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by Ingo Swann
20 November 1999
from
BiomindSuperpowers Website
Introductory
Discussions
Two major concepts regarding the basic nature of the superpowers
have dominated Western conventional ideas and thinking patterns
during the modernist epoch.
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First, the recognized superpowers of the
human biomind (such as
represented by the terms telepathy, remote-viewing, clairvoyance,
intuition, and etc.) are thought of as special individual gifts or
special abilities. As a result those abilities are classed apart
from abilities that are seen as more common.
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Second, it is also generally accepted that the
special gifts and
abilities function, when they do, via the brain-mind concept.
However, there is an important distinction to be made between,
(1) the concept of so-called
special abilities, and
(2) certain common abilities
that are suppressed or extinguished by social measures, and
hence are rarely seen.
Indeed, certain abilities that are
common to our species, but which are suppressed by social measures,
would be seen as "special" if they occasionally manifested in
certain individuals or under certain circumstances.
Thus, there are two options regarding how to basically think of the
superpowers:
(1) as special gifts or
abilities; and
(2) as abilities common to our
species, but culturally suppressed by societal measures.
By far and large, thinking patterns of
modern parapsychology have identified with the first option above,
and also with the brain-mind concept.
As it has turned out, however, work undertaken within the auspices
of those two modernist contexts has not yielded very much with
regard to opening up, as it might be put, the information discs
regarding the essential nature of the superpowers.
Many "ordinary" people occasionally experience some kind of
superpower activity, and this brings into question the validity of
the "special ability" idea. It has also proven quite difficult to
locate any actual or precise functioning of the superpowers within
the brain-mind model as so far conceptualized.
Generally speaking, the foregoing represents a fair, if brief,
overview of what has been referred to as Western parapsychology, and
which overview has endured, more or less intact, for about century
thus far.
Nothing new has really been added into this Western
conceptualization, and indeed the mind-set configurations involved
with it have shown themselves to be resistant to such additions.
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One example of such resistance is that the break-through Soviet and
Russian work regarding bio-communications and electromagnetic
bio-information has been successfully avoided.
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Another examples is that Chinese information regarding
certain
energy formats that are obviously associated with different kinds of
Psi phenomena has likewise not been incorporated into the Western
concept.
And the many constituents of the all-important information theory,
which itself is a Western product, has not so far dented the Western
mind-sets which continue to mull about within the limits of their
own concepts.
Additionally, the Western concepts contain a vacuum of information
regarding the roles that awarenesses play with regard to the
superpowers. Something of the nature of this information vacuum has
already been discussed in this database under the general heading of
awareness.
But there are other knowledge vacuums in the Western versions of the
superpowers.
One of these has to do with the idea that the superpowers function
within SYSTEMS that are intrinsic to that functioning.
And so it is the purpose of this set of essays to open up windows of
discussion regarding the hypothetical existence of such systems.
Usual Ideas
About Systems
It can be found that almost everyone has at hand some kind of idea
regarding what a system is.
Thus, although ideas about systems can be quite varied, it seems
that the two most familiar ideas about them are:
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they have something to do with
organizing activities to achieve higher proficiency and
effectiveness;
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that they have sociological
importance with regard to how societies, and corporate units
within them, are managed from the top down.
Be that as it may, although many think
of the existence and the presence of systems, few seem to consider
their ABSENCE, and what goes on or happens because of their absence.
What goes on is generally referred to as randomness and which itself
is a minor form of chaos. Systemization seeks to reduce randomness,
so as to achieve better functioning with regard to whatever.
Psychical and parapsychological researchers have produced quite a
number of ideas, theories, words, and terms regarding the topics of
their interest.
Some of these have come and gone, leaving a sort of historical
residue. Some have been short-lived, some have been jockeyed around
for prestige purposes. Inside those disciplines, intramural prestige
and pismire activities have changed, new directions attempted, and
hostilities among parapsychological players have come and gone.
While some systemization has occurred, it has mainly focused on
acceptable parameters of experimental design, and the application of
statistics regarding the usually minimal appearance of this or that
Psi phenomena.
