THOUGHTS ON LIFE
What's it all. . . . . . . .
...about? Life, that is! I've thought about this many times - who hasn't?
It is often suggested that the meaning of life is too profound for us mere mortals to comprehend, something that at best may become apparent as we croak out our last few breaths! But that is far from the truth. We already have the meaning of life with and within us during every living moment.
All we have to do is look! It is, after all, being lived out every day, right in front of our awareness, an amalgam of the events that we are involved in and how we react to those events. For this reason, I am passionate that whatever we do in life, it is very important that we focus upon it and notice what is happening!
This may sound a strange, or even a silly statement, but what I'm calling attention to is that we should try to consciously connect with the deeper meaning within the everyday events of life. In particular, we should notice how these events are affecting us - what responses they pluck from us. Self-observing in this way, we connect with the real essence of life and who we are. It can turn life from a frog into a prince!
There is a lesson in every experience of our lives, no matter how trivial that experience may seem. And it's us who create the meaning in our lives by how we choose to experience its events. And I believe that we are here primarily to experience. It is through experience that we change/evolve, and, in turn, as we evolve, our experiences themselves evolve in quality, in a `tuned' cycle. This is self-improvement, which certainly gives life meaning.
Meaning for me that I only have one goal in life, and that is to do everything I do in good spirit, with good intention (rightness) and awareness. And the beauty of this goal is that it's not in the future. Every moment is an opportunity to live in it.
That said, we will fail to do this, time and time again. But, it doesn't matter. That's who we are - flawed! And life serves many more chances to gradually de-flaw.
In a society sharpened by competition and aspiration, people often talk bluntly of failure. But, do we fail? I feel confident that the answer is `no'. It's ALL experience, no matter what ends up happening. It may not be the experience that we were aiming for; we may not achieve that prescribed goal, but whatever happens instead is still experience. Such `failing' always points us in a new direction in life, so it has succeeded in that sense. It also carries a bonus; it teaches a certain amount of acceptance. We have to learn how to fail.
The way we engage with others is of paramount importance in life, in that we do it in the spirit of love, hopefully bringing them happiness. Doing our duties in good spirit (with right intention) is also important, a major enricher of life.
It was in my twenties and early thirties, when I travelled and worked abroad extensively, that I learnt that it is through variety in life that we experience and get to know who we are. If life is lived in a rut, we become habitual and withdraw from much of life's opportunity for personal growth. We fail to stretch ourselves.
It doesn't do to strive to live too safely. Clinging to security in life is a self-defeating delusion. The only true security we can have is being secure with the idea of being insecure. Dive in at the deep end, I say, and then soak up the experiences! That said, there are two kinds of variety in life, variety of our life events and diversity within the inner mental exploring ground that can also become a place of great adventure.
Contemplation of the awe-inspiring enormity of everything and immersion in the joy of intellectual inquiry has made my life truly blossom. The simple action of connecting with the beauty in everything can bring great bliss, which can then be taken into the busier parts of everyday life.
And then there are the painful times, great teachers. We need to see the good in them, to love the pain they cause for what it does, reveal us to ourselves.
In short the meaning of life is living it. We are here to be changed.
I believe that when we look back at our lives, what will outweigh everything else is the degree of love that we have given in everything that we have done and the gratitude that we have had for the good AND bad things that we have experienced.
Compassion is the source of our own well-being; it opens our hearts and we gain a sense of purpose and a connection with those around us.
Dalai Lama
The Soul, Self and Consciousness
What are Soul and Consciousness?
What is actually meant by `the soul', then? Hmmm. Try googling that in hope of getting a straight answer!
Searching my own thoughts, then, it's just...well....who one is.......you know, the real, inner depths of the `self', isn't it? Not JUST the self of consciousness and day to day thoughts, though. Different to that - it's the deep part of us that is satisfied by meaningful, fulfilling living and that loves and cries out in pain at the woes of life and is to a certain extent ongoingly shaped by the impact of what the consciousness discerns. Isn't it the part of us that is the source of such personal attributes as curiosity, creativity, morality, intuition and love?
Many people don't believe that we have a soul. Others, like me, emphatically believe that we do have one. Most of the people who do believe that we do have a soul seem to feel that it mysterious and in direct contact with the divine. But, despite its mystery, it's always playing its part at some level during normal, everyday events. For me, soul and consciousness are two qualities which make up `the self', i.e., the totality of who one is. Notice a change here from previous paragraphs - I didn't say "the soul". I don't see soul and consciousness as separate parts of us. They are aspects of us, in fact, just words that we use to try to describe properties of our being.
We are each a whole person and any division of that person is functional, not actual. It is the normal style of expression for us to say `my soul', as if it is an entity in its own right, something separate from our consciousness, but surely the property known as `soul' is deeply and inseparably interwoven with all of the other aspects of ourself.
For life to be meaningful, surely we have to have an immortal soul. If we are not immortal, to what extent can life have any meaning? What of all that we have become, both individually and as a species? Is that all to be snuffed out, to no end?
So, those are a few introductory thoughts about `soul'; now it's time to think about what consciousness actually is. This is a very complex and divergent topic that defies explanation and, unfortunately, I can only begin to try to understand it by using the truth-depleting technique of dividing it into aspects. But, the faculty of reason demands this approach, does it not?
A starting point may be to divide consciousness into mind and awareness.
In making this statement, I have to qualify that I think of mind as being the part of us that thinks! This seems like the relatively straightforward aspect of the `self', until we ask where the thoughts that we think come from. Long pause.
Whilst some thoughts are driven by logic and reactions to events, other thoughts just seem to `arise'. Where do these thoughts actually come from? I have more to say about that in this article, further down this webpage: Reality
Onto `awareness'; this is indeed very nebulous to conceive. It is without doubt a multi-faceted, diverse and little understood phenomenon, operating at many different levels, such as basic outside-world awareness, self-awareness and what we call the sub-conscious. And, of course, memory. It also includes non-physical perceptions like our sense of time. It is also something that continuously evolves throughout life.
Our awareness seems to have another aspect, something very mysterious. It's the part that is able to watch the mind in action. Thoughts can come into our heads and we can watch them do so, if we make the effort to be our own observer. Furthermore, if we sit quietly and acknowledge these thoughts coming into our head, the awareness that does this also seems to also be aware of itself - try it!
One more thing – would we categorise feelings and emotions as properties of consciousness, or are these as soul qualities? Again, we encounter the entanglement. Trying to distill these rather indistinct distinctions is clearly the folly of the separative attempt of categorisation itself. But of course, how else can one attempt to discuss the topic?
Consciousness as a Physical Phenomenon
Despite the mind-boggling depth of complexity, profundity, beauty and deep feeling involved in our consciousness, many people make the soul-destroying claim that consciousness is purely a physical phenomenon, merely the product of one's electrical and chemical brain activity. Indeed, this wholly material view appears to be the dominant view in the domains of science and neurology, if one refers to articles on the topic, of which many have graced the pages of magazines.
Well, of course, we are not in a position to entirely rule out the possibility of this mainstram view as being correct, but I am powerfully compelled to disagree from my depths, and not without a soulful sigh, of course! Yes, yes, there is the undeniable fact that facing the possibility of myself and those I love being merely biological robots is not a pleasant prospect; in fact, it hollows out my insides; it's truly an obscene notion! So, this piece of writing won't be entirely impartial, but I'll try as best as I can!
But I ask, is it really feasible that the deep feelings and meaning which I'm trying to convey within this piece of writing have just somehow `arisen' from electric currents and fizzing molecules within my fleshiness?
My driven feelings don't believe so, and just why are they `driven'? That in itself is a significant question. Nor do those driven feelings believe that neurological mapping of the human brain will ever do anything for the understanding of the source of consciousness. Neurological mapping boils down to eye observation, and eye observation is physical. To my mind, consciousness exists outside of physical reality; it's spiritual. Consciousness is life...is being...is more than just biology. Neurological mapping is looking in the wrong place. It shows the response of the brain to consciousness and nothing more. It shows what we have made happen inside the brain. That's my view, and I will now present some arguments that support that view.
Consciousness Beyond Brain
I believe that consciousness is `non-local', to borrow a phrase used in quantum physics, meaning without boundary - everywhere - universal. Of course, I didn't come up with this idea myself! Many other people have also written of this belief, from ancient times to modern times. But, I'm not going to just believe them because what they say feels right. I'm going to be scientific in my approach, putting forward some evidence that points to this.
One personal body of evidence that I cannot help but draw upon is my own plethora of out-of-body experiences. This is, of course, very compelling to me, but less so to others! However, I ask sceptics to just hold their minds open for a bit and read on - just indulge me! During these experiences, I am able to see physical reality and hear physical reality, but obviously without using my sense organs, because I'm not in my body! How can this be?
Doubters will totally deny that this is evidence, claiming that these experiences are some kind of elaborate illusion. Fair enough (but why should this happen?), but we also have an abundance of so-called `paranormal phenomena' that defy explanation, one of them being `remote viewing'. How can people `see' something that is in another continent? Isn't it a natural outgrowth of this phenomenon to propose that consciousness is not geographically limited? And what about clairvoyance, telepathy and the widely held belief of reincarnation? We also have documented cases of apparently time-transcending phenomena that occur in dreaming, such as precognition. See also these videos, for some interesting additional evidence:
Medical proof of consciousness and memory outside of the body.
Scientific Evidence Supporting a Theory of Consciousness Outside of the Brain
Anita Moorjani Interview - A Near Death Experience
Evidence of the Afterlife - Dr. Jeffrey Long
Psychics Put to Prove Themselves in Scientific Testing!
Being scientific about this evidence, we should first note that the concept of consciousness without boundary is a model that supports coherent explanations for ALL of these unexplained phenomena.
Many people will claim that the evidence that I have mentioned in the previous three paragraphs is not evidence at all - more a load of hogwash! I can understand that it is difficult to believe for some people who have had no personal experience of this sort of thing. Indeed, it can be surprising how such evidence can sometimes provoke a hostile reaction in those with a wholly material view. But consider, much of the evidence that is the bedrock of modern scientific theories, for example, the concepts of parallel universes and 11 dimensions, or whatever! Isn't this rather less objectively and empirically substantial than the idea of consciousness existing beyond the skull? And what about dark matter, dark energy and dark flow? Based upon loose theory to fit assumption-riddled observations, aren't these merely ideas that attempt to plug holes bored by the inexplicable?
It is far from proven that consciousness is purely the outcome of brain activity, despite the repeated issuing of confident and undoubting statements in many scientific and neurological papers and magazines that `we' are finding out more and more about how the brain `creates our consciousness'! Not only is this far from proven, there is no supporting evidence that should even give rise to a belief that consciousness is a brain product at all, and yet, it's the enduring belief! Of course, the reason for this could be mainly steered by the desire to `keep the faith' in `rational' disbelief, especially as this is a disbelief that has been declared publicly as their professional stance.
The evidence often touted as proof that consciousness is manufactured in the brain is the fact that modern technology allows neurologists to observe that different activity occurs in different parts of the brain in direct correspondence to the type of thought that we are having. As a very general example, remembering things most heavily involves the hippocampus of the temporal lobe. Similarly, decisive thinking deeply involves the frontal lobe.
Whilst this is good scientific observation, isn't the conclusion that this proves that the brain is a big thought factory a flimsy conclusion to reach? After all, we can similarly observe that different parts of an orchestra surge into action to create a different mood of music during a concert. The music appears to arise purely from the mechanical activity of the instruments and arms and mouths that are operating them, but truly the mechanical activity is in essence just a sound producer; any music produced is in the coherence of the arising sounds, and is at the behest of a conductor and the instructions contained within a song sheet that has stored the outcome of a soul-deep process of composition.
To me, the idea of our entire `being' simply being the creation of brain activity is ridiculous. Is it good science to dismiss the probability that there is more than what we see, just because we don't physically detect it?
If consciousness is just the result of electrical brain activity, shouldn't it follow that this computer that I'm writing with is conscious, albeit to a primitive degree? Why not? I know that it has much organised electrical activity - far, far less than a human brain, but surely enough to constitute a primitive consciousness. No one in their right mind would suggest that this computer is conscious, though, would they? Well, at least I don't think it secretly discusses how it feels with other computers that are connected to the internet!
At least we DO have anecdotal evidence for consciousness being more than just a physical phenomenon, provided by numerous accounts of remote viewing, precognition, telepathy, out-of-body experiences and past life regression and other reincarnation evidence, but these are widely and abruptly dismissed as wishful thinking, illusion and delusion.
To use an allegory, I believe that one's body is just like a car that one's consciousness (spirit) climbs into in order to travel through one's physical life, necessary for interfacing with physical matter. It is a mistake to look at brain scans/mapping and, speaking metaphorically, conclude that it's the steering wheel that determines where the car goes, when it's the unseen driver who determines that.
