The Prism Mind - Introduction by Zach Shatz

While I am busy researching and writing for my book projects I thought I would highlight some interesting and fantastic work of others.

This Introduction is from The Prism Mind by poet, writer and visionary Zach Shatz.  His website can be found here: http://www.prismind.com/

More information on this work will be forthcoming!

Introduction: The Prism Mind

From suggestions of the “holographic universe” to sacred geometry to fractal patterns in nature, there are echoes of an elusive pattern of organization that pervades the universe.

This small tome hopes to convince the reader that there’s a pattern in the universe which reveals truths about human consciousness. The text here delves into matters of physical science, but it’s important to make clear at the start that this isn’t the essential concern. In addition to physics, this fundamental insight sheds light on psychology as well as considerations of society and spirituality.

Physical science merely provides evidence for the real message about the nature of the mind, and an individual’s relation to others and the greater universe. Theories of psychology, unlike physics, are different depending on who one asks. While there are debates within physics, there’s a core framework which most scientists agree upon: questions of temperature and pressure; the four forces that govern the physical world; the structure of atoms, etc.

This is not the case in psychology. In theories such as psychoanalysis, developmentalism, behaviorism or humanism, each school of thought has its own framework. There’s no agreement. It’s a big mess. The considerations described in this material propose to change that. Discoveries in the peculiar world of quantum physics point to a pattern that leads us to a clearer understanding of consciousness, from which psychology gains a framework. This promises to introduce us to our true nature.

The text presented here can boldly be called an original, comprehensive metaphysics. A reader might diffidently intone, “Is that so? Says who?”

The answer being, only someone pointing to a doorway. As a Native American adage counsels, “When a finger points at the moon, don’t look at the finger. Look at the moon.” The one who’s pointing isn’t of special interest, but the object is meant to be.

This text doesn’t claim to have every answer, but harkens to a doorway by which the metaphysical universe can be accessed. The doorway’s key, then? It’s found that quantum mechanics manifests in spoken language, i.e. patterns of speech mirror the patterns of quantum phenomena.

Put plainly, the words we use reflect the nature of the universe itself, which is complementary. It should be understood, the use of “complementary” here refers to two aspects of one thing, rather than a duality of two things in relationship, as Einstein discerned in the complementarity of space-time.

Quizzically, mainstream scientists find no meaningful significance in the concordance of physics’ most fundamental complementary pairs. Intuitively, this couldn’t be more obvious.

COMPLEMENTARY UNIVERSE

The relationship of particle and wave at subatomic scale

is the basis of quantum complementarity. These five

pairs below might be called the “Hard Set,” the most

fundamental complementarities in physics:

PARTICLE / WAVE

mass / energy

position / momentum

space / time

magnetic / electrical

Then we can see that instances of complementarity
appear commonly, evident in everyday life:

rational / intuitive

objective / subjective

digital / analog

logorithm / algorithm

thoughts / feelings

knowledge / wisdom

Of crucial importance in our discussion of metaphysics is this phenomenon: interactions of particles in the quantum field make them linked forever, unbounded by time or distance, creating an interconnected and “nonlocal” universe; also commonly called quantum entanglement.

In light of this, the quantum domain overall is understood as a self-reflexive matrix, described by the late, celebrated physicist David Bohm as “holomovement.” That is to say, subatomic particles throughout the universe engage in a perpetually morphing, nonlocal dance of interactions.

The geometries created by the interactions in the quantum field, while fleeting, are prism patterns. Why need we invoke the concept of prisms? As the emerging geometries act to direct the courses of the energies therein, these patternings are elemental. Feynman diagrams convey this. Some readers will insist prism forms should be more narrowly defined; however multifarious types of prisms are found in the scientific literature, including even two-dimensional prisms¹.

According to prevailing neuroscientific theories, consciousness is a quantum system. Our speech patterns reflect this premise in the mirroring of referents. When we say “life is good,” are we saying life is pleasing, or that life has an objective good value? Or perhaps life has an objective good value because it’s pleasing, or vice versa. Consciousness, born of the quantum matrix, is like a hall of mirrors, a prism.

The complementarity discerned in linguistics yields reflection, both figurative and literal. For example, the simple word “ice” is refracted as water/cold/solid, or “money” as value/medium/exchange. This text offers: 1) a tour and a demonstration of prismatic effects manifesting in verbal language; 2) greater insight into the shadowy workings of intuition; and 3) a mapping of the metaphysical universe.

Consider these examples from common language usage, illustrating prescient intimations of the prismatic nature of consciousness, existing as an “open secret.”

