COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

"Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves...But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea..." -- William James

Human history is filled with paradigm shifts, those insights that change forever our sense of who we are in the universe. The earth revolves around the sun and not the other way round. Humans are the result of eons of evolution. Time and space are relative. We have a sub-conscious.It seems impossible that another shift won't come along. The desire for discovery and insight, our burning need to know, is part of our DNA.

     I usually sneer at all the people walking around texting, talking on their phones, checking in. But lately I've been wondering if what I'm seeing is the beginning of the cosmic consciousness James is talking about. Most of the world is now connected, communities form almost instantly, everything travels by and through us. Maybe I shouldn't shake my head at the woman in the market who is choosing a tomato at the same time she's discussing a bus schedule with the person at the other end of the line or the man on the street who nearly runs me down because his head is bent low over his phone, at all the people who have grown up with social media and smart phones and have a need to be in constant touch. Maybe that need is the first sign of the birth of a single organic human consciousness, a vibrating net of points of light that are both individual and strung together. I'm thinking of a game theorist I read about somewhere. She talked about some of the problems humanity is facing and how it may be possible that if thousands of people turned on their computers and worked at a particular problem, they would together find an answer, one that may be greater than any one of them could achieve on her own. 

     Another way to look at human history is to see the slow march to valuing the individual, recognizing every individual's right to dignity - each person's freedom to create his own life, to know liberty and to pursue happiness. It's been such a long slog to any sense of individual dignity and there are so many examples of the ease with which collectivization slips into fascism. Well, none of us can see the future so I think I'll choose to be optimistic, despite everything I know about the dark side of the web and the problems we all face. Why not choose optimism. It certainly a more creative attitude than pessimism. 

     I'm sure all this is very old hat to futurists around the world. But I'm going to listen for the foghorns that sound between James's islands and the rustle of the trees' leaves as the wind blows through. Those are comforting sounds. They let me know I'm not alone.