DELUSIONS — Pragmatic Realism

by Stanislaw Kapuscinski (aka Stan I. S. Law)

  The Hegelian solution is fairly simple. To adapt it to the political sphere, there ought to be a thesis and antithesis, the marriage of which results in the best possible synthesis. This is no longer so. Nobody seems to care what is right, only who wins the argument. This places the opposing parties at an impasse. Let us hope that the juvenile behaviour of all parties heralds the End of the Beginning. Not the Beginning of the End. Let us hope, that soon the overpaid politicians will come of age.

  A phrase comes to mind: “A house divided unto itself cannot stand.” While the biblical words deal with the state of consciousness of an individual person, the political echo is self-evident. As for the ‘Spring’, be it in the Arab countries, in Europe or on the States, it seems to me that a nation divided on 93%-7% wealth allocation cannot stand either.

  Alas, there is hope of late, in ‘ordinary’ peoples’ awakening. Is hope a prerequisite of science? I see little evidence of it. The best I have observed is that the omnipresent rise of visual communication makes it harder for the oligarchy to use their henchmen, the police, the army, and other law-enforcing agencies, to intimidate and abuse people seeking for justice. A single strike, clout or punch, or any act of physical violence by any other name, delivered by a cold-blooded brute dressed in blue or khaki uniform, is seen, examined, and condemned all around the world instantly. It is displayed the world over, at the velocity of light. We have science, the exponential growth of technology, to thank for that.

  We also have this technology to thank for making us all aware of the degree of corruption that saturates the very top of society of virtually all nations. This insidious corruption now begins to trickle down to infest lower levels of society, and to trickle down even as water does, to eventually find its lowest level. Our time gives ample testimony to the maxim that power corrupts. We have also learned by this process that sadism, bullying, taking advantage of the weaker, is not limited to any one nation. It is a universal malaise. It differs only in degrees to which it is applied. It is an omen of devolution.

  The Beginning of the End? Or just a symptom of the Age of Kali?

  Nevertheless, it is this communication technology enhanced by the courage displayed by the participants in the Spring of Nations that might yet bring back the social, economic, and political factions from the brink of annihilation. At present we, virtually the whole world, is hovering over the precipice. It certainly is the end of our childhood.

  And what of science? Will our scientists finally come of age? Or will they continue to dip their fingers and our dollars to examine the past, the long dead corpses of what once was? Should we really spend millions of dollars of public money to study paleontological bones when live bodies need medical attention? Isn’t it time to face the facts and admit that we not only don’t know what we once might have been, but that we have little idea of what we are today? Here and now?

  Shouldn’t we begin to live in the Present?

  Regrettably, it seems to me that we shouldn’t hold our breaths. Just as recently the same scientists (or their cousins?) while attempting to find the “Theory of Everything” had already proven that they cannot prove anything. That’s right. That there are no absolutes. We had a foretaste of it in the Theory of Relativity. Everything was, still is, relative. But at least some things were definitely relative to each other. Definitely relative, as in “we’re relatively ignorant about who we are, where we are, let alone why we are wherever it is that we are.” There is a strong probability that the scientists will remain ignorant regarding most if not all of the above. But… they did give us technology, which might, just might, extend our biological ‘life’, which will enable us to feed our bugs. Those in our stomachs. Remember? 100 trillions of them. In the meantime, we’ll continue to supply them, the scientists, with funds at our considerable expense.

  But who cares about money if you’re having fun?

  So, to repeat, once everything was relative. Now?

  The best they can do now is to calculate a degree of probability. It might rain tomorrow, or it might not. That’s their forecast. Enjoy your holiday.

  I will not attempt to even try to explain to you the theory of quantum mechanics. Not only because I don’t understand it myself, but because, according to the Richard Feynman, nobody does. He ought to know. He got the Nobel Prize in Physics for… not understanding it?

  Nevertheless, I shall attempt to share what little I have discovered. Quanta are groups of tiny particles that are so small that neither we nor the scientists can see them, and we can deal with them only in groups. Otherwise, their very existence is negligible. Nevertheless there are dozens of them. Some examples.

  Fermions:

  Quarks — up, down, charm, strange, top, bottom;

  Leptons — electron neutrino, electron, muon neutrino, muon, tau neutrino, tau;

  Bosons:

  Gauge bosons — gluon, W and Z bosons, photons;

  Other bosons — Higgs boson, graviton

  Just to whet your appetite.

  All these also have antiparticles, which are exactly the same, but with the electrical charge reversed. Thus the electron has the anti-electron, known as positron, which really is an electron but with a positive charge. We must not confuse the positron with proton, which is still completely invisible but its mass is huge compared to the positron. By the way. A proton, the positively charged particle is so huge because it consists of three quarks (two up-quarks and one down-quark). I really have no idea why.

  Likewise, we must not confuse the neutrino, (which in Italian simply means little neutron), with… neutron. The scientists have invented all these names for the sole purpose of confusing us, the non-scientists. I could write a whole book about this, or, if you’re interested, you can look it up on the Internet. My 0.21 seconds search yielded about 328,000,000 results. Good luck.

