QUANTUM SHIFT IN THE GLOBAL BRAIN
HOW THE NEW SCIENTIFIC REALITY CAN CHANGE US AND OUR WORLD
ERVIN LASZLO
INNER TRADITIONS 2008
PART XII
PART TWO
PARADIGM SHIFT IN SCIENCE
Chapter 9: The Cosmic Plenum: The New Fundamental Concept of Reality
The quantum shift in the global brain embraces both our experience and our understanding of the world. Not only is the world around us in radical transformation, but also our understanding of the fundamental nature of that world – and of the universe itself – is shifting. This is important, for our world is an integral part of the universe; its laws and processes apply on earth the same as everywhere else. A sound orientation in our world calls for a sound understanding of the universe.
Science’s understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe is different from what most people believe it is. The universe does not consist of bits of matter moving about in space and time. Matter, in the last analysis, is a bound form of energy, and space and time are an integral dynamic element, interacting with matter and energy in all its forms. Moreover, the various forms of energy emerge from and are embedded in a fundamental field or medium that was not part of the conventional world picture. This “deep basement” of the universe is variously called quantum vacuum, unified vacuum, physical spacetime, hyperspace, or nuether. Despite these abstruse names, its existence is not merely theoretical and – notwithstanding the implication of its names – it is not a vacuum and not just space. It is an energy- and information-filled “cosmic plenum,” the womb of all that exists, and the background of all that happens, in space and time.
- The latest advances in the natural sciences give us a new picture of reality. The universe is an organically interconnected evolving system.
- Theories of this deep level of physical reality, like other theories in science, do not claim eternal validity: they are open to revision.
Let us now take a deeper look at the findings that ground this paradigm shift in the physical sciences……
Chapter 10: Nonlocal Coherence: The New Concept of Manifest Reality
The “deep floor of the universe – the cosmic plenum – is not the only surprising discovery at the cutting edge of the sciences. It turns out that the coherence of the universe is also far greater than was hitherto thought. This coherence is quasi-instantaneous throughout space, and it is enduring in time. It is “anomalous” with respect to the understanding we have of the nature of connections in space and time.
The two discoveries – the cosmic plenum and space- and time-transcending coherence – are not unrelated. Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that the cosmic plenum is the medium that connects things throughout space and time and creates the manifest kind of coherence among them.
The universe is wholly and enduringly coherent. The phenomenon of coherence is well known: it concerns light waves that have a constant difference in phase. In a condition of coherence phase relations remain constant and processes and rhythms are harmonized. Ordinary light sources are coherent over a few yards; lasers, microwaves, and other technological light sources remain coherent for considerably greater distances. But the kind of coherence that is coming to light in various branches of the empirical sciences is more complex and significant. It indicates a quasi-instant connection among the parts or elements of a thing, whether that thing is a quantum, an atom, an organism, or a galaxy. This kind of coherence surfaces in fields as diverse as quantum physics, biology, cosmology, and brain and consciousness research.
Coherence in the domain of the quantum
Coherence in the cosmos
Coherence in the biosphere
Coherence in the domain of brain and mind
At the cutting edge of brain and consciousness research a significant body of evidence has surfaced showing that the brain functions of different individuals can achieve coherence even when the individuals are not in an ordinary form of contact with each other. The space- and time-transcending coherence among the consciousnesses of individual humans is first of all the nonlocal coherence of their brains and bodies.
Telepathic, remote-viewing, and telesomatic phenomena have been subjected to increasingly rigorous experiments. The evidence regarding the phenomenon of “twin pain” (where one of a pair of identical twins intuits or feels the pain or trauma of the other) has been exhaustively investigated; it appears to occur in about 25% of identical twins. Spontaneous coherence in brain functions occurs also among genetically unrelated individuals. Laboratory tests show that personal contact, or an emotional bond, are often sufficient to produce the transfer of stimuli among pairs of subjects.
- A related ability of individuals is to achieve a high level of spontaneous synchronization of their cerebral functions.
- Additional evidence of the transmission of physical effect between individuals in the absence of sensory contact is furnished by spiritual healing.
- Psychiatrist Daniel Benor analyzed hundreds of cases of controlled experiments in spiritual and nonlocal healing and found significant evidence of positive therapeutic effect.
- The transfer of effects from healer to patient can be monitored and measured: it shows up in their EEG waves.
- The transfer of brain-wave pattern can also occur when healer and patient are in separate locations and neither hear nor see each other.
