‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘And its most primordial sense of being is your instinctive “I” feeling right now. Therefore, in the only way that matters, you are mind-at-large. The universe unfolds in your mind. It’s just that your mind is not only yours; it is also my mind, the neighbor’s mind, the co-worker’s mind, the cat’s mind, the ant’s mind, etc., since we all share the same instinctive “I” feeling.’
‘I think I got it…’
‘I know you did, although you will need time to ponder about the implications and integrate them in your life.’
That was an understatement. Nonetheless, my original question hadn’t been answered yet:
‘OK, but then how come are there so many living creatures in the world? What is the nature of all these seemingly separate beings, given that mind-at-large is presumably one?’
‘Your individual life is one among countless chains of associated mental contents in mind-at-large: it consists of specific sensations that lead to specific thoughts, which lead to specific feelings, which trigger other sensations, etc. Other chains—that is, other lives—consist of other sensations, leading to other thoughts, other feelings, etc. After all, what is a life but a distinctive series of experiences connected to each other through cognitive associations? The uniqueness of these associations is what characterizes your sense of personhood. To be a little more precise, each living being is in fact a distinctive cluster—not just a chain—of mostly internally associated thoughts, feelings and sensations imagined by mind-at-large. The biological body is what this cluster looks like from the perspective of other clusters. Each cluster becomes amnesic of the rest of mind-at-large because the dense cognitive associations within it lead to highly focused internal attention, which then obfuscates everything else outside the cluster.’
It wasn’t lost on me that his last point about obfuscation confirmed Trilobite’s hypothesis regarding how the Recipe worked: by inhibiting neural activity in targeted areas of the cluster—through drugs and electromagnetic fields—it reduced obfuscation, allowing the Dome and the Other to emerge out of a cognitive haze. At this stage of my work at Trilobite, however, I was already pretty much taking this for granted. So I decided to ask the Other about something else that had caught my attention:
‘What did you mean by “internally associated” thoughts, feelings and sensations?’
‘It means that experiences inside the cluster tend to repeatedly evoke other experiences also inside the cluster. Sensations may lead to habitual thoughts, which may evoke recurring emotions, which may trigger familiar memories, which in turn may lead to other similar sensations, etc., all mostly within the cluster. For instance, when you find an old painting long forgotten in your attic, you may think once more of your childhood home, which may make you feel like a kid again, which in turn may bring back memories of your parents, which may cause you to contemplate an old photograph of them, etc. This way, you end up with a set of mental contents that mostly reference each other, reinforcing their collective experiential footprint at the expense of everything else outside the cluster. It is this internally associated set that gives you a personal history and a sense of individual identity.’
So far so good, but I needed reassurance about a particular point that had been bothering me:
‘So other people really are conscious, just like I am, right?’
‘Yes, they are.’ If the Other had a face, I’m sure he would be smiling at my insecurities. ‘They are other amnesic clusters like yourself,’ he continued.
Comfortable with this confirmation, I approached the more delicate point:
‘And are you also an amnesic cluster of mind-at-large, just like other people?’
‘No, I am not an amnesic cluster. I am the rest of mind-at-large, as partly actualized and perceived by your ego.’
‘Now you’ve lost me… come again?’
‘Amnesic clusters are like islands in an ocean of mentation,’ he elaborated. ‘The existence of the islands doesn’t eliminate the ocean. I am what the ocean looks like from the vantage point of someone standing on your island; that is, your ego.’
‘So any other Explorer who comes to the Dome can see you just as I do?’ I asked, hardly disguising a little jealously.
‘Anyone can potentially come here and talk to me, yes. But the view of the ocean is different from every island. And it isn’t complete from any island, since from no one of them can the entire ocean be seen. The view from each island contributes a different but equally valid angle to humanity’s understanding of the ocean. Thus, what you see of me is as much a function of your own individual peculiarities as it is of my nature. For instance, you have strong analytical tendencies, so you experience a rather analytical Other. Another Explorer with poetic or artistic tendencies would have a very different—though equally valid—experience of me.’
His metaphors were very helpful, even though I knew they weren’t complete or rigorous. What matters is that I understood what he was trying to say.
Finding the answers
‘As the ocean, instead of a mere island,’ I asked, ‘do you know everything?’ My interest in the Other was directly proportional to how much I thought he knew.
‘Potentially yes, but I only truly know what you or another living being asks me.’
‘How come?’ I protested. ‘Surely you either know something or you don’t, regardless of being asked about it.’
‘Whatever I have never been asked about by a self-reflective cluster of mind-at-large like yourself,’ he continued, ‘I know only in potentiality. Think of it as the light of a match: until you ignite the match, its light exists only in potentiality, in the form of energy chemically stored in its phosphorus head. But when you ignite the match, its light becomes actualized. Only then can it be seen. My knowledge is like the match: it exists complete, but only in potentiality, until you or someone else asks me about it. Your questions then partly ignite the match of my limitless insight, so its light can be seen. Only then does it illuminate existence.’
