The Free Radical

It has been extremely difficult for the average human on Earth to accept the demise of the objective universe. It doesn’t seem to matter that it never existed in the first place!

The current discussion is not about convincing my readers of this verity. That was addressed in my most recent essay Once (More) and for All (Time), wherein I let the physicists and physics professors do most of the convincing. Here, I would like to delve further into the implications, especially for members of the TOURS.

Specifically, it is evolutionary theory which concerns me in this discussion. First, let me be perfectly clear: I do believe that evolution occurs; it is a very real process. Exactly how it occurs needs to be addressed in light of there being no independent physical universe sitting out there like some grand and complex machine churning out conscious lifeforms. Relativity and quantum theory have insisted that this universe is participatory, that observership causes the universe of our experience to come into being, that consciousness in some form is a prerequisite to the whole physical process. It appears that consciousness is the foundational matrix for all that is. For the purposes of this discussion, I will proceed on this premise.

First, what needs to be asked in light of this new view of evolution is: what exactly is undergoing an evolution? What is evolving? The old answer was: physical systems. But since physical systems don’t exist independently from consciousness, our new revised answer is obviously: consciousness. Consciousness is evolving. The easiest way to think about this is that physical systems– what we perceive as the objective universe– are actually reflections or representations of consciousness. How the physical universe is structured and how its components interact are reflections of our collectively held beliefs, or what Heisenberg referred to as our “method of questioning.” In simplest terms then, what we observe as physical evolution is the reflection of the progressive development of our collective belief systems.

The universe presents itself to our perception according to our belief– or our understanding, if you prefer.

We can use our imaginations to harken back to the times of Copernicus. The prevailing collective belief was that the Earth was at the centre of the universe and everything revolved around it. And that is exactly how the people of those times experienced it. “But wait,” you insist, “they were wrong! The Earth is not at the centre of the universe.” But in terms of their experience… yes it was! Even for a handful of astronomers and mathematicians who recognized anomalies and inconsistencies in their observations and calculations, they were just part and parcel of the inexplicable mystery. Their basic orientation underlying their experience as a universal denizen was still that the Earth was solidly at the centre. Whatever Copernicus would come to prove so convincingly in the future was powerless to influence the human experience at that time until the collective belief changed. Only then did humans begin to experience a universe in which they were not the centre.

It’s all about what we experience.

We have to drop this notion of “Yeah, but the universe is really this way… or really that way.” No it’s not. For the last hundred years or so, our very best science has informed us indisputably that a provable objectified reality having any intrinsic properties is scientifically unsupportable. It is always subject to– dependent upon– our method of questioning, our level of understanding… and that determines our individual and collective experience of it.

Modern physics has pretty much shown us that the very basis of all matter and energy is information.

Information is the purview of consciousness. How information is organized creates beliefs or belief systems. Can you see how evolution is the refinement of belief, the refinement of our questioning?

The universe is intelligent… because the universe is us.

So far I’ve suggested that we regard the “objective” universe as a reflection or a representation of our consciousness. But the image in a mirror is not intelligent; it merely reflects our own intelligence (or lack thereof). So perhaps it would be better to regard the universe as an extension of us. It is us stretched and spaced out through eternity. Indeed, our physical bodies are part of the physical universe and we feel them to be intrinsically us.

Physicality is another expression or extension of what we are… and we need to own this shit! All of it!

Clinging desperately to the old belief in an objective universe makes us necessarily small. We gaze out into the night sky and say “That’s not me; that’s something else. I’m insignificant.”

We’re currently stuck at this evolutionary bifurcation point because we keep falling back on this notion of a vast universe “out there.” We’ve lost ourselves, and we keep insisting upon remaining lost!

It all seems so terribly counterintuitive because everything about our language gives credence to objects outside of ourselves. Every time we speak or write, we inadvertently affirm a universe which doesn’t exist outside of our belief in it. That’s the nature of the illusion… and we created it… and yes, it’s insidious… now, let’s get over it!