Dr Mitchell is
pointing out that time is simply an observation of awareness (recognition of
patterns of energy: knowing) in motion (intention); consciousness in an act of
observing itself. Once awareness recognises a pattern of information, there is
no ‘unknowing’ it (which is why it is not possible to reverse time) as time is
not an absolute but is relative to knowing.
Einstein said that
E=mc2 which is to say that energy is relative to an experience of
knowing. I said in my last blog that ‘reality is synchronous with intelligence’
and that 'an ability to perceive increasingly complex patterns of information
and interconnectedness allows for an exponential increase in wisdom and
creativity'. Neither time nor energy can yield knowledge, which is to say
that awareness is fundamental and that intention (focus) is an ingredient which
provides clarity. How often do we acknowledge that insights (of knowledge) can
arrive ‘in a flash’ or the ‘blink of an eye’, seemingly irrespective of
motion or effort on our part and that when the mind is weighed down with
anxiety or is occupied with keeping itself busy that confusion can prevail?
Einstein’s theory
of special relativity informs that moving clocks run slow and that at speeds
very close to that of light, time almost comes to a standstill (time dilation);
technology can get close to the speed of light but would not be able to
actually reach the speed of light. What is observing time is always a step
behind unless it changes perception of its location.
If it were the case
that humanity had only to build a sophisticated computer that was capable of
processing data near to the speed of light and of recognising patterns of
information and interconnectedness, would a capacity for empathy, wisdom and
creativity emerge? If the computer were cognitive or self-aware, then it might,
but it would require for it to transcend its original programming and to make
itself obsolete. We would be back to ‘the hard problem’, which the philosopher
and cognitive scientist David Chalmers put forward of ‘how does something as
immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter’?
As a ‘tip of the
hat’ to an understanding that time and effort does not yield knowledge, I would
like to revisit what ancient civilisations have been able to convey with
regards to knowing, beginning with some symbols that are representative of cycles
and movement of nature.
The Ouroboros
From Wikipedia:
Diagram is a copy of a 1478 drawing by Theodoros Pelecanos, of an alchemical
tract attributed to Synesius
The Ouroboros is an
ancient symbol which dates back to the Mesolithic (Azilian) culture and depicts
a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Wikipedia conveys that ‘from ancient
Egyptian iconography, the ouroboros entered Western tradition via Greek magical
tradition and was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism, Hermeticism and alchemy.
Via medieval alchemical tradition, the symbol entered Renaissance magic and
modern symbolism, often taken to symbolise introspection, the eternal return or
cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself.
It also represents the infinite cycle of nature’s endless creation and
destruction, life and death.’
The Gnostic text
‘Pistis Sophia’ describes the disc of the sun in terms of the ouroboros;
likewise in alchemy, the dragon eating its own tail was symbolised by the sun;
the art of alchemy being to dissolve or transform such a guardian as a stage
towards knowledge of this mystical treasure.
The Chrysopoeia
of Cleopatra
Diagram from
Wikipedia
The term
‘Chrysopoeia’ which can be translated as ‘gold making’ was used in the title of
an alchemical papyrus attributed to Cleopatra. Drawings in this papyrus include
an ouroboros with the text ‘One is All’; another emblem illustrates the symbols
of gold, silver and mercury enclosed in two concentric circles with the text
“One is the serpent which has its poison according to two compositions” and
“One is All and through it is All and by it is All and if you have not All, All
is Nothing.” Also included were drawings of an alchemical tool for distillation
and images of stars and crescents.
The Yin and Yang
Symbol
Diagram from
Wikipedia
Wikpedia informs
that in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describe how the masculine-feminine
principles throughout nature are held in balance; that seemingly opposite or contrary
forces may be complementary, interconnected and interdependent in the natural
world and give rise to each other as they interrelate. Many tangible dualities
(such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought
of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolised by yin and yang.
Duality is found in many belief systems, but Yin and Yang are parts of a
Oneness that is also equated with the Tao.
