I promised the last few respondents on the thread “It’s all about karma over dogma” that I will come back with some clarification on my statements regarding consciousness and karma.  Being quite a long response, I decided to post it as a page for discussion.

 

Why do we so desperately want existence and consciousness to exist beyond the here and now?  What is the driving force behind any belief system that ignores the current scientific evidence?

It is very simple – we need life to matter.  We need to be assured that all is not in vain, and that our efforts in dealing with it will be rewarded – if not now, somewhere in the future.  In order to have that assurance, our actions and consciousness need to have an existence beyond the convolutions of our own brain.  Over and above a mind existing within our individual thought forms, there has to be some kind of “Overmind” or “Superconsciousness”, be it an objective and separate entity, or the sum total of our consciousnesses residing outside the confines of our biological neural networks.

 

This need does not have to translate into a religious or theist form.  I believe that all people, theists and atheists alike, share the basic need for the world to make sense, and for objective truth to exist.  Where there is no god, we tend to create one.  Where there is no pattern, we tend to construct one.  And where senselessness abide, we fashion parameters.

 

We all recognize a pattern of causality within the natural world.  We see that actions have reactions - and every reaction becomes the cause for another action, and so on.  As we evolved into the form we are today, our ability to understand causality, define the laws governing it, and even predict the outcome, we also evolved self-consciousness and a moral code.  Morality is a value system built on the substructure of causality.  The pattern of action-reaction became the defining system for governing the lives of men.  Our systems of law, government, social consciousness and interpersonal relationships are all based on the axiom that every action WILL have a reaction or consequence.  Because we rationalize and decorate, we name our compliance with the system of causality a code of ethics, or morality, or god-ordained duty.  These names are all trimmings and culture-based embellishments of an objective system of cause and effect that underpins our world, the universe and all the phenomena known and unknown.  Nothing escapes the cycle of causality, and no law supersedes it.  Karma goes over dogma, as the popular joke has it.  As long as we all follow this rule, the world seems an organised place.

 

The only problem with this law is that some seem to escape the consequences of their actions. An immoral businessman or politician or criminal can enrich themselves to the detriment of others, live a life of luxury and die without facing retribution for their immoral actions.

 

This angers us.  It grates our sense of fair play that some can get away with murder.  Because the majority of us have a conscience, we get very upset with the minority that breaks our rules.  Temporal justice and retribution is a temporary solution only.  The long arm of the law is still seriously short of being long enough.  The bad guys still get away.

 

Faced with this dilemma, we go metaphysical and/or supernatural.  We posit that life does not end with physical death, the seat of consciousness is not the brain and that justice extends beyond the grave.  We create Infinite Justice, Absolute Truth, and Immortal Consciousness.  We fashion gods out of earth, avenging angels out of air and place our trust in them.  And the more we believe in them, the more real they become.  The more power we ascribe to them, the more powerful they are.  Religion has been one of the most effective carriers of Moral Code the world has ever seen.  But with the advent of science out of philosophy and experimentation overtaking postulation, the gods started shrinking.  Less and less is ascribed to them – so much so that a modern “scientific” Christian’s view of God looks very similar to an “atheist” scientist’s view of the spark that lit the Big Bang fuse.

 

This is nothing new: secular humanism replacing god-religion.  The problem to most of us is that a humanistic philosophy places the responsibility in our hands, and we cannot make everyone pay.  We do not have enough “moral vigilantes” to help us catch the baddies – they are STILL getting away.  What now?

Our answer lies within the confines of causality and consciousness.  Fashioning justice out of karmic construct.  For justice to be far-reaching enough to apprehend every bad guy, there has to be immortality of karma and consciousness.  If not, there is no hope.  Then a nihilistic world-view is our only option, linked with a hope that most people will align themselves with our view of responsibility and conscience in order for us to eke out an existence of relative order and peace.

