Meaningful communication, as I have already sought to establish, is a necessary part of humantrue cooperation, but meaningful communication is impossible between minds that do not share the same fundamental understanding, and at present such understanding is rare. It is not possible for fundamental humantrue understanding to be transferred complete, like factual knowledge, from one mind which possesses that understanding to another which does not. The first mind acquired its understanding by intellating; by consulting its own postconscious; by being supraconscious. So, to begin with, the only thing that the first mind can communicate to the second is the very vital awareness of the necessity to be supraconscious. When the second mind becomes supraconscious, then, and only then, will the two minds share the same fundamental understanding which, by way of meaningful communication, they may build upon until they reach agreement.
Approaching the end of my book, I was well aware that I had done very little reading. I had no idea how many minds might have reached these same conclusions. I began to wonder whether any book already existed in which these conclusions had already been revealed. The only signs of breakthrough in broad awareness seemed to be the dramatic spread of the Green movement. There is no doubt that this movement, and its political arm the Green Party, has become the strongest focus of public expression (though yet relatively weak) of opposition to the dominant world order. Could it be that this movement has also discovered humantruth and adopted it as the foundation of its platform? Whilst the books I chose were impressive and informative, they have been listed as contrary concepts because they do not embrace the whole human dilemma, nor its solution - humantruth by way of supraconsciousness.
The first book I read was The Quest for Gaia by Kit Pedlar (Souvenir Press). The author points out that we are pursuing a course that will destroy us but that we are not fully aware of this fact; that we neither know which way to go nor how to survive; that most of us think of the Machine as having no connection with us in any moral or intelligent sense. Kit Pedlar describes many destructive practices of the Machine and tells us how to counter them, or how to avoid contributing to them, with such conviction as to make me feel guilty that my own efforts at conservation are insufficient. But he does not deal with the root causes of these destructive practices - he does not tackle the question of how to bring about a non-destructive world.
Next I read Seeing Green by Jonathan Porritt (Basil Blackwell), the author of which is a leading member of the Green Party in Britain. This book goes more fully into the political dimension; into measures to be taken by national governments, and internationally, to cease or curb these practices that threaten the biosphere. But Porritt gives no more than fleeting attention to the human individual - to human character as it stands, and as it truly ought to be. He, too, fails to penetrate to the root causes of the problem; to the fact that the Machine is by nature destructive, and that politics is a serving institution of the Machine; to the fact that the solution to our problems lies in the true emancipation of the human race. There is a general failure critically to expose the false foundations of the Machine to which we are all harnessed. The Machine is being called upon to mend its ways but is not seriously being called to question. Porritt is guilty of this, as is Pedlar when he illustrates the result of this failure with the comment that scientists (and the same applies to all specialists) belonging to different disciplines (with no overall humantrue reference point) can not object to other specialists going their own ways (independently regardless) because, being buried in their own discipline, none are qualified to judge the disciplines of others.
Seeing Green is very well written (a quality apparently more highly valued that veracity, especially by publishers) and full of concern, but it seems to me to take the view that our problems arise from reckless humanity, and their solution is the province of governing authority. For instance, he refers to labour as a productive resource, and unemployment as a waste of that resource. He thinks that the introduction of new technology is something that we do not have the option to oppose at present. He believes that people will change only when they think it is in their own personal interest to do so. He seems to temper this cynicism when he goes on to suggest that the recipe for transformation of human society is enlightenedself-interest, but in my view this is a contradiction in terms, for to be humantruly enlightened is not to think of specific interests, which derive from instinct, but of truth. Porritt claims that it is obvious that modern societies need some measure of profitability. He says that if the present economic incentives are to be removed they must be replaced by new aims and methods, but that these will have to reflect the peoples' way of thinking.(I agree with this, but it shall have to be a new, and humantrue, way of thinking). He believes that economics (ie management) is all about work and its rewards.
Seeing Green seems to me admirable as a comprehensive survey of the diseases of present society, but not as a guide to the prevention of those diseases. That is the reason for my mainly critical comment. The present situation requires that humanity voluntarily changes its intellectual nature, as a result of which it will bring about a humantrue framework of life which, in turn, will make it possible for humanity to sustain its supraconscious nature and its humantrue state. If we undertake anything less than this total reciprocal change there will be no real change. Clearly I do not have space to mention all the good things in this book, such as its statement that only through local production for local needs shall we achieve long-term security, and that it makes common sense to work and produce things to meet peoples' needs directlyrather than work and produce things to make the money to meet the peoples' needs indirectly.