Chapter 11: The Akashic Field: The Newly Rediscovered Concept of Reality
The coherence of parts of a system that are neither contiguous nor connected by known forms of energy and information suggest that there are forms of connection in nature that are not known to mainstream Western science. This is now changing. The recognition of a cosmic plenum – the “deep-floor of the universe” – offers a logical starting point for investigating the physical basis of interconnection wherever it occurs: in the cosmos, in the human world, and even in the domain of mind and consciousness.
Chapter 12: Metaphysical, Theological, and Ethical Implications
The twin discoveries of a deeper level of reality and the nonlocal coherence of nearly all things that populate the manifest level suggest a radically new vision of the world. This newly rediscovered vision has profound meaning for our understanding of the fundamental nature of the cosmos, as well as of life and mind in the cosmos.
The rediscovered vision suggests, first of all, a different understanding of the first principles that underlie the manifest entities and processes of the universe: a new metaphysics. It also suggests a new concept of the relation of the divine to humans and to the world: a new theology. And it likewise suggests criteria for distinguishing right action from misguided and uninformed action: a new morality.
THE NEW METAPHYSICS
Two domains of reality
Causality
Evolution through energy and information
THE NEW THEOLOGY
THE NEW MORALITY
- The new concept of reality holds important implications for human life and conduct.
- A meaningful ethic must be able to distinguish moral action from immoral or merely uninformed action.
- Complex entities can be aware of some of the elements in the incoming energy and information flows and can select their response to them.
- In humans a high level of awareness constitutes a sophisticated means of perception and cognition, capable of selecting some elements of the flows and ignoring or repressing others.
- Awareness of the flows constitutes one aspect of the freedom of complex entities: the aspect of internally guided selectivity.
- Another aspect of freedom resides in the coupling of reception and response.
- In human beings there is a wide range of variables between stimulus and response, such as tacit preferences, cultural predispositions, and a range of consciously or subconsciously held values and beliefs.
- The possible responses range from passive inaction to a variety of courses of action.
The freedom enjoyed by humans endows their actions with a moral dimension. Comparatively simple entities such as particles do not significantly internalize the determinants of a response, consequently they do not have a high degree of freedom. Higher on the scale of biological evolution more and more of the determinants of response are internalized, thereby increasing the level of freedom of the species. In such species the response can be assessed in reference to criteria of morality.
Criteria for moral action
Self-selected behavior can be considered moral to the extent that it contributes to the coherence of the subject, and to the coherence of the world around the subject. We distinguish internal as well as external forms of coherence.
Internal and external coherence are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. A healthy mind promotes health in the body, and a healthy body sustains mental health. There is evidence that people who are psychologically adjusted within their family, community, and natural environment are less prone to disease, and those who enjoy good health are less likely to engage in antisocial and antiecological behavior.
Human beings can be consciously and willfully destructive of coherence in their bodies as well as in their communities and environments: they have the freedom to act immorally. But humans can also recognize that incoherence-inducing behavior is counterfunctional and aberrant: they can also choose to act morally. A sound planetary ethic rejects incoherence-inducing action in favor of action oriented toward the coherence – the health and integrity – of body and mind, as well as of community and environment.
Moral choice in reference to the minimum and maximum codes of a planetary ethic
Moral behavior in the above formulation satisfies, and is in fact equivalent to, the minimum and the maximum codes of the planetary ethic put forward in Chapter 6.
As we have said, the minimum code requires that one’s action should not conflict with the right of others to live and grow: Live so that others can also live. Behavior that is moral in the sense that it does not reduce, or otherwise interfere with, the external and internal coherence of other people satisfies the minimum code. The maximum code, in turn, states, Act so as to further the evolution of a humanly favorable dynamic equilibrium in the biosphere. Moral action of the kind that enhances the coherence of the human family in its planetary setting satisfies the maximum code. It promotes the persistence of the human species in the framework of the biosphere.
Notwithstanding the different formulations, there is no inconsistency between the minimum and the maximum codes of a planetary ethic and an ethic based on the new concept of reality. The minimum and maximum codes are the commonsense, practice-oriented formulation of moral behavior. The injunction to choose modes of action that at the least do not reduce or interfere with the coherence around us and at best contribute to such coherence is the science-based formulation. In the final count they are equivalent – they express the same concept of morality.
Chapter 13: The Next Evolution of Human Consciousness