We only need to notice how such creatures as ants, termites and bees act with such sophistication to suspect that consciousness is not just a product of brain complexity. Surely they can't have much brainpower, can they, in a head that size? Take ants, those tiny creatures who can even switch to different roles, as required within the community. When under attack, they perform systematic and strategic defence manoeuvres, with amazing rapidity. For example, when their nests are destroyed, they get straight on and do a rebuild, but more rapidly than the last time they built it! How does that compare with the efforts of us humans, I wonder?
We also observe the amazingly co-ordinated construction ability of termites, who innovatively and rapidly build custom-made mounds, specially designed to suit whichever climate prevails in the locale. Where does the intelligence behind this come from, and how do they organise themselves so efficiently and quickly to work as a team, each one working in harmony with the others. Do they know telepathically what their companions are doing?And bees? They too work with an impressively synergistic vigour, using a variety of sophisticated techniques to maintain the hive internal temperature astounding accurately, at around 35C. And what about that `waggle dance', exhibiting a mysterious language that elaborately shares the bee's inner map with its comrades, pointing the way to the treasure of pollen. The bees then hold the memory of that dance and use it as they fly purposefully off. Isn't that better than most humans manage?
Many materialists shrug this off with a tumescently confident "This is instinct - it's programmed in - the genetic code - blah, blah blah!", but these concepts themselves beg just as much of a definition as does the sophisticated behaviour of these insects beg of an explanation! So, come one, let's flush out these red herrings from their role as explanations; saying something is `instinct' is just labelling a mystery as such!
In order to neatly sidestep the issue, it is sometimes explained to us by those of sociological know-how that community creatures like ants, flocking birds and fish shoals have a `collective intelligence' [3], making their sophisticated behaviour somehow attributable to the additive brain power of many individuals! But surely this would require a collaboration that still demonstrates startling individual intelligence for an insect. We all know how difficult it is for humans to act collectively with efficiency; it requires organisation and planning.
Much study has taken place to probe the mystery of human consciousness. The professional scientific view is that the molecules that make up human tissue are unconscious, and I think we almost all agree with that - maybe Alfred North Whitehead wouldn't have - he's further reading for me! The scientific view maintains that consciousness is something that just somehow `arises' from specific, complex combinations of these unconscious molecules and is a natural part of the survival based process of evolution.
Of course, it's a fact that once simple molecules are arranged in large numbers and different configurations, many more complex properties do `arise'. The many different materials that we see in the world are constructs of basic elements, their sophistication emerging from the organisation of the simple elements. However, these are physical changes, and they make sense, being explicable in terms of chemistry and physics. But consciousness is something completely different - on a totally different conceptual plane to any physical changes.
Can the origins of such things as decision making, humour, love, sorrow, empathy, curiosity, aspiration, morality and rapture really be the lucky products of mishmash `chance' molecular combinations? Even stretching our thoughts back across the eons and rigidly Darwinising our ideas about these supposed `chance combinations', we must ask if traits like a fascination for studying history or a passion for photography are an advantage for `survival of the fittest', survival and comfort surely being the only aims for a biologically `programmed', soul-less consciousness.
In this mainstream view, such things as sexual attraction are described only in terms of a physiological attraction bio-engineered to finding a `best mate' for survival of the blood-line, but I think we all know deep down that sexual attraction is not just a bodily phenomenon; much of it is spiritual, with an interplay of subtle energies and `soul'. We aren't primarily attracted to the most physically fit member of the opposite sex whom we encounter; it's not that simple. Something else about a person grabs us. If this was not the case, why do some people knowingly marry other people who are unable to conceive children, and why do some people marry other people who have little money and security and are 20 or 30 years older than them?
Medical `Proofs' of a Physical Consciousness
Surely, all that we can say with any certainty about nerves, and the chemical and electrical interactions that occur within them, is that they facilitate the movement of information within the body. This is safe ground.
But, this is where hard-core materialists will punch out steely-eyed counter-arguments that chemically induced changes in behaviour (such as taking drugs) and the consequences of brain damage prove that what we feel to be soul is merely a product of the brain's electro-chemical activities. Doesn't this surely prove that our thoughts are no more than physical phenomena? And what about when we have a `general anaesthetic'? The consciousness has gone then, eh? What of that?
But stop and think for a minute! Upon first reading these questions, they may seem cuttingly rational, but when considered more deeply, they start to reveal an impoverishness of depth. In defence of the existence of the soul, I return to the simple allegory of consciousness climbing into its car - the body! The materialist argument is that the behaviour, route and destination of the car just `arises' from its structure and that there is no such thing as a driver. Now let's damage the car - make its ignition erratic, so that it moves in uncertain jerks! Does this change in behaviour prove that there is no driver? No, of course not; it only shows that the car has to function correctly for the driving to be correct! The damaged car is just inhibiting the correct driving of the driver. So why can't a damaged brain inhibit the correct behaviour of mind in the same way?
Taking things deeper and longer-term, it has been observed by neurologists that, in many cases, brain injury will lead to lasting changes in personality. This proves that who we are arises from the brain, many of them claim. But this is no proof; personality is a fluid thing in itself. If a person who is very self-assured, calm and confident receives a life- altering trauma, their personality can appear to change; they may become insecure and bad-tempered. Take the example of soldiers who go into battle. Many of them suffer a lasting, or permanent personality change. Our psyches are notably malleable.
As for the `loss of consciousness' when under general anaesthetic, do we lose ALL consciousness? Or do we just lose consciousness of physical reality? What about when we dream? We are conscious, then, but often have no recall of dreaming after we awake; it's as if we have been robbed of consciousness during dreaming, but we haven't. What about when people are `knocked cold' or suffer some bad trauma? They often experience a blackout, similar to when having a general anaesthetic, with no recall of any consciousness. However, given the passing of a few days, or weeks, they often start to recall some of what went on during the blackout. Therefore, consciousness was there; it was maybe blanked from direct experience or just `wiped' from memory, just as dreams usually are, presumably to avoid later confusion over what was dreaming and what was waking life!
Another argument for `the self' being purely brain-generated is the phenomenon of memory loss due to ageing or brain damage. This is confidently cited as evidence that our memories can't exist beyond the physical structure of the cells in which they are stored. Again, I can easily counter this argument by pointing out that the soul can only express itself in physical reality using the tool it has! I believe that what we are observing here is gradual failure of the tool, not failure of the user.
A Spanner in the Works
Just to throw a huge spanner into the works of the materialist view, it has been discovered in recent years that people's thinking and behaviour actually causes chemical changes in the brain, a phenomenon known as `self-directed neuroplasticity'. In therapy, patients of some neurologists have been given the tasks of changing aspects of their behaviour, and it has been observed with brain scans that their brain chemistry has altered to reflect the changes in behaviour.
What does this mean? It means that the consciousness seems to be purposefully modifying the brain that is meant to give rise to it! Therefore, it has FREE will and, as such, must be something that is self-determining in its own right and NOT something that is merely a product of the brain that is apparently at its behest. Perhaps it's time for the mainstream scientific paradigm to undergo an intellectual metamorphosis!
So, after all this, how can we explain these things - consciousness `arising' from unconscious molecules, consciousness modifying it's associated brain and sophisticated behaviour being exhibited by physically simple creatures? We can't, convincingly.
A slight deviation of topic, now - on the subject of `plasticity', I see that this vaguely generic word is also being used more and more in biology, particularly in the context of `phenotypic plasticity', meaning an evolutionary change that occurs within the lifespan of an individual creature. This is seen particularly in colonies of creatures that have adapted to live in isolated environments like huge caverns. Of course, the aforementioned neuroplasticity in the brain would also be an example of this.
I have never been wholly convinced by Darwin's theory of evolution! Whilst I'm sure that it plays a role in some evolutionary changes, the concept of life evolving entirely by chance mutations seems unfeasible, especially in a world where entropy appears to be the natural order of things. So, it seems that now, through the study of plasticity, the evolutionary theory of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is also being ratified through modern plasticity observations. So, how can these changes happen? Maybe, if our consciousness can change our brain chemistry by neuroplasticity, it can also make other physiological changes in our characteristics, like these creatures appear to do.
In the years to come, I believe that biologists will increasingly have to consign the mystery of the form of living things to something more `otherworldly' than genes, something more akin to the thinking of Plato's `World of Forms'. This now seems to be supported by the way that an organism's genetic endowment seems incompatible with its sophistication - I recall how the genome project discovered that we only have about 25,000 genes - less than the number owned by such creatures as the sea urchin and even less than that attributable to the rice that we eat!
Perhaps `form' is something that is the product of soul.
Proving that we Have Soul?
Can we prove the existence of `soul', then? No. This can't be proved, either, especially using methods which only operate within the paradigm of our ideas about physical reality.
I will just ask, though, why we differ so in our passions? What is it that makes some people sit in their gardens night after night and look through their telescopes, whilst others think of them as nerds? And others build model railways, or do boxing, or write novels, or have lots of children, or practice yoga, or lovingly ride and care for horses, or collect stamps, or play the piano, or study physics, or write poems, or jump through burning hoops on motorbikes!
Are these things just the projections of necessary and functional brain evolution? Or, is their hedonistic diversity evidence of something deep and spiritual that seeks fulfilment? Which do you believe?
I know which I believe; I'm going to surrender my soul to my feelings.Do we really need to prove that we have soul?
Look at the picture on the left. Look into this dog's eyes. They are speaking - shouting out, in fact.
Do you really think that the irreducible DEPTH that you detect, that you feel there is merely the outcome of electrical currents and chemical reactions?
No! You are seeing its essence; its soul! Do its joys, its quirks, its love and its fears just `arise' from doggy nervous tissue itself? No way.
Actually, we don't need to prove that we have soul at all! We already know that we have soul; soul is who one is deep down: `me' ! One's brain, however, is not `me'; it's `my' brain.
You see, we've known all along!
Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.
Thomas Merton
God's Universe
I do astronomy. I'm very keen, so my big telescope and I spend many nights under the stars. But, I don't need the telescope to see the vastness of the Milky Way from my dark back garden; the naked eye is admirable for taking in its vast span in one awe-struck gulp.
And it's sometimes when seeing that Milky Way in all it's glory and maybe a planet or two, beacon like in the loneliness of the surrounding black, that I feel a bit frightened! Frightened because suddenly I feel what seems like such bleak isolation in it all, and it seriously challenges my near-axiomatic belief that there is a purpose to us, and everything else, and that we are part of some `great plan'.
Why do I hold this belief that there is a purpose to us and everything else? Well, partly because of a feeling that just arises in me, partly from my thoughts in the previous section and partly from analysis of universal facts that seem `to fit' - see `Behind the Scenes', further down on this page.
So, what is this mysterious, intuitive feeling that I just mentioned? Is it my own self-love in disguise, playing its part in wanting a purpose, beguiling me into believing that the `in favour' outcome of my logical analysis of the facts is me being neutrally objective? After all, can anything be less attractive than the thought of us just existing pointlessly to be snuffed out?
That would be such a chokingly tragic waste of so much experience, love and learning....no, no - I don't think this intuitive feeling is just the self love - there's something else! Could it be a knowing deep inside? Isn't that what intuition is? I hope so!
And what about the glory of the rest of nature; that must have a purpose, surely! The glory of summer meadow flowers expressing the maximum fire of mid-summer, crying out their abundance and complexity as butterflies dance above them. This, with birds chirruping a surrounding symphony, the glory of the industrious teams of bees doing the long day's work, a cow laying down in the sun, the splendour of it all flourishing to a startling extent.
How can one possibly think of all of this as being in any way undivine?
This question is that knowing.
Assuming there's a purpose to it all, however, why should such a ridiculous universe have come to be? Look at the picture on the left, another open invitation to wonderment. It's like boarding a fast lift to the infinite floor, as you feast your eyes on the part of the Milky Way which is visible above the building. And the Milky Way is just a distant view across the dinner plate of our own galaxy, a galaxy that is a pinpoint in what is to all intents and purposes an infinte vastness beyond it.
How absurdly the known universe contrasts with that meadow scene - it's a `place' where for each planet that does or could sustain conscious life, there is a volume of `space' of utterly stupendous proportions - an astronomical volume of space that is bleakly devoid of much at all - almost empty (apart from the Higgs Field, or whatever else we may replace that notion with in the future!) and also inhospitable to a ridiculous degree, where nothing living can survive - mainly just deep-frozen vastness - and, furthermore, an apparently pointless vastness!
