The Paranormal Universe

When I think of the two biggest influences on my thinking – science and philosophy – I find myself tongue-tied trying to explain to the one group, scientists, who pride themselves on their ‘skepticism’, that reality really does have a fundamentally existential nature to it, while the other group (philosophy/mysticism) more aware of the existential dimension, are fundamentally dissociated from the mechanical laws at work which make the universe appear just as evolutionary science sees it: as a process that began with a big bang from an asymmetry between matter and antimatter (or so cosmology speculates). Inflation led to the creation of spacetime, and the early matter – fundamentally a function of symmetry dynamics between wave-form particles controlled by a very high level symmetry – the Higgs boson – which emanates outward from that primal big bang, created stars, which in turn generated the properties necessary for solar system formation, and under certain auspicious circumstances, a planet can be advantageously situated vis-à-vis its star, perhaps even dynamically entangled with another planet, a ‘moon’, which helps to generate dynamical motion through the tide effect. Hydrogen and oxygen – or water – is really not as scarce when the planet is properly situated – as water is the inevitable product of hydrogen and oxygen. What matters is whether its liquid, or gas, or as it most often exists, solid.

The scientific ‘story’ is a profoundly coherent one, and way more probable as ‘the truth’ than any other philosophy which makes claim to knowledge. Honesty means acknowledging the importance of epistemological clarity: to eliminate what’s called “the god of the gaps” – to resist the urge to mystify what can be explained in natural terms.

A scientific account, or approach to reality, is the one Einstein and many other physicists believed in: symmetry. Spacetime was Einstein’s answer to the question of “if the universe is based in symmetry”, how does time relate to space? Murray Gell-Mann discovered the nature of protons and neutrons – and all bosons – by postulating the existence of quarks – three of them per shell – which were established on the grounds of both geometrical and numerical symmetry considerations. The fact that the experimental results of such theorizing yields the structure theorized is not surprising, but probably a function of the self-similar dynamics that rhythmically “appear” at a higher-level ontology.

Yet, most scientists do not have the reverence of Einstein, or Bohr, for the Cosmos around them. They seem to not understand how fundamentally different the existential dimension of self-experience is from non-existential forms of self-experience. The existential is an embodied state of being: it is happening through a brain. Yet that brain was constructed by a history of relational interactions with others; these interactions, if understood in a truly physical sense, are not dissociated from the electromagnetic rhythms that, presumably, accompany our states of coherence with self and others (happiness, pride) or incoherence (shame, depression). Symmetry ‘builds up’ into the “need to be recognized” by the other that each human mind-brain incline’s towards. This need for recognition, implicit in every smirk a baby makes when it observes another face, or the response of the person being observed this way: what is it that educes this process, but an implicit recognition of self in the other? Why can’t scientists be real – and not derealized – and consider how profound a truth that is? How much more of a stretch is it to say that, not only does the human other constitute a ‘problem’ which our consciousness resolves through the power of love, but even our experience of self as self, and in particular, self in relation to a vast and seemingly infinite – though intensely wondrous – universe around us – why should it be surprising that our contemplation of self, as self, in terms of its ontological properties i.e. what creates us, why should that not be a matter of importance – why should that, in other words, be less important than matter? If it matters – and matters because we need to regulate ourselves – or the energies within us, by understanding the causal dynamics which drive their emergence – it matters in exactly the same way as the physical matter we observe with our eyes. Scientists are excluding the existential states: Awe – which binds us to our essence at the same time as the universe around us; and anxiety or existential dread, the ‘converse’, or asymmetry, relative to the dynamical symmetry of awe. They speak of these states as if they weren’t wondrous emergent properties – and that, contrary to what they assume, the ‘state itself’ (and not necessarily the knowledge conveyed) necessarily ‘clicks’ us into the universe in a way that seems close to what Plato meant by his “ideal forms”. Now, these ideal forms are potentialities, and not independently existing phenomena that “project” onto the “material world”. The ontology is as Aristotle suspected – the reverse: the physical world contains causal laws that build up the world microscopically, with self-similar dynamics evolving over hundreds of millions of years to create cellular life, then vertebrates, then mammals, and then the human mind. When we get to mind, a sort of “involution”, as Teilhard de Chardin intuited, seems to occur: the existential dynamic enacted “unconsciously”, becomes conscious – bit by bit – ecological situation by ecological situation. Scientists lack the cosmic consciousness that makes Teilhard’s “omega point” seem like a very plausible truth. What is this ‘omega point’, but the force of natural selection pushing the self-awareness dynamics of social animals to pursue the ‘path of least resistance’ – love? This obvious interpretation of Darwins profound - but negative – insight, is missing in most peoples mind’s because the human mind is one big dynamical system, and the ego is a mirror ‘summation’ of the unconscious activity that drives the formation of conscious states of self-experience. Reflex is cyclically advanced; we interpret in terms of ‘paths of least resistance’, except the world today, or the “gods” which rule us – gods being synonymous with value systems (biodynamical attractors!) are suboptimal symmetry structures which make all of us idealistic and dissociative – we idealize to regulate ourselves (to feel familiarity of meaning) and dissociate as a consequence.

