Archive for Consciousness

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

June 21, 2013 Consciousness, Evolution No comments

I attended a conference last weekend dedicated to the goal of creating an “immortal” version of a human being by transferring our “mind,” or possibly our brains as well, into an android by 2045. The conference was called GF2045. The GF stands for Global Future. The Russian who created the conference, Dmitry Itskov, did a good job of bringing together a lot of diverse people from the forefront of futurism, brain research, robotics and spirituality/religion, including Peter Diamandis, Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil, Dr. Stuart Hameroff, Dr. Roger Penrose, and Dr. George Church, though some appeared via a canned video presentation.

It seems that there is still a wide variance of opinion about what constitutes the mind and what it means to be human? Age-old questions persist. Does consciousness arise from the biological mechanisms of the brain or does it simply reside there while the body is alive? Can we be human with a replacement body?

Some presented research showing that we should be able to repair damaged parts of the brain with replacement circuitry. Others thought that computers would soon be sophisticated enough to mimic human intelligence. Others saw it as a no-brainer (pun intended) that someday an individual’s consciousness could reside in something other than our original human birth bodies.

But nobody, in my opinion, got to the root of what it means to be human—what characteristics of consciousness we all share and what motivates us to make “progress.” Death was the problem that the conference was trying solve. The operative assumption was that we’d be better off if we could all live forever and that we had to take control over our own evolution to get there.

I’m not sure that should be our goal. Where we put our energy determines the results we will get. I’m of the opinion that we have much more pressing issues to solve than human mortality. How about we aspire to not killing each other before we try living forever.

Fear

January 6, 2011 Congress, Consciousness, Economics, Politics, Republicans, Values, Wealth One comment

Now that the new Republican Congress is off and running, I’m becoming more fearful about the planet’s future prospects. As arguably the world’s most dominant economic power, the policies our Congress enacts affect the whole world. The faulty, incoherent, non-rational belief system of the new Republican majority cannot possibly lead to positive results. Only the wealthy will benefit from their policies. The rest of the world’s population will suffer.

So how do progressives—who believe in a more balanced, rational, caring application of our collective knowledge to reduce human suffering—counter this onslaught of self-righteous lunacy? I wish I had an easy answer. But I know the solution involves the reframing of our politics to a more empathetic, HumansTogether attitude that focuses on what we have in common and not on how we disagree. That is the mission of this site.

Fortunately, I believe that there is an increasing awareness that we need this refocusing. Many of the people in my social circle understand that a system based on creating wealth for the few and hardship for the masses is not sustainable. I believe there is a yearning a new kind of idealism and a revaluing of what is important in life away from the purely materialistic.

I also believe that once people start paying attention to the way this Congress behaves, many will recognize their transparent hypocrisy, irrationality and incompetence. But politics is now being driven by entrenched emotions, enflamed by a mass media that makes more money when there is conflict.

The ideal antidote to would be a new sixties movement—a massive rejection of the current value which favors wealth over well-being. This would be a movement based on consciousness raisin; a movement based on peace, love and understanding. What’s so funny about that?

Love is Wise

December 29, 2010 Consciousness, Economics, Emotional Energy, Politics, Values No comments

From a friend’s Facebook post, I saw a video of Bertrand Russell giving advice to people who might see the tape in 1000 years. His quote was “Love is wise, hatred is foolish.” What a great thing to live by—something that should be taught as the basis of all moral teaching. The Golden Rule is a corollary to this statement.

One might also conclude: “love is positive, hatred is negative,” or “love is positive emotional energy, hatred is negative emotional energy.” This is in line with a metaphor I’ve been thinking about lately that I think is very powerful as a guide to human activity: humans are emotional energy batteries. We store the emotional energy we receive and generate that emotional energy back to the world.

So if kids receive a lot of negative emotional energy in their formative years they transmit this negativity back as dysfunctional adults. If kids receive a lot of positive emotional energy they also tend to reflect that back as successful adults. Of course, there may be a genetic component that helps determine whether people are generators of positive or negative emotional energy. But regardless of a person’s innate orientation, negativity begets negativity and positivity begets positivity.

That’s why wars seldom solve things, particularly when the negative energy of violence does not have a clear target. WWII presented a clear evil with a mad dictator directing a well-defined, military entity. In the kind of wars we’re fighting now, the negative energy of violence is much more likely to create stored negative energy in a population than to curb future violence.

At some level our civilian and military leaders understand this, which is why there is an emphasis on building schools and stabile, secure areas in Afghanistan where people can live their lives without the negative energy of fear and violence. But our bombs often create more negative energy than can be overcome by other positive acts. And our fundamentalist enemies are big time negative energy generators.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives has a better solution.

“The NSP wants advanced industrial countries of the world to use their resources to eliminate once and for all global and domestic, poverty, homelessness, and hunger; provide quality education and health care for all; and repair the global environment. As an initial commitment, we want the U.S. to donate at least 1-2% of its Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty years, in the form of a Global Marshall Plan (GMP).”

