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LIMITS AND CHANGE
AN ARGUMENT AGAINST ACCUMULATED LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
One of the most significant properties of the world that we see around us is the fact that
it embodies impossibilities, or, less dramatically put, limits. Generally speaking, as we grow
up we don't learn about the 'unlimitedness' of ourselves and the universe we live in, we learn
about the limits of it all. This is so much the case that it would not be an exaggeration to say that
what we call learning is actually no more than the process of taking on board limitations: the
more 'educated' we get, the more impossibilities we embrace. The end point of this process
would be to produce a person who goes through life encumbered by an unwieldy number of
beliefs about [a] Those things that are just not possible for him or her in particular, and [b]
Those things that are just not possible in general. The process of obtaining socially-validated
knowledge, therefore, is the process by which we become more and more narrow-minded,
more and more incapable of ever learning anything radically different.
The understanding of limits is, of course, vitally important. We wouldn't get very far
without it. Learning about limits means adaptation, and if we aren't adapted to a reality we
can't operate effectively within it. There is more to life than adaptation though. Change that
is orientated around limits is one type of change - we might say that it is the change of
consolidation, of 'perfectionism'. Capra speaks of 'self-maintenance'. The other type of change
is the change that happens when we outgrow our old limits, when we learn to move beyond our
old idea of ourselves. This is 'self-transcendence,' or 'radical change,' and it involves finding
out that what we thought were limits, actually aren't at all! Self-transcending growth means
moving away from a previous adapted position, out of a comfortable state of balance into
awkward disequilibrium; all of the stuff that we learned when adapted, we now have to throw
out. Thus, in this paradigm of change, learning means realizing that we don't know, after all!
Once we have come to this point, then it does not seem too outrageous to assert (as Dr
Lilly did) that concepts, thoughts, beliefs, theories, models etc are all limits to be unlearned.
The more I 'know', the less I see, in other words. Another way to put this is to say that we only
see things the way we do, because we have been taught to see them that way: our knowledge
reflects our conditioning, rather than any underlying 'objective' or 'positive' reality. What we
are talking about here, therefore, is the view that says all knowledge is relative. If I say that
there is only one 'true' way to see the world, then I am adhering to the philosophical paradigm
of 'positivism' - I believe in the possibility of absolute knowledge; if, on the other hand, I say
that there is no one 'correct' perspective, then I am a relativist. The former position is easiest
to defend, since common experience supports the existence of non-negotiable impossibilities,
the latter view, however, would seem to be more in tune with current trends in theoretical
physics. In the discussion that follows we will be putting forward the case for a particularly
thorough-going relativism, and we will try to deal head-on with the toughest objections that
positivism can come up with.
COMING UP AGAINST A BRICK WALL....
It is worth going over the idea that says 'there are a plurality of perspectives' as many times as we can, since there are difficulties in this sort of argument that don't generally get addressed to everyone's satisfaction. This is in fact understating the matter: it would probably be better to say that the difficulties practically never get sorted out, it is an argument that can go on and on. Difficulties notwithstanding, we will try to demonstrate, in as brief a fashion as possible, that the matter may be resolved satisfactorily (as long as one doesn't mind stretching one's head to try out a few rather odd ideas).
The view that says all views are equally valid, or equally arbitrary, is known as 'post-modernism' within the sphere of humanities and 'relativism' (or 'model-agnosticism') in the realm
of physics. When such arguments are aired people usually seem to split into two distinct groups:
one consisting of those who instantly like the idea, and see it as a sort of liberating insight; the other
made of people who, just as instantly, dislike it, and view it as dangerous nonsense. The
unimpressed camp tend to point out that this is the real world we live in, a tough and unyielding
world which - when all is said and done - doesn't give a fig for our philosophical fancies and which
dictates a definite, non-ambiguous reality that we simply have to conform to. This is basically an
argument based on the existence of walls, which is to say, boundaries, compulsions (negative or
positive), necessities, or impossibilities. For this reason we will refer to it as the 'brick wall'
argument.
What this argument says is that some ways of viewing, interpreting, or interacting with our
environment are manifestly more 'true' than others. If a man walks up to you in a rage and tells
you that you have taken his parking space, you cannot interpret this as him wishing you a nice day.
If a policeman claps a pair of handcuffs on you and tells you that you are under arrest, it is no good
you interpreting this as a rare honour, and proceeding under the impression that you have been
given the freedom of the city! We will deal with these objections shortly. A dissenter to the multiple
view-point argument could, even more effectively, point at a brick wall and say "look - that is a
brick wall. Interpret it as you will, you still can't walk through it...." This argument is a bit like a
brick wall itself - one can either agree with it or disagree - and if you disagree you get smacked in
the face by it every time. A true relativist is not so easily discouraged though, and can find a way
round apparent 'absolutes' without breaking into a sweat, as we shall now demonstrate.
WALL-BUSTING
All of these objections to relativism are based on the idea that there are non-negotiable
biases that are built into the very heart of reality; one has, in other words, to maintain that there
exist 'hard' dissymmetries that can never be made symmetrical, laws that can never be broken,
impossibilities that can never be made possible. It can be seen that there is a certain amount of
security implicit in this position, and this of course can be good or bad. If you like the given
structure it is good, if you don't it is bad! Either way you have to adjust to it, the reality is final.
There is an important principle here which can be expressed as follows. Unbreakable (absolute)
rules are good because they provide a reassuringly reliable structure - a solid reality which we can
depend on; this structure becomes bad, however, when it acts as a limitation, and (as any suffer
from agoraphobia will tell you) there is no secure place which will not at some future date prove
to be a prison.
The question of whether there really are unbreakable rules or not would seem to fall within
the remit of physical science, and we will indeed turn to physics in a moment; first, as a bit of a
preamble, we will consider the matter in terms of games. What a 'game' actually is, in technical
terms, will become clearer as we go along but in essence we can say that a game is an interaction
based on a set of rules that are arbitrarily selected, i.e. they don't have to be so; James Carse
(1986) says that a game is something that the player 'freely enters into'. This stipulation or
definition is precise and all-important. If it can be shown that the rules involved are absolute and
inevitable - that they have to be there - then the interactions that go on around these rules are not
games. If, on the other hand, we can demonstrate that there is even one occasion in which a rule
is no longer there, then we have shown that it is provisional, and so what is going on around it is
a game. This gives us our plan of attack. If we can find a way in which the basic rules that are
embodied in a brick wall (and thus the rules lie behind the structure of the universe) can be said
to be provisional rather than absolute, then we could go right ahead and make the following
statement:
The reason I cannot walk through that brick wall - the reason I am constrained in the range
of possible interactions that I can engage in with the wall - is because both the wall and I are
playing the same game, and when one is playing a game one is bound by the rules of that game,
i.e. there are certain necessities or rules that come into the picture.