AN OPEN SECRET: PRISMATIC LANGUAGE

In each case from common culture, we can see
prisms (i.e., including crystals) evoke a powerful
reflection and affirmation on language and thought.

a thought crystallizes

into a gem of an idea

in consciousness as well as in prisms we find:

reflection, focus, coherence, resolution, clarity

what is that fabled pot of gold promised

at a rainbow’s end? – in fact, a prism

faces/facets/facts: prime compositional elements

prism: philosopher’s stone

the mind is a mental prism or mental prison

the seer utilizes that crystal ball

existing within the mind

personalities are like snow crystals, unique

parts are a…party 

while wholes are…holy

embodiments of divinity:

Christ, Krsna, crystal

—  carbon we, coal or diamond be!  —

A pertinent question arises, how is complementarity associated with prismatic consciousness. The answer is found in part-to-whole relationships. A prism is a whole entity composed of facets or parts; that is, it’s both a set of parts and a compositional whole. The wave in the quantum complementarity is the relationship of the parts. The system can be seen as the individuated parts, or as the interdependent whole. In complementary fashion, it’s one thing with two aspects. Magnetics in relationship become electrical.

_______________

This diminutive work is an offering for the serious seeker into the metaphysical universe, beyond materiality in the nature of energetic realms. Can these claims be proven? Just as beauty can’t be proven, that which is ethereal can only be experienced directly.

Proofs rely on empirical data. It’s only by some residual evidence, in observed by-products, that energies can be empirically verified; such as with waveforms. We can’t see a wave’s energy apart from its medium, though it can be intuitively felt. Its energy is present yet is verified only by way of that medium.

Experiential reality itself can’t be empirically defined, and here we have an important insight: experience, while merely personal, has validity. Validity exists beyond what can be proven – a very controversial assertion!

Of course we must distinguish between delusional and reliable experience, and this is achieved by redundant consistencies, or else by persistence of continuity with the empirical, or other forms of personal corroboration which can provide credence.

For example, many police departments utilize information given by psychics for investigations. The law enforcement professionals can’t say how the process works, yet profitable use of the information lends validation.

Modern science would have us believe that only provable assertions have real meaning, and that experience lacks validity. Thus love and whatever else is purely experiential, while acknowledged by scientists as socially meaningful, is said to have no place in the cold rationality of serious inquiry.

Then experience and anything else personal in nature can neither inform nor be tempered by scientific formulation. Must this be so? It’s not proposed that love and the like should fall under the tight strictures of science, but rather that science can be advanced in ways that allow experiential knowledge to function in formal investigations. The observer effect on quantum action is one case.

Another example is the relatively recent advent of qualitative research, as opposed to the quantitative. Yet many scientists will insist, if the data can’t be quantified, it’s not scientifically valid. For too long the modern world has suffered under the oppression of quantification.

It’s recalled that researchers have calculated the monetary value of every single thing on Earth, all the trees, water and oxygen, etc., and arrived at a total estimated value of $17 trillion. Does this stand as any kind of meaningful finding? Did they valuate living things, or ecologies, or renewable energy sources?

Obviously there are intangible elements which can’t be quantified. However, is all that’s intangible, which evades empiricism, to be disregarded by the number-enslaved scientific community?

Most scientists will acknowledge intangible value has validity and meaning. But because the intangible doesn’t “figure into” their work, this value is left unaccounted for and science proceeds as if intangibles are irrelevant and nebulous. We can see this issue addressed ably in the work of economist Hazel Henderson, who adds human value to economic models.

Experiential assertions must gain form and force, however, to act as a counterpoint to the limitations of empirical verification. We must balance the empirical with some reliable system that formally validates, substantiates and speaks to the personal. Quantum complementarity reflected in linguistics, with its prismatic qualities, can provide a new avenue.

We possess two cerebral hemispheres, though principally we use the left hemisphere for formal reasoning. Is it possible that the other, the right hemisphere of the brain, has a potential for formal thought yet to be uncovered, a formal system of intuition? Reflective properties inherent in the linguistic complementarity furnish the foundation for such a formal system. Poetry has always utilized this.

If this proposition sounds absurd, consider – as described in the seminal text, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn – that groundbreaking advances in scientific knowledge are met first with bemusement; then vehement refutation; and then ready acceptance.

Venture if you will into this exploration. In this realm of the formalized intuitive, the knowing of experience stands beside the knowing of empiricism and reflects that humanity, until now equipped with only a functional rational capacity, has careened through history haphazardly. Delineating a functional intuitive capacity promises balance for the hemispherical human, and so also for human progress.

Rational empiricism refers to quantities and the material world; the intuitive refers to qualities and mental, social and energy domains. Neither side of the complementarity is sufficient without the other. Possessing both formal faculties, humanity might then have the capacity to move forward with the strength of a whole mind.

¹ Silva, Joao, “Transformation of Nonlinear Problems Into Linear Ones Applied to the Magnetic Field of a Two-Dimensional Prism,” Geophysics, January 1989, v.54 n.1.