Since the Green movement is generally taken to represent the strongest opposition to the present dominant order, and the author of Seeing Green is a leading light in that movement, I decided to read the two books that most inspired him - The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra (Hutchinson), and person/Planet by Theodore Roszak (Granada). The following are my comments on these two works. I hesitated before including them. Why?
I hesitated mainly because these two men are exceedingly able thinkers (and writers) who also possess a deeply felt morality, which I believe to be rare in the academic field. They are acknowledged thinkers, their books well known in radical circles in which they seem to be regarded as important land-marks. One reason why attention is paid to these works is that the authors have academic records and have been published - qualities generally thought to be indispensable to the authentification of thinkers. Yet here am I, neither academic nor published, criticising their thinking on all fronts. The justification of my criticism is that they either reach wrong conclusions or fail to reach right ones, yet they exert considerable influence on human thought. Such criticism of a work is not pleasant for its author, but if it is true it must be made. It ought then to be accepted, especially by the author of that work, for the deepest moral emotions will be ineffective if appended to false reasoning. I hope that I, wherever my reasoning is revealed as false, will accept criticism in the same spirit as it is offered here.
These two brilliant thinkers and writers fail to discover humantruth because they, like Chomsky, deliberately confine their search to the conscious arena and its evidence and argument. They are thus unable to reject the Machine - the automated nature and state of humanity - because it entirely and firmly belongs in the conscious arena. But they are enabled to give credence to such an idea as cosmic consciousness because the conscious mind is neither able to dismiss it nor to deny the sub-atomic physics that seem to support it. Their kind of thinking is exceedingly difficult because it is trying to do the impossible. It cannot achieve its objective because it deliberately excludes, or rejects as unreliable, the truth of the postconscious. If the thinker is freely honest this conscious thinking must ultimately become extremely frustrating, for its conclusions can never be utterly acceptable.
The Turning Point is based upon the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang, the universal or natural extremes. According to this thinking, Earth nature is a constant living balance between these extremes, and the human species, if it is to survive, must subject itself to the same extremes and gravitate by way of its own nature to a similar balance.
In my view this is a fundamental misconception, for the acquisition of intellect, ie the faculty of fully knowing and reasoning, changes the situation completely. In non-intellectual nature, true survival-balance can onlybe achieved by expressing equal and opposite, positive and negative extremes (the drives and inhibitions of instinct) and gravitating to a kind of united neutral stability which represents the basic continuing life of a species. Instinct is the code which secures this balanced pattern of behaviour for sub-intellectual life-forms. The history of human civilisation so far shows a growing imbalance due to the fact that we have retained the impulsions of instinct and have applied intellect to augmenting its drives while rejecting many of its inhibitions.
The concept of yin and yang cannot be applied to the whole human mind, for the mind's supreme function, represented by the postconscious (the neocortex), is for all humans to work as one to fulfil its function - the discovery and realisation of optimum truth. In order to demonstrate this it is necessary to recall that the human mind is divided into the conscious and postconscious spheres. The conscious sphere, when dominated by the Machine and the impulsions of instinct in the conscious arena, doeswork according to the yin-yang concept, seeking its individual balance between extremes. It is this restricted conscious thinking which can make the incomplete assertions that one side of the brain thinks rationally (ie intellectually) and the other side untuitively and morally; which claims that our progress has come from rational intellect; which underlies Chinese wisdom when it says that none of these values which our (present) culture pursues is intrinsically bad; which insists that harmonious social and ecological relationships will be achieved by this balance of self-assertive and integrative tendencies; which says that the yang (bad) will retreat in favour of the yin.
