Holographic Archetypes
PSI FI
Physics Is Not Beyond You
CHAMBER OF REFLECTION
'...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence. ...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you.' -- vonFranz
'...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence. ...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you.' -- vonFranz
The World of Seen, Mat Atkinson
All phenomena can be understood as the manifesting of absolute meaning, an absolute purity in itself, then each detail can open a doorway to a complete meaning saturated field. Its essential nature is only En Sof. Nothing can leave, nothing can come in. Always whole, always complete. Whatever happens is its ornament. To have faith that this is the case is the basis of the mystical view.
Q: But what of the horror and the misery that plagues human beings?
A: By growing increasingly more stable in the view, time and location are understood as fabricated constructs which are neither real nor unreal. This allows primordial wisdom to displace ordinary conceptual meaning. It does not erase or change the existential fact of the horror and misery, it can't. Things unfold as they do, and no spiritual system makes them 'better'. However it DOES change the meaning and value. For those looking to make things better or 'heal themselves', mysticism is not for you. It is not therapy or self-improvement. For those who seek to uncover the profound nature of what is already present, this is worthy of serious consideration. -David Chaim Smith
Q: But what of the horror and the misery that plagues human beings?
A: By growing increasingly more stable in the view, time and location are understood as fabricated constructs which are neither real nor unreal. This allows primordial wisdom to displace ordinary conceptual meaning. It does not erase or change the existential fact of the horror and misery, it can't. Things unfold as they do, and no spiritual system makes them 'better'. However it DOES change the meaning and value. For those looking to make things better or 'heal themselves', mysticism is not for you. It is not therapy or self-improvement. For those who seek to uncover the profound nature of what is already present, this is worthy of serious consideration. -David Chaim Smith
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SACRED GEOMETRY:
According to most creation stories, out of primal Nothingness, the All or Everything emerges or emanates. Paradoxically, everything seems to come from nothing. How does nothing become something?
Energy "crystallizes" into matter in the womb of empty space, a dynamic Void. Mass is simply a form of energy. This process is structured by an underlying, invisible, geometrical lattice. Actually, it is pre-geometric. Because it has no true physical existence, it is metaphysical (beyond physics).
This threshold of matter, where nothing becomes something, is of great philosophical interest.Actually, materialism (a natural philosophy) is a theory of metaphysics.
It is metaphysical thinking to consider static matter as a primary reality. In fact, any attempt to describe reality is metaphysical speculation. In its dynamic form matter cannot be separated from energy. Energy is a property of matter, which can be considered potential energy.
The mystic believes in matter, but believes it is more than science has yet discovered. Even before Western science began, mystics believed that mind, consciousness, or spirit is a property of matter. It hardly matters, philosophically, if you consider it as manifesting force or manifesting spirit.The nature of reality is that matter-energy must be taken together .The theory of relativity conceives of this single substance as a distortion of the structure of space.
Physicist Ian Barbour writes that, "...in quantum theory, separate particles seem to be temporary and partial manifestations of a shifting pattern of waves that combine at one point, dissolve again, and recombine elsewhere; a particle begins to look like a local outcropping of a continuous substratum of vibrational energy." That vibrational energy is governed by the laws of probability.But what subtle forces underlie matter-energy and space-time? All form and power are latent within the void.
The Heart Sutra tells us that, "Form is not other than Void, Void is not other than Form." This implies that our human form is not other than void, and biophysics shows this to be true. Our physical makeup is largely emptiness. If we conceive of humans as being most fundamentally electromagnetic entities, instead of chemical beings, we can imagine our finer existence as wave-fronts in space. Our personal "space" is not utterly empty, but cannot be conceived apart from our matter exhibiting itself in particular ways, i.e. as "waves.
"Yet, the void state, or primal matrix, is "cosmic zero," and proportionately our most fundamental reality. It is part of the surrealistic quantum realm. It lies within us all, for the relative space between our atoms is astronomical. This is the ground state of existence which mystics seek in their meditation, moving beyond mind and maya. It is that state of consciousness where outer perceptions cease, and consciousness is free to simply be.
Throughout the centuries, various geometrical forms have been revered as expressions or metaphors of higher spiritual truths. These sacred forms and symbols are a natural part of the collective consciousness which emerges in every generation. We project them outwardly from within our psyche because they are so fundamental to our existence. That apprehension is intuitive. Certain typical forms recur in meditation and ceremonial practice, worldwide.
When something emerges from nothing, it does so via non-Euclidean geometry, coming to occupy space/time. Einstein used non-Euclidean geometry to explain the relativity of time and space as the geometry that is produced by matter or matter by geometry. The perception of the transcendental or metaphysical aspects of geometry is intuitive.
There are examples of philosophical geometry or geometrical philosophy from around the world. The common term now is Sacred Geometry. These traditions are found in India, China, Egypt, and Great Britain, to name a few. Plato, Archimedes, and the Pythagoreans based much of their philosophical speculation around the nature of geometrical form, suggesting that mathematics and structural forms had ultimate status.
Our modern science has never forsaken the tradition of seeking the understanding of forms that provide shape and meaning to physical reality. Euclidean geometry describes the nature of the human scale, but non-Euclidean models the cosmos and microcosm. More and more intricate forms of measurement became the basis of the scientific method. Eventually, this led to modern topology -- the study of those properties of geometric figures or solid bodies that remain invariant under certain transformations.Heisenberg explained that, "The elementary particles of modern physics can be transformed into each other exactly as in the philosophy of Plato."
In "sacred topology", the relationships are more than metaphorical. Metaphysical and physical reality coincide. This is abundantly illustrated in R. Buckminster Fuller's geometrical tour de force, SYNERGETICS I & II. Fuller demonstrates, via synergetics, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because of the relativity of forces. In our universe, as more complex systems are built up, new properties appear that were not foreshadowed by the parts alone. These emergent properties include life, conscious awareness, and beauty.Plato's Academy in Athens had a policy: "You are not allowed to enter here, unless you know geometry."
In the dialogue, Meno, Plato describes Socrates teaching geometry to a slave. In true Socratic form, he does not instruct him directly. Rather, he elicits knowledge from the slave which he did not know he possessed. The diagrams themselves elicit the buried intuitive knowledge of a world inhabited by the gods and by the divine "Forms."In Plato's view, before birth we were familiar with purely mathematical "objects" and relations, as well as moral ideals or values. He alleged that we lost this knowledge at birth, but can recover it through revelation.
For Plato, the virtues paled in comparison with the highest capacity of the soul, which is the mystical beholding of the eternal. Mystics tell us the divine is formless.Actual space is not empty, but the possibility has always been a controversial problem in philosophy. Aristotle found the concept of a total void unacceptable. Scientists still cannot make a perfect experimental vacuum.
Astronomy shows us that matter is averagely distributed, with roughly as much matter between the stars as there is within them. Yet, there are large voids in space, with stars clustered on the outer edges of these bubbles of void. The preponderance is of volumes of empty space over volumes of matter. So, the characteristic feature of the universe is not matter, but empty space.Again, most of the interior of the atom is empty, as is the space occupied by the galaxies, and the vast regions which separate them. Stars, atoms, and the vacuum are a seamless whole.
The notion of the eternal nature of sacred emptiness is echoed in modern quantum theory. This is not ordinary, but dynamic and receptive emptiness. The central concept in Quantum Field Theory is that of the field, which exists everywhere and everywhen. It is a field of curved space/time. Matter is not separate from its surrounding space. The field can take the form of quanta or particles. It is the fundamental physical entity, the only physical reality.The field contains the potentiality of all possible states or conditions in the universe.
Of these states, the most fundamental is the Ground State, (or "vacuum state"). Matter is rare in the universe. Most of it consists of a very volatile, excited, ionic plasma. Only 5% of matter is neither too hot, nor too dilute, to congeal as a solid, liquid, or gas. This form of matter is so rare it has been described as 'trace contaminants. 'Yet, some form of matter is essential to all activity. All matter is in motion. Activity is the essence of being. From the "cosmic zero", everything -- the totality of "excited states" -- arises by creative processes. It is also the state into which everything subsides by absorption processes.
The ground state is characterized by the fact that it stretches to infinity, uniform and changeless. It is the same everywhere and everywhen because of the identity of space/time. Within the universal field the values of the ground state and excited states are all one. An unlimited amount of particles come into being and vanish endlessly. Matter is thus a temporary manifestation of the Void.The so-called "cosmic zero" was modeled by geometer/philosopher Fuller in the figure he called Vector Equilibrium, (V.E.). It might actually claim to be the first "Buckyball," the one Fuller himself described.
This geometry is the precursor of the new elemental' Fullerenes.' The V.E. geometry has been recognized for a long time. It was one of the thirteen Archimedian solids, the cuboctahedron.
But the Greeks were fascinated with regular forms whose faces were all the same, such as the cube. They failed to understand the delicate balancing act the cuboctahedron symbolizes. They simply did not notice that Vector Equilibrium is pristine equanimity because they were looking elsewhere. The Greeks never really comprehended the energic or energetic properties of Vector Equilibrium, i.e. dynamic stability. They had a static, non-relativistic view of natural philosophy.
It remained for Fuller to assert that, "zero pulsation in the Vector Equilibrium is the nearest approach we will ever know to eternity and god." The conceptual model is the closest our minds and senses can come to that cosmic realization, short of mystical revelation. Mind alone cannot fathom the depth of this Void. Geometry is a construct of the intellect.The V.E. center is primal "emptiness." It is a mathematical anomaly where the normal laws of the space/time continuum break down. It is not a symbol of ultimate order. It looks like a very rational, orderly system, but it is ultimately irrational. It defies logic.
V.E. is the breeder of wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and non-locality at the quantum level. It is a cosmic pump, transforming nothingness into matter. It is a zone of neutral resonance where waves can pass through waves without interference, according to Fuller. Yet, it never physically exists as a structure, since nature abhors a vacuum.In quantum mechanics a system can never have an energy of exactly zero. There is no such thing as absolute emptiness. However, the minimal motion of the ground state is called zero point energy, or zero point motion.
Cosmic zero exists, paradoxically, in the realm of the psyche (our conceptualization) and in quantum reality in the atomic nucleus expressed as force. It is the form of formlessness, the root metaphor. It also forms the roots of the cosmic Tree of Life, since there is a fine-to-non-existent line between organic and inorganic matter on the quantum scale.Physics is the patterns of organic energy, all of which are dynamic, alive. Mass is energy, so the subatomic world is always restlessly in motion. Inert matter is full of motion when we look closely at it . The activity of matter is its essence.
Vector Equilibrium emanates/condenses from a center in twelve fundamental directions. This emergent energy moves outward through space/time in the form of a cuboctahedron, alternating with its mathematical reciprocal, an octahedron-within-a-cube. It is a truncated cube with 50 symmetrically positioned topological features. Vector Equilibrium has the same surface area as a sphere, yet contains no volume, i.e. it contains "nothing."
The Vector Equilibrium system has 12 vertices, 8 triangular faces, 24 edges, and 32 planes. It is omnidirectional equilibrium, symbolically and physically speaking.
As such, it is a perfect symbol for "holding the tension of the opposites," or "uniting the opposites." Yet, it is more than a metaphor. It is an archetypal image which bridges the macrocosm with the microcosm. It is a living example of the Hermetic Axiom, "As Above, So Below," uniting spiritual and literal reality. V.E. makes it possible to make conceptual models of other dimensions (hyperspace), mathematically and mystically.In the V.E. figure, equilibrium between positive and negative is zero. It is the equalization of the forces of push/pull, radiation/gravitation, or tension/compression.
In Synergetics, Fuller alleged it "represents the limits of the mind's ability to conceptualize 'in'." For Fuller, all of space/time is undergird with a pre-geometric matrix, which is an infinite field of vector equilibria. An entire universe can be seeded from one V.E., self-generating to fill all space/time. There may be no ultimate physical building-block of matter, but there is one single entity that undergirds and composes everything in the universe, according to Fuller. The basic element of the universe is dynamic patterns.
This field constitutes a "cosmic blueprint" which Fuller called the Isotropic Vector Matrix (I.V.M.), a living continuum. The allocation of divinity to this "mother of all fields" marks its archetypal character. As a variation on the theme of Celestial Goddess, it symbolizes the embodiment of nature. Like a modern Isis, it iterates the theme of the underlying, inseparable cosmic web or net, connecting all.
The living Void gives birth to all phenomenal forms. It pulsates with the rhythm of creation and destruction of material particles. Another goddess, Nuit, is the essence of Infinite Space. She is infinite energy density pervading the entire cosmos. She is the receptivity of the void to the wavelength of radiation. Adjusting the geometry of the void influences the propagation of radiation. The goddess Ma-at, or Balance, is another expression of the same universal V.E. energy.
According to most creation stories, out of primal Nothingness, the All or Everything emerges or emanates. Paradoxically, everything seems to come from nothing. How does nothing become something?
Energy "crystallizes" into matter in the womb of empty space, a dynamic Void. Mass is simply a form of energy. This process is structured by an underlying, invisible, geometrical lattice. Actually, it is pre-geometric. Because it has no true physical existence, it is metaphysical (beyond physics).