This seems a bit hard to take, so what we will do first is to take a look at social or interpersonal
games. If we can coax ourselves into a position from which it seems reasonable to say that all
social rule-based interactions come under the heading of 'games,' then we will be more likely
not to balk at the idea that all rule-based person-environment interactions are also games.
TWO EXAMPLES OF SUPPOSED NON-AMBIGUITY: ROAD RAGE
AND THE LAW....
We will use as examples the two objections to model-agnosticism that were given above.
One, it will be remembered, invoked the supposedly unambiguous phenomena of a frustrated
motorist exhibiting road-rage, whilst the other is based on the scenario of a policeman who wishes
to arrest you and detain you in custody. In both of these scenarios one could argue that we are
compelled to interpret the situation in a very definite and prescribed way. We can reply by
considering both anger and the law of the land as games. The first is the easiest since most of us
have had experience of responding to anger in two very different ways. One way is to take what
it at issue in the other person's anger as seriously as he or she does, so that it becomes as relevant
to you as it obviously is to them - this is the most likely thing to happen and when you do this you
have in effect agreed upon certain rules (or assumptions) as being 'all-important' and
unquestionable. We don't experience ourselves as making a choice in the matter but it is clear that
we must have done just as soon as we bring to mind the second possibility, which is where the
other person's anger does not trap one, and one has the experience of seeing the anger as if from
another, more objective, planet. This does not actually seem to happen that often, and for some
people it happens more frequently than for others, but in general it is more likely when one has for
some reason obtained a greater sense of perspective on things. For example, you might have just
had news that the world is about to be struck by a giant meteorite and totally destroyed, which
would make it hard for you to take their anger as seriously as they do. 'Taking something as
seriously as the other person does' sums up very well what it meant by 'playing a game'.
Alternatively, maybe you know that the angry person themselves has just had some very bad news,
which allows you a different perspective on what they are going through. A more common reason
might perhaps be that the angry person is a small child, in which case we will probably (although
not always!) be able to avoid taking on the anger personally. Similarly, an experienced councillor
will tend not to take on the anger of his or her clients, even when it is directed at them.
The second scenario can be treated in a similar way. That a policeman is in fact a policeman
and not an income tax inspector is something that all parties concerned have to agree on, within
the particular context of meaning provided by society. It is a social myth that we personally
subscribe to - you are not a policemen unless I consent to you being a policeman! An alien (it is
always useful to have an alien available to generate perspective in such matters) would take the
matter in an entirely different way: for the alien the experience of being arrested may well be an
unprecedented one, for you or I (even if we have never personally been arrested before) it would
be readily understandable in terms of precedence. The alien might of course take the policeman
seriously, but not necessarily as a policeman. "Be that as it may", the response to this might be,
"at the end of the day you're nicked - whether you believe in policemen or not!"
This is, again, only true insofar as one subscribes to social 'game reality'. If you take the
idea of being apprehended by the law, being tried and convicted (and thus being converted to the
status of a 'criminal') seriously, then the experience will be one way for you. If you don't take it
seriously, then it won't be that way at all. You have to give your consent before the experience can
become the standardized, non-ambiguous, 'socially-defined' experience that everyone else 'knows'
it to be; after all, everyone only 'knows' it because they have all tacitly agreed with each other that
it should be so. Just because you read an account of your trial and incarceration in the Sun
newspaper that does not mean that this account is in any way authoritative, it is merely a 'reality-description' that resonates very strongly with the expectations of many members of society. Of
course, this is not to say that there is not an almost irresistible gravitational pull associated with such
consensus descriptions - it is usually very hard indeed to remember that the official line on reality-interpretation is only one point of view out of many; what tends to happen is that we get trapped
in other peoples' descriptions of who and what we are, and what is going on.
WHAT REALLY MATTERS?
This 'relativizing' approach becomes very important therapeutically in the case of people
who suffer from social anxiety, or, indeed, from any anxiety you might care to imagine. If you do
happen to suffer from acute and unmanageable anxiety the best possible way to 'cope' is to find
some way of realizing that you don't have to trapped by either your or other people's descriptions
of 'who you are' (i.e. rigid self-image or social role definitions) and 'what is going to happen to
you' (socially or personally defined situations, events or processes). If you take what is happening
as a game, which is to say, not ultimately meaningful within the terms in which you are seeing it,
then you will go through the experience with serenity, rather than stress. This serenity, one might
argue, derives from what we might call 'openness' or 'inner freedom' i.e. the absence of a 'preset'
rule-based framework for interpreting reality. It is sometimes said (there are various formulations
of this) that there is a way to get through anything, no matter how terrible it might seem, and it is
possible to interpret this dictum in terms of the principle of cognitive relativity. It is not the reality
itself which is insoluble, in other words, but our construction of it as a problem. This formulation
has appeal, but also presents us with a philosophical conundrum, i.e. aren't we just saying that
"nothing matters"?
We will try to give this crucial point the consideration that it deserves later on, but, in brief,
one answer is that nothing that can be defined matters, since definitions are never any more than
abstractions. One can still assert that there is 'something' that is of great, indeed infinite value, but
give the qualifier that this 'thing' is not part of any game reality, i.e. it is not something that can be
encapsulated by definite descriptions. It is not a state that can be reached through following any
specific rules or procedures. What we are talking about (or rather trying to talk about!) is non-specifiable, uncertain, indeterminate...
Alternatively, we could say that what 'really matters' is being oneself, and one can never
be one's authentic (true) self by exercising control, which is to say being oneself can't happen as
the result of a directed process. You can't be who you already are on purpose. This type of idea
has widespread currency in Eastern philosophies, which posit an unconditioned or unmodified
'reality' which is independent of causality, does not need support, and which cannot therefore be
threatened or harmed - or indeed, improved. 'Conditioned' means putting a spin on something,
introducing a bias into the system, or 'having something a special way'. Here there is design rather
than accident. 'Unconditioned' means that the original reality remains unaltered; it is the state of
zero bias, or 'having no special configuration' - there is no design and no designer. It is possible
to derive from this approach the following two principles:
1/ The true self equals the unmodified (or 'unconditioned') state. It is therefore independent or
autonomous. This is in contrast to the socially defined self (or any kind of 'defined self') which are
obviously all modified (i.e. adapted, and therefore dependent) states.