One starry night at my telescope, I recall having a strange moment of what I can only call `expanded consciousness'! The new-to-astronomy friend who was with me exclaimed in surprise how far the constellation of Orion had moved position in the sky during the two hours that we had been observing. Looking up, I was sucked into a new perception of reality, for just a second or two! Suddenly, it felt like I was the earth - like I was suspended there in space, rotating slowly and watching it all! And the frightening depth that I felt; it was like `fear of heights' in 3-D! I also had a real sense of isolation that hugely outreached any such sense I'd felt before...far from a feeling of `oneness' with the universe...if anything, the feeling of vulnerability that it evoked reinforced the borders of my individuality in a tight and contracting hug of protection.
All around me, just vast space - my awe was searching for its limits, but there were none to be found! It was just an incomprehensible enormity laid out before me, in all directions, on and on and on and on and on...and virtually all of it seeming too hostile for life to possibly survive in! Well, not `hostile', actually, that's my projection - just not `possible' for life to survive in.
In the sobering light of this, a whole constellation of thoughts pops up. I reflect that one day I will die, and at that point, space, time, hot, cool, big and small will probably become irrelevant; it will be `access denied' for all of that. If what I believe is correct, I will then access what is not me in a different way, as a disembodied consciousness. It will be like it is during sleep, with no `five senses' to extract my reality with.
Are we and the rest of the universe really `all one', as some people claim? The words of the infamous analytical psychologist Carl Jung echo in this light: Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche.
What we can say with confidence is that our bodies are built from material spawned in space, yes, there's a oneness there, in that respect, but what of the true `us' - our souls? How can their presence not make us call to question the relevance, the value of all that vast space and its galaxies of stars and cooler bodies when compared to human qualities like compassion, love and wisdom?
Space may be beautiful to look at through a telescope, but it seems to contain no love.
But, the way the universe is suggests to me an underlying intelligence, a plan! It is an `ordered' place. Amoungst the apparent randomness, it has form and behaviour....does that make it `alive' in a sense?? Does it even have a form of consciousness, or is its relevance only that it unconsciously displays its own vastness, bleakness, beauty and the depth of time layed out in one simultaneous moment?
This makes me ask if ultimately consciousness is the only thing of any real worth? What good is beauty without consciousness to perceive it? Is the only true beauty contained by consciousness?
But...further thoughts on this to come...see More than the Sum of the Parts.
Maybe we can look to our own creative powers for an analogy that will explain this apparent lack of worth of most of the universe!
An intriguing example of this creative power in action is demonstrated by something that can happen during an Out of Body Experience (OBE). Our consciousness can divide into two, as I myself have experienced! When this happens, one divides one's self to experience one's self being both in the body and out of the body simultaneously; it appears to be a division of our consciousness. When it happened to me, I was aghast with amazement - it defies human imagination - I can't imagine it right now - and yet it happened!
Reading on the subject of consciousness, I discern that the concept of our consciousness dividing is encountered in other fields of experience, the term `disassociation' often being often used in psychological circles. Carl Jung and Sri Aurobindo are two eminent people who share this belief.
I can't help this phenomenon of self-division reminding me of a philosophical theory in the teachings of yoga that I have read about. This theory is that what we think of as God is best described as `universal consciousness' and is a consciousness that is within us as we are all fragments of it!
Like God, we also create non-living things that have order - buildings, cities, motorways, the internet, etc. These are also passive, loveless things, yet they do reflect the love that created them and can be viewed with awe, just like nature on earth and the form of the universe, though a pale imitation, of course. They also have purpose.
So, is the universe a creation exercise of the mind of God...containing God's love and purpose...God's `city'?
Our actions do tend to mimic those of the grand scheme of the universe; we also create, though on a much, much, much, much smaller scale. Are the above paragraphs correct thinking, I wonder? Or am I just projecting my humanity as this notion of a universal consciousness?
We keep seeming to stumble on clues towards an understanding, but there's always that word: BUT! Will anyone ever comprehend? Maybe it's the case that ultimate `reality' is so vast in comparison to our ideas about it that we'll never actually deduce anything meaningful about it!
Ooh, hang on....I just have!
When I went to the moon I was a pragmatic test pilot. But when I saw the planet Earth floating in the vastness of space the presence of divinity became almost palpable and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident.
Edgar Mitchell
Reality
Introduction
What is the reality of reality? Well, firstly we need to stress that the word `reality' is by definition an exclusive (or all-inclusive) term, implying that nothing else exists besides itself...as it is what is! The way I see it, we can discern reality as comprising:
What is out there - that which is external to consciousness.
What is within our consciousness - our thoughts, perceptions and mind are also an integral part of reality.
Regarding what is `out there', we have physical reality and, so it seems, some rather less tangible things. As for what is within our consciousness, well, that's very complex, as well!
Physical Reality
Our perception of physical reality seems on the surface to be straightforward and trustworthy, and we assume that what we perceive is the true reality. Primarily, we only appear to interface with physical reality through our five senses. This is only part of the story, though; beyond this interfacing, we come to `know' what we perceive via the `us' that the senses serve, and that's a part which imposes it's own past experience and concepts upon the messages from the senses.
One example of how we impose things upon our sensory information is a striking reason why we can't totally trust what we perceive, and that is that it has a relativity with us. Two good examples of this are:
As we age, other people look increasingly less old to us!
Time seems generally to pass more quickly as we age
Equally, our perception can be fooled by the relativity of our immediate environment to what's beyond it. The stars appear to arc their way across the sky every night, yet they don't; it's our earth that's turning, even though it feels stationary. This shows how VERY different the truth can be from what is seen and felt.
At the grass roots level of perception, there are countless optical illusions that fool our sight, as well - special pictures with straight lines which look curved, other lines which appear to move as our eyes' point of focus changes, dancers that change direction, and then there's the famous Penrose triangle.
One contributor to the effectiveness of these illusions is the operation of our nerves themselves. Many of our nerves stop firing after a while, saturating. When what is perceived changes, the saturation of these nerves causes the change to be seen from a new perspective. If we stare at something which is rotating and then look away at a stationary object, we can experience some most unusual optical effects! This is the relativity of neuronal chemistry.
The other benefactor to the effectiveness of these illusions is the multitude of inner models of how we expect reality to behave. A good example of an illusion that occurs for this reason is the feeling of moving backwards that we experience if we are sitting stationary in a traffic jam and the cars either side of us suddenly start to move forwards. How many times have you made a grab for the handbrake in this situation?
A less obvious illusion, one that we experience daily, occurs when we look into a mirror. The images of objects reflected in a mirror appear at representative distances behind the surface of the mirror, rather than ON the surface of the mirror, in the way that an image appears on the surface of a television. Obviously, though, the light that strikes a mirror IS reflected off of its surface! The fact that images of the objects appear to be behind that surface is a function of the relative angles of the reflected light rays, angles which fool our visual faculties into seeing the reflections of the objects as being behind the mirror, because these visual faculties are never free of their internal interpretation mechanism.
As is evident when we misread a street sign! We are convinced that it said something it didn't, because, after all, that IS what we saw!
Our other senses are subject to illusion and relativity, as well. If our blood sugar dips, a bar of chocolate tastes less sweet to us. So, is the chocolate sweet or not? We cannot say. The sweetness clearly comes from inside of us as much as from the chocolate itself.
So, just how untrustworthy is our perception of even physical reality?
We also think that we `know' physical reality through our theories about it and our measurements via scientific equipment. But these only investigate within the parameters of what we think reality is, which is also just part of the story. However, this appears to remain an indistinct distinction to many who adhere to mainstream views.
In addition, the scientific discipline of quantum physics is taking the investigations of physicists to strange places, lately, with talk of a realm of reality that appears to exist somewhere outside of the familiar physical realm of space and time, known only through its measurable interaction with the physical reality that is familiar to us!
Another huge problem with physical reality is that the concept of infinity is always there within it, and infinity is something that is not at all `down to earth' in the way that we like our physical reality to be! For example, between any two points of time, or any two points of space, there is an infinitely of points. Just how contradictory is that with `real and down to earth'-ness? Is space infinite in size? It is simplest for us to think that it is, because to deny it begs the question of what is beyond space...and then what is beyond that...and then...ooops...ad infinitum! Our minds themselves seem to consider infinity not only a a reality but a necessity, incomprehensible though it is!
It gets worse! Even though we share the same five senses, we actually all perceive life in our own unique way, because what we perceive is not just what our senses serve up to us at any moment, but sensory information that is heavily modulated by the integrated imprint of all of our past experiences and also distorted by our expectations.
In the 1700s, both Bishop Berkeley and Emmanuel Kant said that the only reality that we can know consists exclusively of minds and their concepts, and that individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas, rather than objects and phenomena themselves. I think that this is true and is particularly evident from the endeavours of science over the decades, particularly with the advent of quantum theory shining the sobering light of `unknowing' upon things. We may think that we understand the nature of matter, but all we really have is our theories about it, which are possibly as much about the workings of our own minds as the properties of matter itself!
For more detailed thoughts about our perception of physical reality, see The Present Moment.
So, we can see that we encounter major problems when probing the nature of even the physical reality that seems so familiar to us. What of the aforementioned less tangible parts of reality, then?
Beyond Physical Reality
I believe that we live within a spectrum of reality that extends way beyond physical reality and that it is our FOCUS that determines whereabouts in that spectrum we `inhabit', be our awareness within just a narrow part of the spectrum or a wider part. We are like a radio receiver, tuning in. During our average day to day life, where we may be performing the mundane tasks of duties of work or performing routine domestic tasks, our awareness is necessarily entrenched deeply within physical reality.
We feel that we can fully comprehend these `normal' life events, but even they are imbued with that all too familiar unfamiliarity that shows itself as soon as we look deeper, with such undefinable elements as love, quality and time inextricably interwoven with the sober reality of the tasks.
We seem to also be in touch with other places on the spectrum of reality, intuitive places where what is known as the `sixth sense' operates. I am aware of an ever growing love relationship between myself and my garden. I can `feel' that the garden is infused with me and I am infused with it. For me, it's sacred ground, fertile with love, illuminated by the beacon of my gratitude....and it is a beacon, shining outward, having an effect, I believe. What sort of reality is that? Some may scoff that I'm deluding myself, but I feel it; having gratitude is something we should be grateful for....it enriches our experience of reality hugely.
And what about telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing and precognition? Where do they sit on the spectrum of reality? What of identical twins and mothers and children who receive each other's thoughts during poignant moments, regardless of the distance that separates them? If thoughts can interact, in this way, they can't be just internal to the thinker. There must be a world of thoughts out there, which is as real as our familiar physical reality, but with different parameters replacing the distance and time that give the physical domain its form. In the domain of thought, `thought distance' is a somewhat different concept to physical distance, with the distance being that of dis-similarity!
Is thought an energy, then, if it has a domain out there beyond us? Perhaps thoughts interact in a meaningful way (resonate), with a coherent transfer of energy that mirrors the phenomenon of physical resonance. Is thought resonance what happens during remote viewing? Is a `thought reality' what we access when we dream, where we transform the thoughts into a symbolic, physical world like reality of events?
In the earlier article that I wrote on `The Soul, Self and Consciousness', I pointed out (under this heading: What are Soul and Consciousness) that, whilst some of our thoughts are driven by logic and reactions to events, other thoughts just seem to `arise'. I wondered where these come from? Could it be that this resonance is the source of those thoughts that just seem to `arise' in our minds? Maybe some of our thoughts are received telepathically.
What about when we go to sleep at night? I believe that we shift our focus and enter another part of the reality spectrum. After all, we are perceiving when we dream, aren't we? If you believe, like I do, that we have always been alive, maybe when we `die' from this physical life, we just shift to another location in the spectrum.
Creating Our Reality
Taking things a big step further, some people go as far as to say that we actually create our own reality! In fact, an expanding rash of proclaimers, the writers of philosophical and metaphysical web pages and books are stating this.
The problem is that much of the time this opinion is just glibly trotted out, in a very matter-of-fact way for such a deep reaching revelation! Just saying that we create our own reality is a statement of greatly indeterminate clarity which could operate on a number of levels of meaning! It certainly feels like a statement that promises the harvesting of further exciting revelations. I'm afraid that I do find that cynicism comes to the fore, as I note that it is a statement that is never extolled by those who are being battered by the hard knocks of life! I suspect that it is often an idea fertilised by a pious belief that the utterer's fortunate life is entirely down to their own brilliance!
Let's think about what creating out own reality might mean. Taken to extreme, creating our own reality could mean that the external reality which we experience, including other people and animals, has no real existence and is just a creation of our minds - that `it's all in the mind', literally! Some people do believe this - a view known in philosophical circles as Solipsism (derived from solus "alone" and ipse "self"). But, I ask these people two questions about what I find an unbelievable belief:
How is it that we all share such a commonality of experience, and......
.....how is it that the external things that we perceive do appear to age and fall apart in a manner that is coherent with elapsed time and environmental conditions, all in accordance with each other?
