertile lands become dry and lifeless, so does the psychology and emotional life of its human inhabitants. After 4,000 BCE, the Armored Patrist mentality inscribes itself into the psycho-historical drama, carrying its hierarchy obsession and love of authoritarian Father God's with it. During this time Kurgan and Aryan nomads roam about Europe and the Middle East forcibly imposing their domination based social code.

This code is forced into the minds and bodies of the newly born --- often through violent child-rearing means. An so it goes for thousands and thousands of years, resulting in the continual development of Technologies of Destruction (warfare implements, fortifications etc.) to the detriment of Technologies of Production (naturalistic art, festivals, writings etc.; what Bucky Fuller calls "livingry") -- a trend we still suffer from!

Excuse The Erection, But What's All The Kerfuffle About!

One of these authoritarian Father God's brought into prominence on the coattails of the Patrist shift is Yahweh (..."the writer bows in reverence but holds tightly to his wallet"...). This sexually-jealous, insecure male operating upon base mammalian fears institutes a program that makes women possessions with limited freedom, bans sexual spontaneity, and encourages violence against lifestyles and ideologies outside his narrow scope ("whoring after foreign gods"). With Holy Books and Violence (and "Holy Violence"), a series of authoritarian social taboos work to control people's minds.  

To get away with such an anti-life narrative, the feminine principle of creation had to be removed --- the Queen of Heaven exits stage left and any protesting spectator is dragged outside and beaten. Her importance as a producer of life-forms and selfless giver of the autopoetic wisdom necessary for organic self-growth is simply swept under the rug as Father God Yahweh becomes the sole creator --- thus recanting the basic biological fact that "guys don't have wombs!".


In the Gnostic Mythos, Sophia the creative feminine dreams the world into existence but becomes overwhelmed by the profusion of new life-forms. A Christic Intercession occurs in which a male figure aids in her creation by organizing the burgeoning forms and helping direct their future evolution. The teleology of The Anthropos Template, in this view, is to find our creative niche and co-create forms within Sophia's dreaming of the world.


This dynamic radically shifts as Father God's start demanding total control, thus giving a major boost to the Archontic Program. The Archons are a cosmic and psychic force of inorganic origin that mimics autopoesis, or self-generative creativity, by relying on imitation and abstraction (aka Authoritative Holy Books) to distance us from direct experience with Sophia's Dreaming in order to install a sort of spiritual-control system that causes humans to deviate from our creative niche.

The Mountaintop-Moses approach of "I figured all the hard shit out, no need to worry just follow me" becomes ingrained into the cult of On-High Moralists who specialize in rewarding and punishing people according to the dictates of an unearthly apocalyptic Male God...in many ways this behavior resembles modern corporate governments.

But it's done out of LOVE!

Ah yes, I must have forgot...

This perverse form of "love" shows up in the psychological literature as abuse bonding. It occurs whenever playing the Victim-Perpetrator game, with rules that go as such: inflicting abuse = righteous activity backed with divine decree because suffering abuse = redemption. These fallacious mandates justify the horrors of colonization and the ad baculum spread of monotheism around the globe. 

Come On Down

A thousand years before the supposed birth of the most respected carpenter in history, inhabitants of Middle Eastern deserts inscribe their version of Father God into the psycho-historical narrative of our species --- in comes Yahweh. 

This cultural instance of a Patrist Archetype takes the form of an Extraterrestrial Male with the psychological make-up of an anal-moralistic paranoid who assumes The Apocalypse Is Always Near. This intuition cause Him to send down a Son (created without a female) to rally an uptight conservative culture of "the chosen few" to apply Law and Justice to the sin and degradation of the "shitty unchosen" --- mostly people outside their group, however "sinful urges" lurking within the mind and skin of the chosen few requires constant surveillance and vigilance. 

