By unlocking the mystery of the atom, we nearly brought our world to an end with the advent of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. That was just a preview of what is about to occur. The only mystery greater than that of the atom, is that of the mind. In finally unlocking the doors of the mind we will be setting in motion the events which will bring this world to an end.
There is only one secret of the mind, which is simply that there is only one mind, despite any appearances to the contrary. The corollary to this truth is that the world is its construct. After we finally grasp this simple truth, the world will become for us just another option, just a state of mind. It will be ours ultimately to set aside or reconstruct as we then see fit. There will also be ample opportunity to experience other worlds - the other creations of the cosmic mind.
This sounds like an end of the world that we can all live with. Hopefully, yes. But there will be an attendant trauma and suffering, the minimizing of which will be our best motivation and guide toward performing an optimal cosmic transition.
The true miracle is not the revealing of the secret of the cosmos, but rather the fact that we were able to postpone this revelation for so long. Be assured that this postponement was the cosmic intent, and is a tribute to the creative power of that mind which is all of what we are.
But was all this really necessary? Of course. Recycling is a cosmic necessity, and we of the microcosmic persuasion were the vehicles for bringing that about with the least amount of trauma and discontinuity that was possible. This was not the best of possible worlds, it was the best possible mulching system. It could have been worse. It is only now that we can get on with mastering the real possibilities, and then perhaps we can enjoy the few remaining years of our compulsory sojourn with the Earth. This old world might take on a new meaning, even a new taste!
It is stunning how long science managed to postpone its day of reckoning with the mind. That it might be so swift, is a very good reason to have kept putting it off. Science likes to dally over the digestion of its subjects. It might have wished that the mystery of the mind could have kept it in the clover for centuries to come. But, unfortunately, that is not what is in the stars. Think of me as the thief in the night, coming to rob science of its feast at the last moment.
Let me now go through the motions of an explanation. This will not get me off the hook, but it will have to do for now - we scientists know all about 'hand waving,' I trust.
It was the deconstruction of space, especially in the radical fashion of quantum cosmology, which set the stage for the reconstruction of the cosmic mind. The 'anthropic principle' certainly did not hurt the cause, either. Now, science is not supposed to deal with imaginary things, which is what an unobservable, unmeasurable universe would be. Imaginary is what our universe would have been without observers. This can mean one
of two things. There was a preexisting virtual mind waiting for the appropriate virtual universe to come along so that together they could achieve reality. That sounds rather Cartesian - a mind and matter proposition. The alternative is to skip the material part and let the universe simply be a construct of the mind. Then there will be a lot fewer ships out there passing in the night, thankyou Occam.
Another way to approach cosmogenesis is to consider the primordial chaos of the quantum void, in which everything is virtually possible, including virtual kitchen sinks and universes, like ours at the time of the alleged big bang. However, there is a bias on the part of physicists toward virtual objects at the expense of virtual subjects. One can split the difference and simply posit virtual experience, again Occam comes to the rescue. The primordial quantum soup then looks less like a junkyard and more like a bad hallucination, if anyone can tell the difference.
Whether we start with a quantum 'junkyard' or an hallucinatory jumble, we must also posit a principle of self-organization. It is reasonable that self-organization should apply more naturally to virtual thoughts than to virtual particles. Take your pick, but here we are and the only thing we know for sure is that we are thinking. All the rest is up for grabs, which was where I came in.
Could there be any other 'cosmic' minds out there in the night? No. There are other worlds which are just chips off the same block, all more or less interconnected. But in the primordial chaos, everything already happens at once. We are part of how it all gets sorted out. That is our genius, that is the cosmic genius, or God, if you will.
Finally we can put away our rocketships and our atom smashers and start using our minds, as they are now truly meant to be used. They will take us to wherever we can imagine.
When we think we know where the truth is leading us, it is a burden that we can all share. But when there is an apparent change of course, a new direction must be articulated. At that crossroads, truth becomes a singular affair. That is the stuff of prophecy. One can either wait patiently, or put everything else aside. I cannot apologize for doing what someone had to do in this singular situation.
My job may already be finished. Perhaps not. That is largely up to you. In this transition there is a need for some new authority, a new combination of spiritual, intellectual and political authority. It is the new truth that we will all be living, but here at the crossroads, continuity of consciousness demands a balancing of the old and the new. That is the politics. There are many things to discuss, we just need the proper provocation. If I should continue to be that, then fine.
Dan T. Smith, Baltimore, MD