By
David S. Devor,
Exec.
Director
Project Mind Foundation
54 HaNeviim Street
Jerusalem 95141, Israel
devor@projectmind.org
http://www.projectmind.org
This paper was presented at the
HTA Concepts of Creativity Conference
University of Virginia, Charlottesville Virginia
Sept 19-21, 2001
Introduction
It is seldom realized that the "scientific method" is as rigid an
orthodoxy as ever existed. Unlike any other ideology, it cuts across all
religious and geographical lines. Chinese or French, theist or atheist, the
scientific method is the same and the striking successes of science,
understandably, tend to lend credence to it. Nevertheless, I believe that
something is seriously lacking in the scientific method as currently understood
and applied. So what is wrong with science?
Generally
speaking, we think of the scientific method as being a method for verifying our
creative insights, but not for arriving at them. But does this make sense?
Creativity is the heart and soul of science - its engine. How can we separate
the scientific method from the process that generates the very insights that it
is meant to verify? After all, is the scientific method not how we
"do" science and, without detracting from the need to empirically
objectify our findings, isn't the contemplation that leads to new insights the
very essence of this "doing"?
This
paper will show that the role and place of creativity in the scientific process
must be reconsidered. A shift in emphasis towards the creative generation of
ideas will call for a complete revamping of the creative motor of science. We
must set the stage so that the Eureka sparks of creativity - the short bursts
of inspiration that have driven science until now - will be replaced by more
enduring states of creative consciousness of which we are, in principle,
capable.
But
instead of attempting to stimulate the creativity of scientists who as a rule
have difficulty generating intensity, we need to empower scientists, already
electrified by some new possibility, to single-mindedly pursue their vision.
They will require an environment favoring their existing intensity and the
states of creativity to which intensity can lead provided there are suitable
safeguards. These will include psychological and spiritual cushioning
techniques designed to protect these creatively inspired scientists from
various forms of burnout.
It is
clear that creativity is the heart and soul of science and that, without Eureka
sparks of creative vision, there would be no truly original ideas to verify in
the laboratory. The root of the problem is that these visions come, almost
always, as sparks - short bursts of inspiration - rather than as extended,
higher states of creative consciousness encompassing the whole body. Imagine
trying to run your electronic appliances on sparks of static electricity
generated from rubbing the carpet. Absurd as this might seem, I claim that this
is a faithful analogy for the current inefficiency of research in science! For
example, think of the countless billions of dollars that have disappeared down
the black hole of cancer research. I am proposing a "Mind Tank"[1]
that could establish a new standard of creativity in science swiftly producing
the breakthroughs that we so urgently need.
Effort
My purpose here isn't to belittle the efforts of scientists but to remind
ourselves that the effort we put out is always a function of what we believe
possible - faith. Until Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile in 1954, it
was widely considered impossible. Soon after, it became commonplace. We are
able to go to extraordinary lengths once we know something we want is possible
to us. The pioneer, in the absence of such certainty, is acting to a great
extent on faith which is why we attribute such virtue to important pioneering
efforts.
All
effort boils down to the intentional movement of energy within us - the energy
of attention. Anyone who has studied the dynamics of attention (and few
pursuits are more elusive) has come to realize that our awareness consists of
micro-connections between ourselves and the objects of our attention - connections
that endure for the tiniest fraction of a second. The illusion of continuous
attention is analogous to that of steady illumination in light bulbs that
flicker at 60 cycles per second and the continuity of action in moving pictures
that flash on the cinema screen at 16 frames per second.
The act
of meditation, in its many forms, is basically an effort to stabilize attention
so as to allow consciousness to form, circulating in more orderly manner in
conformity with the human form. It is a struggle with which humans have been
engaged from the dawn of time, an attempt to bring more and better quality
energy (e.g., intellectual, emotional, motor, sexual) to the point of
observation in order to prolong our participation in the "eternal present"
and allowing us to experience more of reality. The duration and quality of
attention necessary to actually perceive the enormous number of subtle
attributes inherent in any substance or phenomenon and integrate that data in
our mind in order to extrapolate beyond direct perception requires a sustained
level of effort quite impossible to imagine.
Is it
any wonder that meditators of all ages have preferred to turn their inner gaze
"upward," towards formlessness and away from the hard world of
manifestation? They prefer to seek the embrace of a transcendent ocean of fine
energy rather than turn "downward" and engage the world of physical
matter that is coarser and immeasurably more resistant to relationship. Matter,
of course, is the domain of science. One might say that, from the point of the
spiritualist, "Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread" could very
well describe the efforts of scientists to confront, penetrate and illuminate
the obscurity of matter. It is a spiritual truism that the highest lights are
revealed from the lowest place. By this definition, science is a spiritual
pursuit of the highest order. But, for the most part, scientists have not yet
grasped that they are involved in the highest of spiritual pursuits.
