Mythology for a Post-Civilized World

Transcription

Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Metaconsciousness
Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
by
J. Harmon Grahn
V 5.1.0
1 April 2008
Published by
Taos, New Mexico
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Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 by J. Harmon Grahn. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections; with no FrontCover Texts, and with no BackCover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “Appendix A. GNU Free Documentation License”.
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Contents
Part I: The Human Predicament
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 9
The Principle of Universal Reciprocity......................................................... 12
Prologue ............................................................................................................... 15
Core Assumptions of Western Civilization .................................................. 15
Fatal and Nonfatal Memes ............................................................................ 17
What I Mean by Myth ................................................................................... 19
What I Mean by Metaconsciousness ............................................................ 20
What I Mean by Tribe .................................................................................. 21
The Parable of the Tribes ............................................................................. 22
Why You Should Listen to Me ..................................................................... 25
I.1.
Genesis and Evolution of Metaconsciousness ..................................................... 27
I.2.
Is Civilization Committing Suicide? .................................................................... 31
The Elements of Metaconscious Entities ...................................................... 31
The Cellular Suicide of Civilization ............................................................. 33
The Barnyard Pecking Order ........................................................................ 38
Challenges & Confirmations for the Myth of Metaconsciousness ............... 35
Lessons From the Barnyard .......................................................................... 41
I.3.
Metaconsciousness Among the Microbes ............................................................ 43
I.4.
Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields ................................................. 47
The MindMatter Problem ............................................................................ 47
The Beginning of “Quantum Weirdness” ..................................................... 48
Heisenberg May Have Slept Here ................................................................ 49
Nonlocality ................................................................................................... 52
Yes, but What Does it Mean? ....................................................................... 54
Additional Contours of the Myth of Metaconsciousness ............................. 57
I.5.
The River and the Cataract .................................................................................. 61
Higher Ground .............................................................................................. 63
I.6.
The Hacker Tribe ................................................................................................. 65
The Real Meaning of Hacker ....................................................................... 65
StreetSmart Savvy ...................................................................................... 70
Lessons From the Bazaar ............................................................................. 75
How Do They Do It? .................................................................................... 77
Alternatives to “Rolling Over and Playing Dead” ........................................ 78
Metaconsciousness in Action ....................................................................... 79
I.7.
Lessons From Life ............................................................................................... 81
People, wake up! ........................................................................................... 81
My Approach to Dealing with “Civilization” .............................................. 83
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I.8.
I.9.
I.10.
I.11.
What I Want .................................................................................................. 86
Lessons From History .......................................................................................... 89
The Past 245,000,000 Years ......................................................................... 89
The Prognosis for Humankind ...................................................................... 93
Dominator and Partnership Civilizations ..................................................... 94
The Rise and Fall of Minoan Crete .............................................................. 96
The Revised History of Old Europe ............................................................. 99
Lessons From Old Europe .......................................................................... 101
The Future of the Future .................................................................................... 103
Perpetual Growth and Expansion ............................................................... 103
The Myth of Free Energy ............................................................................ 104
The Down Side of Free Energy .................................................................. 107
September 11, 2001 ............................................................................................ 109
Toward a PostCivilized Mythology ................................................................... 111
A Plausible PostCivilized Mythology ........................................................ 111
Elements of the Myth of Metaconsciousness .............................................. 113
If Not This, What? ...................................................................................... 118
Santiago Atitlan .......................................................................................... 119
Social Survival and Collapse ...................................................................... 122
Easter Island ................................................................................................ 123
Tikopia ........................................................................................................ 128
Nauru .......................................................................................................... 131
Toward a PostCivilized Mythology ........................................................... 132
Part II: OpenSource PostCivilized Mythologies
II.1. A PostCivilized Creation Myth ........................................................................ 137
II.2. Myth of a Golden Age ........................................................................................ 145
Uncanny Maps ............................................................................................ 146
Ancient Egypt ............................................................................................. 148
The Coral Castle ......................................................................................... 155
Baalbek ....................................................................................................... 156
Myth of a New Golden Age ........................................................................ 159
The Masculine/Feminine Nexus ................................................................. 160
The Example of the Bonobos ..................................................................... 162
Gateway to a New Golden Age .................................................................. 164
II.3. The Myth of Human Destiny ............................................................................. 167
Learning to Live Within Our Means .......................................................... 168
Conditions for Social Success .................................................................... 170
The Wider Dimensions of Warfare ............................................................ 172
Warfare and Predation ................................................................................ 173
The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles” .......................................... 173
Getting “There” from “Here” ..................................................................... 174
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II.4.
II.5.
II.6.
II.7.
II.8.
OpenSource Metaconscious Projects ........................................................ 175
Public Key Data Encryption ....................................................................... 176
The Sometimes Surprising Impacts of New Technologies ........................ 180
The Myths of Infinity and Hierarchy ................................................................. 185
The Large and the Small ............................................................................. 185
There is no Hierarchy ................................................................................. 186
The Infinite and the Infinitesimal ............................................................... 188
The Myth of Objective Reality .......................................................................... 191
Infinity and Complementarity, Again ......................................................... 191
“PostCivilized” Physics ............................................................................. 193
The Fword ................................................................................................. 195
Transition to “PostCivilization” ................................................................ 197
A “PostCivilized” Myth About Reality ..................................................... 198
SelfSimilarity ..................................................................................... 198
Cosmological Scale Expansion ........................................................... 199
Panspermia .......................................................................................... 209
Metaconsciousness .............................................................................. 211
Necessity ............................................................................................. 213
Inconclusion ............................................................................................... 214
The Myth of Metaconscious Evolution ............................................................. 217
“The Edifice of Human Knowledge” ......................................................... 217
On Cellular Biology ................................................................................... 220
The Molecular Microworld of the Cell ....................................................... 222
The Cellular Brain ...................................................................................... 226
Evolution of Metaconsciousness ................................................................ 228
On Networks ............................................................................................... 229
Emergent Behaviors .................................................................................... 239
Inconclusion ................................................................................................ 242
Integration of Mythologies ................................................................................ 245
The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber ............................................................. 245
The Myth of the Given ............................................................................... 252
Of Parts and Wholes ................................................................................... 254
“Yabut...” .................................................................................................... 256
Inconclusion ................................................................................................ 260
The Myths of Life and Death ............................................................................. 267
Syntropy and Entropy ................................................................................. 269
Symbiosis and Predation ............................................................................. 273
How We Got Here ....................................................................................... 280
The Myth of Inevitability ........................................................................... 285
An Alternative Myth ................................................................................... 288
Epilogue ............................................................................................................. 291
Cumulative Bibliography ................................................................................... 293
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Appendix A. GNU Free Documentation License .............................................. 299
Appendix B. Acknowledgments and Appreciation ............................................ 307
Appendix C. Revision History of This Document ............................................. 309
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Part I
The Human Predicament
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Introduction
What follows is an exploration of what was originally perceived as the human predic
ament on planet Earth; but which upon further consideration may more aptly be imagined as the normal evolutionary “growing pains” of the human species.
The Author too has experienced “growing pains” during the course of the exploration that follows, and I am not at all certain at the end of it that I remain in complete harmony with everything I myself have written. You, dear Reader, are therefore excused from any obligation for finding perfect accord with what follows. I can recommend the work to you nevertheless, because I believe it does fulfill its purpose as a stimulus to thought – which I consider of incalculably greater value than successfully persuading you to share my peculiar and shifting views. If you wish to “leap to conclusions,” and find out in advance where all this is headed – something I myself didn’t know when I began – you might initiate your exploration with the concluding section, II.8. The Myths of Life and Death, rather than beginning at the beginning.
At the inception of this project, the image associated with it was one of alarm border
ing on panic – such as the feeling one might have upon the realization of being enclosed within a burning theater. Gradually, over the extended course of developing this explora
tion further, that sense of panic has somewhat softened; and the image of the burning theater has been replaced by the alternative image of an impending birth – as viewed by the fetus.
It is still a highly critical situation, fraught with peril and uncertainty for both Mother and Child, particularly when “things go wrong.” Yet it is not an impossible situation; nor is it one, I am beginning speculatively to imagine, that has not arisen many times before in the course of Cosmic History.
The image of an impending birth encompasses its antecedents, wherein it has been observed that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny;” which is a fancy way of saying that the gestation of a developing fetus reproduces in the womb the evolutionary history of the entire species. That is, during the period of gestation, every fetus retraces the entire evo
lutionary path, from a onecelled organism, through the stages of a multicellular colony, a chordate, a vertebrate with rudimentary gills... until it emerges at last, if all goes well, as a healthy infant human, taking her or his first breath of air outside the deserted womb.
For the developing fetus, gestation is a timeless period during which it directly expe
riences for fleeting moments every stage of the 3½billionyear evolutionary history of the human race.A During that time, the inside of the womb constitutes the entire “known A. See The Past 245,000,000 Years in section I.8 for partial amplification.
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universe” for the fetus – which is fully alive and aware the whole time. It can hear and feel sensations originating outside the womb, just as we can gather sensations from rela
tively remote regions of our surrounding universe; yet of the kind of world that awaits it the fetus can have no accurate conception whatsoever. Beyond its approaching birthday resides an utterly impenetrable mystery.
Meanwhile, the (momentarily) singlecell, multicell, growing fetus floats weight
lessly in the warm embrace of a comfortable chamber in which its every need is met with
out effort. If all is well, the Mother nourishes the Child with her own nutrition, and floods it perpetually with thoughts and emotions of love, shelter, and happy anticipation, regardless of the season, weather, or other conditions she herself experiences.
And every minute, every hour, every day, the fetus grows, and passes through con
secutive stages of evolutionary development.... Until the comfortable, embracing, shel
tering womb gradually becomes less and less roomy, and less and less comfortable, for both Mother and Child. We may imagine that, at some rudimentary level of developing consciousness, the Child becomes aware, perhaps, of a trend which is approaching a limit. “Hay, it’s getting crowded in here!” is a thought that may be given some form of conscious expression within the developing fetal mind. And finally, when it may seem that things can hardly get any worse – sure enough, things get worse, and the crowded chamber spasmodically contracts yet further at shortening intervals, as the entire “known universe” begins convulsing and squeezing the helpless infant toward... what?! Toward an unavoidable destiny utterly beyond the infant’s conception. There is nothing in the Child’s 3½billionyear experience (as we may imagine the Child reckons time) remotely suffi
cient to prepare it for what comes next!
Yet if all goes well, what comes next is a bouncing baby boy or girl, snuggled to the breast of an exhausted, deeply contented Mother; and another Child has commenced a fresh adventure, yet only dimly glimpsed – and already utterly beyond the wildest imagi
nation of the unborn fetus of a few moments before.
Birth does not occur without effort, and it is more difficult for some than for others; yet every living being on the planet passes through this universal initiation, and moves on into the many dimensions of that still unfathomable mystery we call Life. It may be that something analogous to the birth of a single organism can take place for an entire species as well. If so, it may be worth speculating that the socalled “human predicament” is in some ways like such an impending birth – for all humanity, and on a global scale. And even for a birth in which “all is going well,” the term “predicament” is not entirely inap
propriate, either for Child or for Mother. Getting the unborn Child alive and healthy out of the womb is a formidable challenge, even under the best of circumstances; and for the Child being shoved unceremoniously “out the door,” it is a crisis without precedent, and may have elements strikingly in common with the “human predicament” faced today by global humanity.
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The predicament, or impending birth, faced today by global humanity may be described generally as a condition into which we humans have incrementally backed our
selves over the course of a relatively extended span of time; from which it is evidently very difficult to extricate ourselves at once gracefully, and “quickly.”
We probably got ourselves into this because “we didn’t know any better,” because like an infant in the womb, we have always had a limited capacity for anticipating what comes next. The eventual playout of the human predicament appears to be the imminent collapse of contemporary human civilization; and possibly the destruction of the bio
logical lifesupport system of planet Earth. In the latter eventuality, both Mother and Child die in childbirth. It happens in the lives of individuals, and it may happen in the lives of species and planets; yet it is probably not inevitable.
In any case, it appears that for humanity, “time is running short,” and “gracefully” or “awkwardly,” we humans are faced by a swiftly closing window of opportunity during which any such “solutions” must be found and acted upon “quickly;” or else the human predicament will run its course without a “solution.” This may sound more alarming than it possibly is in reality. Infants in the course of normal childbirth do not appear deliber
ately to influence the course of events either.
The human predicament is complicated by the fact that it is multidimensional, non
simultaneous, global, and nonlinear, in nature and scope; which precludes the emergence of a single “solution” from any single “source” among humans. In a very real sense, every past, present, and future human resident of this planet either was, is, or will be, “part of the problem,” “part of the solution,” or a complicated mixture of the two. In a similar sense, a birthing infant does influence the course of events, to the extent that all of its various parts are in a condition of health, illhealth, or somewhere between.
The following work constitutes part of my personal contribution to the contemporary dilemma, which I place perpetually at the very top of my list of priorities, so long as a) the human predicament persists, and b) I persist in corporeal form. I do not imagine that I shall procure, or be able to suggest, a comprehensive “solution” to the human predica
ment; but I do imagine that if such human “solutions” are possible, or have any meaning, I may be able to make potentially valuable contributions to them, in collaboration and cooperation with others similarly motivated. The present work, therefore, is intentionally “opensource” and available for creative adaptation by others, who may wish to collabo
rate, or unilaterally to take it in multiple potential directions.
On the other hand, it is entirely plausible to me that few of my contemporaries may relish, or enthusiastically welcome the content of the work which follows; for I imagine there are not very many who will welcome the suggestion that the way of life which they and their ancestors have have believed for the past five thousand years to be the only right way to liveA has been fatally flawed from its inception, and was doomed from the start to A. See Core Assumptions of Western Civilization in the Prologue.
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the eventual failure we are experiencing today as “the human predicament,” or “impend
ing birth.”
Therefore, more urgently than I wish to address my contemporaries, do I wish to address future generations who I imagine will have survived the “global birthing” we are today experiencing, as yet mostly in anticipation. Perhaps in hindsight what follows may appear more sensible later than it does now in foresight.
For the benefit of both contemporary and future readers, I can now summarize quite succinctly the myth around which the present work orbits – a myth which was not obvious from the start, but has emerged with increasing clarity during the course of unwinding the thread of the following work.
The Principle of Universal Reciprocity
Every life [so this myth goes] – indeed every existence of any kind – is in a profound and farreaching sense a collaborative, interrelated partnership with all other existences throughout spacetime, or “All That Is.” It seems probable that some form of “intuitive understanding” of this condition is “wired in” to the nature of all living things, including “precivilized” humans. The nature of “civi
lization” was from its inception such as to attempt to “break out” of this uni
versal reciprocal relationship, or to exempt “civilization” from its applicability. This cannot be done, for it isn’t so, and obstructs the evolutionary progress of any who make the attempt. Any who attempt existence in denial of this universal principle must eventually fail; just as surely as anyone stepping off the edge of a precipice in denial of the principle of universal gravitational attraction must come eventually to an untidy end.
Nevertheless, the attempt was bound to be made; for it is probably an unavoid
able stage of human evolution anywhere throughout Cosmos. Only in this way could the principle of universal reciprocity be explicitly learned – as opposed merely to being “instinctively wired.” This has been the mission of human “civilization;” that is to learn, by denying it, the universal applicability of the principle of reciprocity.
The mission of “postcivilization,” having learned this principle “the hard way,” which may practically be “the only way,” is to explore the limitless field of human possibility for those who explicitly understand the principle of universal reciprocal partnership, and choose to apply this understanding in the conduct of their lives. This is the challenge, and the potential opportunity, awaiting future generations.
Part I of this work sets out some of the more (or less) obvious aspects of the human predicament, and makes the case that the human predicament springs as a direct conse
quence from contemporary widespread erroneous human mythologies, or beliefs about the 12
nature of reality. The suggestion is made that any “solution” to the human predicament must therefore include – must indeed begin with alternatives to contemporary “civilized" mythologies.
Part II then presents a number of proposals for alternative “postcivilized” myths which, if widely adopted, might contribute to corresponding alternative beliefs about the nature of reality, and consequently to human behaviors leading to more agreeable desti
nies than the repetitious crash of successions of fatally flawed human civilizations. Col
laboration is invited in the form of further such proposals, or collaborative refinement of existing proposals.
The (relatively) recent expansion of this work, Part III, has been withdrawn from Version 5, pending further revision as a separate work. It is included in V 4.1.1, which remains available unchanged.
I might mention in passing that there are naturally quite a number of ways to read the present work. One way is to begin with this Introduction, and proceed sequentially until you reach the end of Appendix C. Revision History of This Document. Another way – any number of other ways – might involve scanning the table of Contents, and going to any section or subsection that may capture your attention, and reading as much of it as sustains your interest.
Or, as already suggested, you may prefer to begin your exploration with the most recently added – and concluding – section, II.8. The Myths of Life and Death, which articulates observations not anticipated in the earliest sections, and bears numerous cross
referencing links to other sections of the work. The interrelated ideas being expressed here did not all emerge at the same time, and are not even guaranteed to be entirely consistent with one another. Nor was the path of their unwinding anticipated by the Author from the beginning; so the Reader too is hereby encouraged to pilot her or himself through as many of them as sustain interest, along a path of your own choice.
Such, then, is the scope of the work before you, Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a PostCivilized World. Your collaborative participation in the ongoing exploration it ini
tiates is welcome, and invited.
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Prologue
Core Assumptions of Western Civilization
The idea of metaconsciousness first arose in the course of an inquiry into the matter of human civilization, and why civilization is so fraught with savagery and brutality. Like all civilized humans everywhere, I had naturally begun by assuming that
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The earth was created for us, and we were created to conquer and rule the earth;
Our way is the only right way to live, and all people should live as we do; Humanity was destined from our earliest beginnings to create civilization; Civilization must not be lost or abandoned under any circumstances; Civilization is the crowning achievement of humanity.A
Well... as a matter of fact, I hadn’t actually believed these things in an explicit, con
scious way. I simply hadn’t questioned the generally accepted notion that human civiliza
tion is “a pretty good thing.” And I was deeply puzzled as to why it isn’t a whole lot better than it seems to be for most people, most of the time.
Then a friend introduced me to a little book by Daniel Quinn titled Beyond Civili
zation, in which Quinn pointed out that in the course of human events on planet Earth, civilization is a very recent development. Genus Homo, and immediate progenitors, have been resident on this planet for the past three or four million years; yet the earliest “authoritatively recognized” evidence we have of civilization turns up in the Tigris
Euphrates region only about five thousand years ago. The length of time between that epoch and this has been repeated six to eight hundred times or more during human and protohuman tenure upon this planet. What have we been doing all this time?B
According to the conventional wisdom of most contemporary anthropologists, the answer to that question is, “not much – of any importance.” Mainly, until we became civilized, we are told, we were pretty much a pack of barbaric savages, and it is only since “the rise of civilization” that humans have accomplished anything of any significance or A. After Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999.
B. See I.8. Lessons From History. Note that the early drafts of this work were written before I had encoun
tered The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler, in which it is made clear that there have been two alter
native models of human social organization, and that human civilizations have manifested in both forms: the dominator model, and the partnership model. Most of Part I was written on the assumption that the dominator model and civilization are identical, and that there has never been an alternative model for social organization; because that has been the universal claim of civilized cultures throughout “recorded human history.” It has always been assumed that civilization as we experience it today is, and always has been, the only right way to live. I will continue to use the term civilization as it is de facto defined by the contemporary global culture, i.e. as a maledominated hierarchical structure. That this has not always been true, and may not always be true in future, is a theme developed further in Dominator and Partnership Civilizations in section I.8, and elsewhere in this work.
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importance. Consequently, “prehistory” is pretty much a blank, and there are few who have any interest in it. Such is the myth of human civilization.
Well, Daniel Quinn, for one, takes issue with this myth. Quinn has described a con
text for human events which leaps entirely “outside the box” established and perpetuated by the cultural mythology of civilized peoples for the past 5,000 years. Specifically, Quinn has cast into high relief the undeniable fact that humans, i.e. members of genus Homo, and immediate antecedents, have been present on this planet, and evolving stead
ily, for far, far longer – millions of years longer – than has been human civilization, from its earliest inception. And during those millions of years, humans have evolved patterns of social organization – as have virtually all biological species – that have worked as well for humans as have herds, schools, flocks, etc. worked for other species. These demonstrable facts fundamentally change the picture we have been given by our mythology; for the almost universally held myths that human history begins with the advent of dominator civilization, and that nothing of interest or significance precede civilization (so defined), are hereby disclosed to be false and misleading fabrications.
On the contrary, Quinn’s view makes it clear that civilization, which we have been taught to have been the crowning achievement of humanity, is after all only a recent exper
iment in “alternative living” – which the crucible of time has disclosed again, and again, and again, to have been a deadend path that doesn’t work. Civilized peoples in the past have repeatedly discovered this for themselves, and walked away from their monumental civilizations, and abandoned them to jungles and deserts all over the world.
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.A
“Civilization,” as defined by those who have been participating in it for the past several thousand years, doesn’t work, because it is fundamentally parasitic. It advances by conquest, and preemptively destroys the web of Life wherever it goes. This may not be a particularly palatable thought for many civilized humans; yet I believe the reader will A. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822, Ozymandias of Egypt.
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reach the same conclusion if he or she dispassionately surveys the scope in time and space of human civilization.
There will be those who point to the spectacular and sublime accomplishments of civilization, which could not have arisen in its absence; in response to which I shall argue that all these accomplishments have been the products of individual human creativity, often in cooperation with the creativity of others, and that they have been produced in spite of, not because of, human civilization. Civilization takes credit for a great deal of human accomplishment to which it is not entitled, and is today in the final stage of converting the lifesustaining planet Earth into an uninhabitable wasteland. People every
where lament this, and many take measures in their daily lives in efforts to retard the process of global degeneration. Most of these efforts are in vain, for those who make them return at the end of the day, having recycled their aluminum cans and glass bottles, to their civilized habits of thought and action, firmly grounded in civilized mythologies; which mythologies, and their concomitant actions, night and day ceaselessly devour the web of Life, upon which all living beings, including human cultures, depend.
Fatal and Nonfatal Memes
These observations may be unwelcome to many civilized people today, who have imbibed from infancy the memes listed at the outset as Core Assumptions of Western Civilization. Meme is a word coined by Richard Dawkins,A denoting an element of human culture analogous in function to a gene in cellular biology. Just as genes carry the code within the nucleus of every cell, which specifies the structure and design of a biological organism,B and replicate from cell to cell; so memes carry the code within the minds of every human individual, which specifies the structure and design of an entire human culture, and replicate from person to person. Listed above are paraphrases of some of the memes Quinn has written about, which define, in part, our culture, “Western Civ
ilization.” They are fundamental elements of our mythology. Just as certain genes have been found to be fatal to the organisms that bear them, so certain memes are fatal to the cultures that bear them. According to Quinn – and I agree – the memes listed above are examples of such fatal memes. I suggest instead the following nonfatal, lifenurturing alternatives:
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Nothing that exists is any more important or wonderful than anything else that exists. The least and the greatest are alike miraculous, and sacred;
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There is no one right way to live, or to do anything; therefore, do whatever you like, however you like; and if you value peace, allow all others the same liberty;
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Nothing has ever been destined, beyond that we create what we choose, and we live (or die) with the consequences;
A. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1989, cited by Quinn, 1999.
B. This turns out not to be entirely true. See On Cellular Biology, ff., in section II.6.
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There is nothing that may not be profitably abandoned, if it is found not to work;
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There is no final, highest, greatest, or crowning achievement for anything, because life is an unending spiral of becoming.
Shocking, disturbing, and unwelcome as the challenges presented here may be to believers in the supremacy and untarnished glory of civilization, they are no competition for the shock of the total collapse of civilization itself, now in advanced progress every
where. If civilized people were comfortable, satisfied, and confident of their steadily improving condition into the foreseeable future, there would be little reason to listen to “alarmists” like Daniel Quinn, or like me. However, this is not our situation now, is it? The signs are plainly visible to anyone who looks that “the Titanic has struck the ice
berg,” and it doesn’t take a marine architect to predict reliably that she, and all aboard her who are unable or unwilling to abandon ship, will soon find their berth at the bottom of Davy Jones’s Locker. The civilized way of life is not sustainable! What else needs to be said?
The (qualified) good news is that there is “somewhere else to go,” for anyone who can see this eventuality, and elects to follow the example of earlier civilized peoples, and walk away from civilization. Genus Homo have developed patterns for living which have been proven in the crucible of time to work. The prototypical human pattern is that of the tribe, and where found intact, it works as well for humans today as it has ever done; and as well as flocks work for birds, schools for fish, herds for elk, packs for wolves, etc. The tribe, like corresponding social systems for other species, has evolved over the course of millions of years, and aspects of the tribal pattern that have been found in that time frame not to work have been eliminated by the metaconscious pressures of natural selection.
The qualification to this good news is this: There is one obstacle which the tribe has so far not successfully surmounted: the obstacle of civilization itself. Civilization has systematically crippled or destroyed tribes wherever it has encountered them, and so far, the tribal way of life has defended itself poorly or not at all against the conquests of civilization. Therefore, if the tribal way of life is to provide effective sanctuary from pre
emption by civilization, it must acquire a streetsmart savvy that precivilized and con
temporary tribes have evidently lacked. This is certainly true today, while civilization still bestrides the Earth; and it will be true into the remote future, for who knows when or where the specter of vanished civilization may once again raise its ugly head? Whenever, wherever it may be that some people take it upon themselves to preempt the will and action of others,A the peoples of those times and places must be prepared to deal with it A. Something needs to be said at the outset about preemptive force. It means much more than overtly beating someone up, or murdering them, without provocation. Ultimately, it means taking preemptive action that in any way damages the interests of another party. This can even take the form of malicious inaction, or nondisclosure of vital information. It includes theft by any and every means, fraud, misrepresentation, false advertising, and deceptive obfuscation. All acts of preemptive force are united by the common ele
ments of being hostile and unprovoked, and are therefore included under the ... continued, page 19
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effectively; not as the tragically naïve Native Americans did 500 years ago, for instance, when they first encountered the bearded strangers from out of the Eastern Sea.A
Now the foregoing may immediately provoke a number of simultaneous questions – such as,
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“What do you mean, myth?”
“What do you mean, metaconsciousness?”
“What do you mean, tribe?”
“Why should I listen to you?”
I’ll give relatively brief responses to these questions here, and elaborate in greater depth on these and others in subsequent sections. Please bear in mind that we are under
taking a very broad inquiry involving many converging lines of thought. The overall pattern may not be evident from the outset, but will emerge gradually, as additional pieces of a mosaic of ideas are put into place.
What I Mean by Myth:
What I mean by myth is considerably more inclusive than is suggested by the word’s conventional associations. All of science, all religion, and all philosophy, consist essen
tially of mythology, or mythological speculation – for the reason that, simply by virtue of being finite entities inhabiting a (speculatively) infinite universe, we find ourselves existing in an unknown, and unknowable context. In every direction we turn our attention in time and space, we find our universe disappearing over a very near horizon, beyond which we cannot see, and can only speculate. The finest granularity our finest instru
ments are able to resolve (e.g. “subatomic particles”) may be “large” in relation to smaller elements still, lying beyond the reach of our highest resolving power. The most remote extragalactic objects we are able to detect (e.g. “quasars”) may be “near” in relation to objects more distant still. The earliest moment for which we are able to detect evidence (e.g. the “Big Bang”) may have been “recent” in relation to cosmic events of which we have no conception.
These considerations will apply no matter how refined and penetrating our future instrumentation eventually becomes – unless, perhaps, we someday actually succeed in bringing “the outermost margin of the universe” within reach of our detailed inspection. overarching rubric of war. Preemptive force is, and always has been, the fundamental means of advancing “civilization,” as conceived and defined by contemporary civilized humans. See Conditions for Social Success, ff., in section II.3 for further elaboration.
A. See the widely circulated 1493 letter of Christopher Columbus, quoted in Robert F. Berkhoffer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1978, p. 6; and Amerigo Vespucci’s vivid description in Mundus Novus, published in 1504 or ’05, quoted loc. cit., pp.79. Of course, although a grotesque oversimplification, it must be admitted that the conquest of the Inca and Aztec Empires in the socalled “New World” was a case of one dominator civilization conquering and obliterating another; and a change of dominators for the indigenous peoples in the path of conquest.
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That day has not yet arrived. If the universe is “in fact” infinite, as we speculate that it is, that day will never arrive, so long as we remain finite beings. If this is so, a) we will never be able to confirm or deny it, and b) our context will forever remain an impenetrable mystery.
Without a clear understanding of the context in which we occur, our best analysis, even of what lies within our horizon, and within reach of detailed examination, is una
voidably speculative as well; for the meaning of any “fact” may be profoundly and unpre
dictably altered by a change in context. When their context is unknown, and possibly/ probably not even imagined, the meanings and implications that follow from our “facts” are unknown and possibly/probably unimagined as well. This is no criticism, either of science, religion, or philosophy. It simply points out something that is frequently over
looked by scientists, religionists, and philosophers: mainly, that our most firmly founded “theories,” “conclusions,” “convictions,” “articles of faith,” and “canonical doctrines” are founded at bottom upon mythological speculation in an unknown and (as far as we “know”) unknowable context.
This does not imply that our quest to understand our surroundings, and our place in them, are futile, vain, or trivial, or that there is nothing to be learned through observation and experience within the near horizon we daily inhabit. It merely highlights the often overlooked but unavoidable circumstance that everything we learn occurs within a con
text of profound and impenetrable mystery. One of any number of possible ways of describing this mystery is to call it simply, “the gods,” or to acknowledge that we live and have our being “in the hands of the gods” – or “in the boundless sea of metacon
sciousness.”
Thus, for the purposes of what follows, mythology consists of whatever we create in our imaginations to fill the vast spaces that lie over our horizons, and beyond our reach. It embraces not only the word’s usual associations; it also embraces whatever anyone believes about anything – because no human belief can be verified or falsified in the ulti
mate context of “All That Is.” This theme is elaborated further in II.4. The Myths of Infinity and Hierarchy.
What I Mean by Metaconsciousness:
What I mean by metaconsciousness, briefly, is the overarching phenomenon which is, or can be, analogous to, yet less or greater than, what we humans experience as consciousness, intelligence, and creativity. It is an emergent behavior which exhibits itself in complex informationsharing systems of all kinds, and at all scales, under conditions of sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, as a capacity for learning from experience, or its functional equivalent. That is why I spoke above of “the metaconscious pressures of natural selection.” This is one way of describing what natural selection is: a mechanism whereby entire biological species “learn from exper
ience” what works, and what does not work in the endlessly evolving process of biological evolution. In its totality, metaconsciousness bears a relationship to human consciousness, 20
intelligence, and creativity analogous to that the entire electromagnetic spectrum bears to the narrow band of visible light. I find in metaconsciousness a useful term which relates to matters people have been contemplating and discussing, probably for as long as we have had inquiring minds. We have used many words to describe these introspective speculations, including “God,” “the gods,” “spirit,” “ESP,” “parapsychology,” “collective unconscious,” “synchronicity,” and many others. Metaconsciousness has the advantage of applying to all these concepts, yet it does not bear the traditional mythological freight attached to many of them. The concept is explored further in Additional Contours of the Metaconsciousness Myth in section I.4, and elsewhere throughout this work.A
What I Mean by Tribe:
Daniel Quinn distinguishes between civilization, tribe, community, and commune, and provides examples of tribal solutions in entirely contemporary contexts. Briefly, a civilization is a failed experiment in hierarchical social organization, characterized proto
typically by a “pharaoh” who lives in luxurious splendor, and an underclass of “toiling masses” who live in relative poverty and “build pyramids” for the pharaoh. Civilization works favorably (for awhile) for the pharaoh and the privileged few at the top of the hierarchy; increasingly unfavorably for those, descendingly, at all lower hierarchical levels; and ultimately catastrophically for everyone involved in it, or touched by it. Civi
lization is inherently parasitic, and unsustainable. Its destiny is either destruction by a competing civilization, or abandonment by its builders.B
A tribe is a nonhierarchical social organization,C polished by evolution over the course of millions of years, that facilitates the livelihood of all members of the tribe alike.
A community is an “inside the box” social adaptation to civilization, and does not offer an escape route beyond civilization. A commune is a closed social organization based upon social, religious, moral, or ethnic values, and as such does not offer an escape route beyond civilization either.
Of the four types of social organization, only the tribe offers a potential escape route “out of the box” created by civilization. The primary example Quinn uses to illustrate tribal life in a contemporary setting is the circus. A traditional traveling circus is a non
hierarchical tribal community which supports, and is supported by, all its members. It furnishes a viable livelihood to each, and each member of the circustribe contributes to the success of the whole. There is a “Boss,” because this occupation is required in order to secure the success of the circus. Someone must coordinate the various elements of the tribe, secure bookings, etc. Yet when it’s time to raise the Big Top, the “Boss” can be A. Summarized in Elements of the Myth of Metaconsciousness, section I.11.
B. There is a third possibility for the end of a civilization: i.e. when it devours its planetary host, and can no longer be sustained. This is the point at which the contemporary global civilization has arrived in the present time.
C. As elaborated below, this is not always so.
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found pounding stakes beside the “Clown,” the “Bareback Rider,” and the “Boy Who Waters the Elephants.” He’s no pharaoh, and nobody is building a pyramid for him. Reciprocally, success for the circus contributes alike to success for each tribal member.
The Parable of the Tribes
The section on the Tribe was originally written at an early stage of the present inquiry, and is clearly an oversimplification of the picture disclosed in later sections. As discussed in Learning to Live Within Our Means, in section II.3, the appearance of genus Homo about two million years ago represented a quantum leap in the evolution of, shall we say, “predatory technology” among biological systems; and the fossil record, as well as much more recent examples, disclose that humans have long been associated with largescale species extinctions wherever human populations have expanded around the globe.
Complicating the matter further is The Parable of the Tribes,A a social theory which poses the following problem:
Imagine a group of several neighboring tribes which, initially, are all at peace with one another and on amicable terms. Then at some point one of these tribes turns hostile and aggressive, and commences a campaign of conquest among its neighbors. According to this theory, the outcome for any of the nonaggressive tribes can be one of four, and only four, alternatives:
1.
The tribe is conquered, and all its inhabitants are annihilated; 2.
The tribe is conquered, and its surviving inhabitants are forced to subordi
nate their wills to the will of the conquering tribe;
3.
The tribe flees to an inaccessible or inhospitable region, abandoning its ter
ritory, which is appropriated by the conquering tribe;
4.
The tribe resists conquest, and defeats its wouldbe conquerer.
The point of the parable of the tribes is that all four possible outcomes to this situa
tion result in the expansion of the ways of powerB among humans, at the expense of the ways of peace. In order for the fourth option to take effect, the conquestresisting tribe is forced to adopt at least some of the ways of power initiated by the wouldbe conquering tribe, because according to Schmookler, power can only be countered with power.
A. Andrew Bard Schmookler, The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1984; Thom Hartmann, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Wak
ing Up to Personal and Global Transformation, Harmony Books, New York, 1998, 1999, p. 140.
B. Schmookler defines the ways of power as “...power is a coercive capacity. Power may also be defined as the ability to restrict the range of another’s choices. It is thus differentiated from the kind of persuasive power that changes how others decide to exercise choice (except to the extent that, as, for example, in brainwashing, and less obviously in many other forms of indoctrination, coercive power creates the situation in which persuasion becomes possible),” ibid., p. 20, footnote 4. Schmookler’s ways of power thus corresponds to my definition of warfare in Conditions for Social Success, items 7 and 8, section II.3.
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The parable of the tribes [Schmookler writes] is a theory of social evolution which shows that power is like a contaminant, a disease, which once introduced will gradually yet inexorably become universal in the system of competing societies. More important than the inevitability of the struggle for power is the profound social evolutionary consequence of that struggle once it begins. A selection for power among civilized societies is inevitable.A Schmookler’s scenario of the spreading contagion of rogue tribes fits in well with the idea of the Kurgan invasions, developed by Gimbutas and Eisler, and discussed in Domi
nator and Partnership Civilizations, section I.8; during which a long and widespread era of peace among Neolithic and quasicivilized peoples was violently disrupted by inva
sions of mounted armies out of the Eurasian Steppe.
According to Schmookler, any tribe at any time opting for the ways of power, or the ways of war, thereby imposes this oneway evolutionary path, sooner or later, upon all others, and the fate of the human race is thereby sealed. Schmookler argues that, once introduced, not only do the ways of war gradually foreclose upon the ways of peace, they also progressively foreclose upon the freedom of choice.
I agree, particularly with the second of these, adding that the ways of war and freedom of choice are mutually exclusive opposites, and suggest that fundamental to the nature of warfare is the tendency to “narrow the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty,”B and that warfare is therefore the enemy of metaconsciousness, and Life itself. Whether this means contemporary humanity is “doomed” remains to be seen. The question turns upon whether or not we are able in sufficient numbers to evolve an effective reply to the parable of the tribes – which is to say, devise a way of life that is not vulnerable or responsive to the ways of war, and is in harmony with the unencum
bered evolution of metaconsciousness.
Scrutinized more critically, therefore, the pattern of “the tribe” as the only viable “escape route ‘out of the box’ created by civilization” is in need of considerable qualifica
tion. The record of tribal history on planet Earth has been a mixed bag, among which may be found exemplary “successes,” and catastrophic “failures.” The “successes” may represent patterns that work in the real world, at least in the context in which they have occurred; yet it must be owned that the course of human evolution has yet to achieve a universal social pattern that may be expected to work reliably under all circumstances. Perhaps this is an “impossible dream,” because “all circumstances” imply an infinite set which cannot be anticipated, or adapted to in advance, by any finite system. Next best, then, would be a universal social pattern with the flexibility and adaptability to success
fully negotiate all or most foreseeable contingencies, which is to say, contingencies known to have arisen in human experience. Humans have yet to evolve a social pattern which exhibits such flexibility and adaptability. Tribes everywhere have succumbed to A. Schmookler, 1984, p. 22, emphasis in the original.
B. Conditions for Social Success, item 8, section II.3.
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“civilization,” and “civilization” is today in the final stages of destroying the lifesustain
ability of the entire planet. This succinctly sums up the human predicament.
The ideal of the tribe as “a nonhierarchical social organization ... that facilitates the livelihood of all members of the tribe alike” may be a useful concept for the purpose of working toward a sustainable human social pattern; yet actual past and present tribes rep
resent such various social patterns in such varied contexts that imagining a generic ideal
ized tribe as “the answer” to the human predicament is fraught with hazards.
In particular, in addition to the fact that tribes are not universally nonhierarchical; as already mentioned, the tribal pattern has practically everywhere failed to deal effectively with the recent invention of civilization, or the contagion of rogue tribes that have imbibed the ways of war. We continue to await (and make!) a “final decision” as to whether the idealized pattern of the nonhierarchical tribe can survive its encounter with the pattern of civilization. If we are able to reconstitute functional tribes within the con
temporary context, and are able thereby to cope effectively with civilization, we will have moved the evolution of the tribal model forward, beyond civilization, and into, as Daniel Quinn writes, Humanity’s Next Great Adventure.A In a subsequent sectionB we will exa
mine a “quasitribal” phenomenon of global scope which encourages the hope that such streetsmart savvy can emerge in the contemporary context, and deal effectively with civilization.
In any case, what “natural” tribes and species never do, or even attempt, according to Daniel Quinn, is to annihilate utterly their foes. Specifically, tribes that have not been exposed to civilization never carry retaliation to the point, for instance, of burning up their enemy’s food crop, or poisoning their wells. These are the kinds of things that only “civilized people” do.C
The reason contending tribes (that have not imbibed the rogue ways of war), or any competing species, never employ genocidal strategies against their foes is because they “honor” what Quinn calls the Law of Life, or the Law of Limited Competition:
You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.D
A. Quinn, 1999, p. 141.
B. I.6. The Hacker Tribe
C. Like the time Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commanding general of British forces in North America during the French and Indian war (17541763), evidently distributed among the natives he was fighting blankets known to be infected with smallpox. See “Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets: Lord Jeffrey Amherst’s letters discussing germ warfare against American Indians.”
[www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html] Comparable examples may be found in every part of the civilized world, in every civilized generation.
D. Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, A Bantam/Turner Book, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1992, p. 129; The Story of B, Bantam Books, ... continued, page 25
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This is not a “law” in the civilized sense of a statute entered in a book, or graven upon a tablet of stone. It is written into the “meme pool” that defines what a tribe is; and into the gene pool of every living species – although it must be admitted that many tribes have inadvertently driven to extinction many species upon which they, the tribes, have depended for sustenance; frequently with catastrophic results for the tribe. The Law of Life is placed in the gene pool by the metaconscious pressures of natural selection, exerted over the course of millions of years, which replicates patterns that work, and culls out patterns that do not – as it will inevitably do eventually (and “soon” now) with the pattern of dominator civilization.
The Law of Limited Competition has been “obeyed” by all (successful) living spe
cies in planetary history, with the single exception of human dominator civilization (which has never been successful). The Law works, because it promotes cultural and bio
logical diversity (i.e. richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty); whereas its “violation” destroys cultural and biological diversity, and this in turn destroys the life
sustainability (obstructs the metaconsciousness) of the entire biosphere. It is exactly this that contemporary human developments demonstrate to be the catastrophic flaw in dominator civilization, and the reason, ultimately, it has been abandoned in the past by every culture that has attempted it;A and must be abandoned by us, if we and all life are to continue evolving on this planet. In a few words, civilization doesn’t work, because civilization obstructs the evolution of metaconsciousness: by diminishing, rather than expanding, richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. All other living social patterns function to exactly the opposite effect.
Why you should listen to me:
You should listen to me – or to anyone – only if you find in what I or they have to say, something that you find useful to your own ongoing evolution. In what follows we will be drawing together many strands from many disciplines. Our objective is the fabrication of a plausible mythology for postcivilized people, on the basis of which social struc
tures may be built which are “almost, but not quite, entirely unlike civilization;”B which is to say, a mythology on the basis of which social structures may be built that work. The premises upon which are laid, and which are supported by, the following argu
ments may be summarized thus:
a)
“Civilization,” as conceived and defined by contemporary civilized people, is a human social pattern that doesn’t work, because it is fundamentally pre
emptive, parasitic, and warlike, and consequently destroys the web of Life upon which all life depends.
New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1996, p. 252. Emphasis added.
A. Quinn, 1999, pp. 3354.
B. Adapted from an expression Douglas Adams used in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Balantine Books, New York, 1980, Chapter 17, p. 123: “He had found a NutriMatic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”
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b) In order for any of us to survive the “critical mess” at which human events have arrived at the present time, it will be necessary for at least some of us to abandon civilization, and pioneer alternative social patterns that have little in common with those of contemporary civilization.
c)
Civilized patterns are as they are because of the mythologies and memes shared by all civilized people. Therefore, in order to pioneer alternative, postcivilized social patterns, it will be necessary to develop and substitute postcivilized mythologies for existing civilized mythologies.
What follows in the remainder of Part I is a preliminary attempt at staking out the ground for such postcivilized mythologies. On that foundation, in Part II we invite colla
borative participation in the creation or discovery of a suite of postcivilized myths upon which can be built postcivilized human social patterns that work. Your participation is welcome, and invited.
Oh, and one other thing. The way things are going lately, if these pages strike you as having any importance, it might be prudent of you to copy them, HTML and PDF ver
sions, to your own storage, just in case they happen to disappear from the Net. I haven’t had intimations that anything of the kind is in the offing; but then one seldom does, does one? The words of the Rev. Martin Niemoller come to mind, out of the haze of WWII:
In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.
The pharaohs nowadays seem, “morally” and “legally,” prepared to round up just about anyone they don’t happen to like, and whisk them away for any reason, or for no reason at all, and do whatever they want with them, or to them. The Last Train from Berlin departed generations ago, and the First Train from planet Earth isn’t scheduled to depart any time soon. As for “speaking up,” to whom might one turn in such an eventual
ity? To whom, or what, does a chicken squawk whilst being carried off in the night by a hungry fox?
Well, it’s perhaps a silly thought, but it occurs to me that there may be some among the pharaohs’ set who might not be in complete “resonance” with exactly everything writ
ten in these pages, and so they possibly may not always be as easily accessible to you as they are now. An effective hedge against this possibility may be to secure your own copy. Simply being “paranoid” is no longer an adequate guarantee that they’re not really “out to get you.”
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I.1. Genesis and Evolution of Metaconsciousness
In response to discoveries in the fields of quantum theory, artificial intelligence (AI), artificial life (AL), fractal geometry, distributed agent neural networks, and massively parallel processing, I have speculated about the provenance of the phenomena humans experience as consciousness, intelligence, and creativity, by suggesting that these occupy a narrow band in a much broader spectrum of analogous phenomena which emerge and flourish under conditions of sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty among large numbers of informationsharing constituents. Said constituents may be quan
tum fields anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe; atoms in molecular combi
nation, molecular structures in a microbe, microbes in a colony, neurons in a nervous system, microprocessors in an artificial network, birds in a flock, and/or an enormous variety of alternative components in systems of virtually limitless description. The phe
nomenon associated with such systems’ interactive informationsharing, I have dubbed metaconsciousness.
The essence of metaconsciousness is that it exhibits the singular property, or its func
tional equivalent, of learning from experience. This property is exhibited, for instance, in the process of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection – which is obviously applicable to all living systems, and perhaps less obviously to many “nonliving systems,” such as subatomic, atomic, and molecular systems of various kinds.
Howard Bloom takes us back to the first moments of the “Big Bang Myth” – my term, not his – to invoke the genesis of metaconsciousness – again, my term, not his:A
The instant of creation [Bloom writes] marked the dawn of sociality. A neutron is a particle filled with need. It is unable to sustain itself for longer than ten minutes.B To survive, it must find at least one mate, then form a family. The ini
tial three minutes of existence were spent in cosmological courting, as protons paired off with neutrons, then rapidly attracted another couple to wed within their embrace, forming the twoproton, twoneutron quartet of a helium nucleus. Those neutrons which managed this match gained relative immortality. C Those which stayed single simply ceased to be. The rule at the heart of a learning A. Bloom does employ the term, “metaintellect,” on at least one occasion, at Bloom, 2000, p. 4. See also Cosmological Scale Expansion in section II.5 for a cosmological alternative to the “Big Bang Myth.”
B. “10.3 minutes, to be more precise.” (Bloom’s footnote.)
C. “The staying power of helium atoms is so great that roughly 14 billion years later, the universe remains 25 percent helium.” (Bloom’s footnote.)
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machine was already being obeyed: “To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away.”A
Bloom goes on to trace the evolutionary development of increasingly complex mole
cular structures, rudimentary onecelled organisms, expanding bacterial colonies, and eventually, multicelled organisms like sponges, sea anemones, worms, lizards, cats, and people.
Bloom, like most biologists I have read, skates rather cavalierly over this astonishing evolutionary progression, which summary treatment has long been a source of exaspera
tion to me.B However, the myth of metaconsciousness, which is convincingly supported by much evidence developed and cited by Bloom, seems to render this controversy at least somewhat moot, and considerably less urgent than it had seemed to me earlier.
Meanwhile, Bloom has his own gripes about the canonized dogma of the community of professional biologists, specifically as regards the “theory” of individual selection; which holds that natural selection operates upon individuals, not upon groups of individu
als – or in effect, “Every organism for itself, let the devil take the hindmost!” Individual selectionism declares that evolution is driven by the reproductive success of individual organisms – or perhaps by the individual genes they carry – such that any that sacrifice their reproductive success for an advantage to the species, or the tribe, herd, school, colony, etc., will either fail to reproduce their kind, or will reproduce themselves less numerously than their more selfish peers, and will eventually become extinct. “Those who survive,” Bloom writes, “will be cynics preprogrammed by natural selection to com
mit an act of generosity only if their donations pay off in hordes of progeny.”C
A proposed alternative to the individual selection “theory” is the group selection theory, considered by many in the “mainstream” community of biologists to be heresy.D
A. Howard Bloom, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, Chichester, Weinheim, Brisbane, Singapore, Toronto, 2000, p. 14.
B. See http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/friends007.html#design for a critique of the “evolution by accident” bio
logical model. See also The Molecular Microworld of the Cell, ff., in section II.6, for an additional slant on this controversy.
C. Bloom, 2000, p. 4. I venture to suggest that a fundamental difficulty with the individual selection “theory,” which will become more evident in subsequent sections, is the problem of identifying with precision exactly what is meant by individual. That is, is an individual an organism, such as a man, or a mouse? Or is a single cell not an organism – and an individual? Or is a single gene in the vast genetic library carried by a single cell an individual? Is not a colony of bees an organism, or an individual? Or is only a single bee an individual? Looking at it from another direction, may not a school of fish, or a herd of elk, or a tribe of humans be considered a single “individual organism,” whose “success” or “failure” influences the evolution of the species? These questions may become even more perplexing in light of section I.4, where we give consideration to the metaconsciousness evident among the quantum fields, both at subatomic, and supergalactic scales. See Yes, but What Does it Mean?, particularly item c, in section I.4, for elaboration. See also Of Parts and Wholes, and “Yabut...”, in section II.7 for yet further discussion of the ambiguous relation between individuals and their constituents.
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Those few willing to admit to their belief in group selection [Bloom writes] argue that individuals will sacrifice their genetic legacy in the interests of a larger collectivity. Such a need to cooperate would have been necessary long ago to make a global brain and a planetary nervous system possible. On the other hand, if the individual selectionists prove correct, humans and earlier lifeforms would have been unwilling to share knowledge which might have given others a competitive edge. If selfishness is the force that drives us, there are future conse
quences, too. The cyberocean of the World Wide Web and its coming techno
logical successors could be a barracuda pit rather than a metaintellect.A
Bloom is referring here to the “global brain” heralded by numerous luminaries of assorted computer science disciplines in anticipation of the future evolution of the Inter
net. He goes on to demonstrate that these “leading edge” protagonists of an electronic metaconsciousness are about 3½ thousand million years behind the times; that such a global “metaintellect” of astonishing breadth, power, and sophistication has been present and evolving on this planet practically since the planetary surface had cooled to a temper
ature which allowed the presence of biological life. He also cites numerous research findings that confirm, contrary to the individual selection “theory,” that individual enti
ties, from microbes, to baboons, to humans, do indeed make sacrifices for the general welfare of the group and the species, which confer no benefits to themselves, or to their direct progeny or unique genetic heritage.
Moreover, throughout the broad spectrum of biological life there seems to be a cellu
lar mechanism for preprogrammed “cellular suicide” – apoptosis – which becomes opera
tional under conditions which may be described generically as “failure to perform.”
Apoptosis [Bloom writes] is a firecracker string of selfdestruct routines prepro
grammed into nearly every living cell. Its fuse is lit when the cell receives sig
nals that it is no longer useful to the larger community. Between selfcrippling immune systems and selfdefeating conduct, isolated individuals vastly increase their odds of death. The payoff to their genemates is likely to be zilch.B
When a colony of bacteria, for instance, consumes all the food which had heretofore been sustaining the colony, and it in consequence faces famine, numerous individuals appear with a penchant for exploration, in distinction from the norm of “dining in” estab
lished during the better days of abundant local food supplies. These intrepid pioneers scatter in all directions, and those that find new food sources telegraph their discoveries, D. “Scientific heresies” are no joke, and can result in loss of funding, tenure, and in effective professional ostracism for those who run afoul of the conformity enforcers of scientific orthodoxy by espousing, or even researching the “wrong theories.” This is why I enclose “theory” in quotes, in speaking of “the ‘theory’ of individual selection.” It is also one reason why I prefer myths to “theories.”
A. Bloom, 2000, p. 4. In the final analysis, it may emerge that there exists after all only one “individual” – the single totality of “All That Is,” which is at once the “cause,” and the “result,” of all evolution. Would that render the individual selection “theorists” “right,” or “wrong?”
B. Ibid., pp. 89.
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by various chemical and genetic means available to bacteria, back to the faminestricken parent colony. The result is a mass migration to the newly discovered food bonanza, and “happy days are here again” – for them.
For the less fortunate pioneers who fail to find new food supplies, something else happens, which is surprising and quite interesting. They too telegraph their findings – i.e. their lack of success – to the parent colony; and the effective content of their message is, “There’s nothing to eat where we are, we’re doomed. Don’t make the fatal error of fol
lowing us; goodbye, and good luck.” Thereupon, the unsuccessful pioneers commit apop
tosis and die. The interesting point is that they do not die in vain; they enlarge the parent colony’s database about where congenial and abundant habitats are – and are not – to be found. This does not benefit the pioneers individually, for individually they are beyond all help and hope; yet it significantly benefits the group as a whole, for they have thereby learned something useful about their world.A
This is essentially how learning machines consisting of distributed agents work. Those agents which are successful at discovering solutions, or at contributing to solutions to the conundrums faced by the group, are rewarded by abundant connections, energy, sustenance, emulation, and other “perks” bequeathed by the group as a whole, and by its individual members. Those agents which are not successful at contributing to needed solutions are cut off and abandoned by the group – and even themselves reverse their own lifesustaining mechanisms, commit apoptosis, and die.
This happens to neurons which fail to contribute to the neural network in a develop
ing nervous system. It happens to members of a flock, herd, school, or colony of orga
nisms, which fail individually to grapple successfully with environmental challenges mastered by their more successful peers. It happens to humans who fail to master life’s challenges, and are driven “to the end of their rope,” and fall into stress, hopelessness, despair, and (directly consequential) ill health. Their very cells commit apoptosis and selfdestruct from within; while their irritable and antisocial behavior sabotages hope of surcease from without. Thus Bloom’s oftrepeated dictum: To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away.
A. Ibid., pp. 1518.
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I.2. Is Civilization Committing Suicide?
Although Howard Bloom himself makes no such suggestion, his thesis discussed in the previous section puts a very significant question into my mind: As we step forth into this new millennium, are we not witnessing the massive apoptosis – “cellular suicide” – of a global human approach to living that doesn’t work? That is, are we not witnessing, and participating in, the selfdestruction of civilization, from the very cells of individual civi
lized humans, to and including the overarching selfdestructive agendas at the most comprehensive levels of international and global relations? Let us hold these questions in abeyance for the moment, noting only in passing that they bear pondering.
The Elements of Metaconscious Entities
Bloom has identified five distinct elements that combine synergistically in “learning machines” – I would call them “metaconscious entities” – of all kinds:





conformity enforcers;
diversity generators;
innerjudges;
resource shifters;
intergroup tournaments.
Paraphrasing Bloom in part, conformity enforcers act to give the constituents of a metaconscious entity a common identity, and unified patterns of behavior, par
ticularly when things are humming along nicely. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” seems to be the philosophy of the conformity enforcers. “Keep to the tried and true, and all will be well.” Conformity enforcers (which may, like memes and genes, reside within the individual organisms they govern) insure, for example, that each member of a school of fish, or a flock of birds, keep the proper dis
tance from their peers while maneuvering in space. Among humans, conformity enforcers see to it that everyone in the community have “got their mind right,” and are not likely to upset the apple cart, for instance by researching any “wrong theories.” More generally, conformity enforcers strive to insure that every mem
ber of the community shares the single hallucination that passes for “reality” A throughout the community, or metaconscious entity.
Diversity generators balance conformity enforcers by introducing richness, diver
sity, variety, complexity, and liberty into the informationsharing matrix of a metaconscious entity. Diversity generators break the lockstep regimentation which is the ideal of the conformity enforcers, thereby pioneering new possibili
A. Bloom, 2000, Chapter 7, “A Trip Through the Perception Factory,” pp. 6470. See also Yes, but What Does it Mean?, item f, in section I.4.
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ties and potential directions for the entire entity. During “happy days,” when the status quo seems to be working to everyone’s satisfaction, the diversity gener
ators are often “on the outs,” and demand for their “Gyro Gearloose” inventions is at its lowest ebb. At best, they are maintained (tolerated) by the entity at a bare subsistence level. “When the going gets tough,” however, the diversity gen
erators “get going,” and there may be some among them with just the thing to pull the entire entity’s bacon out of the fire with an invention or discovery which had no appeal during happier days. This is the stuff of which quantum evolution
ary leaps are made.
Innerjudges evaluate the “progress” or “regress” of agents that comprise a meta
conscious entity, and bestow “rewards” and “penalties” accordingly. Successful agents, those who/which make discoveries, or produce innovations which advance the entity’s interests, or promote its evolution, are rewarded with a flood of connections with their peers, admiration (or its analog), emulation, energy, abundance, reproductive success (e.g. sexual rewards), etc.
Unsuccessful agents who/which are unable to get a handle on the challenges confronting them, and are unable to make constructive contributions to the suc
cess of their parent entity, activate the apoptotic side of their innerjudges, and in addition to being shunned by their peers, commence their own biological self
destruction in many different ways. Their immune systems fall to ruin, their confidence sags, their energy levels plummet, they repel their peers, and even the peerconnections, or “synapses” they may have had are severed, leaving them isolated in their misery. It is the innerjudge within each agent that decides about itself “who hath,” and “who hath not,” and therefore “to whom it shall be given,” and “from whom even what he hath shall be taken away.”
Resource shifters put the “judgments” of the innerjudges into execution. It is they who distribute the “rewards” and “penalties” which manifest respectively as wealth, popularity, energy, brilliance, vibrant health, and fecundity; or alter
natively as poverty, ostracism, torpor, stupidity, ill health, and death. On the basis of performance, as evaluated “within” by their innerjudges, and “without” by their peers, each agent of a metaconscious entity stands at the receiving end of the fundamental ground rule, To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away.
Intergroup tournaments are contests which take place on many levels and in many circumstances, and which in part prove or disprove in the roughandtum
ble of “real life” the superiority of a metaconscious entity’s innovations and adaptations. Conversely, intergroup tournaments help motivate innovation, sometimes for the sheer satisfaction of “winning,” and sometimes for the stark sake of survival.
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Just described are the five elements Bloom has identified as vital for all metacon
scious entities, or “learning machines.” Intuitively, I would broaden the fifth of these, intergroup tournaments, to include all challenges under all circumstances encountered by a metaconscious entity: intergroup competition being only one of many possible or probable challenges. The ability to deal effectively with challenges, obstacles, and unan
ticipated contingencies of all kinds is the final “proof of the pudding” for the adaptive measures taken by a metaconscious entity. Further, contrary to Bloom, I would list war
fare, a particularly virulent form of “intergroup tournaments,” and unique to dominator cultures, to be probably the most effective and pernicious destroyer of human metacon
scious of all its enemies.
I would also suggest, for the sake of simplicity, that resource shifters and inner
judges share the single function of deciding “who hath,” and “who hath not,” and putting into effect the principle, To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away; and so combine to constitute a single “vital element” for a metaconscious entity.
These simplifications leave us with a fairly succinct description of a metaconscious entity as an amalgam of many informationsharing agents with a synergistic capability of learning from experience, by maintaining a dynamic balance among three vital elements: conformity enforcers, diversity generators, and innerjudges.
Dynamic balance among the three is essential because the overwhelming domination of any one of them spells disaster for the metaconscious entity that “loses its balance.” If the conformity enforcers gain the upper hand, metaconsciousness is thereby stifled and becomes impossible, because in order to thrive, metaconsciousness must enjoy a habitat of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. These are developed and maintained by the diversity generators – which, however, might irreparably disrupt the coherency and sustainability of the entity, were they to gain an unbridled upper hand. A And of course if the innerjudges decide for either of these reasons, or for any other, that the game is hopeless... then it is, and apoptosis takes effect and settles the matter decisively. It may be indeed that either of these two unbalanced conditions could be a trigger for, or a result of apoptosis – which returns us to the speculation with which we began this section, about the contemporary state of human civilization. Specifically, are we civilized humans right now in the advanced stages of “cellular suicide?”
The Cellular Suicide of Civilization
Today, it is scarcely an overstatement that civilized people throughout the world are now in the grip of a pandemic of degenerative diseases unprecedented in human history. Heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV, and other immunological deficiencies A. To preserve this vital balance, I have long advocated the formula, a) Do whatever you like; b) Allow all others the same liberty. Provision a, the “masculine principle,” absent the tempering provision b, the “feminine principle,” is a formula for the chaos of runaway diversity generators – which may in turn, as in the instance of contemporary civilization, morph into rogue conformity enforcers.
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are becoming epidemic killers among the highly stressed populations of civilized nations.A Coincident with this is a precipitous rise in stressrelated emotional and psy
chological disorders, including alcoholism and drug addiction – again, among civilized people. Additionally, I have learned that, according to the American Medical Association, “Prescription drug side effects [as opposed to ‘street drugs’] are now the 4th Leading Cause of Death in America.”B In view of these developments, is it at all unreasonable to speculate that these may be symptoms of the onset or progress of apoptosis for the human metaconscious entity, civilization? Couple this with the unbalanced rush of selfappointed conformity enforcers to overwhelm and stifle the diversity generators,C and what is one to conclude? That all is well?
A. Following are a selection of representative comments:
 “According to statistics, one out of five persons in the United States suffers from cancer, and the situation in other parts of the world is equally bad. Yet, the top killer today, especially in developed countries, is cardiovascular diseases.” [www.geocities.com/sifuwong.geo/qicure.html].
 “In the United States...Heart diseases, stroke, and cancer, which account for more than half of all deaths today, caused only about 15 percent of deaths in 1900.” [www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Health2/World_Health1.
htm]
 “According to recent estimates by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 34.3 million people are living with HIV in 2000. An estimated 18.8 million people have died from AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic.” [www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Health2/Health_Q_and_
A1.htm].
 “Today, for a thirty year old person, the odds are 95 out of 100 that he or she will suffer and die from a degenerative, nutritional factor disease (such as Cancer, Heart disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s arthritis, etc.).” [karin.healthyliving.org/html/what_a_choice_.html].
 “The most common conventional causes of death in industrialized countries are cardiovascular dis
ease, cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease and accident (in that order). Alzheimer’s victims usually die of pneumonia, a lung condition or a cerebrovascular condition so Alzheimer’s victims are often declared to die of other causes.” [www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html?source=DeathClock].
 “The U.S. Healthcare System is in serious CRISIS as evidenced by the everincreasing ‘Epidemic’ of Chronic Degenerative Illness. While American Politicians ‘constantly and enthusiastically’ talk, superficially of course, about Health Care Reform, the COST of American medicine is racing wildly out of control, approaching $2 trillion annually. We must realize that medicine in the U.S. has unfor
tunately become a trillion dollar ’industry’ that focuses on Disease Management and Crisis Inter
vention.” [www.acpm.net/13.html].
B. Dr. Schulze’s Common Sense Health & Healing Newsletter, January 2005, Front Cover, Dr. Richard Schulze, [www.herbdoc.com]. See also On Cellular Biology in section II.6, wherein it is stated that “According to a study published in 2003, based upon analysis of ten years’ accumulated government data, the leading causes of death in America are the fatal effects of allopathic medicines prescribed by U.S. physicians.”
C. I can think of no more appropriate a synopsis of the final achievements of dominator civilization on this planet, after a fivethousandyear run, than Michael C. Ruppert’s 674page book, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, New Society Publishers, P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada.
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One of the properties of metaconsciousness is that it is not at all constrained to oper
ate at the level we humans experience as consciousness, intelligence, and creativity. Therefore, even if we are able to establish the hidden identity of the rogue conformity enforcers, as Spooner had done in 1869,A and as Ruppert has done in 2004,B and thus the “hidden cause” of our predicament, this still does not preclude its “cause in another dimension,” from being the suicidal apoptosis of a race driven to widespread abject despair by our own follies. In other words, why have we civilized people gotten ourselves into such a predicament in the first place? Perhaps the hidden “hidden answer” is that the human metaconsciousness “knows” that civilization doesn’t work, and the human predic
ament, “hidden causes” and all, is our metaconscious way of ending a failed experiment.
In other words, because civilization doesn’t work, it is hardly surprising that large numbers of civilized people should be driven to despair by our “failure to perform.” It may be that, entirely without conscious volition, large numbers of our innerjudges have “reached the same conclusion,” and have unleashed a multiple barrage of selfdestructive actions, from cellular to global dimensions, to bring this untenable predicament to a swift and decisive end. This may alternatively be interpreted in such terms as, civilization has not the blessing of the gods.
Challenges & Confirmations for the Myth of Metaconsciousness
A prequel to Bloom’s Global Brain came belatedly to my attention, which at once supplies abundant additional confirmation of the myth of metaconsciousness, and con
fronts it with some sobering facts and observations.C Contrary to my original description of the tribe,D Bloom contends, and supports his contention with examples, that human tribes have often been far less benign than either I or Daniel Quinn may have represented them to be; and not only human tribes, but many animal species as well.
A. Spooner, 1869, XVIII, writes as follows:
These moneylenders, the Rosthchilds, for example, say to themselves: If we lend a hundred millions sterling to the queen and parliament of England, it will enable them to murder twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand people in England, Ireland, or India; and the terror inspired by such wholesale slaughter, will enable them to keep the whole people of those countries in subjection for twenty, or perhaps fifty, years to come; to control all their trade and industry; and to extort from them large amounts of money, under the name of taxes; and from the wealth thus extorted from them, they (the queen and parliament) can afford to pay us a higher rate of interest for our money than we can get in any other way. Or, if we lend this sum to the emperor of Austria, it will enable him to murder so many of his people as to strike terror into the rest, and thus enable him to keep them in subjection, and extort money from them, for twenty or fifty years to come. And they say the same in regard to the emperor of Russia, the king of Prussia, the emperor of France, or any other ruler, so called, who, in their judgment, will be able, by murdering a reasonable portion of his people, to keep the rest in subjection, and extort money from them, for a long time to come, to pay the interest and the principal of the money lent him. [harmonhouse.net/fdl/spooner.html#xviii80]
B. Ruppert, 2004.
C. Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1995.
D. See What I Mean by Tribe, in the Prologue.
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In particular, Bloom denies that warfare is unique to civilized humans, and gives examples of vicious warfare among human tribes and animal species. He points out, for instance, that African lions, their handsome, noble, and admirable qualities notwith
standing, have been supplied by “Mother Nature” with no other means of livelihood than by stalking other animals and tearing them limb from limb.A
For another example, Bloom cites the sea turtle, which lays her eggs in the sand, in a hole she digs a good way above the surf at high tide. When the eggs hatch, the infant turtles have a significant trek ahead of them, on limbs ill suited for walking on land. Moreover, the turtles’ birthday is routinely celebrated by large numbers of sea birds, who immediately swoop upon the struggling infants and devour them alive. “Of a thousand hatchlings,” Bloom writes, “perhaps three will make it to the safety of the ocean waves.”B
Among precivilized humans, Bloom notes the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, long believed by civilized anthropologists to exemplify the simple, peaceful life of precivilized tribes. Bloom points out the “stillunderpublicized fact” that “!Kung men solve the problem of adultery by murder. As a result, among the !Kung the homicide rate is higher than that in New York City.”C
For examples of outright warfare, Bloom cites the work of Dian Fossey, who studied the habits of mountain gorillas for 19 years in the Virunga Mountains of central Africa; and of Jane Goodall, who similarly lived for 14 years among chimpanzees in the Gombe Reserve, Tanzania. Fossey observed gorilla groups deliberately seeking out rival groups and engaging them in brutal battles that inflicted gruesome injuries on both sides. And Goodall was dismayed to observe a group of male chimpanzees hunt down and annihilate the males of a smaller group that had previously splintered from the parent group in response to population pressures. The victorious larger group then abducted the sexually active females, and appropriated the territory of the vanquished group. Bloom then quotes Michael Ghiglieri, who observed chimpanzee warfare in Uganda, and wrote that “the happygolucky chimpanzee has turned out to be the most lethal ape – an organized, cooperative warrior.”D
Bloom then goes on to cite examples that demonstrate, as Kipling had it, that “The female of the species is more deadly than the male,” among both animals and humans.E He then turns to the habits of langurs, whose society is typically ruled by a dominant male, attended by a harem of sexually active females. Only... the females are sexually active with the dominant male exclusively; other males are out of luck, and are chastised severely if they attempt to poach on the chief’s harem.
A. Bloom, 1995, pp. 245.
B. Loc. cit., p. 25.
C. Loc. cit., p. 27.
D. Loc. cit., pp. 279.
E. Ibid., pp. 305.
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Comes a day, however, as the chief begins to age, and possibly lose his edge, when he is challenged by a gang of younger rivals. If the chief fails to meet this challenge, he is driven off, and the young Turks appropriate the royal harem; whereupon they indulge themselves in an orgy of infanticide, dashing the brains of all the suckling infants against rocks and trees, yet leaving the nubile females unharmed. When all is done, not an infant fathered by the old chief remains alive; with the biological effect that the females, no longer suckling infants, renew their interest in sex, and the forthcoming progeny will be fathered by the young Turks, not by their deposed chief.A
Bloom cites a very fierce human tribe that inhabit the Orinoco River region of the Amazon rain forest, which behave in a way strangely similar to the langurs. The Yano
mamo are specialists in hunting and warfare, and enjoy nothing so much as attacking a neighboring village. If successful, they kill or chase away all the men, leaving the women unharmed. They then, like the langurs, methodically murder all the infants and children, and abduct the women as their secondary wives – and as vessels to carry and bear their progeny.B
Bloom’s point is that warfare and violence are by no means unique to civilized humans; or to humans at all. It is part of the genetic heritage of most, if not all living species, Homo sapiens sapiens included.
Point taken. However, as unsavory to conventional sensibilities as the examples Bloom cites may be, I hold that there is nevertheless a significant and vital difference between the “warfare” Bloom describes and the standard practices of dominator civiliza
tion. All living things sustain themselves at the expense of other living things, and humans are no exception. The patterns that have emerged through the processes of natural selection are not necessarily what “civilized folk” would call “nice.” But they work – most of the time. They work in the sense that they nurture and promote the ever
expanding spiral of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty throughout the biosphere; hence they promote the expansion of metaconsciousness, to the ultimate advantage of every organism and species that practices them. This is something that dominator civilization does not do – which is precisely and succinctly why dominator civilization does not work.C
We may disapprove of the !Kung, for instance, for dealing so severely with adul
teresses as to murder them, thereby statistically surpassing New York City’s homicide rate; yet I cannot imagine that the !Kung, individually or collectively, inflict even a measurable fraction of the lethal damage to the lifesustainability of the planet that New Yorkers do routinely, just going about their daily lives.
A. Ibid., pp. 367.
B. Ibid., pp. 378.
C. This theme is developed further in discussions of The Wider Dimensions of Warfare, and the differences between Warfare and Predation in section II.3.
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I am sure that brawling bands of gorillas and chimpanzees are not pretty sights to behold, and must be distressing indeed to the scientists who have invested years studying these creatures. Yet can anyone reasonably compare such jungle skirmishes with the genocidal slaughter practiced in every civilized generation, in every corner of the world?
Even the bloodthirsty Yanomamo – whom I probably would not relish meeting per
sonally in the Amazon jungle – seem naïvely tame when compared to the daily acts of civilized humans, committed behind closed doors in plushly appointed rooms in every civilized capital on Earth – and I am by no means talking about “sexual indiscretions.”
The Barnyard Pecking Order
Bloom devotes large portions of his book to the pecking order observed in nature and in barnyards in a widely diverse spectrum of contexts. “Who pecks whom” is evidently of vital importance to the biological success of many individuals and species throughout the biosphere; and it is certainly important in civilized human hierarchies.
Of course, Bloom, unlike myself, is a proponent of contemporary civilization, and he looks for civilized solutions to the human predicament. I believe that if such solutions are forthcoming at all, their source is likely to be anything but civilization (dominator civi
lization, that is). Nevertheless, what Bloom has to say about the pecking order, particu
larly among superorganisms, such as nations and ethnic groups, is highly illuminating and thoughtprovoking.
What Bloom calls a “superorganism” is an example of what I call a “metaconscious entity” composed of myriad informationsharing nodes, or component participants. Nodes can be synaptically connected neurons, individual cells, networking microbes, members of an animal or human population, etc. The important point is that they share information, and collectively learn from experience. The nodes that make up the superor
ganisms Bloom discusses are persons in identifiable groups, such as Americans, or Muslims, or Africans; and the vitally important information they share are called memes.A
A meme is to a superorganism as a gene is to a biological organism. It defines the character of the superorganism, and like a gene, it replicates from person to person throughout the superorganism. Religions and myths are examples of memes that define the character of a superorganism. To illustrate how memes are conceived, incubated, and replicated, Bloom recalls the case of Karl Marx, and the meme that bears his name.
Between 1852 and 1864, the meme that became Marxism flickered feebly in the mind of only one rather disagreeable man, who spent much of his time in solitude within the British Museum library. The results of Marx’s researches were published in 1867 as Das Kapital, a seldomread book which eventually entered Russia past the vigilant exam
ination of the Czar’s censors – who found it incomprehensible. The book was passed around in some obscure circles, but for the most part was no better understood by its few readers than it had been by the censors who might have kept it entirely outside Russia.
A. See Prologue, pp. 1112.
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Meanwhile, Marx’s book also fell into the hands of a group of disgruntled Russian expatriates exiled for their radical views: one Vladimir Lenin, and associates. These had the potential to replicate Marx’s meme, because they were actively engaged in the busi
ness of propagating ideas and recruiting converts to the revolutionary cause – although it was a near thing. The nascent Bolsheviks were often too preoccupied squabbling amongst themselves to take advantage of every opportunity that came their way. They missed the boat in 1905, on the occasion of the disastrous (for Russia) RussoJapanese War, and Czar Nicholas recovered from the resulting revolution, in which the Bolsheviks did not take a hand.
If the RussoJapanese War had been a disaster for the Czar, the Great War of 1914 proved catastrophic. By 1917 millions of Russians had perished on the eastern front; the Czar’s armies were impossibly illequipped, supply lines broke down, and people were starving in Mother Russia’s most prosperous cities. Revolution spontaneously combusted in Moscow and Petrograd..., and Lenin returned to Russia.
Upon Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd, he immediately began ranting to the crowds, and the Marxist meme at last fell upon fertile ground. By the mid1980s the meme that had had such a modest and inauspicious beginning ruled the minds, bodies, souls, and prop
erty of over 1.8 billion human beings. Such is the replicative power of a meme.A
One of Howard Bloom’s points for this story is that memes take on a life of their own, and like all living things, they have an innate “ambition” to expand, grow, and prop
agate – that is, to “be fruitful and multiply.” This is also the impulse behind genes, of course, but memes have demonstrated enormously greater scope for their ability to replicate; because they are able to draw together superorganisms which vastly transcend the arena available for genetic replication. Genetic organisms, including humans, can be very chummy and mutually supportive of others of their kind, meaning with kith and kin who share their genetic makeup; yet be murderously vicious toward foreigners of a different lineage. “Memetic organisms,” or superorganisms, are able to transcend such limitations and replicate limitlessly beyond the fences established by genetic makeup.
Bloom cites Christianity as a superorganism that spectacularly overcame the limita
tions of its genetic origin. The group’s founder and original organizer preached only to fellow Jews; which is to say, to those who shared his genetic heritage. The Hebrew god too was a genetic god, presumed to have interests only in the affairs of those of the Hebrew lineage.
Like Marx’s meme many centuries later, the meme of the Galilean carpenter did not enjoy initial success among his genemates, who were mostly uneducated pastoralists from an obscure backwater of the Roman Empire. After his crucifixion, however, an urbane fellow from the trade center of Tarsus showed up, initially with the intention of persecuting the Christian community in Damascus. On his way there, this fellow, Saul, had an arresting experience. He was blinded by an enveloping light, and he heard the A. Bloom, 1995, pp. 98101.
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voice of Jesus. He converted to the Christian faith on the spot, took the name Paul, and commenced an energetic career as the last apostle of Christ.
Paul didn’t enjoy any more success among the Jews with the new faith than Jesus had; but unlike Jesus, Paul did not feel bound by the genetic constraints that had inhibited the outreach of his fellow Jewish Christians. He turned instead to “the gentiles,” a cosmopolitan mix of Greeks, Romans, and peoples from the far corners of the Empire. He spoke the international language (Greek) and had a more receptive hearing among his wider audience than he had had among the Jews.
How much Paul’s meme had in common with that of Jesus is a matter open to theo
logical debate. It certainly enjoyed a more fecund capacity to replicate, and it eventually drew together a global superorganism that recognized no border or genetic fence. The meme, not for the last time, had demonstrated its spectacular effectiveness as a replicator for the onward evolution of metaconsciousness.A
Organisms and superorganisms alike experience a motive to strive for advancement in the social pecking order – a term coined by a Norwegian naturalist named Thorlief SchjelderupEbbe, who spent time during the early part of the 20th century observing and carefully noting the behavior of barnyard hens. SchjelderupEbbe discovered that the relative “peace” that reigns in the barnyard is the outcome of a vicious competition that yields vital consequences for all participants. Those who successfully fight their way to the top of the pecking order wind up with the best of everything – the most and best food, the most and best sex, the most preferred roost. Nobody pecks them, yet they have the undisputed prerogative to peck whom they please.
Conversely, those at the bottom of the pecking order fare the worst in all conditions of life, and they peck no one: everyone pecks them. Those at the bottom of the pecking order are even affected emotionally, and biochemically – as are the aristocrats at the top of the heap – by their relative status in the barnyard hierarchy. Winners in the struggle for status experience a surge in the testosterone level in their blood – the male hormone that promotes aggression and confidence. The testosterone level plummets for losers; instead, they experience a rise in glucocorticoids, which are stress hormones that slowly poison the lowrung members of the barnyard hierarchy. This ties in with the discussion earlier about conformity enforcers, diversity generators, innerjudges, and the onset of apoptosis in a metaconscious entity.B
Investigations subsequent to those of SchjelderupEbbe have disclosed that the social patterns observable in the barnyard are applicable to an enormous variety of social set
tings – including competitions among superorganisms. Bloom describes the vicissitudes in the rivalry between Carthage and Rome during the Punic Wars between the years 260 and 203; during which allies flocked enthusiastically to the aid of either Carthage or Rome, depending upon their victories and defeats, and consequent rise or fall in the A. Ibid., pp. 1035.
B. The Elements of Metaconscious Entities, above.
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superorganismic pecking order.A “When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you; when you’re crying, you cry alone.” Isn’t there a song lyric to that effect? It seems to be true, under a wide variety of circumstances.
A parallel pattern took shape much more recently, during the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1957 the Soviet Union – until then definitely on a lower rung of the international pecking order – shocked the world by launching Sputnik, thereby demonstrating a technological competence the U.S. in partic
ular had not anticipated – and a military capability the U.S. had not suspected. The result was a significant rise for the U.S.S.R. in the superorganismic pecking order, and a cor
responding demotion for the U.S. Nations all over the world reacted vocally, many openly applauding and forming alliances with the Russians, others cautiously distancing themselves from America.B
Lessons From the Barnyard
The lessons I draw from these disclosures and observations are two: a) there is even more reason than before to take seriously the myth of metaconsciousness; and b) the essence of dominator civilization may be discovered in the barnyard. The presence and behavior of superorganisms demonstrate the universality of metaconsciousness in infor
mationsharing matrices of distributed agents, at a scale one step beyond that of the individual human. Although not conclusive, this is certainly suggestive, and supportive of the myth of metaconsciousness. Also, the behavior of human superorganisms demon
strates that they are as yet at the most rudimentary and primitive stage of their evolu
tionary path. That is, civilized superorganisms have not yet risen above the “barnyard” stage of evolutionary development, at which the condition of human life is determined exclusively by the pecking order; or in other words, by the primitive formula, “Might makes right.” This may be taken as a retrograde devolution of human civilization, for as we will be seeing in subsequent sections, human civilization had at one time reached much higher cultural achievements than those of contemporary “barnyard civilizations,” particularly in the field of what we will be calling “social dynamics.”C
That humanity may legitimately aspire to “higher things” is demonstrated by the fact that, not only have humans achieved “higher things” in “prehistoric” antiquity, we are able to imagine and aspire to such “higher things” today. The state of the contemporary world demonstrates that we had best be about bringing such “higher things” into actual
ity; and that although civilization as practiced among humans may work satisfactorily among barnyard hens, it manifestly does not work for a global human population. Our metaconscious superorganism evidently understands this quite clearly, and is in the process of shutting down. It is incumbent upon us to bring a functional replacement into A. Bloom, 1995, pp. 2038.
B. Ibid., pp. 2089.
C. See Dominator and Partnership Civilizations in section I.8; and II.2. Myth of a Golden Age.
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the vacuum being vacated by our dysfunctional dominator civilization. Evidence will be developed in subsequent sections to support the notion that such a replacement is pos
sible, and potentially applicable to the contemporary human predicament.
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I.3. Metaconsciousness Among the Microbes
It is interesting to note that the metaconsciousness of a group can be of decisively greater survival value than the individual intelligence of its members. Chimpanzees are considered by most biologists who study them to be significantly more intelligent indi
vidually than are baboons. Yet chimps are dying out as a species, while baboons are expanding into increasingly diverse ecological niches, and are the most widely dispersed nonhuman primates in Africa. Why? The intelligent chimps typically congregate in groups of around 40, while baboons cluster at night in congregations numbering 120 to 250 or more, and are much more adept than chimps are at sharing information. Individual chimpanzees may be more conscious than individual baboons; yet a baboon troupe is significantly more metaconscious than a troupe of chimps; and their prolific success in the “real world” demonstrates what a formidable advantage this can be.A
As mentioned in the previous section, Bloom demonstrates that an extraordinarily powerful, adaptable, and versatile metaconsciousness has been present and steadily evol
ving on this planet practically from the moment conditions began to exist in which bio
logical life could survive and thrive. The distributed agents of this metaconscious entity are, individually, vastly less conscious than baboons, chimps, people, or even worms; yet they occur in numbers that totally overwhelm in magnitude the populations of all multi
cellular species combined. I refer, of course to the singlecelled organisms known collec
tively as microbes.
Not only do microbes proliferate in vast numbers, they maintain vast, and vastly complex, networks amongst themselves, by means of which they swiftly and efficiently share information on a global scale.B Residing in the intestinal tracts of migratory birds, for example, they are able to share select samples of genetic code around the world. They have demonstrated the ability literally to engineer, duplicate, and proliferate genetic information in effective response to challenges they encounter in the global environment. An example is the swift evolution of microbial strains resistant to formerly lethal anti
biotics developed by human biologists. Bloom suggests in effect that microbial meta
consciousness may be the most advanced on the planet, and by implication, that human metaconsciousness may lag far behind – the promise of the Internet and global jet air travel notwithstanding. Indeed, global jet air travel is doubtless one of the many com
ponents in the global microbial network – and far more effectively so for “them” than for “us.” After all, no transoceanic microbe making landfall on a distant continent has ever A. Bloom, 2000, p. 52.
B. See On Networks in section II.6 for an extended discussion of spontaneously emergent and selforgan
izing networks.
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had to bother with such artificial absurdities as clearing customs – even when smuggling in lethal strains of DNA!
We civilized humans routinely erect a bewildering array of such obstacles to the free exercise of human metaconsciousness. It is no wonder, therefore, we are outflanked at every turn by the microbial metaconsciousness of the first biological inhabitants of this planet. This may also be a “secondary,” or even a “primary” reason for the pandemic mentioned in the preceding section.
So why do we do this? Why do we so deliberately, and so unnecessarily, handicap ourselves? Is it not obvious that obstructing metaconsciousness is an inherent function of dominator civilizations? Obstructing the human metaconsciousness is something civi
lized humans do all the time, in countless different ways, because of the fear of losing control of something that lies by nature entirely outside our province of “control.” Like it or not, the “control” civilized humans so desperately seek lies properly, if anywhere, in the hands of the gods; which is to say, it lies in the province of the universal metacon
sciousness. By preempting the universal metaconsciousness, we put ourselves literally at war with the very gods, and at war with everything. How else but in catastrophe can such a posture end?
The final devolution of civilization is one in which the conformity enforcers are making a final decisive bid for ultimate and irrevocable control over the diversity generators, and indeed the entire world – a bid which tolls the knell for dominator civili
zation, and concludes the civilized war upon metaconsciousness, and the very gods; because it stifles richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, thereby disabling Life and making impossible the endless spiral of evolution. This “final act” in the civilized drama has been building for five thousand years, ever since the first warlord took it upon himself to “rule” his neighboring tribes and nascent partnership civilizations by force – culminating in the tragic catastrophe in which we are participating today.
The typical civilized response to a visionary diversity generator is neurotic and per
verse, and was given poetic expression about two centuries ago:
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
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And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.A
Isn’t that the civilized way though? When a distributed agent of a functional metacon
scious entity “on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise,” the natural response, one would think, is for all his peers to gather round, heap the fortunate fellow with rewards and praise, and generally cash in on a Good Thing. But no; not when the conformity enforcers have got the bit in their teeth: “Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread!”
It is the formula for the shuttingdown of human metaconsciousness; and there is no reason it has to be this way. We could just as easily, and far more naturally, expand our human metaconsciousness, open our eyes in holy anticipation, and just for instance, treat the microbes as metaconscious allies, instead of adversaries. Nothing, besides our halluci
natory notions of “right” and “wrong,” constrain us to wage war with the gods, or with anyone or anything. Nothing, that is to say, besides our fatal civilization, and our com
pulsive embrace of the fatal premises upon which it rests:





Our way is the only right way to live, and all people should live as we do; Humanity was destined from our earliest beginnings to create civilization; Civilization must not be lost or abandoned under any circumstances; Civilization is the crowning achievement of humanity.
It is ironic that our contemporary civilization makes so much about the search for “intelligent life in the universe,” when we fail to recognize the “intelligent life” swarming constantly all around us. “Intelligence” – or more generally, metaconsciousness – appears to be a fundamental property of Life itself;B and those who do not exercise it eventually forfeit their participation in the adventure of being alive. This seems to be the destiny toward which human civilization is headed – perhaps because being oblivious to the metaconsciousness present everywhere, civilization is effectively dead already.
Although Howard Bloom suggests in effect that the microbes may combine in the most highly evolved metaconsciousness on the planet, there is nothing about metacon
sciousness that requires it to be hosted by exclusively biological entities. Metaconscious
ness may exhibit its presence anywhere there exists in sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty a matrix of informationsharing agents; which means, virtually anywhere at all. Indeed, as we shall see, speaking of metaconsciousness as being A. From Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 17721834, emphasis added.
B. See The Molecular Microworld of the Cell, and Inconclusion, section II.6, for a startling description of the “nuts & bolts” of how this is so.
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“hosted” by an “entity” may be a typically civilized way of “getting the cart before the horse” – as if metaconsciousness were a “property” of physical entities. Rather, it may be much more “truthful” to say that physicality is one of the many possible “costumes” in which metaconsciousness clothes herself.
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I.4. Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields
When we move our attention from the microbial scale to the quantum scale, we enter the domain wherein the myth of metaconsciousness finds its source, and in which its foundation is most firmly anchored. This is a domain whose implications have been very difficult to understand or assimilate, even by the most advanced thinkers at the leading edge of theoretical physics; and has consequently (in part) been ignored by almost every
one’s mythologies, or perceptions of “practical reality.” Quantum theory has also been ignored because the micro scale at which quantum effects are observable is almost uni
maginably minute in comparison with the macro scale at which virtually all consciously registered human experiences occur. Yet minute though quantum events are, they have been demonstrated with exacting rational and experimental rigor to be ubiquitous, and their presence in the real world bears profound implications for we who live in it.
The MindMatter Problem
The difficulty that virtually everyone who has encountered it has experienced with quantum theory has to do with a couple of fundamental premises upon which classical epistemology, or the study of the basis and nature of knowledgeA are based. Classical epistemology is rooted in the presumedly selfevident notions that a) reality is objectively whatever it is, regardless of what anyone may think about it, or whether or not it is observed or measured; and b) what goes on in the human mind, such as sensory stimuli, and their interpretation, is hermetically sealed from direct contact or relationship with objective reality. These two premises gave rise to what has been called the mindmatter problem, in which the subjective experience of living humans seems to be forever separated by an impenetrable barrier from the objective reality of the real world. We can view the world “out there” through the “window” of our senses, and evaluate our sensations “in here” within the recesses of our minds; yet we can never, so it seems, actually “touch” the real world, or experience other than a subjective relationship with it. Consequently, our subjective experiences have no effect upon the nature or behavior of objective reality.
The impulse of scientific inquiry has accordingly been to use our native human senses, including their extensions, such as telescopes, microscopes, and other technologi
cal instruments of amplification; combined with our rational analytical powers (and their technological extensions), to create within our subjective minds models of objective real
ity having the verifiable property of direct and reliable correspondence with the actuality of objective reality. This correspondence may be verified by means of rational analysis of carefully controlled and repeatable experiments designed to test various correspondences A. I discussed some of the “peculiarities” at the quantum scale in “Knowledge,” August, 1998 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/np31.htm#knowledge].
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between the subjective model and the objective reality. A complete model is one with rationally demonstrable onetoone correspondence with every feature of the objective reality it is attempting to model. Such a model bears the same relationship to reality that a map bears to its corresponding territory; and it may be achieved by accurately modeling every part of which the whole reality is composed.
The value of a complete map of reality is that it would serve as an “aid to navigation” in our otherwise “blind” course through the real world we can experience only subjec
tively. Therefore, the “Holy Grail,” so to speak, of classical physics has been a demon
strably reliable “Theory of Everything” which can provide humans with a complete description of the real world we can never otherwise “touch.” In the vocabulary of the myth of metaconsciousness, such a complete theory fits the description of a myth, because it would be a model of objective reality, contained within human minds, not objective reality itself. Such a myth, rationally and experimentally confirmed to accu
rately describe objective reality, would obviously be an extremely valuable and useful myth indeed. Before the end of the 19th century, such a complete myth was thought to have been virtually within reach (although they didn’t call it that), and aspiring graduate physics students were being encouraged at the time to seek in other fields more promising opportunities for original research than were soon likely to be available in physics. The field of physics, they were told, was all but wrapped up.A
The Beginning of “Quantum Weirdness”
The discovery of quantum theory threw a spanner into these optimistic expectations, by demonstrating with rational, repeatable, experimental rigor that the longheld premises upon which they were based are not supportable. At the macro scale of people and planets it is intuitively sensible to us that objects like the Moon, for example, or the many smaller satellites we humans have placed in orbit about the Earth, may potentially have their orbits changed by either gaining or losing kinetic energy. That is, by using a rocket to give an orbiting satellite additional energy, it is possible to boost it into a higher orbit. Conversely, if the satellite encounters drag from the upper fringes of Earth’s atmosphere, it looses energy, and descends to a lower orbit – where it encounters stiffer drag, its orbit decays further, and it eventually plummets to the surface, or more likely burns up like a meteor in the atmosphere. At the macro scale, all these processes are apparently contin
uous and occur in smooth graduations; and this is familiar and intuitively very sensible to most of us.
At the quantum scale, however.... Well, in 1913 Danish physicist Niels Bohr disco
vered something very “peculiar” about the atom; which in 1911 New Zealander Ernest Rutherford had demonstrated to be a miniature analog of the Solar System, consisting of a massive nucleus surrounded by swarms of lighter particles, somewhat as Earth is today surrounded by swarms of orbiting satellites. Only... what Bohr discovered was that the particles orbiting an atomic nucleus do not change orbits continuously, as planetary satel
A. Robert Nadeau, Menas Kafatos, The NonLocal Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 1718.
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lites do, but rather in “quantum leaps.” That is, when a subatomic particle gains sufficient energy, say by absorbing a photonA it too is boosted into a higher orbit – but in a surpris
ingly “peculiar” fashion. Instead of moving sedately and “sensibly” along a curved trajec
tory to join its higher orbit, as all “right thinking” people would expect, it leaps instan
taneously from its lower orbit to its higher orbit, with no time interval, and without physically traversing the intervening space between orbits. At another time the particle may lose energy, radiate a photon, and again leap instantaneously back to its former orbit, with no lapse of time, and without traversing the space between orbits. The orbits of subatomic particles about their atomic nucleus are invariably spaced in “steps” which occur in multiples related to Planck’s constant.B
The socalled “orbit,” in other words, of a subatomic “particle” about its nucleus is not, like that of a satellite orbiting Earth, describable by a trajectory that can be plotted through space. In fact, the behavior of “subatomic particles” belongs to a class of actual physical phenomena that cannot be visualized in any way, but can be modeled accurately only in purely mathematical terms. As such, a “subatomic particle” takes the form of a mathematical wave function – which is not a physical wave, like ripples on the surface of a pond, or sound waves. The best description we have of it is as a “probability wave,” which delineates a region in space where the “particle” is most likely to be found at any discrete moment. Where it is actually located may be anywhere in the universe – until and unless it is observed, or detected by a metaconscious entity. Observation is said to col
lapse the wave function, which then manifests as a discrete actual particle with a particu
lar location in spacetime. However, where it “came from,” and where it is “going,” are then complete unknowns, as the “particle,” no longer observed, immediately once again dissolves into its inscrutable wave function.
Now if observation has the experimental effect of “collapsing the wave function,” and bringing into manifestation, somehow, an observable quantum event, already we’re entering a domain which doesn’t seem to conform to the classical premise that a human observer can have no effect upon that which is observed (or not) in the real world – because we humans are supposedly “locked away” within our minds, from which we can observe, but cannot interact directly (objectively) with the real world of material pheno
mena. And this, it developed, was but the beginning of the “quantum weirdness” at intuitive odds with our most fundamental expectations about the nature of reality.
Heisenberg May Have Slept Here
Just as Einstein in 1905 identified in photons the quantum properties of light, hereto
fore treated exclusively as a wave phenomenon, so LouisVictor de Broglie proposed the A. Photon is the term Albert Einstein coined to signify a quantum, or “particle” of light – which had previously been observed only as a wave phenomenon. Speaking of the wellestablished wave pheno
menon of light in terms of quanta, or “packets” that behave like particles, was an early step in opening the can of worms which became known as quantum theory.
B. Planck’s constant is a very small, yet nonzero number discovered by Max Planck in 1900 to be of enormous significance at the quantum scale. It’s value is usually given as 6.626176 × 1034 jouleseconds.
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J. Harmon Grahn
wave properties of electrons, heretofore treated exclusively as particles, and was con
firmed in 1927. Upon closer examination at the quantum scale, it in fact turned out that there is a fundamental ambiguity between the properties of waves and particles – which seems intuitively equivalent to saying that there is a fundamental ambiguity between the properties of elephants and mice! That is, a particle is small and compact, and occupies a pointlike locus in space; whereas a wave is dynamic and spread out, and occupies a wide region in space, as sound waves can easily fill a concert hall. Two more dissimilar pheno
mena can hardly be imagined. What could possibly be ambiguous about the respective properties of particles and waves?
As it turned out, plenty. The year 1927 is also that in which Werner Heisenberg articulated the principle of indeterminacy, or the uncertainty principle, which states in effect that not everything about a quantum event can be known with precision; because quantum events can only be observed by humans in the context of experiments the human observers deliberately arrange. One may set up an experiment, for example, to verify the wave properties of a flux of electrons; and in that case, the electrons will obligingly display their wave properties. Alternatively, one may arrange another experiment to ver
ify the quantum properties of electrons; in which case, sure enough, the quantum proper
ties of electrons will be disclosed. However, according to the uncertainty principle, one can in no way set up an experiment such as to demonstrate simultaneously both the wave and the quantum properties of electrons.
Similarly, one can set up an experiment to measure the momentum of a flux of parti
cles – in which case, the particles’ position in spacetime will be rendered a complete mystery. Conversely, one may set up an experiment which discloses the particles’ geomet
ric position in spacetime – in which case their momentum will remain entirely unknown. What it comes to is the discovery of a lengthening list of complementary pairs of proper
ties of material phenomena, both of which are required for a complete description of the phenomenon, yet only one or the other of which may be observed in any experimental situation. Thus Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has also been called the principle of complementarity; and its consequence is that, at the quantum scale, a complete model of objective reality cannot be formulated in the human mind, because all of its properties cannot be simultaneously described. There are unavoidable tradeoffs between mutually exclusive complementary pairs of the properties required for a complete description of “objective reality.”A
The principle of complementarity has been exhaustively tested and rigorously ana
lyzed over the course of the past 80 years, and many keen minds (including Einstein’s) have not welcomed it at all, and have turned it every which way but loose in vain attempts to overturn it. Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr conducted an intermittent debate between 1927 and Einstein’s passing in 1955, in which Einstein proposed various thought experiments intended to define circumstances under which two complementary properties A. Some of the consequences of this disclosure are explored in II.5. The Myth of Objective Reality.
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of a quantum event could be observed simultaneously. In each instance, Bohr demon
strated the flaw in Einstein’s argument.A
One can see the thing from the classicists’ point of view; for the principle of comple
mentarity stands on its head the premises upon which classical epistemology had rested since the days of René Descartes (1596 to 1650). Factoring in Heisenberg’s principle, they must now be revised, somewhat along these lines: a) reality consists of an unavoid
able reciprocity between observer and observed; and b) what goes on in the human mind has a reciprocal relationship with observed reality.
Many people besides Einstein didn’t relish the implications of the principle of com
plementarity; and many took solace in the thought that, anyway, it only applies at the minute scale of quantum events, in relation to the minuscule value of Planck’s constant. However, although unimaginably minute, Planck’s constant is not zero; and that makes all the difference.
If Planck’s constant were zero [write Nadeau & Kafatos], there would be no indeterminacy and we could predict both momentum and position with the utmost accuracy. A particle would have no wave properties and a wave no parti
cle properties – the mathematical map and the corresponding physical landscape would be in perfect accord.B
In the event, however, this is not the case. Moreover, the quantum theory has emerged during the past century as in fact the most complete and perfect description of “objective reality” yet discovered, or formulated in human minds. Einstein argued that quantum theory is not complete, and so may be expected to undergo further evolution as it is refined by more penetrating investigation; and so the principle of complementarity may not be inflexibly true. Einstein’s prediction, however, has never been confirmed, and quantum theory as it stands remains the most perfect description of reality so far achieved in human history. Like it or not, we live in a quantum world, and the classical Cartesian paradigm, with its impenetrable barrier between mind and matter, leads us to demon
strably erroneous conclusions.
As to the idea that quantum theory applies only to esoteric subatomic phenomena at the unimaginably minute quantum scale, and so may be ignored in circumstances encoun
tered at human, planetary, and Cosmic scales; the reality is evidently quite the reverse. Quantum events are what Cosmos, and everything and everyone in it, are made of; they constitute the “ground of being” for everything. Every atom, every molecule, every cell, of every biological or nonbiological organism on Earth, or off it, is composed of swarms of quantum events in unimaginably complex and multidimensional interactions among countless quantum fields – all the time, everywhere. There is no place, or time, or scale in which quantum events are not vitally instrumental. To ignore this is IGNORANCE writ large.
A. Nadeau & Kafatos, 1999, pp. 6569.
B. Ibid., p. 32.
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Nonlocality
Those who don’t like complementarity are really going to hate nonlocality. Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance,”A which turned out to have been a somewhat slanderous remark. But then, as we have seen, Einstein belonged to a conservative gener
ation, and his monumental pioneering achievements in theoretical physics notwith
standing, was never able to make himself quite at home with the discoveries of the younger set of quantum physicists. In an attempt to demonstrate a means whereby two complementary properties may be simultaneously ascertained, John Bell, a kindred spirit with Einstein, proposed in 1964 the theorem that bears his name. The Bell theorem had its antecedent in one of the thought experiments that had figured in the interminable debate between Bohr and Einstein.
In 1935, a collaboration among Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen published a proposition known as the EPR thought experiment, in which two photons are imagined to originate in a single quantum state; which is to say for instance that the polarization of one photon is complementary to that of the other. The EPR thought experiment contrived an imaginary situation in which one of two complementary photons is intercepted and measured by a human observer, and from this measurement the compli
mentary state of the other photon may be deduced. From these data it was argued that both of the mutually exclusive complementary properties of a single photon could be simultaneously known. An assumption of the EPR thought experiment was that nothing done in the process of measuring the state of one photon could possibly disturb the complementary state of the other within the time frame of the measurement, because it was assumed that no signal could pass between them at greater than the speed of light.
Bohr replied that the reality of the complementary properties of a particle could not be derived by inference, but could be claimed only if those properties were directly observed and measured.B And so the debate went on. What was wanted was an actual experiment that would unambiguously confirm either Einstein’s or Bohr’s position.
Such actual experiments became possible after 1964 on the basis of Bell’s theorem, which assumed the Einsteinian/classical postulates of locality and realism to be correct; namely that a) energetic or informationbearing interactions between particles cannot occur at greater than lightspeed (locality); and b) reality is independent of observation (realism). Bell described experimental measurements that can be made which, because quantum theory challenges the validity of both of these postulates, would either verify or falsify these two assumptions, and hence vindicate either Einstein or Bohr.
One of the differences between actual quantum experiments and their corresponding thought experiments is that thought experiments can deal with single (imaginary) quanta, and their complements, while actual experiments, involving human experimentalists and apparatus vastly larger than the scale of individual quanta, must be designed on a more A. Ibid., p. 2.
B. Ibid., pp. 6769.
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statistical basis. That is, instead of examining the properties of individual quanta, human experimentalists must work with a flux of quanta of the desired type, essentially per
forming the same experiment on a great many individuals, and analyzing the results statistically.
A number of experiments to test the validity of Bell’s theorem were conducted, the first at the University of California, Berkeley, the results of which were published in 1972; followed by others by other teams, always striving for greater refinement and clar
ity.A Some were conducted with photons, focusing on correlated polarizations; some with gamma rays and their polarizations; some with electrons and their correlated spin states.... And so on. All such experiments were conducted with the object of testing whe
ther correlations, or their absence, between complementary quanta contradicted or con
firmed the postulates of locality and realism.
The most famous – and decisive – of these experiments were conducted respectively by Alain Aspect and colleagues at the University of ParisSud, results published in 1982; and by Nicolus Gisin and colleagues at the University of Geneva, results published in 1997.B Both of these experiments were conducted with correlated photons passing to detectors through polarizing filters.
The flux of photons in a beam of light are randomly polarized individually, and it is not possible to predict the polarization of any particular photon. However, by passing such a beam through a polarizing filter, it is possible to predict the statistical probability of a photon of any particular polarization passing through the filter and being registered by a detector placed behind the filter. If the photon’s polarization is parallel with the polarization of the filter, the probability of the photon being registered by the detector is 1, or certain. If the photon’s polarization is perpendicular to that of the filter, the probability of the photon passing through the filter and being registered by the detector is 0 (zero). If the photon’s polarization lies somewhere between 0° and 90° in relation to the filter’s polarization, the probability of the photon passing through the filter and being detected will lie between 1 and 0. If the photon’s polarization is 45°, for example, relative to that of the filter, its probability of passing through the filter will be 0.5.
In simplified terms, the Aspect/Gisin photon experiments to test Bell’s theorem each involved a beam of light passed through a crystal which had the effect of splitting the beam into two beams, one directed to the “left,” the other to the “right,” in which the polarization of each photon in each beam was complementary to its counterpart in the opposite beam. That is, both beams, aimed in opposite directions, consisted of a flux of randomly polarized photons, yet each photon in the “left” beam was the complement of its counterpart in the “right” beam.
Quantum theory made very specific predictions about the outcome of such correla
tion experiments, which were unambiguously contrary to the predictions following from A. Ibid., p. 77.
B. Ibid., p. 3.
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the Einsteinian/classical assumptions of locality and realism. The Einsteinian/classical assumptions predicted that there would be found to be no correlation between the polari
zation of the photons detected at the terminus of each beam, because there was no way information about the state of complementary photons could be passed between them at the speed of light during the time available for detection. In the Aspect experiment, the terminal detectors were separated by a span of 13 meters, so a lightspeed signal would require 40 nanoseconds to travel between them. Aspect’s switching mechanism operated within 10 nanoseconds, precluding any possibility that correlations between beams could have been the product of local interactions at the speed of light.A In the Gisin experiment, the terminal detectors were separated by 11 kilometers, with the purpose of determining whether the correlation between complementary photons was in any way attenuated by distance. In each case, correlation was found to be in perfect accord with the predictions of quantum theory, and there was no attenuation over distance. If perfect correlation between complementary quanta occurs at 11 km, it will occur just as easily across the width of the universe – not at the speed of light, or any multiple thereof, but instanta
neously, in “no time.”B Quantum events at the scale of atomic orbits, or that span galaxies, occur alike in “no time,” and unite all of Cosmos into a single, indivisible whole. Bohr’s position was confirmed, and complementarity and nonlocality were decisively disclosed to be accurately described in a complete quantum theory. Like it or not, we live and have our being in a nonlocal quantum universe. Get used to it.C
Yes, but What Does it Mean?
It may mean many things. Following are some constructions I place upon the disclo
sures above:
a)
Complementary quantum pairs interact nonlocally and instantaneously, regardless of the spacetime dimensions separating them. They behave in effect as a single, indivisible unit, not as differentiable parts dispersed in spacetime.
b) Although complementary pairs, such as the particle/wave complex, both of which are vital to a complete description of objective reality, yet only one of which can be observed experimentally, were first encountered at the quan
tum scale; the principle of complementarity is not exclusive to the quantum scale, and seems to be ubiquitous at all scales in Cosmos.
A. Ibid., pp. 7879.
B. Loc. cit.
C. This has been an attempt at retelling a story related in Nadeau & Kafatos, 1999, pp. 6974. Quantum theory is notoriously difficult to understand, even for those with formal training and professional standing in it; whereas I am but a rank amateur groping for understanding of matters often beyond my ken. I believe the account given here corrects some significant misunderstandings related in earlier versions of this section; yet I cannot avouch that it is entirely free of error. I will therefore greatly appreciate the informed reader bringing remaining errors to my attention.
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c)
Because many if not all quanta making up the atoms, molecules, cells, etc. of which all things are composed, may at all times be instantaneously paired with correlated quanta dispersed throughout Cosmos, human concepts of parts and wholes can only have subjective and relative meaning within limited local contexts. The implication I take from this is that every part throughout Cosmos appears to be instantaneously connected in a seamless web of manifold relationships with every other part, and with the whole of “All That Is,” perpetually, in “notime.”
d) Quantum entities “exist” as probabilistic wave functions – until and unless actually observed by a metaconscious entity. The metaconscious observer is an unavoidable and vital constituent of every quantum event, inasmuch as the observer plays the essential role of collapsing the wave function, bring
ing into manifestation a discrete quantum event. Observers are not neces
sarily human scientists, and are not confined to the human scale; thus meta
consciousness is indivisibly woven into the quantum fabric of “All That Is.” There is nowhere it is not at all times present, and it plays a vital part in every quantum event.
e)
While a quantum wave function remains unobserved, it expands, and may potentially fill all spacetime. Thus any quantum may potentially be observed anywhere, at the moment of observation that collapses its wave function. The quantum wave function therefore represents a field of limit
less potentiality, which is substantiated in a particularized quantum through metaconscious observation.
f)
Although the scale at which quantum events manifest is at first glance extremely minute, and hence apparently far removed from our daily experi
ence of macro events, the quantum field necessarily constitutes the funda
mental basis for all events, of any scale in Cosmos. Quantum events mani
fest everywhere and always at all scales, from the subatomic to the super
galactic, because that is what macro events are: an amalgam of innumerable quantum events. There is no place or time in which quantum events are not occurring, and being metaconsciously observed. It is precisely this that shapes the unique “hallucination we each experience as reality.”
The “hallucination we each experience as reality” is not a farfetched metaphor for humans unaware of inhabiting a nonlocal quantum universe. Classical epistemology has assumed that “man is the measure of all things,” and implies that the scale at which humans happen to experience the universe is intrinsic to the universe as a whole. A On this scale, things that happen to be smaller than a man are unconsciously assumed to be A. On the contrary, as discussed in Cosmological Scale Expansion, section II.5, there is evidently no scale intrinsic to the universe as a whole; and no reason the scale of all spacetime may not be in a state of constant flux.
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“intrinsically small,” and things that happen to be larger than a man are unconsciously assumed to be “intrinsically large.” “Objective Reality” is presumed to conform to what is “visible to human eyes,” or ascertainable through human senses (and their extensions) and analysis. In a nonlocal quantum universe, these presumptions lead to grotesquely skewed perceptions of reality.
Humans have blundered into the human predicament because the maps we have been using – our myths – have borne a highly distorted relationship with the territory of the real world we have been attempting to navigate. Our classical epistemology, to which we tenaciously cling almost universally – even after it has been spectacularly invalidated by the Aspect/Gisin photon experiments – is a philosophical product of our dominator
civilized heritage; and it teaches us erroneously that we are forever hermetically sealed away “in here” in the isolation of our minds from direct contact with the real world “out there.” Is it any wonder that we should be almost universally and perpetually at war with a world in which we see ourselves so thoroughly and irrevocably alienated? We stand in desperate need of an alternative mythology!
In quantum theory, validated by rigorous experiment and rational analysis, we now possess a firm rational foundation for just such an alternative mythology. On the basis of what we have learned and verified, it is not at all beyond the pale of reason to imagine that the sum of all quantum fields in Cosmos combine in a metaconscious matrix of informationsharing agents of transcendent richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty; and constitute in ways that may be humanly apprehended, if at all, only in mythological terms, what some have called the ground of all being, and others call the gods.A In quantum theory, in other words, lie grounds for the myth that we, and all meta
conscious entities in Cosmos, are active participants in the momentbymoment mani
festation of “objective reality.” We are not after all alienated from the world in which we live, hermetically sealed forever in the recesses of our subjective minds; we – each one of us, and all of us together – are parts complementary to the indivisible whole of “All That Is” which combine in the complete and indescribable “description” of what is.
In the principles of complementarity and nonlocality we have the basis for perceiving the part and the whole, at all scales in Cosmos, as being prototypical of all complimen
tary pairs which can only be mythologically combined in symbolic understandings of what is. Like all complementary pairs, the part and the whole, at any scale, cannot be simultaneously observed, yet are inextricably entwined in reality. We are now at liberty and rationally empowered to view ourselves and all our peers alternatively as either parts A. Nadeau & Kafatos explicitly correct the misperception (p. 79) that the Aspect/Gisin photon experiments demonstrate fasterthanlight, or instantaneous communication; because the photon beams used in the experiments, although correlated between beams, were composed of randomly polarized photons, and so were incapable of conveying a message. More generally, however, when an observer, by the act of observing, “collapses the wave function,” bringing into manifestation a quantum event, it must be acknowledged that information of some kind is somehow being exchanged at the quantum scale. If all quanta in Cosmos are instantaneously connected in a seamless web of correlated pairs, the implications for the Myth of Metaconsciousness, though intuitive and speculative, are also profound.
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or wholes in nonlocal, instantaneous, and metaconscious relationship with every other part and whole throughout Cosmos.
This also clarifies why mythology is such a vital aspect of our understanding of our place in Cosmos; for since the whole of Cosmos is composed of presumably infinite cas
cades of complementary parts; and the parts themselves are also wholes composed of infinite cascades of complementary “subparts,” and so on ad infinitum; and because complimentary parts can only be observed alternatively, not together in simultaneity, even though both are essential to an accurate description of the complex in which they combine; “objective reality” can be apprehended by a human (or nonhuman) finite observer only in mythological terms.
Additional Contours of the Myth of Metaconsciousness
As mentioned in the Prologue, in discussing metaconsciousness we are not talking about anything “new,” but only applying a contemporary lexical innovation to something humans have been speculating about, and discussing, time out of mind. This may seem like not very much; however, a shifted vocabulary can sometimes open the way for pat
terns of thought which would not otherwise rise into conscious awareness. One may think about the gods, for instance, in entirely different (from “classical”) ways, if one interprets their myths in terms of the always/everywhere presence of cascades of nonlocal quantum events metaconsciously observed.
Through the above considerations, additional contours of the myth of metaconscious
ness emerge, which may be summarized as follows:
a)
A metaconscious entity is an amalgam of many informationsharing agents which exhibit the emergent behavior, or its functional equivalent, of learn
ing from experience, by maintaining a dynamic balance among three vital elements: conformity enforcers, diversity generators, and innerjudges. Every metaconscious venture is an experiment. Some work better than others; those that work best are given energy and resources for expansion; those that don’t work are abandoned. To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away.
b) Metaconsciousness emerges under conditions of sufficient richness, diver
sity, variety, complexity, and liberty among large numbers of information
sharing agents. However, if one imagines that metaconsciousness is caused by, or is a product of said richness, diversity, etc., one is led into endless paradoxical logicloops; for absent metaconsciousness in the first place, whence came this richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty? Clas
sical linear logic is no more adequate to grapple with such “chicken/egg” paradoxes than it is to grapple with nonlocal complementary correlations.
c)
The informationsharing agents associated with metaconsciousness may be quantum fields anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe, subato
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mic particles combining in atomic nuclei, atoms in molecular combination, molecular structures in a microbe, microbes in a colony, neurons in a ner
vous system, microprocessors in an artificial neural network, fish in a school, birds in a flock, and/or an enormous variety of alternative compo
nents in systems of virtually limitless description; observed, unobserved, or unimagined by you or me.
d) Contrary to the individual selection “theorists,” metaconsciousness appears to manifest and evolve massively, expansively, “deliberately,” on an ever
expanding arc, wherever/whenever conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty are found, in all Cosmic regions, at all scales, under any and all circumstances in which such conditions prevail. Indeed, it may be reasonably imagined that the “individual agents” of metaconsciousness are “really” inseparable parts of an indivisible and singular whole which nonlocally and instantaneously includes “All That Is,” and excludes nothing whatsoever.
e)
Accordingly, the metaconsciousness of the whole is entirely transcendent of that of the “local agent” at any particular scale; and in general, the metacon
sciousness of any entity, at any scale, is entirely transcendent of that of the individual agents that combine in its manifestation. Elsewhere, I have remarked that “although individual humans are often extraordinarily bright, taken as a whole, the human race seems to be supremely comatose, stupid, dull, and regimented.”A Or in other words, that the human metaconscious
ness appears to be, shall we say, “somewhat less than much, and only a little more than anything.”B This may have been far too pessimistic an evaluation. In view of what we have observed in these latest considerations, it now seems to me more probable that the human metaconsciousness is indeed transcendent of that of individual humans, dull and bright alike; has reached the “conclusion” (or its equivalent) that civilization doesn’t work; and is now in the process of committing massive, global apoptosis.
f)
The apoptosis of civilized humans is now at the stage where the conformity enforcers have become dominant, and are in the process of making life impossible for the diversity generators – upon whom all prospects for change and innovative new directions for civilization now depend; and civilization’s innerjudges have given up on the project as a total writeoff.
The “happy ending” for all of this arises – or may arise – when/if significant numbers of humans abandon the classical mythologies that have been so integral to the conduct of dominator civilization. The logical basis for these myths was decisively overturned by the A. Grahn, Civilization and Beyond, in The Gods & the Law of Life, Humanity’s metaconsciousness, 2004, 2005 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/friends020.html#t510].
B. James Thurber, The 13 Clocks, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1950, p. 31.
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Aspect/Gisin photon experiments, which have been largely ignored until now outside of the esoteric circles in which quantum physicists congregate. If we want to get to the “happy ending,” we need (among a number of other things) to change this.
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I.5. The River and the Cataract
The considerations in the preceding section bring to my mind the metaphorical image for the course of civilization as a river, broad and deep, curving its way through formidable canyons and impenetrable jungles – and headed over a cataract of bottomless depth; sort of like the pit Gandalf fell into in the Mines of Moria, if you happened to have watched The Fellowship of the Ring recently, or read the book. That is where civilization is headed – although above the cataract, the river is broad and smooth, and supports much coming and going by the many civilized people who navigate the “mainstream.”
In considering these matters, Daniel Quinn has compared the many goodhearted measures aimed at solving the human predicament, such as lobbying for more ecologi
cally sound practices, with “placing sticks in the stream bed” in a vain attempt to obstruct its flow over the cataract; and he has expressed the ambition of diverting the river alto
gether, so it takes a different and less catastrophic course. Quinn’s metaphorical river embraces the entire human destiny upon planet Earth, while the river of which I am writ
ing here represents the course only of contemporary civilization. So I am not disagreeing with Quinn when I say that I do not believe the river can be diverted from its course. Civilization – not necessarily the entire human destiny – is headed over the cataract, no matter what anyone, or all of us together, think or wish about it – simply because civiliza
tion doesn’t work, and cannot be repaired, or made to work.
The only solution, therefore, is for anyone with the vision and the will, to get out of the “mainstream” before it sweeps us all to oblivion! This is not easily done, for the “mainstream” is hedged in by jungles and canyons which are at best difficult, and maybe impossible to negotiate; not to mention the many and various “fences” artificially erected for the deliberate purpose of keeping civilized people hemmed into the “mainstream.” Possibly the most difficult of these to deal with is the simple fact that we all share civilized mythologies here, because we have never been exposed to anything else; and all civilized mythologies lead back to civilization, not away from it. It is far, far easier, therefore, and far more inviting, to continue navigating the broad, smooth waters of the “mainstream” – above the cataract – and to keep our familiar mythologies. And so, this is exactly what most people are most likely to continue to do, until the “bitter end.” Nevertheless, like it or not, the choices for individual humans are two, and only two: a) Get out of the “mainstream” of civilization, and head for higher ground; or b) Stay with the “mainstream” of civilization, and be swept, sooner or later, to oblivion.
Myself, I have “gotten out of the mainstream” and am now working my way along the bank, seeking a possible route to higher ground. I still feel exposed, though, to high peril, as the “mainstream” may flood at any moment, sweeping away all upon or near it. 61
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It is essential to head for higher ground, and this is not easy, and may not even be possible for everyone who attempts it. The canyons are steep, and the jungles are dense, and every step forward requires enormous effort, and entails significant risk. It is often very tempting to return to the “mainstream,” where one can at least navigate easily across the broad expanses of the stillaccommodating waters. But the thunder of the cataract is clearly audible, and the quiet current sweeps all inexorably downstream to doom and oblivion. The “mainstream” is no longer a viable choice – at least for me.
Further, I do not believe that a single individual, or a traditional “nuclear family,” is likely to find a way unaided to higher ground. It must be possible to unite one’s efforts with others who have likewise discovered the futility, and the catastrophic destiny, of the “mainstream.” Those who remain in the river, no matter how gracefully and effortlessly they are able to navigate now, and no matter how lavish and wellappointed their yachts and floating palaces, will sooner or later be swept over the cataract. Yet the alternative of breaking a path through trackless jungle, or over precipitous cliffs, is a formidable challenge. It is not an attractive prospect, and few there seem to be who are able even to entertain it as a concept – never mind actually undertaking it with determined persistence.
So, where does one begin? In my view, the perils of trackless jungles and overhang
ing canyons notwithstanding, the most difficult and formidable obstacle facing any wouldbe contemporary diversity generator is reaching the decision to desert the “main
stream,” and face the hazards of seeking higher ground. Is civilization really such a hopeless and irredeemable mess as I have portrayed it to be? This is a question each individual must answer for her or himself, and choose accordingly.
For myself, I think Spooner, writing in the aftermath of the Civil War A in America, summed up the prospects for civilization when he described “government” – the active agent by which civilizations have always advanced their agendas – like this:
It is with government, as Caesar said it was in war, that money and soldiers mutually supported each other; that with money he could hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. So these villains, who call themselves governments, well understand that their power rests primarily upon money. With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. And, when their authority is denied, the first use they always make of money, is to hire soldiers to kill or subdue all who refuse them more money.B
Is it not so? With the civil conformity enforcers in the driver’s seat, and apoptosis in “fast forward,” what destiny but the Abyss for civilization? Such, anyway, is my analysis, and it’s ho! for higher ground, no matter what obstacles or hazards bar the way. If I perish A. I have often in the past mused over this term, “Civil War,” wondering how war could possibly be linked with anything remotely civil. I have since concluded that the term is more appropriate than I could ever have imagined, for to be civil is, explicitly and uncompromisingly, to be at war with one’s fellows, with all Life, with metaconsciousness, and with the very gods.
B. Spooner, 1869, III [harmonhouse.net/fdl/spooner.html#iii14].
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in the attempt, so be it; I already know my destiny, if I remain in or near the “main
stream.”
Higher Ground
A moment ago, I observed that “the perils of trackless jungles and overhanging can
yons notwithstanding, the most difficult and formidable obstacle facing any wouldbe contemporary diversity generator is reaching the decision to desert the ‘mainstream,’ and face the hazards of seeking higher ground.”
Reaching the decision really is a formidable obstacle, for consider: everyone reading this, including its Author – and practically everyone not reading it – has been born and raised in the thick of civilization, with an unbroken heritage, generation upon generation, for the past five thousand years. We have all imbibed from birth the unquestioned mantras of civilization:





All these things we have believed, without question or doubt, and in most cases, without even conscious awareness. Is it any wonder that anyone naysaying any of these presumed “axiomatic truths” should appear to most civilized people as a madman? I certainly will not complain if any reading these pages should think me so; for I, who have been raised more or less like my peers, know intimately the long path I have taken on the way to the conclusions I have so far reached, and cannot “blame” anyone who has not taken a similar path, or reached similar conclusions. Therefore, if I seem to “bash civili
zation” in what may seem to some an “extreme manner,” you may be sure I do so “in a purely Pickwickian sense.” Which is to say, without malice toward anyone – including even “the secret band of robbers and murders” of which Lysander SpoonerA wrote so passionately over a century ago.
Nevertheless, it remains a stubbornly immovable fact (I believe) that civilization doesn’t work, and all who remain tangled in its coils are swiftly approaching the Abyss from which there is no further escape.B Those of us who can see our peril must desert the A. See Spooner, 1869, III [harmonhouse.net/fdl/spooner.html#iii11].
B. Well, that is from the perspective of we particular individuals living our particular and local lives here on Earth. The myth of metaconsciousness, however, assures us that “we” are really One, without beginning or end, and hence are ultimately invulnerable to such “trivial” matters as the potential destruction of humanity, along, possibly, with all life on the planet. However, it is precisely from the perspective of an individual human and Earthly inhabitant that I speak; and I don’t mind saying, from my limited per
spective, that the Abyss is an eventuality I for one would passionately like to evade; for I see much richer potentials for our “little lives,” provided we are able to escape this looming peril.
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“mainstream,” and transplant ourselves on higher ground – or perish in the attempt, for we shall surely perish otherwise; or worse, live as slaves.A
We are not the first civilized people to have faced the prospect of abandoning our civilization. Quinn cites numerous examples, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, which have done exactly this.B Ours is the unique privilege (so far as we “know”) of hav
ing to abandon a global civilization. In the past there has always been a frontier, beyond which the tentacles of civilization had not yet reached. There was always a jungle, or a trackless desert, or an unexplored continent into which those peoples for whom civiliza
tion had lost its luster could vanish. Today, civilization is the jungle; so our predicament takes a somewhat different form.
Although in terms of “space” and “time,” there is “nowhere to go” on Earth that has not already been preempted by civilization, there is “somewhere to go” in terms of alter
natives to the patterns offered by civilization. These alternatives are patterns of the tribe, and of the “prehistoric” partnership civilizations which evolved from Neolithic roots,C which have a proven track record stretching back millions of years into the human past – with the caveat, already mentioned, that precivilized and contemporary tribes haven’t performed very well when confronted by dominator civilizations.D
So how does a postcivilized tribe deal effectively with any manifestation of domi
nator civilization? This we must learn, or perish; and having learned, must never forget. We are advantageously situated right now in the very midst of the last days of global civilization run amok – so we have to deal with it, or die trying. If any of us succeed, we will have accomplished something monumental for the followon generations of all humanity. If none of us succeed... humanity may as well never have set foot upon the Earth. These are the stakes in the game we are playing. As the dwarf Gimli cheerfully remarked in the recent film version of The Return of the King, “Small chance of success; large probability of getting killed: what are we waiting for?” (Or words to that effect.)
If we’re waiting for anything, I believe it must be for the emergence of a mythology that will transport us reliably away from the “mainstream” and toward a postcivilized social pattern that we can effectively implement beyond civilization. And I believe it is incumbent upon us to invent or discover such a mythology, and to put it into effect in our individual lives.
A. It may be of some solace to know that, when it comes to “living as slaves,” we may rest assured that the condition will abide for only “a little while longer;” for it remains an irreducible fact (I believe) that the existing slavestate, civilization, is inherently and irredeemably unsustainable, and therefore shall not be sustained for very much longer on planet Earth. There; is that any comfort to you?
B. Quinn, 1999.
C. See Dominator and Partnership Civilizations in section I.8; and II.2. Myth of a Golden Age.
D. See The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber in section II.7 for mention of the possible error of casting our eyes “backward” into our “prehistoric past,” rather than deliberately toward higher evolutionary levels of consciousness.
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I.6. The Hacker Tribe
As mentioned in the Prologue, Daniel Quinn cites the circus as an example of a contemporary tribe that functions effectively within the environment created by civiliza
tion.A I would like to suggest another, more spectacular and globegirdling example: the free software/opensource community, or the tribe of hackers.B
The Real Meaning of Hacker
Hackers, by the way, are justifiably irritated by the pejorative and erroneous spin the “meanstream press” have attached to their chosen sobriquet. Just to set the record straight, a hacker is authoritatively defined as
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obses
sively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about program
ming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who fre
quently does work using it or on it; as in “a Unix hacker”. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [depreciated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
The term “hacker” also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net.... It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the ... hacker ethic.
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you’ll quickly be labeled bogus.C
A. Quinn, 1999.
B. Eric S. Raymond [www.catb.org/~esr/], The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, O’Reilly, Beijing, Cambridge, Farnham, Köln, Paris, Sebastopol, Taipei, Tokyo, 1999 [www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/]. 65
J. Harmon Grahn
Hackers invented, built, and populate the World Wide Web.A Hackers have “reverse
engineered” the proprietary computer operating system Unix, originally developed by Bell Labs hackers Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, and have given to the world the free/opensource GNU/Linux operating system which practically runs the Internet today, and is probably more powerful, functional, stable, and costeffective than any proprietary operating system now available for the expanding global population of personal computer users.
In The Cathedral & the BazaarB Eric Raymond provides considerable insight into the particulars of hacker culture, as well as a penetrating analysis of the astonishing success of the “bazaar style of software development” exemplified by the rise of Linux; in com
parison to the “cathedral style” of proprietary software development. I submit that valu
able lessons may be learned from a study of these disclosures, and that they are applic
able to a far wider field than that of pure software development.
In particular, the global hacker tribe have demonstrated a remarkable agility in deal
ing with civilization, not by opposing it, but by doing, on an expanding and accelerating scale, essentially what I am advocating in this book, i.e. fomenting metaconsciousness. It is, in fact, “written into” the hacker ethic, which Raymond defines as:
1. The belief that informationsharing is a powerful positive good [emphasis added], and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible. 2. The belief that systemcracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means univer
sally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away free software. A few go further and assert that all information should be free and any proprietary control of it is bad; this is the philosophy behind the GNU project.C
C. The New Hacker’s Dictionary, Third Edition, compiled by Eric S. Raymond, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1996, 1998, pp. 2334. Note that boldface words in reference to The New Hacker’s Dictionary refer to entries in the Dictionary (also called the yellow book), online at www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html.
A. J. Harmon Grahn, “The World Wide Web,” The New Paradigm, vol. III, #4, 1/26/2000 [harmonhouse.net/fdl/np304.htm].
B. Raymond, 1999. [online at www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/]
C. The GNU project [www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html]. It is also in approximate harmony with the philosophy behind the Freedom Digital Library. See our Draft Vision Statement, § 4.2
[harmonhouse.net/fdl/vision.htm#4.2.], for elaboration. See also Martin, 1995
[harmonhouse.net/fdl/martin.html]. I’ll add here the idea that any author is entitled by free choice to make his or her work proprietary, just as anyone is entitled to have and to keep secrets; and is conversely responsible to take whatever measures he or she can to keep it so. It is not properly ... continued, page 67
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Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering. But the belief that ’ethical’ cracking excludes destruction at least moderates the behavior of people who see them
selves as ‘benign’ crackers.... On this view, it may be one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged – acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) tiger team.
The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as Usenet, FidoNet and Internet ... can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom’s most valuable intangible asset.A
Raymond’s analysis of the utility of opensourceB software is careful to step around the “ideological” proposition that “information should be nonproprietary.” Whether it “should” or “shouldn’t,” there are qualitative pros and cons that have “realworld” impact upon a product’s utility, and these have been widely misunderstood.
For example, the idea behind making a creative work proprietary is ostensibly to deny one’s competitors the ability to duplicate and profit from the work at its author’s expense. One can see the thing from the author’s point of view. A manufacturer, for instance, usually does not welcome a competitor selling the same product under a dif
ferent brand name, especially when he, the original manufacturer, made the investment necessary to develop the product and bring it to market. One can appreciate how such a person might reasonably take measures to keep his product proprietary and exclusive to himself and his designated (paying) licensees.
There are important differences, however, between software, and possibly of other kinds of information, and “manufactured goods.” Contrary to widespread belief, software developers do not primarily manufacture software: they provide a service. Their service only begins with the acquisition of a software product by a client. In order to keep the client happy, the developer must maintain the product, make it as adaptable as possible to the client’s unique needs, repair its flaws (debug the program), and provide enhancements and improvements throughout the useful lifetime of the product. A developer who con
incumbent upon any third party to keep an author’s work proprietary, or to keep his secrets, absent explicit persontoperson agreement to do so – for the reason that all preemptively “legislated” obstructions to the free flow of information are by nature obstacles to the expansion of metaconsciousness, and are consequently stifling to the evolution of Life in Cosmos; and all Life is naturally entitled to defend itself from any entity or agency that threatens or stifles it.
A. Raymond, The New Hacker’s Dictionary, pp.2345
[www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hackerethic.html].
B. See the Open Source Definition at www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html.
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scientiously and reliably provides these services will outperform a developer who does not. Such services can be timeconsuming and costly, however, and if the developer treats his product as a manufactured good seeking a onetime sale, he may loose in the long run to his competitor who operates on the basis of a different model, other factors being equal.
The “bazaar style of software development” has turned out to have been such a “dif
ferent model;” as opposed to the “cathedral style,” which treats software, in part, as a manufactured good for sale. In 1991 a Finnish hacker named Linus Torvalds began work on a nonproprietary clone of the Unix kernel for Intel 386 processors. At the time, nobody had dreamed that a lone hacker, or even a team of hackers, could produce anything as complex as the kernel – the heart, the very core – of a functional operating system. Such “high end” projects, it was universally believed, could only be successfully developed by wellorganized teams of highly trained professionals – which of course could only be assembled in the milieu of hierarchically structured corporate entities. Linus’s project, however, attracted the voluntary participation of large numbers of other hackers, just because it was so cool, and by the end of 1993 Linux was competitive in reliability and stability with many proprietary Unix flavors, and supported an enormously larger software base – including even some commercial applications.
What was happening, and has continued to happen, was the synergistic convergence of a highly appealing project among hackers, with the sudden emergence of the Internet into the “mainstream” via the World Wide Web. This brought to bear the creative ingenuity of thousands of relatively isolated hackers from around the world, and the “impossible” emerged as the increasingly functional and robust “free software” product, GNU/Linux.A
From nearly the beginning [Raymond writes], [Linux] was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of volunteers coordinating only through the Internet. Quality was maintained not by rigid standards or autocracy but by the naively simple strategy of releasing every week and getting feedback from hundreds of users within days, creating a sort of rapid Darwinian selection on the mutations introduced by developers. To the amazement of almost everyone, this worked quite well.B
No one was more thoroughly flabbergasted by the performance of the GNU/Linux operating system than longstanding GNU hacker Eric Raymond.
A. These developments are related in “A Brief History of Hackerdom” Raymond, 1999, pp. 235 [www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerhistory/ar01s06.html]. “Linux” should most pro
perly be called “GNU/Linux,” as Linus built his kernel around the GNU system under development at the Free Sofware Foundation [www.fsf.org]. And, by way of a hint to those who would number themselves among the hacker cognoscente, “Linux” should most properly be pronounced “Leenuks,” in consistency with the way Linus pronounces his name: “Leenus,” not “L eye nus.”
B. “A Brief History of Hackerdom,” Raymond, 1999, p. 24
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerhistory/ar01s06.html].
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Linux overturned much of what I thought I knew [he writes]. I had been preaching the Unix gospel of small tools, rapid prototyping and evolutionary programming for years. But I also believed there was a certain critical com
plexity above which a more centralized, a priori approach was required. I believed that the most important software (operating systems and really large tools like the Emacs programming editor) needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation, with no beta to be released before its time.
Linus Torvalds’s style of development – release early and often, delegate every
thing you can, be open to the point of promiscuity – came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedralbuilding here – rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, which would take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.
The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock. As I learned my way around, I worked hard not just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the Linux world not only didn’t fly apart in confusion, but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imagin
able to cathedralbuilders.A
Accordingly, Raymond undertook the ethnological study of how the hacker tribe that formed around Linux actually worked. Raymond wrote up his fouryear analysis in a paper titled “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” first delivered publicly in May, 1997, at the Linux Kongress in Bavaria, and reproduced in his book of the same title.B
The hacker tribe greeted Raymond’s analysis with thunderous applause, for he had given them an image of themselves, and a picture of what they were doing, and its significance, of which they themselves had been virtually unaware. The real kicker came eight months later, however, when Netscape Communications, Inc. announced their deci
sion to go opensource with their line of Netscape browsers; and their CEO Jim Barks
dale was citing Raymond’s paper to the media as the “fundamental inspiration” for their decision.
This was the event [Raymond writes] that commentators in the computer trade press would later call “the shot heard ’round the world” – and Barksdale had cast me as its Thomas Paine, whether I wanted the role or not. For the first time in the history of the hacker culture a Fortune 500 darling of Wall Street had bet its A. “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” Raymond, 1999, pp. 2930
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/cathedralbazaar/index.html#catbmain].
B. Raymond, 1999, pp. 2778
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/cathedralbazaar/index.html#catbmain].
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J. Harmon Grahn
future on the belief that our way was right. And, more specifically, that my analysis of ‘our way’ was right.A
Well, good on Eric Raymond! Yet he was sobered by the implications of the fact that someone from the heart of the “mainstream” had gone out on a limb to follow the path through the jungle being hacked by the hacker tribe. Up front, it looked like a big feather in the hacker cap – but what if Netscape’s gambit failed? This was a significant possi
bility, for the colossus and prototypical “cathedralbuilder” Microsoft had marked Net
scape down for its prey; and victory for Microsoft in this contest would not do the hackers one bit of good.
As we’ll be seeing in greater depth in a moment, Microsoft’s strategy has been to box their market exclusively into reliance upon Microsoft products by “embracing and extending” universal protocols in such a way as to turn them into de facto Microsoft protocols – so that only Microsoft proprietary software can use them. This is exactly counter to the original intent of Tim BernersLee, inventor of the HTTP and HTML protocols which support the World Wide Web;B and it is anathema to hacker culture.
For Netscape [Raymond writes], the issue was less about browserrelated income (never more than a small fraction of their revenues) than maintaining a safe space for their much more valuable server business. If Microsoft’s Internet Explorer achieved market dominance, Microsoft would be able to bend the Web’s protocols away from open standards and into proprietary channels that only Microsoft’s servers would be able to service.C
StreetSmart Savvy
The success of the Netscape opensource initiative was suddenly intertwined with the success, and possibly even the survival of the hacker tribe. In response, Raymond became a Netscape consultant in February, 1998, for the purpose of developing a strategy for bringing success to their initiative. He describes some of the elements of that strategy, along with ancillary measures he and other hackers took to broaden the appeal of what in consequence became widely known as the Open Source movement.D
What the hackers had been producing had mostly gone under the name Free Soft
ware,E following the pioneering work of Richard Stallman,F founder of the GNU Project.G A. “The Revenge of the Hackers,” Raymond, 1999, p. 203
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerrevenge/ar01s04.html].
B. Grahn, 2000 [harmonhouse.net/fdl/np304.htm].
C. “The Revenge of the Hackers,” Raymond, 1999, p. 202
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerrevenge/ar01s03.html] .
D. The Open Source Definition resides online at www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html.
E. See www.gnu.org/philosophy/freesw.html.
F. See www.stallman.org/.
G. See www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html.
70
In the present instance, however, a number of elements emerged as crucial to the success of the Netscape initiative, and crucial to the expansion of the momentary beachhead thereby established for the hacker tribe:
a) In order to succeed, the products and methods of the hackers – essentially the GNU/Linux operating system – must be perceived positively by the big fish in the “mainstream,” specifically by the captains of industry in the domain of software development among the Fortune 500.
b) In order to accomplish this, it was essential that GNU/Linux be represented favorably in that segment of the press that is particularly influential among the Fortune 500: specifically, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Eco
nomist, Forbes Magazine, and Barron’s.
c) Parallel education of the hacker tribe, particularly in the tactics of guerrilla mar
keting, was also seen as essential.
d) To these ends, the term “Open Source” was adopted, and tied as a standard of certification to the Open Source Definition, which was adapted in turn from the Debian Free Software Guidelines.A
Whether deserved or not, “Free Software” had acquired an association in the popular and trade press as representing hostility to proprietary information in general, and conse
quently to the interests of the very decisionmakers it was now seen as crucial to impress favorably. Additionally, the ambiguity of the word “Free” (“Think ‘free speech,’ not ‘free beer’,” explains Stallman) was seen as introducing an element of confusion where clarity was essential. Accordingly, the above initiatives were taken by Netscape and Raymond, and found swift cooperation among large segments of the hacker tribe, including Linus Torvalds, Tim O’Reilly, and Tim’s O’Reilly & Associates, a major publisher of hacker manuals.
The immediate objective was to take advantage of the window of opportunity opened by Netscape’s decision to go opensource with their browsers, and achieve a foothold of “legitimacy” in “mainstream” perceptions for GNU/Linux, and for the “bazaar style” of software development. If other “mainstream” major players, besides Netscape, could be persuaded to follow suit and similarly adopt some elements of the “bazaar style,” and/or port their software to Linux, this would go a long way toward securing a kind of “home
land” for the hacker tribe.
Time was of the essence. You can hold a publicity campaign together only so long before it starts going stale. If you can’t achieve tangible results within that time frame, the “window of opportunity” closes, and you’re back at “square one,” or worse. In the event, Corel Computer announced their Linuxbased Netwinder network computer in May, and the database giants Oracle and Informix ported their products to Linux in July. After that, A. See www.debian.org/social_contract. Source: “The Revenge of the Hackers,” Raymond, 1999, pp. 2059 [www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerrevenge/ar01s05.html].
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J. Harmon Grahn
software vendors began porting to Linux on a routine basis. Between July and November, meanwhile, the targeted financial press began to come onstream with steady coverage, initiated by a piece in The Economist, and a cover story in Forbes, and the perceived solidity of GNU/Linux steadily climbed.A Conversely, the prototypical “cathedral style” software giant Microsoft began taking increasing alarm at the performance of GNU/Linux, and commenced measures to combat the growing menace. This is documented by what have become widely known as “The Halloween Documents,”B internal Microsoft memoranda, leaked to Eric Raymond by a Microsoft insider, and immediately published on the Open Source site. They are long, arcane, and prolix; and Raymond’s pithy annotations add to their length. They are well worth reading nevertheless, because they provide a unique window into an historical phenomenon from an unintentionally candid point of view, and provide insight into the rich contrasts between the “cathedral” and “bazaar” mentalities. They are also possibly the most eloquent advertisements ever penned for the GNU/Linux operating system, and the “bazaar style” of software development. Publication of The Halloween Documents breathed new life into the opensource campaign with an explosive resurgence of press coverage, and gave Microsoft a very public black eye by confirming the worst suspicions of Microsoft critics about the lengths to which they were willing to go – or at least consider – in dealing with their competition. The publicly disclosed Microsoft memoranda confirmed, among other things, that the essential longterm strategy at Microsoft was to “decommoditize” standard protocols – which is an arcane way of saying that Microsoft deliberately “embraces and extends” standard protocols in ways that render them inaccessible to any but Microsoft program
mers. Here is a quote from Halloween Document I:
Decommoditize protocols & applications
OSS [an acronym for “Open Source Software”] projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly com
moditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
David Stutz makes a very good point: in competing with Microsoft’s level of desktop integration, “commodity protocols actually become the means of inte
gration” for OSS projects. There is a large amount of IQ being expended in various IETF working groups which are quickly creating the architectural model for integration for these OSS projects.C
To which Raymond adds the following annotation:
A. Ibid., p. 214. [www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/hackerrevenge/ar01s07.html]
B. Online at www.opensource.org/halloween/.
C. Halloween Document I [www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php#quote9], boldface emphasis added.
72
In other words, open protocols must be locked up and the IETFA crushed in order to “decommoditize protocols & applications” and stop opensource soft
ware.
A former Microserf adds: only half of the reason MS sends people to the W3C working groups relates to a desire to improve RFC standards. The other half is to give MS a sneak peak at upcoming standards so they can “extend” them in advance and claim that the ‘official’ standard is ‘obsolete’ when it emerges around the same time as their ‘extension’.B
Or as Raymond puts it elsewhere, “No wonder hackers often refer to Microsoft’s strategy as ‘protocol pollution’; they are reacting exactly like farmers watching someone poison the river they water their crops with!”C
Microsoft is thus a typically civilized outfit, neither better nor worse than countless other civilized organizations at perpetual war with every entity on Earth not cooperative with their agendas of exploitation, plunder, and control. It is a story as old as civilization itself, told and retold in endless variety, yet always to the same catastrophic effect: “Roll over and play dead, or we’ll destroy you!”
The truly remarkable story here is the story of the hacker tribe, which possibly for the first time in five thousand years exhibits signs of having the streetsmart savvy required to stand up to civilization, and thrive in the face of its most vicious predations. The story hasn’t entirely played out, yet the signs to date are propitious.

The World Wide Web was invented by hacker Tim BernersLee, with the effect that it has transformed global commerce and information sharing, and brought a global network, originally designed for and by the MilitaryIndus
trial Complex, within reach of practically anyone.

Linus Torvalds and an army of selfselected hackers distributed around the world, have developed – just for the fun of it – the most functional and stable Unixlike operating system going, including a vast and expanding library of opensource software applications, often superior in quality and functionality to their proprietary commercial counterparts. 
This tribe of global hackers have attracted the favorable notice of “movers and shakers” in the corporate world, and have significantly influenced the “main
stream” model for software development and marketing – in a direction point
ing away from the “mainstream.”
A. The Internet Engineering Task Force [http://www.ietf.org/].
B. Loc. cit.
C. “Homesteading the Noosphere,” Raymond, 1999, p. 115
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/homesteading/ar01s12.html].
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J. Harmon Grahn