This threshold of matter, where nothing becomes something, is of great philosophical interest.Actually, materialism (a natural philosophy) is a theory of metaphysics.
It is metaphysical thinking to consider static matter as a primary reality. In fact, any attempt to describe reality is metaphysical speculation. In its dynamic form matter cannot be separated from energy. Energy is a property of matter, which can be considered potential energy.
The mystic believes in matter, but believes it is more than science has yet discovered. Even before Western science began, mystics believed that mind, consciousness, or spirit is a property of matter. It hardly matters, philosophically, if you consider it as manifesting force or manifesting spirit.The nature of reality is that matter-energy must be taken together .The theory of relativity conceives of this single substance as a distortion of the structure of space.
Physicist Ian Barbour writes that, "...in quantum theory, separate particles seem to be temporary and partial manifestations of a shifting pattern of waves that combine at one point, dissolve again, and recombine elsewhere; a particle begins to look like a local outcropping of a continuous substratum of vibrational energy." That vibrational energy is governed by the laws of probability.But what subtle forces underlie matter-energy and space-time? All form and power are latent within the void.
The Heart Sutra tells us that, "Form is not other than Void, Void is not other than Form." This implies that our human form is not other than void, and biophysics shows this to be true. Our physical makeup is largely emptiness. If we conceive of humans as being most fundamentally electromagnetic entities, instead of chemical beings, we can imagine our finer existence as wave-fronts in space. Our personal "space" is not utterly empty, but cannot be conceived apart from our matter exhibiting itself in particular ways, i.e. as "waves.
"Yet, the void state, or primal matrix, is "cosmic zero," and proportionately our most fundamental reality. It is part of the surrealistic quantum realm. It lies within us all, for the relative space between our atoms is astronomical. This is the ground state of existence which mystics seek in their meditation, moving beyond mind and maya. It is that state of consciousness where outer perceptions cease, and consciousness is free to simply be.
Throughout the centuries, various geometrical forms have been revered as expressions or metaphors of higher spiritual truths. These sacred forms and symbols are a natural part of the collective consciousness which emerges in every generation. We project them outwardly from within our psyche because they are so fundamental to our existence. That apprehension is intuitive. Certain typical forms recur in meditation and ceremonial practice, worldwide.
When something emerges from nothing, it does so via non-Euclidean geometry, coming to occupy space/time. Einstein used non-Euclidean geometry to explain the relativity of time and space as the geometry that is produced by matter or matter by geometry. The perception of the transcendental or metaphysical aspects of geometry is intuitive.
There are examples of philosophical geometry or geometrical philosophy from around the world. The common term now is Sacred Geometry. These traditions are found in India, China, Egypt, and Great Britain, to name a few. Plato, Archimedes, and the Pythagoreans based much of their philosophical speculation around the nature of geometrical form, suggesting that mathematics and structural forms had ultimate status.
Our modern science has never forsaken the tradition of seeking the understanding of forms that provide shape and meaning to physical reality. Euclidean geometry describes the nature of the human scale, but non-Euclidean models the cosmos and microcosm. More and more intricate forms of measurement became the basis of the scientific method. Eventually, this led to modern topology -- the study of those properties of geometric figures or solid bodies that remain invariant under certain transformations.Heisenberg explained that, "The elementary particles of modern physics can be transformed into each other exactly as in the philosophy of Plato."
In "sacred topology", the relationships are more than metaphorical. Metaphysical and physical reality coincide. This is abundantly illustrated in R. Buckminster Fuller's geometrical tour de force, SYNERGETICS I & II. Fuller demonstrates, via synergetics, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because of the relativity of forces. In our universe, as more complex systems are built up, new properties appear that were not foreshadowed by the parts alone. These emergent properties include life, conscious awareness, and beauty.Plato's Academy in Athens had a policy: "You are not allowed to enter here, unless you know geometry."
In the dialogue, Meno, Plato describes Socrates teaching geometry to a slave. In true Socratic form, he does not instruct him directly. Rather, he elicits knowledge from the slave which he did not know he possessed. The diagrams themselves elicit the buried intuitive knowledge of a world inhabited by the gods and by the divine "Forms."In Plato's view, before birth we were familiar with purely mathematical "objects" and relations, as well as moral ideals or values. He alleged that we lost this knowledge at birth, but can recover it through revelation.
For Plato, the virtues paled in comparison with the highest capacity of the soul, which is the mystical beholding of the eternal. Mystics tell us the divine is formless.Actual space is not empty, but the possibility has always been a controversial problem in philosophy. Aristotle found the concept of a total void unacceptable. Scientists still cannot make a perfect experimental vacuum.
Astronomy shows us that matter is averagely distributed, with roughly as much matter between the stars as there is within them. Yet, there are large voids in space, with stars clustered on the outer edges of these bubbles of void. The preponderance is of volumes of empty space over volumes of matter. So, the characteristic feature of the universe is not matter, but empty space.Again, most of the interior of the atom is empty, as is the space occupied by the galaxies, and the vast regions which separate them. Stars, atoms, and the vacuum are a seamless whole.
The notion of the eternal nature of sacred emptiness is echoed in modern quantum theory. This is not ordinary, but dynamic and receptive emptiness. The central concept in Quantum Field Theory is that of the field, which exists everywhere and everywhen. It is a field of curved space/time. Matter is not separate from its surrounding space. The field can take the form of quanta or particles. It is the fundamental physical entity, the only physical reality.The field contains the potentiality of all possible states or conditions in the universe.
Of these states, the most fundamental is the Ground State, (or "vacuum state"). Matter is rare in the universe. Most of it consists of a very volatile, excited, ionic plasma. Only 5% of matter is neither too hot, nor too dilute, to congeal as a solid, liquid, or gas. This form of matter is so rare it has been described as 'trace contaminants. 'Yet, some form of matter is essential to all activity. All matter is in motion. Activity is the essence of being. From the "cosmic zero", everything -- the totality of "excited states" -- arises by creative processes. It is also the state into which everything subsides by absorption processes.
The ground state is characterized by the fact that it stretches to infinity, uniform and changeless. It is the same everywhere and everywhen because of the identity of space/time. Within the universal field the values of the ground state and excited states are all one. An unlimited amount of particles come into being and vanish endlessly. Matter is thus a temporary manifestation of the Void.The so-called "cosmic zero" was modeled by geometer/philosopher Fuller in the figure he called Vector Equilibrium, (V.E.). It might actually claim to be the first "Buckyball," the one Fuller himself described.
This geometry is the precursor of the new elemental' Fullerenes.' The V.E. geometry has been recognized for a long time. It was one of the thirteen Archimedian solids, the cuboctahedron.
But the Greeks were fascinated with regular forms whose faces were all the same, such as the cube. They failed to understand the delicate balancing act the cuboctahedron symbolizes. They simply did not notice that Vector Equilibrium is pristine equanimity because they were looking elsewhere. The Greeks never really comprehended the energic or energetic properties of Vector Equilibrium, i.e. dynamic stability. They had a static, non-relativistic view of natural philosophy.
It remained for Fuller to assert that, "zero pulsation in the Vector Equilibrium is the nearest approach we will ever know to eternity and god." The conceptual model is the closest our minds and senses can come to that cosmic realization, short of mystical revelation. Mind alone cannot fathom the depth of this Void. Geometry is a construct of the intellect.The V.E. center is primal "emptiness." It is a mathematical anomaly where the normal laws of the space/time continuum break down. It is not a symbol of ultimate order. It looks like a very rational, orderly system, but it is ultimately irrational. It defies logic.
V.E. is the breeder of wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and non-locality at the quantum level. It is a cosmic pump, transforming nothingness into matter. It is a zone of neutral resonance where waves can pass through waves without interference, according to Fuller. Yet, it never physically exists as a structure, since nature abhors a vacuum.In quantum mechanics a system can never have an energy of exactly zero. There is no such thing as absolute emptiness. However, the minimal motion of the ground state is called zero point energy, or zero point motion.
Cosmic zero exists, paradoxically, in the realm of the psyche (our conceptualization) and in quantum reality in the atomic nucleus expressed as force. It is the form of formlessness, the root metaphor. It also forms the roots of the cosmic Tree of Life, since there is a fine-to-non-existent line between organic and inorganic matter on the quantum scale.Physics is the patterns of organic energy, all of which are dynamic, alive. Mass is energy, so the subatomic world is always restlessly in motion. Inert matter is full of motion when we look closely at it . The activity of matter is its essence.
Vector Equilibrium emanates/condenses from a center in twelve fundamental directions. This emergent energy moves outward through space/time in the form of a cuboctahedron, alternating with its mathematical reciprocal, an octahedron-within-a-cube. It is a truncated cube with 50 symmetrically positioned topological features. Vector Equilibrium has the same surface area as a sphere, yet contains no volume, i.e. it contains "nothing."
The Vector Equilibrium system has 12 vertices, 8 triangular faces, 24 edges, and 32 planes. It is omnidirectional equilibrium, symbolically and physically speaking.
As such, it is a perfect symbol for "holding the tension of the opposites," or "uniting the opposites." Yet, it is more than a metaphor. It is an archetypal image which bridges the macrocosm with the microcosm. It is a living example of the Hermetic Axiom, "As Above, So Below," uniting spiritual and literal reality. V.E. makes it possible to make conceptual models of other dimensions (hyperspace), mathematically and mystically.In the V.E. figure, equilibrium between positive and negative is zero. It is the equalization of the forces of push/pull, radiation/gravitation, or tension/compression.
In Synergetics, Fuller alleged it "represents the limits of the mind's ability to conceptualize 'in'." For Fuller, all of space/time is undergird with a pre-geometric matrix, which is an infinite field of vector equilibria. An entire universe can be seeded from one V.E., self-generating to fill all space/time. There may be no ultimate physical building-block of matter, but there is one single entity that undergirds and composes everything in the universe, according to Fuller. The basic element of the universe is dynamic patterns.
This field constitutes a "cosmic blueprint" which Fuller called the Isotropic Vector Matrix (I.V.M.), a living continuum. The allocation of divinity to this "mother of all fields" marks its archetypal character. As a variation on the theme of Celestial Goddess, it symbolizes the embodiment of nature. Like a modern Isis, it iterates the theme of the underlying, inseparable cosmic web or net, connecting all.
The living Void gives birth to all phenomenal forms. It pulsates with the rhythm of creation and destruction of material particles. Another goddess, Nuit, is the essence of Infinite Space. She is infinite energy density pervading the entire cosmos. She is the receptivity of the void to the wavelength of radiation. Adjusting the geometry of the void influences the propagation of radiation. The goddess Ma-at, or Balance, is another expression of the same universal V.E. energy.
Holographic Dreams
The Field is the archetype of Process;
Cosmos is the ultimate symbol and archetype of Being;
Soul is the archetype of Life itself.
Soul transforms events into meaningful experience.
Internal phase coherence delivers the dream hologram. Resolution depends on focus.
The Self is Jung's archetype of wholeness, the God within us.
The central symbol of the Process is the creation of the world, its destruction and restoration.
The Field is the archetype of Process;
Cosmos is the ultimate symbol and archetype of Being;
Soul is the archetype of Life itself.
Soul transforms events into meaningful experience.
Internal phase coherence delivers the dream hologram. Resolution depends on focus.
The Self is Jung's archetype of wholeness, the God within us.
The central symbol of the Process is the creation of the world, its destruction and restoration.
"... the rift between the time of physics and the time of experience is reaching its logical conclusion, for many in theoretical physics have come to believe that time fundamentally does not even exist"
(Craig Callendar in Scientific American)
(Craig Callendar in Scientific American)
Holographic Archetypes Video Series
Continuous Creation
"Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater, into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity." ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 354.
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Iona Miller's YouTube & Vimeo Channels
"The "squaring of the circle" is one of the many archetypal motifs
which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it
is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important
of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even
be called the archetype of wholeness." Carl Jung
http://www.youtube.com/user/ionamiller/videos
http://vimeo.com/user3547022/videos
HOLOGRAPHIC ARCHETYPES Science-Art Series
The Zer0 With a Thousand Faces - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzz6fE-f57U
The Big Picture - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjgx7_Z0Rcc&feature=related
Entanglement - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3IbGxYm3A&feature=related
Cosmic Pattern Recogniton - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhH0v2Vfa9c
Synchronicity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4qL1Wcbj48&feature=youtu.be
Quantum Bioholography - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO1YvsqBHgA
Metaphorms - http://youtu.be/I0LTe_kzYDU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0LTe_kzYDU&feature=youtu.be
Natural Philosophy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZkiFBkqDFM&feature=youtu.be
Consciousness did not come from atoms, molecules, or water molecules, scattered by chance throughout the Universe. Matter didn't suddenly soar into activity and song. Consciousness existed first, and evolved the form into which it then began to manifest itself. No form of matter, however potent, will be self-evolved into consciousness, no matter what other bits of matter are added to it. Without the consciousness, the matter would not be there in the universe, floating around, waiting for another component to give it reality, existence, or song. Our universe cannot be its own source. Its inner mysteries are the mysteries of consciousness, not matter. We must not look to space, but to the source of space, not to time but to the source of time -- and most of all, look to the kind of consciousness that experiences space and time.