But no systemization of the various kinds of Psi (superpower)
phenomena has been undertaken - until the emergence of Rhea White
and her wonderful, but arduous attempts to identify the many dozens
of varieties of "exceptional human experience (EHEs)."
In large part, the phenomena, theories, ideas, nomenclature, and
intramural battles of parapsychology have existed in fluctuating and
random states and conditions. Some researchers do not even think
that the Psi powers are capable of being considered in any systemic
way.
This implies that those who intellectually consider the superpowers
via the random parapsychology trajectories must in some sense be
mentally duplicating the randomness, even if unaware of doing so -
this because there is no system to mentally duplicate otherwise.
For hypothetical purposes, it is possible that the superpowers
become activated only by virtue of various kinds of coordination
among many awareness systems.
Indeed, such coordination would be systemic, and therefore would
suffer from any unrealized randomness that might become introjected
into the desired coordination.
It is thus that any approach toward such activation must include at
least some knowledgeable basis not only regarding the nature of
systems, but also the nature of randomness.
The Nature and
Effects of Randomness
As found in most dictionaries, RANDOM is based in Middle English and
Old French words that meant "running a haphazard course." In our
contemporary usage, its major definitions are:
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"Without definite aim,
direction, rule, or method;"
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"Lacking a definite plan,
purpose, or pattern."
Synonyms are HAPHAZARD, which refers to
"what is done without regard for regularity or fitness or ultimate
consequences:"
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CASUAL "suggests working or
acting without deliberate intention, or purpose;"
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DESULTORY "implies a jumping or
skipping from one thing to another ungoverned by method or
system."
In the absence of systems, things
physical, mental, creative, etc., can dwindle down to the point
where they become random, haphazard, casual, desultory messes that
are non-functional, non-constructive, and etc.
This permits whatever is involved to go to rot, slime, and other
odiferous formats of disintegration and ultimate banishment.
Indeed, DISINTEGRATION has the opposite meaning of INTEGRATION,
whose overall sense, somewhat paraphrased here, generally means "to
unite, to form into an organizational whole."
One non-paraphrased definition for INTEGRATION is given as:
"Coordination of mental processes
into effective functioning, personality, or within the
individual’s environments."
The foregoing, painfully extracted from
dictionaries, more or less implies, on the one hand, that if
something is random, or perhaps surrounded by random factors, then
it probably will not undergo effective integration.
On the other hand, the same could also imply that if the something
itself is not INTRINSICALLY integrated, organized, and systematized,
then it is quite likely that it will NOT manifest in ways that would
amount to much.
As will be discussed, the term SYSTEM implies integration of the
factors that comprise it. It also implies that if the factors do not
become systemically incorporated, then they will remain random.
By virtue of the foregoing factors, one can now attempt to
transliterate them with regard to the superpowers.
If one dares to presume that the superpowers are very intimately and
intrinsically associated with different kinds of awarenesses, then
two direct implications are:
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That the mix of superpower-awarenesses-faculties are somehow innately and intrinsically systemic of and
in themselves;
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That if the systemic mix is
cluttered or introjected with non-appropriate random stuff,
including inappropriate mental activity and theoretical
hypotheses, then the systemic mix will accordingly devolve
toward becoming desultory (i.e., non- functional).
Systems Within
Systems
Of course it is to be admitted that there are systems within systems
within systems, and on and on.
This is suggestive of complexities which the general lust for
simplification and over-simplification cannot really accommodate, no
matter how powerful and drooling it is.
At another level of consideration, it can be thought that the entire
cosmos is systemic in various ways, and that all within it is also
somehow fundamentally systemic in nature.
After all, it is difficult to see how something could exist
completely independent of its systemic relationship to other
somethings. Indeed, some past metaphysical writers have hypothesized
that if something is truly independent of all else, then it will go
out of existence.
It is true that many do sometimes realize that interconnectedness
among things does exist.
But the basic idea of interconnectedness AMONG things is not the
same as the more fundamental idea that all things are not only
incorporated within, but are reflective of systems.
An Amusing
Parapsychology Randomness
In order to give some real-time support to the foregoing
discussions, it is necessary to refer to some personal experiences
of my own.