Doesn't this strongly suggest that the external things are real and not the products of our own creation? Also, I ask you, as the reader of my writing, to consider this piece of evidence against solipsism - surely the fact that you are reading my words shows that your reality isn't your creation alone. We have interacted - I was the one who wrote this, I'm telling you!
On the other hand, `creating our own reality' could be merely referring to a perception that we experience the events in our lives largely according to the attitude we bring to life.....life is what you make it. If this is the case, surely `creating our own perception of reality' would be a more appropriate phrase to use. Reality is reality; our reality is only part of the story! An anorexic may see themselves as fat; that isn't reality, it's perception....and it's false.
It can't be denied that we do create some reality by the actions we take in the world. Obviously, if we do something like strive to set up a successful business and work hard and it happens, we have created some reality. That said, we can never take credit for this totally; the actions of others and also a certain amount of luck play their part. There are many people who strive to set up a successful business and work hard and then fail, as well as those who succeed. But, for those who succeed, their attitudes have shaped their future events, so, to this extent, they have created some of their own reality.
I have spoken with some people who claim that we create all of our life events by some sort of influence of will and/or action, that the circumstances that we find ourselves in are a result of our thoughts, with the way that we think manifesting in physical reality as a sort of outer projection of our mindset. The trouble is, an inevitable consequence of this view is that if you believe that life is at your behest then it will be. I have strong doubts about this!
Others don't go quite this far and suggest that it is only the collective will of humanity that creates the reality that we know, a view that presumably has its roots in Plato's pansychism, but operates within the limitations of humanity. This view seems more feasible than individual creation of reality, until one considers that any influence from rest of the animal kingdom and the phenomenon of natural disasters have conveniently been brushed aside in what is a wholly anthropocentric view. Indeed, I have even heard it claimed that natural disasters are the outcome of mass human bad feeling or mass fear, rather than just the outcome of myriad physical forces rebalancing!
Another fact that seems to me to run counter to the theory of the collective will of humanity creating reality is that we keep discovering that our reality is very different to what we think; scientific theories and evidence about reality keep tumbling and being replaced by new and surprising discoveries. Also, the fundamental properties of the wider reality are so ungraspable - what is infinity - how can `emptiness' be - what is love - what is time - how does life come to be? If reality was a collective creation of ours, surely we'd understand its nature deep down; surely it wouldn't be so awesomely unfathomable. This is where God steps in.
Despite the above doubting thoughts, I do feel from deep within a surprising resonance with this idea that we may self-create at least to a limited degree. I must say, I do find that most of the things I have wanted in life have come to be; it usually takes time, but it happens, often after I let go of any strong desire. Perhaps we do cause certain things and events in life to manifest just by thinking about them. After all, the way we think about our own bodies has an effect upon them, as the medical profession will confirm.
How could we extend this influence beyond the boundary of our own bodies, though, and influence what external reality itself serves up? Possibly a mechanism for influencing the reality of events is that we could exert a resonance in the domain of thought. Perhaps, for example, if one's mind is in a state of love, it will interact resonantly with other minds in that state, influencing outcomes of future events.
Some research has suggested that thoughts can interact directly with physical reality, as in the example of the quality of thoughts directed at plants....try an internet search on `The Secret Life of Plants', `Findhorn plants' and `talking to plants'.
Most people would agree that there ARE periods in life when we are `on a roll' and feel so good and unstoppable and things seem to work out just right in a meaningful way, due to seemingly lucky co-incidences - coincidences that DO seem to be too coincidental - a phenomenon named by its advocates as `synchronicity'. There are also moments when I have felt unwaveringly, with utter conviction throughout my entire being, sure about what is about to happen....and it does. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.
It feels like life is talking to me at such times and I do feel that something beyond just coincidence and probability IS at work behind the scenes, here, but I don't feel that it is wholly my doing; at such times, I feel more inclined to thank `fate'. Spookily, I DO notice that there have been times when life seems to have responded to my thoughts; when I have decided that I hate my job, for example, and have started thinking repeatedly about leaving it, and then a little later, when I have come more to terms with things, I have suddenly been made redundant, completely out of the blue! This has happened more than once.
Certainly coherent patterns seem to occur in the strings of events that map out our lives - patterns that take us in a direction that most definitely seems purposeful. That this is the case can be personally verified by sitting down with a pen and paper and noting what has happened throughout one's life, observing how different phases of life have emerged and how one has been affected. Try it; you will be surprised.
Life seems to have a plan of its own, whatever our own intentions are. Living in harmony with this is popularly known as `going with the flow' and runs counter to an absolute notion of creating our own reality. I don't think anyone would seriously deny that life will on occasion surreptitiously creep up and then pounce, bulldozer style, giving us a white-knuckle ride into an uncertain and challenging future.
My own view is that we can exert a limited creative force, but it is constrained by the plan that life has for us, a plan that many call `God's will'.
Concluding, I think that we can say with certainty that what we can create in reality is confined to the part of reality that is within us. We do create how we perceive and interpret what is real.....BUT, maybe we can do a little alteration of the outer reality by influencing it, too. However, when you think of the large number of causes and effects occurring in any situation, we must be pretty limited in what we can do in this way - this stands to reason, surely. Hence, we seldom win the lottery by strongly and repeatedly wanting to, because many other people want to win it, also!
Any exertions of our will must compete with other people's wills, and the forces of nature - undeniable forces, which operate due to the nature of matter...for example, natural disasters, and many, many causes and effects which are operating (be that predestined or not) to make the sum of the reality that we sense....and yet....I still feel deep down a suspicion that our thoughts play a direct hand in events. Maybe there will be more answers to this in the future, or there were in the past!
Our Relationship with Reality
So, what have I described so far? Mainly my delusion, quite possibly! But then, I have an excuse. I perceive reality from my own perspective!
Look at this picture that I snapped, one day. It's a Drinker Moth. Looking at it sucks you into a different world, doesn't it? Well, OK, it's the same world, of course, but with a very different scale of experience! Isn't it amazing?
How must its world look through those eyes, I wonder?
We imagine that our perception of reality is in all ways superior to its, but it sees one part of reality that we don't; it can see ultraviolet light! Maybe, when we `see' with the `sixth sense', our perception also extends into the `ultra', but in a different direction.
However, there is so much that there is in the world that this creature doesn't know about. Quite probably, like for this moth, true reality is only ever knowable to us in a very limited form, as we can only attempt to comprehend it from the scale that life has served us and via the small part of the spectrum that we are focused in, and we need the big picture to really `know' reality.
But....alas...I fear that that big picture would probably be more than we could even imagine!
A person starts to live when they can start to live outside of themselves.
Albert Einstein
The Inner St. Peter's Gate
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.-Ephesians, Chapter 2:8-9
We hear much of the word God throughout our lives. But, I ask, what is God? He who creates us and then determines our fate at the gate? Or something much more than that?
I'm going to turn to religion for answers. Good idea, eh?
Looking to the various religions of the world, it seems to be a unanimous view that God is the creator of everything in existence. The view of God's form certainly varies, though, with some religions preaching of a personally attendant God who is responsive to prayor, others preaching of a God that is approachable via different deities and the remainder teaching of a God that is beyond our comprehension. Muddying the waters further, the advocates of these religions often vary in their interpretation of the tenets of the religion. Hmm. As far as religion is concerned, the worldwide jury is still out!
OK, for the purpose of succinctity in what I'm writing here, I'll focus on just the Christian religion. Firstly, let's look at the constitution of this religion.
As is very well known, there is an ancient and sacred book at its core, the Holy Bible, which is taken by many as the `word of God'. It is, however, literally the word of its writers, who span such a length of time (believed to be about 1500 years) that the writings are divided into an Old Testament and a New Testament. The Holy Bible should be respected as a great work, of course, but should it really be taken as the word of God, with us hanging on every word and its possible meaning? I think not; it should just be respected as a collective telling of events and great work of human wisdom.
We should also bear in mind that the writings of the Holy Bible have been subject for hundreds of years to interpretations from its many representative church bodies and other advocates. Unfortunately, the Bible was first written in Hebrew more than 2,000 years ago, and in the tongue of the wise man of that day. It was then translated into Greek and then Latin, and we now have, amoungst other versions, an English version, for widespread use in the modern day. The outcome of this variegated background is that there can be a challenge for us in comprehending the real intent of the original authors! Even expert theologians argue about the finer points of meaning.
Christians seem to spread into a spectrum of interpretation about their religion. Some envisage God as a being, almost like a super-human being, who is unconditionally loving and who personally attends to us. Others think of God as not so much as a `being', more an infusing force (Holy Spirit) that can be turned to, omnipresent throughout the universe. Certainly, they all believe that God visited the earth in human form, as Jesus Christ, in order to give us guidance in a more tangible way, and so they believe that we should live in accordance with Jesus' teachings. This undeniably can only be a worthy view, and it expresses a lifelong commitment to strive to live well. There are 10 `commandments' in the Holy Bible. These are most definitely a good guide to worthy living, for all people.
Central to this Christian way of life is love. Certainly for me, there is one Biblical statement that shines out its clarity through the fog of what seems like many, many confusing writings and conflicting opinions, and that is the statement that God is love. I think that this delightfully simple sentence virtually says all that needs to be said, for me.
Sadly and contrastingly, rather more spiritually degenerate views are sometimes expressed, proclaiming God as a deity that demands `faith', and who, Hitler-like, casts out humanity's `lost causes' – the unbelievers – into the trash bin of Hell, in order to filter out an amenable race of obedient believers to please `him' in the post-death destination of heaven! Apparently, this God would never acquiesce to Jesus' request of “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
For these people, and there are quite a few of them, life is like a test to be passed....change yourself, or else! Unfortunately, it seems to be these people who speak the loudest, often going door to door to spread their fears or standing in shopping precincts hailing anyone in their vocality with their prophetic words. However, it must be said in these people's defence (I have condemned them already!) that their belief is the result of both the official stance of their church and the various passages in the Bible that seem to confirm just this, if interpreted in a certain way. It should be remembered that such austere beliefs originated within a medieval church that was run by a nobility who needed to exert control over the masses by the instigation of fear of the possible consequences of misbehaving!
A belief in the doom of those who are unbelievers meeting their fate certainly throws up questions regarding people who have never had any contact with Christianity, who have never even heard of Christ! How will they fare, apparently pre-selected for Hell by their life circumstances? And the rest of the animal kingdom? There is plenty to challenge the views of those who literally believe the St. Peter's Gate story. Indeed, the Catholic church have been adherents to the concept of `limbo', the fate of children who have died young and have not had the chance of belief and baptism. However, during the years 2004 to 2007, debate in the Vatican resulted in limbo being officially abolished. How the `Word of God' can be modernised! Isn't this a very clear reason not to build our beliefs upon ancient writings in holy books?
Despite the observations of the last three paragraphs, I do imagine that the majority of Christians do not believe that all unbelievers are doomed. The trouble is, I can only assume this – they seem to be a quiet bunch!
There are two very noticeable central issues regarding the plight of humans in the Christian view: sinning and salvation. The notion of us being `sinners' is the central theme and is apparently a condition which hampers us from the outset of life, something from which we need to seek salvation. But, what does it really mean to be a sinner?
Well, this is a typically Biblical source of confusion for the uninitiated; rather than imply deliberate badness in a person, the Christian meaning of this word implies more a lack of goodness in human nature. It means that we humans fail to come up to God's calibre of unconditional loving. Hence, we are all sinners. As are, of course, other animals. How they relate to God throws up further deep questions.
Unlike the austere threats of the `believe or you are doomed' subset of Christianity, it seems that Jesus' teachings on having the faith were limited to the consequences of being an unbeliever as having separation from `knowing God'. Conversely, this is meaning that the reward of heaven is reaped when we begin a relationship with God. The problem is that all these Biblical writings seem steeped in metaphor.
The way out of sinning is salvation, and Christians say that this can only happen by `the grace of God'. What is salvation, then? I think it is a process rather than an occurrence, which is a key point. I agree with Christians that it needs the grace of God because I don't believe for one minute that we can ever overcome our human fallibilities. However, I think that we are at least undergoing salvation if we live our lives and change for the better as a result of this living.
Some Christians claim that salvation takes place simply by `believing' in Christ, and that the death of Christ has already atoned for our sinning. How can this be, though? It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Maybe what is meant is that salvation can take place through our following of Jesus' example of how to live our lives. That makes a lot of sense to me.
How do we come to know God, then? We love, and we act from that. Simple. This is not obediently following ten commandments; it is being compelled to do them because we want to. “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”, it says in 1 John, Chapter 4:8.
Maybe it is best to put aside the complex views and arguments of religious institutions and instead just look deeply into our own soul (the true word of God) and observe our own behaviour in life, whilst maybe reminding ourselves of the more unambiguous passages of the Bible, should we feel the need.