1 - The Big Picture
This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents."
- Carl Jung
Things are not what they seem -- just space and wave motions.The universe floats on a vast sea of light, whose invisible power provides the resistance that gives matter its dynamics and feeling of solidity. All matter is interconnected by quantum waves, a dynamic coherent whole in-formation. Psyche is not separate from matter.
- Carl Jung
Things are not what they seem -- just space and wave motions.The universe floats on a vast sea of light, whose invisible power provides the resistance that gives matter its dynamics and feeling of solidity. All matter is interconnected by quantum waves, a dynamic coherent whole in-formation. Psyche is not separate from matter.
2 - Entanglement, Inseparability
Entangled Consciousness -The fundamentally interconnected medium of reality is revealed by modern physics. It suggests some remarkable human potentials. Separated particles or people (bioentanglement) remain instantaneously connected regardless of distance. Entanglement has been suggested as an explanation of anomalous cognition and psi. Quantum mechanics shows entanglement between particles exists everywhere, all the time, and affects our macrocosmic world. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance." Cosmologists speculate the quantum vacuum is filled with entangled particles. Entanglement is the basis of quantum cosmology.
Entanglement is so deeply enmeshed in the universe that a measurement in the past has an automatic influence on the future. Everything we perceive of as our reality is a consciousness hologram, 'entangled' within the matrix of creation. The cosmos behaves in an entangled and in a quantized individualistic state. Some suggest a mini-black hole lies at the core of each nano particle of our being - our very own cosmic subspace, always there, always eternally the same, the very core of our being, and a direct link to subspace and therefore the Cosmos.
Entanglement is so deeply enmeshed in the universe that a measurement in the past has an automatic influence on the future. Everything we perceive of as our reality is a consciousness hologram, 'entangled' within the matrix of creation. The cosmos behaves in an entangled and in a quantized individualistic state. Some suggest a mini-black hole lies at the core of each nano particle of our being - our very own cosmic subspace, always there, always eternally the same, the very core of our being, and a direct link to subspace and therefore the Cosmos.
3 - Cosmic Pattern Recognition
‘Putting things together in a meaningful way is one of the basic features of nature.’ --Albert Szent-Gyorgyi*, 1977
There are many types of archetypes or "generating entities": the Jungian types come from the unconscious and are psychobiological; the Freudian archetypes are also unconscious but are personal and biographical; the physics type comes from geometry. Light is the archetype of fundamental reality.
Schroedinger was apparently the first to note that solving the Dirac equation for the motion of the electron resulted in a necessary component that could be interpreted as random, speed-of-light fluctuations of a point-like particle. He dubbed this motion ''zitterbewegung'' (German for ''jitter motion''), caused by electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations. Buckminster Fuller called it Synergetics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhH0v2Vfa9c
There are many types of archetypes or "generating entities": the Jungian types come from the unconscious and are psychobiological; the Freudian archetypes are also unconscious but are personal and biographical; the physics type comes from geometry. Light is the archetype of fundamental reality.
Schroedinger was apparently the first to note that solving the Dirac equation for the motion of the electron resulted in a necessary component that could be interpreted as random, speed-of-light fluctuations of a point-like particle. He dubbed this motion ''zitterbewegung'' (German for ''jitter motion''), caused by electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations. Buckminster Fuller called it Synergetics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhH0v2Vfa9c
4 - Synchronicity
0 - The Zero With a Thousand Faces
Twinkle, Twinkle, Wisdom Light, The Luminous Ground
Light is a form of transition from three-dimensional space, the aether, to the space with four dimensions. All forms of energy originate as light. We're
beginning to understand what nature has been hiding beneath her
mystic veil of non-observability. The zero-point field is a blinding
light. containing all the energy potential available to the Universe.
Since it is everywhere, inside and outside of us, permeating every atom in our bodies, we are effectively blind to virtual photon flux. It blinds us by its presence with the illusion of void. The world of light that we do see is all the rest of the light that is over and above the zero-point field. We cannot eliminate the zero-point field from our eyes. The vacuum remains the simplest state of nature. Life takes refuge in a single space - absolute space - the luminous core of meaning itself.
The Philosopher's Stone equates with Jung's notion of the mandala as a unifying symbol and the elusive Unified Field of physics. A whole thing will be spaceless and timeless by logical necessity alone. Everything is related through empty space; everything exists in a single continuous field, a unifying matrix. Matter is a continuous, time dependent, self-organizing process. Particle-wave systems continuously re-order the space that constitutes them.
The universe could not have come into existence without a pre-cosmic source of potential energy. Both potential mass/energy and potential metric time are fundamental aspects of unconditioned absolute space. This “empty” pre-cosmic space is the origin of total multidimensional spacetime, including all the fractal harmonics of radiant electromagnetic fields and their particle/standing waves (Wolff, 1998).
Unconditioned pre-cosmic space, at absolute zero° Kelvin, must act like a BEC or a superfluid/superconductor, it would have no friction. Therefore, the only possible source of such expansive and contractive energy fields within the total manifested cosmic space-time, would have to be the infinite angular spin momentum of the ubiquitous absolute zero-point or infinite ZPE (Casimir Force) located everywhere in the Planck volume of total metric physical space-time (see Lang, 2003)
Since all radiant fields have fractal harmonics based on the initial cyclic spin of their ZPE source and the triple cycle loop of its emanation/radiation, all such fields would originate from the same zero-point. Each such field would be woven out of individual rays of ZP force following a triple loop, double helix Mobius Klein path (see Fig. 1). As all zero-points of absolute space are essentially one thing, all spherical fields (originating from any zero–point spin momentum or singularity in spacetime) would also be interconnected. Therefore, all particle-standing waves originating from the same zero-point would be entangled with each other (Aspect, 2004)
Aether, hyperspace, and spacetime are all different states of the same entity at different scales. Aether has no reference points, no meaningful motion, no time, no wave fronts, with empty space as perfectly flat. At the hyperspace level of observation, we get EM waves, strings, branes, quanta, etc. Finally, classical spacetime emerges, the objective Universe as we naturally perceive it. The infinitesimal center is coextensive with the universal continuum.
1. Aether -- (Sub-quantum level) Dimensionless, eternal. David Bohm's implicate order, Basil Hiley's pre-space, subspace. The scale at which non-local, instantaneous state change occurs. This is where Nature's four fundamental forces emerge from.
2. Hyperspace -- (Quantum level) Wheeler's quantum foam. Quantum gravity. Quantum weirdness. A medium where more than one object can occupy the same space; allowing for quantum wave superposition, parallel, and non-linear, information processing.
3. Spacetime -- (Classical level) Intersubjective creation; Gravitation, matter... the objective Universe.
Each subjective experience injects one bit of information into this objective store of information which then specifies the relative probabilities for various possible future subjective experiences to occur. This feedforward is the fundamental mechanism of the self-creation of the universe from a deep level of non-individuated consciousness.
It eventually becomes embodied within the collective and individual, conscious and unconscious activities of all sentient beings. This is the collective entanglement of sentient quantum intentionality, interacting with quantum potentiality which has the most significant determining influence upon deep aspects of the manifestation of quantum reality into the experiential worlds.
Particle-wave systems must be in constant motion, continuously processing space in order to continue their existence. If motion ceased, they would simply disintegrate. Virtual particles pop-up from hyperspace into spacetime as the result of random field interactions such as resonance. We are observing energy exchanges in nature. Nothing else is taking place. A wave requires time and space. Amplitude thappens in 3D space, and then it moves so that those dimensions change. Time is motion in space.
Particles stay in spacetime because they have stable standing waves. Is a spherical standing wave an emitter and reflector? A transmitter and responder is a transponder. In the case of two emitters, the emitter basically creates its own responder. In that case the "aetheric" background may have new quality. Are spherical standing waves virtual transponders producing an information circuit?
Radiant fields are, in effect, spherical standing waves that follow a double helix spiral vortex Mobius Klein path. Plausibly, the incoming wave is the compressive gravity aspect, and the outgoing wave is the expanding electromagnetic aspect. Is a spherical standing wave (radiant field) the signature of a virtual transponder simultaneously receiving, translating and then re-broadcasting information? http://www.jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/viewFile/85/83
Huping Hu's research suggests biologically/chemically meaningful information can be transmitted through quantum entanglement from one place to another by photons and possibly other quantum objects such as electrons, atoms and even molecules. Second, both classical and quantum information can be transmitted between locations of arbitrary distances through quantum entanglement alone. Third, instantaneous signaling is physically real which implies that Einstein's theory of relativity is in real (not just superficial) conflict with quantum theory. Fourth, brain processes such as perception and other biological processes likely involve quantum information and nuclear and/or electronic spins may play important roles in these processes.
Persinger suggests that consciousness, including mystical states can be expressed as quantum phenomena, coupled to electron movements, congruent with magnetic fields strangths associated with neurocognitive activity. Such information accessing states may recruit the fundamental properties of space-time, matter and information. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (photons) carry information through quantum entanglement.
One mind experimental method to test the actuality that consciousness and time are fundamental qualities of the zero-point of absolute space located everywhere in 3D space-time, and that the universe is a hologram, would be to mentally observe that the light from every star seen from any point of view on Earth converges in every zero-point between our point of view and the entire star field. This allows us to realize that each point of view, no matter where located in 3-space-time, is at the exact center of the universe observed from that point… And that the total image at the point of observation is a hologram. Bohm and Susskind demonstrate viable theories of such holographic realities.
Metaphysical space is the unconscious -- self-aware emptiness. In quantum theory, matter becomes an aspect of mind. Spin-mediation is one theory of consciousness. The spin-mediated consciousness theory as originally proposed (Hu & Wu, 2002) dealt with the immanent aspect of consciousness such as awareness. Within this framework, the nuclear/electronic spins are the mind-pixels which interact with the brain through quantum effects, modulating and being modulated by various classical brain activities such as the action potentials (Hu & Wu, 2002 & 2004a-d).
Hu suggests The transcendental aspect of Consciousness produces and influences reality through self-referential spin as the interactive output of Consciousness. In turn, reality produces and influences immanent aspect of Consciousness as the interactive input to Consciousness through self-referential spin.
Spin, torsion, torque, vortex, torus are primordial archetypes of being and awareness. Torsion Fields, the quantum spin of empty space are the large-scale coherent effects of the spin of the particles in the virtual sea.If "torsion fields" can be used for communication, they may explain such things as telepathy and other psi phenomena.
Each form that is in each human mind is, in some sense, an archetype -- some more common than others. A self-replicating archetype that is kindled from the collective unconscious is initiated through a mechanism of unconscious levels of tuning.
Repetition pushes the human psyche toward a bifurcation. Psyche has the possibility of using self-referencing repetition as a chaotic attractor. The progressive is suddenly punctuated by what is novel, and thrown into chaos. Archetypes also shape collective consciousness. They are coherent, complex, intelligible patterns of meaning and improvisational creativity, shaped by the multilevel unconscious tuning, caused by an unresolved conflict in the deeper unconscious layers.
Meaning is not an entity, not a creed, a doctrine, a worldview, also not something like the fairytale treasure hard to attain. It is not semantic, not a content. Meaning, where it exists, is first of all an implicit or a priori fact of existence. It can never be the answer to a question. It is, conversely, an unquestioned and unquestionable certainty that predates any possible questioning. It is the groundedness of existence, a sense of embeddedness in life, of containment in the world.
Potential consciousness; time and information are fundamental aspects of unconditioned absolute space. All zero-point originated radiant fields interpenetrate each other everywhere, that the universe, along with everything within it, is essentially a hologram. (Talbot 1991) In such a hologram, the only reason objects appear solid to us, is that we are made of the same kind of stuff, i.e., we both vibrate in the same frequency phase order (photonic EM) spectrum, and have repellent field boundaries. Naturally, the higher frequency phase order fields of mind and memory would be untdetectable and invisible to us… Except, subjectively, since we can perceive the holographic sensory information they carry, and when in deep meditation or dreaming and all wakeful sensory information (noise) is blocked, our ZP consciousness is sensitive to all frequencies up to those of the highest order spiritual fields. (Maurer)
In conclusion, the holographic fractal field model indicates that there are at least four fundamental absolutes (or potential characteristics/aspects) of the void or emptiness underlying all manifest multidimensional cosmic reality. These are, unconditioned consciousness, infinite potential time, infinite spin momentum or potential energy, and infinite holographically stored information, covering all possible conditions of the structural evolution of infinite universes.
Luminous Consciousness
Creativity is the principle of novelty. Unity with cosmos and the groundstate of Being reveals what IS. Everything pulses with the same luminosity - a magnificent light of unparalleled brilliance. A holographic description of the world is an observer-centric description. In such a world, consensual reality is not a single objective reality, but many entangled worlds that share information.
The "holographic experience" is one of being simultaneously cosmos and individual self. Archetypes act as the fundamental dynamical patterns characterizing all processes, whether mental or physical. The luminous consciousness of the worked on soul (psyche) arises. Consciousness and Being are one.When this is known, the mind, the body and the world become transparent and luminous.