That which may seem to confirm that the yin-yang concept operates in our present reality is that existing human society reflects a struggle between our morality (arising from intellect and supported by the benign instincts) and the Machine, each individual applyingintellect to choosing an opinion or belief out of all the possibilities, and usingintellect to project or defend that personal choice. I am referring, of course, to that limited degree of intellect that may be furnished by the utilised part of the postconscious. Our present misunderstanding of the true function of intellect gives rise to the false belief that our progress has come from rational intellect over-mastering moral intuition, for autoprogress is served by our consciously dominated minds, whereas morality comes fromintellect. The ancient Chinese idea, that none of the values pursued by our culture is intrinsically bad, reflects our continual, futile, attempts to accept the instinctive pecking-order while attempting to control it with quasi-intellectual law and order. An early unsuccessful attempt at this was made by Confucius, yet the Green Party, in its intention of instituting a system in which the pursuit of self-interest works for the common good, has fallen into the same trap. No such contrived balance of opposite forces will ever bring about harmonious social and ecological relationships, for every retreat of yang in favour of yin must be followed, eventually, by a retreat of yin in favour of yang. The only way of guaranteeing a stable balance, with the minimum of oscillation, is to entrust ourselves and Earth to our own individual supraconscious responsibility.
We now come to the crux of Capra's philosophy, which I think is also the basis of the Green approach and the currently popular marriage between physics and mysticism, but which misunderstands the nature of humanity and the true significance of our presence on Earth and our relationship to Earth, to all other life, and to the universe.
Physical existence, Capra says, comes down to quantum mechanics. Matter is made up of sub-atomic particles which do not have objective properties. The observer's conscious decision as to how to observe an electron, for example, to some extent determines the particle-behaviour or wave-behaviour of the electron. Yet he goes on to say that this also means that we can never refer to nature without simultaneously referring to ourselves. I can agree that this relationship is true, for instance, of nature's will to live and Gaia's helpful response, or of instinctive aggression being neutralised by instinctive cooperation in the balance of nature. But I cannot agree with him when he applies this relationship, for instance, to scientists and the nature and direction of their research, saying that their frame of mind determines this, in that they take not only intellectual but moral responsibility. In my view this is a concept which could, and ideally should be true but is not presently so. It is untrue not only because intellect and morality are essentially one and the same, nor because the nature and direction of scientific research is chiefly determined by the rewards of the competitive money-economy and hierarchical status, but chiefly because the advent of the intellectual faculty changes the situation fundamentally. When Capra says that physicists are free to choose their path, either to the Bomb or to Buddha, he is ignoring truth, or humantruth (which exposes both these as false alternatives), the function of intellect which indicates the one and only path which is right for us to take.
Capra goes on to what he describes as one of the most profound systems of Western thought, which he sees as equivalent to Buddhist or Taoist philosophy. This is the S-matrix theory, known as the boot-strap approach, which states that matter has to be understood through self-consistency; that all physical components must be consistent with one another or with themselves, accepting no fundamental constants, laws or equations. This theory describes the world as a 'dynamic web of interrelated events', no part of which has fundamental properties, the properties of each part being determined by the sum of the properties of all parts which give the entire web its structure. This thinking foreshadows Bernice Cohen's concept of a society working according to systems-theory, which I shall come to later. The concept of a dynamic web is logical but the world, as an example of such a web, has never properly incorporated intellect, which hasfundamental properties, nor the product of intellect, true morality. We are now seeking to introduce morality, with which there can be no compromise such as the freedom of choice between right and wrong that Buddhism permits, a conscious choice between instinctive extremes that is inconsistent with morality. So we have to picture, and then to realise, the human equivalent of a dynamic web which carriesa fundamental constant - that of humantruth.
The natural world is a dynamic web in which all components are consistent with one another, and with themselves, but nature is a balance of intense competitive conflicts whose purpose is to sustain and develop life without the imposition of any moral code per se. Human intellect inevitably builds its own moral code and then cannot altogether deny it. Present human society is an imbalance resulting from acceleration of the natural conflicts impelled by aggressive use of the powers of intellect without many of the inhibitions of instinct. The dynamic web's character comprises conflict between its many parts. Sub-atomic particles and waves display indecision, their observed patterns reflecting the conflicting patterns of observing minds. This is the universal pattern, the complexity of inevitable order wrestling with inescapable chaos, from the 'balance' of Earth-nature to the 'balance' of galaxies. The one significant achievement of evolution is intellect, and the ultimate function of intellect is truth. Truth is the key to the conundrum, for it would give particles one and the same objective; it would achieve perfectly simple consistency of matter (energy) by giving all parts the same properties, which would then take the place of all conceived constraints, laws, and equations and which, ultimately, would bring the universe to a state of true equilibrium. This is the nearest that my mind has got to the universal truth which, as I have said already, I do not insist upon although my intellation returns to it again and again. However I do insist that humantruth makes it our clear duty as an intellectual species to bring humanity on Earth to a state of peaceful and stable contentment.
