An imaginary conversation with an adolescent friend about why we’re not getting it right. (Friend in italics.)
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Palpatine exposed!
Resistance to undemocratic rule. That’s what made me think of you. Rule that tries to tame people? Exactly. By forbidding them to question anything, especially asking Why. Asking for explanations that might reveal stuff that undemocratic rule doesn’t want people to know. Doesn’t want them to talk about. By hogging all the power and not sharing it.
Not sharing power is bad when someone else is doing the hogging. Uh huh. But terrific when you’re doing it. There’s just something about Palpatine. . . I was thinking that the book I almost got you(1) might put Mr. Palpatine in a different light where he belongs. How so? By tying Star Wars, an entertaining myth, to not-entertaining facts that it’s based on. The darkness of rule that rules for itself. That takes rather than gives. Harms rather than helps. That’s not romantic or amusing.
Its captives in reality don’t have X-wing fighters and Jedi Knights with supernatural powers for protection. They’re usually fearful, submissive conformists until they figure out how to take back their rights. And share power. And be persons with personalities, talents, passions, and creativity. Minds of their own, thinking for themselves and not afraid to speak out.
The beast waiting in the wings
What’s wrong with just doing what you’re told? Or leaving everything to chance? Isn’t that easier? Not really. Take away independent judgment and there goes free will. There go values, character, responsibility, and accountability. Individuality and personhood. Spontaneity, creativity, and fun. What’s left? You’ve turned yourself over to your reverse mirror-image reflection. To Mr. Hyde and his mask of sociability, Dr. Jekyll. To mindlessness, the safe haven for Mr. Hyde. All that’s left is captivity to a delusion: the “freedom” of a predator-beast that can act by instinct and doesn’t need to think at all.
Not the kind of freedom I want! Me neither. Star Wars was right: there is a dark side -- opposites. Any time we decide not to think for ourselves we’re betting that our opposite won’t hear an invitation to move in. That we haven’t turned our minds over to something that doesn’t belong there. An unfriendly beast pretending to be friendly.
The losing bet
Aren’t games and competition a kind of gambling? Doesn’t taking chances make life more interesting? Sure. Risk is essential to creativity as well as gambling. It’s unavoidable.
But “action” divorced from creativity has a serious downside. Turning ourselves into “winners” and “losers” messes with self-worth – our own and others’. Competing for “supremacy” in a shared world is an impossibility that detaches us from reality. From awareness of anything but our own needs and our own feelings. It makes us inaccessible to those who care for us and need us – emotionally and often physically too. Going over to the dark side. Yes. That’s how Adam Skywalker became Darth Vader. The lure of a delusion: “supremacy.” And the selfishness, insensitivity, and cruelty that goes along with it.
Competition that we fail to manage eventually manages us. Consumes us like gambling and other addictions. Meantime, there are better ways to occupy ourselves, like seeking inspiration in work that’s productive. Using our talents for causes that support self-worth without risking it. That’s where the fun is. Not entertainments like competition that degenerate into obsessions. That idolize “winning” at the expense of loving relationships.
It takes experience
Authoritarian rule is mistaken identity. A wrong turn in the road with unhappy consequences. Harmfulness That ruins lives from the inside out as well as from the outside in. You might not see the hurt but it’s there, and it can last a lifetime. The Star Wars rebels were adventurous, hopeful, upbeat. The Empire’s victims in our world not so much. Beaten down, despairing. This is what comes through the book? For some readers it might. So that Palpatine will be seen for the bad guy he is. Not a temptation to be like him, replacing others’ minds with his so he can exploit them. Disrespect their free will and individuality, do whatever else he wants.
Do you think I’m tempted? You have good intentions. You want to be your own person and make your time count. To do the best that you can and be good. But there’s not enough track record to answer that. Many of us do give in to temptation when we start using our own judgment. When we give up being guided and protected by grownups. It takes more than good intentions to keep that from happening. You and everyone who cares about you need to be vigilant.
Getting it right with Love
What does it take? Awareness of the difference that only comes with experience. Awareness of what goes into good character. Always a work in progress since we’re no better than our last decision and every day is a test.
