“We are no longer satisfied with insights into particles, or fields of force, or geometry, or even space and time. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.” Professor John Wheeler, the poet of physics.
I’ve been writing for nearly four decades that knowledge is the path, the way. The Sanskrit word dharma means knowing and the way. I’d like to take that deeper for you now.
I’ve always said: we are what we know. Our knowledge defines us in a very real sense. Take the example of a plumber. He knows how to solder, fix leaks, install piping and ducting. What he knows MAKES him a plumber. He IS a plumber because of what he knows.
If an individual knows detailed human anatomy and physiology, the fundamentals of pathology and disease, how to diagnose illness clinically, healing remedies and has the skills of operating on the human body (that would be me!) he or she is, by definition, a doctor.
You can think up your own examples. I can’t imagine anyone coming up with a scenario where “we are what we know” could be disproven.
Now it’s another of my teachings that the immortal soul, the non-material being, at the beginning of All That Is (in the time before time I mean), knew everything. I had better write “knows everything” because time-based concepts like past tense don’t apply!
But we have to selectively Un-know a great deal, in order to function. To be totally all-knowing is a pretty scary condition. I wouldn’t last ten minutes before becoming terminally bored. Heaven knows what it would be like to be an all-powerful, all-knowing god! You’ve got all eternity to fill and you’ve already seen it all, got it all, done it all! What comes next?
Perhaps that’s what lay behind the wicked machinations of the Greek gods under Zeus, bickering, playing games, tormenting humans and even coming down to our level for a bit of action! They were just bored!
But none of this is what I mean by “knowledge is the path.”
Double Layered Reality
The first layer is that the more we know, the more we understand things, the more presence we have in the world.
The second layer is that the Universe is coming to knowledge and understanding of itself, through the knowing of conscious beings it has given rise to. We are, in a sense, the eyes and ears of the Universe. Evolution, through us, is the road to Universal self-knowing.
That wouldn’t be just humans, of course. There are a conservative quadrillion inhabitable planets, just in this corner of the Universe. Who knows how many are also experiencing conscious evolution, or even devolution?
As I see it, physical evolution has been going on a long while, was very significant, but has now slowed down. Important steps were the ability to move around, then came language which led to community and cooperation. One of the most important developments of all, which propelled us forward, was the development of an opposable thumb. Sounds not much but it’s EVERYTHING!
Through that we were able to grasp things, use tools, play musical instruments, type on keyboards, the whole 9 yards!
The Universe’s Knowing Evolution
It has been suggested that we are the knowingness tool of the universe. We are not just present here, we are part of the universe’s own Path. We are the way the universe comes to learn about itself. In other words we are very participatory and actually needed here.
I’ve never heard this proposed as a religious concept. Perhaps some of you will comment if you think it has been.
English writer Peter Russell (who has been described as the new Buckminster Fuller) goes deeply into this theme in his book The White Hole In Time. His thoughts concur with mine when he writes, “Through us the source of Creation would then have come to know itself in all its dimensions. It would have come to know its physical manifestations in all its depth and beauty. It would have come to know its many levels of mental manifestations; and come to know the Self that lies behind them all. Its long journey of data gathering, information processing, knowing, and understanding would be complete. Through US the Universe would have accomplished its design.” (p. 221) (my underlining)
So, are we alone? Russell makes the point that life got started on earth almost immediately after conditions were right here, which suggests that life probably takes hold wherever it can. But it’s not just a question of permitting the emergence of life. The universe must allow the development of intelligent life. It needs observers to know itself!
The Poet of Physics
I refer now to John Wheeler (1911 – 2008), a brilliant US physicist and philosopher. As professor at Princeton, he taught the best: Richard Feynman, Hugh Everett and Robert Wald, among many others. Wheeler worked on the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb), coined the term “black hole” and gave us the expression “wormhole.”
He also, famously, came up with the concept of a “participatory universe” in which consciousness was the key player, not just an aspect. His phrase “It from bit” (meaning something, or “stuff,” arising from information), which I quoted contextually in my masterwork Medicine Beyond, is a profound insight into the origin of reality.
His ideas are well-summed up in this graphic; the Universe (U) observing itself.
The idea of the universe observing itself was, of course, radical and few got to grips with it. The universe is just matter, “stuff”, how could it view itself? Matter is not conscious, is it? Well, that was over 40 years ago. Science (honest science) has moved on by leaps and bounds since then.
Many current and clever physicists (and doctors like me) think that the whole of the universe is conscious; alive and aware. There is no distinction between consciousness and matter. This contradicts Renee Descartes (1596 – 1650), of course, though looking at the original remarks of Descartes, I am not sure he really meant there was a quality or category distinction.
Take the words of much-loved 20th century physicist David Bohm, who gave us the concept of the “holographic universe”.
“…both observer and observed are merging and interpenetrating aspects of one whole reality, which is indivisible and unanalysable.”
— Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
I close with a most scriptural phrase from Peter Russell, “We may be the most creative, the most intelligent, and most thoughtful creature the Earth has ever seen. And we have the potential to be so much more… Could we be the moment Life’s been waiting for?”
I say YES! And if that thought doesn’t bounce you out of bed in the morning, bursting with the joys of just BEING, you’re probably already dead!
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
Love to you All.
