Magic and Mystery
Victor MacGill's website
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Chaos
and Complexity Magic and Mystery Victor MacGill's website |
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My first book.. |
 
A Mad Hatter's Tea PartyIs reality all it's made out to be?When Alice entered Wonderland and came across the mad hatter’s tea, she thought she was just coming across an ordinary tea party, but it soon became apparent that not all was as it seemed. Life is a bit like that too. Our world seems ordinary until we look a bit closer. When we do, we find a strange world that leads us on an exciting adventure every bit as weird and wonderful as Alice’s adventures.We seem to be separate beings in a real world, which we experience as it is. Traditional Christian beliefs reinforce this view of reality. It tells us of an external God who creates a universe apart from himself at a single moment in time and then placed man in it as a special and separate creation from the rest of nature. This viewpoint has pervaded western society and is deeply entrenched in our psyche. From that perspective, it is only natural that we see the world out there as a real on its own right and us, living in it, as real in our own right. It seems obvious that the trees, rocks, vehicles and buildings are real objects that are out there just as we see them. Similarly, it is easy to see ourselves as real, separate beings. I feel my heartbeat, see my limbs and feel the pain when I bump into something. Appearances can be deceptive, however, and when we take a closer look at what seems obvious, we find things are not necessarily as we might have imagined. Natural SelectionWe evolved through natural selection. Any creature that has qualities that make it more adaptable in its environment is more likely to survive. Over generations, the more adaptable tend to survive, so the whole species tends to become increasingly adapted over time. As well as this, each creature only has a certain amount of energy available to it because there is a limit to how much food can be gathered and processed. This means that dividing up energy use in the most effective way is very important to the ongoing survival of any species.The brains of our early human ancestors grew to be much larger than that of any other creature in their environment. It enabled the development of sophisticated social structures with language and culture, increased precision in body movements, the use of tools, rational thoughts and so much more. This made them far more effective and adaptable and enabled an enormous leap in fitness for their environment. The down side of this amazing development was a massive increase in the amount of energy needed to fuel the brain, which uses a large proportion of our overall daily energy requirements. Therefore, anything that would enable the brain to use less energy, but still remain just as effective, would confer a competitive advantage. Pattern MakingIn order to decrease the amount of energy consumed, rather than take in all the sensory data that we perceive through our senses, it is far more efficient for us to select the pieces of data that are more critical rather than that which is less critical. By focusing on the more important sensory data it also speeds up the data processing time, which makes it possible for us to respond to our world in real time.Our brain selects what it sees as the most critical pieces of information and builds the rest of our experience around what it has selected. It looks for patterns because they make the world more predictable. Patterns allow us to quickly make sense of the data we perceive and make useful predictions of what the future is likely to be like. Once we understand the basic unit of the pattern, we know what the rest will be like, so we only need information about the basic unit of the pattern and how it repeats. Perceiving patterns means we use far less brain energy. That is why we humans are so linked into patterns. Dance and music, art, are full of patterns because our brain naturally seeks them out and feels more secure when there are familiar patterns. What we experience then is a combination of the sensory data that has been selected as important and what the brain has added to fill in the gaps. The information for the “filling in” comes from assumptions based on our past experience. We assume that the present and future will operate according to the same patterns we have experienced in the past. It is through recognising patterns that we make meaning and meaning gives a sense of coherence. We are thus meaning making machines, forever seeking to understand our world by find meaning and pattern. This is a very efficient way for the brain to work, but it does allow errors to occur. Firstly, the brain may fail to select the best information either by ignoring critical data or selecting unimportant data. Secondly, it may misread the patterns from that data by missing important patterns or seeing patterns that are not really there. When we look at the stars of the night sky, we see a myriad of stars seemingly randomly placed in the firmament and yet within them we see patterns as constellations. The ancient