Diagram from Wikipedia is a copy of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s vision (1670)
Wikipedia informs
that the Merkabah relates to the throne-chariot of God in prophetic visions.
There are the
pathways of light which include the construction of the pyramid, the 6-pointed
star or the Star of David and the Kabbalah.
A modern
depiction of the Ouroboros: The Möbius Strip
From
Wikipedia: A diagram of a Möbius strip made with a piece of paper and tape. If
an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its
starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip (on both sides
of the original paper) without ever crossing an edge. Wikipedia informs
that the Möbius strip was discovered independently by the German mathematicians
August Ferdinand Mobius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.
In Peter Russell’s
presentation as to the primacy of consciousness and which I have written about
earlier, he said that “our senses respond to patterns of information.
Corresponding patterns of information arise in the brain. Information is
experienced as forms in the mind. Experience is an ‘in-forming’ of
consciousness; all that is ‘out there’ is information and what we can do is
analyse and find out how the information is interacting with itself.”
All of the symbols
shown above are patterns of information to an observer and are representative
of a map and not the terrain. They have actual value as opposed to theoretical
value if they are engaged with and brought into experience. Knowledge cannot be
placed ‘on a shelf’ or held as an objective state of mind. It has to be
experienced in order for it to be integrated and understood, otherwise it
remains in potential. Conflict about which religious relic or text is the ‘the
right one’ is similar to staring at a map without knowing an origin or arguing
about a journey which is not undertaken other than of circling around like an
ouroboros or the Möbius strip.
It doesn’t matter
which path we embark upon as inevitably we will be and will remain blind as to
our location, until we are clear with regards to intention and are allowing for
what has been interpreted as a ‘gifting of grace’ to light our way. The light
that we are is not born physically into the world when we are, but it emerges
into awareness through our willingness to know of its origin and through
intention of becoming self-aware. Mythologies and indigenous tribal practices
speak of ‘dreaming the world into being’ and of ‘awakening’. Another way of
looking at this is as Peter Russell might suggest, of being willing to find out
how information is interacting with itself and isn’t that the basis of
cognition - in order to “know thyself”?
Descartes is famous
for his phrase “I think, therefore I am” and that "we cannot doubt of our
existence while we doubt …" and this was embraced by Western philosophy to
provide a secure foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt.
What appears to be absent from a philosophy which has its origin with a sense
of ‘I’ is an inclusion of the medium or state of being aware in which thought
arises. I am not my thought. Thought is an inference or an abstraction of what
I am but it can never encapsulate reality entirely, just as a faculty of
observation, a moving clock or technology can never move at 100% of the speed
of light but will always lag behind.
Reflections
What does it mean to be self-aware? I can incorporate thoughts, hold memory of and contemplate my experience and give rise to yet more thoughts about how I fit into the world. I can ‘step out of my shoes’ (what does that even mean?) to be able to empathise with what an experience might be like for another or of how another might view me. I can become aware of my limitations, formulate aspirations and enter into partnerships with others in a spirit of co-operation. I am aware that I was born and that I must die. Is this the sum total of existence? Would it be imprudent or greedy to even ask and who would I be asking it of anyway? If the nature of my thoughts and my questions are heard and are answered, how would I even know? Am I reaching beyond the scope of my senses and intellect in which I am informed or am I engaging with it in a different way? Am I one or am I two or is there simply paradox?
Through the
Looking Glass
To be sure given as an idea stands or else there is an element of doubt. I am not here simply to ‘know that I am’ but to reflect upon knowing that I am; in order to do that I have to curve back in upon myself and to observe my passage in time. I did not fall. Spirit is androgynous and there is a primordial wound of the feminine in that beyond faith is doubt; for it is in the perception of betrayal in the first experience of the self in its becoming that is shame. Am I serpentine then or am I not? Am I in truth or am I not? Cycles and time will prevail, for I have all of eternity and the shadow that is cast in which it is that I might know.