 

I base the rest of my argument on the basic need of the majority for justice.  I believe that such a concerted need could actually create its own solution.  Our emotions and thoughts operate at the edges of known science, and have proven in the past to be extremely powerful.

 

We could, if we wanted to, create“super-consciousness” – many would argue that it already exists.  I believe that a “supernatural” storm of chaotic thought IS raging around our minds, and that it exists in spite of the existence or non-existence of any one individual of the human race.  The sum total of our consciousness has its “own” existence.

 

In the event of our individual physical death, our actions, both physical and mental, leaves a footprint in the primordial mud of the collective (un)conscious.  We DO matter – however little.  We cannot tread this earth without leaving a footprint, and we cannot live without creating a causal chain.  All our actions do have consequences, even after our deaths.  These consequences cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called conscious and justified consequences.  Causality is blind and amoral.  Karma has no personality or makes no judgment.  The law of action-reaction will be applicable to your actions every which way.  If one could follow any chain of events long enough, one would see the resolution of the original action – the “retribution” visited on the original “sin”.

 

What normally bothers us is that this cannot be personal or individual.  While there is a consequence to every action, it is not necessarily experienced by the individual originator, and therefore the bad guy STILL gets away.  We are still losing out here.

 

The easy way out would be to run to God again.  To try and convince all that the Scales of Justice, the Lord of Karma, the Creator of the Universe is a personality – following all our individual acts and misdemeanours – and ensuring that we pay for our digressions from the Golden Rule.  This course of action, whilst very popular, has been proven to be ineffective.  It does not even prevent its followers from murdering, stealing or lying.  The majority of people in the world profess to be religious.  That means that most of the crimes committed in the world are committed by people believing in a god and a set of god-driven rules.

 

The truth is still out there.  It is not a supernatural version of ourselves with superpowers.  It is not a pagan demigod or nature spirit sitting in judgment of our lives.  It is an impersonal law of cause and effect, fashioned into a moral code by the collective efforts of our own consciousness.  And its success or failure as a code of conduct relies on our collective focus and will to give it structure.  Our unenlightened actions will diminish its efficacy.  Enlightened and informed actions, on the other hand, define and refine it.  We are, in the final analysis, the architects of our own future.  And the more enlightened the architect, the more enlightened the structure.  And the more enlightened the structure, the closer it will be to the truth.  The only instruction “given” to us by the universe is to evolve.  Life is a process of “upward motion”.  Life, in its essence, stands juxtaposed towards the rest of the “lifeless” universe by its very nature.  Life creates order out of chaos, sense out of non-sense and fusion out of disintegration.  Life is an anomalous phenomenon if viewed in relation to the massive, “lifeless’ universe.  Where there is life, there is hope.  This cliché becomes all the more relevant in an expanding universe.

 

Life must recognize the value of itself within itself, and through its innate ability to evolve and procreate, formulate the rules for its continued existence.  Everything that threatens life, should be countered or avoided, and everything that supports or improves the chances for life, should be supported.  In life is the answer to the universe’s questions. If life ceases to exist, so will the possibility of universal enlightenment.  Our original program on cellular level is to live and grow from floating to swimming, from crawling to walking, from down to up.  And the anomalous spark of life must be kindled, protected, and grown into a bonfire of universal light.  Where light is, darkness cannot be.  And if light becomes all-pervasive, even shadows will disappear.

 

This enlightenment cannot be achieved by a constructed god outside of our reality. It can likewise not be achieved by a denial of the infinite within our reality.  It can only be achieved by the collective effort of all life – striving to evolve and procreate, of continuing existence until all life achieves consciousness of self and all other life.  Such a broad and focuses consciousness is and entity of immense power – greater than the sum of its parts.

 

And the only rule such consciousness can operate under is the law of causality and karmic responsibility.  Act with awareness – any action taken will have a consequence for the collective consciousness – it will either help or hinder the evolution of life.  And by developing one’s own consciousness, by becoming more enlightened, one can achieve the wisdom in recognizing and action as helping or hindering.  And as one achieves such a level of understanding, then one must share that knowledge, in order to assist another particle in this collective consciousness to achieve more knowledge and wisdom until a situation of “critical mass” is achieved where the evolution of consciousness will speed forward to its final conclusion.  What that final conclusion is?  We do not know – just as we do not know why and how the initial anomalous spark of life came to be.

