MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

Every week, I am asked which shows I do should be considered for a weekend rerun to play on the local station where my show originates from. I mentioned to my producers that potentially I was looking into the possibility of re-airing the show, Replicant Future, that dealt with robots and the idea of giving them what is called “bulk apperception” which I took as to mean a soul or full consciousness.

I was told that since the program was pre-empted off and on because of the riots, it would not be a candidate to replay.

I was disappointed because I felt that it was a very interesting discussion. It was one of those deep discussions I treasure because of the audience participation and the rich dialogue it generated.

It is a type of deep coffee talk where we try to solve all of the mysteries of the universe.

Well, we give it a philosophical try.

One of the biggest and most puzzling scientific questions today is: What is the nature of consciousness and its origin? It is taken as a given that consciousness somehow comes from out of the physical matter and processes in the brain.

In this view, the physical substance of particles and energies is real and consciousness is essentially an illusion created by the physical. Science has steadfastly refused to take seriously the possibility that it may be the other way around; that consciousness is real whereas the physical is an illusion.

This view is known as idealism in philosophy.

There have been television shows and movies which have attempted to give us a basic understanding of what can be called the multiverse. The running themes of a lot of science fiction today propose the idea that there is more to reality than the physical universe and more to consciousness than simply brain activity.

Metaphysically, apperception is “the mind’s perception of itself as a conscious agent; self-consciousness,” or self-awareness. Apperception is rooted in the principle of nonresistance, a soul virtue synthesized of all indrawn (sublimated) physical senses, mental faculties and soul faculties. Apperception is also a law of being, and a law of doing.

It is the logic taken from past experience. Lessons learn from history, goals reached, dreams and imagination.

William Blake, one of the most revered English poets, made several remarkable statements about the power of imagination:

“Some see nature all ridicule and deformity…and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”

Of course, the notion of multiple universes is reflected in contemporary science. Physicist Brian Greene, author of The Hidden Reality, explains that Relativity and Quantum Theory, each highly useful in its own way, come into high mathematical conflict when set, side by side.

One resolution of that conflict can be achieved through String Theory, in which tiny vibrating strings in 10 or 11 dimensions explain the makeup of this universe. But String Theory also suggests many surfaces or membranes or islands on which matter, energy, and time can exist: multiple universes.

However, the only reason why any of this exists or is talked about is because of the mind.

Existence depends on mind because all of existence occurs within mind. We can know of the existence of our universe only because we have a mind and we can manipulate creation only because we have a mind. Mind is the true cause behind effect and therefore all things are mental.

Things can be willed into existence because of the mind and it powers combined with others makes up the universal mind.

Astrophysicist James Jeans speculated on the existence of a universal mind and a non-mechanical reality, writing in his The Mysterious Universe (1932), the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. The possibility that we are immersed in a virtual reality simulation shows how it would be possible for a consciousness as real and primary, physical as illusion and secondary, view to be the right one.

It is very easy to become caught up in our individuality. It is very easy to see others as separate and apart from ourselves, but the more knowledge we gain the more we begin to realize that we are not so different deep down. In fact we begin to realize that we share a very strong common bond. What makes one different to another is their perception on life. Deep down we have the same basic needs and we seek answers to the same basic questions.

There is always the possibility we are cells that make up the cosmic hierarchy. We are the same being only multiplied in number; experiencing different simulations that can be compared to dreams in the brain of an even larger living entity.

Initially, this may seem a strange way of thinking of ourselves but if we entertain it for just a moment, we will see that is not as bizarre as first thought. Life is interconnected and is really one giant life form that is continually expanding, adapting, and evolving in complexity. The binding force of all life is, consciousness. Each life form possesses various degrees of self consciousness and in this world we all share the need to survive and re-produce. On a basic level all of life shares the same common needs and desires.

Clearly, we’re all interrelated, but are we part of a single and absolute totality, a common being? Are we like the hundreds of different types of cells in our body that are constantly dying and being replaced, part of a complex organism greater than ourselves?

One of my favorite plays is, Our Town, by Thornton Wilder. In high school, I played the character of Mr. Webb in the play and was moved by segment that talks about this so-called cosmic hierarchy.

Two of the younger characters, Rebecca and George Gibbs chat with each other as they stare up at the billions of stars in the sky. Rebecca mentions a letter that her friend Jane once received. Rebecca recalls the letter was addressed to “Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God.”

This letter shows the hierarchy of the universe from a child’s imagination. Even though the address on the letter was a grandiose gesture, the letter arrived at its destination. The nuance of the address is that from the smallest unit to the biggest an individual is a part of the universal mind – or in this case the mind of God.

Would it be so hard to understand that we can be in a simulation or a dream that is bouncing around in the mind of a larger being? And, does this larger being have a mind that is unlimited in content?

A scientist has put forward the extraordinary idea that one of the reasons we haven’t found alien life yet is because the universe is, in fact, an alien.

Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University has postured the theory that perhaps the universe is in fact, the ‘brain’ of a hyper-advanced alien race. Writing in Nautilus, Scharf puts forward the astonishing idea that an alien species could become so advanced it would be indistinguishable from physics itself.

In his article, Scharf points out that just five per cent of the universe is actually made out of the matter that we know and understand.

A much larger 27 per cent is made from just mysterious completely unseen matter.

While the generally agreed idea is that this ‘dark matter’ is made of nothing but weak subatomic particles we still have no conclusive way of describing what it actually is.

Scharf has a different view however:

“Dark matter could contain real complexity, and perhaps it is where all technologically advanced life ends up or where most life has always been. What better way to escape the nasty vagaries of supernova and gamma-ray bursts than to adopt a form that is immune to electromagnetic radiation?” he writes.

He explains his theory further saying: “The universe does other funky and unexpected stuff. Notably, it began to expand at an accelerated rate about 5 billion years ago. This acceleration is conventionally chalked up to dark energy. But cosmologists don’t know why the cosmic acceleration began when it did.”

Scharf admits that in its current form, his theory and indeed many others surrounding the origins of dark matter are completely unprovable.

Theoretical physicist, futurist, and bestselling author Michio Kaku has developed a theory that points to the existence of God using string theory. Kaku believes that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.

To reach his conclusions, about intelligence behind the universe, Dr. Kaku made use of what he calls “primitive semi-radius tachyons.”

A tachyon is a particle that always moves faster than light. Many physicists believe such particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.

As noted by Einstein and others, special relativity implies that faster-than-light particles, if they existed, could be used to communicate backwards in time.

Dr. Kaku used a technology created in 2005 that allowed him to analyze the behavior of matter at the subatomic scale, relying on a primitive tachyon semi-radius.

When he observed the behavior of these tachyons in several experiments, he concluded that humans live in a “matrix,” a world governed by laws and principles conceived by an intelligent architect.

Whichever way you cut it, you come to this one unavoidable conclusion: there is but One Consciousness of which your consciousness must be a part and “a part.”

In this time where people seem to be divided, wouldn’t be great if people pulled together and understood that something beyond ordinary physics awaits our discovery?

https://soundcloud.com/groundzeromedia/a2016-11-18

Written by Ron Patton