CONSCIOUSNESS-THE COSMIC DANCE

AN ESSAY ON CONSCIOUSNESS: THE COSMIC DANCE William G. Baker, Jr., MD Katharine H. Baker, PhD (posthumous) CONSCIOUSNESS: The Cosmic Dance Prologue Grandparents and parents that experienced the hardships of the Great Depression in large families with minimal resources influenced my life planning around the criteria of achieving enough income to be comfortable and make the world a better place. As a teenager, “which college” and “what to study,” were major choices to be made. I began my university years undecided if would pursue a career either as an Episcopal priest dealing with religion, or as a physician dealing with science. At that time, I viewed religion and science as distinct and separate disciplines with numerous conflicting philosophical viewpoints. I chose medicine, ultimately recognizing that religion and science actually were compatible with overlapping spheres of knowledge and that my decision was not “either/or” but “both/and.” My first child, Katharine, was providing insight and guidance as I collected my thoughts on this topic when she unexpectedly died of pancreatic cancer at age 61. As a child, she developed a passion for reading, teaching, dancing and a love of nature. Her earliest favorite books were British novels, especially those that used metaphor and dealt with feminine challenges in daily life. With degrees in British Literature, Communications, English, and Pastoral Counseling with a PhD in Religion, Psychology and Culture, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Vanderbilt and Bellarmine Universities and had just created her own business in personal coaching. Her PhD thesis, Souls in Process: Psycho-Spiritual Sustenance For Women's Subjectivity, blends the process theology of Alfred North Whitehead with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Having learned herself that lessons are best received and retained through the use of imagination and not just by presenting facts to the rational mind, she made liberal use of quotations, poetry, metaphor, storytelling, fairy tales, myths, and multimedia to generate learning. The three building blocks of nature are mass, energy and information. All of reality exists both as particles and waves and everything is interconnected metaphorically as partners dancing to music within a universal quantum field of "divine eros." Physics is now considered a science of relationships rather than just a science of the structure and behavior of matter. Quantum physicists now confirm what ancient philosophers were trying to articulate: relationship is actually a more accurate way to describe the core operating actions of reality itself. Quantum biologists and evolutionary scientists seem to concur that at the center of all things is a deep conversation, a dynamic back-and-forth sharing of information operating as a coherent resonance of quantum acoustic/electromagnetic/vibration frequences that are omnipresent and guiding multiple activities in both cosmic and life processes. The following quotations serve as an introduction to our current concept of consciousness: The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what it is like to be anybody else. It does not come naturally to us, this recognition that every other consciousness is a different operating system governed by different needs and different responses to the same situations, encoded by different formative experiences. This is why the Golden Rule, a version of which is appears in all major spiritual and ethical traditions, may be the most narcissistic of our moral codes, with its assumption that others want done unto them the same things we ourselves want. One measure of love — perhaps the greatest measure — may be the understanding that another’s needs, as incomprehensible as they may appear to us and as orthogonal to our own, are a fundamental part of who they are; that to love someone is to love whatever they need to be their fullest, truest self rather than a projection of who we imagine or desire them to be. -Maria Popova 1 For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance. -Thomas Merton Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting: Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free. -Rumi At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless. Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. -T.S.Eliot This paper will review these concepts by presenting a summary of ancient and current notions of Spirituality, combined with a review of scientific progress in Psychology and Physics. I. SPIRITUALITY PHILOSOPHY At the center of our being is a point of nothingness [“le pointe vierge”] which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere…The fact is, however, that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth, at the very root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate and inescapable contact with the infinite power of God… If you seek a heavenly light I, Solitude, am your professor: I go before you into emptiness, Raise strange suns for your new mornings, Opening the secret windows of your innermost apartment. When I, loneliness, give my special signal, follow my silence, follow where I beckon. Fear not, little beast, little spirit, (Thou word and animal) I, Solitude, am Angel and have prayed in your name. 2 Look at the empty, wealthy night, the pilgrim moon! I am the appointed hour, the ' now ' that cuts time like a blade. I am the unexpected flash Beyond 'yes' beyond ‘no’, the forerunner of the Word of God. Follow my ways and I will lead you to golden-haired suns, Logos and music, blameless joys, innocent of questions and beyond answers. For I, Solitude, am thine own Self; I, Nothingness, am thy All; I, Silence, am thy 'Amen.’ -Thomas Merton 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 for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. -Albert Einstein I am so close, I may look distant. So completely mixed with you, I may look separate. So out in the open, I appear hidden. So silent, because I am constantly talking with you. -Rumi The idea of a divine indwelling at the center of the whole universe, with every unique part in conversation with the others, has many names. The book of John in the Bible cites it as the Word, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” A Chinese Confucian scholar Fang described “qi” (also known as “chi”) as “the essence of being,” as a force regarded as “unknowable, recondite, and uniting the layers of the universe.” What Thich Nhat Hanh calls the web of interbeing is aligned with what Robin Wall Kimmerer terms sacred reciprocity. David Whyte calls it the conversational nature of reality, and quantum scientist David Bohm uses the term implicate order. Martin Luther King Jr. called it an inescapable network of mutuality, which he said was “tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Logos was first used in a cosmological way by Heraclitus of Ephesus, a Greek philosopher in the fifth century BCE. He used the word logos to articulate a kind of intelligent life force embedded in and interconnecting all things, “a divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.” One of the most revolutionary concepts he developed is the idea that all things are one Heraclitus’s logos conceptualized the way the world functions as one collective, which he called the kosmos. Logos is the principle or power that shapes and creates all things, immanent and embedded in all that exists. He saw things not really as things, but as processes. Logos, he intuited, is the relationship between all things, holding them together. Later Greek philosophers would use the word logos to describe this relationship-between as a process of dialogue. Logos happens through relationship. This action of conversing—this intimate, abiding, turning to one another—is a sensual, living, flowing, never-ending relationship. It is the original primal relationship that has existed since the beginning and is reenacted in all matter and being. Aldous Huxley in his book “The Perennial Philosophy,” proposed that human beings are at the deepest level the same, and there must be a fundamental knowledge of ourselves, irrespective of our political, religious or ideological persuasions, that we acquire from our cultures. He referred to this as the ‘perennial philosophy’, which remains the same at all times, in all places, under all circumstances and for all people. It is a perspective of 3 spirituality that views religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown. Huston Smith, internationally known and revered as the premier teacher of world religions at Washington University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, and the University of California at Berkeley, was the focus of an award-winning five-part PBS television series with Bill Moyers. His book, Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions, was a companion to his encyclopedic best-seller, The World's Religions, and articulates the remarkable unity that underlies the world's religious traditions with universal agreement among virtually all the major paths of liberation about what constitutes ultimate Truth. He concludes, We are all connected, regardless of our religious beliefs – we are part of a larger cosmic tapestry. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was himself a victim of the religion/science conflict in his career which began as a scientist studying the history of life on Earth through fossil records before he was ordinaed as a Catholic priest. He was excommunicated from the church for expressing his insights of a spirituality profound in its implications for the future of mankind, summarized as. