Are we beginning to see a major paradigm shift, steadily moving away from the prevailing physicalist, materialist.mechanistic mindset?
Integral theory is one attempt to move beyond any narrow,exclusive views of reality proclaimed by representives of science, religion, philosophy, spiritual traditions or whatever. Jennifer Gidley writes about integral thinking and the evolution of consciousness here
There are periods in human and cultural evolution when humanity passes through such fundamental transformations that our reality shifts and new patterns of thought are required to make sense of the unfolding human drama . . . The profound transformation we are now witnessing has been emerging on a global scale over millennia and has matured to a tipping point and rate of acceleration that has radically altered and will continue to alter our human condition in every aspect. We must therefore expand our perspective and call forth unprecedented narrative powers to name, diagnose, and articulate this shift… Integral philosopher Ashok Gangadean in the opening quotation encapsulates what many integral theorists have been voicing over the past decade. It is this integral research on emergent movement(s) of consciousness that I am referring to as the evolution of consciousness discourse This research points to the emergence of a new structure,stage(s) or movement of consciousness that has been referred to by various terms, most notably, post-formal integral and planetary.
Jude Currivan says that instead of big bang we have the big breath. The “outbreath” that gives rise to the physical unverse. Matter and energy are the products of information. The physical universe is in-formed as she puts it.
She discusses her views here in “Restating and reunifying reality: Our in-formed and holographic universe”.
This is part of an annual Mystics and Scientists conference promoted by The Scientific & Medical Network
The metaphor of the big bang conjures up images of a destructive explosion leading to chaos. But we should imagine the universe as a birth of order and organisation and this is more in keeping with a breathing process by which we communicate compositions of song, poetry and prose. Evolution is the creation of order out of chaos.
So are we seeing a movement to a more integrated, holistic understanding of reality where, rather than being a mere by product of a particular arrangement of matter, consciousness plays a primal, central role? The cosmos is breathed into existence, the out-breathing Word, the Logos, creates the living universe. Consciousness is the alpha and omega.
I’m making no assumptions about anyone. I am giving my impression of various beliefs and what they entail. I would hope that, not just theists, but most of us believe that we are more than just a bag of chemicals. If this is so the question becomes, What makes us more than that? Are these additional attributes just a result of chemical interactions, or is there more to it? Are we so lucky that the ability to function and think about these things is possible because it just so happens that the relationships between chemical elements chance to have properties that allow for this? Or are the elements more like the letters of an alphabet where the meaning comes from the way they are used in a creative way to form a script?
Goethe certainly thought it was a script which, if studied with care and consideration, could be read. We do not come to understand the meaning of a story by studying each letter. Understanding comes from knowing what each word and word combination signify. The letters may be the means by which the story is composed but the meaning does not emerge from these letters. In the evolution of languages the living words come before the dead letters. Likewise the chemical constituents are necessary for the forming of living substance and organisms but the creative processes come from the dynamic way in which they are used.
You may have noticed my aversion to the machine metaphor and so you will realise that I do not see us as anything like,”perfectly tuned machines designed masterfully”. We are not perfect and we are not machines.
It seems that you were getting tired composing that reply, so I hope you’ve had a good sleep 🙂
You haven’t answered dazz’s question. What does it mean to achieve “higher forms of existence”? dazz is merely expecting you to state your goal in more concrete terms than that.
Steiner has offered a training which requires an inner control of our thinking, feeling and willing. A certain effort is needed on the part of the pupil. And it must be borne in mind that an instructor “can give nothing but advice, and everything he says should be accepted in this sense.” it may seem that “the conditions are strict, yet they are not harsh, since their fulfilment not only should be, but indeed must be a voluntary action.”
We all have doubts and it is very easy to be sceptical until we see some evidence that satisfies us. It is not so easy, in fact we have to exert some effort into behaving in a way where we make a decision to be neither sceptical nor believing, to remain impartial until the evidence is available to us. Both scepticism and unjustified belief are signs of bias which is a hindrance when the path we are to take calls for balance and harmony. It takes very little effort on our part to be sceptical, it is much harder to work on ourselves in order to overcome the prejudices which none of us are free from. How much effort does it take me to say I’m sceptical of the big bang? Very little indeed.
It is not a path in which we are searching for something. We should not be looking to see what we can get. We should see it more as a task designed to give us challenges that will help us to overcome the faults which we all possess. It is a path of self improvement by which we can better serve the world we inhabit.