Mind,
Vision & Knowledge
The function of mind is to integrate outer and inner -- what we perceive in the
phenomenal world and what we are in our being. This resulting state is called
"knowledge," in the biblical sense, as in "And Adam knew his
wife Eve" (Gen. 4:1). The obstacle to learning more than is already known
about any given phenomenon boils down to natural limits imposed upon our
efforts of observation, limits that present us from mobilizing. The fuel that
drives observation is desire - desire that is strong enough to create a privileged
and enduring link of attention - a mind link - between ourselves and the
phenomenon studied. The quality of that link depends on the force of our
attention and is derived from the strength of the intention and faith that
sustains it. Thus it is force of our "desire" or its more
encompassing form, "will," that determines how deeply we are able to
penetrate the obscurity that hides the secrets of matter from us and hence the
infinite blessings stored up for us within this obscure world of matter.
The body,
in its entirety, was meant to become a coherent instrument of vision, an
integrated, higher-order mind. Some call it a "bodymind" or
"mindbody" - integrating inner and outer, higher and lower. Our
bodies are not opaque slabs of meat even if we sometimes do feel that way. When
we turn our gaze inward, as in most brands of meditation, and deploy and
modulate our energy appropriately, we are able to observe that the space we
normally associate with our body is alive with feelings, sensations and thoughts.
We have all had moments of elation and inspiration in which we felt we could
almost fly, where our bodies felt lighter than a feather, even transparent.
This
inner space also lends itself to vision including structured vision
corresponding to real, world phenomena. But for creative vision of some
material reality to manifest within us, our inner "cyberspace" or
"mind-space" has to vibrate with and become patterned and programmed
with the intricacies of the phenomenon being contemplated, mimicking it in all
its characteristics and properties. In a virtual sense, through its projection
of the observed phenomenon within ourselves, we must "become" the
phenomenon if we are to reveal the inner secrets of its makeup and be able to
use it optimally for the benefit of man. This is knowledge in the fullest
sense. Again, "Adam knew Eve".
Extrapolation
The power of this higher form of mind to make use of visions representing
natural phenomena is found, most particularly, in its capacity to extrapolate
and correlate. If the mind grasps, in sufficient detail and with sufficient
accuracy, the revealed aspects of a phenomenon, it can, in principle,
hypothesize and project estimations concerning aspects that are hidden by
virtue of being beyond the range of normal human perception. Some qualities of
a phenomenon will suggest possibilities and constraints in one direction while
others will suggest possibilities and constraints in others. Numerous features
are normally accessible to perception and each such feature, in combination
with others, points to the possibility of still more features. In fact, so many
hypothetical possibilities exist, that ordinary mind boggles at all the
imaginable combinations and permutations. It would take endless lifetimes to
mechanically program a computer with all of them in order to perform the factor
analysis needed to collate all this data and zero in on the one constellation
of qualities that existence allows for any given phenomenon.
So to
discover, definitively, which combinations (and thus which features) are
possible and how these possible ones combine to form the complete picture of a
phenomenon, we ourselves have to become the computer. We must be able to see
from above, as it were, the unique set of circumstances that constitute the being
of the phenomenon under consideration and how it connects to other phenomena
that are the adjacent components of the larger reality. The closest to this
kind of seeing or "Accelerated Thought" is called, in the world of
computers and, more recently in neurobiology, "massive parallel
processing."
In the
absence of this extraordinary effort of meditation/observation and the higher
perspective it provides, we resemble rats in a maze, condemned to see tiny
parts of the whole, painstakingly piecing together clues - the isolated parts
of the "reality puzzle" that we stumble upon. To compensate for the
poor quality of our attention, we develop extensions for our senses such as
microscopes and telescopes, and for the poor quality of our thought, devices
such as computers. These serve very much like crutches and, like any artificial
support that helps us substitute for the effort of direct confrontation, they
tend to divert us away from considering the kinds of efforts for which we were
created and the discoveries to which they would lead.
Extrapolative
vision (Accelerated Thought), possible once intense contemplation passes into
the deepest possible meditation, can be far more penetrating and revealing than
any microscope, telescope or particle accelerator, strange as that may sound to
ordinary mind not to mention to hard-core scientists.
Candidates
If, indeed, we are cast in the image of the Creator (and this is a belief that
not all men share), our creative capacity is not only of divine origin but also
of divine (and thus unlimited) capacity. Since, as microcosms, it is said that
we reflect the cosmos in its entirety, it stands to reason that the fullest
realization of this creative capacity can embrace the finest and the coarsest
of substances in the cosmos provided our effort corresponds to the biblical
formula, "with all your heart and with all your being and with all your
might."[2]
The
question remains, what kind of people are equal to the creative effort
necessary to accelerate scientific and technological development to the
greatest degree possible? After all, we could not mobilize the effort to even
throw a light switch if we didn't believe that there was a good chance that the
light would go on. Mobilizing the will for this ultimate effort would demand an
almost unlimited faith in the possible - a conviction that the infinite is
hidden within the apparently finite and that we are meant to reveal it. Who
among us are capable of this level of faith? For it is most likely that upon
them our future depends.