2/ The unmodified state cannot be arrived at as a result of modifications, which is to say via
manipulation or 'rule-based' or 'directed' change in accordance with a pre-existent set of criteria
(a model). This clearly has important implications for psychotherapy: the more 'positivist' or
'objectivist' traditions such as behaviourism (or indeed, conventional psychiatry) are concerned
solely with adjusting the individual; whereas the more existentialist or phenomenological traditions
(e.g. humanistic or transpersonal psychology) would tend to allow the individual to develop in an
unpredetermined fashion, towards what Jung calls 'an unknown goal'.
DOING BIRD
Going back to the situation where I am arrested and end up serving a jail sentence in (let
us say) HMP Wormwood Scrubs, it would seem that, even if we disregard social labels the grim
reality remains the same, i.e. I am in a room with a locked door and bars on the window. But do
I really have to subscribe to the myth that I am a convicted criminal doing time? This question is
easy enough to answer. If you were to spend any length of time in a penal institution (or any other
type of institution) you would soon notice that almost all inmates, from time to time, forget that they
are inmates. Being an inmate or prisoner is a state of mind, if you are happily engaged in a game
of cards you are not going to bear in mind the qualifier that 'it is only a game of cards in prison';
similarly when you laugh at a joke you do not hang on to the knowledge, in the back of your mind,
that it is only a 'prison joke'. When you are asleep in bed you need not dream that you are still
doing time - all though of course you may well do.
What we are doing here, then, is airing the not unfamiliar argument that says a thing is only
an obstacle if you want to get past it. In other words, you are only in prison if you insist on playing
the prisoner game. There are any number of other ways of looking at the situation, but if you focus
upon the ways in which a prison cell is a restriction to you, then you are effectively restricted. If
you experience an absolute need to be elsewhere, then you are thwarted. This argument suggests
that there is no final or absolute meaning to the statement "I am in prison": ultimately both 'me'
and 'prison' are arbitrary constructs of rational thought. We have now got a little closer to
overcoming the brick wall argument perhaps, but we still haven't gone far enough - very few
people will have come round to the point of seriously entertaining the viewpoint which says that
tangible, physical existence is ' a game' (or, to be more accurate, that all our goal-orientated
activity is a game) . In order to make the final assault on 'the wall,' we will invoke 'relativized
science,' which is to say all those developments in our understanding of physical and mathematical
reality that base themselves on the understanding that there is no ideal (or 'special') vantage point
from which one can make absolute assertions about the world we live in. Pre-relativistic scientists
lived in world of absolute knowledge, this was a place of rock-solid 'facts' where things could be
known for sure, for all time. That cosy and reassuring state of certainty would appear to be a world
which we are now in the process of outgrowing.
Relativism asserts that it is only within the context of a game (i.e. formal not real-world
systems) that absolute necessity - deterministic reality - ever really exists. This viewpoint is implicit
in all those theories (chaos theory, complexity theory, quantum theory, dynamical systems theory,
etc) that recognize the fundamental (or irreducible) nature of uncertainty in the universe. Absolute
necessity generates absolute certainty: a game is either won or lost, a move is either legal or illegal;
such a property of absolute 'knowableness', the property of being able to know FOR SURE what
everything means, only exists in formal systems, or games. In 'real-world' systems the benefit (or
curse) of absolute certainty is forever denied us because the complexity involved is just too high.
What this means is that we cannot specify (i.e. control) or measure all the terms at the same time,
some always elude us. So, getting back to the idea that the wall and I are playing a game, it can be
said that within the context of this game there are impossibilities. Just as I cannot use my king to
take your queen in a game of chess, so I cannot pass through the wall, and it is without the slightest
trace of doubt, a one hundred percent obstruction! Once we step out of the game, there are of
course no such impossibilities, I can do what I want with my king: there are no 'right' and 'wrong'
moves. The only problem left is to show that both the wall and I are playing a game. This does,
admittedly, sound just a little bit of an odd suggestion. What exactly, one might, is this game and
what are the rules?
The game, we shall say, is the one known as the 'solid reality' game, which we can relate
to what Fritjof Capra (1982) calls the 'Cartesian-Newtonian worldview,' or to what David Bohm
(1980) calls 'the explicate order'. The rules of this game are as follows:
There are such things as solid objects ('things') which have a definite
location in space and time and which interact with each other without
altering their own essential identity as 'things' or 'entities'.
The type of interactions that are possible are determined by the laws of classical physics and the
relationships that are involved are linear (predictable) and reversible. Having put it like this, one
starts to feel a little freer. The index of relativity pertaining to our interpretive framework is starting
to increase, since as soon as we can exit the Cartesian paradigm enough to be able to see it and
give it a name, then we have already seen that it is not an ultimate description of reality. In extreme
situations, where energy levels are very high, or scale is very small, the Cartesian framework
becomes useless for understanding what is going on. The notion of impassable barriers is not
applicable, which means that the self-containment necessary for 'things' to be proper, discrete and
individualized is violated. Definiteness evaporates, in other words. The majority of scientifically-educated people would probably not have a problem with this, but most of us would find it difficult
to keep an open mind if someone were to suggest that macroscopic bodies, under regular
conditions, also regularly transgress their defining limitations.
THE OSCILLATING UNIVERSE
Just such a suggestion has been made by Itzhak Bentov (1978) in his book Stalking The
Wild Pendulum. Bentov sets out an argument to show that all oscillators (and all matter is made up
of oscillating systems) zoom in and out of total delocalization millions of times every second. This
on/off behaviour arises as a consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation, which Prigogine and
Stengers (1985, p -223) explain as follows:
...Heisenberg's Uncertainty relation necessarily leads to a revision of the concept of causality. It is possible to
determine the coordinate precisely. But the moment we do so, the momentum will acquire an arbitrary value, positive
or negative. In other words, in an instant the position of the object will become arbitrarily distant. The meaning of
localization becomes blurred: the concepts that form the basis of classical mechanics are profoundly altered.