As the years stroll along, Yahweh morphs into the Judeo-Christian Redeemer we all know, the one who bills Himself as the only form of salvation when adhering to the tenets of a superhuman-perfectionist-impossible-to-attain ethic fails. Needless to say, this game leads to a tide of unnecessary suffering amongst people and communities due to its impractical and life-denying nature.

To broaden their audience appeal and assuage the resentment of more egalitarian communities, the Patrist mindset welcomes the rise of Yeshua around 4 BCE. He is a hybrid figure expressing reverence for earlier unarmored matrist cultures and pagan philosophies (appealing to love and community) yet doing so to ease the resistance felt toward the rising elite class of authoritarian patrists. Even if the mythico-historical figure himself didn't intend this, later theologians used his teachings as a means toward this end. Most famous is the case of Saint Augustine, the theologian who formulates the doctrine of Original Sin. Based upon a fearful reaction to the spontaneous sexual nature epitomized in the Garden of Eve before exile, this meme ascribes an innate evil within every human that can only be overcome through adherence to Church Dogma. 



Perfect fodder for a control-wary elite!

Resistance

The essence of the Patrist Doctrine is so anti-life and constricting that many groups spanning the disparate eons of time and space have shown solidarity in their refusal to be confined to it. Almost all have been vehemently opposed by those in power --- just ask Hypatia! In the 5th century CE, this highly intelligent pagan woman educator and theurgic ("god-working") master was overtaken by a mob of fanatical Christians, stripped of her clothes, and beaten to death. Driven by a historical geist much vaster than their individual ego's, by killing Hypatia this mob embodies a narrative that suppresses the role of women, the importance of the natural world, and the legitimacy of deeply personal non-ordinary states of consciousness --- all so Church Dogma could seed itself far and wide.


Casualties and hardship has always plagued those who resist the Authoritarian Patrist mentality because any uncontrollable group is highly threatening to control freaks. Despite the (often violent) consequences of asserting self-autonomy, a few communities understood the fallibility of this ethic as it was arising and chose consciously rejected it --- most famously the Gnostics of the Hellenistic Period (320 BCE to 30 CE). Rule by distant authorities who claim land belongs to people contradicts the Gnostic ethic of authority arising from deep gnosis within a context of people belonging to the land, so they disregard it and continue forming gylanic, multiracial, and romantic communities without theocratic coercion.


The Unarmored Matrist's "Yes!" to life is so natural to human nature that it doesn't simply die off because a bunch of paranoid control freaks want it to. The Gnostics are but one example of a multi-generational affinity group known as The Free-Spirit Movement. People as distant as the Cathars of 11th century France, the Romantics of 18th century England, the Hippies of 20th century United States, and poets and artists of all times express solidarity in their embrace of the femininity and natural sexuality characteristic of pre-Patrist days. Through lifestyle expressions, the Free-Spirit Movement has sought to undermine the confining grip of authoritarianism by embodying and re-animating the ethic of Unarmored Matrists.


The battle between Authoritarian Dogmatist's that command "No! No! No!" and Free-Spiritists that demand "Yes! Yes! Yes!" is a repeating archetypal struggle waged throughout the theater of history. We are the directors, performers, and audience, so lets make this production celebrate life! 

Navigational Map Part 3

The Cosmic Necklace

  

Oh the Origins

So lets start this narration with a beginning, an Origin Event if you will. Although the categories of “time” and “space” will be used to help make sense of an uncontextualizably (?) distant event, they're to be seen as narrative conveniences that don’t pertain to the actual event in contemplation. "Time” and “space” gain their meaning in relation to some reference point, but if all-that-is comes into existence at once, then what is the reference point? Itself? 

My view on the whole idea of an Origin can be clarified through metaphor. A book doesn’t begin with the first letter on the first page, rather it begins in the immaterial flashes of insight within the writers being. Likewise, universe doesn’t begin with the first “letter”, rather it begins in an immaterial sea of potentia within some writer’s being (God? Quantum Fluctuation Being? etc. etc.). With this in mind, the measurable universe is seen as emerging from non-existence into existence, no-thing into every-thing, and infinite potential into finite actuality because of the dramatic inflation and vibrational fall of an infinitesimal, infinitely dense high-energy cosmic symmetry into a less dense, lower-energy asymmetry roughly the size of our current Universe in about one millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second. 

