SOMA SOPHIA
From the Heart of Nature springs the Light, and we are That. Virtual Photon Fluctuation is the Source of the photons that form and sustain our Being. We are truly Light Beings: Homo Lumen. We literally inhabit and embody a Temple of Living Light, which is interconnected with the deepest level of Cosmos. We are shiny Diamonds of Rainbow Light. We are made in the Images of its Brilliance. Shine On! In the Effulgence of its Brilliance.
CONNECTIVE TISSUE JOURNAL
SOMA SOPHIA: BODY WISDOM Culture, Creativity, & Psychic Energy
By Iona Miller, 10-2005
“The tiny particles which form the vast universe are not tiny at all. Neither is the universe vast. These are notions of the mind, which is like a knife, always chipping away at the Tao, trying to render it graspable and manageable. But that which is beyond form is ungraspable, and that which is beyond knowing is unmanageable. There is, however, this consolation: She who lets go of the knife will find the Tao at her fingertips.”
- Brian Walker, Trans. Hua Hu Ching: The Unkown Teachings of Lao Tzu, Harper San Francisco.
We are waves whose stillness is non-being
We are alive because of this, that we have no rest.
Abu-Talib Kalim
Abstract: The first aim of science is the description of our world. Science seeks a system of categories which will capture the essential aspects of the entitles under study. The second aim of science is the explanation of the origin of tile entities. Science seeks to know the causes of the entities under study. The third aim of science is the prediction of the future. Science searches for accurate methods of predicting future events and structures of interest. The fourth aim of science is a general understanding.
The mindbody is electronic. Living systems are very sensitive to tiny energy fields and resonance phenomena, both locally and at a distance. They allow the cells of the body to work together instantaneously and symphonically.
Our hearts are powerful electromagnetic organs whose influence extends far beyond our skin boundaries through field effects and nonlocal intentionality, emotions and thoughts. Also, each cell of the body has a 'mind' of its own, connected holistically through the living matrix, a communication system within the body.
The living matrix is as or more powerful than the nervous system, because it extends into each and every cell. It is another kind of consciousness. The body has a cellular memory which embodies our traumas and triumphs. Integrative medicine approaches this mind/body system with a holistic treatment philosophy toward the body's operating system.
Mythopoetically, SOMA SOPHIA is not only a Body of Wisdom, but the innate wisdom of our body for self-organization and assembly, and healing. Felt-sense is a primal form of perception, cueing us on the safety or danger of situations or people to our fundamental well-being. She is the panacea, the heal-all for our psychosomatic complaints.
All human cultures have a model of the universe. Primitive societies embody their models in mythology and modern societies define their models with science. Such models serve important psychological and social functions.
1) They define the origin and structure of the world.
2) They provide the basic framework for social relations.
3) They explain the stages of life which most people experience.
4) They reveal the relationship between normal consciousness and altered states of consciousness.
Models can be compared for complexity, coherence, processes, structures, and the social systems which result. Such models are essential to human society regardless of their exact content.
These cultural models have several common features. The universe is thought to have different levels. There may be only a few levels or there may be many. Distinction is often drawn between the realm of the living and the non-living. The world of everyday objects is often contrasted with another level where the ordinary distinctions of space, time, and identity dissolve. Another common feature is a set of key processes including creation, destruction and balance. Perhaps the most important simularity is the concept of unity in diversity. All the levels and all the processes are seen as parts of an integrated whole.
Science does not proceed by offering its descriptions to the independent judgment of nature; rather it proceeds when proponents of one paradigm are able to present their case in a way that adherents of other paradigms find compelling. Thus how science moves is by not verification or falsification but by persuasion.
Introduction
"The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth. . . .The sense of Earth is the irresistable pressure which will come at the right moment to unite them (humankind) in a common passion." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ya Gotta Have Heart
We can connect intentionally with well-being through our hearts, returning the human dimension to our technocratic society through compassion and generosity of spirit. Cross-culturally throughout time, the heart has been associated with spiritual influx, wisdom, and compassion.
In Kabbalah, the heart center is associated with Beauty, with the transpersonal perspective of the Higher Self, and the Sun. It slowly dawns on us how intimately the universe supports us. In meditation we losen our identification with the limitations of ego, and associate with that transpersonal vantage point. We literally have a truly infinite body. Whatever universe is, we are That. The basic element of energy is the photon and we are photonic.
Heartfulness is a great healer demonstrated by the health and well-being of connected people with alterations in brain and immune function. Self-regulation with meditation modulates stress, restores body and spirit and synchronizes us with subtle geophysical rhythms.
The heart is more than a physiological or metaphorical partner in emotional response. The pacemaking electricity produced in the heart is not continuous but pulsating and rhythmic in action, synchronized with the contraction of the atrium and ventricle. This current is called electrical impulse. But it is also poetic, such as expressions of our excitement and engagement like, “Be still my beating heart”, “my heart overflows”, that imply a full heart, willing to “share” itself, to risk experience, to love unconditionally.
Such a heart is never a “lonely hunter” for it comprehends the immediacy of its engagement with self, others and cosmos. New discoveries of an integral vision of reality are putting the heart and subjectivity back in empirical science. This coherent vision of Cosmos echoes the earliest spiritual traditions, fusing man and universe. Every energetic event affects the system as a whole. Every beat of our hearts reflects the support of the whole universe for our lives, and can embody our reciprocation.
The ''vision'' developed in antiquity to implement a higher plane of thinking can be duplicated. We can reclaim that sacred oneness experienced by our ancestors who lived closer to nature. We can align ourselves by implimenting changes in our beliefs to improve the flow of physical and psychic energy, creativity, the wisdom and well-being of our holistic selves as well as our quality of life. But how?
Are we to take it on faith that we can evolve our species with vague acausal theories of so-called quantum mind, resonance and intentionality? Unless explanations involving mental effort and intention (degrees of freedom) can state clearly where *these* originate, what their causal antecedents are, than we really haven't explained anything when it comes to human choice and behavior.
