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Br14 THE BOTTOM LINE
The present structure of human society is false, and needs turning upside down and inside out. That is a truth. Our present way of thinking, because it is integral with that false structure, does not share that truth but calls it an opinion - a belief not proven by evidence and argument.
But the evidence and argument upon which we are presently supposed to rely is variable, which accounts for the fact that humanity holds many different and contradictory versions of 'truth'. And these 'truths' which we hold are liable to be false because they are incomplete, and they are incomplete because they emanate from the wrong mind.
It is because we use the wrong mind that we require proof of our 'truths', proof which is also incomplete. The fact is that, as we are, we can never consciously prove truth. The proof is there, but is unconscious. So what we call an opinion might well be true. If so, its truth is proven not consciously but unconsciously, a proof, or 'knowing', which is part of whole truth and which the conscious self must take on trust, and which in any case shall be forever confirmed in answer to endless questioning.
A. Reality is simply reality, isn't it?
B. No, it isn't. In the light of intelligence, it can be the right reality, or the wrong reality. I say 'can be', because this depends upon the degree and kind of intelligence involved. The human race, on planet Earth, is undoubtedly existing in the wrong reality.
A. How so?
B. Our reality is not commensurate with the high potential of our intelligence.
A. On what authority do you say that? Our society includes people of enormous intellectual scope.
B. Then why do they tolerate a reality which, as everybody knows, is so far short of the ideal? Why don't they set about changing it for the better?
A. Now wait a minute. I don't share your attitude to this. The human society that exists is our reality because it developed that way, and it developed that way through the influence of all the variety of interests and ambitions, all the different characters of people who built it. Our job is to keep it going, warts and all, and improve it if we can. We can't possibly change it; we just have to take heart, screw up our courage, and live with it.
B. Why do you say we can't possibly change it?
A. Because people have never yet been able to agree, and never will - it's not in human nature.
B. So if we found a basis for universal agreement, you would then admit to the possibility of changing our reality?
A. I suppose so, but you only have to go down to the pub to realise what a big 'if' that is. Besides, you're talking about making everybody the same. Nobody in his right mind wants that.
B. No. People don't have to be the same in order to agree. Of course we shall differ, in all sorts of ways, but not when it comes to the fundamental, equal responsibilities, common needs and comforts of life. A moral, humane society would guarantee those things, and not allow that they be be left to chance, or subject to the whims of competition. And, beyond that, expression of the abstract interests and delights of intelligent life would be open to everybody.
A. You seem to be ignoring basic human nature. However ideal the plan for society, there will always be a proportion of people intent on wrecking it. There'll be those who want more than their fair share, and others who want it all. A few strong or violent types will terrorise and corrupt the weak. You know the pattern - it's happened often enough before.
B. Well, surely a humanly true framework of life shall discourage such behaviour, but to eradicate it altogether we would have to embrace a fundamental change of minds also.
A. All right, but it's still pie in the sky, because there's yet the question of agreement. That's the problem you're going to have to solve before you can change anything. Get over that if you can!
B. It's really quite simple. The basis of agreement is truth, and truth is the natural function of the optimum human mind, but humanity has never fulfilled its optimum capacity of mind. Individual identity has been misplaced - the normal human self has developed the wrong relationship with its own mind.
B. Let me give my explanation.
Actual Human Development
The brain development which made us human was a sudden, large extension of the conscious mind. This was a mutation which presented the prospect of replacing the chief compulsory behaviour patterns of instinct with voluntarily chosen alternative decisions of high intelligence. But the mutation mis-fired.
So large and sudden an increase in thinking capacity must have caused confusion and indecision enough actually to endanger the early humans. As a result, those who survived successfully and became our ancestors were those in whom the conscious mind extension was divided into two. One part became a manageable enlargement of the existing conscious, forming a mind of much greater capacity but still restricted to one level of reason. As a disastrous consequence, the human conscious mind remained under control of the wilful self, harnessed to instinct. We humans continued to pursue the drives of instinct, and do so to this day, but applied to them the power of conscious reason, making us the most imbalanced and dangerous of species.
Under these influences, the human race prospered and ruthlessly took over the world. A system of living was built up, on instinctive rather than human principles, eventually becoming what I call the Machine. This includes a method of management, the money economy, which more than anything else has made our society false, amoral and largely inhuman. Since the other mind extension has always been effectively closed to consciousness, the normal human mind has been dominated by the influence of this false reality, and by the fact that humans have been obliged to conform to and serve the Machine for the sake of survival, and have known no other than that reality.
