I just read the NON-ORDINARY EXPERIENCE post by Dick. The author talks about the blurry boundary between Self and non-Self, and how we constantly perceive non-local events in a subliminal way. These non-local events could be far from us in space and time, and includes not only events that will happen, but also those that could happen. This reminded me of a model I thought up awhile back which explains psi phenomenon in terms of a multiverse, a universe of branching possibilities. If you're interested, here is my explanation of the model followed by my notes and further questions:
Thinking about psi phenomena, it’s difficult to find an explanation that fits with our current worldview of spacetime mechanics. In fact, this seems to be an essential feature of the phenomena we observe – they seem to be of an entirely different dimension than physics. Now I’ve come to accept the possibility that this term, “dimension,” is more than just a metaphor to describe a radical set of ideas; it is perhaps legitimate to say that what we are observing in psi phenomena represents fifth dimensional physics, in the most literal sense. In this extradimensional view, psi phenomena must be explained using both classical, spacetime physics and their own special set of metaphysics. This is the essence of an extra dimension: it incorporates all of the dynamics subordinate dimensions plus something else, that being a set of rules completely orthogonal to the set of previous ones.
Anyway, what made me think of this was the experience of using the “law of attraction,” and feeling it truly working. For example, I am healing someone with visualization: in the classical view, it would seem that I’m working some magic, since I am causing a “change” to happen in a static, predetermined world (without even touching the person!) Now before I demonstrate an alternative view, I ask that you make a series of assumptions: First, that the universe is actually a branching multiverse of possibilities. Second, that the essence of our conscious experience is determined by more than the four comprehensible dimensions we are rationally aware of. I find it useful to use the word “soul” to refer to that part of consciousness that is yet unexplainable in our current physical paradigm, of course I am always hesitant to use such emotionally laden words. If you will though, I propose that our soul “lives” or resides in the material world, with certain space and time coordinates (i.e. your brain tissue, right now), yet also has at least a rudimentary ability to move through the multiverse of possibilities. Thus, when I am healing someone through visualization, the “effects” we see are not actually effects, but preexisting possible worlds that my consciousness was able to gravitate towards. With psi phenomena, perhaps it’s not that we are causing a change to happen, but rather choosing which universe to reside in – which universe to observe. This is why cause and effect don’t seem to hold for the science of consciousness. Cause and effect determinism is a general characteristic of the lower, spatial dimensions, while consciousness is an extradimensional phenomenon.
Inevitably every theory this radical and unfounded evokes a barrage of questions and objections, which I welcome; they tend to either fill in or gouge deeper the holes in the theory, a natural sculpting process.
The first question I would raise about the multiverse assumption, is: Does every “possible” universe mean every imaginable one? To quote an old example, I can imagine a universe where roses have no thorns, but there’s no way to know if this is theoretically possible. What about a universe with no disease? A universe where Hitler succeeded? A universe where we only speak in sign language? It seems our imagination is unlimited in this respect, but is the set of possible universes a finite or infinite number? To ask another way, are there physical rules that govern the multiverse? What and where are these “branchings” of possibilities? I posit that some universes are more likely to happen than others – yet I cannot say whether the probability of a universe where, for example, the future Earth is enslaved by giant squirrels, is zero or non-zero. Perhaps the probability is only 10 to the -22. Quantum physics has suggested that, while the behaviors of certain particles are “truly random,” they still fit into a probabilistic framework (i.e. they have a defined set of possible universes, some being more probable than others.). This discussion of the multiverse, and of the essence of probability also, needs more attention.
Second: What is the nature of life’s evolution into comprehending higher dimensions? There was once a time when cognizant life did not understand the third spatial dimension (our brains must make sense of a virtual 3D space using input from a 2D visual field), nor the fourth (we must have a working memory to perceive time), yet no one would claim these did not exist before we had the means to comprehend them. What of the fifth dimension and beyond? Is there any reason to believe evolution has halted in this respect?
Do we have distinct souls (one per body) that move individually through the multiverse, or is there one Awareness with many sets of eyes?
Will we be able to describe the fifth dimension with simple equations?
Funny question: why do I feel intuitively feel that I can access higher dimensions when I’m on LSD?! Even if it’s entirely illusion, what part of my brain physiology is making me consider dimension?
