“After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport and learned it in the RUA [the Algiers Racing University football team].”

– Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. Wikipedia

I’m reading this lovely book and it’s changing my constructs’, wow so revealing and very exciting to say the least.

I’m all over the area, Partridges origins’ dictionary, metaphysical Bible dictionary, and the Bible. For instance in Genesis 1:1 , In the beginning God created the heavens (first) interesting, and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness-(unfulfilled categories) was over the surface of the deep, (unfulfilled categories, creation), and the Spirit, (notice the capitol letter)of God,( Truth, Syllogistic saturation,Translation), was hovering over the surface of the waters’ , of creation. Interesting how there is a quantitative valuation of unfulfilled categories, yet to be, fulfilled. A thought for thinking, considering, meditation. Thank you. Aloha.

“We have seen advances in every aspect of our lives — except our humanity.”

— Luma Mufleh (born March 1, 1975) is founder and director of Fugees Family, Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to working with child survivors of war. Mufleh founded Fugees Family in 2006 and is currently head coach of the Fugees soccer teams. Wikipedia

Annual address of the president of the American Historical Association, delivered at Minneapolis, December 29, 1931. From the American Historical Review 37, no. 2, p. 221–36

Everyman His Own Historian

I.

Once upon a time, long long ago, I learned how to reduce a fraction to its lowest terms. Whether I could still perform that operation is uncertain; but the discipline involved in early training had its uses, since it taught me that in order to understand the essential nature of anything it is well to strip it of all superficial and irrelevant accretions—in short, to reduce it to its lowest terms. That operation I now venture, with some apprehension and all due apologies, to perform on the subject of history.

I ought first of all to explain that when I use the term history I mean knowledge of history. No doubt throughout all past time there actually occurred a series of events which, whether we know what it was or not, constitutes history in some ultimate sense. Nevertheless, much the greater part of these events we can know nothing about, not even that they occurred; many of them we can know only imperfectly; and even the few events that we think we know for sure we can never be absolutely certain of, since we can never revive them, never observe or test them directly. The event itself once occurred, but as an actual event it has disappeared; so that in dealing with it the only objective reality we can observe or test is some material trace which the event has left—usually a written document. With these traces of vanished events, these documents, we must be content since they are all we have; from them we infer what the event was, we affirm that it is a fact that the event was so and so. We do not say “Lincoln is assassinated”; we say “it is a fact that Lincoln was assassinated.” The event was, but is no longer; it is only the affirmed fact about the event that is, that persists, and will persist until we discover that our affirmation is wrong or inadequate. Let us then admit that there are two histories: the actual series of events that once occurred; and the ideal series that we affirm and hold in memory. The first is absolute and unchanged—it was what it was whatever we do or say about it; the second is relative, always changing in response to the increase or refinement of knowledge. The two series correspond more or less, it is our aim to make the correspondence as exact as possible; but the actual series of events exists for us only in terms of the ideal series which we affirm and hold in memory. This is why I am forced to identify history with knowledge of history. For all practical purposes history is, for us and for the time being, what we know it to be.

It is history in this sense that I wish to reduce to its lowest terms. In order to do that I need a very simple definition. I once read that “History is the knowledge of events that have occurred in the past.” That is a simple definition, but not simple enough. It contains three words that require examination. The first is knowledge. Knowledge is a formidable word. I always think of knowledge as something that is stored up in the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Summa Theologica; something difficult to acquire, something at all events that I have not. Resenting a definition that denies me the title of historian, I therefore ask what is most essential to knowledge. Well, memory, I should think (and I mean memory in the broad sense, the memory of events inferred as well as the memory of events observed); other things are necessary too, but memory is fundamental: without memory no knowledge. So our definition becomes, “History is the memory of events that have occurred in the past.” But events—the word carries an implication of something grand, like the taking of the Bastille or the Spanish-American War. An occurrence need not be spectacular to be an event. If I drive a motor car down the crooked streets of Ithaca, that is an event—something done; if the traffic cop bawls me out, that is an event—something said; if I have evil thoughts of him for so doing, that is an event—something thought. In truth anything done, said, or thought is an event, important or not as may turn out. But since we do not ordinarily speak without thinking, at least in some rudimentary way, and since the psychologists tell us that we can not think without speaking, or at least not without having anticipatory vibrations in the larynx, we may well combine thought events and speech events under one term; and so our definition becomes, “History is the memory of things said and done in the past.” But the past—the word is both misleading and unnecessary: misleading, because the past, used in connection with history, seems to imply the distant past, as if history ceased before we were born; unnecessary, because after all everything said or done is already in the past as soon as it is said or done. Therefore I will omit that word, and our definition becomes, “History is the memory of things said and done.” This is a definition that reduces history to its lowest terms, and yet includes everything that is essential to understanding what it really is.

