(The edited text of a presentation given to a meeting of the Consciousness Group of the SMN on the 14th. March 1998)
I have asked for a slot in todays discussions because I want to carry forward an idea concerning the modelling of consciousness which I first raised in a meeting of this group some two years ago. I ought to explain to start with that, from a philosophical point oif view, I consider myself to be an idealist and it is against that background that my remarks are made. Briefly I want to suggest that we use the structure of space as a model for the structure of consciousness. Lama Govinda in his book The Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism says:-
The fundamental element of this cosmos is space. Space is the all-embracing principle of higher unity. Space....is not only a sine qua non of all existence, but a fundamental property of our consciousness.So to begin with I want to talk a little about space.
In his book A Brief History of Everything Ken Wilber discusses the evolution of consciousness and to express his ideas borrows two words coined by Arthur Koestler. These are holon and holarchy . Now holons are things which are at one and the same time parts of a whole and wholes composed of parts. They fit together to form holarchies which can be described as natural hierarchies or orders of increasing wholeness. Wilber takes many examples of all the things, whether subjective or objective, collective or individual, which relate to consciousness, and shows how these all fit into this pattern of holarchy. He says that "holons are inescapable. All evolutionary and developmental patterns proceed by holarchization ."- a horrible word! Now space and time cannot escape from this universal pattern and in fact afford a relatively simple example of it. I want to show how this comes about because it leads me to suggest that consciousness has created the pattern of the space holarchy not only for displaying an infinite variety of localised forms and non local concepts created in its imagination, but also for the purpose of presenting itself to itself objectively. So that the structure of space may well mirror the structure of consciousness.
The Structure of Space
Space for most people is an objective reality. It is all around us and we travel in it and are extended in it. Space is usually thought of as being boundless, so we have difficulty in imagining an outside to it, and we overlook the fact that it has an intrinsic structure based on its relationship to lines and planes.
Now a line is simply the geometrical expression of Length. Length symbolised by a capital L is one of the basic dimensions of the universe as are Time, Velocity, Energy, and so on. A plane is the square of length. Space, our ordinary space, is the cube of length. We may not be able to see space but it is filled with good solid objects. It is always with us and we can't imagine anything without it. So space is real to us. But, although we can imagine them easily enough, lines and planes, having no bulk, seem less real and are regarded as merely useful space-like concepts. Acceptance of the reality of ordinary space by most people probably comes from the fact that shapes of material things, like chairs and bodies, seem to sit naturally within it and material things are of course 'really' real!
But now we have to look beyond space and deal with 'space-time', which basically is again Length, this time raised to the power of four. This concept doesn't suffer from a shortage of room for matter but, what is worse, we can't even imagine its shape, so we can't believe it to be more than an imaginary concept of very doubtful reality. But are we justified in making these distinctions between these several powers of length? Surely a cosmic Consciousness, whole and undivided, would experience all stages in the spatial series as equally real?
Anyway lines, planes, ordinary space and space-time are all related to each other as powers of length and, as J.W.Dunne pointed out over sixty years ago, they may all now be seen clearly as terms in a series to infinity. Also they all share the important peculiarity that an infinite number of each can be accommodated within the one next up in the series. For example an infinite number of planes can be accommodated in space, and an infinite number of the latter in space-time. They are in fact all holons, which I defined a few minutes ago as 'things which are, at one and the same time, parts of a whole and wholes composed of parts'; and the whole series is a holarchy. We may conclude then that the boundless space, in which our material universe is displayed, may be a holon enfolded within a holarchy.
At the top of this holarchy, enfolding all, is the single ultimate mysterious holon of length raised to the power of infinity. At any level where the power of length is finite there is no limit to the possible number of holons there or to the possible number of holons at lower levels which they enfold.
Ken Wilber applies the principle of the holarchy to the analysis of spirituality and consciousness in evolution. He is not concerned with space as such but his holarchies and the space holarchy I have been describing run in parallel and his ultimate whole of non duality is identical with the ultimate whole of boundless space. The rungs of his ladder of consciousness are reflected in the levels of the spacial holarchy. As the self climbs the ladder the different worldviews which emerge are those we would experience through living with and within ever higher powers of boundless length.
What I have been describing is, I suggest, the formal extended structure of boundless empty space. It is basically a very simple structure although we are perhaps not used to thinking of space as having any structure at all. But although simple in concept it is, I believe, capable of great flexibility as a model for studying reality and consciousness.
Consciousness Time and Creation
Although I have mentioned space-time as one of the holons of the space holarchy I have said nothing about time itself. This is because I believe the concepts of time and movement relate much more to consciousness than they do to the holarchic structure of space. As human beings we do not have any freedom to decide how and when to experience objectively what we call the past and the future of our universe which are enclosed within space-time. Without ourselves consciously willing it so, we experience sequentially, in the orientation of the arrow of time and at the speed of light, cross sections of space-time which we know as the present moment or 'now'. The phenomena of movement and change we experience seems consistent with the idea that our attention, unbeknown to us, is being constrained to concentrated upon traversing space-time at this high speed, so that we believe the objects we perceive are changing and moving and our attention is standing still, while in reality it is the other way round. An analogy for this would be the way in which the movement of figures on a cinematograph screen in one order of time are simulated by causing static pictures to pass rapidly before our attention in another order of time
When conscious attention is lifted to a holon of higher power I suggest that this rapid movement of attention is transferred to the additional orientation the higher power gives to the holon. Thus consciousness has the experience of transcending the time of the previous holon and of experiencing instead in successive cross section a new order of time for a new revelation of reality. This is repeated for every transcendence into a higher level holon.
