16 Chewing on Consciousness

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    As author, I apologize. I have taken us into a zone of extreme fogginess. I know how we yearn for certainty. If I just jump right into the abyss, my own consciousness is changing with each encounter whether, I look inside myself or think I can know what you might be conscious of.  But you all steady my boat like outriggers and hopefully we don’t tip over. I must trust that there is a communal consciousness and I quote from BillyG below, “If you can think it...then it can be...however all must be of one mind.”

    Way back in 1968 Buckminster Fuller (inventor of the geodesic dome) told us “we are all astronauts on Spaceship Earth.” Put Buckminster and BillyG together and bingo you are in, like banana pudding. 

God, to me, it seems

is a verb,

not a noun,

proper or improper.

                                                                          Buckminster Fuller

                                                           *******

     Andi, the osprey, chirped, “The Texas shooting massacre is at the very heart of the human problem, but the event is clearly a point where our group can look inside the beast.”
    “I believe I see what you mean,” fluttered Free, the butterfly. “All humans are captives of their own consciousness. All of us here, as animals, understand that climate and consciousness are inseparable.”
     Coqui, the frog, sang, “Whoa, this is a far out finesse and too tricky for me. You took more frog-hops than I can follow.”
     Mary, the white pelican, seeking consilience. or a jumping-together of knowledge, crowed, “We as animals know that Mom Nature not only controls the weather, she is the weather. Marjorie Merriweather (excuse the pun) may have built Mara Lago a few feet above the ocean but one of Mom’s hurricanes could soon destroy it. As global warming continues so goes hurricane intensity and Pres.’s pad along with it.”
    “ So the climate(weather) and the consequent storms are in a lock-step dance”, chirped Andi, "just as war amongst nations cannot be separated from war amongst individuals.”
     “Does this mean that humans could save themselves by a change in consciousness?” quacked Ducky.
    Hooie’s eyes rolled back in his head, “Hold it right there! Are you saying that individual consciousness and group or national consciousness are locked in with each other ?”
     BillyG bleated, “ I am seeing a whole lot of tribalism and the USA is split right down the middle.”
    Leda, the dragonfly, buzzed, “Please elaborate on ‘tribalism’ amongst humans, BillyG.”
     “Just after WW II most people wanted to help Europe and McArthur even led us into helping Japan. But since then humans have gradually split-off into fragments such as white evangelicals, liberals, conservatives and so on, loving like-minded tribes and hating the other tribes,” replied BillyG. “If you can think it...then it can be...however all must be of one mind.”
“ Why, pray tell? What happened to the human race?” sighed Jake, the bassett hound.
     “Words(language) are said to be the substance of consciousness. Language is tricky and can have double meanings as well as creating hurt and resentment,” hummed Hummy, “humans may be out on a limb that is about to break.”
     “Yeah, but there has to be more to that. All this fear, hatred, resentment and rage must be driven by something. What is it?,” squawked, Cackle the grackle.
     “ What I am about to say may imply dismay, but look at it this way,” rapped King, the kingfisher, “All fear is driven by loss of trust in the future.”
     “But who or what is driving that?”, whispered Cesar, the iguana.
   “ A smattering of truth might include loss of attention to Mom Nature, too much attention to TV, thinking that ignoring politics will make go away, losing touch with God, ignoring the wisdom of those close to us, and most of all fear that loving each other will make us frighteningly vulnerable,” bleated Mum, the nanny goat.
      Hearing that last phrase from Mum terrified Fregata, the frigate bird, and he bolted into the blue, seeking as much altitude as he could muster.  He was repeating to himself; I need freedom more than I need the group….. I need freedom more than I need the group.
      But the mantra failed as he was pulled gently, by a tractor-beam as if from the Starship Enterprise, to the ground, the cave, and his group.

suggested reading: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Edward O Wilson . 1999

15 The Circle Created

The Circle Created  15

*****

      The small group moved gradually toward the lip of the cave where light shone through a mist of the morning. 
     Following Hurricane Maria there was an obvious change in the landscape. The trees were stripped bare of leaves, people were walking about aimlessly; and there was an eerie silence across the mountainside. But they felt each other‘s presence and found comfort. They were trusting one another.     

*****

     Myrtle the turtle and Mira the sloth chose each other for good reason; they both thought everything was going too fast.  They found power in togetherness. Inadvertently, the two of them, were creating a double circle in which the other animals would eventually “pair-off” as well. Some would find their “partner” for less obvious reasons. But creativity works that way. Mom Nature gives courage to those who seek a change in direction. 

    They would finally find that human maniacal-ego could only be overturned by finesse. Those who are somewhat faint-of-heart can become caped-crusaders via “pairing”, but wait; let the others catch up. Mira and Myrtle finessed their way through persistence, a prime ingredient of creativity. 

     “I am so relieved to be here and especially grateful that we found each other,” Myrtle said, turning toward Mira. “What a strange turn of events; what brought us together.?  What possessed us to think we could help humans? And then the storm brought us all together.”  
     Feeling comfortable, Mira replied, “Together in our journeying through life and treasuring each new experience, we embrace the double circle.”  