If the essence of history is the memory of things said and done, then it is obvious that every normal person, Mr. Everyman, knows some history. Of course we do what we can to conceal this invidious truth. Assuming a professional manner, we say that so and so knows no history, when we mean no more than that he failed to pass the examinations set for a higher degree; and simple-minded persons, undergraduates and others, taken in by academic classifications of knowledge, think they know no history because they have never taken a course in history in college, or have never read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. No doubt the academic convention has its uses, but it is one of the superficial accretions that must be stripped off if we would understand history reduced to its lowest terms. Mr. Everyman, as well as you and I, remembers things said and done, and must do so at every waking moment. Suppose Mr. Everyman to have awakened this morning unable to remember anything said or done. He would be a lost soul indeed. This has happened, this sudden loss of all historical knowledge. But normally it does not happen. Normally the memory of Mr. Everyman, when he awakens in the morning, reaches out into the country of the past and of distant places and instantaneously recreates his little world of endeavor, pulls together as it were things said and done in his yesterdays, and coordinates them with his present perceptions and with things to be said and done in his to-morrows. Without this historical knowledge, this memory of things said and done, his to-day would be aimless and his to-morrow without significance.

Since we are concerned with history in its lowest terms, we will suppose that Mr. Everyman is not a professor of history, but just an ordinary citizen without excess knowledge. Not having a lecture to prepare, his memory of things said and done, when he awakened this morning, presumably did not drag into consciousness any events connected with the Liman von Sanders mission or the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals; it presumably dragged into consciousness an image of things said and done yesterday in the office, the highly significant fact that General Motors had dropped three points, a conference arranged for ten o’clock in the morning, a promise to play nine holes at four-thirty in the afternoon, and other historical events of similar import. Mr. Everyman knows more history than this, but at the moment of awakening this is sufficient: memory of things said and done, history functioning, at seven-thirty in the morning, in its very lowest terms, has effectively oriented Mr. Everyman in his little world of endeavor.

Yet not quite effectively after all perhaps; for unaided memory is notoriously fickle; and it may happen that Mr. Everyman, as he drinks his coffee, is uneasily aware of something said or done that he fails now to recall. A common enough occurrence, as we all know to our sorrow—this remembering, not the historical event, but only that there was an event which we ought to remember but can not. This is Mr. Everyman’s difficulty, a bit of history lies dead and inert in the sources, unable to do any work for Mr. Everyman because his memory refuses to bring it alive in consciousness. What then does Mr. Everyman do? He does what any historian would do: he does a bit of historical research in the sources. From his little Private Record Office (I mean his vest pocket) he takes a book in MS., volume XXXV. it may be, and turns to page 23, and there he reads: “December 29, pay Smith’s coal bill, 20 tons, $1017.20.” Instantaneously a series of historical events comes to life in Mr. Everyman’s mind. He has an image of himself ordering twenty tons of coal from Smith last summer, of Smith’s wagons driving up to his house, and of the precious coal sliding dustily through the cellar window. Historical events, these are, not so important as the forging of the Isidorian Decretals, but still important to Mr. Everyman: historical events which he was not present to observe, but which, by an artificial extension of memory, he can form a clear picture of, because he has done a little original research in the manuscripts preserved in his Private Record Office.