To be begin doing so, it is worthwhile mentioning again that the
concepts of systems play no central roles within the concepts of
modernist parapsychology and psychical research.
Rather, a selection of the more obvious superpower faculties (such
as telepathy, clairvoyance, intuition, etc.) are given names. Each
name is then thought to be a specific ability, and is thereafter
thought to be a thing-in-itself.
The names permit passive awarenesses to differentiate definitions
among and between the NAMES - after which everyone can then assume,
for example, that intuition and remote-viewing, as NAMED, are truly
specific IT-things-in-themselves.
It is, of course, entirely meaningful to differentiate between this
and that thing, and so people overall can become quite good at doing
so.
But the differentiation leads to specializing formats of awarenesses
with regard to each thing that manages to achieve the
differentiating within the awareness contexts of each individual.
What does not achieve the status of having been differentiated
remains ambiguous, confusing, and possibly even cloaked within
assumptions that can be vivid but meaningless.
For a species, such as our own, that has generic qualities of
intelligence and arrays of awareness powers, this differentiating is
not all that difficult to accomplish - especially when applied to
physical and tangible things.
However, when it comes to intangible factors and aspects of our
species and its individually downloaded "units," the processes of
differentiating become much more involved and complex.
One way of easing this complexity is to identify the intangible
factors as IT-things also, and then to attempt to differentiate
among them just as one does with physical and tangible things.
In all fairness, it must be pointed up that psychical,
parapsychological, and energetics researchers constitute the only
segments of our modernist culture that have attempted an examination
of our species intangible factors.
In their attempts they have indeed converted some of the intangible
functioning into IT-things, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, ESP,
precognition, OOBE, and etc., and some of those workers have
recently made an IT-thing of "remote viewing."
Those IT-things, having been identified and given definitions, are
thence interpreted as abilities, or suspected abilities. Experiments
are then organized to examine and reveal their presence.
Subjects are then located to act as percipients of test-situation
targets that will act as stimuli to the given type of intangible
functioning.
If the experiment fails, then there is no further problem. But if it
should succeed, then some crucial questions immediately arise.
For example, the parapsychologists were experimenting with regard to
ESP, and the subject therefore was asked to perceive the target via
ESP. The subject succeeded in identifying or "getting" the target.
Now the problems of differentiation arise. For example,
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Did the
subject indeed perceive the target via ESP?
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Or did the subject get the target by telepathically reading the mind
of the person who selected it?
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Or did the subject go out-of-body in order to perceive the target?
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Or did the subject actually use clairvoyance, or perhaps remote
viewing, or perhaps precognition of what the target would be, or
perhaps some non-specific generic psychic ability such as Psi?
This somewhat amusing scenario is WELL WITHIN the actual experience
of this writer, who acted as a research subject for almost eighteen
years in dozens and dozens of different kinds of experiments.
In any event, IF a subject is successful in an experiment, then what
seems to have happened is that the subject BECAME AWARE of the
target - thus utilizing coordinated KINDS of awareness that
otherwise are not active in those in whom, well, they are not
active.
If the foregoing can be considered as relevant, the scope of the
situation then becomes basically recognizable as a matter of
inactive and active awarenesses systems at the individual level.
In the parapsychological sense, the subject who shows some success
in experiments is demonstrating certain kinds of active awareness
systems existing in addition to those particular awarnesses that are
responsive to physical, tangible, IT-things.
Systems
Tangible and Intangible
At this point, one might examine the existing and known definitions
of SYSTEMS and thereafter assume that one has been sufficiently
apprised about them.
However, modernist knowledge packages have established definitions
for only a very few general categories of systems, and so it is to
those categories that the known definitions apply.
This is to say that our definitions of systems apply to the general
category of,
(1) IT-things that are not only identifiable as being
tangible, but which
(2) are also verifiable by tangible methods or
via logic that utilizes the tangible as a starting point.
The definitions of SYSTEMS are therefore serviceable (and actually
quite elegant) regarding the tangible. But they stop short of a
number of phenomena that cannot be verified and mapped by methods
regarding the tangible.
And so, before dealing with the existing definitions of systems, it
is worthwhile looking at what those definitions do not encompass.