Capra concludes that the bootstrap approach has profound implications - that the methods of observation determine principles which in turn determine the properties of particles means that the way we look at the world will ultimately determine the basic structure of the material world; that patterns of mind may be reflected in patterns of matter. Perhaps, although it hardly signifies what the patterns of matter are. The significant thing is that existing matter has produced human intellect, and it is of first importance that intellect fulfils itself. Mind clearly ranks above matter, and it is vital that we define what is meant by 'patterns of mind' - that we understand what the mind is.
A key element in Capra's view of the bootstrap theory is the notion of order in the inter-connectedness of sub-atomic processes. Topology, apparently well-known to mathematics, can be used to classify various categories of such order. When this concept is introduced into S-matrix theory, only a few categories of such order prove to be consistent with the mathematical framework of that theory. These ordered patterns of particle interaction prove to be precisely those observed by nature.
For me this is not really surprising since I have suggested already that universal evolution is a matter of energy, under the influence of truth, applying itself to the compelling purpose of constructing the means of comprehending truth in order to fulfil it and realise it in the universe. It is to be expected that the same fundamental patterns contributed to the brain development underlying this activity, but it is well to recall that, just as the product of a system is more significant than the sum of its parts, the truth transcends the bodily mechanisms that discover it, to the point of raising the individual entity above its own physical, instinctive, and conscious mental self, up to its supraconscious self vested in the unconscious postconscious, thus reaching a common collective true awareness that binds all individuals together. Nature on Earth is the penultimate stage of this purposeful evolution, the pathway to intellect which is the road to truth. The ultimate stage will be reached when Earth's most advanced species in this respect, the human, sets up a humantrue society.
Continuing my comment on The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra, I am full of praise for its masterly critical analysis of health services, as they are and as they should be. Also of the existing methods of providing energy for power, heating and lighting from irreplaceable sources, with dangerous ecological effects, and of the safe and viable, renewable alternatives. But, like Porritt, Capra recognises the problems, and the desirable alternatives, without examining the obstacles in the way of achieving those alternatives; without understanding that the solutions to our problems are not to be brought about by wishful thinking, or by contrived manipulation, but will be the natural outcome of intellation, exemplified by life in a truly human framework. No single problem will be truly solved until allquestions and problems are humantruly answered and solved.
I profoundly disagree with Capra's approach to the human dilemma. His approach reflects a strongly and widely felt, but quite mistaken, desire or compulsion to believe in the existence of a remote power higher than ourselves. This results in a deep reluctance to accept that weare the apex of evolution and that full responsibility for the care of ourselves and Earth rests upon our own willingness voluntarily to fulfil our true potential.
Describing that major part of the conscious which is for the time being out of focus as 'the unconscious', he describes this unconscious as 'collective mental patterns', the suggestion being that these may differ greatly from person to person. But he also suggests a superior external overal pattern when he says that the concepts of a planetary mind may be associated with cosmic levels of consciousness. I am quite sure that no such levels exist - the only higher mind in existence is the internal postconscious, our own or that of beings similar to ourselves. Gaia and the automaton think, in a sense, just as single cells think, but they are not conscious in the true sense. Consciousness, which the mystics regard as the primary reality and the ground of all being, according to Capra, is actually the optimum perception of the self and its environment and relationships, from the viewpoint of a personal construction of biased thought based upon a limited selection from conscious reality (this limitation is necessary because total consciousness is an impossibility since its sphere and whole arena, being incapable of truth, has an infinity of contradictory possibilities - hence the present world's conflicting confusion). The next and ultimate stage in our evolution is intellectual supraconsciousness, afforded by open relationship with the whole postconscious mind, by which the conscious self may be made aware of the common truth, and thereby of its true relationship with everything.
