YeKengalé

Preamble:  “One of the unfortunate things about Christianity in Jamaica is that it is largely shaped by American Fundamentalism.  As such it has tended to be anti-intellectual, coming across as necessarily slaying the mind’s activity for us to be heaven-bound (wherever that is).  It seems to me that a true Biblical faith nicely marries prudence, justice, morality and faith.

…Thousands upon thousands of Christians across the history of the Church … saw a rigorous and contemplative prudence as being an essential part of their life’s witness. Intellectual giants they were, who could not be charged with imbecility of thought.  The first 1900 years of Christianity was about intellectual heavyweights trying to come to grips with the intellectual demands of their faith.  Perhaps some acted imprudently with this, but stupidity was never a hallmark of true Christian faith, much like it seems to be in many quarters today.” – David Pearson, Academic Dean, Jamaica Theological Seminary

“Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Ageless message. Perennially misunderstood. But the enemy of change is always the status quo. The greatest barrier to the entrance of a greatly desired future is a too familiar past.

I have mentioned in the past Rupert Sheldrake‘s exciting new explorations of morphogenetic fields, and the insights these studies potentially offer in explaining much of the mystery still baffling neuro-scientists on the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter and material formation.

The potential his work has in overturning the present paradigm of a grand physical universe giving birth under highly specific circumstance to a comparatively ultra-microscopic biosphere; within which, after a greatly arduous, highly volatile and terribly improbable journey of evolutionary hits and misses, finally emerges the even much less significant phenomenon of the faculties of (human) consciousness we recognize as imagination, intellect and will; finally flipping that script to credibly craft scientific language for the notions that not just have informed the religious mindsets of those who prefer to take their cosmogenetic notions from what Sam Harris spuriously describes as pre-scientific, quasi barbaric, iron age texts such as Bible, Quran, the Upanishads, Gitas etc; but also as well the quite contemporary scientific notions of a ‘self-organizing’ universe, totally counter intuitive to the model one would expect from a physical system, subject to entropy, yet lacking (science that is) to date, the theoretical acumen and insight to describe.

In Sheldrake’s  work, (as in Robert Lanza’s) there is the possibility of harmonizing some of the ‘spooky’ physics of Quantum mechanics with the biology-based insights of Evolutionary Theory, but he does that by a coup of sorts – subverting the primacy of physics  in cosmological studies and positing in its stead a redefined but plausible biology at the center of mechanics, motion, matter and energy.  It is radical work, and although he is an upsetter, he has the ear of the academy…..well at least some.

He is not seen as some religious apologist seeking to usurp the language of science for a religious agenda. But by redefining the nature of consciousness itself and with this expanded definition that allows it to explain physical phenomena previously outside the domain of classical biology, he effectively threatens to credibly answer the ‘chicken or egg conundrum’ – which comes first? – and in a scientifically counter-intuitive way.

But work in Morphogenesis continues to be developed, and that is not really the subject of this article, but we do want to draw on consonant forms of thinking in making certain observations on future formation critical to the times we live in. So this is my attempt at a titivating introduction.

If we define ‘chicken’ as a physical body… i.e. a dynamic mechanical system, we strip it of its essential nature … (and flavor I might add … one might attribute something akin to transcendence to KFC, especially when consumed at the right moment); but genetically speaking, chicken is a code – a fairly exact genetic code with highly prescribed and specific … that is ‘specie – fic’ boundaries and identifiers.

By what computational process is that code arrived at? Where exactly is that processing located? These are unanswerable questions once one is stuck in the paradigm that the processes we define as intellection, imagination, computation and determination are processes necessarily requiring a highly advanced biological organ called a ‘brain’. (Were this true, then what’s the point in AI research?) The contemporary study of the physical universe is not consonant with this limited and limiting axiom.

My intent  is the exploration of the process of future formation … which explains my  beginning in the realm of philosophy and science … because within these realms lie the  thought paradigms that act as foundation for our field of expectation. And ultimately, what must converge, take shape, and position itself for future formation to take place is a fairly geographically specific, axiomatically consonant, internally congruous and externally focused expectational field.

Before we collectively envision our future, (and failure to so is a decision to either perish or abdicate agency to someone or somewhere else … I believe we’ve tried the latter already and are ready to attempt to overcome whatever obstacles there may be to assuming responsibility for our common survival and prosperity), let us therefore revise our past and present together.

The requisite to attract any desired future outcome is consonant and congruent thinking. Maybe Jesus said it better.

“All things are possible to him who believes.”