Whew. It takes, simultaneously, no time and an instant (a no-time instant?) for this vibrational Fall from Edenic Perfection.  

Breaking Symmetries

So, continuing with the biblical metaphor, in the beginning was the word, and this word was the actualizing of an immaterial creative potential. The resulting “book of universe” can be seen as the reiteration and further unfoldment of this “beginning word”. The immaterial creative potential that proceeded the origin was a Perfect Symmetrical Oneness. This can be seen as the highest possible state of love, for love is often felt as a deep connection with some-thing or every-thing. The different expressions of love have their unique feel because their density of connections vary --- the more dense the connections, the deeper the love and vice versa. The densest possible instance of connections seems to be “the big bang” in which everything was contained and connected in a hyper-dense infinitesimal point. This symmetry is a state of Perfect Love --- and the universe-we-are is birthed from it! 



All manifest forms can be traced back to this perfect symmetry, for it is the initial algorithm emerging from the primal void. Very quickly after emerging it begins to grow, a gigantic number of forms follow a small number of growth-algorithms and expand outwards while inwardly maintaining the same initial symmetry.


Creation is a fractal. It's a mathematical relationship between information that holds a self-similar pattern regardless of size, thus explaining why Universe seems to emulate itself at all levels of scale. Change and Evolution occurs by re-iterating the initial iteration.


That symmetry of Perfect Love rapidly breaks and the cosmic superforce collapses into four assymetrical forces -- the electromagnetic, gravitational, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear.   


(A Brief aside: Why does this symmetry break? Perhaps universe “chose” to break its perfect symmetry in order to know itself more fully and then regroup into a newer symmetry later on)


So it takes an immense collapse to birth an alive and profoundly creative universe. Why did this expansion and collapse happen? This is another way of rephrasing the perennial question, “why are we here?” Although it might evade exacting answers, pondering these questions provide an experience of mystery -- a worthy end in itself. Judging from the collapse “reverberations”, including the emergence of atoms, galaxies, stars and eventually us, it seems that a drive to finitely actualize an infinite potential has been the fiber connecting the long beaded necklace of existence. 

The Atomic Balance

  

One of these forms, the atom, expresses the infatuation with balance that universe seems to emulate at all levels; with this structure comes the archetype of polarization that all life-patterns build upon. The bulk of its mass lies in the unifying, non-charged neutron occupying a central spot that the positively charged proton and negatively charged electron orbit around. Here we have the Trinity in atomic form. 

These invisible trinities permeate universe for an unimaginably long, and boring, time. During their journey's, they collide and fuse with other traveler’s and new creative wanderer’s emerge: the elements. The periodic table from hydrogen to iron forms during this stellar adolescence before the first deaths begin. Eventually, like all biotic forms, the life-energy of certain stars drains and in an explosive display, they shed their stellar skin, contract, and implode within themselves. From this inward movement comes rebirth as a hyper-dense, undetectable black hole that dematerializes all known structures. In this state is where it produces an immense gravitational field that can rotate a galaxy consisting of millions of stars. This process of shedding common skin-attachments, moving inward, and becoming an undetectable yet immensely strong presence seems analogous to paths outlined by many wisdom traditions.

 

Cosmic Breathing

And so the cosmic theater continues, reiterating the archetypal movement of breath, inhaling and contracting forms into focused energetic size and then exhaling and expanding the energy outwards, for billions and billions of years. Some acts trudge along with the slow monotony of Godot while others burst with frenetic inspiration. Around 4.6 billion years ago our solar system “comes into existence” as a sort of insignificant routine within the multi-billion star (and already 8.6 billion year old) Milky Way galaxy.

