The Sage Age Blog

While researching topics covered in The Sage Age, I read many popular books that attempted to tie quantum physics to spirituality. They all made heroic attempts to translate the basic tenets of physics, which can only be truly understood in the language of mathematics, into accessible terms for the layman and then bind them to the ineffable concepts of spirituality, the true knowledge of which can only be gained through direct experience.

Some succeeded at this task more than others. When the author did find just the right analogy to convey the main point, it became a beautiful passage of words to highlight in yellow.

But, what I found glaringly missing from most of these books was a sufficient nod to the underlying philosophical principles behind the topics. Perhaps that’s because the masses, to whom these books are targeted, find philosophy either boring or too legalistic in nature.

Philosophy is the single most critical element in having any true understanding of the Shift we are currently experiencing. As Billy Joel sang, “We didn’t start the fire.” We didn’t get to where we are from a vacuum. With all of the attention being given right now to minding our mind and being more aware of our thoughts, it’s important to recognize that our thoughts become our beliefs that become our philosophy that shifts our culture and creates the world we live in.

At this moment, there are two main philosophical paradigms vying for dominance as the basis of reality. The first is material realism and the second is consciousness. Both have existed for thousands of years and have traded places over and over again throughout our history as the accepted theory.

The coup being waged now by the consciousness adherents, who see both matter and energy as an epiphenomenon of a wholistic something, is to overthrow the hardcore material realists, who see nature as a machine that they can bend to their greedy will regardless of consequence.

While both philosophies endeavor to vault humans to a central platform of being far more than just voyeurs in the universe, the pop culture currently co-opting the consciousness philosophy espouses that we are critically important co-creators of “All That Is.” That has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry of self-help instruction aimed at creating a self-regulation regiment that will restore Eden on Earth.

But, there’s a real danger in going overboard with that idea. The philosophy of material realism last came into prominence in the West during the Protestant Reformation, which was a revolt against science based on a moral code and idealism. Because it had gone unchecked and unbalanced for so long, the consciousness-type philosophy led to beliefs based on superstition and outright myth.

Now that a consciousness-type philosophy is attempting to rise again, it is serving the beneficial purpose of balancing material realism that is out of control. It is showing that the current way is aggressive, invasive, and destructive to the point of annihilation if it is not constrained.

There is another philosophy that can mediate this balancing act. It’s called existentialism. What most folks know of existentialism is either the famous quote from Nietzsche, “God is dead” or the neurotic parodies of Woody Allen on Nietzsche’s Being and Nothingness. In fact, if it had not been for the enduring quality of Allen’s work, existentialism may have phased out quickly as just another pop culture fad.

But there’s far more to existentialism than that. The focus is still on the human element, but it does help place humanity in its proper position with regard to the whole by leaving a little room for the great mystery of existence in general.

One of the best descriptions I’ve found of existentialism comes from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which states:

“On the existential view, to understand what a human being is it is not enough to know all the truths that natural science—including the science of psychology—could tell us. The dualist who holds that human beings are composed of independent substances—“mind” and “body”—is no better off in this regard than is the physicalist, who holds that human existence can be adequately explained in terms of the fundamental physical constituents of the universe. Existentialism does not deny the validity of the basic categories of physics, biology, psychology, and the other sciences (categories such as matter, causality, force, function, organism, development, motivation, and so on). It claims only that human beings cannot be fully understood in terms of them. Nor can such an understanding be gained by supplementing our scientific picture with a moral one. Categories of moral theory such as intention, blame, responsibility, character, duty, virtue, and the like do capture important aspects of the human condition, but neither moral thinking (governed by the norms of the good and the right) nor scientific thinking (governed by the norm of truth) suffices.”

It’s good to learn all we can from science and morality. It’s better to hone both ways of knowing in order to have a full understanding of either. It’s best to balance the head and heart equally. When we, as individuals, learn how to do that, the culture will reflect it and balance itself out too. Perhaps then we will be in a position to move beyond this dualistic pendulum swinging between two philosophies and find a new way forward together.

Downhill skier Lindsey Vonn injured her leg in a training run just a few days before the opening of the 2010 Olympic Games. I’ve been very impressed with her reaction to her condition.

An interview with her aired just prior to coverage of the opening ceremonies. The host questioned her initial reaction to the injury, wondering why she refused to get it x-rayed to see if her leg was broken. Lindsey replied that she wanted to see for herself how it was before any other examination was performed.

Now, to some folks, it may seem that Lindsey had so much at stake that she simply chose to be in denial about the extent of her injury. But, let’s follow the wise advice to consider the source and take a look at who made this statement.

