Practice Makes Perfect

How long does it take to learn mathematics? How long does it take to become proficient at chess or spelling or field hockey? These are all skills that are obviously possible for human beings to learn. Some folks are better equipped than others and will learn faster, while some will have a hard time mastering even the basics. None of these skills can be learned without practice. Practice will not take place unless the individual believes it is possible to learn the skill, in the first place, and actually attempts to master it.

Introspection

The same is true of introspection, conscience and psychic abilities. You cannot master what you don’t practice. The human mind has the ability to calculate, compute and and communicate at extremely high levels of efficiency, but only when trained to do so. The typical scientific career path offers no instruction in introspective pursuits, in fact “trains” the student to deny the value of same. The results are just what one would expect.

However, if one is trained from an early age to receive, accept and act on information obtained from internal sources, it becomes obvious that the internal is connected to the external. There are simple experiments anyone can do that will confirm that the mind of the individual can access information beyond the confines of the brain case. The neuro-philosophers can deny it all they want, once you discover for yourself that your consciousness has access, scientific credibility takes a gigantic hit. Denial is not the same as disproving.

Fraudulent Math?

That’s like me saying that math is an illusion and that all solutions thus obtained are fraudulent. You would certainly think me a fool. Or i must have some ulterior motive to promote such an obvious lie. That is the way a great many world citizens view western scientific thought, “The people who have brought us modern technology couldn’t possibly be so stupid as not to know that the mind is larger than the brain, that future can be told and thoughts take wings. Therefore, they must be lying.”

Science goes to great lengths to point out that we are all mistaken, that it is self delusion that fools us. Meanwhile, they refuse to accept the findings of their own, when they prove us right. Whom is deluding whom?

Is This God?

About this time, someone will say, “It doesn’t matter what you call it, God, the Tao, LifeOS or the Great Spirit, they are all the same.” Well it does matter, they are not the same. There are certainly some similarities, but many differences between the concepts besides just their labels. One major difference is, that the concept of god is firmly established as an entity, whereas the latter three are processes. The distinction is critical to our discussion.

Conceptual Pyramid

Back in Shared Myths, i wrote about science and religion sharing the illusion that the universe is structured like a pyramid, with either god or the human brain at the apex. This is the conceptual structure favored by western civilization. It is closely aligned with the materialist mind set that “sees” reality as a linear path to some sort of singularity or super entity. Religion and science make extensive use of this conceptual structure to describe the physical universe for us. This static model defines objects quite well, but ignores the dynamic flow of information that manages the processes involved. That flow follows the rules of networks growing in complex systems. These rules are highly sophisticated fractal “algorithms”, involving conditional response(making choices) to optimize dynamic network traffic. This is best described as intelligent action. This is what goes on in the spiritual realm.

This informational/intelligent/spiritual “virtual reality” is an intricate web of relationships that exceeds the level of complexity seen in the physical universe, by several degrees of magnitude. This is both the history of the universe, (the memory of the total process) and its potential for growth. This is not an area that can be reduced to a iconic label and minimized, although science has attempted to do so.

One God, One Source?

Monotheism and evolution are both products of the same masculine, linear, rational and logical world view. Although the religious view of the All Mighty has morphed away from the bearded old man in the clouds, it is still based on an entity that is fundamentally separate from the system we are discussing. In the evolutionary view, there is no god, but the human being is supreme, and also seen as separate from the system.

Holistic Process

The System is not an entity, but a super, nonlinear process. The concept of an “eternal entity” is an illusion. There are only nested and overlapping subsystems that temporarily perform functions as if they were independent units, but flow on in waves, like the weather. The System is eternal; entities, even galaxies, are temporary.

You can’t talk to the System, only entities. The System is the communications network and medium, providing the system for all entities, but not in the business of user relations. Information comes from entities within the system, but not the System itself. It’s like trying to talk to the internet, you can talk to other entities using the system, not the system itself.

Political Expedient

Monotheism was a political expedient. Combining all the religions within the Roman Empire into a One Supreme Being(a Trinity really) was political genius. A world that worshipped enumerable deities, demons, gods and angels, could be ruled by one supreme representative, that just happened to reside in the capital city. This effectively removed religion from the life of the individual and replaced it with a state sponsored dogma.

