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..:: Perspective ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The perspective determined by the body
and physical senses is the only one of which we can all be assured. Not
only can we detect each other through the action of the senses, but the
external environment can be detected as well, and appears to remain more
or less consistent as a physical manifestation throughout the apparent
universe. There is at least sufficient consistency in human observations
of this condition which we call life to agree that it exists
objectively, has a literal and perceptual beginning, and also ends in
both contexts.
A human being can be represented as a sensory information
encoder, interpreter, and recorder any and all impressions that
impinge upon the organism and the senses will inevitably pass through
these three processes. In general terms, cultural and social matrices
tend to ensure local agreement on what is perceived by individuals
present within those matrices, although the fact of perception remains
grounded in the personal organic lattice the body of flesh and bone
protein. That body has a set of extensive automated responses to
various environmental conditions, ranging from autonomic nervous
mechanisms to global instinctual drives, the cumulative result of
evolution on this planet as represented by our species. Yet, the senses
that inform us of the world beyond the boundaries of the body can only
provide a small part of the total information content available this
we have come to know from the instrumental investigations of science
the extent of phenomena lying outside of direct perception is incredibly
extensive to say the least. And, finally, the body represents a focal
perspective of perception fixed in time, space, and bandwidth
no matter how well augmented our senses are with any kind of advanced
instrumentation or acculturation, all understanding still comes down to
a foundation in personal sensory experience. The body carries forward
life the body is life viewed from a unique sensory
perspective.
It is the effect of this perspective that forms the subject
of this SYNERGY article. And in the vein of the SYNERGY
ongoing motif, the qualities of the information environment
surrounding the organism will constitute the thrust of our investigation
here, as opposed to the personal mechanism of that perspective.
This would seem to be quite challenging in view of the last sentence of
the preceding paragraph, and indeed it is, since we have only the senses
at any point in time to ground our experience. But we are all
learning machines the interpretive function noted in the first
paragraph and we can and do integrate each new sensory impression
registered into the extended record of the memory, altering and
advancing the meaning of each experience as we do so. When the infinite
capacity of the Psyche to imagine what cannot be perceived is
factored into this equation, the possibilities of learning become
limitless. Any fantasy or idea is a potential reality that has only to
be communicated in some way to gain external expression, and
subjected to physical development to gain external existence.
Thus has the utterly preposterous science fiction of yesterday become
the mundane reality of today!
The information environment surrounding human observers is
infinitely dense. This means that the least significant phenomenon
observable can be studied indefinitely, thereby yielding meaningful
investigative results indefinitely. If even a microscopic speck
of dust is so observed, the molecular complexity of its structure will
be revealed, including the energetic bonds that account for its
existence, right down to subatomic particles, quarks, and cosmic energy
strings. The latter are demonstrated mathematically to exist in ten
dimensions, not merely the three physical dimensions we experience in
the senses, and additional temporal dimension we infer intellectually
from our observations of transition in the environment. And who can say
how much more will be discovered as the subtlety of our methodology
advances? Perhaps a decade ago, researchers were examining the sooty
residue of certain energy discharges with electron microscopy, and
discovered carbon nanotubes there. Since these tubes, which are
mere nanometers in length, have electrovalent characteristics, it is
possible to manipulate them for use as circuit elements in the smallest
circuits under development today. Our ability to construct in todays
technological environment is limited literally only by our
imagination of what we think we can construct.
In a previous article, I discussed the concept of the
Black Box in perception the chaotic region that exists anywhere
beyond the current range of our extended perception, our knowledge
augmented by our imagination. The concept of infinite information
density effectively carries us inside the Black Box, where
anything that can be imagined is conceptually present. It is not that
nothing exists inside the Box, but that everything exists inside
the Box in non-determinate form. The Zen Buddhist contention that
nothing is everything and everything is nothing is quite literally true
at the quantum level of investigation. The non-determinate condition is
not non-existent it is simply non-observed, but everything is
still present there, waiting for human observation to somehow take place
regarding the Box.