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DIAG
1A - PRESENT ARRANGEMENT OF THE HUMAN MIND, WITH CONSCIOUS
PREDOMINANT AND POSTCONSCIOUS EXCLUDED APART FROM CONSCIENCE
The other, banished part of the conscious mind extension I call the postconscious, which embodied the most advanced features of that extension. The postconscious mind is a faculty of pure reasoning. Its function is the discovery and realisation of truth, for it can reason on six levels. Though it is fully aware of everything that goes on in the conscious, the two minds have no direct contact. This means that unless the wilful self makes a deliberate decision to choose otherwise, the conscious remains ignorant of absolute truth. Nevertheless, the postconscious's freedom and independence enables it to fulfil part of its function, the discovery of truth. To fulfil the other part of its function, the realisation of truth, requires that the wilful self does make that decision to submit to the guidance of the postconscious which, alone, can make clear to us the meaning of truth. The postconscious mind is kept apart and closed off from consciousness as a customary habit or standard practice, but it is not completely closed off. The postconscious has managed to find a side entrance to consciousness, bringing an awareness of the main, simple conclusions of morality through 'the still small voice of conscience'. The wilful self, the focal point of consciousness, is confined to the conscious mind and chooses which of its Machine-dominated influences and practices to select and follow. The self may choose to be influenced by conscience but, generally speaking, only when self-interest allows.
Possible Human Development
Herein lies the key to agreement. We know that the basis of agreement is absolute truth. Truth is the function of the postconscious, the fulfilment of which is a matter of the utmost inter-connection and comparative evaluation of all possible information and reason - a huge task (involuntary but helped on by conscious encouragement) made possible by its enormous capacity of ten to the power of several million noughts of possible connections. Every human being possesses a postconscious, therefore every human individual is potentially in agreement. All that prevents us from reaching that agreement is our conscious habit of ignoring the postconscious, and allowing the facts and pressures of existing Machine-reality to strengthen the grip of that habit.
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DIAGRAM
2A - FUTURE SUPRACONSCIOUS ARRANGEMENT OF THE HUMAN MIND
WITH THE POSTCONSCIOUS DOMINANT AND SUBMITTED TO BY THE CONSCIOUS
Agreement based on human truth is a matter of every human individual fulfilling his or her true nature by opening to, and submitting to the same postconscious mind, and therefore to the same truth in each and every one. Then comes the daunting prospect of actually changing the present highly complex and deep-rooted reality. Our disbelief that it can ever be done is one of the reasons why it has never been seriously tackled, but the prospect of radical change will become less daunting the more supraconscious we become. Even our technological achievements under the Machine ought to convince us that we are capable of carrying out the most utter reform.
We must recognise that our acceptance of present world reality comes merely from custom and from the overwhelming fact and influence of its all-pervading actual existence. That recognition should be placed beside another - that too many features of present reality disappoint, disturb, bewilder, outrage, threaten, terrify and horrify us. These two recognitions should then be urgently presented to our uttermost reason and conscience. Have we any good excuse for accepting the unacceptable? Can we go on ignoring the calls for compassion, the pleas for help, the cries of pain? Do we have to submit to rules and practices which are unworthy of our most cherished moral values? Must we tolerate a world which is bad, or half bad, or that is even to a small degree bad? We are a highly intelligent race, and this is our world. Is there any good reason why it should not in every way reflect our high intelligence?
List of Branch articles. in no particular reading sequence:
PREVIOUS :1. The Nature and State of the Human Race: 2 : Truth - No-Go Area : 3. Facing Yourself: 4. Explaining the Mind : 5. Moral Mind : 6. Great Men: 7. Comment Pinker : 8. The Way We Think : 9. Sanity for Humanity : 10. Evolution of Mind: 11. Free Thinker View : 12. Reality : 13. Understanding Consciousness :
CURRENT : 14. Bottom Line :
REMAINING : 15. Brain-Mind Relations: 16. Open Letter to Philosophers : 17. The Mind and Philosophy : 18. Self Twixt 2 Minds: 19. The Holographic Dimension:20. Transhumanism Transcended : 21. Mind, Will and Self
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