The picture Mr. Everyman forms of Smith’s wagons delivering the coal at his house is a picture of things said and done in the past. But it does not stand alone, it is not a pure antiquarian image to be enjoyed for its own sake; on the contrary, it is associated with a picture of things to be said and done in the future; so that throughout the day Mr. Everyman intermittently holds in mind, together with a picture of Smith’s coal wagons, a picture of himself going at four o’clock in the afternoon to Smith’s office in order to pay his bill. At four o’clock Mr. Everyman is accordingly at Smith’s office. “I wish to pay that coal bill,” he says. Smith looks dubious and disappointed, takes down a ledger (or a filing case), does a bit of original research in his Private Record Office, and announces: “You don’t owe me any money, Mr. Everyman. You ordered the coal here all right, but I didn’t have the kind you wanted, and so turned the order over to Brown. It was Brown delivered your coal: he’s the man you owe.” Whereupon Mr. Everyman goes to Brown’s office; and Brown takes down a ledger, does a bit of original research in his Private Record Office, which happily confirms the researches of Smith; and Mr. Everyman pays his bill, and in the evening, after returning from the Country Club, makes a further search in another collection of documents, where, sure enough, he finds a bill from Brown, properly drawn, for twenty tons of stove coal, $1017.20. The research is now completed. Since his mind rests satisfied, Mr. Everyman has found the explanation of the series of events that concerned him.

Mr. Everyman would be astonished to learn that he is an historian, yet it is obvious, isn’t it, that he has performed all the essential operations involved in historical research. Needing or wanting to do something (which happened to be, not to deliver a lecture or write a book, but to pay a bill; and this is what misleads him and us as to what he is really doing), the first step was to recall things said and done. Unaided memory proving inadequate, a further step was essential—the examination of certain documents in order to discover the necessary but as yet unknown facts. Unhappily the documents were found to give conflicting reports, so that a critical comparison of the texts had to be instituted in order to eliminate error. All this having been satisfactorily accomplished, Mr. Everyman is ready for the final operation—the formation in his mind, by an artificial extension of memory, of a picture, a definitive picture let us hope, of a selected series of historical events—of himself ordering coal from Smith, of Smith turning the order over to Brown, and of Brown delivering the coal at his house. In the light of this picture Mr. Everyman could, and did, pay his bill. If Mr. Everyman had undertaken these researches in order to write a book instead of to pay a bill, no one would think of denying that he was an historian.

II.

I have tried to reduce history to its lowest terms, first by defining it as the memory of things said and done, second by showing concretely how the memory of things said and done is essential to the performance of the simplest acts of daily life. I wish now to note the more general implications of Mr. Everyman’s activities. In the realm of affairs Mr. Everyman has been paying his coal bill; in the realm of consciousness he has been doing that fundamental thing which enables man alone to have, properly speaking, a history: he has been reenforcing and enriching his immediate perceptions to the end that he may live in a world of semblance more spacious and satisfying than is to be found within the narrow confines of the fleeting present moment.

We are apt to think of the past as dead, the future as nonexistent, the present alone as real; and prematurely wise or disillusioned counselors have urged us to burn always with “a hard, gemlike flame” in order to give “the highest quality to the moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” This no doubt is what the glowworm does; but I think that man, who alone is properly aware that the present moment passes, can for that very reason make no good use of the present moment simply for its own sake. Strictly speaking, the present doesn’t exist for us, or is at best no more than an infinitesimal point in time, gone before we can note it as present. Nevertheless, we must have a present; and so we create one by robbing the past, by holding on to the most recent events and pretending that they all belong to our immediate perceptions. If, for example, I raise my arm, the total event is a series of occurrences of which the first are past before the last have taken place; and yet you perceive it as a single movement executed in one present instant. This telescoping of successive events into a single instant philosophers call the “specious present.” Doubtless they would assign rather narrow limits to the specious present; but I will willfully make a free use of it, and say that we can extend the specious present as much as we like. In common speech we do so: we speak of the “present hour,” the “present year,” the “present generation.” Perhaps all living creatures have a specious present; but man has this superiority, as Pascal says, that he is aware of himself and the universe, can as it were hold himself at arm’s length and with some measure of objectivity watch himself and his fellows functioning in the world during a brief span of allotted years. Of all the creatures, man alone has a specious present that may be deliberately and purposefully enlarged and diversified and enriched.