Greeks connected the dots in a meaningful way and found hunters, scorpions, serpents, dragons, dogs and much more. That was not the only way we could have made patterns from the stars. The Hindu, Mayans, Chinese and many others looked at the same stars, but saw different patterns. In the same way, different people experience the same event, but formulate different meanings. No particular pattern is right or wrong, but some may be more effective at enabling the person to interact with their world. We must take these patterns we perceive and form them together into a whole, consistent map that we can then use to navigate our way through our world. Our early lizard ancestors needed to form a coherent mental map of the physical world they lived in that they could use as a reference point to make sense of the world they lived in and respond to it effectively. Since survival was crucial, the map needed to be linked to what increases the likelihood of survival and what decreased the likelihood of survival. Light was generally safer than dark, and moving up to higher ground was more often safer than being caught in a hollow. Smooth and level was safer than rough and sloped. Some time later, we evolved cognitive skills. This required a coherent cognitive map of the conceptual space just as a cognitive map of the physical space had previously been necessary. Rather than “reinvent the wheel” it was easier to reuse the structure of the physical map for our conceptual map. Instead of a landscape of valleys and mountains, rivers and rocks, a landscape of ideas and concepts emerged. The connections to safety were retained and formed the framework for linking concepts. Light is seen as good and darkness is seen as bad. Up is seen as better than down, so we tend to see progress as moving up and being on a mountaintop as being a success (although we talk of depth of knowledge too). Ideas are seen to be close to each other if they are similar or distant if they are more different. If events proceed well they are seen as calm and smooth; if not they are rough and turbulent. If an ancient creature had to strike with a forelimb, it would be quicker to have one limb predominating, so time is not lost working out which limb to strike with. Either left or right would have been equally effective. For whatever reason, the right hand side came to predominate. Right has come to be seen as better than left, (Right is adroit and dexterous, and left is gauche and sinister in the French and Latin). Had our environment been physically different, then our whole conceptual vocabulary and the way we see the world could have been quite different. Our mental processing is as much an evolved process as the evolution of our hands and feet. Shared PatternsWhen an event happens our cognitive map helps us make sense of that event and contextualise what has happened. In order for us to be able to communicate with others, we need to all see the world in a sufficiently similar way. That can only happen if we develop shared understandings of how to interpret the world we live in. That is, our cognitive maps need to align sufficiently with others in our group for messages to be interpreted. This process was particularly enabled by the development of language. When we speak the same language we can share ideas, information and views. We can co-operate and work together for our mutual benefit so much more effectively.When our early human ancestors came together, they found they could live together more successfully if they took on special roles designed to enhance their natural abilities. They developed roles such as the chief, the warrior, the wisdom keeper and the nurturer. Each member of the society needed to add those roles to their inner map, so they knew how to fulfil those roles and how to act when someone else was acting in one of the roles. These shared constellations of mental energy have become known as archetypes. The roles above translate to the archetypes of the king, warrior, magician and lover. By forming these shared conceptual maps, we made community possible. This greatly enhanced our ability to operate together in our environment effectively, but it also rigidified our perspective on what reality was like, because we excluding many other equally valid interpretations. Other groups form their own shared understandings, which are, of course, different from ours. This has often led to us seeing outsiders as threats. The brain makes mistakes When the brain has selected its data and compared it to past
patterns it sometimes makes mistakes. This is exploited when we see optical
illusions. Our brain jumps to conclusions about what the patterns mean and
makes a mistake. When it sees the two
sloped lines on the diagram to the left, it assumes that they represent two
parallel lines extending away into the distance. The two other lines are therefore
put into a three dimensional context. The top line is seen as more distant and
should therefore be longer than the bottom one. In fact they are of equal
length, but the brain assumes the top one is longer and changes what we experience.
What we experience is what our brain thinks makes sense rather than what is actually
there.
Our brain also distorts reality to increase our ability to function in our environment. If a ball is thrown at you quickly, it moves faster than your brain is capable of processing. It actually takes about a half a second to process all the information. If the ball is at point x and coming at you fast, by the time you have processed that information the ball is at a new position, say x’. We would put our hands out where we think the ball will come, but it would arrive early and somewhere else. This would make catching the ball impossible. So, how are we able to catch a ball? It’s simply amazing. We see where the ball is, then make a calculation of where we think the ball will be in a half a second’s time after we have processed it’s position. We actually “see” the ball where it will be by the time we have processed it, rather than were we initially “saw” it, and we can therefore catch the ball. We do not see the world as it is, but in a way that works for living in the world. Have you ever noticed that when you hear a monotonous background sound, we eventually come to not notice it. The interesting thing, though, is when the background sound stops, we notice the sound stopping. How do we get to hear the sound stopping, when what we actually hear is the onset of silence? The brain retrieves some of the sound to which we have not been paying attention and replays some of it. The brain then turns it off so we can hear the difference. Again, we experience a practical re-creation, which makes us more adaptable rather than experiencing what is actually there. We can only perceive our environment in ways that the apparatus of our body allows. Through evolution we have fine tuned our perception of the particular wavelengths of information that give us a competitive advantage. We see light from the range of about 400 – 790 THz and hear sounds in the range of 20 – 20,000Hz. This is only a small part of the range of possible frequencies. Some creatures such as dogs and bees are aware of other frequencies to which we are oblivious. That will mean that their experience of the same world we live in will be quite different from ours. Had our evolutionary history been different, and perhaps only slightly different, our experience of ourselves and the world we live in might have been fundamentally different. Our experience of time is something else we take for granted. If it is 5pm, then if we wait a while, it will be 6pm. But, if you stop to think of it, you may be able to describe what happens as time passes, but can you even define what it is? We all know “time flies when you’re having fun” and it drags when we are bored. So, we experience time differently from how the clock ticks. Again it is our mind that gives us the experience of time that we have. Our experience as a representationWe think we perceive the world as it is, but what we perceive can only ever be a representation of what might be “out there”. In the case of sight, light waves come from an object that reaches our eye. The eye registers the pattern of light and generates a corresponding electrical impulse, which is sent to the back of the brain. There the impulses are interpreted and a visual image is created that we experience. It is rather like looking into the viewing screen of a video recorder.An event happens out in the world and light comes into the camera lens. Sensors then interpret the light and generate electrical impulses that are analyse and combined to form a smaller image that is visible. The image created is only an image or a representation of what it videos and similarly what we experience can only be a representation of what is out in the world. The representation must be coherent, so if there is a movement in the outside world, it must be represented in a logical way in the representation. All relevant aspects of the outside world must be mapped through to the representation. Our brain thus creates a three dimensional image of the outside world, accurately mapping the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch, not to mention an awareness of time passing. Not only does the brain have to form a consistent representation of the world, but it must create one that maps back onto the outside world and makes sense of the interactions between us and our world. When I reach out to an object, the object in the outside world and my representation of it in my experience must overlap. The object must be where my representation places it. As I touch the object, the physical sensations must again match up. We therefore have a complex representation overlaid out onto the world we experience so both line up and our actions make sense. Not only is the outside world only a representation, but any experience we have of ourselves can also only be a representation. When I look at my hand I am still only looking at a representation of whatever it is that is there. My hand as I experience it is therefore no more real than a tree I see in the far off distance. The feel of the chair I sit in, feelings of hunger, the taste of wine in my mouth and my own heartbeat are all only representations of events outside the brain. Then we must ask where is the mind if even our brain as we know it is only a representation of itself? How real is there world out there? Everything we have discussed so far assumes that there is a real world out there which we interpret and translate into useful representations we can use to interact with that world. The standard scientific understanding of our mind is that it is somehow an emergent product of the electrical activity of the brain, which then interacts with a real, material world out there. There is increasing evidence that this may not be so. Immanuel Kant put forward the idea that mind creates time and space as a way of experiencing consciousness. Consciousness would then be some type of field beyond time and space which rearranges itself in some way so that time and space exist within it. So, rather than a creating a representation of a real world, everything is a representation. Our brain thus becomes a vehicle through which consciousness allows us to experience past and future, individuality and connectedness. Mind then not only creates representations of an external world, it creates what we suppose to be reality. If our mind is clever enough to create all these exquisite