The mind is variously described as consciousness, the observer, the subject's choices, intention, mental effort, "spiritual force", free will. Each level of consciousness operates as a whole at its own level, fitting personal and transpersonal together like the spectrum of a rainbow. What we do know from physics is that old notions of empiricism and objectivity have been forever replaced with relativity and subjectivity.
It is fashionable now, especially in energy medicine to talk of fields, and the field body in particular with a certain awe and reverence. It is true that quantum bioholography has demonstrated that the foundational basis of the body is photonic. Biosystems are conscious holograms.
Each of us is a nested hierarchy of field bodies - wavefronts in space. Modulations of Sound and Light waves at various scales are fundamental in the creation of our integral 3-D forms. There is a relationship between resonance and cymatics (optical and acoustic holography), eidetic imagery, and the living tissue matrix with its liquid crystal semi-conductors. Holography is an advanced application of cymatics, the conversion of energy from the invisible electromagnetic domain to physical form.
Biosystems are conscious holograms. Each of us is a nested hierarchy of field bodies - wavefronts in space. Modulations of Sound and Light waves at various scales are fundamental in the creation of our integral 3-D forms. There is a relationship between resonance and cymatics (optical and acoustic holography), eidetic imagery, and the living tissue matrix with its liquid crystal semi-conductors. Holography is an advanced application of cymatics, the conversion of energy from the invisible electromagnetic domain to physical form.
The fundamental and generative power is in the vibration which, with its periodicity, sustains phenomena with its two poles. One pole is form, the figurative pattern. The other is motion, the dynamic process. These three fields - vibration and periodicity as the ground field, and form and motion as the two poles - constitute an indivisible whole. There is a similarity between cymatic pictures and quantum particles. In both cases that which appears to be a solid form is also a wave. They are both created and simultaneously organized by the principle of PULSE.
Plasma is a source of all types of waves, which feed back on the plasma and display mutual correlation. The manifestations of life may be ultimately summarized in terms of plasma and radiation. The secret of life lies in process control through small energy and with minimal noise. Plasma can be controlled only through fields, in particular magnetic fields.
The plasma approach to life points out that life is electric, however, its control takes place magnetically. Plasma is revealed by the emission of an electromagnetic field and is obedient only to this field, even a very weak one. The electronic processes of metabolism may be treated as a plasma state within the solid state of organic compounds.
Practitioners of electromagnetic therapy believe that they can rebalance these energy fields by applying external electrical energy. "Energy medicine" proponents apply electrical, magnetic, microwave and infrared devices to treat illness. Our focus in the study and practice of energy medicine should center around how to restore biological coherence to the system so that the living matrix can function fully, bringing vitality and energy to our entire lives.
"Biochemical action and bioelectronic action meet at the quantum-junction. The keys to our physiology are also the keys to consciousness. Phenomena now considered esoteric may someday be explained in terms of bioelectronic interactions of energy and matter. What has been the realm of metaphysical healing may become a precise EM healing science." (Roffey)
Interactions between electromagnetic fields and living matter are pursued on three levels:
Prevention: the way electromagnetic fields influence the development of illnesses.
Diagnosis: the way endogenous bio-electric signals and weak electrical and magnetic fields of bio-molecules correlate with the state of health. Treatment: the way biological structures and functions can be modulated by means of electromagnetic fields.
Heart coherence, brainwave entrainment with Schumann's Resonance, and relieving stress on the Cranio Sacral nerves freeing the Vagus nerve all contribute to recalibrating our well-being, even though we are continuously immersed in the electromagnetic "smog" of modern life. These can be managed with autohypnosis, top-down yoga, self-regulation or simple biofeedback computer programs, such as Wild Divine or CDs of binaural beat drivers like Holosynch.
Elysian Fields
Physicist Erwin Schrodinger first saw the body as a liquid crystal (Ho). Northrup & Burr, then Dr. Robert Becker showed how the body functions electrically. Crystals semi-conduct electric currents, with tremendous information storage and exchange. Liquid crystals in the body such as DNA, RNA, proteins, bone matrices (which are solid crystals), and cell membranes also semi-conduct important true electric currents. The brain and heart have their own fields, too. Still a conscious electromagnetic information field remains only an emotionally appealing theory, though many espouse it.
Fields are applied to the body for both diagnosis and treatment (Becker; Beck). Fields (electronic smog) can also cause disease propagation. Many alternative EM therapies have demonstrated disappointing lack of objective evidence to support claims for their effectiveness. Or, effectiveness may be placebo effect, the psychophysical effect of healing rituals or rapport, rather than the applications of fields.
This does not mean we don’t have fundamental and practical therapeutic uses of pulsed EMFs (PEMFs). They are used medically in bioelectrical growth and repair, non-union bone and amputation treatment. Weak magnetic fields generated by current flows all over the body can now be measured non-invasively with the extremely sensitive Super Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) magnetometer.
Living cells are electromagnetic units. Skin potential is the change of electromagnetic phenomenon in all cells of the body transmitted over the gap junction. The evidence is overwhelming that electro-dynamical fields and currents are involved in intercommunication within the body.
These fields and currents are connected to and correlated with the EEG and ECG that are a routine part of conventional biomedicine. The body uses electromagnetic signals of different frequencies and extents to intercommunicate. Hence it would be surprising if external electromagnetic fields did not have an effect.
When a subject is totally relaxed and has achieved a deep meditative state, a slow, rhythmic sine wave pattern can be registered by a cardiograph-type sensing device. What is being measured is a standing wave in the aorta. There is a heart-aorta resonating oscillator which affects other parts of the body, including the brain.
Resonance occurs when the natural vibration frequency of a body is greatly amplified by vibrations at the same frequency from another body. Oscillators alter the environment in a periodic manner. When in a deep meditative state the regular movement of the body indicates that a standing wave is set up in the vascular system, specifically in the aorta. This standing wave affects several other resonate systems in the body, all of which are driven by this large signal. (Miller & Miller)
There is a major resonate cavity oscillator located between the heart and the bifurcation, where the aorta divides. When the timing of the pressure pulses travelling down the aorta coincide (in phase) with the reflected pressure pulse, a standing wave is achieved.