The 'object' Bentov uses as an example is the pendulum, which, typifying all oscillators, always
exists in one of two states: either ACTION or REST. Either the pendulum is in swing, with positive
or negative momentum, or it is resting for an instant at the two extremes of the swing. When at rest
we know the value of the momentum exactly, which means that we can know nothing at all about
the coordinates of the pendulum bob. At this precise moment, Bentov concludes, it is therefore
indeterminate - it is no longer localized in space.
Not only are all determinate structures periodically indeterminate (on the sly, so to speak)
but so is the human mind; moreover, according to Bentov, if our consciousness becomes subtle
enough, so that our interaction with the rest of the universe takes place on a fine enough frequency,
we can travel beyond the limitations of space and time whenever we want. So, going back to our
confrontation with a solid brick wall, if this on/off, local/non-local, determinate/indeterminate
oscillating universe idea were to be true then - to consider one very practical if bizarre consequence
- all the inmates of Her Majesty's Prison Wormwood Scrubs would be escaping from their cells
billions and billions of times every day, without the authorities (or indeed the prisoners themselves)
having the slightest inkling that a mass breakout was taking place on such a flagrant basis. So what
is the use in saying that such a thing is happening if no one ever knows about it? Certainly none
of the involuntary guests who stay in Wormwood Scrubs would be particularly impressed. But what
Bentov is saying is that if a person were to get sufficiently proficient in meditation, then there
would be no obstacle to them putting this theory to the test.
Bentov's thesis is a good example of how accepted principles of science (i.e. Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Relation) can be used to arrive at an utterly fantastic conclusion. It would be interesting
to find out how many of his readers are happy to go along with this picture of reality, and even
more interesting to find out how many (if any at all) actually find out how to transcend mechanical
or deterministic reality for themselves. It would be a safe bet that less than one in ten thousand
people would entertain such ideas for a second! This being so, then there wouldn't seem to be
much point in using Bentov's theories to win an argument. At this point our proponent of
absolutism pointing at his brick-wall would still seem to be in a an unassailable position. The wall
is as solid as ever. The argument is not finished yet, though.
Whilst Bentov's idea of the Oscillating Universe which is continually blinking on and off
between a determinate and non-determinate state seems to be a highly exotic theory, with zero
applicability in the mundane world of experience, what we have here is a particular, rather dramatic
illustration of an eminently respectable universal principle. The bizarre features of the theory create
an instant rebellion of common-sense, and distract the attention from what the essential nature of
the paradigm being described: what Bentov is basically saying is that every 'bit' of the universe
is at all times in contact with every other 'bit,' so that the various parts that make up the whole are
actually in a state of continual involvement with each other. No part is ever completely sealed off,
in other words. A star exploding in a distant galaxy can make a dog bark in Brentford High Street.
Before the advent of the 'butterfly effect' physicists would have been unanimous in saying that the
effect of such distant events would be far too small to have any impact here on earth, at least not
on the macroscopic scale. In the light of chaos theory, we can no longer be so sure.
We can translate the principle of 'universal connectedness' into complexity theory. If you
want to describe a ball rolling across a flat surface you can do it using just two terms: the
momentum of the ball and the direction it is travelling. However, you might get worried that you
have left out other components of the ball's behaviour and include a few mathematical terms to
describe vibrations caused by heavy traffic on the street outside the building. You might want to
go further, and take into account the earth's rotation, its motion around the sun, the gravitational
pull of the moon, or gravity waves from deep space, and so on. The number of terms in your
equation, which you are using to specify exactly the state of the system under consideration, is
rapidly approaching infinity. You started off trying to specify a simple mechanical system, but have
ended up, to your horror, trying to describe the whole universe! This is a never-ending task, you
cannot do it within a finite time-span because the universe is an infinitely complex object. The
upshot of all this is the remarkable observation that the more closely you look at something the
more complex and the less distinct it gets - the little round ball ends up reflecting all the complexity
of the universe. This is not just a modern observation, the ancient Greek Anaxogorus noted that
"there is a little bit of everything in everything". Similarly a saying of the alchemists reverberates
down the centuries to this very day: "as above, so below..."
THE 'ONE FORCE'
The most straightforward way of arguing for the non-absoluteness of anything is by
invoking the arcane lore of particle physics. Here, Paul Davies (1987 p 124-5) explains the
tendency for high energy situations to become more and more symmetrical:
...As the energies of experiments (and of theoretical modelling) have been progressively elevated over the years, a trend
has become apparent. Generally speaking, the higher the energy, the less structure and differentiation there is both in
sub-atomic matter itself and the forces that act upon it.
Consider, for example, the various forces of nature. At low energy there seem to be four distinct
fundamental forces: gravitation and electromagnetism, familiar in daily life, and two nuclear forces called weak and
strong. Imagine for the sake of illustration that we could raise the temperature in a volume of space without limit, and
thus simulate earlier and earlier epochs of the primeval universe. According to present theories, at a temperature of
about 1015 degrees ( about the current limit for direct experimentation) the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear
force merge in identity. Above this temperature there are no longer four forces, but three.
Theory suggests that with additional elevation of the temperature further amalgamations would take place.
At 1027 degrees the strong force would merge with the electromagnetic-weak force. At 1032 degrees gravitation would
join in, producing a single, unified superforce. ...
...If some very recent ideas are to be believed, as the temperature reaches the so-called Planck value of 1032
degrees, all matter is dissociated into its most primitive constituents, which may be simply a sea of identical strings
existing in a ten-dimensional spacetime. Moreover, under these extreme conditions, even the distinction between
spacetime and matter becomes nebulous.
Whatever the technical details of any particular theory, the trend is that as the temperature is raised, so there
is less and less structure, form and distinction among particles and forces. In the extreme high-energy limit, all of
physics seems to dissolve away into some primitive abstract substratum. Some theorists have gone even further and
suggested that the very laws of physics also dissolve away at ultra-high temperatures, leaving pure chaos to replace
the rule of law. These bizarre changes that are predicted to take place at high energies have led to a remarkable new
perspective of nature. The physical world of daily experience is now viewed as some sort of frozen vestige of an
underlying physics that unifies all forces and particles into a bland amalgam.
