One World Family Days keynote speech by Thomas Campbell, Stuttgart / Germany, Friday, Sept 13, 2013
Video version:
Text version (manuscript provided by Tom - not a transcript) :
Many thanks to all of this Symposium’s creators, organizers, and implementers -- it is an honor to be invited to give a keynote address at this exceedingly important and profound event.
The title of my talk is “Physics, Metaphysics, and the Evolution of Consciousness Toward the Creation of One World Family”
Before I can make the case for the creation of One World Family being a fundamental evolutionary goal of humanity, or perhaps even an evolutionary inevitability, I must explain the connection between physics, metaphysics, and consciousness which provides the logic and credibility for understanding the concept of One World Family as a human evolutionary imperative. And, I must accomplish all that in 15 minutes! Accordingly, I must ask your forgiveness for reading this address, but, this is a subject dear to my heart and I would likely go into more detail, if I do not stick to the script exactly as written. Indeed, if you look at my lectures on YouTube you will see that it takes me about 15 hours to produce a good overview of this subject.
In the early 1970s I began two, seemingly incompatible, careers that eventually merged into a unique understanding that, among other things, has lead me to this podium today. But let me start at the beginning. In 1972, I was a full time applied physicist by day, and a part time consciousness researcher by night and on weekends. As a physicist, I specialized in modeling large complex systems within computers… as a consciousness researcher I defined and explored drug free altered states of consciousness and investigated the abilities and limitations of consciousness. Eventually, I was able to merge the study and application of both physics and consciousness into one overall model of reality. The result of this research unites the worlds of objective and subjective experience, thus, achieving the goal of generating a unified, comprehensive theory of everything (TOE) that bridges metaphysics and physics with one scientific understanding. The results of this work are published in the form of the My Big TOE trilogy and in over 200 YouTube videos of my workshops, conferences, and interviews.
The My Big TOE (MBT) trilogy develops a complete derivation of consciousness. This derivation begins with two assumptions and then proceeds to logically derive all the attributes, limitations, properties, qualities, and mechanics of consciousness and the larger reality – what it is, where it comes from, and how it works. The two assumptions are 1) that consciousness exists just as we experience it: that is, as an information based, self-aware, self-modifying system and, 2) that evolution exists, just as we experience it: that is, as a process of natural selection – a process that will, over time, lead a self-modifying system to better accommodate both internal and external environments . From these two assumptions, all the rest unfolds logically.
As it turns out, consciousness is fundamental and all else is derived therefrom. Metaphysics (that is, ontology, epistemology, cosmology, and theology) and the concepts of god, spirituality, love, morality, and free will -- as well as human purpose and potential – are all easily derived as logical consequences of the MBT theory of consciousness. Likewise, but more surprising, modern physics is also derived as a logical consequences of consciousness, thus unifying physics and metaphysics as subsets of a single overarching understanding of reality. Many major problems and paradoxes of both physics and metaphysics are solved simply and completely by applying this new perspective. MBT theory accurately predicts the results of scientific experiments and makes new predictions that are experimentally verifiable. It explains the results gathered by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory over the last several decades. It explains why and how the placebo effect works, what preceded the Big Bang, The expanding universe, How mental intent can affect physical reality, the origin, nature, and purpose of us as well as our universe, What happens after we die, why the speed of light is invariant under the motion of its source (which is the key to deriving relativity), and why particles are actually probability distributions (which is the key to deriving quantum mechanics). MBT theory explains why and how the double slit experiments and particle entanglement work; how and why precognitive dreams and remote viewing work, as well as, a host of other long standing scientific mysteries.
The same MBT logic and science that delivers a better understanding of physics, also delivers a model of consciousness and a better understanding of metaphysics. Much that is now considered paranormal becomes simply normal; and a foundation of logic is seen to underlie subjective, as well as objective experience.
Besides all of the above, MBT theory explains and defines love and how and why love is the answer to humanities most pressing problems. It explains what each individual can do to find peace, happiness, and satisfaction in this life. It answers the question: What is spirituality and how does one develop it? Many of the readers of the MBT trilogy find it life changing -- this is a work to be lived, rather than just read. MBT is just now in the process of becoming more widely known. It is a scientific model that everyday-ordinary-people can understand and personally apply. The “MY” in My Big TOE does not represent pride of authorship but rather the fact that, in the subjective world of consciousness, if it is not your experience, it cannot be your truth.
What does this have to do with: “One World Family – Be the Change”? Everything!
According to this theory, consciousness (The larger consciousness system) is the source, the core, the creator of everything else. Reality frames (such as our universe or our dreams) are created by information. Consciousness is an information system. Information systems evolve by lowering their entropy (increasing meaningful content). And our universe is a computed virtual reality – an experiential entropy reduction trainer to facilitate the evolution of consciousness. Subsets (or cells) of consciousness called Individuated units of consciousness (that is, you and I) evolve our individual subset of consciousness (thus helping to evolve the whole) by making free will choices within the context of our interactive experiences and by learning from the feedback generated by the results of those choices. Optimal interaction for positive evolution is cooperative, compassionate, and love based. Love is about other, its opposite, fear, is about self.
We are individuated units of consciousness interacting within a digital virtual reality universe in order to evolve the quality of our consciousness. That is our purpose. That is why conscious entities, such as us, are interacting within this virtual reality. We are here in this entropy reduction, consciousness evolution, virtual reality trainer to become love, to learn to cooperate, to reduce fear, ego, beliefs, and expectations, to lower the entropy of our consciousness by experientially making fee will choices from the limited set of choices within our decision space.