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” He employed the Greek letters Alpha to denote the beginning of the universe (Alpha Point) and Omega as the culminating end destination as a theorized future event in which the entirety of the cosmos evolves to a final point of spiritual unification (Omega Point). Teilhard saw evolution as having a direction toward concentrating consciousness and accumulating knowledge which gradually is attained by the formation of the “Noösphere,” a postulated sphere or stage of evolutionary development dominated by consciousness, information, the mind, and personal relationships. The hot metallic core of the Earth is the barysphere in which only the simplest forms of dissociated matter can exist. The surface of the barysphere cooled to form a thin, rocky skin: the lithosphere. This is the crust of the Earth; womb of inorganic evolution, the world of minerals and crystals. As the Earth continued to cool down, the hydrosphere, the fluid layers of our Earth, and atmosphere developed. And within that envelope is the biosphere in which life evolved. And from this envelope of living things, a glow ripples outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. It is a new layer; the thinking layer. Teilhard suggested a name for this grand phenomenon: the noösphere, a living, growing organism of collective information. He says, “The greatest revelation open to science and to religion today is to perceive that everything precious, active, and progressive—originally contained in that tiny cosmic fragment from which our world emerged—is now concentrated in a crowning noösphere. A spherical Earth gets a new skin. Better still, it finds itself…Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen…The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.” He also considered that the Omega Point as not necessarily merely a final future construct, but in a sense could be recognized as already here as the “Great Presence,” described in this quote: "All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below, we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through. But it is not only close to us, in front of us, that the divine presence has revealed itself. It has sprung up universally, and we find ourselves so surrounded and transfixed by it, that there is no room left to fall down and adore it, even within ourselves. By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers…the world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. " Alfred North Whitehead in his book Process and Reality, presents his concept of Process Theology, a school of thought that views reality as a dynamic process of change and becoming. God actively participates in the world through a process of "prehension" or of “feeling” with the cosmos, thus experiencing and responding to its ongoing evolution. All existing things, including God, are dipolar actual entities, presaging the later quantum physics view that all things exist both as a particle and a wave. Each actual entity has a primordial pole (which contains all the 4 possible things that entity can become) and an actual pole (the actual physical thing). The Process God is finite, mutable, less than omnipotent, and via his physical pole suffers alongside of his creatures. This is not thought to be a defect, but rather an asset, as it allows God to identify with his creatures and experience what happens to them as it happens. Whitehead believes that God is the Eros of the universe as well as the Harmony of Harmonies. "Eros" is the fundamental creative and harmonizing force in the universe: the driving force behind the process of "concrescence," where various elements come together to form a new actual occasion. Eros, in this sense, is the attractive force that draws diverse elements toward each other, resulting in novel and complex wholes. Eros is Beauty. Eros can be understood as a form of love, but not in the conventional human emotional sense. It is a cosmic love that underlies all existence, guiding the ongoing process of creative becoming and unification. In process theology, "Divine Eros" refers to the concept of God's love as a creative, dynamic force that constantly draws the world towards greater becoming and positive transformation, essentially viewing God's love not as a static or detached love but as “an active, enticing power that is present in all of creation, encouraging and inviting growth and connection within the universe.” Howard Thurman, the theologian and mystic who Congressman John Lewis called “the patron saint” of the civil rights movement, spoke with an eloquent language of connectedness. He is known for his oak tree prayers. “I could talk aloud to the oak tree and know that I was understood,” In his intimate autobiography, With Head and Heart, he grounds his story of his social justice leadership in his deep spiritual intimacy with God and Earth. Thurman saw them not as separate relationships but as one, a connected and dynamic relationship with three parts: himself, God, and the world. Conversation between the three was natural, expected, and normative. “When I was young, I found more companionship in nature than I did among people. The woods befriended me.” Thurman’s spirituality was deeply connected with the sacredness of Earth, rooted in wonder and awe, which is where all great conversations begin: “There were times when it seemed as if the earth and the river and the sky and I were one beat of the same pulse. It was a time of watching and waiting for what I did not know—yet I always knew. There would come a moment when beyond the single pulse beat there was a sense of Presence which seemed always to speak to me. My response to the sense of Presence always had the quality of personal communion. There was no voice. There was no image. There was no vision. There was God.” Rupert Spira was deeply interested from an early age in the nature of reality. At seventeen, he learned to meditate, and began a twenty-year period of study and practice in the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition. In his writings, Rupert presents the introspective direct path leading to the non-dual understanding that lies at the origin of all the great religious, spiritual and philosophical traditions. It is formulated in response to three existential questions: • How may we find lasting peace and happiness? • What is the nature of reality? and • How should we live? The non-duel response to the first question is that infinite peace and happiness are the very nature of our being and we therefore do not need to search for it, but just recognize it as our fulfilling basic nature. We arrive at this understanding by separating our self or being from everything that is not essential to us: our thoughts, images, feelings, sensations perceptions, activities and relationships. All that remains is happiness as our essential, irreducible being. Divested of everything with which we previously defined our self, we find our self empty, silent and at peace. The second question response is that there is a single, infinite, and indivisible reality from which everyone and everything derives its apparent, but false, independent existence. We are not subjects separate from the objects of everything else, but we share our singular infinite and indivisible being with everyone and everything. When asked the third question, St. Augustine replied, “Love, and do whatever you want.” Recognize the singularity in which everyone and everything exists together, and act in a manner that respects, expresses and communicates this understanding. Alternately, reality falsely may appear to be a diversity of separate objects and 5 selves, leading us to consider everyone and everything as a discrete entity with its own separate and independent existence. Every thought or feeling that we entertain, and every action or relationship in which we engage, can be traced back to a perspective of "me" or one of "we." Our life as an individual and our destiny as a civilization depend upon which of these perspectives we use. If we understand that happiness is the very nature of our being, we cease expecting or demanding that other people and the world provide it. We can stop using the world to serve our happiness and instead use our happiness to serve the world. If we understand and feel that we share our being with all people, animals, and things, no further code of ethics or morality is required. The words Know Thyself, which have stood for two and a half thousand years as an invitation to humanity at the dawn of Western civilization, now stand as a prayer to our world civilization as a whole. The knowing of our whole being is the means by which our innate peace and happiness may be restored. It is the means by which tolerance, compassion, cooperation, and harmony may be established between all peoples. And it is the foundation which will restore our unitary relationship with nature. To know the nature of one’s self is the great understanding upon which any true civilization must be founded. Consciousness itself is the fundamental, underlying reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter, and the overlooking, forgetting or ignoring of this reality is the root cause of both the existential unhappiness that pervades and motivates most people’s lives and of the wider conflicts that exist between communities and nations. The recognition of the fundamental reality of consciousness is prerequisite and a necessary and sufficient condition for an individual’s quest for lasting happiness and, at the same time, for the foundation of world peace. In his recent book, The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter, Spira proposes that everything that is known or experienced, which includes all thinking, imagining, remembering, feeling, sensing, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, is known or experienced through consciousness, the medium of mind. In order to know the nature or ultimate reality of anything, it is first necessary to know the nature of mind. The common name the mind gives to itself is ‘I’. What we experience is always changing, but ‘I’, the knowing or awareness element in all experience, itself never changes. This essential nature of mind is consciousness: awareness completely devoid of experience. The mind’s recognition of its own essential nature is a different kind of knowledge. It is not like an object that can be viewed by us as subjects, but it could be conceived of as a unitary subject/object fusion that just "is." Thus, awareness/consciousness is self-aware and no special activity is required for it to be aware of itself. In fact, a cessation of the mind’s activity is required, because the mind’s activity is the form in which awareness appears to itself as something other than itself, that is, as objective experiences. The mind that tries to undertake ‘meditation’ by special activities such as focusing its attention on a subtle object or controlling the breath in order to recognize its essential nature, is like a character in a movie that travels the world in search of the screen. The screen never appears as an object in the movie, but is a necessary unchanging constant as all the movie objects appear on the screen. Pure awareness or consciousness is the screen that never changes. Another metaphorical analogy is the relationship of sky and clouds; clear blue sky (consciousness) is omnipresent but frequently becomes partially or even completely obscured to observation by clouds or storms (experiences). Ken Wilber in his book, Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy posits that the goal of “integral psychology” is to honor and embrace every legitimate aspect of human consciousness under one roof. Drawing on hundreds of sources—Eastern and Western, ancient and modern—Wilber creates a psychological model that includes waves of development, streams of development, states of consciousness, and the self, and follows the course of each from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious. The easiest access to premodern wisdom is through the common core of the world’s great spiritual traditions, termed the perennial philosophy, which