Holograms, Microcosms, Standing Waves, and Stuff

[steve]

So a number of things have come together to lead me to start this thread.

I don't know if it's worth anyones' time (including my own) but I don't start many threads and this idea is bouncing around in my head.

I was stimulated by a few things -

Lifeforce's thread on non duality and Drew's post in it about standing waves and perception.

A reference to Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe.

Informer's thread on the Kyoto protocol and the general idea of the earth's ecological suffering.

A discussion I had on Sunday with my good friend and training partner, Jeremy, who's a member here but rarely if ever gets involved.

Listening to the brilliant Anthony DeMello and his thoughts about pain and suffering.

 

The idea of a standing wave arising from the electrical and neurological activity of the human brain as a representation of the "ground substance" of awareness or consciousness implies the possibility that this same phenomenon could exist at multiple levels of existence - the cellular level, the organism level, the tribal level, the species specific level, the Earth level, and beyond...

Perhaps at each (or some) of these levels, there arises a waveform of some sort that represents or embodies some level of wholeness, awareness, oneness, or whatever.

 

Now, DeMello (among others) points out the very valuable and insightful fact that 'pleasant experiences make life delightful whereas painful experiences are our opportunities for growth.' If you look at this closely, it is completely obvious and true. It is a principle of Taijiquan training (invest in loss). No one grows as a result of winning or pleasing experiences. Psychological and emotional pain and suffering point out areas where we have the potential to grow. Just like physical pain points out illness that can be addressed with medical or other methods of care.

 

So if we put these two together, we can look at our current ecological and environmental concerns as a macrocosm of human suffering. The Earth's challenges which result from humanity's exploitation and abuse, can be seen as a form of suffering on a planetary level. All lifeforms and possibly even the planet's health is affected by our choices. So rather than look at this as a completely negative experience, we can also look at this as an opportunity for the Earth and for our race to grow. If we do not find a way to alter our trajectory or mitigate it's effects on our planet, the Earth herself may will find a way to use this opportunity to grow. And that may include or exclude us, just as we have found ways to deal with cancer and other threats to our health and well being.

 

Anyhow, just some thoughts bouncing around in my head that I wanted to share...

 

Peace

Edited December 16, 2011 by steve
minor correction

[Birch]

Great post Steve!

Similar also bouncing (or rather flowing through:-)) my own microcosm.

What I can't quite get my current (not a pun:-)) understanding around is that this knowledge is pretty obviously available on very large scales and yet "stuff" seems to keep happening to sideline it (witness De Mello's excommunication for example).

 

Drew H has an interesting take on the squaring of the circle stuff but I still don't understand if "everything is Tao" why this squaring thing is happening at all.

It would be tempting to say "it's all our fault" but if you raise to a "higher consciousness" where "everyone is enlightened" (always and already blah blah blah) it doesn't make any sense. Does this mean I have to go "higher" to understand what's going on? Thing is, I live here.

[voidisyinyang]

So a number of things have come together to lead me to start this thread.

I don't know if it's worth anyones' time (including my own) but I don't start many threads and this idea is bouncing around in my head.

I was stimulated by a few things -

Lifeforce's thread on non duality and Drew's post in it about standing waves and perception.

A reference to Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe.

Informer's thread on the Kyoto protocol and the general idea of the earth's ecological suffering.

A discussion I had on Sunday with my good friend and training partner, Jeremy, who's a member here but rarely if ever gets involved.

Listening to the brilliant Anthony DeMello and his thoughts about pain and suffering.

 

The idea of a standing wave arising from the electrical and neurological activity of the human brain as a representation of the "ground substance" of awareness or consciousness implies the possibility that this same phenomenon could exist at multiple levels of existence - the cellular level, the organism level, the tribal level, the species specific level, the Earth level, and beyond...

Perhaps at each (or some) of these levels, there arises a waveform of some sort that represents or embodies some level of wholeness, awareness, oneness, or whatever.

 

Now, DeMello (among others) points out the very valuable and insightful fact that 'pleasant experiences make life delightful whereas painful experiences are our opportunities for growth.' If you look at this closely, it is completely obvious and true. It is a principle of Taijiquan training (invest in loss). No one grows as a result of winning or pleasing experiences. Psychological and emotional pain and suffering point out areas where we have the potential to grow. Just like physical pain points out illness that can be addressed with medical or other methods of care.