  It seems to me that there is no such thing as quantum theory. There are Quanta of Quantum Theories, or, at the very least, a theory that must be studied under a dozen different headings. Brian Green (more about him later), lists just a few or them…

  Quantum chromodynamics; (QCD)

  Quantum claustrophobia; (No, this is not a psychological disease of particle physics, nor of the physicists who study invisible particles. It has something to do with quantum fluctuations).

  Quantum determinism;

  Quantum electrodynamics; (QED)

  Quantum electroweak theory;

  Quantum field theory;

  Quantum fluctuation; (See claustrophobia above. This has something to do with turbulent behaviour of a system on microscopic scales due to the uncertainty principle. So what’s uncertainty principle? Briefly, the subatomic particles live in such a roiling frenzy, awash in violent ocean of quantum fluctuations, that the scientists have absolutely no idea what they are doing and where. This is not an exact description, Heisenberg would strenuously object to it, but it expresses the general sentiment involved).

  Quantum foam; (as in spacetime foam)

  Quantum geometry;

  Quantum gravity; (String theory is an example of the quantum gravity).

  Quantum mechanics;

  Quantum tunneling. This is my personal favourite. I liked it so much that I’d written a novel about it entitled WALL (and subtitled for the weak of heart, Love, Sex and Immortality). This is a feature of quantum mechanics that allows objects to pass through barriers (walls, in my case) that should be impenetrable according to Newton’s classical laws of physics. Forgive me for plugging my novel, but I’m sure that if you enjoy this book, or even if you don’t (ha, ha), you’ll enjoy the novel even more. Or to use quantum language (I just invented this term!), there is a strong probability that you might…

  I could go on, there is more, much more, but I don’t begin to understand even my own explanations. Each one needs a chapter that would define its basic characteristics, which then would be questioned by others. The problem is that relativism hasn’t died, it just became disturbed by probability factor. But don�
��t worry, there is a distinct probability that scientists will come up, sooner or later, with something we can all understand. Or not. We shall see (or not).

  It is a little hard to believe that scientists, the men and women guarding the bastions of knowledge (and hopefully our sanity), are doing all this to define, to help us understand, our reality. With 727 atoms working together, in harmony, in unison, to make up our ever-changing, fluctuating, constantly renewing physical body, it is little wonder that Carl Jung declared that “Individual is the only reality”. I tend to agree with Jung. I tend to think that when Yeshûa said, “I and my father are one,” he meant the same thing. The scientists are just trying to chop up our reality into tiny, invisible, infinite number of pieces. Philosophers, thinkers—lovers of wisdom, perhaps poets and other artists, are trying to put them all together, again, to make some sense of our reality. One day, they will succeed. They will say, Eureka, we are all One. I hope. Like Jung did. Or Yeshûa. Or many, many mystics. We shall see. According to some of those guys on my side of the equation, we are all immortal. Time is on our side.

  There is a deeper level of understanding of the statement in which Yeshûa equates himself with his ‘father’, and this is that the manifested and the un-manifested (or the potential) universe—are inseparable. The potential remains forever inviolate, while the manifested is continuously recycled in different expressions of the first. In essence, the two are one. Hence, infinity.

  Chapter 13

  Why We Are: Phase Two

  It has been said that we have not had the three R's in America, we had the six R's; remedial readin', remedial 'ritin' and remedial 'rithmetic.

  Robert Maynard Hutchins, (1899–1977) educational philosopher,

  THE SCHOOL

  (Includes excerpts adapted from Beyond Religion 1, Essay #52)

  During this phase of evolution the human entity develops advanced communication skills, and becomes susceptible to the influences of theoretical knowledge. It learns to be selective in its relationship to the universal laws governing its environment. In the ‘School’, the teachers are responsible for the efficacy of imparting knowledge to their pupils. During this evolutionary phase, the units of consciousness are organized within a variety of classrooms. The purpose of this tendency towards aggregations is to extend the awareness of the self beyond its space/time confines, i.e.: beyond its physical enclosure. The classrooms consist of groups within which the self reaches out to include the allegiance to families, clans, villages, towns, religious congregations and national formations––with which the Self can identify.

  In order to facilitate control over the nascent units of consciousness, the ‘teachers’ (those in authority), endeavour to maintain them in abject ignorance. We are taught that obedience––to those in power––is a virtue. Regrettably, with few exceptions, the teachers are also ignorant of the true reality. The rare Avatars (invariably non-conformists and in direct opposition to the prevailing status quo) cast seeds of wisdom on the developing states of consciousness. The seeds seldom strike fertile soil. More often than not they meet an inflexible mindset bent on protecting rather than improving acquired knowledge. Other seeds reach receptive minds, but are stifled by the orthodox establishment in control. The few who break with traditions are ridiculed, often persecuted, sometimes killed. Those wielding power strongly discourage free thought and individuality.