The Black Box is itself an imaginary concept a symbolic
representation of the chaos that, however, is literally evident
everywhere beyond the limits of human intervention, and no one doubts
the existence of that chaos. The very natural world which we have
developed from is essentially chaotic. Much discussion has taken place
recently in academic and philosophical circles regarding thinking
outside the box I submit for the purposes of this discussion that we
need to think inside the box the perceptual Black Box using
our fully-empowered imagination as the engine of thought. To give credit
where credit is due, I really do suppose that we are referring to the
same process in either case the liberation of thought from the
constraints of convention.
How are we to take our perspective into a condition that is
by definition beyond any perspective? By entering the construct the
Black Box through the agency of the imagination, and letting our
fantasies have free rein there, no matter how preposterous,
uncomfortable, or confusing the results might be. If nothing else, there
will be a symbolic meaning present in what emerges, that can be
grasped eventually by patient, detached consideration, and this will
have productive implications elsewhere in life. All real discoveries
began as flights of fancy somewhere in some idealistic dreamers Black
Box. It is the willingness to press on with resourceful persistence that
decides what emerges into concrete expression on the material plane. And
the realization of deeper symbolic meaning present in chaotic
perceptions is worthwhile whether or not it results in a physical
object or objects perceivable in the senses.
It can be argued that all such unstructured observations are
still of a personal nature, and take place inside the personal mind and
organism, but do they? If we take the Black Box literally, then
it represents everything yet to be perceived in any modality anywhere,
inside or outside the body. If the field of information is infinitely
dense, then there must be some mechanism determining what emerges into
human perception, and that mechanism must exist beyond the personal
organism and senses. I have myself sat in meditation at the Portal of
Chaos (referred to in the Mental Field series of articles) the inner
gateway of imagination and experienced the emergence there into my
consciousness of many apparently chaotic images that have since formed
into meaningful and orderly complexes of information all pointing to the
presence of an extra-personal intelligence operating beyond the boundary
of personal perception and the physical body. Furthermore, the
confluence of my personal observations with several established schools
of esoteric thought indicates the activity of a common process at work
structuring consciousness that exists beyond any one personal Psyche.
Yes, I still have a personal sensory perspective, and, yes, I have used
meditation and imagination to transcend that perspective and gain
access to the infinite field of information and meaning which is
chaos. I now understand that I am limited in this life only by my
own lingering ignorance and lack of motivation. I have the power,
and I have the responsibility to create meaning and order in this
life by achieving understanding and offering that understanding to
others.
This process exists even in the case of apparently complete
nonexistence. There is a state of perception the absolutely
non-dual state in which consciousness essentially dissolves into a
non-differentiated stream of non-determinate expression. One is aware of
nothing in this condition not even breathing not thinking, feeling,
existing nothing. It can be presumed that, as long as life
continues, something will eventually recondense conscious perception in
the organism, and such has always been the case for me eventually I
simply return to consciousness. I presume that this state of absolutely
blank perception is analogous to the Hindu state of dreamless sleep
one of the three modes of perception that human beings can experience
the others being sleep with dreams, and waking awareness. Since most
people have experienced all three states of expression, it is quite
possible to communicate about the experience of nonexistence to others
by referring to the dreamless sleep state, although the attainment of
that state in meditation under controlled conditions will furnish much
more information about the transition into and out of it than slipping
away into conventional sleep. And this condition is presumably what
occurs when the ego completely dissolves, leaving the quantum Black Box
as the only remaining modality of awareness.
So it is possible to step
outside the box of physical perspective held in place by sensory
perception the illusory world of Maya and access the total field of
information present in even the least phenomenon, and I have suggested
some of the ways in which this can be achieved while still among the
living in this article. And I have attempted to describe what
conditions may be encountered beyond the borders of chaos, although this
is by no means a complete description of all that may be encountered in
that place no such description is possible, due to the infinite
manifestation of the information environment. This is truly the final
frontier of existence, where even non-existence can be sampled. Perhaps
we will find the ultimate answer to the riddle of life in the experience
of death that eventually finds us all, but we can and must probe beyond
the body into the hidden realms of manifestation that define
consciousness before that time comes, because this is the only
way to genuinely know anything about or beyond existence.
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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