When this frequency approaches 7Hz., a progressively amplified wave form is created by resonance, resulting in a large oscillation affecting every other circuit in the body tuned to this frequency. There is a resonance relationship to this frequency with the “pacemaker” of Earth that drives the biosphere, Schumann’s Resonance (7.8 Hz). It is in the Alpha-Theta range of human brainwaves. Thus, a harmonic frequency corresponding to the pulsation of the electrical charge of the Earth is present in heart/aorta.
This electrostatic field around the Earth transmits waves like a stiff jelly. When our bodies move and vibrate, these movements are transmitted to the environment. These fields not only impinge on our body but they also affect the charges inside our body. When we are standing on the ground, under normal conditions, we are grounded. Our body then acts as a sink for the electrostatic field and we actually distort the force lines somewhat.
Our body also has its own electrostatic field about itself. These field-lines are the result of the various biochemical reactions in the body. This resultant bio-field couples us to the isoelectric field of the planet. The brain functions as a piezoelectric gel converting physical vibrations into electrical ones. Although the body movement from this heart/aorta resonance is relatively small, 0.003-0.009 mm., the head is a dense and tight structure.
By moving up and down, the skull accelerates the brain with mild impacts. These acoustical plane waves are reflected from the cranial vault and are focused upon the third and lateral ventricles. A hierarchy of frequencies couple this 7Hz. body movement to the higher frequencies in the ventricles.
Information is embodied in a field, rather than just being a field. A field is thus an abstract quantity of information; relationships between this point and that point in the universe.
Field of Dreams
The human organism has usually been regarded as a complex arrangement of chemical elements and compounds. The quantity and structure of these variables are our reference points for states of health. This is the area of biochemistry and biochemical analysis.
An equally valid approach is to regard the human organism as an aggregation of electromagnetic fields which are constantly interacting and changing as are their biological equivalents. It has been shown that the human system is an emitter of electromagnetic radiations, including the arterial stationary waves.
All biological processes are a function of electromagnetic field interactions. EM fields are the connecting link between the world of form and resonant patterns. EM fields embody or store gestalts, patterns of information.
Controversial physicists such as Thomas Bearden (2005, Oblivion) say thermodynamic and electromagnetic (EM) field theory and engineering theories are seriously flawed at their root, and in need of revisioning. Waves are central to Quantum Theory and thus to understanding the structure of Matter.
Electromagnetics comes from the electric and magnetic properties of the wave. Energy is emitted by all materials above absolute zero in temperature. Low energy (cool objects) emit in the long wavelengths with high energy (hot objects) emit in increasingly shorter wavelengths.
Proponents of Zero-Point Energy (ZPE) contend that the source of electromagnetic energy emerges from the scalar potential, which marks the the limit of our observations of the microcosm. Even in the vacuum, where the energy-momentum tensor vanishes, localized ripples of curvature can propagate in the form of gravitational radiation. The discrete 'particle' properties of Matter and Light (quanta) are in fact caused by Standing Wave interactions.
Electromagnetic waves are carried by particles called quanta. By using particle theory electromagnetic radiation can be examined as if it were composed of small particles of energy called quanta. Finite bundles, quanta of light are called photons. Though they can demonstrate particulate properties they are believed to be massless. However, though photons do not have mass, they do have momentum
Where did all these photons in the vacuum originate from? They originated on all the other particles throughout the universe. All the charged particles in the cosmos are doing the same jitterbug dance that causes electrons to radiate and absorb photons like crazy.
Electromagnetic waves are a collection of synchronized photons of different frequency and amplitude. Radiation is constantly pouring in and flowing out, balancing on average. The electron goes forward and backward in a seemingly random pattern in space and time, in order to balance all the radiation coming in and flowing out.
This balanced radiation pattern is analogous to the interference pattern of a hologram. A 3-D pattern of energy created by regions of interference is what we see as an image. There is creative and destructive interference. An electron and every particle is a “hologram,” produced as the result of the actions of the electron to preserve the balance of energy (Miller, et al, 1973).
Zero-point energy is made up of photons created by all those electrons in distant stars. Virtual photons in space are created by the motions of other electrons, mainly by “distant matter.” Each zigzag of a local electron is actually a nonlocal communication between it and distant matter. Each quantum photon consists of many photon pulses, which are collectively the ZPE of the vacuum of space (Swanson).
This theory is arguable, but the observation is not. Still, it is highly unlikely that new meta-theories will originate from disciplines associated with the healing arts, social science, or humanities rather than hard sciences of physics and cosmology.
The humanities tend to use science metaphors from the cutting edge to amplify, justify or elaborate pop theories. The “standard model” of physics is deeply flawed leaving the deep nature of Reality open to philosophical speculation.
Proponents of QM fall into essentially two groups:
Copenhagen-esque--"old school" explanations which dwell on quantum theory's non-intuitiveness and in fact seem to celebrate the "leap of logic" needed to accept the observer-based wave-function collapse postulate;
New Agey Utopian idealism--"quantum theory is strange, consciousness is strange, therefore, consciousness is explained by quantum theory", entanglement is proof that "all points in the universe are connected by some underlying ineffable thing, so can't we all just get along", etc.
This tendency toward pop trendiness also pervades alternative medicine, and metaphysics, as witnessed by the popularity of the quantum physics movie, “What the Bleep. Physics is the latest darling of the New Age circuit. Culture is everything that is going on (concepts, postures, attitudes), not just what we think should be going on, or “rational space”. Nor would we want to limit ourselves to that if we could.
A primary role of culture is to harness energy and information But often focus is on the figures of pop culture, rather than the ground from which it arises, on the powerful personalities, rather than the Source. Only the transdiciplinary field catches the sciences in the imaginal and philosophical act of creating and defining themselves.
Talk of the role of Consciousness in the journey of evolutionary wisdom is likewise popular, with many trends rising and falling within the global discussion. Fads in consciousness theory, based largely on conceptual implications of biophysics, come and go with their charismatic proponents. Most people respond emotionally to the self-referential metaphors of the model they embrace. Even in the research communnity, this induces a lot of emotional and spiritual dissonance, working off the flawed premises.