Grand Network

You can ask anyone from a culture that converses directly with their environment and they will tell you that there are many entities that communicate with human beings. It is like the airwaves, the internet and your cellphone, all rolled into one. The System is a communications network that manages all living interactions. All entities use the system. Any entity that claims to be the one and only is pulling your leg.

You and i are part of that grand network, and therefore have access. Your entry portal is through your subconscious.

Beware of Introspection?

Both science and religion are in the business of inserting themselves between the individual and the System, by blocking off the subconscious as forbidden territory, too dangerous for common folk to mess with. They say our behavior should be left to the experts who interpret the “laws” of god and nature for us. They both attempt to define reality for us, with the intent of managing our behavior for their benefit. The concepts of deity and/or human superiority are their most effective management tools.

Accept Responsibility

The concept of a holistic information processing system puts the responsibility for behavior right where it belongs: on the shoulders of the individual. If you accept the “rules of behavior” given to you by your religion, your education and/or your government, you will, sooner or later, find yourself at odds with the Environmental System. Your culture has sold you out, using your behavior to increase the wealth and power those at the top of the cultural pyramid. The environment is a self-organizing, self-correcting system with a long history of success. It didn’t last this long by letting species run amuck. We will grasp our true relationship with that Environmental System, or perish.

The Vehicle

Our primary vehicle for this journey has been our consciousness. The secondary vehicle has been the body that carries the first around. They both follow pathways to destinations, but in different landscapes. The body can only move in physical space, limited by physical laws. Consciousness can go anywhere, without regard to time and space. That’s the vehicle we want, one that is unfettered, free to discover new pathways or revive old ones.

They make a good team, the body and mind. Together they are capable of great feats of navigation and discovery. One of their great assets is the ability to be in two places at once. The body can be sitting in a chair, while the mind travels to distant lands. Or the mind can link up with other minds, so they can go someplace together, while their bodies remain in separate places around the globe. So, we have a “real” landscape that our body traverses and a virtual one, in which, our mind is free to roam.

When you and i travel together in our virtual world, we try to share landscapes, but they are never the same. We have each built our own virtual landscape on top of the one we inherited from our ancestors. Although we are using the same environmental input to create our own version of the landscape, we assign different values to objects and events according to our cultural and peer relationships.

One way we can compare our different landscapes is to look for the structural similarities. How have we built our virtual world? It is a world of pure information, existing only in imagination, but constructed as a model of the “real” thing. So, we set out on an imaginary journey, each exploring our own virtual world, looking for cycles and patterns that repeat, structural underpinnings and connections that enable the high level of information processing these vehicles possess. This is a road test for our imagination.

Mind Beyond the Brain

One major misconception fostered by mainstream science that really affects their credibility is that “mind” is confined to the brain. The scientific community is so sure of this model that they refuse to even consider other possibilities. Locked into their boxes of logic, reason and math, in complete denial of a spiritual component, they seem disconnected from reality. Yet, they insist on trying to bolster their philosophical position by condemning all other methods for understanding reality. These childish reactions are not lost on the world audience.

Quantum Collapse

The concept of a purely physical universe is falling apart, (some might say shattered), by Quantum Mechanics. Even in the most respected bastions of logic and reason, the material approach to defining reality has uncovered its own limitations. However, they still want to keep the mind in a brain box, as if the evidence of totally interconnected, highly organized and communicating biological networks at lower(more primitive) levels, would not apply to the most advanced intelligence organ on the planet.

Let me put this another way. The most primitive single celled creatures, bacteria, worms, insects and neurons all learn and grow by exchanging information between individuals, species and environment. Information flows in waves of feedback through the environment, maintaining system integrity. To believe that the most sophisticated information processing organ around, the human brain, would be confined, separated or cut off from the environment and therefore denied use of this most fundamental of biological abilities, just doesn’t make any sense, logic or no logic. Unless you want to believe that the human brain was “dumbed down” from the rest of the system for a reason.

Restricting mind to the human brain would be an evolutionary step backwards.

Mind: nothing, but neurons and electrochemical reactions

It seems to be one of their primary assumptions that consciousness is a only a product of specific neural activity and therefore restricted to the brain. Electrical impulses, neurons and chemical reactions are thought to be the cause for consciousness, and therefore it is assumed that the mind cannot be active outside of a brain. Nonsense!