The concept of a space holarchy enables us to appreciate more clearly the principle of nonlocality. A Cosmic Consciousness is truly nonlocal, I suggest, throughout the whole space holarchy, the infinity of infinities, which it creates. Consciousness associated with holons at other levels, could be controlled by the levels above to constrain their attention within their own holons. So that consciousness could also be effectively nonlocal within each subordinate holon, which, although only parts of a greater whole, are all nevertheless of boundless extent. Universes, life forms, or artifacts, created by the imaginings of subjective consciousness to be viewed as objective physical entities in space, are to be found located within the holons where consciousnesses have placed them.
What I have just said indicates that, in line with my idealist philosophy, I believe that consciousness is the primary aspect of the 'consciousness/energy/matter' triad, and that energy and physical matter are distilled by and from consciousness itself. So that consciousness does not only experience, it also creates. I suggest that there are three stages of cosmic creation by consciousness. The primary stage is that of the organisation and maintenance of subjective non local consciousness within an organisational structure which is reflected in the holarchical structure of objective space, as I have suggested. The second stage is for this organisation of consciousness to plan and adopt systems of natural law, confining within limits the range and sequence of scenarios, for universes located within the space holarchy, which individual units of consciousness may choose to experience for themselves .The third stage, particularly relevant to ourselves, is the creation of our own experiences by choosing the sequence of scenarios we shall visit within the range of possibilities.
The levels of consciousness generally achieved by the human race does not seem to be concerned with the second stage of creation. But if consciousness is indeed organised on holarchical lines then it is easy to suppose that this second stage is the task of conscious entities at levels where minds have integrated with others and have access thereby to a greatly expanded memory of experiences, both subjective and objective.
The outcome of this second stage would be the creation of images of a vast number of imaginary universes, linked in branching parallel skeins, which could possibly result from all decisions taken over time within the constraints of the natural laws finally adopted. Each of these universes would be located and deposited within an appropriate space holon. Many of these universes would be very like our own and deposited in holons of equivalent powers or levels in the holarchy. They are of course the same as the multiple universes in Hugh Everett's hypothesis offering an explanation for the so called collapse of the wave function in quantum theory .
The third stage of creation is, in my view, for such as ourselves. We conduct this third stage, creating lifetimes of experience, by choosing paths our attention shall follow from among the alternatives left open to us within the natural laws, assuming wrongly that in doing so alternative possibilities have been rejected and will disappear; unaware that in face of the need to make a choice and beyond our awareness, our identity has split so that all possible alternatives are being followed.
In discussing these three stages of creation it is impossible not to visualise them as occurring sequentially in time as we know it. But it has to be appreciated that the time we experience is transcended at higher levels. Everything throughout our time would be viewed there as at the same moment by consciousness at those levels, and our time itself taken as just another orientation of space.
It is suggested that movement of conscious attention between levels takes place in both directions. Movement upwards brings with it an expansion of the horizons of awareness. Movement downwards results in restriction of those horizons and a loss of memory of all experiences of them.
To summarise then, my intention has been to find a useful model to assist us in trying to understand the nature of the subjective phenomenum we know as consciousness and its relationship to the objective physical universe. Ken Wilber has demonstrated that the various ways in which consciousness manifests indicates that it has the structure of a holarchy and it is noted that the space of our objective universe has a similar structure .From the premise that all reality will ultimately be found to emanate from a single source and that this source will prove to be subjective, I suggest that the difference between time and distance is subjective and that the universe of our objective experience is not a phenomenum changing continuously in three dimensions but, in reality, is static in four. Our attention scans it sequentially to produce apparent physical movement. Its purpose is not only to mirror the evolving creative imaginings of consciousness but to fix them objectively and permanently as one would with a video camera. Thus fixed the universe serves consciousness as a memory bank or library, to be dipped into as required. The similarity between the structures of consciousness and space further suggest that there may be many other universes, of the same and greater numbers of dimensions, which exist for the benefit of other orders and higher levels of consciousness than our own. The thoughts of a number of people, from J.W.Dunne in the thirties through Hugh Everett to the author of the Seth books, indicate how this might be.
All this opens up speculation about beings at many levels of consciousness above our own, filling the gap between us and a Godhead which idealists such as Bishop Berkeley jump all too easily. The relevance of all this speculation to reincarnation is that, if this vast and complex subjective structure, based largely on constraints placed upon access to memory and upon direct communications between individual conscious units, were indeed true, the wonder is, not that leakages of memory and thoughts sometimes escape past the constraints, but that they don't do so more often.
For further speculation along these lines I recommend the writings of Jane Roberts described as the Seth books. This material describes a metaphysical philosophy or vision of reality with which I claim what I have been saying is almost completely consistent, although my ideas were substantially formed before I was made aware of its existence. For some reason however Seth says little or nothing about the structure of space and its relation to that of consciousness. Which is why I have concentrated upon that subject, because I believe it helps us considerably to understand some of the more difficult concepts Seth puts forward.