Technology
by itself cannot be expected to improve the quality of our lives.
Indeed, until we are willing to fundamentally alter the way we treat the
planet and each other, our technologies may extinguish all life as we
know it within the next 50 years. This is a bitter and sobering thought.
We are running out of time.
When
practiced without conscience, science is the most dangerous pursuit ever
devised by mankind. The consequences we face after the scientific
discoveries of the 20th century are almost too staggering to
contemplate. The list is long and daunting. Most serious is the
irremediable contamination of the oceans with long-lived radioactive
waste. Today, ocean currents are carrying high concentrations of
radioactive heavy ions from the Russian dumping grounds in Riga and
Novaya Zemlya to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is estimated
that within in less than 25 years, radioactive contamination will reach
the islands in the Pacific Ocean in sufficient concentrations to
seriously disrupt the marine ecology beyond repair.
Closely
associated with this problem is the contamination of the oceans with
long-term carcinogenic industrial chemicals which are not biodegradable.
We are being advised to discontinue the consumption of deep sea species,
shell fish and mollusks because of the increasingly high concentrations
of lead, mercury and PCB’s found in their tissues. The primary link in
the food chain supplied by the oceans of the world is being polluted at
a rate which may already be beyond intervention and remediation. If the
oceans no longer support adequate life in an uncontaminated form, human
kind and many other species will also cease to exist.
Of
even greater short-term concern is the issue of polluted drinking water.
It is estimated by the United Nations and the World Health Organization
that within the next ten years, potable water supplies will sink to a
level which seriously threatens the survival of many key, densely
populated areas. This is particularly true of water supplies originating
in the Russian tundra and Siberia, the Balkans, much of North America,
India, most of Central and South America, most of China and the island
nation of Japan. We cannot live without uncontaminated water.
Nevertheless, industries, multi-national corporations, military
organizations and the industrialized nations continue to condone the
relentless pollution of ground water and aquifers at an increasing rate.
This is a formula for extinction if allowed to continue unabated.
Atmospheric
pollution has become the subject of intensely debated global politics.
Of all the nations of the planet who can do something meaningful to curb
atmospheric pollution, the United States is the single nation which
refuses to be bound by the restrictions of the Kyoto Accords. For three
centuries, the industrial machine which controls economics and politics
has managed to indiscriminately despoil the planet with impunity. Today,
the destruction of the ozone layer and the aggravation of the greenhouse
effect have combined to fundamentally alter life on the planet. In
Australia and New Zealand it has become customary to forswear direct
exposure to the sun during certain seasons because of the absence of the
ozone layer in the southern latitudes.
Since
the 60’s, an increasingly vocal social awareness of acid rain in the
industrial nations has failed to meaningfully alter atmospheric
pollution. Instead of implementing the guidelines developed by the
Environmental Protection Agency, to which compliance would cost tens of
billions of dollars, the leaders of the United States have instead
implemented a policy by which the worst polluters can buy the rights to
continue to pollute from other companies whose “pollution credits”
are up for sale. The profit motive and short-sighted business practices
continue to drive the engines of industry and government, in spite of
the fact that we have long known how to fix the problem.
Since
the dust storms of the 30’s, which were largely the result of terminal
contamination of the soil from the unrestricted use of chemical
fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, the industrial nations of the
world have continued to sell chemical substances which, when placed in
the soil, destroy essential microbes, leach out the essential rare earth
minerals and render critical farming belts unusable in seven to ten year
cycles. Many species of plants and animals have ceased to exist because
of the indiscriminate use of herbicides and pesticides all over the
planet. This practice continues relatively unabated - in spite of the
fact that the use of such chemicals as malathione and DDT have been
prohibited in this country, they continue to be exported in record
volumes to developing countries of the Third World. In this respect, it
appears that many companies and governments still value life lower than
short-term profits.
This
is not happening because we have no alternatives. Organic farming has
become almost a cult in recent years, a bastion of resistance against
the relentless imposition of harmful chemicals on the food chain by a
few die-hard producers who refuse to give in to market pressures and
increasingly proscriptive regulation. As a result, the USDA expends more
than 75% of its annual budget developing genetically engineered foods in
order to sustain crop yields which are frustrated by decreasingly viable
soils. Instead of remediating the damage to the soils and evolving our
agricultural practices to accommodate what we have learned, we continue
to contaminate them and allow chemical companies to profit by our short
sightedness.