representations of an external reality, is it so unbelievable that it might also create the supposed external reality. Actually, our mind already does it when we dream. The science of quantum mechanics is offering us some interesting ideas that may help support Immanuel Kant’s ideas. Quantum mechanics explores the world at a scale smaller than the atom. It was found that at that the world is very different from the one with which we are familiar. Time can go backwards, particles can exist in two places at once, and particles separated by millions of kilometres can instantaneously communicate. The presence of an observer changes what happens. We are now finding that quantum effects are observable at the scale of our everyday world. Ervin Laszlo writes of the quantum vacuum, which is a quantum field that has been shown to extend through all time and space. We are always “swimming” in the field that is all around us and all through us. Everything that exists in time and space emerges from the vacuum and will later return to it. Laszlo further proposes that the quantum vacuum is itself conscious and that underlying consciousness of the quantum vacuum has driven evolution to the point that we have a brain capable of experiencing consciousness. Since consciousness is the underlying fabric of the universe, life and consciousness are inevitable. Stuart Hameroff working with Roger Penrose has come up with an interesting theory. At the quantum level, we cease to find particles made of matter. They become waves and/or particles all at the same time. Instead we must describe what we find in terms of probabilities of existing in a particular region of space. These probabilities may be superimposed on top of one another. They remain this way in a sort of limbo state until there is a collapse of the wave function. It is only when the wave form has collapsed that the particle takes on a distinct form. This usually happens when an external observer views the system. This is similar to what we find at the human scale. If I am contemplating a holiday to say Auckland, Sydney or Brisbane (I live in New Zealand) until I have made a decision each of the possibilities stand as possible outcomes. I will weigh up the pros and cons of each and make a decision. Once I have decided to go to say, Brisbane, the other two drop away as possibilities and I am left with one outcome. Hameroff theorises that the wave function does in fact collapse at the quantum level, but takes millions of years. At the human scale it takes millionths of a second, so we see everything as solid matter. Interestingly, he says very small organelles within our cells called “microtubules” take about 125 milliseconds for the wave form to collapse. That is the time it takes to generate a thought, so he says thinking is a quantum effect we experience at our human scale. Thoughts therefore appear to come out of nowhere because they only come into being when a wave form collapses. All of these ideas would suggest that instead of being separate beings in an external world, maybe we are fundamentally connected to those about us and the external world. Maybe we are all co-creating ourselves as we go. Spiral Dynamics talks of the bio-psycho-social (spiritual)apparatus of a human being interacting with the life conditions in the environment. From this dynamic mix emerges a worldview to give understanding, meaning and a means of responding effectively to the life conditions. It recognises the dynamic interactions involved in being human. Humberto Maturana and Francesco Varela formulated the concept of autopoiesis that also reflects the dynamic interplay within complex adaptive systems. An autopoietic system is a network which continuously regenerates itself through a flow of ongoing processes. For example, a human being continuously regenerates itself through a flow of food and drink. The system is structurally coupled with its environment from which it gains all the resources it needs to survive. We change the environment, it changes us, it changes our mind, and our mind changes us and so on. Donella Meadows uses the metaphor of dancers. Both dancers are acutely aware of the movements of the other and dynamically react. Neither knows exactly what will happen next and yet they both have some control over what will happen. The dance emerges from the way they work in together. Taking our place of dignityIf we pull all these ideas together we can form an alternative view of reality from that presented to us by traditional Christianity. We no longer need to see ourselves as separate from each other or the world we live in. Instead of an external God creating the universe as a one time event far in the past and man as a later addition, maybe we are all a part of one dynamic co-creation. God loses his traditional anthropomorphic form and moves from outside creation to becoming an integral part of it. Creation becomes an ongoing, evolving process. Human beings become an integral part of nature and of God. The outside world then may not be a pre-given reality, but something that we form and co-create as we evolve. We then have the dignity and purpose of being an integral part of nature and as active participants in the ongoing co-creation of the universe.REFERENCESCarroll Lewis, (2008), Alice in Wonderland, Brandywine Studio Press, Swindon Book Co, Hong KongCowan C and Beck D, (1996) Spiral Dynamics, Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, Massachussets Hameroff Stuart, Stuart Hameroff interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2911199841702354668# Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/ Laszlo Ervin, (2003), The Connectivity Hypothesis, Foundations of an Integral Science of Quantum, Cosmos, Life, and Consciousness, State University of New York Press, New York MacGill Victor, (1995), When the Dragon Stirs, Healing our Wounded Lives through Fairy Stories, Myths and Legends, DragonStirs Enterprises, Dunedin, New Zealand Maturana H and Varela. F, (1991), Autopoiesis and Cognition : The Realization of the Living (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science), Boston, Springer Meadows Donella, (2008), Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction, VT Mo Costandi: http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/ |
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