The extent to which the specious present may thus be enlarged and enriched will depend upon knowledge, the artificial extension of memory, the memory of things said and done in the past and distant places. But not upon knowledge alone; rather upon knowledge directed by purpose. The specious present is an unstable pattern of thought, incessantly changing in response to our immediate perceptions and the purposes that arise therefrom. At any given moment each one of us (professional historian no less than Mr. Everyman) weaves into this unstable pattern such actual or artificial memories as may be necessary to orient us in our little world of endeavor. But to be oriented in our little world of endeavor we must be prepared for what is coming to us (the payment of a coal bill, the delivery of a presidential address, the establishment of a League of Nations, or whatever); and to be prepared for what is coming to us it is necessary, not only to recall certain past events, but to anticipate (note I do not say predict) the future. Thus from the specious present, which always includes more or less of the past, the future refuses to be excluded; and the more of the past we drag into the specious present, the more an hypothetical, patterned future is likely to crowd into it also. Which comes first, which is cause and which effect, whether our memories construct a pattern of past events at the behest of our desires and hopes, or whether our desires and hopes spring from a pattern of past events imposed upon us by experience and knowledge, I shall not attempt to say. What I suspect is that memory of past and anticipation of future events work together, go hand in hand as it were in a friendly way, without disputing over priority and leadership.

At all events they go together, so that in a very real sense it is impossible to divorce history from life: Mr. Everyman can not do what he needs or desires to do without recalling past events; he can not recall past events without in some subtle fashion relating them to what he needs or desires to do. This is the natural function of history, of history reduced to its lowest terms, of history conceived as the memory of things said and done: memory of things said and done (whether in our immediate yesterdays or in the long past of mankind), running hand in hand with the anticipation of things to be said and done, enables us, each to the extent of his knowledge and imagination, to be intelligent, to push back the narrow confines of the fleeting present moment so that what we are doing may be judged in the light of what we have done and what we hope to do. In this sense all living history, as Croce says, is contemporaneous: in so far as we think the past (and otherwise the past, however fully related in documents, is nothing to us) it becomes an integral and living part of our present world of semblance.

It must then be obvious that living history, the ideal series of events that we affirm and hold in memory, since it is so intimately associated with what we are doing and with what we hope to do, can not be precisely the same for all at any given time, or the same for one generation as for another. History in this sense can not be reduced to a verifiable set of statistics or formulated in terms of universally valid mathematical formulas. It is rather an imaginative creation, a personal possession which each one of us, Mr. Everyman, fashions out of his individual experience, adapts to his practical or emotional needs, and adorns as well as may be to suit his aesthetic tastes. In thus creating his own history, there are, nevertheless, limits which Mr. Everyman may not overstep without incurring penalties. The limits are set by his fellows. If Mr. Everyman lived quite alone in an unconditioned world he would be free to affirm and hold in memory any ideal series of events that struck his fancy, and thus create a world of semblance quite in accord with the heart’s desire. Unfortunately, Mr. Everyman has to live in a world of Browns and Smiths; a sad experience, which has taught him the expediency of recalling certain events with much exactness. In all the immediately practical affairs of life Mr. Everyman is a good historian, as expert, in conducting the researches necessary for paying his coal bill, as need be. His expertness comes partly from long practice, but chiefly from the circumstance that his researches are prescribed and guided by very definite and practical objects which concern him intimately. The problem of what documents to consult, what facts to select, troubles Mr. Everyman not at all. Since he is not writing a book on “Some Aspects of the Coal Industry Objectively Considered,” it does not occur to him to collect all the facts and let them speak for themselves. Wishing merely to pay his coal bill, he selects only such facts as may be relevant; and not wishing to pay it twice, he is sufficiently aware, without ever having read Bernheim’s Lehrbuch, that the relevant facts must be clearly established by the testimony of independent witnesses not self-deceived. He does not know, or need to know, that his personal interest in the performance is a disturbing bias which will prevent him from learning the whole truth or arriving at ultimate causes. Mr. Everyman does not wish to learn the whole truth or to arrive at ultimate causes. He wishes to pay his coal bill. That is to say, he wishes to adjust himself to a practical situation, and on that low pragmatic level he is a good historian precisely because he is not disinterested: he will solve his problems, if he does solve them, by virtue of his intelligence and not by virtue of his indifference.