The global hacker tribe have also excited the alarm of one of the most mono
lithic and predatory proprietary software developers on Earth, and have with
stood every effort at sabotaging their works, and continue their steady expan
sion of market share.
This performance is extraordinary. I believe it is a straw in the wind – at least – and may indicate a major sea change in the course of human events.
The point of all this – in case you may have mislaid the thread of the discussion – is: given that civilization doesn’t work and is sweeping all entangled in its coils over the Cat
aract and into the Abyss, the most urgent “mission – for those who choose to accept it,” and wish to avoid the catastrophic destiny of civilization, is to find a way to higher ground, entirely away from the “mainstream.” In general, as already discussed, the way away from civilization, must lie among the patterns of the tribe, which have evolved over the course of millions of years, and work very well – in most circumstances. The patterns of precivilized tribes have not worked very well, however, when confronted by civiliza
tion itself, and have been routinely destroyed or crippled wherever they have been found by civilized peoples. The performance to date of the hacker tribe exhibits indications of being a possible exception to this fivethousandyearold rule. Accordingly, I speculate that the bazaar style of software development pioneered by the hacker tribe may represent a straw in the wind pointing a viable way to higher ground for those who have reached the point of decision to walk away, if possible, from civilization.
Here, our path diverges, in a sense, from that of Eric Raymond – not due to disagree
ment, but due only to a difference of emphasis. Raymond is a hacker, and his primary concern is quite properly the evolution of the hacker tribe and the “bazaar style” of soft
ware development. I am not a hacker, and my primary concern is with the survival and ongoing evolution of the human experiment on Earth. The two are entirely compatible, yet are not entirely congruent.
I expect the opensource movement to have essentially won its point about soft
ware within three to five years [Raymond wrote]. Once that is accomplished, and the results have been manifest for a while, they will become part of the back
ground culture of nonprogrammers. At that point it will become more appro
priate to try to leverage opensource insights in wider domains.A
It has been “three to five years” or so since Raymond wrote those words, and perhaps now is the time to begin applying “opensource insights in wider domains.” And perhaps it is also appropriate that this be undertaken largely by nonhackers. The question on the agenda paper then becomes, “What elements, if any, of hacker culture in general, and of the ‘bazaar style’ of software development in particular, are applicable to circumstances outside the domain of software development?”
A. “Beyond Software?,” Raymond, 1999, p. 227
[www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/afterword/].
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Lessons From the Bazaar
Eric Raymond points out an interesting incongruity in the opensource movement between their stated ethos and their actual practice. According to to the Open Source Definition, and to software licenses compliant with it, such as the GNU General Public License,A as Raymond puts it, “anyone can hack anything. Nothing prevents half a dozen different people from taking any given opensource product ..., duplicating the sources, running off with them in different evolutionary directions, claiming to be the product.”B This particular form of “promiscuity” – sanctioned by (alleged) consensus, and by the letter of OSDcompliant licenses – is called “forking,” and is almost never done in hacker practice. The real consensus among the hacker tribe, as disclosed in actual practice, adheres to a much more “puritanical” ethic, and certain taboos are rarely if ever violated.
In particular, ownership of an opensource project is treated as sacred among hackers. Because software is not a “manufactured good,” but an ongoing service to its clients, an opensource project has a dynamic evolutionary life, potentially involving the creative input of many hackers over the course of the project’s lifetime. “The owner(s) of a software project,” Raymond writes, “are those who have the exclusive right, recognized by the community at large, to redistribute modified versions.”C A project owner, “recog
nized by the community at large,” may be an individual or a group, and may acquire project ownership in one of three ways:
a) Originate the project;
b) Be publicly named as successor by the project’s previous owner;
c) Assume ownership of an orphaned project.
The first of these is obviously rocksolid, and is universally recognized as such. The second is sometimes necessitated by the owner’s inability or loss of interest in the project necessary to sustain the responsibilities of ownership. In such cases it is incumbent upon the owner to find a competent successor to carry on project ownership, maintenance, and oversight. The third possibility may occur when an individual or group of hackers take an interest in a project which has no evident or active owner.
In the latter case, elaborate measures are taken, first if possible, to locate the project owner, or failing that, to establish among the community that the project really has no owner, and that the hacker(s) taking an interest in the project are competent to resuscitate and support it. This may take some time, to allow every opportunity for the real owner to surface, and/or for any contention to the proposal to be brought forward and publicly aired. And even at that, the tribe may reserve judgment on the new owner until he, she, or A. See www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
B. “Homesteading the Noosphere,” Raymond, 1999, p. 87
C. Ibid., p. 89, emphasis in original
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J. Harmon Grahn
they have significantly improved the project from the wellspring of their own creativity. The same may be true even of a publicly anointed successor to an opensource project.
Meanwhile, there is no taboo against privately (i.e. not for public distribution) modi
fying and recompiling the source of an opensource distribution for the purpose of adapt
ing it to a particular computing environment, or giving it customized capabilities for a specific task. This is what opensource software is for.
These measures, universally adhered to by members of the hacker tribe, are not “required by law,” i.e. by the Open Source Definition; yet they are given universal respect and observance by the tribe. Why is this?
Raymond suggests that these practices have evolved among the hacker tribe at least over the extended period he has personally observed them, and that they have much in common with parallel practices that have similarly evolved in entirely different contexts. He observes that
...as these customs have evolved over time, they have done so in a consistent direction. That direction has been to encourage more public accountability, more public notice, and more care about preserving the credits and change histories of projects in ways which (among other things) establish the legitimacy of the present owners.
These features suggest that the customs are not accidental, but are products of some implicit agenda or generative pattern in the opensource culture that is utterly fundamental to its operation.A
I submit that these customs, peculiar to the hacker tribe, have evolved in the way they have because they work. And they consequently have much in common with social pat
terns that have similarly evolved throughout the entire spectrum of Life. They also have much in common with the socalled “Golden Rule,”B and with the version of it that I have repeated many times elsewhere,
a) Do whatever you like;
b) Allow all others the same liberty.
No one wants to have their project ripped off or “forked” by a rogue hacker; and so – no one in the hacker tribe does this. And any that do may be quickly labeled a loser, bogus, or worse,C throughout the tribe. The same dynamic manifests in naturally occur
ring social organizations of all kinds. The fish that joins a school, or the bird that joins a flock, and habitually bumps into those around it, doesn’t remain long “in school.” Conversely, the fish is part of the school, the bird is part of the flock, the elk is part of the herd, the wolf is part of the pack, the hacker is part of the tribe... because of the A. Loc. cit., p. 92 [www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedralbazaar/homesteading/ar01s04.html].
B. See “The Golden Rule Across Religions” [harmonhouse.net/fdl/quotes.htm#golden].
C. See The Yellow Book [www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/index.html].
76
advantages thereby afforded to each individual member of the social organism. These advantages are highly valued, and this value is preserved to the extent it is honored by each individual.
This suggests to me the broader generalization that participants in social communi
ties of all kinds are naturally guided by the invisible, alwayseverywhere presence of the metaconsciousness that occupies the nonlocal, nonlinear interstices among “All Things” – if we allow it; and that dominator civilization doesn’t work largely because dominator civi
lization does not allow this natural fluidity to take its metaconscious course. Dominator civilization has hardened around the inflexible consensus that there is only one right way to live – which is why civilizations have been abandoned by their builders in the past, and why we must abandon civilization today, if any of us are to survive and carry the human experiment beyond civilization.
How Do They Do It?
Yet the opensource hacker tribe evidently thrive within the civilized milieu – some
thing that tribes for the past five thousand years have consistently failed to do. How do the hackers do it?
They do it for the most part not by fighting the “cathedralbuilders” – although they have the streetsmart savvy not to take any wooden nickels from them either – but by pur
suing their “bazaarstyle” inclinations just for the fun of it, because hacking is what they like to do best. They are selfselected, and each hacker works on the project of his or her choice. There is no hierarchy, no one makes “assignments” for anyone but him or herself, and there is no supervision, or effort at “quality control,” as is found among the “cathe
dralbuilders.” The peer review and dynamic consensus of thousands of other hackers covers all these allegedly “necessary” components of the “cathedral style.”
Some of the lessons that we, who would walk away from civilization, may take from the tribe of hackers, are to a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
Do whatever you like;
Allow all others the same liberty;
Allow no one to preempt your liberty;
Take full and exclusive responsibility for your decisions, and their consequences;
Produce something valued by others;
Remain unattached to your work.
Mainly, allowance, liberty, and responsibility are inseparable complements; one can
not exist without the others. Dominator civilization provides neither allowance nor liberty, and is a deliberate mechanism for evading responsibility. Even the pharaohs, for whom, and by whom civilization was created, are without real liberty, all their plundered wealth and socalled “power” notwithstanding; for their tenuous and ultimately unsustain
able position is parasitically dependent upon the functioning of sustainable social systems – which they suicidally hunt down and disable or destroy, because they cannot otherwise 77
J. Harmon Grahn
control them. Similarly, the supreme “cathedralbuilder” in the software domain has (so far without success) attempted to sabotage, stifle, and destroy the Open Source Software movement – not by producing an honestly superior product line, but by preempting and polluting the open protocols upon which the opensource market depends. This is not competition: this is war, the underlying foundation and final bulwark of dominator civili
zation.
The greatest lesson from the the bazaar, it seems to me, is this: There are alternatives to “rolling over and playing dead” when confronted by preemptive force, or war, or civili
zation. Let us explore this line of thought further.
Alternatives to “Rolling Over and Playing Dead”
The tribe of hackers is not a tribe of “revolutionaries.” Their primary objective is not to “change the world” – although that seems to be one of the outcomes of what they naturally do. Mainly, hackers like to hack; so that is what they do. Further, early in the gestation of what has become the hacker tribe, there developed a widespread ethic of sharing their individual creativity; i.e. sharing their code. In my vocabulary, this is a prototypical example of fomenting metaconsciousness. To have one’s code adapted into a different application – with attribution – became a badge of honor, in one’s selfimage, and in the view of one’s peers. “Theft” of “intellectual property” simply was not, and is not an issue among opensource hackers. Because hackers place a high value upon having their creativity adapted and shared (with attribution) in the works of their peers, they take scrupulous care to give full attribution to the authors of works they adapt into their own creative projects. They treat their peers, in other words, as they themselves appreciate being treated. This reflects an attitude that is almost entirely unlike that found at large in civilization – notwithstanding all the lipservice paid in civilized societies to the socalled “Golden Rule.” Hackers do not preach, “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” They practice it amongst themselves, and it works quite nicely. Civilization, on the other hand, in contrast to what they preach, practice an entirely different “Golden Rule:” “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
I sift from these observations two lessons: a) the opensource ethic is a manifestation of a fundamentally altered state of mindA from that which prevails in the “mainstream;” and b) it is evidently possible for such an “altered state” to emerge spontaneously in large numbers, and proliferate on a global scale. Nobody planned for this to happen; nobody “orchestrated” it, or lobbied for it, or organized a “movement” to bring it about. Richard StallmanB became personally determined not to run proprietary software on his compu
ters, and commenced developing Free Software alternatives. Linus Torvalds began hack
A. See The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber, ff., in section II.7 for extensive discussion of evolution into grad
ually higher stages and states of human consciousness.
B. Richard Stallman [www.stallman.org/] is the founder of the GNU Project [www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html].
78
ing on an alternative to the proprietary Unix kernel; growing numbers of other hackers thought this was cool, and joined in the fun; and hay presto! GNU/Linux emerged as the best operating system on the market, and continues to improve. Meanwhile, Tim Berners
Lee developed a set of protocols for sharing information across diverse hardware and software computing platforms, and voilà! The World Wide Web. These are developments which have occurred during the past twenty years; and they have had a profound impact upon the conduct of human events during this almost instantaneous interval. These developments have occurred not because of civilization, but in spite of it – yet not in oppo
sition to it.
Also, I think it important to mention that the universal behavior of the opensource hackers is not a product of “legislation.” What has been in a sense “legislated” in the opensource community, and generally acknowledged as such, is the Open Source Defini
tion; yet this is not a reflection of how hackers actually behave. They govern themselves significantly more strictly than “the law allows.” This further confirms my conviction that human “legislation,” upon which civilization allegedly relies to maintain “civil order,” is actually superfluous, inconsequential, and is at best an encumbrance, not an aid, to the social dynamic.
Metaconsciousness in Action
Now, it must be admitted that the idea of contemporary hackers constituting a tribe can be stretched only so far. Their culture and behavior have many elements in common with those of functional tribes in many other times and circumstances; yet few hackers, I speculate, would object to being described as “civilized,” and many might object to being characterized otherwise. Most hackers live in cities, or on or near college or university campuses. They depend upon contemporary industry and technology for their lives, their sustenance, and even for their sense of who they are. They eat food, buy gasoline, rent rooms or have mortgages, just like “ordinary civilized folk,” and I have not heard a deafening cry from the hackers that their numberone priority in life is to walk away from civilization. The hacker tribe exhibit their tribal qualities in an artificial “space” created by computers and telecommunications networks – a “noosphere,” as Raymond terms it, and their ethics have evolved organically, in response to the peculiarities of hacker culture in its contemporary context, not in emulation of prehistoric or contemporary tribal patterns.
For all of these reasons, I find the hackers such an interesting and compelling exam
ple for those of us for whom walking away from civilization is a high priority. They did not deliberately set out to bring about their combined accomplishments. They simply did, individual by individual, what they individually wanted to do; each hacker “scratched his or her own itch,” to borrow Raymond’s metaphor. The emergence of the GNU/Linux operating system, and the amazing suite of highly functional software that runs on it, are what I would call a direct manifestation of “metaconsciousness in action;” and as men
tioned earlier, the metaconsciousness of the group is always transcendent of that of the 79
J. Harmon Grahn
individuals comprising the group. Individuals, in other words, are not necessarily con
scious of the metaconscious agenda of the group in which they participate.
To illustrate, by contemplating an entirely different scale: what “conception” might a single neuron, or a synapticallyconnected group of neurons, have of the creative experi
ence of the human in whom they are participants? I do not pretend to know, yet I can imagine that a single neuron has very little “comprehension,” at its scale, of the nervous system of which it is a part; and similarly, that we humans have very little comprehension of the metaconsciousness of which we are a part. That is why I can also imagine the metaconsciousness of civilization well advanced in the process of committing apoptosis, even while we individual “cells” wring our hands at the daily disclosures of contem
porary events. Forgive us, for we really do not know what we are doing!
What I am suggesting, then, is not that the hacker “tribe” have found “the answer” of how to deal effectively with the human predicament, and have pioneered the path through the jungle which will conduct the rest of us, if we follow them, safely beyond civilization to higher ground. I am suggesting, rather, that they have developed an ethos, and a tribal practice which has demonstrated its effectiveness in the marketplace,A and is in many ways quite distinct from the “mainstream” practices which prevail in civilized societies. The hackers have demonstrated an approach to life, work, and commerce that is strikingly distinguishable from “standard operating procedure” in the “mainstream,” and have done so on a scale large enough to have made an unmistakable impact upon global commerce and human events. This is by no means “the end of the story,” after which we are all assured of “living happily ever after.” It is, however, a clear signal that there are alternatives, even at this late hour, to the “business as usual” approach offered by the “mainstream.” And I am suggesting that we explore and develop these alternatives further, and apply them more broadly than the hackers have done in the specialized field of software development.
A. The sine qua non of “success” in the civilized world.
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I.7. Lessons From Life
I think now that the reason the pattern of the tribe had worked so well during the human epoch before the advent of civilization, and the reason the hacker “tribe” has per
formed so effectively in spite of civilization, has to do with what is meant by that grotesquely overused and misunderstood word, love. The notions we have been given by civilization about “love,” like everything civi
lization teaches, are perverse. We have been taught that it is “virtuous” to “love” others, but not ourselves; that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with us that we are powerless to correct, yet for which we bear an inescapable “guilt.” We have been taught shame for our magnificent bodies, and for our bodily functions, urges, appetites, and pleasures. We have been taught that we are “cursed” by a “subhuman animal nature,” against which we must struggle constantly in order to achieve and sustain the sublime standards of... what? Civilization??!!
People, wake up!
Our precivilized forebears were not burdened with these perversions. Perhaps they had their own, but not these. And our nonhuman peers have never had to deal with them – except insofar as they have had to deal with civilized humans. Perhaps now, after five thousand years of civilized tyranny, some of us are beginning to creep from beneath the oppressive shadow of what we have been taught about love.
These thoughts do not pretend to be definitive or final, yet I earnestly submit to your most penetrating introspection the idea that until you profoundly love yourself, you will never genuinely love another; and you will never achieve appropriate appreciation or reverence for Life, upon which your own life, and the life of your planet, finally depend.
You, reading these words, right here, right now, are the intentional metaconscious product and manifestation of “That Which Creates All That Is.” To repudiate this with shame, fear, and loathing, as we have all been taught to do from our first breath, is a blasphemy of incalculable proportions, if the word “blasphemy” has any meaning at all. You are here, you exist. This you did not achieve by your own effort or intent, but by that of “That Which Creates All That Is,” whatever “That,” shrouded in impenetrable mystery, may ultimately be. There is no one and nothing in all the breadth and depth of “All That Is,” of which the same may not truthfully be said. You stand as a peer beside “All That Is,” simply by virtue of the irreducible fact that you, like “That,” exist! What further “justifi
cation” do you need? Who dares stand before you and declares your existence less valua
ble or important than theirs? Only civilized people make such preposterous claims; and the only reason they have ever “gotten away” with such an outrageous lie is that they started drumming it into your infant consciousness before you had even drawn your first 81
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breath on this Earth. Perversion of perversions! Crime of crimes! There are no words to describe such obscenity!
Well, yes. Yet, forgive them, for they know not what they do; just as we, who have done likewise, to our own children, if we have any, and to all our civilized peers, have not known either, what we were doing. If we awaken, however, we need not keep on doing it!
The key is to awaken. Awaken to the realization that there are no valid “laws” which “require” any of us to violate Who We Are, or to participate in the destruction of the fabric of Life (including our own) on planet Earth. There is no one and nothing on Earth, or off it, which can “require” anyone who is not comatose to commit murder or suicide. In a tyranny in which “everything not prohibited is compulsory,” nothing is prohibited, and nothing is compulsory. In a system in which “law” is whatever the pharaoh says it is, there is no “law.” Yet the Law of Life remains inviolate, and even the pharaohs are power
less to change it.
History records that the Roman gladiators used to open the gladiatorial spectacles of those times by standing before the reigning Emperor, or the subsidiary satrap of the local district, and shouting, “Morituri te salutamus!” “We, who are about to die, salute thee!” They were dead men already, even as they spoke. What “honor” had they, in cooperating passively with the corrupt spectacle of civilized slaughter for the amusement of multi
tudes no more alive than they? Well, they were prisoners and slaves, and were doubtless coerced; just as countless multitudes of civilized people today are no less prisoners and slaves than were the Roman gladiators.
People, wake up! you who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds capable of think
ing. There is nothing going on today that has not been in the pipeline for the past five thousand years – yet certainly today, one way or another, it will not be going on for very much longer. “Things that can’t go on forever don’t.”A Every mother’s son who marches off to war at the bidding of a modern pharaoh is as much a corpse today as his brother is, who did the same thing five thousand years ago. Who has the almighty crust to ask anyone to do that? When will this blasphemous lie come to an end?
It will come to an end either when there is no lifesustaining planet left, or when individuals reach the point of decision, each for his or her own private reasons, to “just say ‘NO’ to tyranny, state terrorism, and war.” It will end when individuals resolve to walk away from civilization, or die trying, no matter the difficulty, obstacles, or resis
tance encountered along the way. It will end for you whenever you decide to end it – unless you’re already dead first. Are you?
“O.K., smartguy,” some readers may be thinking, “so what do you propose we do about all this?” My observation is that doing follows from consciousness and meta
consciousness – not the other way about. Or put another way, what we do is a manifesta
A. Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Nixon administration; quoted by Heinberg, 2004, p. 139.
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tion of what we are, and if we wish to change what we do, it is essential that we change what we are. That is why this book is about an alternative mythology for a postcivilized world.
So what are we? Are we civilized? If so, it follows with ironclad inflexibility that we shall continue doing what we have always done, and getting what we have always gotten; and that we shall eventually be swept over the Cataract – end of story.
This is why I keep “bashing civilization.” This is the major obstacle that hems us all in, and tethers us to our own selfdestruction. We’re civilized, and we keep looking for civilized solutions to the human predicament; and to our individual personal predicaments as well. We’re like the fellow who lost the key to his house one night, and was met looking for it under a street lamp. When asked where he’d lost his key, he replied, “Over there in the bushes somewhere.” Asked why he wasn’t looking for it where he thought he’d lost it, he replied, “Because there’s more light over here.”
Dominator civilization doesn’t hold any solutions for us. Until we understand this, we will continue searching for solutions to our problems where they cannot possibly be found; because, being civilized, no real solutions will ever occur to us. Therefore, it is not incumbent upon me to suggest doing this or that about the human predicament. It is incumbent upon you – if you so elect – to change who you are by changing your mytho
logy; by whatever means seem to you likely to yield favorable results. Every human life is an experiment, and each life yields results that follow from the experimental choices made every moment. Even taking to heart what I write here – if you do – will be part of your experiment, not mine. I say civilization is broken, and cannot be repaired. What do you say? My saying so doesn’t make it so, any more than your denying it makes it false. It is what it is, and each of us is in a position to make choices which will either help us, or hasten our selfdestruction.
My Approach to Dealing with “Civilization”
If it helps, I can tell you a little of what I have done over the years so far, to disentan
gle myself from civilization. This isn’t what I think you should do; it is what I have done, in part, and it is very much a work in progress, and another living experiment with as yet uncertain, undisclosed “final results.”A
When our children were very young, I had a satisfactory career on the East Coast of North America, and was not easily distinguishable from any number of Americans who were living pretty much as I was. I was fairly pleased with myself and my situation; we had a sound automobile, a suburban home, and a mortgage; and I’d say now that our awareness of our situation in the context of global and historical human events was typi
cally shallow and uninformed.
A. For those who may be interested, this account has been elaborated further in the Mainly Autobiographical [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/vin.html#t260] section of my Open Letter to Vin Suprynowicz dated 9 May 2007 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/vin.html].
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Nevertheless, somehow we became gradually aware that perhaps the conventional path of sending our children to school may not be the most healthy option for them – and so, when they began reaching school age, we simply didn’t send them to school. We read to them every evening, we visited the local library often, and our children almost effortlessly learned to read – after which they pretty much managed their own educations.
The results of this experiment in living and child raising turned out quite favorably, and we found over the intervening years that our children hadn’t missed anything essen
tial by not attending school; and they did manage to sidestep a great deal of very damag
ing influences that we, their parents, had had to deal with otherwise in our own lives. When our oldest son got to the age usually associated with high school graduation, and desired further education, he took and did exceptionally well on the high school equivalence exam. He also taught himself a marketable spectrum of Webrelated and programming skills, and started his career with a highpaying and very satisfactory occupation. He acquired an expensive automobile, a suburban home, and a mortgage – and, like his parents before him, eventually had second thoughts about the value of it all, and chucked it – electing instead to align his life along an entirely different axis. His life too is a living experiment, and a work in progress. Stay tuned, if you like, for future updates.A
Or better yet, launch your own living experiment, and keep me posted as to the out
comes of your experiments. A network of individuals casting about and sharing infor
mation in this way might generate a metaconscious field that may enable a great many people, eventually, to pull our bacon out of the fire.
Meanwhile, my family got the feeling that, although we were quite comfortable in our home, I enjoyed my work, and we had nothing distressing in our lives to complain about, still it seemed increasingly evident that, as I put it to myself, “this way of life just doesn’t work very well, does it?” I saw, for example, how every few days we had a can or two of trash to put out for the trash collector to pick up and truck away, along with the trash discarded by every other household in our neighborhood; and presumably in every neighborhood up and down the I95 Corridor, from Montreal to Miami, and west to the Pacific, and beyond. Our way of life, simply by living from one day to the next in a perfectly conventional way, was converting the things we needed (or thought we needed), day to day, and month to month, into mountains of rubbish that couldn’t possibly do anyone any good, and doubtless must be doing a great deal of damage to the Earth that sustains us all.
It didn’t happen overnight, but we eventually reached a decision to sell our home, quit my job, and commence homesteading in a little log cabin we bought in the middle of a remote woodlot on the opposite side of the continent. It was a step entirely into the unknown, for I had no idea how we were going to earn our livelihood on a remote home
A. See footnote A, previous page.
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stead far away from a city, without telephone, computers, or electricity; or indoor plumb
ing. We just did it.
Those were fondly remembered years, although not always easy or idyllic. Our cabin was about the size of the living room in our old home. The logs were chinked with moss, and it had a woodburning kitchen range in one corner, and a shower consisting of a five
gallon bucket with a spigot in the bottom of it, with a perforated gardenwatering attachment. We’d boil a kettle of water on the stove, mount a ladder to pour it into the bucket, add cold water to get the temperature right, then take a quick shower in a space pretty much open to the outside air. One could get a quite decent shower out of five gallons of hot water. That was just about enough to wet down, lather up, and rinse off, squeakyclean and steaming in the winter air. It worked well enough, although it didn’t exactly encourage bathing every day of the week.
I could tell many stories about our experiences in the Back of Beyond, as I used to call it. One thing I was conscious of from the very start: I understood we had deliberately put ourselves into a situation in which we would be having experiences not at all in common with socalled “normal people.” And I understood that over the years this would probably have a cumulative effect upon us, and that we may end up appearing more than somewhat “strange” to the kind of people we had left behind in Suburbia. Well, that was part of the program. We wanted to change, even though we didn’t know, then, in what particular ways we wanted to change. So... we changed.
In fact, I’ve noticed over the years that the most difficult question I’ve ever had to grapple with – and it keeps coming up, persistently – is simply this: What do you want? At that point in my life, the closest I could come to a coherent answer was, Not this! – which wasn’t very coherent. Yet it was sufficient at the time to motivate a deliberate abandonment of the conventional lifestyle, and to seek alternatives in the complete unknown.
Five years with a wife and three children in a oneroom cabin the size of a suburban living room added its mite to evolving answers to such questions. We eventually decided we could do with at least a few of the more basic living amenities. Like indoor plumbing, for instance. We also decided that we wanted to continue the general direction of our evolution away from, not toward the ways of the city we had left behind.
We sold our cabin in the woods, and purchased an old homestead even farther out and more remote than we had been before. We had indoor plumbing now, and electricity, and eventually, a computer and access to the Internet. It was there our oldest son and I learned HTML and the basics of Web design, and I began exploring the thoughts in earnest, and publishing them on the Net, that eventually led to the work before you.
Some years later, our family disbanded and scattered widely over the face of the Earth – and then surprisingly, gradually, recombined, in a way, in an entirely different setting. Our children are grown, and we’re not living as a family anymore; yet we have all 85
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gravitated, by various courses, and for various reasons, to the same region; and we’re all good friends, and see each other at least from time to time.
What I Want
Speaking just for myself, my quest for an alternative to the civilized way of life con
tinues with growing intensity and purpose. I carry in my mind a vision of what I want that is now somewhat more coherent than simply, Not this! or, Not civilization. What I want is quite simply a life, and a world, in which it is commonly understood among humans that preemptive force means war, and war is always destructive of everything it touches, including but not limited to those who wage it. That is all. I believe I can get what I want simply by being myself the embodiment of this understanding. I believe this very simple understanding is quietly and invisibly percolating through the metaconsciousness of the world, and that it is manifesting here and there in particular instances in the same way that new buds, leaves, and blossoms manifest in early spring, after a long, hard winter. It doesn’t need to be “promoted,” and there is no way it can possibly be opposed; for it comes in its own time, as spontaneously, and as naturally, as the change of seasons.
So why do I write? Why do I spend such passion exposing the flaws of civilization – if all this is evolving “automatically” anyway? I do it because not long ago, someone – several someones – (Daniel Quinn, Riane Eisler, to name a couple) did the same for me, and suddenly something that had been perplexing me all my life fell into place and became clear to me. I do it because, as long as the human predicament persists, I find it the most fascinating, challenging, and satisfying issue to grapple with; while the whole civilized world seems to be going collectively insane, yet the world is alive with promise of far better things for those who can see, and are able to step out of the path of onrushing human events. I do it for the same reason that anyone, finding him or herself trapped in a burning building, naturally does whatever they can to get themselves and as many others as possible out of it before we all roast.
It may happen that an unseasonal forest fire burns and consumes the spring growth of a forest, and those unfortunate trees and plants in its path greet the advancing season with bare and blackened twigs, instead of with blossoms and fresh green leaves. The sea
son advances nevertheless, and the parts of the forest, or other forests, and the creatures they shelter, not standing in the path of the conflagration, experience spring with little diminished joy and exuberance than in former seasons not blighted by fire. And in time, even the blackened forest heals and puts forth new growth, obliterating the scars of an unfortunate event long past.
So it may be in our time, that the selfdestruction of civilization on Earth may wreak havoc in the lives of many unfortunate humans and nonhumans standing in its path. Yet the season of change is upon us, and nothing shall stay its progress. That is why I pas
sionately plead to all who will give me their attention, Get out of the way! Civilization is collapsing! Stand from under! Fortunately we, unlike a forest, are not rooted to the ground (although we’re still rooted to the planet), and we may be able to get out of the way, if we 86
decide to do so. It isn’t easy, and the efforts I have made so far to get out of the way myself are by no means complete. Yet I’m still standing, and still working my way toward a genuinely sustainable way of life in harmony with the web of Life on Earth; and it is a compulsion for me to see and make sense of as much as I can, and to share with others what little I am able to see and understand. Which is to say, I am compelled to share my myth.
Another element of what I want consists of a tribe, a group of individuals of cooper
ative temperament, who agree with me in theory and practice that preemptive force means war, and war is always destructive of everything it touches. I believe that with this basic foundation in common, a group of individuals of otherwise limitless diversity can combine their efforts in a way of life that works to the mutual advantage of all its mem
bers; and that such a group can live sustainably, and in harmony with the web of Life on Earth – even as “civilization” burns itself out around us.
In sum, what I want is not to “go to heaven,” where everything is “perfect,” or to escape into some sublime state of detached nirvana. I like having a body, and living on Earth, with dirt under my feet and fingernails, and wind in my hair, and having the ability – and the responsibility – of making decisions, and seeing their resultant permutations play out in the real world. I like that, and I think it is an exquisitely designed loom upon which the tapestry of Life is forever being woven. What I want is exactly this sublime arrangement – with the minor variation from contemporary circumstances on Earth – that the general consensus among humans is that preemptive force means war, and war is always destructive of everything it touches; and is therefore something that isn’t done in human society. That is all. That is what I want; and as already mentioned, I believe I can get what I want by being what I want. It’s a work in progress.
Mind you, I make no claim that I am right. I, like everyone I see, am creating a myth. Mine seems to me a useful myth; and so, I share it with you. If you find it useful as well, then you are welcome to it. If not, go and find or make a myth more to your satisfaction.
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I.8. Lessons From History
Many people think of “history” as the time since the birth of Jesus, or as the period commencing about 24 centuries ago with the “ancient Greeks.” Technically, “history” begins with the first written historical records. The Greek Herodotus, ca. 485 to 425, is said to have been “the father of history.” I suggest, however, that if one wishes to gain an appreciation of the deep temporal context in which we find ourselves today, these are rather nearsighted views of the meaning of “history.”
The chart depicts the most recent 245 million years, an interval combining two geo
logical Eras, the Mesozoic (178.6 million years (m.y.)), and the Cenozoic (66.4 m.y.); which latter is the Era in which we are living today. The Mesozoic Era is divided into three Periods, the Triassic (37 m.y.), Jurassic (64 m.y.), and the Cretaceous (77.6 m.y.). The Cenozoic Era is divided into two Periods, the Tertiary (64.8 m.y.), and the Qua
ternary (1.6 m.y.). The Tertiary Period is subdivided into five Epochs: the Paleocene (8.6 m.y.), Eocene (21.2 m.y.), Oligocene (12.9 m.y.), Miocene (18.4 m.y.), and the Pliocene (3.7 m.y.). The Quaternary Period is occupied almost entirely by the Pleistocene (1.59 m.y.), and as a brief footnote, the Holocene, also called the Recent (10,000 years). This historians have traditionally subdivided into ten Millennia, eight preceding (BCE), and 89
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two included in the Common Era (CE); the last of which we have recently closed out, and entered into the Third Millennium CE.
The Miocene Epoch is noteworthy as that in which the large seagoing mammals flourished, such as the contemporary Sperm Whale (Physeter catodon), owner of the larg
est brain yet discovered on this planet, and may have evolved to its present form at the beginning of the Miocene.A Not until the late Pliocene did our first protohuman ancestors make their appearance, and begin pioneering the uniquely human way of life.
Such is the myth of natural history, as represented by the best guesses and research of contemporary geologists and paleontologists. We are living today just beyond the lower
right corner of the chart, at this writing, during the first decade of the Third Millennium of the Common Era, Holocene Epoch, Quaternary Period, Cenozoic Era, in progress.
The Mesozoic Era is known generally as the “Age of Dinosaurs,” and the Cenozoic Era, as the “Age of Mammals.” There were actually mammals living during the Mesozoic Era. They were not very prominent, because the dinosaurs occupied all of the choice eco
logical niches during that immense span of time, and the mammals didn’t have a chance to develop until something caused the environment on Earth to change so drastically that none of the dinosaurs survived; and the surviving mammals were then able to fill the rich ecological niches left vacant by the now extinct dinosaurs. This happened about 66.4 million years ago, at what geologists call the “KT boundary,” the event that divides the Cretaceous and the Tertiary Periods.
The chart above is drawn to a sliding scale. That is, the relative durations of the Eras, Periods, and Epochs are accurately represented by their relative lengths on the chart, by means of “unfolding” and magnifying the relative lengths of the shorter, more recent Epochs, so they may be visually represented. By means of this device, it becomes clear that the 10,000year Holocene Epoch – only the second half of which is believed to have been occupied by human civilization – is the thinnest “coat of paint” at the near end of an edifice stretching into unfathomable depths of time. The entire 245,000,000year chart also occurs in the context of far earlier timespans not represented here at all: in particular the 325,000,000year Paleozoic Era; preceded in turn by the 1,930,000,000year Proterozoic Eon, during which time the microbes discussed in section I.3 became prominent. They first appeared on Earth during an earlier Eon still, 3½ billion years ago. So even rolling back the tapestry of time to the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, we are only skimming the most recent 1/14 of the history of Life on Earth; to which our lives are linked in an unbroken chain.B
A. Mind in the Waters: A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins, assembled by Joan McIntyre, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1974, p. 54. See also the poem, Deep Thoughts by J. Harmon Grahn [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/deep.html].
B. For your amusement, and possible erudition, see the poem, Evolution by Langdon Smith, 18581908 [harmonhouse.net/fdl/evolution.htm].
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One thing should be quite clear from even a brief glance at the relative spans of time represented on the chart: the idea that...
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Our way is the only right way to live, and all people should live as we do; Humanity was destined from our earliest beginnings to create civilization; Civilization must not be lost or abandoned under any circumstances;
Civilization is the crowning achievement of humanity...
...are the presumptuous conceits of the most inflated bunch of selfimportant snobs that have ever walked the Earth! I mean, where did these Jimmycomelatelies come up with the infernal cheek even to imagine such ridiculous claims? It’s absolutely infantile. The K
T boundary, for instance, which appears “instantaneous” on the chart, could easily have occupied the same amount of time, or even much longer, than the 5,000year “moment” occupied, first to last, by the entire history of dominator civilization. Yet these contempo
rary humans, with such an inflated perception of the significance of their socalled “civilization,” are the very ones who imagine they are “running things” today. They call to mind the ludicrous spectacle of a headlouse, say, standing in a forest of hair, squeak
ing noiselessly to the Universe, “My name is Ozymandias the HeadLouse, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” Come on, get real. Who do you think you are? Anyhow?!
Although we weren’t here to witness it, it seems the 243,400,000 years prior to the Quaternary Period went jogging along in a fairly “orderly fashion” – if you count “order
ly” as including the reign of the dinosaurs; and whatever cosmic event (such as an 11km
diameter asteroid striking the Earth) caused the “changing of the guard” from the dino
saurs to the mammals at the end of the Cretaceous Period. And even during most of the Quaternary Period, life on Earth seems to have been “pretty good,” most of the time, for most of its inhabitants. Including for us, genus Homo, who evidently made our appear
ance early in the Pleistocene Epoch, our Australopithecine forebears having evolved during the Upper Pliocene.A Counting the development of Australopithecus, that’s nearly three million years – not a “long time” in the context we are considering, yet still a sub
stantial chunk of time – during which our earliest human and protohuman forbears appeared on this planet, and evolved ways of living in relative harmony with one another, and with all other species. This evidently worked well enough – until some benighted soul came up with the idea behind dominator civilization, i.e. in essence, preemptive war on everyone and everything, eventually, on Earth.
I mean, in all that time – dinosaurs, volcanoes, earthquakes, and asteroids notwith
standing – life went on, and on, and on.... Individuals were born, lived, and perished; species rose and declined; continents drifted; yet nothing developed that the web of Life on Earth was not up to dealing with. And then, in the middle of the Holocene, there came A. Grahame Clark, World Prehistory In New Perspective: An Illustrated Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne, 1977, pp. 45.
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among humans an astonishing and incomprehensible discontinuity. Someone, somewhere, somehow came up with the crazy idea of preempting the will of their fellows, and of enforcing their will by waging war upon all who opposed it, or were perceived as obsta
cles to it. And so, in the merest flash of 5,000 years, the entire globally integrated net
work of Life has been progressively divided up, fenced in, cut down, trashed, and anni
hilated by the expanding tide of preemptive, predatory, parasitic dominator civilization, which has swept all before it, and left a scorched and plundered Earth in its wake. Nice work, Homo sap. Who would have imagined it?
If you would like a detailed synopsis of where we stand today, “up to the minute,” read Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon.A That’ll put you straight about where we Earthinhabitants stand after 245 million years – or if you prefer, 3½ billion years of Life on Earth; and particularly before and after the local events of 11 September 2001. We’re redlining, folks, and our nifty little idea of “civilization” that we’ve been taught to be so proud of, is blowing its gaskets, throwing its rods, and the wheels are coming off. Don’t believe me? Stand by.... Or better yet, stand from under!
The grand sweep of natural history teaches that A generation comes, and a generation goes, but Earth abides. It also teaches that those who live in harmony with the web of Life may abide with her – for at least a time, and sometimes, for a good long time – and that those who do not soon perish, and are never even missed. To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away. We Homo sapiens sapiens, as we have so presumptuously named ourselves, “wise, wise Man,” are the new kid on the block here. Our ancestors seem to have gotten off to a good enough start a few million years ago, but we’ve run into a bit of a snag recently, which threatens to upset our whole apple cart. We may be able to put things right yet, but it isn’t going to happen if at least some of us cannot sever our ties to dominator civilization, and take an entirely different approach to living.
As discussed earlier, our Pliocene and Pleistocene ancestors developed and came close to perfecting the tribal social pattern for humans, over the course of the 5.29 m.y. embraced by those two epochs, and were going along nicely when the first dominator civilizations appeared about 5,000 years ago.B This had evidently not been budgeted for by the metaconscious architects of the tribal pattern, or of the partnership pattern of the A. Ruppert, 2004.
B. This mythological account does not consider alternative myths, such as that of Atlantis, and/or other pos
sible “prehistoric” civilizations – more for the sake of simplicity and narrative consistency than for preference of the “scientific/rational myth” over others. It is entirely possible that the scourge of domi
nator civilization is not even of terrestrial origin: it may have originated with “lizards from outer space,” for all I know. These possibilities are not essential to the present argument, however, and so are ignored. Thus the “5,000year” figure attached here to the appearance of civilization may be more metaphorical than literal. Whenever dominator civilization appeared, and wherever it originated, it was, and remains, a plague; and if some among us do not find a “cure” for it pretty damn quick, our story on Earth is at an end. However, see subsection Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, below, and section II.2 for more indepth consideration, especially of “prehistoric” partnership civilizations.
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earliest civilizations. Tribes and partnership civilizations alike succumbed to dominator civilization everywhere it spread. Dominator civilization has been like a plague, in the face of which all prior cultures have been immunologically vacant; and so it has been, until the present moment. It remains to be seen if there is a future for humanity beyond dominator civilization.
The Prognosis for Humankind
The prognosis for the immediate “future history” of humankind is fairly simple. Of a certainty, civilization is coming to an inglorious end, for the reason that it can no longer be sustained on Earth. At issue is the question as to whether any humans will survive the collapse of “civilization” – or indeed if anything will.
Life as a whole is extraordinarily resilient and survivable, and so is probably not in significant danger. We are today, thanks largely if not entirely to civilization, in the midst of one of the major “dieoffs” that periodically punctuate geological history. Another example occurred at the end of the Cretaceous Period, as we have observed, which saw the extinction of the dinosaurs and many aquatic species. There have been other examples as well; yet, through it all, Life goes on, and on, and on....
Additionally, as I have argued in prior sections, Life itself is fundamentally metacon
scious, and is able to deal with adversity in ways we might even recognize as intelligent and creative, or their analogs, if we broaden our vision somewhat. Therefore, short of the eventuality of a runaway greenhouse effect – which could end up duplicating on Earth the environment found today on Venus – I speculate that some living species are almost cer
tain to survive the imminent collapse of “civilization.” The greenhouse scenario is evi
dently a possibility, which for the moment we may reasonably hope will not materialize.
The prognosis for humanity then remains the single outstanding issue; and the vital question is whether some individuals and groups will manage to dig themselves out of the wreckage, after the masonry has ceased toppling. This is a highly speculative question, because pending human events are difficult to predict. We could have a nuclear or biological holocaust, whose outcome would lie entirely “in the hands of the gods.” Indeed, the outcome of human events already in train seem to lie very significantly “in the hands of the gods;” yet because of the proven complementarity of parts and wholes, the choices of individual humans – so long as human choices remain possible – may have a surprisingly disproportionate influence upon the “final outcome” of human events.
In any case, I think it reasonable to assume, even in a “worstcase scenario,” that if anything survives the collapse of civilization, at least some humans will be among them. People occupy niches everywhere on Earth, and it is difficult, though not impossible, to imagine a manmade catastrophe so complete that no one survives it anywhere.
Given that people survive in sufficient numbers to gradually regenerate the race, I have a hunch (well, O.K., I hope) that such survivors will be effectively immunized against future outbreaks of the plague of dominator civilization. Unlike our Pleistocene 93
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ancestors, who had never imagined such a thing, we who surviveA will have drained to the dregs the bitter cup of civilization, and will not be tempted to rebuild it. Many and long will be the stories we have to tell our children and grandchildren, of the horrors of the last days of civilization, and those stories will be passed down the generations into the remote future. Additionally, the wreckage of civilization itself will be everywhere evident for centuries to come, and will bear mute and somber witness to future generations of the Dark Age finally come to an end. These factors and others, I imagine, will cement firmly into place the fundamental ethic of postcivilized tribes everywhere:
a) Do whatever you like;
b) Allow all others the same liberty;
c) Allow no one to preempt your liberty.
Such, anyway, is my hope and vision for the aftermath of civilization, and the pri
mary lesson I extract from “history.”
Dominator and Partnership Civilizations
I would now like to draw further attention to a suite of ideas first introduced to me by Riane Eisler,B and recommended to me by Ishmael;C – although he didn’t elaborate, and I neglected at first to follow up on his recommendation.
I began the present work on the assumption that civilization, from its inception, has been entirely identified with preemptive force and ceaseless war. The story we have been given, that is generally absorbed by the nonspecialist “wo/man in the street,” is that the first civilizations began to appear about 5,000 years ago in the “cradle of civilization” round about the TigrisEuphrates River valley, characterized by the inventions of agricul
ture and walled cities. The Sumerian citystates, which flourished ca. 3000, are generally regarded as the prototypical exemplars of this strand of contemporary mythology. Prior to this, we are told, human culture, such as it was, consisted of stoneage barbarism and savagery, and is of little interest or relevance to the “high civilizations” that have emerged since that distant age.
In The Chalice and The Blade, Riane Eisler discloses evidence that this may be a gross oversimplification of our actual heritage. Scrutinized more closely, this period yields details – many discovered relatively recently – that add layers of surprising texture and color to the story of the earliest human civilizations. In particular, civilization – in the nonpejorative sense of a large and complex social system – does not seem after all to A. In imagining the collapse of civilization, and the lives of its survivors, why not include ourselves in the scenario? True, we may perish, and the probabilities may even be against us. Yet why assume so in antici
pation? The very fact that you are reading this means you’re at least thinking about it. Doesn’t this give you a measurable advantage over the multitudes who are not even giving it a thought?
B. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, HarperSanFrancisco, A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers, 1987.
C. Quinn, 1992, p. 247.
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have emerged in a single localized “cradle.” The earliest civilizations have rich NeolithicA antecedents scattered widely throughout Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Middle East, and Eastern Europe; which, contrary to exhibiting “barbaric savagery,” are noteworthy for their longterm peacefulness, and for their nonhierarchical, mutually cooperative social organization. Eisler distinguishes between two strikingly contrasting types of civilization, or models of social organization, which she labels respectively, dominator and partnership models; or more esoterically, androcracy and and gylany.B Androcracy derives from the Greek andros, man, and kratos, ruled; hence, androcracy is a manruled, or maledomi
nated social organization. Alternatively, the gy in gylany derives from the Greek word for woman, gyne; the l stands for link; and an refers to andros, man. Hence, gylany is a social partnership linking women and men nonhierarchically.C Less specifically, a dominator culture can be a patriarchy, in which men rule women; or a matriarchy, in which women rule men. Both are hierarchical, and Eisler seems to agree with me that neither social structure works in practice. Androcracy is a loose synonym for patriarchy, the kind of social organism contemporary civilized mythology insists is the only right way to live.
Eisler emphasizes, on the contrary, that there is widespread archaeological evidence to support the contention that Neolithic cultures, and the early civilizations into which they evolved, were characteristically partnership cultures in which weaponry, warfare, and hierarchical organization were all conspicuous by their absence. They were also cul
turally rich – which is to say, they were prolific in the arts, invention, sophisticated agriculture, animal husbandry, expanding commerce, pottery, and in technologies for beautifying and enhancing the quality of life. The technologies of war and their cultural glorification, on the other hand, were conspicuously absent.
Another feature that characterized these early partnership cultures was the universal veneration of the Mother Goddess in varying, yet highly consistent forms; which gain prominence in the Paleolithic art of the late Pleistocene, and penetrate even into the con
temporary androcratic civilization. Moreover, the priesthood of the Goddess usually con
sisted of women, or of women and men as cooperative peers, not hierarchically ranked. As bringers of Life into the world, and nurturers by nature, women were highly respected and honored, yet neither sought nor occupied positions of social domination.
In sum [Eisler writes], instead of being random and unconnected materials, the Paleolithic remains of female figurines, red ocher in burials, and vaginashaped cowrie shells appear to be early manifestations of what was later to develop into a complex religion centering on the worship of a Mother Goddess as the source and regeneratrix of all forms of life. This Goddess worship, as James and other scholars note, survived well into historic times “in the composite figure of the A. Characterized by the invention or discovery of agriculture.
B. Eisler, 1987, p. 105.
C. Loc. cit.
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Magna Mater of the Near East and the GrecoRoman world.”A We clearly see this religious continuity in such wellknown deities as Isis, Nut, and Maat in Egypt; Ishtar, Astarte, and Lilith in the Fertile Crescent; Demeter, Kore, and Hera in Greece; and Atargatis, Ceres, and Cybele in Rome. Even later, in our own JudeoChristian heritage, we can still see it in the Queen of Heaven, whose groves are burned in the Bible, in the Shekhina of Hebrew kabalistic tradition, and in the Catholic Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God.B
The gylanic cultural pattern predominated through the Neolithic settlements along the Aegean coasts nine thousand years ago. By 6500, as discovered at the southern Anatolian site of Çatal Hüyük, among others, Neolithic/quasicivilized culture had achieved fully functional agriculture and animal husbandry, sophisticated architecture and planning, a flourishing commerce, and an advanced religion and mythology.C
In fact [Eisler writes], by circa 6000 B.C.E., not only was the agricultural revolution an established fact, but – to quote Mellaart – “fully agricultural societies began expanding into hitherto marginal territories such as the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia and Transcaspia on the one hand, and into southeastern Europe on the other.” Moreover, “some of this contact, as in Crete and Cyprus, definitely went by sea,” and in each case “the newcomers arrived with a fully fledged Neolithic economy.”D
The Rise and Fall of Minoan Crete
The gylanic culture on the Mediterranean island of Crete, which being characterized by written language, survived by definition into historical, literate times, cannot be described in any other terms than as being “fully civilized” E – again, in the nonpejorative sense of being a large and complex social system. The Cretan civilization had its incep
tion around 6000, evidently through the immigration of Neolithic colonists from Ana
tolia. Their cultural and technological progress was steady, and the Minoan Crete civiliza
tion gradually took shape around a Goddessworship characterized by an exuberant cele
A. “James, Prehistoric Religion, 14749. For more recent and comprehensive analysis of this religious evolution and the culture it reflected, see Marija Gimbutas, Evolution of Old Europe and Its Indo
Europeanization: The Prehistory of East Central Europe (unpublished manuscript).
“As used in this book, the term Goddess refers to the ancient conceptualization of the powers governing the universe in female form. Hence, Goddess and terms such as Great Mother and Creatrix are capitalized.” (Eisler’s footnote, italics in original.)
B. Eisler, 1987, pp. 67.
C. Ibid., p. 11.
D. Loc. cit., quoting James Mellaart, The Neolithic of the Near East, Scribner, New York, 1975, p. 275.
E. See Richard Rudgley, The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, THE FREE PRESS, A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, 1999, pp. 5885 for an extensive discussion of Paleolithic and Neolithic precursors to the first “authoritatively acknowledged” examples of “true writing” during “civilized” times. See also Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, HarperSanFrancisco, A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers, 1989 for an indepth treatment of the evolution of written language.
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bration of life and human creativity. Many useful arts were developed to a high state of refinement during the first 4,000 years of Cretan culture.
By 2000, well into the Bronze Age, while the rest of the civilized world were demot
ing their goddesses to subsidiary positions relative to the male gods of warlike andro
cratic invaders with strong affinities with the technologies of war; on Crete where the gylanic culture persisted, there were in this period still no signs of war. The arts continued to flourish, the economy remained sound, and Goddessworship prevailed, even after the Mycenaean conquest of Crete in the fifteenth century.A
For here [Eisler writes] we have a rich technologically and culturally advanced civilization in which, as archaeologists HansGünther Buchholtz and Vassos Karageorghis write, “all the artistic media – in fact, life in its totality as well as death – were deeply entrenched in an allpervasive, ubiquitous religion.” But in marked contrast to other high civilizations of the time, this religion – centering on the worship of the Goddess – seems to have both reflected and reinforced a social order in which, to quote Nicolas Platon, “the fear of death was almost obliterated by the ubiquitous joy of living.”B
The foundation, then, of the uniquely peaceful, lifeloving, gylanic Cretan civiliza
tion was their Goddesscentered mythology; which produced a partnership culture, as opposed to the dominator cultures common to androcratic civilizations founded upon mythologies featuring male deities. This is a social pattern that Eisler highlights repeat
edly: Peace prevails in gylanic cultures in which men and women are social peers. War A. Eisler, 1987, pp. 301.
B. Ibid., p. 32, quoting Hans Günther Buchholtz and Vassos Karageorghis, Prehistoric Greece and Cyprus: An Archaeological Handbook, Phaidon, London, 1973, p. 20; and Nicolas Platon, Crete, Nagel Publishers, Geneva, 1966, p.148.
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prevails in androcratic cultures in which females are dominated by males. The former spring from Goddesscentered mythologies; the latter spring from Godcentered mytholo
gies. Is this not a profoundly illuminating insight?!
Crete, by the way, is noteworthy for another unique feature: there was evidently no poverty in Minoan Crete.
This is not to say that Crete was richer than, or even as rich as, Egypt or Babylon [writes Eisler]. But in view of the economic and social gulf between those on top and bottom that characterized other “high” civilizations, it is important to note that the way Crete used and distributed its wealth was apparently from the beginning markedly different.A
This is dangerous information, from the point of view of the prevailing androcracy, and no pains have been spared, over the millennia and centuries, to stamp it out utterly.B How the wellestablished facts about gylanic partnership cultures have remained so uni
versally ignored in the circles of anthropological and historical scholarship, and have been assiduously excluded from our popular cultural heritage, may be appropriately termed “the Grandmother of all conspiracy theories.”
Were you ever taught in school, for instance, about the glorious, culturally rich, gyla
nic civilization on Crete, to which war was a stranger for over four thousand years? Ah yes, I remember now: something about how they used to entertain themselves with acrobatic displays, somersaulting over the horns of live bulls, wasn’t it? I remember a picture of that in my Fourth Grade history text. Yes, and I remember a crack some Cretan is said to have made that “All Cretans are liars.” But he was found later not to have been telling the truth. Anything about Goddess worship? Gosh, I don’t remember anything like that.... Hohum, it must not have been important enough to warrant comment. Otherwise, our fine teachers would surely have mentioned it. Wouldn’t they?
Yet I remember hearing plenty about the glories of Periclean Athens, and all their great philosophers, playwrights, architects, and sculptors. It turns out all those fellows – fellows, mind you, not women (although that wasn’t particularly emphasized) – were sup
ported by the labor of an enormous population of slaves (Athenian women were slaves too), conquered in distant lands by the (for a time) invincible Athenian navy. (That bit about the slaves wasn’t particularly emphasized either.) And the Golden Age of Athens collapsed in the convulsion of the Peloponnesian War after only a single generation.
Now you tell me: which do you suppose is more historically significant, a civilization that enjoyed from its earliest antecedents over four thousand years of peace, or a civ
ilization that flourished for a single generation, and then tore itself to pieces? Our histo
A. Ibid., pp. 323.
B. See Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Doubleday, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland, 2003, and Quinn, 1996, for fictional portrayals of the lengths to which the androcratic “authorities” will go in efforts to obliterate all traces of gylanic culture, and defend androcratic culture.
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ries are full of such meticulously selected stuff. It’s the exclusive history of androcracy: the only right way to live, so we are told, in countless overt and covert ways, over, and over, and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. If androcracy really is the only right way to live, then why does it have to be so constantly, vigilantly, and painstakingly enforced? And why such a studied denial and deliberate evasion of the many gylanic partnership cultures that spontaneously arose before androcracy ever put in an appearance? There’s something mighty fishy going on, don’t you think so? Could it be there’s some sort of a hidden agenda here?
The Revised History of Old Europe
Actually, the agenda isn’t very well hidden, once it’s been pointed out, as Riane Eisler, Marija Gimbutas, and others clearly have done. The revised history of the rise of civilization in what archaeologists call “Old Europe,” on the basis of heretofore over
looked, ignored, and/or recently discovered evidence, goes something like this:
Along about 9,000 to 8,500 years ago, settled villages began to appear along the Aegean coasts, characterized by agricultural food production. These expanded into fully developed Neolithic settlements in the Aegean, Balkan, and Adriatic regions; featuring large villages of closely grouped adobe and timber houses, the first temples, extended commerce, coastal and bluewater navigation, agriculture, and domesticated animals, excluding only horses.
By 8,000 to 7,500 years ago, these gylanic cultures had spread into what is today Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania along the lower and middle Danube, and into central Bulgaria and the western Ukraine. Five hundred years later, villages were larger and had spread into Holland, Germany, southern Poland, Moravia, and Bohemia. Sacred scripts were employed in religious practices, and copper smithing appeared in Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. During the following thousand years (5000 to 4000) the gylanic cultures of Old Europe reached their peak. Twostory temples were built, potterymaking was perfected, trade expanded, and artifacts in copper and gold proliferated.A
Now, where exactly one should draw the line between Upper Neolithic and “fully civilized” cultures may not be easy to define with precision. The point to ponder here is that the evolutionary track being followed throughout this progression was established by a clear gylanic trend of Goddessworshiping partnership cultures, clearly distinct from the androcratic dominator cultures that followed them.
Then, starting at about 4300, all this began to change. Out of the Eurasian steppe there came, first a few, later multitudes of mounted invaders bearing something to which the settled and settling Neolithic gylanic cultures were quite unaccustomed: war, con
quest, plunder, and rapine. Eisler and Gimbutas call them Kurgans.
A. Paraphrased from Marija Gimbutas’s Chronology of the Flowering and Destruction of Old European Culture (ca. 7000 B.C.E. to 2500 B.C.E.), Eisler, 1987, p. 250.
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The Kurgans [Eisler writes] were of what scholars call IndoEuropean or Aryan languagespeaking stock, a type that was in modern times to be idealized by Nietzsche and then Hitler as the only pure European race. In fact, they were not the original Europeans, as they swarmed down on that continent from the Asiatic and European northeast. Nor were they even originally Indian, for there was another people, the Dravidians, who lived in India before the Aryan invaders conquered them.A
In three major waves, between ca. 4300 and 4200; ca. 3400 and 3200; and ca. 3000 and 2800, the Kurgans rode out of the East, and gradually brought the advance of gylanic civilization to a complete standstill.
Ruled by powerful priests and warriors [Eisler continues], they brought with them their male gods of war and mountains. And as Aryans in India, Hittites and Mittani in the Fertile Crescent, Luwians in Anatolia, Kurgans in eastern Europe, Achaeans and later Dorians in Greece, they gradually imposed their ideologies and ways of life on the lands and peoples they conquered.B
There were other warlike tribes, most notably the Hebrews who invaded Canaan, first in small numbers from Ur, and later in large numbers from Egypt. Whether they were related to the Kurgans is uncertain; yet it is clear that the Hebrews and the Kurgans were alike in one important respect: they were both warlike peoples led by androcratic priest
hoods, in worship of angry, male deities; and they imposed their ideologies by force upon those they subdued.
The advance of the androcratic warriorpastoralists into the Old European domains of the gylanic agriculturalists brought with it a gradual but profound cultural metamor
phosis. Onceubiquitous Goddess figurines disappeared, and images of weapons, and weaponwielding male deities proliferated. Unprotected valley villages vanished, to be replaced by hill forts and fortified redoubts. Reverence for the power to engender and nurture Life was replaced by lust for the power to destroy. Women, who had been honored partners with men in an egalitarian celebration of la joie de vivre, were reduced to the status of slaves, and the property of men. And the Goddess, once universally recognized as She Who engendered all Life, was demoted to the WarGod’s consort.
A. Eisler, 1987, p. 44. “Modern scholarship no longer uses the term IndoEuropean as racial identity,” Eisler explains in her footnote. “IndoEuropean refers to a group of languages with common roots that are found from the British Isles to the Bay of Bengal. The more recent field research of physical anthropologists demonstrates that the socalled IndoEuropeans were of different racial stocks. The original use of the term by western European scholars in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to refer to both race and language was part of a commonly held ideology that sought to classify the world by race, placing great value on racial purity, which they saw affirmed by the Hindu caste system. See Louis Fisher, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 13841, for an interesting discussion of the earlier culture.” (Eisler’s footnote.) See also Bloom, 1995, Worldviews as the Welding Torch of the Hierarchical Chain, pp. 21014, for a description of the conquest of India.
B. Eisler, 1987, loc. cit.
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In this changed atmosphere, culture languished: the arts died; sophisticated crafts
manship degenerated; beautiful pottery became merely adequate; the celebration of life was transformed into the worship of death. Now only the strongest and most brutal of men ascended into positions of power, wealth, and prestige, and the fluid social orders of the past were frozen into rigid hierarchies.
After the conquest of the partnership cultures by the dominator cultures was com
plete, the wheels of “progress” began turning once again, and what are generally recog
nized today as the “first civilizations” began their march toward an entirely different des
tiny than the one toward which their gylanic predecessors had been aimed. For the dom
inators were then, and have been ever since, at war with everything and everyone, even including themselves and each other; and that agenda can proceed only so far before it selfdestructs. We live today in the time of that inevitable and final selfdestruction.
Lessons From Old Europe
Nevertheless, we may extract some valuable lessons from this revised history, which has been kept hidden with meticulous care by the androcratic dominators; because they rely upon the carefully cultivated myth, or meme, that “civilization,” as they have defined it, consisting of rigid hierarchies of domination and slavery, is the only right way to live, and is the only way “civilized people” have ever lived in this world. We have seen that this has always been a lie, and that, lo and behold! there have been cultures, and fully developed civilizations even, in our meticulously edited past that have evolved sponta
neously along entirely different lines – and have enjoyed as a matter of course uninter
rupted peace for thousands of years!
More than this, we have seen a clear and very simple difference in social pattern between dominator and partnership cultures, viz. that dominator cultures are hierarchical, starting at the most basic and fundamental level of the relationship between women and men; and that partnership cultures are based, first and foremost, upon coequal partner
ships between women and men. We may extract from this the very simple and practical lesson that we will continue to reap the results of our “history,” namely war, chaos, and selfdestruction, so long as we continue to support in any way the oppression of women by men; and that we may confidently expect to reap the reward of endless peace at such time, and no sooner, as we cease our hierarchical male/female social structures, and form social structures characterized at bottom upon coequal partnerships between men and women.
For me, this is an insight of incalculable value, for it is simple, easily comprehended, and it furnishes a very specific point of focus for what we have to do, any of us who are really serious about leaving behind our legacy of war and selfdestruction, and fully intend to live in a world of sustained and sustainable peace. Men, make your peace with the women in your life, near and far, within you and without. For without this vital com
ponent securely in place in the personal lives of individuals, couples, families, and tribes, no sustainable social pattern will emerge, and the ideals of peace, justice, and liberty will 101
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remain unattainable mirages in the wartorn lives of humans on Earth – until, if neces
sary, there are no humans at all left alive upon the Earth. “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Let’s make Mama happy!
Women... you already know what to do, for you carry within you the nature, and the nurture, of the Goddess. Be who you are, and stop accepting the definition of yourselves given you by your male dominators; by those who have elevated the counterfeit “power” of “death” over the Absolute and Invincible Power of Life. You are by your inmost nature, already on the winning team! You are who you’re supposed to be, and you’re at the right place, at the right time, right here, right now!
Shucks. There just are not the words to express it. You know what to do; and I do; and we’re doing it. It is sufficient. Participate fully in, and enjoy the miraculous meta
morphosis of our dysfunctional dominator culture into the partnership with all Life that will transform our nightmare world into one of lasting peace – and Paradise on Earth.A
A. It’s a nice thought, perhaps; but there may be more to it than simply deciding to put to rights the warped relationships between the feminine and masculine elements of ourselves and our cultures. See the Inconclusion to section II.7 for a fuller discussion of what may be involved.
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I.9. The Future of the Future
I believe R. Buckminster Fuller, or someone closely associated with him, once remarked, “The future of the past is the present. The future of the present is the future. The future of the future is the present.”
Well said. From a purely “nuts & bolts” perspective, the most salient impact upon the future by a feature in the present seems to be the matter of Peak Oil – the evidently uncompromising fact that the world’s oil production has now, or shortly will have, reached its peak; after which the steady yearbyyear increase in oil production will be irrevocably reversed. To the extent the world’s industrial energy is supplied by oil – which is to say, almost entirely – this development alone bears farreaching implications for the “progress” of civilization, and for “the future of the future.”
Perpetual Growth and Expansion
The most “disturbing” implication of this development, depending upon how one looks at it, has to do with the fact that the most fundamental cornerstone of civilization, laid five thousand years ago, and never moved, is the unyielding principle of perpetual growth and expansion. This is most fundamentally what civilization has been doing for the past five millennia – essentially, one way or another, by means of war. If you read Ruppert,A you will be given abundant evidence in support of the proposition that the actions of the American Corporate Empire in the Middle East are motivated almost entirely by this matter of Peak Oil.
So what happens when the unyielding principle of perpetual expansion comes up against the unyielding fact that available energy can do nothing from here on out but decline? Expansion requires more energy, there’s no getting around that. Is this a case of “an irresistible force meeting an immovable object?” Well... in a word, no. Because the “irresistible force” in this case isn’t really irresistible. It is only as irresistible as its armies, and a modern mechanized army, as everyone knows, runs on oil. The way they’ve got things rigged, everything runs on oil, and if there isn’t any oil, then nothing runs.
Actually, the situation isn’t quite as stark or simple as that. I suggest you read Power Down: Options and Actions for a PostCarbon WorldB for a more detailed analysis of the Peak Oil issue than I am going to reproduce here. If I haven’t convinced you already, I believe that between Ruppert and Heinberg, you will have difficulty evading the conclu
sion that the days of dominator civilization are definitely numbered.
Looking at it a little closer, it emerges that oil is not the only available source of energy, and that Peak Oil doesn’t mean the tank is empty. What it means is that it is no A. Ruppert, 2004.
B. Heinberg, 2004.
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longer possible to increase oil production: that global oil discoveries peaked in 1964,A that global oil production is peaking about now, and that therefore the oil that remains in the ground will be increasingly costly to pump out of the ground, and its availability will steadily decline. Until now, oil has been the most convenient and “costeffective” source of energy on the planet – in the sense that it has been immediately cheaper to produce than any other energy source. The fact that oil is a nonrenewable resource, and that every barrel of oil burned for energy, from day one, has been one more barrel of oil irretriev
ably lost from the planet’s inventory, attaches a rather formidable caveat to the actual “costeffectiveness” of oil as an energy resource.
As to alternative energy sources, well... there’s still a lot of coal. Naturally, this isn’t a particularly attractive solution, because coal is notoriously dirty in many ways, and if we were to replace oil with coal for our present and anticipated energy needs, we would have a much bigger mess on our hands than we do already. Then too, coal, like oil, is a nonrenewable resource, and even if there’s a mighty lot of it, still, the same principle applies: every carload of coal burned up, and turned into heat, ash, soot, and greenhouse gases, is a carload of coal irreplaceably subtracted from Earth’s inventory. So coal, in addition to creating numerous problems of its own, doesn’t really solve the problem of Peak Oil. At best, it only postpones it.
The Myth of Free Energy
Well then... what about free energy? Ah, yes, one of my favorite myths. Here are some reasons for taking it seriously. a) The Universe itself is believed alike by scientists, theologians, and philosophers to have originated “out of the vacuum,” either through a the mythical “Big Bang,” or as a continuous process called the “Steady State,” or by fiat of a Deity. All these are myths, yet they are given very serious and widespread consideration, and it is difficult to imagine theoretical or mythical alternatives to them.B If the entire con
tent of a Universe can credibly emerge “from nothing,” or simply exist perpetu
ally, without beginning or end, then why is it so difficult to believe that useful energy can emerge in the same way? b) The most widely known mathematical formula on Earth, particularly outside mathematical circles, is Einstein’s formula for the equivalence of matter and energy, “E = mc2.” In application, this formula means that a physical mass (expressed in grams) contains a quantity of energy (expressed in energy units called “ergs”) equal to the number of grams in the mass multiplied by the speed of light (expressed in centimeters per second) “squared,” or multiplied by itself. The math is not complicated, and works out like this:
A. Ruppert, 2004, p. 30.
B. See also Cosmological Scale Expansion in section II.5 for yet another plausible alternative cosmology.
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The speed of light c = 2.998 × 1010 cm/s; c2 = 8.988 × 1020 cm/s; × 1000g (1kg) = 8.988 × 1023 ergs; = 8.988 × 1016 joules; = 2.497 × 1010 kWh (kilowatthours). That is, by the E = mc2 formula, one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds of atoms, contain 24,970,000,000 kilowatthours of energy. Quite a package! At the rate I pay for electricity, $0.073 per kWh, that works out to $1,822,810,000 USD worth of energy: 2.2 pounds of atoms.
The “E = mc2” formula has come to be associated in most people’s minds with “atomic energy,” the arcane field involving fission and fusion nuclear and thermo
nuclear reactions in uranium, plutonium, and other rare earth radioactive isotopes – which are decidedly not readily accessible to “Gyro Gearloose” homeshop experimentalists. But Einstein’s formula is applicable to “atoms” – any atoms, all atoms; and atoms are accessible to everyone, everywhere, all the time. So too, presumably, given the appropriate technology, or knowhow, is the energy they contain. And not only the energy contained in atoms. I understand that Einstein has remarked to the effect that there is enough energy in a teacup of hard vacuum to boil all the oceans on Earth. This energy has since been given the designation, “zero point,” because it refers to the limitless energy that exists even in a vacuum, at “absolute zero,” the lowest theoretically possible energy state. c) There are numerous reports in circulation of credible experiments and laboratory devices which demonstrate, or are claimed to demonstrate in various ways, the viability of free energy. This domain is murky, and the arguments of detractors and skeptics are often as difficult to penetrate or confirm as are the claims they endeavor to “debunk.” The jury is still out on this speculation, yet some of the arguments for free energy are quite persuasive.
d) The culture that has dominated human affairs for the past five thousand years has had the single agenda of control, specifically of the “pyramid builders” by the “pharaohs,” in every form and manifestation they have assumed throughout civi
lized history. During the past century or so, energy has become an increasingly critical factor to the “pharaonic agenda,” and as new and innovative energy tech
nologies have been discovered, the pharaohs have without exception taken what
ever measures have been necessary to maintain an energy monopoly throughout the planet.
Under this regime, the only energy technologies that have ever been developed for widespread use have been technologies that share the property of making energy valvable and meterable for sale in the marketplace. Vital Question: Is this so 105
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because existing developed energy technologies are the only energy technolo
gies possible? Or are these the only developed energy technologies because of the incalculably powerful lever of control put thereby into the hands of the pharaohs? The widespread availability of free energy would irrevocably eliminate the pha
raohs’ energy monopoly and its associated lever of control. Therefore, it is not an entirely farfetched speculation that the pharaohs may have exercised limitless pains to retain their energy monopoly, and may have suppressed by any and all means every free energy technology that has ever emerged – even to the extent of teaching everyone who goes to school, from kindergarten to graduate school, that such technologies are theoretically and absolutely impossible.
I rest my case. I find the free energy myth credible, for the reason, among others, that a refrigerator magnet never wears out, and does not eventually drop to the floor after the energy that keeps it attached to the refrigerator is “used up.” The energy in a permanent magnet is never used up, and has a perpetual capacity for attracting or repelling other magnets – i.e. doing work.
Now; having said all that, it still remains a fact, evidently, that no free energy device has emerged into the marketplace – either because all such technologies have been effec
tively suppressed, or as claimed by the “authorities,” because no such technologies are possible. Yet even if the free energy myth were 100% valid, and the supposed “hidden energy technologies” were to be publicly disclosed tomorrow morning, it is doubtful that the probable effects of Peak Oil could be entirely averted. Today, right now, “the world runs on oil.” The infrastructure is in place, having accumulated and matured for the past century and more. Any free energy technologies – assuming they exist – are at best right now in the laboratory development stage. Maybe there are some prototype units some
where that are able to “prove the concept.”
Between “proving the concept,” however, and going into actual production to take up the slack left in the wake of Peak Oil, there lies a formidable lead time. In the year 2000, Tom Bearden was advocating a crash “Manhattan Project” to get existing free energy prototypes into fullscale production and into the market by January 2004, in order to avert a catastrophic energy crisis by 2008.A At that time, Bearden placed January 2004 as “the point of no return,” beyond which a catastrophic energy crisis cannot be avoided, no matter what anyone tries to do about it. Bearden’s “Manhattan Project” didn’t happen, and doesn’t appear to be on the horizon, and it remains to be seen what consequences unfold. Heinberg doesn’t seem to be very optimistic either. Nevertheless, There is much [Heinberg writes] that individuals and communities can do to pre
pare for the energy crunch. Anything that promotes individual selfreliance (gardening, energy conservation, and voluntary simplicity) will help. But the A. T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), The Unnecessary Energy Crisis: How to Solve It Quickly Final Draft, June 24, 2000 [www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisisBearden.htm].
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strategy of individualist survivalism will offer only temporary and uncertain refuge during the energy downslope. True individual and family security will come only with community solidarity and interdependence. Living in a com
munity that is weathering the downslope well will enhance personal chances of surviving and prospering far more than will individual efforts at stockpiling tools or growing food.A
I believe what Heinberg is talking about, although I doubt this is exactly the con
struction he might put upon it, is walking away from civilization and joining or creating a postcivilized culture. This we can do, not as isolated individuals, but rather as tribes in which, and among which we can deliberately, persistently foment metaconsciousness, and return the human race to the path of metaconscious brilliance whose progress has been interrupted by the past five thousand years of dominator civilization. If such recommendations were taken seriously [Heinberg continues], they could lead to a world a century from now with fewer people using less energy per capita, all of it from renewable sources, while enjoying a quality of life perhaps enviable by the typical industrial urbanite of today. Human inventiveness could be put to the task, not of making ways to use more resources, but of expanding artistic satisfaction, finding just and convivial social arrangements, and deepen
ing the spiritual experience of being human. Living in smaller communities, people would enjoy having more control over their lives. Traveling less, they would have more of a sense of rootedness, and more of a feeling of being at home in the natural world. Renewable energy sources would provide some con
veniences, but not nearly on the scale of fossilfueled industrialism.B
The Down Side of Free Energy
By way of closing the loop on the free energy issue, it occurs to me, as it has occurred to others, that the immediate disclosure of such technologies under present cir
cumstances might well turn out to be much more a curse than a blessing; because it wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem on planet Earth is not Peak Oil; that is only one of a great many symptoms. The problem is, and has been for the past five thousand years, that dominator civilization doesn’t work. Dominator civilization has never worked. Right now, civilization is on the ropes, and failing fast; and it may be that Peak Oil is playing a vital role in its selfdestruction. If civilized industry were actu
ally to mount Bearden’s proposed “Manhattan Project” to put into production and wide
spread use a genuinely operational free energy device, and thereby bail civilization out of its immediate “problem,” then the pressure might be off – for awhile – and the five
thousandyear program of perpetual expansion would then have a new lease on life. Wouldn’t that be jolly?
A. Heinberg, Synopsis: The Party’s Over, boldface emphasis added [www.museletter.com/partysover.html].
B. Ibid.
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Yet it still remains that civilization doesn’t work, and it isn’t for lack of energy that it doesn’t work. Given a new lease on life, civilization would predictably continue its pro
gram of pillage and rapine – until at some future date it would run into some other unyielding obstacle, such as no water that isn’t contaminated by lethal levels of pollu
tants. Meanwhile, with essentially limitless energy at its disposal, the human population would continue to grow, and would continue to convert everything it touches into one enormous planetary landfill of indigestible garbage and toxic waste. Does this sound like a good idea to you?
Therefore, even though I think it may be possible, I’m not so keen right now as I once was on the idea of free energy; and I have a hunch the global metaconsciousness is working out a better solution. The time for free energy has not yet arrived, and may not arrive until after dominator civilization has been laid permanently to rest. Watch the film, Independence Day, if you want a vivid image of where dominator civilization would go with limitless energy, never mind the little monsters from outer space. That film accurately represented us – costumed as “aliens from outer space,” not them.
Meanwhile, whether or not an over unity device that produces more energy than it consumes is possible, it is at least clear that there are far more efficient means of har
nessing energy than has been the practice until now in civilized industry; and individuals can make choices, and can mold our lives in many ways to minimize our energy use, and maximize the efficiency of the uses we make of it.
From where I stand, however, it looks like most people are positioned instead to carry on “business as usual” until the very moment the entire system comes crashing down, around, and on top of them – just as we might imagine the dinosaurs did at the end of the Cretaceous Period, until the day the asteroid struck – if that is “in fact” what “really” happened. (It’s all mythology, you know, even what’s going on “right here, right now.”) Anyway; so then...?
Well, then “the future of the future” plays out on the basis of the choices each of us make right now; and now, and now, and now. Some of us will “survive.” Some of us will “perish.” Each of us will deal, as best we can, just as we have always done, with whatever circumstances in which we find ourselves. And with “a little bit o’ luck,” or with “the blessing of the gods,” or with the guidance of the “universal metaconsciousness,” and “a little help from our friends,” with body and soul still united, those of us who remain will venture forth for the first time into a postcivilized world – just as the little mouselike mammals did 66.4 million years ago, after the Cretaceous Period had at last come to an end. In that moment, it must have felt incredible, just to be alive!
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I.10. September 11, 2001
...will be remembered as the specific date that “civilization,” as popularly defined, crashed and burned, by dropping its masks, and revealing its true nature for all to behold in broad daylight. On that day the pharaohs, with names, and faces, and identities, crossed the Rubicon in a decisive and irrevocable bid to rule the world by force of arms, and perpetual war. In so doing, they abandoned all pretense of legitimacy, integrity, and leadership – excepting only the ersatz “leadership” that derives from brute force.
Since the events of that terrible Black Tuesday, the shock of the moment has some
what subsided, and many sober and capable individuals have sifted the wreckage, ana
lyzed the remaining evidence, and placed before the public in many fora damning accusa
tions of deliberate and cynically premeditated and executed crimes against humanity, and the perpetrators’ (alleged) “countrymen.” The accused are named; their crimes have been specified, and supported with abundant evidence and analysis.A The accused have remained silent to their accusers, and have continued their uninterrupted career of crime to the present moment. In “law,” as it has been practiced since the Roman Empire, when the accused fail to reply to their accusers, they admit by default, nolo contendere.
The pretended glory of civilization is now revealed for all to see – who will – as the sham and the fraud it has always been. It rattles on, propelled by reliance upon the naked brutality of its armies, and supported by the inertia of five thousand years of fraudulent mythology. The armies rely in turn upon oil – and so, guess where the armies are right now, and are going to be from here on out, making damned sure at least they have oil?
The pharaohs know where the oil is, and are determined to secure all of it, by any necessary means. Mythology, however, is an entirely different matter. So long as the pharaohs control the world’s mythologies, they effectively control the world’s people; yet every individual’s mythology resides within his or her own mind and heart, and is available to each of us for editing, rewriting, or complete replacement, at any time.
So there’s bad news, and good news, in the aftermath of 911. The bad news is, we have to change our mythologies, if we want to survive the collapse of civilization. The good news is, we have the power to do this. Thus at the end of civilization, the pharaohs have the oil – until they don’t; and we have the power – if we use it.
A. See Ruppert, 2004, and ELLEN MARIANI vs. GEORGE W. BUSH, et al., 11/26/03.
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I.11. Toward a Post-Civilized Mythology
The purpose of this endeavor has been, and is, to create a mythology for a post
civilized human society, and a postcivilized world. Because civilization doesn’t work, and civilized mythology only produces more civilization, and does not lead beyond civili
zation, a postcivilized mythology is essential for the emergence of a postcivilized soci
ety. This is a tall order.
A Plausible PostCivilized Mythology
An essential quality of a functional mythology is that it must be believed, not treated as fiction. Therefore, it must be plausible, and it must be able to bear the weight its believers lay upon it. The weight believers lay upon our mythologies is the weight of our very lives. We all do this. We routinely believe that what we believe is really true, and we bet our lives every moment of every day – simply by getting out of bed in the morning, or venturing outdoors – that the world really is as we imagine it to be. This is why the disco
very that civilization doesn’t work, and that the “leaders” in whom we have placed our trust for generations have betrayed it, cynically and repeatedly, down the centuries, is so utterly devastating. Because it means that our “native mythology,” the mythology we were born and raised with, doesn’t work either. Our myths cease thereby to be mythology, and become instead mere fiction – and not “innocent fiction” at that, but an endless suc
cession of damned and malicious lies, with literally billions of murdered corpses scattered in their wake.
These are lifeanddeath issues, and it is no wonder so many people go into reflexive shock and denial when many of the matters discussed in this work are advanced. Anyone who has read to this point has already walked an heroic path, no matter what he or she may think about it all – not particularly because you’ve read what I have written, but because in doing so, you have directed your attention toward some very challenging, dif
ficult, and unpalatable issues. This is not easily done, and not everyone, by any means, is willing to undertake it.
Then if, as I contend, civilization and its mythology really do not work, and cannot get us where we want to go, it follows that we must abandon them, and strike out in a dif
ferent direction. Yet we cannot simply abandon civilization and its mythology by stepping into a vacuum. We have to replace our failed mythologies with something: a new mytho
logy, that will support our ventures into an entirely new pattern of living. It is, as I have said, a tall order.
Therefore, I wish to enlist the collaboration of readers of this work in expanding and developing the mythology I have begun here, but have by no means fleshed out to the extent needed for the full support of a postcivilized world. All the great myths are highly 111
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collaborative in nature. They have been added to and embellished for generations, cen
turies, and millennia. It is a great work, building a mythology, and by no means is it a tri
vial exercise. In this case, perhaps the future of the human race on Earth depends upon it. So here is what I propose.
Because it has worked so well, I propose to follow the example of Linus Torvalds in his project to build an opensource Linux.A This will be an “opensource mythology;” as distinguished from the many “civilized” mythologies which, with few or no exceptions, share at their core the common hidden agendas of preemption, war, and control. It will be a mythology built from the ground up, “out of the Bazaar,” not handed down “from the Cathedral.”
This postcivilized myth – which I call the metaconsciousness myth, or the myth of metaconsciousness, – derives its plausibility from its intuitive consistency with experi
ence and reason; again, as distinguished from “civilized” myths, which rely for their plausibility, at bottom, upon “authority.” Thus anyone may participate in building the myth of metaconsciousness. No credentials are required, and one certainly need not be a member of any kind of “priesthood” to participate.
So, how will the myth take shape? How will it be decided what is and is not included in the myth?
Genuine myths are living things, and they grow and evolve organically, by consen
sus, by being passed from person to person; and are also shaped by contingencies that demonstrate the extent to which they work in the real world. People believe their myths because they work for them, and they find them useful in their daily lives. As we will be seeing further on in this section, people also cease believing in their myths when their myths cease working for them. Also, I doubt that anyone’s personal myth is an exact duplicate of anyone else’s. Each of us weaves our own unique variations into the gener
ally shared mythology of our culture, and this adds texture and richness to the mythology as a whole – as well as to the culture, and to the quality of life each of us experience in our culture.
The collapse of civilization, or the unmasking of its fraudulent and intractably war
like nature, presses upon us (who see it so) the necessity of abandoning our familiar cul
ture, and practically creating a new culture from scratch. This is a daunting task, when contemplated in anticipation; yet it is also an exciting and thoroughly engaging oppor
tunity as well. After all, it isn’t every generation that has the opportunity of establishing the keynote (if successful) that may set the cultural tone for many future generations.
This is quite a different matter, by the way, from dictating anyone’s future culture, in the style of “civilization.” If anything we contribute to the myth of metaconsciousness endures into future generations, it will be because they, the future generations, will have A. Section I.6, p. 68.
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found it useful enough to retain and pass on. Otherwise, it will vanish, regardless how “good” or “important” we judge it to be.
Elements of the Myth of Metaconsciousness
Here is a synopsis of elements of the myth of metaconsciousness that have arisen, overtly, or by implication, in this openended discussion:
1.
Metaconsciousness is a selfacknowledged myth, which recognizes that everything anyone believes about anything is necessarily a myth, couched in the context of impenetrable mystery.A
2.
A metaconscious entity is an amalgam of many informationsharing agents with a synergistic capability of learning from experience, by maintaining a dynamic balance among three vital elements: conformity enforcers, diversity generators, and innerjudges.B
3.
Metaconsciousness is found under conditions of sufficient richness, diver
sity, variety, complexity, and liberty among large numbers of information
sharing agents. However, if one imagines that metaconsciousness is caused by, or is a product of said richness, diversity, etc., one is led into endless paradoxical logicloops; for absent metaconsciousness in the first place, whence came all this richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty? Classical linear logic is no more adequate to grapple with such “chicken/ egg” paradoxes than it is to grapple with nonlocal quantum effects.C
4.
Metaconsciousness is not limited by time, space, or scale. The information
sharing agents associated with metaconsciousness may be quantum fields anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe; subatomic particles combining in atomic nuclei; atoms in molecular combination, molecular structures in a microbe, microbes in a colony, neurons in a nervous system, microprocessors in an artificial neural network, fish in a school, birds in a flock, and/or an enormous variety of alternative components in systems of virtually limitless description.D
5.
A metaconscious entity is an amalgam of many informationsharing agents which exhibit the emergent behavior, or its functional equivalent, of learning from experience, by maintaining a dynamic balance among three vital elements: conformity enforcers, diversity generators, and innerjudges. Every metaconscious venture is an experiment. Some work better than others; those that work best are given energy and resources for expansion; A. What I Mean by Myth, in the Prologue.
B. The Elements of Metaconscious Entities in section I.2.
C. Item b, Additional Contours of the Metaconsciousness Myth in section I.4.
D. I.1. Genesis and Evolution of Metaconsciousness.
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those that don’t work are abandoned. To he who hath it shall be given. From he who hath not even what he hath shall be taken away. This is specifically how metaconscious entities at all scales learn from experience.A
6.
Metaconsciousness manifests and evolves massively, expansively, “deliber
ately,” on an everexpanding arc, wherever / whenever conditions of rich
ness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty are found, in all Cosmic regions, at all scales, under any and all circumstances in which such condi
tions prevail. Indeed, it may be reasonably imagined that the “individual agents” of metaconsciousness are “really” inseparable parts of an indivisible and singular whole which nonlocally and instantaneously includes “All That Is,” and excludes nothing whatsoever.B
7.
The essence of Isness is metaconsciousness; and the essence of metacon
sciousness is Isness. Each term describes the other – yet describes nothing, for both are indescribable, and shrouded in impenetrable mystery. This is why they may be approached only through myth.C
8.
Metaconsciousness is fundamentally benign, and actively nurturing to the process and fabric of Life throughout Cosmos; for the necessary reason that were it not so, selfdestructive elements (e.g. dominator civilization) would proliferate, disrupt, and eventually destroy the everexpanding spiral of metaconscious evolution. Such disruptions can and do occur, locally, and temporarily, yet eventually eliminate themselves by virtue of their own self
destructive natures. Were this not so, in the course of “endless time,” “All That Is” would eventually degenerate into “all that is not,” bringing to an end existence itself. If this were possible, it would already have occurred, and we would not be here to discuss it. QED.D
9.
The metaconsciousness of the Whole is transcendent of that of the “local agent” at any particular scale; and in general, the metaconsciousness of any entity, at any scale, is transcendent of that of the individual agents that com
bine in its manifestation.E This is evidently (i.e. mythically) so at all scales, from the “subquantum,” (if there is such a scale) to the “superuniversal.” Ergo, “As above, so below; as below, so above.” Thus the metaconscious
ness of a nervous system transcends that of its individual neurons; and the metaconsciousness of humanity transcends that of an individual human.
A. Item a, Additional Contours of the Metaconsciousness Myth in section I.4.
B. Ibid., item d.
C. Section II.1, p. 138.
D. This is a paraphrase of section II.1, p. 139. The argument is particularly strengthened by the emergence of Cosmological Scale Expansion, discussed in section II.5.
E. Item e, Additional Contours of the Metaconsciousness Myth, in section I.4.
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10. Given that “All That Is” is necessarily one thing, of which all constituent metaconscious entities are “parts,” there is no “hierarchy of importance” among entities at various scales. One way this has been expressed is, “No one is special.”A Another way it has been expressed is, “Nothing that exists is any more important or wonderful than anything else that exists. The least and the greatest are alike sacred.”B
11. There is no one right way to live, or to do anything; therefore, do whatever you like; and if you value peace, allow all others the same liberty.
12. Nothing has ever been destined, beyond that we create what we choose, and we live (or die) with the consequences.
13. There is nothing that may not be profitably abandoned, if it is found not to work.
14. There is no final, highest, greatest, or crowning achievement for anything, because life is an unending spiral of becoming.
15. You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.C
16. There is only one crime: that of waging preemptive war. This is a crime, because it has the effect of destroying richness, diversity, variety, complex
ity, and liberty, thus eliminating the conditions necessary for the evolution of metaconsciousness. This may be considered “a crime against humanity,” “a crime against all Life,” and “a crime against the gods.” It is, of course, “standard operating procedure” for the advance of dominator civilization.D
17. For humans, the overarching ethic for a peaceful, postcivilized society is threefold:



Do whatever you like;
Allow all others the same liberty;
Allow no one to preempt your liberty.E
A. A Course in Miracles.
B. This, and items 1114, incl., are first stated in the Prologue, pp. 1516. See section II.4 for elaboration.
C. Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, A Bantam/Turner Book, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1992, p. 129; The Story of B, Bantam Books, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1996, p. 252.; also quoted above in the Prologue, p. 24. Emphasis added. See also items 16, 19, and 2132, inclusive, below; and The Wider Dimensions of Warfare, Warfare and Predation, and The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles”, in section II.3.
D. This may be the first statement of this principle, in so many words; yet it is implied in various ways throughout the entire work, and is extensively elaborated in Conditions for Social Success, section II.3.
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18. Preservation of the liberty of each individual is each individual’s exclusive responsibility; as is the preservation of each individual’s life. The two are effectively synonymous, as life without liberty is death.
19. Peace prevails in gylanic cultures in which men and women, girls and boys, are social peers. War prevails in androcratic cultures in which females are dominated by males. The former spring from Goddesscentered mytholo
gies; the latter spring from Godcentered mythologies.A
20. “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”B
21. There is no hierarchy of value in Cosmos: all entities are in the largest possible context peers, simply by virtue of existing.C
22. Although social congress brings humans into potentially abrasive contact with one another, we cannot avoid living socially, for the minimal reason, among others, that this is where babies come from, and without babies we would die out as a species.
23. Living socially imposes the requirement upon the individual of moderating his or her individual needs and preferences in deference to the needs and preferences of other members of the social entity. One cannot do as one pleases peacefully without taking into consideration what is pleasing and displeasing to others.
24. Living at peace “socially” includes not only relationships among humans, but also among all one’s peers in Cosmos. “All That Is” may be considered as a single vast “social relationship” among intricately interrelated and interdependent peers at all times, places, and scales in Cosmos.
25. The only alternative to living peacefully among one’s peers is to be at war with them, and war is fatally destructive of the social fabric, which is essen
tial to the propagation of the species.
26. Warfare against “other social entities” is as destructive to the fabric of Life as warfare among the members of a single social entity is to that social entity. Warfare of any kind, at any scale, is destructive to the wellbeing, and ultimately, to the survival of all who engage in it. Warfare is the une
quivocal enemy of Life, and is without redeeming merit.
E. These principles too are implicit throughout much of this work. They first appear, stated as such, in How Do They Do It?, section I.6; and are repeated again in The Prognosis for Humankind, section I.8.
A. The Rise and Fall of Minoan Crete, section I.8.
B. Ibid., Lessons From Old Europe.
C. Items 2132 in this list have their source in Conditions for Social Success, section II.3.
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27. Warfare consists of the act, or attempt, or intent of one person, natural or artificial, to impose preemptively his, her, or its will upon that of another, by any means, at any scale, in any context.
28. Warfare is distinguishable from the natural process of predation in that war
fare, unlike predation, narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty in Cosmos.
29. The act of a social entity preemptively imposing by any means its collective will upon that of another social entity is an act of war.
30. The act of a social entity preemptively imposing by any means its collective will upon that of one or more of its constituents is an act of war.
31. Every entity, by virtue of existing, possesses the right and the responsibility to defend him, her, or itself against acts of war perpetrated by other entities. An act of defense in response to an act of war is not an act of war.
32. An act of war nullifies, cancels, and terminates all claims to “legitimate social rights” by its perpetrator. The perpetrator of an act of war has thereby placed him, her, or itself in deliberate violation of all “social contracts,” and is at unequivocal enmity with Life in Cosmos.
33. The spontaneous tendency of metaconsciousness is to expand and evolve, and to proliferate the conditions which favor its emergence and evolution, namely richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. As such, it con
stitutes the Cosmic complement to the second law of thermodynamics, defined as “the tendency for entropy to increase in closed systems.” Entropy is defined as “the measure of randomness and disorder in a system.” Meta
consciousness brings emergent order out of chaos; entropy invades orderly systems with chaos. Metaconsciousness manifests the Cosmic impulse for generation, growth, and creativity; entropy manifests the Cosmic impulse for disassembly, decay, and recycling. Metaconsciousness produces, shares, and proliferates information, understanding, and wisdom; entropy degrades, fragments, and isolates information, and proliferates ignorance. Together, the myth of metaconsciousness and the second law of thermodynamics may be said to be yet another complementary pair of partial descriptions of “objective reality.”A
34. At the scale of molecular biology, receptoreffector complexes of Integral Membrane Proteins (IMPs), as densely packed as possible, are dotted throughout the cell membrane by the hundreds of thousands, covering every cell of every biological organism on Earth, and conducting exquisitely selective interactions between receptors and effectors at hundreds of cycles per second; effecting the very mechanism James ClerkMaxwell imagined A. Metaconsciousness, in section II.5.
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136 years ago for diminishing entropy in closed systems. By this means, the cell membrane selectively allows the ingress and egress of specific mole
cules into or out of the cellular interior, maintaining and improving the health, and prolonging the life of every biological cell. This metaconscious mechanism is ubiquitous throughout all biological life, which on Earth seems to counterbalance the otherwise inexorable slide into chaos propelled by the second law of thermodynamics.A
These are elements which have so far emerged in our ongoing considerations of metaconsciousness. Although this list may contain some redundancy, I believe every ele
ment included is intuitively plausible, and believable – I hope to others besides myself. Being elements of a myth, they need not necessarily be proven; although the plausibility of a myth is always strengthened by rational and experimental verification, when possi
ble. Indeed, in the context of the impenetrable mystery which embraces all things, “intuitive plausibility” may be the best verification we can achieve, in many instances; which does not by any means imply that a postcivilized mythology that works can con
sist of “just anything.”B
If Not This, What?
I have a general criticism – which does not exclude the present work – of studies that examine the flaws of our social system, or recommend the virtues of alternative social systems, yet are unable to provide a coherent picture of how such alternative systems actually work in practice. This is an issue with which the present work has been grappling from its inception: we behold “civilization,” and respond, “Not this!” – yet are hard pressed to give a coherent response to the followon question, “If not this, what?” Although frustrating, such shortcomings are easy to comprehend, because in order to convey an understanding, beyond a superficial academic overview, of how a “foreign,” or “alternative” culture actually works, one must be absorbed and embraced by the culture to the extent that one is no longer an “outsider.”
An anthropologist, for example, conducting an academic study of some remote indi
genous culture can only go so far toward illuminating the subject of his or her study – for the simple and unavoidable reason that s/he is an outsider to the culture: a transient visitor who will never penetrate the innermost mysteries of that culture sufficiently to illuminate for general comprehension the spirit that animates the culture and motivates its con
stituents in their daily lives. Moreover, with few exceptions such visitors operate on the presumption, consciously or unconsciously, that their culture (i.e. “civilization”) is A. The Molecular Microworld of the Cell, and Inconclusion, section II.6.
B. Well, a functioning myth can consist of just about anything, because people have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to believe just about anything; although such a myth may not work for very long. The aim of the myth of metaconsciousness is to achieve plausibility for those with a capacity for the somewhat greater discrimination that is also evidently humanly possible. See Nonlocality, and Yes, but What Does it Mean? in section I.4, and “PostCivilized” Physics in section II.5, for discussions of the contribution rigorous experimental proof can make to a plausible myth.
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immeasurably superior to that of the indigenous culture under study. Corollary is the expectation that their study’s purpose is therefore to round out or expand an already pre
existing “understanding” of the indigenous culture, in relationship to the immeasurably “superior” socalled “civilization;” and is more in the way of further demonstrating the “superiority” of “civilization” than of imbibing the native wisdom of an indigenous culture.
“Civilized” people have not easily admitted or tolerated lacking for anything; and if they find anyone else in possession of something they want, “civilized” people have never exhibited reluctance to take it, by any means necessary. In the past, however, “native wisdom” has seldom been among the items “civilization” has valued enough to import from indigenous peoples. Perhaps the collapseinprogress of “civilization” itself will motivate some among us to change that appraisal.
Santiago Atitlan
So far, contributions beside my own to this work have mostly been made uninten
tionally by authors of other works, whose efforts are gradually lengthening the bibliogra
phy for this one, and whose disclosures at times have influenced the evolutionary pro
gress of the myth of metaconsciousness. Such is the work of Martín Prechtel, author of Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, and Long Life, Honey in the Heart,A two autobiographical volumes detailing Don Martín’s extraordinary adventures in the embrace of the remote Mayan village of Santiago Atitlan, on the southern shore of Lake Atitlan in the highlands of Guatemala.
Martín Prechtel’s works are unique, in my experience, due to a highly unusual sequence of circumstances which drew him, in the course of wandering away southward from his native New Mexico, to a remote Guatemalan village where he was accepted, embraced, initiated, and eventually rose to a position of significant influence in the vil
lage, before it was brutally destroyed by the advance of “civilization.” Martín managed to escape with his life, to tell the tale. He started out, in other words, as an “outsider,” but did not remain so; and he became intimately involved with the village, learned its lan
guage, imbibed and embraced its culture as his own, and has now returned to “civiliza
tion” with a rich cargo of experience and native insight, accumulated over perhaps thou
sands of years, which may be of vital importance to those who hope to survive the con
temporary human predicament.
Without going into too much detail, what struck me most forcefully about Martín’s narrative, particularly Long Life, Honey in the Heart, is the incredible cultural richness it discloses in the lives of the indigenous people who used to inhabit the village of Santiago Atitlan. He discusses at length and in depth the cultural minutia particular to every stage A. Martín Prechtel [www.floweringmountain.com/martin/index.html], Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: a Mayan Shaman’s Journey to the Heart of the Indigenous Soul, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, a member of Penguin Putnam, Inc., New York, 1998; Long Life, Honey in the Heart: a Story of Initiation and Elo
quence From the Shores of a Mayan Lake, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, a member of Penguin Putnam, Inc., New York, 1999.
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of village life, from birth and infancy, through the initiations into childhood, young adult
hood, male/female courting, marriage, child raising, maturity, old age, and death. The cultural richness he describes struck me as rendering “civilized” culture by comparison pale, flat, and onedimensional; and it was borne in upon me, more insistently than ever before, that we “civilized folk” – including myself – no longer have more than the haziest notion of what real culture is even for, or what it consists of. We haven’t experienced it, after all, for five thousand years, and it comes as no surprise that our cultural impoverish
ment runs so deep that we have no way even to comprehend what we’ve been missing. Attempting to describe real culture to the “civilized” is almost like attempting to describe vision to the congenitally blind.
In consequence, I am rather chastened in my passionate quest for a “postcivilized mythology,” and the “postcivilized culture” I hope will follow from such mythology. It’s one thing to talk or write conceptually about such matters, and quite another to see them materialize in the real world. Such an ambition is vastly more complex in practice than any imaginable endeavor, say, to follow Martín Prechtel’s description of the culture he experienced in Guatemala, and attempt to reproduce it somewhere else. The rich Atitlan culture evolved slowly over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, and was uniquely adapted to the volcanic mountain lake habitat in which it grew and flourished. It cannot be transplanted; and in the event, it was finally annihilated in its native habitat by the “civilized” people who had long perceived it as a chronic obstacle to their ambitions.
Nevertheless, I harbor the hope – and profound gratitude to Martín Prechtel for shar
ing his experiences, and endeavoring with such passion to bring his rich culture to the attention of all who will attend – that the vital elements of the culture he describes can be resurrected in many diverse settings in a “postcivilized world.” He describes social inter
actions which would never have occurred to me as important to a postcivilized culture; which I am able to appreciate, now he’s mentioned them, as vital to a culture that works. They may take many different forms from the ones he describes, yet they seem to be required components, in some form, of a functional culture.
The Atitlan culture had the course of human life laid out as a series of initiations from one stage to the next, cradle to grave, each with the overarching purpose of resur
recting Life from year to year in the village, and in the mountain context in which it occurred. These initiations were sacred rituals involving the active participation and effort of every member of the village, handed down generation to generation by word and example, from seniors to their juniors at every major juncture in the life of an individual. Initiations were one part of the intricate and elaborate means the succeeding generations of that particular village had evolved over the course of perhaps thousands of years to keep the game goingA from one year, and one generation, to the next.
A. See The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles”, in section II.3, for a description of the game of “win all the marbles,” in contrast to the game of Life.
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When youths began courting, for example, they thereby gave the signal that the time had arrived for their initiation out of childhood, out of their mothers’ exclusive care, and into the wider embrace of the village at large. This initiation lasted a minimum of five months, and actually occupied the better part of an entire year to complete; and was administered by a hierarchy of elders for whom it was in effect an initiation into the next stage of their continuously unfolding lives as well. In this way, at least two generations were simultaneously initiated in a challenging process of what we might call “learning by doing” the vital steps necessary to sustain Life, for each individual, for the village, and for the world at large. Martín Prechtel was appointed head chief, the Najbey Mam, Foremost Grandchild,A for the initiation year over which he presided, during which he was himself initiated into the next phase of his life in the village of Santiago Atitlan.
Administration of village affairs was handled by what Martín describes as a “hier
archy” of elders; yet this was not a hierarchy of “superiors” and “inferiors” in the sense in which the term is commonly used in dominator civilizations. The village of Santiago Atitlan was in every sense a gylanic, partnership culture, as specified by Eisler,B in which women and men were coequal partners in the fulltime, yearround responsibility of keeping the Earth, the village, and its constituents alive throughout the ritual cycle of the seasons, and from one year to the next. Members of the village “hierarchy” took their responsibilities in addition to whatever else they normally had to do to keep body and soul together from day to day, and year to year. They fulfilled their administrative responsibilities at their own expense, and this typically bankrupted them and put them in debt to the entire village.
Martín describes how he was personally prosperous, being an artist whose works were in demand by an affluent sector of “civilized” society; so it took longer than usual for his duties as Najbey Mam to drive him into bankruptcy. When this finally happened, and he was at his wit’s end casting about for the wherewithal to conclude his respon
sibilities, the village exuberantly rallied round and carried him through to a victorious conclusion to the initiation year. Later, when Martín was financially back on his feet again, and tried to repay the villagers who had helped him through the pinch, they threw rocks at him, scolded him roundly, and chased him away from their doors! Someone had to explain to him that that was the idea of the thing: he was supposed to go broke, and become indebted to the village, because that’s how their culture worked. Everybody was indebted to everybody else, all the time, and so could be called upon for help in time of need, and cheerfully respond with their best. Such were welcome opportunities to repay what could never be repaid – and so their culture worked. Learning this was part of the next stage of Martín’s initiation.
As already mentioned, many of the elements of Atitlan culture would never have occurred to me, nor probably to most other “civilized” individuals. Yet, once pointed out, A. Prechtel, 1999, p. 37.
B. Eisler, 1987. See also Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, in section I.11, for elaboration.
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I can appreciate their subtle logic and vital necessity to the organic culture Martín describes. It is perhaps not reasonable to hope that Atitlan culture might someday be resurrected in its original form; yet it may be that the experience of it related in Martín Prechtel’s books, lectures, and workshops may contribute to the evolution of a postcivi
lized culture that works, in which elements of Atitlan culture may be in some form incorporated.
The main value to me, which is incalculable, of Martín Prechtel’s experience and description is that he draws upon a onceliving culture that he actually experienced from the inside, and describes in considerable depth and detail how and why it worked. It demonstrates once again that a sustainable human culture is actually possible. That that culture ultimately failed because it was deliberately murdered is no mark against its fun
damental viability – at least in the absence of overwhelming hostility. And of course, the absence of overwhelming hostility, that is, the absence of war, is prerequisite for the via
bility of any culture, as well as for the viability of all Life; because it is prerequisite for the evolution of metaconsciousness, which requires an environment of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty in order to function properly.
Social Survival and Collapse
As Martín Prechtel’s work provides a microscopic view into the inner workings of a single culture, conversely Jared Diamond provides a wideangle survey of many human cultures scattered around the Earth and across history and prehistory.A Diamond’s work addresses the question, Why do some human societies experience catastrophic collapse, often at the peak of their evident success; and why do other societies pull through chal
lenging adversity, and prosper for hundreds or thousands of years? It is a timely and broadly illuminating study, even if he is nowhere near attributing, as I do, the bulk of the human predicament to the fundamentally warlike nature of contemporary and historical “civilization.” He makes clear, however, that the global human predicament is one of extraordinary complexity, resulting from a convergence of many different kinds of causes which combine synergistically in the poisonous cocktail now flooding the Earth and all its inhabitants. Once again, it is clear – and chastening – to note that there are no “simple solutions” to the human predicament. Although many “heinous deeds” have been com
mitted along the path to “right here, right now,” identifying, judging, and hanging the “villains” will not contribute significantly to a solution for “the rest of us” – if there is indeed anyone on this planet not implicated in our shared “crimes,” and/or follies.
Diamond seems to me somewhat obsessed with deforestation and environmental degradation, in the same way I am analogously obsessed with preemption, war, and ille
gitimate hierarchies. Well, maybe obsessed isn’t exactly the right word. We each place considerable emphasis, anyway, upon our respective focuses of attention. Diamond docu
ments at length how time and again, people who have colonized pristine and unblemished environments, and ruined them, had no way of knowing, until the damage was already A. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Viking, The Penguin Group, New York [undated].
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done, how fragile and difficult to repair those virgin lands, rivers, lakes, reefs, and seas turned out to be; or how devastating and longlasting the consequences of such ruination can be. In some cases, as in Tikopia [discussed below], steps were taken in time to halt and reverse pending environmental catastrophes; in others, as in Easter Island, and Nauru [also discussed below], no such steps were taken, and entire cultures were, and are being swallowed up in cataclysms largely of their own making. Such follies, as suggested by Tudge,A have by no means been limited to “civilized” cultures. Societies of widely diverse sizes and levels of complexity have alike been overtaken by selfmade catastrophes; or have taken successful measures to sidestep impending catastrophes.
On the basis of Diamond’s broad yet penetrating survey of many ancient and con
temporary human cultures, it is clear that “civilization,” as understood and practiced on planet Earth today, has never held a monopoly among human cultures on warfare. To imply otherwise, as I may have done in earlier parts of this work, is a misleading over
simplification.B In any case, it is accurate enough to say that warfare, as defined in items 27 and 28 above, is fundamental to contemporary human “civilization;” and that there have been other human cultures of which this cannot truthfully be said. The nowextinct Atitlan culture described by Martín Prechtel, which was overtaken not by a catastrophe of their own making, but by the catastrophe of “civilization” itself, is one example among many that might be cited.
Diamond does not explicitly highlight in his survey the distinctions between warlike and peaceful, or between hierarchical and nonhierarchical cultures, because his primary focus is upon ecological damage and its complex longterm, as well as proximate causes; and what the cultures he examines either did or did not do to remedy the consequences. Also, Diamond does not share my perception that warfare and hierarchical societies are by nature root causes of ecological catastrophes; yet his work supplies much evidence that confirms my views.
Easter Island
Possibly some time before the year 900,C a canoe expedition of Polynesian colonists made landfall on the eastern Pacific island which 800 or so years later was given the name, Easter Island. The island was “discovered” Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722, by Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen.D The roughly triangular island, with an extinct volcano at each vertex, has a surface area of 66 square miles, a maximum elevation of 1,670 feet, A. Tudge, 1996. See also Learning to Live Within Our Means, section II.3, for further discussion.
B. In mitigation, however, in an infinite, nonlocal, quantum universe, any conception one may have of reality is unavoidably at best an oversimplification, subject always and ever to endless refinement and further elaboration. See I.4. Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields, II.4. The Myths of Infinity and Hierarchy, and “The Edifice of Human Knowledge” in section II.6 for further relevant commentary.
C. Diamond, pp. 8990.
D. Ibid., p. 80.
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and is situated 2,300 miles west of Chile, and 1,300 miles east of the Pitcairn Islands in eastern Polynesia, Easter Island’s nearest neighbors.
Around the year 1864, the native population of Easter Island was estimated by Chris
tian missionaries to be approximately 2,000 individuals; survivors of the Peruvian slave raids of 18623, two documented smallpox epidemics in or after 1836, other smallpox epidemics of European origin from 1770 on, and the major population crash of the 17th century.A Additionally, the island is “populated” by almost 900 monolithic carved statues averaging 13 feet high, and weighing 10 tons each, scattered all around the island’s peri
meter, along roads, and inside and outside the volcanic crater where they were quarried. These, of course, are the worldfamous “trademark” of Easter Island, symbolizing by their gigantic size and inscrutable silence the many mysteries of this remote outpost.
The most immediate mysteries of the place to its first European visitors were the questions of who the Easter Islanders were, where they had come from, and how they had got there. For in 1722 the island was bare of trees, and the inhabitants had only small, leaky, uncaulked canoes stitched together out of small planks and bits of wood. A minimum 1,300mile sea voyage in such craft, for even one or a few individuals, was clearly out of the question. So, how could they possibly have gotten there? And then, 13 feet and 10 tons were only the average size of the monolithic sculptures these people, or their ancestors, had carved. The largest of them ever erected weighed, respectively, 75, and 87 tons.B How did these mysterious people manage such feats, without timber and strong ropes?C
Although by 1722, when first sighted by Europeans, Easter Island was entirely barren of trees, this is not how its Polynesian settlers found it when they first arrived. Evidence in the form of pollen observed in sediment cores taken from swamps in the bottoms of the island’s volcanic craters, and charcoal recovered from ovens and garbage heaps, attest that Easter Island was heavily forested with a wide variety of valuable tree species at the time it was first colonized. The first Easter Islanders would have made their ropes the same way most other Polynesians do: from the bark of Triumfetta semitriloba. They would have made their voyage of discovery in large oceangoing canoes made from Alphitonia cf. zizyphoides, or Elaeocarpus cf. rarotongensis, which grow 100, and 50 feet tall, respec
tively; and they would have replaced their canoes, once they had settled on Easter Island, by means of the same trees.D Until, that is, they had cut the last of them down. After the A. Ibid., pp. 901.
B. Ibid., p. 96.
C. One possible answer, not considered by Diamond, is the same way Leedskalnin, mentioned in The Coral Castle, section II.2, built his Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida. However, the archaeological evidence does not seem to support this possibility, there is no Polynesian tradition suggesting it, and Diamond may be excused for not considering it. This “off the wall” suggestion is inserted here merely as a reminder that there are no end of mysteries in this world, and those who think they are in possession of the “last word” on anything will more than likely encounter surprises, sooner or later.
D. Diamond, pp. 1034.
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last trees had been felled, and the last canoes made from those trees had rotted away, there was no possibility of return, or onward exploration, from this remotest of remote Pacific outposts. There was no longer a possibility, either, for offshore tuna or porpoise hunting.
The same garbage heaps that yielded the charcoal that disclosed the forest species present on Easter Island during the early years of colonization also disclosed much about the Easter Islanders’ diet and lifestyle. More than a third of the bones found in their early middens belonged to the Common Dolphin, Delphinus delphis, the largest animal available to the first colonists. This is unusual, being the only location in Polynesia where dolphins contributed as much as 1% to accumulations of discarded bones. Dolphin bones disappeared with the trees, however, as they can only be found at sea, and without sea
going canoes, could no longer be hunted. Elsewhere, fish bones attest that fish account for 90% of the typical Polynesian diet; whereas fish made up only 23% of Easter Islanders’ diet, even in the best of times. This is because the dropoff to deep water lies close to the Easter Island shore, and inshore fish species are few. Easter Island, however, used to host perhaps the richest breeding bird sanctuary in all Polynesia, if not the entire Pacific Ocean; and the middens of the human colonists bear witness that birds of all kinds contributed lavishly to the Easter Islanders’ diet – until all the birds were gone. Today, there is not a single species of land bird to be found on Easter Island.A
The overall picture for Easter [Diamond writes] is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world: the whole forest gone, and all of its tree species extinct. Immediate consequences for the islanders were losses of raw materials, losses of wildcaught foods, and decreased crop yields.B
Destruction of the forest, in addition to removing it as a source of foods and many materials vital to the islanders, exposed the land to wind and water erosion, which in turn depleted the nourishment of the soil, and exacerbated the relative aridity of Easter Island. As the process of resource depletion accelerated, a cascade was set in motion whereby the resources upon which the Easter Island population depended became successively scarce, and eventually vanished; with the result that their social structure collapsed, and the Eas
ter Islanders descended swiftly into poverty, starvation, internecine violence, cannibalism, and a final, catastrophic population crash. At its peak, the Easter Island population has been estimated at between 6,000 and 30,000, and Diamond’s analysis finds a peak population of 15,000 quite plausible.C As already mentioned, by 1864, the native popula
tion was estimated at 2,000, and by 1872 there were only 111 natives left alive on the island.D
A. Ibid., pp. 1046.
B. Ibid., p. 107.
C. Ibid., pp. 901.
D. Ibid., p. 112.
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Aside from depredations caused by visiting Europeans after 1722, Diamond has identified nine physical, or geographic factors operative on Pacific islands which tend to exacerbate or ameliorate the process of deforestation – all nine of which combined to work against the Easter Island colonists.A Easter Island, in other words, was much more prone to ecological catastrophe than it would have been had it been located, for instance, nearer the Equator, nearer Central Asia’s soilenriching dust plume, had it been of higher elevation, had it enjoyed more recent volcanism, more rain, etc.
In short [Diamond writes], the reason for Easter’s unusually severe degree of deforestation isn’t that those seemingly nice people really were unusually bad or improvident. Instead, they had the misfortune to be living in one of the most fragile environments, at the highest risk of deforestation, of any Pacific people.B
Diamond has also established in his book a set of five factors with possible impact upon the potential collapse (or not) of a human society:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
environmental damage;
climate change;
hostile neighbors;
friendly trading partners;
the society’s response to environmental problems.
The first four, he writes, “may or may not prove significant for [the survival of] a particular society. The fifth set of factors – the society’s responses to its environmental problems – always proves significant.”C In the case of Easter Island, only items 1 and 5 of these five factors, environmental damage, and the islanders’ response to it, played a significant part in the collapse of the Easter society.
As is typical of Polynesian societies elsewhere, Easter society was stratified hier
archically, as evidenced by the differences between the large houses of the chiefs, situated near the coast around the perimeter of the island; and the modest houses of the com
moners, situated inland, and characteristically associated with utilitarian structures such as chicken houses, ovens, and garbage pits not allowed near the chiefs’ houses. Surviving oral traditions and archaeological surveys corroborate that the island was divided pie
fashion, from the coast inland, into eleven or twelve territories, occupied respectively by as many different clans, each with its own chief; an arrangement also typical of other Polynesian societies. Less typically, although there was peaceful rivalry among the clans, they were also integrated politically and economically under the leadership of a single major chief. Polynesian societies elsewhere are generally typified instead by vicious and chronic warfare among rival clans.D
A. Ibid., pp. 1168.
B. Ibid., p. 118.
C. Ibid., p. 11.
D. Ibid., pp. 934.
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This unusual cooperative spirit among the Easter Island clans may have been encour
aged by the circumstance that the territory of each clan contained some resource or advantage of vital importance to all the others. One contained the best beach for launch
ing and landing canoes; another contained the only source on the island of obsidian for sharp tools; another included the quarry for the best stone for carving Easter Island’s characteristic and enigmatic statues; and so on. Roads for moving the finished statues radiated from the quarry to all parts of the island, and the statues had to cross the territory of different clans in order to be set up at their final destinations dispersed all around the island’s perimeter.
Evidently, a cult of statuecarving and worship evolved on Easter, rooted in Polyne
sian traditions elsewhere; one element of which became the representation in ever expanding form of the ranking ancestors upon whose blessings and good will the success of the colony was probably believed to depended. There are grounds for speculation at least that, isolated at the end of the Earth, without enemies or friends, or neighbors of any kind, the islanders poured their efforts and creativity into the carving, transporting, and erecting of increasingly ambitious stylized representations of the ancestors; and that, cooperation being enforced by the distribution of vital resources around the island, clan rivalry was given expression in a friendly competition focused upon the issue of which clan could erect the largest and most spectacular statue.
Carbon dating of coral associated with the statuecarving phase of Easter culture sug
gests that most of this activity took place between the years 1000 and 1600.A There seems to have been an evolutionary progression during this period, graduating from smaller to larger works, and from rounder, more human representations to the more stylized and angular statues of later years. This period too may be surmised to have been the “golden age” of Easter culture, during which resources were varied and abundant enough to sup
port the ambitious undertakings of quarrying, sculpting, transporting, and erecting the giant works throughout the island.
It may easily be imagined how the Easter Islanders, absorbed in the challenging tasks associated with erecting monuments of increasing size and weight, and focusing upon the nuances of clan rivalry invoked by these activities, may have entirely overlooked the gradual denuding of their island, from one generation to the next. Neither process occurred “overnight,” and the ecological catastrophe that ultimately overtook them must have “snuck up” on them so gradually that nobody noticed – until the pickin’s began to grow so slim, after some 600 years, that their straitened circumstances could no longer be ignored. By then, however, food and other resources were becoming scarce, and the cooperative clan rivalry that had expressed itself in monuments of increasing size degen
erated into bloody internecine warfare over the basic survival needs of a population that had overshot the island’s diminished capacity to sustain it.
A. Ibid., p. 97.
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These alarming developments undermined the credibility of the chiefs, and the reli
gion that sustained the monument building. The last, and the most massive of the statues were erected around 1620; the discredited chiefs and priests, who justified their relatively lavish lifestyle with claims of relationship with the gods, and promises of abundance and prosperity, were deposed around 1680 by military leaders; and a swiftly degenerating peace was replaced by outright civil war. The statues that had been so painstakingly and laboriously erected over hundreds of years by gently competing clans, were now delib
erately toppled across slabs of stone, so as to break when they fell. Commoners moved to the coastal zone, once reserved for the now overthrown chiefs – yet in drastically dimin
ished numbers, for now famine stalked the land, and discarded human bones, cracked open to extract the marrow, provide grim testimony to the rise of cannibalism on Easter Island.A
Such, briefly, is a synopsis of the rise and fall of the Polynesian culture on Easter Island. It is a haunting and disturbing tale, because it foreshadows, possibly, the chain of events now in progress on the immensely grander scale of the entire planet Earth. Like the Easter Islanders, we residents of this remote planetary outpost have not the option, either of “returning where we came from” – if we possibly may have originated anywhere in the universe besides here – or of venturing forth in search of a more hospitable planet somewhere else. We must either establish a relationship with our planet that works for everyone, and is able to sustain us indefinitely into the future, or perish; and probably face a destiny along the way similar to that of the Easter Islanders when their culture col
lapsed. Fortunately, the latter eventuality is a choice, and not the only one available to us, even at this advanced hour.
Tikopia
There resides in the southwestern Pacific Ocean another isolated island, 1.8 square miles in extent, supporting a population of around 1,100 individuals. The island’s popula
tion density is about 600 people per square mile – compared to something on the order of 200 people per square mile, if Easter Island’s peak population was around 15,000. The tiny island of Tikopia has been occupied continuously for almost 3,000 years.B
There are other differences between Tikopia and Easter. Tikopia is situated nearer the equator, which gives it a wetter climate – and also places it in the main cyclone belt of the Pacific, giving it an average of two cyclones per year, which cause damage of varying severity at unpredictable intervals. Somewhat balancing this liability is the asset of being situated in the zone of volcanic ash fallout from other islands, enriching the Tikopian soil. Tikopia’s nearest neighbor is 85 miles away, the 0.14squaremile island of Anuta, with a population of 170. The larger islands of Vanua Lava in the Vanuatu Archipelago, and A. Ibid., pp. 10810.
B. The discussion here on Tikopia has its factual source in the much more detailed presentation by Diamond [undated], pp. 28693.
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Vanikoro in the Solomon Archipelago, are each about 140 miles away, and 100 square miles in extent.
As disclosed by archaeological evidence, Tikopia was first colonized around the year 900 by ancestors of the Polynesians, a people known as the Lapita. As had the Easter Islanders many centuries later, the first Tikopians burned the virgin forests they found on the island, and devoured to depletion or extinction many species inhabiting the surround
ing land, sea, and air. By around 100, human depredations had so diminished the initial sources of food that adjustments began to appear in the archaeological record. Charcoal ceased accumulating, indicating a cessation of slashandburn agriculture. Traces of native almonds (Canarium harveyi) appeared, indicating the cultivation of nut tree orchards. The decline of wild birds and fish was compensated by the husbandry of pigs.
Meanwhile, the people who traced their origins to the Lapita, the Polynesians, had been evolving their culture among the island groups known today as Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. Around the year 1200, some of these Polynesians arrived at Tikopia, and brought with them some of the technologies and ways of living they had developed.
Around 1600, the archaeological record demonstrates, and oral tradition confirms that the Tikopians reached a significant decision about their relationship to their diminu
tive environment. They slaughtered every pig on the island, and thence forward com
menced substituting in their diet the protein available through increased consumption of turtles, shellfish, and fish. According to Tikopian oral tradition, their ancestors killed all the pigs because they were rooting up their gardens and competing with humans for the available food on the island. A pound of pork is produced at the cost of ten pounds of vegetables humans would otherwise eat themselves. A 300 lb. roast pig, in other words, would cost, subtracting, say 75 lb. of bones and other inedible parts, about 2,250 lb. of vegetable produce. The Tikopian ancestors evidently decided this was too high a price to pay for the luxury of a traditional Polynesian luau.
Approached from the sea, Tikopia today has the appearance of an uninhabited island, mantled in virgin rain forest. Closer examination discloses that, with the exception of small patches of true rain forest still rooted on the steepest cliffs, nothing grows on Tikopia that is not either edible or in some other way useful to Tikopians. Most of the island supports a diverse orchard of nut and fruitbearing trees, or trees and plants yield
ing other useful products. Beneath and among the overarching trees are gardens in which bananas and yams are grown, and a variety of giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma chamisso
nis) adapted to these welldrained hillside orchards.
Elsewhere, there is a small freshwater swamp where the standard variety of giant swamp taro is grown; and taro, yams, and manioc (the latter introduced from South Ame
rica), are grown on a continuous basis in intensively mulched and weeded fields through
out the year. Ducks and fish harvested from the island’s single brackish lake contribute minorly to the Tikopians’ protein intake, and fish and shellfish harvested from the sea contribute majorly.
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Additionally, as during the dry season when other produce is scarce, or in the aftermath of a cropdestroying cyclone, Tikopians are able to fall back as necessary upon a starchy paste of surplus breadfruit fermented in pits; a product which can be stored for up to three years. This technology was brought to Tikopia ca. 1200 by the Polynesians. Also, products of the surviving rain forest which, although not preferred under more favorable conditions, are at least able to hold famine at bay in an emergency, until normal food production can be restored. And so, the Tikopians are able to feed their population.
The complementary requirement for sustainable living is a stable population which never overshoots its habitat’s capacity to sustain it. This the Tikopians have traditionally addressed by seven different means:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
contraception by coitus interruptus;
abortion;
infanticide;
celibacy;
suicide;
“virtual suicide;”
internecine warfare.
The seventh of these, internecine warfare, consisted of a single “incident” related in the oral tradition to have occurred during the late 1600s or early 1700s. This was a strug
gle between clans for viable land as a result of the closing of a sandbar across the mouth of the bay that was thereby converted into the island’s single brackish lake. This closure destroyed the bay’s rich shellfish beds, resulting in famine for the clan that at that time depended upon them. That clan then exterminated another clan, and a generation or two later attacked yet another clan – the remnants of which fled the island in canoes, rather than await murder ashore. Thus they in effect committed “virtual suicide,” the sixth method Tikopians have used to control their population.
“Virtual suicide” has been resorted to on other occasions, and has consisted generally of undertaking “impossible” sea voyages, in preference to awaiting starvation on an island incapable of supporting more than an uncompromising maximum population. Similarly, there have been occasions on which individuals have chosen to commit suicide by swimming out to sea, rather than starving on land.
Option 4, celibacy, was defined on Tikopia as not bearing children, not as abstaining from sex. Thus options 2 and 3 have been traditionally available in the event of failure of the effectiveness of option 1.
Due to its extreme isolation, although Tikopia was “discovered” by Europeans in 1606, there was no significant European influence upon Tikopian affairs until the 1800s. The first Christian missionaries arrived in 1857, and the first conversions to Christianity did not occur until after 1900. As regards Tikopian population control, the British colo
nial government on the Solomon Islands “outlawed” options 6 and 7, and the Christians discouraged options 2, 3, and 5, and redefined option 4. In consequence, the 1929 popula
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tion of 1,278 rose to 1,753 by 1952, the year two consecutive cyclonesA destroyed half of Tikopia’s crops. The British Solomon Islands responded immediately to the Tikopian famine by sending food, and subsequently invited the excess Tikopian population to resettle in the less densely populated Solomons. Today, the Tikopian chiefs regulate the population, by stipulating that no more than 1,115 individuals may reside on the island.
Although the Tikopian chiefs are naturally influential among Tikopians, they more resemble the “hierarchy” of Atitlan elders than the elitist Easter Island chiefs. Diamond writes that of all Polynesian societies, “Tikopia is among the least stratified chiefdoms with the weakest chiefs.”B They tend their own gardens and produce their own food, like everybody else, and they are far more custodians of tradition, and advisers of their peo
ple, than anything resembling tribal autocrats.
Tikopian society is today divided among four clans, and the population is small enough that every Tikopian can be personally acquainted with every other. The island is so small that a circuit of its entire coast may be completed in a halfday hike. Diamond tells us that he was once asked by a group of Tikopians, “Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?”C Consequently, there is no part of their domain with which every Tikopian is not personally and intimately familiar, and a circumstance affecting the life of anybody automatically affects the life of everybody. It was therefore natural from the very beginning, almost three thousand years ago, that Tikopian society should be governed mainly by consensus.
Such consensus may have been spontaneously achieved, as early as it was, simply because the vital immediacy of every aspect of life on Tikopia to every resident of the island was impossible to ignore for long. On Tikopia, there is no such thing as an SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem). On Tikopia, any problem, “large” or “small,” is unavoidably everybody’s problem, and all Tikopians intuitively understand this. It is perhaps in this way that Tikopians differ most profoundly from “civilized” folk; for the situation shared by all residents of planet Earth is no different, at bottom, from the situation shared by all Tikopians. We are all residents of an infinitesimal island in a vast ocean, and there is no such thing as an SEP, for any of us. All Tikopians understand this about their island; like the vanished Easter Islanders, precious few “civilized” folk, as yet, understand this about ours.
Nauru
Lying about 850 miles north of Tikopia is the onetime paradise of Nauru, about four miles long by three wide, which in recent years has suffered a fate much more in common with that of Easter than with that of Tikopia. During the nineteenth century, whalers calling there had Nauru listed on their charts as the “Pleasant Island,” – which began to change later in the century, after a German colonialist happened to notice that the island A. Actually, the two cyclones were spaced 13 months apart; ibid., p. 291.
B. Ibid., p. 293.
C. Ibid., p. 286.
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was rich in phosphate, a valuable component of agricultural fertilizers. First under German, then Australian, then Japanese stewardship (during WWII), and after 1968 as an independent nation, the major industry on Nauru was the mining of native Nauruan phosphate, and shipping it off to foreign lands in exchange for money. While it lasted, the Nauruan economy boomed, and there was a period there when Nauruans enjoyed the most prosperous per capita economy in the world.
For a 4 × 3 mi. island, however, even if it is entirely made out of the stuff, there are limits beyond which a phosphate economy cannot be stretched. Eighty percent of the island – the 80% in the middle – has been systematically mined of phosphate down to the limestone bedrock. Nothing grows there. No birds populate the sky, which heated by the blistering tropical sun above the island’s moonscape of naked rock, raises a perpetual column of hot air that prohibits the approach of rain clouds. Water, food, and all com
modities required by the island’s inhabitants must be imported. Tourism is impossible. The outlook for the ten thousand native Nauruans is less than hospitable, to phrase it as gently as can be.A The island stands as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world, in the immensity of the broad Pacific: This is what happens when you mine the natural resources of your homeisland in exchange for quick wealth. Planet Earth is no less the homeisland for all humans than are Tikopia, Easter, and Nauru for their human inhabitants. Humans, take note: the writing is on the wall.
Toward a PostCivilized Mythology
This business of bringing to life a postcivilized mythology is not the work of a single book, or a single individual, or a single lifetime. It is the work of multitudes, a timeless work of deep importance and creativity. We have seen over the course of our fivethousandyear episode with “civilization” how profoundly our mythologies – what we believe to be true – shape our lives, in great and small ways, individually and globally. Some of our myths are vital for our survival and wellbeing; others are suicidal. If we are to survive and prosper on planet Earth, we must cultivate the ability to distinguish clearly between wholesome and suicidal beliefs, and consciously shape our mythologies accord
ingly. The mythologies we have received from our “civilized” heritage, “from the Cathe
dral,” so to speak, given to us by those who do not understand the common destiny of all island peoples, have manifested in the human predicament which today threatens the life of every planetary resident. If we want a different result, it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to shape our mythologies in ways that bring into manifestation instead the kind of world we have always dreamed of: a world of peace, kindness, trust, and unbridled liberty and creativity for everyone. Such a world can be our world – if we create the mythologies that manifest in that kind of a world, and in those kinds of lives. Part II of this work is dedicated to development of such mythologies.
I am certain of very little, yet I can state with considerable confidence one thing at least: certainly there is much I have overlooked in my speculations and observations A. Jack Hitt, “Island of the Damned,” The Sun, Escondido, California, Issue 367, July, 2006, pp. 1217.
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about metaconsciousness, and there is much to be added that has not occurred to me. I hereby call upon the combined metaconsciousness of readers of this work to fill in the areas I have left vacant, and to improve the areas I have considered imperfectly. Sugges
tions for improving or correcting this text, as a whole or in part, are welcome, and con
tributions collaboratively deemed appropriate for inclusion in future editions will be included with full attribution.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to add to, edit, broaden, refine, clar
ify, or otherwise improve the myth of metaconsciousness in whatever ways seem to you appropriate. Then if you would, please forward your suggestions to me,
[email protected].
Thank you for your time and attention, and for your creative response to the joyful task of bringing forth myths for a postcivilized world.
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Part II
Open-Source Post-Civilized Mythologies
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II.1. A Post-Civilized Creation Myth
Isness
Every notion conceived in a human mind about where we came from, why we’re here, and the nature of the “universe” in which we dwell, is a myth which strives to pene
trate – or at least to fill the void with something – the impenetrable mystery that lies beyond the near horizon of our direct experience. Myths are stories we tell each other, about ourselves, and about the experiences we share, of being alive, of existing, of being.
Above is a symbolic icon, intended to symbolize – not in any sense to represent – what we may imagine as the “totality” of being. It bears the label, Isness, and it signifies that “All That Is” is included somewhere within its vast and endlessly labyrinthine pre
cincts. Isness, unlike the icon symbolizing it, is therefore the only “thing” that cannot possibly be “viewed” from “outside.”
Of course, many readers will instantly recognize the Isness icon as an adaptation of the wellknown Mandelbrot Set, discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Westchester County, New York. The Mandelbrot Set is a mathematical geometric shape of virtually unimaginable complexity. It is “real,” in the sense that it may be reproduced and explored by anyone with computational access to the “complex plane,” and as such it provides apt symbolic imagery which in some ways mimics the complexity and richness to be found in the real world. The Isness icon, like the word metaconsciousness, bears many properties that suit it well as an aid for thinking about, or meditating upon, the Isness in which we dwell, and of which we are each a vital participant. Perhaps the most important of these properties, for both the word and the icon, is that they are not freighted with meanings and symbologies associated with existing civilized or precivilized mythological traditions. They ought therefore to serve well in the evolution of postcivilized mythologies. Following is a draft – subject to evolutionary development – of what we may call The Myth of Isness.
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Isness is, without beginning or end, inclusive of ev
erything, exclusive of nothing, without size or shape, or boundary or dimension; always, everywhere, here, now. Isness may be said to be the quantum field of limitless potential and possibility. It is the metaconsciousness which gives rise to itself; and to which itself gives rise: the singular, One Metaconscious Isness.
The irresistible impulse of Isness is endlessly to ex
pand, evolve, explore. Its fundamental nature, expressed in human terms, is “creative;” “intelligent;” “aware” – which are far less descriptive of what it actually is and does than would analogous symbols, employed by a single neuron, describe what someone like Leonardo da Vinci actually was and did. Isness is the “original prototype” for everything that exists, and everything that is done, by anything, anywhere, ever. The essence of Isness is metaconsciousness; and the essence of metaconsciousness is Isness. Each term describes the other – yet describes nothing, for both are indescribable, and shrouded in impenetrable mystery. This is why they may be approached only through myth.
Timeless, changeless, without beginn
ing or end, or size or shape, or boundary or dimension, Isness is a dynamic amalgam of swarms of entities with boundaries and dimensions, sizes and shapes, beginnings and ends, which never rest, and are never twice the same. Isness divides and multi
plies in endless spirals of being and be
coming, and it is the sharing of information among numberless component entities, at all scales, from the “subquantum” to the “superuniversal” – if such scales exist – that emerge as metaconsciousness, and exhibit a metaconscious presence always, at every scale, everywhere conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty prevail.
For these reasons, the One and the many are compli
mentary and interdependent, and are in effect indivisible, and indeed, One. Humans have verified this experimen
tally, in part, by demonstrating that quantum pairs sepa
rated by macroscopic distances behave not as separate entities, even though separated in space, but behave as an 138
indivisible singularity.A For these reasons also, the only activity in the realm of being that is “not allowed” is any activity that diminishes, obstructs, or opposes the expansion and evolution of metaconsciousness.
Even the chaotic conditions that inhibit the expansion of metaconsciousness are allowed scope under some conditions – locally and tem
porarily – because all such conditions which run “counter to the current of Isness” are by nature selfdestructive, and so, are ultimately selfcorrecting. Human civilization, in our time, is a prototypical example of such a countercur
rent, and is now in the terminal stage of selfcorrection and elimination – because civilized people have arrogated for themselves the exclusive prerogatives of Isness: end
less and limitless expansion; and have waged war upon all who oppose them, thus obstructing the evolution of meta
consciousness.
It must be so that such countercurrents are aberrant, exceptional, and temporary, because they would otherwise proliferate throughout Isness, and eventually render the evolution of metaconsciousness impossible. Because Is
ness is timeless and changeless, were such an eventuality possible, it would already be an accomplished fact, and Isness would have been transformed into “isnotness.” That this has not occurred, and we are here to talk about it, indicates that it is not possible: for all possibilities are included within the tapestry of Isness.
Isness is, has no opposite, and is invulnerable to any “threat.” Because Isness is the “original prototype” for everything that exists, it follows necessarily that every particle in the infinite swarm of entities with boundaries and dimensions shares this quality with Isness. That is, we, like Isness, are invulnerable to any “threat.” Compli
mentary to Isness, we have our being in the stream of ceaseless change; yet being inextricably interdependent, and in effect indivisible, and indeed, One with Isness, we share the absolute invulnerability of Isness. We are the mutable, changing; Isness is the immutable, changeless: two inseparable qualities of the indivisible One. All the “parts” of Isness, including each of us, are Isness. “Thou art That.” Understanding this, we shall never again have anything to fear, and no threat, or invocation of fear, shall have power to move or motivate us in any way.
A. See I.4. Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields.
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Life did not “originate” on planet Earth. Life is a fun
damental property of Isness, and there is no place or time where Life is not present and active. Under appropriate conditions, Life manifests in forms recognized by civi
lized biologists as “biological.” Under other conditions, also found on Earth, and elsewhere, Life takes other forms, which most civilized humans do not recognize as alive, yet are no less so than is “biological life.” Socalled “biological life” appeared on Earth the moment condi
tions had been reached at the planetary surface under which such life forms could survive and propagate, over 3½ thousand million years ago.A Biological agents arrived, possibly wafted hither on interstellar winds, from habitats in distant worlds; or were accidentally or deliberately brought here by visitors from other regions within Isness. They emphatically did not emerge by a series of mindless “improbable accidents” from the primordial oceans lapping the shores of a “life
less world.” There is no such thing as a “lifeless world,” and Life in its endless variety is a manifestation of “delib
erate” metaconscious intent, at some level and context.
Every life is an experiment in the metaconscious quantum field of limitless, endless possibility. Because each of us, each living thing, each distributed agent in the metaconscious network of being, shares the absolute invulner
ability of Isness, there is no “penalty” for “failed experiments.” “Birth” and “death” are alike moments in an endless stream of ceaseless change that characterizes the life of each individual agent of Isness. Every moment brings “death” to the conditions of the preceding moment, and “birth” to the conditions of the succeeding moment. Sometimes, these conditions include the “physical body” involved in the experiment, which may then be said either to have been “born,” or to have “died,” two events in the endless stream of becom
ing.
Because of the infinite spectrum of relative scale within the domain of Isness, it cannot truthfully be said that “big” things are any “greater” than “small” things. There is, in other words, no hierarchy of “value” in the domain of Isness. A galaxy is no more or less significant than an atom; a horse is of no greater significance than a horsefly. Different scales present different environments for Life to explore and experience; none of which are intrinsically any “better” or “worse” than any other, and each of which presents a thoroughly absorbing environment for the A. See sections I.1, I.3, I.8, and Panspermia, in section II.5.
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agents that inhabit it. Thus it is an error for humans to make the presumption that they are the most important life form in the universe. There is no “most important” anything in the universe. Or put another way, everything is the most important life form; for everything is alive, and all are One.
Because everything is alive, it is inescapable that every living thing is sustained by other living things. One definition of the word, “edible” is: “Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”A The cycle of Life is endlessly selfsustaining because everything contributes to it, one way or another, sooner or later. Most living things – with the particular exception of civilized humans – participate in this neces
sary cycle “cheerfully” and “without complaint,” because the ultimate invulnerability of “all things” is intuitively understood universally – again, with the exception of civilized humans. Metaconscious Isness “administers” this exchange to the maximum ad
vantage of all participants, with the result that the end
lessly expanding spiral of becoming unwinds through “time” and “space” to the optimum advantage of everyone and everything in the domain of Isness.
Civilized humans took exception to this universally satisfactory arrangement, and approximately 5,000 years ago decided that they should administer the dynamic bal
ance of who and what should live and die, within the domain of civilization on planet Earth. The result was that, under civilized human administration, it was routinely decided that civilized humans should live, and anything or anyone not deemed useful to civilized humans should die. The result in turn of this administrative practice was that the human population steadily increased, slowly at first, then with increasing swiftness, and the domain of human civilization expanded across the Earth at a matching pace.
This little experiment played out to its inevitable con
clusion, and after a brief run of 5,000 years, civilization had occupied the entire planet with a rapidly increasing population density, and at the cost of a planetary dieoff A. Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914), The Devil’s Dictionary, 1881–1906.
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of large numbers of other living species. Civilization con
tinued its program of limitless expansion, made good by unlimited warfare upon all beings not cooperative with, or useful to the civilized agenda – until the point was reached beyond which limitless growth was no longer possible. Vital resources, upon which the career of limit
less growth depended, became scarce at the same time demand for them was growing at its maximum rate. The resulting collapse of an inherently unsustainable way of life was sudden, swift, and decisive; and it became unmis
takably evident to all human survivors of the civilized collapse that the premises upon which civilized humans had been living for the past 5,000 years were fatally flawed from their inception. This shocking turn of human events provided the motivation for the emergence of an entirely alternative, postcivilized way of social human life.
The inextricable interdependency of the immutable, changeless Isness and the mutable, dynamic swarms of individual agents which give the illusion of “substance” to “All Things” had been catastrophically misunderstood by most if not all civilized mythologies. Because “the world” was viewed from the agents’ point of view, civilized people had learned to place them
selves at “the center of the universe,” and assumed that “All Things” revolve around them. This was counterintui
tive, and lead to endless warfare among individual agents. That is, when each individual agent believes itself to be at the center of “All Things,” it follows that all “other a
gents” must be “peripheral,” “subsidiary,” or “inferior” to the agent holding this belief. When all agents hold such a belief, the formula for chaos is set in motion; and chaos is an apt description of the state of civilization, in which the contest to determine who is “superior” and who is “infer
ior” is decided by perpetual and ceaseless war.
Postcivilized mythologies, in contrast, share the intu
itively obvious understanding that the only appropriate “point of view” to be shared by all agents is that of Isness Itself; and Isness is the identity of each individual agent. Each agent has the experience of its individual uniqueness in the metaconscious swarm; yet each agent identifies itself with the immutable metaconsciousness, not with its unique and mutable experience. This shift in perspective 142
places each individual agent in harmony with all other agents, and with Isness. The result is the kind of exquisite and effortless ballet seen in wheeling flocks of birds in flight; or heard in the soaring chords of a totally united symphony orchestra.
The Myth of Isness, like all myths, is limited by the near horizon of the finite point of view from which it is told; and this is symbolized too in the accompanying suite of illustrations which form a chain of steadily increasing magnification of a minute portion of the Mandelbrot Set. We have here reached the limit of the mathematical precision at which the color of the picture elements making up each successive image may be calculated. Thus even the finest details of the Mandelbrot Set dissolve into the obscurity established by the “resolving power” of our computational engine; and what patterns, swirls, and colors may lie beyond our present level of magnification must await the arrival or invention of more powerful computational tools than those available to us at the present moment.
This is as it should be, or as it is, in any direction in which we may focus our atten
tion; for our views are always and unavoidably limited, even though that which we view is limitless, without beginning or end, without size or shape, without boundary or dimen
sion, always, everywhere, here, now: Isness is.
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II.2. Myth of a Golden Age
Our contemporary culture is rife with tales of “lost worlds,” or “lost civilizations,” in which the social plagues we endure today almost as a matter of course existed in some “forgotten age,” if at all, only as nightmares reserved for a remote and unimaginable future. Names like the Garden of Eden, Atlantis, Lemuria, Avalon, and even the Númenor or Valinor envisioned by J.R.R. Tolkien, spring to mind as realms in which life for humans may at one time not have been riven with such grotesque contradictions and self
destructive social habits as pass for “normal” in contemporary human society. If such a Golden Age actually existed in our “prehistoric past,” some contemporary visionaries speculate, might it not someday return? Might we not, even now, be standing upon the cusp of an “Age of Aquarius,” wherein war and strife, famine and plagues, will persist only in nightmarish remembrances of a Dark Age finally come to a welcome end?
Our academic and administrative “authorities” reflexively scoff at such notions, and claim stoutly that, no, thingsastheyare are basically as they have always been: that is, humanity has steadily ascended a path of evolutionary improvement, rising out of a pre
historic past of primitive barbarism and savagery to the “high civilization” we enjoy today. And so it shall always be for civilized humans; because, of course (all together now)...
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Civilization, that is, as defined by contemporary civilized people, particularly “the authorities” – which is to say the dominator model of civilization, than which there is said to be no other – is claimed to be “the crowning achievement of humanity.”
There is abundant evidence, however, in support of the myth of a Golden Age; or at least of an extended period during which peace, not war, was the prevailing human life
style. Some of this evidence has already been reviewed.A At the very least, it must be admitted that the socalled “rise of civilization” has not, contrary to what is still uni
versally taught in kindergartens and graduate schools around the world, been an uninter
rupted and steady climb out of “prehistoric barbarism.” There have been extraordinary achievements, and major setbacks in human history: either atavistic reversals of what any reasonable observer might call “progress,” or a mysterious “parallel thread” of human A. In Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, section I.8.
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development which is difficult to integrate within a coherent chronology of human events.
Uncanny Maps
One line of evidence for this was developed in the 1960s by an undergraduate science teacher in Keene, New Hampshire, by the name of Charles Hapgood. A Briefly, the story is that Hapgood’s attention was drawn to a peculiar 16th century map of known provenance, made in Constantinople in the year 1513 by a Turkish admiral of the name Piri Re’is. One of the peculiarities of the Piri Re’is Map is that in addition to the western coast of Africa, and the eastern coast of South America, it also displays a surprisingly accurate rendering of the Queen Maud Land coast of Antarctica – yet the continent was first sighted in historic times 30 January 1820, by British Naval officers William Smith and Edward Bransfield, the first humans known to have seen the Antarctic Peninsula.B Hapgood’s investigation further disclosed many features represented on the Piri Re’is Map to be located with an accuracy entirely beyond the capabilities of any geographer, cartographer, or navigator living during the 16th century, or in any prior historical period.
What is particularly remarkable about the accuracy of the Piri Re’is Map is that in order to represent on a flat map the relative positions of geographic features on a spherical Earth, some highly sophisticated spherical trigonometry is required – as well as the navigational ability to derive a longitude in relation to a known Prime Meridian. Today, the Prime Meridian, upon which all global navigation and cartography are based, runs from pole to pole through Greenwich, England. The Prime Meridian for the Piri Re’is Map was found to run instead through Alexandria, Egypt.
In either case, the essential technology for taking a longitude anywhere on the face of the Earth is an accurate seagoing chronometer, so that it can be known at a remote loca
tion exactly what time it is along the Prime Meridian.C The first chronometer in historical times to achieve this accuracy was demonstrated in 1761, an instrument created by the English clockmaker, John Harrison.D Before that date, it was not possible for any A. Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age, Adventures Unlimited Press, One Adventure Place, Kempton, Illinois 60946, USA, 1966, 1996.
B. “Antarctica History, a time line of the exploration of Antarctica”
[http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/exploration%20and%20history.htm].
C. For example, if it is reliably certain to be highnoon in London at the moment of sunup aboard ship, a navigator can be sure of lying on a longitude 90º west of the Prime Meridian, either in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, or somewhere in the eastern Pacific Ocean south of Guatemala. The latter mystery is solved by finding the latitude, easily done and long understood by mariners the world over. But an accurate seagoing chronometer, without which the navigator has no way of knowing when it is highnoon in London, is essential for finding the longitude.
D. Well... January, 1762, actually; and then there was contention over that, and the matter of “finding the longitude” became rather ugly. The convoluted tale of John Harrison and his fabulous clocks – complete with political, financial, and scholarly intrigue, which muddies the waters considerably – is told in Dava Sobel’s account, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Probloem of His Time, Penguin Books, New York, 1995.
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civilized navigator or cartographer to determine the longitude of any point on the Earth remote from the Prime Meridian; hence it was not possible to represent accurately on a map the relative positions of two or more remote points on the globe. A How then is one to account for the accuracy of the Piri Re’is Map? Additionally, how did Antarctica, “first discovered” in the year 1820, come to be accurately outlined on a map made in 1513? These and related mysteries Charles Hapgood set before his History of Science class at Keene College.
Fortuitously, one of Hapgood’s students happened to be attached in a Reserve capa
city to the Strategic Air Command 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts; and Hapgood’s student interested his commanding officer in the puzzle posed by the Peri Re’is Map. This stimulated much invaluable highquality (offduty) technical assistance with the project. Maps and cartography were central to the mission of this particular SAC unit, and Hapgood published in his book letters from the unit’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Harold Z. Ohlmeyer, and the Chief, Cartographic Section, Capt. Lorenzo W. Burroughs, soberly endorsing the striking conclusions of Hapgood’s investigation.B
In the course of their research, Hapgood and his students discovered that the Piri Re’is Map was not unique in its peculiar property of possessing unaccountable accuracy. There are relatively many such 16th century maps in existence in various libraries around the world, and they go generically by the label, portolano charts: charts that were actually used during the 16th century for physical navigation in the global exploration then under way. Hapgood and his students investigated a number of these portolano charts, and confirmed their uncanny accuracy, which could in no way be accounted for by the geographic knowledge available anywhere on Earth during the period they were made, or at any prior historical date. A number of these charts, like the Piri Re’is Map, also accurately represented the Antarctic coast – strikingly, as icefree, with mountains and fluid river valleys indicated where such features were in fact discovered to be hidden underneath the milethick continental glacier.C
A. Well... concurrent with Harrison’s endeavor to find the longitude by means of his highly reliable and accurate chronometers, there were other approaches in the running for the £20,000 prize established by the British Crown to reward the first person to “find the longitude” with a prescribed accuracy. A chief contender for the prize was an astronomical method which involved plotting the progress of the Moon across the stellar background, as a means of computing the difference between local time aboard ship and the time at the Prime Meridian; and this involved compiling an accurate stellar map of both hemispheres, and an almanac giving mariners the times in London when the Moon might be observed (on a clear night, during the monthly periods in which the Moon’s location is not obscured by the Sun). A very few longitudes on land had been plotted by this method; but in the end, Harrison’s clocks opened the way for finding the longitude anywhere, land or sea, any time.
B. Hapgood, 1966, pp. 2435.
C. Confirmed in 1949 by a joint NorwegianBritishSwedish Antarctic expedition, and by subsequent scientific expeditions.
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The portolano charts were evidently compiled from cartographic sources extant in the 16th century, which have since been lost. Where did this accurate cartographic know
ledge originate? Where and when were people present with the technical ability to map the Earth accurately, including an Antarctic continent with icefree shores and running coastal rivers? Who were these people, and when did they live?
Little can be said about them or their culture, other than that they demonstrably possessed a level of sophistication and technical competence which enabled them to map the Earth with an accuracy not achievable again before the middle of the 18th century of the Common Era. Hapgood even encountered a map, said to have been graven in stone during the 12th century in China which, granting allowances for minor plausible changes in the course of major Chinese river systems over the passage of thousands of years, accurately represented the interior of China.
Hapgood was driven to the conclusion that there had dwelled upon the Earth at some “prehistoric” date a people with accurate geographic knowledge of the entire planet. That they mapped Antarctica at a time when its shores were unencumbered by ice, and rivers flowed in its valleys, places them at the latest in a time zone more than 6,000 years ago, during the fifth millennium B.C.E., the latest period contemporary geologists believe the Antarctic coast could have been free of ice.A In that age, the “first civilizations” recog
nized by contemporary historians, Sumer and pharaonic Egypt, would not make their appearance for at least another thousand years.
Therefore, although stubbornly denied, or resolutely ignored by contemporary “authorities,” there exists palpable evidence in support of myths of a “prehistoric” Golden Age; i.e. of a period of human tenure upon this planet during which cultural attainments were reached which were far in advance of those achieved by the “first civilizations” recognized by contemporary anthropology. There is evidence, in other words, for a significant – possibly even a catastrophic – reversal of the alleged “steady progress” of civilization. Or if not that, then possibly there has been an “overlay,” for a time, of an entirely different cultural/technological “strand” which had very little or nothing to do with the orderly evolution of the historically recorded civilizations which sprang from their Paleolithic and Neolithic roots. In any case, we cannot have a clear understanding of who we are without an unobstructed view of our past.
Ancient Egypt
The evidence of the unaccountable accuracy of the portolano charts documented by Charles Hapgood, and associates, constitutes a “smoking gun” which unequivocally belies the conventionally accepted mythology of the course of human progress on planet Earth. There are other such “smoking guns,” consisting of physical evidence documented by other investigators, and available today for verification by anyone with the interest and A. Hapgood cites a particular study of glacial and alluvial sediments taken from the floor of the Ross Sea that indicates the most recent period the Antarctic coast could have been free of ice was between 6,000 and 15,000 years ago (Hapgood, 1966, pp. 967).
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tenacity to follow them up. A fertile field for such evidence is to be found in Egypt, in association with the (alleged) monumental “tombs of the Pharaohs” Khufu, Khafre, and MenkaureA on the Giza Plateau opposite Cairo, and other ancient monuments located further up the Nile.
Invoking “the tombs of the Pharaohs” in this connection threatens to delve into an enormous can of worms in which passions run high on all sides of many mutually contra
dictory arguments that have been open in some cases since the time of the Greek histo
rian Herodotus (485 to 425). Here, we will restrict ourselves to consideration of physi
cal evidence only, and to inferences which may be unambiguously drawn from such evi
dence.
To begin, it is a historical fact, evidently, that the “official” identity of the three main Pyramids on the Giza Plateau with the Fourth Dynasty Pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure (2575 to 2467) dates from Herodotus’s visit to Egypt; during which he asked about the significance of the three Pyramids, and recorded in The History the answer he was given. It is the same answer students in kindergartens and grad schools around the world are given today, in response to the same question.
Herodotus saw the monuments in the fifth century BC [writes Graham Han
cock], more than 2000 years after they had been built. Nevertheless it was largely on the foundation of his testimony that the entire subsequent judgment of history was based. All other commentators, up to the present, continued uncriti
cally to follow in the Greek historian’s footsteps. And down the ages – although it had originally been little more than hearsay – the attribution of the Great Pyra
mid to Khufu, the Second Pyramid to Khafre and the Third Pyramid to Men
kaure had assumed the stature of unassailable fact.B
Aside from the testimony of Herodotus, there never has been any decisive evidence linking an Egyptian pyramid with its architect, or with a particular historic or prehistoric period. The Giza Pyramids are singularly reticent about their builders, bearing within them a conspicuous lack of inscriptions, or decorations of any kind, giving the slightest clue as to who built them, when, or why. The mummified remains of a pharaoh have never been found within an Egyptian pyramid; nor have there ever been found funerary objects of any kind within an Egyptian pyramid – with the exception of interred remains dating from thousands of years after the Pyramid Age.
The story is naturally more complex than I am indicating here, but we will not dwell upon it further. Instead, we will pass on to physical evidence which is substantial, well documented, and although it falls far short of making the mysteries of the Pyramids crystalclear, does lead to at least some unambiguous conclusions.
A. Also known by their Greek names, respectively as Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus.
B. Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, Crown Trade Paperbacks, New York, 1995, p. 294.
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One of the early, and certainly one of the most painstaking investigators of the mys
teries of the Pyramids was the Englishman, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853 to 1942). Petrie made exceptionally thorough measurements of the Pyramids, and recorded his measurements with meticulous care. One of the extraordinary features of the Pyra
mids disclosed by Petrie’s records, repeatedly remarked upon by investigators from his day to ours, is the astonishing precision with which the Pyramids – and particularly the Great Pyramid, allegedly the tomb of Khufu, or Cheops – were constructed: a precision difficult to reconcile with their alleged purpose as tombs.
The base of the Great Pyramid, to begin with, occupies a 13acre square which has been found, corner to corner, to be within 0.875 of an inch of perfectly level. This extra
ordinary precision must have been achieved before the first stone was ever put in place; yet why (never mind how) was such precision attempted in anticipation of a mausoleum for a reigning monarch? This is only the beginning of the Great Pyramid’s extraordinary and inexplicable precision.
One of the many intriguing features of the Great Pyramid is a Descending Passage, which begins at the surface in the middle of the north face, and descends at a precise angle through 150 feet of surrounding masonry, to and into the bedrock underlying the Pyramid. The Descending Passage continues an additional 200 feet at exactly the same angle through solid bedrock, until it levels out as a short passage terminated by a Subterranean Chamber directly beneath the apex of the Pyramid. The 350foot length of the Descending Passage is within ¼ inch of being perfectly straight; and the 150foot section above bedrock is within 0.020 inch of being perfectly straight.A
This Descending Passage was the first discovered of the Great Pyramid’s internal system of passages, chambers, and galleries, by Caliph Al Mamun around the year 820. Failing to find an external entrance to the Pyramid, Al Mamun employed brute force to bore his way straight into the mountain of mostly limestone masonry, mainly by building fires against the stones, then dousing them with vinegar, and chipping out the resulting rubble. The story is that after tunneling for what seemed like forever, and on the verge of abandoning the project in despair, Al Mamun’s workers heard a muffled sound within the Pyramid, and directed renewed effort in its apparent direction. They eventually broke through to the Descending Passage; but their hopes for hidden treasures were dashed when they found the passage empty, terminating in an equally empty Subterranean Chamber.
Closer examination of the Descending Passage, however, disclosed the bottom of what turned out to be the bottommost of three granite plugs blocking the entrance to another passage. The granite was too hard for a direct attack, so Al Mamun’s workers tunneled around the three obstructing granite plugs, and entered the Ascending Passage; which intersected in turn with a Horizontal Passage leading to what has been called the A. Christopher Dunn, The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt, Bear & Company Publishing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1998, p. 55.
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Queen’s Chamber; a mysterious Well Shaft, which descends a somewhat circuitous route to rejoin the Descending Passage in the bedrock far beneath the Pyramid; a Grand Gal
lery, surely by itself one of the most spectacular architectural achievements on Earth, continuing the ascent of the Ascending Passage; and terminating in an Antechamber, followed by what has been called the King’s Chamber in the very heart of the Great Pyra
mid. From that day to this, countless tourists have followed Al Mamun’s route into the inmost mysteries of the Pyramid.
In none of these passages, chambers, and galleries, it needs to be repeated, nor in any others explored later, were the mummified remains of any Egyptian “kings” or “queens” ever discovered. Nor were any funerary treasures or artifacts ever found; although what has been called a Sarcophagus, hewn from a single block of solid granite, was, and remains, the singular furnishing of the otherwise empty socalled King’s Chamber.
An intriguing feature of the Great Pyramid, which has received scant attention by conventional Egyptologists, is the fact that the peculiar junction of the Ascending and Descending Passages is mysteriously reproduced in stone near the Great Pyramid. This juncture, called the Trial Passages, duplicates with astonishing accuracy about a hundred yards to its east in the bedrock upon which the Pyramid rests, the actual juncture of the Ascending and Descending Passages, constructed in masonry within Pyramid. Petrie exa
mined the Trial Passages with meticulous care, and compared them with their counterpart in the Pyramid.
About 28 feet up the Trial Passages counterpart to the Ascending Passage is a shal
low excavation which may hint at the beginning of the Horizontal Passage in the actual Pyramid; but it doesn’t go anywhere. Additionally, the Trial Passages excavation bears a feature which it does not share with its counterpart within the Pyramid: a vertical shaft which intersects with the junction of the Ascending and Descending Passages. Also, the granite plugs which obstruct the actual Ascending Passage are not present in the Trial Passages. Otherwise, the dimensional similarities between the two junctions are remark
ably close, and render improbable the conventional Egyptological speculation that the Trial Passages were intended as a “practice run” to perfect in advance the techniques that would be required to build the Pyramid. Aside from the fact that the Trial Passages are hewn through solid bedrock, while their counterpart in the Pyramid are constructed in masonry; the quality, assurance, and deliberate intent manifest in the Trial Passages demonstrate that the Pyramid Builders, whoever they were, had already perfected their techniques, and were in no need of “practice.” The Trial Passages’ actual purpose, how
ever, remains one of the many lingering mysteries of the Pyramid.A
The socalled Sarcophagus in the socalled King’s Chamber, and other “sarcophagi” elsewhere, present abundant evidence for unconventional reinterpretations of what gen
erally goes under the name of “historical fact” in ancient Egypt. The “historical fact” commonly accepted without question among Egyptologists is that the most advanced A. Dunn, 1998, pp. 1720.
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tools available to the ancient Egyptians were made of copper, and were wielded by hand. However, it is a physical fact that there exists no copper alloy, then or now, hard enough to cut granite. And the granite box in the King’s Chamber was somehow hewn from a single block of stone.
It so happens that the granite box in the King’s Chamber still retains marks that provide clues as to how it was cut; and these clues were noted more than a century ago by Sir William Petrie. The box was shaped, in part, by saws which left their imprint in the stone.
On the N. end [of the coffer, Petrie wrote] is a place, near the west side, where the saw was run too deep into the granite, and was backed out again by the masons; but this fresh start they made still too deep, and two inches lower they backed out a second time, having cut out more than .10 inch deeper than they had intended....A
Christopher Dunn, an experienced industrialist and machinist, argues persuasively that such an error could have been made only by craftsmen wielding powered machinery, and not by someone sawing the stone by hand. He informs us that contemporary wire quarrying saws using siliconcarbide grit, which is hard enough to cut through the quartz crystals embedded in granite, are able to cut through the stone “like it is butter,” B and it is quite credible that the Pyramid Builders using such equipment might easily have erred and overshot their intended mark as described by Petrie. This could never have happened, however, had they been cutting the stone exclusively with handpowered tools; for their progress would then have been so slow that they could not credibly have overshot their mark by a tenth of an inch. Having done so twice indicates the use of powered machinery to cut the stone.