views reality as composed of various levels of existence—levels or waves of being and knowing—ranging from matter to body (in the sense of living vital bodies with the emotional-sexual level) to mind (including 6 imagination, concepts, and logic) to soul (the supra-individual source of identity) to spirit (both the formless ground and nondual union of all other levels), known as “The Great Nest of Being”: Each senior dimension transcends but includes its juniors, so that this is a conception of wholes within wholes within wholes indefinitely, reaching from dirt to Divinity…with each senior dimension enveloping and embracing its juniors like a series of concentric circles or spheres…living bodies transcend but include minerals, minds transcend but include vital bodies, luminous souls transcend but include conceptual minds, and radiant spirit transcends and includes absolutely everything. Spirit is thus both the very highest wave (purely transcendental) and the ever-present ground of all the waves (purely immanent), going beyond All, embracing All. Every human can experience the general spectrum of consciousness—ego to soul to spirit—at least as temporary states, for the simple reason that all humans wake, dream, and sleep. The Great Nest is most basically a great morphogenic field or developmental space, a multidimensional lattice work of love—eros, agape, karuna, maitri—call it what you will, it leaves no corner of the Kosmos untouched by care nor alien to the mysteries of grace. David Abrams in his book, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than Human World, presents a captivating picture of ecological philosophy. For a thousand generations, human beings had a unitary view of themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people but with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patterns) that we have come view as "inanimate," leading us to sever our reciprocity with the natural world and describe nature as a determinate set of objects. He invites us to reinterpret our perceptions into a unitary view that all creation is part of a sensuous single living entity. Mary Oliver, in her book of selected essays, Upstream, says, “All the world is taken in through our eyes, to reach the soul, where it becomes more, representative of a realm deeper than appearances: a realm ideal and sublime, the deep stillness that is, whose proclamation is the silence and the lack of material instance in which, patiently and radiantly, the universe exists.” Ilia Delio, in his book, The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Relational Whole, proposes that we are a species between axial periods. Thus, our religious myths are struggling to find new connections in a global, ecological order. Delio proposes the new myth of relational holism; that is, the search for a new connection 7 to divinity in an age of quantum physics, evolution, and pluralism. The idea of relational holism is one that is rooted in the God-world relationship, beginning with the Book of Genesis, but finds its real meaning in quantum physics and the renewed relationship between mind and matter. The story, therefore, traverses across the fields of science, scripture, theology, history, culture and psychology. The guides for a new myth of relational holism are the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and the Jesuit scientist-theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The complex human can no longer be simplified to one view or another: one must see the whole of our existence, or one does not see at all. Alexander Vikoulov, in his book The Syntellect Hypothesis, posits that everything, including energy, matter, space, time, and even consciousness, is information, or Code. Many scientists now come to a consensus that actually information may be the most fundamental, since information patterns persist through dimensions and, it seems, is an evolving phenomenon. Even in our physical world, we arguably exist as information patterns encoded in our genome. All atoms in our bodies are gradually replaced as a result of metabolic activities within a 7-year period. The purpose of life is to evolve and to pass on knowledge through time. From the very first prokaryote cell on this planet, its splitting in two, and on to the more complicated lifeforms, the purpose is always passing information. Biological organisms, from one-celled bacteria to a human, are incredibly advanced, intricate information processing, computational systems, the products of billions of years of evolution. DNA constitutes the basis of genetic code that determines the traits of all living things, from tiny microbes to humans and seems to act like a computer program through the language of code; it has the capacity to store incredibly huge amounts of data. All life on Earth performs computations – and all computations require energy. From unicellular amoeba to multicellular organisms like humans, one of the most basic biological computations common across life is translation: processing information from a genome and writing that into proteins. Life, when viewed as a computational process, aims to optimize the storage and use of meaningful information. Once we regard living organisms as agents performing computations – collecting and storing information about an unpredictable environment – capacities and considerations such as replication, adaptation, agency, purpose and meaning can be understood as arising not from an evolutionary random walk, but as inevitable consequences of adherence to preserving and transmitting information. Everything in the natural world can also be seen as an organic neural network. Indeed, self-regulating networks occur from the sub-atomic organization of atoms to the atomic organization of molecules, macromolecules, cells and organisms; everywhere the equivalent of neural networks appear to be present. With computation came computers, which – when linked – lead to yet another meta-level of neural networking, a.k.a. the Internet. Vikoulov sees this progression as consistent with De Chardin’s notion of the noösphere as the collective consciousness of humanity. As computer science becomes more robust with quantum computing, combined with the emerging explosive growth of artificial intelligence, he envisions the exchange of experiences between self-aware machines and enhanced humans will result in an “intelligence supernova” and the establishment of a global brain which is more than a single mind, but rather a society of hyperconnected digital minds, a web of patterns fully integrated as a coherent intelligent system. It will be a self-generating, self-reflective, self-governing network of sentient components that evolves, as a rule, to ever-higher hierarchical levels of emergent complexity, which he terms the Syntellect. Its emergence is hypothesized to be the next meta-system transitional, developmental stage for the human mind – becoming one global mind – that he terms Cybernetic Singularity. It is already seen on the horizon, when the global neural network of billions of hyper-connected humans and ultra-intelligent machines, and trillions of sensors around the planet, "wakes up" as a living, conscious superorganism, which he calls Digital Gaia. Neuralink Corp, an American neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, has developed implantable brain–computer interfaces and is working toward reaching this goal. 8 II. PSYCHOLOGY My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole. Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. -Carl Gustav Jung Jung believed that we are born inwardly whole and have a specific nature and calling with unique psychic components that are our own, but that most of us have lost touch with and repressed many of these important parts of ourselves. As a result, we feel that our lives lack meaning, or that we are not living authentically or with satisfaction. We experience a vague discontent and disenchantment, a feeling that there must be more to life. The realm of the imagination is central to psychoanalysis and Jungian psychology in particular. It is through the faculty of the imagination that we can access unconscious content, attitudes, ideologies and orientations that are typically hidden from consciousness. We can contact and reintegrate these separated different aspects of ourselves by becoming aware of our dreams and/or using active imagination and other psychoanalytic tools. This striving towards wholeness, towards finding our ‘true personality’, is what Jung called individuation: the process of coming to know, giving expression to and harmonizing the various components of our psyche to become our true and authentic self. TENENTS OF THE ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNG Collective Unconscious/Archetypes: Jung’s most basic and far-reaching discovery is the collective unconscious or archetypal psyche, a structural layer of the human psyche containing inherited elements, distinct from the personal unconscious. Our individual psyche is not just a product of personal experience, but also has a prepersonal or transpersonal dimension which is manifested in universal patterns and images, termed archetypes, found and described in all the world’s religions and mythologies. Archetypes are, by definition, factors and motifs that arrange the psychic elements into certain images that can be recognized only from the effects they produce. Archetypes manifest both on a personal level through complexes, and collectively as characteristics of whole cultures. Each archetype has a unique set of meanings, impulses and character traits. Jung’s archetypes include, but are not limited to, human characters, animal archetypes such as the serpent and the lion, as well as objects which function as archetypes like gold, the castle or the forest. Archetypes are inherited, inborn potentials. They are patterns of thought and emotions which provide us with a set of tools, skills, capabilities, lessons, opportunities and potential for this lifetime. They form the foundation upon which each individual builds his own experience of life, coloring them with his unique culture, personality and life events. Since they are unconscious, they cannot be known or experienced in themselves and can only be known indirectly through their effects, their manifestations in images and symbols, and by examining behavior, images, art stories, myths or dreams. Knowing the individual archetypal patterns at play in our lives can: • Provide us with insight into the way in which we operate in the world. • Help us examine the recurring patterns playing out in our lives and our dreams. 