Tuesday, August 05, 2003

The concept of the 'Homo Gestalt' was put forward in one sense, rather safely, in the genre of sci-fi in Sturgeon's 'More Than Human':

'...multiplicity is our first characteristic; unity our second. As your parts know they are parts of you, so must you know that we are parts of humanity'

The concept of conscious evolution to a stage where each part, or human, is an integral and interrelated part of the whole is an idea that is organically evolving within our mass mind. Now science is able to embrace this concept through delving into the psi-field of an integrated whole reality. As an evolving species, we are encouraged to work together as a synthesis, towards this synergy, or gestalt: where the whole is greater than its sum, and thus leads to emerging properties of the whole.

One area of research here is the 'global brain' phenomenon. Once the vanguard of peripheral thinkers (see Peter Russell's 'Earth Awakening: The Global Brain'), it is now fast becoming the ken of respected researchers: one recent example being Howard Bloom's 'The Global Brain', or Gregory Stock's 'Metaman'.

As parts of a larger system, humans can evolve into a conscious network and, using an apt analogy, may serve to become a planetary nervous system. Since univeral order is within a hierarchy, each stage evolving in complexity towards the next, we all exhibit characteristics of those systems above and below us, thus echoing the Hermetic adage As Above, So Below.

What concerns us now is functionality. And we can only function in accordance with our level of knowledge and capacity. We cannot be told what is, or what needs to be done: we can only be guided until that understanding becomes an inherant part of ourselves. Then we have an organic sense of how we should act to fit in with the dynamic whole.

Yet we can modify our base behaviours through observation and monitoring of oneself; to clear one's mind of trappings and junk in order to allow these new thoughts to penetrate. To contemplate and to kick-start the mind into thinking, delving, probing, questioning, and reaching out further beyond the confines of flesh and received-knowledge. We may think we learn, yet often we learn rote without the thinking. We should aim towards a conscious digestion of information. Like eating good food, be aware of it going in and its digestion. Use our capacities rather than leaving them to the junkyard of the sapians.

Open oneself up to synergy, empathy, and an awareness beyond the confines of the self. Think in terms of generations rather than immediate moments; into stages of species life rather than the slide into one's own old age. Think beyond oneself whilst including oneself.

Be conscious of ourselves as a part and simultaneously as a whole.

Monday, August 04, 2003

The scientist-philosopher Ervin Laszlo has stated: "that the brain would be sensitive to the psi-field, the interactive face of the quantum vacuum, follows from the postulates of our unified interactive dynamics - it is not likely that the neural networks of the human brain, a chaotic and extremely sensitive signal-analysing system, should be an exception". Using the psi-field for transpersonal recall, Laszlo believes that this explains the following phenomena:
- telepathic communication between individuals
- pastlife recollections
- natural healing, and
- simultaneous insights among individuals as well as between cultures.
(Ervin Laszlo, 'The Creative Cosmos', Floris Books, 1993 - see also Laszlo's 'The Whispering Pond, Shambala, 1996)

Looking at earlier thinkers in this area, such as Teilhard de Chardin and numerous sci-fi writers (Sturgeon's 'More Than Human') - there are suggestions that the next stage of evolution shall be a mutation in consciousness towards a state that has been outlined by the new emerging sciences: one that involves a conscious participation with the psi-field of the quantum vacuum (see post below).

It should not be surprising then when modern reputable academics begin exploring and supporting this thesis: 'The Future of Human Consciousness' by Professor Charles Laughlin and Sheila Richardson (Director of Strategic Intelligence Programs for the Global Management Bureau) is a good example of a recent approach. This thesis sees a possible evolution of the human brain through the cerebral cortex - 'the advance in cortical development that provides the increased structural complexity leading to a more complex consciousness among humans'.

Such an increase in cognitive thinkers should lead to more abstract thought in terms of global futures: the article refers to the new species as 'Homo gestalt': "homo gestalt will assuredly act, and interact, but action will not be constrained by by a conceptualised self-view...rather, social interaction will flow with events and in response to need, particularly in response to the exigencies of personal development...which in turn will be in harmony with cosmic will".

By all emerging accounts, we are, as a species, within a period of profound evolutionary transformation to the next stage: from life to conscious evolution.
Understanding of the mind has now reached new heights - the emerging new paradigm of the mind links it with matter, life, and cosmology to form a more holistic understanding. Separate fields of knowledge and study is more a reflection of how we, as perceiving the separate nature of our 'reality', approach an analysis and categorisation of knowledge. Rarely does mainstream knowledge see each field as complimentary rather than competative. Like a jigsaw, each field can help towards clarifying the larger picture - now that the picture is forming we may finally see how integrated are all our fields of natural and moral philosophy.

The emerging new science has begun to concentrate upon the phenomenom of the so-called '5th-field' and the underlying quantum vacuum. Basically, the quantum vacuum is the modern day equivalent of the 'ether' theory that there was a universal permeation that was the background to space. That the universe is permeated through with a medium that connects and binds all has been one of the areas that physicists have looked at in order to account for a Grand Unified Theory. Without entering the formulations, it has been implied that there is a more fundamental level of reality, one that underlies our own mapping of the universe. The universe, in this new paradigm, is merely the waves that roll across an ocean: the ocean itself, is the quantum vacuum. This would imply that our universe is neither unique, nor singular. Rather, universes themselves have been brough forth from this quantum vacuum multiple times until the 'universal constants' have been tuned to a precise degree in which to support life as we know it. The interacting field between the quantum vacuum and our physical universe is this 5th field (named as the psi-field by some scientists). This 'psi-field' permeates all physical reality and thus has implications in non-local consciousness. That is, if all reality is but the surface of an ocean, then all the drops of this water-surface is in fact in 'touch' with itself - just as a ripple spreads out from its centre to its periphery. If the resonance of the ripple is strong enough, it can reach farther. Likewise, if one's mind and consciousness is atuned, it can resonate with other minds. If other minds are receptive to this, we have thought-transference. Once again, science proves to be the new mysticism. Ignorance obscures, whereas knowledge brings forth.

This quantum vacuum also suggests itself to be holographic, and thus capable of retaining all known events - or, as we would call them, memories. Imagine an ocean that could memorise each ripple and resonance that manifested on its surface? Akashic records indeed! Thus, both our behaviour and our thoughts are important in that it could be that each one is imprinted upon this holographic quantum vacuum. If all reality has access to these records, then the implications for consequences of such resonances are great. Never before, it seems, has science explained the need for good thoughts and deeds within a cosmological framework.