"Luminosity" and “intentionality” are two structures of consciousness, which can be can be distinguished but not separated. Their inter-involvement creates “the paradox of consciousness.” Intentionality is oriented to “thing-reality,” as luminosity is toward “It-reality.” When we direct our intentionality to things outward or inward, in the world or in consciousness, we do so by participating in a larger “It-reality” that illuminates what we do.
Luminous receptivity is the ground of all intentional acts. However slight an intentional act may be, it is done by a human being concerned with the meaning of his or her acts, and “meaning” implies our luminous orientation to larger contexts, even to the ultimate context.
There exist several degrees of illumination. If the aspirant has known this experience, i.e., he has unmistakably recognized at least some degree of the higher side to his nature, his work will nevertheless have to continue on another level. Illumination is not liberation. From that time on, he will have patiently to fight to return again and again to this screen of pure Luminous Consciousness which he will have recognized in himself until he manages to remain there permanently. Only then will he have achieved the liberation of his state of being and ordinary consciousness and will he have conquered death which is not to be found at the physical level.
Virtual Vacuum
The quantum vacuum is a dynamic massless scalar field. A hologram is a scalar field. Scalars are just active information; a hologram is pure information. Entanglement is a property of nonlocal quantum information exchange. A neural hologram made by the interaction of waves in the cortex is, in turn, based on a hologram of much shorter wavelengths formed by the wave interactions on the sub-atomic level. The holographic frequency domain is a plenum.
Our observer-dependent future event horizon may also be the hologram screen. The holographic principle suggests the brain is like a television receiver and we receive things through it. If something happens to the receiver your image gets blurred. But it won't hurt the program. Anyone with a good set can still receive it, as you could if you got a new television set.
So the real you (the operator who is using the neurons in the brain to come through) is like a program and the body is like a set that receives it, and has static (noise), a refresh rate, and coherent signals of varying resolution. Our DNA functions as a projector of the quantum biohologram, our existential blueprint. Information emerges from and is preserved as matter (DNA). Frequency modulates matter.
Mind is emergent sparkling awareness, an existential hologram interpreting a holographic universe. Mind is part of a nonphysical but physically-effective reality that can interface and interact with physical reality, and in which physical reality is embedded. There is a fundamental unity between the universal mind and the cosmos itself -- including the unfolding of time. The structure of the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm is expressed in mathematical, scientific and mythological symbols.
Intuitive grasp of these symbols is the root of astrology and astrotheology, and perhaps even modern cosmology. "Twinkle" is evidence of the "filling in" process. The luminosity is the radiance of our own minds. Archetypes' numinous luminosity attracts and holds us like a gravity well. Archetypes function like strange attractors. Not archetypal in strictly the same sense as used by Jung.
One similarly constituted thing, whirling particle waves obey the laws of quantum physics. All observableobjects are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. All these objects are electromagnetically-formed 3-D images or super-hologram images, neuro wired holograms in a world of simulacra.
Obviously, whatever physical science tells us is simply about the substances of the images and not about the substance of whatever realities to which those images refer. Physical science has revealed the imagistic modus operandi but not ultimate reality. We cannot accept that the projection mechanism for such superholograms is ultimate reality.
There are remarkable natural frequencies which permeate consciousness in such a way as to stimulate and activate the potential seeds of higher transformation within us. These frequencies arouse sympathetic responses that reach into the realm of the superconscious mind and stimulate the production of neuropeptides, those powerful hormones that are the bridge between mind and matter, being open on one side to states of the psyche, and on the other side to the subtle bio-electronic signals and interplay that govern all psycho-physiological processes.
Archetypes refer to principles so primordial that they underlie the fundamental shaping of all structures. Attractors bring coherence to various signs and symbols. Symbols (point, line, wave, helix, vortex, singularity, standing waves) themselves -- words, pictures, images, dreams -- point to the deeper structure of things, including the deeper structure of time. Time is the master control. Each moment cuts through the entire physical universe, holding all of space in itself.A line of time is an occurrence, and a wave of time is a recurrence. A circle of time is eternal recurrence. When we break that, we're on a helix, each time we come around is a little different.
Numinous experience is the urgent emergence of Mystery. Light is the archetype of the revelation of ultimate reality. This source effect is the root of the religious drive. Due to religious undertow, mankind never ceases trying to personalize the awe-inspiring and fascinating numinous element. Jung called the "numinous element" the collective unconscious and Clear Lightof the Void. The numinous experience can lead to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and/or the transcendent. But it is a phenomenon, not contact with a "separate" "divinity", per se.
Activated archetypes are often compensatory in nature, and associated with trance, art, and creativity. Trance (awe and dread of the uncanny) is a, escapist dissociation; art is a way of personal expression; creativity brings cognition, universality, and compassion into the process. There is above the celestial fire an incorruptible flame, always sparkling; the spring of life, the fountain of all being. Actually our bodies are like fountains. The fountain has a shape only because it's being renewed every minute, and our bodies are being renewed. Entangled with cosmos, we are standing waves -- probability waves -- nonphysical, nonmaterial waves.
What grants access to and control of a higher pleromic body made of a nonmolecular substance? Is this the creative zone -- the edge of chaos? We are always at the creative inflection point. Breakthrough happens at the edge of chaos. This is a region, not a critical bifurcation point as in the classic picture of dynamical systems. Chaos already exists at the onset of this region, and thus can be contributing to creativity which we conjecture.
Healing, a form of creativity, happens at the creative edge of chaos, by pushing up against our own boundaries. It happens by letting go of old outmoded patterns and making way for new self-organizing dynamics to emerge. Just as one powerful experience can create trauma, a single potent episode can mobilize healing - a quantum leap to recovery of body, soul and spirit.
This holistic philosophy of treatment is an new emergent healing paradigm - holographic healing. Archetypes was Jung's word for all that is spiritual, holy, sacred, or formerly considered divine -- including a scientifically approachable transcendental ground of existence.
Since it is everywhere, inside and outside of us, permeating every atom in our bodies, we are effectively blind to virtual photon flux. It blinds us by its presence with the illusion of void. The world of light that we do see is all the rest of the light that is over and above the zero-point field. We cannot eliminate the zero-point field from our eyes. The vacuum remains the simplest state of nature. Life takes refuge in a single space - absolute space - the luminous core of meaning itself.
The Philosopher's Stone equates with Jung's notion of the mandala as a unifying symbol and the elusive Unified Field of physics. A whole thing will be spaceless and timeless by logical necessity alone. Everything is related through empty space; everything exists in a single continuous field, a unifying matrix. Matter is a continuous, time dependent, self-organizing process. Particle-wave systems continuously re-order the space that constitutes them.
The universe could not have come into existence without a pre-cosmic source of potential energy. Both potential mass/energy and potential metric time are fundamental aspects of unconditioned absolute space. This “empty” pre-cosmic space is the origin of total multidimensional spacetime, including all the fractal harmonics of radiant electromagnetic fields and their particle/standing waves (Wolff, 1998).
Unconditioned pre-cosmic space, at absolute zero° Kelvin, must act like a BEC or a superfluid/superconductor, it would have no friction. Therefore, the only possible source of such expansive and contractive energy fields within the total manifested cosmic space-time, would have to be the infinite angular spin momentum of the ubiquitous absolute zero-point or infinite ZPE (Casimir Force) located everywhere in the Planck volume of total metric physical space-time (see Lang, 2003)
Since all radiant fields have fractal harmonics based on the initial cyclic spin of their ZPE source and the triple cycle loop of its emanation/radiation, all such fields would originate from the same zero-point. Each such field would be woven out of individual rays of ZP force following a triple loop, double helix Mobius Klein path (see Fig. 1). As all zero-points of absolute space are essentially one thing, all spherical fields (originating from any zero–point spin momentum or singularity in spacetime) would also be interconnected. Therefore, all particle-standing waves originating from the same zero-point would be entangled with each other (Aspect, 2004)
Aether, hyperspace, and spacetime are all different states of the same entity at different scales. Aether has no reference points, no meaningful motion, no time, no wave fronts, with empty space as perfectly flat. At the hyperspace level of observation, we get EM waves, strings, branes, quanta, etc. Finally, classical spacetime emerges, the objective Universe as we naturally perceive it. The infinitesimal center is coextensive with the universal continuum.
1. Aether -- (Sub-quantum level) Dimensionless, eternal. David Bohm's implicate order, Basil Hiley's pre-space, subspace. The scale at which non-local, instantaneous state change occurs. This is where Nature's four fundamental forces emerge from.
2. Hyperspace -- (Quantum level) Wheeler's quantum foam. Quantum gravity. Quantum weirdness. A medium where more than one object can occupy the same space; allowing for quantum wave superposition, parallel, and non-linear, information processing.
3. Spacetime -- (Classical level) Intersubjective creation; Gravitation, matter... the objective Universe.
Each subjective experience injects one bit of information into this objective store of information which then specifies the relative probabilities for various possible future subjective experiences to occur. This feedforward is the fundamental mechanism of the self-creation of the universe from a deep level of non-individuated consciousness.
It eventually becomes embodied within the collective and individual, conscious and unconscious activities of all sentient beings. This is the collective entanglement of sentient quantum intentionality, interacting with quantum potentiality which has the most significant determining influence upon deep aspects of the manifestation of quantum reality into the experiential worlds.
Particle-wave systems must be in constant motion, continuously processing space in order to continue their existence. If motion ceased, they would simply disintegrate. Virtual particles pop-up from hyperspace into spacetime as the result of random field interactions such as resonance. We are observing energy exchanges in nature. Nothing else is taking place. A wave requires time and space. Amplitude thappens in 3D space, and then it moves so that those dimensions change. Time is motion in space.
Particles stay in spacetime because they have stable standing waves. Is a spherical standing wave an emitter and reflector? A transmitter and responder is a transponder. In the case of two emitters, the emitter basically creates its own responder. In that case the "aetheric" background may have new quality. Are spherical standing waves virtual transponders producing an information circuit?
Radiant fields are, in effect, spherical standing waves that follow a double helix spiral vortex Mobius Klein path. Plausibly, the incoming wave is the compressive gravity aspect, and the outgoing wave is the expanding electromagnetic aspect. Is a spherical standing wave (radiant field) the signature of a virtual transponder simultaneously receiving, translating and then re-broadcasting information? http://www.jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/viewFile/85/83
Huping Hu's research suggests biologically/chemically meaningful information can be transmitted through quantum entanglement from one place to another by photons and possibly other quantum objects such as electrons, atoms and even molecules. Second, both classical and quantum information can be transmitted between locations of arbitrary distances through quantum entanglement alone. Third, instantaneous signaling is physically real which implies that Einstein's theory of relativity is in real (not just superficial) conflict with quantum theory. Fourth, brain processes such as perception and other biological processes likely involve quantum information and nuclear and/or electronic spins may play important roles in these processes.
Persinger suggests that consciousness, including mystical states can be expressed as quantum phenomena, coupled to electron movements, congruent with magnetic fields strangths associated with neurocognitive activity. Such information accessing states may recruit the fundamental properties of space-time, matter and information. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (photons) carry information through quantum entanglement.
One mind experimental method to test the actuality that consciousness and time are fundamental qualities of the zero-point of absolute space located everywhere in 3D space-time, and that the universe is a hologram, would be to mentally observe that the light from every star seen from any point of view on Earth converges in every zero-point between our point of view and the entire star field. This allows us to realize that each point of view, no matter where located in 3-space-time, is at the exact center of the universe observed from that point… And that the total image at the point of observation is a hologram. Bohm and Susskind demonstrate viable theories of such holographic realities.
Metaphysical space is the unconscious -- self-aware emptiness. In quantum theory, matter becomes an aspect of mind. Spin-mediation is one theory of consciousness. The spin-mediated consciousness theory as originally proposed (Hu & Wu, 2002) dealt with the immanent aspect of consciousness such as awareness. Within this framework, the nuclear/electronic spins are the mind-pixels which interact with the brain through quantum effects, modulating and being modulated by various classical brain activities such as the action potentials (Hu & Wu, 2002 & 2004a-d).
Hu suggests The transcendental aspect of Consciousness produces and influences reality through self-referential spin as the interactive output of Consciousness. In turn, reality produces and influences immanent aspect of Consciousness as the interactive input to Consciousness through self-referential spin.
Spin, torsion, torque, vortex, torus are primordial archetypes of being and awareness. Torsion Fields, the quantum spin of empty space are the large-scale coherent effects of the spin of the particles in the virtual sea.If "torsion fields" can be used for communication, they may explain such things as telepathy and other psi phenomena.
Each form that is in each human mind is, in some sense, an archetype -- some more common than others. A self-replicating archetype that is kindled from the collective unconscious is initiated through a mechanism of unconscious levels of tuning.
Repetition pushes the human psyche toward a bifurcation. Psyche has the possibility of using self-referencing repetition as a chaotic attractor. The progressive is suddenly punctuated by what is novel, and thrown into chaos. Archetypes also shape collective consciousness. They are coherent, complex, intelligible patterns of meaning and improvisational creativity, shaped by the multilevel unconscious tuning, caused by an unresolved conflict in the deeper unconscious layers.