The act goes a bit like this: a spherical, energetic orb spins rapidly causing a unique interplay of attractive-opposing-unifying patterns. A dense center emerges and distinguishing itself through its fusion technology. This bold pioneer forms the attractive center of creativity that the remaining energetic kin (once they form their own identity) circle around so obediently. This initial period that resulted in the positioning our local cosmic architecture was deeply creative --- novelty abounds in the first phase! A creative inertia operating at the start of cycles seems to permeate all levels of the fractal universe and provides a rough parameter to mold further development. Within five-hundred million years, enough circling debris within this massive energetic orb attractive itself into an identificable collective we now call Earth. Recapitulating the rapid development of an zygote to  a fetus, or a newborn to a preschooler, the basic essence of the earth -- that which distinguishes itself from what surrounds it -- forms within 10 to 20 million years, a cosmic heartbeat. It’s through self-sacrifice and trauma that this process can occur; immediatley during “birth”, the earth is bombarded with extraterrestrial information in the form of meteor’s and possibly a large proto-planetary body crashing into its developing body. Part of the tellurian collective, the planetary identity, was shot into space where it formed the vital moon ensnared within the gravitational pull of earth. 

 

Gaia's Birth

And thus begins Gaia’s birth, a simultaneously mundane and miraculous event. Or at least it’s one narrative, weaving a bit of prose (I hope) with science. The validity of the scientific facts seems to rest upon a group of trained people interpretating the measurements of another group of trained people who chose to focus on and observe some qualities of this 93 billion light year wide room we call the observable universe using human made instruments. No doubt there is room for fallibility, so take it with a few grains of salt. Just because we can see so incredibly far, doesn’t mean there isn’t incredible things farther than we can see; the end of our telescopic gaze isn’t the end of “what is”. 

Gaia is a living being, continuously moving and morphing (I assume; although all this movement and morphing could be an illusion as well!). This seems to pose considerable challenge to the mapping mind, the fixed category psyche that needs manageable chunks to contemplate. So to aid this desire, various people have divided the long life of Earth into four major phases determined by profoundly salient planetary changes. The level of salience seems arbitrary and subject to change, determined solely by consensual agreement. 

Where Does Life Come From?

The initial “completion” period described above, when earth sacrifices bits of herself, falls under the Hadeon Eon, from roughly 4.54 billion to 3.8 billion years ago. Two major conditions arise from this Eon of collisions: a volcanic environment and large sheets of residual ice. This is the time of the primal uumph, when creativity gains an inertial hold and moves. Then the ice melts, oceans form, the environment cools, and the humble replicating molecules emerge --- life begins; welcome to the Archeon Eon lasting from 3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago.

How does life begin? 

Shit, I thought you were going to answer, because I have no idea. 

It seems panspermia, or extraterrestrial seeding if you will, is more possible than a strictly terrestrial emergence, but this lies firmly in the realm of great mystery. From the relatively simple geometry of molecular organization comes a profusion of biotic organisms, all stemming from this ability to replicate. Eukaryotic cells with genetically-filled nuclei arise, landmasses spread, and novel species tweaked to utilize the repurcussions of the Oxygen Catastrophe -- rather than being killed by oxygen (anaerobic) they learn to be lived by oxygen (aerobic)! This occurs during the period of the Protozeroic Eon lasting from 2.5 billion to 542 million years ago. 

From 542 million years ago unto the present and forseeable future we’re inhabiting the Phanazeroic Eon. All, or at least, of what we now experience develops during this time. The creative imperative births (and kills) a profusion of new terrestrial subjects. 

Two authors I’ve come across summarize this growth as such...

