Category Archives: Classic Bill

Consciousness Has Been the Black Hole of Physics

Originally posted July 21, 2011

The Theory of the Conscious Universe was the working title of my book, “You Are the Universe: Imagine That”, released in 2014.

Since Einstein’s famous mind experiments made it possible to think in ways we could never even imagine before, we have learned that Time is Relative to an Observer.

Einstein pictured the Observer riding on a photon of light, and imagined what the Observer would “see” if it were possible to see without the interaction of photons and the eye (which interactions could not occur if one’s eyes were smaller than photons). This mind stretching exercise of imagination led him to make predictions that Quantum Mechanics (QM) has now proven to be accurate many, many times. Time does indeed move more slowly as the Observer approaches the speed of light.

The Observer then began to appear more and more frequently on the stage of physics. However no one dared to focus on the Observer; the Observer functioned as a convenient construct within theory but physicists stayed away from trying to say what the Observer is.

Heisenberg used the Observer to prove that an Observer cannot measure both the vector and position of an electron, but can choose which one to measure and in the process the measurement itself will alter the other value.

The Observer, of course, is consciousness — the experiencer, that which experiences — what is at the core of each of us, our innermost Self.

The ‘black hole” reference in the title refers simply to the way that physics has used the Observer without trying to look inside it.

Bell’s Theorem and the many experiments generated to prove or disprove that theorem, have established that either some things can travel faster than light, or that distance/space itself is an illusion and the entire universe exists within a single point, where everything is connected to everything else.

That the universe exists within a singular point is consistent with the Theory of The Conscious Universe which posits that the Original Experiencer is all that exists, and that the rest of the Universe is a creation of that Experiencer, all existing within Consciousness, the substrate of the Universe. Consciousness does not occupy space nor require the existence of space. According to the Theory of The Conscious Universe, space is an illusion created within Consciousness.

The Original Experiencer, like a computer server, is able to create from Itself networked computers (each of us) with whom the Original Experiencer is in various forms of communication. We are like sensors feeding back our experiences, and the Original Experiencer with its infinite computing power is able to combine and simultaneously experience all of that at once.

An elite team of physicists has recently received a grant to study the differences between our collective subjective experience of reality and the findings of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. The vision is to be able to combine new insights with QM to explain why we perceive the universe the way we do. The team refers to the Einstein term “block time” — time as a single block not as a running river — as one of the specific things they hope to explain: how is it that time is apparently an illusion (according to certain interpretations of QM and Relativity Theory) and yet we all experience it as reality? Perhaps the team will combine physics with new insights from neuroscience.

The Theory of The Conscious Universe explains that, to the Original Observer*, everything is happening at once in a single instant of time, as a result of the processing power inherent in the Original Observer. To created fictional beings (us) our processing power is so much smaller that we must break down the allness into a sequence — over time — in order to take it all in.

To the Original Observer, it is still the first instant of Time — and will always be.

The creation of “cell selves” provides an infinite variety of experience and creativity to the Original Observer. Perpetual newness rather than sameness. Cell selves at our level have free will and no direct cognizance of sharing the Original Identity. This creates drama. What would you do if you were in the position of the Original Observer — just veg out for eternity?

In other words, it is simple and elegant (Occam’s Razor) to explain everything in the Universe if we take the substrate of Universe to be an Original Observer — our subjective experience, the findings of QM and Relativity, and a lot more. Einstein’s “block time” is just one example of how the picture falls into place — explaining why we subjectively experience time as a series of events while at the same time scientific experimentation tells us that these events do not objectively exist in this temporal relationship.

The principle of “parsimony” (explanations based on the fewest axioms) is a hallmark of science and is often used as a guidepost to identify theories that are more likely to be the actual explanations of reality. Perhaps this lends additional credence to the Theory of The Conscious Universe and justifies its consideration and further investigation of the experimental pathways to proving or disproving our theory.

Questions we will tackle in upcoming postings:

  • How does the Original Observer create the rest of the Universe?
  • Where did the Original Observer come from?
  • What is the relevancy to action decisions if the Theory of The Conscious Universe is correct?

And many more.

Best to all,

Bill

*”Original Observer” and “Original Experiencer” are used interchangeably here.

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Old Wounds Can Eventually Heal

Volume 4, Issue 25. Originally published September 4, 2014

Young Bill on stage with his dad Ned and mom Sandy in wingsThe year was 1954. My parents, whom I called Pop and Sandy at that time (later Ned was renamed “The Chief” by a Native American horn player in his band and I then switched from Pop), took me out to dinner in Manhattan, which I loved. (We lived in Brooklyn.) Gallaghe’s Steakhouse or perhaps it was Joe Marsh’s Candlelight Clurb, which isn’t there anymore. I had a steak. We had a terrific time. I was in a warm glow by the end of dinner when they revealed to me their secret purpose for me that night.