In 1987 Ervin Laszlo formulated a hypothesis about mathematical wave functions that assemble themselves into forms and nested patterns or psi-fields. Laszlo theorized that once patterns are made, they probably will occur again, as an expression of creativity in the universe, or cosmos.
We speak in terms of fields, because that marks the boundary of our knowledge, the frontier of our observations and theories. But if there is a “consciousness field” science hasn’t discovered or recognized it.
As humans, we unceasingly pursue the manufacture of order out of chaos. It is not to be right, to prove ourselves right but just because we crave that understanding. We generate narratives, models, and myths. Most speakers are “true-believers” of their own platforms, each characterized by their own specialty, highlighting their own insights. But that doesn’t mean that energy, consciousness, healing, or creativity is limited to those pathways in any way.
The truth behind the curtain is that we simply don’t know, though most practitioners have their heartfelt models about how it all works. Many stake their credibility on it. However, life, art and science imitate and are an extension of the technologies they use.
But human beings rarely realize this cultural fact that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan). We break up the message into its components. Spiritual teachers describe the ego as a field holding us in thrall to space and time; together they form the three great illusions.
Some progressive physics experts will invoke the plenum (Comings), others extoll the Void (Bearden); some see a universe of sticky strings and membranes (Greene), others of chaotic attractors at the cosmological level (quantum chaos), a quantum handshake (Cramer; King), a plasma universe (Thornhill), mini-black holes (Haramein), density-matrix (Progogine).
Others suggest information flow (Deutsch; Moles), topology/toroid (Tenen; Young), synergetics (Fuller), post-quantum physics (Sarfatti), complexity (Santa Fe; Gell-Mann), or an n-dimensional hologram (Miller; Gariaev). Then there is the postmodern philosophical (Derrida, Deleuze, DeLanda) and anthropological (Laughlin, McManus, d’Aquili) commentary on the nature and perception of Reality (Derrida, Deleuze, DeLanda).
Everyone chimes in on the chorus of mind/body buzzwords, and the nouveau version, Nonlocal Mind, with its resonance and entanglement/decoherence phenomena; neurophenomenology; biognosis. The main premise of quantum mind theories is that we can use our intentionality as a probability purturbation instrument, because we are one with subquantum potential. We can use mental focus to alternately concentrate and relax our attention. Neural processes and quantum events interpermeate in biophysics. Biophysics researchers are attempting to follow the signal back to its source.
Intent is suggested as a variable in transmission and reception in the exchange of extrasensory information, possibly within the range of ELF electromagnetic frequencies (Sidorov, 2002). Even those who can demonstrate psi in the laboratory on demand, cannot account for signal nonlocality or distant interaction.
The origins of the data are not revealed, only the conclusions with their level of resolution or accuracy. This is where the models of information theory and biophysics come into play. The structure of the multiverse (Deutsch) is determined by information flow. Laszlo (1996) suggests that the natural processes of complexity and chaos could amplify vacuum-level fluctuations into significant inputs to behavior, and that the brain, another chaotic system, could receive and amplify these signals which can penetrate into consciousness.
Some speakers confound mutually-exclusive theories with one another, as if selecting “all of the above” as the answer to the Reality question. I can recall one well-meaning energy medicine researcher seriously trying to detect the ever-elusive tachyon (magnetic monopole) using his Ficus Benjamina tree as an antenna! I was underwhelmed.
There are many dimensions of our consciousness, conditioning our experience also by how we think and believe. Observing our own selves in the mirror of the universe is a self-reflexive act. By definition, consciousness is always a scale-dependent collective event, whether conceived as an artifact of collective, cosmic, geomagnetic, biological, or quantum fields.
Consciousness is not hierarchichal but appears in dynamics of all observable levels. But we are scientifically unsure it is a field phenomenon at all. We may need a new meta-theory to even begin to conceptualize further.
Consciousness studies have attracted the attention of mystics, philosophers, and scientists from many disciplines spanning new syntheses in physics, life sciences, neurology, psychology, energy medicine, social sciences, and more. This multidisciplinary inquiry raises questions ranging from cellular to organismic perception to the subjective quality of our ordinary conscious and unconscious experiences, in addition to the phenomenology of transformation and transcendence.
Consciousness is more than perceptual awareness or sense of self. There is a whole hierarchy of its dynamics at every level of observation. It is more than the flashlight beam of egoic or focal consciousness, or even the omnidirectional vision of the global (observer) Self. It is more than awareness or awareness of awareness.
Meditation masters speak of an inner Light that pervades the physical and energy bodies, and now science investigates it as biophotons, and through quantum physics we can watch that matter/energy/information devolve back into the unstructured void from which potential emanates.
Mystics have often equated this pervasive Light/Sound with primordial Consciousness and the source of life as well as matter. Quantum bioholography shows the DNA literally produces coherent light which transduces to sound that directs the formative processes of life. Radiant energy is radiant energy.
Professor Harold Saxton-Burr, working at Yale University in the 1930's, discovered that all organisms are surrounded with a measurable electromagnetic field. This field changes with physical or even emotional changes in the body. This primary field has a controlling nature; changes in the field are later followed by changes in the physical cells of the body. Actual physical changes follow the change in the electromagnetic field.
Even conception is an electromagnetic phenomenon. The egg changes polarity to allow itself to be penetrated by a particular sperm it deems chemically suitable. When the genetic material fuses, the process of quantum bioholography begins. DNA transduces biophotons (coherent light) into sound waves which direct the (cymatics or acoustic holography) process of embryonic development with DNA as the blueprint.
Shortly after the neural tube forms, while the spine of the embryo is still totally exposed and before brain formation, one single cell in the tube becomes electrically excited and begins to beat; it entrains surrounding cells to become the heart. This collective beat creates an (EM) field that is measurable at a distance from the body in a human child or adult. All the molecules in the body of the embryo move together in a correlated way, global coherence.
The Earth also has an electromagnetic field (magnetosphere), and we have evolved in it. The biosphere is linked to this field through the regular pulsation of Schumann's Resonance. Regulation of the body by the heartbeat is analogous to regulation of the biosphere and its organisms through Schumann’s Resonance, which is in the range of human brainwaves. Under the influence of heartbeat, the body acts as a conducting piezoelectric gel so the heart is holistically regulating each and every cell.
