"Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything", Ervin Laszlo, Inner Traditions, Vermont, 2004. On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Science-Akashic-Field-Integral-Everything/dp/1594770425/sr=1-1/qid=1169721697/ ______________ In my mind, the classic paradigm of science was the confrontation between Galileo and the Bishop. Galileo said, "Look through the telescope and you will see the moons of Jupiter." The Bishop refused to look and said that he knew there were no moons because that's what can be concluded from scripture. This scenario is often characterized as a confrontation between science and religion. I see it rather as a confrontation between observation and theory. True science is about respecting observation above theory. For that reason, I see as many (or more) Bishops than Galileos in the 'scientific community' and among 'informed citizens'. One sign of a Bishop is an over-emphasis on 'reliable sources'. I get so annoyed at readers who respond to postings with, "What are you posting that for? Haven't you seen some of outrageous things on their website?" I don't care whether or not Galileo has silly beliefs in some areas, or hangs out with shady characters -- I care about what he can teach me about Jupiter. Please spare me ad hominem responses! Refusing to look at sources because they're not kosher is what Bishops do. As it turns out, the author of "Science and the Akashic Field" has very strong science-establishment credentials, and bases his book on hard-science results, well referenced. Nonetheless, I expect there will be some Bishops in the audience, as the observations he reports will contradict their theories / belief structures. Lazlo reports on some very important findings in quantum theory, cosmology, biology, and consciousness. All of these challenge the belief system of today's dominant form of fundamentalism: materialism. Let's start with quantum theory, because in that area what he reports is mostly mainstream. Scientists generally acknowledge that quantum theory is in a state of confusion. There is no consensus answer to what has been observed. Information is being communicated at faster-than-light speeds, for example, and there is no agreement on how that could happen. Some scientists offer mathematical formulas that match much of the phenomena, but that is not an explanation. It's just a mathematical description of the problem. Lazlo, and some others, observe that the simplest explanation for such quantum phenomenon is to assume the existence of something very much like what used to be called the 'ether'. Some all-pervasive 'field' or 'medium' that occupies all of space, something much finer grained than quantum particles, and something that conveys waves much faster than light. The ether was abandoned many decades ago, because experiments showed there was no 'etherial friction'. But now we know about super-conductivity, which shows the total absence of friction under certain circumstances. Hence those classic experiments were not conclusive after all. Lazlo calls this hypothetical field the 'A-field', or the 'quantum vacuum field', or the 'Akashic field', in honor of the Sanskrit name for the same thing. In this as in many other areas, we seem to be finally rediscovering the wisdom of the ancients. Cosmology is also in a state of confusion. Even assuming the maximum possible amount of 'dark matter' -- to pick just one area of confusion -- there is still not enough gravity to hold the universe together. There must be forces we don't know about, conveyed by some medium we don't know about, to explain the universe we observe. Once again, Lazlo demonstrates that an Akashic field could provide an 'Occum's razor' basis on which to explain the observed anomalies. I'm not trying to give here the details of his arguments, but to outline the scope of his investigation, and hint at the kind of observations he is working from. The Akashic field, according to Lazlo's reasoning, is ultra-dense, ultra-energetic, frictionless, and carries waves at several billion times the speed of light. Tesla was hot on the trail of tapping a-field energy, and finally scientists and engineers are again pursuing his long-suppressed work. So far, most readers are probably not having much trouble with this material. I haven't asked you to look at any disturbing moons yet. It's been about physics, which most people don't try to understand anyway, and so there's no significant conflict with belief system... unless one is a fundamentalist about relativity, or the impossibility of 'perpetual motion' (zero point energy). But things may get more disturbing as we get into biology and evolution... Let's start with 'rate of information transfer' in biological systems. Observations show that organisms (including humans) respond with a whole-body coherence that exceeds the speed of nerve transmissions, let alone hormone diffusion. It appears that every cell is instantaneously 'in touch' with the state-of-the-whole, and responds to events even before nerve signals get the news out. Cells seem to interact at the quantum level as well as at the biochemical level. Each cell seems to be 'conscious and intelligent'. Again, the a-field provides a basis for explanation. Now here's a disturbing moon: natural selection, based on random genetic variations, simply fails as an explanation for evolution. Entirely new major species appear too quickly (10,000 years in some cases) for randomness to be enough. There must be some connection between a living organism and its genetic machinery, something that in some way informs DNA in an intelligent way. And in fact experiments have been carried out, with tiny organisms, where a created environment results in genetic adaptations within a generation or two. I'm not talking about a 'range of mutations', in which some turn out to be adaptive, but about isolated genetic adaptations, related specifically to the environmental conditions. With just a tiny bit of 'intelligent help' at the DNA level, the observed rates of evolution begin to make statistical sense. It turns out that some of