In the first post of this series I promised to explore the wider implications of our having a quantum computer in our head. What does this revolutionary understanding of the capacities of the human brain mean for our life and our future?
Here I call "quantum consciousness" the consciousness we access when we use the potentials of our quantum-computer brain. Our brain is a macroscopic quantum system, yet we use it as if it were exclusively a classical biochemical system. With its quantum-system functions, our brain can receive information not only from our eyes and ears, but directly from the wider world with which we are "entangled" -- nonlocally connected. Insightful people throughout history, whether shamans or scientists, poets or prophets, have extensively used this capacity, innate to all human beings. Today it is widely neglected. This impoverishes our world picture and causes a nagging sense that we are separate from the world around us.
I believe that quantum consciousness could be the next stage in the evolution of our consciousness -- and that this evolution could be our salvation. Let me explain.
The first thing I ask you to note is that human consciousness is not static, fixed once and for all. It's the product of a long evolutionary development and is capable of further development. In the thirty- or fifty-thousand-year history of the species we proudly call Homo sapiens, the human body didn't change significantly, but human consciousness did. And it can change again.
In a variety of "alternative cultures" a new consciousness is already emerging. The members of these cultures -- the green movement, the peace movement, the sustainable living movement, the movement of cultural creatives, and others -- share similar social values and are open and interactive with the larger society; they don't seek isolation or indulge in promiscuous sex. They aim to rethink accepted beliefs and values and adopt a more responsible style of living. They shift from matter- and energy-wasteful ostentation toward voluntary simplicity and the search for sustainability and harmony with nature.
A new consciousness is now struggling to be born. Does this mean that the consciousness of humanity itself is evolving? Some famous thinkers have said so. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo spoke of the emergence of superconsciousness in ever more people, and this, he said, is the harbinger of the next evolution of human consciousness. In a similar vein the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser spoke of the coming of four-dimensional integral consciousness, rising from the prior stages of archaic, magical, and mythical consciousness. The American mystic Richard Bucke called the new consciousness "cosmic," and in the colorful spiral dynamics developed by Chris Cowan and Don Beck, it's the turquoise stage of collective individualism, cosmic spirituality, and Earth changes. For philosopher Ken Wilber these developments signify an evolutionary transition from the mental consciousness characteristic of both animals and humans, to subtle consciousness, which is archetypal, transindividual, and intuitive, to causal consciousness, and then ultimately to "consciousness as such." Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof summed up the characteristics of the emerging consciousness as "transpersonal."
There is remarkable agreement among these visionary concepts. Superconsciousness, integral consciousness, cosmic consciousness, turquoise-stage consciousness, and consciousness as such are all forms of consciousness that transcend the divide between you and me, the individual and the world, the human being and nature. If these thinkers are right, this kind of consciousness will be the next stage in the evolution of the consciousness of our species.
Quantum consciousness -- QC -- could perhaps be the next stage in the evolution of the mind of humanity, but why would it be our salvation?
The answer is simple commonsense: because QC is a consciousness of directly intuited, felt connection to the world. It inspires empathy with people and with nature; it brings an experience of oneness and belonging. Quantum consciousness makes us realize that, being one with others and with nature, what we do to them we do to ourselves.
Not only will QC make us behave more responsibly toward other people and the planet, it will also encourage us to join together to cope with the problems we face.
Most of us cooperate with members of our own family and community. But cooperation has now become vitally necessary on the global level: it's in all our best interest to cooperate with our fellows in the global community. Without such cooperation we'll be hard put to overcome the global threats and problems that face us. Without cooperation we risk joining the countless species that became extinct because they couldn't adjust to changed circumstances.
With dedicated and purposeful cooperation we can meet the challenges of human survival: we can have seven billion or more people living peacefully and sustainably on the planet. We have the technologies, the skills, and the necessary financial and human resources. Abject forms of poverty can be eliminated, energy- and resource-efficient technologies can be made widely available, water can be recycled and seawater desalinized, and sustainable forms of agriculture adopted. We can be more efficient and effective in harvesting the vast stream of energy that flows from the sun to our planet. And to finance these projects we would only need a small part of the enormous sums of money that we now commit to speculative, self-serving, or downright destructive ends.
Cooperation on the global level is a new requirement in the history of our civilization, and we are not prepared for it. Our institutions and organizations were designed to protect their own interests in competition with others; the need for them to join together in the shared interest has been limited to territorial aspirations and defense, and to economic gain in selected domains. The will to cooperate in globally cooperative projects that subordinate immediate self-interest to the vital interests of a wider community is still lacking in the political as well as in the economic domains.
When all is said and done, the fundamental need of our time, the precondition of creating a peaceful and sustainable world, is the spread of a new and more evolutionarily adaptive consciousness -- the quantum consciousness of oneness and belonging.
