We are in deep trouble with the Earth.
We have caused a crisis for the Earth that is so great we can hardly get our minds around it. All across the planet coral reefs are disintegrating, fisheries collapsing, forests disappearing. Everything poisoned, the air, the water the soil. Sea waters warming and rising, garbage everywhere.
And now, ecosystems collapsing, fires increasing everywhere in all seasons of the year, the storms getting bigger all the time.
And people on the move, fleeing the effects of global warming, drought, famine, disease, and war.
And all of the destruction owes to a single source, human arrogance and human ignorance.
We have been laying waste to the planet ever since we arrived here. Many scientists estimate that we will cause an extinction of species as great as what went with the dinosaurs when 90% of all life forms disappeared. Then due to asteroid, now because of an idiot. And all of all of those disappearing species are vital links in our own food chains.
And so, we are now in an absolutely unique moment in our history. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and now can foresee if we continue as we are, our own extinction.
- Okay, now let’s talk.
Human beings go by ideas. Deeply embedded in the crisis we are now in with the Earth are ideas. Ideas about who we are, who or what the Earth is, and what we are all here for.
My background is in science. When I was a graduate student in science in the 1960’s, Neuroscience was just getting off the ground. We all wanted to know how the brain worked, and how to think about Consciousness.
The going scientific image of nature was based on evolution, the conviction that Consciousness emerged only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attend “a certain stage of complexity.”
And that Consciousness was produced by neurons in the brain.
And so, the great question of neuroscience: How do neurons in the brain produce Consciousness?
My answer is that in fact, they do not. And now along with many other scientists, I realize that Consciousness is everywhere in the Earth, a form of panpsychism.
As my horizon expanded, I realized that this old scientific image of nature, as something devoid of Consciousness, is driving the destruction of the Earth, driving us all insane, and it needs to change.
I am proposing that the whole of modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics based on this scientific image of nature. We are deep trouble with the Earth because the great thinkers never got the Earth right, and now capitalism itself is not getting the Earth right either. It does not understand the deep connection and connectedness, the exquisite interactions and interdependence of every living being on the health and well being of all other living beings, including ourselves and our own deep connections with the planet.
And so, it is finally time to get the Earth right, ourselves right with the Earth, and one another.
- I would like this blog to be a place where we can work out the false ideas that have brought us to this moment in our own history, and where we go from here. Finding out the new and true concepts and values that may bring us into right relationship with the Earth.
We come out of a long tradition of thinking we are “the lords and masters of the planet, the Earth must do as we say.” These great storms pounding the Midwest and the East coast make clear the untruth of this belief, and in the wake of these storms, many people are gaining a healthy respect for the power of the Earth.
And when you lose all your worldly possessions in one stormy night, you must begin to ask, well what was all that really about.
The power of the Earth is reshaping our values and taking our systems down, to the point to where we must radically rethink ourselves from the ground up.
We come out of a tradition of thinking the Earth was made for us to do with whatever we like. We look at the Earth as simply things, a source of endless consumer items to be converted into money in the bank.
We are virtually ignorant of the truth of the Earth as consisting of living conscious spiritual beings, like ourselves, who need to be nurtured and cared for. We need to be loved.
The Earth is all that makes our life possible in this far off corner of the darkness of space. We have never gotten the Earth right, and now we must.
I am proposing a new metaphysics that will affect our lives at virtually all levels and depths, new ideas about the Universe, Earth, Ourselves and Spirit. The Earth is so central to our ways of thought, that when we get the Earth wrong, we get everything else wrong as well.
The human race has lessons to learn.
And so, I would like to enter into a discussion with everyone about where we are in our history in terms of the ideas of the past, and new emerging first principles.
We need to talk about the truth. We have been destroying the planet ever since we arrived here, and now the day of reckoning is upon us. The Earth is not going to put up with human malpractice towards her any longer. The virus is a wakeup call. Days of reckoning are generally days of wrath, but I am hoping that we are in a day of Awakening, that the Earth does not want to destroy us, but wants us to grow up, and to take responsibility for the truth of the Earth and one another.
We need to talk about reincarnation, the near-death experience, the scientific image of nature and the various theories of previous thinkers that have failed to get the Earth right and have now brought us to the brink of our own extinction.
This new metaphysics based on Consciousness will have implications for the way we think about virtually everything, in science philosophy and religion, in terms of everyday life, and a much deeper understanding of what we are all here for.
We know what we are here for, we are here to Love, the Earth Ourselves and Spirit. And now we need to work out new terms and concepts that will enable us to do so.