  The last segment of this phase is characterized by rebellion. We gradually lose faith in our ‘teachers’. We observe countless contradictions between their teaching and their behaviour pattern. This dichotomy is particularly in evidence within the sacerdotal and political ranks. We still obey, mostly due to inbred fear, but simultaneously begin to strike out on our own. This invariably leads to a period of apostasy that results in achieving a degree of freedom from previous conditioning. When we feel secure, we begin to compare the various teachings, each claiming absolute exclusivity over truth. This is factual of all religions, all branches of science, and all other sources of authority. The religious tithing may bleed us just as easily, as leaches applied to our skin by scientists, as by governments which send us to fight their battles.

  At this stage of our development, my hero, the distinguished expert on biological evolution, proposes an interesting supposition. He suggests that religion may fit into the same branch of learning as conditioning of young children, in order to procure from them absolute obedience, and thus, in time of need, save their lives. For evolutionary biologists, physical survival is a sine qua non condition of evolution. This is not the case with regard to the evolution of consciousness, which essentially is indestructible.

  Even so, while Dawkins’s proposal may indeed save one or two retarded youngsters, I have personal experience of parents teaching and not training their children, to get the same effect. While soldiers are trained to obey orders unquestioningly, children should question theirs, very early, and have them explained. This is strictly against religious teaching, which relies on faith rather then knowledge, in the old days referred to as gnosis. Although gnosis is defined in the dictionary as “knowledge of spiritual mysteries”, I’d prefer to place the accent on the word knowledge, and substitute “spiritual mysteries” by Pragmatic Realism. After all, this is what all the ancient mystics were attempting to fathom.

  By this method (teaching rather than training) the children mature much faster, “and can cross the road without an old man/woman holding up the traffic”. The children, not having been taught to look both ways before crossing, rely exclusively on the commands of the supervisor. A lot like soldiers. It makes the young-ones mentally retarded at a very early age. By the same token should soldiers refuse to act without thinking, I dare suggests their action would cut our wars in half, or at least the collateral damage would be virtually eliminated. Not the order to ‘duck’ only to ‘fire’.

  This, surely, must be the fundamental difference between reactive Darwinism and proactive educational approach. What may work for bugs, does not necessarily work for primates, possibly for other mammals.

  If Pragmatic Realism is taken into consideration, then we must ask ourselves if what works for primitive life-forms could possibly work for (hopefully) thinking creatures. I often had more intelligent responses from both, cats and dogs, than from members of our government. This is most probably due to the unquestionable fact that early conditioning is very hard to get rid of. In my own case, it took me about twenty years of concentrated, very conscious effort, to free myself from my ‘early’ religious upbringing. We are also at present witnessing the near-permanent mental and emotional damage inflicted by the ‘imposed’ obedience on thousands of veterans of the Iraq war. The same is true of most “armed conflicts”. The moment man stops thinking, ultimately he pays for it. We can no longer continue to blame Darwin’s theories of natural selection. None of us have been selected to be obedient and stupid. This feat is accomplished solely by ourselves.

  As for those at the other end of the equation, those whose job is to lead, they may be attracted like moths to the deadly flame of power but, contrary to the poor moths, we can say no. Let them lead by example, by reason, not by imposing unquestioning obedience. The weak use the carrot and the stick. The strong always lead by example.

  In School we take our first tentative steps on our own, outside our comfort zone. In time we discover that if we eliminate ninety-nine percent of the miasma that our teachers (leaders, politicians, preachers, priests, parents, elders) have imposed on the original teachings of a variety of Great Master of the past, the residual essence is virtually the same from all sources of wisdom. We begin to suspect that if all the great Avatars taught the same a priori knowledge, then there must be an original source from which they, the Avatars, drew their wisdom.

  We begin searching for the source.

  In time, we discover that our physical bodies are what we use, inter alia, to exercise our ability to move from place to place in pursuit of satisfying our needs. We discover that it is
not the body that propels us, as in Kindergarten, but it is our will that propels our body. Our attention shifts from being motivated by the material internal and external environment, to that of mental and emotional attributes.

  We develop conscious awareness of our self. The most efficient way of achieving this aim is to change our attitude from reactive to proactive. This, of course, entails responsibility.

  But there are problems.

  Lack of responsibility manifested by most people in charge is the main problem associated with this phase. I shall limit myself to the subject of education, though similar shortcomings can be found of all other aspects of our society. The juvenile behaviour of senators and representatives in Washington is an ample example of that. The members of parliament are not far behind.

  In addition to my notes above about the teachers, there is also a small number of them who try to meet their obligations. Nevertheless, the education system has changed even the language we use to accommodate our shortcomings. We began calling pupils—students, and teachers—professors. This change in nomenclature may be flattering to both parties, but also leads to distortion of the function which both of them are intended to perform. A student studies, a pupil is being taught. A student decides what he or she wishes to study—a pupil must conform to a curriculum. A professor delivers a discourse, a teacher conducts a lesson, deciding what the pupils are to learn and when.