I couldn’t help but be struck by the power of his metaphors. He was prepared, if so needed, to sacrifice rigor in order to ensure that I not only understood his point intellectually, but groked it with my whole being. If I didn’t feel the insight he was attempting to convey, he wouldn’t consider his job done.
‘So before I or someone else asks you a question,’ I insisted, ‘even you don’t know the answer?’
‘I do know the answer always, but only in potentiality. In other words, I know it, but I don’t know that I know it. The answer remains latent, like the light of a non-ignited match, and doesn’t illuminate my experience; or yours.’
This was fertile ground and my thoughts were running wild:
‘Why don’t you ask yourself all relevant questions? You could then illuminate the whole of existence and eradicate ignorance!’
‘Because I am incapable of asking myself questions.’ What?! This was completely unexpected. But he continued before I could interject: ‘Asking myself questions would require a particular cognitive configuration that arises exclusively within clusters like the human mind. Only the dense internal associations of a cluster enable one layer of cognition to become an object of inquiry of another layer of cognition. In other words, they enable you to think about your thoughts. And only by thinking about your thoughts can you formulate the probing questions required to make sense of existence. The reason is that all reality is in mind. Therefore, to understand reality one needs to inquire into the multiple subtle layers of hidden assumptions, expectations and beliefs in one’s own mind. To do so, mind must turn in upon itself. It is this process of turning in upon itself that creates clusters, enables self-reflection and focuses the attention of egos at the cost of obfuscating everything else.’
While marveling at the cogency with which his elucidations came together, a critical insight suddenly struck me:
‘This is the meaning of life! The human purpose is to light up the match of your latent
knowledge!’
‘That’s a fair way to put it…’ confirmed the Other, with slight hesitation.
The insight was incredibly powerful and rewarding to me, despite the rather cautious confirmation by the Other. A big part of me wanted to end the dialogue right then and there, to enjoy the afterglow. But there was still something nagging me…
Layers of cognition
‘You alluded to “layers of cognition” a couple of times. I have a general intuition about what you meant, but could you perhaps explain it more specifically?’
‘You perceive, feel and think in layers,’ he answered. ‘Each layer provides the beliefs and expectations that condition and facilitate the layer above. For example, when you see a bird, you uncritically project onto the perceived image everything you already believe about, and expect of, birds: their general body form, flight capabilities, likely behavior, place in the natural order of things, etc. Your perceptions, and all other cognitive associations that follow from them, are thus conditioned and facilitated by implicit, underlying beliefs and expectations. If they weren’t, you would be discombobulated every time you saw a colorful feathered being darting around the sky.’
‘Clear,’ I interjected. But he hadn’t finished his point yet:
‘The thing is, you don’t question your underlying beliefs and expectations while seeing the bird. You implicitly take them for granted. Uncritically and implicitly taking something for granted is the effect of underlying, obfuscated layers of your cognition. Here is another example: when you drive to work in the morning, your actions are conditioned and facilitated by your expectations regarding the way to work, the operation of the car, etc. While focusing on your driving, you take it for granted that, if you turn the wheel clockwise, the car will turn right; if you step on the break, the car will stop; if you turn left on the next intersection, you will arrive at work; etc. These implicit expectations reside in an underlying layer of your cognition that is obfuscated by the driving. You act on these obfuscated expectations automatically, thoughtlessly.’
‘I see. I guess this applies to anything I do.’
‘Indeed,’ he confirmed. ‘But notice that layered cognitive activity is not limited to the performance of tasks. It applies also to how you feel about life and self.’
‘Could you give me a concrete example?’
‘Whether you discern meaning in your life,’ he obliged, ‘is entirely conditioned by beliefs in underlying layers of your cognition. Deep within yourself, do you take it for granted that you are a material entity bound in space and destined to oblivion? If so, such belief will prevent you from experiencing your life’s meaning.’
‘I guess I just found out today that there is a transcendent meaning to life, after all!’ I exclaimed enthusiastically.
‘Then run with it,’ he encouraged me, ‘at least until you discover further nuances to your insight.’
He seemed to be hinting again at something he chose to leave unsaid. But by now I was mentally drained and had no energy to press him further. I knew that the Other could sense my exhaustion and wouldn’t mind my aborting the journey. So the re-entry mantra was intoned and I left the Dome.
Upon coming round in the laboratory, I found Sophie starring me in the face. Her beautiful big eyes, full of anticipation, screamed out the question: ‘So?! What has he told you this time?!’ Behind her, several nurses and technicians pretended to busy themselves with their usual chores, secretly paying attention to what I had to say.
Manipulating beliefs
I had one more opportunity to visit the Dome and dialogue with the Other before I would have to return home. This would be my third journey after the Recipe had begun to reliably deliver me there. After it, months would pass before I would have another chance, so I had to get as much as possible out of it.