Meaning is not an entity, not a creed, a doctrine, a worldview, also not something like the fairytale treasure hard to attain. It is not semantic, not a content. Meaning, where it exists, is first of all an implicit or a priori fact of existence. It can never be the answer to a question. It is, conversely, an unquestioned and unquestionable certainty that predates any possible questioning. It is the groundedness of existence, a sense of embeddedness in life, of containment in the world.
Potential consciousness; time and information are fundamental aspects of unconditioned absolute space. All zero-point originated radiant fields interpenetrate each other everywhere, that the universe, along with everything within it, is essentially a hologram. (Talbot 1991) In such a hologram, the only reason objects appear solid to us, is that we are made of the same kind of stuff, i.e., we both vibrate in the same frequency phase order (photonic EM) spectrum, and have repellent field boundaries. Naturally, the higher frequency phase order fields of mind and memory would be untdetectable and invisible to us… Except, subjectively, since we can perceive the holographic sensory information they carry, and when in deep meditation or dreaming and all wakeful sensory information (noise) is blocked, our ZP consciousness is sensitive to all frequencies up to those of the highest order spiritual fields. (Maurer)
In conclusion, the holographic fractal field model indicates that there are at least four fundamental absolutes (or potential characteristics/aspects) of the void or emptiness underlying all manifest multidimensional cosmic reality. These are, unconditioned consciousness, infinite potential time, infinite spin momentum or potential energy, and infinite holographically stored information, covering all possible conditions of the structural evolution of infinite universes.
Luminous Consciousness
Creativity is the principle of novelty. Unity with cosmos and the groundstate of Being reveals what IS. Everything pulses with the same luminosity - a magnificent light of unparalleled brilliance. A holographic description of the world is an observer-centric description. In such a world, consensual reality is not a single objective reality, but many entangled worlds that share information.
The "holographic experience" is one of being simultaneously cosmos and individual self. Archetypes act as the fundamental dynamical patterns characterizing all processes, whether mental or physical. The luminous consciousness of the worked on soul (psyche) arises. Consciousness and Being are one.When this is known, the mind, the body and the world become transparent and luminous.
"Luminosity" and “intentionality” are two structures of consciousness, which can be can be distinguished but not separated. Their inter-involvement creates “the paradox of consciousness.” Intentionality is oriented to “thing-reality,” as luminosity is toward “It-reality.” When we direct our intentionality to things outward or inward, in the world or in consciousness, we do so by participating in a larger “It-reality” that illuminates what we do.
Luminous receptivity is the ground of all intentional acts. However slight an intentional act may be, it is done by a human being concerned with the meaning of his or her acts, and “meaning” implies our luminous orientation to larger contexts, even to the ultimate context.
There exist several degrees of illumination. If the aspirant has known this experience, i.e., he has unmistakably recognized at least some degree of the higher side to his nature, his work will nevertheless have to continue on another level. Illumination is not liberation. From that time on, he will have patiently to fight to return again and again to this screen of pure Luminous Consciousness which he will have recognized in himself until he manages to remain there permanently. Only then will he have achieved the liberation of his state of being and ordinary consciousness and will he have conquered death which is not to be found at the physical level.
Virtual Vacuum
The quantum vacuum is a dynamic massless scalar field. A hologram is a scalar field. Scalars are just active information; a hologram is pure information. Entanglement is a property of nonlocal quantum information exchange. A neural hologram made by the interaction of waves in the cortex is, in turn, based on a hologram of much shorter wavelengths formed by the wave interactions on the sub-atomic level. The holographic frequency domain is a plenum.
Our observer-dependent future event horizon may also be the hologram screen. The holographic principle suggests the brain is like a television receiver and we receive things through it. If something happens to the receiver your image gets blurred. But it won't hurt the program. Anyone with a good set can still receive it, as you could if you got a new television set.
So the real you (the operator who is using the neurons in the brain to come through) is like a program and the body is like a set that receives it, and has static (noise), a refresh rate, and coherent signals of varying resolution. Our DNA functions as a projector of the quantum biohologram, our existential blueprint. Information emerges from and is preserved as matter (DNA). Frequency modulates matter.
Mind is emergent sparkling awareness, an existential hologram interpreting a holographic universe. Mind is part of a nonphysical but physically-effective reality that can interface and interact with physical reality, and in which physical reality is embedded. There is a fundamental unity between the universal mind and the cosmos itself -- including the unfolding of time. The structure of the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm is expressed in mathematical, scientific and mythological symbols.
Intuitive grasp of these symbols is the root of astrology and astrotheology, and perhaps even modern cosmology. "Twinkle" is evidence of the "filling in" process. The luminosity is the radiance of our own minds. Archetypes' numinous luminosity attracts and holds us like a gravity well. Archetypes function like strange attractors. Not archetypal in strictly the same sense as used by Jung.
One similarly constituted thing, whirling particle waves obey the laws of quantum physics. All observableobjects are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. All these objects are electromagnetically-formed 3-D images or super-hologram images, neuro wired holograms in a world of simulacra.
Obviously, whatever physical science tells us is simply about the substances of the images and not about the substance of whatever realities to which those images refer. Physical science has revealed the imagistic modus operandi but not ultimate reality. We cannot accept that the projection mechanism for such superholograms is ultimate reality.
There are remarkable natural frequencies which permeate consciousness in such a way as to stimulate and activate the potential seeds of higher transformation within us. These frequencies arouse sympathetic responses that reach into the realm of the superconscious mind and stimulate the production of neuropeptides, those powerful hormones that are the bridge between mind and matter, being open on one side to states of the psyche, and on the other side to the subtle bio-electronic signals and interplay that govern all psycho-physiological processes.
Archetypes refer to principles so primordial that they underlie the fundamental shaping of all structures. Attractors bring coherence to various signs and symbols. Symbols (point, line, wave, helix, vortex, singularity, standing waves) themselves -- words, pictures, images, dreams -- point to the deeper structure of things, including the deeper structure of time. Time is the master control. Each moment cuts through the entire physical universe, holding all of space in itself.A line of time is an occurrence, and a wave of time is a recurrence. A circle of time is eternal recurrence. When we break that, we're on a helix, each time we come around is a little different.
Numinous experience is the urgent emergence of Mystery. Light is the archetype of the revelation of ultimate reality. This source effect is the root of the religious drive. Due to religious undertow, mankind never ceases trying to personalize the awe-inspiring and fascinating numinous element. Jung called the "numinous element" the collective unconscious and Clear Lightof the Void. The numinous experience can lead to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and/or the transcendent. But it is a phenomenon, not contact with a "separate" "divinity", per se.
Activated archetypes are often compensatory in nature, and associated with trance, art, and creativity. Trance (awe and dread of the uncanny) is a, escapist dissociation; art is a way of personal expression; creativity brings cognition, universality, and compassion into the process. There is above the celestial fire an incorruptible flame, always sparkling; the spring of life, the fountain of all being. Actually our bodies are like fountains. The fountain has a shape only because it's being renewed every minute, and our bodies are being renewed. Entangled with cosmos, we are standing waves -- probability waves -- nonphysical, nonmaterial waves.
What grants access to and control of a higher pleromic body made of a nonmolecular substance? Is this the creative zone -- the edge of chaos? We are always at the creative inflection point. Breakthrough happens at the edge of chaos. This is a region, not a critical bifurcation point as in the classic picture of dynamical systems. Chaos already exists at the onset of this region, and thus can be contributing to creativity which we conjecture.
Healing, a form of creativity, happens at the creative edge of chaos, by pushing up against our own boundaries. It happens by letting go of old outmoded patterns and making way for new self-organizing dynamics to emerge. Just as one powerful experience can create trauma, a single potent episode can mobilize healing - a quantum leap to recovery of body, soul and spirit.
This holistic philosophy of treatment is an new emergent healing paradigm - holographic healing. Archetypes was Jung's word for all that is spiritual, holy, sacred, or formerly considered divine -- including a scientifically approachable transcendental ground of existence.
5 - Quantum Bioholography
6 - Metaphorms
7 - Natural Philosophy
Holographic Archetypes 7 - Natural Philosophy, Beyond Undulent Quiesence, by Iona Miller, 2012
Paradoxically, when we look into the depths of matter, we look into the depths of ourselves and find the universe mirrored within. The world we live in lives in us. Scientists and mystics report similar phenomena in their models and phenomenology. Source feeds information into the brain's cortex through a variety of channels (genetic and memetic) 'intraspecies' information transfers, then 'interspecies' transfers under specified conditions (mirror neuron activation, intentional behavior, etc).
Religion and spirituality are largely about trying to understand the nature of consciousness in relation to the cosmos, so it is completely logical and natural to expect that we might actually come to understand the religious aspect of existence by following the conscious mind into its source nature. Spiritual technologies, the software of sacred penetration and amplification, virtually predicted the fine nature of matter as nothing but a complex illusion - what we have come to understand as a hologram. Though the map is not the territory, it is good for orientation purposes, and to compare amongst practitioners with different jargon. Mystics have also always emphasized the primal nature of Light, and claim that we are in fact made of light itself.
Science has confirmed this in numerous ways. Both science and mystics claim the primacy of Light. Nanoscale symmetry is reflected in both matter and the natural number sequence and is the tuning system of resonant nodes. The magnetic field tunes chains of spin. Tension comes from the interaction between spins causing them to magnetically resonate. Their frequencies are in Phi ratios.
In the quantum world, everything is in self-organizing flux, including the subquantal virtual photons popping in and out of existence. The foamy Zero Point fluctuation of subspace perturbs and determines the behavior of quantum systems theoretically through radiant EM fields. Radiation is absorbed from the zero-point background. The stability of matter itself is mediated by the zero point fluctuation phenomena.
All of Nature and our own nature arises from the omnipresent centerpoint of Zero-Point Energy or vacuum fluctuation, beyond energy/matter. There is an infinite realm of pure potential beyond the threshold of the Mystic Veil of manifestation. It is the primal Source of all light and life, love and wisdom, passion and creativity. The strength of our connection to Source determines our relative health and well being, our freedom to be and express our essential nature, and to manifest our own potential.
Our whole body flickers in and out of existence at the quantum level at an astounding rate, and each of those quantum re-creations is an opportunity to transform utterly. First we have to let go of the old outmoded self like a snake sheds a skin that is too constricting. Re-creation emerges spontaneously in a new form as transformation and healing. At our core, we are artful and heartful, able to tap our potential for nourishing wisdom, love, bounty, health, peace and other desirable qualities and outcomes.
THE UNDIVIDED SELF
Emergent healing is the result of self-organizing criticality, inevitability of global change, restored organismic integrity. Our own personal Zero-Point is our core self which connects us directly with our hyperspace Source. When we stray too far from our own core beliefs, self-image and self-expression, we feel like we aren't ourselves.
Once we reconnect with that core we feel that all is in alignment, including our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual domains. We feel like ourselves, in our own rhythm, and aligned with Cosmos. This opens us to the synergetic effects of the flow state and synchronicity; doing better than we know. This is the authentic life, also known as self-actualization. Potential becomes embodied as lived Reality.
The Heart Sutra tells us that the Void and Form are two paradoxical sides of the same coin: "Void is not other than Form and Form is not other than Void." ZPE contains the undiluted essence of all that emanates from it. It is the upwelling Source of all that flows forth, the moment of expansion spilling over at the edge of infinity. ZPE is the common ground of psyche and matter.
Change happens at the CREATIVE EDGE of order and chaos, the Known and the Unknown. This is why we do challenging EDGEWORK when we want to actualize our potential. Where are the boundaries of conscious experience and self, and why do these boundaries exist? What is beyond this mystic veil? How do boundaries, roles and pathology develop in interaction with parents, caregivers and others? In what ways are they conditioned by prevailing systems of belief, philosophy, sociocultural history, and environment?
Chaos Theory shows the more complex a system, the more stable and self-correcting it is. A dynamic system in the critical state produces chain reactions of all sizes and durations. Bifurcations are catastrophic state-changes that occur when the critical state is reached.
How is adult experience and sense of self altered by physical, psychological, social or spiritual development and challenge or crisis? How does subjective experience relate to intersubjectivity? How do changes in conscious experience affect one's sense of self, for example through meditation, mysticism, or in pathological states?
When Staying Safe means Staying Stuck your outmoded solution IS the problem, it is time for change. We create an internal map of reality so we can feel safe in our family and environment as children, but it is the viewpoint of a child which becomes outdated or obsolete. Beliefs can come from the inside or outside. We filter sensory input and focus on certain details and delete others, unconsciously, missing the big picture that can challenge and foster our growth.
What is, IS as much as we may try to spin-doctor, edit or deny it. The old self must "die" for the new self to emerge from the pain and fear. We can focus on this natural filtering process and decide how to focus and what to delete to serve ourselves best. We can facilitate actualization of our own positive potential.