A
heavy price is being paid for our failure to come to grips with the
problem. The foods we eat, most of which are products of extensive
hybridization and genetic engineering, are successively lower in
nutritional value than the original strains. None of the naturally
occurring foodstuffs grown in the US contain the rare earth minerals
which are known to be essential to good health and longevity. Those
substances have long since been leached out of the soils as a result of
our continued, indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and
herbicides.
As
a result, we find ourselves eating more foods which are less nourishing.
We are an overweight, seriously under-nourished culture whose fast food
habits and suicidal life style has produced increasing rates of heart
disease, cancers of all kinds, genetic mutations and a horrifying litany
of related medical challenges. It is argued that these concerns are not
properly considered since average life spans seem to be increasing. But
it is clear from long-term studies published by the Journal of the
American Medical Association, Lancet and other similar publications that
much of the increase in longevity can be directly attributed to medical
intervention and not as the result of any fundamental improvement in
wellbeing.
Why
do we allow this madness to continue? Because we value profit and
political control more than we value our lives. It is as simple as that.
In the West, we have demonstrated a singular arrogance. Our collective
belief that we are the owners of the land rather than its custodians has
long been bolstered by the scientific conceit which suggests that we are
also its masters. In the same way we have allowed ourselves to believe
we can exclude spirit stuff from our scientific paradigms, we have
deluded ourselves into believing we are exempt from the consequences of
our misbehaviors.
Why
is our belief in the correctness of the Standard Model of physics
important, and what useful purpose is served by challenging its most
fundamental tenets? Because our notions about it frame our attitudes
about who we are and proscribe our beliefs about what we are doing here.
As long as we persist in the unwarranted, irrational and suicidal belief
that the standard model is correct and sufficient, we will have no
reason beyond the prospect of our own eminent extinction to change our
values and do something remedial.
In
the final analysis, the wellbeing of humanity and all the rest of the
life forms which live on this planet is not a matter of science or
technology. Neither is it a matter which can be dealt with through
politics, the enactment of laws or social engineering. Rather, it is a
matter of the heart. Science without a heart has shown itself to be
capable of the most egregious malignancies. That is why we persist in
releasing genetically engineered plants and microbes into the ecosystem
before we have any cogent idea at all what effects they will exert on
the biosphere.
That
is why we persist in the ruthless campaign to eradicate Native American
and other aboriginal, indigenous peoples by burying toxic nuclear waste
on their sacred ground and disenfranchising their cultures. That is why
we allow the governments of the world to create microbes and chemicals
which have the potential, all by themselves, to utterly eradicate life
on this planet.
That
is why we insist on drilling for oil in the last remaining primitive
wilderness areas instead of converting the accumulations of municipal
waste and biomass into usable fuels. That is why we allow the research
establishment to prevent viable treatments for cancer, AIDS and a whole
host of life threatening diseases from being developed, commercialized
and made available to the general population at reasonable prices.
Serious
questions have been raised about the likelihood that the human species
will survive beyond the middle of the 21st century.
Nanotechnologies, genetically engineered viruses, computers capable of
real intelligence, and the relentless accumulation of radioactive
pollutants are all cited as proximate causes for the demise of our
species. This is a case of technology run amok. It is not a pretty
picture.
Perhaps
more important is the relentless trend of converting the best and most
advanced technologies, developed by the best and brightest scientists,
to weapons of war and mass destruction in the name of “national
security.” More than 70% of all the money expended for scientific
research during the past 100 years has been dedicated or converted to
this least noble of all purposes.
In
fact, private research is so fundamentally threatened by the rights
extended under Article 35 of the National Secrecy Act, which empowers
the agencies of government to arbitrarily confiscate any technology
deemed to be significant to national security issues, during the past 10
years more than 3,000 technologies described in patent applications
submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office have been summarily
confiscated and classified top secret by agencies of the US government.
Many
of the technologies which have been confiscated constitute all the
technologies, integrations, systems and devices which are needed to
clean up the planet, eliminate our addiction to petroleum-based fuels
and cure the most vexing diseases. At many of the scientific conferences
and symposia I have recently attended, we find ourselves asking each
other why we persist, in the face of such unrelenting madness. At the
end of the day, we all know the answer.
