Tapping The Primal Mind

[I]f we are not aware that our theories are ever-changing forms of insight, giving shape and form to experience in general, our vision will be limited.

David Bohm
Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Yes indeed, writing can be powerful therapy. It is a tool to explore oneself, to gather and collect one's thoughts, to put one's world in some sort of order that makes some sort of sense. The key word here is sort. For above all the human mind, especially its higher cerebral center, loves to sort. In fact the cerebrum seems a tool of the nervous system designed especially for sorting, for dividing and separating, for classifying, delineating and ordering. And, as our vast libraries and universities now show, this "higher" order ability of the human nervous system works extremely well. Sometimes too well.

"The map is not the territory," says Alfred Korzybski. At least that's what I hear him say to me as I write this essay some 60 years after the passing of this insightful and influential philosopher-scientist. And while I am only vaguely aware of his work, which I understand he developed quite thoroughly in a discipline he called general semantics, I believe I get the gist of what his system taught. For it is not unlike the beginning qualification of the ancient Tao Te Ching, which in effect says, "The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao."

What are these two pieces of perennial wisdom, separated in their composition by over 2,000 years, telling us? In my mind they are saying: Take care, language, along with all the knowledge it attempts to represent and express, is only an approximation of reality. In more Korzybskian fashion, I would say the higher human brain is a model-building device, but remember the model is not the world. Let's play with this a bit.

It rained last night and as I look out my kitchen window everything looks clean and fresh. Spring has sprung. Rebirth. And with this sight comes a feeling of what the ancient sages of India called Purusha, pure awareness and nothing else. No labels. No definitions. No separations. Everything I see, simply is as it is.

Ok, so that's the ideal they say, the primordial beginning of consciousness. But really for me right now, or at least almost immediately from the start, I must add the concept-word beautiful to my description of this new beginning. I can't help it, because that's what it feels like. So right at the outset, my pure awareness has progressed from simple detached observation to a sense or feeling of the beautiful. Thus goes the first connection between observed and observer, world and perceiver join together. Object and subject connect through this intangible immaterial feeling or aesthetic component of experience called beauty.

Now let's jump to the other end of the spectrum. Here I am writing this book, attempting to draw a map, or describe a model of my reality. Overall, I feel this is a necessary and good thing. But is it a completely accurate assessment of me and my world. Of course not. It is an approximation. It is, best I can, an expression of my experience, and beyond that, what I might like to experience. Finally, as I've stated at the beginning of this essay, it is therapy, a way of exploring my world, of assessing the models of reality, literarily or otherwise.

If I were on the counselor's couch right now, with book on brain so to speak, I would expect my counselor to provide their own insight as to the accuracy of my model or worldview. If it were fundamentally flawed, I hope they would let me know why and how they thought this was so. Upon reflection on the counselor's assessment, I would no doubt seek out the opinions and perspectives of others. Of course in real life, we do this all the time with the people we encounter. We compare and discuss our experiences and worldviews. In a sense, we act as each other's counselors and advisors, in a sort of mass populace group therapy. This seems the process of building consensus reality, or perhaps more accurately, consensus model-building or map-making.

Here some challenges immediately arise. First, the models or maps, or books if you will, that we each bring to the table are all different and similar to varying degrees. Where our maps agree, our communication is facilitated and moves on. Where they disagree our communication may be hindered or come to a complete standstill, or worse, devolve into manners of expression less constructive. At this point some Korzybskian referee should call out, "Stop, don't mistake the map for the territory!"

So we all ease back, open up, suspend judgment and listen more carefully to what the other is saying about the territory as they see it. Of course we don't have to agree, in fact we should expect we won't. Instead, we just allow sharing of perspectives and leave it at that. David Bohm, one of the greatest quantum physicists of our age, conceived this notion of communication in what is now called Bohmian Dialog.

Still, this is not enough. So I go back to my counselor, who just so happens to be an old shaman. He gives me a substance called cannabis, which he says will help me bypass the model that my brain has built as well as the model that has been built into my brain. He says this is necessary because this model is somehow flawed, perhaps fundamentally, inaccurate or incomplete. He says this is so because much of my model is built on misinformation I've inherited from culture and tradition over thousands of years. He says cannabis will help me see beyond this model born in the cerebrum and into deeper areas of the brain. It will help me access information that took precedent before these complex models were built. It will help me recall memory still there, deep in the brain. By doing this, the shaman says I can deconstruct and reconstruct my model accordingly. He says I need to do this because my map only serves so far as it accurately reflects the territory. A poor map gets one lost quick. A better map takes you further. The shaman tells me the best map takes you places you've never been before. It opens new territories. It expands and redefines boundaries. It creates new possibilities.

Ok, let's go with this...let's relook at this map...cut it up...turn it upside down and inside out...let's see what this territory is all about...let's go on a walkabout...

This man, he was tired and confused and hurt. So he went on a walkabout. This man he was disconnected from his people, he was disconnected from himself. So he went on a walkabout. This man, he saw something wasn't right, he saw something was stuck, something was backwards, something needed to turn around, something needed to grow out. So he went on a walkabout.