Were you ever tempted? I never took fantasies about super powers seriously. Family, school, and church made my life satisfying enough. All three put a high value on learning and sharing. On competition, too, but the emphasis wasn’t on making the other guy lose. It was on striving and excelling. On competing with myself to continually do better. It was all part of learning and growing to maturity. To find equality and compassion in my relationships. That serves my needs and others’ instead of the distancing of superiority and dominance that only serves number one.
The main emphasis was on thinking for myself and asking questions. Understanding that our world is a shared world and all the good in it is based on sharing. On everyone winning. On Love? Yes. Love that’s directed when we use our own minds to make sense of things with logic. When we at least have an idea what we’re doing. Getting it right.
A source of help
My mind was good enough at figuring things out at school and work. It was a while before it got serious about personal stuff. Psychology and relationships. My mom and dad role modeled being dutiful, generous with service to the community, respectful of character and good values. My mom and both grandmothers centered their lives around the example of Jesus.
It took a lifetime of reflection and experience before I could understand why. How come? I couldn’t take others’ word for it. They weren’t making sense. I had to figure it out for myself. With help. From . . . ? From the only source it could come from – my mind. Your Uncle Owen had an extraordinary ability. Teaching himself. Nothing philosophical or psychological like me but new skills like composing music. It might have been different if he had used his sixth sense. That’s where I get help, from intuition.
Courage or madness?
Do I have intuition? Of course. It’s a faculty of the Mind that we all share. Like a portal to insights. But they have to be spontaneous, beyond our control. And their source can’t control us. A source of help that’s good if it’s loving and makes sense. If it respects logic and doesn’t ever mess with our free will. Can’t I just rely on my five senses? That’s what science thinks it does. Philosophy, psychology. Even theology. Yet they all depend on insights from intuition. They just can’t admit it. Why? It’s not “scientific” if it can’t be verified by the body’s five senses.
Ridicularity! Huh? The body’s senses are great with appearances. They’re amassing mountains of “information” and “data” about physical objects while avoiding the only source that can make sense of it. That can say what it means. Mind. Matter that bodies sense keeps telling us to look somewhere else. Why don’t we? The ones doing the looking can’t give up on their bodies’ five senses and the physical environment they think they detect. It’s their security blanket. They worry that any other approach would be un-cool. They’d be risking their careers and their professions. Philosophers, psychologists, and theologists as well as scientists. Taking a risk this big takes either courage, madness, or both.
Different ways of reading the situation
We had just parked across from where we were going and were about to cross the street when you asked a question. I hope you didn’t mind. Not only didn’t I mind, I respected you more for asking it. “No cars are coming so why can’t we cross in the middle of the street?” “If a car hits us there it would be our fault. If it hits us in the crosswalk it would be their fault.” That was your question and my answer. What did we decide? We used the crosswalk and you were fine with that.
That was reasoning. We use reasoning to choose the response that best aligns with what circumstances are telling us. But your question wasn’t about reasoning. What was it about? It wasn’t about choice. It was about paying attention first to what circumstances were telling us. You looked at the situation and saw one thing and I saw another. What did I see? You saw that no cars were coming. What did you see? A crosswalk. The circumstances told you that it wouldn’t matter if we ignored the crosswalk. They told me that it would. We read the situation differently.
Circumstances speak (but do we listen?)
Why didn’t we see the same thing? Because I was letting the circumstances tell me what they meant. What they implied for the choice we were to make where to cross. You were telling the circumstances to mean what you wanted, to take the shortest, easiest route. What mattered to me was to make the right choice. What mattered to you was making the choice be what you wanted, right or wrong. But you accepted my answer. You’re willing to do the right thing even if it isn’t what you want when you’re aware of it. I respect that.
If it wasn’t reasoning what was it? You were “reasoning” backwards from the choice you’ve already made to justify it. The best minds in almost every field do the same thing, so don’t feel bad. It’s “rationalizing” and it’s very common. The faculty of mind I’m referring to is logic. It’s neither reasoning nor rationalizing. What does it do? Something extremely important that all of humanity is bad at. And it accounts for every mess we get ourselves into. Even teachers at school? Scientists? Aren’t they supposed to know everything?