After
less than 300 years pursuing the current brand of science, which has
almost exclusively been devoted to investigating the “physical
stuff” described by Descartes and Newton, how have we come to be in
such a horrifying state of affairs? I submit to you that we are in this
mess, all of us together, precisely because the science we practice is
devoid of a soul. So long as we persist in the preposterous notion that
Descartes' spirit stuff can be excluded from the pursuit of knowledge,
that Newton's Cosmos is a clockwork mechanism which only needs
reductionist means to give up its secrets, we condemn ourselves and each
other to the increasing likelihood of mutually assured destruction.
It
is time to leave the Flatland of conscienceless and unconscious
scientific pursuits. It is time to move on to something greater and more
noble. How do we do this? Do we have to suffer the ravages of
near-extinction before we wake up and move in another direction? In this
book, I have made it quite clear that a number of specific things can
and must be changed in order for the practice of scientific pursuits to
enable us to live more fully. The Standard Model of physics and the
practices, publications and instructional materials which are used to
teach the sciences must be modified to reflect the following
improvements in our understanding:
The
Standard Model of physics must be modified to accommodate a whole litany
of phenomena which cannot be currently explained, which includes
·
A
recognition of the fundamental role of complementarity at all scales,
·
A
recognition that everything is comprised fundamentally of information,
·
A
recognition that the Second Postulate of the Special Theory Relativity
is no longer valid. E does not equal MC squared.
·
A
recognition that the speed of light is not constant and that it is not
the upper limit to rates of information transfer or mass velocities.
·
A
recognition that the four primary fields are not primary at all, but
rather are derivatives of the underlying scalar potentials which operate
at the fundament of reality-as-it-is, along with the non-local,
non-linear information transport field we have chosen to call the
torsion field.
·
A
recognition that non-locality is an intrinsic attribute of the Cosmos
and, further, that the torsion field is the mechanism which supports its
functions.
·
A
recognition that while the Universe is quantum by nature, it is also
fractal at all scales and therefore holographic at all scales, in all
respects.
·
A
recognition that the Cosmos is a single, open, complex, self-organizing
system, operating in real time at all scales, according to a set of
simple, elegant, universal rules.
·
A
recognition that the Universe is conscious, that it is, by definition
self-referential and self-aware at all scales.
·
A
recognition that all matter and therefore all energy arise from a causal
plane of consciousness, which operates in the physical domain in both
linear/local and non-linear/non-local manifestations at all scales.
·
A
recognition that Mind arises from the causal plane of consciousness as a
fractal manifestation of the One, operating in the time domain as a
non-local/non-linear expression of reality-as-it-is.
·
A
recognition that Mind couples with physicality according to a set of
consistent, universal rules which are simple and elegant, and which can
be measured, verified and replicated.
·
A
recognition that all human consciousness is a fractal expression of the
causal plane of consciousness, operating holographically as a species in
all-where all-when, and as individuals which are both fundamentally
similar and fundamentally distinct.
·
A
recognition that species consciousness and individuated consciousness
are eternal manifestations of Consciousness, pre-dating and surviving
physical mortality, from lifetime to lifetime, evolving singly and
together as a continuously evolving manifestation of the Great Chain of
Being.
·
A
recognition that human consciousness and individuation are but one
expression of the Master Fractal, that by definition the Universe must
contain an infinite variety of evolving species and individuated minds,
evolving in an infinite number of dimensions, because that is how Nature
works.
The
facts are inescapable. They have been cited and discussed. The sources
are open for your inspection. We can only come to this conclusion - we
are all manifestations of the same causal plane of consciousness and
cannot in any meaningful sense be considered separate from each other.
This is not an expression of any limp-wristed New Age nuttiness. Rather,
it is the simple, elegant truth. Descartes was dead wrong when he
decided physical stuff could be distinguished from spirit stuff. And
until our pursuit of science recognizes how utterly irrational his
conclusions were; until scientists alter their practices to include
spirit stuff, we will not find the answers we are searching for. Without
this fundamental revision in our thinking, we cannot hope to solve the
problems which threaten our continued existence.