So, how on earth can this God of love send the worthy to Heaven but condemn the rest to Hell? Could it be that Heaven and Hell don't exist as `places' - potential destinations for us? Perhaps they are in fact states of mind; that notion would certainly live comfortably with `God is love'. In the words of the Apostle Paul, from Romans 3:28, “If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace.”
This is the nature of the process of salvation, I believe – observing our own behaviour in life and turning towards love and away from badness, a process that feeds positively from itself as it is underway. The fact that this process does feed positively from itself is the grace of God in action – something beautiful that blossoms from within us and within our relationship with life, something that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.
So, is God the true beauty that we experience around us and sometimes within us, rather than this `being'? Or is God both? The message in Ephesians, Chapter 4:6 is that God is “above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Surely this Bible passage confirms that we directly perceive God, both within us and outside of us, when we have such feelings as compassion, love, gratitude and joy, and when we look with awe at the world around us, and also when we seek to help others and feel joy from doing so. These are just a few examples of how God's glory can be felt – they are God speaking to us. It is said that feelings are the `language of the soul', and that is a very true saying. In fact, if we look in the right way, we will see God every day of our lives. As Jesus said for those seeking God, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
I am of the opinion that the real God cannot be intellectually understood by us....it is in our souls...and elsewhere...and is the 'true' essence of everything. We can only relate to God experientially, by connecting with the beauty in everything and connecting with our inner beauty by trying to be the best that we can in all we do. Formal religion isn't necessary for this, and can even be a distraction, albeit a good communal practice of togetherness.
So, will we really have to queue at St. Peter's Gate, hoping to sigh with relief as we are judged as suitable escapees from doom? I'm one who doesn't believe this for one minute. I think that our own conscience is our `judge', a judge that is also our saviour.
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
Love & it's Opposite!
Love. What is the opposite to love? It seems to be widely said that it is hate. Is this so? Well, in order to investigate this, we need to first have an understanding of what love is!
Of course, love itself is far from a straightforward concept to comprehend! Genuine love seems to be the expansive, open, unconditional, embracing, joyous, giving and gratitude-filled appreciation of the essence of everything that is good, an appreciation that is far more than just appreciating; there are no words to adequately describe it. It has a vast beauty about it, a glory as vast as the scale of the universe. There is no greater glory knowable, in my opinion.
We can certainly describe what love does; it widens life experience and automatically invokes gratitude and humility, raising our quality of being and happiness. It gives life an absolute clarity of meaning.
One thing that love is free of is desire of gain for one's self, and it is not something that is set apart for just a few individuals, things or places that are special for us. Genuine love holds a compassion for all others, which is even underlying in the case of people who we conflict with.
The most quoted opposite to love is hate. However, it is also sometimes expressed in philosophical writings that the opposite to love is fear, rather than hate. This feels a strange idea, initially. But, lets think about how fear could be an opposite to love. How does it differ from love? It is contracting, withering, self-absorbed, self-shrinking - an ultimately doomed spiral that feeds upon itself, preventing trust, narrowing the window of life experience and automatically invoking anger and resentment. It isolates us from our deep self - our soul! It desires an exit from itself. So, in the light of this summary of attributes, it does seem at least like a contender for the opposite to love.
So, do these attributes establish fear as the genuine opposite to love? There's a problem - some fear is a necessary defence mechanism in life, often having been assimilated from past learning experiences – very necessary! Hmm. So, there is some benefit in fear! It should be there, in measure. If it is absent in a person, there is something very wrong. It suddenly doesn't seem quite like an opposite to love, does it, thinking along these lines!
Back to hate, then. What is hate? Suppose that we say that we hate another person; is this genuine? On some level, hatred of a person often seems to be a false emotion. Suppose you come to hate a boss at work, who makes your life bad? What is this hatred? Is it not fear, really - fear for your own well-being? Suppose the boss is suddenly stricken with illness removing him/her from being a threat. Where is the hatred then?
The case of a spurned lover is another example. A spurned lover may say that they hate the other person, but, it is more a `defence mechanism' way of dealing with the rejection - the love is still there, but hurting and the spurned lover's ego tells them that they hate their rejecting partner and reassuringly lies to itself that there is no loss, because, who cares? You're better off without them! It is really anger, but somewhat extended in duration, an anger that would flip back to love in a trice, given the opportunity. It's a deluding and needy emotion, just as the emotional, desiring content of this kind of love is in itself.
Hate is also something we can `work through', unlike love! Hate doesn't quite seem to have the out and out polarity required of an opposite, does it? Opposites are ironically similar in their constancy, apart from the temporal terms `short' and `long'! Aren't they? Surely! `Plus' always endures as `anti-minus'! `Cold' is `anti-hot'. `Up' is `anti-down'. And `up' can never change to `down'. If it could, it wouldn't be a genuine opposite of `down'.
Oh God! Do I have to try to define what `opposite' is, now? Let's not go there, for the sake of focus! Hate is inconsistent in that it can be purged, or even extinguished in a trice. Genuine love is something that grows and stays.
What's left? If it's not fear and it's not hate......well, I believe that the opposite to love is plain old APATHY! Apathy is undoubtedly the opposite to caring. Isn't caring the essence of the pure form of love? Yes! It is the unconditional part of love - true love - the type of love that cares for altruistic reasons. Surely, then, apathy has a bleakness that fills the vacancy of true love's opposite. Yes. It does for me! What else could be so worthy as an opposite to love's embrace than that bleakness?
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott
More than the Sum of the Parts
It seems that something is always greater than the sum of its parts, be it a group of people, a beautiful Grandfather clock, a painting, a shed, a car, the Solar System.....anything and everything, I think!
Why is this? It seems to be problematic to try to analyse why. I suspect that this is because when we try to analyse what something `is', the method that we normally use is to mentally break it down into the smaller components of which it is comprised - an action that is truly against the spirit of what we are investigating! We often just say that an item is A + B + C + D + E......etc.
However, without even thinking about it, we KNOW that something is always greater than the sum of it's parts, without even needing to stop and analyse why. This is obvious to us, isn't it?
Despite this apparent obviousness, I want to try to think this out and I've decided to begin the investigation with a succinct and quasi-mathematical approach. Whilst this may seem a strange approach when analysing something which we naturally feel is qualitative (don't we?), my reason for reducing it to a dry equation is so that I can try to ensure that the analysis at least kicks off without containing any projected perception that I may have in terms of ambience, beauty or quality.
So, I have written an equation, which I feel is a good starting point, even though, ironically, this involves the formerly condemned `mentally breaking down' analysis method!
OK, for any object or collective group, let's call the mysteriously augmented `something' which is greater than the sum of the parts `S'......and, let's call the mysterious addition which makes S greater than the sum of it's apparent parts `X'.
S = {components of the object} + X
What is the extra thing `X' that makes something an `S' which is greater than its components, then? My initial feelings are that X is constituted like this:
X = {the way that the components interact with each other} +
{the way that the components interact with the observer} +
{the way that the components interact with the environment surrounding the object}
The first term of the equation is quite straightforward, isn't it?....{the way that the components interact with each other}.....obviously two or more components can combine in such a way to provide something greater than just their physical make up; they can perform a function, for example. That is a straightforward idea – even if we take the complex example of an orchestra playing, we have each instrument and player executing certain movements, to produce a sound, and we also have something extra produced - the combination of the sounds, which express the music through interaction. This is the orchestral function.
The second term.....{the way that the components interact with the observer}.......considering things in this context is rather more complex, with a strongly subjective element. With the example of the orchestra, we have the orchestral function being part of factor `X'. However, there is something else that makes the overall effect greater than the sum to us and that is our state of receptivity to the sound and style of the music.
Of course, in some instances, the `whole' can seem to be less than than the sum of the parts! For example, one component can detract from the sum of the parts, if it is perceived as ugly, like if one violin is out of tune in the orchestra. However, we can still consider this apparent overall `lessness' as an extra factor that is added to the sum of the parts, so it is still `more than the sum of its parts'! Yes? Yes.
So, the interaction between the observer and the observed is much more complex!
The third term.....{the way that the components interact with the environment surrounding the object}......is, I feel, both objective and subjective. Using the orchestra as the example again, suppose it is frenetically playing `Flight of the Bumble Bee', but its environment is a peaceful beach with gentle waves lapping the sand and gentle, mellow birdsong. Here we have a discordancy, showing the important part that the environment or context of the experience plays.
So, pausing and summarising so far, it seems to me that the `X' factor making something more than the sum of its parts comprises:
(1) Functionality, which is an objectively observable phenomenon.
(2) A less defineable, aesthetic `extra' (beauty?), which has some subjective content (the appreciation), evident from how the object is perceived. In addition, this is affected by how the object fits in with everything else aesthetically; this is an important part of `X'.
Is the aesthetic part of `X' purely down to our perception, then? After all, beauty is purely qualitative, isn't it, being that which pleases the observer. A very famous saying is “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Is that all there is to it? That would make beauty purely appreciation, wouldn't it?
Contrary to that, it is sometimes said that beauty is something which `touches us', implying an externality. Interesting.
I think that three basic questions have to now be addressed:
(1) If everybody, or nearly everybody, seems to find something beautiful, doesn't that suggest that it has an intrinsic beauty? (Further to that, perhaps everything has beauty.)
(2) If some people find something beautiful and many others do not, does this mean that the object contains no intrinsic beauty and that any beauty perceived is just in the eye of those beholders?
(3) Is beauty just an experience caused by a relationship between a perceiver and what is being perceived, not existing without interaction between the two?
I think that Question (3) is having the loudest ring of truth for me, because both questions (1) and (2) contain a conflicting element of truth, and question (3) could resolve that conflict. To be considered with this question is the fact that the experiential context of perceiving anything involves the object being perceived, the state of mind of the perceiver and the environment in which it is being perceived.
However, despite beauty most probably being about a relationship, I still believe that there is an aesthetic `extra' within everything, itself a beauty, and that my earlier mathematical expression for the content of `X' at least points to the truth. I don't think it's just the case that we are projecting our appreciation onto whatever object we perceive, and that is all there is to our factor `X'. It must be about the object itself, surely, bearing in mind question (1).
Thinking about beauty itself holds a key to the truth about the aesthetic part of factor `X'. This is because beauty is something that is outside of thinking! Isn't it?
When we actually experience beauty, we are NOT thinking about it. Try it:
First, it grabs us. Then, we will probably think about it........but, this is after a short delay from the moment that we first feel that beauty. As soon as we start thinking that something is beautiful, however, we stop feeling (experiencing) its beauty. Is this not true?
I think that it could be that when we experience beauty, we are resonating with it on a level which is impossible for us to explain. I think that we are resonating directly with the essence of what we are beholding and that essence is NOT something physical - it is the earlier mentioned aesthetic part of the factor `X' that I am currently struggling to comprehend!
Another key point of this investigation is that anything is greater than the sum of its parts because that thing has meaning according to its environment or context. Does this environment or context relate to everything else? This may be the case! Many sages have said that we are `all one' with everything.
On to the next point, then, again a more subtle form of `extra', a beauty. There's the fact that some people do seem to sense the sacredness of some places and bad atmosphere in some other places. Similarly, some works of art seem to have a sacred feel.
Why is this? Could it be that an object is somehow infused with the 'energy' that goes into it's creation? Can that energy persist to the point that others can sense the intensity of passion in it's construction? Do we have an inbuilt intuition that truly knows the depth of `substance' in an object?
And what about when we are doing something to the best of our ability, with passion, and we reach the state where we are `in the zone', when we seem to tap into something? It is almost like we enter a slightly changed reality at those times. Suddenly, what comes out is more than the sum of what we seem to put in. That's another angle to this discussion.
Hmmph! The discussion is expanding. I'm suddenly hungering for an encompassing theory!
Suppose an object is subtley infused with the energy which goes into its creation. We are saying that this energy, part of factor `X', is still there. But this energy is the actual cause of the existence of the object! Can it still be there as its true essence?
Wow! I like this theory, because it explains so many things - one of these things is why we can tap into the essence of something on a deeper level before we even think about it, with that inbuilt intuition of ours. I suddenly realise that it's the act of thinking about anything that separates us from it, because it forces us to concentrate on our relationship with it!
If X is the underlying essence of both object and observer and the essence of whatever environment it is in that gives it an experiential context, then this would account for the intuitive connection we experience before we separate ourselves from it by thinking. It would also account for all subjectivity as the different perspectives/perceptions people have on everything are due to their degree of separation from everything, which is determined by the type of thinking that they are doing.
Phew! This is getting deep! But, as I said earlier, many sages have said that we are all one with everything, so is it our minds that separate us from everything? No wonder we can't define X - attempting to define it separates us from it!
It seems that X is something to be experienced rather than understood.
Wholeness, being everything, can also appear as anything.
Tony Parsons
Do We See It?
