Question 1.
To the historian, history is not only a record of things that happened in the past, but also an interpretive structure in which past events are made intelligible through narrative process. Your TOE generally regards history in the former sense—as a record or file of events that 1) actually happened or 2) had some probability of happening, but did not, and are saved as part of a data base that can be retrieved by the inquiring conscious subject.
Is it possible that History is also, in the latter sense (as narrative process), a fractal replication of the Fundamental Process itself? Is our collective self-representation as time-and-space-bound entities simply a result of AUM seeking profitability in its own creative space?
(Answer 1):
History has two aspects, 1) the actual and 2) the created. The “actual” history represents what happened…the facts…ALL the facts…. but this aspect of history has little or no practical (as opposed to theoretical) impact on us – since we live in a tiny subset of the present. The second aspect of history (created history) represents what we think about what may have happened -- what we believe happened, and our opinion of why and how we think it happened that way. This created history will necessarily tell a story that is much different and less complete than what actually happened since all the facts are never known to those few who create the history.
We re-create what happened in our minds (as we interpret what facts we have) according to the bias generated by our beliefs, fears, expectations, ego, fear, and our limited knowledge, understanding, and experience.
It is this “best-guess” created history that we write down and call “history”. As time goes by and entropy takes its toll, this history is often reinterpreted, added to, or ignored as necessary to serve the needs of each culture or society.
It is this “created” history that defines us as individuals, societies, and cultures…and that strongly colors our present choices as well as our future by instilling us with beliefs, attitudes, expectations, hopes and fears -- a filter through which everything else is interpreted, including our history. Thus, our history evolves as we evolve…not so much as an accurate and complete record of what happened, but rather as our personal interpretation of what we would like to think happened and how and why it must have happened the way we think.
Good historians focus on the facts they can accumulate and try to eliminate bias as much as they are able, however, due to the uncertainty inherent in the process, and the fact that they are themselves products of culture and of a created history, historians end up, more often than not, creating cultural propaganda that intertwines itself with threads of partial truth.
Follow up 1a.
Now, you’ve also characterized history (in a recent email) as an “organizational memory,” claiming—correctly I think—that “history has psychic inertia.” If this is the case, are the stories we write about our merely recording and represent the past, or are they in some way creating future possibilities by yoking the future to the past we remember and the present we experience on the basis of lessons learned in the past?
(Answer 1a):
It is very difficult to imagine, much less understand, things we have not personally experienced (history). Example: Pictures of ETs. We look forward through the limiting filters of what we imagine we saw behind us. History as psychic inertia serves the useful function of applying the brakes to changes that do not have what it takes to change the flow of history. That is, ideas unable to permanently change the hearts and minds and memories of the people.
Question 2.
On the question of philosophy, the Catholic scholars of the Middle Ages crafted a history-changing synthesis between Hebrew prophecy, Greek philosophy, and the Christian gospel of love and redemption. In creating a unified body of Christian knowledge, the Church established equivalencies between divine justice, Christian charity, and Greek transcendentals such as Being, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Accordingly, the Catholic theologian describes God not only as a creative agent, but the very essence of Beauty, Goodness, Truth, and Love.
In your TOE, there seem to be only two transcendentals: Consciousness (the Ground of Being), and Love, which is the telos of the evolutionary process—maybe “profitability” has the status of a transcendental. It’s my sense—maybe I’m wrong—that your TOE would see such things as Truth and Beauty as either metaphors, or primarily subjective values—but I’m wondering—can Love stand alone as a transcendental? Does not AUM also necessarily possess and express the concrete properties of goodness, truth, and beauty?
(Answer 2):
Goodness, truth, compassion, justice, beauty can be subjective values, but that is not the whole story. At a deeper level, one finds something more fundamental than individual subjective (relative) values.
Love is an absolute value, not a relative value – it is defined and measured in terms of entropy. Love is the mother of all transcendentals. Love subsumes, and thus describes, and finally defines, goodness, truth, compassion, justice, and beauty. Goodness is the eventual result of love in action (evil is the eventual result of fear in action) – truth is a tool, a logical consequence of love, it is how love communicates (lie’s are a tool, a logical consequence of fear, it is how fear manipulates) – Beauty is the aesthetic, the look and feel, of love (ugliness is the aesthetic, the look and feel, of fear). Compassion is empathy derived from love… and justice is a combination of goodness, truth, and compassion. Thus, given love, one may derive all the rest of the transcendental values.
AUM (or the LCS) is the medium through which love and fear can be expressed…..and also the result of such expressions. (What evolves now is the result of previous choices made.)
Follow up 2a.
If Love is defined or characterized as a low-entropy state, how do we acquire a sufficient handle on our own entropy to be able to reduce it? Don’t the great religious traditions provide time-tested cultural structures needed? For example the boundless compassion of the Buddha and the sacrificial love of Christ?
(Answer 2a):
For the most part, no, they don’t. The boundless compassion of the Buddha and the love of Christ simply provide individual examples of right action. Religious traditions sometimes provide encouragements toward low entropy behavior at the intellectual and emotional level … but do not, so much, offer a general process, methodology, or approach for achieving right intent and right being. To reduce our entropy we need to fundamentally change ourselves at the being level…we need to reduce our fear, ego, belief, and expectation. Good example, reinforced with intellectual and emotional support, typically encourages behavior, thoughts, and feeling that better emulate a Buddha or a Christ -- but changing one’s behavior and attitude to better emulate others or conform to a belief or a religious ethic -- is only a very shallow response to the requirements of consciousness evolution.
One does not grow up solely through the application of one’s intellect and emotions. Changing your intent at the being level means changing who you are, not doing a better job of emulating the master or following his creeds and doctrine. Consciousness evolution takes place at a deeper level than the emulating, following, obeying, and believing that has become the primary product now delivered by most religious traditions. http://www.my-big-toe.com/forums/vie...p=79891#p79877
Prof Eric Cunningham and Tom Campbell:The Onus of Leading a Spiritual-Scientific Revolution
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