Brief Summary
This seminar explores the concept of the cosmic network, challenging Western thought rooted in Newtonian mechanics and monarchical theology. It introduces a new understanding of the laws of nature, not as commandments but as human inventions for controlling the environment. The discussion moves from atomism to the interconnectedness of all things, emphasizing the importance of context and the illusion of separateness. It also touches on the implications of technology, the nature of intelligence, and the balance between materialism and mysticism, advocating for a mutual, interconnected view of the universe and our place within it.
- Understanding the nature of networks and challenging Western thought.
- Redefining laws of nature as human inventions for control.
- Exploring interconnectedness, context, and the illusion of separateness.
- Discussing technology, intelligence, materialism, and mysticism.
- Advocating for a mutual, interconnected view of the universe.
Introduction to the Cosmic Network
The seminar begins by addressing the concept of the cosmic network and the need to understand the nature of networks. It challenges the Western way of thinking, which is based on Newtonian mechanics and a certain kind of logic tied to language. This perspective views the world in terms of cause and effect, similar to a game of billiards, where interactions are seen as collisions between fundamental particles.
The History of Atomism
The discussion traces the history of atomism back to ancient Greece, explaining the idea of atoms as the smallest, indivisible particles of the world. Early theories envisioned atoms as balls or cubes, with laws of nature governing their relationships. This concept has influenced Western thought, portraying atoms as fundamental planetary systems that interact through collisions.
Laws of Nature and Theology
The idea of laws of nature is inherited from theology, particularly Jewish and Christian traditions, which depict the world as a construct commanded by a celestial king. This monarchical image influences our understanding of the world and our behavior. The quest for the law of nature is essentially a quest to understand the word of God, with the belief that knowing this word grants power.
The Word and Vibration
Scientists have realized that the word comes after the event. Hinduism suggests that "vak" or speech, fundamentally vibration, is the basis of creation. Understanding sound and vibration is key to understanding the mystery of existence, which is vibrating energy. The roots of Sanskrit are seen as the roots of life, where words create the world.
Karma and the Law of Nature
Thinking determines our reactions, and our notions shape our reality. The concept of karma is explored, defining it as one's doing or action. Events that happen to us are our karma, and recognizing this makes it never bad. The idea of the law of nature was taken over by Western science from the magical notion of God's commandment.
Laws of Nature as Human Inventions
In 20th-century science, laws of nature are not real entities obeyed by phenomena, but rather ways of understanding the world through regularity. They are human inventions, like rulers or tools, that enable us to control our environment by observing regularities and making predictions. These laws are a human network projected onto the world to measure and chart it.
Catenary vs. Reticulate Relationships
Two types of causal relationships are discussed: catenary and reticulate. Catenary relationships explain events as links in a causal chain, while reticulate relationships explain events by their context, considering past, present, and future events. The reticulate view sees the universe as a net where everything mutually interpenetrates everything else.
The Illusion of Separate Events
In nature, there are no separate events. The physical world is a "going withness," where everything is interconnected. The idea of a "that," or an event, is a human construct, as all events are interconnected. This leads to the concept of "going with," which is crucial for understanding the notion of network.
The Universe as a Mutual Relationship
The universe is a mutual relationship, where each individual is interconnected with the whole. It's not about control but about dancing with the universe. The whole universe is the only true atom, indivisible. We should not try to change ourselves but accept that we and the universe are one event.
The Dewdrop and the Spiderweb
The concept is illustrated with the image of a dewdrop on a spiderweb, where each dewdrop reflects all others. The whole network depends on each individual dewdrop, and each depends on all others. This mutual dependence challenges our logic, as we struggle to see how the whole depends on us.
The Universe Within Us
The universe around us is our outside, just as our organs are our inside. We evoke what we call sun, moon, and stars. The universe is not controlling us, but we are dancing with it. The universe is not made to happen but is happening, and it's all interrelated.
The Reticulate View of the Universe
The reticulate view explains a thing by its context, its relationship to present and future events as well as past. Every event becomes something in a network, held together by each other. The individual is interdependent with all stars, and motion depends on comparison with something relatively still.
The Individual Implies the World
Each individual implies the world, and the world implies the individual. We are moving with the universe, not determined by it. A skillful person knows there are no mistakes and lives on two levels, understanding the restricted point of view where things are good and bad.