Forms and intimations of the new consciousness are already emerging in the world, but they haven't yet reached the mainstream. When QC becomes mainstream, humanity will have reached a higher stage of maturity. It will have become a species that has not only the technologies and the skills, but also the wisdom and the will, to survive in the world it has itself created.
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"That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand.."
http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_greene_on_string_theory.html
Almost every Atheist I have met has rejected religion over the corrupt Christian myth being called fact. In essence, they have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I can't think of one Atheist I have met that rejected another religion. Probably because other religions don't focus on the "control" part as a way of repressing believers.
I left the "church" as a teen but found God through science. Science is just another religion that uses a newer language to express itself.
Now let's look at the second purpose. Generally, religions are composed of a set of social standards in ways to live a harmonious life with others and the world around us. In many "Easter" traditions along with Native American (who are, in fact, descendants of Asian people) traditions, this harmony mostly exists through to today (hence the New Age movement that is steeped in these traditions). Then there is the religion that we call Christianity. The teachings of a poor carpenter's son who was seen as a rabbi, put forth very simple teachings that used much of this "Eastern" type of thinking (the "Sermon on the Mount" is mostly all Buddhist philosophy). The four Gospels are stories to teach a way of living and thinking.
Our abilities to resolve our problems - war, pollution, etc., seem stuck in first gear. We've been at war forever and continue to destroy our planet. Our scientific model isn't working (just like our 'American Dream' model has failed). Without moving into another gear, evolving out of this difficult condition, we may be doomed. That seems apparent. And having young adult children, it seems that this kind of realization is growing among younger people. That's good. We need to resolve our important issues, and the scientific method, and considering life and interelationships between entities as being only measurable by this method, is not working.
And to make up, willy-nilly, some kind of story or supposition about some utopian relationship that we should have, is also folly. But reaching further, into other real places of the mind, and to re-connect with ancient wisdom that has never really left us (burried yes, obscured by modernity yes), seems an important way to go. No, it's not the New Age junk that will allow us to move on, to evolve, it's the knowledge of the ancients that is still around us. You just need to know where to look.
Blindly believing that anything represents some perfect ideal is wrong. We need to use our reason and evaluate ideas based on their logic and results. Sorry if that sounds like science but truth be told science is the only thing that has enabled us to see beyond our bias, fears, and hatreds and in only a few hundred years has given us enormous amounts of insight into who we are and how we got to be here.
I'm not saying science as all the answers. But to blindly say we must discard it, especially for some ancient wisdom by people who thought the earth was the center of the universe, seems the height of folly.
The answer is to make it profitable. Then it doesn't matter whether one group is short-sighted racial supremacist righties and the other biosphere loving lefties. Both will be working for the evolutionary stability of the species.
It's just plain nonsense, and even the few New Agers I've known who possess higher than average IQs have eventually come around to that basic and factual understanding.
To quote Julia Sweeney, "Depak Chopra is full of $hit!"
And so is Mr. Laszlo.
http://reddogbear.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-your-brain-is-not-quantum-computer.html
But for me the bigger point is that even if there were quantum processes (similar to the electron tunneling that happens in silicon circuits, for example) involved in communication between neurons, it's just as big a SO WHAT? as increased parallel processing. Having that brain model wouldn't give us a special way to experience the oneness of the universe, or social cooperation or any other value that is supposedly being promoted.
This is the kind of article that begs the question: Why did HP create a Religion section when they have not yet created a Science section? (They have "Tech" but that is about applications of science, not the fundamentals.)
2:55 PM CST
Quote :
..."Why did HP create a Religion section when they have not yet created a Science section?"...
...That's a very good point.
Try :
old world gallery at hot mail dot com
J.B.
4/7/10
Where? How?
Every well-meaning cause creates a frenzied opposition. It's nice to have pie in the sky notions and give them new names, but really, we humans are what we are.
And BTW, this planet cannot sustain 7 billion more people. Who cares if we eventually go extinct. Life and consciousness goes on in other forms. We're not so special.
As for us humans, I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but the old saying is unfortunately true: By pretty much any reasonable measure of our overall impact, we humans are the worst thing that has happened to Earth, and also to the regions of space we have so far polluted.
(btw, Romantics talk about colonizing other worlds, etc., but I say we have long ago demonstrated our incompetence and disregard for our environment, and have therefor forfeited all rites to propagate.)
You ever look at sattelite maps of cities from far away? It reminds me of cancer on a healthy organ sometimes.
If anything, I would say to think of consciousness as an energetic epiphenomenon not in the matter of the brain, but rather a field perhaps interacting with the neural hardware. That energy could be far more likely to be relevant when it comes to quantum entanglement than the material brain.
Granted, if you called out the woo for what it is, your post would get deleted (like mine is about to be)