  As facilitators go, Mary, the white pelican, was no slouch; as she noted silently that the other animals were “pairing-off”. Was it out of mimicry or another strange but marvelous intervention of Mom Nature?  Buddy, the agouti, was chatting with Shazam, the Amazon parrot, as though old friends. King, the kingfisher, was locked in conversation with Hummy and Ducky, the duck, was whispering to Bertie, the Peregrine falcon. And so on, through the rest of the group pairings continued, and as if by magic, a double circle was created.

     Now, 24 animals, paired off,  formed the circles and continued chatting.

Mary wondered what could be so mesmerizing to bring these animals to this point. The simple but profound experience of watching the group gave a boost of confidence that all was well in Dominica and perhaps, to humankind. If she could have listened in on 11 conversations, she would have told her counterpart, Andi, the osprey, that they were talking about human consciousness and how it was different from animal consciousness.

     Andi blurted out, “I flew past a home near Soufriere and saw a startling news flash from Texas. In a tiny church in a small town in Texas some 24 to 26 people were gunned down by a lone guy with no political or religious issue but came from within this tiny community. He had issues with the mother-in-law of his former wife!! Sounds like angry human consciousness to me. 
     Day by day we are getting closer to the human condition, a problem in consciousness based on the evolution of the human brain into a machine in conflict-with itself.”

   Mary, though taken aback, tried to remain calm and said, “Let’s take this to the group and hope they can make sense of it.”

Suggested reading:   The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.  Julian Jaynes 1976 

               

14 Whose Consciousness?

Whose Consciousness?  14

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     We humans, and perhaps animals, have an individual consciousness. Because consciousness is an individual experience, which human literature has raged about for centuries as to just what it is.
      In this fable of Hummy and BillyG we are going to sail past that rocky shoreline and into the blue of a more navigable ocean called the consciousness of Mother Nature. 
       For our story we are going to assume that awareness and consciousness are inseparable. We are also going to hear what some of the first readers of our fable offer about animal vs human consciousness.

    I, here, offer a theory which may only serve to complicate the matter but is stuck in my craw. I believe that we carry the consciousness of all our past generations within our genes. Yes, we do feel the guilt and shame of Adam and Eve, our grandparents, and thousands of preceding generations as well.  
     Here, the advantage goes to the animals and our small band of Dominican animals who have survived Irma and then Maria. They, fortunately for us humans, are not saddled with guilt and shame of the past.   We should not forget that the human race has sustained triumphs while suffering horrendous losses.

     Three of our readers offer astute intelligence about animals in relation to people.  

     (from Joe R) I am not sure why animals are more in tune with nature and physics than humans. My squirrels knew the storm (Maria) was coming, so 7 days before it got here they started stock and feathering winter nest above the back porch. I knew immediately what they were doing…. they looked to be fed but preferred not to take food from my hand. They called when a cat was in the yard or hawks are in the area. I threw rocks at the cats and they left, then the squirrels sounded the all clear……………So, somehow, we must breakaway and follow our inmost being, calling us to the inner room as well as to nature and animals.

     (from Martina S) I like your blog about consciousness and the topics you address; the importance of being connected to nature, our pace, the animals communicating using humor to shed light on very serious and important messages. Consciousness, to me, is very different from person to person. Some very successful people, who function well in the world, are not conscious. I believe some people have a natural awareness and others do fine without it. I think consciousness can be trained, like a muscle, and gets stronger when used. I think also, there is a great collective consciousness we can all tap into; that which is useful and nurturing for humanity, nature; and life evolves and survives in order to give us a wakefulness and mindful experience.

     (from Mike S) Consciousness is, by definition, exclusively a human trait because we say it is, i.e. because of language. But one thing I have noticed over the years is that we keep having to narrow the gap between human consciousness and animal instinct. A lot of this human perceived differentiation expressed in language is hokum and leads to all sorts of mischief as well as self-realization. I agree with Joe R that animals are more in tune with nature and physics than are humans.  I think it is because homo sapiens, having language, writing, and technology to transfer or share knowledge dulls our innate awareness of natural phenomena.  The dog whisperer, Milan, has shown that dogs, in addition to having a superior awareness of smell, have a superior sense of their “pack leader’s emotional state as compared with the average educated human. My point is that the idea of human “consciousness” is a human invention that is exclusively relevant only to humans who have been conditioned to understand the concept of “consciousness” as a human trait. 
     My big question is: What is it in human (homo sapiens) consciousness that results in our universal compulsion to invent or embrace superstition/tribalism/myth/religion which arise in every civilization of homo sapiens that we know of so far? Is this another way to express the theory (idea) that “we carry the consciousness of all our past generations within our genes?” Is this what Dean Hamer postulated as the God gene?  If so, I am very skeptical of this theory.

*******

     "We have a full plate to consider, " hummed Hummy. "Let’s get on with it."   

suggested reading;  Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed,  by Marc Bekoff, New World 2013