I hope this goes a little way in answering your last question.
Between Gandhi and Pol Pot who do you think achieved the higher form of existence? The higher seeks unity, the lower separation. Gandhi can be seen to have overcome much of his selfish baser instincts whereas Pol Pot had not.
So achieving a “higher form of existence” just means being a nicer person?
Apparently, yeah.
So Charlie, when you said that if we believe we’re just a bag of chemicals, (and according to you, I should, because that’s what my worldview entails, not sure how or why) that’s what we will remain, does that mean that I can never become a better person?
The question is (deceptively) simple: there are ontologies in which reality is hierarchically structured, so that it makes sense to speak of ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ forms of life or of consciousness — and then there are ontologies in which there’s simply no such thing as ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ forms of life or consciousness. We could call the latter “flat ontologies” — “flat’ in the same sense that a non-hierarchical organization has a “flat” structure.
In a flat ontology, no beings are ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ than any others — so the kinds of questions that make sense to ask in a Neoplatonic or emanationist framework simply don’t make sense.
One of the reasons why Darwinian and post-Darwinian evolutionary theory pose a nice challenge to Western anthropocentrism is that, biologically speaking, there is no such thing as ‘more highly evolved’. Of course there are many unique features of Homo sapiens — just as there of every other animal, plant, fungus, protist, and bacterium! Of course we could always take some feature of ourselves as the basis for saying ‘ah ha, this is what makes humans unique!’ But from a biological standpoint, is the capacity for collective reasoning really any more obviously unique than the capacity for synthesizing glucose?
Now, it is true that there’s a nice remark by Dobzhansky: “all species are unique, but the human is the uniquest.” But I think that this was Dobzhansky’s attempt to synthesize the modern synthesis perspective on life with a Russian Orthodox perspective on life — it was not him speaking as an evolutionary biologist per se.
That sounds right to me. In fact, I don’t think there is need to be orthodox catholic to appreciate Dobzhansky’s sentiment.
It is true that the term “higher form of existence” confused me. Charlie is probably implicitly combining several human characteristics into his scale of existence (I am guessing mostly intelligence, culture and altruism), and I admire his ambition to develop those characteristics further. Whether Steiner’s method is a good way to accomplish that is up for discussion.
So do you think that one day Gandhi decided he wanted to become a “nicer person” and that is all there is to it? The progression from lower to higher is not achieved by taking one small step in the right direction. It is a long, slow, challenging, ongoing process and there is always more to do. How much self discipline did Gandhi need to have? How difficult was it for him to get to the level he reached?
Apparently not.
I have never presumed to know what your worldview entails nor to know how good a person you are. But no matter how good we are there is always room for improvement. It is not just about how good a person is, it’s also about how much work they have put in to getting there.
‘Higher’ and ‘lower’ are terms relative to a reference frame. When it comes to biology we might say that they refer to specific environments – fish are ‘higher’ than humans in aquatic environments. Bacteria are ‘higher’ than fish when it comes to living in guts. In another sense, Humans are ‘higher’ than bacteria when it comes to solving differential equations.
Without specifying the reference frame I don’t think the terms mean anything at all.
This is just Darwinism shooting itself in the foot. If there is no such thing as more highly evolved, then how is there such thing as evolved at all? So, was there no evolution from bacteria to humans? Or there was some, but there is still no essential difference between bacteria and humans, despite the fact that there obviously is?
Whatever.
Happy new year!
Perhaps by flattening reality we overlook a further dimension that belongs to it.
How reality is perceived depends on the perceiving subject. Those of us who think that, alongside organic evolution there has been an evolution of consciousness have no problem seeing different levels of consciousness everywhere. From the apparent non-consciousness of a pebble on the beach, to the lack of awareness shown by plants, to relative unconsciousness of sleep to the highly focused, concentrated consciousness of a botanist studying plants. Do we judge these as being on the same level?
Humans are unique in the fact that we are the only forms of earthly life that have any understanding of our place within life as a whole. Physically we are no more unique than any other primate as Goethe was at pains to point out when other anatomists tried to argue that the lack of an intermaxillary bone demonstrated human uniqueness.
So what do you think about the reference frame of consciousness?
Consciousness of what?
So achieving a “higher form of existence” means being a nicer person, but it only counts if you had to work real hard for it?
If this isn’t the right answer either, perhaps you should tell us what a “higher form of existence” means, and stop asking us what we think you mean by it?