The link is here: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php/gmp_one. This would certainly be following a wise policy as defined by Bertrand Russell.

We Need a HumansTogether Understanding

December 27, 2010 Consciousness, Global Ecosystem, Politics, Values No comments

A lot has happened politically since the last post. The goal for 2011 is to make this a much more active blog. I am more convinced than ever that unless the humans on this planet come to understand that underneath our different looks, locales, and beliefs, we are all the same species. And as a species, we need to pull together to avert the coming environmental disaster. If we don’t, there will be a tremendous increase in suffering for almost all of us.

Achieving a HumansTogether understanding involves promoting our core empathetic nature as a species. Promoting our cooperative nature over our competitive nature has a political component. Neither the Democratic or Republican parties are framing a solution based on a HumansTogether vision. In fact, Republicans are marching aggressively in the exact wrong direction.

Yet I remain optimistic. A few months back I read an interview with legendary historian Lawrence Goodwyn on Obama, the larger currents in our political life, and the possibility of a rebirth in our democratic culture. I share his belief that:

“it will become increasingly transparent in the coming year that the politics of the GOP is absolutely incoherent. Much of the Republican tent is simply flapping in the breeze behind a cascade of public lies. As it now presents itself, the so-called party of conservatism has nothing to bring to the economic crisis except demagogy. So long-term despair is unwarranted for Democrats. They need to harness their poise and undertake to be politically creative not just right now but for the next six years.”

Here is the link to the entire article: http://www.alternet.org/news/148582/lawrence_goodwyn%3A_the_great_predicament_facing_obama/

In the meantime, remember that we as humans all need to recognize that:

  • We are all imperfect,
  • At the core level we are all the same, and
  • In the long run, we are all in the same fragile planetary ecosystem.

Driven by Fear

August 18, 2010 Consciousness, Energy, Politics, Uncategorized, Values No comments

In a previous blog, I talked about positive and negative freedom—how progressives are more apt to promote the freedom to and conservatives seem more oriented toward freedom from. For example, the freedom to get married for gays and the freedom from government intrusion for business owners.

But perhaps a stronger way to show the difference between conservative and progressive ideology is to think about positive and negative emotional energy. Negative emotional energy is fear, hate, insecurity, greed, exclusion and a rigid set of beliefs. Positive emotional energy is hope, love, sharing, community, inclusion, and open-minded critical thinking. As one who is solidly in the latter camp, it seems pretty obvious which ideology is positive and which is negative.

Conservatives, Republicans and Tea Partiers all seem to be driven by fear: fear of immigrants, fear of government, fear of terrorists, fear of gays, fear of their tax money being given to the poor who didn’t work for it. They have a totally erroneous belief that the world consists of isolated individuals, some who are deserving—themselves and the wealthy—and some who are not—anyone not like them or poor. They don’t realize no human being is an island and that we’re all connected.

As pointed out in an excellent Alternet.org article (link below), de Tocqueville observed about the distinctive American mentality more than 150 years ago, “Such folk owe no man anything and hardly expect anything from anybody. They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus, not only does democracy make men forget their ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.” [from http://tinyurl.com/29r2x3r]

Human progress is marked by successive expansions of the community of man, such as the abolition of slavery, the expansion of civil and womens’ rights, and an understanding that we all share one planet. Conservatives are desperately resisting this expansion of consciousness. They seem determined to hang on to views that are not consistent with progress, views motivated by the negative emotional energy of fear.

This site is about promoting an understanding that beneath each individual’s beliefs is a human who needs as much positive, supportive, and respectful emotional energy as possible. May hope, critical thinking and community, triumph over fear, rigidity, and greed. One can be optimistic because that is the general trend of historical progress. But we are entering a time of hardship, and fear is an unfortunate, negative, but natural human response. It will take more than hope for continued human progress and a more global species consciousness to evolve.

The Vision Thing

May 4, 2010 Communication, Consciousness, Evolution, Politics, Values No comments

Those of you who are as old as I am may remember that when George H. W. Bush ran against Bill Clinton in 1992, there was talk that he lacked “the vision thing.” Bush was accused of running as a competent manager, rather than someone who had a grand philosophical vision of where the country should go. At least that’s how I remember it.

Clinton’s “I feel your pain” turned out to be a better message than George Bush Sr.’s “I know what I’m doing.” But in truth, neither candidate then, and none of the candidates today, really have the vision thing. The best that can be said is that every four years we have a choice between two opposing philosophies of governance. And both philosophies operate within fairly narrow agreed-upon parameters.

Nowhere, for example, is there a politician who says that he has a vision for how human beings should all live together on the planet—a vision for where evolution is taking us. Politicians don’t even really speak in terms of a global vision. It’s still the U.S. vs. China, or the West vs. the Third World, or the rich vs. the poor.

So it is left to philosophers and activists and NGOs and academic commissions to promote the vision of how all people of the world can live together in peace, harmony and physical security. The shift to a global consciousness is already starting to occur among—dare I say—intellectuals. Articulating this vision in a way that is simple and powerful enough to gain traction in popular culture is the mission of HumansTogether. Despite clear evidence that no one is paying attention yet, I am confident that they will.

