E-Book, Englisch, 401 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-85683-445-5
Verlag: Shepheard Walwyn Publishers
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Kein
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Introduction
A FEW YEARS AGO, after yet another news bulletin consisting almost entirely of stories of conflict or catastrophe, I began to wonder if there is a deeper explanation for why our world seems to be in such a mess. When we are such social animals, why does it seem to be so difficult for people to live together in peace? With so much wealth, why are we unable to ensure that everyone at least has the bare essentials of food, water and shelter they need to survive? Why can’t we strike the right balance in providing sufficient of life’s luxuries today, yet still stop short of damaging the only planet capable of sustaining human life in the future? Why, when almost all of the issues afflicting people worldwide are ultimately man-made, does our species seem to be so intent on inflicting great damage upon itself? Why does global human society seem to be fragmenting as it simultaneously seeks to integrate, and why does it intuitively feel like we are building towards some sort of crescendo which could potentially be catastrophic? Fuelled (as I would later discover) by a distinctively human degree of delusional self-confidence that I could actually answer these questions, I set off on a long journey which would eventually produce this book. Along the way I have discovered that we are all deeply embedded within what scientists call a ‘complex adaptive system’ consisting of a whole array of other such systems, including every human-being, every other animal and every single plant on the planet. As if this wasn’t complex enough, all of our individual attitudes and behaviours are driven by one of the most complex of all such systems – the human brain. So, nested like Russian dolls, these systems all interact with one another, the larger systems exerting downward pressure on their sub-systems, the smaller systems exercising upward influence on the larger systems of which they are part. Through these interactions we effectively co-create the environments we share at every level of our existence. At each level, the interpenetration of individual minds produces a collective mind we might call culture, which becomes crucial when we discover that over 90% of all our thinking is unconscious to us. Schematic memory and our embodied senses contribute to our unconscious cognition but culture also plays a huge role in bringing forth the conditions we create. Culture colours the lens through which we see the world and therefore shapes what unfolds, either by strengthening a dominant worldview or by swimming upstream to offer an alternative perspective. Much of the chaos we are currently experiencing is the result of worldviews which are changing, clashing and competing for global dominance. Part One – Seeing – The Shifting Sands of the Human System explores how culture is both created by and helps to shape human societies, explaining how it is perfectly possible for the contrary operating modes of the brain hemispheres to create cultures which are cognitively imbalanced, contributing to the poor mental health of individuals within them. It also investigates the source of this sickness, identifying the three competing worldviews at the root of global conflict. Finally it considers the characteristics of all complex adaptive systems, especially the two at the heart of this book – the individual human mind and the collective global mind; the latter arising from the interpenetration of the former. In particular it focusses on how complex adaptive systems change by self-organizing to the ‘edge of chaos’, an optimised transition space in which cascading waves of change can evolve such systems to higher levels of coherence and good health. Global human society currently finds itself at the edge of chaos, offering great opportunity for a transformative shift towards peaceful integration but just as likely to result in catastrophic breakdown. The future we bring forth will ultimately depend on how we choose to see the world and on our ability to change the way we think. Unfortunately, there are many features inherent to our 200,000-year-old brains which make this a significant challenge. Part Two – Thinking – The Modus Operandi of an Ancient Brain explores how the human brain works, in particular the opposite yet complementary modes of the right and left hemispheres. While we all use both sides of our brain all of the time, we can and often do develop a preference for one mode over the other so it’s possible for larger groups to become similarly dominated. Part Two further explains the features of our ancient brains which undermine our ability to cope with the increasing complexity of the 21st century, exposing the many foibles, fallacies and flaws in our cognitive equipment. All outer-world manifestations of human thought originate in the brain and Chapter 7 explores how our liberal impulses are the product of the right mind, while our conservative tendencies are created by the left mind. Our political polarities are direct outputs of the opposing modes of the mind, and our personal persuasions the result of our preference for one mode or the other. Globally the culture of scientific materialism, although still dominant and dangerous, is being progressively undermined by a more liberal outlook, leading to increasingly aggressive militarism as reactionary elites seek to consolidate their power bases. However the increasing democratization of data is weakening their grip, emboldening ordinary people to seek greater levels of self-determination. The political, economic and spiritual structures which have scaffolded scientific materialism and the Abrahamic monotheisms are slowly being dismantled, offering the potential to rebuild them from the bottom up. However, overcoming their influence, the damaging effects of social anomie and our deep resistance to change, all present major challenges. Part Three – Learning – Origins and Oscillations of a Global Mind reviews how scientific materialism came to dominate global society and traces the swings in cultural influence of the left and right mind. For over 95% of our existence we lived in egalitarian societies and worshipped ‘earth mother’ deities, only inventing ‘sky father’ gods around 6000 years ago. The advent of patriarchy sent each gender down dual pathways which would lead to differences in the cognitive preferences of men and women. Patriarchal societies ensured the cultural dominance of the left mind, dissociating human-beings from the valuable influence of the right mind, denaturing the human condition and severing the physical, spiritual and social synapses which made people feel whole. Scientific materialism dominated the modern era, reaching its zenith with two World Wars and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. Post-modernism has since deconstructed the modern mind, leaving it fragmented with no clear way forward. Yet, within this intellectual maelstrom an Eastern-influenced ‘organic’ worldview has been growing, and the wide openness of postmodernism offers a potentially fertile soil from which healthy balance could emerge in the global mind. Only the organic worldview can deliver such a synthesis but is our species smart enough to bring forth this outcome? Part Four – Growing – Pitfalls and Possibilities at the Edge of Chaos considers the critical role of consciousness in achieving the coherence required for global human society to elevate to higher levels of harmonious integration. It explores both scientific and spiritual perspectives of consciousness and the degree to which scientific materialism has suppressed our thinking. Only by reconnecting with the right mind can we regain higher consciousness to reconcile science with spirit in whole-mind synthesis. The widespread adoption of the organic worldview is critical to achieving global coherence, yet it still struggles to gain mainstream acceptance due to the adversarial nature of scientific materialism and the major monotheisms, which can never be reconciled in their current form. Only the organic worldview can achieve reunification by radically reshaping how we perceive both science and spirit. Changes to the global human system require genuine democracy and restructuring can only grow from the bottom up. The most vital changes must be made to economic capitalism, which must be counterbalanced by increased social, moral and human capital to moderate its most pernicious effects. There is no single ‘silver bullet’ solution for healing human society but increasing the influence of women is the best option we have for accelerating the harmonious integration of our species. The root cause of our crisis is ultimately the dominance of the left mind in global culture, which continues to be exacerbated by the pre-eminence of men amongst societal elites and the outdated ‘boy code’ to which male children are still raised. However, the legacy of being inadvertently allocated primacy of by far the more powerful brain hemisphere has better prepared girls for the future. The right mind will provide the core capabilities required in an increasingly integrative culture and will give women a cognitive advantage as computer software progressively replicates our left-mind functions. Women therefore have a big role to play in bringing forth a positive future but the benefits for men are also huge, enabling them to become more whole human-beings. The future we collectively create isn’t pre-ordained and we are now reaching a level of global interconnectivity where smart technologies can act as social synapses, sending cascading waves of...