 

From Waking Up in Time by Peter Russell: Image a 108 floor building representing all of life: street level is the formation of our planet 4.6 bya, the first living cells ~3.6bya arrive on 25th floor, photosynthesis arrives at 50th floor, aeorobic bacteria arrive 60th floor, complex cells with sexual reproduction capabilities & central nucleus arrive 70th floor, multicellular organisms arrive 80th floor, crustaceans on the sea arrive 94th floor, dinosaurs from 104-107th floor, mammals arrive on top floor, homo erectus walks a few inches from the top of the top floor, nearndarthals appear in last quarter-inch of 108th floor, Pharoahs of Egypt 1/50th of inch, Greeks & romans 1/100th of an inch, Renaissance is 1/1000th of an inch (less than thickness of a layer of paint!), and all modern history is the thickness of microscopic bacterium....time is speeding up, and it took 99.9% of life’s journey to reach the beginnings of humanity in homo erectus!

From The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra: If at 12:00 midnight on Sunday the earth was created, the first bacterial cells wouldn’t be around until about 8 am on Tuesday. By Thursday midnight, the microcosm has evolved and now regulates the planetary system. Around 4pm Friday, sexual reproduction is invented. On saturday: 1:30 am--first marine animals, 9:30 am--first plants come ashore, about 10pm the first primates arrive, 11:40 pm--the great apes appear, 11:56pm--first human species, homo habilis, appears, the modern humans appear in Africa and Asia 11 seconds before midnight, in Europe 5 seconds before, and the total written human history takes place 2/3 of a second before midnight.

Distillin'

And so this short foray into the vast history of creation leads me to distill a few unique patterns. Number one is semi-autonomy: the part-whole status of every- “thing”. Every new pattern (solar system, galaxy, an atom etc.) has a certain degree of autonomy, a sort of boundary that delineates “self” from “other” and allows for a unique type of internal creativity. This boundary is permeable though, and oftentimes part-wholes revolve around larger part-wholes; the former is often birthed by the latter and is bestowed with the gift of semi-autonomous creativity by the latter. This pattern is acknowledged in the gnostic mythos of Sophia, who is given her self-organizing wisdom by the Pleroma. Number two is to never underestimate the small, the infinitesimal. From some “thing” much smaller than the tiniest spec of dust we can percieve with naked eyes, emerged an unimaginably vast universe. Number three is the fact that some phases of a creation will be much more creative than others; typically in the beginning stages of something new (a fetus in the womb or a planet in a solar system), there is a high degree of novelty, complexity, and experimentation. Change occurs rapidly here, other times, typically when it’s been around for a bit (a little mid-life blues?), change occurs at an excrusiatingly slow rate. 

We’re one of the newer passengers on Spaceship Earth, and Spaceship Earth herself is a relatively new passenger in Spaceship Universe, so we’ve hardly scratched the surface of what’s going on. We know precious little (and each discovery confirms that!) about the treasures here, so lets not destroy it before we can really get to know her, and our, selves. 

So You Tryin' To Learn More: 

The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav

Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves by Clifford Pickover

Waking Up in Time by Peter Russell

Web of Life by Fritjof Capra

Why The Universe is Fractal by Chris King

The Enigma of Consciousness by Chris King

Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson

Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson

Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert


 

Navigational Map Part 2

  Contractions in the Infinite Womb

   

 

Tweezin' The Strands of Infinity

 
It seems what is “fundamental” is not some discrete element, but rather an unbroken and undivided wholeness -- an integrated event that is the sum total of everything. All this bottomless rabbit-hole searching for a fundamental part just-a-bit-smaller than our current technologies can reveal seems a bit misguided...or at least eternally frustrating. Each “part-whole” (both a discrete node in a larger process and a semi-autonomous whole) we try to define as primary seems to be merely a secondary event extracted from this primary undivided wholeness and brought into view so as to be examined. All the part-whole’s examined comprise a larger process called “the unfolding”. This process works to bring the Infinite Enfolded Order (primary unbroken and undivided wholeness) into the Finite Unfolded Order (secondary broken and divided fragments). 