Now, from the perspective of the Big Picture just outlined, and from the understanding that consciousness evolution is our fundamental purpose, let’s look at the pattern of our physical and consciousness evolution:
a) First, imagine the first biological cell – very choice limited, thus very growth limited. One of the most useful things it could do was to split in two and thus generate a larger collection of single cells with which it could interact. The question is: What constitutes their optimal interaction? The answer is: Coming together and forming a multi-celled organism, a cooperative interactive structure that increases the complexity, effectiveness, and potentiality of the system, as well as decreases system entropy.
To create a multi-celled organism, the single cells have evolved to cooperate, thus creating a larger more effective system, or alternatively, a more effective being (the system becomes a being when it develops its own unique finite decision space)
b) Next, Imagine cell specialization where cooperating groups of multiple-celled structures become organs within one larger more effective, more capable, lower entropy being.
c) Now, Imagine that these cooperative multi-celled, specialized structures become fish, frogs, dogs, and human beings. …do you see the trend? Do you see the repetitive process-fractal nature of reality? At each stage of our development, the most able individual players of each evolutionary level evolve the quality of their interaction to the point that they cooperate with others on their level to form a larger, more complex, more effective, lower entropy organism – then, this new, more complex, lower entropy organism evolves its level of cooperative interaction to eventually create a new even-higher-order entity by cooperating with others of its kind at the next higher level of social organization -- again becoming part of something of greater potential and lower entropy than its individual members.
Do you see the path that our physical evolution, in the service of our consciousness evolution, has set for us to follow? Do you have sufficient hubris to believe that we are somehow not part of this pattern? Clearly, the task set before humanity is to evolve a more cooperative, caring and compassionate interaction with each other, with other species, and with the Earth itself to become one larger more effective system – One World Family! This is not simply wishful thinking. Though, I do not have the time today to explain the logical derivation, the concept of One-World-family represents the logical consequence of a higher level, more complete physics; of an overarching model of reality and consciousness that subsumes our current little picture understanding of physics and reality.
Cooperation and caring creates synergy. It creates something greater than the sum of its parts. Cooperation does imply some constraints but these constraints are never imposed upon the cooperating individuals. Some, from their basis in fear and belief, think that cooperation necessarily limits individual freedom -- Instead, a plethora of new opportunities and new dimensions for the expression of freedom are generated at the personal level, producing a more useful and profitable experience for everyone. Effectiveness, value, and functionality are optimized for individuals as well as for the cooperative whole.
What is this fundamental urge, this drive to implement a cooperative, caring, coming together? It represents the vector of evolutionary progress within an evolving consciousness system – we feel it as an innate nudge to move away from a more constrained, competitive existence to a freer more expansive cooperative one, from being self-focused to being other-focused – that is, moving away from fear, ego, belief and expectation toward love. This process has been called; spiritual growth, increasing the quality (or decreasing the entropy) of one’s consciousness, growing up and living in the Big Picture within the larger reality of consciousness, and expressing our oneness with all beings within the Larger Consciousness System.
In human terminology, “other focused” is the defining characteristic of love.
Each “cell” (and here, I use a larger, more general concept of the word “cell” that includes you and I) is a free agent within its own decision space and that decision space increases (not decreases) with cooperation. Each cell does what it does because of what it chooses to do, not because of what it is forced to do – In a cooperative system no cell or being is forced to make any particular choice. Each individual member of the cooperative group always has free will to choose from among the choices that lie within its enhanced decision space. Unfortunately, most of us find it almost impossible to imagine a social condition of cooperation, compassion, and love -- we can only imagine a competitive individual freedom that is defined in terms of scarcity and conflict, that is, in terms of our fear and ego…why? …because we define ourselves and our relationships in terms of our fear and ego. People have a fear of being forced, coerced, or pressured, because force, coercion, and pressure (manipulation and imposed outside requirements of some sort) is all that we know, and what is worse, it is a very large part of what, and who, we are. Fear will necessarily become the driver of you and your reality if you do not interact within a community of cooperation, caring, and love. Fear erodes trust. Without trust, cooperation is impossible; without cooperation, we all stand alone in fear.
When biological cells stop cooperating, stop working together effectively, or are invaded from outside, or invade others, we call it disease. When biological cells get greedy, or begin building their own little non-cooperative empires within the cooperative body, or begin to consume more than they contribute, we call it cancer. The same applies to human cells within our social systems. We need to grow up, to evolve the quality of our consciousness, to become the “cells” of the cooperative, caring, compassionate, well balanced, organism that it is our eventual evolutionary destiny to become.
It took the bacteria and then the primitive multi-celled critters and then the complex critters with specialized organs, about a billion years of random mutations and the trial and error of natural selection, to lower their entropy, improve their effectiveness, and evolve to successively higher levels of cooperation. It has been a very slow process.
Because humans are a lot smarter and much more aware than a bacterium on an amoeba…we don’t have to wait for random mutations, instead we can think and plan and create our future…and, as a result, after only a few million years, we are beginning to see more and more symposiums and conferences (like this one) and cooperative, caring projects (like those you will hear discussed today) focused on encouraging and building global and individual cooperation and caring and compassion. This is good news. I think we, as a race are beginning to grasp our evolutionary imperative…. to understand our quest and are finally taking a few tottering steps toward implementing our evolutionary destiny of becoming One World Family.
What you see here today is proof that the long awaited, and arguably inevitable, evolution of humankind into One World Family is alive and well, gathering momentum -- and crowds of supporters such as yourselves.
It is a fact that all significant change must be implemented at the individual level. So, what can you, as individuals do to implement this profound evolutionary metamorphosis? How can you move from being part of the problem to becoming part of the solution? Gandhi said it best: simply “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
Thank You!
Several picture from the event:
This is Auma Obama - the sister of Barack Obama - giving Tom his OneWorldFamily award:
This is Tom during the evening dinner sitting next to his wife Pamela and Ervin Laszlo and Manfred Max-Neef:
