As the area of our knowledge grows, so does the perimeter of our ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson
When my wife, Cheryl and I were in Lamington National Park, QLD, Australia, we learned about Red Bull Ants. They have nothing to do with the soft drink but do have unusual powers. “They are characterized by their extreme aggressiveness, ferocity, and painful stings. Some species are known for the jumping behavior they exhibit when agitated.” (Wikipedia) A lot like yellowjackets but on the ground, if you step on one, they release a pheromone and the whole colony runs to that place in attack mode. It is best to leave quickly, which we did when necessary.
Ants are usually characterized as a very low life form without much intelligence. But they exhibit collective behavior that in the context of ant colonies refers to the coordinated actions and interactions of individual ants that result in the emergence of complex, organized patterns at the colony level. (insectlore.com). As humans we tend to think of ourselves as superior. We expect ants to get out of our way, which they usually do. But there is another way to look at ant behavior; the migration of birds; the colonies of bees; the intelligence of Octopuses and many other creatures in our environment. It is called Pervasive Universal Consciousness, PUC. (There are other similar terms.)
The implications of the PUC model are profound, challenging deeply held assumptions about individuality, free will, and the nature of reality. If consciousness is indeed universal, it implies that all living beings—and even inanimate objects—are interconnected through a shared field of awareness. (wisdomschool.com) “What if consciousness is not something special that the brain does but instead is a quality inherent to all matter?” (scientificamerican.com) Among the implications of PUC are that decades of research trying to pin down consciousness to a specific area of the brain have been useless. But they go beyond that. (The Vedas are the foundational texts of Hinduism.) “Modern physics is searching for a unitary field of consciousness to explain the coherence of the laws of nature. Such a universal consciousness is proposed as existing behind all time, space and energy. It is the ultimate frontier of knowledge.” (vedanet.com)
If you are about to doubt that this is a valid way to understand the universe, don’t expect science to back you up. Although science demands replicable proof and peer review, the basis of peer review itself is doubt. As a scientist, if you just send your studies to people who think the same as you, you have not done your job. Send them to a skeptic first.
Since I am not a scientist, I often see things that make me skeptical but about which I know little to nothing. One was titled “Spellers”. These turn out to be autistic people who have motor disabilities that don’t allow them to speak out loud or type. They communicate by pointing to an alphabet one letter at a time. This allows them to have someone write what they are thinking. They think very clearly. Several were featured who were getting college degrees. Many were telepathic with their assistants. (telepathytapes.com) Admitting this happens implies that we have been shortchanging a growing part of the population for years.
These kinds of abilities are often grouped as PSI (or psychic) phenomena. PSI research include anecdotes of precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, synchronicity, memories of past lives, out-of-body experiences, and other unusual experiences. (Google AI) In that vein it is instructive to look at the studies that are going on at the University of Virginia Department of Perceptual Studies. A study there that caught my attention last year was of children who remembered who they were in past lives. In many cases researchers were able to figure out what those past lives were and confirm that what the children were saying was true.
The immediate implication is that this life is not our only shot. The Vedic and Tibetan traditions that you can literally be born again are valid. That was a big relief. I am hoping to rectify some screwups from my younger years. Of course, the years ahead don’t look particularly promising so that might not be such a good thing.
The U of V’s Dept of Perceptual Studies has other research on out-of-body experiences, (I have had two brief ones); near death experiences, vision at a distance and after-death communication. All of these studies challenge the material universe as we understand it.
Somewhere on the border between the spiritual and the material is quantum entanglement, famously called “spooky action at a distance” by Einstein. One implication that has been confirmed in numerous experiments is that two linked particles stay linked at all distances from each other, making change in one is reflected in the other faster than the speed of light can convey information. Harnessing this ability is the holy grail of quantum computing but other implications seem to be possible such as quantum teleportation.
Before we go completely “beam me up Scotty” I need to retrace what got me going on this line of thought. It was a review of The Age of Disclosure. I had no idea what that was about so I looked it up. It’s about UAPs, known to us older folks as UFOs, Unidentified Arial Phenomena, Unidentified Flying Objects, flying saucers… whatever you want to call them. There was a splash earlier in the year when video was released by the Defense Department of objects seen by pilots doing seemingly impossible maneuvers at incredible speeds in the air and underwater. The Age of Disclosure is a movie with interviews of the pilots themselves talking about their experiences. The implications here are literally out-of-this-world. Besides defying physics as we understand it, there are a host of alien abduction accounts, crop circles and as I discovered, a whole study of exopolitics, “diplomacy with visitors from other planets”. (Oxford Academic) This is necessary because we have gone way past “flying saucers”. There are all kinds of UAFs and their passengers in the literature. This implies two things right off. First, just as our technology seems to be developing in leaps and bounds, we would expect theirs to evolve too. Secondly if they were out to destroy us, we would be gone already. Of course there are conspiracy theories on this.
Which brings me back to the ants. We might fancy ourselves as advanced beings that your average ant would barely have a concept about. But there is a lot going on where we are the ants and that we have no concept about. A bit like an ant, I am not imagining what I could do about any of this, so I am going on about the business of food and lodging and sometimes late at night pondering the implications.