Is the universe friendly?
Date: Monday, March 28, 2005 @ 15:35:33 UTC
Topic: General
by Geoff Olson (Common Ground/Archives):
Albert Einstein once said the most important question a human being can ask is "Is the universe friendly?"
Think of that for a moment. How would you answer? If you think the universe is truly friendly and supportive of you, this obviously has a huge effect on your perceptions and behaviour. The same applies if you think cosmos is hostile - or just indifferent to your fate...
...This is about whether universe is friendly (unifiable, consoling) or unfriendly (neutral, fragmented, hostile, “otherâ€). From the choice you make, you can extrapolate the direction of subsequent life decisions. Your state of being could evolve from the answer to that one all-important question. But bear with me; because it’s a big topic and this essay is all over the map, from childhood psychology to the pest problems of a Hollywood star author, to the paradoxes of cosmology and quantum physics, to the “angel†in the library...
...Einstein didn’t say the universe was or wasn’t friendly; he said it was the most important question a human being can ask. It is what you choose to believe that is critical. And here’s where things get really interesting, because choice has a very, very, interesting relationship to the quantum world...
...Yet with the discovery of “microtubules†in human neurons, there is some evidence that the human brain may actually process some information on a quantum level, which may or may not reopen this whole can of worms for the macro level of reality...
...In a 1978 lecture, author John Michell took this idea one step further, describing what he saw as the universe’s habit “of reflecting back ideas projected onto it, of seeming to provide positive evidence for any theory that can possibly be formulated.†He claimed you could test it for yourself. “Take the wildest idea imaginable, commit yourself to believing it, become obsessed with it, and you’ll soon find all kinds of evidence turning up as confirmation of it.â€
According to Michell, this phenomenon infects scientific research. “The great Charles Fort gave several humorous instances of the same experiment yielding two different results, each one gratifying the experimenter.†Recently, the same problem has been noted in parapsychology investigations into the “sense of being stared at.†PhD psychologist Dean Radin notes the hair-raising possibility that the scientific world picture may be in large part an extremely robust consensual hallucination, cobbled together by the participatory nature of our collective consciousness with the physical world.
“The universe is so generous that it gives to anyone, crank, scientist or religious believer, the evidence which confirms his particular belief or theory,†wrote Michell...
...Pondering the equivalence of energy and information, Vallee decided “we live in the associative universe of the software scientist rather than the sequential universe of the space-time physicist.†Which means our focus on a given idea or emotion may be like performing a cosmic file request...
...Michell said that “we are all, individually and collectively, responsible for the world as it really is, which is how we experience it.â€
“In terms of objective fact there is little to choose between any cosmology, traditional or scientific,†he insisted, a claim that is even more radical than the postmodernist deconstruction of truth, and one that I have some problem with myself. But this doesn’t have to lead to a nightmare of relativism, because reality construction is a largely a collective act, according to the author. Since we get back what we project, why not believe in the best option? (Paranoia is the belief that the world is out to get you. Pronoia is the suspicion the universe is a conspiracy on your behalf. )
...But how do we jibe Michell’s sentiments with declining living standards, species decline, resource wars, and environmental breakdown? It appears Homo sap is in for a serious ass kicking from an episode of When Good Biospheres Go Bad. If conscious intent plays this much a role in the universe we live in, we’ve apparently been thinking some very bad thoughts for quite some time.
...To the “rational materialist†mind, death is the end of everything, and this thought feeds its rage against nature, which has placed it in this position of despair. The destruction of the world is revenge against a vanished God, and a drastic attempt to invoke the spiritual powers.â€
...We seemed to have reached a spiritual brick wall in our secular ways of thinking and feeling. The ads don’t deliver, the politics don’t heal, and the science doesn’t connect. We know all too well the damage that organized religion can do, but we’re also beginning to understanding the destructiveness of our financial - corporate networks and the military-industrial complex that protect their interests. It’s not that there are no options - it’s that the marginalization of these options fuels a profound despair, along with a growing sense that we have passed beyond the point of no return. Ironically, this despair is likely to feed the addictions, violence, clinical depression, endless distraction, and retail therapy that is already ingrained in North American culture, encouraging further its monstrous consumption of resources and human potential.
This is the true horror of the world we have imagined into being. If children are not nurtured properly in homes where true love prevails, and are raised in a culture endorsing deceit and a Darwinian competition for jobs and resources, a “friendly universe,†one they could have otherwise internalized as emotionally real for themselves, may elude them all their lives.
...If there is some vast consciousness that dreamed this whole shebang into existence, one thing we embody from Him/Her/Whatever is a spark from the fire of creation: the power to choose, to imagine, and to dream new worlds into being.
...I suspect our answer to Einstein’s question involves nothing less than the universe answering itself, through the agency of the human heart and mind. Will our decision, yes or no, mean we will receive the kind of subtle verification Michell speaks of? This isn’t an experiment for the Royal Society or the National Research Council; it’s a subjective test each person must perform on their own.
But it’s a tricky question. There is a line from transcendentalists like Walt Whitman and Emerson to the practitioners of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to the “looking out for number one†ethos of self-advancement, which has created a philosophy of winning at all costs. The results are obvious. The problem is that conflating the ego, rather than the self, with a rewarding god or universe has mostly been a recipe for disaster.
...As author Charles Hansen pointed out in The Technology of Love, the question Einstein posed was deceptively simple, “but it becomes the most profound of questions, for it has no meaning outside of human observation, of all that humans are, and all that we might become.â€
...
Please read this fascinating essay in its entirety here: http://www.commonground.ca
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