There
does exist a class of people who do believe in unlimited possibilities. These
people are called "children." We indoctrinate small children with
fairy tales - stories in which good prevails over evil and the prince and
princess living "happily ever after." Until they are able to reason
and question, we protect children from the sordid "facts of life"
expressed as, "life is not a bed of roses," "life is not a bowl
of cherries," "life is hard and then you die," "by the
sweat of your brow," etc. Instinctively, we know that children must be
instilled with the belief that life is good and must be sheltered from
knowledge of what we believe the "real" world to be. Then, around the
age of four - the age of reason - we crush them with the news that fairy tales
must be put aside as irrelevant, that life and nature can be horribly cruel and
unjust and that, in any event, all life ends in death.
The
spirits of only a tiny remnant of children survive intact after this
uncompromisingly brutal assault upon their most fundamental beliefs. In most,
the resulting disillusionment amounts to the almost total destruction of their
world view and an assault upon their faith in possibilities. Only an
exceptional few, miraculously, find the inner resources to resist parental
authority and cling to their former, utopian ideal. Accordingly, they now
belong to a separate reality. Having taken this "autistic" step of
backing away from conventional truth and thereby rejecting the standards by
which society operates, these children, throughout their lives, will for the
most part prove constitutionally unable to compromise themselves and play the
games usually required for professional advancement and success.
Disillusioned,
out of step and disappointed with society, these people tend to turn to the
world of matter and the natural sciences for the realization of their
idealistic yet childlike ambitions. Children tend to be seduced by the
transformative implications of chemistry sets and magicians pulling rabbits (ex
nihilo) out of hats. Usually, and only long after they have committed
themselves to the pursuit of scientific vocations, do they come to realize to
what extent nature resists investigation and how unlikely it is that their
utopian dreams of physical transformation could be realized within the
framework of academic or industrial laboratories.
Realization
Yet
what makes these individuals so rare and special goes well beyond their
awkwardness and unconventionality. Regardless of the compromises that life may
have demanded from them and whatever corruption they may have admitted into
their lives, unlike the rest of us, their capacity for psychological and
spiritual connection with their core of faith in the unlimited possibilities
inherent in the cosmos remains largely intact. Thus, potentially, they have the
ability to mobilize effort leading to vision that is far beyond the scope and
possibilities of the rest of us.
Since
these have, within themselves, the key to breaking the cosmic bank and
revealing the infinite in the finite, it stands to reason that everything
possible should be done to furnish them with conditions of existence that will
enable them to realize their special potential. First and foremost, they should
be given shelter from the cynical attitudes and mundane pressures of a world
that routinely and as a matter of principle crushes the spirits of its young.
Beyond that, and still more important, they must be provided with the
psychological and spiritual support that will allow them to function under the
enormous stress generated in encountering radical states of consciousness.
Moreover, these states, until they become firmly established, will for a time
clash with imperfections, internal contradictions and corruption inevitably
induced in their psyches and, indeed, in the psyche of anyone born into this
world.
Individuals
prepared to risk their sanity in this adventure in order to creatively reveal
breakthrough knowledge for the rest of us will need to be surrounded by a
support team able to help them handle the stress. The members of this team will
need to have strengths of spirit and character complementing the weaknesses of
the candidate for accelerated thought and be experienced, at least to some
degree, with the kind of difficulties he is likely to encounter on his journey
into expanded consciousness. He will bond with this, made-to-order, team of
experts and their rapport with him will enable him to accept, with the fullest
possible confidence, the advice he will receive at critical junctures of his
journey when he'll be most exposed, sensitive and vulnerable.
Under
the auspices of the Project Mind Foundation[3], based in Jerusalem, a
specialized facility has been designed for this function. This building is to
serve as the center from which a new standard of creativity for science will be
established. From the world over, it will draw these breakthrough-minded
scientists who, as children, substantially relinquished their claim to
conventional happiness remaining faithful to their vision of truth and unlimited
possibilities.
The
necessary elements for this major experiment in higher creativity are now being
assembled but in, parallel, the forces of negativity are also growing. Each day
sees a global increase in deprivation, injustice, frustration, rage and despair.
And with each new day, conventional science and technology invent ever more
spectacularly lethal tools that become available to fanatics committed to kill
and die for some narrow ideal. The media fan the flames of this burgeoning
negativity by parading the opulent lifestyles of the insular few before the
destitute many and by providing terrorism access to the global stage. Yet it is
becoming clearer that no political solution rooted in mundane duality will ever
deal with the cosmic root of these issues that have been brewing for millennia
but are only now coming to a head in a shrunken world.
