There was a time before it was commonly known that the Earth is round when sailing off into the ocean, perpendicular away from land was just not something anyone thought of doing.
There was also a time when the Earth was thought of as the center of everything. The sun orbited the Earth and this produced an attitude where humans felt there place in the cosmos was at the center. Our lives as we knew them were all that there was to experience.
These two ideas came to be undone over many many years. The counter idea of a round earth and a helios-centric solar system were proposed a long time before they were accepted much less proven by the direct experiences of sailing and looking through telescopes but when they did finally become accepted as the truth of things humanity took steps forward in its ability to understand and manipulate the reality that we experience.
I think it is reasonable to call these positions in belief paradigms locks. Flat earth is a paradigm lock because it locks thought and therefore capability into an experiential dead end. It is not that experience within that dead end is invalid but that it just can’t grow. The power structures that depend upon the lock will be vigorous in defending it but eventually, because it simply isn’t real, the lock crumbles, though it may take a really long time.
We are now grappling with a similar paradigm lock. The experiential tools for proving the falseness of the lock are not clear as yet, similar to the times before the telescope and long distance sailing therefore the issue is with us simply as a competing or contrast of theory. But, it is only by those theories being contrasted and investigated that such experimental tools actually become known. Similar to gravity bending light. Einstein said it was so and only then did experimentalists figure out how to observe if it was so.
It is also true that when each of our example historical paradigm shifts of flat earth and heliocentricity were proven through the experience of a few it still took many years for the effects of this change to be felt widely and for our general human experience to actually change. These two examples however took place back at times in history when things in general happened much more slowly because communication tools were not up to the task of spreading information quickly or widely. We now have tools that spread information (and disinformation) nearly instantaneously and nearly globally so our experience of change after this next paradigm shift might be significantly quicker.
The current paradigm, which has been upheld by scientific advancement as we have known it for the past two centuries is that materials, the stuff of the environment in which we find ourselves, that is, living on the Earth, breathing the air, eating the food, orbiting the sun, on an arm in the milky way galaxy that is just one of very many galaxies, these materials are the primary and our awareness of them is secondary. Our belief is that stuff exists and then we become aware of that stuff.
It is now suggested that this paradigm is backwards. We are at the cusp of reversing this paradigm to be Consciousness is first, Consciousness is the basis of the universe not stuff. In this paradigm we are aware of stuff and that awareness actually creates the stuff. This is being talked about in the most hallowed halls of rarefied scientific places like particle accelerators and theoretical physics symposiums. It is a long way from being accepted by the rest of us just as for most people the Earth remained flat and long distance travel was therefore perilous for many lifetimes.
The impending paradigm shift has enlivened discussion about where we come from, what we really are, where we go and how it all works. This discussion formerly held within the confines of religions is now the topic of open debate. The skill of observational science driven by theoretical science is being challenged to provide proof.
As such questions about topics formally thought only to involve codified religious beliefs such as life after death are coming under the purview of observational science. And the delicacy of the discussion, the pairing off of the old paradigm vs, the new is generating heat. That heat is being seen in our politics, our social structure, and even in the choices of what topics presumably open venues are willing to support.
The word currently being used to describe most closely the non materialistic side of this paradigm shift is Panpsychisim. It has been around a long time and the Wikipedia entry notes that such names as William James, Bertrand Russell, Plato, Spinoza and on and on have either discussed it or were proponents in their time. Wikipedia notes that its popularity declined with the rise of ‘Logical positivism’ which says only those ideas that can be verified through direct observation or logical proof have value. Since there was no experimental method to examine panpsychism and no logical proof and since Logical positivism also called logical empiricism and then Neopositiviism sponsored the material benefits of the current modern era panpsychism lost out for most of the last century.
Also, Panpsychism actually means that everything from atoms to the sun to ourselves possess a quality of mind. In this way the focus of consciousness is separated in our thinking, divided in a sense, among all the objects we observe. You may see that this thought, sponsored in part at least by this word, Panpsychism - mind everywhere - places those objects into reality and then associates the mind with them. Thus, in Panpsychism materialism is still present. This is how the concept was carried by those still firmly in the materialistic paradigm and why it was a dominate paradigm in the 1900’s. Panpsychism is a bridging concept between materialism and consciousness.
The consideration of a round earth was for a long time only seen from within the firm belief that the earth is flat. It is hard to prove a round earth from a point of view that sees the earth in front of them as flat. This is the difference between a sequential advancement of knowledge and capability and a paradigm shift. The new paradigm will not be proven from within the old.
This currently impending paradigm shift is connected closely with what is being called the “Hard Problem of Consciousness”. That is, the fact that even with huge advances in our ability to image the brain and understand which parts do what we are no closer to understanding the nature of consciousness or how it arises within us than we ever were. This Hard Problem has returned to the forefront of attention because of these same advances in neuroscience, quantum physics and psychology seem to be pushing the boundaries of the old materialism and pointing toward consciousness as the ultimate reality.