If this notion seems too astounding to be credible, it gets worse. Not only was the granite box in the King’s Chamber shaped to its outside dimensions by powered saws, its inside was hollowed out by means of powered tube drills; and here too errors reveal the speed with which these tools cut into the stone.
On the E. inside is a portion of a tubedrill hole remaining [Petrie wrote], where they had tilted the drill over into the side by not working it vertically. They tried hard to polish away all that part, and took off about 1/10 inch thickness all around it; but still they had to leave the side of the hole 1/10 deep, 3 long, and 1.3 wide; the bottom of it is 8 or 9 below the original top of the coffer. They made a similar error on the N. inside, but of a much less extent.C
A. William Flinders Petrie, Pyramids and the temples of Gizeh, 1883. Reprint, with an update by Dr. Zahi Hawass, London, Histories and Mysteries of Man, 1990, p.29, quoted by Dunn, 1998, p.76.
B. Dunn, 1998, p. 76.
C. Petrie, 1883, quoted by Dunn, 1998, pp. 801.
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A tube drill is something like the holesaws contemporary woodworkers use to cut holes for doorknobs, etc. It consists of a tube with cutting teeth or abrasive grit embedded around the perimeter of the tube at one end, which cuts a circular groove to increasing depth, leaving a solid core which is later knocked out and removed. Petrie found and illustrated numerous examples of such holes and cores cut in stone, and was astounded to note in one instance that the spiral groove cut by the tool descended into the granite at a feed rate of 0.10 inch per rotation of the tool.
Petrie’s astonishment was well founded. The standard feed rate for cutting similar holes in granite by contemporary machinery rotating diamondtipped drills at 900 revolu
tions per minute is five minutes per inch of penetration; which works out to 0.0002 inch per rotation of the tool. How the Pyramid Builders achieved a cutting rate 500 times faster than that of contemporary leadingedge machinery is another of the many mysteries of the Pyramids.A
The marks in the stone reveal that the Pyramid Builders’ standard method for hol
lowing out a block of granite to make an empty box consisted of cutting rows and rows of tangent cylindrical grooves to a desired depth, knocking out the resulting cores, and the diamondshaped webs between the resulting shafts, and then grinding smooth the cusp ridges along the perimeter of the resulting hollow.
After an illustration in Dunn, 1998, p.80.
In the illustration, the cylindrical grooves are orange, the cores and the webs between them are blue, and the cusps are green. When finished, what remains is an empty granite box with smooth bottom and four sides, rust in the illustration.
Not having convenient access to the granite box in the King’s Chamber while he was in Egypt, Christopher Dunn physically measured the smoothness and flatness of the gra
nite box in the bedrock chamber beneath the Second Pyramid (allegedly of Khafre) by means of a precision machinist’s parallel: a ¼ inch thick steel bar 6 inches long, with edges ground to within 0.0002 of an inch of being perfectly straight, flat, and parallel. By climbing into the granite box and holding his parallel against its inside surface, and shin
ing a flashlight behind the juncture of box and parallel, Dunn was able to observe any deviation from perfect flatness in the surface of the box. He found none. No light leaked A. Dunn, 1998, p. 84.
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between Dunn’s parallel and the surface of the granite box at any point. At no place within the box was Dunn able to detect a deviation from perfect flatness.A
The inside of a huge granite box had been finished off to an accuracy that modern manufacturers reserve for precision surface plates [Dunn writes]. How did the ancient Egyptians achieve this? And why did they do it? Why did they find that box so important that they would go to such trouble? It would be impossible to do that kind of work on the inside of an object by hand. Even with modern machinery it would be a very difficult and complicated task!B
Yet the precision Dunn measured in the granite box beneath the Second Pyramid was evidently by no means exceptional. In the rock tunnels at the temple of Serapeum at Saq
qara, site of the Step Pyramid, Dunn encountered a series of 21 huge boxes hewn of gra
nite and basalt, ensconced in “crypts,” he writes, carved at staggered intervals into the bedrock along the tunnels. Each box was approximately 13 feet long, 11 feet high, 7½ feet wide, and bore a stone lid pushed back to allow access to the inside of the box.
Each box [Dunn writes] weighs an estimated sixtyfive tons, and, together with the huge lid that sits on top of it, the total weight of each assembly is around one hundred tons.C
Again, Dunn checked the flatness of the outside of one, and the inside of another of these huge boxes, and was unable to detect a deviation anywhere from perfect flatness. The lip of the box was perfectly flat as well, as was the bottom surface of its lid; which he reflected would create a perfect airtight seal between lid and box, if the lid were to be moved to cover the entire top of the box.D
Additional examples of the uncanny precision of the ancient Egyptian stonemasons (if that is indeed who they were) could be cited almost endlessly, and Dunn delves into the matter at length and in depth, in an attempt to discern a plausible purpose for the Pyramids which accounts rationally for their every observable feature. Such is beyond the scope of this work. I can recommend Dunn’s book as decidedly fraught with interest for those who wish to pursue this thread further; pausing only long enough here to hint that Dunn’s theory is that the Great Pyramid was designed and created as an enormous machine, not a temple or a tomb, for the purpose of collecting, focusing, and transforming harmonic energies constantly generated by tidal forces within the Earth into useful energy for human use – such as powering the tools used to machine and transport the megalithic components of the Pyramids.
For the purposes of the present work, it suffices to demonstrate once again that at some unknown prehistoric date there resided upon this planet a race of beings whose A. Ibid., p. 94.
B. Ibid., p. 95.
C. bid., p. 96.
D. Loc. cit., pp. 967.
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state of the art in navigation, cartography, stonemasonry, and architecture, among others, was anomalously beyond that of their contemporaries, and even in some cases of the state of the art in today’s most “advanced societies.” We have by no means exhausted the evi
dence for this to be found among the ruins along the River Nile – notwithstanding persis
tent and intransigent protestations to the contrary by the “officially recognized ‘experts’” in the domains of Egyptology and archeology.
We have not addressed, for example, the matter of how the Pyramid Builders physi
cally elevated the enormous stones with which they built, to the heights to which their structures rose. The King’s Chamber stands at 175 feet above the base of the Pyramid,A and has a ceiling composed of nine enormous granite beams, some 27 feet long and weighing up to 70 tons each.B Above this ceiling is a low chamber, likewise with a similar ceiling of granite beams; and a similar chamber above that; and another, and another. The entire stack is capped by a gabled roof of massive blocks of limestone, closely fitted together. In all, the King’s Chamber is surmounted by a stack of 43 seventyton mono
lithic granite beams quarried 500 miles away, and raised in an edifice standing over 50 feet tall, the base of which is 175 feet above ground level – the whole buried in the heart of a mountain of limestone more than 450 feet high. Well might anyone with a grain of imagination and common sense ask, How on Earth did they ever do that?
The Coral Castle
There’s a chap who claimed to know “how the Pyramids were built,” and who created a monument of his own that proves he knew at least something of what he was talking about. The man was the late Edward Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant who left behind an enduring mystery known as the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida. The Coral Castle is built of cyclopean blocks of coral rock weighing as much as 30 tons, quarried and put in place singlehandedly by Leedskalnin, by means unknown.
No one ever observed Leedskalnin at work; however, it was well known that he worked alone, and did not employ any heavy machinery in his constructions. He started his work in Florida City, but there suffered an attack by a gang of hoodlums, and resolved to move his operation to safer ground. He hired a trucker to move his stones to Homestead, and a remarkable incident is told of this move. Before loading a 20ton obelisk on the truck, the 110lb. Leedskalnin asked the trucker to leave him alone for a moment. Out of sight of the little man, the truck driver heard a loud crash, and returned in time to see Leedskalnin dusting off his hands, the 20ton obelisk securely loaded onto the truck bed.
Once in Homestead, Leedskalnin asked the trucker to leave his truck overnight, and he would offload the obelisk and erect it where he indicated. The trucker returned the next morning to find the obelisk where Leedskalnin had told him it would be.C
A. Ibid., p. 27.
B. Ibid., p. 31.
C. Ibid., p. 111.
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Perhaps Leedskalnin knew indeed the secret of how the Pyramids were built. If so, he took his secret with him when he passed from this world in 1952. However, it remains an incontestable fact that in the course of 28 years the diminutive man singlehandedly quarried and erected eleven hundred tons of coral rock, by means perhaps rivaling the mystery of the Pyramids themselves; and it cannot be denied that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” [Hamlet, I, v.]
Baalbek
Further afield, more “smoking guns” turn up that cast gravel and doubt into the tidy myths that conventional anthropologists and archaeologists insist upon as the “true chro
nology” of human events. One of these is to be found beneath the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, Lebanon.
The Temple of Jupiter, said to be the grandest temple of anti
quity, was erected in the year 27 by Caesar Augustus, after consoli
dating his power as the sole ruler of the Roman world. Baalbek seems a rather outofthe way location for such an ambitious monument; yet it bore the advantage of a preexisting foundation of unrivaled excel
lence anywhere in the known world. Perhaps this foundation attracted Augustus’s attention, and the idea of erecting a magnificent temple upon it to the glory of the new Roman Empire may have appealed to him. In any event, the Temple of Jupiter and its adjoining grounds rest upon a foundation defined by three walls containing 27 of the largest blocks of limestone ever included in a human edifice. These foundation stones weigh more than 300 metric tons each, and three of them, worldrenowned as the Trilithon, weigh more than 800 tons each.A
The enormous stones of the Trilithon, or part of them, are more clearly visible in this photograph, ca. 1870,B highlighted across the middle of the picture; along with some of the lesser stones of which the foundation is built – which are “lesser” only in comparison with the three massive stones of the Trilithon themselves. Who it was that quarried these massive monoliths, and put them in place, and why, and when, remains an unsolved mystery. The Romans didn’t do it, for there is nowhere else an example of Roman architecture bearing any resemblance to this massive wall. Also, the extreme erosion of the stones in the foundation contrast strikingly with that exhibited in the masonry of the A. The Trilithon, three long blocks laid endtoend in the massive wall near the bottom of the photograph, may be seen just above the trees in the lower right corner of the frame. Photograph source: http://www.geocities.com/jirimruzek/baalbek.htm.
B. Bonfils, ca. 1870. Negative inscribed “468. Mur Cyclopeen a Balbek.” Albumen. Unmounted. 11 × 9 inches. © 1996 Middle East Section. Joseph Regenstein Library. The University of Chicago. Source: http://www.geocities.com/jirimruzek/baalbek.htm.
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Roman Temple of Jupiter itself; indicating a significant difference in age between the two works.
This difference, as well as the massive scale of the highlighted Trilithon stones (note the little man standing at the corner of the wall), is more apparent in this photo
graph,A in which the Trilithon stones, and those upon which they rest, are deeply pockmarked and rounded by time, while the smaller stones placed by the Romans are much more finely shaped, and correspondingly less dis
figured by time. Many of the same questions apply here as are raised by the monuments on the Giza Plateau: Who quarried these cyclopean stones? When? How did they lift them to their elevated posi
tions? Why did they burden themselves with such huge monoliths, when they could much more easily have built, as the Romans did, with stones of more convenient size?
The most forthright answer available to these and parallel questions is, We don’t know. Yet surely the anomalous phenomena cited here bear testimony in stone – or in the case of the portolano maps, in geographic knowledge of unaccountable provenance – that entities have left palpable footprints upon this planet that do not reconcile with the myth
ologies taught in schools, and stubbornly defended by scholars and experts in positions of almost universally recognized “authority.” There is a subtext to what is popularly called “history” and “prehistory” for which abundant physical evidence exists, yet which is nowhere addressed within conventional academic circles. So much the worse for conven
tional academic circles; for those who sincerely wish to delve for the “true story” of our past are hereby cautioned that the works of the “experts” are not necessarily infallible, and there is basis among existing evidence for wideranging speculation.
Available evidence seems to indicate a fairly steady evolutionary progress among human cultures in many parts of the world, which included a Paleolithic transition into Neolithic cultures coincident with the discoveries of agriculture, animal husbandry, cera
mics, textiles, metallurgy, and other technologies which combined in the earliest civiliza
tions and quasicivilizations predating the academically recognized hierarchical civiliza
tions of Sumeria and pharaonic Egypt.
Yet beside this orderly evolutionary strand must be laid another, highly mysterious, cultural strand characterized by advanced technologies, some of which have not been mastered by even the most advanced cultures resident on the planet today. This unknown culture appeared, as if out of thin air, in some undisclosed “prehistoric” epoch; left endur
ing traces of their presence in at least several sites around the planet; left evidence demonstrating their competence to map the entire planet accurately;... and eventually dis
appeared, apparently as silently and mysteriously as they arrived. If they had any rela
tionship at all with the indigenous Paleolithic and/or Neolithic peoples populating the A. http://www.biblemysteries.com/images/baalbek1.jpg; http://www.geocities.com/jirimruzek/baalbek.htm.
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various regions they explored, we may well wonder whether such relationship “helped” or “hindered” the evolution of our ancestors, and in either case, how? Surviving mytholo
gies retain no more than oblique and difficult to interpret reference to any such relation
ships.
These facts and surmises complicate our models of human biological and cultural evolution considerably. We are faced with perplexing questions, such as, Where did these unknown wielders of advanced technologies come from – Outer Space? Or did they origi
nate and evolve on Earth, alongside their less sophisticated peers? In what ways, if any, did they influence indigenous human events? If they were so smart, sophisticated, and advanced, why are they not here still? Or are they? And if not, where did they go, and why? While they were here, did their presence produce anything that could be called a Golden Age among indigenous humans? Or were they like visitors to a wilderness reserve, possibly observing native populations as might our anthropologists or biologists, disturbing our ancestors as minimally as possible? Or did they relate to the indigenous tribes as contemporary cattle ranchers relate to their cattle? Or as civilized humans today relate to all other life forms on Earth? We don’t know the answers to any of these ques
tions. Yet we have clear and diverse evidence that something extraordinary has gone on here during fairly recent millennia, which occupies an almost total blank in our historical memory.
One can empathize with the academic scholars who summarily brush all this aside and label it the incoherent hooting of the lunatic fringe. Our mythologies would be so much simpler, would they not? if we could just ignore the anachronistic portolano charts of the 16th century navigators; the machined artifacts in the Egyptian desert; the cyclo
pean walls in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.A One can sympathize, in a way, with the tenacity of those who insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Pyramids were, by golly, nothing more, less, or other than the tombs of the pharaohs, so just shut up and be still! Because admitting otherwise opens an enormous academic can of worms, with the ultimate outcome of possibly turning on its head more than a century of scholarly research. It’s not an easy thing. There are careers and reputations at stake – and the omnipresent worry in all academic circles over obtaining funding for ongoing research. Tough situation.
Yet we humans on this planet are now swiftly coming down to the wire, where we either survive or perish as a species. We have evidently made some very serious errors in our estimation of ourselves, and our “proper place” in the overall scheme of things. In order to correct these errors, we must come to a realistic reevaluation of who we are, and how best to conduct ourselves in Cosmos. We have lately achieved the capability of obliterating all life on planet Earth – obviously, including ourselves. It remains to be seen if we have also achieved the wisdom necessary to sidestep that eventuality, and to carry on our expanding spiral of evolution in harmony, rather than at war, with Cosmos at A. We could have, but have not, devoted some attention to other artifacts of unknown origin, such as the cyclopean wall of Sacsayhuaman, near Cuzco, Peru.
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large. If the latter is our choice, we will surely lose. It looks like a near thing; yet if we are to get through the narrow pass in which we now find ourselves, it is vital that we achieve an accurate appraisal of who and where we have been, what we have done, how we got where we are, and where we might go from here. This means, among other things, that it is time to stop kidding ourselves about our past, and willfully overlooking facts that do not fit with our authoritatively established mythologies.
With these observations in mind, and frankly acknowledging how little we reliably know about our “prehistoric,” and even “historic” past, we may tentatively weave a new myth, not about the Golden Age, if any, of past millennia, but about the New Golden Age poised to rise from the wreckage of our collapsing dominator civilization. We require at this time a fresh vision of who we are, where we fit into the Cosmic scheme, and of the possibilities now open to us; and it is our responsibility, no one else’s, to bring into manifestation our vision of a true Golden Age. What will such a Golden Age “look like?” What will be some of the characteristic identifiers which will enable us to distinguish reliably between the beginnings of a genuine Golden Age and the cleverly contrived snares and deceptions of the declining Dark Age?
Myth of a New Golden Age
If you have ever earnestly endeavored to get “outside the box” of “civilized ortho
doxy,” or sought “higher ground,” as discussed in section I.5, you will have experienced directly the bulldog tenacity of the labyrinthine systems of the Dark Age. No sooner will you have placed yourself, after great exertions, “outside the box,” than you will have turned around to find yourself still enclosed by yet another “box,” albeit somewhat larger than the one you had most lately escaped; and so, your labors must commence anew. The essence of the Dark Age, and of what we have been calling “civilization” on this planet for the past several thousands of years, is that it is arranged as a virtually endless succession of “Chinese boxes,” fiendishly contrived to keep everybody trapped in some kind of apparatus under the control of somebody, or something, else: in a few words, under hierarchical control. No matter how “high” anyone “rises” in this endless hierarchy, there is always someone, or something, “higher” still, and everyone performs their labors in life, cradle to grave, under someone else’s proverbial thumb. The hierarchy is invari
ably maintained by preemptive force, which is to say, by perpetual war, under various euphemistic and dishonest labels.
One essential difference, therefore, between the New Golden Age, and the Dark Age which precedes it, is that in the Golden Age, things will be allowed, never forced. That is, the New Golden Age will be a Golden age “in fact” to the extent that everything is allowed, and nothing is forced; because that’s the way the real world seems to work: everything is allowed.
Even preemptive force is allowed – for awhile, as exemplified by what we’ve been calling “civilization.” Yet “in the long run,” as a pattern for life, and as a social structure, “civilization,” as defined by contemporary global human culture, doesn’t work, and is 159
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ultimately doomed to selfdestruct – as our socalled “civilization” is doing today, right before our very eyes.
In the real world, nothing is forbidden, and everything is allowed; yet every action is coupled to its consequences. In the real world, anyone who wants to is allowed, for instance, to step out of a highaltitude airplane without a parachute; or to step off the edge of a precipice. Not all the consequences of such a step are necessarily immediate, for it does take some time to freefall several hundreds or thousands of feet. Eventually, however, one’s freefall progress toward the center of the Earth is abruptly interrupted at its surface, and the final consequence of one’s earlier step then takes effect. If this is the intended consequence, well; if not, the step may be tabulated as an “error.”
During the early days of experimental human flight, before the “laws of aerody
namics” were clearly understood, contraptions were contrived which were believed to be capable of flight, but were not. Attempted flights in such contraptions generally ended in injury or fatality for their erstwhile “pilots,” and it was “back to the drawing board” for their inventors. Hierarchical socalled “civilization” has been such a contraption, and is now involved in the “crash landing” that could have been predicted for it thousands of years ago by anyone knowledgeable of the “laws of social dynamics.” If a New Golden Age is ever to emerge, it will necessarily conform to the “laws of social dynamics,” whe
ther we understand said “laws” now, or not.A
The Masculine/Feminine Nexus
A subset of the “laws of social dynamics” of particularly keen interest has to do with the dynamic between men and women, or more generally between the masculine and the feminine principles. We have already highlighted abundant archaeological evidence sup
porting the idea that human cultures characterized by coequal partnership between women and men have also been characterized by peace, and rich cultural creativity. Human cultures, on the other hand, characterized by domination of women by men have also been characterized by war, and cultural stagnation or regression.B
Since the relationship between women and men, whatever its nature or cultural basis, is the nexus that gives rise, physically, to every succeeding generation, the nature of the masculine/feminine dynamic must lie at or very near the hub of the “laws of social dyna
mics.” Therefore, one of the authentic identifiers of a Golden Age will be the emergence of a human culture in which domination of women by men will have been entirely sup
planted by coequal partnership between women and men. We must get our female/male relationships “right” if we are to have any hope of getting anything else “right;” because every quality of our male/female relationships is unavoidably inherited and proliferated by every succeeding generation. This is precisely why the “wrongness” of the Dark Age has been so persistent and difficult for us to overcome: the culture of domination is A. This analogy was originally developed at greater length by Ishmael, Quinn, 1992, pp. 10510.
B. In Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, section I.8.
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perpetuated as a meme, and as a universally inculcated myth, from mind to mind, and generation to generation.
So it emerges that the “atomic unit” at the core of the elaborate apparatus of hierar
chical control, and its endless nest of “Chinese boxes,” is this basic and universal hier
archy of men over women, imposed by force, and unlimited warfare in all its myriad variations and nuances. This imbalance we must remedy, if we are ever to see the emer
gence of another Golden Age upon the Earth; and one way to do this is to form female/ male partnerships entirely void of hierarchical elements – and to expand these partner
ships to include, ultimately, every kind of human relationship.
This is how the hierarchical system evolved to begin with: domination of women by men, and the feminine principle by the masculine, metastasized into domination of the entire Earth by the human war machine. The counterstrategy of forming nonhierarchical partnerships may have the collateral advantage of vaulting us “outside the box” at a single bound, rather than attempting the painful and tedious journey from “box” to successive “box” in what may well be an endless nest of hierarchically arranged “Chinese boxes.”
This necessity extrapolates into myriad domains of human social structures which need to be fundamentally “reimagineered.” The institution of “marriage,” for instance, as practiced in virtually every “civilized” culture, is by no means the only, but is certainly one of the most centrally important ones to be subjected to profound rethinking. As cur
rently structured, “marriage” and the socalled “nuclear family,” are forms of hierarchical coownership of human by human which thoroughly sabotage a functional social dynamic among humans. How is this so? Let us count the ways.
1.
Marriage is typically a contract of effective “ownership,” usually of a woman or women by a man, sometimes of each by the other, in which at least one party is assumed to have the right to control some, many, or all of the otherwise voluntary choices of the other(s).
2.
With few exceptions, marriage grants disproportionate “authority” to one member (usually the man, or “head of household”) which “authority” is not shared by the other(s).
3.
In virtually all traditionally “civilized” households, the woman is mutually regarded as the “junior partner” and is typically held responsible for doing most of the physical work required to keep the household viable, clean, and comfortable; in addition to which she is required to satisfy upon demand the sexual needs and desires of the man. This is usually or often not considered to be a reciprocal responsibility.
4.
Although children are universally born exclusively through the labor of the woman, and are nurtured, nourished, and cared for predominantly by the woman as well, they are often considered to be the property of the man; and bear his, not her name into the succeeding generation.
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5.
Sexual liaison outside of the marriage partnership is almost universally con
sidered to be a serious “crime,” or “sin” – especially if committed by the woman. Such “infidelities” occur nevertheless with surprising frequency, considering the serious taboo against them.
6.
Once a conjugal relationship ceases to be perceived as mutually beneficial to all parties to the relationship, there is no way it may in fact be bound together, “legally,” or otherwise.
7.
Contrary to one of the fundamental premises upon which the institution of monogamous marriage is based, humans are not by nature monogamous.
There are alleged to be species (geese spring to mind) that naturally “mate for life.” They in effect “get married,” so it is said, and “remain faithful” to their respective “spouses” for the entire duration of their procreative lives. This is unusual in nature, yet aside from the possible subjective judgment of some humans, it cannot be said to place geese upon any higher “moral ground” than, say, dogs and cats, who notoriously do not display this peculiar behavior pattern. If it works for geese, fine: that is their preference, arrived at via the metaconscious evolutionary path that makes them in every respect what they are. Yet monogamy is by no means the only “natural” way of negotiating sexual pairing and propagation of the species.
The Example of the Bonobos
There exists in equatorial Africa a somewhat obscure species of ape, until the second quarter of the 20th century thought to have been a variety of chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes. The bonobo, Pan paniscus, has developed a social pattern in which sex plays an unusually significant and richly various part.A Bonobos occupy a fragmented range south of the Congo River in Central Africa, and are one of four species of the family, Pongidae; the others being chimps (Pan troglodytes), gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), and orangutans (Pongo Pygmaeus). Ourselves (Homo sapiens) and our ancestors, including the extinct australopithecines, belong to the family, Hominidae. Of our four “nearest kin” among animal species, Pan paniscus appear to be the most closely related, genetically, to Homo sapiens.
Bonobos are not on their way to becoming human [de Waal writes] any more than we are on our way to becoming like them. Both of us are wellestablished, highly evolved species. We can learn something about ourselves from watching bonobos, though, because our two species share an ancestor, who is believed to have lived a “mere” six million years ago. Possibly, bonobos have retained traits of this ancestor that we find hard to recognize in ourselves, or that we are not used to contemplating in an evolutionary light.B
A. Frans de Waal, text, and Frans Lanting, photographs, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, University of Cali
fornia Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1997.
B. De Waal and Lanting, 1997, p. 3.
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One of the most unique and remarkable aspects of bonobo society is the rich variety of ways in which sexual contact is employed as a social mechanism for disarming con
flicts and tensions over food, territory, and other potential sources of social abrasion.
Whereas the bonobo amazes and delights many people [de Waal writes], the implications of its behavior for theories of human evolution are sometimes inconvenient. These apes fail to fit traditional scenarios, yet they are as close to us as chimpanzees, the species on which much ancestral human behavior has been modeled. Had bonobos been known earlier, reconstructions of human evo
lution might have emphasized sexual relations, equality between males and females, and the origin of the family, instead of war, hunting, tool technology, and other masculine fortes. Bonobo society seems ruled by the “Make Love, Not War” slogan of the 1960s rather than the myth of a bloodthirsty killer ape that has dominated textbooks for at least three decades.A
De Waal writes further that
It is impossible to understand the social life of this ape without attention to its sex life: the two are inseparable. Whereas in most other species, sexual behavior is a fairly distinct category, in the bonobo it has become an integral part of social relationships, and not just between males and females. Bonobos engage in sex in virtually every partner combination: malemale, malefemale, femalefemale, malejuvenile, femalejuvenile, and so on. The frequency of sexual contact is also higher than among most other primates.B
Indeed, if we can learn anything at all about ourselves from observation of other species, and particularly of our nearest genetic relatives, then like it or not, we must be prepared to admit that “very few human sexual practices can be dismissed as ‘unnatu
ral’.”C
This may not be a particularly welcome observation to those comfortably habituated to the “civilized” meme that Our way is the only right way to live, and all people should live as we do. But then, it is not to such as these that the Myth of a Golden Age, or this entire work, for that matter, are addressed. Everyone is entitled to their preferred mytho
logies; it is merely the prediction of this thesis that adherence to the mythologies that have produced our hierarchical socalled “civilizations” will not lead, ultimately, to human success on planet Earth.
Humans, like dogs, cats, and bonobos, and unlike geese, are observably polygamous by nature, either serially or concurrently – another of the innumerable possible approa
ches to sexual pairing and propagation of the species. That some human hierarchies have declared polygamy a “crime” in no way changes this natural human behavior pattern; it A. Ibid., pp. 12.
B. Ibid., p. 4.
C. Ibid., p. 5.
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only “criminalizes” one aspect of what it may mean to be human, and thereby makes “being human” significantly more restricted and difficult than it would otherwise be. It is akin to the reported attempt of one legislative body to declare by statute, in the noble interest of simplifying mathematical calculations, that the value of p, the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle, should henceforth be equal to 3.0000, instead of 3.1415926536.... It simply isn’t so.
Gateway to a New Golden Age
When humans take it upon themselves to attempt to force “what is” into conformity with their concept of “what should be,” they arrogate to themselves prerogatives that do not in fact belong to them. Such errors are allowed – but they, like all human actions, are coupled to unavoidable consequences. “Civilized” humans, arrogating to themselves pre
rogatives secured by force, not nature, have for the past several thousand years attempted to bend “what is” into shapes corresponding to assorted notions of “what should be” on the basis of various selfinterested agendas. The common thread that runs consistently through all such agendas has been the will to maintain and expand their domains of domi
nation by any available means – which has universally relied, finally, upon preemptive force, meaning perpetual and unmitigated war. At its roots, this has been a masculine impulse, perpetrated first against women, overturning by force the natural order of “what is” which relies in fact upon the female, in partnership with the male, for propagation and nurture of every new generation. It is an unalterable material fact that every new genera
tion emerges from the womb of a woman; and is most effectively nourished in an ambi
ance of partnership between women and men, as opposed to one of domination of women by men.
One of the consequences of this tragic misunderstanding has been a confusion about what it means to be human, so widespread, tangled, and profound that today there hardly resides upon the planet a single individual who can with confidence distinguish between what it is to be human, and what “the authorities” claim it “should be.” The vast majority of people doubtless even still rely upon the “authority” of “the authorities” to inform them of solutions to such conundrums. But since all such “authority” is founded at bot
tom upon force, not nature, and has demonstrated itself to be at best thoroughly inept, and at worst maliciously destructive and selfserving, the socalled “authority” of the so
called “authorities” is being revealed to those of discernment to be the last place to seek “answers to difficult questions,” or aid in circumstances of calamity. Similarly, enlight
ened chickens would most likely eschew the advice or assistance of foxes in matters relating to the chickens’ wellbeing.
Therefore, another of the authentic identifiers of a Golden Age will be the emergence of human patterns that work, not from any socalled “authority,” but springing spontane
ously from “ordinary individuals” experimenting upon themselves and their patterns of living and association. The most successful of these, initially, will be those who are most able to distance themselves from reliance upon the “authority” of “the authorities” in every domain of human endeavor; for every claim of “authority” rests at bottom upon the 164
will to wage war. The emergence of a New Golden Age will consequently be attended by much “reinventing the wheel,” to be sure; yet the ultimate result will be a vehicle capable of conveying its passengers where they actually want to go, instead of where “the authorities” want them to go.
The “gateway” to the New Golden Age will be the widespread and liberating realiza
tion that there are no authorities! About anything. Every life is an experiment, and every individual, by virtue of being alive, is entitled to conduct his or her experiments at her or his own exclusive discretion. The most fruitful lives will be lived by those, particularly in this period of emerging global transition, who grant themselves the liberty to experiment most boldly, and with the least encumbrance of “convention.” The “ethic” that will make these kinds of lives viable in a social setting will be simple and easily understood:
a) Masculine Principle: Do whatever you wish, however you wish, with whomever you wish;
b) Feminine Principle: Allow all others the same liberty;
c) Principle of Responsibility: Each individual is exclusively responsible for preservation of his or her own liberty and life.
That’s about it. Any group that can agree to respect and practice these three princi
ples in their social interactions will stand a favorable probability of finding peace, happi
ness, and success in the real world. Actual contingencies will naturally stimulate creativ
ity and cooperation among the members of the group; and since each member of the group will have learned, initially by hard experience during the Dark Age, the funda
mental superiority of partnership over domination, coequal partnership may reliably be expected under all circumstances. Exceptions will no longer be tolerated, and will by overwhelming consensus be meticulously weed out of the human social garden.A
Indeed, practice of the three simple principles enumerated above will disclose to all participants that, although “each individual is exclusively responsible for preservation of his or her own liberty and life,” the most effective strategy for actually preserving one’s liberty and life is simply to take pains for the preservation of the liberty and life of others – primarily by allowing them the same liberties oneself enjoys. This simple practice will lead to a dance of infinite and endlessly expanding richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty for all: the very conditions required for the unencumbered evolution of metaconsciousness at all levels and scales; and for the dawning of a Golden Age among humans.
That, anyway, is how it seems to me. What do you think?
A. One proposed means of effecting this result has been described, and will be examined in section II.3.
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II.3. The Myth of Human Destiny
If it is so, as we have proposed early on, that “Nothing has ever been destined, beyond that we create what we choose, and we live (or die) with the consequences,”A then the question of “human destiny” seems either to be moot, or beyond the power of individual determination – particularly if what is meant by “human destiny” is something “ordained from on high” that we imagine ourselves to have somehow been fashioned to fulfill. Such a concept is included in many existing mythologies, but has no part in the mythology of metaconsciousness.
Rather, the myth of metaconsciousness teaches that every metaconscious agent – from the quantum fields and “wavicles” that occupy the interstices among, between, and within the atoms, to the supergalactic, pandimensional entities (if any) that may be imagined to exchange information on a Cosmic scale – at once determines and fulfills her, his, or its destiny in every moment, in concert with the Cosmic destiny of “All That Is.” The part and the Whole are compliments, inextricably combined in the totality of “All That Is.” The human destiny is, right here, right now; and you, and I, are experiencing it, and deciding it, right here, right now. “The future of the future is the present.”B
So, has humanity a destiny? Or more to the point, how may you and I contribute to an agreeable human destiny, rather than one of extinction or oblivion? It is incumbent upon us to create the myth of human destiny.
If human destiny is right here, right now, it occupies a context of all time, every
where. Colin Tudge,C among others, seems to agree with me that much contemporary “scientific theory,” particularly socalled “objective” scientific descriptions of human evolution, have the character about them of myths.
In [the scientist’s] descriptions of our ancestry [Tudge writes] they perceived and projected the genus Homo as a hero of the kind who features in the folktales of every culture: a hero who begins life humbly, is faced with a series of hurdles, overcomes those hurdles, and in doing so is honed and improved until he emer
ges as Homo sapiens. Finally, in many versions, Homo sapiens commits the sin described by the Greeks as “hubris” and so is destroyed.D
A. Prologue, p. 12.
B. Quoted in I.12. The Future of the Future. See also Heisenberg May Have Slept Here in section I.4 for a discussion of the principle of complementarity.
C. Colin Tudge, The Time Before History: 5 Million Years of Human Impact, Scribner, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, 1996.
D. Tudge, 1996, p. 23.
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Such is the myth, as related by contemporary storytellers (archaeologists, anthropolo
gists, ethnologists, etc.), of the coming of Homo sapiens to the predicament in which we find ourselves today. Tudge accepts the story as contemporary mythology, and retells it well, and at length. He carefully draws only upon evidence already acknowledged by the “mainstream” scientific community, and his narrative is rich with interest and surprise.
Learning to Live Within Our Means
It is surprising to learn, for example, that in the broad context of geologic time, the alarming biological “dieoff” in headlong progress around the world today, that has been popularly laid with guilt, sorrow, and regret at the feet of civilized humans, may be but the continuation of a process that began with the emergence of Homo erectus, about 1.8 million years ago, as the most formidable predator heretofore in biological history. Tudge cites voluminous circumstantial evidence which indicates that in Eurasia, North and South America, and innumerable islands throughout the world, including Australia, large numbers of plant and animal species began disappearing immediately after the first appearance of genus Homo in their respective ecologies.A Our earliest hominid ancestors may have entered the ecological scene on this planet as unusually effective predators, and we may have begun our evolutionary career by living from the outset beyond the capacity of the planet to replenish the losses effected by human predation. Or in other words, the idea of an idyllic Paleolithic culture evolving in perfect harmony within the biosphere of Lady Gaea, possibly implied earlier in this work, may have been an oversimplification of what actually occurred.
It certainly appears that the entrance of genus Homo upon the world stage was a unique and unprecedented development in the natural history of planet Earth; and it is not necessarily hubris to note that we bear within us capabilities never exhibited by any other species. If humanity were indeed the product of a higher metaconscious “intent,” some features of our evolutionary history may have been, or could have been, anticipated.
A higher metaconsciousness could have anticipated, for instance, that this bipedal creature with an extraordinarily wellengineered hand, with opposable thumb; stereo
scopic vision, excellent handeye coordination; an expanded brain with a capacity for complex verbal communication, and inventiveness; and a cooperative social organization, might well represent a significant ecological threat to other species in the biosphere – at least until the new species learns to selfregulate our actions, and govern ourselves so as to operate sustainably on the planet. This capability for selfdiscipline was evidently not “wired into” us from the outset, and the process of evolving it may have been what the past couple of million years has been all about for genus Homo.
These speculations may seem to conflict with the meme that “Nothing has ever been destined, beyond that we create what we choose, and we live (or die) with the conse
quences,” but this is not necessarily so. There are rhythms and frequencies in the pulse of A. See Easter Island, Tikopia, and Nauru, in section I.14, for discussions of more recent spontaneous examples of this phenomenon.
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time, and by tuning into some of these it is sometimes possible to anticipate future eventualities with a good deal of accuracy. Predicting when and where the Sun will rise and set tomorrow, or a month hence, is not the same as predicting a “predestined event.” There may be no such thing as a “predestined event,” yet many eventualities may be anti
cipated with considerable confidence, most of the time, once their rhythms are under
stood. Nevertheless, the only way to know for sure “what’s going to happen” is to witness it when and where it actually occurs – as predicted by quantum theory.
The challenge faced by Homo sapiens, possibly right from the start, has been this matter of living within our means, or living within Earth’s capacity to support our num
bers in balance with a dynamic global ecology. The challenge was not immediately criti
cal, for the Earth was large, and the populations of genus Homo were small and mobile. But if it is true that other species began dying out to a more significant extent than pre
viously, coincident with the appearance of genus Homo, then the writing was on the wall early that someday this species would have to face up to critical problems; and that day has now arrived.
Illustrative of the kinds of problems our Neolithic, or quasicivilized ancestors may have encountered, Adolph Baldelier has told an ethnological tale of the calamity a settled tribe brought upon themselves, precipitated in part when their growing population began to press against the limited carrying capacity of the narrow ecological niche they occu
pied in what is now northern New Mexico.A The descendants of those people are alive and well today, speak the ancient language, and maintain many of their ancient traditions; but they no longer live where they used to.
Humanity as a whole have faced the same kinds of problems; yet today there is nowhere else available for us to live, except right here on planet Earth – which is no longer a wide, empty cornucopia waiting to absorb the weight of our ever expanding numbers. We are now down to the endgame: all the squares are occupied, and there are very few moves left for us on the board.
Perhaps our civilized meme, “Humanity was destined from our earliest beginnings to create civilization,” was right after all – in the sense that having the peculiar “toolbox” that our evolution has metaconsciously bestowed upon us (hands with opposable thumbs, big brains, stereoscopic vision, etc.) it could have been anticipated from the beginning that it was only a matter of time before we would probably employ these tools to domi
nate the entire Earth, simply because we could; and had not yet gained the wisdom borne of experience that would inform us of the advantages to be gained by moderating our exploits.
Ours may have been a suicidal course from the beginning; yet if so, our ancestors could hardly have been expected to have foreseen this when they began. And so it is for those of us now resident upon the Earth – or who, if any, actually survive the calamities A. Adolph Bandelier, The Delight Makers, Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, New York, London, 1971. Additional examples are discussed in Social Survival and Collapse, ff., section I.14.
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we and our ancestors have brought upon us – to pick up whatever pieces remain, after our calamities have run their course, and decide either to, or not to, duplicate the patterns (such as “civilization”) that precipitated our calamities in the first place.
Conditions for Social Success
From this perspective, we can say that this chain of events was not “predestined” in any inevitable sense; but it could have been anticipated, and possibly was, by a metacon
scious entity with a more comprehensive overview of the global ecology than we have had, at least until recently. Now, having collectively experienced the path that has brought us here, those of us who survive may have the option to rebuild our social apparatus along lines which take into consideration our inseverable relationship with the entire web of Life on Earth, and ultimately, with all of Cosmos; upon which our continued evolution absolutely depends. Perhaps now, at long last, we are in a position to see our predicament clearly, and to perceive the conditions we must meet as a species, in order to thrive upon the Earth. Here is a candidate synopsis:
1. There is no hierarchy of value in Cosmos: all entities are in the largest pos
sible context peers, simply by virtue of existing.
2. Although social congress brings humans into potentially abrasive contact with one another, we cannot avoid living socially, for the minimal reason, among others, that this is where babies come from, and without babies we would die out as a species.
3. Living socially imposes the requirement upon the individual of moderating his or her individual needs and preferences in deference to the needs and preferences of other members of the social entity. One cannot do as one pleases peacefully without taking into consideration what is pleasing and displeasing to others.
4. Living at peace “socially” includes not only relationships among humans, but also among all one’s peers in Cosmos. “All That Is” may be considered as a single vast “social relationship” among intricately interrelated and interdependent peers at all times, places, and scales in Cosmos.
5. The only alternative to living peacefully among one’s peers is to be at war with them, and war is fatally destructive of the social, planetary, and Cos
mic fabric, which is essential to the propagation of all living species.
6. Warfare against “other social entities” is as destructive to the fabric of Life as warfare among the members of a single social entity is to that social entity. Warfare of any kind, at any scale, is destructive to the wellbeing, and ultimately, to the survival of all who engage in it. Warfare is the une
quivocal enemy of Life, and is without redeeming merit.
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7. Warfare consists of the act, or attempt, or intent of one “social entity,” natu
ral or artificial (that is, corporate), to impose preemptively his, her, or its will upon that of another, by any means, at any scale, in any context.
8. Warfare is distinguishable from the natural process of predation in that war
fare, unlike predation, narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty in Cosmos.
9. The act of a social entity preemptively imposing by any means its collective will upon that of another social entity is an act of war.
10. The act of a social entity preemptively imposing by any means its collective will upon that of one or more of its constituents is an act of war.
11. Every entity, by virtue of existing, possesses the right and the responsibility to defend him, her, or itself against acts of war perpetrated by other entities. An act of defense in response to an act of war is not an act of war.
12. An act of war nullifies, cancels, and terminates all claims to “legitimate social rights” by its perpetrator. The perpetrator of an act of war has thereby placed him, her, or itself in deliberate violation of all “social contracts,” and at unequivocal enmity with Life in Cosmos.
It may not be easy to imagine creating a functional social entity consistent with the 12 conditions, or principles, listed above. This comes as no surprise, for such a social entity has not formed in the couple of million years of the history of genus Homo. Such a social entity has not formed for the reasonable reason that humans, at least until now, have not understood the essential conditions which must be met by a successful social entity. Social entities have been formed on the basis of many social theories, but never upon the principle (10) that “The act of a social entity preemptively imposing by any means its collective will upon that of one or more of its constituents is an act of war;” or (7) that “Warfare consists of the act, or attempt, or intent of one ‘social entity’ to impose preemptively his, her, or its will upon that of another, by any means, at any scale, in any context.” And no social entity within historical human memory has ever been formed on the basis of the principle (6) that “Warfare is the unequivocal enemy of Life, and is without redeeming merit.” And surely no “civilized” society has ever crystallized around the principle (1) that “There is no hierarchy of value in Cosmos: all entities are in the largest possible context peers, simply by virtue of existing.”
Yet are these principles not sound? If not, what is wrong with them? How might they be improved? They are not, after all, “graven in stone by the Finger of God.” They are subject to editing, addition, subtraction, or replacement altogether; and input, as always, is hereby once again invited.
Supposing the above principles, or something like them, are sound, however? How might a social entity be formed, particularly from where we stand, right here, right now, in the real world, based upon them? How do we get “there” from “here?”
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The Wider Dimensions of Warfare
Before embarking upon this inquiry, the matter of warfare requires further elabora
tion; for warfare occupies such a fundamental place at the bedrock of “civilization” that few “civilized” people have any conscious awareness at all of the astounding frequency with which ordinary people commit acts of war as a matter of daily routine. An act of war is defined (7 above) as “the act, or attempt, or intent of one person, natural or artificial, to impose preemptively his, her, or its will upon that of another, by any means, at any scale, in any context.” That is, an act of war is an act of unprovoked aggression among humans, aimed at securing some benefit for the actor at the expense, or loss, of the act’s recipient.
Thus, all forms of theft, i.e. appropriating the property of another without the other’s awareness, permission, or will, are acts of war. Virtually all forms of taxation fit this description.A All lies, that is deliberate, informed misrepresentations of what is known or believed by the actor to be true, which damage the interests of those thereby misled, are acts of war. This includes the malicious withholding of truthful information, which results in misleading the entities from whom the information is withheld into making damaging (to themselves) decisions or choices. This is standard operating procedure among the big players in the world media, including major advertisers; and among governments, large and small, it is routine.
The “protocol pollution” described in section I.6,B aimed at sabotaging the universal protocols upon which opensource software depends, to the intended advantage of mono
polistic corporate vendors of proprietary software, are acts of war – although doubtless considered by their perpetrators as nothing more than “sound business practice,” and all in an honest day’s work. Similarly, the practice of large corporate department stores, as they used to be called, or “Big Box” stores, entering small town markets, and using their vast capital resources to undersell and drive out of business their “Mom & Pop” com
petitors, then raising their prices to whatever the traffic will bear, is the practice of wag
ing war upon and in their target markets.
Naturally, individuals who participate, knowingly or unknowingly, in the warlike actions of larger entities, such as nations and corporations, with which they, the individ
ual humans, identify, or by whom they are employed, are complicit in daily acts of war, and are therefore obliterating the ground upon which they themselves stand.
Out of long habit, and somnambulant complacency, few people at present seem to view their routine daily actions in this light; although this is changing, and some people are awakening to the wider consequences of their daily acts. As noted in item 8 above, the net consequence of warfare, in any of its guises and masquerades, is to narrow the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty upon which metacon
sciousness at every scale depends as a prerequisite to its ongoing expansion and evolu
tion. This is the decisive factor in the definition of warfare: that which preempts the A. Spooner, 1869, III [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/spooner.html#iii].
B. Section I.6, pp. 724.
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choices of others, and narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. This is the net accomplishment of human warfare. Is there any other pheno
menon in Nature that has a similar effect? I don’t think so; if you can point to an example, be sure and let me know. This is why warfare is the implacable foe of metaconsciousness, and the destroyer of the very fabric of Life. There is no one and nothing on Earth or in Cosmos which ultimately benefits from warfare.
Warfare and Predation
By an unobservant interpretation of the definition (item 7 above) of warfare, and absent the explicit elaboration of item 8, one might assume that any predatory act, such as a bobcat killing and eating a rabbit, is an act of war. And that in turn would implicate every living being (with the possible exception of carrion eaters, such as vultures and many humans, who do not themselves kill the creatures upon which they feed) in the business of warfare.
Every living being lives at the expense of other living beings; for naturally the only nourishment available for any living being must be supplied by other living beings. That’s the way the web of Life is set up. Yet although virtually all living beings are, in this sense, predatory, either directly or indirectly, it nevertheless appears that only humans wage war; for the object of war is victory, not sustenance. The object of war is either annihilation of the “enemy,” or the “enemy’s” abject subjugation and enslavement. Perhaps other species would wage war too, if they could, but they lack the unique “toolbox” with which humans are equipped, so only humans wage war: because we can, and until now at least, “civi
lized” and “precivilized” humans alike have often not known any better.
Although it may be argued that what we identify here respectively as “warfare” and “predation” are simply different degrees of the same basic phenomenon, which are distin
guishable in scale but not in kind; we emphasize again that the decisive distinction between them (item 8) is that warfare, unlike predation, narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, and is therefore the unequivocal enemy of the entire tapestry of Life, on planet Earth, and of metaconsciousness in Cosmos.
The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles”
Another way to look at all this is to note that the “game of Life” and the “game of dominator civilization” are played according to two entirely different rule sets, and have entirely different objectives. The objective of the game of civilization is for someone to “win all the marbles.” As some civilized person has remarked, “Whoever ends up with the most toys wins.” This is inevitably a limited game, because eventually, sooner or later, some person, corporate entity, or consortium does indeed “win all the marbles;” and that’s the end of the game. Nobody else has any marbles, and so there is no longer any possible action on the board, even for whoever “won all the marbles.” This occurs because the process of “winning all the marbles” inevitably and inexorably narrows the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, until eventually, the complex interchange upon which all life depends ceases to be viable. Checkmate.
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The game of “win all the marbles” is naturally played by means of warfare. That is, a player with “a lot of marbles” employs those “marbles” in strategies which enable him or herA to take preemptively the “marbles” of some other player. So the more effective war
fare strategist “wins” the engagement, and the less effective strategist “loses.” The net effect of this game, once again, is to narrow the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty; for its progress is to transform a wide distribution of “marbles,” more or less equitably shared by everything and everyone, into a narrow distribution of “all the marbles,” so that no one except the “winner” has any “marbles” anymore; and so the game is over. This is the condition that is swiftly materializing on planet Earth at this time. It is why we are now at the stage of “endgame,” and are only a few moves away from “checkmate.” The game of “win all the marbles” is a demolition derby, the after
math of which is a wrecked planet incapable of sustaining Life – at least, “as we know it.” Is this your idea of a good time? Nobody wins the game of “win all the marbles.”
The game of Life is played by entirely different rules, and has an entirely different objective; which is simply to keep the game going as an endlessly expanding spiral of creative metaconscious evolution. This involves keeping “all the marbles” in constant cir
culation among all the players in Cosmos, meaning everything and everyone, or “All That Is.” The game of Life never comes to an end, even though individual players are born and perish, come and go, rise and fall, begin and end. Yet everybody wins, all the time!
These are the choices before us as living beings in Cosmos: we can either play to “win all the marbles,” or we can play to keep the game going. No one can have it both ways, and no one can escape playing it either one way or the other. It’s your move.
Getting “There” from “Here”
All that having been said, practically speaking, how do we get “there” from “here?” That is, how do we get (presuming this is our choice) from where we are to a postcivi
lized society liberated from the synonymous scourges of tyranny and war?
More to the point, how desperately do you, and I, and the people you know, and the people I know, and the people they know, actually want to live in a postcivilized society liberated from the synonymous scourges of tyranny and war? Desperately enough to stop playing to “win all the marbles,” and start playing to keep the game going? Do you ima
gine this change is going to come about just because a few “lunatic fringe writers” like me think it should? Listen: the gang that’s playing to “win all the marbles” are at war with everything and everyone alive on this planet – including, strangely enough, with themselves; but more pertinently, with you. And unless you have already taken what most people would regard as extraordinary measures to disengage from “their” game plan, you are enlisted in “their” ranks; which is to say, you are committing daily acts of war which further somebody’s agenda to “win all the marbles.” Which is to say in another way that, A. Although it must be noted that the game of “win all the marbles” seems to be significantly skewed in favor of the masculine pole of the male/female dyad, at the expense of the feminine pole. There are women who do play the “win all the marbles” game; yet women in general seem much more intuitively suited to playing the game of Life – which men are just as welcome to play as well!
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like it or not, you are actively contributing to narrowing the spectrum of richness, diver
sity, variety, complexity, and liberty upon planet Earth, and cutting the ground from beneath your own feet.
Well, it’s not for me to judge that, and if I point my finger at you, I am simultane
ously pointing at least three fingers at myself; so please don’t take this outburst person
ally. A couple of years ago or so, when the corruption and rot didn’t seem to be quite so widespread as they are today, I happened to see a bumper sticker which I thought summed things up rather neatly: If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention! Since then I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence that very many people are outraged; but then, I don’t myself display a whole lot of evidence of being outraged either. But I am (quietly); and maybe you are too.
Unfortunately, being outraged doesn’t seem to be a very effective means of bringing the human predicament on planet Earth to a satisfactory resolution. We can wail, gnash our teeth, and wring our hands until the cows come home, and still the warmakers are daily making their wars, and chances are, unless we are exceptionally vigilant about our own choices, we ourselves, with the best hopes and intentions we can muster, are helping “them” on a daily basis to cut the ground from under our very feet. How do we stop doing that, and start doing something more likely to pull our bacon out of the fire?
In 1997 a hackerA by the name of Jim Bell began a discussion on the Net which he perhaps imprudently called Assassination Politics,B in which he described a “completely legal” mechanism utilizing recently emergent technologies which could have the effect of allowing an “overwhelming consensus” to “meticulously weed out of the human social garden” those who persist in “playing for all the marbles,” and waging war upon everything and everybody else on Earth.C “They” were not amused, and it is believed Bell was incarcerated; which may be a kind of “official endorsement” of the effectiveness of his scheme. Or maybe not. Complicating the story is the circumstance that Bell was at the time engaged in a protracted skirmish with the IRS; and it is difficult to enter such engagements without sustaining injuries.D
OpenSource Metaconscious Projects
By way of background, if you have read sections I.6, then you are at least somewhat conversant with the development of the opensource GNU/Linux operating system in a totally unstructured “bazaarstyle” global working environment.
A. See section I.6 for a complete definition of the term, hacker.
B. Jim Bell, Assassination Politics, 1997 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/ap.html].
C. Section II.2, p. 165.
D. See http://cartome.org/homeland.htm for elaboration.
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Another opensource project that has achieved surprising success as a genuinely use
ful reference tool is the WikipediaE – a digital encyclopedia of extraordinarily bold vision, because it is deliberately designed to be writeaccessible to anyone with readaccess to its entries. That is, anyone who can read a Wikipedia entry – which includes anyone with access to the Internet – also has automatic permission to edit, rewrite, delete, or otherwise modify the entry – or indeed any entry. Sounds like a formula for chaos, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. Rather, the Wikipedia is a useful compilation of factual information contributed by knowledgeable individuals living all over the world, sharing their various domains of expertise. Factual or other errors are corrected by the peers (which could be anybody) of those who write the entries, and the Wikipedia steadily improves – that is in a sense, learns from experience – as it expands.
These are projects that at once demonstrate and expand the scope of the collective human metaconsciousness, and as such are the antithesis of war, and socalled “civiliza
tion.” They demonstrate literally on a global scale the creative effectiveness of the human metaconsciousness unleashed. Possibly, a future evolution of “Bell’s Scheme,” as I’ll be calling it, will eventually add synergistically to this evolutionary process of expanding richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. Bell thought it would, sooner or later, almost inevitably, simply because it is now possible, and hadn’t been before.B
I do not know [Bell wrote] whether I “invented” or “discovered” this system; perhaps it’s a little of both. I do genuinely believe that this system, or one like it, is as close to being technologically inevitable as was the invention of firearms once the material we now know as “gunpowder” was invented. I think it’s on the way, regardless of what we do to stop it. Perhaps more than anyone else on the face of this planet, this notion has filled me, sequentially and then simulta
neously, with awe, astonishment, joy, terror, and finally, relief.C
Bell’s Scheme rests primarily upon the ubiquitous Internet, and the recently emer
gent digital technology of strong “public key” data encryption, which is now legally and economically available to anyone with access to a computer. Following is a brief sketch of the emergence and nature of public key data encryption – which you may skip, if you are already conversant with the topic, or if it holds no interest for you.
Public Key Data Encryption
The classic problem confronting anyone wishing to employ cryptography to ren
der a message reliably private between intended parties is the means by which an intelligible message can be rendered apparently unintelligible to all but its inten
ded recipient. In other words, even though the message has been converted to “madness” – apparent gibberish – still there is necessarily “method in it;” other
E. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page].
B. Bell, 1997, Part 7 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/ap.html#vii230].
C. Loc. cit. [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/ap.html#vii280].
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wise the gibberish could never be reconstructed by its recipient back into an intelligible message. The corresponding problem confronting any party wishing to “eavesdrop” on the encrypted exchange is to discern the “method in the mad
ness,” and to extract the message hidden in the gibberish. The tension between these two problems is as old and varied as that between conversationalists within closed doors, and the outsider bent with ear to keyhole in an endeavor to catch unobserved the drift of the conversation within.
The “method in the madness,” then, is the crucial element in all cryptography; it is the key to unlock an otherwise inscrutable puzzle. In consequence, a problem corollary to that of keeping a message private, where any kind of cryptography is involved, has always been that of keeping the key private as well.
What it all boils down to is, two persons, call them Pat and Mike, wish to exchange information privately by cryptographic means. Fine; but before they can commence exchanging private messages, Pat and Mike must first arrive at a common understanding about the key by means of which their messages are to be enciphered and deciphered. If it is not convenient or possible for them to meet privately facetoface (they live on different continents, for example), how do they reach this common understanding privately, without the hazard that their key might be intercepted, thus compromising the privacy of all subsequent exchanges? This is the classic dilemma confronting all cryptographic matters; which until recently have been of concern mostly to those engaged in some species of warfare.
So long as cryptographic matters were of interest only to “military commanders” and “spooks,” these arcane concerns were relatively easy to keep under wraps. With the advent of computer networks, however, and a rapidly growing popula
tion of entrants into the digital age, a few “outsiders” began taking an interest in these forbidden topics as well. Some of the more farthinking minds involved with computers during the early and mid 1970s were able to anticipate that as digital networks and technologies become more ubiquitous, privacy is certain to become an increasingly vital issue; and quite innocently – even naïvely – began casting about for effective means of securing the privacy of messages trans
mitted digitally over computer networks. What they found was that virtually all inquiries into methods for accomplishing just this little thing invariably led to the gates of the electrified, triplebarbedwirefenced compound of Fort George Meade, Maryland, headquarters of the National Security Agency... and disap
peared into a void of silence.
The NSA in effect had a virtual monopoly on cryptography. All the advanced cryptographic research was conducted either at the Fort, or elsewhere under the strictest secrecy of which the NSA is capable – which is pretty strict. Moreover, any research conducted elsewhere, such as at universities or in industry, or pat
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ents applied for that had any bearing upon cryptography, came quickly to the attention of the NSA and were immediately classified as “munitions.”
Such was the climate in which certain “outsiders,” notably Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman, and others, found themselves wrestling with the issue of securing various kinds of transactions conducted over computer networks in the ’70s and ’80s. So, in the absence of unclassified information on the subject, these outsiders were compelled to “rein
vent the wheel.” What they ultimately came up with, because they didn’t know any better, was the concept and implementation of an ingenious system known today as public key cryptography.
The idea of making the vital key to a cipher public flew in the face of every axiom of cryptography ever known, discovered, or imagined within the scope of classical cryptographic tradition. “It isn’t done,” might well have been the knee
jerk reaction of the cryptographic cognoscenti at the Fort. However, it is done now, and it evidently works; and as a result, the whole cryptographic picture has changed radically. How it all came about is a long and fascinating story, which I will not elaborate further here.
The end result is that Pat and Mike can now establish for themselves, respec
tively, public encryption keys capable of enciphering any message. However, the key that enciphers the message is not capable of deciphering it; what is required for this is a corresponding private decryption key known only to its owner. So Pat and Mike each have a related pair of keys, neither of which can possibly be derived from the other: one each for enciphering, and one each for deciphering their messages. Pat and Mike are now able to exchange their respective enci
phering keys by any available means, including publishing them on a bulletin board, or in the equivalent of a telephone directory. This is why they are called “public keys.” They can be made public because they can only encipher mes
sages, but cannot decipher the messages they encipher.
Then, when Pat wishes to send Mike a private message, he enciphers it with Mike’s public key, and sends it to Mike via any appropriate channel, such as e
mail. When Mike receives Pat’s enciphered message, he deciphers it with his (Mike’s) private key, known only to himself. Anyone else, intercepting Pat’s message, but not being in possession of Mike’s private key, cannot read it.
To reply, Mike uses Pat’s public key to encipher a message which only Pat, and no one else, can decipher, using Pat’s exclusively held private key.
Messages can also be digitally “signed” and authenticated by means of public key cryptography, which makes possible the electronic exchange of the equi
valent of binding signatures on contracts and bank drafts. If Mike, for instance, wishes to send Pat a private message, and ensure that Pat knows it really came from Mike, and no one else, he first enciphers part of his message, his 178
“signature,” with his own private key, so it can only be deciphered with his public key. He then enciphers his entire message – enciphered “signature” included – with Pat’s public key, and sends the whole package to Pat. Pat deciphers the message with his private key, and deciphers the remaining cipher, Mike’s “signature,” with Mike’s public key, thus authenticating that the message really did come from Mike, and not from someone else impersonating him. Con
versely, Mike cannot deny sending Pat a message bearing a digital signature enciphered with Mike’s private key; so if the message is a contract, it can be held to be lawfully binding.
Reading about all this, particularly if you haven’t given it any prior thought, may convey the impression of Byzantine complexity. However, in practice, all this can be so thoroughly automated that it is virtually transparent to users. So with appropriate software, Pat can type a message to Mike, and Mike can receive a message from Pat, both in clear text. All encryption, decryption, signing, and authentication may be handled within their respective automated systems. All either of them works with is clear text – and all anyone else ever sees pass between them is gibberish. These techniques are potentially applicable to any and all digital information, such as video signals, cell phone conversations, medical records, fiscal transactions,... anything; and the encryption can be so robust that breaking the cipher may require literally millions or billions of years of intensive computerized “brute force” attack: something possibly beyond the scope, even of the NSA.A
Naturally, the “win all the marbles” gang, particularly in the U.S., didn’t much like these developments, and as already mentioned, tried at first to classify all encryption technologies as “munitions,” and prohibited from export. This proved unworkable, how
ever, when crypto hackers came up with a strong encryption algorithm, called “tiny,” which involved such a few lines of code that they could be memorized and “smuggled” undetectably in one’s head between one country and another.
Similarly, when movable type was invented in the 15th century, the “win all the mar
bles” gang of that era attempted to control the spread of the printing press, and to enforce a prohibition of the printing of works not approved by the Pope. This effort proved unworkable too, and the “ignorant masses” who had populated Medieval Europe for centuries began to take an interest in reading and writing, which had formerly been exclusive monopolies of the clergy. The subsequent blossoming of the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation, may be attributed, in part, to this invention of movable type; and the collective human metaconsciousness took a significant step forward.
A. Adapted from J. Harmon Grahn, “WingMakers, Revisited, Part IV,” 3/31/2001 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/np409.htm#begin].
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The Sometimes Surprising Impacts of New Technologies
New technologies, such as the printing press, sometimes really do have surprising and farreaching socially significant impacts; and public key data encryption enables a good deal more than just the simple passing of private messages that cannot be read “over one’s shoulder” by uninvited eavesdroppers. It is possible, as described above, to encrypt digital information in such a way that it not only can be received by its intended recipient, and no one else; it can also be certified to have originated with a particular individual, and no one else. This makes binding agreements and fiscal transactions possible between, or among, parties who may have never physically met, and may reside on diverse conti
nents. It makes possible anonymous digital cash, such that fiscal transactions may be conducted reliably in total anonymity between or among persons located anywhere on Earth.
Briefly [Paul Maxwell wrote], digital cash is a system for transferring funds from one person to another on the Net. For this system to be as good as cash, the transactions must be capable of being conducted anonymously, just like in real life. (You go into the SevenEleven, buy a Cafe Latte, and nobody knows your name or your credit history. The purchase is not recorded in a database of your consumer preferences.)
Several competing schemes for digital cash have been launched, but the one that eventually gains universal acceptance will surely have this anonymity feature.A
Now imagine this – which is not exactly a description of Bell’s Scheme, but could be descriptive of a future evolution of it, employing digital developments such as the wiki (e.g. the Wikipedia) which Bell’s essay never mentioned: Someone sets up on a server somewhere a wiki site, inviting the participation of all interested parties in, first, airing their grievances anonymously against anyone, anywhere habitually and deliberately engaged in acts of war, as defined in item 7 above (or defined however the participating consensus thinks such acts ought to be defined).
Bell’s Scheme was focused upon the idea of collecting anonymous contributions to a fund which would grow large enough to make it worth someone’s while to, ah, “predict” the demise on a certain date of a particular enemy of the people; and the successful “predictor,” having encrypted his or her prediction in advance, and after the fact having supplied the key to decrypt the prediction, proving it came to pass as stated, is then awarded the accumulated fund in the form of anonymous digital cash. Everything is done in strict anonymity via robust encryption, so no one has any knowledge whatsoever of any of the parties involved, actions taken, or even whether or not an actual “crime” has been committed. All that is known by anyone, except the anonymous predictor, is that numerous anonymous contributions were made to a fund publicly designated as a reward for whoever could accurately predict the demise of a particularly unpopular public figure; A. Paul Maxwell, Asahi Evening News, Sunday, February 4, 1996, p. 6, quoted by Bell, 1997, Part 8 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/ap.html#viii140].
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an accurate prediction was made by somebody, and the digital cash award was claimed. That is a thumbnail sketch of Bell’s Scheme. For a great deal more detail, read his account of it.
A threat of death is certainly formidable, and the public disclosure that there is in effect a large bounty on the head of a particularly unpopular figure may be expected to have a significant impact upon that figure’s living habits. The implications of Bell’s Scheme, and the almost infinite variations with which it can be played, suggest, however, that a “death threat” would in most cases probably be an option of last resort. There are so many ways for an anonymous public to make their desires and grievances keenly felt through various imaginable evolutions of Bell’s Scheme that simply “bumping the guy off” seems almost deficient in imagination – no disrespect intended to Jim Bell.
How many people, for instance, do you imagine would be willing to contribute a dollar, or five, or ten, to an anonymous fund to reward anyone who comes forward anonymously with provable inside information on the circumstances leading up to, and following from, the events of 11 September 2001? A thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? Ten million? A hundred million? What if a million people contributed a dollar each to such a fund, and someone with provable, documented inside information on 911 came forward and made that information public, and collected the reward? Don’t you think another million people, or more, would be willing to similarly reward someone else to come forward anonymously with additional provable, documented inside information – on 911, or on any topic a lot of people might want to have the “straight poop” on?
The wiki site could become an encyclopedia of “forbidden information,” multiply mirrored in many places around the planet. It could become a storehouse of material evidence in a consensus court of global inquiry into crimes against humanity, heard and adjudicated by the victims of those crimes themselves.A Then if, on the basis of the forthcoming evidence, a consensus emerged to the effect that a particular individual should die, a fund could then be established to reward the predictor of the date and circumstances of that person’s death, just as Bell described. The targeted individual would know that there is in effect “a price on his head,” and how much, and why; but like everybody else, would be without a clue about the who, when, and the how. The targeted individual could even file an argument on the wiki rebutting the charges made against him (or her), or promising to mend his (or her) ways. The target’s case would not be decided by any one person sitting in judgment, but by consensus of those willing to contribute, or not, to the fund rewarding a correct prediction of the target’s death.
At this point, unsavory thoughts like mob rule, and reign of terror spring to mind, and so should be addressed. One can imagine the possibility of a good deal of hysteria manifesting around the Bell Scheme, and its possible future evolutions, should such a scheme actually become operational; and one may question the reliability of information A. Perhaps in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus, “Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.” Matthew 10:26, King James Version.
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brought forward anonymously by individuals who cannot be held accountable for its veracity. In the final analysis, contrary to widespread beliefs among “civilized” people, it is very difficult to prove anything, “beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt,” because everything we may think we “know” occurs within a context of impenetrable mystery,A and it is not always easy to distinguish reliably between “the straight poop” and “bull
poop,” about anything. One must admit that, at best, a consensus of even a large number of interested, actively participating anonymous individuals is not infallible.
On the other hand, one must ask, would such consensus governance be worse than the socalled “governance” in place throughout the “civilized world” today? Myself, it is difficult to imagine any alternative being actually worse than the contemporary status quo, which is galloping hellbent for election toward destruction of the planet, and all life upon it. It can’t get any worse than that – can it!? One may prefer the Devil one knows to something untried and unknown; yet the Devil we know is taking us straight to Hell on a sled; if that isn’t clear, then I don’t know what.
We live in desperate times, and it is perhaps only in such times that the collective will can be summoned to commensurately desperate measures. Right now, an unimagin
ably wealthy and powerful minority are at war with everything and everyone on planet Earth, as they wind up their global game of “win all the marbles.” After that, unless some profound changes are made, the game is over: for you, for me, for everyone. Not everyone believes this yet, but those that do will have little difficulty embracing options that might not otherwise even be considered. Similarly, few people would leap at the opportunity to be set adrift in the middle of the ocean astride an empty flour barrel. Yet if their ship sinks from under them, sensible people will consider themselves fortunate to find the assistance of anything that floats; and the ship of “civilization” is sinking fast.
The Bell Scheme, including its possible evolutionary variants, disclose the eventu
ality of combining a few items of technology that have not been available to prior genera
tions, with a wave of rising conscious awareness; which may have the effect of empower
ing members of the general population in relation to the powerful minority on this planet who have forged a lifestyle for themselves based entirely upon war and plunder.
Formerly, absent these technologies, and this awareness, our protests against the crimes of the warlords have been as ineffectual as the mewling of a sackfull of kittens. We have signed petitions, paraded in the streets, written letters of grievance to Presidents, Prime Ministers, Parliaments, and Editors. Now comes the possibility of responding with vision and purpose, and claws and teeth, if necessary, to the abuses we and our ancestors have endured for thousands of years – by anonymously exposing to public view the crimes of our oppressors, and even credibly threatening their very lives. The outcome of this cannot be predicted with certainty, yet it seems probable that Bell is right when he says that “this system, or one like it, is as close to being technologically inevitable as was A. What I Mean by Myth, Prologue; and section II.4.
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the invention of firearms once the material we now know as ‘gunpowder’ was invented. I think it’s on the way, regardless of what we do to stop it.”
Awe [Bell continues, elaborating his comments quoted above, p. 176], that a system could be produced by a handful of people that would rid the world of the scourge of war, nuclear weapons, governments, and taxes. Astonishment, at my realization that once started, it would cover the entire globe inexorably, erasing dictatorships both fascistic and communistic, monarchies, and even socalled “democracies,” which as a general rule today are really just the facade of govern
ment by the special interests. Joy, that it would eliminate all war, and force the dismantling not only of all nuclear weapons, but also all militaries, making them not merely redundant but also considered universally dangerous, leaving their “owners” no choice but to dismantle them, and in fact no reason to KEEP them!
Terror, too, because this system may just change almost EVERYTHING we think about our current society, and even more for myself personally, the know
ledge that there may some day be a large body of wealthy people who are thrown off their current positions of control of the world’s governments, and the very
real possibility that they may look for a “villain” to blame for their downfall. They will find one, in me, and at that time they will have the money and (thanks to me, at least partially) the means to see their revenge. But I would not have published this essay if I had been unwilling to accept the risk.
Finally, relief. Maybe I’m a bit premature to say it, but I’m satisfied we will be free. I’m convinced there is no alternative. It may feel like a rollercoaster ride on the way there, but as of today I think our destination is certain. Please under
stand, we will be free.A
I think he’s right: “we will be free.” Because the game of Life is an unlimited game, and absolutely trumps the limited game of “win all the marbles.” And the game of Life inexorably, tirelessly, ceaselessly, everywhere and forever, expands the spectrum of rich
ness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty.
Bell’s prediction is not necessarily “human destiny,” however. “Nothing has ever been destined, beyond that we create what we choose, and we live (or die) with the conse
quences.” Yet Bell’s prediction may be anticipated with a good deal of confidence by those who have finally grasped the rhythms of the game of Life. Meanwhile, it is for you, and I, and she, and he, and they, and us, to manifest the “human destiny” of our choice, every moment of every day: war, or peace; fear, or love; to “win all the marbles,” or to keep the game going.
It’s a good game. Don’t you think it would be a “good idea” to keep the game going, here, on planet Earth, for awhile longer?
A. Bell, 1997, Part 7 [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/ap.html#vii280"].
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II.4. The Myths of Infinity and Hierarchy
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbog
glingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the che
mist, but that’s just peanuts to space.
—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyA
There is a widespread myth among humans that the universe in which we live is infi
nite. Of course, no one has any means of knowing this for sure, yet there are persuasive reasons for believing it. So an infinite universe is one among any number of myths that many people believe without any doubt; and some of whom might even bridle at the sug
gestion that it is a myth at all, and not a “scientifically proven fact.”
