Quantum Consciousness 2: Empathy & Entanglement

It is fair to say that our global civilization now finds itself at a critical crossroads of development, both in terms of natural resources, material systems, as well as modes
of thinking – a physical and psychical criticality. It thus becomes
imperative that we orientate our perceptive faculties in favour of the
potential evolutionary transformation of human consciousness. In recent
years our western societies, at least, have developed in detriment to
conscious evolution. This is one of the major reasons behind the
cultural failings of our critical times. There has been little
preparation, discussion, and research into how humanity, both physically
and mentally, can deal with great change when it disrupts both
scientific and religious belief systems. In our material age there is a
tendency to dismiss spiritual concerns as realms of fantasy; likewise,
those people of spiritual leaning often dismiss science as being
inadequate to guide us into the future. Thus, a great amount of our
energies have been channelled into creating an unstable and radically
polarised world. What is required, however, is a reconciliation of the
scientists with the humanists (C.P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’) and a
combination of research and energy into stimulating a progressive
understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of our species. In the
worst case scenario we could face a process of devolution; it is my
contention, however, that this will not be the case. Part of our dilemma
though rests in our blindness over how our mental and perceptual
faculties operate.

The human brain as a collection of nerve cells operates like a multi-layered frequency receptor. Due to initial conditionings early on in life each receptor becomes wired to perceive a particular wave
frequency. As the brain’s receptors tune-in to a particular pattern of
frequency waves a ‘pattern recognition’ response is received by the
brain and interpreted according to the perceptions allotted to the
frequency. In other words, the act of tuning in involves picking-up
familiar frequency patterns out of the ocean of frequencies that
surround us constantly. By tuning into the same patterns again and again
we are reinforcing a particular reality-set. We are thus tuning into a
consensus reality pattern unconsciously and forming our perceptions
continually from this. Unfamiliar patterns often get ignored since they
do not fall within our receptor remit. Perceptions are thus formed
moment by moment as the brain constantly scans the bands of frequencies
that surround us; yet we are often unaware that we are filtering from a
limited set of perceptual patterns. However, if this pattern-recognition
behaviour does not evolve over time our perceptual development is in
danger of becoming stalled. The result is that we become fixed – or
trapped – within a particular reality. This is why human development
requires that we move through various paradigm shifts in order to
evolve our collective thinking/perceptual patterns. In other words, our
development rests upon simultaneous biological processes as well as
psychical. According to noted consciousness researcher Gopi Krishna, the
‘maturing of the nervous system and the brain is a biological process,
depending on a host of psychic and material factors’ (Krishna 1999: 56).

The vulnerability of this process is that we become too accustomed to particular perceptual patterns and ignore other sensory inputs or influences. Also, as a species we have been collectively un-informed
about methods obtainable to shift among various frequency bands and
patterns. This knowledge has been available within various wisdom
traditions (such as shamanism and occult and mystery schools) yet kept
out of the public domain. The end result is that we become fixed and
dogmatic in our sensory ‘beliefs’ and cling desperately to the small
section of reality we perceive as the whole. Yet the human brain, and
nervous system, is flexible enough to shift between frequency patterns
and to interpret ‘realities’ beyond the consensual pattern. In past
generations many mystery schools considered humankind too immature to
undertake such training – hence the need for rigorous and strict
initiation rituals and testing. This embargo on such knowledge and
techniques has helped foster the domination of materialistic science to
the point whereby we are taught to dismiss subjective and intuitive
impulses and experiences. However, it has now become an evolutionary
necessity that our dominant reliance upon material pursuits be balanced
with an increase in consciousness research that supports the significant
role of a ‘shared mind’: in other words, collective empathy.

There has been much talk on the Internet as to the emerging paradigm of the ‘global brain’ and of the growth of planetary empathy. Systems philosopher Ervin Laszlo defines the global brain as ‘the quasi-neural
energy – and information – processing network created by six and a half
billion humans on the planet, interacting in many ways, private as well
as public, and on many levels, local as well as global’ (Laszlo 2008:
intro). On this physical level there is already a great deal of
information-exchange occurring at ever-increasing speed. Emerging social
networks (such as Facebook and MySpace); collaborative news sites with
large commentary base (such as The Huffington Post) are also developing
empathy-at-a-distance between worldwide users. In this context there is
already underway a transformation in the relations between a significant
number of people in the world. Yet now hard-science is taking these
developments further by positing that people are increasing not only
their emphatic relationships with each other but also their
entanglement. This view has recently been corroborated by neuroscience
with its finding of ‘mirror neurons’.

A ‘mirror neuron’ is a brain neuron that is activated (‘fires’) when a living being (such as humans and other animals such as primates and mammals) observes the action of another. In other words, if an
individual watches another person eat an apple, then the exact same
brain neurons will fire in the person observing the action as if they
themselves were performing the act. Such neuron behaviour has been found
in humans to operate in the premotor and inferior parietal cortex. This
phenomenon of ‘mirror neurons’ was first discovered by a research team
in Italy in the 1990s when studying the neuronal activity of macaque
monkeys. This discovery has led to many notable neuroscientists to
declare that mirror neurons are important for learning processes
(imitation) as well as language acquisition. In more modern general
terms we might also say that this capacity is what ties a person in
sympathy and empathy to another’s situation. It may also explain why
people become so emotionally attached to events on television, and even
cry in response to watching someone crying on the screen. In this way we
are emotionally entangled through a mirroring of brain neuronal firing.
When we also consider that our bodies are entangled through a quantum
field of electrical bio-photon resonance, it explains how we are
affected by and from others – via wave/field interference. This
information is significant when considering a shift towards heightened
empathy between people both near and at-a-distance (via digital
communications) as well as the potential for catalyzing future abilities
for telepathic communication between individuals. Our bodies then, as
well as our brains, appear to function like receivers/de-coders within a
constantly in-flux information field. We can refer to this form of
‘field awareness’ as quantum field consciousness, or simply as quantum
consciousness (since quantum implies non-local field effect).

However, the manifestations of this quantum-field affect (often referred to as the abstract, or ‘soft’, realm of imaginative insights and visions) are usually left to the eccentric artists, mystics, and
fringe creative innovators. Much of our modern minds have been denied
their left-right brain full working and pulled into a tight left-brain
rational functioning that operates as mechanical, linear, competitive,
and narrow. The abstract right-brain, with its magical world of creative
visionary thinking, has been mostly sidelined and laid to rest
(McGilchrist 2009). Much of this right-brain activity was the source for
indigenous wisdom, shamanic practices, and similar traditions that
western materialistic thought has sought to ignore over the years. Often
our own intellectual training conditions us to think of such ‘magical
practices’ as primitive, barbaric, and worthy of little more than
western colonialism and/or re-education. Yet those of us in the
‘civilized’ West, with our left-hemisphere dominated brain, live in the
everyday world of material things and external attractions. We often
picture ourselves as existing as separate forces, as islands in a
chaotic sea of physical and natural impacts, and at the whim of random
neutral influences. Yet we now know that this is not the case, as new
DNA research and ‘hard science’ is showing….[to be continued]