The choices seem to be:
1 it is all just physical objects and even though we don’t quite get how consciousness is produced by objects it is, and we will figure it out someday.
2 There are a bunch of objects out there and each and everyone of them has some form of consciousness. When they are bundled together within us the consciousness that we experience emerges.
But there is a 3
3 There are no objects our there at all. More, there is no out there. Instead all there is is consciousness.
The paradigm shift in Materialism vs Consciousness is between numbers 1 and 3. Number 2 is just a sort of stop gap that we come up with to try to make facts that we don’t yet understand fit into something we do understand, more or less.
What does this mean on the world scene we are witnessing today?
We are seeing a battle between Hate and all the rest; acceptance, empathy, compassion, inclusion, ultimately love. We are seeing terrorists arise in communities where the ordinary citizen is marginalized by being the first to be terrorized thus giving the terrorist’s hate a space in which to grow. White supremacists in the US grow in enclaves. The locals around them know but are not empowered in anyway to stem the tide at the beginning and they are the fist to be terrorized. The presence of Hamas among the Palestinians is likely no different. The locals are the first to be terrorized. Then the youth of the area, or some of them, often the poorest and those without direction, are given that direction and a sense of inclusion by the terrorists. They sign on not out of ideology but out of a lack of anything better but, by association, the hate they take on becomes enough for them to do the act of terror, to loose their empathy for those they are terrorizing, to essentially to see the other as n object. In so seeing they solidify their view of themselves as objects often extending that objectification even into the after life where they have been promised other objects that they crave.
In a world where we understand that consciousness comes first terrorists would stand out as the carriers of hate. Hate is a real stance in consciousness just as much as love but it doesn’t build toward a future, more often it seeks a fantasy version of the past. Often terrorism holds that past not as a time or an experience but as an objectified concept. The leaders of Hamas are not raving killers. They are calculated, long thinking planers who are seeking a future where there are no jews in the middle east. (And, of course, where they have power over the objects around them.) They are not calculating the likelihood of that future they are remembering a time in the past that appears in their mind like an object.
We are a long way from the strength of the consciousness first paradigm to be able to hold sway over the materialist paradigm. Even now the vast, vast majority of humanity does not support hate filled terrorist ideas but we do as a whole, hold objects above thoughts in our sense of reality. We are being given examples of how that works out. We ask ourselves what is the solution to terrorism and from an objective point of view that solution is not clear. Become terrorists our selves? Maintain the rule of law and proportionate response thus beating back the perpetrators of terror but leaving it essentially intact to rise again? Somehow empower locals to remove terrorists from their midsts? None of these ideas even seem possible let alone practical. We could objectify the terrorists ourselves and simply attempt to wipe them out. The hate though, will just grow in response to that campaign. Within the materialistic paradigm terrorism is a hard problem. But it is a potent motivator.
I ask myself what if a terrorist knocks on my door pulling a gun and forcing his or her way into my house and begins eating my food and I overhear plans for much greater violence, what would I do? I know that given the slightest provocation the terrorist will simply shoot me because he sees me as simply an object. If I stay out of his way and cower I may live but at what cost? I could hope and somehow conspire to get help. I would have to be very secretive and it would take time during which the terrorists would further marginalize my capacity to do anything. I could have kept a gun near my door and shot it out right away probably dying in the process since they come in numbers and the leader isn’t the guy at the door. Or it is more likely I would shoot someone who shows up for some other reason but gives me a scare. Once hate is in control the process is fixed.
It seems only by outgrowing hate which, in my world, means knowing that consciousness comes first and then knowing hate for what it is, a dead end thought like flat earth, seems to hold any promise at all. And yet, that seems so esoteric, so beyond the point that people are being terrorized every day. Actually, relative to the whole of humanity, a few people are dying, but we are all being terrorized.
To undergo a paradigm shift is more than just understanding the idea, the concept. It is more than taking it on as a thought experiment. A paradigm is a subconscious notion of what is. A paradigm is the basis for other things. A foundation. When you add on an idea it sits on top of a foundation and the foundation itself is unaffected. Our experience, mine certainly, is of the solidity and consistency of objective reality. This sits on a firm foundation of materialism. My contemplation of Consciousness First is just that, a contemplation that sits on the same foundation as the rest of my experience. A paradigm is so much a part of our way of being that we take it for granted, we accept it unconsciously. What does it take to change this?
First it takes motivation. Terrorism is one of those motivators whether it exists in our dysfunctional government, the overheating of our planet, in the news of an attack, or at your front door.
What is it to be aware of yourself as consciousness that spawns all that you see and do?When you look at a chair feel the essence of the experience as awareness of a creative act. Know that all your thoughts are creative and that conscious awareness, even as it exists today, is a creation of yours.
It is your choice.