Moral
Force
Science is popularly accused of being amoral but, paradoxically, science will
yet prove to be the most moral force in history. Yet even those who believe
that science is amoral tend to also believe that evil comes primarily from the
evil application of knowledge. Unfortunately, they are seeing only a small part
of the picture. After all, whether a given use of technology is advisable is a
subjective call and no one can foresee the consequences of pursuing any given
line of research any more than one can know the future with any degree of
certainty.
Nor is
knowledge, itself, neutral. To the contrary, it is the key for accessing all
the good that Creation has to offer, that many of us believe us an unlimited
good. So when one dedicates one's life to science, one is making a moral
choice. The problem is that the greater the potential for good, the greater
potential there is for evil and, without fully understanding the dimensions of
existence or morality, we are at a loss to know the relative implications of
the research we do. So how can we guarantee that good and not evil will issue
from our research?
Imagine
newspaper headlines, now reserved almost exclusively for reporting
catastrophes, daily announcing the good news of life saving and life enhancing
scientific and medical breakthroughs. Imagine the melting away of anxieties
connected with disease and, especially, currently incurable diseases. Imagine the
hope generated, as matter is mastered, and all manner of lack is eliminated. Is
it possible to control matter at the atomic and subatomic level? This is the
explicit mission of nanotechnology that is rapidly gaining in credibility. But
while nanotech accurately defines the purpose of science and provides it with
the focus it needs, the issue of creative effort as the key component of the
scientific method remains unaddressed. But if the Project Mind strategy works,
the aim of nanotechnology (and thus that of science) will be accomplished and
universal abundance will be achieved. Material possessions of all kinds, having
become universally and limitlessly available to all of humanity, will be
considered worthless since it is psychologically impossible to covet what
anyone can attain, freely, indiscriminately and effortlessly. No bitterness or
negativity can exist in such an atmosphere.
Once
seawater is indifferently interchangeable with diamonds or anything else,
ownership will lose all meaning. There will be no further need for cupboards,
drawers or even pockets since whatever we desire will be synthesized on the
spot, used and, then, recycled back into its subatomic constituents. Beyond the
relief of anxiety that is at the source of all neurosis, once matter is
completely mastered on all levels including the biological, real human
vulnerability will also be at an end. Consequently and to most, amazingly, the
only possible remaining objects of our desires will be metaphysical.
Invulnerability and our resulting indifference to physical possessions, will
spell the end to materialist values and our attachment to the thin, material
crust of existence that, at present, renders us blind to the metaphysical.
This
will free our awareness from the subjectivity and neurosis that has defined
human existence until now and derives from our awareness being restricted to
the physical crust of existence. Thus, paradoxically, physical mastery and
abundance, will allow us all to awaken to the metaphysical and sacred nature of
existence.
But
first we must find those scientists in whom the child is still alive, those
who, with all their hearts and souls, believe in unlimited possibilities. Only
these will be willing to risk their psyches in the adventure that, through a
new level of commitment and effort, will accelerate the uncovering of
breakthrough knowledge and establish a new standard of creativity in science
and, in the process, create a new understanding of the scientific method.
1. Phrase coined by
Dr. Rae H. B. Batushansky Fishman
2. Deuteronomy ~
4:29, 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 13:3, 26:16, 30:2, 30:6, 30:10 ~
3. PROJECT MIND - The Conscious Conquest of Man & Matter Through
Accelerated Thought by T. Kun (Indian Rocks Beach, FL: Unimedia, 1993)
available at the Project Mind Foundation website and through Amazon.com.
Project Mind Foundation website: http://www.projectmind.org/
email: devor@usa.net
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by: David S.
Devor
Exec. Director
Project Mind Foundation
8 Mevo Hamaavak, French Hill
Jerusalem 97877, Israel
tel: 972-2-5814941, fax: 972-2-5823276
email: devor@projectmind.org
url: http://www.projectmind.org
Let no one deceive you. Your capacities, aspirations and conceptions
prove that you are not formed for time,
But for Eternity.
(Max Theon)
New Age attitudes condemning
science can no longer be ignored. Increasingly these attitudes influence popular
thought and especially the attitudes of youth who lean easily toward
philosophies of nihilism, protest and rebellion.
New Age philosophies accuse
science and technology of betraying the utopian promise of peace and abundance
that the pursuit of knowledge has always implied. This so-called
"betrayal" is seen to be reflected in third world misery, in the
specter of global ecological, economic and military disaster, and in the
degradation of the human spirit through materialism.
New Agers often cite the very
advances of science that many fear (e.g., discoveries in quantum mechanics), as
proof that the world is fundamentally spiritualized while others, if not
actually adhering to the "back to nature" school of thought, are only
willing to tolerate science provided its applications are screened and
supervised through a kind of technological assessment that would require
clairvoyance to work.