CONCLUSION
What we have here is one way (there are many others) of approaching the mind-boggling
notion of 'infinite relativity' - which can also be called 'infinite instability,' 'non-duality' or,
'ungrounded flux'. As far as arguments against solidity go, however, this still isn't entirely
satisfactory. What we can say as conclusion to this discussion is that it would seem that there has
been an undeniable and substantial amelioratory effect on the bulwarks of absolutism by such ideas
as 'superforce' theory, the 'oscillating universe' theory, quantum uncertainty and the butterfly
effect. What is more, there have been many other developments in other fields that similarly erode
the rule of definiteness; what is more again, we may note that there have been no scientific or
mathematical breakthroughs in the last few hundred years that actually support absolutism; all our
scientific advances, from Galileo onwards, have been in the direction characterized by an
'increased relativity of knowledge'. One may, all the same, object that we are still only talking
about extreme conditions that are quite outside the realm of direct human experience. Davies is
describing what happens (or what might happen) at extremely high energy levels; Bentov's alleged
'wild' behaviour of oscillators takes place instantaneously and cannot be observed; quantum effects
only effect the world of the very small and the butterfly effect only comes into play in unstable or
chaotic systems, not stable systems such as brick walls. Nevertheless there are still some people,
who, like Bentov, come up with theories that deny the impermeable nature of walls. Richard Bach
is another - here, in his novel Illusions (1977, p 31-2), he mentions (as a character in his own book)
his rather unconventional ideas on the subject of flying without the help of airplanes:
"People couldn't fly for a long time, I don't think, because they didn't think it was possible, so of course
they didn't learn the first little principle of aerodynamics. I want to believe that there is another principle somewhere:
we don't need airplanes to fly, or move through walls, or get to other planets. We can learn how to do that without
machines anywhere. If we want to."
Let us say that you are one of the projected 0.01 % of the population who is willing to accept that
it is possible to consciously transcend the solidity of the physical world. You would of course still
have to admit that it is a fantastically rare thing to meet someone who is proficient enough in
meditation to actually do this; even the most open-minded person would have to agree that this is
not exactly a common accomplishment.
And yet, for reasons that we have already explained, the rarity of such occurrences doesn't
matter at all. Just by opening the door of determinism by a tiny fraction of a hair's breadth is
enough to settle the matter; if even the merest glimmer of uncertainty reaches through to us in our
normal everyday life that is enough to change everything. That would be enough to erode the
100% certainty rating associated with deterministic reality into negotiably finite probabilities. In
the language of cognitive behavioural therapy, MUST is transformed into MAYBE; the flat and
hopeless I CAN'T is turned into a (possibly grudging) IT IS DIFFICULT TO and the word
IMPOSSIBLE is struck from our vocabulary. Those people who are 'converted' by such
arguments (or were already converted) will take so-called 'solid reality' playfully rather than
seriously; As Carse would say, they have turned from being finite players who play within limits
into infinite players who play with limits.
What all of this means, then, is that the interactions of the physical world, just like the
interactions of the social world, are games. A wall is near enough to being an absolute barrier
for all practical purposes, but, all the same, when it comes down to it, it ISN'T absolute. A wall
is only relatively real, or relatively tangible, since its solidity depends upon how we choose to
approach it; it is only a wall if we interact with it in such a way that it's 'wallness' is brought out
and its other 'non-wall-like' properties are not. Larry Dossey (1991) notes that the world of
objects that surrounds us only seems to be opaque when we look at it because we 'choose' to
look at it using the narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum that doesn't pass through most
solid matter. If we had retinas that were sensitive to radio waves or x-rays things would of
course look very different, and if our eyes were miraculously enabled to pick up on neutrino
radiation the world would seem almost perfectly transparent or empty. In conclusion, we can
safely say that a wall is very likely to be a wall, in the usual run of things. On the other hand,
significantly, there is always the tiny probability that it won't be; it doesn't have to be a wall, it
just suits our purposes (on the whole) for us to interact with it in this way.
WALKING THROUGH WALLS
Like Itzhak Bentov, Richard Bach (1977) rebels against the good old-fashioned idea of
physical containment. In the following passage (p 128-130) we see his fictionalized version of
himself coming to a crucial understanding on the subject of 'walking through walls':
"You can walk through walls, can't you, Don?"
"No."
"When you say no to something I know is yes, that means you don't like the way I said the question."
"We certainly are observant, aren't we?" he said.
"Is the problem with walk or walls?"
"Yes, and worse. Your question presumes that I exist in one limited place-time and move to another place-time. Today I'm not in the mood to accept you presumptions about me."
I frowned. He knew what I was asking. Why didn't he just answer me straight and let me get on to finding out how he does these things?
"That's my little way of helping you be precise in your thinking," he said mildly.
"Ok. You can make it appear that you can walk through walls if you want. Is that a better question?"
"Yes. Better. But if you want to be precise...."
"Don't tell me. I know how to say what I mean. Here is my question. How is it that you can move the illusion of a limited sense of identity, expressed in this belief of a space-time continuum as your 'body,' through the illusion of material restriction that is called a 'wall'?"
"Well done!" he said. "When you ask the question properly it answers itself, doesn't it?"
OPEN OR CLOSED?
The reason that the existence or non-existence of indeterminism (or uncertainty) is so
crucial is because it is this that makes all the difference as to whether the universe is of the OPEN
or CLOSED variety. We will look into the properties of these two possible universes later on, but
for now it is sufficient to note that we either have to be in one or the other. The universe is either
open or closed, it is not a question of degree. If it is open, as Heraclitus said it is, then we always
have the choice of exiting from whatever game we are stuck in - there is the possibility of this
ultimate freedom. In a closed universe, such as Parmenides reckoned we live in, the game level is
the ultimate reality. There is one game which we are never allowed to stop playing, it is built into
the nature of reality itself. No matter how bad things get, there is no 'escape' button to hit! There
are many other consequences that we could expect to follow from the question of which type of
universe we are in. It has, for example, a bearing on the approaches we can take on mental illnesses
such as anxiety, OCD, depression and schizophrenia. It makes a difference on how we as theorists
can construe these conditions, and - much more importantly - it can make a difference on the
degree to which we as sufferers are trapped by them.