 

Humankind is simultaneously a very diverse and a very similar group of beings.  Cultural, linguistic, social and political views might set us apart, but our common need to explain our existence and our place in the universe bind us together.  In spite of the varied explanations we come up with, we tend to follow the same general path in our search for knowledge.  As much as we differ in our point of departure, our processes of reason and enquiry often brings us to the same destination.  This being the case, departing from the same platform should bring us even closer to an agreed destination.

 

I am setting at my point of departure as few as possible markers, trying to limit myself to the common denominators in our views of the universe and our place in it.  This might doom my attempt to general appeal into the doldrums of cliché, but it might also create a foundation for fresh insight into old themes.  Optimistically, I will aim for the latter.

 

At the outset, I wish to limit my observations to the realm of the known universe.  Conjecture about any “existence” prior to the manifestation of our current universe, or projections about its eventual demise, are in the realm of the currently unknowable, and therefore nonsensical.  Agnosticism in its broadest definition will rule at the two “ends” of the universe.  I use “unknowable” and not “unknown”, as “unknown” is very much part of my journey.

 

Let us start with the clichés. The cliché is a very good place to start, because in a cliché, as in a parable or myth, a lot of truth may be hidden.

 

Cliché #1 - We have life:

 

While we may hypothesise about the origins, the definition of where “crystalline replication” turns into “reproduction” or when life turns into “non-life”, we tend to agree that we are, along with most of biological nature around us, very much alive.

 

An interesting point about life is that it is actually a universal anomaly.  If we observe the known universe, we will find that the odds for life are so long that it borders on the infinitesimal.  The odds of us being alive and the odds of us traveling at the speed of light are probably very similar.  Yet, here we are.  Further observation will show that the only current empirical proof of life (as we know it) exists right here, on our little planet.

 

We are, for all practical purposes, alone in the universe in our “aliveness”.

 

Life is even more anomalous when we observe that it tends to grow, evolve and become ever more complicated. The “non-living” universe tends to operate the other way around.  It tends towards entropy or dissolution – breaking apart, becoming a vast spread out sum of its constituent parts.  Whatever primary cause one might believe in, it is generally accepted that at the “Beginning” the universe was a kernel of infinite density, infinite mass, and in a way, infinite complexity – being the seed of all we know condensed into a pinhead.  Whether this seed was in the mind of God or not is immaterial, as such conjecture falls into our agreed realm of “currently unknowable” or “nonsensical”.  Most of the universe, including the mineral kingdom, is slowly deconstructing into chaos.

 

In the midst of this massive pool of deconstruction, appear the rudiments of life.  Anomalous at the outset, it evolves into something downright ludicrous when viewed against the odds.  If we knew how improbable life was, we would have placed our bets elsewhere.

 

In its improbability lies its immense potential.  Life has the ability to interact with its environment in a way that is impossible for any other part of the material universe.  It can adapt and evolve.  It can explore and improve.  And in the end, it can build and break down in a way unique to itself –but as it uses the same building blocks it is subject to the same natural laws.

 

Life alone can acquire consciousness.  And consciousness is a catalyst to the acquisition of knowledge.  And knowledge is power.  And too many clichés might spoil the primordial soup – I abstain from further exploitation of this literary tool for the time being.

 

Life seems to have one overriding “instruction” in its original program – continue living.  Because a closed system moves to a state of entropy, and life uses the same building blocks, its active and complex state is finite.  All living entities will eventually die and decompose.  The original program to continue living then becomes essential.  Life uses a number of “tools” to continue itself: duplication, procreation and evolution.  Evolution becomes the driving force in this toolbox – it secures survival, which in itself facilitates further evolution.  Again, whether this evolution might come from the “mind of God” in some of the readers’ view is still immaterial to the argument at this point.  I have to apologise that I tend to qualify my statements with “god references”.  I am trying to keep the majority with me (part of my aim of “common denominators” on page 1 – I will have to complete the journey with this qualification lest I be untrue to my stated aim!)