Nevertheless, Mr. Everyman does not live by bread alone; and on all proper occasions his memory of things said and done, easily enlarging his specious present beyond the narrow circle of daily affairs, will, must inevitably, in mere compensation for the intolerable dullness and vexation of the fleeting present moment, fashion for him a more spacious world than that of the immediately practical. He can readily recall the days of his youth, the places he has lived in, the ventures he has made, the adventures he has had—all the crowded events of a lifetime; and beyond and around this central pattern of personally experienced events, there will be embroidered a more dimly seen pattern of artificial memories, memories of things reputed to have been said and done in past times which he has not known, in distant places which he has not seen. This outer pattern of remembered events that encloses and completes the central pattern of his personal experience, Mr. Everyman has woven, he could not tell you how, out of the most diverse threads of information, picked up in the most casual way, from the most unrelated sources—from things learned at home and in school, from knowledge gained in business or profession, from newspapers glanced at, from books (yes, even history books) read or heard of, from remembered scraps of newsreels or educational films or ex cathedra utterances of presidents and kings, from fifteen-minute discourses on the history of civilization broadcast by the courtesy (it may be) of Pepsodent, the Bulova Watch Company, or the Shepard Stores in Boston. Daily and hourly, from a thousand unnoted sources, there is lodged in Mr. Everyman’s mind a mass of unrelated and related information and misinformation, of impressions and images, out of which he somehow manages, undeliberately for the most part, to fashion a history, a patterned picture of remembered things said and done in past times and distant places. It is not possible, it is not essential, that this picture should be complete or completely true: it is essential that it should be useful to Mr. Everyman; and that it may be useful to him he will hold in memory, of all the things he might hold in memory, those things only which can be related with some reasonable degree of relevance and harmony to his idea of himself and of what he is doing in the world and what he hopes to do.

In constructing this more remote and far-flung pattern of remembered things, Mr. Everyman works with something of the freedom of a creative artist; the history which he imaginatively recreates as an artificial extension of his personal experience will inevitably be an engaging blend of fact and fancy, a mythical adaptation of that which actually happened. In part it will be true, in part false; as a whole perhaps neither true nor false, but only the most convenient form of error. Not that Mr. Everyman wishes or intends to deceive himself or others. Mr. Everyman has a wholesome respect for cold, hard facts, never suspecting how malleable they are, how easy it is to coax and cajole them; but he necessarily takes the facts as they come to him, and is enamored of those that seem best suited to his interests or promise most in the way of emotional satisfaction. The exact truth of remembered events he has in any case no time, and no need, to curiously question or meticulously verify. No doubt he can, if he be an American, call up an image of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 as readily as he can call up an image of Smith’s coal wagons creaking up the hill last summer. He suspects the one image no more than the other; but the signing of the Declaration, touching not his practical interests, calls for no careful historical research on his part. He may perhaps, without knowing why, affirm and hold in memory that the Declaration was signed by the members of the Continental Congress on the fourth of July. It is a vivid and sufficient image which Mr. Everyman may hold to the end of his days without incurring penalties. Neither Brown nor Smith has any interest in setting him right; nor will any court ever send him a summons for failing to recall that the Declaration, “being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed by the members” on the second of August. As an actual event, the signing of the Declaration was what it was; as a remembered event it will be, for Mr. Everyman, what Mr. Everyman contrives to make it: will have for him significance and magic, much or little or none at all, as it fits well or ill into his little world of interests and aspirations and emotional comforts.
Continue reading “Everyman His Own Historian” by Carl L. Becker, President of the American Historical Association →

IRENE:  A vacancy has appeared and you are going to fill it.

TOMMY:  Chosen by who?

IRENE:  By an informed consensus. Tommy looks at Irene and his look is deadly.

TOMMY:  Look, I have things to do. Perhaps you would tell the chosen one what he has been chosen for. Donal glances at the gun. He wants to shoot Tommy here and now for his defiance but Irene is in charge. Irene speaks softly….

IRENE:  From now on Mr Shelby you shut your fucking gypsy mouth and listen to your instructions.

(From “Peaky Blinders” (2013) Season Two, Episode 1.)

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, academic and politician, who served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015, when he resigned. Date: 15/06/2017

Russell Brand discusses with Yanis what happens when you take on the political, financial and media elite, and how radical reform can occur. Through accounts of his confrontations with the IMF, European institutions and the German government they examine where true power lies and how it is wielded.