The whole universe can be seen as one giant computer that has within it many other computers (galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, quarks etc.) Each computer has localized hardware that exists at a distinct here and now location. This is what I’m calling the “finite unfolded order” (Bohm “explicate order”). Each computer also has a non-local software that exists at an indistinct everywhere and everywhen. This is what I’m calling the “infinite enfolded order” (Bohm's “implicate order”). The software is a sort of multi-dimensional totality that each computer’s hardware only percieves in a limited manner, based upon its computational capacity. Although we cannot know it fully with our localized computer’s, we cannot call the software meaningless because we observe its effects as the non-local correlations of universe. Our experience of a four-dimensional world is part of the limited computational capacities of our computers (aka brains). The software, however, is an infinite enfolded order that includes and transcends this 4-D barrier within its geometric web of higher dimensions. 

The Unfolding 

David Bohm, and others, think that we should be viewing reality as an unbroken and undivided wholeness, what he calls the “implicate order”. This totality “unfolds” itself into the “explicate order”, the spectrum of autonomous phenomena we experience and measure. These structures only have autonomy to a degree and become subsumed into the holomovement (the movement of the whole) of the implicate order. In this understanding, our investigation of the “seperate” parts is seen as a temporary lifting up of those structures from the totality (a mental process he calls “re-levating” in order to make “relevant”) NOT an actual study of “isolated” events. This is the view of the web, of entangled wholes-within-wholes. The implications of quantum non-locality, where seemingly “seperate" parts have an instantaneous faster-than-light connection across VAST distances seems to give credence to this view of a fundamental unbroken wholeness.

The assumption being made here is that Consciousness, which has been referred to as the Infinite Enfolded Order, becomes unfolded into the spectrum of the Finite Unfolded Order known through our brain and percieved as “my experience”. 


To clear up some confusions, the initials I.C. will be used to refer to “Infinite Consiousness” (the infinite enfolded order that is an undivided and unbroken wholeness) and the initals F.C. will refer to “Finite Consciousness” (the fininte unfolded order that appears as a divided and broken fragmentation). So the working assumption is that the human brain recieves I.C. and creates F.C. through a process of creation by subtraction, it constricts the infinite to create the finite. How does it do this? 

   

Above and Below

A uni-causal view of consciousness holds that what's "below" in the hierarchy of organization explains and determines what is "above". This causes neuroscientists to look at biochemistry in order to understand large-scale brain structures. This seems half-true, for what's "above" can also shape what's "below", brain structures can influence underlying biochemistry. A mutual exchange occurs, this is known as the principle of bi-causality. An understanding of both levels, the smaller and larger, would be fundamental to constructing any comprehensive view of how consciousness works. 

At least two views arise: quantum operations within the brain create the foundations of  consciousness as we study it in the larger brain structures or quantum operations within the brain recieve I.C. and constrict it to within a finite capacity. This becomes the phenomena of F.C. that we study and experience. A few interesting correlations between quantum mechanics and F.C. warrant a deeper look at this level of organization being the possible interface between the Infinite Enfolded Order and the Finite Unfolded Order we experience most of the time.  

Emerging

The phenomena of quantum coherence (when a unified field emerges from disjointed bits) resembles the sense of a unitary self, the inherent quantum indeterminancy and the breakdown of the detached observer resembles our feeling of free will, and the levels of conscious states (-un, -sub, -non) resemble the process of quantum possibilities becoming actualities. Although promising, within the realm of biology it has traditionally been thought impossible (or highly unlikely) that the hot world of neurons, with all its instability, could support quantum coherence effects. However, some (most famously Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose) theorize that cytoskeletal microtubules, nanometer sized cylindrical structures found within neurons, could be possible sites for quantum effects. These structures would constrict the infinite potential of the enfolded order into the finite actuality of our unfolded order.


To constrict I.C. into F.C. the brain needs to discern background noise from meaningful signal, it needs to parse out the chaos of incoming information. It’s through this process that the phenomena of consciousness we normally experience arises. It seems that no one localized area of the brain is responsible for this task, rather a sort of phase coherence emerges in which neural circuits resonate in similar ways, creating a island-like frequency of order amongst a sea of chaos. The brain seems to thrive on the edge of chaos, it’s always in the process of collapsing chaos (Infinite Consciousness) into order (Finite Consciousness) by way of exploring phase spaces, or possible arrangements of information, before an attractor gains momentum and organizes a coherent frequency.