Religion and spirituality are largely about trying to understand the nature of consciousness in relation to the cosmos, so it is completely logical and natural to expect that we might actually come to understand the religious aspect of existence by following the conscious mind into its source nature. Spiritual technologies, the software of sacred penetration and amplification, virtually predicted the fine nature of matter as nothing but a complex illusion - what we have come to understand as a hologram. Though the map is not the territory, it is good for orientation purposes, and to compare amongst practitioners with different jargon. Mystics have also always emphasized the primal nature of Light, and claim that we are in fact made of light itself.
Science has confirmed this in numerous ways. Both science and mystics claim the primacy of Light. Nanoscale symmetry is reflected in both matter and the natural number sequence and is the tuning system of resonant nodes. The magnetic field tunes chains of spin. Tension comes from the interaction between spins causing them to magnetically resonate. Their frequencies are in Phi ratios.
In the quantum world, everything is in self-organizing flux, including the subquantal virtual photons popping in and out of existence. The foamy Zero Point fluctuation of subspace perturbs and determines the behavior of quantum systems theoretically through radiant EM fields. Radiation is absorbed from the zero-point background. The stability of matter itself is mediated by the zero point fluctuation phenomena.
All of Nature and our own nature arises from the omnipresent centerpoint of Zero-Point Energy or vacuum fluctuation, beyond energy/matter. There is an infinite realm of pure potential beyond the threshold of the Mystic Veil of manifestation. It is the primal Source of all light and life, love and wisdom, passion and creativity. The strength of our connection to Source determines our relative health and well being, our freedom to be and express our essential nature, and to manifest our own potential.
Our whole body flickers in and out of existence at the quantum level at an astounding rate, and each of those quantum re-creations is an opportunity to transform utterly. First we have to let go of the old outmoded self like a snake sheds a skin that is too constricting. Re-creation emerges spontaneously in a new form as transformation and healing. At our core, we are artful and heartful, able to tap our potential for nourishing wisdom, love, bounty, health, peace and other desirable qualities and outcomes.
THE UNDIVIDED SELF
Emergent healing is the result of self-organizing criticality, inevitability of global change, restored organismic integrity. Our own personal Zero-Point is our core self which connects us directly with our hyperspace Source. When we stray too far from our own core beliefs, self-image and self-expression, we feel like we aren't ourselves.
Once we reconnect with that core we feel that all is in alignment, including our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual domains. We feel like ourselves, in our own rhythm, and aligned with Cosmos. This opens us to the synergetic effects of the flow state and synchronicity; doing better than we know. This is the authentic life, also known as self-actualization. Potential becomes embodied as lived Reality.
The Heart Sutra tells us that the Void and Form are two paradoxical sides of the same coin: "Void is not other than Form and Form is not other than Void." ZPE contains the undiluted essence of all that emanates from it. It is the upwelling Source of all that flows forth, the moment of expansion spilling over at the edge of infinity. ZPE is the common ground of psyche and matter.
Change happens at the CREATIVE EDGE of order and chaos, the Known and the Unknown. This is why we do challenging EDGEWORK when we want to actualize our potential. Where are the boundaries of conscious experience and self, and why do these boundaries exist? What is beyond this mystic veil? How do boundaries, roles and pathology develop in interaction with parents, caregivers and others? In what ways are they conditioned by prevailing systems of belief, philosophy, sociocultural history, and environment?
Chaos Theory shows the more complex a system, the more stable and self-correcting it is. A dynamic system in the critical state produces chain reactions of all sizes and durations. Bifurcations are catastrophic state-changes that occur when the critical state is reached.
How is adult experience and sense of self altered by physical, psychological, social or spiritual development and challenge or crisis? How does subjective experience relate to intersubjectivity? How do changes in conscious experience affect one's sense of self, for example through meditation, mysticism, or in pathological states?
When Staying Safe means Staying Stuck your outmoded solution IS the problem, it is time for change. We create an internal map of reality so we can feel safe in our family and environment as children, but it is the viewpoint of a child which becomes outdated or obsolete. Beliefs can come from the inside or outside. We filter sensory input and focus on certain details and delete others, unconsciously, missing the big picture that can challenge and foster our growth.
What is, IS as much as we may try to spin-doctor, edit or deny it. The old self must "die" for the new self to emerge from the pain and fear. We can focus on this natural filtering process and decide how to focus and what to delete to serve ourselves best. We can facilitate actualization of our own positive potential.
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22.02.2012
http://nauka.in.ua/en/news/articles/article_detail/7599
Harnessing the quantum power of empty space
By Scott Harris
Harnessing the power of the vacuum (Umar Mohideen, University of California at Riverside) The elusive Casimir effect suggests we could use vacuum energy to move objects and make stuff – but can something really come from nothing?
"Nothing will come of nothing." Shakespeare's epithet seems the kind of self-evident statement that only poets and philosophers would argue over. And physicists like Chris Wilson.
Last year, Wilson and his team at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, provided what seems a particularly egregious case of something for nothing. They claimed to have conjured up light from nowhere simply by squeezing down empty space. That would be the latest manifestation of a quantum quirk known as the Casimir effect: the notion that a perfect vacuum, the very definition of nothingness in the physical world, contains a latent power that can be harnessed to move objects and make stuff.
Sightings of this vacuum action have been mounting over the past decade or so, leading some physicists to propose a new generation of nanoscale machines to take advantage of it, and others even to suggest a leading role for vacuum energy in determining the origin and fate of the cosmos. Others remain to be convinced. So what's the true story?
The idea that a vacuum is a seething sea of something can be traced back to the early decades of quantum physics. In the late 1920s, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg came up with his famous uncertainty principle, which says that some pairs of measurable quantities are intimately connected: the more you know about the one, the less you know about the other.
Energy and time are one such pair. That means you cannot measure the energy of a physical system with perfect precision unless time itself is completely imprecisely defined - that is, you take infinite time to perform your measurement. It follows that the zero-energy nothingness of the vacuum can never be pinned down precisely. According to quantum theory, even a perfect vacuum is filled with wave-like fields that fluctuate constantly, producing a legion of ephemeral particles that continually pop up out of nowhere only to disappear again, filling the vacuum with a distinct, non-zero "zero-point energy".
This recasting of the vacuum gave fresh impetus to the centuries-old debate about the nature of nothingness. But evidence also began to accumulate that the newly lively vacuum had practical effects. Observe atoms carefully enough and you see a tiny effect known as the Lamb shift, in which vacuum fluctuations jostle an orbiting electron, subtly altering its energy. Something similar can be invoked to explain how electrons sometimes spontaneously jump between two atomic energy states, giving off photons of light.
But Hendrik Casimir's suggestion was the most eye-catching. In 1948, together with his colleague Dirk Polder, the Dutch physicist was trying to understand how colloids exist in a stable equilibrium. Colloids are mixtures in which one type of substance is dispersed through another, like fat globules in the watery solution of milk. Forces between the molecules in such a medium drop off more quickly with distance than basic calculations using the classical electromagnetic van der Waals force allow. It is as if something is pulling the constituent molecules closer together, giving the mixture extra stability.
Following a tip-off from the Danish quantum doyen Niels Bohr, Casimir calculated that this something could be vacuum action. Working out the effects of vacuum fluctuations in a colloid's complex molecular brew was impossibly involved. So Casimir considered a simple model system of two parallel metallic plates, and showed that the fluctuations could produce just the right enhanced attraction between them. His explanation was that the two plates limit the wavelength of vacuum fluctuations in the space between. Outside those confines, the fluctuations can have any wavelength they choose. With more waves outside than in, a pressure pushes inward on the plates (see diagram).
The effect is tiny: two plates 10 nanometres apart feel a force comparable to the gentle burden of the atmosphere on our heads. Such a minuscule contribution is easily washed out by a legion of other effects, such as residual electrostatic attractions between charges on the plates' surfaces. That makes confirming its existence extremely tough. "You need to know that you're really measuring the Casimir force," says experimentalist Hong Tang of Yale University. What's more, it is not easy to align plates to be perfectly parallel, while calculating the expected effect for other, more complex geometries takes some sophisticated mathematics. It was only in 1996 that Steven Lamoreaux, a physicist then at the University of Washington in Seattle, made a breakthrough. Taking elaborate precautions to exclude all other effects, he found a tiny residual force pulling a metal plate and a spherical lens together. The Casimir effect, it seemed, was not a theorist's pipe dream: vacuum action was a real effect.
Since then, a steady trickle of results has confirmed other long-standing theoretical predictions. Soviet physicist Evgeny Lifshitz proposed in 1955 that the size of vacuum fluctuations would grow with rising temperature, resulting in a force that is more potent over longer distances. In February 2011, Lamoreaux, now at Yale University, and his team confirmed that this is indeed the case.
Nanoscale kick
As for the work of Wilson's team, their results, published last November, support a four-decade-old prediction that turns the logic of the original Casimir effect on its head. Rather than using the vacuum's pop-up particles to shift their surroundings, if you move a vacuum's surroundings fast enough, you can make real photons of light. In some quarters, this idea is controversial - but it is the most dramatic putative demonstration of the vacuum's powers to date.
As sightings of such effects have multiplied, so have thoughts that we might harness them for our own devices. A popular proposal is to use the vacuum's energy to give nanoscale machines an additional kick. That requires something a little different from the original Casimir force, whose attractive effects are more likely to gum up the components of any mini-machine - a phenomenon referred to as static friction or "stiction".
By tweaking the geometries or material properties of the structures used to confine the vacuum, however, it should be possible to reverse the direction of the Casimir effect, creating an outward pressure to push two objects apart. In 2008, Steven Johnson and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated that by adding a series of interleaving metal brackets, zipper-style, to the faces of the two metal plates you could in theory make the net force between them repulsive. A more recent study by Stanislav Maslovski and Mário Silveirinha of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, has indicated a similar effect using nanoscale metallic rods to create areas of repulsive force that can levitate a nanoscale metal bar.
These forces could help nanoscale components such as switches, gears, bearings or motor parts to operate without jamming. Putting such devices into practice might not be easy, though. For a start, it would require components with atomic-scale polishing: look on a small enough scale - a thousand atoms or so - and metal surfaces usually thought of as smooth have patchy, crystal-like structures that would confine vacuum fluctuations in different ways, affecting the size of the Casimir force. For moving objects, things become even trickier.
Such complications are surmountable: in 2009 Federico Capasso and his group at Harvard University measured what appeared to be repulsive Casimir forces in a gold cantilever suspended in bromobenzene liquid above a silicon surface. The forces generated were mere tens of piconewtons - but when you are trying to move nanoscale particles, a piconewton goes a long way. Nevertheless, there are still hurdles to be overcome before Casimir devices are everyday reality, says Johnson. "It is an experimental question - can we make devices this small and sensitive?" he says. "And it is also a theoretical question of whether we can design interesting uses for the Casimir force once the experimental capabilities arrive."
There is a more fundamental objection, however. The litany of theoretical predictions gradually being turned into experimental reality invites a simple conclusion: vacuum fluctuations are real, and they are what is responsible for what we call Casimir effects. But not all physicists buy that.
Their unease lies in calculations done by Casimir and Polder even before they settled on vacuum fluctuations as the explanation for the weakened van der Waals force. These showed that much the same weakening could be achieved simply by taking into account the finite time the force takes to be transmitted over large enough distances, such as between two plates separated by tens or hundreds of nanometres. That idea was revived and bolstered by calculations in the 1970s by the Nobel-prizewinning physicist Julian Schwinger. He never believed in the reality of vacuum fluctuations and developed a version of quantum field theory, which he called source theory, to do away with them. In this picture, the Casimir effect pops out just by taking into account the quantum interaction of charged matter, with no vacuum action at all.
Robert Jaffe, a particle theorist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests the only reason the vacuum interpretation has gained such currency is because its mathematics happens to be a lot simpler. "There is a flippant way people refer to the Casimir effect as evidence for real vacuum fluctuations," he says. "But there is no evidence that the vacuum fluctuations exist in the absence of matter". Similarly, other effects invoked as proof of their reality - the Lamb shift and the spontaneous emission of photons from atoms - can be described purely as the result of charge interactions.
If this is so, it could have repercussions for more than our attempts to fine-tune the workings of nanomachines. The realisation in the past couple of decades that the universe's expansion is accelerating - a phenomenon ascribed to a mysterious "dark energy" - has fuelled a new interest in the power of the vacuum. At the moment, our best calculations of the vacuum's hidden energy come up with a figure some 120 orders of magnitude larger than the amount needed to bring about the cosmic acceleration, a mismatch that counts perhaps as the worst-ever prediction in physics. Yet observations of the Casimir effect are still eagerly seen as evidence for a power that might determine our cosmic fate.
Schwinger's original calculations were part of a wider attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to banish vacuum fluctuations from quantum field theory. The truth may well lie uncomfortably in the middle: we might never be able to convince ourselves of the reality of vacuum energy, because any attempt to do so brings some form of matter into the equation.
As philosophers of science Svend Rugh and Henrik Zinkernagel wrote in 2001, "It seems impossible to decide whether the effects result from the vacuum 'in itself'... or are generated by the introduction of the measurement arrangement."