Joel Grey’s “Star Time Kids” was shot at the CBS studio around the corner and I was to be on live TV that night, in fact, right after dinner.

I went from cloud 9 to hell in one second flat. I couldn’t explain why the idea was out of the question, I was too upset to think clearly.

They had always gotten what they wanted out of me in terms of onstage performances. They inculcated in me from my earliest memories that I had been born in a trunk and there was no question of me not getting up there and doing whatever the act was at the time. I don’t remember ever putting up any resistance to it until the night in question, since resistance was futile. Nevertheless, suddenly I was in a situation where for reasons I could not even articulate to myself, this trouper was going to let the public down. “The show must go on” (years later my father said this with a choke in his voice, the night he went to the club the day Sandy died) but in my case the show would not go on.

They tried to compromise with me, first saying, “Okay, just sit in the peanut gallery and you won’t even have to say anything,” but I would not hear of it. The best they could do was to get me to peek in at the studio, hoping that I would relent at the last minute and show what a trouper I really was. But one look at the blinding battery of klieg lights was it. I had my fill, and we went home in a sad cloud.

Sandy tried to make us all feel better. She explained what had happened, saying, “Billy is a trouper. But he is a perfectionist and wants to prepare fully to give his best performance every time. This time we forgot that and thought it would be easier on him to not have him know about it until the last minute. It was our fault.”

Ned agreed she was right but it never made me feel any better. All my life, whenever I was having a bad moment for any reason, this was one of the regretful memories that I would beat myself up with once again.

Separately I wondered from time to time how my life might have been totally different if I had gone the other way that night.

***

One night I was dreaming that Lalita and I were at an advertising/media industry conference somewhere, not in NY. I would be speaking that night. We were meeting people before the conference. Yana, my editor (who puts in all these commas), would be joining us but was late as the conference was about to begin. At the last second she came running faster than I have ever seen her move, down the long empty corridor with a red face and a big smile.

The conference started and a gent got up and gave a tepid 5-minute opening remark. Then the MC — of all people, the late Ben Wallach, who had been the Athletic/Social Activities Director at the Hotel Brickman — called me to go on next.

In the dream I suddenly realized we had forgotten to bring the slides. I didn’t even know what the conference was about.

In previous dreams of this kind there was a hideous moment and then I would wake up.

This time was different. I realized I had no idea what I would say, but something in me felt perfectly willing to go up there and see what would come out of me. I started for the stage.

And then I woke up.

When I told the story to Lalita she said, “You woke yourself just in time to not have to experience making a fool of yourself.”

But it wasn’t like that at all. I woke up feeling exhilarated. I didn’t know exactly why at first. I knew I was pleased with myself for the total acceptance of the challenge that traditionally had been my Waterloo: being unprepared for public performance. I knew that the way I react in dreams is exactly what I would do in the future. I felt liberated, released.

Then it hit me: this was the erasure of the Star Time experience. Closure of that karma. Full circle. After a lifetime of disappointment in myself for how I’d handled that moment, I had redeemed myself. I am a trouper.

So what’s the point of my sharing this story? What do you, the reader, get out of it?

We all have deep wounds. Some are papered over by repression and some may be with us all the time. Whatever they are, if we take them out and look at them from time to time, and make it an active intention all our lives to become that which we hold as our own ideal self in real everyday life, inevitably in time — sometimes decades as in this case — we get there.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog contribution, “In Terms of ROI“ at MediaVillage.com under MediaBizBloggers.

Ten Minutes in a Life

Originally posted December 20, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 36

He looked up from the gas pump to where a moment before he had an intimation she would be, and high in the sky was the moon behind a pale shimmer of cloud, one day past full. Down and to the left was an American flag. Trees were all around. He suddenly realized the time was pretty good now. There was nothing to be concerned about that he could feel at the moment, no time pressure, everything was going fine. Then it came to him that he always assumed there was something wrong, some unrightness he would constantly have to steer against. He was thrilled at having uncovered a bad lens he could discard.