The Cosmos is Doing You
The cosmos is doing you at the point you call here and now, and reciprocally, you are doing it. Your soul contains your body, and the whole cosmos is your soul. We are brainwashed by put-down theories of man, unable to see that we and the universe are mutually causative.
Synergy and the Noosphere
Synergy is introduced as the idea that every complex organism has an intelligence greater than any of its parts. The industrial natural complex is going in a certain direction on its own, organizing our behavior more intelligently than we can. The transportation communications network constitutes a global net, the noosphere, slowly realized through communication.
The One Town World
Jet planes are making all centers in communication with each other increasingly the same place, leading to a "one town world." This creates problems for human beings adapting to the speed of travel, but eventually, we will get used to it. The vested interest in air travel will make it harder to stop in the interest of having a war.
The Information Bomb
There is not only a population bomb but also an information bomb, with so much information that no individual can grasp it. The intelligence of the system, the synergy, is more intelligent than any individual consciousness can be. The intelligence of the universe grows as it grows you.
The Intelligence of the Universe
It seems strange to think of the universe as intelligent, but if we are intelligent, the environment in which we live must also be intelligent. We are symptoms of that environment, belonging in this world. The environment will be a system of mutual cooperation between a vast complexity of different kinds of organisms.
The Dowist View of Nature
The Dowist Chinese view of nature emphasizes "wooue," or non-interference, acting upon nature by going with the grain of things. The cosmos is seen as a self-regulating organism without a boss, where the individual is an expression of the whole thing, and the whole depends upon this expression.
Designing Your Own Universe
It remains a puzzle to say that all this is an intelligence, but if we could consciously construct the universe, we would do it a little differently. However, when we try to improve the world, we realize the consequences of our suggestions. It is recommended to model your own universe and see what comes out of it.
The Universe as an Organism
It's difficult to see the world as an organism because we are looking at it through a microscope. Man can put himself down as an accident, but this wretched little chemical thing can reflect an image of the whole cosmos inside his head. By degree of comprehension, man is huge.
The Network and Reverence
The individual organism goes with its environment, and what is inside this skin goes with everything outside it, constituting a single complex field. We must be vividly aware of the external world as much ourselves as our own bodies. We must take it with reverence.
The Continent is Getting Ready to Shake Us Off
The continent of the United States is getting ready to shake us off as a dog would shake off fleas. The storms are going to get worse, the earthquakes worse, the floods worse, and the insect pests will multiply in all sorts of strange ways and finally get rid of us and leave the land to the Indians who originally owned it.
The Abolition of Individual Privacy
The extension of the network, especially by electronics, might abolish individual privacy. Technological creations are extensions of the human organism, with the electronic network being an extension of the nervous system. Computers can instantly access enormous amounts of information about an individual.
The Reproduction of the Human Being
With perfect reproduction, you won't know the difference between the reproduction and the original. We may be able to manufacture parts of the human body in plastic, raising the question of whether you are the same individual after years of replacements. The university is a pattern of behavior, and the organisms involved keep changing, but the pattern retains an identifiable continuity.
The Plastic Doll
There is a state of consciousness called the plastic doll, where everything looks as if it's made of plastic. But it is through the diabolic vision that you gather the deepest insights. The distinction of the artificial from the natural is a very artificial distinction.
The Computerized World
In a computerized world, no one is hidden. Every individual will carry around a device with a TV screen and buttons, able to dial information and contact anyone. As technology progresses, there enters a quality of etherealization, with connecting links disappearing.
The Doctrine of Pedunkles
The doctrine of pedunkles explains why we do not find missing links in the evolutionary process. Human technology sets up certain kinds of pedunkles, like roads or wires, which become obsolete with the development of more expert types of communication. Eventually, we may not need to leave the place where we're sitting.
Telepathy and the Loss of Privacy
The next step beyond electronic gadgets is telepathy and psychic communication, where all privacy is gone. This may seem like the conversion of humanity into an anthill, but even now, we are not nearly as much of a private individual as we think. We are colossally influenced by each other.
The Interiorized Other
We do not know ourselves as a self except in a society. The reactions of other people to us provide the mirror in which we attain a realization of ourselves. We know who we are in terms of our relationships with others.
The Pro and Con of Disappearing Privacy
The pro point of view is how great to have nothing to hide, to give up all worries about ownership. The con point of view is that it would make all people the same individual. Part of our difficulty in approaching this is that we begin from the standpoint of a certain conception of the individual person, the Christian ego.
