This essay will make more sense if you look at ‘part one’
first.
The species of great ape to which I belong is characterized
by an adaptation unique in biological history: it stores and sorts information
gathered from the senses in such a way that the information can be constructed
into a “reality” separated from the biophysical Reality in which it originated
[1]. This process (adaptation) began in
small ways; that is, little sub-realities were manufactured from primary
biophysical Reality (as perceived by sense organs). These sub-realities were (are) of two types:
(1) summarizing images or maps of experience and (2) what-if constructions that
project details of experience into forms that have not yet occurred, and thus,
have not been experienced in fact [2].
There are great and far-reaching implications of this
adaptation, but at the moment I am interested in how goals, problems and
solutions are created in a goal-less, problem-less and solution-less
universe. The previous essay ends with
this conundrum.
First and most obviously, given that the whole nature of
our adaptation is to create reality-less “realities” as models for specific
actionable parts of the biophysical Reality, then the structures upon which our
operating systems are based are illusory; a great part of our difficult in
getting on in present world results from our failure to realize this simple
fact [3]. But, since we are, today,
almost entirely dependent on the illusion – as a way of actually acting in
Biophysical Reality – giving up illusion is not an option. This doesn’t mean, however, that we cannot or
must not recognize illusion, just that when we do recognize it, the
machinations of the illusion must be continued until they can be replaced with
increasingly less illusory designs.
The reason for this is the way the Consciousness System of
Order functions. Just as genetics is the
means by which organisms change to fit their environments (natural or human
contrived), so CSO processes are the way that human adaptation proceeds. And
the CSO functions on illusions organized from non-random details of Biophysical
Reality. At the most basic level, there
is no ground, no tree, no animal, no stream or ocean. These are atom particles (and smaller)
assembled and functioning by principles both of actionable importance and
irrelevant to living things. All living
things function at this most primary state of “illusion,” being uninfluenced by
and “unaware” of many of the most essential aspects of the physical
universe. The human species has carried
this “unawareness” to unprecedented levels, acting in the world as if only
their illusory constructions were and are real.
At the most simple level, humans tend to see goals,
problems and solutions as central to their existence. These are the forms by which experience is
organized. In almost all other organisms
environmental events are routed through genetically designed physiological and
neural processes: there are no goals, problems or solutions; there are only
responses. For humans, CSO processes
have been inserted in between environmental sensory event and response [4]. This insertion has, from all the other
possibilities, taken the form of goals, problems and solutions.
There is only one reason not to just abandon ourselves to
this design; it is an illusion. So long
as environmental Reality had an immediacy in our responses, the illusion was a
powerful adaptive device giving the human animal great advantages. But, as our “successes” grew, becoming
exponential, the illusion has come to challenge Reality and has taken primacy
in human life. It is difficult to image
a more dangerous situation.
The major events of our present world can be seen as a
conflict between the application of the illusions within which we are immersed
and the environmental Realities that are impinging on our actions (and that our
actions are impinging on!). There can be
no parsing of goals, problems and solutions to the existence of 7 billions of
150 pound animals roaming the earth uprooting its forests, stripping off its
soils, exposing the surface to toxic subsurface materials, polluting the
surface waters, changing the composition of the atmosphere and so much more.
We can imagine no goal; we can define no problem; there is no
solution. There is only the illusion
that our illusions will continue to be effective.
[1] The argument can be quite cogently made that all
nervous system – even all physiological – responses to environmental events are
sub-reality models and not the environmental realities themselves. These response systems are sensitive to
specific movements of the totality and therefore are not an exact
representation of that totality; it could not be otherwise since living systems
are specialized material/energy arrangements using very particular parts of the
totality to sustain their form and function.
I would argue, however, that there is an immediacy in the relationship
of the Living Order to the Physical Order that ties its response models to the
biophysical totality, an immediacy that the Consciousness Order is adapted to defeat
just as the Living Order is adapted to defeat the immediacy of entropy.
[2] It must be noted that such consciousness created
“experience” has no reliable way to be distinguished from sensory-based
experience and has become a major source for the dis-integration of human
functionality within biophysical functionality.
[3] Some examples to clarify: religions, economic models,
political systems, social systems are all illusory: that is, they are based on
constructed “realities” with no basis in biological or physical Reality. They are entirely constructed in
consciousness process and exist only as the Stories that we tell about
ourselves. This doesn’t mean, however,
that we can do without them; they are the product of the primary human
adaptation. They are simply out of
control (by Biophysical Reality) at the present time.
[4] CSO processes are operated on a neural substrate, but
are more than a nervous system process in the same way that the primary energy
exchanges of life are operated on the behaviors of electrons: the motions of
the ameboid cells of a slime-mold would never be predicted from the qualities
of an electron!