This last point is easiest to argue with regard to the neurotic illnesses. We can say, for
example, that anxiety is the result of us thinking that certain things matter absolutely rather than
relatively; we think what we are involved in is 'serious' when really it is only a game; we confuse
the formal (or abstract) system of thought with the real-world (concrete) system that lies outside our
concepts, and get caught up in the insoluble morass of contradictions that are generated by this
confusion. In addictions and obsessive compulsive behaviour we think that it is absolutely
important to do certain things when in fact it is only relatively important that we do them. In the
not-so-often recognized 'illness' of dogmatism, 'rigid thinking' or, as Jung calls it, 'one-sided
rationalism' the cause lies in taking one level of description as being the only one, i.e. in ignoring
all other perspectives. Depression, we will argue, is what happens when our rationalistic game-playing ('reality-management') takes over so thoroughly that our true (i.e. uncertain) nature never
even gets a look in. In straightforward reactive depression, we can perhaps say that the causal event
is seen as 'absolutely' bad. Carse contrasts a closed or 'final' past, where what has happened can
never be re-interpreted, with an open past, which can be endlessly revised in the light of one's
changing understanding. When our past is frozen so is our present - we are stuck in it forever. In
non-reactive depression, we can suggest that it is our general mode of description itself that is
closed, so that there is no particular event or situation that is seen as 'bad'. Instead, it seems to the
depressed person that 'everything is bad' - this includes, most especially, oneself. This idea might
be expressed in terms of 'value inversion': the structure that one first of all took as an 'absolute
good' and therefore invested in, turns around and becomes an 'absolute bad' which one is stuck
in. Home has become a prison, the place of security has become the place of torment. Johannes
Fabricius (1997, p 98) sets out this idea in relation to the ideas of the ancient alchemists:
Known to the Greeks as peripetia, or 'reversal of roles,' this principle of irony and paradox is overwhelming in its
operation in Hermetic science: that which has been worshipped as holy becomes in the twinkling of an eye a monstrous
horror; the cup with the elixir of life turns into a deadly poison...
Living within a fixed format of reality-conceptualization equates to living completely
within 'a game'. Games are fundamentally sterile, this is because all possibilities are definitely
accounted for, now and forever more. One's model includes everything, nothing is seen as being
possibly outside its remit so that everything is either YES or NO - there is no MAYBE, no
uncertainty anywhere. Uncertainty means no fixed rules, no game. Ultimately, uncertainty means
a constant irruption of novelty, infinite creativity, what Bohm refers to as 'groundless flux' - the
perplexing situation where there is no external or internal 'objective' point of reference at all. This
brings us to a position from which we can think anew about the family of mental 'illnesses' known
as schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia lends itself rather well to this general interpretive framework. It is not
particularly controversial to link the states of mind associated with this illness with a progressive
relativization of the 'rules of reality construction/interpretation,' which is to say a loss of certainty
with regard to the mental categories (information processing rules) that we use for making sense
of the world. In its active phase, schizophrenia appears to be an excess of creativity, or 'novelty,'
as opposed to the neurotic conditions which invariably involve a depletion of creativity and
novelty. Crudely put, neurotics are predictable, psychotics are not.... Schizophrenia, paradoxically
enough, looks very much like 'a prison of too much freedom' - there are too many ways of
interpreting the world. This is obviously more relevant to the illness its active or 'positive' phase:
negative or chronic schizophrenia tends to be characterized by very rigid interpretive categories,
i.e. thinking that is concrete, literal or 'one-level'.
CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE NON-EXCLUSION OF POSSIBILITIES
Most intriguingly of all, this approach has a bearing on how we are able to define
consciousness itself. The non-reductive 'model' of consciousness which comes out of our new
paradigm is deceptively simple - all we need to say is that the amount of consciousness available
to a system is proportional to the number of ways that system has of arranging itself. So, the more
ways you have of looking at something, the more conscious you are. This is of course the
'cognitive diversity' index that we introduced earlier - it is a measure of the complexity (or
uncertainty) possessed by a system. We start with "one possible way of seeing things" which gives
us equals zero degrees of freedom; next comes "two possible ways of seeing things" which gives
us one degree of freedom (we can see it either one way or the other); finally we come to "an infinite
ways of seeing things" which gives us infinity minus one degrees of freedom, which is still infinity.
This progression of 'degrees of interpretive freedom' is synonymous with an increase in
consciousness.
PROBABILITY MAPS AND ABSTRACT SURFACES
Using the word 'infinity' so much can be rather off-putting - it doesn't sound very practical!
We tend to think of infinity as not belonging to this world at all, it is 'an impossible number,' a
numerical mountain which we could climb forever and still not reach the top. This difficulty stems
from the bit-by-bit or 'additive' way in which we try to approach it, which in turn is a function of
the rational (or quantitative) way of thinking. From another, more topological approach, it is
possible to see that infinity is actually a default value - it happens 'automatically'. This is easy
enough to show. Let us imagine an idealized pool table that has no pockets, and which has one ball
on it. By saying that it is an 'ideal' pool table we have stipulated that the surface of the table must
have the property of zero friction, and that the containing edges of the table must be perfectly
elastic with regard to collisions with the ball. This, of course, gives us a potential 'perpetual motion'
machine, since once started off in any direction the ball will continue its motion for ever. In the real
world this is impossible but this impossibility need not concern us in the slightest, these are
straightforward stipulations and the model itself is completely unproblematic.
Let us now say that our model is up and running, and the ball is whizzing around the table
at an incredible velocity - it is just a blur in fact. In terms of the indeterminacy of the system, the
flat surface of the table now equals infinity! This is because there is an equal chance of finding the
ball at any particular location in any one instant of time. One could then say that there is no more
discrete ball, only a generalized probability-wave of finding a ball that is spread out evenly over
the surface of the table. If, however, we were to modify the system by introducing a single pocket,
then straight-away everything would change: the perfect symmetry of the situation is lost, so that
there would be a very high probability of finding the ball in the pocket, and a very low
probability of finding it somewhere else.