Yes, there was. But there was also evolution from bacteria to modern bacteria. So which is the higher evolved?
Happy new year to you too, Erik.
How do different consciousnesses relate to each other in their awareness of physical reality?
You wrote, “When it comes to biology we might say that they (‘higher’ and ‘lower’) refer to specific environments”.
So I am saying when it comes to physical life we might say that higher and lower refer to specific states of consciousness. We can observe fish and say that they are ‘lower’ than humans in terms of awareness of physical reality.
CharlieM,
Surely you must know that in many cases animals are more aware than humans of the physical reality surrounding them?
Not really. for example a blind cave fish would be much more aware of it’s physical reality than a human in the same cave.
If humans are higher in awareness of their physical reality one might ask why humans can’t detect a shark stalking them when the shark is all too aware of the human in their physical reality.
Numerus examples, from all walks of nature, could be given to refute the claim that humans are more aware of their physical reality than other animals.
Charlie, I can’t seem to make heads or tails of what you’re talking about, so to avoid endless repetition I’m going to bail out of this conversation, but thanks for your patience and happy new year.
Many fish are aware enough of physical reality to avoid being caught by humans equipped with high technology.
We can no more define its full meaning than a sighted person can give an adequate account of colour to a person born blind. It can only be experienced by each person for themselves. Cast your mind back to when you were a 6 month old baby. you will remember nothing about it but you will know that your awareness was very limited compared to what it is now. You have a higher level of awareness than you did back then. Some people claim and have claimed to have reached even higher states of consciousness. Why should we believe them? But then again why should we disbelieve them? I know that consciousness has evolved. So what reason do I have to believe that it has stopped at the level of my, or anyone else’s, consciousness? I know that if I am to reach any higher levels of consciousness then it is up to me and me alone to go about it and only I can know what I am experiencing
So? You also didn’t know how to read, skateboard, or play hockey as a 6 month old either. all that points to is that an infant/toddler has not matured, although, many adults may also fit that classification as well!
Yes, why should you beleive them? Because they say so? Then again we know people lie and tell falshoods for all manner of reasons. Without any objective means of determing what constitutes ‘higher states of conciousness’ how would Charlie evealuate the allegations? If you beleive the individual that, of course, opens the door to how could you disbeleive anything anyone says? Especially, as you claim, that only the individual knows what they are experiencing and they are the easiest person to fool.
Feynman Quotes. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
How do you prevent that in Charilie’s quest for higher consciousness…whatever the hell that means!
Only in a very narrow and specific way. A dog’s sense of smell is far superior to any human but does it know anything of the processes behind this sense. A dog may be able to pick up the scent of a rose at far lower concentrations than a human can, but does it know the way the scent is produced, its chemical composition, or how it is detected by the olfactory system. This broader knowledge comes from having an awareness which is much greater than the single ability to be proficient at detecting scents. The dog sacrifices a higher general awareness because it has developed in a narrow one-sided way compared to the human.
A dog handler gives his dog an article with the scent of a criminal that he is trying to catch. The dog picks up the scent and follows the trail and that is where its knowledge of the circumstances ends. The handler is aware that he can use the dog to his advantage. He may be aware of the crime committed, that the criminal is armed and dangerous, the physical appearance of the criminal, the reason why there is a noisy machine hovering overhead and much else besides.
In what way is the dog more aware of the reality surrounding it, of the reality of the situation?
A dog is simply a different animal than a human being and that comes with having different strenghts and weaknesses. As with all animals, how well it will perform depends on its environment. Abandon it in the wild, and a dog is far more likely to survive than a modern human being.
‘Higher’ and ‘lower’ are measurements relative to a standard, and I don’t see why there would be just one single, absolute standard by which to measure these things. It really is not hard to come up with standards by which many animals outclass humans. I can think of many situations where I’d put my wager on the animal, and not on you (or me, for that matter). You are disregarding all that, and cling to quite selective standards that make humans come out on top. The word, I think, is ‘biased’.
That also applies to the human animal.
The vast majority of humans would also be at a loss to know anything of the processes unless you are only considering a very narrow and specific subset of human animals.
the majority of humans are in the same boat as the dog unless, of course, you are only considering a very narrow and specific subset of humans.
the dog hasn’t sacrificed anything. The dog’s, as well as the human animal, abilities are limited by historical contigency in its eveolutionary history. The human can not acquire the increased number of olfactory receptors nor the ability to detect and decipher ‘layers’ of scents that the dog has no matter how much they wish to do so.
faded_Glory,
Absolutely! I think the more precise terminology would be ‘confirmation bias’.