There
are some specific things we can do to change all this. The changes have
to begin at the top of the food chain, where economic and political
control are wielded. Dr. Gell-Mann and his contemporaries at the great
universities, together with Stuart Kaufman at the Santa Fe Institute and
other organizations like it, have to lead the way. If they do, the
sources of capital they control can be directed towards research which
holds the promise of reversing the current trends.
Alternative
sources of energy need to be developed rather than suppressed. We must
find a methadone analog for energy if we are to break our addiction to
petroleum-based fuels and energy sources. This is not a matter of
technology. The technology has existed for more than 50 years to
efficiently convert municipal waste and biomass into usable sources of
gasoline, diesel fuel, high BTU synthetic gases and phenols. New
patented technologies such as Tom Bearden's Motionless Electromagnetic
Generator hold the promise of limitless, utterly benign energy
production for the future. There is no technical justification
whatsoever for burning another drop of petroleum or cubic centimeter of
natural gas.
Instead,
it is a matter of will. There is no shortage of energy now and there
never has been. What is true about the current conundrum is that we are
simply unwilling to efficiently use the renewable energy resources which
are and always have been available. The fact of the matter is that we
are within striking distance of developing energy production
technologies which compare with the most spectacular scientific
achievements of all time. What remains, then, is for us to decide,
together, whether we will allow them to be confiscated or demand that
they be ubiquitously employed to replace existing, suicidal
technologies.
As
a community of scientists, we must somehow be empowered to pursue a new
kind of scientific path, one which is characterized by conscience and
enlightened consciousness. The path to this goal can be paved by some
intermediate steps which include, among other things, a fundamental
amelioration of the current peer review practice. Peer review is only
genuinely valuable when the reviewers are not anonymous.
Further,
the trail blazed by Stuart Kaufmann and his colleagues at the Santa Fe
Institute, Leo Burke, Jeff Bernel and their colleagues at Notre Dame's
Gigot Institute For Entrepreneurial Studies and other similar
institutions, must be carved wide and paved with financial support
sufficient to embrace the curricula of all mainstream colleges and
universities. We have discovered that there is nothing more irresistible
or compelling than free, unfettered participation in a genuinely
collegial environment.
Today's
students of the sciences are a very special breed. They are brighter
than we were at their age. They are altogether unintimidated by the
challenges associated with acting in concert with intuition to pursue
the fulfillment of their dreams. The only thing that stifles their
creative genius and drive is the utterly fractionated system of higher
education they are compelled to submit to in order to obtain training
and credentials. The current system relies on the direction of academic
advisors, virtually all of whom are tenured professors, to guide
graduate and post graduate students into promising areas of research.
Instead
of encouraging the new breed of students to pursue research tracks which
could provide the meat to cover the bones of our new model, the current
practice restricts students to areas of research which constitute the
special domain, intellectual province or territorial imperative of their
advisors. Students who take the risk of venturing outside the proscribed
guidelines are denied credentials and blacklisted from the professions.
This is not the practice of an enlightened science - this is a suicidal
intellectual tyranny.
After
pursuing science for more than 300 years, after living together as a
community for nearly 11,000 years, we still have not figured out how to
stop annihilating each other and destroying the planet we live on.
Whether you subscribe to the animistic model developed by Daniel Quinn
in the Ishmael
series or the transpersonal, psychological, meme-based Great Chain of
Being model created by Ken Wilber, as described in his wonderful book A
Theory of Everything, one thing becomes unequivocally clear:
without including spirit stuff in the science we practice, we are doomed
by our own stupidity, greed and short sightedness to ever more serious
challenges, not the least of which is the genuine prospect of our own
extinction. There simply has to be a better way.
How
do we put an end to this insanity? By helping each other to become well
again, one person at a time. By recognizing our fears and choosing
deliberately to step past them. By looking deeply within, identifying
our prejudices, forgiving each other and learning to respect each other
without condition. By trusting that each of us is an expression of the
same dignity and majesty which is the well spring of the Cosmos. By
living consciously with this in mind.
The
exercise of focused, collective consciousness is the one truly powerful
tool which cannot be resisted by the exercise of will. While individual
consciousness may not by itself be irresistible, the combined exercise
of disciplined consciousness has been shown to exert a profound,
measurable effect on entire communities and regions of conflict.