As I ponder the various theories that attempt to explain various quantum physics phenomenae, I keep getting intuitive nudges that push my background opinion towards the opinion which the famous mathematician Poincare held: If a phenomenon admits of a complete mechanical explanation, it will admit of an infinity of others which will account equally well for all of the peculiarities disclosed by experiment.
I think there is much truth in this, actually. I've talked with some people who keep serving out, with joy-sappingly cool certainty, so-called `objective scientific facts' to prove me wrong about various aspects of reality, but I repeatedly retort that science builds models which point towards truth, rather than reveal ultimate truth itself.
Indeed, the Taoist philosopher, Lao Tsu tells us: It is tempting to view the vast and luminous heavens as the body of the Tao. That would be a mistake, however. If you identify the Tao with a particular shape, you won't ever see it.
But, ironically, whilst I've used Lao Tsu's quote to help my argument, it's also where Lao Tsu and I actually diverge in opinion! I appreciate the thrust of what he says, but I happen to think that you WILL see the Tao in the process of intellectual enquiry about the form of the universe; that is the beauty of life and its lessons. Often it can be the immersion of one's soul in the pursuit of such `form' that can push up other deeply meaningful realisations, aesthetic sensitivities and inner re-alignments on the way.
I believe that the reason for this is that studying is one of the truly beautiful things in life, in my opinion, and it's this fact that rescues intellectual endeavour from the `knowingness' of some tongues that preach that it blinds us to `real' truth, because anything that has beauty shows us real `truth'.
And I argue that authentic`enquiry', that which has humility and enthusiasm, has a quality that approaches that of love itself. I certainly LOVE it! Don't you? And when you love what you are doing, you are living the Tao.
I strongly believe that it's the order, the elegance and the beauty that reveals itself during enquiry that steers us to select the facts that we deem to be true. It exhilarates the soul. Can we really deny that deep down we are compelled to pick the attractive facts? We are always seeking any harmony therein, which, of course, is beauty....and IS the Tao.
So, I don't think it is true that if we identify the Tao with any particular shape we won't see it; I believe that the attempt to see that shape is a path along which the Tao is always showing, providing that we enquire in the right spirit.
We know God through the mirror of creatures.
(Author Unknown)
Behind the Scenes
Consider the following:
Photoelectric Effect – Einstein's studies showed that light waves behaved like matter and matter behaved like light....both can be described by identical particle/wave properties, suggesting that they are simultaneously material and non-material
Einstein's Unified Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory ) proposed that all matter and energy is one, all parts being a `dynamic whole' in which energy and matter are deeply entangled to the extent that they cannot be considered separate elements.
Max Planck also recognised this dynamic whole -
Einstein stated "The field is the sole governing agency of the particle" and "The field is the only reality"
Higgs theorised that a field is the governing agency of matter.
So, the models of physics suggest that space is not empty, after all. They suggest that it is full of energy, like light, and can also be thought of as filled by the governing fields of all particles, fields that are everywhere at once, rather than at one place at one time. And do we really know what particles are, anyway; are they merely our measurements of properties of waves?
Further evidence for a governing field is seen in the modern findings of epigenetics research, which supports a Lamarckian notion that mutation is not just random (note randomness exists, as well) but is also driven by requirements presented by the environment..see Cairn's research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mutation )....can we go as far as to say mutation is driven by intention?
Can we say that it appears that our universe has a cause that exists somewhere beyond itself, because no non-living thing can create `order,' and yet we have such deeply embedded order at all levels of physical scale? I think that the answer to this question is a resounding "yes."
In ancient times, Aristotle observed that everything that exists appears to have come into being because of some cause. Even the creation of bodies in space has a cause; they accrete under the influence of gravity. Descartes pointed out that, going back in time along the chains of causes, there must have been at some point a first cause which caused everything else. A cause has to be as real as its effect, so another word for this first cause could be `God'. The formation of the universe must have had a cause. Unless, that is, it's always been there, which is what Aristotle believed! Who knows? I think this could be so.
We are deeply moved to humility when we engage with what is around us. The sense of wonder that we feel `touches' us to the extent that we seem to feel something that is beyond physicality. Aristotle said: “...that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world.” He felt that such order must come from a sentient being.
Surely, if we just consider things from a physical perspective, life has emerged in the universe very much against the odds. The universe is an incredibly hostile place for life; most of it is at a temperature of close to absolute zero (-273C)! And yet, this little planet appeared and allowed life to `happen'. Did that just `form' accidently, in the face of the `law of entropy' that is meant to display emphatically how all things break down and decay, given time?
This is not only true of Earth, but for the entire known universe, as the famous scientist Paul Davies points out: The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly.
Modern day physicists generally agree that the universe seems `fine tuned' to produce environments that suit life. Granted, this view could be objected to by questioning why we see (so far) no life in such a huge expanse of space beyond Earth, but it must be appreciated that even variations in cosmological forces of +/- 1% are thought to make the formation of even the stars that spawn planets impossible. In addition, amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) have been detected in space and, interestingly, recently found in a comet by NASA's Stardust mission close flyby of Comet Wild 2. It seems amazing that the hostile conditions which naturally occur on a speeding comet favour the formation of pre-life molecules from their basic constituents! And, of course, comets give birth to meteors, which plunge onto planets in their bid to become meteorites - a postal system for life molecules!
Doesn't this go rather against the grain in what we are told is an entropy dominated reality?
Sir Isaac Newton had this to say, during his quest for knowledge: This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
Thinking on evolution, are we saying that all this order, and even life itself, was created accidentally by hydrogen being heated and forming helium etc., etc.? No way! Fortunately, modern biology is furnishing us with evidence of living things evolving by other, more purposeful mechanisms, with Darwinian mutation based evolution only playing a part in the process.
On each hike I take in the Galloway forest, I particularly notice, in my ever increasing awe, the stunning proliferation around me! What about the ability of cells to reproduce? Was that just due to the mechanism of accidental mutation producing favoured conditions. No..no...no...no...no! Surely not!
Think about it! Suppose, against all odds, the first living cell came to be from the `primordial soup'. Evolutionary science is saying that this would have taken millions of years. OK, now surely that first ever cell would not be capable of even the simplest form of reproduction, i.e., mitosis.
We are told that mitosis occurs only in eukaryotic cells (i.e. containing contain complex structures enclosed within membranes), so surely that first living cell wouldn't have been able to do that; it would have been a simple one! So, that first living cell took millions of years to emerge from the soup....and then it would die...probably very quickly, given the hostile conditions that would have been prevailing in its environment. So...how long would it take another living cell to form? Another million years?
OK, perhaps not nearly as long as that, as the development of other cells might be `on the brink', after so much time. But, that said, if the proliferation of many of these cells in the hostile conditions can occur, isn't it more likely that the environment would have favourably changed to suit life more, which in itself suggests purpose rather than accident.
In any case, why would a living cell develop the ability to reproduce, if it was just the outcome of meaningless accidental chemical combinations? Surely the fact that this ability HAS been developed reveals a survival desire! Why would this process then increasingly become more and more specialised to then produce the proliferation seen in a forest today? The act of reproduction appears very strongly to have survival purpose underlying it, does it not? The more I think about this, the more the idea of a designing intelligence underlying the formation of life seems absolutely in evidence; the facts scream out the word`purpose'!
There are times that we know things with a knowing from beyond the reaches of reason.
Epigenetic mechanisms modify the readout of the genetic code so that genes represent read-write programs, not read-only programs. This means that life experiences can actively redefine our genetic traits
Bruce Lipton (Biologist)
Time
Time is a measurement of the speed of change. In my opinion, if there were to be no change (including our thoughts) there would be no time.
Time appears to pass by us, as if we are standing at the side of a motorway with each moment seeming like a passing car. Or is it something that we pass through? We can't tell. Our experience of its apparent flow is highly subjective, having a relativity with our state of mind - nothing unexpected there, though; everything we experience has a relativistic relationship with our state of mind, does it not?
When we observe a change, I argue that what creates the experience of `time' for us are the mental processes that recognise the fact that a change has happened. This does not mean time only exists in the mind, though; it just means that our perceiving equipment is erratic.
In order to attempt to measure the speed of any change, we try to observe change in an objective way. For this, we have invented the clock. The idea of the clock was to establish an absolute value of change rate as a `standard' with which we can compare the speed of any observed change. Hence, we invented `time'.
Sadly, we have discovered that our `standard' is not an absolute value at all! Turning, in these modern times, our attention to astronomical matters, directed by a huge amount of theoretical help from him with the brain, Albert Einstein, we have measured that the rate of change of a clock is dependent upon the amount of matter in its vicinity! There is a `law' of inverse proportion at work; a clock will run more slowly on Jupiter than on earth, as Jupiter has far more mass, and a clock on the moon will run faster than a clock here on the earth.
So, there IS NO `absolute' time, as we had previously assumed...doesn't this make your grey cells bulge? There are just many `local' times, depending upon where we measure time! Even the clocks on satellites run very slightly faster than clocks on the surface of the earth! This is because the clocks on satellites are slightly further away from the mass of the earth. I will expand more on this, later, below.
Of course, the time that we measure on earth, down here at ground level, does serve us usefully in our everyday life and for most scientific work. However, as a tool for seeing which changes are really occurring in the universe, it must be deeply flawed, being subject to this relativity - it is surely like looking out of the window of a speeding car and concluding that the road is moving fast!
Leaving aside for now the fact that time itself is a physical variable, let's ponder upon the additional variability imposed on time by our consciousness. Why is our experience of time so dependent upon our state of mind, then? Ironically, it is perhaps in examining this subjective time experience of ours that we find our one approximate `standard' in all this, that our experience of time speed up as we age. This is borne out by the validation of everybody alive of a certain age! Is there a clue here?
I think that it's safe to say that as we age and gain experience and wisdom, the quality of our state of mind changes. Why does this `quality' affect our experience of time in this way?
In an attempt to comprehend, I am thinking about what happens when we relive the past - ALL of our past is there in memory, but we can only recall one bit of it AT A TIME. We focus on just the one bit, a limitation that prevents information overload. In doing so, we experience this one bit of memory and it runs sequentially, just like the present moment does for us, as a focused flow.
I am now wondering.....if we process our past memories like this, could it be that our perception of the PRESENT moment is achieved by the same process, i.e. as a function of perceptual processing? After all, when we analytically examine the nature of the present moment, we find it could well not exist - more about that in the next section! Is this true? Well, measurement of the time duration of the present moment concludes that there is no division between future, past and present, in fact; it's a continuum - more about that below, in the next section.
It is because of this sort of evidence that I am reluctantly coming to the belief that the only `time' there is is the outcome of our mental processing, especially given that further evidence is provided by the way that one can have an accurate dream of the future, where events `run' in exactly the same way as the future events run when they `become true'....i.e. are experienced as a string of so-called present moments! But, surely, our observations of the outside world tell us that there must be `time' beyond our perception! How can this be? Ulp! But those observations come via our perception, of course, which may well not even take place in the realm of physical reality!
Coming back to our measurement of time and the way that it varies according to whether we are on Jupiter or earth, I am now extrapolating that phenomenon to consider much smaller objects than planets! Isn't it logical to think that time is an integral part of all objects...that each chunk of matter comes with its own embedded chunk of time, no matter how small it is?
Previously, I had only considered this on the galactic/planetary scale, but imagine a place in space where there is nothing...there is therefore no change and therefore no time. Two molecules appear...suddenly there is change, so there is an associated time in existence, too. This is how I think it may work!
More and more molecules appear, each with their own changes (and, hence, time)...an aggregate time appears, increasing as more and more molecules appear....gradually slowing and slowing, until we have a whole planet, with its relatively slow time. As we increase the amount of matter present, more change occurs and, hence, it would be logical to equate this with there being more `time' present when we measure time, we do find it slows as the amount of matter around increases. From this, I deduce that a slowing of time = more time
So, I propose that you and I also contain our own time, which we bring to the aggregate, which we also influence by the amount of change going on within our bodies and thoughts (i.e. focus and perception). Is this how our mind state plays a role in our experience of time?
Some noteworthy things about the nature of time:
We perceive the present moment on the basis of our past `moments', because seeing is an act of recognition, which involves integration.
What we see in this present moment is, therefore, the outcome of this integration.
There is no such thing as a `moment'. How `long' is `now'? We invent that. Time is a continuum. There is NO time between one moment and the next one.
The more accurately we measure the present moment, the more Present, Past and Future converge, and appear to be an inseparable continuum!
Things irreversibly age and decay, indicating that time runs in a flow, in one direction. This is something we CANNOT gloss over, and is a FACT of our world. This fact is further emphasised by the discovery of fossils etc., and the fact that we cannot unboil an egg!
We can remember the past, but not the future....at least, most of the time...ever heard of precognition?