The real issue to be grappled with is the nature of that category of thinking we call ‘beliefs’. We have studied bio-mechanical systems and much of modern science has mastered that field to giddying heights in just one century … we laugh at the fairly recent practices of bleeding patients to rid them of bad effluence, or administering mercury for medicine in the light of modern stem cell research and all we can do now with precision and competence, peering accurately into the body’s depths with x-rays, C.A.T. scans, and MRI’s … (sigh) how far have we come; but the architecture of the mind – and the place, position and potency in the hierarchy of thought of those things we call ‘beliefs’ are studied by a comparative professional few….and that knowledge is also comparatively much less popularized and even in the age of information, still seems to be tightly guarded by cherubim with flaming swords.

But once we become a student of mind, and its belief systems, we come to truly appreciate the sayings of Jesus – repentance – changing the mind (one’s core beliefs), is truly a prerequisite for changing the condition – the entrance of new worlds.

Caribbean plantocracies bequeathed a damning legacy of dismissive arrogance and reflexive distrust to its modern social heirs.  The gatekeepers of such a prison of human social organization as was the plantation, charged with maintaining such an unsustainable system, of course, are obliged to invoke and inveigh some very dark demons and devices to keep the natural order (human sovereignty and creativity) from  reasserting itself through challenge, protestation and revolution.

This dismissive arrogance and deep instinct against any form of non-coercive social cohesiveness are terrible burdens to be overcome, deeply embedded in the attitudes and personas we have inherited, and in that nebulous and often inaccessible (subconscious) realm where logs which impede internalized focus seem to aid external perception in spotting out, at great distances, specks where none such may even exist … our laws strain at a gnat and swallow a camel – we are social systems richly deserving of self examination … and deep repentance.

But how can we do what we have never done? Go where we have never been? Of course we want to unleash among us the holy spirit of innovation (and I know that from a theological perspective, human technology is nothing holy, but rather the resuscitated spirit of Cain, along with its companion demon, murder; but who says that innovation has to express itself only in the realm of the technological? How about theological innovation? What if we defined worship as a technology of becoming?

What is the relationship between belief systems and value systems? Which comes first and which is a function of the other?

What if worship is the engine of social formation – a highly obfuscated truth in the light of modern conceptions of both religion and its worship mechanisms – its rites, dogmas and rituals.

If that Great Elias, John the Baptist, who according to scripture, baptized ‘all Israel’, had succeeded in his mission of turning the hearts of the children back to their fathers, then why would Jesus say “O Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks” and why would the Land have been smitten in AD 70 with Malachi’s proverbial curse?

Repentance may have much less to do with baptisms, religious converts, miracles and outbreaks here and there of spiritual ‘revival’ than we thought. Somehow, somewhere, somebody has to actually change/renew their mind … to line up with the thinking conducive to God’s sustainable Kingdom – to whom belongs Glory and Power, world without end.

The most radical notion in the New Testament and antidote for our cultural maladies is to develop not just tolerance of OTHER, but minimize if not eliminate BIAS.

The orientation to seek out the OTHER, not to stifle it, choke it, shame it, scorn it,  mock it, deride it, control it, contain it or use it … but protect it, preserve it, serve it, celebrate it and enjoy it; is a hilariously promising future … I can hardly imagine.

Is a rational faith a contradiction in terms? If there is logic and reason behind those expectations we define as religious faith, then shouldn’t heaven (if it exists) be filled with the super smart and hell with simpletons unable to connect the dots? What is the value then of the proverbial leap (of faith) and when does that take place … and why is it necessary given the rational ground of faith and what is its reward?

If Hell is only the price paid for stupidity (and that doubtless is at least one of its popular definitions) then it is less about morality and more about prudence. Are obedience and innovation even consonant terms?

What is the value of religious orientation in today’s world? Here in Jamaica?  Is Vladimir Putin now to be regarded the new leader of Christendom (with the tremendous conservative political influence of the Russian Orthodox Church) now that the American candlestick has been ‘removed’  after its capitulation to the ‘gay agenda’ under Obama?

Is religion a myopia that inhibits critical thought rendering people herd-able (free will being such an obstruction to mass management)?

I believe these are good questions. Well placed. Relevant. The kind of questions you ignore to your disadvantage.

The problem is what happens when an entire society is given to a predisposition that anything OTHER than what is deemed rational, or normal, or orthodox is *non-sense, is irrational….is to be ignored, not explored, not entertained, not given thought or time or attention, but to be dismissed, mocked, and held in contempt.

I am attracted both to center and circumference in conversations. That’s where energy is concentrated – in the conservative center and on the dynamic margins. You understand a system when you have placed yourself in those spaces.

Reality has its black holes, jokers in the pack and wild cards. Navigators do not ignore currents, unless they don’t mind  ending up at God know’s where.

The problem with much popular future projection, is that it has no sound basis. Regardless what are the present trends, they are embedded in unprecedented volatility. Long term vision is obscure even for the astute. We may be on a collision course with the alien, the inconceivable. And how can we cope with what we are not prepared to believe?

• See What do you know?  Chapter 2: Guardians ‘gainst nonsense / Weapons of Folly