The Christian Ego
The Christian ego is the soul as a center of action, alive with consciousness and intelligence, lying hidden in the bag of skin. We have instituted a tremendous technological campaign to preserve the individual, but this is almost unbelievable to the myriads of Asia.
The State as Servant of the Individual
In the liberal capitalism of the United States, the state is the servant of the individual. We employ public servants to serve us. However, it is increasingly difficult to get services of any kind, as it is felt beneath the individual's dignity to be a servant.
The Creeping Socialism
We see the creeping socialism, the abolition of what is precious and private and property, and feel that as that disappears, the collection of human beings will simply dissolve into an amorphous mass. There is a danger in that, as we have seen people disappear into amorphous masses.
Responding to the Invasion of Privacy
There are two different ways of responding to the invasion of privacy. When you get the probing psychologist, you can shrug your shoulders and say, "Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?" Or you can simply not defend yourself.
The Tactics of Response
If anybody presses on him too hard, Alan Ginsburg will strip naked. To enter into a human relationship where there is nothing to hide and you don't depend on any sort of property gimmick for your personal worth is important.
The Loss of Privacy
In the situation of the loss of privacy, some people are completely degraded, as we systematically deprive privacy from the inmates of prisons and mental hospitals. The result of this is that you may brainwash him completely and make him nothing more than an obedient tool of the system.
Crowd vs. Group
A crowd is structured with a number of identical individuals and a leader, with communication flowing from the individual to the leader. A group has no leader, with communication flowing in all directions. An effective group is one in which there are enough people so that they can all know each other.
The Hierarchy of Cell Structures
Every group appoints one cell to represent it, and that cell goes and joins a group of representative cells. This creates a hierarchy of cell structures, where individuals are in communication with each other. This is the actual original design of the Republic of the United States.
The Future of Communications
With the development of electronic circuits, we tend towards tribalism. As the technology becomes more perfect, you can receive an enormous number of different stations. The message is not the content of the television show but your exposure to and involvement in that kind of a medium.
The Plausibility of Illusion
The question is whether to take life seriously or not, whether the plot is comic or tragic. Are we to say that I myself am a merk of some kind that really has nothing to do with this cosmos? Or am I the same as the whole thing?
The Radial Pattern of Organization
We get a pattern of organization that is radial rather than an assemblage. Crystals, stars, octopuses, and human beings are all radial structures. We are not independent of the ground at all. When you run up a hill, the hill also runs you up it.
The Thistle Down
The thistle down comes moving through the sky. Is it the wind moving the thistle down, or is it the thistle down that is moving itself with the wind? The mind is the moving thing. Each one of us uses the universe to get around, and the universe uses us to play with and to make games and patterns.
The Shape of the Universe is the Shape of Man
The shape of the universe is the shape of man. Man is the microcosm, and the universe as a whole is the macrocosm. When we meet the very strange thing and we look into the distant reaches of space, there will one day be the dawning recognition, that's me.
Space is One's Mind
Space is one's mind. The nature of mind, the nature of consciousness, the nature of oneself contains all these things. If you think that way, you have an image of man that is global. We think we have our own private thoughts, but we think in images and words derived from the whole thought structure of the society in which we live.
The Illusion of Separateness
The totality of the cosmos focused at each point gives rise to the illusion of the independence of the point from the whole. It leads to the serious problem of ecological blindness. We must overcome the illusion of separateness.
The Value of Personality
The great thing about Western civilization is its stress on individual personality and its value. The state exists as a servant of the individual. However, a complex and interesting personality is not a matter of being isolated but of being deeply connected with and aware of one's relationship to the whole surrounding cosmos.
The Craft of Mysticism
In meditation, you are not trying to gain anything, to alter your state of mind from what it is now into some other state which you think it ought to be. You are centering in where you are. The disease of civilization is that we confuse the world of symbols with the world of reality.
Two Fundamental Approaches to Meditation
One method of meditation is to stretch as tightly as possible, to concentrate with your whole energy on a point, and to use the maximum amount of effort. Alternatively, there is a subtle way, the dowistic approach, wherein instead of trying to master and dominate your body mind, you let go of it and you let it do whatever it wants to do.
The Relaxed Way
Allow your ears to hear anything they want to hear, your breath to breathe any way it wants to breathe, your muscle skin tone feeling to feel any way it wants to feel, your eyes to see anything they want to see, and finally, your mind to think anything it wants to think. Let it go.