9 • • • • Give us insight into the key challenges and choices that each of our archetypal patterns bring into our lives. Give us insight into areas of our lives in which we feel stuck. Give us insight into our relationships with others. Enable us to make more conscious and insightful choices. Jung identified five main archetypes that constitute the human psyche: the Persona, Ego, Shadow, Anima/Animus, and Self, depicted here: Persona: The "I" that we present to the outside world; a strategic public mask of identity; the public image of one's personality chosen by the ego. The word ‘persona’ comes from the large carved masks worn by Greek actors as they performed before audiences and means ‘to sound through’. Besides identifying the characters in the play, these masks served as primitive megaphones which carried the voices of the actors to the top benches of the amphitheater. In the same way, our persona facilitates communication between ourselves and the world, serving as a bridge between our ego and the external world. The persona is our public personality, the face we show the world. The persona is the mask through which we get to know each other and interact with each other and is the true carrier of our essential being into the world. It is through the persona that the world comes to know us, not through our inner life. In dreams, myths and stories, the persona is often symbolized by what we are wearing, our clothing, uniform, animal skins or other covering or by our own skin, or nakedness. Ego: The ego is the center of consciousness, the bearer of our personality and our concept of ourselves. It distinguishes us from others and gives us our sense of identity, our ‘I’. The Ego stands at the junction between our inner and outer worlds, performing the function of perceiving meaning and assessing value. The ego provides a sense of consistency and direction in our conscious lives and plays an important part in the development of a healthy psyche. In Jungian psychology the ego is strengthened through introspection and integration of the archetypes. Shadow: the sum of all the unpleasant qualities one wants to hide. Jung said, “Everyone has a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it...but if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness.” The shadow is the inferior being in us all; it wants to do all the things we do not allow ourselves to do. It is our uncivilized desires and emotions, our dark side, 10 those aspects of ourselves that exist but which we do not acknowledge or with which we do not identify. It is the unconscious aspect of our personality, usually hidden and repressed. It is all we are ashamed of, such as egotism, laziness, lustfulness, selfishness, greed, envy, anger, rage. Whatever we see as evil, inferior or unacceptable and deny within ourselves becomes part of our shadow. Robert Bly describes the shadow as "the 'long bag we drag behind us' filled with all that we denigrate and repress: the parts our parents and teachers disapproved of, the parts that didn't fit with peer pressure, the parts our culture has labelled 'disallowed'." As long as the shadow remains unconscious and unrecognized, it is at its most dangerous. Once we begin to make the unconscious shadow conscious, we can work with it, contain it and possibly even transform it. This act of making the shadow conscious is a major part of the individuation journey. How can we recognize the shadow operating in our lives? • Dreams: Dreams are probably the most well-known and best route to the shadow. Freud said “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”. It is in our dreams that we encounter the many unsavory aspects and shadowy characters that in waking life we try to avoid. All of the dynamics that are acted out in our dreams are aspects of ourselves. In our dream state, the conscious censor is sidestepped, and we see directly into the unconscious. In dreams, and in myths and stories, the shadow is often symbolized by an inferior figure such as a tramp, beggar, servant, drug addict, pervert, thief, gypsy, prostitute or by something dark and threatening like a zombie. • Projection: Recognizing those characteristics in others that we most dislike are the best indication of our own repressed and unrecognized selves. What we fear, loathe, despise, crave, hate or covet in the other is often an unacknowledged aspect of ourselves that we unconsciously have placed in our shadow, and we unconsciously project those aspects onto other people much as a movie projector projects images onto a screen. Marie-Louise von Franz, a student of Jung and a lifelong psychoanalyst, in her book Projection and Recollection, writes “The projections of our fellow beings onto ourselves are by no means harmless affairs that disturb nothing but the adaptation of the people from whom they issue; they also substantially affect the person on whom the projection falls.” The recipient of a projection usually has a “hook” to receive it, which is some aspect of their personality that attracted the transmitter to project it, much like an arrow shot from a bow. If the recipient recognizes and changes that hook behavior by becoming like a shiny mirror to reflect the projection back to the sender, they might see that the projection is no longer appropriate and withdraw it. • Parapraxes: Freud coined this term in reference to the things which we do accidently or despite ourselves. A “Freudian slip” is a verbal or memory mistake (a “slip of the tongue”) that is linked to the unconscious mind and can reveal private thoughts and feelings. • The shadow is not all bad; it also contains unacknowledged talents which, for whatever reason, can contain huge amounts of creativity and potential. Authenticity, real happiness and wholeness can only be served by the integration and accommodation of our unconscious shadows, and by recognition and withdrawal of our negative projections. Anima/Animus: Jung thought that the psyche was inherently an androgynous entity regardless of the physical gender, containing and embracing both the feminine and masculine. In a woman, the inner masculine side is both a personal complex and an archetypal image and governs her rational thinking function and is called the Animus. In a man, his contra-sexuality is feminine and governs his irrational feeling function and is called the Anima. The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros. Whereas the anima in a man functions as his soul, a woman's animus is more like an unconscious mind. It manifests negatively in fixed ideas, collective opinions and unconscious, a priori assumptions that lay claim to absolute truth. Initially identified with the personal mother, the anima is later experienced not only in other women but as a pervasive influence in a man's life. Jung says, “The anima is the archetype of life itself.” The existence of the contra sexual complexes means that in any relationship between a man and a woman there are at least four personalities involved. The possible lines of communication are shown by the arrows in this diagram: 11 The archetype of the Anima and Animus forms a bridge between our personal unconscious, our subconscious and the ‘Collective Unconscious’. The Anima/Animus is the image-making capacity we use to draw inspirational, creative and intuitive images from the transpersonal inner world. True Self: Both the conscious and unconscious contents of the archetypal psyche are organized and unified by a central archetype of wholeness which Jung termed the Self (with a capital S). The center of the conscious personality portion is the ego and is the seat of subjective identity; the Self is the seat of objective identity. The ego is the center of consciousness; the Self is the center of the total personality. It is the part of the psyche which organizes, directs, regulates and mediates between the conscious, personal unconscious and collective unconscious. Using the metaphor of a symphony orchestra, the Self can be thought of as the conductor of the orchestra and the ego as the orchestra manager who makes the necessary decisions about bookings, tickets, hotels, transportation, meals, and so on. Without the orchestra manager, the ego, the orchestra doesn’t get to perform. It is the conductor who makes sure that the music being played is beautiful. As an inner guiding function, the Self assists a balancing of the opposites, offers new perspectives and a broader and fuller view of life. It is the Self that guides us towards individuation and living an authentic, conscious life. As an archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche, the Self is symbolized in stories, myths and dreams by the circle, the square or the mandala, the royal couple, a divine child, a great spiritual teacher, prophet or saviour such as Christ, Muhammad, Buddha or by a jewel, a flower, a golden egg or golden ball, or a chalice like the Grail. The Self, as the supreme psychic authority, subordinates the ego and was described by Jung as the inner empirical deity identical to the imago Dei, an encompassing whole which acts as a container for archetypes, including that of God. In a newspaper interview, he was asked if he believed in God, and his answer was, “All that I have learned has led me step by step to an unshakable conviction of the existence of God. I only believe in what I know. And that eliminates believing. Therefore, I do not take his existence on belief – I know that he exists.” Other important Jungian concepts: Individuation: The process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality. The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona with an increasing awareness of one's unique psychological reality, including personal strengths and limitations, and at the same time a deeper appreciation of humanity in general, and leads to the realization of the self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. In Jung's view, no one is ever completely individuated. While the goal is wholeness and a healthy working relationship with the self, the true value of individuation lies in what happens along the way. The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is engaging with the process leading to the goal. The individuation process includes four stages or phases: • Identifying and remediating the false self of the persona, • Recognizing and withdrawing shadow projections, • Men: assimilating the effects of the anima by discovering his true feelings; 12 Women: becoming familiar with the nature of the animus by constantly questioning her ideas and opinions. • Realizing the true Self as an autonomous psychic factor The individuation process widens consciousness from a narrow, touchy, egotistical bundle of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions into a relationship with the world of other persons and objects, which brings the individual into absolute, binding, and indissoluble communion with the kosmos at large. Symbol: The best possible expression for something that can never fully be known. The archetype is the psychic cast of experience, whereas the symbol is its manifestation. Archetypes exist outside of life, while symbols are drawn from life and point to the archetype beyond our understanding as expressions