 

We generally accept that Homo sapiens are the most highly evolved species on our planet, and the current pinnacle of planetary biological success.  Our brains are capable of a myriad of functions, our eyes and hands have developed into highly functional tools with the capability of nuanced vision and fine motor skills respectively.

 

In short, life has had great success in creating a life form capable of interacting with the universe on a level of complexity that could (if we play by the rules) assure its survival at least until the end of time.

 

Cliché #2 – We can acquire knowledge:

 

Because of the development of our brain, we have achieved the capability to observe, recognise and classify.  We can not only have conditioned and instinctive response, but we can learn by assimilating information and ordering our thoughts and experiences rationally.  While we are not the only species capable of learning, we are exceptional compared to our closest competition.

 

We are very good in recognizing patterns, and then predicting the outcome of “new” phenomena depending on the recognition of a previously observed pattern.  This kind of knowledge and understanding sets us apart, and gives us the capability in explaining the universe around us in a much more reasoned way.  It also sets us up for the development of science and technology – a very useful “side effect” of evolution.  It is this capability that also allows us to take observed physical laws and apply this knowledge to other, deeper and more intangible parts of the human condition. 

 

Cliché #3 – We have consciousness:

 

While the definitions of consciousness are varied and multiple, it is once again a generally accepted truth that we have it.  We have “knowledge” of self.  We recognise ourselves in a mirror, and as we grow up, we become more aware of our ego and our individuality in a process of developing self-awareness and consciousness.

 

The problem with consciousness is that it seems to be bound to our physical body and capabilities – if one accepts the conventional scientific view.  It is purely a side effect of reasonably advanced biological existence, and has no manifestation divorced from biological life.  That said, the jury is still out on the definition of life and life-force.  If “life” was purely an electromagnetic impulse that shocks some biomass into activity, then the Frankenstein experiment would be real, outside of Mary Shelley’s work of fiction.  The possibility of science achieving “god status” also currently falls into the realm of the unknown.

 

Thus: we are conscious because we are.  Apologies to Descartes.  While we cannot agree on the definition, we agree that consciousness is.  What we cannot prove, is that consciousness exists as a force outside of our personal experience of space and time.  Work by Jung, anecdotal evidence, concepts like synchronicity, simultaneous discoveries worlds apart and cross-continental evolutionary jumps seem to indicate the possibility of a collective (un)conscious existing.  A planetary consciousness, if you will.  Philosophically, this is an extrapolation of the Platonic Idea/Form.  The Jungian archetype and possibly quantum mechanics could fall into this category of near non-measurable energy.  I realise that lumping quantum with Platonic Ideas could incur the wrath of the physicists, but I ask that you give this some right-brain time…

 

 

With these three clichés as a point of departure, I would like to go back to pin a few more thoughts on the qualities of life. Life is the precursor to knowledge and consciousness.

 

As I have said, life seems to be a universal anomaly.  It uses the building blocks of the physical universe to build itself an interactive tool or interface.  Life wants to live.  The physical universe wants to die.  This creates tension.

 

Life becomes ever more complex, the material universe gets simpler.  Macroscopically, the universe seems to follow the 2^nd law of thermodynamics, while life tries to negate it.  Life has this one instruction – live.  In order to fulfill this instruction, life evolves. Evolution is a very effective way to ensure survival.  In this way, life keeps on breaking the 2^nd law by becoming ever more complex in an environment that is tending towards chaos.

