I’m a process, not a
fixed entity. I allow my views and opinions to be fluid and subject to
evolution in the face of new evidence, and I recognise that sometimes the most valuable and significant
new evidence comes from the periphery of human wisdom and endeavour – in other
words, from the heretics of modern society.
The trick is to always be prepared to apply one’s own
critical reasoning faculties to one’s direct, personal, first-hand
experience where applicable and not just automatically accept the conclusions
of people more qualified or academically intelligent without first doing the
former. And then to at least double-check that there aren't equally-or-better qualified people who advocate an alternative position (see below).
I was once extremely orthodox in my world view, earning two academic
degrees in the social sciences and humanities – but by my mid-thirties I was finding mainstream
reality increasingly unsatisfactory and inadequate in both narrative and
methodology. Now approaching my mid-forties, I’m experimenting with an
alternative cosmology, which I call my “21st Century Heresy”. It
incorporates a certain amount of alternative and so-called “conspiracy”
information that many have been programmed to automatically reject and ridicule; but it rejects a lot of it too.
Because I subscribe to the cosmology
that consciousness and information are the fundamental basis of our reality – as opposed to
materialism – it means that my sense of what may and may not be possible has become far
broader than a materialist cosmology is able to allow. That is not to say that I
dismiss materialism as unimportant – kicking me in the bollocks would hurt me as
much as it would hurt any man, I suspect! – but it does mean that I perceive a reality that is
far more expansive and profound than merely the material, physical reality: indeed, it means that my base assumption is that material reality
is born out of the mystery of consciousness and not the other way round, which
is the contemporary orthodox position.
There is plenty of robust, credible scientific support for such a cosmology. For example, Max Planck – founder of Quantum Mechanics and 1918 Nobel Physics Prize winner – who famously wrote: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." (Source: The Observer, Jan 1931).
Perhaps frustrated by the fact that so many of his colleagues failed to understand the implications of this, and kept on imaginging the Universe as though it was at the most fundamental level made out of godzillions of tiny little billiard balls – that appeared out of no-where and no-when – mindlessly smashing into each other, he is also known for having said something to the effect that "science advances one funeral at a time".
Max Planck is far from alone in the pantheon of scientific heavyweights who accord primacy to consciousness, however. His quantum buddies, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, were of a similar opinion. Interestingly, there are impeccably qualified scientists who today share this perspective, though much of the internet dismisses then as cranks and excommunicates them from the scientific in-crowd with terms such as 'pseudoscience'; formerly 'respectable' scientists who have descended into sinful, heretical modes of thinking (see Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Dr. John Hagelin, Dr. Bruce Lipton, Thomas Campbell, Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, Peter Russell, Dr. Eben Alexander, Prof. Brian Josephson, and others). Equally interestingly, it doesn't take much research to ascertain that the above's more orthodox peers themselves generally remain respectful and civilized in their disagreements. The ad-hominems, the defaming, debunking and dismissing tends to come from less able and more anonymous sources.
While listing all these contemporary intellectual powerhouses and academic heretics, of course, is nothing more than an appeal to authority that can be more than matched (in numbers, at least) by people arguing in favour of the orthodox cosmology, it does at least endorse my point that there is a whopping great debate to be had here, that the science is not 'settled' or 'in' as we so often see proclaimed; there are plenty of flaming brilliant, highly accredited minds who support (or at the very least acknowledge) the validity of a consciousness-before-matter cosmology; that it is not crazy or unhinged to do so - or that if it is, it is the sort of crazy that puts one in the company of individuals who really know their stuff.