of the unknown. They are the language of the unconscious. Unifying Opposites: We live in a world of duality: love/fear, right/wrong, night/day, negative/positive, doing/being, sickness/health, comfort/risk, inner/outer, self/others, powerful/powerless, etc. When we unify opposites, we grow in consciousness by discovering that the parts can coexist in more universal awareness. The individuation process supports this integration as noted in the ancient Gospel of Thomas, “When you make the two one, when you make the outside like the inside and above like below and when you make the male and the female as one, then you will enter the kingdom of God. James Hollis, a Jungian therapist says, “The purpose of therapy is not to remove suffering but to move through it to an enlarged consciousness that can sustain the polarity of painful opposites.” Psychological Types: Jung differentiated eight typological groups: two personality attitudes--introversion and extraversion, and four functions--thinking, sensation, intuition and feeling, each of which may operate in an introverted or extraverted way. Introversion and extraversion are psychological modes of adaptation. In introversion, the movement of energy is toward the inner world, whereas in the extroversion, interest is directed toward the outer world. Whether a person is predominantly introverted or extraverted only becomes apparent in association with one of the four functions, each with its special area of expertise: thinking refers to the process of cognitive thought, sensation is perception by means of the physical sense organs, feeling is the function of subjective judgment or valuation, and intuition refers to perception via the unconscious. The sensation function establishes that something exists, thinking tells us what it means, feeling tells us what it's worth, and through intuition we have a sense of its possibilities. Jung’s theory has been extended in both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which measures how someone rationalizes to process information, make decisions, and interact with others and the Enneagram System which explores underlying emotional motivations behind their thinking and behavior. While both methods can be used to gain valuable insight into someone’s behavior, they are not interchangeable and can be used together to get the most accurate understanding of an individual’s personality type. The Myers and Briggs system is built off of a binary choice between two contrasting qualities in each of four categories shown in the following table: 13 As a result, by combining the choices,16 personality types result: In contrast, the Enneagram separates types according to 3 centers of intelligence: the ‘head’, ‘heart’ and ‘body’. • Heart types (green below) rely on their hearts - their emotional intelligence - to understand the world and are driven by a desire for emotional connection and inclusion. • Head types (blue below) use their intellect to approach the world and are motivated by objective, rational choices, focusing on analysis and a desire to control. • Body types (red below) go on their gut instinct, reacting to the world based on bodily feeling and a desire for comfort. Each type has a main, intense emotion associated with it that emerge when someone is under stress: • Heart types feel Shame • Head types feel Fear • Gut types feel Anger 14 The Enneagram is promoted in both business management and spirituality contexts through seminars, conferences, books, magazines, and DVDs. In business contexts, it is often promoted as a means to gain insights into workplace interpersonal dynamics; in spirituality it is commonly presented as a path to states of enlightenment and essence. Proponents in both contexts say it has aided in self-awareness, self-understanding, and self-development. III. PHYSICS (while this overview is useful in understanding scientific progress, remembering specific technical details is not necessary to comprehend that it is scientifically possible for everything to be interconnected by consciousness, which is the only reality.) The cosmos, as an object, sensed and experienced by us as individual subjects, consists of three building blocks: • Matter (in all its states), • Energy (in all its forms), and • Information (in all its layers). States of Matter can be arranged in the order of increasing energy between their particles as follows: • Bose-Einstein Condensate: particles have nearly zero kinetic energy. This state is achieved by cooling a gas of extremely low density to almost absolute zero. 15 • • • • Solid: particles are closely packed together and have regular, repeating patterns. They vibrate about their fixed positions but do not move freely. Solids have a definite shape and volume, and have been roughly categorized as animal, mineral, or vegetable. Liquid: particles have more energy than in solids, are less orderly and can move more freely. Liquids have a definite volume but take the shape of their container. Gas: particles have even higher energy, move freely and are spread far apart. Gases take both the shape and volume of their container. Plasma: This is a "superfluid" state that has the highest energy with particles that are ionized and is further discussed in a later section on the quantum structure of matter. Forms of Energy that an object or system can have as a measurable property: • Kinetic: determined by the movement of an object • Mechanical: the sum of macroscopic translational and rotational kinetic and potential energies • Electric: potential energy due to or stored in electric fields • Magnetic: potential energy due to or stored in magnetic fields • Gravitational: potential energy due to or stored in gravitational fields • Chemical: potential energy due to chemical bonds • Ionization: potential energy that binds an electron to its atom or molecule • Nuclear: potential energy that binds nucleons to form the atomic nucleus (and nuclear reactions) • Sound wave: kinetic and potential energy in a material due to a sound propagated wave • Radiant: potential energy stored in the fields of waves propagated by electromagnetic radiation • Thermal: kinetic energy of the microscopic motion of particles Layers of Information: • Intrinsic: the micro-physical properties of the constituent elementary particles and, for instance, the basic genetic information of organisms • Observed (measured): information that is produced in our brain and represents explicit information extracted from nature, subsequently translated and stored as scientific representations, percepts, concepts and/or models • Cultural: information, that is, for example, processed in socio-cultural publications, internet and other media, by which it obtains the significance of societal meaning; • Sub-nouminous (mostly non-conscious): information that extends to feelings, qualia, intuition and subjective human experience. Finding a theory of everything, a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent and theoretical framework that fully explains and links together all aspects of the universe, is one of the major unsolved problems in physics. Over the past few centuries, two theoretical frameworks have been developed that, together, most closely resemble a theory of everything. These two theories upon which all modern physics rests are general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity is a theoretical framework that only focuses on gravity for understanding the universe in regions of both large scale and high mass: planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc. On the other hand, quantum mechanics is a theoretical framework that only focuses on the three non-gravitational forces for understanding the universe in regions of both very small scale and low mass: subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, etc. Quantum mechanics successfully complemented the Standard Model that describes the three non-gravitational forces: strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and electromagnetic force – as well as all observed elementary particles. A review of the development of the empirical basis for current concepts follows. 16 Domains and Laws of Classical Physics: • Newtonian Mechanics o First Law (Inertia): An object remains in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. o Second Law (F = ma): The force acting on an object is equal to the mass of that object times its acceleration. o Third Law: (Action and Reaction): For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. o Newton's law of universal gravitation says every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. • Electromagnetism: an interaction that occurs between particles via electromagnetic fields. o Electromagnetic Induction: the production of an electromotive force (emf) across an electrical conductor in a changing magnetic field (ex, wireless phone charging) o The Electromagnetic Spectrum: the complete range of all types of radiation that have electric and magnetic fields and traves in waves o The Geomagnetic Field: the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun, creating the magnetosphere generated by electric currents due to the motion of convection currents of a mixture of molten iron and nickel in Earth's outer core caused by heat escaping from the core. o The Electrome and Bioelectricity: “Electrome“ is a novel term for the totality of all ionic currents in any living entity from the cellular to the organismal level. The human body is constantly using electric signals to communicate, move and think, but not via currents generated by movement of electrons. Bioelectrical currents are created by the movements of mostly positively charged ions, such as potassium, sodium and calcium. Every one of the 40 trillion cells in the body is its own little battery with its own little voltage. Human cells are, generally, electrically neutral in the resting state, though many will carry a net charge depending on where they are and what kind of cell they are. The body can act like a big battery because of the electrolytes in it. All human cells have a net charge difference between the inside and outside of the cell membrane. Diagnostic testing of electrical activity is the basis of electroencephalograms, electrocardiograms, nerve velocity conduction ties, magnetic resonance imaging, etc. The recent book, We Are Electric: Inside the 200 year old hunt for our Body’s Bioelectric Code and What the Future Holds by Sally Adee is a fascinating read on this topic. The beneficial health results of living in more contact with the Earth's natural surface charge - being grounded - prevents chronic inflammation in the body and has massive health implications because of the well-established link between chronic inflammation and all chronic diseases, including autoimmune diseases and the ageing process itself. Grounding appears to improve sleep, normalize the day–night cortisol rhythm, reduce pain, reduce