Conversely, mystics and occultists seem to believe that we live in an arbitrary universe, where “they”, or their individual sense of self, is somehow ontologically ‘separate from’ the world around it. The missing element is a dynamical one – the one favored by the science of evolutionism; what some scientists study on a vast scale and call “evolution”, other scientist’s study on a small scale and call it “development”. Evolutionary psychology focuses on the patterns of ancient nervous systems and the shared behaviors between organisms; developmental psychology focuses on how meaning is formed in an individual’s life, and what sort of elements are necessary to bring about an effect. Mystics and occultists drive the formation of so much ‘asymmetry’ in their minds – from the beginning when they started developing a lot of pride in their ‘knowledge’ of occultism; to their impure motivations that have negative consequences for others, and their deadly flippancy towards how deeply ‘wrong’ it is to assume distinction from the universe. The idea which drove Einstein and other scientists to ‘make sense’ of how nature works, is the very process that drives the formation of sadomasochistic pathologies of consciousness in people who are committed to nihilistic and idealistic fantasies that, more than anything else, simply serve to regulate the meaning processes – the biosemiotics – that have structured you from gestation to birth, and onwards through intersubjective interactions.

I know and appreciate the perspectives of both points of view – science and philosophy – but the former group seems to produce cynical dualists who are unconsciously “needing” to regulate their existential experiences of being, and despite being scientists, aren’t emotionally mature enough to be scientific about this part of their reality (naively thinking it is merely ‘passive’ relative to the ‘active’ mechanisms of biochemistry); on the other end are megalomaniacs who have gone so far in their stealing of vitality and energy from others by assuming unjustified states of pride that trigger shame states – and then the ‘submission’ states they want (from their followers) in others they do this to. Again, as with scientists, developmental processes explain their extremism. They are, as I would put it, “polarized”: unwilling to accept that there are all-encompassing causal laws that express eternal truths that cannot be fiddled with or changed without inducing catastrophe and profound responsibility. Shame is what pride secretly ignores. Shame lurks whereever undue pride has emerged; it is unconscious side of the ‘existential dipole’ of self-other relations. If you feel pride – and you feel shame, and you don’t deserve to feel shame, and I don’t deserve to feel pride – the natural consequence is that eventually the former person’s brain-mind will need to ‘process’ this feeling, and if not, when they die, the source of their consciousness will exact this from them whether they like it or not – that is, as a truer perspective upon their being, the ‘perfect symmetry of love’ casts a different gaze on how our idols – our false value systems – presented reality to us.
Science is wonderful, and the depth of reality, the fact that we can achieve a state of identification with the universe, and so literally possess a creative power that derives from the infinite potential of a mind energized by the creative potential of love, the very force which created the universe, also allows the mind to create – it is precisely the sort of thing new agers rave about, and yet my understanding of the process is profoundly couched in the laws of systems and the biosemiotic “universe” that arises from the “Elohim”, or powers, or motivational systems, which organisms into existence, and provide the ‘foundation’, for the human mind to emerge and work with reference to.

When we work with nature, and identify with its way of being, we make ‘mind matter’, and so a phase transition in the way our bodies function results: we can now manipulate matter with our imaginations. It is a consequence of a symmetry between our bodily dynamics – ‘summed up’ by the states of mind we cultivate – and the external continuum of nature. We are, in other words, ‘brought back into synchrony’ with the creative intent of creation.

It would take a wall of text to explain everything wrong with this op/post.

Yes, I read the whole thing.

a reply to: TaylorBell
Let's get beyond the word confetti, shall we? Science, religion and the occult are NOT competing ways of understanding reality. Instead, they are complementary. Long thought to be irreconcilable with one another, this has now been shown to be wrong (see link). Their reconciliation has been achieved through the demonstration of the existence of a universal, mathematical system of knowledge that contains discoveries in theoretical and particle physics, molecular biology, etc yet which makes deep and powerful connections in a non-speculative way to the mystical teachings of religions as encapsulated in various sacred geometries. This "meta-knowledge" based upon the fundamental notion of "holistic systems" also proves certain occult teachings and ancient metaphysical principles. In other words, the common ground and the amazing congruity between certain scientific discoveries and mystical and occult teachings have at last been revealed. And all with the rigour of proof of an axiom of Euclidean geometry.... A form of knowledge that BOTH predicts certain scientific discoveries and extends into the territories of religions, linking them with the occult, has now been shown to exist. The debate between religion, science and the occult as apparently mutually exclusive world perspectives stems from ignorance of their interconnections, which are now irrefutably revealed. Reality is holistic. Its apparent bifurcation into these mental perspectives is evolutionary and natural. But it is ultimately an illusion when viewed from this higher, ontological level that integrates the rational and supra-rational.

It would take too much space to describe here the numerous parallels, isomophisms and points of contact between scientifc, religious and occult knowledge. If you want to explore what has been discovered, study the research at:
smphillips.mysite.com...

originally posted by: abe froman
It would take a wall of text to explain everything wrong with this op/post.

Yes, I read the whole thing.

Whats the difference between a wall of text and a wall of text with a space in between every so often? I can read it just fine. This isnt a novel, this isnt formal writing.