Moving Beyond Duality

We are stubborn! Once we have a worldview that feels accurate and manageable, we avoid disconfirming evidence whenever possible—which is not as hard as it might seem. We may unwittingly picture the brain as a group of computer-like processing centers (vision, hearing, language, and so forth), but in fact it is a sophisticated, self-modifying organ. It adapts itself in use-dependent ways—learning from practice and experience, consolidating data to modify memories, discarding input that doesn’t fit with our original assumptions, and creating shortcuts for common actions.

The rise of neuroscience and the ability to directly monitor brain functioning has provided us with new insights about what actually happens in our mental processing. Remember that most of what we perceive and decide to keep goes directly into long-term memory without a lot of reflection. Once there, the brain manipulates it to provide a coherent storyline. While we may know a lot about how data gets into memory and how it is retrieved for our use, we still know relatively little about how it is processed or consolidated, especially during sleep. What we do know is that to hold on to memories we need to mentally rehearse or give energy to them; otherwise, they gradually fade away.

Our Mechanistic Heritage

The non-dualistic nature of our reality has been apparent to quantum physicists for over 120 years, but we have been a reluctant audience. Our entire cosmos is a vast energy field, a surging sea of potentiality. Indeed, some physicists speculate that we actually exist within a multiverse, with our cosmos being only one of multiple universes. Components of the cosmic energy field appear to us as physical particles from time to time, but our predominant mode of being is energy. Still we cling to the familiar but outmoded mechanistic model of Newtonian physics—a “matter”/“not matter” dichotomy.

How did we get so attached to this mechanistic model in the first place? In the last chapter we reviewed our transition in prehistory to our current competition-based patriarchal model. That heritage got unexpected reinforcement when authority passed from religion to science in the 1800s. The laws of motion, developed by Isaac Newton, became the new “religion” and the foundation of what is even now equated with “scientific thinking.” The Newtonian model has remained firmly embedded in popular culture and continues to shape how we view life and its possibilities. So what are the assumptions of Newtonian physics that influence us so profoundly even now?

Materialism. The central principle states that only what we can see and measure is important, or “what matters is matter.” Actually what matters in our cosmos is energy—waves, or energy oscillations. We are comprised of energetic wave-forms and are interconnected through the sea of cosmic energy. We think of our world as comprised of solid particles, but in fact it is comprised of waves “collapsing” at given points in time to create our perception of the material universe. The defining characteristic of our universe is possibility or process, not measured results.

In describing our universe, mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme has said:

"The universe emerges out of all-nourishing abyss ['space-time foam'] not only fifteen billion years ago but in every moment. Each instance protons and antiprotons are flashing out of, and are as suddenly absorbed back into, all-nourishing abyss. All-nourishing abyss then is not a thing, nor a collection of things, nor even, strictly speaking, a physical place, but rather a power that gives birth and that absorbs existence at a thing’s annihilation. The foundational reality of the universe is this unseen ocean of potentiality. If all the individual things of the universe were to evaporate, one would be left with an infinity of pure generative power."

Doesn’t sound much like the mechanistic images of Newtonian physics, does it? But even knowing that we are energy and that the wave function is primary, scientists continue to search for the particle, that bit of matter that is the ultimate building block—assuming that the answer to “What is the universe made of?” is “What is the smallest subatomic particle?”

Unfortunately, this focus on the concrete has led to society over-valuing visible physical production and dismissing the wide range of invisible service activities that comprise over two-thirds of the world’s economy. In economist Marilyn Waring’s book, "If Women Counted," she details the essential services provided primarily by women that are not included in economists’ calculations of the world’s economic activity, determining that the overall value is vastly underestimated because of these omissions.

There have been some attempts to counterbalance this over-emphasis on the physical, which has been accompanied by an assumption that “more is better.” Bhutan’s Gross Domestic Happiness Index is one, as is the OECD initiative to develop a well-being index. One of the latest initiatives is the World Happiness Report, begun as an annual report in 2012 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

At the same time, there has been increasing pressure to exploit natural resources, including legal pressure from multinational corporations charging that environmental protection regulations restrict competition. Monsanto, for example, has been pressuring Mexican authorities to allow in genetically modified corn, which could decimate 8,000 years of corn cultivation and eliminate dozens of native strains of corn. Environmentally destructive practices can be traced to valuing physical exploitation at the expense of quality of life and viewing our Earth as nothing more than “a combined park, zoo, and kitchen garden.” Examples include pollution in our air or water and the expansion of drilling in the Alberta tar sands (the third largest crude oil reserve in the world) in a manner that has led to environmental contamination and destruction that can be seen from outer space.