 

So if we put these two together, we can look at our current ecological and environmental concerns as a macrocosm of human suffering. The Earth's challenges which result from humanity's exploitation and abuse, can be seen as a form of suffering on a planetary level. All lifeforms and possibly even the planet's health is affected by our choices. So rather than look at this as a completely negative experience, we can also look at this as an opportunity for the Earth and for our race to grow. If we do not find a way to alter our trajectory or mitigate it's effects on our planet, the Earth herself may find a way to use this opportunity to grow. And that may include or exclude us, just as we have found ways to deal with cancer and other threats to our health and well being.

 

Anyhow, just some thoughts bouncing around in my head that I wanted to share...

 

Peace

 

Yeah I spent 20 years doing ecological activism -- greenpeace, earth first!, citizens for a better environment, UW-Greens, clean water action, Resource Center of the Americas - those are non-profits I worked for. I got arrested at least half a dozen times protesting. I organized campaigns that got concrete results.

 

The main thing I learned is that humans should not "save the planet" but rather Mother Nature saves us -- we do activism because we don't have a choice. haha. So if people are not effective in activism then that is o.k. -- there is no need to "save" or even "defend" Mother Nature because she will always win in the end.

 

Activists tend to get neurotic and are over-stressed, etc. but there's also a controlling dynamic going on -- and the thing is that it is important to achieve results - public results on the record -- but at the same time people often get confused -- seeing it as a materialist power struggle. So if a person gets results then that person must want to just get personal power. haha. This causes organizations to have internal power struggles -- all the time. Most people involved with non-profits in activism just want a decent job that will ideally get them a decent house and a car. So the "American Dream" lives on in the non-profit scene.

 

The lessons from Mother Nature are too radical for the modern city dweller -- we take our power for granted. I live in the country now - we lose our power regularly. All the shit of humans gets wasted into clean water when it should be composted into fertilizer. So when we run out of oil then these lessons will hit hard.

 

Yeah Mother Nature will win -- human civilization is just like a catastrophe of extinction on Earth -- like a comet hitting Earth or a supervolcano going off. In the biogeochemical cycles that cover the billions of years of life on earth -- most of life is microscopic bacteria. So if evolution starts over without humans - that is a normal process.

 

As for our spiritual nature -- the astral spirit needs strong electromagnetic chi energy to power it. Only very rarely do any humans cultivate this in our modern times on earth. And for what purpose is unclear. Buddhism considers rebirth as a human as a means to gain enlightenment -- but that is only a small blip of biological evolution on Earth. It seems silly to consider humans so important when we represent such a minute amount of time of ecological history on Earth. Ecology is the real radical science -- and civilization goes against evolution not for it.

 

So Taoism and the Bushmen shamanism and the indigenous shamanistic cultures are not human-centered. Like Jet Li says in Fearless -- the tea leaves may be graded differently by humans but the tea leaves don't judge themselves so tea is tea. there may be different levels of skills but people compete to better know themselves.

 

haha.

[suninmyeyes]

 

 

So if we put these two together, we can look at our current ecological and environmental concerns as a macrocosm of human suffering. The Earth's challenges which result from humanity's exploitation and abuse, can be seen as a form of suffering on a planetary level. All lifeforms and possibly even the planet's health is affected by our choices. So rather than look at this as a completely negative experience, we can also look at this as an opportunity for the Earth and for our race to grow. If we do not find a way to alter our trajectory or mitigate it's effects on our planet, the Earth herself may will find a way to use this opportunity to grow. And that may include or exclude us, just as we have found ways to deal with cancer and other threats to our health and well being.

 

Anyhow, just some thoughts bouncing around in my head that I wanted to share...

 

Peace

Interesting post Steve.

Ah, I was going to something , but it is just not coming out right. My mind got lost when thinking of connection between human and Earth and universe and just life manifesting.

[zerostao]

a wave function is an encapsulation of all that is known about a quantum system. when an observation is made (changing the the encapsulated knowledge)the wave function changes. which subsequents quantum evolution of the system.

informational structures play an undeniable role(casual) in material constellations,as we see in, for example,

the physical phenomenal resonance , or in biological systems, such as DNA sequences.

a gene after all is just a set of coded instructions for a molecular system to carry out a task.

no evolutionary theory can have explanatory function without attending to the instructional role of DNA sequences (plus other topological structures)

attention must be paid to the phenomenon of resonance. informational events are quintessential at the lowest levels of quantum reality.

informational structures are quintessential as driving forces for the historical unfolding of physical reality.