Having got this sorted out, it doesn't take much of a jump to arrive at a topological-type
consciousness model. Instead of the surface being that of a pool table, so that 'location on the table'
means simply a grid reference in the space of everyday experience, we will say that the surface
corresponds to ' the space of all possible ways of seeing the world'. In more technical terms, we
could say that it equals cognitive rule space, which is an abstract sort of a space, admittedly, but
meaningful nonetheless. When we introduce a 'pocket' (i.e. a single bias) into the system the
indeterminacy collapses, just as it did in our previous model, so that, for the person involved, there
is now only the one way of seeing the world. Two biases equals 'two ways,' so that there is now
a little bit of indeterminacy back in the system. We don't know if the operative viewpoint will be
[1] or [2], it could equally well be either. When we have introduced (additively, if needs be, since
we don't have to have a time-limit in our model) an infinite number of biases into the system, then
we have again the state of total indeterminacy, total delocalization. After all the work of adding
biases for all eternity, all we get is what we started off with in the first place - the default value,
zero-bias! Zero-bias, the unconditioned state, corresponds to maximum consciousness.
OTHER CONSCIOUSNESS MODELS
What we are talking about here, then, is what mystics tend to call 'absolute consciousness.'
Itzhak Bentov also (for slightly different reasons) imagines this state as being a perfectly flat or
calm surface, without any features whatsoever. Going on the principle that the smaller the
wavelength is, the greater the energy content of the wave will be, Bentov argues that a flat surface
(which is where the frequency is infinite and the wave-length infinitesimal) must contain infinite
energy. Matter, which has features (or 'character'), corresponds to a large or gross disturbance to
the underlying 'surface' - it is a lower frequency vibration, in other words. As we shall see later on,
David Bohm arrives at an identical conclusion; only being a quantum theorist by trade, he does so
from the standpoint of quantum mechanics. For Bohm, the waves involved are 'probability waves'
specifying the probability of witnessing a specific quantum 'event' in a small portion of space. In
general terms, what we can say is that infinite consciousness equals infinite instability of the
system, where there is no possibility of isolating any specific 'content' from all other possible
contents. Particularity is lost in universality, the system is completely indeterminate - anything is
possible - and yet no one possibility can be isolated from the rest. To put this yet another way,
cognitive stability (which is the conditioned state of mind) correlates with what we normally call
'reality,' whilst infinite instability refers to the situation where, as the Beatles said, 'nothing is real'.
'SAMENESS' VERSUS 'GROUNDLESS FLUX'
As we have said, the state of unbroken symmetry can be equated with the unmodified,
unitary, 'original' reality, but there is something in Davies' description of the primordial cosmic
'oneness' that doesn't tally with the picture we have been forming. We have suggested that the
neurotic pole of what is called 'mental illness' is characterized by its conservatism, by its resistance
to change. Because such conditions maximize predictability, they are related to states of minimum
creativity, i.e. the system does not increase its information content. [In an alternative formulation
of this same point, we can say that games involve linear changes and are therefore reversible, they
recycle time over and over and no new interpretations are possible.] The other pole, the
schizophrenic pole, is characterized by novelty and rampant creativity; one experiences radically
different and unusual viewpoints - many competing perspectives interpenetrate to create endless
alternative views of what we, locked in our single (self-consistent) perspective, would call 'the
same thing'.
The schizophrenic pole, where symmetry reigns, can thus be related to states of infinite
cognitive diversity. The information content approaches infinity, which is what we would expect
in a delocalized, coherent system. The point we are getting at is that although the immediate
intellectual reaction to 'oneness' is to see it as 'sameness' (or 'blandness,' as Davies puts it), the
actual experience of the state completely confounds our expectations. The reason for this is simple:
in order to perceive 'sameness' we need to compare, and to compare we need a common ground
for comparison, we need a fundamental consistency. Yet consistency or a common ground means
'a way of looking at things that is special,' and in the state of unbroken symmetry the one thing that
we cannot find is grounds for meaningful comparisons. There is no trace of 'specialness' to be
seen anywhere! Another way to approach this would be to say that 'sameness' implies precedence,
the same thing was there before is now here again. In non-duality there are no things, only the 'one
thing,' and this one thing is totally without precedence, it is totally unpredictable. How can 'the
totality of everything' have a precedence, what exists outside of it to base our predictions upon?
Logic breaks down. The question we are touching upon here is "Why was there ever anything?"
The 'why' question implies precedence, the comparison-making of the rational mind - it only has
meaning when there is an external objective reality, the handy abstract point of reference that
dissymmetry generates. 'No dissymmetry' equals 'no point of reference' which equals 'no
answers'.
MATHEMATICAL 'EVERYTHING'
There is one more approach that we can take to the infinite information content of perfect
symmetry, and that is to consider 'mathematical everything'. This may be defined as the totality
of all possible mathematical truths. We know from Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem that there
is no single algorithm that can be used to test the validity of all possible mathematical statements,
and what this means is that we can't specify the whole of mathematical space - no matter what our
position is, most of it is invisible to us. Godel, one might say, was the great relativizer of modern
maths. What this means, just to reiterate the point, is that Godel showed (and this, by all accounts,
came as one hell of a shock to all those who cared about such things) that in the entire realm of
mathematics there is no absolute level of description from which one could in theory infer
everything else. There is no strand of consistency to thread it all together, no unbroken track of
continuous orderliness (or step-by-step logic) that one can follow to map out the whole territory.
We ought to note at this point that there are a number of scientists who still hope to find the
'universal algorithm' on the basis of which the whole structure of physical law can be explained.
Some of them have been known to wear this as a motto on their tee shirts! Of course, in the terms
of the argument that we have outlined in the last few pages, such a 'complete' description of the
universe would equate to unconsciousness. The idea is simple: if you think you can reduce
everything to one level of description (i.e. if your philosophy accounts for everything) then you
are in the psychological state of unconsciousness. You are repressing uncertainty in favour of a
spurious certainty.
To get back to our discussion of mathematical discontinuity, what we were saying was that,
no matter what our vantage point, we can't prove the truth of 'all the statements that it is possible
to make' in mathematics. The vast majority of the domain is technically irrelevant to our reasoning
since it is not contained in the statement (or algorithm) we are starting off from; we simply can't
get from here to there through linear transformations. We can, however go beyond our premises
via non-linear or chaotic transformations, i.e. where a random element comes into the mechanism
of change. It is for this reason that the patterns traced out by chaotic transformations show high
complexity, high information content, high indeterminacy. Linearity (which is what the rational
mind is based on) equals predictability, and this equals 'boundaries'; non-linearity means
unpredictiblity which means 'no boundaries'. If we directly 'experience' the whole of mathematical
space all together, by side-stepping the limitations of linearity (or, as a corollary, by side-stepping
the rational mind) in some way, what we get is fantastic complexity, the type of complexity seen
in the Mandelbrot Set. This diversity does not come out of the compartmentalized exclusivity of
linear functions, but out of the edge-lessness of inclusivity or 'ergodicity', which is a way of saying
that our journey can 'go anywhere,' that 'all ways are open to us', i.e. that each and every
direction we come across in our mathematical odyssey is as good as any other.
