Monday, March 21, 2005

A parenthesis on panpsychism

In my previous post Communique from Neverland I expressed a certain disquietude with being categorized as a panpsychic and felt that there was something there that did not quite mesh with the quantum cosmosophy that I am experimentally espousing. Now I see what it is. According to the definition on FutureHi.net, panpsychism is "the belief that mind, or consciousness, is omnipresent throughout the universe and is a fundamental aspect of the universe. Examples of panpsychic beliefs are that atoms have atom consciousness, rocks have rock consciousness, trees have tree consciousness, planets have planet consciousness, and the universe has universe consciousness, and so on." The probem with that is that it presupposes that there is an outside world! All these projections about what kind of consciousness might exist are posited on the qualities that we perceive "outside" ourselves. That's what I really mean when I say there is no there there! Any cosmology based on the myth of objectivity is bound to be bound in some kind of philosophic parenthesis.

Panpsychism is right to assume that we inhabit some sort of conscious matrix. But the warp and woof of it is nothing but ourselves. Does that sound lonely? It is indeed. Only an entity which knows true loneliness can ever break on through to the other side, to the incomprehensible true meeting with another quantum being. The quantization of consciousness is the fundamental principle, but it is not posited on the categories we see in the physical world. Let us not begin and end our investigation into the nature of things with the things themselves; they are part of the magic lantern show that has been conjured up for our entertainment by the incomprehensible, inexhaustible creativity inherent in the fiery furnace of formlessness. Quantum consciousness is based on the much more radical quantization of pure witnessing monads.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! Loved your blog!!! BUT will this TRUTH set us free??
And, as regards this God-being/quantum cosmological unit - IT is probably not
about freedom as WE want it! To be sure IT is not operating from our perspective - certainly not navigating through our minutiae!!

Doug Mackey said...

That's a good point. Freedom from the human perspective has to do with release from the boundaries inherent in the human condition, i.e., "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." But what we really want is more the idea of freedom than freedom itself. If the cell door is locked, the prisoner defines himself as a prisoner. If the door swings open and he steps out of the cell and goes flying off into space because there is no gravity, that is way too much freedom and he is much better off staying in the cell. So he does. What he wants is the idea that the door is unlocked so that he can leave anytime he wants (but he never will, of course). The godbeing is not interested in anything to do with the cage. It promises the radical freedom of no limits. It promises the lifting ofthe veil. And as much as people may say they want that, they don't, really. Look at this country. A nation in love with the idea of freedom, and at war with the reality of it.