That’s like me trying to convince you that your cell phone can’t access outside information, because it doesn’t have a wire. You know better. You can call anybody you want and that proves me wrong. If you can’t make calls, (access outside information), with your cell phone, it is because you don’t have a contract, or you are out of range of a tower, or your battery is dead, or your phone is broken, right? Of course, if you don’t push the buttons, nothing happens.

The human brain is a far more sophisticated communications device than your cell phone. If you can’t access outside information with our brain, it is probably a user problem and not broken equipment. You don’t push the buttons, nothing happens. Precognition, telepathy, remote viewing, synchronicity and the rest are all features accessible with your brain. If you never take the time to master the skills necessary to use your built-in features, they certainly won’t work.

If the scientific community really wants to know why their credibility is so low,(about 80% choose superstition every time), they need look no farther than their absurd denial of “paranormal” activities.

What About You?

But how about you, personally? Do you believe that consciousness only exists inside the brain? If that is your belief, you are part of the minority.

That such concepts are nothing but superstition, is one of the things that education harps on continuously. By the time one has spent a career wearing that set of blinders, it seems to be true. However, the majority of world citizens believe that thoughts, emotions and prayers extend beyond the physical brain. It is no surprise to us that Cleve Backster’s plants responded to the death of the brine shrimp, or that people know they are being watched, or that prayers can aid in healing.

Personal Matter

I have said that i don’t expect “science” to overcome the inertia of its materialist, reductionist(soul-less) past, and embrace a holistic reality, anytime soon. But i really don’t care whether “science” ever gets it or not. My reason for touching on the subject at all, is but a hope to convince the reader that consciousness is a personal matter; not to be defined for us by institutions.

It can be interesting, and sometimes helpful, to understand what leadership believes, or wants us to believe, about a subject, but don’t forget that grain of salt. Their reason for fostering their beliefs on us has nothing to do with a search for truth, but for the exercise of control.

This view comes from looking at “science” as a subsystem, closely linked with financial, political, military, bureaucratic, educational and other subsystems, that control human behavior. Within that group, science is the closest thing to a conscience to be found. Without a spiritual component, science fails in this function. For the most part, the behavior of these groups has proven to be focused on accumulating wealth and not to be in the public interest, nor the interest of a healthy environment.

Rebel Researchers

Within this structure, there are individuals and groups that have formed subsystems, networks and associations that run counter to the overall reductionist, materialist belief system. It remains to be seen whether they will flourish within, and change “old science” into something new, or split off and form a new branch on their own. Either way, i see these groups as the foundation for the future of science. Until the current paradigm shifts to this new foundation, science will continue to misconstrue basic cognitive functions.

Your mind belongs to you, not the state. It is your responsibility to learn how to use it. It is too valuable a possession to let fall into the hands of the politicos, bureaucrats and money changers.

The Human Experiment

From the beginning of this project i’ve tried to keep my quotes and explanations as simple as possible. I’ve quoted mostly from encyclopedias, dictionaries and wikies, sticking to popular concepts. I have been reluctant to quote from scientific sources directly for several reasons. For one, experience has taught me that it isn’t a good idea to quote people out of context. Many time i have marked an exciting quote, only to find later in reading the author that my interpretation of the quote was based on my own world view. It made sense to me in ways not intended by the author.

Lately however, i’ve come across several folks within the scientific community that are clearly working from a similar context. I think i can quote some of them without stirring up argument about what they meant to say.

In the book, “Programming the Universe”, MIT physicist Seth Lloyd says,

“The universe is a quantum computer whose computations are the movements of information that define the world we experience.”

Seth is one of the leading experts on quantum computing, actually having built one. I had never heard of him until a couple of weeks ago, but some of his stuff sounds like we could have collaborated. Not so, i assure you.

I interpret the above statement to mean the rules of quantum mechanics move the information we experience as consciousness. I don’t think i am stretching Seth’s intent.

In this same time frame i have discovered Nick Herbert, whose book, “Elemental Mind”, also sounds familiar. His take is that “mind” is a fundamental natural process like light or electricity.

There again, i am pleasantly surprised that the conclusions reached by these experts in physics are so close to my own. Mind, conscious and unconscious, are fundamental functions of information processing that control and manage activity in biological systems.

All Knowing Universe

The System is intelligent. It isn’t just clever, but truly all knowing. The Universe is the memory of everything that has ever happened. It knows everything about itself, but still has to maintain homeostasis. Like any complex adaptive system, variables must be monitored, goals identified, strategies devised and implemented to maintain its level of success.