Wilson hopes that the photons emerging from his apparatus in Sweden, if confirmed by other groups, will provide the final illumination to prove the reality of vacuum fluctuations. Equally, as our ability to construct filigree nanomachines and so test the Casimir effect increases over the coming years, perhaps some deviation from the predictions will give us a definitive handle on where the effects come from. Can nothing truly come of nothing? We might still have cause to speak again.
Light from speeding MIRRORS
In 1970, American physicist Gerald Moore proposed reversing the logic of the Casimir effect. He envisaged rapidly accelerating mirrors that would squeeze the vacuum fluctuations in the space between them so violently that they would give up some of their energy in the form of photons.
In practice it is not possible to accelerate even a small macroscopic mirror fast enough to produce this "dynamical" Casimir effect, so last year Chris Wilson and his team from the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, used rapidly varying electrical currents to simulate the effect of mirrors accelerating to something like a quarter of the speed of light. The result was the simultaneous production of pairs of photons from the vacuum, exactly as Moore had predicted.
Wilson thinks there could be some exciting applications. During the era of inflation thought to have taken place right after the big bang, the boundary of the universe itself would have expanded at near the speed of light, leading to the creation of photons through the dynamical Casimir effect. "It is rather difficult to create your own big bang in the lab," says Wilson. "Our set-up or a similar one might be used to simulate these effects, essentially doing table-top cosmology."
Just as the original Casimir effect is disputed, however (see main story), not everyone is convinced that this interpretation of the experiment is right. One physicist, who preferred not to be named, says that as nothing in the experiment actually moves, it does not demonstrate the dynamical Casimir effect at all. Instead, it is just another "solid and interesting" example of a well-known effect in which some of a quantum circuit's electrical energy is emitted as light. The mathematical description of the two effects is very similar, he says, but "one should never mistake mathematics for reality".
Since the preliminary version of their paper was circulated, Wilson's team has carried out additional tests that Wilson thinks defuse such criticisms, although he acknowledges there are still dissenting voices.
"We did a number of sanity checks ruling out various spurious effects that could have masqueraded as the effect, including showing that we were starting from the vacuum state," he says. "But for some people, the dynamical Casimir effect will never be anything but a literal moving mirror."
The Evolutionary Significance of Religion: Multi-Level Selection February 10, 2012 By Michael Dowd:
2012 promises to be a pivotal year for proponents of group selection and multi-level selection theory.
Last summer, I had an opportunity to read and comment on an early draft of a book by Jonathan Haidt that will be published next month. Titled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, I immediately perceived that this book has enormous practical implications for how economic, social, and political leaders attempt to solve civilization-scale problems.
Over the past few days, I have become aware of two more forthcoming books that likewise will further our understanding of human social evolution: The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson and Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm. All three of these books make the case that group level selection is needed to explain human morality.
The purpose of this post is to give you a preview of these three books—and to draw your attention to several previously published books and essays grounded in the same paradigm shift, and which therefore deserve renewed attention in this pivotal year.
What they all have in common is the realization that we are in the midst of a significant expansion in evolutionary thinking, beyond the confines of individual- and gene-level selection to what has come to be called "multi-level selection theory."
Especially with respect to what enabled humans to cooperate in numbers far greater than instinctive kin affiliation and reciprocal altruism would support (and thus to evolve large-scale social structures), it turns out that “good-of-the group” traits actually do play a profoundly significant role.
Multi-level selection theory also makes abundantly clear that the power and pervasiveness of religions in human societies throughout the world is by no means an aberration. Religion is not, as some of the New Atheists would like to believe, merely a “virus”—propelled to advance and expand its own existence at the expense of its hapless host. Rather, religion, historically, was a profoundly important adaptive feature. Without it, group cohesiveness and the motivation of individuals to die for their tribe or state or nation would likely never have emerged from the palette of instincts we inherited from our prehuman ancestors. And without that kind of motivation, a group will not be able to defend itself against the incursions of neighboring (or long-distance conquering) cultures.
On this point, there may be no more important background reading than David Sloan Wilson’s work, especially his magisterial Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, which was published in 2003. In addition, Wilson chronicles the history of the debate in a New Scientist “Instant Expert” article, “Evolution of selfless behavior.” He also summarizes the current state of the field in a 2011 Evolution article, co-authored with Omar Tonsi Eldakar: “Eight Criticisms Not to Make About Group Selection”, introduced here. For even more background, see Wilson’s “Homage to George Williams and the Last Gasp of Individualism” I, II, III, IV, V; “Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection” I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX; “137 Co-authors Can’t Be Wrong—and That’s the Problem,” and his posts holding Jerry Coyne to account for his claims about group selection and cultural evolution (also here).
* * *
It is vital to remember that religion is about right relationship to reality, not the supernatural! As noted philosopher of religion Loyal Rue reminds us, religion is not about God. He writes:
The most profound insight in the history of humankind is that we should seek to live in accord with reality. Indeed, living in harmony with reality may be accepted as a formal definition of wisdom. If we live at odds with reality (foolishly), then we will be doomed, but if live in right relationship with reality (wisely), then we shall be saved. Humans everywhere, and at all times, have had at least a tacit understanding of this fundamental principle. What we are less in agreement about is how we should think about reality and what we should do to bring ourselves into harmony with it.
Again, in contrast to the assumptions made by some of the New Atheists, just because prescientific manifestations of religion necessarily posited supernatural beings and forces does not mean that religions of today and tomorrow need do so. Religio, after all, means “to link together.” Religions (past and future) provide the over-arching world pictures that link all aspects of known reality, that attempt to answer all questions of meaning, and that therefore provide “personal wholeness” and “social coherence.”
Personal wholeness and social coherence are adaptive necessities. Now that there is no longer any possibility for human groups to migrate away from their despoliation of home landscapes (e.g., salinization of soils owing to irrigation, or massive erosion of mountains slopes due to overgrazing of livestock or overharvesting of trees), religious worldviews are called upon to fulfill one more functional need: ecological integrity.
Thanks to the evidential knowledge accumulated by modern science, all three functions can now be fulfilled by secular worldviews inspiringly conveyed (i.e., “religious naturalism”).
If you scoff at the possibility of a thoroughly secular religion ever coming into being, I highly recommend Loyal Rue’s scholarly 2006 book, Religion Is Not About God. In 2000, in fact, he offered a compelling example of how evolution itself could form the basis of a modern-day, thoroughly naturalistic religion. This was his 160-page popular book, Everybody’s Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution.
Similarly, I recommend David Sloan Wilson’s 2007 book, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives; Joan Roughgarden‘s 2010 book, The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness; and Allen D. MacNeill‘s chapter, “The Capacity for Religious Experience Is an Adaptation to Warfare.”
Finally, lest anyone assume I am opposed to the New Atheists, know that I am profoundly grateful for the evolutionary role they are playing in helping (nay, forcing) our stodgy old (all-too-often dysfunctional) religions to catch up with the wealth of knowledge that science now offers. As you can see here, listen to here and here, or read here and here, I regularly share with religious audiences of all kinds my appreciation for, and tremendous debt of gratitude to, the New Atheists.
So, let me now whet your appetite for the three books forthcoming this year that will continue the work of advancing our understanding of how human societies evolve by (a) multi-level selection (individual traits selected for “the good of the group”) and (b) the unique powers of religions to foster large-scale group cohesion and a spirit of sacrifice (with or without “God”). Here they are:
1. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt (publication date: March 13, 2012). Haidt is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis.
Description: A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, which turns out to be the basis for religion and politics. The book is timely (explaining the American culture wars and refuting the “New Atheists”), scholarly (integrating insights from many fields), and great fun to read (like Haidt’s last book, The Happiness Hypothesis).
Reviews:
“A remarkable and original synthesis of social psychology, political analysis, and moral reasoning that reflects the best of sciences in these fields and adds evidence that we are innately capable of the decency and righteousness needed for societies to survive.” (Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University)
“The Righteous Mind refutes the “New Atheists” and shows that religion is a central part of our moral heritage. Haidt’s brilliant synthesis shows that Christians have nothing to fear and much to gain from the evolutionary paradigm.” (Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution)
“Haidt’s research has revolutionized the field of moral psychology. This elegantly written book has far-reaching implications for anyone interested in politics, religion, or the many controversies that divide modern societies. If you want to know why you hold your moral beliefs, and why many people disagree with you, read this book.” (Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University, author of The Science of Evil)
“The Righteous Mind is an intellectual tour de force that brings Darwinian theorizing to the practical realm of everyday politics.” (Christopher Boehm, University of Southern California, author of Moral Origins)
“Here is the first attempt to give an in-depth analysis of the underlying moral stance and dispositions of liberals and conservatives. I couldn’t put it down and discovered things about myself!” (Michael Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of The Ethical Brain)
Comment by Michael Dowd: In an early draft of his book, Haidt crafted a lovely analogy to illustrate the difficulties that advocates of “multi-level selection” are facing in their encounter with the reigning paradigm of individual- and gene-level selection. In a passage that didn’t make it into the final manuscript (but you can savor here), after outlining four distinct lines of evidence in support of multi-level selection, Haidt illustrates how unique humans are in the animal kingdom (with respect to good will beyond kin selection and reciprocal altruism) while poking fun at those who argue against group-level selection in human societies by pointing to examples of where it doesn’t exist among other animals:
Imagine going to the zoo with a friend who has never seen a giraffe and doesn’t believe they are real. He declares: ‘It is possible in theory for an animal to have a neck longer than ten feet. But I shall endeavor to prove that such long necks do not in fact exist.’ Your friend takes you to see lions, bears, elephants, snakes, and penguins. He takes measurements at each exhibit, each time exclaiming, ‘No long necks here!’ Each time you say, ‘Enough! Can we go to the giraffe house now?’ But your friend doesn’t seem to hear you.
Human beings are the giraffes of altruism. Yes, most of human nature was shaped by natural selection operating at the level of the individual. Most, but not all. We have a few group-related adaptations too, as many Americans discovered in the days after 9/11. We humans have a dual nature—we are selfish primates who long to be a part of something larger and nobler than ourselves. We are 90% chimp and 10% bee. If you take that claim metaphorically (not literally), then many of the groupish and hivish things that people devote their lives to doing will make a lot more sense. It’s almost as though there’s a switch in our heads that activates our hivish potential when conditions are just right.
2. The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson (publication date: April 9, 2012). Wilson, one of the world’s preeminent biologists, is the author of more than 25 books, including Sociobiology and the Pulitzer Prize–winning On Human Nature.
Description: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover magazine). Refashioning the story of human evolution in a work that is certain to generate headlines, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to show that group selection, not kin selection, is the primary driving force of human evolution. He proves that history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, Wilson presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere. 90 illustrations.
Reviews:
“The Social Conquest of Earth is a huge, deep, thrilling work, presenting a radically new but cautiously hopeful view of human evolution, human nature, and human society. No one but E. O. Wilson could bring together such a brilliant synthesis of biology and the humanities, to shed light on the origins of language, religion, art, and all of human culture.” (Oliver Sacks)
“Wilson’s newest theory ... could transform our understanding of human nature—and provide hope for our stewardship of the planet. ... [His] new book is not limited to the discussion of evolutionary biology, but ranges provocatively through the humanities ... . Its impact on the social sciences could be as great as its importance for biology, advancing human self-understanding in ways typically associated with the great philosophers.” (Howard W. French, The Atlantic)
“A monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition!” (James D. Watson)
“Once again, Ed Wilson has written a book combining the qualities that have brought his previous books Pulitzer Prizes and millions of readers: a big but simple question, powerful explanations, magisterial knowledge of the sciences and humanities, and beautiful writing understandable to a wide public.” (Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel)
Comment by Michael Dowd: Wilson, in his 1998 masterpiece, Consilience, urged natural scientists, social scientists, and scholars within the humanities to welcome rather than fear advances in knowledge that would ground each field within the knowledge base of the nested level of reality from which it emerged (e.g., chemistry emerging from physics, biology from chemistry, social dynamics from biology, and so on). Who would have guessed that, in pursuit of consilience between the biological and social sciences, Wilson would co-author a landmark paper in 2007 with evolutionist David Sloan Wilson (no relation) that would overturn one of the ideas he himself had pioneered in the 1970s? The title of that paper is “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology.” (Connie and I actually read an early draft of that paper when we were visiting David Sloan Wilson in his home in Binghamton, NY.) The abstract of the paper depicts multi-level selection as key:
Current sociobiology is in theoretical disarray, with a diversity of frameworks that are poorly related to each other. Part of the problem is a reluctance to revisit the pivotal events that took place during the 1960s, including the rejection of group selection and the development of alternative theoretical frameworks to explain the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behaviors. In this article, we take a “back to basics” approach, explaining what group selection is, why its rejection was regarded as so important, and how it has been revived based on a more careful formulation and subsequent research. Multi-level selection theory (including group selection) provides an elegant theoretical foundation for sociobiology in the future, once its turbulent past is appropriately understood.
3. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm (publication date: May 1, 2012). Boehm is director of the Jane Goodall Research Center and a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Boehm is the author of several previous books, including Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior.
