The Awesome Power of Our Minds: Another Good Reason To Help Civilization Find a Sustainable Way of Life
About five years ago I had some time to kill in Pasadena, out here in Southern California. I found a terrific bookstore, milled around, and ultimately pulled a book off the shelf devoted to the subject of human consciousness. I was roped in from the first paragraph, where the author speculated that modern humankind may be fairly close to wrapping our wits around the origin of the universe and its fundamental building blocks, but that, regardless of what happens in cosmology, we’re a very, very long way from understanding consciousness.
A couple of years later I heard a presentation on our many failed scientific attempts to understand human consciousness, in which the speaker had the same lament: it’s really difficult to make sense of this. At one point, he asked listeners to think for a minute how complex our dreams are—in content, sure, but more importantly that each one requires a combination of different players to be present and to play certain roles.
Consider for a moment that in every single one of your dreams, you are:
The writer and the director. A part of you has to create the story line, the supporting scenery, the dialog, etc., and all this has to be spit out and presented to us in complete form in a microscopically small fraction of a second. The plot, the characters and their motives, and each of the conversations can be weird and improbable by the standards of our waking life, but they always have to have some level of cohesion and some tie-in to the experiences we’ve had in our “real” lives.
The lead actor. The story centers around you, but notice that you’re somehow surprised by the plot’s incredible twists and turns, perhaps like an actor who might be performing, but is reading the writer’s (your) screenplay for the first time.
The audience. Like the actor, you’re clueless about what’s going to happen next. Of course, a moment later you-the-actor and all the other people and things in the dream dramatize what you-the-writer/director have just written, and it all becomes clear. Also, as a member of the audience, you can have feelings about what’s going on in the dream sequence that the other two yous are writing and acting out. Occasionally, you-the-audience say: “Bullcrap. This is stupid. I’m waking up now, because this is ridiculous.” You’ve violated your own willing suspension of disbelief, and, as a member of the audience, you find that to be unacceptably bad writing; you’re storming out of the theater, and you’re taking your popcorn with you. Or on the other hand maybe you say, “How wonderful to see my old friend again. I thought he had died in a plane crash, but I must have been wrong. I sure hope this isn’t a dream.”
I bring this up only as a reminder that, in every single one of us, there is far more going on than we understand. It’s just another good reason to be kind to and respectful of the people around us, as they are beings of enormous complexity and talent. Regardless of who we are, whether we’re happy or miserable, powerful or insignificant, compassionate or hard-hearted, Eskimo or Vietnamese, young or old, our minds perform amazing feats.
The notion of sustainability and our motivation to achieve it is rooted in the idea that all life forms, and especially each of us human beings, have great value. It takes hard work and sacrifice to keep our civilization here, but we’re worth it.
Stimulating article, Craig!
Do you remember the name of the book? The author? The name of the person who presented the presentation? And how about that picture of the guy and his nose?
One thing that often stuns me when I remember a dream is when there’s an impossible change of scenery or other incredible transformation that is barely noticed, if at all, by the characters (and the observing self) in the dream.
Thanks for writing. I don’t remember the book at all. Here’s the presentation: http://www.witf.org/smart-talk/2015/05/smart-talk-the-science-of-dreams-encore-1.php. The picture came from a search under “surrealism”; I can’t tell you anything about it. Re: what stuns you, yes, but I’ve had the experience of waking up because the experience was so improbable; I was angry that I was wasting mental energy, like reading bad novel.
Hi Craig, consciousness is a good subject always!
Many authors (from physics, mathematics, psycology etc.) have been concluding consciosness is an emergent property of all dynamic process in the brain (depth of thought), very complex in us and still more and much more beyond our species. No magic or supernatural realms involved.
It´s interesting to watch a documentary on the multiverse theory: from earth as the center of all to the sun to the galaxy to this universe to beyond.
Now, CS, this piece bespeaks of Rosicrucianism (my observation). Or, more akin to chapters out of the esoteric schools of those ages when the knowledge-quest wasn’t hijacked by low materialist ends.
In every micro second of existence we operate on different levels of consciousness that are at once “simple” and multiply complex. Our ancestors in Ancient Egypt and thereabout would comprehend this more. There is a long list of things our high-flying modern education disregard for sure to our complete disadvantage and detriment. Stuff like Precognition and Extra-sensory Perception, and so on and so forth.
Which is why the wholesale hurried destruction of civilizations (before we had time to study and truly master their proper attributes) have been such terrible loss to our collective future.
Sometimes in silent meditations I wonder what if we advanced forward to our past… [Yes, Every Return To Whence We Come Marks A Forward Movement.] what priceless treasures we would stumble upon! Imagine if we “married” all the extant advances with the depths of spirituality of bygone times when the fruition of science (the knowledge of nature) and the mastery of technology (the practical application of the knowledge of nature) was never construed as presently done with the erosion of the essence of the godhead?
In today’s disjointed and misplaced pursuits after fulfillment, this “marriage” between form and substance might just help remedy the blight asphyxiating the mind “and soul” of modern man.
And then again, (who knows?) maybe we are at the cusp of another potent era of a new consciousness that will return us to the apex.
I agree its worth supporting the ecosystem so we can continue to live here. So far we haven’t colonized any other planet so assure survival elsewhere. These are the only alternatives if we think human-kind is worth continuing.
Right. And the idea of exporting humankind into outer space, given its hate, stupidity, greed, cruelty, etc. isn’t too appetizing an idea.
A reader send me this: “If we cannot make it here, we cannot make it anywhere.” Well put.
There are some who regard humanity as an attempt by the universe to understand and appreciate itself.
That’s profound. I don’t see it, but it’s thought-provoking.
There are others – Tom Waits for example – who regard humanity as monkeys with money and guns. I personally find that assessment both humorous and adroit.
However, I think our somewhat hidden reality is somewhere in the middle – between a monkey and a metaphysical phenomenon – or perhaps an ill-blending mixture of both.
That line from Tom Waits is wonderful.
Some seem to feel that giving our collective consciousness a chance to develop is the only good reason to maintain our environment. Viewing the world through a perspective of consciousness changes what is important in every conversation.
I like that you used the example of Dreams. When we speak of consciousness often the conversation turns to the occult. This seems to make consciousness something unusual rather than normal and natural. A close kin and possibly a bridge to dreams is intuition. Not quite as natural as dreams but not so unusual as the occult.