Living systems grow, reproduce and disperse into the environment in an experimental mode, (sandbox), constantly testing new configurations against the results of all other experiments. The system learns to adapt to its own adaptations.

Observation, Planning and Action

The physical Universe is the memory of the process of It monitoring Itself. The process is observation, planning and action.

Just like ants and bees, we build to the patterns in our heads. We build objects out of matter, adding our spiritual metaphors to Universal memory. These objects represent our contribution to what the System knows about itself. We human beings are experiments that devise and carry out experiments on our own.

As we repeat the cycle of observation, planning and action, we learn. LifeOS is always observing, planning and acting; growing, reproducing and dispersing; creating, testing and choosing; in short, learning. The obsessions that drive our science and industry are not unique to human beings, but expressions of the fundamental intent inherent in Life itself.

Protected Area

So we humans have been put to the test. We have been given experimental capabilities. We are operating in our own sandbox. We have been given all the resources we need to be successful. The worst we can do is fail. It is up to us.

Conceptual Sandbox

There is another information processing concept that is used extensively in biological systems. It is a protected area called a sandbox.

Sandbox: A protected, limited environment where applications (e.g. Java programs downloaded from the Internet) are allowed to “play” without risking damage to the rest of the system.
–From computer-dictionary-online.org.

Virtual Machine

This limited environment has available all of the important resources the untested code needs to function, but is confined to a virtual machine where it can’t interact with the “real” operating system. This isolation makes for a safe place to experiment with new code. Part of what makes it work is the relative innocence of such an area. The coded elements within the sandbox are “unaware” that they are part of a larger system and operate as if they were an isolated entity.

As you can see, software development depends on this concept at all levels. In this conceptual environment, code can be tested and refined, errors, viruses and misconceptions can be identified and corrected, bold new ideas can be entertained without risk to established procedures.

Protected Areas

Natural systems, both biological and otherwise, make extensive use of this concept. The planet Earth is a good local example. Planets, solar systems and galaxies are isolated environments that certainly fit the conceptual model. Australia and the Galapagos Islands are also examples of protected and limited environments where new models can be tested.

From an evolutionary standpoint, a species serves the same function. Each individual agent the system produces operates in its own sandbox. An agent is furnished with its own operating system, its own algorithms and the ability to choose among them or make up new ones. Just as in its computer counterpart, the agent is unaware that it is part of the larger system and acts on its own, interacting with its own perceived environment. If this experimental agent is successful and survives to reproduce, the code passes the test and continues to contribute to the whole. If this version fails to reproduce, the code is rejected, and no damage is done to the system.

Nested Sandboxes

So, we can look at the universe as a system of nested sandboxes. In this view, every living thing can be seen as an experiment in sustainability. Natural selection verifies the success of the test, incorporating the tested code into a new configuration that also will be tested. Meanwhile, all experiments are monitored and compared through their holographic entanglement.

Resolving Uncertainty

What have we discovered in this journey through the system of Life? We have traveled from the smallest particles in the cosmos, past all the energy, matter and information available to us, right up to the Whole Universe itself, looking for reality. We have discovered that the Universe is not really solid, but consists of energy interacting with itself. Energy is always in motion. According to our best understanding, energy is conserved, that is, energy isn’t created or destroyed, but is dynamic, always moving and changing. All of this dynamic action follows consistent pathways that show a set of system wide laws, rules or protocols.

Natural Laws

So, we have only two elements to consider really; energy and the laws it follows when it moves or changes. Whether we consider those laws to exist outside of energy itself, or are contained within it, they consist of pure information. Our material universe consists of energy, organized by information we call natural laws. This interaction produces change and movement. On the macro level, we can use these laws to predict exactly where objects will be anytime in the future. It appears that uncertainty is very low at this level, making the universe appear to be deterministic.

However, any flexibility to adapt to change has to be allowed for within the scope natural laws. It should be obvious that the laws obeyed by living systems cannot be deterministic, but must allow for adaptive options. The uncertainty of the future must be resolved into the relative certainty of the present. That can only be done by making choices.

