Notes on a Paradigm

	
       NOTES ON A PARADIGM:  Information and Change
                                                            
                 (A Cryptic Triptych)

                 Deric Morris - 10/28/90 


                         - I -

Now as we enter the closing decade of the twentieth 
century, we might well take stock of where we, as a 
species, stand in relation to the larger realities of the 
cosmos:  are we in fact any closer to understanding than 
we have ever been?

My own intuitive feeling is that, of the several factors 
which may now be seen to be converging, certain important 
elements are of overwhelming significance.  The paradigm 
shift in science, for example, will ultimately change the 
collective reality of our species (as has happened before) 
in ways which current hierarchies of power and wealth are 
equipped neither to understand nor to control.  Indeed, 
the changes we now face, while clearly the most 
comprehensive yet, are no more predictable than they are 
determinate in terms of current conventional wisdom.

Our culture is in extremis today, between, as it were, a 
rock and a hard place.  The conduct of business and 
government, entwined in their incestuous relationship, is 
hidden from the people by layer upon layer of deliberate 
deceit.  In a political system in which liberals are 
portrayed as leftist by government and the media, 
moderates are called liberals, and hardline right-wing 
conservatives disguise themselves as the soul of sweet 
reason, how can an enlightened electorate exist, let alone 
prevail?

The results of "modern" culture's adversarial relationship 
with Nature and Humanity, which are in effect holding a 
gun to the head of our entire species (not to mention the  
planet), have emerged as the catastrophic issues of our 
time.  Overpopulation, pollution, war, and the depletion 
of global resources (soil, oceans, minerals, rain forests, 
etc.) are the problems which must be solved before it is 
too late.

Such problems are exacerbated, and their solutions made 
more elusive, by the existence of self-serving political 
and economic institutions, whose members, operating within 
belief systems which define Nature as enemy rather than 
ally, deny (and indeed militate against) the need and the 
effort to save the planet.









                         - II -

There are of course positive trends at work as well:  the 
Greens, the Rainbows, and other such grassroots movements.
These activists are engaged in bypassing conventional 
cultural channels in the achievement of their ends.  The 
agenda is not one of political opportunism, but rather of 
flexibility, for the sake of survival itself:  it is the 
comprehension of opposing agendas, and the adaptation to 
increased freedom of action, which makes this a viable and 
necessary response.

Which brings us to the question of what we now know.

Modern science, in the early years of this century, came 
to a startling conclusion, which has caused great 
consternation (and hysterical efforts to adapt) ever 
since:

            Human Awareness changes Reality.

(Note that such an assertion has been made of late by 
various authors, including Fritjof Capra, Fred Wolf, Bohm, 
Herbert, et al.  Also see Metaphysics Anonymous 
volumes 1, 2 and 3.)

The changes which have occurred as a result (despite the 
overt political vicissitudes of the times) have created 
profound differences in the worldview of our species as a 
whole, beginning with the radical disorientation in global
perceptions experienced by intellectuals.

Since Galileo, proponents of science have found themselves 
in conflict with established dogma.  It is only in 
"modern" times that the empirical viewpoint has gained 
currency in the established consensus worldview.

Ironically, this new intellectual freedom has resulted in 
the confirmation of exactly the sort of sloppy, mystical 
insight which science holds most suspect:  full circle, as 
it were.  Synchronicity, it would seem, is an 
indispensable element of reality; not merely on the 
quantum level of modern physics, but in the greater 
affairs of our species within the cosmos as well.

This brings us to an ineluctable conclusion:  that there 
is an inescapable responsibility implicit in our awareness 
which we must somehow learn how to manifest in our future 
conduct, both individually and collectively, if we are to 
survive.





Humans, it seems, are each constrained by our own internal
limitations.  We may be less the victims of our universe 
than of ourselves.  However, in the effort to understand, 
we may transcend ourselves; indeed, this might be the 
salvation of our species.  If in our attempts to know the 
realities we must deal with we can learn responsibility, 
then there may yet be hope for us.

It seems to me that an operational definition of reality 
must take into account the individual viewpoints within 
which we each must operate; that the consensus (which will 
generate the paradigm shift) must be an overview of the 
collective experience of reality.  This recalls Eldon's 
notion that "The Universe is an audience-participation 
event".



                       - III -

As humans, we inhabit a milieu unique among the myriad 
species living within Earth's biosphere:  more than any 
other life form, we are the creatures of our own 
time-binding abilities.  This means that not only our 
physical and mental being, but the psychic and material 
manifestations which we unconsciously assume to be 
"reality", are in fact the constructs of collective human 
experience; no more, no less.  We are now at the end of 
the formative period during which we could afford to take 
these matters for granted.

This is most readily apparent at present in the dichotomy 
between women and men in our society: our culture has 
become embroiled in an adversarial relationship, separated 
by gender, which we must reconcile in order to evolve as a
species.

We are faced with the unavoidable necessity of assuming 
responsibility for what humanity has wrought.  This 
assumption of our responsibility requires that we, as a 
whole species, now come to terms with our own psyche as it 
is collectively manifest, for better and for worse.  The 
time has come to own our weakness and our strength, our 
evil as our good, in the knowledge and the love we share 
as human beings.  When we awaken.









I feel we now have an unparalleled opportunity to become 
agents of change:  both as aware individuals and as 
participants in the major trends of these "interesting 
times". We have the means of affecting such change at our 
disposal; as individuals and together as a species, we 
have never before had such powers of global communication,
transportation, and organization.  When the Live-Aid 
musicians gathered to sing "We are the World" their words
may have been meant metaphorically; in "reality" however, 
this statement was the simple truth.  As humans, in the 
power of our collective awareness, we are, indeed, the 
world which we experience, and so create:  and it is up to 
us to make this world anew, whole and healed.  We cannot 
go on denying what we have done.

Inasmuch as humans have made of our world a nightmare, so 
it is that many of humankind are yet asleep; it is in our 
waking that we become empowered, to heal and cherish the 
world we all must share.  It is in the unprecedented 
energy which we can collectively manifest that we may find 
the power we seek:  together our awareness can bring us to 
a new and better world.

It's not too soon to start.