Nexus - 0225 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Unifying Physical and Mental Space We know from our own life experience that the environment in which we exist is both physical and non-physical. The physical world is that part of reality which we ‘rationally’ perceive as being outside of ourselves and which we sense by means of the signals that are transmitted to our brains via the nervous system, the most sophisticated radar system we know to exist. It tunes into the entire spectrum of electromagnetic frequencies that deliver light, sound, smell, taste and touch to our brains. This remarkable antenna array also unceasingly monitors the internal status of our bodies, detect- ing minute changes and warning us when conditions are not as they should be, when we need rest, and so forth. The non-physical aspects of our reality include the mental spaces which our minds experience and generate, such as our mental 'pic- ture’ of the world, our memories, our mental projections of the future, and the world of our imagination. These spaces are influ- enced not only by the forces active within our own psychic struc- ture, but also by the mental forces of those individuals, groups and social structures that impact on our thoughts, and the spiritual forces that motivate or influence us. If we consider two of the most extreme positions that people adopt regarding the relationship between the worlds of mind and matter, we have a choice between accepting: (1) that all phenome- na, including mind and consciousness, are generated by matter and its motions; or, (2) that we are purely spiritual entities who have become trapped in an illusory and essentially ‘negative’ material plane of existence (‘original sin’). The problem with both these arguments is that they fail to pro- vide a framework which encompasses the totality of our individual and collective experience. Indeed, both these belief systems require that we dismiss an integral part of the reality we experience. One seeks to discard our spiritual life, the other our material existence. The late Professor David Bohm, a leading thinker and possibly the most important theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein, found neither of these positions tenable, and proposed a third option which he supported both experimentally and theoretically. His work has attracted growing support from scientists, theologians and philoso- phers alike. In essence, Bohm proposed that our perceived reality (in all its forms) is the manifestation of information that has psychosomatic significance, that is, meaning, to us: "It has been commonly accepted, especially in the West, that the mental and physical are quite different but are somehow related, but the theory of their relationship has never been satisfactorily developed. I suggest that the two are not actually separated; that the mental and the physical are two aspects, like the form and con- tent of something which is only separable in thought, not in reality. Meaning is the bridge between the two aspects. "In quantum mechanics we have fields of information in the wave function, and perhaps super quantum fields which organize the quantum field itself. These fields are not in space-time but they are in multi-dimensional space, at least mathematically speaking. Space and time are also anthropomorphic concepts. They are meanings.” Although scientific reductionists locate mind and memory with- in the brain and generally argue that behaviour is largely deter- mined by genetic and biological characteristics, such a view is clearly lacking in merit in the face of current scientific evidence. As the maverick English scientist Rupert Sheldrake has pointed ante out: "..you could say the present mechanistic approach to biology is like trying to understand the pictures on the screen of the TV set by more and more detailed analysis of the chemistry of the con- densers and wires and so on, completely leaving out account of the fact that the pictures depend on transmissions coming from somewhere else. The fact is, of course, that neither radio nor TV nor living organisms can be explained simply in terms of the chemistry and arrangement of their components. But the mecha- nists will then say, Well, we'll admit we can't explain it now, but we will be able to explain it in the future.’ They issue undated promissory notes. It's essentially an act of faith in the mechanistic method, not really a strict scientific hypothesis." Sheldrake's hypothesis of the existence of formative information fields, which he calls morphogenetic fields, has been hailed by many scientists as the greatest breakthrough in biology this centu- ty. Sheldrake proposes that morphogenetic fields are generated by everything that exists within the universe, including all material forms, thought forms, forms (i.e., patterns) of behaviour, and so on. He suggests that these fields are transmitted and received in a process analogous to the reception and transmission of TV or radio signals. When we speak of fields, we normally mean “regions of ener- getic influence", but what makes morphogenetic fields different from other fields is that as they are formative rather than ener- getic; thus they are "regions of formative influence". Unlike ordinary fields, the influences of morphogenetic fields do not diminish through space and time but, rather, permeate all of space and time. Their influence exists everywhere and every- when, like forms attracting information from, and adding informa- tion to, like fields, and vice versa: REALITY INTERFACE ENVIRONMENT Figure 2: The Geometry of Reality (Source: Jahn & Dunne, Margins of Reality, p. 204) Multidimensional Information Fields We are now proposing that the reality experienced by our con- sciousness is determined by the information which our con- sciousness exchanges with its environment (which is both physi- cal and non-physical), and that we can only consciously experi- ence realities which have some meaning to us. E-motion, which is mediated by our heart, in conjunction with intellect and logic, mediated by our mind/brain, subsequently determines our attitude toward any given experience. 3 ENVIRONMENT APRIL - MAY 1995 NEXUS ¢ 33