People who have returned from `near death experiences' have reported that time does not flow in the usual manner and that their life (past) is layed out, like a landscape – all observable at the same time. But, could this be just a trick of memory and the mind. Inconclusive? Maybe. Maybe not.
The `depth' of our awareness of anything is created by time......so when we are aware of anything, our awareness is not just rooted in the present moment, but is expanded along the axis of time. (This is because, when our mind responds to something, it is at least partially removed from the present moment, as feelings, thoughts, emotions and judgements are set in motion). This suggests that the past and future are `there' now, to be part of our experience.
Some questions:
Is synchronicity when our awareness spreads along that time axis into the future?
Is `deja vu' when we recognise something which we previously accessed along the time axis, as a `future' perception?
How about instinct....a feeling about something? Is this due to awareness spreading into the future?
Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
Tennessee Williams
The Present Moment
I'm now going to attempt to probe the nature of the present moment of time and examine how we perceive it.
Just what is the present moment? We have a major problem in answering this question. When we attempt some intellectual scrutiny of its nature, we find that it has passed by us, riding on the ever moving flow that we experience as time; it has become a memory!
We imagine it to be a tiny, indivisible unit of time. Can we measure its duration, then? The truth is that the more acurately we try to measure the duration of the present moment, the shorter it becomes. We can try to capture the shortest duration of time that we can, using a very fast time exposure on a camera and then we can go on to imagine using an even faster camera, ad infinitum!
So, how `long' is this moment that we think of as `now'? It does seem that we invent that, as we are thinking of it. Is there a possibility that it may not even exist other than as a concept in our minds? If it does exist in physical reality, we can't divorce it from our perception of it.
The present moment appears to be what separates what we experience as the past and what we experience as the future. The consequence of the present moment shrinking under increasingly accurate examination is that this causes Present, Past and Future to converge. Could we go on for ever, redefining a moment as a smaller and smaller duration of time? If we keep dividing the time period down to a greater resolution of `now', we theoretically end up with zero time duration and ultimately what we experience as Present, Past and Future appear to be an inseparable continuum!
Is `now' just our attempt to hold onto time's flow, then? What analysis seems to be saying that the present moment is not even recognisable to us in isolation. This doesn't conclusively mean that it doesn't exist, but it does raise the question of if it is our creation, plucked from what is actually a continuum of time? Maybe the analysis process makes us diverge from reality. Maybe the present moment is something that we can only experience, rather than understand.
One person who did much thinking about time was St. Augustine, who concluded that time is just a distension of the mind. His foundation for this was the realisation that time has three realities in our minds:
The past is present to us in memory
The present is present to us in attention.
The future is present to us in expectation.
Aristotle had a different view. He pointed out that we can only percieve time when we perceive change happening. He defined time as “the number of change in respect of the before and after”, which I understand as meaning recognising that changes occur in a sequenced order. One type of change with which we can perceive time is our own thinking process.
Is time itself something that is just created in the mind, then? Surely not. Change happens! If a rock falls off a cliff, this takes time and is independent of human perception!
There are various theories on the nature of time – there has even been conflict over whether time is a continuous flow or a series of discrete `moments', as applied similarly to the study of motion by Zeno of Elea. But, to avoid writing for pages and pages, I'm going to just stick with my own argument on the nature of the present moment.
In the above paragraphs, I have considered what the present moment might be. Of course, the major problem in that consideration is something inextricably tied in with this - just exactly how we recognise the present moments that we experience.
On the surface, it may seem that the present moment is the time in which we are `aware'. However, I believe that `awareness' is always the outcome of perceiving. This has heavy implications for our awareness of the present moment.
Can we be aware of something without that something being first filtered by our perception mechanism? I don't think so, because our perception mechanism always automatically attempts recognition of something - a process that attempts to impart order upon the raw information received by our senses. If we are waking from sleep and we hear waves upon a shore, we will automatically attempt to identify what we are hearing.
Examining this awareness more closely, we find that the present moment only has meaning to us in the context of it being added to past moments, because perception is an indirect process - the outcome of a comparison between incoming sensual information and an inner `model' that is constructed from various layers. Perception itself is always the outcome of an integration process.
The `raw sensory data' of each present moment that is detected by our sense organs is temporally and `impression' processed by the time it comes to our awareness as perception. I don't know how much any empirical data there might be can tell us about the nature of perception, but I think that this perceiving process integrates from these necessary elements:
The most relevant memories of things or events.
Additional less relevant memories of things or events.
The concepts that we hold about things or events.
Long term formed beliefs.
Short term formed opinions.
Our expectations.
An emotional reaction.
Quite probably other things that I have failed to identify!
In addition, each piece of `raw sensory data' from the present moment will be an integral part of each future perceived moment.
Considering the case of our vision, I support the observations in the above list by contemplating that when we are born we have to actually learn to see. Surely, when when a baby first opens its eyes, for the first time EVER, it would just see an unstructured mass of varying colour and light intensity. I would think that what it sees would be meaningless, as it would have no internal model for comparison with any of the sensory input. Would it even perceive a flower, for example, as an individual object? I'd say no. It would surely only be after repeated viewings of the scene that anything could be discerned, via the integration process that is the bedrock of recognition. More broadly speaking, without a concept of what an external object is, it has no form for us.
I base this premise partly on the observation that how we see things changes with time. Familiarity seems to actually change the way we see things; they look different. It's the passing of time that gives what we see a greater depth, through familiarity. Look at an ancient tree – it's not just the shape – we instantly tap into a quality about it. It's the same with a young tree – again, not just the shape – we recognise the youthfulness. Look into an intelligent person's eyes – it's not the shapes and the colours – we see a beauty. We see compassion and joy written into those eyes. Again, it's the modulating effect of layers and layers of memories (time) that has provided the depth in what we see, not the present moment
If we are rushed into hospital, the corridors look foreboding. They aren't; they are just innocuous painted walls! What we see is our fear reflected back at us – fear that is born of the integration of years of memories. The raw information provided by our eyes doesn't play the leading role in the cast that makes the experience..
I think that this is undoubtably evidence of an integration process occuring – a process which feeds back at the level of awareness itself. Whenever we see something for the first time, I believe that we always automatically attempt to identify it by comparing its form with that of previously experienced objects and attempt a `best fit' correlation.
So, during each present moment, we are assembling our present perception, mainly from the outcome of processing past moments, and we are also assembling our future perception. Perhaps the selection of the relevance of past moments which are used in the assembly occurs by what can be regarded as `thought resonance' between the past and the present.
We mustn't forget the important role played by anticipation (expectation), as well! Anticipation is a product of imagination which is deeply involved in the `processing' mentioned above.
So, it isn't simple! I'll summarise my thoughts on the nature of present moment perception with a loose mathematical approach, for clarity:
PRESENT PERCEIVED MOMENT = PRESENT SENSORY DATA + PAST PERCEIVED MOMENTS + PAST ANTICIPATION.........(1)
FUTURE PERCEIVED MOMENT = PRESENT PERCEIVED MOMENT + PRESENT ANTICIPATION ...........(2)
It's worth adding, an expression for anticipation itself:
ANTICIPATION = (PAST PERCEIVED MOMENTS + PRESENT PERCEIVED MOMENT)Average Expectation........(3)
So, looking at (1) and (3), they both depend mainly upon past perception.
Looking at (2), this depends upon (1) and (3), which both depend mainly upon past perception.
Concluding:
From (1), we cannot truly experience the present moment in isolation, because it is mainly the past! This is borne out when we misread a street sign - we actually `see' it that way. It is also borne out when we see faces in inanimate objects - how our past integrations deceive us!
From (2), we see that we CAN prepare for the future, by living in our present anticipation, which also depends mainly upon our past experience.
From both of these conclusions, we can see that our perception of the present moment has much to do with experiences that lay outside of it in time.
So, what statements can I conclude with, after all of this analysis? Well, if such a thing as the present moment actually exists, and it may not, it seems that our idea of what it is is inextricably tied in with our perception of it; this is the problem that we have in understanding it.
The fact that we cannot bypass this perceptual filter when we try to comprehend the nature of the present moment means that we cannot perceive it in isolation, because our past experiences and our anticipated future are intrinsic parts of that perception. We can only have any understanding at all of what the present moment may be in terms of our relationship with it.
Maybe the analysis process makes us diverge from reality, with processes such as the reductive mathematics that attempts to discern the duration of the present moment being invalid. Maybe the present moment is something that we can only experience, in the context of our past and anticipated future, rather than understand.
The True Value of the Present Moment
In the previous section, I tried to comprehend the nature of the present moment and our perception of it. OK – I wasn't successful in this comprehension....surprise, surprise!.....but I think I may have at least uncovered some clues! So, now I'm going on to ask what the true value of the present moment might be to us.
One hears about the much vaunted spiritual practice of `living in the moment'. The Buddha himself said “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”, when extolling the value of this practice. Of course, what he was emphasizing was about not getting caught up in spending so much time daydreaming about what might be or remembering the`good old days' that we fail to notice much of what is happening now.
Concentrating the mind on the present moment does have a value which, rather than being simply a temporal shift, is a deepening of our experience of life – we immerse ourselves deeper into the fullness of being, becoming highly aware of what is around us and what is happening around us. It is through this practice that we cannot help but to become more aware of the beauty within life and have a heightened sense of gratitude, which transforms how life seems to us and, in turn, how life `turns out'. So, we can see the value of the practice!
However, much of the wonder of life and the value of its learning lies beyond the present moment, in the anticipation of the moment and the preparation for the moment, be that preparing to face something difficult or preparing for the cherishment of what should be an enjoyable moment.
Once the brief moment has flitted past, it's the memory of both the moment and the anticipation that we have had that make the imprint upon us – an imprint that nourishes us, largely making future `present moments ' what they mean to us.
So, a duality has been uncovered:
1. It seems that the many moments before and after any given present moment are of greater value in the scheme of things than the moment itself, as they contain the preparation for the moment and the learning from it....but....
2. It also cannot be denied that the practice of intending to immerse oneself in the present moment (intending, as we cannot really do it!) is fruitful as well, but this is because of the way that this practice deepens the actual experience of life.
So....after all this, what can the conclusion be? I started with the question “What is the true value of the present moment to us?” In the previous section, I concluded that the present moment is something that we can only experience in the context of our past experiences and anticipated future, rather than being something that we can hope to understand. I also concluded that there may even be no such thing as the present moment, which rather muddies the waters!
Muddying aside, a conclusion is coming, because I'm also thinking that it is the continually increasing inner integration process that comes from re-living our past that is probably the most significant facilitator of our evolution. Past experience, and the opinions that have grown from it, are very important and they strongly affect our perception of the present moment. So, I can conclude that we cannot extricate the present moment from its entanglement with the past and future.
Of course, part of the process of inner integration has been examining how close our anticipations have come to reality, so we can see how anticipation of the future also has much value.
Therefore....yes...living `in the now' is a valuable practice, but we shouldn't denegrate the importance of examining our past and anticipating our future by too rigid an adherence to living in `the now'.
Once again, it boils down to avoiding extremes of anything in life and taking a balanced path - the middle way, as emphatically advocated in Taoism.
Taoism
Taoism has been central to Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. The principles of Taoism are based upon what is called `the Tao' – meaning `the way', or ultimate universal truth. It is based upon the oneness of everything, the dynamic balance of life and the universe, the cyclical ebb and flow of all energies and the value of harmonious action in life.
Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu seem to have been the main two scholars of it, and they dedicated much of their lives to seeking inner harmony and then attempting to pass on what they had learnt. Lao Tzu is widely regarded as the `father of Taoism' and wrote the famous `Tao Te Ching'....translating approximately to `the book of the way of virtue', describing the way of life, giving advice on living a good life.
Another book, the `Hua Hu Ching'....translating approximately to `the book of the way of transformation'.....is a similar Taoist writing, believed to have been written later, but derived from Lao Tzu's writings. Translations of these books are readily available from the internet, but they vary slightly, as the translation is not a straightforward process!
The Tao is seen as the natural order of all things – forces, or truths, which exist throughout the whole of the universe, including living things themselves. Everything is seen as dependant upon the action of the complementary forces (Yin and Yang) – meaning that a particular condition cannot be defined in terms which do not include its absence, as well.
Every state that occurs in life is seen as the result of the temporary dominance of one condition over its complimentary opposite – the ebb and flow of a condition, as it slowly changes into its opposite condition.
A good example of this is given by the cycle of our seasons. In Taoism the seasons have the following associations:
Spring – wood
Summer – fire
Autumn – metal
Winter - water
These associations can be understood when we consider what happens during the cycle of the year. Firstly, the warming of the springtime makes new wood grow from the nourishment of the earth.......summer then brings heat and fire.......the autumn cools, rather like metal does, resulting in the accumulated nourishment from the spring and summer growth falling to earth.......in winter that nourishment flows back into the earth like water.