The Large and the Small
Perhaps the most persuasive reason for believing that the universe is infinite is the difficulty one faces by supposing it not to be infinite. That is, if the universe is not infi
nite, it must be finite; and that immediately raises the question of what, if anything, may lie beyond its finite margins; and the corollary question as to whether that, whatever it may be, is or is not infinite. If whatever lies beyond the margins of a finite universe is also finite, what lies beyond that; and is it finite, or infinite? And so on, ad infinitum.
And so, more or less by default, we are left with the myth of an infinite universe as the least implausible of our available choices; even though, ourselves being finite, we cannot “prove it,” and ultimately have no realistic conception of what an infinite universe must actually mean. Fortunately, it is not necessary for us to “prove our myths,” or even to fully understand them, in order for them to be of vital importance to us. In fact, a living myth – that is, one in which we actually believe – is for all practical purposes indistin
guishable to us from a “hardedged fact.” We routinely and with little thought entrust our very lives to the reliability of our myths, and our myths in turn usually bear our weight – unless they don’t! – without complaint. That is, whether they are true or not, they seem to work, which in turn strengthens our belief in them, and encourages us to propagate them from mind to mind, and generation to generation.
The myths of all human cultures, in all times and places, have shared this property of being selfevidently plausible to those who have believed in them; which is doubtless why some people may object to having their myths spoken of as myths. For many, a myth is something someone else believes, or has believed in the past, and is never something oneself believes right now. For these, what one believes right now is a fact, not a myth. So be it. So it has always been, with people and their myths.
A. Adams, 1980, p. 76.
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Thus if we accept the myth of an infinite universe as for all practical purposes a “hardedged fact,” there follows from this, as from all human choices, certain conse
quences – in this case, logical consequences. If an infinite universe is taken as a “hard
edged fact,” then it must also be a “hardedged fact” that infinity is the absolute scale of the universe. Now if infinity is the absolute scale of the universe, then it follows that all finite entities, such as galaxies and atoms, must be alike infinitesimally small. This is the basis, in part, for the alternative meme we proposed earlier, that
Nothing that exists is any more important or wonderful than anything else that exists. The least and the greatest are alike miraculous, and sacredA
Which was elaborated further by the observation that
Because of the infinite spectrum of relative scale within the domain of Isness, it cannot truthfully be said that “big” things are any “greater” than “small” things. There is, in other words, no hierarchy of “value” in the domain of Isness. A gal
axy is no more or less significant than an atom; a horse is of no greater signifi
cance than a horsefly. Different scales present different environments for Life to explore and experience; none of which are intrinsically any “better” or “worse” than any other, and each of which presents a thoroughly absorbing environment for the agents that inhabit it. Thus it is an error for humans to make the presump
tion that they are the most important life form in the universe. There is no “most important” anything in the universe. Or put another way, everything is the most important life form; everything is alive, and all are One.B
Which was summed up in turn by the statement that
There is no hierarchy of value in Cosmos: all entities are in the largest possible context peers, simply by virtue of existing.C
There is no Hierarchy
It follows that the hierarchical basis for “civilization” is fundamentally flawed – inas
much as the “civilized hierarchy” have often attempted to justify their status on the basis of “absolute principles,” such as that the Pharaoh, or the Emperor, was a God, or the Son of a God; or have invoked the “Divine Right of Kings;” or the “infallibility of the Pope;” or the absolute authority of the “True Faith,” or the “True God,” and especially, the abso
lute authority of the “True Priesthood.” This in turn justifies the annihilation of all incompatible myths as “heresies,” “paganism,” “Satanism,” or “worse;” and intransigent adherence to the principle that Our way is the only right way to live, and all people should live as we do (or we’ll kill them). Of course, there are at this time still a number of com
peting “our ways,” whose respective partisans are playing desperately to “win all the mar
A. Fatal and Nonfatal Memes, in the Prologue.
B. Section II.1, pp. 1401.
C. Item 1, Conditions for Social Success, section II.3.
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bles,”A with the intended end result that there will eventually emerge only one right way to live, and everybody who lives otherwise must either conform or perish.
In more recent times, many of those active in the hierarchy have attempted to attach the hierarchy’s validity to abstract principles, such as “democracy,” “the will of the peo
ple,” “equality,”B “justice,” etc. However, in an infinite universe, all kings, pontiffs, and members of the “ruling class” are (like serfs, savages, elephants, dragonflies, and fleas) infinitesimally small, and the logical basis for an absolute human hierarchy vanishes in the immensities. In consequence, and in practice, the justification for all human hierarchies defaults ultimately to preemptive force, or war; which results infallibly in an evernar
rowing spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty upon planet Earth; and the resultant obstruction of metaconsciousness.
Now this is not to say that all possible hierarchical arrangements are fatally flawed, and indeed such arrangements are often indispensable tools in aid of human creativity. The simple act of counting, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...etc. is a hierarchical arrangement: 2 follows 1, and precedes 3, which in turn is followed by 4, ...and so on. The same is true of arranging names, words, or other items in alphabetical order, which is often a useful tool for orga
nizing collections of numerous elements, such as dictionaries, telephone directories, and inventories. Yet in such a context, it is not reasonable to suppose that there is anything “absolutely superior” about Bob, just because his name appears before Charlie’s in a list.
It can be useful to view almost anything (such as a tree, for instance) in hierarchical terms. A tree has a trunk, or main stem, from which a few major branches grow; each of which supports the growth of smaller branches, which support successively smaller and smaller tiers of branches, twigs, and individual leaves. And a single leaf is laced with a fine network of veins that echo the pattern of branches on the parent tree. A tree can thus be usefully seen, under some circumstances, as a hierarchical structure; yet this does not imply that a tree is a hierarchical structure; or that the whole tree is of intrinsically greater (or less) significance in the infinite universe than is a single leaf; or that a single tree is of less (or greater) significance than an entire forest. Each finite item in the Cosmic inven
tory of “All That Is” takes its relative position somewhere on a scale that, in an infinite universe, has no “smallest” or “greatest” terminus – because it has no terminus at all, but goes on “forever,” without “beginning” or “end.” That’s what infinity is, by definition; and every finite thing on that endless scale, including “a long way down the road to the chemist,” is alike infinitesimally small.
Thus it is not the act of devising hierarchical structures for the purpose of conceptu
ally organizing numerous elements of an assemblage that has derailed human civilization into a collisioncourse with catastrophe. Rather, it has been the insupportable claim by the selfanointed “ruling class” that there is something absolute and intrinsic to the Cos
mic Scheme from which their conception of social hierarchy springs. Over the course of A. See The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles” in section II.3.
B. “Equality,” yes – so long as “some are more equal than others.”
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millennia and centuries various myths have been deliberately inculcated and nourished among all civilized populations, to the effect that for some reason or other the civilized hierarchy is somehow absolutely rooted in the Cosmic Scheme, and forms the bedrock upon which all “civilizations” have been, and must be built. This false claim has been justified in many different ways in many different times and places – yet always to the same invariable effect: It is in the Cosmic Nature of things for “inferior beings” to bear the burdens of their “superiors.” In all its disguises and masquerades, this has always been an intrinsically false claim; because in an infinite universe, there are no “superiors” and “inferiors;” and every finite being is alike infinitesimally small. Those who involun
tarily bear the burdens of their peers are infested by parasites.
In sum, the myth of human hierarchy has been deliberately and dishonestly promoted for thousands of years in a succession of acts of warA in furtherance of somebody’s agenda to “win all the marbles” and either annihilate or enslave everyone on Earth not a party to their warlike agenda. As already mentioned, any myth, firmly believed, is indis
tinguishable to the believer from a “hardedged fact.” Whether a myth is true or not has little or nothing to do with its power. The decisive factor is whether is is believed or not; and humans are capable of believing anything. “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and evidently this has been so for at least the past several thousand years. Today, however, those who persist in believing the myth of human hierarchy will eventually either be enslaved or annihilated by it, ultimately both; and with the best of sincere intentions will continue to assist the agenda of narrowing the spectrum of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty upon planet Earth. Which is to say in a single word, the agenda of war.
The Infinite and the Infinitesimal
That the myth of human hierarchy is false is not the only logical consequence of the myth of an infinite universe. In an infinite universe, we, finite beings, may be infinitesi
mally small – yet nevertheless, we’re here. We, like the infinite universe, exist, and have the volition, and the power, to do things, to make decisions and choices which have mani
fest consequences within the matrix of the infinite universe. This, when one stops to think about it, is nothing short of astounding! We’re so small, yet we have a part to play in infinity. Extraordinary! Yet this is our experience, every day. We’re here; we do things; and the things we do have consequences, to ourselves, to our fellow beings, and to our planet – and who knows how far the ripples we set in motion spread, and what effects they may ultimately have?
Our local experience is (or can be viewed as): Everything within our limited horizon seems to be linked together in a seamless web of mutual interrelationship, in which cas
cades of “causes” and “effects” constantly radiate from, and to, every locus of change in a ceaselessly dynamic net. How far does this net extend? Is it, like the universe, infinite? If not, where, short of the infinite universe, does it come to an end? The logic that spawned A. Acts of war are discussed in Conditions for Social Success, The Wider Dimensions of Warfare, Warfare and Predation, and The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles”, section II.3.
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the myth of an infinite universe seems to apply here as well, and yields the reply, “No
where.”
Nowhere do the consequences of our choices, decisions, and actions cease cascading in the form of chains of “resultant” and “causal” changes that stretch to “the ends of the universe;” and the universe has no end. In other words, we infinitesimally small beings, every time we make a decision, “large” or “small,” and act upon it, set in motion an infi
nite cascade, the effects of which never cease, and ultimately touch everything in the infi
nite universe. Thus we, who may consider ourselves “finite,” turn out after all to be inex
tricably linked with every other part of the infinite – and so, are we not justified in iden
tifying ourselves with That?
From contemporary chaos theory comes the wellknown “butterfly effect,” in which it is said that a butterfly flitting through a garden in China may stir currents of air whose effects cascade weeks later into a hurricane along the Carolina coast of North America. For infinitesimally small beings in an infinite universe, there is no way of distinguishing between “large” or “small” anything, in terms of their ultimate effects. Everything has an effect on everything else, everywhere, all the time; and “All Things” are indivisibly bound together as One. In other words, there is only One here, and “Thou art That” applies alike to every infinitesimally small being in Cosmos. Some have called this the “holographic universe,” because, like the parts of a hologram, every infinitesimally small being duplicates “in small” the entire Cosmos – “All That Is.” The “part” and the “Whole” are the same, and “large” and “small,” in the context of “All That Is,” have no meaning.
Just as the swarm of individual neurons in a human brain combine in the metacon
sciousness manifest as a human mind, so the swarms of infinitesimally small beings throughout Cosmos – including, but not limited to ourselves – manifest as the Metacon
sciousness of “All That Is;” which is limitlessly aware, intelligent, and creative, and must indeed “embody,” on an incomprehensibly higher arc, every quality found in every infini
tesimally small being in Cosmos.
Such thoughts are components, possibly, of a postcivilized mythology from which, if they are “fruitful, multiply, and fill the Earth,” may someday manifest in a postcivi
lized world inhabited by people who remember our contemporary dramas, if at all, as but the growing pains of a primitive and infantile race.
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II.5. The Myth of Objective Reality
It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.
—Niels Bohr, 18851962A
Yes, Virginia, there is an “objective reality;” yet it includes the paradox that there is no way, evidently, for a finite being to be objective about it – which either contradicts the “objectivity” of “objective reality,” or else consigns the concept of “objective reality” to the domain of myth. That is, there is such a thing as reality, which is as real and concrete as anyone might wish. Fine; so far, so good. The sticky part comes in with the inescap
able corollary that you, me, everybody, and everything that exist are included within the precincts of this “objective reality” – which makes it pretty damned difficult for anybody to be “objective” about it. Is that clear? No? Then read on....
Infinity and Complementarity, Again
In addition to the matter of the near event horizon enclosing all finite beings, in relation to the (presumedly) infinite Cosmos,B we have the principle of complementarity.C As far as we can guess, or rationally surmise, “All That Is” is infinite – or in any event, there seems no conceptual possibility of viewing it “whole,” from “outside.” For if one were somehow to gain a vantage point “outside” of “All That Is,” where would one be? Somewhere among “all that is not?” Additionally, there is the principle of complemen
tarity, originally discovered at the quantum scale, yet evidently applicable at all scales; wherein reality is composed of innumerable pairs of complementary properties, both of which are essential for a complete description of reality; yet observation of either of which excludes observation of the other. An example at the quantum scale of such a com
plementary pair of properties is the mutually exclusive relation between the quantum and wave properties of a beam of light. Observation of one prohibits observation of the other, and the whole beam of light defies complete description.
At the more prosaic human scale, imagine a tracker examining the ground, following the track of a small animal – when the shadow of a bird passes near him. He does not see A. Quoted by Heinz R. Pagels, The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, A Bantam New Age Book, Bantam Books, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1982, 1983.
B. Discussed in What I Mean by Myth, in the Prologue; and in section II.4. In view of the discussion below of the Big Bang Myth in the subsubsection on Cosmological Scale Expansion, not everyone may agree with me that Cosmos is selfevidently infinite. However, it seems intuitively plausible to me that if the so
called “BigBang Universe” is effectively finite, it is likely to have peers – innumerable other “Big Bang Universes” – scattered throughout an effectively infinite “universe of universes,” or what I call Cosmos with a capital C, or “All That Is.” For wherever one finds one (1) of anything, there are bound to be multitudes like it, be they atoms, seeds, stars, galaxies, or finite universes.
C. Discussed in Heisenberg May Have Slept Here, section I.4.
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the bird in the sky; he only sees its shadow on the ground, and imagines what kind of bird it must be, and possibly some elements of its contextual significance. When he examines the sky, the bird is nowhere to be seen – and the small animal he had been stalking darts away unobserved, and disappears in the underbrush.
Or, to make the matter of complementarity somewhat more personal, and intimately applicable to you and me, imagine two friends – call them Pat and Mike – who have been friends for years, and know each other well. Pat and Mike have many experiences in common over the course of many years, and have observed each other under many dif
ferent circumstances. They are both intelligent, sensitive, and honest, about themselves, each other, and about the world in which they live. Each has a reasonable and realistic appraisal of himself, and of his longtime friend.
Now, given all that, here is a multifold question: a) Is Pat’s selfappraisal perfectly congruent with Mike’s appraisal of Pat? b) Is Mike’s selfappraisal perfectly congruent with Pat’s appraisal of Mike? c) Is either Pat’s or Mike’s selfappraisal, or their appraisals of each other, perfectly congruent with anyone else’s appraisal of them who knows them, intimately or slightly, including their own mothers? d) If none of the above appraisals are perfectly congruent, which one(s), if any, are “objectively true?”
I submit to your considered evaluation the proposition that, just as the complemen
tary quantum and wave properties of light cannot be simultaneously observed, just as uncompromisingly, no one can “know” himself as another “knows” him; and no one can “know” another as she “knows” herself. All such “knowledge” consists of partial descrip
tions of individuals who cannot possibly be fully described, either by themselves, or by anybody else.
Complementarity: it’s all around us, all the time. Look north, and your southern view is eclipsed by the back of your head. Look at the ground, and you don’t see the sky; and viceversa. While observing a paramecium on a microscope slide, you are certified not to be observing the rings of Saturn, visible only through a telescope. In fact, when you’re focused upon a paramecium through a microscope, not only are you not simultaneously observing the rings of Saturn; you’re pretty much not observing anything else in the entire universe – assuming you’re really focused. If you’re not focused, you may not be observing anything at all!
Show me a scholar, or an expert in any field, and I’ll show you an ignoramus; for in order to acquire his or her peculiar erudition, the expert necessarily had to pour a great deal of undivided effort into her or his domain(s) of study, to the exclusion of all else. The more refined and polished the scholarship, the more profound and abysmal the ignorance of all that lies beyond the domain of study. Is this a criticism of scholarship? Of course not! It simply points out the universal principle that you can’t have it both ways. 192
And “scholar” and “ignoramus” too are complementary partial descriptions of a single individual.
So we create pictures of reality in our minds, unavoidably informed by a maximum of onehalf, and virtually always, by a vastly great deal less than ½ of its very real proper
ties. What we create in our minds are therefore myths, which are nevertheless indispen
sable “aids to navigation” in our endless exploration and mapping of “objective reality.” So maybe we had best drop the “objective” part, and simply use the term, “reality;” which naturally does not at all imply that reality is not entirely real. Rather, the implica
tion is that observer and observed are themselves at all times complementary elements of reality. You, and what you think, and sense, and feel, are properties complementary to those of all you survey. “All you survey” cannot be completely described absent a com
plete description of you who survey it: the observer, who is unavoidably part of the com
position being observed. It works the other way too: you cannot be completely described either, without a complete description of all you survey. “And much, much more!” And of course, neither you, nor all you survey, may be completely described either – because you are both composed of innumerable pairs of complementary properties mutually exclusive of observation or description.
“PostCivilized” Physics
The mission of “civilized” physics, a/k/a classical physics, was to investigate and describe with precision the properties of “objective reality;” and so gradually, incremen
tally, to build an accurate description of everything. Although a lot of people didn’t like it, the discovery of quantum theory precluded the possibility, both of complete descrip
tions, and of the “objectivity” of reality. Instead, we were left with limitless choices among partial descriptions of reality, at the cost of remaining entirely ignorant of the complements to the properties so described. Hence, the relevance of the Bohr quote at the top of this section. “What we can say about Nature” may be either “this,” or “that,” at any particular moment, in description of the results of any particular experiment. Yet if, on the basis of experiment, we are able to say “this,” we are thereby precluded from posi
tively saying “that,” a description of the complementary properties necessarily excluded from our experiment or observation.
In fact, before all of Cosmos, and given our extremely narrow horizon of observa
tion, combined with the necessary exclusion of everything outside the focus of anyone’s attention from moment to moment, and it is not too much to say that we all live in a universe consisting almost entirely of myth, all the time. That is, the universe each of us perceives at any given moment consists of content exclusive to our individual minds, brought fractionally up to date from moment to moment by whatever occupies our spe
cific attention in a given moment. Hence, we are perpetually subject to surprise – if we do not shut out its sources by ignoring them – because new phenomena are constantly enter
ing the focal point of our ceaselessly shifting attention, potentially freshening what we thought we knew, with what we are constantly learning about reality.
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Therefore, the “civilized” expectation of an eventual description of everything, by means of which humans might reliably navigate, explore, and exploit the world and Cos
mos around us, has been demonstrated to have been misplaced, and such an “objective” description cannot be articulated. The world around us simply does not “hold still” long enough, at the quantum scale, or at any scale, for anything like an “accurate description” to be formulated. We are thus faced with the necessity of redefining the mission of phy
sics, because its original mission has been shown to be unattainable. What then shall be the mission of “postcivilized” physics?
I am not a physicist, yet I can suggest a mission for “postcivilized” physics which I believe will not in any way compromise its rational or experimental integrity, and will put it on the entirely openended track of providing useful information about reality which will be highly valued by surviving humans and future generations. That physics can no longer be claimed to inform us about “how Nature is” does not diminish its rational and experimental integrity; for quantum physics has disclosed that “how Nature is” is such that no mode of human analysis – physics, or any other – can inform us “how Nature is,” and yield a complete description of Nature. This by itself is a priceless disclosure, for it brings to an end a futile and erroneously conceived quest.
What physics can do, which capacity has in no way been impaired by the discovery of quantum theory, is to help humans distinguish between tenable and untenable myths about “how Nature is,” and about how humans can best interact with Nature and one ano
ther in optimum, nondestructive ways. Living in partial ignorance about “how Nature is” does not preclude filling the vacant unknowns in our perceptions with myths about “how Nature is;” or even about “how Nature might be.” People have been doing this for at least hundreds of thousands of years, perpetually uninformed by countless illuminating recent and future discoveries; and there is no end in sight for this necessary and useful practice.
During the meteoric careers of “civilization” and classical physics, such myths have been widely equated with superstition and ignorance, and no effort has been spared in stamping them out, wherever they have been found. “Civilized” people everywhere have been extremely generous and forthcoming in correcting the “obvious errors” and “primi
tive superstitions” of indigenous peoples all over the world. During the past few decades, however, although most “civilized” people have continued to ignore it, others have disco
vered that “civilized” notions about “how Nature is” have been no less myths than those of the indigenous peoples they had taken it upon themselves to correct; and indeed that “civilized” people can do no better themselves in describing “how Nature is” than by fab
ricating myths about it. This, it turns out, they have been doing all along anyway, just as the “primitive savages” had been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Only... many of the “civilized” myths have proven to be catastrophically destructive to “civilization” itself, and to all Life on planet Earth.
Such emergent myths, which cannot be certified to be decisively either “true” or “false,” because they may now be seen to be unavoidably founded upon partial descrip
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tions disclosed through the choices of human experimentalists and observers, can never
theless be distinguished as either plausible or implausible, and especially as being either constructive or destructive to human relationships with one another, and with Earth and Cosmos at large. “Postcivilized” physics, in synergy with numerous other well developed human disciplines, might play a very valuable role in clarifying such distinctions among “postcivilized” myths.
The discovery that the erstwhile task of disclosing “how Nature is” cannot be accom
plished, potentially takes a great deal of pressure off of physics and physicists, and off of scientific research in general; and opens possibilities for the rich commingling of inter
disciplinary studies. It invites the dismantling of the heretofore increasingly finegrained compartmentalization between esoteric and exclusive specializations that has been the trend in physics, and among scientific disciplines in general, and makes possible the res
urrection of the more comprehensive “natural philosophies” of old. Replacing the impos
sible and singleminded quest for “Absolute Truth” with the multidimensional quest for plausible myths opens many formerly closed doors in the corridors of human inquiry; for although there can be only one “Absolute Truth,” and anything not in agreement with it must by definition be “absolutely false,” there is limitless room for any number of con
trasting and richly varied plausible myths. One need not even adhere rigidly to a single myth, but may embrace many myths, under many different circumstances; for ever and always, it is the observer who decides what to look for, what to see, and what to ignore among the numberless partial descriptions of reality.
The Fword
A pragmatic realist might observe that all this may be very fine, conceptually; but it is nevertheless one of the “facts of life” that anyone who does physics anywhere in the civilized world – or scientific research, or R & D of any kind – must somehow come to terms with...
Funding. Scientists do their work at laboratories, at observatories, and in institutions of various kinds, often requiring a great deal of specialized and costly equipment and experimental apparatus; and so whatever mathematical, inventive, or creative genius they may uniquely possess, in order to carry on their work they must also be adept at the art of acquiring funding from those in a position to underwrite their research. Such sources of ready cash may not find it within their interests to shift the mission of physics, for instance, from a quest for “Absolute Truth,” or “objective reality,” to a quest for plausible myths about reality.
They may not be interested in, grasp, or believe the esoteric nuances of quantum theory which disclose the futility of the classical goals of physics; and they may have their own reasons for preferring the “classical” style of research by means of hermetically 195
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sealed specializations, over more eclectic, fluid, and multidisciplinary approaches that may evolve in response to discoveries and disclosures both within and without quantum theory. They may, for example, place the motive of economic gain at a higher priority than the motive of “discovery of Cosmic secrets,” disclosure of which may even be seen in some instances as inimical to realization of immediate economic advantages.A
Unfortunately, it must be owned that, so long as scientific research is dependent upon the decisions of parties with a financial interest in its outcome, rather than upon the free human impulse to explore any line of inquiry that leads, even if only potentially, to deepened understanding of ourselves in relation to the Cosmos we inhabit; so long will scientific research, and human inquiry in general, be held hostage by agendas not neces
sarily congruent with the best interests of humans on planet Earth, and of Life in Cosmos. As discussed at length elsewhere throughout this work,B contemporary “civilization,” has effectively defined itself for the past few thousand years as being headlong at war with all that it deems not to be in its selfdefined interest, or consistent with its selfdefined agen
da. Therefore, every human endeavor, including “civilized” science, whatever else it may be, is deemed either to be a weapon useful to the conduct of that war, or an obstacle to be overcome in the conduct of the “civilized” war upon everything.
The “good news” – potentially; at least for those who come out of it alive – is that the contemporary form of “civilization” is now in an advanced stage of total and irrevocable collapse, for the simple reason that the “civilized agenda” can no longer be sustained on the planet, and so may reliably be predicted not to be sustained, “for very much longer.” Therefore, it is appropriate to discuss “postcivilized” science, in anticipation of the eventual emergence of a renewed interest in scientific inquiry among survivors and future generations, following the collapse of “civilization.”
One of the premises upon which this work is based is the expectation that there will be survivors of the collapse of “civilization;” and another is that however many or few these may be, and however richly varied and widely scattered over the Earth, survivors will share in common one perception, at least: that they have narrowly escaped from something fundamentally unsound from its inception, which wended its way to an una
voidably sticky end upon a path that, come what may, must never again be undertaken or tolerated.
This last premise may be nothing more substantial than my own “wishful thinking.” It is, if you will, an “article of faith” in the survivability and basic soundness of the human genotype. It is the belief, or the hope, that humans bear within us a potential, which we may yet fulfill, once we have drained to the dregs the bitter cup of “the errors A. This is by no means a new development. The life of Nikola Tesla, 1856 to 1943, doubtless the most gifted and prolific inventor to have emerged in human history, is illustrative; and is brought to life in Tad Wise’s biographical novel, Tesla, Turner Publishing, Inc., Atlanta, 1994.
B. For example, in Why You Should Listen to Me, in the Prologue; and Dominator and Partnership Civiliza
tions, in section I.8; and The Wider Dimensions of Warfare, Warfare and Predation, and The Games of Life, and “Win all the Marbles”, in section II.3.
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of our youth.” It seems to me this is a necessary premise, however unlikely it may appear on the basis of the early track record of genus Homo; for the alternative assumption, that no such potential exists within us, leads to the conclusion that we don’t have what it takes to survive in Cosmos, or to participate in its ongoing evolution, and are soon destined to take our place beside the dinosaurs, and the many other extinct species no longer resident on planet Earth. Simply stated, I choose to reject this conclusion, and to adhere steadfastly to its more optimistic alternative. Quantum theory confirms to me that my choice is relevant, because I am a complementary observer of all I choose to observe, and one among many potent deciders of the evolutionary path of “All That Is.”
Thus my choice is that there will somehow emerge out of the wreckage of “civiliza
tion” a “postcivilized,” possibly sadder but wiser humanity, with fundamentally altered perceptions of our own best interests. I think there will emerge a profound appreciation, almost entirely lacking in contemporary “civilized” cultures, of the incalculable value to each individual, and to the entire fabric of Life on Earth and in Cosmos, of the healthy evolution of the conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty; and a shared conscious and deliberate willingness among humans to conduct our lives in such ways as to nurture, husband, and proliferate these lifegiving conditions.
Therefore, I do not look to “civilized” financiers to fund “postcivilized” physics, or any other aspect of “postcivilized” human evolution. At the root of contemporary econo
mic theory, as practiced throughout the “civilized world,” is the myth of limitless econo
mic growth; which for a population inhabiting a finite planet is neither plausible nor con
structive of a healthy, sustainable human society. Such a myth will have no place in the “postcivilized” culture I choose to imagine, and it will therefore be incumbent upon “postcivilized” humans themselves to prioritize their choices, and to take whatever mea
sures are required to undertake whatever pursuits, scientific or otherwise, upon which they decide.
Transition to “PostCivilization”
Nascent or wouldbe “postcivilized” humans living in the transitional period during which the collapse of “civilization” is in progress, but has not entirely run its course, may, if they elect to make the required effort, take initiatives to form networks of various kinds which may eventually replace various “civilized” institutions, but instead on the basis of entirely different, “postcivilized” premises. This has already been spontaneously occur
ring for at least awhile now,A not necessarily in the same terms or vocabulary as used here; and may be accelerating and proliferating in many places, and in many domains of human endeavor, in synchrony with the accelerating collapse of “civilization.” There may even be a possibility that the transition between “civilization” and “postcivilization” could occur with minimal turbulence, at least for those with enough awareness of what is happening to be “in the flow” of the transition, instead of panicking and increasing the A. For example, see I.6. The Hacker Tribe in the domain of software development.
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turbulence in and around themselves. There is obviously a good deal of the latter taking place too, but it probably holds few survival advantages.
Similarly, or in parallel, individuals who choose to may exchange with others so inclined, outside the “conventional” marketplace; may cease or diminish trade with large corporate structures; may use alternative currencies of their mutual devising, and/or barter goods and services within expanding networks of exchange. This applies as well to exchanges within the “marketplace of ideas.” Creative individuals may commence shar
ing and exchanging their creativity outside the “jurisdiction” of conventional “civilized” institutions established for brokering such exchanges, and instead plant the seeds for, and nurture the growth of organic “postcivilized” alternatives to such institutions.
Choices: people make them all the time, either consciously or unconsciously; either intentionally, deliberately, purposefully; or on the basis of unconscious habit, and in response to conditioning via mass media, schools, churches, and national, ethnic, or family traditions. The basis of one’s choices is also a choice. One may, if one so chooses, make an analysis of the general basis of one’s choices, in every domain of one’s life; and make deliberately considered changes in those areas which one evaluates as worth the effort. Every individual is constantly flooded with opportunities for change in large and small ways; yet change is never accomplished without effort, and it is therefore incum
bent upon each individual to decide upon the tradeoffs between the effort required by potential changes, and the benefits to be gained thereby. Those who make prudent choices – or “guess right” in a sufficient number of experiments – may gradually position themselves favorably for a relatively “smooth transition” into “postcivilization.”
A “PostCivilized” Myth About Reality
Given that quantum theory discloses that socalled “objective reality” amounts after all to a myth, because whatever reality is can only be partially described in terms of com
plementary pairs of properties mutually exclusive of observation; it therefore falls to us – we who inhabit it – to fabricate for ourselves plausible, constructive myths about the nature of reality. Whether our myths about reality are true or not, may turn out to be of less importance to us, practically, than whether they are constructive to our lives, and to the life of our planet, or not. I propose the following elements, possibly among others, for incorporation into a candidate “postcivilized” myth about reality:
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SelfSimilarity;
Cosmological Scale Expansion;
Panspermia;
Metaconsciousness;
Necessity.
SelfSimilarity
The idea of ubiquitous selfsimilarity throughout reality may not be necessitated by empirical evidence; nor is it, I believe, contradicted by the evidence. It does have a great deal of intuitive appeal, and facilitates an elegantly simplified myth 198
which is nevertheless able to accommodate limitless complexity. As succinctly summed up by the alchemists of another age, As above, so below; as below, so above.
The principle of selfsimilarity is well illustrated in many fractal images, such as the Mandelbrot Set used to illustrate II.1. A PostCivilized Creation Myth; in which the same or similar complex forms appear repeatedly at multiple scales, often slightly or greatly modified. Applied to reality, selfsimilarity suggests that principles operative at the quantum scale may have their analogs at many or all scales. An example is the principle of complementarity, discovered at the quan
tum scale, yet evident at the human scale, and other scales accessible to human observation.
Interpreted more broadly, the principle of selfsimilarity suggests that the wave properties observed in statistical analysis of large numbers of quanta, such as photons or electrons, may also be observable in statistical analysis of large num
bers of people, or populations of microbes, or operational neural networks within living brains. An example that springs to mind is the familiar image of waves of wheat stirred by a fresh breeze. Wave patterns are also observable at times in aerial views of rushhour traffic. Additional examples may suggest themselves.
Conversely, the emergent phenomenon of metaconsciousness, which spontane
ously emerges at all scales and domains in which conditions of richness, diver
sity, variety, complexity, and liberty prevail, may be imagined via the principle of selfsimilarity to pervade the quantum scale, which links together all of Cosmos in a network of unimaginably fine mesh, in which information of endless rich
ness and variety is possibly in constant instantaneous exchange among countless complementary pairs of parts and wholes, everywhere.
Cosmological Scale Expansion
The Scale Expanding Cosmos (SEC), under development by C. Johan Masre
liez,A is a recently proposed alternative to the Big Bang (BB), or the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM). The main feature of the Scale Expanding Cosmos is the deceptively simple idea that the expansion of the universe is such that “The universe expands in space and time rather than just in space.”B That is, the expansion of the universe involves the expansion of the three coordinates of space, x, y, and z, such that “centimeters and inches are getting longer;” and the single coordinate of time, t, such that “seconds and minutes are getting longer” too, at the same or complementary rates of expansion. For beings such as our
A. C. Johan Masreliez, “Does Cosmological Scale Expansion Explain the Universe?”, Physics Essays, March, 2006; The Expanding Spacetime Theory: A Coherent World View from Quantum Theory to Cosmology, Nu, Inc., Corvallis, Oregon, 2000 [www.estfound.org].
B. Masreliez, 2000, p. ix.
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selves, who inhabit this expanding universe, the expansion of spacetime is not immediately obvious, because all instruments for measuring the expansion are themselves expanding at the same rate, and so register no measurable change. It is necessary to look deep into intergalactic space for evidence of the SEC; and it is there to be found. It can even be found in the interplanetary space of the inner Solar System; but you have to know what to look for, and how to interpret what you find. Such confirming evidence may already have been observed, and noted, yet not recognized as indicating a Scale Expanding Cosmos.
The Standard Cosmological Model, in contrast, has the three coordinates of space expanding, but not the fourth coordinate of time. The differences between these two theories have profound logical consequences, and are subject to test in the crucible of observation.
The observational and logical basis for the Standard Cosmological Model is that, in view of the evidence that the universe is expanding, as predicted by General Relativity, and confirmed by the cosmological redshift discovered by Edwin Hubble early in the 20th century, cosmologists have been led to the surmise that if galaxies and extragalactic objects are receding from each other at velocities proportional to the distances between them (Hubble’s law), they must at one time have been very much closer together than they are observed to be now. This led in turn to an extrapolation backwards in time to an imagined point of conver
gence at which all the matter and energy in the universe must have emerged from a singularity – a dimensionless point of infinite density, out of which everything suddenly emerged in a... “Big Bang!” This Big Bang creation event is believed by contemporary cosmologists to lie approximately 12 to 14 billion (1.21.4 × 1010) years in the past. Before the Big Bang, there wasn’t anything, because that is evidently how everything got started. This, in a nutshell, is the Standard Cosmological Model prevalent among cosmologists throughout the world today.
Perhaps the most at once simple and profound philosophical objection to the Standard Cosmological Model is its incomprehensible assumption that there is any imaginable way for everything to have been “caused by,” or to have “emerged from” nothing. Then there is the corollary principle that everything with a beginning also has an end. The SCM offers no reply to the first; and its corollary is in fact one of the predictions of the Standard Cosmological Model. The SCM view of the remote future is one or the other of two possibilities: a) that as the universe continues to expand and attenuate, distances between galax
ies will lengthen, their stars will eventually consume their fuel and go out, and the final state of the present universe will be a cold “heat death” in which all the matter and remaining energy in the universe will be thinly and homogeneously distributed, and nothing resembling life will be possible anywhere; or alterna
tively b) that the mass density of the present universe is sufficient to slow the universe’s expansion to an eventual standstill, at which point all the matter in the 200
universe will reverse direction and begin falling into its common gravitational center, and end in a “Big Crunch,” (or “Gnab Gib”), symmetrical counterpart to the “Big Bang.” Nobody really likes this idea, for after all, what’s to like about it? As physicist Steven Weinberg has remarked, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
Unfortunately, like it or not, the clincher for the BB was that, implausible and unappealing as it might appear, nobody could come up with a more plausible explanation as to how all this stuff – atoms, and planets, and solar systems, and galaxies, etc. – came to be here, expanding all over the place, and filling space for as far as anyone can see.
Well, in fact there have been competitive theories, most notably the Steady State theory, developed by Sir Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi, and others; which proposed the constant creation of new matter out of the vacuum at a rate “just right” to fill the vacant space among receding galaxies, and maintain the average density of the universe perpetually at a steady state. The universe would not have had to create much new matter to achieve this balance. A few hundred brandnew atoms of hydrogen per year per galaxy should about do it. If the entire universe could have emerged instantaneously out of the vacuum in a Big Bang, surely a few hundred new atoms could plausibly be squeezed out of a galaxy each year? Thus the Steady State theory obviated the troublesome neces
sity, otherwise, for a Big Bang, or a temporallyidentified creation event – or a converse terminal event of any description. It ran into troubles of its own, however, with the discovery at Bell Labs in the 1960s, predicted by the Big Bang theory, of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The Steady State theory didn’t have a plausible explanation for the Cosmic Microwave Background, and so in spite of its philosophical appeal, lost credibility among most cosmologists.A
Now comes the Scale Expanding Cosmos theory, and the Big Bang suddenly has another competitor – and maybe the universe isn’t pointless, after all! There is an elegant simplicity about the SEC which is very appealing, and which seems to explain observable phenomena much more tidily than does the laboring and increasingly strained and patchedup Big Bang theory. Perhaps the most formid
able obstacle to widespread acceptance of the Scale Expanding Cosmos, in spite of its intuitive appeal, is the enormous investment over the past 80 years that has been poured into fleshing out the details of the Standard Cosmological Model. One can see the thing from the point of view of those whose scientific careers have been founded and built upon exploration of the details and implications of the SCM. An interested party in the matter would not willingly abandon the A. The issue of the Cosmic Microwave Background is further elaborated below, but reading the intervening paragraphs first is recommended.
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SCM without some very compelling reasons for doing so. Let us look a little more closely at the SEC, and see if we can discover any such reasons.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about the scale of the universe is that the uni
verse exhibits no “preference” for any particular scale at all. The fourdimensio
nal spacetime universe works just as well, in other words, if say, an apple, were the size of a pea, or the size of the Earth, instead of the size it is – provided everything else, including time, is similarly scaled in equal proportion. The same is true of time: if an hour in a universe of a different scale than ours were the length of a minute here, or a year, and all else in that imaginary spacetime were scaled proportionately, then all other things being equal, one could discover no obvious difference between such a universe and ours. The equations for General Relativity work just as well describing one such universe as another of a differ
ent scale. Thus the observable universe may be said to be cosmologically “scale invariant,” or “scale equivalent.”A This makes sense, because if the universe did have a preference for a particular spacetime scale over all others, such a prefer
ence must somehow have been established “outside” of the universe – which entails a contradiction in terms. There is nothing “outside” the universe, if the universe is defined as encompassing “All That Is.”
Now, since such shifts of scale are theoretically possible, what if they were actu
ally occurring in our universe? As already mentioned, if such were the case, it would not be obvious, because everything, from atoms to galaxies – including all tape measures, clocks, and measuring instruments of every kind, and the humans making measurements with them – would be changing scale in perfect synchrony with everything else; so it would require very keen observation indeed to notice that any change was taking place at all. Yet there would be pro
found consequences in such a scenario, and at least some of those consequences are predictable and observably verifiable, or falsifiable.
If the universe were expanding continuously, then it would come into conflict with General Relativity. However, we have already seen that in the quantum theory, which pervades the universe, motion does not occur continuously, but in “quantum leaps,” of a very fine granularity.B If the expansion of the universe were to occur similarly in incremental steps, a tiny bit each second, and General Relativity were slightly modified to describe such incremental expansion, then there could exist a comfortable fit between cosmological scale expansion and General Relativity.C
A surprising artifact of the Scale Expanding Cosmos is its prediction of a cos
mological redshift – but for an entirely different reason than that predicted by the A. Masreliez, 2006, p. 3.
B. The Beginning of “Quantum Weirdness”, in section I.4.
C. Masreliez, 2006, pp. 56.
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Big Bang. The Big Bang is largely based upon Edwin Hubble’s observation that the light spectra from distant galaxies are shifted toward the long, or red frequencies of the spectrum, and that the extent of this redshift is proportional to the galaxies’ distance from the Solar System, from which the redshift is being observed. The redshift observed by Hubble was interpreted as a Doppler effect, whereby frequencies originating from a moving source are apparently “stretched” in wavelength when the observed source is moving away, and are apparently “compressed” in wavelength when the source is moving toward the observer. When the source is emitting light, the light appears to be shifted toward the long end of the spectrum if it is moving away from the observer, and toward the short end of the spectrum if it is moving toward the observer.
An analogous effect is observable in approaching and receding sound sources, such as a train sounding its whistle as it approaches and passes by a stationary observer: the whistle seems to lower in pitch as the train passes by. The cosmological redshift observed by astronomers is similarly interpreted to mean that the light from distant galaxies is Doppler shifted toward the red because the galaxies are moving away from the Solar System; and Hubble established that the extent of this redshift is proportional to the distance between us and the distant galaxies. That is, the farther away a galaxy is, the more pronounced its redshift, and the faster it is interpreted to be moving away from us. This effect is observable in any direction we look, and implies a steady density attenuation among extragalactic objects moving away from each other throughout space
time. The theoretical absolute “horizon” of the universe is thus established by the radius at which extragalactic objects are moving away at the speed of light, and the frequency of their light is therefore “stretched flat” and can no longer be observed by us at any frequency.
The Scale Expanding Cosmos also predicts a cosmological redshift – not because galaxies are moving appreciably relative to one another, but because the scale of Cosmos itself is expanding. That is, the distance between galaxies is increasing at the same rate the galaxies themselves (and the atoms of which the galaxies are composed) are expanding, so the relative distance between them remains measurably unchanged. As we observe objects at increasing depths in spacetime, we are actually observing light that has been moving toward us for an extended duration; during which space has steadily (in incremental “ticks”) been expanding. What we are seeing, therefore, as we peer deeply into Cosmos, is “tired light” which has been steadily losing energy over the course of its journey to us from its distant sources; because the expansion of space absorbs energy. When photons lose energy, they do not slow down, because they always travel at the speed of light: instead, they lower their frequency, or shift toward the red end of the spectrum – which is exactly what we observe as we examine distant galaxies, in every direction we look.
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Another, even more surprising artifact of the Scale Expanding Cosmos, related to the phenomenon of “tired light,” is its prediction of cosmic drag; which also follows from the expansion of the metrics of space. If space is expanding, and “inches are getting longer,” then objects in constant motion at velocities less than the speed of light are gradually slowing down in relation to the expanding space metric. One result of this prediction – which should be observable, if measured with excruciating care, based upon correct assumptions – is that the trajectories of bodies in orbit should be gradually spiraling inward, toward their primaries, with a corresponding shortening of the rate at which such bodies complete their orbits. That is, as Earth, for example, spirals gradually nearer the Sun, the length of the sidereal year (the length of a year, as measured against the background stars) should be growing incrementally shorter; because Earth, at incrementally lower orbits around the Sun completes its annual circuit in incrementally shorter spans of time. This infall/angular acceleration does not amount to a great deal: Masreliez calculates that Earth is drifting Sunward at a rate of about 25 meters/year, and has an angular acceleration of about three arcseconds per century per century (3"/cy2).A
Similarly, were it not for the angular momentum Earth’s Moon acquires from tidal slowing of Earth’s rotation, the Moon too might be approaching Earth along a spiral trajectory of incrementally diminishing radius. As it is, the Moon is gradually receding from Earth – but at a significantly slower rate than that predicted by the standard theory, which by extrapolation has the Moon and Earth in physical contact about 1.5 billion years ago. However, the biological and geo
logical evidence do not support this. The Scale Expanding theory instead places the Moon and Earth in close juxtaposition about five or six billion years ago, around the time the Earth/Moon system may have been forming; which agrees much more comfortably with existing physical evidence.B Additionally, there may be evidence for the gradual planetary approach to the Sun in mysterious and so far unexplained minute discrepancies between measured and predicted orbits of the inner planets, particularly since such measurement procedures began incorporating extremely precise atomic clocks, beginning in 1955.C This is an intricate discussion, addressed at length in Masreliez, 2006, “5. Pioneer anomaly, planetary position discrepancies and a Moon mystery,” pp. 2732; and in Masreliez, 2000, “Chapter 5: Evidence of Expanding Spacetime Close to Home,” pp. 6983.
A. Masreliez, 2000, p. 69. An arcsecond (1") is 1/3600th of a degree; 360° = 1,296,000" = a single orbit of the Sun. The mean distance between Earth and the Sun is 9.289 × 10 7 miles = 1.496 × 1011 meters = one astronomical unit (1 AU).
B. Ibid., p. 82.
C. Masreliez, 2006, p. 29.
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Farther afield, the Standard Cosmological Model has not been successful in modeling the observed relative velocities and shapes of galaxies. Everywhere we look, galaxies exhibit velocities in relation to one another of small fractions of the speed of light; whereas if Cosmos originated in a Big Bang, galaxies would be expected to be moving through space at every conceivable velocity relative to one another. The Scale Expanding theory explains this discrepancy with cosmic drag due to expansion of the space metric; wherein relative motion over time tends to be dampened and approach a limiting stasis. This limit might be viewed as in some ways analogous to the terminal velocity achieved by freely falling bodies in Earth’s atmosphere. The analogy is only partial, however, because the limiting stasis among galaxies produced by cosmic drag tends toward zero rela
tive motion, whereas terminal velocity in the atmosphere is achieved when acce
leration due to gravity is balanced by the atmospheric resistance of the falling body. Thus terminal velocity is not the same for a feather as for a cannon ball.
Also as mentioned, the Standard Cosmological Model has not been successful in accounting for the observed shapes of spiral galaxies, on the basis of standard assumptions about gravity and the preservation of angular momentum. Evidently, there is some unseen mechanism at work whereby the angular momentum of the stars in the galactic arms is somehow shed, drawing them incrementally nearer the galactic hub. In the schematic diagram sketching the geometric shape of two spiral galactic arms, along which lie points a to f, and a’ to f’, the object at a (or a’), is by some means caused to lose velocity and drop to incrementally lower orbits, such as that occupied by the objects at b and b’. The new orbit of a lower velocity is also of a shorter radius, so objects at b and b’ actually complete their orbits more quickly than do objects at a and a’, even though the b and b’ objects are not moving at as high a velocity as are the a and a’ objects. That is, the objects at a, a’, and so on, are following nearly circular orbits around the galactic hub, as indicated by the evenly spaced concentric circles. Because these objects are continuously losing angular momentum, they gradually slip into incrementally lower orbits, slightly overtaking objects in higher orbits. Because a galaxy is composed of a great many objects under similar conditions, these tend to gravitate into the wheeling spiralshaped arms typical of galactic geometry. In the Standard Cosmological Model, “Dark Matter” has been postulated in attempts to explain this, but so far no such hypothesis has been able to account plausibly for the shapes of spiral galaxies. The Scale Expanding Cosmos again invokes cosmic drag to account for the loss of angular momentum, and to model the shapes of spiral galaxies, and 205
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has been successful at producing simulations very close to the shapes of observed galaxies.A
Confirmation of cosmic drag would also clarify a longstanding puzzle that both Newton and Einstein grappled with, and remains a mystery today. Newton observed a spinning bucket of water, noting that its surface becomes concave in response to centrifugal force. How does the bucket “know” that it is spinning, Newton wondered, and in reference to what, outside the bucket, is the water deforming its shape from that it displays at rest? Einstein imagined an entirely empty universe, with the exception of a single object: a sphere of liquid water held together by gravitational forces. He questioned whether, if this sphere were spinning, its spherical shape would be deformed by centrifugal force into that of an oblate spheroid, or would it remain perfectly round? And if the former, in relation to what (in an otherwise empty universe) would it be spinning?
A related mystery concerns the phenomenon of inertia, whereby acceleration, but not steady motion in a straight line, is invariably associated with an unmis
takable force similar to gravity. When a vehicle, for instance, accelerates from a standing stop, or rounds a corner at speed, passengers and driver are thrust back in their seats, or are tugged in the direction of the outside of the turn. In relation to what are these forces being applied? That is, when one is moving through space at a constant velocity in a straight line, if there are no windows, the sensa
tion is indistinguishable from being at rest. Yet at rest, or in motion, if the speed or direction changes – which is what is meant by acceleration – one immediately experiences a force, indistinguishable from gravity, in response and proportion to the acceleration. In reference to what is this force being exerted?
The implication of these questions is that there must somehow exist, in addition to and apart from, the combined matter and energy in the universe, some kind of absolute frame of reference, in relation to which acceleration and spin may be measured. This reasoning led to the concept of the “ether,” an invisible medium that fills Cosmos, in reference to which absolute motion may be plotted. The ether has been debated down the centuries and decades, from Newton’s day to this, and Einstein’s views on it were ambivalent, and changed over the course of his lifetime.B
The Scale Expanding Cosmos, by predicting cosmic drag, provides the basis for an inertial frame of reference for all Cosmos: it is the frame in which all relative velocities tend toward zero. It was mentioned above that, contrary to expecta
tions implied by the Big Bang, galaxies in all directions are moving at very small fractions of the speed of light relative to one another, and in the SEC this is attributed to cosmic drag, the slowing down of bodies in motion due to space A. Ibid., pp. 205.
B. C. Johan Masreliez, “On the Origin of Inertial Force,” Apeiron, Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 445.
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expansion over time. By this means, a Cosmic frame of reference for inertia and centrifugal force emerges throughout Cosmos, as an essential property of Cos
mic Scale Expansion; and a 300yearold mystery may finally have a solution.
We mentioned earlier that “The Steady State theory didn’t have a plausible explanation for the Cosmic Microwave Background, and so in spite of its philo
sophical appeal, lost credibility among most cosmologists.” This invites the obvious question, What is the Scale Expanding Cosmos explanation for the Cos
mic Microwave Background? which is addressed by Masreliez in “Scale Expanding Cosmos Theory – II: Cosmic Drag,” in an Appendix titled, “AGN activities may explain the Cosmic Microwave Background.”A
Here, “AGN” refers to the active galactic nuclei observed in some galaxies to emit bursts of energy into surrounding space. Active galactic nuclei are an important mechanism in the Scale Expanding Cosmos, because they may account for the fact that galaxies apparently maintain a nearly steady state over great expanses of time, in spite of the constant spiraling into the galactic core, due to cosmic drag, of matter originating in the galactic arms. If galaxies did not maintain a very nearly steady state over time, we would expect to observe a great many more galactic geometries than we do as we gaze about us through the depths of spacetime.
An imaginary “hybrid” cosmological theory consisting of elements of both the Scale Expanding Cosmos and the Standard Cosmological Model might try to account for the evident “absorption” of matter falling into the galactic cores by imagining the presence there of black holes: hypothetical singularities of infinite density swallowing up the constant stream of infalling matter originating in the galactic arms. However, the formation of black holes is evidently prohibited by the dynamics of the Scale Expanding Cosmos.B Therefore, the SEC requires an alternative mechanism for accounting for the steady flow of mass entering galac
tic cores, yet not accumulating there beyond the nearly constant mass of the typi
cal bulge at the hub of spiral galaxies. This mechanism is suggested to be the periodic bursts, or possibly continuous radiation into intergalactic space, of mat
ter and energy from active galactic nuclei.
Masreliez notes that one of the differences between the Scale Expanding Cos
mos and the Standard Cosmological Model is that the Planck black body spec
trum is preserved in the expansion of the former, but not in that of the latter; with the consequence that the observed Cosmic Microwave Background can be A. C. Johan Masreliez, “Scale Expanding Cosmos Theory – II: Cosmic Drag,” Apeiron, Vol. 11, No. 4, October 2004; particularly in Appendix 2, “AGN activities may explain the Cosmic Microwave Background,” pp. 289.
B. C. Johan Masreliez, “Scale Expanding Cosmos Theory III – Gravitation,” Apeiron, Vol. 11, No. 4, October 2004, pp. 468.
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accounted for in the SEC as “thermalization of existing electromagnetic radia
tion from various sources in the universe.” In the SCM, this is not possible, because the Planck black body spectrum is not preserved, “and the observed CMB spectrum cannot arise spontaneously. This has justified the assumption that the CMB initially was emitted as black body radiation at a very high tem
perature after the big bang and since then has cooled down with the spatial expansion.”A
Masreliez claims that observed galactic geometries can be accounted for by the assumption that 10% to 15% of the galactic mass falls into the galactic core per Hubble time (which is interpreted in the Standard Cosmological Model to be the “age of the universe” since the Big Bang, on the basis of extrapolation back
wards in time of the observable expansion attributed to the Doppler redshift). Therefore, if periodic and/or continuous action of active galactic nuclei may be assumed for all galaxies, and accounts for the ejection of 10% to 15% of galactic mass per Hubble time; and if 5% to 8% of this mass ejection takes the form of electromagnetic radiation, Masreliez calculates that, factoring in the attenuation of the Cosmic Microwave Background attributable to cosmic drag, the observed CMB might plausibly be explained by the combined action of active galactic nuclei throughout the Scale Expanding Cosmos.B If so, this would very tidily solve at once two difficulties encountered by the Standard Cosmological Model, a) accounting for observed spiral galactic geometries, and b) accounting for the Cosmic Microwave Background.
There is a great deal more to the Scale Expanding Cosmos than can possibly be touched upon here – much of it incorporating advanced mathematical arguments beyond the scope of a discussion such as this one. It addresses exotic phenomena like quasars and black holes, of which we have barely hinted – “and much, much more!” Although the SEC presents a formidable challenge to the Standard Cos
mological Model, which may not be welcomed by those who have devoted their careers to fleshing out the details of the SCM, it must remain a nonnegotiable principle of scientific inquiry that the theory which best explains observed and experimental phenomena must ultimately take priority over those which are less able to account for observation. This is the court of final appeal in science, and it is not a respecter of persons, credentials, or reputations. Although the SEC has not yet been “officially sanctioned” by the peer review scientific community, if it has genuine merit, this may be expected in due course. Meanwhile, the Scale Expanding Cosmos may have the potential for providing the cosmological basis for a very appealing, uplifting and plausible myth about reality. This of course would cease to obtain, were serious observational evidence brought forward A. Masreliez, October 2004a, p. 28.
B. Loc. Cit., p. 29.
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which contradicts the SEC. As of this writing, however, no argument has emerged in rebuttal of the Scale Expanding Cosmos.
Panspermia
Panspermia, literally “seeds everywhere,” is an idea about the origin of life on Earth first proposed by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras in the fifth century BCE, and later revived by such theorists as Hermann von Helmholtz in 1879; Svante Arrhenius in 1903; and more recently by Sir Fred Hoyle, and Chandra Wickramasinghe.A
In its more contemporary versions, the myth of panspermia addresses a problem faced by the Darwinian myth of evolution, which places Earth as the point of origin for biological life, by means of the natural selection of fortuitously occur
ring molecularbiological combinations in Earth’s primordial seas. The main difficulty faced by the Darwinian model is the narrow time frame it allows for this extraordinary evolutionary development to have taken place; which I have also addressed elsewhere.B Mainly, the Solar System, including planet Earth, are currently believed to have formed on the order of about 4.5 billion (4.5 × 109) years ago, and the planetary mass may have cooled enough by 4.2 billion years ago to permit condensation of water vapor, and formation of the primordial seas. The oldest fossilized bacterial aggregates so far discovered on Earth have been dated at 3.5 billion years old; which provides a maximum window of 700 million years during which conditions prevailed upon the planetary surface under which biological life may have been possible, and before the appearance of fossil evidence that biological life was actually present on the planet.
Now 700 million years sounds like a fairly formidable chunk of time, and to we humans it certainly is almost unimaginably vast. Yet in comparison to the pro
posed “task” of “accidentally” fabricating living organisms out of the inorganic matter presumably available on the virgin Earth, 700 million years begins to look like a mighty tight deadline. Here are some of the critical thresholds that, somehow, were evidently achieved during the 700 million years between the formation of the seas and the formation of the first fossil bacteria colonies:
a)
The surface of Earth cooled sufficiently to allow the condensation of liquid water out of the water vapor in the atmosphere;
b) The spontaneous synthesis of simple organic molecules occurred, such as the 20 amino acids, and the five nucleotide bases, Guanine, Adenine, Thy
mine, Cytosine, and Uracil, that form the basis for the DNA and RNA nucleic acids that make biological replication possible;
A. Panspermia, in the Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia].
B. See a portion of my essay, Preemptive Use of Force, dated 15 February 2004, for a critique of the “evolution by accident” biological model [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/friends007.html#design].
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c)
The spontaneous synthesis of actual DNA and RNA occurred (including, speculatively, their possibly simpler “ancestors”), which in any case made possible the replicative process of biological evolution;
d) The spontaneous synthesis of the first protein macromolecules occurred, which combined in the first functional living cells, whose fossils have been discovered and dated to 3.5 billion years ago.
The 3.5 billionyearold bacterial fossils are believed to have been photosyn
thetic;A which demonstrates that cellular evolution had evolved within the 700
millionyear “deadline,” at least to the threshold required for the “invention” of photosynthesis as the energetic means of sustaining cell replication. This requires that the macromolecule chlorophyll, among a great many other specia
lized proteins, must have been spontaneously synthesized, after the “ground
work” mentioned in items b and c above had already been accomplished. As discussed elsewhere,B chlorophyll is a highly specialized protein consisting of on the order of 400 carefully sequenced amino acid residues. Chlorophyll, and all proteins required for cellular functioning, are reproduced in contemporary living cells by means of the detailed “recipe” for such molecules encoded in the elaborate system of DNA and RNA replication. Chlorophyll, and other proteins, whose amino sequences are out of order, are dysfunctional and are not able to fulfill the tasks for which they were... ah, “designed.”
As previously discussed, the probability of the proper sequencing of the 400 amino acid residues required for the spontaneous emergence of a single func
tional chlorophyll molecule was calculated as 1 : 2.582 × 10520 against; and it was also mentioned that, “by itself a chlorophyll molecule is not capable of ‘sucking energy, quantum by quantum, from the sun.’ A great deal of ancillary cellular machinery must also be present, and the probability of that happening ‘by accident,’ we need not even discuss.”C
Yes, 700 million years is a long time. But how long is it, after all, in relation to the “task” of spontaneously and “accidentally” synthesizing living cells out of the inorganic matter of a virgin planet? This is the conundrum the myth of pan
spermia addresses, by vastly enlarging the “window” during which biological synthesis and evolution may have occurred. If, as postulated above by Masreliez, the universe does not have a beginning in time, but is of eternal duration, and if panspermia provides a plausible and observationally verifiable explanation of the seeding of Earth and Earthlike planets with biological life, then the genesis and biological evolution of life on Earth becomes suddenly far more compre
A. Narrow time window for geogenesis, in the Wikipedia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Narrow_time_window_for_geogenesis].
B. See footnote B, previous page.
C. See footnote B, this page.
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hensible than they have ever been, on the basis of the prior assumptions that the universe began a finite timespan ago, and that all biological life currently resi
dent on Earth had its origin nowhere else than Earth.
Metaconsciousness
Metaconsciousness is briefly defined as “an emergent behavior which exhibits itself in complex informationsharing systems of all kinds, and at all scales, under conditions of sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, as a capacity for learning from experience, or its functional equivalent.”A The spontaneous tendency of metaconsciousness is to expand and evolve, and to proliferate the conditions which favor its emergence and evolution, namely richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. As such, it constitutes the Cosmic complement to the second law of thermodynamics, defined as “the tendency for entropy to increase in closed systems.” Entropy is defined as “the measure of randomness and disorder in a system.” Metaconsciousness brings emergent order out of chaos; entropy invades orderly systems with chaos. Metaconsciousness manifests the Cosmic impulse for generation, growth, and creativity; entropy manifests the Cosmic impulse for disassembly, decay, and recycling. Metaconsciousness produces, shares, and proliferates information, understanding, and wisdom; entropy degrades, fragments, and isolates informa
tion, and proliferates ignorance. Together, the myth of metaconsciousness and the second law of thermodynamics may be said to be yet another complementary pair of partial descriptions of “objective reality.”
The Scale Expanding Cosmos discussed above exemplifies perfect balance between such complementary Cosmic impulses in a changelessly dynamic sys
tem without beginning or end: in which the scale expansion of time produces a net energy increase, which is absorbed by the complementary scale expansion of space – resulting in a net energy change perpetually equal to zero (0). That is, viewed from the expanding time dimension, “seconds are getting longer,” so dynamic systems appear to be “speeding up,” or “getting warmer,” or “gaining energy.” Conversely, viewed from the expanding space dimension, “inches are getting longer,” so dynamic systems appear to be “slowing down,” or “getting cooler,” or “losing energy.” The sum of these two effects is zero (0) – per
petually, and the eternal SEC never has to “run down.” This does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because the Scale Expanding Cosmos is not a closed system.
In the “length and breadth” of the infinite, ageless, dynamically changeless, Scale Expanding Cosmos, there may be innumerable mechanisms for prolifer
ating metaconsciousness; just as there are innumerable mechanisms for prolifer
ating entropy. Here on Earth, the biological evolution of life seems to be one of A. What I Mean by Metaconsciousness, in the Prologue. See also Elements of the Myth of Metaconscious
ness in section I.11 for a more comprehensive synopsis of the meaning of metaconsciousness.
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the former, and if some of we humans are able to survive the human predica
ment, which appears to have reached its crisis stage in the approximately present moment, Homo sapiens may yet evolve into a particularly potent agent for the proliferation of metaconsciousness. If surviving humans and future generations are able to establish a stable stasis at peace, rather than war, with Earth’s bio
logical systems, and the metaconscious fabric of Life throughout the planet, then there is no reason for humanity not to continue evolving on Earth indefinitely into the future. As Earthhumans have already glimpsed, the course of such sus
tainable human evolution is likely to expand, sooner or later, off of planet Earth, and into the wider Cosmos.
In that eventuality, it is not unlikely that “the children of our children’s children” may, sooner or later, encounter other agents for the proliferation of metacon
sciousness who, like our future descendants, will have learned the secret of sus
tainable living in Cosmos; and so the ongoing adventure of being human may advance into currently unimaginable dimensions of social exchange at ever expanding scales.
Nearer at hand, and with even greater probability, it is likely that future humans will encounter abundant opportunities for proliferating metaconsciousness; for by the example of our own Solar System, Earthlike, lifebearing planets are probably vastly outnumbered in Cosmos by planets incapable, for various rea
sons, of sustaining biological and human life. The Moon hasn’t an atmosphere; Mars barely has one; the atmosphere of Venus is carbonrich, with a greenhouse effect which makes biological life there impossible; and so on. The second law of thermodynamics certifies that there are vastly more ways for a planet to be uninhabitable than ways for it to be habitable, and therefore that uninhabitable planets vastly outnumber Earthlike planets.
With human and possibly humanlike agents for the proliferation of metacon
sciousness at large in Cosmos, this proportion may possibly change; for “the children of our children’s children” may discover uninhabitable planets with the potential for sustaining life – and “terraform” them, and deliberately seed them from the rich biological diversity of the Home Planet. They may even discover – who knows? practically anything imaginable is possible in an ageless, dyna
mically changeless, Scale Expanding Cosmos – that this is the very mechanism whereby Earth, a long time ago, came to harbor an evolving proliferation of biological life, and eventually, humans as well; and that “the children of our children’s children” are simply bestowing the gift of Life where it had previously not been present, as had once been done on Earth, making their lives, and yours, and mine, possible. By such means, the rare gems of biologically habitable Earthlike planets may eventually proliferate across the universe, and come into much more equitable proportion, numerically, with uninhabitable planets unlike 212
Earth. Indeed, in an ageless, dynamically changeless, Scale Expanding Cosmos, this may already have happened.
Necessity
Whatever it is, Cosmos is. It exists; and it is what it is. It works. It may be that it is what it is because it cannot possibly be anything else. This speculation lies entirely in the domain of myth, because in order to know this with certainty, one would have to view “All That Is” from “outside,” and see it Whole; and as mentioned at the outset, where would one be then?
There may be any number of ways, potentially, for Cosmos to be; or, there may be only one way: the way it is. In either case, it works, is sustainable, and sus
tains Life, and all else that may be found within it – presumably, on the basis of Cosmological Scale Expansion, forever, without beginning or end. In such a cosmos, everything found within it is necessary – not in the rigid, linear sense that implies brittleness and inflexibility, but in a fluid, dynamic, and multidi
mensional sense in which every detail of “What Is” plays a vital and participa
tory part in “how it is.”
At an earlier stage of my life there was a period during which I was a seaman aboard a ship, which was an entirely new and novel experience for me. I remem
ber looking around my new surroundings, and reflecting that every detail of the ship, every fitting, cleat, turnbuckle, line, pulley, and davit, had a very explicit and carefully thoughtout purpose; many of which were obvious; others of which I never did learn, because I never saw them put to use while I was a member of the crew.
Analogously, perhaps, the unexpected discovery in 1937 of the m meson, or “muon,” which turned out to be indistinguishable from an electron, except that a muon is about 200 times more massive than an electron, is said to have wrenched the anguished cry, “Who ordered that?” from physicist I.I. Rabi, because the muon didn’t seem to have any purpose or place in the scheme then understood of the subatomic particles.A Whether the purpose of the m meson was subsequently worked out, I never learned either; yet I feel confident, as I had earlier aboard ship, that every feature of Cosmos occupies a necessary place within it, whether I, or my fellow humans “understand” it or not; and that there is some vital purpose for the presence of m mesons in the eternally uncoiling spiral of Cosmos – as there is for your presence, and for mine. In Cosmos, there is nothing extra, nothing missing, ever.
Naturally, this is of the substance of myth; is an article of faith, or personal bias, and can neither be verified nor falsified in the domains of experiment or obser
vation. Yet it too seems to be a vital component of a “post civilized” mythology for a race of humans intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually equipped to have A. Pagels, 1982, 1983, pp. 2156.
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a longterm part in the evolution of Cosmos. Where that evolution has been, and where it may eventually go, in an ageless, dynamically changeless, Scale Expanding Cosmos, is perhaps less important than the immediately present opportunity it affords you, and me, right here, right now, and “the children of our children’s children,” forever, to experience it.
Inconclusion
Thus, selfsimilarity, cosmological scale expansion, panspermia, metaconsciousness, and necessity, among possibly others, may be viable components for a plausible, and psychologically and socially constructive “postcivilized” myth about our origins, and our part in the perpetual unfolding of “objective reality.” Such a “postcivilized” myth could go, briefly, something like this:
a)
The Scale Expanding Cosmos has always been, and will always be, change
lessly dynamic, ever expanding, yet always the same: the perpetually impe
netrable mystery of perpetual being. The origin of biological Life within Cosmos is, like Cosmos itself, a complementary impenetrable mystery: there is Life, and there is Cosmos, in which Life is at liberty to evolve. So it is, was, and ever shall be. It is mysterious, it is metaconscious, and it works.
b) About 3½ billion years ago, possibly seeded “accidentally,” or possibly “deliberately,” from preexisting sources elsewhere, Life emerged in the seas of a small planet near the core of a recently formed solar system in one of the outer spiral arms of one of innumerable already ancient galaxies. The planet was later named Earth by some of the life forms that developed there – or whose ancestors had possibly colonized the planet, or were eventually transplanted there.
c)
The course of biological evolution on nascent Earth, though unique, was also a widely familiar pattern, being common to similar planets salted throughout the Galaxy, and throughout Cosmos, essentially forever. The emergence or seeding of genus Homo on the planet was a development of particular interest to other members of the genus residing elsewhere, who had taken the evolutionary path to becoming human during earlier epochs. As contemporary human parents on Earth take a lifelong interest in the careers of their own children, so the progenitors of the first humans to appear on Earth were ever afterward vigilant observers of the course of human events on Earth.
d) The evolutionary path of genus Homo was familiar, and known to those who had already taken it, to be fraught with peril. Many who had set forth upon the path to humanity had perished along the way; for genus Homo is innately endowed with a combination of capabilities unique among biolog
ical species – such as bipedal locomotion, exquisitely engineered hands with opposable thumbs, stereoscopic vision, large brains, the vocal apparatus for 214
intelligible speech, and an innate facility for cooperative social interaction. All of these qualities, with the possible exception of opposable thumbs, are found among other biological species, yet only in humans are all of them combined.
e)
One critical test for evolving Earthhumanity – before passing which Earth
humans may not be said to be fully human, or viable in Cosmos – is one all initiated humans must pass in one form or another. On Earth, it took the form humans have called “civilization,” or more particularly, dominator civilization. It was prompted by the fact that, given the unique combination of capabilities that make humans human, there exists on any planet they occupy no possible mechanism for curbing the scope of human ambition, regardless of the direction it may eventually take. This is the critical hazard inherent to being human, and it requires that humans themselves develop the conscious skill of sustained harmony and balance with the living web which sustains all life on the planets they inhabit; and without which they cannot live at all.
f)
The critical point of this evolutionary path, which eventually decides whe
ther a particular planetary human race will or will not take its place among its Cosmic peers, has been reached by Earthhumans in the generation now living upon planet Earth. It remains shortly to be seen whether or not Earth
humanity achieves viability as a fully human race in Cosmos.
To me, this, or something like it, is a vastly more satisfying and plausible myth than the one I was given at birth: that is, that my birth was an arbitrary and purposeless product of an accidental process that momentarily emerged in a mindless and pointless universe, which was itself the product of an incalculably improbable and inexplicable explosion of something out of nothing, whose eventual sequel is either an inevitable “heat death,” or a cataclysmic “big crunch.” The ultimate significance, meaning, and purpose of any life lived in such a universe, no matter how creative, magnificent, or sublime, and no matter how long the interval of time between “Beginning” and “End,” must eventually amount to zero, zip, nada; and may as well never have been lived at all.
What we believe – our myths about the nature of reality – have a very considerable impact upon how we live our lives, the decisions we make, and even upon what we actu
ally see, hear, smell, touch, and taste as we experience the world around us. They color every facet of the conduct of our daily lives, individually, and collectively, in great and small ways, everywhere, always; because they color the choices we make, the experi
ments we conduct, from moment to moment, every day of our lives. That is why I suggest careful consideration and cultivation of discerning insight in evaluating our myths.
The good news is that all our myths about reality are supported by a maximum – and in practice, by a great deal less than ½ of the complementary partial descriptions poten
tially available to us of reality. This gives each of us rich latitude for legitimately and 215
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plausibly choosing and deliberately shaping our myths in ways calculated to encourage healthful, peaceful, sustainable, comfortable relationships with one another, with our fellow biological planetary inhabitants, and with Cosmos at large. Thus the “solution” to the human predicament is, finally, actually in the hands of each one of us. This is a circumstance for which we may each be appropriately, and profoundly, thankful.
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II.6. The Myth of Metaconscious Evolution
Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay,
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags:
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones,
And deep in the Coralline crags.
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?
—Langdon Smith, 1858 to 1908
EvolutionA
“The Edifice of Human Knowledge”
In earlier versions of this work, I have placed considerable emphasis upon the prin
ciple of complementarity, first discovered, now approaching almost a century ago, by the early quantum physicists; which fully extended, implies that what we think we know about virtually anything at all is at best a partial description. This is so because every phenomenon we observe or apprehend in the world around us unavoidably obscures other phenomena no less real than those we are actually able to observe under any particular set of circumstances.B Therefore, I have been claiming with gradually increasing insistence that all our beliefs, being unavoidably partial and incomplete, are effectively myths about a reality which must remain perpetually shrouded in mystery.
Such challenges to what “everybody knows,” or think we know, make many among us quite uncomfortable; because many if not most of us believe we depend for our very survival upon accurate intelligence about what the world around us and within us is actually like; and being told that our best intelligence is less than 100% reliable can be a source of significant uneasiness. Someone going about, therefore, claiming that what we think we know about ourselves and our world amounts essentially to a collection of myths is likely in many circles not to find a very warm reception.
Nevertheless, I feel I must persist; for I am daily made more profoundly aware of how vast is the ocean of mysteries, upon which we float and drift on our makeshift raft, composed of accumulated odds and ends we happen to have gathered together during the erratic course of our instantaneouslybrief history,C out of stuff we usually assume we A. [http://harmonhouse.net/fdl/evolution.htm]
B. See Infinity and Complementarity, Again in section II.5 for elaboration.
C. See I.8. Lessons From History for expansion of this theme.
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understand at least fairly well. Until, that is, someone hauls some strange new fish aboard that none of us have ever seen before. Then we’re off again, on yet another feverish scramble to fit that one into the hodgepodge we’ve erected on deck, which we proudly proclaim to be “the Edifice of human knowledge.”
I mean, this pattern is by now fairly solidly established, is it not? For it has happened frequently enough, especially during our most immediately recent past, that some new realization or discovery has in varying degrees toppled the rickety “Edifice of human knowledge” – sometimes level with the ground upon which it stood – and set us to work yet again, scavenging among the wreckage for the makings of a patchedup or entirely new “Edifice of human knowledge,” which incorporates the earlier unknown, overlooked, or nolongerpossibletoignore discovery or insight.