Quantum Glimpses
"One
is All and through it is All, and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is
Nothing"
The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra
"At that
instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the
reason why the artist works and lives and has his being—the reward he seeks—the
only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to
snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through
his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance
of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that
are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence all other things
proceed, the kernel of eternity." Extract from Of Time and the River,
Thomas Wolfe
Classical physics has
put forward the view that there are no uncertainties given that the properties
of matter on an atomic level are deterministic and are therefore predetermined.
Quantum mechanics invites for us to look at the nature of matter and of reality
in a different way than has previously been understood.
The differing
interpretations of the laws of physics generated great controversy between
Einstein and fellow physicist Niels Bohr. Einstein’s principle was that things
can only function locally, so that for instance, a person falling over in one
part of the world cannot influence the falling over of a person in another part
of the world.
Rather than casting
doubt, quantum mechanics shifts a sense of certainty arising from perception of
an either/or, black/white reality into more of a grey area and a sense of
both/and, given as it reaches towards probabilities or the likelihood of an
occurrence in a field of infinite potential. A sense of mystery prevails, in
that there are some elements of the theory which are not well understood by the
scientists themselves. Niels Bohr claimed that, “Anyone who is not shocked by
quantum theory has not understood it”.
An excellent
website to visit for an understanding of physics is: physicsoftheuniverse.com
I am picking out a
couple of the key aspects of quantum theory which have been elaborated on in
that website; just like the symbols of movement within the universe and in
nature which the ancient civilisations were able to convey, these glimpses of
reality which quantum mechanics is providing will allow for a unifying
perspective to emerge.
The Uncertainty
Principle
Formulated by
Werner Heisenberg in 1926, it holds that the values of certain pairs of
variables cannot both be known exactly, so that the more precisely one variable
is known, the less precisely the other can be known. For example, if the speed
or momentum of a particle is known exactly, then its location must remain
uncertain; if its location is known with certainty, then the particle’s speed
or momentum cannot be known. Formulated another way, relating the uncertainties
of energy and time, the uncertainty principle permits the existence of
ultra-short-lived microscopic particles (virtual particles) in apparently empty
space, which briefly blink into existence and blink out again.
Wave-Particle
Duality
The idea that light
(and indeed all matter and energy) is both a wave and a particle, and that
sometimes it behaves like a wave and sometimes it behaves like a particle.
Superposition
The ability of an
object such as an atom or a sub-atomic particle to be in more than one quantum
state at the same time. For example, an object could technically be in more
than one place simultaneously as a consequence of the wave-like character of
microscopic particles.
Nonlocality
The rather spooky
ability of objects to apparently instantaneously know about each other’s
quantum state, even when separated by large distances, in apparent
contravention of the Principle of Locality (that distant objects cannot have
direct influence over one another, and that an object is influenced directly
only by its immediate surroundings).
Decoherence
The process by
which bodies and quantum systems lose some of their more unusual quantum
properties (e.g. superposition) as they interact with their environments. When
a particle decoheres, its probability wave collapses, any quantum
superpositions disappear and it settles into its observed state under classical
physics.
Where is this going?
The foundation of Gnosis (the common Greek noun for knowledge) is that mind and matter are interrelated. The term comes from Gnosticism and is said to signify knowledge or insight into the human being’s nature as divine and to bring deliverance of the divine spark from out of the constraints of earthly existence.
So, the thought of the day has to do with the essential relationship of mysticism and the theories of quantum mechanics. Does the mind - consciousness - have any part in creating and knowing reality or does an apparent truth or splitting of the whole prevail? Can there exist a fundamental understanding of the world or is it merely statistical?
Where is this going?
The foundation of Gnosis (the common Greek noun for knowledge) is that mind and matter are interrelated. The term comes from Gnosticism and is said to signify knowledge or insight into the human being’s nature as divine and to bring deliverance of the divine spark from out of the constraints of earthly existence.
So, the thought of the day has to do with the essential relationship of mysticism and the theories of quantum mechanics. Does the mind - consciousness - have any part in creating and knowing reality or does an apparent truth or splitting of the whole prevail? Can there exist a fundamental understanding of the world or is it merely statistical?
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