CONSCIOUSNESS

Waves, Jamestown, NC
Particles, Jamestown, NC

Science has been making some very profound discoveries and observations lately. USA TODAY announced in 2014 that the “smoking gun” needed to validate the inflation theory of the Big Bang has now been detected by a telescope in Antarctica. The team of U.S. scientists detected the tiny ripples in the cosmic microwave background that affected light created some 13.5 billion years ago. The universe was smaller than a marble just after the Big Bang when it expanded violently and instantaneously. The Bible is no science book and the narrative in Genesis simply states that our God, a conscious spiritual being, spoke the universe into existence. The three big things that astrophysicists are still looking for in the cosmos are dark matter, dark energy and extraterrestrial life. And science still does not have a good scientific answer for the creation of the universe.

Dr. Robert Lanza has been voted the third most important scientist alive by the NY Times. His initial background was in the biology field, but lately he has ventured into the world of physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. His biological perspective has enabled him to recently coin the term “biocentrism”, which postulates that life and consciousness are fundamental to the universe. In fact, he reasons that since the ultrafine-tuned laws, forces and constants of the universe sustain life, intelligence must have existed prior to matter. And it is consciousness that creates the material universe, not the common reverse theory. The mystery that is our consciousness can be defined as being mindful or aware of oneself as a thinking, feeling being. Our perception of our surroundings is limited to the brain’s interpretation of the stimuli received from our five senses. We humans have enough receptor cones in our eyes to see a rainbow of colors, but a dog cannot distinguish orange or red. “Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no observer is present”? We perceive the “sound” when disturbed air waves reach our ear drum and electrical impulses are interpreted by our brain. But no sound exists without an observer! The same logic follows with our other senses. Space and time are merely tools for our animal understanding and our God transcends them both.

Folks naturally identify themselves with their body, as we are conscious mortal beings. Many believe that when the body perishes, that’s it. But Lanza agrees with other scientists that no physical laws exist which would prohibit the existence of multiple universes. And our consciousness and soul may have been created right along with everything else at the Big Bang. Our nervous system and brain could be the receptors of this consciousness and the primary sites of quantum processing until our body expires. And then this information with our consciousness merges into another dimension apart from the body. In an era that now routinely resuscitates human bodies from clinical death, especially heart failures, more and more folks are returning back to the living with extraordinary spiritual accounts that try our sensibilities. The spectacular colors some perceive can only be related to our earthly experience with rare jewels.

One of the fascinating and thought-provoking premises of biocentrism is that “the animal observer creates reality and not the other way around…without perception there can be no reality”. Quantum theory tells us that everything in nature has a particle nature and a wave nature. Lanza discusses the “act of observation” in a famous two-hole experiment which “goes straight to the core of quantum physics…if one watches a sub-atomic particle or a bit of light pass through slits in a barrier…it behaves like a particle…it logically passes through one or the other hole…But if the scientists do not observe the particle, then it exhibits the behavior of waves that retain the right to exhibit all possibilities, including somehow passing through both holes at the same time”. German physicist Max Born demonstrated back in 1926 that quantum waves are waves of probability, not waves of material. This phenomenon applies to small discrete particles like photons or electrons. Large objects like a bus have smaller wavelengths that are too close together to be measured. A subatomic particle has been defined as a set of relationships that reach out and interconnect, not with objects, but with other interconnections. Lanza concludes that “without consciousness, matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state”. The Bible informs us that human beings were created for relationship with the reasoning power and free will to make the conscious decision to either accept or reject other human beings and even our Creator.

Bernard Haisch has proposed a mind bending theory about consciousness in his book, “The God Theory”. He contends that “ultimately it is consciousness that is the origin of matter, energy, and the laws of nature in this universe and all others that may exist. And the purpose is for God to experience his potential. God’s ideas and abilities become God’s experience in the life of every sentient being…God experiences the richness of his potential through us because we are the incarnations of him in the physical realm.” Many scientists are proponents of the universe of reductionism in which “everything can be reduced to the behavior of particles of matter and energy”, completely apart from any spiritual connection. As a learned astrophysicist Ph.D., he contends that our consciousness is the ultimate connection to God, the spiritual creative force in the universe and the source of all consciousness. While we are in our everyday state of consciousness, we remain aware of our surroundings through the filter of the physical world. But mystics who are conditioned to enter the unfiltered state of ultimate consciousness or nirvana experience a state of peace, love and bliss, something Haisch defines as “a concentration point within a single universal consciousness”. Haisch writes that “My inner life of thought and awareness utterly denies that my consciousness is nothing more than an inanimate, chemical creation. I know better, and so do you.”