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Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA; e-mail schafer@uark.edu.(2) Physics and Applied Mathematics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata 700108 India; e-mail: sisir@isical.ac.in

Abstract

We review some characteristic aspects of the metaphysics of quantum theory which lead in a remarkable way to a confluence of powerful traditions of Indian and European philosophy. The metaphysical aspects include 1) the discovery of a non-empirical part of physical reality in a realm of potentiality; 2) the emanation of the empirical world out of a realm of non-material forms; 3) the discovery that the nature of physical reality is that of an indivisible Wholeness – the One; and 4) panpsychism: the possibility that the One is aware of its processes like a Cosmic Consciousness. The convergence of powerful traditions of seemingly disparate cultures is particularly important to point out in the present process of globalization, when a unifying view is needed to avoid controversy and conflict. I. Introduction 20th Century Physics has shown that physical reality is not what it looks like. It is now possible to propose that the basis of the material world is non-material; that reality is an indivisible wholeness – the One; and that microphysical objects possess properties of consciousness in a rudimentary way. Indications are that the wholeness is aware of its processes, like a Cosmic Consciousness. Thus, physical reality is shot through with elements of consciousness at all levels, and physics has discovered a non-empirical part to physical reality. The first appearance of such aspects of reality within the framework of mechanistic and materialistic Western science was a surprise. In the Indian tradition they have been the basis for a comprehensive view of the world for a long time. As Sri Aurobindo described it (McDermott 2001, 39): “The teaching of Sri Aurobindo starts from that of the ancient sages of India: that behind the appearances of the universe there is a reality of a being and consciousness, a self of all things, one and eternal. All beings are united in that one self and spirit but divided by a certain separativity of consciousness, an ignorance of their true self and reality in the mind, life, and body.” In a globalized world it is important to focus on the similarities and kinship of different cultures to avoid controversy and conflict. It is the purpose of this paper to describe some of the connections that exist between contemporary Western science, Western philosophy, and traditional Indian thought.