Vonn is a world-class downhill skier, meaning that she routinely flies across the snow with little protective gear at speeds reaching 80 or 90 mph. She knows a little something about focus and intent. As a premier athlete, she is also very in touch with her body.

After the injury, the first thing Vonn did was to ask her body how it felt and what it needed. She didn’t need an outside authority to give her the answer. The next thing Vonn did was to give her injured body exactly what it requested, the main factor being rest.

If Lindsey were in denial, she would have continued to train and increased the injury, or she would not have dropped out of so many competitions. She was in the run for five medals. Instead, she chose to focus on her main discipline and stated that one medal would be plenty.

If she did not consider herself the authority of her own body, she may have tried to meet the demands of her sponsors and the expectations of the TV networks, who were counting on her to be the Michael Phelps of these games. To be in harmony with her body’s needs, she declined to march with the U.S. delegation during the opening ceremonies, denying herself one major part of fully enjoying of the Olympic experience.

You have to have a good head on your shoulders to make split-second decisions as you whisk down a slippery slope. Fortunately, Lindsey Vonn has plenty enough sense to put things in perspective and honor her long-term health. And, she obviously has honed many of the same skills as an intuitive healing practitioner and listens to her own body-voice as well as the skill of focusing intent toward a clear purpose.

She may have injured her leg, but the rest of her is doing just fine.

A recent Op-Ed in NewScientist Magazine demonstrates the controversy and struggle faced by all who are trying to understand the implications of recent advancements in neuroscience and its claim to be measuring the source of consciousness.

At this moment, there are two philosophical paradigms vying for dominance. They’ve both around since antiquity and have traded places over and over as the accepted working theory of the time. The first is material realism. The basic tenet is that matter is primary. As that concerns thought energy, it means that the brain is primary and thought is an epiphenomena of the brain. In other words, without a physical processing center, there is no thought.

The other philosophy has gone by many names and is in the process of being renamed again, but the basic tenant is that consciousness is the basis of all. Now, with material realism, quantum physics has shown that energy is as primal as matter, but the focus is still pretty much on matter. With consciousness as the basis of all, both matter and energy are epiphenomenon of it.

These are the two philosophies primarily behind the controversy of advancements in neuroscience being equated with honing  our ability to measure the manifestation of consciousness.

With material realism, the idea is that thought arises from the rapid and parallel processing occurring in the brain that eventually forms a cohesive, coherent thought.

Using the consciousness philosophy as the dominant theory, brain activity is seen as measuring the shadow of thought energy. That energy intersects the physical realm through a physical processing center. Some use the analogy of a radio broadcast to illuminate this idea. The broadcast signal is always present, but unless a receiver is on and tuned to that station, or frequency, it cannot receive the information.

One of the issues that drives the controversy between the two philosophies is the either/or Hellenistic way of thinking that has permeated all of Western culture since the rise of the ancient Greek civilization. With this view, there can only be one way that thought energy occurs. Another issue that fuels the fire is the pop-culture preference for simple answers.

Is it possible that we can reach a compromise and state that thought is a dynamic process that arises in the brain from two sources? Can we both receive and create thought energy simultaneously? That paradigm is easy to accept if you are inclined to view an entity as a function of mind, body, and spirit. It’s not so easy to accept if you are tasked with developing practical applications that pinpoint certain areas of the brain. Advancements in this area are bringing great hope to quadriplegics and amputees with the creation of mind-to-machine interfaces that help them manipulate physical objects and reconnect with the world by some form of interaction.

But, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about these promising experiments. I’ve read articles in e-zines that cater to intuitives espousing them as mind-over-matter. No such thing is happening. That would require some form of telepathy. At all times the subject is hard-wired to the physical thing that it is influencing. Even if no wires are involved, it’s like the difference in a corded phone and a blue tooth on a cell phone. It’s still considered a direct-connect system, not through-the-ether telepathy.

I’ve also read articles that this is some breakthrough in thought because the person using the device has to think differently. No more so than someone who has suffered a stroke has to think differently to learn to walk or talk again. They are simply re-wiring their brain around damaged areas to make new connections that control motor skills.

The only new things we have here are the ability to pinpoint certain areas of the brain with great precision and a better understanding of the true plasticity of the brain. With the rise of dementia, that’s getting a lot of attention these days.

A clear understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of these opinions will help us to better understand them so we won’t confuse the map for the territory. In other words, it will help us get past the novelty of the model and see it for what it promises to become, as well as its limitations.