However, the reader is alerted to the fact that the pursuit requires
entry into matters that have for some time and are presently
suspended in various states of confusions typical of randomness -
and this even at the highest scientific and philosophic levels.
This is then to say that discussing what is apparently involved
might at first seem to add to the confusions rather than
ameliorating them.
But before plunging on into various confusions in an effort to ce-confuse
them, there is a fundamental aspect that one, if one wishes to do
so, can carry in mind.
That fundamental aspect is this: IF awarenesses do exist, then it
might logically seem that one of their basic functions would be to
differentiate among this and that - DIFFERENTIATE meaning, of
course, to recognize differences.
IT-Thing
Differentiating
On average, when people refer to a human specimen, they are
generally referring to the IT-thing that is named the bio-physical
body.
Thus, there is first the bio-body - which then becomes dressed with
name, background, various degrees of intelligence, occupation,
profession, status, etc., and all of the other IT-identifiers that
separate bodies into the final result - a personal individual, and
which is indeed named "a person."
If the essential body is thought of in any other way, it is thought
of as its parts - its heart, liver, skin, organs, all of which are
IT-things as is the body Itself.
About the only reason that the internal organs are thought of as
IT-things, and indeed, even thought about AT ALL, is that certain of
them occasionally and ultimately malfunction and one has to go to
doctor/hospital to have them taken care of.
But on the whole, the body is thought of as THE BODY, with special
emphasis on its visible, but superficial, external appearance and
condition. As such, each body is a separate one from all others, and
so each body appears as "individual."
Getting a little deeper, the bio-physical body is thought of as a
physical IT-thing, identified by the IT-thing adjective of "human."
But in thinking of the body as material and physical, the concept
that the body is an animate life form somehow gets rather silkily
slid by without hardly any notice - this with respect to modernist
contexts, anyway.
One of the principal reasons for this is that modernist scientists
have experienced a great failure rate with regard to:
What is called the physical bio-body is
actually NOT composed of physical matter per se. Most exactly put,
it is composed of physical inorganic matter somehow seized upon and
literally drafted into those changes that end up as physical organic
matter.
The modern sciences have so far failed to find any clue, much less
explanations, as to how this significant change-of-state from
inorganic to organic takes place, or even why it does.
This situation is, of course, quite embarrassing within the
overviews of the modern sciences. And the best way to cover up this
professional embarrassment is to avoid bringing it to broad
attention.
The modern sciences are quite good at examining physical inorganic
matter, largely because their underlying philosophy downloads from
the self-limiting doctrines of philosophical materialism.
But even so, the materialistic sciences (together with their
tremendous funding and enormous societal support) have become quite
good within their philosophically imposed limitations.
IF, therefore, the life-force (that is closely associated with
organic matter) was even in some minimal sense composed of matter,
then the modern sciences would by now have discovered this and
already have taken the embarrassing situation somewhat in hand.
The central problem regarding the incapacity of the materialistic
sciences to get a grip on the life force and organic matter was that
whatever is involved apparently consisted of intangible factors.
Here, then, is the old conflict between the VITALISTS (who were
interested in the nature and constituents of the life-force), and
the MATERIALISTS (who were interested in the nature and constituents
of physical matter.)
Now, one subtle, and seldom recognized, factor of this old conflict
needs to be brought into visibility.
Many cutting-edge scientists materialistic scientists capable of
larger-picture thinking have never really denied the existence of
the intangible per se.
The subtle problem focuses on the fact that the SYSTEMS of the
intangible have not been located, identified, and categorized.
Thus, the concept of systems and systematizing would be crucial to
any kind of science - because this leads to the possibility that
maps of the systems and their interwoven phenomena could be made.
And indeed, one of the major definitions of so-called "anomalous
phenomena" refers to the undoubted existence of phenomena which
cannot be incorporated into any so-far known system that would
thereby "explain" them.
Inorganic vs.
Organic
One of the fundamental issues that is apparently involved has to do
with the unacknowledged problem that downloads from the
inorganic-organic division itself.
