A Pith of Oneness

​A Pith of Oneness​ ​ ​ by R. Eady On a metaphysical level we're exploring what might consciousness "be" as it is formed in​ the new amniotic­fluid, gravity­buffered embryonic space​. This is an environment consisting of different fluids of viscosity and different intersecting vortices of energy. A place rapidly changing, where each event – at least compared to our gravity­fixed “solid” world – is correlated with multiple possible future and past events. In Vitro​, (pre­consciousness, or rather, consciousness yet to take root) we are still attuned to the phenomenology of multi­verse flow states; our emerging consciousness is still "unified with the collective creation” of temporary self­organized patterns within the cosmic flows of movement. We “flow" in the direction of ​emergence in gravity​ once again as we conceptualize to be born and into the psychology soon to be adapted to (or re­indigenized into) in a world of solid objects... Inversion ​is our gateway ascension to this world, though it also reflects the decomposition of the whole of us into parts (me, I, we,) and the psychology of causation. Things we now take for granted in the pragmatic realm of cognition ~ linear thinking and the artifacts of adaptation to a world consisting of discrete solid objects and such is: ​merely polarity energy keeping tabs on gravity​. That's the utter definition of existence! Asian cultures to a certain extent, and Stone Age people to an even greater extent naturally have an expanded­self model of being. They sort of inherently take a more extended view of themselves – they peer at the social context and the harmonizing elements in the environment over the individual. Yet, we need to look trans­species to cetaceans to embrace a worldview of enlightened, extended self. Dolphins and whales have the only brain where, over time, the limbic system has dramatically expanded its connections into the cortex. It has an entire paralimbic lobe no other animal has, and that’s really telling. They also have heavily integrated auditory and visual cortices that may underlie their amazing echolocation. Some researchers argue dolphins and orca and sperm whales may be able to see inside each other’s bodies using echolocation – a bit like ultrasound. A dolphin knows if another dolphin is hungry, sick or pregnant. Or, if a human is, for that matter. Plus, there is the behavioral data, the amazing synchronicity between dolphins ~ and dolphins interactions with other mammals. They won’t abandon one another or a depart from the scene without doing all they can to aid in a distressing situation. A dolphin self­model appears to be dramatically different from our own psychology: seeing inside one another with the capacity of echolocation, means being able to know if pod­mates are stressed or chilling, getting ready to take some action, just lounging about. So being able to "see" love and affection within the dolphin community every time they swim near each other opens vistas of unity and connectedness. This is a natural kind of extended self ­­ in ways humans currently don't accept being capable of perceiving. Still some individual nature is present – the dolphin has to protect itself and feed, so the embrace of the collective, not the total hive mind is in operation. but the individuated self like we have isn't there. Presumably a large part of what the dolphin cortex is doing is this sort of refined spatial/social modeling that humans don’t have to do and are not that good at. You could hypothesize that if we grafted that aspect of the dolphin’s cortex into a human, all of a sudden we would try to detect very fine details of the physical movements of those around us. We would gravitate towards living in a small tribe of naked people who walked around looking at each other and sensing each other all the time because our natural inclinations would be to have a kind of group embodied extended self. Extended Self; As Well As Individual­self There is a dynamic quality to the dolphin way of life. Dolphins have an extended self as well as an individual self. There is a very real social imperative in their world that appears strange even to us, as social as humans are. Though, compared to dolphins we’re not social at all. Enlightenment in individuation is seen in dolphin social behaviors – mass stranding, precise synchronization, the fact if want to catch a whole bunch of dolphins all you have to do is go after a few of them – as they won't leave each other. So what if you took the regions of a human cortex and cerebellum adapted for tool building and integrated those with a dolphin brain – and gave them thumbs and fingers? What might happen? One thing’s for sure: the crafting of a​ ​social networking software, ​massively amplified.​ They’d build long snaking systems of luge­like mirrors to channel, direct and facilitate even more social closeness but also amplify those effects in all kinds of inventive and unexpected ways. You could imagine all kinds of new social and cognitive insights. What would it be like as a human to be able to connect with a mind that’s truly harmonically balanced physical, emotional and spiritual symmetry? When humans describe something they make it precise, divide it into parts, recombine them – that’s they how words are built into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. Dolphin language appears more like “pictures~talking” in flows and forces of influence not talking pictures that break into parts and build­up again. The impression of vibro­acoustics inform and harmonize with a ​quite different way of thinking about the world which we struggle to understand very well ​(and only get glimpses of in different states of consciousness ­­ such as a sensory deprivation chamber or an herbally­altered perceptual experience.). A Pith of Oneness These distinctly different ways of looking at the world may be considered somewhat complementary, like the wave and particle in quantum mechanics.​ ​ There certainly exists a significant psychological overlap between humans and cetaceans. Decades of work on dolphin cognition inform us they’re different but they also recognize themselves and each other’s reflective images in mirrors; they’re capable of learning and understanding a symbolically­based “syntaxical” language, their memory systems, though phenomenally faster, are very similar to ours. Cognitively they are much more like us than we might expect given other divergences. Even shared emotions (love, sadness and a sense of humor) are there. So what is shared and what is distinct? As life itself supplies us with a pith of oneness between any form of existence with “polarity energy keeping tabs on gravity”, there’s also a multiplicity of difference. An infinite number of perspectives looking out from something that is common. So even between us and a dolphin, at a high level there is a distinct perspective difference that may be both commensurate and incommensurate in the way we process life experience. But on another level, we look at a dolphin swimming in the water, and know something about the feeling of water, and movement, and the feeling of having a body. It’s different of course, but the essence is an overlap: both the fact of our mutual skin­and­bone embodiment, and the shared world in which we swim and play. When not ​philosophizing anthro­zoologically​, R:Eady’s often found cavorting with manatee, dolphin and other wildlife in S.E. Florida.