Description: For three decades, genetic altruism has been cited as the dominant theory to explain the paradox of human generosity; experts claim our altruism is limited to close kin. But Moral Origins tells a different story. By studying the social and natural environments of primates, Boehm has devised a convincing new hypothesis: as autonomy-loving humans became large game hunters, severe group punishment began to genetically favor individuals with superior self-control. Essentially, bullies and free-loader types were killed or expelled from social bands because they interfered with the survival of others in the group. This social bias singled out highly altruistic individuals as preferable marriage partners, political allies, and group leaders—what Boehm calls “social selection.” The result was the first stirrings of conscience, and the genetic effects eventually led to a fully-developed sense of shame. Rigorously researched and expertly argued, Moral Origins offers a new evolutionary paradigm of human generosity and cooperation. With its new perspective on the forces that shaped human morality, it offers insight into some of the toughest problems of our time—dealing humanely with those who transgress, and, perhaps, realizing how to prevent them from going bad to begin with.
Comment by Michael Dowd: This is my first encounter with the work of Boehm. I eagerly await his book.
Originally published on The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity: Conversations at the Leading Edge of Faith.
2012 promises to be a pivotal year for proponents of group selection and multi-level selection theory.
Last summer, I had an opportunity to read and comment on an early draft of a book by Jonathan Haidt that will be published next month. Titled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, I immediately perceived that this book has enormous practical implications for how economic, social, and political leaders attempt to solve civilization-scale problems.
Over the past few days, I have become aware of two more forthcoming books that likewise will further our understanding of human social evolution: The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson and Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm. All three of these books make the case that group level selection is needed to explain human morality.
The purpose of this post is to give you a preview of these three books—and to draw your attention to several previously published books and essays grounded in the same paradigm shift, and which therefore deserve renewed attention in this pivotal year.
What they all have in common is the realization that we are in the midst of a significant expansion in evolutionary thinking, beyond the confines of individual- and gene-level selection to what has come to be called "multi-level selection theory."
Especially with respect to what enabled humans to cooperate in numbers far greater than instinctive kin affiliation and reciprocal altruism would support (and thus to evolve large-scale social structures), it turns out that “good-of-the group” traits actually do play a profoundly significant role.
Multi-level selection theory also makes abundantly clear that the power and pervasiveness of religions in human societies throughout the world is by no means an aberration. Religion is not, as some of the New Atheists would like to believe, merely a “virus”—propelled to advance and expand its own existence at the expense of its hapless host. Rather, religion, historically, was a profoundly important adaptive feature. Without it, group cohesiveness and the motivation of individuals to die for their tribe or state or nation would likely never have emerged from the palette of instincts we inherited from our prehuman ancestors. And without that kind of motivation, a group will not be able to defend itself against the incursions of neighboring (or long-distance conquering) cultures.
On this point, there may be no more important background reading than David Sloan Wilson’s work, especially his magisterial Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, which was published in 2003. In addition, Wilson chronicles the history of the debate in a New Scientist “Instant Expert” article, “Evolution of selfless behavior.” He also summarizes the current state of the field in a 2011 Evolution article, co-authored with Omar Tonsi Eldakar: “Eight Criticisms Not to Make About Group Selection”, introduced here. For even more background, see Wilson’s “Homage to George Williams and the Last Gasp of Individualism” I, II, III, IV, V; “Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection” I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX; “137 Co-authors Can’t Be Wrong—and That’s the Problem,” and his posts holding Jerry Coyne to account for his claims about group selection and cultural evolution (also here).
* * *
It is vital to remember that religion is about right relationship to reality, not the supernatural! As noted philosopher of religion Loyal Rue reminds us, religion is not about God. He writes:
The most profound insight in the history of humankind is that we should seek to live in accord with reality. Indeed, living in harmony with reality may be accepted as a formal definition of wisdom. If we live at odds with reality (foolishly), then we will be doomed, but if live in right relationship with reality (wisely), then we shall be saved. Humans everywhere, and at all times, have had at least a tacit understanding of this fundamental principle. What we are less in agreement about is how we should think about reality and what we should do to bring ourselves into harmony with it.
Again, in contrast to the assumptions made by some of the New Atheists, just because prescientific manifestations of religion necessarily posited supernatural beings and forces does not mean that religions of today and tomorrow need do so. Religio, after all, means “to link together.” Religions (past and future) provide the over-arching world pictures that link all aspects of known reality, that attempt to answer all questions of meaning, and that therefore provide “personal wholeness” and “social coherence.”
Personal wholeness and social coherence are adaptive necessities. Now that there is no longer any possibility for human groups to migrate away from their despoliation of home landscapes (e.g., salinization of soils owing to irrigation, or massive erosion of mountains slopes due to overgrazing of livestock or overharvesting of trees), religious worldviews are called upon to fulfill one more functional need: ecological integrity.
Thanks to the evidential knowledge accumulated by modern science, all three functions can now be fulfilled by secular worldviews inspiringly conveyed (i.e., “religious naturalism”).
If you scoff at the possibility of a thoroughly secular religion ever coming into being, I highly recommend Loyal Rue’s scholarly 2006 book, Religion Is Not About God. In 2000, in fact, he offered a compelling example of how evolution itself could form the basis of a modern-day, thoroughly naturalistic religion. This was his 160-page popular book, Everybody’s Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution.
Similarly, I recommend David Sloan Wilson’s 2007 book, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives; Joan Roughgarden‘s 2010 book, The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness; and Allen D. MacNeill‘s chapter, “The Capacity for Religious Experience Is an Adaptation to Warfare.”
Finally, lest anyone assume I am opposed to the New Atheists, know that I am profoundly grateful for the evolutionary role they are playing in helping (nay, forcing) our stodgy old (all-too-often dysfunctional) religions to catch up with the wealth of knowledge that science now offers. As you can see here, listen to here and here, or read here and here, I regularly share with religious audiences of all kinds my appreciation for, and tremendous debt of gratitude to, the New Atheists.
So, let me now whet your appetite for the three books forthcoming this year that will continue the work of advancing our understanding of how human societies evolve by (a) multi-level selection (individual traits selected for “the good of the group”) and (b) the unique powers of religions to foster large-scale group cohesion and a spirit of sacrifice (with or without “God”). Here they are:
1. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt (publication date: March 13, 2012). Haidt is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis.
Description: A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, which turns out to be the basis for religion and politics. The book is timely (explaining the American culture wars and refuting the “New Atheists”), scholarly (integrating insights from many fields), and great fun to read (like Haidt’s last book, The Happiness Hypothesis).
Reviews:
“A remarkable and original synthesis of social psychology, political analysis, and moral reasoning that reflects the best of sciences in these fields and adds evidence that we are innately capable of the decency and righteousness needed for societies to survive.” (Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University)
“The Righteous Mind refutes the “New Atheists” and shows that religion is a central part of our moral heritage. Haidt’s brilliant synthesis shows that Christians have nothing to fear and much to gain from the evolutionary paradigm.” (Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution)
“Haidt’s research has revolutionized the field of moral psychology. This elegantly written book has far-reaching implications for anyone interested in politics, religion, or the many controversies that divide modern societies. If you want to know why you hold your moral beliefs, and why many people disagree with you, read this book.” (Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University, author of The Science of Evil)
“The Righteous Mind is an intellectual tour de force that brings Darwinian theorizing to the practical realm of everyday politics.” (Christopher Boehm, University of Southern California, author of Moral Origins)
“Here is the first attempt to give an in-depth analysis of the underlying moral stance and dispositions of liberals and conservatives. I couldn’t put it down and discovered things about myself!” (Michael Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of The Ethical Brain)
Comment by Michael Dowd: In an early draft of his book, Haidt crafted a lovely analogy to illustrate the difficulties that advocates of “multi-level selection” are facing in their encounter with the reigning paradigm of individual- and gene-level selection. In a passage that didn’t make it into the final manuscript (but you can savor here), after outlining four distinct lines of evidence in support of multi-level selection, Haidt illustrates how unique humans are in the animal kingdom (with respect to good will beyond kin selection and reciprocal altruism) while poking fun at those who argue against group-level selection in human societies by pointing to examples of where it doesn’t exist among other animals:
Imagine going to the zoo with a friend who has never seen a giraffe and doesn’t believe they are real. He declares: ‘It is possible in theory for an animal to have a neck longer than ten feet. But I shall endeavor to prove that such long necks do not in fact exist.’ Your friend takes you to see lions, bears, elephants, snakes, and penguins. He takes measurements at each exhibit, each time exclaiming, ‘No long necks here!’ Each time you say, ‘Enough! Can we go to the giraffe house now?’ But your friend doesn’t seem to hear you.
Human beings are the giraffes of altruism. Yes, most of human nature was shaped by natural selection operating at the level of the individual. Most, but not all. We have a few group-related adaptations too, as many Americans discovered in the days after 9/11. We humans have a dual nature—we are selfish primates who long to be a part of something larger and nobler than ourselves. We are 90% chimp and 10% bee. If you take that claim metaphorically (not literally), then many of the groupish and hivish things that people devote their lives to doing will make a lot more sense. It’s almost as though there’s a switch in our heads that activates our hivish potential when conditions are just right.
2. The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson (publication date: April 9, 2012). Wilson, one of the world’s preeminent biologists, is the author of more than 25 books, including Sociobiology and the Pulitzer Prize–winning On Human Nature.
Description: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover magazine). Refashioning the story of human evolution in a work that is certain to generate headlines, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to show that group selection, not kin selection, is the primary driving force of human evolution. He proves that history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, Wilson presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere. 90 illustrations.
Reviews:
“The Social Conquest of Earth is a huge, deep, thrilling work, presenting a radically new but cautiously hopeful view of human evolution, human nature, and human society. No one but E. O. Wilson could bring together such a brilliant synthesis of biology and the humanities, to shed light on the origins of language, religion, art, and all of human culture.” (Oliver Sacks)
“Wilson’s newest theory ... could transform our understanding of human nature—and provide hope for our stewardship of the planet. ... [His] new book is not limited to the discussion of evolutionary biology, but ranges provocatively through the humanities ... . Its impact on the social sciences could be as great as its importance for biology, advancing human self-understanding in ways typically associated with the great philosophers.” (Howard W. French, The Atlantic)
“A monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition!” (James D. Watson)
“Once again, Ed Wilson has written a book combining the qualities that have brought his previous books Pulitzer Prizes and millions of readers: a big but simple question, powerful explanations, magisterial knowledge of the sciences and humanities, and beautiful writing understandable to a wide public.” (Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel)
Comment by Michael Dowd: Wilson, in his 1998 masterpiece, Consilience, urged natural scientists, social scientists, and scholars within the humanities to welcome rather than fear advances in knowledge that would ground each field within the knowledge base of the nested level of reality from which it emerged (e.g., chemistry emerging from physics, biology from chemistry, social dynamics from biology, and so on). Who would have guessed that, in pursuit of consilience between the biological and social sciences, Wilson would co-author a landmark paper in 2007 with evolutionist David Sloan Wilson (no relation) that would overturn one of the ideas he himself had pioneered in the 1970s? The title of that paper is “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology.” (Connie and I actually read an early draft of that paper when we were visiting David Sloan Wilson in his home in Binghamton, NY.) The abstract of the paper depicts multi-level selection as key:
Current sociobiology is in theoretical disarray, with a diversity of frameworks that are poorly related to each other. Part of the problem is a reluctance to revisit the pivotal events that took place during the 1960s, including the rejection of group selection and the development of alternative theoretical frameworks to explain the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behaviors. In this article, we take a “back to basics” approach, explaining what group selection is, why its rejection was regarded as so important, and how it has been revived based on a more careful formulation and subsequent research. Multi-level selection theory (including group selection) provides an elegant theoretical foundation for sociobiology in the future, once its turbulent past is appropriately understood.
3. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm (publication date: May 1, 2012). Boehm is director of the Jane Goodall Research Center and a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Boehm is the author of several previous books, including Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior.
Description: For three decades, genetic altruism has been cited as the dominant theory to explain the paradox of human generosity; experts claim our altruism is limited to close kin. But Moral Origins tells a different story. By studying the social and natural environments of primates, Boehm has devised a convincing new hypothesis: as autonomy-loving humans became large game hunters, severe group punishment began to genetically favor individuals with superior self-control. Essentially, bullies and free-loader types were killed or expelled from social bands because they interfered with the survival of others in the group. This social bias singled out highly altruistic individuals as preferable marriage partners, political allies, and group leaders—what Boehm calls “social selection.” The result was the first stirrings of conscience, and the genetic effects eventually led to a fully-developed sense of shame. Rigorously researched and expertly argued, Moral Origins offers a new evolutionary paradigm of human generosity and cooperation. With its new perspective on the forces that shaped human morality, it offers insight into some of the toughest problems of our time—dealing humanely with those who transgress, and, perhaps, realizing how to prevent them from going bad to begin with.
Comment by Michael Dowd: This is my first encounter with the work of Boehm. I eagerly await his book.
Originally published on The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity: Conversations at the Leading Edge of Faith.
(c)2012, Iona Miller
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