This unacknowledged problem (one I’ve never found unambiguously
stated) is that the inorganic matter within an organic animated life
form is STILL INORGANIC at the level of atoms, the atoms that make
up the ORGANIC life form.
Thus, the strict division between inorganic and organic is expressed
simply as: Inorganic/Organic
And it is upon this somewhat formulaic concept that the sciences can
duly proceed and maintain their philosophic dignity.
This is to say that inorganic and organic concepts CAN be mounted
upon and supported by the doctrines of philosophical materialism;
i.e., that both inorganic/organic together and separately are
composed of matter.
But with this, yet another inconvenient problem can be encountered -
in that organic matter is associated with LIFE, where as inorganic
matter is not.
But this is the same as saying that the completely NOT understood
principles of LIFE do belong within the formula pointed out above.
The inorganic/organic divisioning thus needs to be altered to
something like:
Inorganic < > life < > organic
Hence, inorganic is life-force minus, so
to speak, while organic is inorganic plus life-force.
Inorganic and
Organic vis-à-vis the Nature of Awrnesses
The purpose of dragging the reader through the foregoing has been to
construct some kind of conceptual framework against which an
important three-part hypothetical question can be posed regarding
the problems of awarenesses:
(a) Do awarenesses belong to the
minus-life inorganic?
(b) Do awarenesses belong to the plus-life organic?
(c) Do awarenesses belong to the life force or the life
principle?
Systems vis-à-vis
IT-Things Incorporated In Them
As a cognitive way of getting further into the topics of this and
subsequent essays, it can be supposed, for hypothetical purposes,
that things are parts of systems. However, if all attention goes to
the parts, then the systemic factors might not ever be noticed.
There are two much over-quoted axiom along such lines, to wit:
(1) If one is in the forest one
will see the trees in one’s immediate proximity, but will
not see the incorporative dimensions or the entire panorama
of the forest itself (i.e., the forest’s bigger picture.)
(2) If one is outside of the forest, on might see its
overall panorama and dimensions, but not see the individual
trees themselves.
The Systemic Nature
of the Organic
At this point, it might seem that the discussions have meandered
afar from the superpowers themselves.
But if for hypothetical considerations it can be thought that
although the superpowers have IT-thing definitions, they may also
have systemic functioning that has never hereto been attributed to
them.
Even so, it would be clear that the superpowers are somehow mixed
into, so to speak, the organic nature of the biomind organism.
The conventional definitions of ORGANIC are found in most
dictionaries and encyclopedias, and so what is to follow cannot be
taken as too off the wall.
If organic matter is composed of inorganic matter, then, as a
fundamental simplicity, it would be understood that both are the
same thing.
Strictly speaking, then, there is no absolute difference between
organic and inorganic matter because both ARE the same thing. And
one is therefore obliged to wonder why the term ORGANIC ever came
into existence.
Those reasons are implicit in the standard definitions of the term
itself.
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ORGANIC: "Having systematic
coordination of parts, i.e., organized; forming an integral
element of a whole."
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An ARCHAIC definition is usually
given in most dictionaries, to wit: "Instrumental."
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INSTRUMENTAL itself is defined as
"serving as a means, agent, or tool."
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In my trusty Webster’s, one runs
across the theory of ORGANICISM, and which is described as:
Well, even in modern times, it is
difficult to view organicism as "a theory" since ipso facto
evidence on behalf of its real existence is continuously present
and even tangible.
The essential elements that stick out of
these definitions are the concepts of "systematic," "instrumental,"
and "autonomous organization of the [instrumental] system."
My Webster’s somehow fails to note that the "autonomous
organization" IS "the system," or, that "the system" IS "the
autonomous organization."
So, system and autonomous organization are the same thing, in some
general fundamental sense, anyway.
These definitions don’t help us very much with the inorganic-organic
confusion - and which was perpetuated before the invention of
electron microscopes, and has not been corrected since.
The element of "system-organized" was accepted as a part of organic
matter, but only in the sense that this was thought of as "organic
molecules," not inorganic atoms.
It isn’t too much to say that atoms were thought of IT-things, the
famous inalterable and indestructible "basic building blocks" of
matter.
