Monday, April 28, 2014

Is the Universe a Super-Organism?


On Super-Organisms

 I keep coming across people who say things that suggest they are open to a new interpretation of spirituality.  I’m watching my generation stepping into the seats of power and influence, slowly but surely, and the world changing to reflect our more open minded take on reality.

I keep coming across the elusive theory I often refer to in the voices of my fellows.  It has yet to have a name.  It questions more than it answers.  But, a lot of us are no longer willing to accept the old models of religion, but are not yet willing to give in to the dogmatic conviction that there is nothing beyond the human experience.   We can see the convergence of science and spirituality.  I think a staunch atheist is just as closed minded as a far-right-winged, bible-thumping literalist.  To assume you understand all the mysteries of the cosmos is a bit narrow in scope, no?  Some of my best friends are atheist and to them I mean no disrespect.  I think if it comforts them not to believe in anything beyond the chemical reactions of the brain, then so be it. 

I prefer to muse on the idea that the cosmos has the possibility of being an enormous super-organism, just as the human body is a complex system of smaller components.

We start with the question: What does it mean to be alive? It’s all about the flow of energy.  Energy resources drive complex systems.  Well the universe has energy flowing throughout it.   It’s hard to think in terms that grand, but take comfort in knowing that there are patterns in everything.   They repeat on all levels, from quantum to multiversal.

According to Wikipedia:  Any contiguous living system is called an organism.  Organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, can grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations.

So you might say, well, the universe doesn’t do all those things.  How do you know?  You have to look in terms of the concept of there being multiple universes to begin to see how this may be happening.  The idea is that this universe is the clone or spawn of an older universe, which was the spawn of an even older universe.  According to many leading scientists today there are countless universes in the sea that is called the multiverse.  And we used to worry about feeling insignificant when we imagined that the sun didn’t revolve around the earth.  But realize that we are not removed from this system but are very much a part of it.  Why would the patterns cease to exist the larger you get in scale?   Could each universe be like a cell inside of a larger super-organism?  The cells divide just like they do in living organisms on earth.  The universes could be evolving and natural selection could be rewarding those that are more hospitable to create life and new universes.  Blackholes could be the spawning grounds of new universes.

Someone might say, what does that do to the concept of God?  It makes God infinitely greater and many times more vast and complex.  What does that do the idea of you as an individual?  It suggests that it doesn’t stop with you.  You can believe that you are made up of tiny particles that have come together as a complex system to make you.  But then we think that’s the end of the line for complex systems?  But what if you’re not the highest beings in the universe?  What if we are all tiny components in a larger complex system?  We think we’re individuals but really we’re not.   We’re all connected in this way, coming together to make something greater and more complex than ourselves, just as the cells in our bodies do, or the atoms of the cells and so forth.

There has been a lot of research done lately on the idea of there being a “collective consciousness” or a “unified field of consciousness” surrounding this planet.  In 1980 Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab began to study how focused group intention and attention brought order to random computer output. Random-number-generating (RNG) computers have suggested strongly the existence of a collective consciousness.  In 1995, for example, Roger Nelson and Dean Radin began researching similar effects that occurred when mass attention was captured by events like the O.J. Simpson trial.  The research shows that romantic couples working together can affect the RGNs six times as much as individuals.  Suggesting love binds us together and makes us even stronger as something else beyond our individualities.  Global events that capture our attention collectively have powerful sway on the RGNs that are in place in various locations on the planet.  9/11 had a tremendous effect on the random-numbers-generating computers.  There has been much more independent research done on the subject.  Feel free to research it for yourselves.  The idea is that collective consciousness is a mode of awareness that emerges at the first transpersonal stage of consciousness, when our identities expand beyond our egos.  We intuitively can sense and work with the interactions between our and other’s energy fields, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  This projection of emotions and thoughts is a real phenomenon, just ask anyone who is afraid of horses or dogs.  These animals are well aware of our emotions, because we project them. The theory suggests that consciousness has the ability to exist beyond the constraints of space and time.  And it suggests that our individual consciousness has a part to play in the larger more complex system as one collective hive mind that surrounds the earth.  The idea is then carried on to the galaxy and the clusters of galaxies all the way to the universe and the multiverse.  The basic patterns don’t break down the larger you get.  They too expand and form an even larger complex system called the super-organism.

Could that be what the Bible was talking about when it said God created man in “their” own image?   God is not a Him but an Us.  In that we are all particles of God.  Our egos have convinced us that we are individuals, separate from the divine.  Could it be we are part of a chain, connected somewhere along the way, in an infinitely immense system?

I sure don’t know.  Do you?