The word that perhaps best
expresses New Age aspirations is "holism." Holism includes many
things but, most generally, advocates returning to a sacred, tribal-like
respect for the ecosphere, earth, nature and life. It envisages the unification
of body and spirit, usually in the framework of a world or earth consciousness
included in the notion of "Gaia." In some minds, the notion of holism
includes the idea of integrating outer and inner reality and of reconciling
science and spirituality.
In this context, many would
accuse conventional science of being mechanical, unconscious and polluting. In
return, many scientists fault metaphysicians for their lack of empiricism,
accountability and for their alarmism. Despite the schism between the extreme
pro and anti- science factions, many scientists are espousing what would have
to be called "New Age perspectives" while many young New Agers
continue to become scientists. Still, on the whole, the factions remain
separate and, sadly, there is still very little to suggest how one might define
the problem in a way to satisfy both sides let alone dissolve within each of us
that which separates mind and spirit.
This commentary is based on
extracts from the recent book, PROJECT MIND - The Conscious Conquest of Man
& Matter Through Accelerated Thought[1]. The author points to matter and
the real and addictive forms of deprivation that matter engenders in the human
spirit as being the most fundamental of mankind's problems. Accelerated
Thought, as the basis of a new holistic and comprehensive science, is envisaged
as the solution.
Science can be likened a
wood-burning steam locomotive entering a long, unventilated tunnel. The limited
and thus polluting character of the technology of its locomotion virtually
guarantees suffocation and stoppage. Only mid-tunnel transformation into a
higher, less polluting form of combustion (e.g., diesel) can assure safe
passage. Like the caterpillar, science has the capacity to metamorphose into a
more evolved, more encompassing, more intelligent form. A more holisitic, more
vision-driven science will give birth to more benevolent, more efficient, less
polluting technologies. At the heart of our existential dilemma lies the
incompleteness of our understanding of matter and its place in the cosmos.
Matter is like a small ripple on this tremendous ocean of
energy.
(David Bohm)
What is the
matter? "Matter" is the matter. Matter - the substrate of our daily
existence - is the object of our needs and cravings, hopes and dreams. Matter
sustains us, it is true, but it also divides and alienates us from ourselves
and others. It forces us to compete and ultimately to conflict with one
another.
What would happen in a world
where matter and its attendant manifestations of greed, envy, passion, vice,
and injustice became irrelevant - actually neutralized by unlimited material
abundance, security, universal health, longevity, and well-being? Is it
possible for the negative influence of matter to be neutralized?
"Mind over matter" is
not just a metaphysician's dream, it is the basis of all innovation. When you
think about it, miniaturization - the art of getting equal or better performance
from a smaller package - involves replacing matter with intelligence or
"mind," in the sense that a 1950s room full of tons of electronic
tubes, heavy equipment and miles of wiring (representing much matter indeed),
is today reduced to a chip that will sit comfortably on the tip of your little
finger. That silicon chip, seen exclusively from the perspective of matter, is
basically a pinch of common sand. The rest is intelligence - mind. Just as the
restriction of mind by matter occludes mind, the restriction of matter by mind
reveals mind.
The intelligence of the chip
consists of very special dispositions of matter, including highly specific
material compositions, circuitry and other complex, functional patterning, all
of which could be included under the term "form." It is this form
embedded in the silicon of the chip that constitutes the essence of its
intelligence. While the composite substance of that chip is the best material
that could be found for the job until now, it is inevitable that newer and more
"intelligent" materials (e.g., gallium-arsenide) will soon replace
it. With technical progress, the marriage between form and substance grows more
and more intimate, and the resulting "matter" expresses more
intelligence and becomes more lifelike.
"Functional complexity"
is form imbedded in matter. We see that, as matter becomes more
"intelligent," the form that it embodies becomes more intricately
structured. As matter and the form contained within it become ever more
compatible and more perfectly mated, they eventually become indistinguishable
from one another, until we can no longer discern where one ends and where the
other begins. As intelligence becomes manifest, the aspect of matter seems to
recede into the background. The most perfect union between matter and form is
to be found in the phenomenon of life, and more particularly, human life.
Undoubtedly we will someday learn
to measure and quantify intelligence. I believe this will then make possible
the elucidation of a formula at least as elegant as Einstein's famous E=MC2, to
show the spectacular inverse relationship between matter and mind. Observe the
diversity, flexibility, richness, and subtlety of function in the human being -
a truly miraculously compact package of capacities. Yet, in material terms, we
are mostly water, and the rest merely biological precursors to an urn full of
ashes. The essence of this "package" is the intelligence innate to
our humanness - truly a triumph of mind over matter.
Technology - the increasing
embodiment of intelligence in matter - problematic as it is from other
standpoints, has raised standards of living and relieved us of much drudgery.
Many New Agers overlook that, while ancient forms of inner, spiritual work
indicate a desirable direction, these forms do not offer a challenge to which
most modern people can relate. It is hard to imagine the masses sacrificing
illusions and physical comforts for the uncertain and protracted pursuit of
spirituality or even for the obvious merits of environmentalism.