stress, shift the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic toward parasympathetic activation, increase heart rate variability, speed wound healing, and reduce blood viscosity. This is reviewed in the recent book, Earthing: The most important health discovery yet! by Ober, Sinatra and Zucker. § Thermodynamics: the study of energy, its transformations, and its interplay with matter. o First Law: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. o Second Law: the total entropy, or disorder, of an isolated system will always increase over time. Galilean relativity: the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames of reference. Einstein’s Special Relativity: the classic equation, E = mc2., is an explanation of how speed affects mass, time and space and defines the relationship between the speed of light squared, energy and matter. On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. Under the 17 right conditions, energy can become mass, and small amounts of mass (m) can be interchangeable with enormous amounts of energy (E). Einstein’s General Relativity: a metric theory of gravitation which associates the force of gravity with the changing geometry of space-time. The mathematical equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity are currently the most accurate way to predict gravitational interactions, replacing those developed by Isaac Newton several centuries prior. The theory, which Einstein published in 1915, expanded the theory of special relativity that he had published 10 years earlier. The key difference between special and general relativity is that special relativity ignores the effects of gravity because it has almost no effect at that scale, while general relativity accounts for the effect of gravity on light. Planck's constant: defines the amount of energy a photon can carry, based on the frequency of its electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic energy is not transferred continuously but is transferred by discrete photons of light whose energy E is given by E = hf, where h is Planck's constant, and f is the frequency of the light. This relationship between photon energy and electromagnetic radiation is crucial in understanding phenomena like the photoelectric effect. Electromagnetic radiation and elementary particles display intrinsically both particle and wave properties and the fundamental constant which connects these two aspects is Planck's constant. Matter: any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic particles. Atoms can be imagined as a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a surrounding "cloud" of orbiting electrons in energy shells. However, this is only somewhat correct, because subatomic particles and their properties are governed by their quantum nature, which means they do not act as everyday objects–they can act like waves as well as particles, and they do not have well-defined sizes or positions. • Atoms: the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons in energy shells. The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. Atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element. The Periodic Table of Elements is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements based on their atomic number (the number of protons n the nucleus). • Subatomic Particles: All particles have a property called spin, an intrinsic angular momentum. Quantum spin got its name because of the relationship between moving electrical charges and magnetic fields, as in the earth's core. The spin of a particle has a fixed value that depends only on the type of particle. Spin can also have direction, up or down and the particle carrying the spin can have a handedness, left or right. This gives four possible combinations as shown: 18 Throughout the whole of the known universe there are only 2 types of particle. Particles that make up matter (Fermions), and particles that carry force (Bosons). • • • • • Fermions: All fermions in existence possess half integer spin i.e. 1/2, 3/2, 5/2 etc. Every electron in the universe possesses a spin of 1/2. Fermions also obey the Pauli exclusion principle: only certain combinations of matter can exist in the same space. Specifically, it states that No two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. Helium, for example, has the lowest energy shell, containing 2 electrons. The Pauli Exclusion principle says 2 electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state so they have the opposite spins. because spin is part of the quantum state of the electron, and the two electrons are occupying different quantum states. The spin however can only be one of two things, up or down (+1/2 or -1/2). The lithium atom, which has three electrons; the third electron cannot fit into the 1st shell. so it has to move up to the next shell. There are two different types of fermions: Leptons and Quarks. Leptons: six sub-atomic particles; the Electron and the Electron Neutrino, the Muon and Muon Neutrino (which are basically heavier versions of the Electron and the Electron Neutrino), and the Tau and the Tau Neutrino (which are heavier versions still). The electron, muon and tau all have charges of -1 whereas all the neutrinos have charges of 0. Quarks: six sub-atomic particles, grouped in 3 sets of 2, with each successive group a heavier version of the previous. Like the leptons, the quarks in each set have a charge difference of 1, but instead of nice whole numbers the charges of quarks come in fractions. The six quarks are named Up, Down, Charmed, Strange, Top and Bottom. Hadrons, Mesons and Baryons: quarks together in groups are Hadrons. A Hadron of 2 quarks is a Meson and Hadron with 3 quarks is a Baryon. The reason you get groupings of 2 or 3 quarks is because of their color. Quarks can be red, green or blue and anti quarks can be anti-red anti-green and anti-blue. Quarks have a property that can take 3 distinct values, so physicists called those values red, green and blue. Particles like the proton and neutron are examples of Baryons as they are comprised of 3 quarks. Bosons: particles that carry force, also termed gauge bosons. They are characterized by having whole integer spin e.g. -1, 0, 1, and do not obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle, so there can be many bosons in the same space. Each of the fundamental forces of nature has its own boson, of which four currently are recognized : o Electromagnetism: the force carrier is the Photon. They are sometimes called virtual photons as they only exist for very small intervals of time or space and are created when an electron gets near another electron. It emits a virtual photon which is absorbed by the second electron causing it to move thereby generating the "flow" of an electric current. o Strong Nuclear Force: the boson is the Gluon. It has zero rest mass and zero charge. o Weak Nuclear Force: three bosons, the W+, W- and the Z0. None of them are massless like the photon. o Higgs: a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no color charge that couples to (interacts with) mass. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately upon generation. It is the fundamental particle associated with the Higgs field that gives mass to other fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks. A particle's mass determines how much it resists changing its speed or position when it encounters a force. Not all fundamental particles have mass. The main role of the Higgs field: serve as an environment for a host of other fields. It shifts their resonant frequencies, somewhat as a change in temperature changes the resonant frequencies of a guitar’s strings. According to quantum field theory, fields, like the Higgs field and the electromagnetic field, are fundamental dynamical systems. The things we perceive as particles 19 are excitations of these systems and couplings between their fields correspond to interactions between particles. o There is active research on the possibility of a fifth gauge boson related to the force of gravity and dark matter based on the Acoustic Code of Resonant Coherence, a fractal series of discrete phonon (discussed later) frequencies that guide multiple processes in both cosmic and life processes. Creation of Gravity/Dark Energy is created through interactions of primordial electron/proton pairs associated with a similar series of discrete phonon activities. These units, doubled in a mirror-universe, form Twin-Bipolarons (TBP). The TPB gravitational center is conceived as a Gravity/Dark Energy generating domain by creation of left and right-handed energy vortices in a superfluìd quantum space/lattice. It is hypothesized that the proposed soundmediation can play a fundamental role as a fifth boson gauge, in the current Standard Model and adds to increasing evidence for a Cyclic and Sonic Universe as a unifying theory of everything. The Standard Model of Particle Physics: Mass: an object’s mass is its intransigence that hinders any attempt to alter the object’s motion—to cause the object to speed up, slow down, or change direction. If the object is stationary, its mass inhibits any endeavor to make it move. For a complete understanding of mass, it is crucial to recognize that it is not matter. Matter is a substance out of which objects can be made, whereas mass and energy are properties of objects, not substances. The Planck Scale: The Planck scale sets the universe’s minimum limit, beyond which the laws of physics break. In the late 1890s, physicist Max Planck proposed a set of units to simplify the expression of physics laws. The basic Planck units are length, mass, temperature, time and charge. Physicists don’t know what actually goes on at the Planck scale, but they can speculate. Some theoretical particle physicists predict all four fundamental forces—gravity, the weak force, electromagnetism and the strong force—finally merge into one force at this energy--reminiscent of “the still point of the turning world.“ Quantum gravity and superstrings are also possible phenomena that might dominate at the Planck energy scale. 