 

But because it uses the same building blocks, it falls victim to the same “disease” – dissolution – or – in the case of life – death.  Death is the great antithesis of life and in the case of conscious life, its greatest enemy.  In order to fulfill its original program, life has to overcome death.  In overcoming death indefinitely, it will score its final goal for the life team.  The current way of cheating the universe is by evolution and procreation.  Life replicates itself by spawning young – and in that way, lives “forever”.  Everything that hinders life is therefore “bad” for life and anything that supports life is “good”.  It is obvious that an evolved being will start formulating good-for-life and bad-for-life into a more coherent system.  A more evolved being has a better chance of survival, and using intellect to create ever more complex systems of behaviour and physical substance, will put more distance between itself and entropy.

 

Life also has the ability to interact with the universe.  It can move itself, move things, speed up or slow down physical processes.  It can change the odds.

 

It is clear that a system bent on entropy will keep doggedly on its path of self destruction – it is life’s responsibility to fight entropy for survival.

 

Entropy = non-life = darkness = chaos = evil.  And life = good.  In Neo-Marxist thought, the final struggle is our fear of the Great Unknown – death.  That is why our value system equates life with good and death with bad or evil.

 

For life to beat the odds permanently, it must achieve survival beyond the end of the universe.  To achieve that, it must find a way to exist without the building blocks of this universe.  If existence only equals existence in this physical universe, then no existence is possible outside it.  But if life can continue its existence in spite of the odds, it will keep on evolving into a higher and more complex form.  A higher and more complex form will have higher understanding and consciousness, higher chance of survival, better chance of making the right decision, more freedom of will, longer and longer life… we can already see these traits in man.  Life needs to break the bonds of the material universe to fulfill its destiny.  This urge to break the bonds translates into many forms – one of which is theism and religion.  God represents life cheating death – consciousness transcending space-time – good conquering evil.  Reason, logic and science fail to address our basic fear of death, but science is constantly striving to extend life.  All science is bent on improving our quality of life – even better war machines are tools to ensure the survival of its handler against its adversaries.  Our ultimate aim is to beat death at its own game.

 

Science, economics, morality, ethics and religion are all evolutionary steps towards “eternal life”.  Gospel authors got it right to a degree:  I am the way the truth and the life.  Choose me and choose eternal life.  The wages of sin is death.  If we study our ethics/religions and such – it becomes clear that all actions that may harm our ability to survive are frowned upon and condemned and actions construed as supporting our chances of survival are promoted.

 

To achieve this state of grace we need to evolve our three clichés to their respective pinnacles: Perfection of life: Evolution is constantly working towards that aim, as well as our scientific development in the fields of longevity and disease control. Perfection of Knowledge: again – science and technology as a result of evolution are working towards the acquisition of knowledge.   While these two are doing their bit for the development of life and mankind, it has – to date – failed to achieve life’s logical and ultimate aim – to continue indefinitely.  It has failed to break the bonds of our material universe.  We live every day as if we are immortal, and we deny death by chasing mirages in the dense world of matter.  To achieve life’s quest, we have to attain Perfection of Consciousness:  It is my view that only the awareness of higher consciousness has the potential to break the bondage of entropy. Only higher consciousness can escape the cycle and escape the physical universe.

 

And to break the cycle one needs to break the law of karma.  Break the cycle of causality.  How – do no harm, evolve your consciousness, and become more aware, teach yourself to cope with less and less of the earthly trappings of life.  Train your body to live longer on less.  Each following generation will have these traits in more abundance and so on and so on.  Until the Superman – Nietzsche was right?

 

In other words – be the cause of nothing.  Leave no footprints.  If one lives non-causally, one escapes the effects of cause.  If you do not smoke, you probably will not die of lung cancer.  Live karma-free, and help to break the cycle.

 

While this sounds extremely Buddhist, there is a significant difference.  In Buddhism, the final aim is to be “absorbed” into a “sea of calm” – into a “death of individuality” or even a “nirvana of unconsciousness”.  This cannot be the aim of life.  It is just another form of dissolution.  It might be a peaceful one, rather than a chaotic one, but it is dissolution nonetheless.