It seems there is more to our consciousness than simple cognition. Our insides are not discrete from the outside, immediate and far-flung. Should we use a capital C or small c when speaking of its dynamic? Does consciousness somehow relate to energy levels? The Chinese say the deeper the level of consciousness the higher the Qi energy it associates.
They say the Tao gives rise to all forms, but has no form of its own; likewise, the Diamond Sutra says there is no form without void and no void without form. In cosmology, even cold dark matter is said to have structure at all magnitudes. Recent string theories propose dimensions larger than the universe. But then string theory is deeply flawed.
Mystery and confusion enshroud our deepest experiences and observations, beginning with self-observation of our awareness. We don’t even know what ‘the self’ means much less the primal nature of the universe. We don’t clearly know how emotion differs from cognition, even when we perceive dissonance between them. Or we overlook the role of meta-emotion in choice, including worldview (meta-theory). Imagery plays a role in the models we create from our possibly hard-wired “love of truth.”
But it is a dramatic irony that point of view and emotion can also have distorting effects on cognition and reason, causing us to see what we want to believe (observer bias). Intentions and emotions arise together, but emotions compel us to pursue our goals even with colored perceptions.
Emotional investment can lead directly to episodes of goal obstruction rather than the emotional awareness of a comprehensive self in the world. Or, emotions, as perceptions of patterned changes in the body (William James), can help us toward greater understanding of self, others and world. When such perceptions are conscious, they qualify as emotions; unconscious unfelt emotions are feelings. Emotions condition our living experience of the present, the temporal stream of consciousness.
Every conscious state has an emotional quality; good or bad mood, energized or not. Existential feelings, (such as belonging, separation, power, control, being one with nature), can be bodily feelings and, at the same time, part of the structure of intentionality and the feeling of being.
Overt and concealed emotional experience permeates conscious life. Vigilance, emotional arousal, and attention mediate tensions associated with subjective states. They help us cope with dissonance, deploy intentional behavior, and stay motivated. Social bonds foster empathy, emotional/affective resonance with the internal distress of another individual and the intrinsic motivation to help relieve it. Empathic vision has to be part of the new paradigm that returns the human dimension to our plutocratic technocracy.
The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that we are clueless about the deep nature of reality. We might think or feel we do understand reality, either spiritually or scientifically, but it may be a conditioned illusion, a mirage of consensus. Why is it each new age or holistic health speaker or energy medicine practitioner has a pet theory of both physics and spirituality? Philosophically based, they can’t all be right. In the end, only a few will have accurately described the reality we inhabit.
Many traditions claim that when we experience pure consciousness that is the ground state of the universe. But there is nothing in the experience itself to substantiate evidence for anyting beyond this experience being a state, physiological anomaly, or artifact of the nervous system, according to neurotheology research. Separate sorts of evidence are needed to highlight the experience itself from theories about it.
Comprehending our consciousness raises the fundamental question of the primal nature of the cosmos as well as our own nature. We evolved in cosmic and local environmental fields (like geomagnetic Schumann’s Resonance) that definitely condition our being and consciousness. The environment has molded our form.
Three forms of EM fields- wavefront, photon, and coupling mediator field, are able to exchange energy and information within each other immediately, as if they were one unique existent, or living in complete symbioses. They exist as a resonant coupling, represented in the quantum world, for example, such as the Bose-Einstein condensate.
Complex information can be encoded in EM fields, as we all know from coding and decoding of television and radio signals. Even more complex information can be encoded in holographic images. DNA acts as a holographic projector of acoustic and EM information which contains the informational quintessence of the biohologram. Ordered water is another candidate for submatrix (Frost).
The philosopher, Karl Popper, proposed in 1993 that consciousness was a manifestation of some kind of force field in the brain, a wave phenomenon. CEMI theory (McFadden) argues for a conscious electromagnetic information field and neural synchrony generated by the brain. The brain generates its own EM field which binds the neuronal information into a single integrated whole.
Perhaps, information is encoded as an electromagnetic field, but does that mean it is “conscious” or consciousness? Can the brain’s (conscious) em field can itself influence neuronal firing? Does consciousness have any direct effect on the brain, and does this also bear on the notion of “intentionality”, ability to fire motor neurons in oneself or even others as in nonlocal healing? Are the properties of mind and force related?
Is consciousness identical with certain spatiotemporal patterns in the electromagnetic field'? Pockett (2002) thinks the defining feature of conscious electromagnetic patterns is probably going to be some feature of their spatial constitution. She cites Walter
Freeman’s classic experiments showing that information generated on the surface of a rabbit brain resided entirely in the spatial features of the patterns, not at all in their overall amplitude, frequency or phase properties.
Evoked Potentials
An event-related potential (ERP) in the brain is used to investigate the electrophysiological responses measured from the scalp by the electroencephalogram. E. Roy Johns researches this problem of evoked potentials: meaningful external or internal behavioral events and cortical network organization through ERPs, neural signals that reflects coordinated neural network activity.
ERP is a characteristic waveform that occurs in relation to the behaviorally significant discrete event. Cortical ERPs arise from synchronous interactions among large numbers of participating neurons. The principle use of Event Related Potentials (ERP) is to determine the time course of higher level processes in the human brain.
Multiple feedback loops involving both excitatory and inhibitory interactions typically cause ERPs to be oscillatory, meaning that they fluctuate within bounds around a central value. Depending on the types of interaction that occur in a specific behavioral condition, cortical networks may display different states of synchrony, causing their ERPs to oscillate in different frequency bands, designated delta (0 4 Hz), theta (5 8 Hz), alpha (9 12 Hz), beta (13 30 Hz), and gamma (31 100 Hz).