Because the Cosmos is quantum in its mechanisms, all that is
really required to convert our self-destructive, suicidal behaviors into
something genuinely kind and loving, is for enough of us to become well
enough, whole enough, disciplined enough and personally powerful enough
to exert an irresistible, quantum effect on the rest of humanity.
I
am not suggesting that we impose our religious or philosophical beliefs
on others. Neither am I suggesting that we should work to convert others
to our own political way of seeing things. There have to be intrinsic
differences in these points of view because complementarity demands it.
Rather, I am suggesting that we learn to help each other without thought
for reward or investment in an outcome. I am suggesting that we treat
each other with kindness and compassion, that we learn to trust the
process of just being, that we become so secure in our own sense of self
that we can allow others to be authentic without imposing controls on
them. This is a matter of understanding who we are and what we came here
to do together. It is about tolerance, at the very least, and a
considerable, long overdue measure of mutual respect.
In
order to move to this level of engagement, each of us will have to
confront and transcend our own fears and prejudices. We will have to
give up our investment in bigotry and the relentless need to be right.
We are compelled to learn how to forego winning at the expense of others
and living in a paradigm of scarcity and lack. Most importantly, we have
to learn how to be compassionate and forgiving with ourselves and each
other, to give up our investment in judging others who try and fail.
Trying and failing is essential to the process of learning and growing.
Without repeated trials and error, we do not learn, grow or discover
anything of value.
As
a culture, we are not comfortable with the notion of death and dying. We
ignore it, fear it, postpone doing anything about it and yet live in
ways which accelerate it. We fear death for a lot of reasons, none of
which are valid and all of which are based to one extent or another on
the fundamental notion that our physical stuff can and ought to be
distinguished from our spiritual stuff. This erroneous, self-destructive
notion drives the way we practice science, the way we live, the way we
treat each other and the way we deal with our mortality.
We
do not, as a society, possess a set of socially acceptable skills which
enable us to deal effectively with deep seated emotions such as fear,
anger and frustration. There are no socially acceptable means for the
expression of such feelings. In fact, we are taught from the outset that
feelings of anger, fear and other deep seated emotions are simply not
socially acceptable. Instead, we sublimate our repressed feelings into
aggressive behaviors in the home, workplace and on the road. The world
we live in is characterized by a continual, relentless bombardment of
the senses with an infinite variety of mixed messages, all of which
assault our sense of self and combine to render us more and more numbed
to the messages that really matter.
The
addition of metaphysical disciplines to the way we practice science and,
by extension, to the way we live our lives, serves two useful, essential
purposes. First, by learning to sit quietly, alone and in the company of
others, we can turn off the noise and really hear. By closing our eyes
and looking within, we can learn to really see. By slowing our pulse
rates, relaxing our breathing and developing the ability to focus
without effort on the things which trouble and challenge us, we can
allow our individual consciousness to tap into the eternal wellspring of
infinite information to find solutions and answers.
Second,
by looking deeply within, we can discover who we really are. This is
genuinely frightening for those who are not accustomed to such
practices. The fear arises from the specious, deeply enculturated notion
that there is something intrinsically shameful about who and what we
are. The very last thing any of us wants to know for sure is that we
are, in fact, sinful, degraded, unlovable, undeserving and valueless
lumps of worthless meat. While it does no good to argue about it, I can
tell you without equivocation that nothing, absolutely nothing, could be
further from the truth.
There
is nothing to fear, as Franklin Roosevelt once said, but fear itself. By
engaging in the disciplined practice of metaphysical pursuits, in the
highest and best sense of the term, the only risk we run is that we will
lack the courage to heed what our inner wisdom tells us. Even that is
better than believing something that was never true about ourselves and
each other. And if, in the process, we can harness the innate capacity
of human consciousness to tap into the infinite reservoir of knowing,
which operates at the fundament of the Cosmos, why would we hesitate?
Ken
Wilber has explained this notion perhaps more eloquently than anyone
before or since. At the core of it all, the only reliable means by which
we can hope to uncover the mysteries of the Cosmos and survive our
practice of science is to develop a new methodology, which puts the
ghost back in the machine. This is the challenge of the 21st
century. If we do not succeed at this, who will be left to blame?