And again your argument relies on examples of specific awareness in a very narrow field. The blind cave fish may be more at home in the cave than the human who had encroached on their environment, but are they even aware of the water they are swimming in? They are certainly not aware that it is a compound made up of hydrogen and oxygen, that it can also exist as a solid or a gas. They will be unaware of the life going on outside their cave, of the solar system and spiral galaxies. Even if they are inside the cave with the blind cave fish, humans are still aware of the wider reality that still exists with or without their presence.
And the same to you. Hopefully we can find other things to discuss in the future. You never know we might even find something we agree on 🙂
But they are still only aware of their own narrow local environment.
But you haven’t said whether or not you agree that this maturation also involves consciousness moving to higher levels.
To believe them because they say so would be to defeat the object. I gain nothing by unjustified belief. I can only make progress through my own effort. And unjustified belief is as harmful to this progress as criticising without knowing the necessary facts.
As I have often repeated, we can only try to follow the aphorism “know thyself”.
And I totally agree and have said previously that there are animals that far outclass humans in specific areas. If you so wish you can pick any animal you like, make a list of all that you think it is aware of and we will compare it to what we can agree the average human is aware of.
Maybe we can agree on one thing. There is vastly more to reality than any earthly creature, including humans, have awareness of.
What you call a narrow field is any organisms physical reality if they are present in that environment. Musings about spiral galaxies aren’t much help in achieving many ‘things’ non-human organisms can do that humans cannot. Obviously, our ability to manipulate our environment, in a landscape-wide fashion, has been a boon to us and is beyond the capabilities of other animals. However, it also has its drawbacks.
For you, it seems, the ability to think the way we think equates to a higher awareness of our physical reality. The things you list, i.e., water, oxygen, hydrogen, sprial galaxies, etc, are part of the collective knowledge of people. That is fine but the collective knowledge of humans isn’t contained in any one individual. The bell curve covers the gamet from the most ignorant to the astoundingly brilliant. We have pretty much minimal to zero knowledge of what other organisms are thinking. What awareness of their physical reality does a marine mammal have that elude the average human? Is it greater and/or equal to the awareness the human has of physical sciences, e.g., astronomy, chemistry? Is it even possible to make the comparison? I say we cannot make that comparison based on a criteria of awareness of their physical reality.
We know fish can, and do, work cooperatively with other species in cooperative hunting ventures. The animals are 5X more successful cooperatively hunting than hunting as individuals. What level of awareness does it take to develop a ‘language’ that individuals of different species understand let alone implimenting that language in a cooperatively hunting scenario? We don’t know.
We don’t know what those animals think, are thinking, or have thought about. We, or at least I, assume that we tihnk different things than other creatures and so far we have little idea of what they are thinking let alone what ‘awareness of their physical reality’ they experience compared to us.
When I climb a ladder, my consciousness moves to higher levels.
When I get off the ladder, it goes back to lower levels.
Or, in short, you use the expression “higher levels” without giving any indication what it might mean. You are spewing BS, but it makes you feel good to do so.
So humans are the highest form of life for our superior awareness… but we can only know ourselves? 😕
Indeed I remember nothing about that period including at what “level of awareness” I was operating. Nevertheless, I think I can see what you’re driving at. I maintain that this is something very different from your Gandhi versus Pol Pot example, which I took to address moral development. This is also very, very different from interspecies differences in cognitive abilities.
Overall, I am getting the impression that a “higher form of existence” is the term you use for everything you aspire to plus the kitchen sink. That’s fine, just don’t expect people to understand what you mean from a handful of wishy-washy metaphors.
You are also higher evolved then.
This human awareness you speak of needs a bit of unpacking. Individual persons may be aware of more things than an individual dog, but a major reason for that is that a person is usually part of a human civilisation and, through learning and education, posseses a body of knowledge vastly greater than they would ever have been able to collect on their own. In a way, a persons awareness is the combination of his own individual awareness and the cumulative awareness of millions of others, acquired over thousands of years.
Where humans got a clear edge is in having developed systems to record and retrieve information and experience, allowing them to accumulate vast amounts of knowledge that they can tap into when needed. A dog has to figure out most things on its own.
Perhaps individual humans are more like ants, individually most of the time not all that significant, but collectively capable of building vast structures, physically and in the case of humans, intellectually too.