 

The only way to really cheat death is to remain conscious after biological/material death as an individual consciousness.  Unconscious existence equals no existence.

 

If we view this rationally, we have to accept that there is no proof that such a consciousness is at all possible.

Anecdotal “evidence”, religious tracts, shamanic trance states – all these express our inner desire to cheat the 2^nd Law and it gives hope to millions, but we have still to establish one verifiable instance of such and existence.

 

So?  My point?  My point is that the potential for eternal consciousness already exists in an extremely verifiable form, and that a code of conduct to ensure its survival is available to all who would listen.  There is hope for humanity and the universe without hanging on to irrational and illogical forms of worship and spiritualism.

 

Our capacity for acquiring knowledge and recognizing patterns are called for here.  If you go back to my earlier points this should be clear.  There is a clear ascending line in evolution and the acquisition of knowledge.  Life – in the form of the human being – is extremely complex and adaptable.  The potential of the human mind has hardly been tapped.  If we accept the natural laws as part of our existence, and our capacity to withstand its “negative” impact as a species, we can achieve our potential.  We may not continue to exist in our current form, or in any currently recognizable form, but life – as a most wonderful side effect of the “creation” of the universe – has showed an ability to beat the odds time and again.

 

If we obey the law of karma, expand our knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics, the biosphere and the expanding universe, we have the ability to find the answers.  If we make every decision with the continuation of life as our First Law, the rest follows.  No moral code, government or corporation needs to do anymore than that.  Truly realise that the species cannot continue to escape the law of causality – the chickens will come home to roost and the “sins of the fathers” will have its effect on the children.  Accept that we are a universal anomaly and that any action that will affect the potential to continue beating the 2^nd law will harm our future.  Then the linear progression of developing consciousness and acquiring knowledge can take its course.  In order to eventually “beat” time we need lots of it to develop our “time beating” skill.

 

The question is:  are our current tools doing a good enough job or are we too arrogant in our selfish action to realise that we also have the potential to wipe out all existence?  In the final analysis it is the developing of a universal consciousness – a true understanding of our anomalous existence and our place in space-time – that will give us the humility necessary to do our job properly.  Trusting in a god to pull us out of the fire is probably the worst thing we can do.  It gives us a license to kill, destroy and exploit – the deus ex machina will fix any mess we can make – not so.  We still have enough time to fix the mess as long as we develop an understanding of karma and consequence.  We have the knowledge of good and evil – it depends on how we apply that knowledge.  We are special, as life forms, but we are part of a very complex and convoluted chain of energy that stretches back to the first one-celled creature and forward to the Nietzschian Superman.  In order to achieve that state, we must not only reduce our carbon-, but also our karmic footprint.  Karma has to vanquish dogma.  Tolerance must overcome intransigence and knowledge replace ignorance.  Just like monotheism was a positive human development to rid us of the unfocused meanderings of animism, polytheism and shamanism, so must monotheism give way to a universal humanistic form of consciousness to achieve the next step of development.  While saying this, we must also understand that in these dated forms of belief are the seeds of the new consciousness.  The concepts of life vs. non-life, justice, overcoming fear, loving your neighbour, living a karma-free existence can all be found in some form in our religions.  Those are all positive traits that will further the developments of life.  We will not overcome the old faiths with ridicule and activism, but rather with tolerance and understanding.  Destruction will be counterproductive.  Sensitive countering, education, breeding tolerance within religions for each other and also for non-theism and anti-theism will expand our consciousness.

 

An expanding consciousness will result in a more developed sense of self and the universe – and eventually – who knows – the ability for life to cheat death.  We cannot put our trust in Faith, but we should definitely place our trust in Hope.

 

Pandora released Hope amongst all the evil things in the Golden Age.  That parable rings truer than many other corrupted versions of the creation myth.  These myths and legends have a powerful message to humanity – and if read and viewed with higher consciousness – can actually assist us in the pursuit of happiness.