The physiological basis of the cortical ERP lies in fields of potential generated by interacting neurons (Lopes da Silva, 1991). The intracellular components of the same closed-loop currents that give rise to field potentials are responsible for the closely related magnetic fields, recorded extracranially as the magnetoencephalogram, or MEG. a primary task of all ERP studies is to extract the event-related portion of the recorded field potential. http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~bressler/pdf/HBTNN.html
Some argue for a field of pure consciousness, morphic or dynamic self-organizing fields guiding organisms including ourselves. Some (Laszlo; Goswami) argue for an “informed Universe”, a Conscious Universe. Prigogine argues for a Realist Approach. Yet others (Deutsch) argue the universe is obsolete, the fabric of reality being a Multiverse.
We need a paradigm shift to effectively study consciousness: new concepts of matter, life and mind. Current theories of reality have gaps, and tend to overlap one another or treat existence at radically different scales. We can’t even reliably determine if Reality is smooth or lumpy.
Many naked assumptions are being made in science, which has become more like religion, a matter of faith and participant bias. Qualities emerge from the dichotomy of differentiating/integrating (which can be represented as I/O). When we look into the Abyss we find ourselves smiling back enigmatically.
We stand in Mystery, exemplified by the fact there is no consensus in physics, cosmology, consciousness studies, and certainly not metaphysics. Is information from the cosmic or subquantal realms really directly transducable? We don't even know what electricity is! Much less the definitive nature of a subquantal realm we cannot observe except by inferrence. That makes it meta-physical, by definition. We don’t know what energy is , except that it is "frozen mass and/or light" which another theory proves cannot 'exist', at least not objectively because all experience is subjective.
Too bad that for all our scientific pretentions to objectivity, we don’t have any viable understanding of either mass, light or time, either. This is compounded with notions of so-called dark matter and dark energy; more ‘smoke and mirrors’ explanations. It seems the great Light casts a long shadow. In holographic theory, that ‘shadow’ is related to the scalar field of the vacuum potential. Dark matter and energy are also implicated in structure formation, as is fractal dynamics.
There are continual revolutions in concepts and paradigms in physics, which later permeate society and beliefs mostly in a rather misunderstood way. Life can be understood from the perspective of contemporary physics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and quantum theory or from metabolic domains like neurotransmitters (Pert), gene-expression (Rossi), liquid crystals (Ho), or dynamic cellular membranes (Lipton).
If we drop down another whole domain of observation from the juicy “wetware” described by chemistry and atomic structure, we enter the subatomic realm of quantum physics. At this level the behavior of matter, both organic and inorganic, is governed not by classical notions of cause and effect or even complex dynamics, but by those of quantum probability and the uncertainty principle, and perhaps quantum chaos.
Many theorists postulate quantum and subquantal imaginal fields for both the cosmos and ourselves. Some of these theories of interacting field bodies, (like Frolich’s quantum coherent photon fields), are more plausible than others. A model of the mind-body relationship is developed in which novel biophysical principles in genome function generate a dynamic possessing attributes consistent with both our psychophysical nature and consciousness.
One of the most promising coherent models (King, 2001) invokes a fractal link between neurodynamical chaos and quantum uncertainty. Transactional wave collapse (Cramer’s quantum handshake) allows this link to be utilized predictably by the excitable cell, in a way which bypasses and complements formal computation.
The formal unpredictability of the model allows mindbody to interact coherently with the brain, the predictability of consciousness in survival strategies being selected as a trait by organismic evolution. This theory may suggest quantum evolution is orchestrated by the information transduction of DNA. But soon even our own biological evolution may become obsolete through our own technologies.
Vernor Vinge began speaking on the technological rapture in the 1980s, then he wrote a 1993 essay, called "Technological Singularity". He predicted, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly thereafter, the human era will be ended."
Vinge's singularity is commonly misunderstood to mean technological progress will rise to infinity, as happens in a mathematical singularity. Actually, the term was chosen as a metaphor from physics rather than mathematics: as one approaches the Singularity, models of the future become less reliable, just as conventional models of physics break down as one approaches a gravitational singularity.
Vinge writes that superhuman intelligences, whether created by cybernetically enhancing human minds or through artificial intelligence, will be even more able to enhance their own minds than the human intelligences that created them. "When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress," Vinge writes, "that progress will be much more rapid." This feedback loop of self-improving intelligence is expected to cause large amounts of technological progress within a short period of time. Kurzweil predicts a more gradual ascendence involving all of society.
But what a about our humanity? Will that return a human dimension to our already severely alienated technocracy? Are we heroically trying to transcend our meatbody in yet another spiritually misguided means of denying it, needing to improve upon and thereby supercede it in a posthumanism? We don’t even know how the body we’ve got works. Are we going to manufacture technology that makes us obsolete?
BIOGNOSIS: Mindbody Wisdom
Biognosis is more than the investigation of life; it is the inherent wisdom of the holisitic bodymind, direct perception or klnowledge from life, a deeper understanding of the earth and natural processes. Deeper aspect of biophilia. The intimate interweaving of humanity with the rest of life throughout evolution means that the entire development of the human species as a distinct species cannot be separated from the landscapes in which it developed.
The heart is an organ of perception. James Hillman comments, the heart is the organ that "perceives the correspondences between the subtlties of consciousness and levels of being. . . it is concerned with the interpenetration of consciousness and world." Participatory awareness. We can gather knowledge directly from the ecosystem.
“Light and matter both behave like separate particles and also like waves. This . . . obliged us to abandon, on the plane of atomic magnitudes, a causal description of nature in the ordinary space-time system, and in its place to set up invisible fields of probability in multidimensional spaces.” ~ Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist
But, is consciousness a component of physics? Erwin Laszlo suggests that in an “informed universe”, everything that has ever happened is retained as holographic information in space and that it can be simultaneously downloaded from anywhere in the universe. So why aren’t we all “know it alls”? Because it exists enfolded or encoded or in potential? How can we embody that innate intelligence?
The problem of creativity is present in every field of science (Laszlo, 1995). He suggested that quantum-vacuum interactions play a significant role in the fields of cosmology, physics, biology and consciousness. Everyone wants to discuss the relationship of consciousness and cosmos at the scale or mode of their specialty.
When we drink the micro-clustered water, do we remember the spring?
Biologist Mae Wan Ho, Dr. James Oschmann, and cellular biologist Bruce Lipton speak of special energy relationships in the connective tissue (the skin, bones, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, various membranes covering major organs and linings of internal spaces), extracellular matrix, and cellular membranes of the body. Ordered water (Frost) is another popular theory.