The questionable premise
After his experience with the world’s smartest physicists and mathematicians Albert Einstein said they aren’t good at logic. Really? If he explained why I’m not aware of it. One reason I can think of is that science is founded on a questionable premise. One that compromises the reasoning behind every choice that’s based on it. Another is that its questionable premise bars science from accepting help from the source of the correct premise. Science is thought to be clear-thinking, but Einstein was correct.
The questionable premise is that there is no “realistic” alternative to reliance on sensory perception – our body-brains’ five senses – for distinguishing between what’s real and what’s speculation. This suits experimental science since its scope is limited to physical objects. But it doesn’t suit logic. Logic is an orderly sequence of implications that leads nowhere if it’s thrown out of order by personal or institutional bias. It can’t be controlled. The spirit of Inquiry must be free or it’s not inquiry. It must follow logic wherever it leads from its starting point: an open-ended question without a preconceived answer.
Back to the future
The Greek philosopher Parmenides followed logic wherever it led. Where was that? To the conclusion that there is a logical alternative to sensory perception and it contradicts what our body-brains’ senses are telling us. 2500 years later, after centuries of studying spacetime and matter, physics is beginning to wonder if Parmenides was right.(2)
Why? The behavior of big objects and tiny particles that make up our universe refuses to make sense. Einstein’s equation explaining energy -- E=MC2 -- gave him confidence that he could explain it. But that’s only because energy is part of Mind that gives ideas their expression, even if it’s only appearances in a dream. Mind-energy makes sense; spacetime-matter (appearances) doesn’t. When Einstein tried to explain appearances with another elegant equation he failed. Mind and energy are order interconnected by the implications of logic and by love sharing. Sense. Appearances are the opposite. Nonsense.
Physics is still trying to explain the universe of spacetime-matter. How? By bringing the behavior of cosmic relativity – big objects -- together with the behavior of particle physics – little objects -- into one unified theory. “Quantum gravity.” It’s led to interesting theories. But they’re beyond confirming by experimental physics, and so physics is turning to philosophy for answers.(3) Putting the focus once again on the logic of Parmenides.
Enter sixth sense
Where did Parmenides get his logic? If he told us it went missing with a lot of stuff he wrote. But it must have been important because he called his school of philosophy the “School of Reason.” Or the “School of Logic” which makes more sense. My answer is he got it from his sixth sense. From his intuition? Yes. The same place where Democritus, a contemporary, intuited the existence of atoms. Really? Yes. 2500 years before Einstein confirmed it with experimental physics.
These guys were good at figuring things out. Not exactly on their own, although they did it without experimental physics. They did it with logic that could only be accessed through their sixth sense. With vision that could look behind appearances. It was a new branch of philosophy that Parmenides founded called metaphysics. That tells us what’s real and what’s not by listening to Mind’s intuition rather than being misled by bodies’ brains. To Mind’s sixth sense rather than bodies’ five senses. It was a valid approach then since there was no science to question it. Taken seriously by Plato, the Father of Western Thought, among others.
What metaphysics found
What did metaphysics find when it looked behind appearances? That they’re made up like a dream. An illusion like a magician’s trick. Our alternate reality? Yes. A few other philosophers have since come to the same conclusion. Berkeley, California is named after one of them -- Bishop Berkeley. The logic of self-awareness taught by Jesus with love demonstrated our world’s unreality with his miracles. He later explained why in an extraordinary book, one of a kind.(4) A teacher named Valentinus understood the message and shared it with his pupils in second-century Rome, many centuries before the book appeared.
Free Will compromised
Amazing! Jesus explained the origin of the universe? Its psychological roots, yes, since it involved relationships and events that can only happen within Mind that thinks them. Mind that’s always existed, where something went wrong. Not the part that contributes growth to Creation – the Mind-Parent -- but the part that contributes Free Choice – the Mind-Child. A choice made under difficult circumstances. That couldn’t have been intentional or free but a choice, nonetheless. Why, if it wasn’t free or intentional? Because the Child-Mind that made it is choice whether free-conscious or not-free unconscious.