While our lives are inescapably
molded and conditioned by the discoveries of science and the products of
technology, it is not a simple matter to influence research priorities even
when we believe we know what those priorities should be. Our frustration before
this seeming impotence tends to mask the fact that the problem is not so much
which scientific inquiries we pursue or even a question of being more careful
in the research we do pursue. The problem is hiding behind the seldom asked,
more fundamental question of how to approach science altogether. While
New-Age-type philosophies have long claimed that science tends to be
"Cartesian," ignoring metaphysics, it has been a long time since
anyone seriously questioned what we call the "methodology of science"
or proposed a new methodology.
Notwithstanding widespread
disillusionment with science and technology, our failure of planetary
stewardship is increasingly attributed to a general failure of creativity, of
vision. Some are beginning to conjecture that the breakthrough we need will of
necessity be revealed through the faculty of creativity. Harman and Rheingold,
in their Higher Creativity[2], go into this at some length. While today's
visionaries and prophets of transformation are still far too vague, they do
consider possible and even necessary, a world that is alive and conscious -
without limits or boundaries. Yet they fail to be explicit about how even the
best intentions can change deeply ingrained, centuries-old beliefs concerning
the limitations that govern our lives.
The new methodology mentioned
here and outlined in PROJECT MIND plans to reconcile science with spirituality
and make science whole and "holistic." It is called "Accelerated
Thought." It is a vision-driven, contemplative method that obviates long,
expensive, tedious cycles of hypothesis and experimentation. By using more of
the mind than ever before, the scientist will be able to penetrate more deeply
and more quickly into the secrets of matter.
Although it will use special
psychological techniques, environmental aids and sophisticated computerization,
the key of Project Mind - the project - is its understanding of the fundamental
nature and importance of essential individuality. To generate the ultimate
expression of individuality is to release the incredible creative potential
hidden at the deepest levels within human essence (man's fundamental form and
substance) and reveal the relationship of essence to consciousness, reality and
truth.
Just as the Eureka experience
provides brief moments of brilliant insight - the divine sparks of genius and
inspiration that have fueled the sudden advances in scientific progress until
now - Accelerated Thought will provide sustained creative vision. This will
establish an ongoing link with higher consciousness, producing a powerful
cosmic current channeled through essence from a higher dimension. This will
fuel the transformatory breakthrough-science of the future and render it
holistic and comprehensive.
Although the Eureka experience is
not exactly Accelerated Thought, it is very closely related, and its habitual
exercise is the trademark of creative genius. Just as, to a prepared mind, a
salutary shock can at the right moment produce a Eureka experience, a series of
Eureka experiences can under favorable conditions induce, in a properly
prepared psyche, a chain reaction which can develop into Accelerated Thought.
Accelerated Thought is a high-energy mental process whereby realizations
(consisting of problems and solutions) arrive second by second in rapid-fire
sequence rather than once a week, once a year or once in a lifetime as is
typical with Eureka experiences under a regime of conventional, reflective
thought.
The discovery of each new
possibility suggests, at least unconsciously, the prospect of removing all that
limits us and bars our way to "Paradise." (i.e., a poetic euphemism
for unlimited joy, omnipotence, omniscience and above all, immortality). At the
slightest hint of these prospects, one's spirit soars as a great energy of hope
and anticipation begins to circulate.
Thus true creativity is the
immediate, ongoing, waking vision of a unified intelligence quickly overcoming
all forms of restriction. Yet, traditionally, creativity is seen to be a tool
for "problem solving," comprised of discrete stages including
self-application, incubation, Eureka, elaboration, etc. - depending on the
point of view. This insistence upon separate phases rests on the almost
universal misconception that the run-up or ignition phase forms an integral and
inseparable part of the creative process, and thus must be repeated anew for
each creative thought or act. But the ignition of a process or engine is, or at
least should be, nothing more than incidental to its running. In these terms,
the process of creativity, as popularly perceived, is likened to an automobile
that stalls every few inches and never actually gets going.
"Elaboration" similarly presumes that the process is soon over and
that the details are worked out in a prosaic frame of mind. Creativity is
almost universally considered to be an inherently brief condition and not the
continuing state of Being that, potentially, it is.
What is it that constrains genius
and the discovery of breakthroughs? There is no formal policy or elitist conspiracy
to hold back progress. Quite to the contrary, there is plenty of rivalry,
competition and incentive to egg scientists on. Yet no artificial constraints
need to be imposed upon thought when that thought is already fettered by
conventional, distracted consciousness. "Distraction," the term used
by T. Kun. in Project Mind, Charles T. Tart's calls "consensus
trance" in his book Waking Up[3] which explains the phenomenon at some
length. Conventional living siphons off our energy and conditions us to a low grade,
"reflective" form of thought that we mistake for real, conscious
thought. This is the key to understanding why things rarely go exactly the way
we want them to and how we are so easily deflected from our purpose no matter
how resolved we believe ourselves to be.