It happened when Nicolas Copernicus (1473 to 1543) demonstrated that, contrary to the “obvious certainty,” and “infallibly revealed truth” that the Earth was the center of the universe, with the Sun and all the known planets revolving around us in complicated, compound paths embedded within crystalline celestial spheres; that Earth was after all only one among several known planets revolving about the Sun.

It happened again, when Sir Isaac Newton (1642 to 1727) demonstrated the principle of universal gravitation which held the Copernican system together; and provided the calculus for, in principle, plotting the past and future course of every particle in a rigidly mechanistic and determinist universe.

It happened again, when Charles Darwin (1809 to 1882) demonstrated the principle of biological evolution through natural selection over vast stretches of geological time – at a period when “everyone knew” that the firmament, Earth, and all life, had been created during the course of an unimaginably busy week in the year 4004 BC.

It happened again, when the quantum physicists in the early part of the 20th century demonstrated that the universe is not rigidly mechanistic after all, but is seamed and honeycombed with uncertainty and indeter
minacy.A

It happened again, when James Watson (b. 1928) and Francis Crick (b. 1916) demonstrated the helical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and revealed the molecular basis for biological evolution.

And it is happening again, and again, and again, “even as we speak,” as yet more recent discoveries are made, and insights are hatched, whose implications continue to rattle the rickety structure of “the Edifice of human knowledge” – and in some instances, perhaps, their authors and A. See I.4. Metaconsciousness Among the Quantum Fields.
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midwives are drummed out of town, and given essentially the same reception Copernicus could have expected, had he published during his own lifetime.A
Naturally, there is sometimes strong resistance to the implications of new discoveries which threaten to mar the charm and poise of whatever happens to be “known” at any time. Myths gather partisans, who have frequently borne fierce loyalty to prevailing con
temporary beliefs, upon which the validity of their own theories rest; and often make rough sledding for the proponents of new discoveries which threaten any part of the existing “Edifice of human knowledge” as it stands, or leans, at any particular moment.
One can see the thing from the orthodox point of view; for reputations, and indeed even the very livelihoods of established “authorities” often depend upon the “correctness” of “knowledge” in which they have invested their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It often happens that, as the dawn of the Day of the Mammal had to wait upon the sunset of the Day of the Dinosaur, so in our time, the “old guard” must sometimes die off before a new idea can see the light of day. For if some upstart new discovery is able to worm its way into the works, why, who’s to say where it may end?
Who’s to say indeed? For the spiral of human discovery ceaselessly uncoils, with no end in sight – short of humans carelessly destroying the lifesustainability of their own planet. Doesn’t it seem rather selfevidently sensible, therefore, to budget in advance for unanticipated future discoveries, or corrections of current errors, and explicitly acknow
ledge the Edifice of human discovery to be one of mythology, rather than of “knowledge?” Is this not reasonable?
There are, after all, significant penalties attached to errors and ignorance, either of yet unmade discoveries, or by attachment to false beliefs. As the philosopher Sören Kierkegaard (1813 to 1855) once remarked, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Errors of both kinds exact their costs.
The tired old debate between socalled “Creationism” and “Darwinism” has been in progress for almost the past 150 years now, and protagonists on both sides with rigidly entrenched mindsets are arguing about it still. Yet a minor shift in perspective may render the entire argument moot, simply by demonstrating that “evolution by natural selection” itself bears the signature of a mysteriously metaconscious process which some mythologies might interpret as authored by “the very Hand of God,” and others might interpret in different terms entirely. In the following subsections we will be exploring recent discoveries which may support such a “minor shift in perspective.”
A. Actually, Copernicus had his published work, De Revolutionibus, placed into his hands while on his death bed, where he was safely beyond the reach of the Inquisition. In more recent times, the names, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744 to 1829), and Immanuel Velikovsky (1895 to 1979), spring to mind as individuals whose insights have met with almost universal opprobrium, yet may rise again to make some contribution to a future iteration of “the Edifice of human discovery.”
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On Cellular Biology
Since publication in 1953 of the DNA discoveries of Watson and Crick, the Central Dogma of the biological sciences, including allopathic medicine, has been that DNA is the fundamental determinant of cellular biology, and of the characteristics of all biologi
cal organisms.A Every biological trait, it has been, and is still widely believed, is set before birth, controlled by a single gene, encoded within the long molecular strings of inherited DNA, in the vast genetic library that resides in the nucleus of every normal eukaryoticB cell. Once it became feasible to read and rewrite the genetic code with pre
cision and reliability, the race was on for the “designer genes” that should enable humans to correct the supposed errors of their heritage, the faulty genes that are believed by many biologists to be the ultimate source of most if not all human ailments.
Except there was a bit of a hitchup. In his littlebig book on cellular biology, The Biology of Belief, Dr. Bruce Lipton describes in easily understood layman’s terms the major implications of his own and colleagues’ research; which unambiguously overturns the validity of the Central Dogma of conventional biology and allopathic medicine. Part of the Central Dogma is that there is a gene which contains the coded specification for every protein, the molecular parts out of which all cells are built; analogous to a library of blueprints specifying every structural and functional part of a building, or an automobile, or a ship. Lipton describes how the Human Genome Project, launched in the late 1980s, endeavored to catalog, map, and describe every gene in the human genetic repertoire (or genome), and establish a onetoone correspondence between each human gene and the corresponding protein it specifies. It was an ambitious undertaking, for since our bodies are constructed of more than 100,000 different kinds of proteins, plus at least 20,000 additional protein species for regulating the others, it was reasonably expected that the human genome would turn out to consist of at least 120,000 different genes. By the time the project had run its course, however, only about 25,000 genes had been identified in the entire human genome. More than 80% of the anticipated content of the human genome simply isn’t there, and the onegeneoneprotein concept went down – or should have gone down – in flames.C
Now that the Human Genome Project has toppled the onegene for oneprotein concept [Lipton writes], our current theories of how life works have to be scrapped. No longer is it possible to believe that genetic engineers can with relative ease fix all our biological dilemmas. There are simply not enough genes to account for the complexity of human life or of human disease.D
A. Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, Mountain of Love / Elite Books, Santa Rosa, California, 2005, p. 61.
B. Eukaryotes are cells containing a nucleus; as distinguished from their more primitive counterparts, the prokaryotes, consisting only of cytoplasm enclosed within a cell membrane. [Lipton, 2005, pp. 37, 77.]
C. Ibid., p. 62.
D. Loc. cit.
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Complicating matters even further have been numerous discoveries which demon
strate that cellular biology is not after all actually controlled by DNA at all, as held by the Central Dogma, but by a wide spectrum of subtle and notsosubtle stimuli from the cellular environment. These include, but are not limited to, molecular agents physically present within and without the cell; as well as energetic factors of diverse character and origin, such as solar radiation, acoustic waves, human emotions, and cellular telephones. Surprisingly, moreover, modern biology and medical science rest firmly upon a founda
tion of classical Newtonian physics, and completely ignore the often astonishing disco
veries that have literally revolutionized other physical sciences. Typical contemporary biological and medical curricula do not include the past 80 or 90some years’ discoveries in the field of quantum physics.A
These errors and oversights may have exacted a fearful tole upon large numbers of humans who have relied upon the accuracy of the intelligence about what the world around us and within us is actually like, issuing from life sciences research, and applied in practice by the medical and pharmaceutical professions. According to a study pub
lished in 2003, based upon analysis of ten years’ accumulated government data, the leading cause of death in America are the fatal effects of allopathic medicines prescribed by U.S. physicians; which account for 300,000 deaths every year.B
Further, by means of the simple experiment of removing the cell nucleus – the “cell’s brain,” according to the Central Dogma – and observing the unimpaired viability of the surgically altered cell, Lipton demonstrates another of the Central Dogma’s fundamental flaws. For if the cell nucleus is indeed the cell’s brain, enucleation – removal of the nucleus – should certainly kill the cell dead, should it not? But that’s not what happens. The cell lives on, and on, eventually expiring from the gradual attrition of proteins it is no longer able to replace.
If the nucleus and its genes are not the cell’s brain [Lipton writes], then what exactly is DNA’s contribution to cellular life? Enucleated cells die, not because they have lost their brain but because they have lost their reproductive capabilities. Without the ability to reproduce their parts, enucleated cells cannot A. Ibid., pp. 956.
B. G. Null, Ph.D., C. Dean, M.D. N.D., et al., Death by Medicine, Nutrition Institute of America, New York, 2003, cited by Lipton, 2005, p. 108.
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replace failed protein building blocks, nor replicate themselves. So the nucleus is not the brain of the cell – the nucleus is the cell’s gonad! Confusing the gonad with the brain is an understandable error because science has always been and still is a patriarchal endeavor. Males have often been accused of thinking with their gonads, so it’s not entirely surprising that science has inadvertently con
fused the nucleus with the cell’s brain!A
So, if the DNAbearing nucleus is not the cell’s brain, but as Lipton has it, its gonad, where is the cell’s brain to be found? Where is the mechanism, and how does it work, for actually controlling the cell’s complex and observably “purposeful,” “intelligent,” beha
vior, whether as a single entity, or in coordination with peers in a multicellular organism?
Here we have a domain of inquiry where I believe that the myth of metaconsciousness might add something genuinely useful. For not only are multicellular organisms vast communities of interactive single cells (fifty millionmillion of them populate the typical human adult); but each individual cell is itself a sprawling community of interactive molecular components, with the collective capability of sensing and responding appro
priately to conditions within and without the cell. An individual cell fulfills the dynamic requirements of all organisms, large and small, living functionally in any habitable environment; which is to say that it receives matter and energy from its environment, and it contributes matter and energy to its environment. How it does this involves a fasci
nating journey into the molecular microworld of the cell.
The Molecular Microworld of the Cell
I will begin this exposition somewhat obliquely, by drawing upon an often quoted, or alluded to, observation by Sir Arthur Eddington (1882 to 1944). “If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter,” Eddington wrote, “it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on type
writers they might write all the books in the British Museum.”B
What had prompted Eddington’s remark was a discussion of the probability of all the gas molecules in a closed vessel spontaneously congregating at one end of the vessel, leaving the other end occupied by vacuum. The probability of such an event actually occurring is unimaginably slight; which was the basic point of Eddington’s analogy of an army of monkeys writing all the books in the British Museum.
A. Lipton, 2005, p. 66.
B. A. S. Eddington, M.A., LL.D, D.Sc., F.R.S, The Nature of the Physical World, Gifford Lectures, 1927, Cambridge University Press, 1928, chapter 4, p. 72. Not necessarily typical, but representative of the great many allusions to Eddington’s image is a remark made by Arther Dent while being rescued from certain asphyxiation in the vacuum of interstellar space by the unimaginably improbable appearance in his immediate vicinity of the Heart of Gold, a spaceship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive. “Ford!” Arthur said, “there’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.” [Adams, 1980, p. 85.]
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Eddington may have had in mind a thought experiment proposed earlier by James ClerkMaxwell (1831 to 1879), in reference to the second law of thermodynamics;A in which Maxwell imagined “a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course....”
For we have seen [Maxwell continues] that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the tempera
ture of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodyna
mics.B
The second law of thermodynamics declares “the tendency for entropy to increase in closed systems;” and entropy is “the measure of randomness and disorder in a system.” The typical illustration of the second law in action is a closed jar containing, say, ⅓ salt, ⅓ pepper, and ⅓ empty space, or ambient air. While its contents are carefully laid on top of one another, as a layer of salt, a layer of pepper, and a layer of air, the “closed system” of the jar is said to be in a highly improbable state of order. Moving the jar about, how
ever, even slightly – or shaking it vigorously – tends to mix up the salt and pepper, and entropy is said to increase inside the jar. Because “entropy always increases in a closed system,” according to the second law of thermodynamics, never again will conditions within the jar obtain such that its initial state of an ordered layering of unmixed salt and pepper will manifest, no matter how long the jar is shaken; because there are innumerable ways in which the contents of a jar ⅔ filled with salt and pepper may be more or less uniformly mixed, and only two ways (salt on the bottom, or pepper on the bottom) for them to be segregated. Such is the prediction of the second law of thermodynamics, and no conventional scientist yet, to my knowledge, has recorded an exception to it. The imaginary “being” Maxwell proposed in his thought experiment, as a possible conceptual exception to the second law, is sometimes known as Maxwell’s demon.
Leaving all that aside for the moment, we may now proceed to examine some of the fascinating details of the molecular microworld of the cell.
The most salient features of every biological cell are a) the cell membrane, and b) the cytoplasm enclosed by the membrane. As already mentioned, these are the sole major A. See the brief discussion on Metaconsciousness in section II.5 for its first mention as complimentary to the second law of thermodynamics.
B. Quoted in the Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon#_ref0], citing “Maxwell (1871), reprinted in Leff & Rex (1990) at p.4”.
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components of the primitive prokaryotes, while the more sophisticated eukaryotes con
tain additional identifiable components as well, including cellular nuclei.C
In this connection, salient may be somewhat misleading, for until individual cells could be examined under the power of the electron microscope, invented after the close of World War II, biologists were not aware that cells have membranes, and most of them presumed cellular integrity was maintained by surface tension, or by the jellylike consis
tency of the cytoplasm. All cells do have membranes, however, of extraordinarily refined thinness; and all cell membranes are of the same highly unusual molecular construction.
It is a commonplace that “oil and water do not mix;” which is why the molecular structure of the cell membrane is so unusual. The reason oil and water do not mix is that the kinds of molecules of which they are composed are of two fundamentally different types: polar, and nonpolar. Water is polar, and bears positive and negative electrical charges, which interact electrically with other polar molecules. Polar molecules have an affinity for one another, and particularly for water, with which they readily dissolve and blend.
Nonpolar molecules, which are electrically neutral and make efficient electrical insulators, also have an affinity for and blend easily with one another, but are repelled by, and repel polar molecules. Typical nonpolar molecules in biology are fats and oils, and are collectively designated lipids.
The particularly unusual property of cell membranes is that they are composed of phspholipids, molecules with both polar and nonpolar properties, which form a very thin threelayer sheet composed of a nonpolar, hydrophobic, lipid layer, sandwiched between two polar, hydrophilic layers. The hydrophilic layers, one exposed to the environment outside the cell, the other to the environment inside, both have an affinity for water; but the hydrophobic lipid layer between them abhors water, and without perforations would allow no polar molecule to penetrate the cell in any direction, either in or out.
The Cell MembraneB
However, as indicated in the modified illustration, there are numerous and varied additional molecular structures penetrating the cell membrane, with numerous and varied functions; and many of these make possible the commerce of information and substance across the membrane that separates the exterior from the interior of all biological cells. C. See footnote B, p. 220.
B. Source: Wikipidia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cell_membrane_detailed_diagram.svg], bearing the following copyright information:
This image has been released into the public domain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/public_domain" class="extiw" title="en:public_domain] by its author, LadyofHats [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LadyofHats" title="User:LadyofHats"]. This applies worldwide.
I have removed the labeling of the original drawing, and replaced it with fewer labels identifying features discussed in this text. I have also enlarged the detail of the phospholipid molecule.
224
Most of these structures are colored blue in the illustration, and are called Integral Membrane Proteins (IMPs). There are many different kinds of IMPs, with many different tasks to perform in keeping the cell alive and functional; but to simplify, it is sufficient to note that most Integral Membrane Proteins fall into two distinct categories: receptors and effectors.
Receptors are the cell’s sense organs, for monitoring conditions both inside and out
side the cell. Receptor proteins have specialized shapes, which fit like a key in a lock with the molecular structure of the specific molecule they are fitted to sense; or which resonate with a specific energetic frequency, as does a radio antenna with the radio frequency it is tuned to receive. (It is this understanding, by the way, which furnishes the scientific basis for energetic therapy modalities.) When such a match obtains, between a receptor and whatever stimulus it is fitted to sense, the receptor protein changes its electrical proper
ties; which in turn sends a signal to a neighboring effector protein, causing the behavior change the particular chain of information exchange is fitted to effect.
Effectors are the “muscles” in the cell membrane, which change shape in response to changes in the electrical fields with which they interact, specifically the signals broadcast by receptor proteins upon encountering whatever it is they are poised to sense. The trans
port protein at the leftnear corner of the illustration, for instance, opens like a gate, or iris, allowing, say, a molecule of nutritional value sensed by a nearby receptor to pass into the cell from outside; and then closes again, returning that part of the membrane to a state of impermeability. Or, stimulated by a receptor inside the cell membrane, the gate opens to allow a waste product to exit the interior of the cell; then closes.
These receptoreffector complexes, as densely packed as possible without compro
mising its structural integrity, are dotted throughout the cell membrane by the thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, covering every cell of every biological organism on Earth, and conducting such selective interactions between receptors and effectors at hundreds of cycles per second. And so, what have we here, if not literally innumerable reallife incarnations of Maxwell’s proverbial demon, operating constantly and without ceasing, throughout the entire fabric of all biological life?
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Not only is this vast army of Maxwell’s demons, in the form of innumerable recep
toreffector pairs of Integral Membrane Proteins, capable of discriminating if necessary, as Maxwell speculatively described, between fast and slowmoving molecules; they actu
ally do discriminate on the basis of electric charge, nutritive value, toxicity, and even on the basis of the energetic qualities propagated in the form of electromagnetic, acoustic, and other energy waves – ceaselessly diminishing the entropy within each cell, and throughout all biological systems. This observation is supported at large by the progress of biological evolution itself, through the flux of time; and by the process of learning by experience, or its functional equivalent, exhibited at every scale by all healthy biological systems.
In their aggregate, it seems that the net effect of healthy biological systems is the reduction of entropy, by the very mechanism James ClerkMaxwell envisioned 136 years ago. Otherwise, entropy only increases under conditions of biological dysfunction, decay, and neglect; yet this is also vital to the balance of the Cosmic – or at least planetary – scheme. If there were no death and decay, but only growth and proliferation, biological evolution on Earth would very swiftly, and long since, have arrived at a state of global gridlock, which would probably have rendered the planet biologically uninhabitable.
These observations are supported by the settled findings of carefully conducted and documented scientific research. As to whether they form the basis for an actual exception to the second law of thermodynamics, the issue may be moot. For it may be argued that, factoring in recent findings in diverse scientific domains, including the accumulated disclosures of quantum physics, the “closed systems,” to which the second law exclu
sively applies, may be more rare in Nature than generally assumed. It may well be that no example of a genuinely “closed system” can actually be found anywhere within the domain of cellular biology.
In any case, it appears to me that, like it or not, the time has come once again to rebuild from the ground up another collapsed major section at least, of the amazing leaning tower many still persist in calling “the Edifice of human knowledge;” and I would prefer to call “a (sometimes) plausible myth about an impenetrably mysterious reality.” Or short of that, at least to give consideration to making “a minor shift in perspective.”
The Cellular Brain
So, returning to the question we encountered earlier, if the DNAbearing nucleus is not the cell’s brain, but as Lipton has it, its gonad, where is the cell’s brain to be found? Lipton’s answer is, the cellular membrane; or as he sometimes puts it, “the magical mem
Brain.” I would rather call it “the metaconscious membrane;” for as described above, and in Lipton’s book, the molecular interactions of the cellular membrane are as ideally prototypical an example as I can imagine of the fundamentally mysterious emergence of what I call metaconsciousness; which manifests when entities of any scale exchange information under conditions of sufficient richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. That is why I venture to suggest that the myth of metaconsciousness may have 226
something of value to contribute to the illumination of cellular biology, and to many other domains of human inquiry as well.
Lipton describes the epiphany he experienced in 1985 when he first discovered that the membrane, not the nucleus, is in fact effectively the “brain” of all biological cells. Reviewing the properties he had observed in minute scrutiny of the fine details of the cell membrane, Lipton composed in carefully chosen words the following description:
The membrane is a liquid crystal semiconductor with gates and channels.

Liquid crystal, because the phospholipid molecules that form the basic structure of the cell membrane, while possessing the supple flexibility required of any membrane to flex and change shape, are nevertheless arrayed in columns and rows, as are more rigid crystalline structures. This is in fact the accepted description of a liquid crystal.

Semiconductor, because the membrane conducts some but not all mole
cular structures across its semipermeable barrier.

With gates and channels, because the membrane contains effector IMPs which open and close in response to stimuli from receptor IMPs.
Reviewing what he had written, Lipton was struck by a sense of déjà vu, because his description of the cell membrane seemed uncannily familiar to him. Casting about, sure enough, he found where he had read essentially the same sentence before. It was in a book he had recently purchased, Understanding Your Microprocessor, and it contained the sentence, “A chip is a crystal semiconductor with gates and channels.”
For the first second or two [Lipton writes] I was struck by the fact that the chip and cell membrane shared the same technical definition. I spent several more intense seconds comparing and contrasting biomembranes with silicon semicon
ductors. I was momentarily stunned when I realized that the identical nature of their definitions was not a coincidence. The cell membrane was indeed a structural and functional equivalent (homologue) of a silicon chip!A
Lipton goes on to cite a paper published in Nature confirming the functional equiva
lence of cell membranes with computer semiconductors.B
Cells may be said to behave “purposefully,” or “intelligently,” because they have the ability to sense their external and internal environments, and to respond appropriately to dynamically shifting conditions in ways that improve their circumstances and survivabil
ity. This they accomplish at the molecular level by such mechanisms as just described; and what I call the emergent metaconsciousness of a cell seems to be in some way related to the number of receptoreffector pairs of IMPs it is able to pack into its membrane.
A. Lipton, 2005, p. 91.
B. B.A. Cornell, V.L.B. BraachMaksvytis, et al., “A biosensor that uses ionchannel switches,” Nature 387: 580583, 1997, cited by Lipton, 2005, p. 91.
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There was a limit to that direction of cellular evolution, however, because there is a limit to the volume of cytoplasm the cell membrane is able to contain without rupturing. While surface area increases by the square of a body’s dimensions, its volume and mass increase by the cube; so that when the diameter of a cell doubles, its surface area quadru
ples, and its volume expands by a factor of 8. A point is quickly reached beyond which the thin cellular membrane is no longer structurally able to contain the cell. It is not pos
sible to “beef up” the strength of the cellular membrane proportionately without sacri
ficing the peculiar polar/nonpolar properties vital to its function. Hence, cells may vary in size within liberal limits, but all cell membranes are of the same minute thickness, established by the physical dimensions of the phospholipid molecules of which they are composed. Therefore, there is a maximum “metaconsciousness quotient” attainable by a single cell.
Lipton goes on to describe how in the primitive prokaryotic cells that were the exclusive biological inhabitants of the planet during its earliest stages of biological evolu
tion, the number of receptoreffector pairs of IMPs was limited; in part by the minute size of prokaryotes, and in part because the limited surface area of the cell membrane had to be shared not only by receptor and effector IMPs, but by additional IMPs responsible for every other necessary biological function, such as digestion and motility. When the euka
ryotes eventually evolved, many of these essential tasks were internalized by the develop
ment of organelles that inhabit the cytoplasm, freeing up valuable membrane “acreage” for occupancy by additional receptoreffector IMPs. The more of these the cell could field across its membrane, the greater the cell’s “intelligence,” or as I prefer to say, its meta
consciousness. Additionally, eukaryotes are a great deal larger than prokaryotes, which expanded the area of available membrane enormously.
Evolution of Metaconsciousness
After some three thousand million years of cellular evolution, another threshold was reached, and the single cells that had inhabited the planet exclusively up to that time “caught on” to some of the advantages of cooperation. Multicellular colonies began to appear – and the evolution of biological metaconsciousness on Earth entered an entirely new phase.
When cells began to cluster and form colonies of at first very simple multicellular organisms, they broke free of the evolutionary barrier imposed by the metaconscious “carrying capacity” of the individual cellular membrane. Now that carrying capacity could be multiplied by the number of cells in the colony – and the evolution of biological life on Earth was “off to the races,” so to speak. Now, not only was the surface of each individual cell literally paved with sense organs (receptoreffector IMPs) and the means of effecting appropriate responses to environmental sensations; cooperative clusters of cells were able to vastly amplify and multiply this sensationresponsiveness throughout the cellular community. Individual cells and cellular groups within the community began to refine and specialize in various sensory and effectual functions, improving efficiency even further, by means of a prototypical “division of labor.”
228
All biological organisms, from the most primitive and isolated prokaryotes to the most sophisticated and advanced multicellular organisms, such as humans and dolphins – and even including social communities and populations, sometimes called “superorga
nisms,”A such as colonies of ants, bees, schools of fish, flocks of birds, and human tribes, nations, and races – must each fulfill the same biological necessities of exchanging matter and energy with Cosmos at large, or perish; which is to say, or dissolve into entropic dis
order. The dance of life seems to involve maintenance of a ceaselessly dynamic balance between entropy and syntropy, to coin another term, at all scales and domains.
In scrutinizing the lives of single cells, this process, carried on largely at the molecu
lar scale, seems in some ways almost mechanistic, like a minute fraction of the clockwork universe envisioned by the Newtonian physicists. We can imagine how receptor IMPs evolved molecular structures perfectly complementary to other molecular structures, or perfectly resonant with energetic frequencies of particular value or hazard to cellular functions; and how the most effective of these matches were replicated at the expense of the less effective ones. At the molecular scale of a single Integral Membrane Protein functioning in the relatively vast expanse of a single cell membrane, the process looks almost as mechanical and mindless as that of a ticking watch movement. And yet, when that single IMP is multiplied by hundreds of thousands embedded in the same cell membrane; and when that single cell is multiplied by the literally trillions of cells popu
lating a relatively large organism, such as a human, or a leopard, or a whale, the emergent metaconsciousness manifest in the vast and multidimensional exchange of information among such incomprehensible numbers of individual units seems profoundly mysterious, if not downright “spooky” to many of us. What is this “metaconsciousness” – conscious
ness, intelligence, and creativity – when you come right down to it?
My (provisional) answer to that question is that it is fundamentally mysterious, and we can approach it effectively only with our most wellconsidered myths. This is not at all the same as throwing up our hands and “admitting defeat” before the inscrutable myste
ries of “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” It suggests, rather, that however far we advance “the frontier of human discovery,” we need never anticipate the eventuality of running out of mysteries beyond our current (at any time) understanding. Meanwhile, there seem to be approaches to the mystery of metaconsciousness which show the poten
tial of advancing the process of discovery yet deeper into the mystery. One of these is the study of networks.
On Networks
Fortysome years ago, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment which at first glance appears to have little or nothing to do with biological evolution, the mys
tery of metaconsciousness, or with anything else we have been discussing so far; yet may have a great deal to do with all of it, at least. Milgram was interested in the structure of the lines of relationship that form among widespread groups of individuals; so he sent A. See The Barnyard Pecking Order in section I.2.
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duplicate letters to a random selection of addresses in Kansas and Nebraska, requesting the letter be forwarded to a stockbroker living in Boston. Only, Milgram did not include the stockbroker’s address. Instead, he requested that the recipient forward the letter to a friend the recipient considered to be “socially nearer” to the letter’s specified destination; and request that the letter be handed on in like manner.
The striking outcome of Milgram’s experiment was not that most of the letters he sent eventually reached their intended destination, which they did, but how swiftly most of them covered the ground. Most of them were in the Boston stockbroker’s hands after having been passed along a chain of individuals consisting of no more than six links. This is intuitively surprising for most of us, because in a nation with a population of around two hundred million,A one would not expect an arbitrary Great Plains resident to be “within six handshakes” of an arbitrary Boston resident. Would one? Yet followup on Milgram’s experiment disclosed that it seems to be so – not only among Americans, but among all residents of planet Earth anywhere; and the result has been widely popularized in the phrase, “six degrees of separation.” We live, so it seems, in a surprisingly “small
world.”B
A few years ago [Buchanan writes] a German newspaper accepted the light
hearted challenge of trying to connect a Turkish kebabshop owner in Frankfurt to his favorite actor, Marlon Brando. After several months, the staff of Die Ziet discovered that it took no more than six links of personal acquaintance to do so. The kebabshop owner, an Iraqi immigrant named Salah Ben Ghaln, has a friend living in California. As it happens, this friend works alongside the boyfriend of a woman who is the sorority sister of the daughter of the producer of the film Don Juan de Marco, in which Brando starred. Sixdegrees of separation is an undeni
ably stunning characteristic of our social world, and numerous more careful sociological studies offer convincing evidence that it is true – not only in special cases, but generally. But how can it be true? How can six billion people be so closely linked?C
So maybe the study of networks – the study of the connections among groups of... almost anything, really – is deeply germane after all to the mystery of metaconsciousness; which is said to emerge spontaneously among entities which exchange information. Networks have structures, which are shaped by the circumstances in which they arise. In a village, for instance, or a suburban neighborhood, or a small town, or a university cam
pus..., most residents are acquainted with a number of others, a certain number of whom are also acquainted with each other. In the illustration below – called a graph by the A. The U.S. Census Bureau [www.census.gov/] placed the U.S. resident population at 179,323,175 in 1960, and 203,302,031 in 1970.
B. Mark Buchanan, NEXUS: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London, 2002, p. 13.
C. Loc. cit.
230
mathematicians and scientists who study them – of a small “neighborhood” in a much larger network, every individual is “personally acquainted” with his, her, or its eight nearest neighbors. A, for instance, is connected to B and B’ by redcolored lines in the illustration; to C and C’ by green lines; to D and D’ by blue lines; and to E and E’ by violet lines.
A local “neighborhood” in a larger network.
E’ in turn is “personally acquainted” with D’, C’, B’, and A, but not with B, C, D, or E; yet in knowing A, E’ is only one link away from each of A’s “farside friends.”
Among a fair sized group of individuals, not everyone is acquainted with everyone else, yet it will not seem surprising if most of them turn out to be connected through someone they know, who knows someone else, and so on, to every other individual in the community, by a small number of links. What is surprising is that this seems to be true as well among the entire human population of the planet. How can that be so? Well, investi
gation has disclosed that among any group of individuals, such as residents of a small town, or a campus, some of them will be acquainted not only with a number of local residents, but also with one or more residents of distant communities as well; in which they in turn are linked to everyone else in such communities by a small number of links. By this means, not only is everyone in any given community linked together; they are also linked with everyone in distant communities by a very few additional links. Simi
larly, all communities are linked together, somehow – which has the combined effect of linking everybody with everybody else in the whole world, through “six degrees of separation!”
These “smallworld networks” emerge spontaneously, yet they are not entirely – or even predominantly – random. An entirely random network would be one in which any
one is as likely to be personally acquainted with someone on the other side of the world as with his or her nextdoor neighbor, or workmate; and although random networks also exhibit the “smallworld” property, it is simply not so that neighboring and remote indi
viduals are equally likely to be linked. Most of us – and it is probably safe to say all of us – become acquainted mostly with those we encounter frequently in our daily lives; and most of these live their lives not very far away, physically, from where we live ours. Yet 231
J. Harmon Grahn
we do occasionally cross paths, and become acquainted with individuals from distant realms, either by visiting there ourselves, by being visited by strangers from elsewhere, or through introductions or referrals by individuals we know. And so, links among remote communities are also formed.
In 1983, Mark Granovetter published a paperA that made it clear it is these very long
haul, mostly tenuous, “weak ties” that are the most vital to the integrity of the small
world network structure. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, the strong ties among family and friends in a local community are of little importance to the integrity of the more sprawling network of which the community forms a part; because there are sure to be many alternative links among neighbors to keep everyone connected locally with every
one else, no matter which individual links are actually functional. Rather, it is the few “weak ties” between locals and individuals in remote communities that knit together global networks out of otherwise relatively isolated local communities. Without the long
arm links, local networks among physical neighbors are not able to participate in the larger network of local networks.
Conversely, it takes an amazingly few randomly placed longarm links to convert a highly clustered network among locally linked neighbors into a smallworld network in which every individual is linked to every other individual in every cluster, or “neighbor
hood,” by a small number of “degrees of separation.” A couple of additional graphs may make this clearer.
The graphs above, though similar in appearance, are schematic representations of two different kinds of networks. Network A is a completely ordered network consisting of 36 nodes, each of which is directly connected with its four nearest neighbors. There is nothing random about it, and such networks seldom if ever evolve organically, or A. Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited,” Sociological Theory, 1, 203233, 1983, cited by Buchanan, 2002, p.46.
232
“naturally.” Network B is a smallworld network identical to Network A, with the minor addition of five links between arbitrary pairs of nodes; which introduces a small element of randomness into an otherwise highly ordered network, and transforms it into a small
world network.
Most networks found in nature are not as orderly as the networks graphed here; but are far from being entirely random, either. Both of the networks above, and naturally
occurring networks as well, exhibit the property of clustering – in which every five indi
viduals (in this case; every nine individuals in the network illustrated earlier) are directly linked together into a closeknit cluster; and there is considerable overlap among clusters. In general, entirely random networks exhibit “smallworld” properties, but negligible clustering; whereas naturally occurring “smallworld” networks are also highly clustered. Highly clustered networks are not difficult to find in Nature, except that natural networks generally exhibit much more variation and less rigid uniformity than, for the sake of simplicity, is illustrated here. In the case of Network A, however, and “Alike” networks of greater scale, there are considerably more than six “degrees of separation” between individuals on opposite sides of the network. Because of course, in the case of Network A, in order to connect with one’s opposite number, one must pass a message among a minimum of nine successively linked individuals; and a great many more than that in similar networks of larger scale.
In the case of a network the size of the human population of Earth, wired together like Network A such that every individual is directly linked with an average of, say, 50 “neighbors,” leapfrogging around the world in roughly 50member hops would link the remotest two individuals by an order of 60 million “handshakes,” instead of six. So the network among human residents of planet Earth is evidently not very much at all like Network A.
Network B, on the other hand, is quite a different kettle of fish; for although each individual is directly linked with four neighbors, as in Network A, a few members of Network B are also linked with someone significantly more remote than their nearest neighbors; and it is these arbitrarily placed longarm links that knit the network together into a smallworld with a maximum of about “six degrees of separation” between any two members of the network. It turns out that about all it takes to convert a highly clustered network into a smallworld network is a small handful of randomly placed longarm links between arbitrary members of clusters remote from each other; and that’s about it. Moreover, this effect is not diluted, but is rather enhanced, by the expansion of the global network.
These principles were articulated formally by Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz in a paper published in 1998A which had the effect of stirring up quite a buzz among scientists in many different disciplines.
A. Duncan J. Watts and Steven H. Strogatz, “Collective Dynamics of ‘SmallWorld’ Networks,” Nature 393, 440442, 1998, cited by Buchanan, 2002, p.60.
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J. Harmon Grahn
Although smallworld architecture has not received much attention [concluded Watts and Strogatz], we suggest that it will probably turn out to be widespread in biological, social and manmade systems, often with important dynamical conse
quences.A
In retrospect, it may be said that Watts’s and Strogatz’s conservative prediction in 1998 has been amply corroborated, at least. On the following page is a picture of a real
world network that has grown explosively, particularly since the inception of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.
It doesn’t look very much like the networks we’ve been viewing earlier, does it? You can see right off that there’s no Planning Commission for the Internet. Anyone in the world who wants to can set up a domain, and link it to whatever other domains one pleases, without so much as a “by your leave” to anybody else. And anyone who wants to can set up a server anywhere, host one or more domains on it, and tie into the telecom
munications infrastructure wherever and however one is able to. So the Net has taken the shape it has on the basis of countless decisions by countless individuals and other entities, in pursuit of their own various and several objectives. Nor does the contemporary Internet bear much resemblance to the conception of it imagined by its first planners.
As discussed in some of the citations mentioned in footnote A, following page, it was the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik October 4, 1957, that provided the initial impetus behind what eventually became the Internet. Mainly, when it was realized that the Soviets had the ability to boost a 184lb. package into low Earth orbit, it was also realized that they could just as easily target a nuclear or thermonuclear attack upon the United States across the Arctic Circle, with potentially devastating results to the national telecom
munications system. The national telecommunications system was seen as vulnerable because a few wellplaced hits on vital hubs could fragment the entire network into effective inoperability. With disabled command, control, and communications, Pentagon planners swiftly appreciated that an effective response to such an attack would be difficult if not impossible. In January, 1958, therefore, President Eisenhower launched ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, in preliminary measures to repair perceived vulner
abilities to the United States, threatened by the Soviet space program – which had meanwhile launched Sputnik II into orbit, weighing in at half a ton.B
In the event, ARPA’s original mission was eclipsed within the year by the additional launch in the U.S. of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which obviated much of ARPA’s original agenda. Nevertheless, work went quietly forward at the now obscure ARPA, and among other academic and scientific institutions, toward solving the nation’s communication vulnerabilities. Out of this research emerged analyses of three different kinds of networks: centralized, decentralized, and distributed.C
A. Watts and Strogatz, 1998, p. 442.
B. Grahn, 1/4/98.
C. Illustrations adapted from Grahn, 1/4/98.
234
The Internet, 15 January 2005A
Of the three, it was believed at the time that the distributed network, with no central hubs, and a few links among neighboring nodes, would be the most “survivable” architec
ture for a national communications network.B By this means, it was reasoned, any node, or even a significant number of nodes, could be taken out without seriously damaging A. Source: The Opte Project [www.opte.org/maps/]; image licensed under the Creative Commons License [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/byncsa/1.0/]. The birth and growth of the Internet is discussed by Buchanan, 2002, Chapter 5, The SmallWorld Web, pp. 7388; and by me in my essay, “The Internet as a New Paradigm Manifestation,” 1/4/98; in Grahn, 1/26/00; and in I.6. The Hacker Tribe.
B. Buchanan, 2002, pp. 7880.
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J. Harmon Grahn
communication among the surviving nodes; for messages that could not be routed to surviving destinations by former paths could still reach them by alternative paths.
Accordingly, by the end of 1969 four computers, at UCLA, Stanford University, UC
Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah, had been linked together in what was called at the time ARPANET – and turned out in retrospect to have been the seed from which the Internet of today has grown, linking 100 million computers in 250 nations.A
However, The Internet did not emerge in the same shape at all that its planners 40 years earlier had anticipated. In fact, it is probably safe to say that 47 years ago, nobody anticipated what has emerged as the Internet today. It came out of the Sun, and has taken v

Mythology for a Post-Civilized World

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