A minute later, starting up the car, the lyrics of a song on the radio triggered a vision.“The dearest thing in all the world is waiting somewhere for me” (“Waiting Somewhere For Me” by Rodgers and Hammerstein). He saw a scene of indescribable beauty, something between a fractal and a huge mural, a panorama of infinite detail and intense color, the parts in constant unfolding and rotational movement everywhere. He couldn’t hold it all — it was overwhelming, filled with light, luminous, numinous. The words “Oh my God” began in his mind but all wording was pressed out by the overwhelming emotional wave enveloping him in awe, love, victory, beauty. His feelings united with the scene so that he was the scene, the beauty, the happiness, the realization that not “he” — now “it” — was past the need for words forever, past the possibility of unhappiness forever.

He contemplated the vision as he drove to catch his train. Several minutes later on the cold train platform he watched himself hurriedly extract a mint, his body still assuming time pressure, always assuming the need to get done an important job that had to be done at top speed because suffering would be relieved for more people faster that way. He knew this assumption was also a bad lens to be removed. More good would be done without that lens, too. And besides, in his day job he was not relieving suffering directly, more like paying for the time spent in nonprofit work.

That was the ten minutes.

An hour and forty minutes later in Manhattan he wondered if the shock — that is, the heightened sensitivity — he was feeling would incapacitate him. Being in Manhattan with its concomitant information pressure could pull him into some ineffective state of consciousness if his skills were not all available. He did not worry yet as he was merely curious about it at this point. Next he automatically told the cab driver where to go before he could miss a beat. The rest of the morning unfolded that way, with actions being taken in natural confidence. Soon he stopped being concerned that he might be in a degraded effectiveness state.

What was it that he had seen? It couldn’t be the whole of what the consciousness of the universe sees, since that perspective would include what was going on inside each of the parts he had seen from the outside. He had been seeing some abstraction of the whole of what there is to be seen, but he had seen people striving, other life forms striving, the very cosmos striving, its movement the necessary means to some end. The dimensions of error/evil had been visible as wrong turns taken out of synch with the rest of the whole, there were great movements in history explained by the turnings of the wheels inside the driving bio-mental Platonic Forms gearbox whose meshing appeared to be a higher reality underlying the explicate order visible to human eyes.

Would science classify this as an hallucination? It was a vision, its complexity and the intelligence of its designs far beyond the negative connotations of the word “hallucination”. Also it was not seen with the external eyes, so if it were a hallucination, it would have to be classified as an interior one. Is that what science thinks a vision is? Or did I actually see something real?

Perhaps cutting-edge science would say that ideas long evolving in my head combined intuitively by themselves to present me with a visual representation. If so, this is a testament to the power of our subconscious minds, and to the function we call intuition, when for ten seconds we find ourselves in Flow state.

Best to all,

Bill

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Celebrating the Miraculous

Originally posted December 22, 2015

Today we celebrate The Winter Solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year, when the sun appears at its lowest altitude above the horizon and darkness abounds.

This winter solstice call forth the light and the love hidden in every heart

Winter Solstice has been celebrated with festivals of light since Neolithic times. The primary axis of Stonehenge, which could have been built as far back as 3000 BC, is aligned to point to the Winter Solstice sunset. Newgrange in Ireland, built around 3200 BC in the Neolithic period, is similarly aligned to point to the Winter Solstice sunrise.

Christmas has been the signature Winter Solstice celebration in the Western World for the past 2000 years.* Yeshua Ben Joseph (Hebrew equivalent to Jesus, son of Joseph), remembered as Jesus Christ, is whom Christmas is named after.

It is nearly impossible to think of Jesus without thinking of miracles.

The existence of the universe is itself a miracle. Why should anything ever have come into existence? How can something come out of nothing? Logically, all that should ever have existed is nothingness.

In our everyday lives there are many synchronicities — odd seemingly-meaningful coincidences — that occur more frequently than would seem the result of random chance. My book You Are The Universe: Imagine That includes reports of some of the miracles I have witnessed.

What is a miracle? We seem to think a miracle is something that does not usually happen. This season, let’s create small miracles by treating others as we’d like to be treated, and practicing forgiveness, seeing how we may just as righteously be judged as we may have judged the flaws of others: Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone… and Thou hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Jesus emphasized that even our thoughts count. “As a man thinketh so shall he be.” I believe our thoughts, feelings, intuitions and perceptions, in a closed feedback loop, influence what subsequently happens in the matter-energy timespace universe.

As we celebrate the return of the light force, let’s adopt an attitude of awe and wonderment and celebrate all the miraculous.

Happy Holidays!

My best to you all,
Bill

*The Jewish holiday of Chanukah celebrates the miracle of the oil lasting eight days although there was only enough barely for one day (160 BC). Since the actual timing of Chanukah each year is based on both the Sun and Moon, its exact timing is not synchronous with the Winter Solstice.

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