To get back to our definition of consciousness again, what we said was that maximum
consciousness equals maximum number of ways of seeing things. Unconsciousness, therefore, is
when there is only the one way to see things; this is when there are rules, compulsions, perceived
necessities, impossibilities, walls... It is the state of being constrained or bound, of being held
prisoner. 'Prison' takes many forms, and what 'prison' really means - in essence - is that we are
forced to see things in only the one way, we just can't see the alternatives! It only takes a little bit
of insight to see that it is our mental prisons that are the real enemy. Fear is a prison, rage is a
prison, anxiety and depression are prisons, and so too are all addictions. None of these prisons are
final, however, and in fact they only remain real and solid for as long as we believe in them. As
soon as we get that extra degree of cognitive freedom, an extra dimension of perspective (another
level of description), we see that the walls that trapped us were only a construct of our way of
thinking.
MATTER VERSUS SPIRIT
The general picture that has emerged in the course of the last few pages is one that matches
pretty well that view of things which is usually called 'mystical'. The central dichotomy is of
course the one between matter and spirit. In Buddhism there is a division between the realm of
form and the complementary realm of formlessness. This division is not an absolute one however,
it does not represent 'real' oppositionality. This comes out well in a discussion by Guenther and
Trungpa (1975, p 26-7) on the important Buddhist term shunyata ('emptiness'):
Shunyata is usually translated "emptiness" or "void." These translations are thoroughly misleading, because
shunyata is a highly positive term. Unfortunately, the early translators were not very sophisticated and allowed
themselves to be misled by the sense of shunya in ordinary everyday language. In this popular language, if a glass had
no water in it, it could be called shunya. But this is not at all the sense of shunya in Buddhist philosophy.
Shunyata can be explained in a very simple way. When we perceive, we usually attend to the delimited forms
of objects. But these objects are perceived within a field. Attention can be directed either to the concrete, limited forms,
or to the field in which these forms are situated. In the shunyata experience, the attention is on the field rather than on
its contents. By "contents," we mean here those forms which are the outstanding features of the field itself. We also
might notice that when we have an idea before our mind, the territory, as it were, delimited by the idea is blurred; it
fades into something which is quite open. This open dimension is the basic meaning of shunyata.
This openness is present in and actually presupposed by every determinate form. Every determinate entity
evolves out of something indeterminate and to a certain extent also maintains its connection with this indeterminacy;
it is never completely isolated from it. Because the determinate entity is not isolated from the indeterminacy and because
nevertheless there is no bridge between the two, our attention can shift back and forth between one and the other.
The dichotomy referred to by Guenther and Trungpa as content versus field can also be expressed
in more 'informational' terminology as message (or signal) versus medium; we have already used
the concept of game versus non-game. Other ways of approaching the same basic split would be
to talk about form (or appearance) versus formlessness (emptiness); samsara versus nirvana, or,
indeed, matter versus spirit. One could also talk about purposefulness (design) versus
spontaneity (accident). We keep using the word 'versus' but this might be a little misleading - it
would probably be better to say that there is no real oppositionality but rather complementarity. The
wave travelling on the ocean is not opposed the ocean, and the ocean is not opposed to the wave,
but, rather, both are defined in relation to each other.
Relativity is stressed above all else in Buddhism, but in other traditions the opposition
between matter and spirit is seen more seriously. Gnosticism, which adheres to the doctrine of
dualism, is a good example of such a tradition. The Gnostics saw the world of appearances as
essentially evil, being the domain of the Counterfeit God, the Father of Falsehoods. The other
world, the invisible world of the spirits, was ruled over by the God of Light, the True God. Readers
of Philip K Dick might be familiar with his Gnostic-type division between the Black Iron Prison (the
realm of material existence, oppression and suffering) and the Palm Tree Garden (the realm of
freedom and happiness). Dualism carries with it a danger - one runs the risk of thinking that the
way of seeing things that says that "There are two opposing realms of truth and falsehood, essence
and appearance" is a bottom-line description, that there is no other way to see things. To a
relativist, the dualist description is merely one more perspective, which means that, ultimately, it
is not a particularly meaningful way of approaching the matter. To say that there is prison on the
one hand, and freedom from prison on the other, is itself a form of prison. All opinions are prisons!
We have argued that escape from the world of attractive/ repellent imprisoning illusions can
only take place when one wakes up to the fact that material reality is not actually real, i.e. it is 'only
provisionally real'. Of course, as we have just said, if it isn't real- then there is nothing to escape
from! As the reluctant messiah Donald Shimoda says to Richard Bach (1977, p 69):
"This world? And everything in it? Illusions, Richard! Every bit of it illusions! Do you understand that?"
SUMMARY
'Absolutism' (or 'objectivism') equals 'one rule (or view) is supreme,' which is a non-symmetrical situation. 'Relativism' means 'all rules (or views) are equally good,' which is the
situation of unbroken symmetry. We could also say that where there is a bias in the system so that
one viewpoint is more meaningful than all others, then this equals a modified or conditioned
reality. In terms of basic psychology, the fundamental symmetry break would be where there is
a (perceived) absolute difference between 'subject' and 'object,' 'self and 'other'. There is thus a
centre: a defined localized sense of 'me', which looks out upon, and makes sense of, the external
world.
When there is no bias, so that all viewpoints are equally meaningful, then we have the
unconditioned state, which we have defined as maximum consciousness. There is no centre, no
'me' - instead there 'is' the totally non-referential, transpersonal 'I'. 'Is' we put in inverted commas
because to say that A 'is' B is to make a referential statement, the 'I' cannot turn around and see
itself and say that it 'is', for that very 'is' would constitute a prison.
An alternative, more traditional, formulation of the above would be to say that:
MINIMUM RELATIVITY (DISSYMMETRICAL STATE / UNEVEN PROBABILITIES) = "MATTER"
MAXIMUM RELATIVITY (SYMMETRICAL STATE / EVEN PROBABILITIES) = "SPIRIT"