Conditions of existence around us
provide little opportunity for the unbridled development of the spark of
creative consciousness with which we are all born. Culture soon infects us all
with the virulent infirmity of distraction through the good services of our
distraction- afflicted families and the servile and sclerotic complicity of the
educational system.
Yet human intelligence,
fundamentally, is one. That there seem to be distinct as well as higher and
lower forms, including automatic skills of mind and body appearing to be
autonomous and unrelated to creative vision, is distraction's way of throwing
sand in our eyes. Sterile, uninspired, mechanical mentation feeling and
movement appear, for all the world, to be independent faculties quite free and
unrelated to intuition, insight and vision. They are, in fact, all that is left
of true thought after the creative core and soul of thought - consciousness -
has been compromised. We are thus alienated from the intelligence that,
essentially, we are. We are alienated from our potential, from our essence,
from ourselves.
The generation of Accelerated
Thought, described in detail in PROJECT MIND, is accompanied by a spectacular
increase in vitality and a feeling of elation. There is an accumulation of
awareness for real possibilities that lifts the mind and the individual as a
whole (for in these moments one is mind) to a more integrated and conscious
level of functioning. Increased integration and increased energy are but two
sides of one coin - the coin of consciousness.
But even more important than a
new vision-driven scientific method fully harnessing creativity, are the
results it will bring such as the spectacular acceleration of our already
growing mastery of matter. This is not to imply that an unlimited abundance of
what we call wealth and power is the whole answer to man's happiness and
salvation, nor that satisfying greed or pandering to vice will extinguish human
failings. Rather, a growing consensus and consciousness concerning the vanity of
materialism will be the unavoidable consequence of unlimited abundance. This
implies a devaluation of materialism analogous to that of salt when, in
medieval Europe, it became abundant and lost its status as a currency.
The commercial exploitation of
scientific breakthroughs generated through Project Mind and its clones -
replications that will inevitably spring up in science and industry - will
follow its natural course. But modes of exploitation and the attitudes of those
who concern themselves with commercialization will, in a dynamic atmosphere of
hope, increasingly reflect a genuine concern for the welfare of others as the
trend away from the covetous and cynical accumulation of wealth and power
becomes established.
Breakthroughs will increasingly
localize and individualize control over the means of production and bring about
the true democratization of physical materiality. For example, Drexler, in his
Engines of Creation[4], describes how universal abundance could come about. He
convincingly speaks of nanotechnology, nanocomputers, molecular engineering,
nanomachinery, gene synthesis machines, cell synthesis machines, cell repair
machines, assemblers, replicators, etc. He lovingly calls these, "engines
of abundance," and deeply regrets their delay. He easily envisages
molecular-sized nanomachinery supported by nanocomputers manufacturing or
"growing" before one's eyes, a home or car or steak dinner using
almost anything, including sewage and garbage, as raw materials. Furthermore,
bread, fruit, meat and vegetables, made in this way, will be indistinguishable
from the real things except that they will contain all the organic nutrients
they should while sparing animal and vegetable life we now destroy so wantonly.
Molecular synthesizers and replicators are almost visible on the horizon.
Regardless of what technical
means become available, we must come to realize that it is the limits of our
vision - consciousness - that determine the risks of abuse and pollution. While
many people pay lip- service to the ideal of rising above materiality, the very
real perspective of matter not mattering is hard to imagine. For most of us it
is still hard not to consider one another as objects of satisfaction or
frustration.
Violence, passion and craving are
gross distortions of our natural needs and stem from psychological and systemic
imbalances induced in us by societies preoccupied with material considerations.
By physically eliminating the foundations of these evils - lack and the
addictive power of material possessions - the young will be freed to develop
without vice and depravity and the old will be relieved of many of the already
accumulated stresses and pathologies of envy and competition. Technically
backward nations, rich and poor, will be relieved of the corrosive humiliation
of craving the advanced products they took little or no part in creating, while
social and political adjustments to universal abundance will allow the
revelation and expression of their own inner, creative capacities.
In a world that awakens our
appetite for reality, we will find that vice and escapism lose all meaning.
They become obsolete. Thus the abundance envisaged by Project Mind must not
only answer our real, immediate, physical needs, but also must be so
encompassing as to alleviate the irrational basis for our impulse to accumulate
and consume. The need for ownership can represent various levels of attachment
to the matter of this world. And while this need can account for legitimate
needs and real vulnerabilities that pertain to the physical nature of our
bodies, the extent to which we exaggerate these needs suggests how little we
acknowledge the non-physical side of our natures.