On the pre-perception stage, a high energy state of chaos reigns and all phase-spaces are explored to see what would be the most optimal attractor to organize the island of order we call perception. 

On the level of neurons, we come to a domain of open-mouthed-holyshit complexity where 10^10 neurons with 10^4 synapses using multiple neurotransmitters regulate the flow of electrochemical information, creating the perception we so often take for granted. Like most actions in the brain, neurons form a type of community in which a population resonates at similar frequencies, creates coherence from background noise, contributes to the emergence of global brain states on higher levels of organization. The individual neurons themselves, like much of the brain, are fractal in nature and composed of branching dendrites and axonal terminals that allow for multiple synaptic connections to occur with other neurons.  

Bio-organization within the brain operates in a very permeable manner. A heterarchical structure allows for non-linear interplay between the various levels (molecular, supra-molecular, global brain state etc.) This points towards the possiblity that small changes, like quantum fluctuations, can interact laterally in the heterarchy to eventually effect a global brain state; one route could be through the activation of sensitive ion channels in the membranes of all cells and the consequences of this on the dynamism of the whole brain.  

Inside of our brains seems to be where the “outside” physical universe (however vast it may be) interacts with brain material so as to be known by us. If we take the non-local effects of quantum mechanics into consideration, then it seems that the quantum bits in our brains could be interacting with a physical universe unimaginably far away.

 

Navigational Map Part 1

Laying Down a Prelude

                  

Intentions

This quest to explore existence is really a quest to explore the capacities of human beings, for the nature of consciousness seems to make it impossible to know "what exists" in any objective manner. The methodologies for investigating what the fuck it’s all about typically fill in the spaces between the two extremes of left-brain rationalist and right-brain transrationalist. It seems each is true within certain limits and that a mediating approach tampering both extremes with a bit of middle-path humility might be ideal in attaining the shared goal of creating navigational maps of existence. A high quality map would not only provide the explorer with coordinates, but would also provide reasons for exploring; in this manner, it resembles an actional narrative, an alive and evolving story.
    

This story is done by brained-beings, by humans gifted with a 3-pound universe of perplexing neural architecture tucked behind the contours of our skulls --- for FREE! It’s through this organ paraphrasing reality-experiences for us (absorbing information streams, condensing them, and projecting it outwards) that coherent stories can materialize from the jumbled-chaos of living.
 

This seems to be its purpose. For the duration of our life, this gift works to integrate the lateral and everflowing streams of ambiguity and potential meaning into a story that can guide one’s life. 

 

Methods 

Around the time of the Symbolic Revolution of 50,000 BCE, the desire to create these stories crops up, as evidenced by early cave art and the development of language. Nowadays language has become like a built in sense --- whether through interpersonal speech or internal monologues, most of life’s phenomenon’s become transduced and re-presented as linguistic symbols. 

The linguistic symbols form the medium by which these stories are communicated. By coordinating the movements of the brain-mouth-lung system so as to modulate nearby sound waves, geometric patterns of air can travel through space to land inside the spiral-shaped ear of a listener. This is spoken language. By manipulating the brain-eye-hand system, strange typographical carvings can be made on certain surfaces (paper, walls, screens etc.) that can travel through space to land inside the eye. This is written language.

Both aspects require a not-fully-understood system of brain processes to produce this property called “meaning” that is such a vital aspect to these stories. Meaning is what provides our existential nutrition. 

All of our searching, it seems, is driven by, to quote T.S. Eiliot, our desire “to arrive at where we are, and know if for the first time”. We want to relate our existence to the small microcosmic domain and the large macrocosmic domain to arrive at a comprehensive view, then we will truly know where we are and see it for the first time.