And yes, obviously there are many things we are not aware of. Trying to figure out more is a never-ending pursuit.
Maybe so to some extent. But the processes could be explained in a way that the average adult would have understanding. Try explaining this to a dog.
And this lead me to think about the individuality of humans compared to other animals. Our ability to learn, the knowledge we acquire, the skills we develop, has a distribution which means that our individuality is much more pronounced than other creatures.
You may be correct, but only if the prevailing understanding of evolution is also correct. The problem is that sometimes belief in the wider theory influences the range of options available to the believer in the theory regarding the explanations of what is observed. If the theory claims that evolution has no progressive direction then we could be considered to have disregarded the theory by placing one species above another. And we might be in danger of placing so much faith in the theory that no matter what we observe we feel a necessity to make the observation fit the theory.
That’s true. But the dog remains mostly within the perception Whereas humans have the ability to link perceptions with concepts which add meaning and give us a much greater understanding of the objects of perception. Concepts give us a higher awareness and understanding of reality compared to creatures who go no further than linking one perception with another without the need of concepts..
Absolutely!I think the more precise terminology would be ‘confirmation bias’.
Yes I’ll admit to having confirmation bias to some extent. This is one of the challenges I am obliged to overcome.
I’m talking about knowledge and awareness not utility.
Yes it does have its drawbacks. The problem being our technological prowess far exceeds our wisdom.
And this difference you highlight between us and other animals is a major one. Other animals remain creatures while we are creatures who are becoming more and more creators. Our technology is applied thinking. Even if every mammal and bird had thinking abilities on a par with humans, none of them have the physical attributes and communication skills equivalent to that of humans. And these skill and attributes are necessary to produce anything like the technologies produced by humans. This requires a combination of advanced nervous systems to enable keen observation and thinking, something equivalent to the breathing system and vocal chords of humans to allow sophisticated communication, and the equivalent of human hands to allow for the dexterity needed to manipulate materials. Three attributes such as these need to be present in harmonious relationships to create on a par with human creations. One sided development of any of these attributes will not suffice.
What about a sponge? Do you believe that sponges think? Would you say that human consciousness allows us to have a greater knowledge of reality than sponges? Would you say that consciousness has evolved in line with the evolution of nervous systems and their accompanying sense organs? Or do you not believe that there is a correlation between nervous systems and consciousness?
I don’t want you to feel obliged to answer these questions, all I ask is you at least think about them.
What about them? More prudent is why gloss over examples, i.e., fish communicating with other species of fish for cooperative hunting ventures, to jump to sponges?
Then you readily admit to having fooled your self (something we all do at some level) the question is do you ‘know yourself’ well enough to recognize ALL the instances fo confirmation bias and how they may lead you erroniously astray. This attribute of your presentations has been pointed out to you repeatedly but apparently to little fruition.
True enough, we don’t know what it’s like “to be a” dolphin. Their behaviour tells us that they are highly intelligent. Your use of the phrase “their physical reality” brings up a few questions. Is there an objective physical reality with regards to which “their” refers to the portion of it that they perceive? Is our physical reality different to “their physical reality? Now different is it?
One thing we do know is that they do not have the benefit of technology to enhance perception. Humans have that advantage. By the means of our inventiveness we have been able to vastly increase the range of our perceptions. The same cannot be said of marine mammals.
Well we do know that we can and do enter their environment in order to study it. Something which they cannot reciprocate.
I wrote in response to a post by Kantian Naturalist
I would say that this gives some indication of what I mean by levels of consciousness. I’m sure everyone who participates here know of different levels from personal experience.
Charlie, you interjected ‘awareness of physical reality’ into the conversation. Instead of asking me what it means why not expalin what it means to you. Others have also asked for clarification from you on the topic.
Do we study it from ‘their’ perspective or ‘ours’? Is it possible to study ‘it’ from the organisms perspective? While we might be able to detect some of the same things other organsisms detect does it mean the same to us as to them?
Back so soon 🙂
Where did you get the impression that we can only know ourselves? There is a saying, to know ourselves we must study the world, to know the world we must study ourselves.
Your example seem to contrast what we would not consider conscious with what we would consider conscious. There’s no hint of levels there.
I cannot recall any personal experience of not being conscious.
I have no objection to the idea that there are different degrees or kinds of consciousness. I recommend Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy for those who enjoy working their way through a text. I’m sure Thompson has all sorts of video lectures on line. I’ll be teaching some of it in my philosophy of mind class this spring.