In man's perennial quest for knowledge, primarily through the discipline of science, for the West, we have greatly expanded 'our senses' through microscopes and electron microscopes, and through powerful telescopes such as Hubble and The James Webb Space Telescope. In general, our path for knowledge begins with observation, curiosity and bemusement as we observe an 'Effect' and then we hypothesize and sharpen our senses - and discover a 'Primary Cause.' In 1676, for example, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek using a rudimentary microscope discovered 'animalcules' or bacteria, or what came to be known as multicellular organisms.
More importantly, many physical illnesses from that watershed moment now had a potential cause - 'animalcules' or bacteria; and soon through antibiotics they would have an efficacious cure.
In 1892, this process of discovery happened again as Dimitri Ivanovsky was investigating tobacco mosaic disease using a porcelain filter that blocked bacteria, but somehow allowed something much smaller and pernicious to penetrate; in this case, a virus that caused the disease; and although he did not have higher powered microscopes to 'see' the virus Ivanovsky through his innovative thinking did more importantly lay the groundwork for virology research.
Then, as most know, you have the ancient Greeks and Democritus 2500 years ago who postulated 'atomos' or atoms existed and were in fact infinite throughout the world and the universe and that they combined in various ways to form all objects, including human beings, of course, in all that we see.
But it took Sir Ernest Rutherford and Einstein in 1900 through a relatively ingenious experiment to finally prove to a somewhat skeptical scientific community that atoms truly existed.
So what is the next 'invisible phenomenon' that we need to discover as America and even the world appears to be reeling from mental contagions? A dangerous Zeitgeist! In the international order, there's been a sharp veering to the right, and in the so-called Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, our veering to the right has led to nearly forty-five percent of us having a strong penchant for the Strong Man Myth or fascism.
In essence, where should we point our microscopes and telescopes this time, and what shall we use our supercomputers and even quantum computers for as powerful and dynamic addendums to the human mind?
Ironically, we need to become like physicians towards the American Politic Body, and look and examine closely human consciousness itself, and if we do with any kind of perspicaciousness, we will understand that 'invisible' tension,' 'the winds of war,' 'the clouds of confusion,' and 'the suffering and anxiety' that we feel are not immaterial and strictly in our heads. They exist internal and external to us, surprisingly enough, and they have a mass and density. In short, like gasses, liquids and solids, they have a 'mathematical reality,' especially when they reach a critical mass.
When 'negativity' builds to such a large extent, for instance, in a society or the world, the only ways it can be released is through natural catastrophes and/or war; and we can 'see' anecdotal examples of this in World War I and World War II.
Thoughts aren't 'meaningless' or 'illusory things' or 'fanciful images' in our minds. They exist with a particular energy, shape, color and tone, and the thoughts of 'anger,' 'hate,' and 'murder' are completely different, as you might have expected, from the altruistic thoughts of 'compassion,' 'brotherhood/sisterhood,' 'joy,' and 'love.'
For the staunch materialist, if two men on a street corner get in a heated argument and one man punches the other in the head, for instance, it is the force and torque of the punch that knocked the man down. For a Platonist, or for a person who believes that this world is composed of archetypal ideas individually manifested, it was the Idea or Thought of anger that flashed in his mind for without it, the incident or assault never would've happened.
Many modern day scientists and even psychiatrists still struggle in finding this 'invisible thing' that lurks and still ask the perennial question: What is consciousness?
Consciousness is pure awareness, and the default setting of the universe is consciousness. Or as Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is Everything." Of course, there might be a plethora of skeptics. But there's the well documented case of The Hundredth Monkey Effect. Japanese scientists gave macaque monkeys on the island of Koshima in 1952 dirty sweet potatoes that rendered them inedible. A female monkey named Imo cleverly learned how to wash the potatoes and then showed other monkeys who then taught more members of their group. Once a critical mass learned this problem solving technique, in essence, the hundredth monkey, then the technique spread to all the monkeys on the island and nearby islands.
In short, we already acknowledge consciousness, only in a very crude, exploitive, and negative manner through mass media and in the arenas of business and politics. Essentially, we try to get our 'message' across in a palatable manner through massive repetition and heightened emotion. We scientifically know that this bypasses the human and mammalian minds and that 'our message,' like a stamped envelope deposited in a mailbox, goes directly to the reptilian mind circumventing logic, rationality, and critical thinking.
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