Empathy and Compassion

April 20, 2010 Consciousness, Evolution, Politics, Values One comment

Based on what I’ve been reading lately, specifically The Empathetic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin, human beings have evolved into highly empathetic creatures. In fact, an individual’s well-being is highly dependent on the successful transmission of empathy from the mother, or other primary caregiver, to the child. The whole notion that people are driven solely by self-interest turns out not to be true.

I’m only a little way through the book but so far his over 600-page scholarly treatise seems to be providing an extremely well reasoned and well researched case to support what I call “species consciousness.” Rifkin calls it “biosphere consciousness.” The point is that we must identify ourselves with all of humanity on a planetary basis if we are to avoid global catastrophe.

From empathy to compassion is a short side trip. That’s where the Charter for Compassion [http://charterforcompassion.org/] comes in. This site/organization/movement bases its call for global togetherness on the Golden Rule, which it says is at the center of every great religion and spiritual practice.

Rifkin’s book and the Charter for Compassion are part of a growing global meme that we must become one humanity, that we must act as “HumansTogether.” To do this we must first scrape away the layers of cynicism and pessimism we have acquired through our lives and recognize that we and others are fundamentally not “just looking out for number one.”

We must examine the evidence and recognize that we are instead highly social creatures who at our core are much more about compassion and empathy than greed and selfishness. It may take a little digging, but the evidence is there. It just doesn’t get any press. But as Rifkin points out, the only reason our worst behaviors are featured on the news is that they are unusual. Most of the world is actually the opposite of the news, full of loving, concerned people who want to work together to help everyone.

Consciousness Precedes Reality

March 30, 2010 Consciousness, Evolution 4 comments

For years I’ve had this idea about the ultimate nature of reality: consciousness precedes reality. As I’m not a philosopher (yet), I wasn’t exactly sure what that really meant. My conception of it was that reality as we know it requires humans to know it. Without human consciousness, reality looks very different. What is reality to a fly, a kangaroo, or a tuna? Certainly not the reality we know.

Now, in an interview in the most recent issue (Spring/Summer 2010) of the unbelievably great magazine EnlightenNext, consciousness researcher Stuart Hameroff, MD, puts forth a theory that a “fundamental field of protoconscious experience has been embedded all along—since the big bang…”

According to Hameroff, other renowned thinkers such as Betrand Russell, William James, and Baruch Spinoza, have put forth this same basic theory, known as neutral monism. “Neutral monism says that there’s one common underlying entity that gives rise to, on the one hand, matter, and on the other hand, mind.”

So even though I never read any of those philosophers, I had the same intuitive sense of the universe; the notion that reality is a transactional process between matter and mind. Perhaps we are necessary for the protoconsciousness embedded in the universe to manifest, just as humans are a particular configuration of the same sub-atomic particles that make up everything else in the 4% – 5% of universe we live in—the part that isn’t dark matter or dark energy. Or maybe protoconsciousness is part of dark matter and dark energy that doesn’t yet exist for us, because we haven’t yet gotten our minds around it.

Evolutionary Afflatus

January 27, 2010 Consciousness, Evolution, Uncategorized No comments

Afflatus means, roughly, divine inspiration. Evolution is the divine purpose of the universe. And humans are the best the universe has done so far in terms of being conscious of itself—at least the most conscious that living things on this planet are ever likely to become aware of.

In a talk this weekend (01/24/10), Andrew Cohen, spiritual teacher and founder of the outstanding magazine EnlightenNext, explained his belief that whatever divinity decided to suddenly create something out of an eternity of nothing 14 billion years ago when the big bang occurred is the still the conscious driving force of the cosmos.

What the hell am I talking about? Well, think about it. In the vast expanse of time since the known universe was created, humans beings are the most conscious forms of life that exist. We are aware of ourselves and the universe we live in. We are aware of being aware.

Even if the whole shebang is the result of random interactions of organic chemicals taking their own course, and consciousness arises out of the complexity of the human brain, we still possess the highest form of consciousness that has yet emerged. It’s as if the point of the entire 14 billion years of development was to produce human beings.

How can I conclude this? It is simply true that we are more aware than any other living beings on the planet, (assuming that all of the other creatures aren’t in some sort of telepathic communication ala Avatar).

So, given that humans are the only creatures that can be said to have a drive to create something new, to add to the collective conscious and deliberately create progress, it makes perfect sense that that drive is an evolutionary impulse that started at the big bang. And the more that we awaken to the fact that our purpose on this planet, in addition to procreating, is to create something new that contributes to the cosmic awareness, the more authentic and fulfilled our lives will become.

I find it downright inspiring to think that the creative flame I feel is the afflatus of evolution. It’s those who are most tuned in to this afflatus that drive progress, that advance mankind, that raise human consciousness to ever greater heights.

A sixties saying, if I remember correctly, used to be “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” An-o-tens saying should be “Tune in, turn on, blast off.”