However, since the advent of the electron microscopes, it has been
understood that inorganic atoms are NOT "blocks," but highly
organized formats of energies in the forms of waves and frequencies
that are tight super-packages of varying kinds.
AND, the same electron microscopes revealed that the so-called
organic molecules are composed of inorganic atoms. However, the
reason for their conversions from inorganic into organic states is
not yet revealed by the telescopes.
If the reader is now somewhat confused, not to worry - because
indeed so is advancing physics, biology, and chemistry.
In any event, above the deeper level of atomistic confusions, the
conventional definitions of inorganic and organic still hold some
efficiency.
Thus, even if inorganic atoms are not "blocks" but super-compactions
of waves and frequencies (i.e., energies), it is still admitted that
the inorganic atoms possess factors "forming an integral element of
a whole;" and, as well, "having systematic coordination of parts."
You see, these definitions DO apply to inorganic atoms, but, in
essence, the same definitions belong more to the term "organic."
To now INCREASE the confusions already encountered above, the term
INORGANIC is defined as "lacking structure, character, or vitality."
As it is, though, electron microscopes revealed that the inorganic
does have structure, character, and compacted vitality.
For example, since the 1940s it became abundantly clear that atoms
are super-structured and clearly do not lack "character" or
"vitality." If that vitality is messed with or released, one is
likely to be "atomized" by the released "vitality."
An additional definition for INORGANIC is:
"Of, relating to, or
dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with substances not
usually classed as organic" - until, it might be added, the
substances are drafted into organic usage.
Well, IF "organic" refers to "forming an integral element of a whole
having systematic coordination of parts," and IF these same
definitions can apply to inorganic "substance," then we no longer
know what inorganic should mean or what organic does mean.
Here we have finally somewhat arrived at the confused nature of the
"embarrassment" that does plague the modern sciences behind their
placid contentment with materialistic interpretations of everything.
In other words, the distinctions between the inorganic and the
organic are in somewhat of a mess.
Even so, while scientific comprehensions of the essential and
intrinsic nature of organicism are a mess, it can be seen that the
mess itself nevertheless proceeds with continuous reenactments of
its SYSTEMS and its systemic nature.
This is to say that even if scientific and philosophic knowledge is
a mess in this regard, what we refer to as "life-forms" continue to
manifest systemically - and do so seemingly oblivious to the fact
that the knowledge packages of the life-forms themselves are in a
mess regarding whatever is involved.
Systems
SYSTEM (from the Greek SYSTEMA - to combine so as to cause to
stand.)
In modernist English, SYSTEM is defined as:
To clarify: body + parts + systems =
whole body.
But body-systemic + infra-systemic parts = whole body systems.
To clarify further: if the systems are deleted from the whole body,
then it IS understood that it would promptly begin its fall to total
system collapse and thence crash.
If the CONCEPT of whole-body systems is deleted from the CONCEPT of
whole body, then the whole-body concept actually falls into wreckage
with regard to anything approximating the fuller or more complete
MEANING of the corpus carne incarnate.
If the concept of whole-body systems is not combined with the
concept of whole-body + parts, THEN one WILL think in terms of
whole-body only, or whole-body + parts.
But then one is very likely NOT to think in terms of systems.
It is via the above discussion that we can now enter into even more
confusing extensions of the meanings involved.
Bi-body vs.
Bi-body Systems
We are left with the question of which comes first, the body or the
body systems.
We are also reminded that the definition of ORGANIC includes the
term SYSTEMATIC - i.e., "having systematic coordination of parts so
as to form a integral element of a whole."
Hence the term ORGANISM:
"A complex structure of
interdependent and subordinate elements [parts] whose relations
and properties are largely determined by their function in the
whole;"
"An individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by
means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent."
HOWEVER, it might be noted that an
organism is one because of its organization, and if this
organization is not systemic, then it will neither be organized nor
systemic.
All of the foregoing leads to a question
that has to do with organs needed "to carry on the activities of
life" - especially with regard to ourselves and our species entire.
One direct, if somewhat brutal, way of entering into considerations
relevant to that question is to delete awareness systems from the
list of those needed organs - and then to try to imagine what
"activities of life" we could carry on with.
(To be continued...)
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