Flat White, 23 August 2023.
There is a growing movement of intellectuals pushing the belief that consciousness is all around us. It’s not a new idea, but in the context of the culture war, its popularity appears to be driven by the progressive agenda. Most academics are leftists, anyway. But, others are adjusting their message to suit the progressive agenda, because it attracts the attention they crave.
I can’t deny that consciousness could be the fabric of the universe, and that such a belief could dissolve the psychological barriers that divide us—not just from each other, but from nature, too. It seems like an admirable project. However, the problem with this idea is that our experience of transcendence defies the notion of extension. The profound sense of oneness is not a connection with space (seemingly vast), but no space at all, just the present moment.
The profound sense of being “intimately interwoven with everything and everyone the mind senses” is an illusion. Transcendence doesn’t just dissolve the boundary of the body, but space itself—the mind’s temporal connection overriding spatial separation. The sense of spatial connection is an afterthought—the ‘narrative interpreter‘ in the left-brain trying to make sense of undirected awareness.
The illusion of spatial connection leads to the delusion of consciousness itself being everywhere. The fact that we share time together doesn’t mean that we also share space. It’s a nice thought, but space is, by its very nature, divisible. This is an important distinction, because time is what connects us with our ancestral spirit. So, I am afraid this vital connection will be lost if we subscribe to a spatial characterisation of consciousness.
Could it be that the root of the culture war is a dispute over the status of consciousness being either spatial or temporal? The consequence is profound for the individual, because the spatial option dilutes the individual into the collective, while the temporal option implies that the individual is independent of the group. Theoretically, these are two ends of a continuum that we are condemned to navigate, both as individuals and society.
The ancestral spirit has a profound stabilising effect on the individual. Many are oblivious to its existence, some identifying with material possessions instead, while others ‘find themselves’ in causes that disguise their resentment. On the other hand, the ancestral connection has been rendered in so many ways that the immaterial nature of being gets lost in the narrative. But, it’s really just an echo of our ancestors’ lives: the love they felt for each other, their animals, and the places they lived.
Next: The psychology of social fragmentation.
Dan Webber 