the arguments put forth by creationists actually do make sense, even if they are motivated by dubious mythology. There are many examples of evolutionary developments where none of the intermediate stages are adaptive, but the final result is. People like Dawkins try to explain this kind of thing away, but their explanations are a long ways from Occum's razor, more like Occum's axe. The evidence for a 'design' influence is strong, but there is no reason to assume a Grand Designer in the Sky. We need only assume, Lazlo argues, a quantum-level a-field, which carries information everywhere instantly, and with which cells (including those related to DNA sequencing) can interact in intelligent ways that we don't yet understand. The subject of consciousness also brings in disturbing moons. The experiments here have been repeated all over the world, time and time again, under the strictest scientific constraints, in respected research institutions. Telepathy is real. Consciousness and memory formation in the absence of all electrical brain activity is real. It can still be the case that there's lots of fakery and suggestibility involved in 'psychic circles', but the fact remains -- if you believe in science -- that these phenomena really happen as well. Consciousness, Lazlo argues, seems to be a phenomenon that happens in the a-field, below the level of neurons. The brain is a tool of consciousness, but does not provide the basic mechanism of consciousness. By means information carried by waves in the a-field, resonance can occur between minds (consciousnesses), over long distances and instantly, particularly when the people have strong emotional connections (ie, they're on a similar 'frequency'). The ability to tap into this a-field resonance seems to be something that occurs relatively frequently, except in cultures where people have been conditioned to filter it out. Lazlo reports a case, which he says is typical, where someone from an indigenous culture sits up in bed, says with total certainty "my father just died", and gets up immediately to make his travel preparations for home, where it turns out his father has indeed just died. And by setting up suitable conditions, not even involving anything so strong as psychedelics or hypnosis, most people are able to 'tune in' to remote resonance. In all of these areas, these latest scientific observations echo the 'wisdom of the ancients', what has been reported by sages, and what some indigenous cultures have always believed. With the a-field, statements which seemed like conundrums begin to make some kind of sense: 'Consciousness is in all things', 'we are all connected', 'the universe is intelligent', etc. Let me now be a bit more specific about Lazlo's model of this 'a-field'. His presentation of scientific 'anomalies', and 'new observations' are solid. And his assumption of an a-field seems to be inescapable. But his specific model of the a-field can only be speculative, an 'early hypothesis' in an expanding field of research. As a metaphor he talks about the wakes left by ships in the sea. If the water is very calm, and you're looking from an airplane, you can see the wakes for miles behind a ship. You can see interference patterns among wakes of different ships. If the sea is really calm, and you can sufficiently examine a small patch of interfering wakes, you can calculate the sizes, speeds, and directions of the various ships that contributed to the interference pattern. The 'interference patch' acts as a kind of hologram, containing within itself 'information about the whole'. This is, by the way, how holograms work: they are interference patterns of light waves, where each patch is about 'the whole'. In the ocean these wake-waves travel slowly, and are eventually damped out by friction, even if the oceans could be totally absent of other disturbances. In the frictionless a-field, however, the 'wakes of events' would last forever, and spread everywhere almost instantly. At each point in space, the a-field contains a 'hologram' of all events everywhere, past and present. That's the essence of Lazlo's model. It's an appealing model, and I imagine this hologram-effect could be part of the truth. It addresses the universal availability of information, but it doesn't really address consciousness itself. It tells us how we can know things at a distance, but it doesn't tells us what knowing is. I'd like now to turn to a less famous investigator in this same field, someone whose basic line of investigation is the same as Lazlo's, but who doesn't have the track record to get his stuff widely published or seen in scientific circles. He also sees the need for an a-field (which he calls something else) and his reasoning and evidence are very much the same as Lazlo's. But his model is a richer one, and explains much more. Not only does it have an explanation for consciousness, but it presents a simple mechanism for how an a-field might have come into existence. This researchers name is Ronald D. Pearson, and I posted his theory last summer: 22 Aug 2006 CONSCIOUSNESS AS A SUB-QUANTUM PHENOMENON http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1594&lists=newslog I didn't spend much time trying to defend or promote Pearson's model to you at the time, because I figured I'd be a Galileo among an aroused posse of Bishops, unnecessarily damaging my credibility, such as it is. Not only is Pearson's model 'way outside the box', but I could only find his material on the Internet (the presumed land of nutters and conspiracy theories). It would be too easy for everyone to dismiss. I posted it for the few who might appreciate it, and left it with little comment. Lazlo's book, however, is more difficult to dismiss. He's done everything right from an academic point of view, he's got very impressive credentials, and his book has loads of commendations from respected big names. I'm assuming only a small posse of Bishops will rise up against Lazlo, and I'd like to build on that. The only difference between Lazlo's theory and Pearson's, is in their speculations about the detailed nature of the