Some speak of the heart and “belly brain” whose thoughts travel the Vagus highway (Porges). We have a dominant “talking” brain and a visceral brain. These are physical correlates of gut reactions, and perhaps psychism (Radin). Sentience, memory and intercommunication are distributed throughout the body; it may be our unconscious and holistic source of wisdom Soma Sophia. For what can we know without our body and senses and their virtual analogs? We don’t have the metaphors to conceptualize otherwise.
This extracellular tissue acts like a dynamic liquid crystal, and is the basis of instantaneous (nonlocal) communication throughout the organism. Coherent energy is vital energy, arising from stored and mobilized coherent energy forms. Our systems are ultrasensitive to weak signals and can amplify them to global effects. Qi is called “coherent” energy. In addition to quantum vacuum interactions with the mind and cosmos, this ground substance of the body with ‘a mind of its own’ may be the basis of energy medicine and our well-being.
There is a dynamic, liquid crystalline continuum of connective tissues and extracellular matrix linking directly into the equally liquid crystalline cytoplasm in the interior of every single cell in the body (see Ho, 1997; Ho, 1998). Liquid crystallinity gives organisms their characteristic flexibility, exquisite sensitivity and responsiveness, thus optimizing the rapid, noiseless intercommunication that enables the organism to function as a coherent, coordinated whole. In addition, the liquid crystalline continuum provides subtle electrical interconnections which are sensitive to changes in pressure, pH and other physicochemical conditions; in other words, it is also able to register ‘tissue memory’. Thus, the liquid crystalline continuum possesses all the qualities of a ‘body consciousness’ that may indeed be sensitive to all forms of subtle energy medicines including acupuncture. (Mae Wan Ho)
In the quantum world, everything is in flux, including the subquantal virtual photons popping in and out of existence. The foamy Zero Point fluctuation determines the behavior of quantum systems likely by radiant EM fields. Radiation is absorbed from the zero-point background. The stability of matter itself is mediated by the zero point fluctuation phenomena. This hidden energy pool is invoked by new age physicists as plenum physics (Comings). And EM fields that correlate with matter are claimed to act as morphogenetic fields (Sheldrake).
This image of bubbling spacetime doesn’t exist in Einstein’s classical theory of relativity where space is absolutely smooth. Matter and energy have an equatable, quantifiable identity. But at the scale of atoms and electrons particles have no definite velocity and location. Einstein’s picture of reality breaks down at this smallest scale.
Quantum principles therefore dictate that spacetime is a seething foam. If gravity obeys relativity but matter obeys QM, clearly a theory of quantum gravity and a new description of quantum spacetime is required to resolve the conundrum. Are hyperspace and spacetime two views of the same domain or is the solution a whole new perspective on the deepest level of reality?
David Bohm (1980) expressed a view that the groundstate of human consciousness isbeyond neural states representing results of only activity related to aware consciousness. He proposed it may be very fast and related to pre-space, the implicate order behind space-time, to a creative factor, from which the whole phenomena and the space-time structure enfolds. These fast mental processes have characteristics common to microphysical processes (Bohm, 1986). Ultimately, thinking is related to the deep unconscious, the entire embedded organism.
These magical fields have been conceptualized because they work in the mathematics and the real world, but that doesn’t mean they are identical with it, necessarily. There are mathematical solutions for worlds that do not exist, imaginary realms. Likewise, string and M-theory have many solutions, most of which do not match our Reality.
They are a matter of faith, in some sense, whether we model them as EM fields, strong force fields, gravitational fields, strings, membranes, or subquantal scalar fields. The dogma of field theory has permeated the world of physics. Fields have taken on magical properties.
We can speak of a quantum vacuum “holographic information field”, but what is it; does it even exist as more than a mathematical abstraction? A recent Scientific American (Nov. 05), suggests solutions for holographic universes, but none of them match the observed flat, infinite nature of our own.
Fields or Holograms?
Maxwell is credited with establishing field theory. Maxwell combined a set of four field equations to describe electric and magnetic fields. These four simple and elegant equations describe behavior and provide means to calculate forces, but they shed no light on the actual physical mechanism of electric and magnetic fields and their interactions. As a result, we don't really know what is going on, and nobody seems to care.
Fields can materialize in empty space. Fields can bend and warp. Fields push and pull. Fields can change the speed of your clock. To help these magical fields we also have miraculous phantom particles and agents. We have photons for light and energy, gravitons for gravity, gluons for strong force, and super strings for string theory. They are all phantom because none of them were ever observed in nature or in any experiment. All but photons carry negative energy.
Yet, viable theories, such as the Holographic Concept of Reality don’t rely on field theory at all. In this concept, the 2-D holographic domain is one of information and resolution. The holographic domain conjures an extra dimension, projecting our apparently 3-D world. If the entire universe is a kind of hologram it may mean that even gravity is a persistent perceptual delusion operating only in higher dimensional spacetime.
The gist of the holographic paradigm is that there is a more fundamental reality. There is an invisible flux not comprised of parts, but an inseparable interconnectedness. The holographic paradigm is one of reciprocal enfolding and unfolding of patterns of information. All potential information about the universe is holographically encoded in the spectrum of frequency patterns constantly bombarding us.
In this dynamic model there are no “things”, just energetic events. This “holoflux” includes the ultimately flowing nature of what is, and all possible forms. All the objects of our world are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. This is the guiding matrix for self-assembly, and manipulating and organizing physical reality.
The holographic description is one of a frequency domain which doesn’t rely on fields to project itself. Each sample of that reality at any scale contains the information of the whole in greater or lesser resolution. The holographic model offers new options for resolution of profound mysteries such as quantum gravity and our hyperdimensional existence. We can speak of a self-organizing “holographic information field” but perhaps it is a misnomer. Does it even exist as more than a mathematical abstraction?
Criss-crossing patterns occur when two or more waves ripple through each other. In the transactional interpretation of quantum physics, waves of probability originate in the past, present, and future. Events manifest when waves from past and future interfere with each other in the present. That pattern creates matter and energy. The universe emerges from the rippling effects of immense numbers of criss-crossing interference waves. The geometry of the fields is more fundamental than the fields or emergent particles themselves.