Intelligent Choices

We know that, at least in our own case, this ability to choose between options is a function of our consciousness. Regardless of the complexity involved, to evaluate options and make a choice, requires at least a rudimentary consciousness. Although it is true that conditional responses can be represented in code without consciousness being present, as in a computer program, code writing is an abstract process that requires much more “intelligence” than it takes to make simple choices. The simplest explanation is that conscious action is taking place at the point of action.

Now, if we can accept the fact that choices can only be made by some sort of conscious action, it leads to the conclusion that, anytime or anywhere within the system that uncertainty is resolved, conscious action is taking place.

Navigating the Future

We know that at the level of human existence the future is uncertain. We can see the future coming at us and we have the ability to choose our most promising path through it. We count on our experience to give us an understanding of probabilities involved in choosing our path. If we look at other levels of existence around us we see that uncertainty gets resolved in much the same way. We see plants and animals adapting to their environment by choosing options. Animals routinely make choices for food, navigation and mates. Some plants track the sun across the sky rather than simply putting their solar collectors in the up position. Tracking the sun requires memory, a feedback loop and and some sort of decision making process. Even the smallest single cell creatures move and change following rules. In biological systems, it is experience that makes the rules.

Quantum Leap

Now let’s jump to the tiniest of particles and look at how they behave. Down at this level the rules are different. Down here we can’t pinpoint where things are; uncertainty is everywhere. Particles appear and disappear, wave functions collapse if you just look at them and nothing seems real. How can such an inconsistent and unreliable collection of energy packets produce the concise material universe we know and love? Although the laws of Quantum Mechanics seem vague, inconsistent with classic laws of physics and even downright strange, they have proven experimentally to be the most reliable of any natural laws discovered by science. So, how do we make sense out of this seeming paradox?

Holoverse

The holographic model erases the inconsistencies and gives us a better idea of how it works. The position of particles within the atom are holographically linked to the nested fields of the larger system in which they exist. These particles don’t represent their own position, but reflect the current dynamic state of the Whole. In other words, the wave function, (all of the information pertaining to the state of a particle), represents the state of the larger hologram. The apparent uncertainty at the subatomic level is a mirror of the dynamic probabilities of higher(nonlocal) levels.

In this view, the flow of the universe is constantly resolving the uncertainty of the future into the past. Matter is the memory of that process.

Systems Theory Revisited

This past few weeks has been a whirlwind of revisiting, rediscovering and rewriting, not without some rethinking, but always focusing on a final draft. The process has been educational, for sure. However, the rewrites are going on behind the scenes, in another world, so to speak, and won’t necessarily get updated in this blog. So here is a quick update for the section on Systems Theory.

Although systems theory may have seen little application to biology in the United States, on the international scene there has been a steadily growing interest.

“The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is among the first and oldest organizations devoted to interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature of complex systems, and remains perhaps the most broadly inclusive. The Society was initially conceived in 1954 at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard, and Anatol Rapoport. In collaboration with James Grier Miller, it was formally established as an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1956.”

International Society for the Systems Sciences
http://isss.org/world/

I have been surprised and pleased that the scientists in this organization have come to many of the same conclusions about biological systems that i have.

LIVING SYSTEMS THEORY

“By definition, living systems are open, self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges.”

The Living Systems Theory of James Grier Miller is described as an open system characterized by information and material flows. The properties ( or behavior) of a system as a whole emerge out of the interaction of the components comprising the system.

In the conceptual system developed by Miller, living systems form eight levels of organization and complexity:

The principal components are cells, in simple, multi-cellular systems; organs, which are groups of cells; organisms (there are three kinds of organisms: fungi, plants and animals); groups, which contain two or more organisms and their relationships; organizations, which involve one of more groups with their own control systems for doing work; communities, including both individual persons and groups; societies, which are loose associations of communities; and supranational systems, organizations of societies.

Regardless of their complexity, they each depend upon the same essential twenty subsystems (or processes) to survive and to continue the propagation of their species or types beyond a single generation. “The twenty subsystems that process information or material-energy or both account for the survival of living systems, at any level.” “Living Systems Theory is a general theory about how all living systems “work,” about how they maintain themselves and how they develop and change…”

It is both encouraging that this branch of science is still alive after fifty years, and discouraging that few scientists are aware of the implications.

Why aren’t they teaching Living Systems Theory in public schools? Here is something they could teach right along beside random mutation driven evolution that doesn’t have anything to do with religion, but would ease the transition to a more holistic understanding of living systems.