20 KEY PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS Quantum physics is the study of matter and energy at the most fundamental level. It aims to uncover the properties and behaviors of the very building blocks of nature. Max Planck, developer of quantum theory, proposed in 1900 that different atoms and molecules can emit or absorb energy only in discrete quantities. Energy exchange, instead of being on a sliding scale, behaves more like individual steps on a staircase where each step represented the smallest unit, a quantum. Quantum physics offers a glimpse into nature's own script, revealing the hidden codes that choreograph the dance of particles on the subatomic stage. This dance, unlike any other, doesn't follow the rhythms of classical mechanics that many of us learned. Instead of deterministic pathways and predictable trajectories, quantum mechanics paints a picture of probabilities, uncertainties, and interconnectedness. At its core, it challenges the notions of reality, inviting us to consider a universe where particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously or be spookily linked over vast distances. Superposition: Superposition is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states at the same time until it is measured, termed Wave-particle duality. All carriers of momentum and energy (for example, electrons, atoms, or photons) exhibit both wave and particle characteristics. Everything propagates like a wave and exchanges energy like a particle. Wave-particle duality serves as a gatekeeper to the quantum realm. It tells us that matter, in its essence, isn't just about tiny billiard balls bouncing around. Instead, it's about probabilities, potentialities, and a dance between the concrete and the abstract. The universe, in its core, is a symphony of waves and particles, an orchestration of certainties and possibilities. Wave-particle duality is just one note in this grand symphony, but understanding it is pivotal to decoding the melodies of the quantum world. The act of measurement or observation collapses the wave function of the wave-particle duality, forcing it to assume a definite state. This observationdependent nature of quantum reality raises profound questions about the role of consciousness in the quantum world and is termed The Observer Effect. This change is not a mere alteration in our knowledge or perception of the system; rather, it is a physical transformation in the state of the system itself. The act of observation, in the quantum realm, is not a passive act of discovery, but is an active engagement that influences the behavior and properties of the particles being observed and participates in the creation of reality. The great theoretical physicist John Wheeler suggested in 1989 that our experience of the objects, events, and phenomena that constitute reality is the result of binary decisions — true/false, yes/no, on/off — which we make in the process of observing them. Wheeler posited that, at the fundamental level, reality is made of two things only: binary choices and a chooser. “All things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe,” he wrote in his brilliant and brilliantly titled It from Bit theory: “Observer-participancy gives rise to information. It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at its bottom an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses.” The Uncertainty Principle: the idea that certain pairs of physical properties, like position (x) and momentum (p), are intrinsically linked in such a way that they can't both be precisely measured at the same time. Mathematically, it's expressed as: ∆x * ∆p ≥ h/4π. ∆x is the uncertainty in position, ∆p is the uncertainty in momentum, and h is Planck's constant. The Uncertainty Principle suggests that the universe, at its most fundamental level, is indeterminate. Rather than a clockwork universe where future events can be precisely predicted if we know the current conditions, the quantum universe is one of probabilities and tendencies. Phonon: a unit of vibrational energy that arises from oscillating atoms within a crystal. Any solid crystal, such as ordinary table salt (sodium chloride), consists of atoms bound into a specific repeating three-dimensional spatial pattern called a lattice. Because the atoms behave as if they are connected by tiny springs, their own thermal energy or outside forces make the lattice vibrate. This generates mechanical waves that 21 carry heat and sound through the material. A packet of these waves can travel throughout the crystal with a definite energy and momentum, so in quantum mechanical terms the waves can be treated as a particle, called a phonon. A phonon is a definite discrete unit or quantum of vibrational mechanical energy, just as a photon is a quantum of electromagnetic or light energy. Quantum Fields: In physics, a field is a region in which each point is affected by a force. Everywhere in the universe and at every instant of time, different types of fields that we cannot see exist, several of which are: Type of field Field affects objects with... Gravitational Mass Acoustic Sound Electrostatic Charge Magnetic Moving Charges or Currents Vibrational Condensed Matter There are 12 known fundamental particles that make up the universe, and each has its own unique quantum field. To these 12 particle fields the Standard Model adds four force fields, representing the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. Photoelectric effect: When light of a certain frequency shines onto a metal surface, it emits electrons. Classical wave theory could not sufficiently explain why there was a threshold frequency below which no electrons were emitted, irrespective of the light's intensity. Albert Einstein in 1905 proposed that light, while behaving as a wave in some situations, can also act as a stream of particles or 'photons' in others. These photons carry discrete packets or 'quanta' of energy, consistent with Planck’s quantum proposal. This energy is used to liberate electrons from the metal. Crucially, if the energy of individual photons is below a certain threshold, no electrons are emitted, irrespective of how many photons hit the surface. Electron Orbitals, not Orbits: While it's easy to picture electrons circling the nucleus in neat, defined orbits (much like planets around the sun), this is not the case. Instead, electrons exist in "orbitals," regions around the nucleus where they are most likely to be found. These orbitals aren't straightforward paths but rather fuzzy clouds of probability. Electrons in an atom don't exist in just any energy state; they occupy specific energy levels. When they transition between these levels, they do so instantaneously, without passing through the space in between. This phenomenon is known as a "quantum leap." Quantum computing: In classical computing, the basic unit of information is the "bit." A bit can be in one of two states: 0 or 1, akin to a switch that is either off or on. However, the quantum world does not obey the same intuitive rules we see in everyday life. The fundamental unit of quantum information is the "qubit" that can exist in a third state of "superposition" of the two basic states belonging to "bits.". An electron in a magnetic field is an example, as its spin may be in alignment with the field, representing state (0⟩, or it may be opposite to the field, representing state (1⟩. But crucially, it could also be in a superposition of these states, meaning it exists in both states simultaneously. One of the most profound features of qubits is their ability to be "entangled" with one another. Entanglement: Entanglement is a phenomenon where two or more particles become correlated in such a way that the state of one particle instantaneously influences the state of the other(s), regardless of the distance between them. If one were to measure the state of one particle, the state of the other particle would be instantly determined, even if it were light-years away, indicating a profound interconnectedness in the quantum realm, an inherent non22 separability. It suggests a universe where individual particles lose their independent existence and become part of a greater whole. This idea has profound implications for our understanding of causality, the nature of information, and the fabric of spacetime itself. Some interpretations posit that entanglement hints at the existence of hidden variables or deeper layers of reality that we're yet to comprehend. Others see it as evidence of a holistic universe, where individual entities are mere manifestations of a more profound interconnectedness. The link between entanglement and consciousness becomes intriguing when considering the temporal aspects of quantum phenomena. Entangled particles instantaneously influence each other's states, seemingly defying the constraints of time. This non-locality challenges our classical understanding of cause and effect, introducing a dimension where events are interconnected beyond the limitations of a linear temporal framework. Matt Strassler, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard, in his book, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, envisions empty space as a sea. Quantum field theory underlies all of reality and posits that all particles like protons, electrons, and Higgs bosons exist both as a particle and as a wave and he suggests the term “wavicle” to describe that reality. Our tangible world—chairs and trees and dogs and human beings—exists not “within” the universe, but are made “of” the universe itself, built from the same waves that constitute space. Everything in our universe vibrates like a guitar string, creating fields, much like our familiar electric and magnetic fields. He analogizes our self is a wave in in the sea of this universal field. Strassler writes, we are all “wavicle-creatures,” and “the universe sings everywhere, in everything.” Shelli Joye, in her recent book, The Electromagnetic Brain: EM Field Theories on the Nature of Consciousness, shows that consciousness is not an isolated function of the individual brain but is connected to the larger electromagnetic field that not only encompasses the entire physical universe but also is deeply involved in the creation of matter and the material world. She explores 12 credible theories, each published by prominent professionals with extensive scientific credentials, that describe how electricity in the form of electromagnetic fields is the living consciousness that runs through the brain. Each of these theories supports the idea that the electromagnetic field itself is the basis of consciousness and that this source of consciousness resonates with the space-time universe at large through electromagnetic fields in our human sensory systems throughout the bloodstream and nervous system. Also examined are practical applications of electromagnetic-consciousness theory, including the use of contemporary brain stimulation devices to modify and enhance consciousness. The following summaries of ongoing current scientific research present evidence and hypotheses beyond my ability to comprehend. Because they provide a view of ongoing progress, a minute portion of each paper is presented. Consciousness in the Universe: Neuroscience, Quantum Space-Time Geometry and Orch OR Theory. Roger Penrose, PhD, OM, FRS , and Stuart Hameroff, MD (2011) https://www.academia.edu/99526976/Consciousness_in_the_Universe_Neuroscience_Quantum_Space_Time_Geom etry_and_Orch_OR_Theory?rhid=28497220992&swp=rr-rw-wc-86846102 Orch OR suggests a connection between brain biomolecular processes and fine-scale structure of the universe; this paper is a review and update Orch OR in light of criticisms and developments in quantum biology, neuroscience, physics and cosmology. We conclude that consciousness plays an intrinsic role in the universe. The Information Universe. On the Missing Link in Concepts on the Architecture of Reality. Meijer D. K. F. (2012). Syntropy Journal, 1, pp 1-64. