In conversation THE HISTORIC HUMAN ENDEAVOUR - or
A CRYPTIC LOOK as summarised here:
What took place in the origin of our evolution is humans and the natural environment were embedded. We didn’t see ourselves separate. We were in a primal understanding and participation with nature from which we derived our sense of meaning and purpose.
During the Archaic phase with the development of cities, we place meaning/purpose on the King, Pharaoh, sky gods etc.
During the Axial period, (800 BCE to 200 BCE) we place meaning/purpose into the cosmos, away from the trivial worldly concerns. The whole movement is towards the sky, the sun.
During the Modern period we have the Copernican revolution, - man is not the centre of the universe. We then adopted all meaning into our own mind and forces the autonomous self. We felt ourselves superior to all previous 500 years. Descartes' subject/object division - we are subjective and the world is an object, separate from us.
In the Post-Modern, - quantum physics describes the world as participatory. There is no subjective observer outside the objective world. We participate in it through the act of observing the objective world. Therefor you cannot measure any objective world in of itself. There is always a relationship. But it undercuts the underlying meaning. Now we see it, as the universe is a randomly evolving process that accidentally brought about a meaning-seeking highly intelligent species that seeks meaning in a universe that is told to us to be meaningless.
Thus the current existential predicament in a disenchanted world and a need to re-connect. Or simply recognising our true nature. We are not separate but part of the whole Gestalt.
To conclude, this narrative of western man's 3,000-year odyssey leads us to question and re-evaluate the path of a materialist worldview we've chosen to follow and which has outlived its trajectory towards any form of real meaning.
The conventional scientific method only allows us to determine how nature behaves, not what nature IS in and of itself. Thus, it can be viewed as a surface phenomena because it only focuses on the mechanistic, physical side which merely represents the skin of reality. Matter is a name that the Greeks invented to account for everything that takes place outside of consciousness. It counts for only 4% of the substance of the universe called matter, which is all we focus on and believe to be our reality. The other 96% is made up of energy forces and an unknown void (dark matter) which actually govern our universe, our experiences and our lives. Thus stepping into the realm of metaphysics, we accept the idea that nature also has other modes of operation, not only the material.
It becomes clear that the scientific revolution with its limiting reductionist material approach, has systematically estranged and separated us from humanity's connection to its deeper roots of meaning and purpose. Our innate sense of being is turned into market-commodities, creating unease at the level of our authentic inner connection with Self.
In conflict with inherited identity, our values are now shifting globally.
Today science has come to the conclusion that it cannot explain reality without including the component of consciousness. And that consciousness does not arise from, nor is it located in the brain. But rather the brain functions as a device that process or modulates consciousness.
And as we start to contemplate this non-material universe, we come to understand the true nature of the the mind and how everything is connected. Thus it opens up a complete new meaning in our relationship with ourselves, with others and with nature.
The depth and the richness comes from what physicist David Bohm refers to as the entanglement of the human endeavour through the system of thought patterns* and subsequent actions, what he parallels with ‘the activity of Consciousness’, - and which all spiritual traditions have understood.
In Bohm’s terms this was the Implicate order – the whole is enfolded in every part and each part is enfolded in the whole. He concluded that individuals participate in the whole and consequently give it meaning. The narrative and the system is closely embedded.
Bohm reference to three layers of reality: there is matter, energy and meaning. Physics deals with matter and energy but not with meaning which is equally important because it is the driving force that co-create the narrative that manifests.
*It is worth noting, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain sciences reveal through brain scan research that there is an impulse or pattern of brain activity that emerges six seconds before we consciously become aware of it as 'my thought' or 'my decision'. It's like an automated commenting voice that seems to always be catching up to the activity of now. Thus one cannot claim that your thoughts are your own or that you choose your thoughts. A thought has no power unless we give it power.
Upon reflection on this, we do have agency over which thoughts we empower in our choices and subsequent actions. Hence the importance to become more critical of our habitual thought patterns and which we value to pursue as our truth.
CONTINUE Matter, mind & the nature of ultimate reality