II. Some characteristic aspects of quantum reality 1. The Basis of the Material World is Non-Material Erwin Schrödinger‟s quantum theory is currently the only theory, which allows one to calculate the properties of polyatomic molecules. In this theory the electrons in atoms and molecules are not tiny material particles, little balls, but standing waves, wave functions, numerical patterns, or mathematical forms. We owe to Max Born the discovery that the nature of these forms is that of probability waves or probability amplitudes. Probabilities are ratios of numbers. Thus, probability waves are empty; they carry no mass or energy, just information on numerical relations. Yet, all visible order in the universe is determined by the rules of their interference. Interference of the wave functions of atoms, for example, determines what kind of molecules can form and what kind of chemistry is possible. The interference of the wave functions of molecules, in turn, determines what intermolecular interactions are possible, including those, which, in living cells, are the basis of life. In this way we find numerical relations at the foundation of reality on which the order of the world is based. Reality is built on principles that transcend the monist materialist views of classical physics, which claimed that all phenomena can be reduced to the motion of material particles. In modern science this finding was unexpected, but new it is not: Pythagoras already thought, “all things are numbers” (Russell [1946] 1979, 54), and “the entire cosmos is harmony and number” (Hirschberger 1976, 1:25). Similarly, Plato believed that the real atoms are not material bodies but mathematical forms. Thus, the Western universe, once closed by Newton‟s materialism, has opened again. Cracks have opened to a different type of reality, and the world of mass-energy is not completely sealed any more: the basis of the material world is non-material. 2. Non–Locality: Reality has the Nature of an Indivisible Wholeness In the commonsense reality of our consciousness, no signal or influence can move at a speed faster than the speed of light. In contrast, in the quantum world, elementary entities can act without any delay and at long distances on each other. Under certain conditions, decisions made by an experimenter in one laboratory can have an instantaneous effect on the results of an experiment performed in another laboratory a long distance away. Two particles, which at one time interact and then move away from each another, can stay connected and act as though they were one thing, no matter how far apart they are. This is the nonlocality of the quantum world. Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau (1990) have drawn a remarkable conclusion from this phenomenon: If reality is nonlocal, the nature of the universe is that of an undivided wholeness. Because our consciousness has emerged from this wholeness and is part of it, it is possible to conclude that an element of consciousness is active in the universe: a Cosmic Consciousness. In this way contemporary physics has led many physicists (David Bohm [1980] 1981; Hans-Peter Dürr 2000, 2004; Hans-Jürgen Fischbeck 2005) to the view that ultimate reality is unknowable wholeness – the One – which David Bohm describes as “Flowing Movement” (Bohm [1980] 1981, 11) Out of the constantly changing flux certain temporarily enduring and relatively independent aspects – the elements of our direct experience of the world – can be abstracted or “relevated” (Bohm [1980] 1981, 151). Among them, mind and matter. “In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.” (Bohm [1980] 1981, 11) Thus, everything emanates out of this flux, including life, matter, our consciousness and its concepts: The One is alive and aware of its processes. 3. The Importance of Consciousness in the Processes of the Universe Elementary particles display aspects of consciousness in a rudimentary way. That is, quantum objects can react in a mechanical and automatic way to the flow of information in that, under certain conditions, they change their behavior when what we know about them changes. For example, in single particle interference experiments, which-way information destroys coherence; i.e., the ability to interfere. In the ordinary world of our conscious experience, the only thing that we know which can react to information is a mind. In this sense we can say that we find entities with mindlike properties at the foundation of ordinary things. “Information sits at the core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer,” John Wheeler and Kenneth Ford wrote (1998, 340). And Norbert Wiener, founder of Cybernetics, emphasized (1961, 132), “information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism, which does not admit this, can survive at the present day.” Similarly, astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington wrote: “The universe is of the nature of „a thought or sensation in a universal Mind‟. “ (1939, 151) And his colleague, James Jeans concluded, “Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” (1931, 158) Aspects of Mind come in many phenomena to the fore. For example, the nonmaterial probability waves are closer to the nature of a thought than that of a thing. In quantum jumps quantum systems react spontaneously. A mind is the only thing that we know that can do this. Ascribing mind-like properties to microphysical entities in this way is a metaphysical stance that suffers from the fact that electrons, protons, and atoms do not in themselves have a psyche or conscious. How can they possibly act as though they did? The answer to this enigma is as follows: electrons, protons, and atoms do not in themselves have a conscious mind, but the mind-like properties that they display are those of the wholeness of reality; that is, they are expressions of the Cosmic Consciousness. Since the Cosmic Consciousness is wholeness, it is everything and is aware of everything. It is aware of all of its processes and reveals its awareness in a rudimentary way in the automatic and mechanical reactions to information at the level of elementary particles, and through all the levels of consciousness in nature up to and including human consciousness. Electrons can act like elements of consciousness because the Cosmic Consciousness is acting through them. This is the meaning of the thesis that “an element of consciousness is active in the universe.” Consciousness is not a property of the emanated, material universe, but of its foundation, the One, which displays its awareness in the objects and processes of the empirical world. The One is aware of its processes.

Similar views are found in Indian ontology, where Atman is an important concept, which has the meaning of cosmic soul or cosmic self. In Mantra 4 of the Iso-Upanishad, Atman is described in the following way: the Atman does not move; is one and is swifter than the mind; the senses reach it not, as it is the foremost in motion. It goes beyond the others in rapid motion while it is itself at rest. (Ramprasad 1998, 113) Here one is also reminded of Aristotle’s principle of causality, according to which motion arises where form meets matter and every motion must have a mover. When everything in motion has a mover, which is itself in motion, a causal chain results that leads to a mover who himself has not been moved by anything else. This, Aristotle thought, is God: the unmoved mover. 4. Non-empirical Reality: Realm of Forms and Potentiality If one pursues the nature of matter to its roots, at the level of atoms and molecules all matter is lost and all of a sudden one finds oneself in a realm of non-material forms, where actuality turns into potentiality and reality reveals that it consists in two domains: there is the open and well-known domain of empirical, material things – the realm of actuality; and there is a hidden and invisible domain of non-material and non-empirical forms – the realm of potentiality. The forms are real, even though they are non-empirical, because they have the potential – Aristotelian potentia – to appear in the empirical world and act in it. In fact, the quantum phenomena suggest that the realm of forms is the primary reality and the empirical world is an emanation out of it. Since the forms are contiguous, reality is an indivisible wholeness. These aspects of reality cannot be derived from the visible order of the world, because that order appears to us in isolated, actual and material objects. The material things cover up, as it were, the realm of non-empirical forms, from which they emanate. Thus, at its frontiers, observable reality does not fade into nothing but into something non-empirical. There is a Non-Empirical Part to Physical Reality. 5. Some empirical evidence for the existence of a non-empirical reality At first sight the concept of a non-empirical reality appears self-contradictory. How can something be real if it is not material and cannot even be experienced? However, entities do exist of which we can have no experience and yet they are real because they can express their logical order in the empirical world and have an effect on us. Among the non-empirical entities we have to list all quantum systems in superposition states. The superposition concept in quantum theory denotes the characteristic ability of quantum systems to evolve in states in which a given system is not in a state of actuality, but of potentiality. That is, in such a state, a particular property, like the position in space, does not have a single actual value, but a multiplicity (a superposition) of potential values (C. N. Villars, 1987). For example, when an electron leaves an atom and becomes a free electron, it can evolve in a superposition of possibilities to be found in many positions in space. Thus, the system is not part of the actual (empirical) world, but it has the potential to appear in it, and superposition states belong to the realm of potentiality in physical reality.