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275016944_Meijer_D_K_F_2012_The_Information_Universe_On_t he_Missing_Link_in_Concepts_on_the_Architecture_of_Reality_Syntropy_Journal_1_pp_1-64 There are many good reasons to ask basic questions on the construction of reality. These questions not only concern the structure of the world we live in and how we perceive it, but also the mysteries of how our Universe was born 23 and how it will evolve in the far future; not matter but information is primary in the evolution of our Universe. Individual consciousness is considered as an expression of an underlying non-local quantum field, which exhibits holographic properties. It is postulated that the human brain is interfacing this universal information field, as our individual consciousness. Survival of Consciousness and the Anticipation of an Afterlife as Based on Current Physics. Meijer D. K. F. (2024). https://www.academia.edu/116484173/Survival_of_Consciousness_and_the_Anticipation_of_an_Afterlife_as_B ased_on_Current_Physics This paper pays special attention to the interfacing of the field of universal consciousness and our personal brain in relation to a potential afterlife…the presence of a mental, field receptive, resonant workspace, which might be termed our “supervening double” or “soul,” not implying religious doctrine, and provides an interpretative framework for widely reported but poorly understood transpersonal conscious states. These may even imply that death can be conceived as a transition to another phase of existence. This implies the potential for the survival of individual consciousness as an eternal beings. Many scientists have earlier suggested that basic information reaches our brain from outside all of our senses, since the nervous system may also function as a receiver of subliminal signals. One could regard this as a physically defined “extrasensory perception.” We have to take into account a “sixth” sense in the form of a vibrational, resonance sensitive macromolecular apparatus in each of our cells, These brain receivers of external information act as bio-antennas, being vibrational, resonance-sensitive elements in cells that both may act as receptors and as emitters of quantum information. They function as resonant oscillators with specific resonance frequencies, which are coupled with a natural quantum field. These particular cellular sensors are composed of flexible structures of proteins, oligonucleotides, and elements of the cell skeleton that mutually communicate through discrete wave resonances and are instrumental in mediating fluxes of photons, phonons (sound particles), and related quasi-particles such as polarons (phonon covered protons and electrons). This biosensing apparatus of the electromagnetic cell has tentatively been called “electrome”, and is under the continuous influence of natural occurring internal as well as external electromagnetic fields. They represent a fractal series of discrete EMF frequencies that influence a wide range of animate and inanimate systems and, interestingly, are identical to EMF frequencies that have been reported in cosmological studies as cosmic microwave background radiation and also gravitational waves (and therefore likely represent a primordial spectrum of EM frequencies that originate from the Zero-point Energy Field in which also our brains are embedded. The brain has been described as an electromagnetic workspace. The universal force of electromagnetism likely controls all biological response, as Stephen Hawking noted in A Brief History of Time (2010). Indeed, living systems are under the continuous influence of electromagnetic fields, and it is proposed in the present paper that the native, non-trivial, photon/phonon guided electron vibrations are shared with resonating proteins and nucleotides that control cell function throughout the entire hierarchy of living systems. The following model of the sequential epochs in the evolution of our universe, consistent with the Syntellect Hypothesis of ultimate fusion of man and machine, depicts the very far future of a “living” universe, in a cyclic rebound time model in which the universe creates its own reproduction: 24 Below is an integrated scheme depicting a proposed construction of reality, with its particle/material (right part of the figure) and wave/mental (left), aspects. This concept assumes a central quantum information field, that provides the very basis for the creation of our universe and dynamically evolves further through cyclic feedback processes from the present reality, in which natural (human/other than human) intelligence and artificial intelligence play crucial roles in observation and participation: 25 An Acoustic Quantum Code as a Fifth Gauge of the Standard Model Unifies Physics and Cosmology and Accommodates Gravity and Dark Energy. Dirk KF Meijer & Anthony P Bermanseder (2024) https://www.academia.edu/126189153/An_Acoustic_Quantum_Code_as_a_Fifth_Gauge_of_the_Standard _Model_Unifies_Physics_and_Cosmology_and_Accommodates_Gravity_and_Dark_Energy Electromagnetic frequency distributions, as experimentally detected in Animate (left) and Non-animate systems (right): Novel Horizons of the Mirror Universe Reveal the Sonic Origin and Nature of Gravity and Dark Energy Dirk KF Meijer & Anthony P Bermanseder (2025) https://www.academia.edu/126741580/Novel_Horizons_of_the_Mirror_Universe_Reveal_the_Sonic_Origin_an d_Nature_of_Gravity_and_Dark_Energy?email_work_card=title 26 The concept of the Twin-Bipolaron as a generator of Gravity and Dark Energy, that occurs via 5D to 4D symmetry breaking (inset left), producing a discrete set of phonons in a toroidal setting (inset right above), that form quasi-particles by covering fermions such as electrons and protons (inset right at the bottom) with phonons, thereby forming Polarons. The resulting Bi-Polaron Gravitation Center (green), exhibits righthanded and left-handed spin vortices, that through their +/- rotation in a superfluid quantum space, are instrumental in the generation of Gravity and Dark Energy forces respectively. The polarons may be produced and /or become associated with a quantum vacuum lattice with a hexagonal structure (inset right below). The latter may enable a Casimir type of Dark Matter generation by quantum frequency squeezing, (see inset middle left). The involvement of magnetic monopole confinement is shown (middle at the bottom), as operating at the inner center of the double torus structure (inset middle right). The generation of Gravity can also be interpreted as space distortion via a Dirac String, connected to a magnetic monopole, providing the related mechanism of Relativitybased Gravity. The ZPE-TBP manifested the dark energy from the original super-symmetry before the graviton gauge existed, when color-charged radiation templates RGB[+1] annihilated with anti-radiation templates BGR[-1] in the quantum self-relativity. The RGB-BGR pairings then create the matter YCM[±ó] and antimatter MCY[±ó] pairings with the BGR[-1] anti-radiation blueprint. The Mirror Universe, depicted with ==== in the TBP-center, has two connotations: Matter/Anti-matter and Self-dual timespace to spacetime symmetry through cosmic Self-simulation. 27 The Sonic Phonon Connection in the Universe; A: Pascal Triangle, showing intertwined relation between Harmonic and Fibonacci numbers; B: Information flux on a Torus in a Black Hole/White Hole geometry with holographic Event Horizon projection; C: Sound induced Gravity through left-and right handed vortices in a superfluid quantum space; D: Space pixilation embedding universal and human consciousness; E: Quantum foam black-body fluctuations at the Planck scale; F: Interaction Tion of Bipolaron wavicles, generate Gravity/Dark energy forces in the TBP center. 28 OVERVIEW & INSIGHTS And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. -T.S.Eliot • • • • • • • • • • • At the “Big Bang” the cosmos was created with all its contents unified and existing as both particles and waves. At our conception we came into existence as a separate embryo unified with the cosmos. After birth, we began to interpret ourselves as subjects and everything else as objects—an apparent duality The cosmos itself appears to have pervasive duality: day/night, black/white, on/off, good/evil, past/future, etc. Our personal and civilizational growth and development mirror the growth and development of the cosmos through evolution consistent with Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” hypothesis. The Omega Point hypothesis (de Chardin) is a future event in which the entirety of the cosmos evolves to a final point of spiritual unification (also termed singularity) and can be reached in the present by persons becoming aware that consciousness alone is the basis of all reality. The Individuation process of Carl Jung aims to “integrate the opposites” into a non-dual perspective. Consciousness/awareness can be experienced through the introspective direct path described by Rupert Spira. Consciousness is: o the “supreme being“ as conceived by each of the religions/traditions in Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy. o the “Word” in the opening verses of the Book of John in the Holy Bible. o the force the Chinese regard as “qi or chi.” o that which the ancient mystics described as “the center of which is everywhere and circumference is nowhere” o the Logos of Heraclitus. o the “still point of the turning world” of TS Eliot. o “le point vierge” and the true self of Thomas Merton. o the Self of Carl Jung. o the dance of Shiva. o the “Great Presence” of Teilhard de Chardin. o the “Divine Eros” of Alfred North Whitehead. o the “Great Nest of Being” of Ken Wilber. o the “web of interbeing” of Thich Nhat Hanh. o Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Gaia. o the sensuous single living entity of David Abrams. o the "inescapable network of mutuality" of Martin Luther King o the “implicate order” of David Bohm. o the basis of Wheeler’s “It from Bit” theory. o The Higgs Field of quantum physics. o the "Syntellect or Digital Gaia" of Alex Vikoulov. o The “the impossible sea” of Matt Strassler. The Cosmos should not be seen as a giant machine, nor as a versatile computer, but rather like a musically inspired and fine-tuned electro/gravitational process in which we are waves resonating in a harmonious infinite symphony. Everything in consciousness connects and interacts via resonances of individual wavelength frequencies, through “The Acoustic Quantum Code of Resonant Coherence” of Dirk Meijer, unified in “the joy of the cosmic dance” of Merton, and within the singularity of the still point of Eliot: “Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” 29