The process of the ebb and flow of a condition is represented by the famous Yin-Yang symbol, shown below. The outer circle is representative of everything that exists, whilst the white and black shapes within the circle represent the interaction of Yin (black) and Yang (white).
The shape of the two sections of the symbol represent the continual flowing
movement between the two universal energies. At the extreme of Yin, Yang appears, and at the extreme of Yang, Yin appears; where Yang is greatest, Yin begins and vice versa. The dots symbolise the fact that, at the extreme maximum of one condition, the other always penetrates, because, at the extremes, instability occurs. There can never be one force without the other.
The `ideal' of Taoism is that when the principles of the Tao are embodied into our lives in a balanced way, avoiding extremes of anything, it is possible for people to find perfect harmony and happiness in their lives.
With life being busy and full of so many changes, simplifying life is regarded as helpful for bringing what is important into focus. Lao Tsu wrote the following:
“Dualistic thinking is a sickness. Religion is a distortion. Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal. Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing, religious robes no more spiritual than work clothes. If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities. Instead, live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and concepts. Find contentment in the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power. Giving to others selflessly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the world and illuminating your own darknesses, your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings. This is what is meant by embodying the Tao.”
Taoism also stresses the importance of seeing beyond distractions and looking to our hearts, as described in the Hua Hu Ching:
“Do not go about worshipping deities and religious institutions as the source of the subtle truth. To do so is to place intermediaries between yourself and the divine, and to make of yourself a beggar who looks outside for a treasure that is hidden inside his own breast. If you want to worship the Tao, first discover it in your own heart. Then your worship will be meaningful. ”
The Taoists `masters' taught the art of living and surviving by conforming with the natural way of things; they called their approach to action `wu wei', meaning `enlightened non-action'. They said that all straining and striving are counter-productive and that we should endeavour to merely follow this path of enlightened non-action.
This doesn't mean sitting back and doing nothing, as it first appears to the uninitiated. It means to discover what the natural forces of life are and follow them, rather than fighting against them, being spontaneous and adaptive in our actions, moving with a situation, rather than fighting against it.
Fighting against events is seen as a counter-productive response to life, so there can be regarded `action in non-action' and `non-action in action.'
As an ex-Qigong instructor, I am very aware that these principles are adhered to in the physical and mental aspects of the Chinese health disciplines and martial arts, as the human body and mind are part of the natural order of things. A good example of this is in the combat discipline of Tai Chi Chuan, where an opponent's attack is neutralised by first yielding, rather than resisting it with a strong countering force. This renders the opponent off-balance and a much lighter attacking force can then be applied to very good effect.
The same philosophy is effective in the situations of our everyday life; it is by resisting a situation we allow it to impact upon us to a greater effect. As it is written in the Hua Hu Ching:
“ Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao. To embrace all things means also that one rids oneself of any concept of separation; male and female, self and other, life and death. Division is contrary to the nature of the Tao. Foregoing antagonism and separation, one enters in the harmonious oneness of all things.” and from the Tao Te Ching: “Embracing the Way, you become embraced; Breathing gently, you become newborn”
To summarise, Taoism is not a God-based religion; it is more a set of observations about the way life is and how we can work within our lives to live in the best way. As with most other major philosophies, Taoism tells us of the value of letting go of prejudices, moderation in action and opinion, the development of flexibility in our attitudes, enjoying the mystery of life, enjoying the beauty of life, humbling ourselves by recognising that we are part of everything and subject to its forces, having gratitude and love.
Finally, it also tells us that we cannot understand our life and the universe, however hard we try. Quoting from the translated Hua Hu Ching:
“The Tao gives rise to all forms, yet it has no form of its own. If you attempt to fix a picture of it in your mind, you will lose it. This is like pinning a butterfly: the husk is captured, but the flying is lost. Why not be content with simply experiencing it?”
Retro-PK
I have mentioned the theory that mind can affect matter by resonance, if both thoughts and matter are `energy'. Furthering my investigation, I've been looking into precognition, a most puzzling form of ESP because it seems to involve a `backwards acting in time' process, in which an effect appears to precede its cause, counter to our usual assumptions that cause leads to effect.
This is a whole new ball game! No longer can we think in terms of energy transfer by resonance, can we? An event preceding its cause violates the laws of physics and the entire notion of `cause and effect', surely!
One of the first to report statistical evidence for retro-PK effects was physicist Helmut Schmidt (1976), whose research is fascinating.
He worked at the Mind Science Foundation in Texas, using Random Number Generators (RNG). How can a future observer of some recorded and stored RNG results look at the data months later and affect it?
I recently found this stuff on the net, at www.mind-energy.net:
In a regular PK test conducted in real-time, a subject attempts to mentally influence the electronic “coin-flips” of a binary RNG as the RNG is producing them. What Dr. Schmidt did differently in his study is that he had the RNG produce the “coin-flips” before the subject even attempts to influence them (how much time before ranged from hours to even days), recording the results on magnetic tape without anyone looking at what they were.
Later on, during the actual test, Dr. Schmidt would play back the tape with the recorded RNG data to the subject, at which time the subject would try to influence them. But wait a minute…if the RNG data are already recorded on tape, and are thus already assumed to be “set in stone,” how can the subject possibly influence them by PK? This is where the “backwards acting in time” assumption comes in. Since the RNG data are already recorded, it would seem that in order to influence the data by PK, the subject would have to direct his or her PK influence backwards in time to the moment that the data were being recorded.
As impossible as it may sound, all three of Dr. Schmidt’s (1976) initial experiments did indeed produce results supportive of an ostensibly backwards-acting PK effect, with the results having statistical odds ranging from twenty to one, to nearly a thousand to one, against chance occurrence. When he then compared these retro-PK results with regular PK results, he found little difference between them, suggesting that both worked nearly the same.
Nearly two decades later, Dr. Schmidt (1993) had repeated these experiments under the close, watchful eyes of five outside witnesses (who were psychologists, physicists, or other parapsychologists), producing a combined retro-PK effect that had odds of about 8,000 to 1 of not being due to chance alone.
...and yet the question that leaps to mind is how was the integrity of the effect reporting ensured? These further experiments allay any fears; a visual display was used to ensure the integrity of the phenomenon:
Schmidt went on to do more experiments. They involved a group of martial arts students as subjects, being shown prerecorded random numbers via an electronic display. The numbers had been generated some months earlier by an apparatus involving a radioactive source and a decay counter (radioactive decay timings being as "truly random" as anything one can find in nature). The students attempted to exert a mental "influence" on a visual display, whose behaviour was determined by the pre-recorded numbers. In this way, they would be supposedly influencing the statistical distributions of the numbers themselves.
"Remarkably", the article claims, a significant bias was found in the numbers, "one that had a less than 1 in 1000 probability of occuring by chance". It is claimed that "elaborate precautions were taken to prevent any cheating".
Now, very interestingly, Schmidt's experiments were inspired by some Quantum Mechanics of the `collapsing the wave function' type could support this seemingly impossible phenomenon. The experiments were based on the premise that consciousness can influence matter by playing some role in the collapse of the wave functions of the quanta of which the matter is constructed.
Fine.....but how does Quantum Mechanics support the notion of future observers affecting a past event??
Well, I find the `support' given very tenuous and unconvincing, to be honest! It is as follows:
That, if an observer can affect what is being observed, this shows that mind is `non-local', i.e., not confined to the brain.
If we are saying that consciousness is non-local then distance (space) doesn't matter! Therefore, as space and time are so closely linked, isn't it reasonable to assume that time doesn't matter, either!
Non-locality and atemporality is what the phenomenae are known as officially!
Step 1 seems fine...yes...this does seem to show that mind is non-local.
Step 2....well! I am not at all convinced by this argument. Space and time may be closely linked, but space is something which is within our framework of normal visual reality, whereas time...that is something completely different.
I have an alternative theory. Maybe when the RNG was originally set to run and the results recorded, it was affected by the minds of the researchers then – who programmed it with some sort of intention. After all, they knew exactly what they planned to do with the data a few months later.
Perhaps when the test subjects were sat in front of the results and the experiments were done, the results responded to the original intention once triggered by the tests being performed with the subjects.
This is still rather mind-boggling for me, but what I must acknowledge at this stage is that the results of these tests do at least support the notion of a reality that is collapsed into `being' by us!
The issue still is that of future observers of an event playing a role in that event. The evidence for this so far is, supported by as far as I can see:
Quantum Mechanics (QM), by wheeler's Thought Experiment (observing photons).
Schmidt's experiments, which probably show that a person's wishes affected past events.
Robert Brier & Sarah Feather's experiments which showed that the person who checked and tallied the results of card guessing experiments some time after they were conducted affected the results (different checkers found different patterns of scoring)
On this last point, I wonder what role this plays in everyday life? For example, if two people met and fall in love, does this retro-engineer the events which lead up to and caused them to meet? Is it all predestined somehow, by current events?
Are we saying here that causality may not be what it appears – that effects can cause their cause? Could we postulate that the earth evolved the way it did because man was to appear one day?
So....cutting through the maze of confusing statements above, actually we are saying that an effect is caused by a cause, BUT that that cause needn't necessarilly precede it's effect in time.
In my opinion, the experiments may suggest that the cause>effect flow can go in more than one temporal direction. Ugghhhhh! Where is this going?? In my opinion, these experiments also lend support to the theory that reality exists in an uncollapsed and maleable form until it encounters consciousness!
Still in the Dark
Latest cosmology:
FACT: Firstly, galaxy studies have shown that the stars in the outer arms of galaxies are rotating around the centre of the galaxy at the same speed as the stars near the center. This shouldn't happen – a perfect example of this is the solar system, where the outer planets move around the sun more slowly!
It is assumed that the only thing which could cause this is that there is greater gravity present in the outer arms of the galaxies.
To correct this anomaly, cosmologists have `invented' dark matter – the supposition that some other kind of matter that we can't detect exists, in the required quantity and correct position in space. This can be used to conveniently correct the maths which is used to support the big bang theory! All known matter either emits or reflects light......but this dark matter that is proposed appears to do neither.
I believe that all known matter is currently modelled by a theory comprising 24 different particles. Super Symmetry predicts that there must be 24 new particles which spin in the opposite direction (dark matter?) and which would pass straight through `normal' matter.
We have suppositions built upon suppositions!
FACT: A huge telescope, located in Chili, has been used to determine that the expansion of the universe is still speeding up, not slowing down as it should after a huge explosion such as the `big bang'. After such an explosion, collective gravity should act as a brake to any expansion, so why is there increasing acceleration?
Cosmologists suggest that the only way that the expansion could speed up is if extra energy is being produced from somewhere! Does this mean that the big bang is still happening, that energy is being produced from somewhere which is speeding up stellar movement?
Cosmologists can't find this energy, so they call it `dark energy'! What could it be – anti-gravity? Or could it be that the space between the universal matter contains energy which is causing this expansion rate increase?
Dark energy is the energy of `nothing'......or `space'. So, it appears that `nothing' is `taking over' in the universe – increasing in amount.
Once again, we have a `model', called `dark energy'. However, we must remember that, like dark matter, dark energy isn't a solution to a problem; it is merely a description of a problem. It makes the maths fit what is really happening!
So, we have a universe which starts with an explosion, according to theory; it then inflates and dark energy forms, and continues to form, fueling the expansion process and `stretching' the universe, like elastic. I think that all we can say is that some unseen force is controlling things – “Perhaps we should take it at face value” I recall a leading cosmologist from America saying, when I watched a TV programme on the subject.
Regarding the Big Bang Theory, see: Was there a big bang?
To explain some anamolies about the Big Bang Theory, cosmologists have invented `Dark Flow'!
Dark flow is the supposition that there is something else beyond our universe – something which is causing the stars and planets to move towards something.
Cosmologists are now hoping to find some more truths; the trouble is that the more that is discovered, the more alternative theories can be created to explain the discoveries! As more is discovered, more questions emerge! Hmm...I've heard that before somewhere!
Even what we have so far is only a story, built on mystery!
As discoveries increase, I have to say that I start more and more to wonder if what we see in deep space is not what we think we see....hmmm... mind you, I'm wavering, though.......space craft have proved that the solar system is what we see....perhaps I'm wrong with this intuitive hunch.......that is a danger of trusting just intuition, without left-brain intervention!
I do start to think about David Bohm's `Implicate Order', i.e. that there is another underlying reality, a `consciousness' from which our physical reality manifests, or, put another way - God! After all, quantum physics does seem to suggest that matter is just energy, and it does seem reasonable to suggest that thought is also energy. Have we discovered an underlying energy in action when the way in which `quanta' are observed appears to affect the behavoir of photons?
Pausing for thought........again! Are answers coming to us? Due respect to the cosmologists, but don't hold your breath!