Continue reading “Quantum Reality, the Importance of Consciousness in the Universe, the Discovery of a Non-Empirical Realm of Physical Reality, and the Convergence with Ancient Traditions of Indian and Western Philosophy” by Lothar Schäfer and Sisir Roy →

We all know how much the world needs healing. This New Moon in Cancer squares Chiron in Pisces, opening up a pathway for healing. Cancer represents our earliest experiences of feeling safe, secure and nurtured. This New Moon can stir up core wounds and can cause some feelings of depression and anxiety even from unconscious traumatic issues from childhood. There are also many of us dealing with feelings of insecurity due to the growing chaos around the world. The healing energy of Chiron in Pisces opens us up to taking the action necessary to make our earthly home safe and secure with healing compassion and Spiritual guidance. This vortex of healing energy will continue way beyond the time of this New Moon, as Chiron will be in the sign of Pisces until February of 2019.

We need to be cautious of volatile actions and reactions now as Mars (co-ruler of Pluto and the sign of Scorpio), the planet of war, is conjunct this New Moon and in a square to Jupiter (expansion) and in opposition to pluto (evolutionary forces of death and rebirth). There is shadow potential here with Mars as it is in the sign of Cancer where it is in its fall. This means its expression is the opposite of loving and nurturing cancer energy. This misdirected energy from Mars can express through manipulation and underhanded ways to get what is wanted. The higher expression of Mars is passion and the lower is anger and ego. Check your motivations and bring passion and light to the table and keep your anger in check. Be conscious and wary when the energy feels dark or oppressive. Move forward in positive ways and keep your own energy at a higher frequency. This is a choice we all share. High frequency emotions promote love, happiness and balanced actions and solutions where low frequency emotions promote and attract fear, hatred and retaliation. We as light workers want and yes, we feel a need to bring healing light into this troubled world.

With the apparent increase in emotional intensity on the planet, it can be tempting to withdraw into the safety of your home or protective shell and to protect your heart by walling it off. The real challenge is to feel ok with being emotionally vulnerable and feeling strong emotions as you allow them to move through you and use their power to ignite the passion you need to take helpful action. These intense energies will continue to ramp up in the next few weeks and it is helpful to know that these are energies coming into you, not generated by you. So use the mothering energy of the Cancer New Moon to nourish your soul and sooth the atmosphere in your home and workplace.

Written by Wendy Cicchetti

PLAN YOUR OWN NEW MOON CEREMONY. Give yourself some quiet time in meditation to see where you need to seed new ways of becoming. List these areas within your life you want to change. What areas do you want to break free from the norm and become more productive and discerning? The NEW MOON is the time to manifest the personal attributes you want to cultivate as well as the tangible things you want to bring to you. Possible phrasing: I now manifest ____ into my life. I am now _______ . Remember, think, envision and feel with as much emotion as possible, as though you already have what you want. Thoughts are things and the brain manifests exactly what you show it in the form of thoughts, visuals and emotions. The Buddha said, and I am paraphrasing, “We are the sum total of our thoughts up to today. ” If we want to be different then we must change our thoughts. “If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” CONSCIOUS CHANGE is the key.