Laura, I loved this post. I'm still taking time to digest everything, but here's my response:
ReplyDeleteTo me, there is a very distinct difference between experiencing and knowing. One of my favorite thought experiments is "Mary's Room". Let me quickly give a quick idea on how it works: Mary has lived her entire life in a room, where she has complete access to all the information should could ever need on neuroscience. Mary has spent her entire life learning everything there needs to know about the brain--perception, cognition, the exact neurons that fire when she thinks about things, etc.--but this is the catch: everything in the room (even the graphics on her computer) are in black-and-white.
One day, Mary leaves the room and she sees a red rose. The question is as follows: Does Mary 'know' she is seeing red?
There are many ways to manipulate this thought experiment (Is Mary colorblind?, etc.), but I think the true lesson (or question) can be summed up as so: Can we KNOW what it is like to EXPERIENCE something, without actually experiencing it?
I'm no neurophenomenologist, but I think evolutionary it makes sense that the quali we are able to perceive are the one's that are vital to our existence (as in, our reproduction or 'fitness'). And who are we to say that something doesn't exist? That is, we cannot say that other worlds do not exist because we cannot ever know! Although this may seem pessimistic, I think it offers a very optimistic basis of trying to understand/research these extraordinary experiences some of us do have. Not everybody will understand what it is like to have 'abnormal' experiences, even if they do 'know'. Until we can understand what it is like to experience the color red, we cannot begin to describe what it is like to experience anything else about our reality. But that certainly doesn't mean there are other ways to collect proof otherwise!
Psychedelics, such as LSD, can definitely shake up your foundations of the way you perceive space, time and reality because they alter the way you recall these social constructs. For example, while drugged one may look at a clock and have the same feeling one may have in a dream when they look at a clock: Suddenly you realize that time only exists because we have made it exist! It's not even real.
More research is pointing to the fact that psychedelics may in fact equal to years of psychotherapy. Instead of people having 'set' ways of thinking about their existence, suddenly they may have profound insights to the limited ways we as humans are able to see reality around us. And this is definitely very uplifting: The world, our existence in fact, can never be what it appears to be. It is a matter of searching with oneself we are able to find truths about our reality. That is, the psychology of consciousness.
Yes! Experience and Knowing are radically different! I've thought about that exact contrast only in terms of Rationality vs Intuition. Thought vs Feeling. Scientists vs Mystics. They are fundamentally opposed to each other - while Rationality clings to familiar experiences, reduces and reassembles them, Intuition is gazing at the horizon of human experience, grasping at the yet undefined. They are both powerful tools, but intuition is inherently one step ahead.
ReplyDeleteWhen a certain ripple disturbs the still pool of your mind, you must first say, "I feel that," before asking, "What is that?" It makes sense that in the most newly-evolved forms of perception, words and symbolic language still lag far behind, unable to capture/define what it is we are experiencing.
A metaphor comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Mayer (Extraordinary Knowing) suggests that each way of framing reality can seem self-evident the way a particular version of some reversible figure-ground picture seems to be just the way it is, but then the stairs go up instead of down, the urn turns into two faces in profile, etc. Now how it seems is radically different but still subject to the swinging back and forth of the figure and ground.
Knowing which one is right or better loses its urgency. And it is hard to sustain both perspectives at the same time.
So too the multiverse view seems to pop into place under certain conditions (or not, if one is not capable of framing reality this way)and then yields to the this-only world we choose for most purposes.
But I find it helpful to loosen my grasp on this or any worldview.
My own favorite view is that on Kashmir Shaivism, a tenth century north Indian view that inverts the idea of atoms building up to greater and greater complexity (making consciousness the inexplicable epiphenomenon) and posits that the origin of everything lies at the most superprdinate level (ShivaShakti, or even higher Paramashiva)and then everything is but a contraction of that supreme Conswciousness, lower and lower until the material world is formed and with it all the presumption of separation and causality.
So when Laura is experiencing a world in which causality and separation are clearly not viable concepts, when she is healing, the operative metaphor for her reality would be a higher tattva (level) in which the Oneness is way more operative than at the level in which the Many seems like what we are in the midst of.
This tantric, Hindu (but also Buddhist) view allows me to see my work as both plunging into direct empirical experience on the non-ordinary level but also on the inner, meditative level. Soaking in that non-dual space as I sense it and not then attempting to explain or control that way of knowing what is true.
I hope we can all contribute to our common exploration of this compelling aspect of our own experience.
I recommend to Laura and Ryan the work of William Tiller, a prof of engineering at Stanford, who has done studies that sustain and advance his theory that consciousness and matter are as interrelated as mass and energy in e=mc2
ReplyDeletePsychoenergetic Science is his most recent and most accessible book.
I am about to buy Psychoenergetic Science on Amazon right now!
ReplyDelete