a-field. It seems to me that in a very real sense Pearson deserves to 'inherit' whatever credibility Lazlo has, and that we should be able to judge for ourselves the merits of the two models. Pearson starts with a simple sub-quantum model. He assumes two kinds of particles (much smaller than the quantum level or strings). A 'positive' particle accelerates things in the direction they are going, and a 'negative' particle slows things down. When these particles collide, depending on the angle and directness of impact, sometimes they annihilate one another and sometimes they give birth to yet another particle, and the collisions generate energy at the level of the a-field. A set of assumptions like this might seem arbitrary, but it's no more arbitrary than string theory, to pick just one example. That's what physicists do, they build their models by dreaming up mechanisms that would lead to observed results. No one's ever seen a 'string', but if strings existed they would explain some of the anomalies in quantum physics. That's the only reason people believe in string theory -- because it works (to a limited extent). Pearson's mechanism is worth looking at for exactly the same reasons, and it is much simpler and more explanatory than most such models. By considering how these particles would interact over time, Pearson concludes that they would naturally cluster themselves into neural-net formations. Neural-net formations are how the brain is structured, they are the 'architecture' of natural information processing, of thinking. Computers, although very fast, are primitive by comparison. Neural nets act in parallel and in a distributed fashion, every cell in essence a 'processor' in its own right. And they grow new connections as they operate, like a computer that could keep changing its wiring so as to compute better. Pearson's model of the a-field arises from the assumed behavior of these two simple particle types. The a-field is the fundamental reality of the universe, and it is made up of local neural nets (locally intelligent clusters of particles) connected by information-carrying filaments of particles. These filaments are not themselves intelligent, they are 'neutral' carriers of information between clusters. Now let's compare Lazlo's and Pearson's models. Both provide a medium than can transmit information super-quickly, a mechanism for long-distance resonance, and an explanation for a 'holographic' distribution of information in the universe. Lazlo's idea about interference patterns is not I think mentioned in Pearson's work, and I would count that as a valuable addition, as a mechanism of compact information storage. But in every other way I see Pearson's work as a major advance on Lazlo's. Lazlo makes the case for 'an' a-field of some kind, with waves and resonance, but Pearson goes on to provide a mechanism for those phenomena, and for others that Lazlo dismisses. In Pearson's model consciousness exists only in the a-field. Your consciousness and mine is a property of the a-field which co-exists in the same space as our bodies and brains. It is the combined activity of the billions of neural clusters that exist in that space. The brain is the sense organ that, among other things, filters and categorizes incoming signals from the gross physical world and makes that information available to our consciousness. But why does the a-field need the brain? If the a-field is universally connected and intelligent, our local clusters could get any information they need quicker through the a-field than through the relatively slow and clumsy brain. Here's where Pearson's model gets really interesting. Pearson sees the physical world as something that was consciously created by, is consciously maintained by, and is energized by the intelligent intention of the a-field. There is a Creator and it is the universe, one might say, the real universe being the a-field itself. The mystics of the East, who claim to speak from special experience and not from theory, have always said that this world is an illusion, and that there is a real world apart from the material world, that is all pervasive and all conscious. Pearson gives us a non-mysterious way to 'hold' such concepts. Or at least the mystery is pushed back several levels: where did these two kinds of particles come from? (Let's leave that for another day.) The physical universe, then, is a simulation, a bit like in The Matrix, or the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. When local consciousness takes up attachment to an organism, part of the game is that it is intentionally cut-off, to one degree or another, from the larger a-field universal consciousness. In living a life on this plane, we are 'taking a trip', 'having an experience', in the simulation. We (that is our consciousnesses) are temporarily, and presumably voluntarily, being confined to the Holodeck of the Starship Enterprise! I recently read Jung's, "Memories,Dreams, and Reflections". Jung talks about consciousness as being apart from the body, and surviving death. He goes on to suggest that we come into this world to learn things that cannot be learned by the a-field (what he calls the 'universal consciousness') directly. It's sort of like the a-field doesn't have much of a 'left brain'. It can know everything, but it can't do much in the way of linear reasoning. Something vaguely like that. He suggests, and it seems to be based on his experiences rather than his theorizing, that when we die we 'report back' and 'debrief' to our 'friend consciousnesses.' What did we learn on this plane? Personally, I am drawn to the idea that our 'trip' on this plane has an element of fun to it, adventure, challenge, and even entertainment. Just as we like to descend into a DVD, and 'experience' the drama, excitement, and catharsis of a staged story, so our 'consciousness' likes to have experiences, rather than just sit there in the universe knowing everything without adventure or constraints. Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. cheers, richard -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html