In both my previous experiences, I’d noticed that I only had enough mental stamina to engage in one general topic per session. The force of the insights was such that it left little room for a more eclectic discussion. So I carefully chose the topic I wanted to address in this final trip before my upcoming return home. It was a question that had been bugging me a lot since the last session and I was determined to confront the Other with it. To set my intention correctly, I kept on mentally repeating the question all the way through the final countdown, the Juice Mix already flowing through my veins.
‘You seem to be in a fairly hardnosed mood today,’ said the Other rather sarcastically, but in good spirits.
‘You are very eloquent,’ I opened, ‘but some of the things you say raise many questions.’
‘Shoot,’ he dared me. I was not sure I was comfortable with this lighthearted side of his.
‘You said that ordinary reality is a kind of dream imagined according to a belief system; that the world behaves the way it does because, deep within, we expect it to behave like this. You compared it to the crazy causal associations of regular dreams—people changing shapes when we touch them, objects appearing out of nowhere when we think of them, etc.—which seem entirely plausible and natural during the dream, simply because they reflect our dreaming mind’s implicit beliefs and expectations.’
‘Right, go on,’ he said. My interpretation of his earlier elucidations seemed to be correct.
‘Well, then why can’t I change the laws of nature just by wishing them to be different? After all, they merely reflect my own beliefs and expectations.’ Touché, I naively thought.
‘You’re mixing up belief with volition,’ the Other replied, instantly deflating my arrogance. ‘Reality is a reflection of what you believe very deeply within your mind, not of what your ego wishes for. What people wish for is not necessarily what they truly believe in. As a matter of fact, most people wish for endless things they don’t believe possible.’
‘Right, I get that,’ I conceded. But I still thought that there was something to my argument, so I persisted: ‘Nonetheless, reality shatters people’s beliefs all the time. Millions believed in the imminent second coming of Christ at several points in history, only to be disillusioned. Even today, many of my colleagues in science passionately believe their theories of nature only to watch experiments contradict and destroy their expectations. Reality doesn’t seem to care at all about our beliefs.’
‘When I said that reality reflects your beliefs,’ he answered, ‘I didn’t mean the superficial beliefs of your ego, but those held in deeper, obfuscated layers of your cognition. As we discussed earlier, mind-at-large differentiates itself into clusters of mentation. This differentiation happens in layers. The cognitive processes in each layer condition those in layers above. The human ego spans but the top layers of differentiation. Underneath it there are many other layers, all the way down to the undifferentiated ocean of mind-at-large. The higher the layer of differentiation is, the denser the internal associations within a cluster and the more sparse the external associations between clusters. The beliefs that govern ordinary waking reality are not the beliefs formed in the superficial egoic layers, but in much deeper layers with comparatively many external associations.’
‘Do you mean that the beliefs in question are unconscious beliefs?’ I asked.
‘They are obfuscated beliefs that completely escape the focus of your ordinary attention, yes. They aren’t literally unconscious because there is nothing outside consciousness.’
‘What about delusions?’ I continued, without paying much attention to his last point. ‘For instance, some people believe very deeply that they can fly. Then they jump off buildings and die…’
‘These aren’t deep beliefs, for they don’t reside in deep layers of cognition. They are just strong, sincere beliefs still in superficial layers. The existence of very strong but relatively superficial beliefs in a cluster of mentation does not cancel out the effects—such as gravity—of beliefs concurrently held in much lower, less differentiated layers. There is no actual contradiction here, for these conflicting beliefs are all experienced in their own way, each within
its own cognitive scope.’
I understood this but wasn’t satisfied yet:
‘You keep talking about a person’s beliefs, but at the end of the day everyone shares the same reality with everybody else. We all watch the sun set, have meals together, watch the same sports teams win or lose the same games, listen to music together, etc. The same laws of nature apply to every human and even every living creature. For instance, high heat burns both a man and an amoeba. How come a man and an amoeba can share the same belief system?’
‘Because the layers of differentiation in which this belief system resides are common to all biology,’ he explained. ‘The many external associations in those layers link clusters together.’
‘Do you mean that the minds of all living creatures are interconnected at that level?’
‘Yes, exactly. At that level, particular species haven’t yet differentiated from one another. They remain interconnected. That’s why you all share an underlying belief system: the mind of an amoeba, at that level, is one with the mind of a man. All amoebas and all men can thus share the same dream you call ordinary waking reality, even though each individual has a different point of view within this common dream.’
His words were accompanied, in my mind, by astonishing visuals. I could see an endless three-dimensional structure of cosmic proportions, composed of countless layers. A homogeneous web of straight, long interconnect lines characterized the bottom layers. I knew that each interconnect line represented a chain of cognitive associations. Going up from bottom to top, broad but increasingly well-defined tangles of shorter, curled-up interconnect lines could be discerned, spanning many neighboring layers. Near the top, each tangle further differentiated into many small, dense knots of even shorter, even more curled-up interconnect lines, with vast empty spaces in between them. I knew that the knots were the clusters of cognitive associations the Other had described before. As such, each of them corresponded to a living creature emerging from the undifferentiated ocean of mind-at-large.
More Than Allegory Page 17