Free of interference when it’s conscious. The difficult circumstances were all caused by loss of consciousness that Jesus hasn’t explained. A previous mistake though it may have been a necessary part of the Child’s training. An inevitable consequence of introducing Free Choice into the evolution of Creation. Yet it was definitely error. The Child’s Will that we all share will always be Free in Reality. But in our alternate reality the error -- a wrong choice -- is obstructing it. It must be corrected.
The obstruction
The obstruction is the apparent separation of Child from Parents. “Apparent” because it couldn’t happen in Reality but anything can “happen” in unreality. Why does the separation matter? Because it’s the reason why humanity continues to look for answers in the wrong places. Why it keeps failing with every new “solution” to its problem: its inability to move forward as one rational, loving family in peace and harmony. To solve its problem of fear, condemnation, guilt, jealousy, paranoia, and hatred.
How can separating Parents from Child cause all this? Because of the parts they play in Creation. Creation is process and structure. Each divided into one part that comes before and the other that comes after. Parents responsible for the first part, Child responsible for Free Choice in the second part. Their Relationship is responsible for everything that expresses the Life and Worth of Creation and Mind in the second part. The apparent separation sent the Child’s responsibilities into an alternate reality and left the Parents’ responsibilities behind.
Missing context
What responsibilities is our alternate reality missing? The responsibility of Mind-Parents is to extend Logic’s thinking-implications and to expand Love’s sharing-relationships in a continuous, open-ended flow of changing circumstances. Like evolution? Yes. Infinite evolution, for no implication or relationship can bring the process to an end. Not so long as definitions require what isn’t to help define what is. Evolution in the eternal Now – timelessness. This is the raw material of Creation. A Reality unlike ours that has no beginnings and endings, just the orderly sequence of Logic’s implications and Love’s sharing.
The Parents do something else. Before circumstances reach their Child they’re given context by Logic and Love. So that Free Choice can hear what circumstances are telling it about their meaning and purpose. So that Mind-Child can get the situation right before it freely chooses how Parents-Child together can respond to what the situation calls for. Before the Worth of Life and Creation implied by context can be affirmed, earned, expressed, and reciprocated. The Worth of Mind: the Creator and first circumstance.
Missing the attributes of definition
The role of Logic and Love going into the shared act of Creation is to give it the attributes of definition that it will need going out. Meaning and purpose. So that Mind-Parents can perform the last act: definition that brings new functions into Reality and service. With meaning and purpose that blend in seamlessly with the meaning and purpose of all the elements of Creation performing as one. In the context of circumstances at that point in its evolution.
Without the part played by Logic and Love in Reality, the raw material for creation here lacks the necessary attributes of definition. Every field of inquiry struggles with meaning and purpose. Struggles with changing circumstances, not because they can’t choose with reasoning and evaluation but because, without guidance from Logic and Love, they can’t make sense of the situation. Can’t get the context right.
Destination: progress or paralysis?
And so their choices, misguided by sensory perception, circle back to square one. Risking not only progress but survival. Theories abound. But under the domination of bodies’ five senses, with determined resistance to Mind’s sixth sense, they can’t breach self-delusion’s fortress of denial.
The context for alternate reality, then, isn’t the raw material for Creation. It’s the condition implied by the absence of forward movement supplied by Logic’s implications and Love’s sharing. Extension and expansion. Growth. Disguised by “movement” that’s going in circles, nowhere. Until the logic of going nowhere reaches its destination: paralysis.
Then if we accept the gift of Mind’s sixth sense, If we let it guide us back to the Logic of Parmenides and to the Logic-Love of Jesus, we will get our context right. Its meaning and purpose, so that we can then choose correctly how to respond and move forward. Yes. The book by Jesus gives us a head start. All it takes to reverse the error, restore Self-Awareness, and resume Mind-Child’s role in Creation, is one individual getting it right.
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- Chantal Montellier, Social Fiction (New York Review Comic, 2023). Not for children or early adolescents
- Adam Becker, “The Origins of Space and Time,” in Scientific American (February 2022 pp. 26-33)
- Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity (Riverhead Books 2017)
- A Course in Miracles (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1976)