Consciousness exists apart from the body and survives death. The temporary physical world was created for the development and evolution of conscious human beings. Our natural timeless home lies in the wider supernatural realm of our conscious spiritual Creator. We are not only IN this universe, but we are OF this universe. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians (4:4-5), "There is one body and one spirit...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all”. And we were created in God's image!

"The human consciousness is really homogeneous. There is no complete forgetting, even in death."--D.H. Lawrence

HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS & ENEMIES

Buck and Jonathan, Art Institute, Chicago, IL

Are these two students friends or enemies? I took this image of Buck and Jonathan’s photograph at an Art Institute of Chicago exhibit last weekend. I was drawn to the photo when I noticed an Asian man taking great pains to record the image on his camera. The photographer, Julie Moos, spent almost a year at a high school with students and staff to understand the students’ relationships and then invited them to be photographed in pairs. However, she didn’t let them know with whom they were paired until the last minute. They might have been with friend or foe. The students were asked to sit beside one another and look directly into the camera lens.

Once the photographs are placed on exhibit, observers are challenged to determine which of the duos are friends or enemies. The exercise forces us to re-examine not only our own high school relationships, but also our own filters, biases and stereotypes.

What first impressions do we perceive that is surely based on those filters and biases? Could these cloud our perception and judgement of people we meet to block interactions that fate has placed on our path? Would we now re-evaluate how we respond at the next meeting? This project is as much a social experiment as it is photographic art.

Too often we get more concerned about the outside of a person than the inside, e.g., if we don’t have tattoos we judge people who have them. It’s been rightly said, “Never mistake the moment for the man.” Appearance and first impressions can be deceptive, so we must be aware. These students may or may not look similar, but we are only seeing their outside and we must recognize that sometimes we see a splinter in someone’s eye while overlooking the log in ours! We should always look in the mirror before peeking out the window.

And what about Buck and Jonathan? How do you think their different races have affected their relationship? Does Jonathan’s “Harvard” sweatshirt provide any clue? Do they seem at ease or in tension beside each other? Ms. Moos provides no clues or answers. It’s up to us to decide and in the process we may just learn something about ourselves.

Additional pairs from the “Friends and Enemies” exhibit at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, can be found at:
http://www.mintmuseum.org/art/exhibitions/detail/vantagepoint-1-julie-moos-friends-and-enemies/

OUR PERCEPTION OF CHANGE 2013

Thames River, London, England

As a trained Industrial Engineer, one of the primary functions in most of my job descriptions over a forty year business career was that of a change agent. It wasn’t long before I realized that most folks don’t want to move out of their comfort zones and will actively resist change. One of the classic reasons not to change is that “we’ve always done it that way ”—like continuing to make buggy whips after the world has moved on to automobiles. Or continuing to make full fashion women’s hosiery after the world had moved on to panty hose which indirectly created the outlet shopping malls of America, but that’s another story. I had the opportunity to change and observe human behavior for many years. It’s been said that the only constant in this world and life is change—both a paradoxical and eternal truth. Some of the best advice I ever learned was that since change is so inevitable, it’s best to resign yourself to embrace change rather than fight or resist it. That makes our life journey much more tolerable and interesting anyway.

So I found a recent study of 19,000 participants quite interesting when the published results concluded that people tend to picture themselves in the future much as they are today, discounting how they’ve changed over time. As an example, a twenty year old is generally unable to believe the appeal of a tattoo will wear off some day. Also, folks revealed that in ten years they would probably pay a premium price for tickets to a band they presently like versus much less for a band they liked ten years ago. That little exercise confirmed to the participants that they had indeed changed, but showed that they weren’t planning on as much change in the future!

I’ve always liked the Rick Warren definition of the primary human job description which is to grow our character. That inevitably involves a constant evolution, and sometimes a revolution, of change in our life--a change that we should welcome and nurture all of our lives. As we embark on another trip around the sun in 2013, it’s important to reflect on the notion that the sun never rises on the same world and you can never journey on the same river twice, for by then both you and the river have changed.