Capra's approach belongs to the conscious arena in which we presently exist. His ideals belong outside that arena, since they are supraconscious - the innate knowledge of postconscious conclusions - but he believes that this knowledge comes from some higher external level of consciousness, and that humanity itself cannot escape from its present conscious - instinctive - emotional bondage to the facts and concepts of existing reality. So his views on reform are ideas arising from functional thought which belongs to the conscious arena, proposing behaviour which truly belongs to the supraconscious sphere. It is possible to imagine existing humanity choosing to take the moral road but, as long as we remain in the conscious arena, it is realistic to acknowledge that consequently limited human reason gives equal cause why we should also choose from all the other, immoral or amoral, violent or reckless behaviour that is equally valid according to the contradictory evidence and argument of the conscious arena.
The crux of the currently most advanced consciousview of the truth about ourselves, our minds and our place in the universe, seems to be founded on Jung's concept of a collective unconscious. In some sense this is consistent with my theory of the postconscious and truth, except that it implies a mind-link between the individual and the entire cosmos, and it includes another misconception. Jung says that this link cannot be understood within a mechanistic framework, for it defies precise definition but is very consistent with the systems view of the mind. But this link canbe understood when it is perceived as a link between truth and the postconscious mind as the discoverer of truth. The difficulty of defining this link is really the difficulty - the impossibility - of proving postconscious truth by conscious evidence and argument. And it is illogical to suggest that truth cannot be understood within a mechanistic or Cartesian framework, or that it must conform to probability theory or the uncertainty principle or systems theory, for the truth is the truth about all things, including all these sub-processes of incomplete reason, and transcends the universe.
Some current thinking combines Jung's concept of the human unconscious with another concept by which some contemporary physicists describe 'everything under the sun' as a product and logical unfolding of sub-atomic phenomena. The significance of this is taken to be that, whatever meaning, purpose or motive underlie the sub-atomic processes, these processes brought about the evolution of intelligent instinctive life and culminated in the formation of the human mind; that the human intellect cannot signify more than the process that created it; and that far from being the instrument of new and truly transcendental understanding, the intellect has to refer backwards beyond its simple origins in order to discover and penetrate the present complexities of life and understand the meaning, purpose and motive of human existence.
I am absolutely sure that these concepts are false. Their many sincere proponents would probably say that I had paid much less attention to an understanding of their beliefs than is required to convince anyone. But their evidence and argument, coming from the conscious arena, is unreliably incomplete and inconclusive. My reason for believing it to be false is that my postconscious gives no indication that it is true. The physical human mind is the product of all these processes, yes, but its postconscious intellect is far greater than the sum of the contributary parts of the brain, and is on an altogether different level. The postconscious is the apex of evolution, its function to transcend the system that produced it and to take the ultimate overall view, the supraconscious view.
All this refers to subjects which still puzzle humanity after thousands of years - the subjects of evolution and creation. Broadly speaking the normally accepted belief is that life and Earth - because they are so wonderful - must have been created by a superior all-seeing and all-powerful being. But this is a back-to-front view, for if existence begins with complete and supreme perfection there is no point in it evolving, for the painful struggles of evolution can have no objective which has not been achieved already. By contrast, the concept of evolution as a quest, beginning with an ideal and going on in pursuit of that ideal - ie truth - is completely straightforward. Nothing about life made much sense until the advent of human intellectual potential, and humanity has made and still makes even less sense because intellect has not been fulfilled but misused. Intellect will not be fulfilled as long as we look to non-existent gods and external consciousness for wisdom; as long as we go on looking everywhere for it but where it is to be found - within our heads.
I have referred elsewhere to a very common conviction that it is beyond us to discover truth. Capra believes that the nearest we can approach to expressing absolute truth in words is myth, and that transpersonal consciousness can transcend logical reason and intellectual analysis and come near to a direct experience of reality. Such ideas are attempts, similar to beliefs in inscrutable gods, to explain or describe that elevated yet closely personal phenomenon which is sensed yet undiscovered - the individual postconscious mind. These attempts misconstrue the true and utterly practical reason why the independent postconscious has to be unconscious (except for the communication of its conclusions by intuition and conscience), impatiently resorting to mysterious explanations rather than persevering with the right kind of intellectual reasoning, ie intellation, until the true explanation is discovered (that ultimate reasoning requires a free and independent mind remote from consciousness and that its processes are too complex to be immediately converted into language and made available to consciousness in all its detail).
Let me try to summarise the concluding pages of The Turning Point, in which Capra sets out his solutions to the human problems. To continue, click here