Consciousness is “More like gravity and less like high levels of computation.”

I just finished reading The Idea of the Holy and apparently I remembered the book differently than the book I just read. It was very much an academic discussion on religious experiences and the part of religion that is something different from religion as understood via dogma and theology, as I remember. But I’m going to have to further explore my notes and other reading assignments from that LMU course. Ugh. This is going to require more study and a continuation in future blog posts. 

During last week’s bible study discussion group one person, as part of our discussion on the book The Idea of the Holy, continued with his thesis that as we explore Quantum Theory some day we will find scientific evidence for God. One in our group worried that this would mean that the only way we would be able to understand God would require understanding high functions of math and he really hates math. I countered that maybe it would be more like music, given that music very much functions in a mathematical nature. 

But that also got me to thinking that maybe we’re approaching this problem of understanding higher dimensions and therefore “God” with the wrong mindset. It’s a bit like the problem of understanding human consciousness and I was reminded of a video I’d seen about Consciousness as a fundamental part of existence based on scientific work also being done in Quantum Physics. If consciousness or perception is the basis for everything in the universe, maybe the problem is that we look at everything as individual human consciousnesses and we think that the highest level of consciousness is our own, which we currently don’t understand it’s actual origin or existence. So when we think about God, or higher levels of consciousness we think of super-human consciousness or use the human versus ant analogy. I’ve said many times how disappointed I’ve been in fictional stories, when they come to depicting the supreme being it turns out to just be a “more powerful” human, often with obvious character flaws. But if consciousness is at the base of all existence, that on a fundamental level we are all inter-dependent on everything else, maybe finding “God” is about replugging into this fundamental level of existence and reconnecting with universal consciousness. Maybe human individualistic consciousness is a bug.

Human individualistic consciousness has enabled us to conquer this planet, but we are also making it uninhabitable to ourselves. Based on our individualistic mindset, we’ve developed a bad habit of looking for some individual to lead us and control the great powers that we’ve discovered, but somehow that tends to turn into a situation where a small minority of us live in luxury that requires the labor of millions to sustain. This happens time after time after time. Even when Christians have written about the end of the world, we’re still looking for a supreme king to throw down and conquer the evil amongst us and then justly reign over us. But it’s still an individualistic hierarchical  mindset and system. What if our individualistic “I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do, or how to live my life” mindset is one big mistake?

I mean, can you imagine how unworkable it would be if a group of skin cells on my body were suddenly self-aware and decided that they didn’t like where they were located on my body and were convinced that it was their responsibility to find a better spot on my body to live and pass on to their “children”? Talk about a frustrated existence. Admittedly, more of the cells in my body are bacteria and viruses and “not human” than the ones that may be labeled “human.” So on some level my consciousness is exercising control that may be detrimental to the long term existence of my whole body (like my continually choosing to not walk or exercise… ack). Our whole culture is built on the myth of the Self-Made Man. Even when we look for our saviors they tend to be just other individualistic humans whose lives have now become the stuff of legend and mythology. But if consciousness is everything, maybe this “I don’t need anyone” is the wrong direction to be looking for answers or universal understanding. Maybe human consciousness is a bug.

Kurt Vonnegut explored this notion in his 1999 book, Galapagos, where a small group on a vacation cruise are stranded near the island of Galapagos when a world ending apocalypse takes place, leaving the vacationers the sole human survivors. In the novel we revisit the descendants of the survivors one million years later and they have evolved or devolved to becoming a very happy species of rather large sea otter-like creatures. It would seem that Natural Selection had determined that the oversized “human” brains that insisted on controlling nature was a wasted resource, that just led to a largely discontented species and something a little less complicated and more in harmony with its environment made much more sense and was far less destructive to nature. Maybe human individualistic consciousness is a bug. 

On a similar, but different note: I get that sex is a biological imperative that we layer thousands of years of cultural expectations. But there is something profoundly wonderful in giving and receiving from ones partner this intimate connection. “And the two shall be one.” Maybe there’s something more than biology potentially going on here. 

Getting back to my friend hoping that we might eventually find “God” when we gain a better understanding of Quantum Physics, I wonder if we will fail at this because we’re looking for a higher version of our own “individualistic” self. Maybe encountering or connecting with the Holy is seeing that there is no “self,” higher or other, but that under it all is an inter-connected awareness, where language fails, though we will probably never stop trying. 

mysterium et tremendum fascinans

The Idea of the Holy

We have historically thought of ourselves as the height of intelligence, even naming our species Homo sapiens sapiens, as if we are the wisest of the wise. But just because we’re the last ones standing doesn’t meant mean that it wasn’t all an accidental “success.” Maybe human “individual” consciousness is a bug. Happy thoughts, y’all. 

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Tags: God & The Quantum, Human Consciousness, Individualism error, meditations on, Quantum Theory

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