Our brains mathematically construct ‘concrete’ reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension. This information realm of meaningful, patterned primary reality transcends time and space. Thus, the brain is an embedded hologram, interpreting a holographic universe. All existence consists of embedded holograms within holograms and their interrelatedness somehow gives rise to our existence and sensory images.
Interference patterns of waves can be visualized interacting like ripples on a pond. At the quantum level they create matter and energy as we perceive them, lifelike 3-dimenional effects. Consciousness and matter share the same essence, differing by degrees of subtlety or density. There is a strong correlation between modulations of the brain’s EM field and consciousness (Persinger,1987; McFadden, 2002). The universe is a continuously evolving, interactively dynamic hologram.
This “Holographic Concept of Reality” was first suggested by Miller, Webb, and Dickson in 1973, and later touted by David Bohm (1980), Ken Wilber (1982), Karl Pribram (1991), Michael Talbot (1991), and others. In this holistic theory, the Universe is considered as one dynamic holomovement, a grand Unity.
Research in Quantum Bioholography (Miller & Miller) strongly suggests that DNA is a holographic projector which manifests our embodiment through projection of biophotons and sound, a cymatic process known as acoustic holography. Fields are just ways of tuning subsystems.
Whatever this irreducible immaterial essence is, it a creative force recognized as identical with or an agent of Source. In heartful communities it has been linked with the groundstate of being (negentropic zero-point energy) by both physicists and psychologists.
Consciousness is multilayered. Our soulful intentionality can be a healing force for ourselves and others, coupling us whether or not we comprehend intellectually how that “works”. This “interactive excitement” may or may not have anything to do with the fields we attribute it to. Still, we all have a sense of inner direction that helps us know when we are on or off course in our life journey, whether we heed it or not.
We have suggested how the ethereal current concepts of the body have become, and certain ways ‘spirit’ embodies itself in matter. Mostly, the explanations depend on our level of observation: chemical, molecular, atomic, or subquantal. Because we lack a unified theory, clearly we have yet to observe the deepest levels of reality, which keep receding as our vision expands further toward the microscopic and macroscopic.
The Triple Union
“Unless bodies lose their corporeal state and unless bodies assume again their corporeal state, that which is desired will not be attained.” ~ Byzantine fragment, The Philosophical Egg
We are truly psychophysical beings, composed of bodymind and spirit, but even those who grasp the holistic concept often fail to live it from the heart. Arguably, Carl Jung (1911) was among the first to apply the recognized concepts of physical energy to show that libido, or psychic energy obeys the same laws and is not only analogous, but identical. Psychophysical and emotional energy is associated with instinctual biological drives.
Though psychic energy is neutral, it can be literalized, somatized, sexualized, emotionalized, socialized, mentalized, or spiritualized. Symptoms, thoughts, images, fantasies, beliefs, emotions, forms of expression or behaviour are all libidinal. Libido tends to flow inward or outward, a dynamic rhythm of introversion/extroversion. Jung attributed mana or personal power for a kind of shamanic or positive psychic contagion to those individuals who seem to have a charismatic influence on others.
Psychic energy tends to follow the same laws of physical conservation and entropy. Jung taught that within the psyche, libido: (1) creates entropy, (2) is generally conserved under the principle of equivalence, (3) flows through the psyche in channels that can be redirected, (4) can be either progressive or regressive, and (5) is transformed by symbols. In short, the psyche as, defined by Jung, is a complex system.
New physics, chaos theory, synergetics, and information theory describe our existence as complex dynamical systems. Entropy can only occur in system that is absolutely closed so no energy from outside can be fed into it. But the psyche is an open system, which exchanges energy and information with its environment and can be negentropic.
We can also have a negentropic influence on one another (Gladwell), perturbing, enlarging, creating new pathways and possibilities. Theoretically, behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point" is reached, changing the world. Gladwell's thesis that ideas, products, messages and behaviors "spread just like viruses do" remains a metaphor. Yet, highly sociable or connective people often become revolutionary leaders, bringing others together with a new perspective, a broadened worldview.
Life includes chaos and order, good and bad experiences, even catastrophes that require us to adapt or die. The important thing is how we meet and react to chaos, finding ways to replenish our depletion. Observation of the subquantal domain reveals an inexhaustible realm of negentropy from which we can draw our psychophysical sustenance. When healthy, our entire system is designed to reduce entropy, in different scales and domains.
The same is true for the superorganism of society. We are irreducibly entangled with one another and the environment. We are healthy only to the extent we resonate with our environment. We maintain our integrity and identity as a dissipative system only because we are open to flows of energy, matter, or information from our environment (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984).
We live in a persistent delusion of separateness. However, we are all nonlocally connected in an ill-defined yet tangible way at the subatomic, individual, group and global level, connecting and diverging Psychic energy or libido is a psychosomatic phenomenon analogous to the paradoxical nature of energy/matter or wave/particle. The human body is not an object in space, but seamlessly welded to spacetime. We are not merely a phenomenal body of flesh, but one of awareness, of consciousness, a living interface of inner and outer field phenomena.
We all experience visceral or gut reactions and know instinctively how our mental states affect our physical vitality, and vice versa. But often we loose the intimate relationship with our mindbody, with the source of our being, our aliveness, our passions. If we experience this flow at all, it ebbs and flows away. Our individual and collective creative potential remains largely unrealized.
How often do we pay attention to those vital signs, the innate wisdom of the body, inhabiting our minds rather than our flesh? We are increasingly not instinctual, but cultural, and we choose many of our behaviors for good or ill. We’re nearly all “sick and tired” of the way things are, but what do we do to change them?
We can learn simple techniques for self regulation, such as biofeedback, yoga, and meditation. Creativity, as an activity in several fields, brings many intrinsic health-promoting rewards. We can create new habits to help us cope with technocratic society that tone or recalibrate our systems and change our physical state. We all have to learn how to deal with personal and/or global catastrophe whether we want to or not.
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