Chapter Five of Be and Become analyses how individuals interact with, and are 'constrained' by the peer-group, community or collective of which they are part.

Concepts including 'downward causation', interconnections within gestalts, and the range of possibilities therein, and the nature of individuality and responsibility with the context of groups are covered in detail.

[Excerpt Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

Key Concepts (Overview of Chapter Five):

  1. Deep reality and experience is a 'dynamic holomovement.' Humanity’s maturation is nearing adulthood, at which time we can expect that the interconnecting (nonlocal) potentials from which physical reality continually unfolds (collapsing possibility into actuality), will be acknowledged and beneficially accommodated.
  2. The physical world and all events that we individually and collectively experience is due to our individual and collective beliefs (thoughts and emotions).
  3. The part (conscious individual) helps form the whole (gestalt, community) within which the part is active.
  4. The whole determines the constraints for each of the parts.
  5. The unconscious-collective forms the overall framework for individual activity.
  6. The unconscious-collective is a higher-order process which forms a “downward causation” upon individual behavior (including physical laws, societal rules, etiquette, peer-approval).
  7. Since all is nonlocally interconnected (through space and time), all activity at the level of the individual is part of the gestalt’s (collective) “plan.” Atrocities, disease and warfare are a result of the collective framework and reflect individual and collective beliefs, fears and expectations.
  8. The unconscious-collective forms agreed-upon frameworks (e.g. societal rules, etiquette) which define in general terms the bounds of what is “possible” (acceptable, expected) for individuals. It is possible to do the impossible, but any such activities are fraught with societal disapproval. Hence schopenhauer's 3-stage process of collectives ignoring, resisting then accepting new truths.
  9. The range of collective possible futures (unconscious agreed frameworks) forms a downward causation which guides individual conscious choice, desire, action and development.
  10. The past forms a platform for stability and order. The future provides the freedom for creativity and invention.
  11. Imagination (feminine-creativity) ‘pulls’ from the Future. Knowledge (masculine-fact) ‘pushes’ from the Past.
  12. Precognition (“gut feelings”) is an unbounded, unlimited parallel “computational process.”
  13. Intellectual reasoning is a limited, bounded serial “computational process.”
  14. Current Western scientific and religious theory is inadequate in explaining reality.
  15. Darwinian theory does not, and cannot account for current (or past) bio-diversity. Evolutionary psychology does not, and cannot account for human behavior.
  16. Individual creativity forms an “upward causation” which changes the nature of the gestalt (e.g. society). This in turn changes the constraints upon the individual. Thus to “change the world” requires change within the individual.
  17. In real terms, the relationship of the (individual) conscious mind to the (collective) unconscious mind is that of the individual citizen to the community, nation, planet and universe.
  18. The conscious mind development changes the nature of the unconscious “soul” which in turn invokes new potentials and capabilities within the individual (all of which happens "at-once").
  19. The health and vibrancy of a gestalt (e.g. society) is directly dependent upon each of the parts (e.g. people) within it.
  20. Since all is interconnected, “Chaos” is simply an Unknowable form of Order. Disorder is unconstrained (unbounded, 'free-wheeling') Individuality.
  21. The Western cultural bias towards the scientific—the physical, the factual and the finite, forms a downward causation constraining those who would otherwise perform “miracles” -- healing, creating, intuiting.
  22. Within unconscious collective frameworks, each and everyone is able to tap nonlocal fields of potential, such that:

    What things soever ye desire
    When ye pray (visualize)
    Believe that ye receive them
    And ye shall have them.1

(... see book text for more detail. )

  • 1. St Mark 11:24, Bible, King James Version