That some can seem completely
satisfied by materiality, can be attributed to the anesthetizing effect that the
abundance of privilege can have on our personalities. We constantly seek to
tranquilize our anxieties by trying to compare favorably with others through
the instrumentalities of wealth, power and status - all materially determined
and determining. While we know from everyday experience that appetites vanish
once they are satisfied and don't return until the feeling of lack returns,
complex lacks and appetites, especially when they include artificial and
acquired aspects, are more difficult to satisfy. The appetite for ownership has
five main drives - comfort, power, jealousy, prestige, and security:
-
Comfort
- Behind the obvious fact that a certain degree of abundance can free us
of real deprivation and its associated anxieties, the use of material
means to cultivate and satisfy acquired needs, artificial needs and
vice-related needs engenders the illusions upon which the quest for
comfort, power, prestige and security are based. Once the means exist to
satisfy all physical needs, real and imagined, the foundation for
generating illusions concerning the general importance of such
satisfactions will be undermined.
2.
Power - Material advantage confers power,
directly through the real and addictive needs of others ("wage
slaves") or indirectly, through politics. With universal abundance, no one
will need to depend upon the material wealth of others.
3.
Envy - There is always someone who has more of
what is generally considered worth having. To be the focus of others'
admirative attention enhances one's sense of existence. Even he who has most
will want to increase his lead and prestige. When material advantage
disappears, envy will gravitate to objects of finer materiality such as
aesthetics, knowledge and wisdom.
4.
Prestige - The adulation of the envied affluent
who serve as models for those "less fortunate," creates fashion that
provides status symbols - props - which support emulation and amplify envy.
When the objects of popular interest change, those who embody higher values
will become prestigious. The higher the values, the finer the objects embodying
those values and the more difficult to counterfeit and use as props for
emulation.
5.
Security - Those having material advantage are
often better equipped to defend themselves against deprivation, aggression and
disease. This encourages the unconscious illusion of immortality concerning
those who appear to be privileged in all things. Once the means become
available for objectively increasing health and security for all, without
distinction, and the prospect of physical immortality[5] becomes real, anything
other than reverence for life and the values that enhance life will be
inconceivable.
Once new conditions of existence, ushered
in by Project Mind, deliver us from these aspects of lack and deprivation, we
will soon become aware of other, more essential, more spiritual
insufficiencies. We will, at last, realize what Socrates actually meant when he
said that those who pursue wealth and honor are distracted from the pursuit of
truth, wisdom and virtue. Once we have nothing to gain from our neighbor's
deprivation and everything to gain from his well-being (virtue, unlike material
benefits, cannot be appropriated), loving our neighbor will be our only
remaining option.
We will discover that each individual's
uniqueness complements our own and can help us reveal aspects of higher reality
to which, by his very uniqueness, our neighbor is closer. Then together, and
acting in concert, we will be able to work toward eliminating the root cause of
all slavish attachments, the only remaining objective basis of our
vulnerability - mortality - by assailing our primordial Achille's heel - the
materiality of our body.
The prospect of waking up to
reality and taking full possession of their faculties has always interested
certain men and women. They deeply intuit that no "virtual"[6] or
simulated reality or other fantasy, however vivid, can compare to the natural,
holistic reality that awaits us.
The utopian conditions postulated
by PROJECT MIND will not spell the culmination of humanity or signal a state of
stagnation but will be man's first real emancipation. Freed from the obscuring
distraction stemming from material lack, man will discover that what he had
always called "desire" and "will" was in fact impulse,
inclination, appetite, and craving. In feeling the first stirrings of
authentic, spiritually oriented, essential desire, he will have begun his
odyssey in a world of multi-layered reality - an adventure in which freedom
from physical and biological restrictions will be only the first of many steps.
Spiritual striving of whatever
color will no longer be the uncertain, tedious, interminable, fluctuating,
elitist affair it has been for millennia. Instead, it will be a universal,
transparent movement in which all will share consciously - each according to
his particular essence - thanks to the dissipation of the distracting and
confusing influence of material lack and the pettiness it breeds in man's
spirit. With unobstructed reality as our teacher, our empowered, individual
essences will unfold revealing that all their myriad facets are conditioned by
unity and harmony.
This will be achieved only by
scientifically, technologically, philosophically and psychologically relegating
matter to its proper place in the cosmos as the mere crust of existence.
References
-
See,
Kun, T. 1993. PROJECT MIND - The Conscious Conquest of Man &
Matter Through Accelerated Thought. Indian Rocks Beach, FL: Unimedia.
-
See,
Harman, Willis and Rheingold, Howard. 1984. Higher Creativity. Los
Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher.
-
See,
Tart, Charles T. 1987. Waking Up - Overcoming the Obstacle to Human
Potential. Boston: New Science Library, Shambala.
-
See, Drexler, K. Eric. 1990. Engines of Creation. N.Y.: Anchor Books.
-
See, Ettinger, Robert C.W. 1965. The Prospect of Immortality. London:
Sidgwick and Jackson.
-
See, Rheingold, Howard. 1991. Virtual Reality. N.Y.: Summit Books.
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