interface of quantum mechanics and classical mechanics may reveal a new physics
at the interface that is relevant to the phenomenon of consciousness (in Ansari,
1999:24-25). The conclusions of Penrose are not too different to those of Bentov
that were previously cited; essentially that consciousness resides in matter.
We have a habit of locating consciousness in the head, somewhere just
behind the eyes, a habit that is so ingrained it difficult to think of it otherwise. For
normal consciousness, the outer world takes place in the area of space in which we
experience ourselves as living and moving, a world that is common to, and shared
with others but nevertheless, separate from them. Erich Neumann suggested that
this ego consciousness is the distinguishing characteristic of the human species, one
that has constructed a picture of a so-called objective ‘real outer world’. This ego-
associated consciousness and the world cognisable to it form an interrelated unity,
albeit a unity where subject and object are opposing one another (Neumann,
1989:50-51). This is in general agreement with Julian Jaynes’ most essential
evolutionary theory of consciousness, the breakdown of the bi-cameral mind, to be
examined here. However, esoteric traditions, such as shamanism, universally
acknowledge that the black-and-white distinctions of ordinary consciousness may be
merely shallow delusions (Sutin, 2000:13). Such is the case too with models of
quantum physics and MLC, which go beyond the positivist paradigms. The
implication is that individual identity and the location of that identity on the interior-
exterior continuum may not be as definite as we believe and may also be delusional
perhaps even variable. This is important when consideration is given to concepts of
the de-centred self and of being in an elsewhere-place.
This exterior or outside world presents itself to us, or the self, through
particular and distinct senses although perception of it is of a unified whole.
However, this solid, good common sense reality is based on micro reality made up
of vast empty spaces filled with oscillating fields of many different kinds, each one
interacting with all the others. The tiniest disturbance in one field carries over into
the others. I t is an interlocked web of fields, each pulsating at their own rate but in
harmony with the others, their pulsations spreading out farther and farther
throughout the cosmos. This experience of totality intimates and interacts with a
seventh sense, thinking itself, which does not at first seem to communicate with the
outer world at all but rather only with the inner world.
The inner world and its ephemera is thought to be subjective as opposed to
the more real-objective outer world and tends to be dismissed as a sort of residue
ron
(Ron)
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