What I Believe — It Gets Stranger

It’s a process, this business of trying to understand the deeper dimensions of human life. At the time I wrote What I Believe I was not in possession of information that has since come to hand. Although I have nothing to renounce in that earlier essay, new discoveries take it further – much further.

Two very peculiar and unforgettable events have continued to puzzle and challenge me for decades. In 1969 I had the experience described in my post Another Force of Nature, where my mother 1,200 miles across an ocean absolutely knew that I was in serious trouble in Sydney and, thank goodness, acted on that knowledge. Two years later, in Bangkok, I had a vivid dream in which I was terrified by two Americans who, in a few hours, would walk into a room, identify themselves as FBI agents and do me serious harm. I saw into the future. I have always felt greatly blessed by those two events because they allowed me to know with a great deal of certainty that the Newtonian/Einsteinian view of space and time did not describe the limits of what we consider reality. Thanks to In My Time of Dying, an extraordinary book by Sebastian Junger, I just might now understand the true state of things. At least insofar as they can be understood because as Junger points out the comprehension of matters involving quantum mechanics may exceed the design parameters of the human brain.

We now know that neither physical reality nor the flow of time are anything like how our perceptions construct them. It started with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, moved on to quantum entanglement and has now arrived at the point where it has been experimentally proven that consciousness influences reality. Subatomic particles subsist in many places at once, each place being no more than a probability that that particle is in that position. But when we observe a particle it instantly coalesces into a single point. What’s more we can know that particle’s location or its momentum, but never both. Observing the particle blinds us to one or the other, always, as a law of nature.

That’s right. Just looking at something changes it in a provable, measurable way. This flies in the face of everything we consider rational and real. It is so alien to the way we think that many great minds have suggested that we may never understand it because our minds are intrinsically incapable of doing so. As Nobel physicist Richard Feynman observed, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” There is a temptation to regard the incomprehensible but real outcomes of quantum experiments as interesting but to us irrelevant events taking place only in laboratories. That is an error – quantum mechanics are at work in every atom of our bodies and the world around us, all the time. Recent computer modelling suggests that quantum entanglement plays an important role in our neural network. And what we observe, how we observe, is in all likelihood shaping external events and processes. We must learn to live with astonishment and incomprehension.

Which raises the question of what is meant by that ‘we’. Great meditators and many experimenters with hallucinogenic drugs share the experience of the non-separateness of living beings. Now that we know that consciousness changes objective reality there is every reason to suspect they may be right. We know of many instances of ‘hive mind’ in the natural world. What if all consciousness is one great hive mind, something our primordial antecedents may have experienced? We know that our senses are filters developed by evolution to process information in ways that enhance our chances of survival. Most importantly for the purposes of this discussion the senses remove data; that is what filters do. Our senses shape our experience of reality by making us ignorant of much that is there to be observed. That approaching sabretooth tiger was so important to our survival that we learned to filter out birdsong, weather, and the falling of leaves to see only the tiger. Importantly, our senses and our minds limit our observations to what our individual biological organisms can perceive. But that may not reflect the true state of consciousness. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it in his essay “Experience”: “We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subjectlenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects.” An impressive observation for someone writing in the early 19th century.

I have come to the hypothesis that at some point way back in the evolutionary chain we broke our hive mind into apparently individual, separate instances of consciousness because that enhanced our chances of survival. Each separate biological pre-human organism then had its own, specialised instance of consciousness highly focused on taking care of itself. But perhaps the hive mind persists below our level of perception, breaking through under great pressure. Hence in 1969 my mother in Auckland knew with certainty that I was in serious trouble in Sydney. Is this universal consciousness what we call God? Why is there not a single human society that did not, historically, subscribe to some version of divinity? The belief that there is something conscious, with agency, that is greater than us and inhabits a universal realm is uncannily persistent across all humankind.

The ancient Hindus said that there is Brahman, the material world, and Atman, spirit or universal consciousness, and that they are the same thing. I’m starting to think they were right.

While we are at it, nor is time the linear absolute we perceive it to be. In the early 2000s scientists in the Canary Islands performed two sequential versions of the famous two-hole experiment with two entangled photons in which the second experiment caused the results of the first experiment, in the past, to change. Maybe under great stress we can also break the flow of time. It would explain how in Bangkok, in extreme danger, I was able to see in a dream the two men who in a few hours would turn up in my ‘real’ life and consign me to a hellish prison.

Astonishment, but perhaps some comprehension.

My thanks to Greg McGee for tipping me off about Junger’s wonderful book and to Robert Lanza for his thinking about biocentrism. See https://theamericanscholar.org/a-new-theory-of-the-universe/

Universal Credit – The Hidden Industrial Subsidy Making Landlords Rich

I wrote this ten years ago, pre-Brexit. Its inference is that outside the EU, Universal Credit would be replaced by the more effective, efficient and honest practice of subsidising targeted industries. Why is it not even being discussed?

The United Kingdom probably has the largest and most complex welfare system ever known. Much of its workings are the standard stuff of modern economics, revolving around the pretence that it is desirable for everyone to be in education, paid employment or retirement, a condition known as “full employment”. This in defiance of the plain fact that for more than half a century standard economic theory has held that a certain level of unemployment is both desirable and necessary as a hedge against inflation. The clear and present threat of loss of employment is the sole available brake on wage demands in those economies such as the UK still locked into the adversarial employment relations model.

The German mitbestimmung is of course an effective alternative. Germany’s experience has shown that wages can effectively be limited by mutual agreement based on open books. Workers under mitbestimmung have shown themselves well able to recognise wage thresholds beyond which the enterprise and therefore their jobs cease to be viable.

This holds little political appeal in the left-right-obsessed minds of British politicians and workers’ advocates, with each side holding the other to be unrestrainedly greedy. This is a pity and a waste, but it is business as usual, neither likely to change nor even particularly interesting, the quotidian folly of a society mired in 19th Century industrial relations philosophy.

So much for the circumstances and attitudes surrounding unemployment benefits. I am more interested in the other, larger slice of the welfare bill: payments to the poor in employment. In the mid 1980s New Zealand introduced a purer form of monetarism than that of either Britain or the United States; Thatcher was a fervent admirer of Minister of Finance Roger Douglas under the unfortunate Lange government, who swept away every single vestige of state support to the employed. Not that there were many to start with. The child benefit of around £7.50 per week per child had been around since Michael Savage’s far-reaching welfare reforms in the thirties. I part-funded the purchase of our first house by the common practice of child benefit capitalisation, which gave us 18 years’ worth of child benefit for both of our children – a substantial sum. (And yes, I felt rather smug when the child benefit was axed soon after.) The only other benefit for those in work was the ability for the employed to claim work expenses – study and training, work-related travel beyond the daily commute, clothing allowances, etc. This also went in the late 80s.

So arriving in the UK to see vast sums disbursed in welfare payments to the lower-waged was something of a shock. In my world it is now an absolute given – to go into work is to leave direct welfare behind. Free or subsidised health care is not viewed as welfare, but as a right, derived from the shared belief that access to healthcare being dependent on wealth is immoral, an anathema.

So why is it seen as necessary in the UK? On the face of it, you could call it the good old British sense of fair play, simple compassion for the strugglers. But scratch the surface and we see a deeply unpleasant underbelly: a hidden subvention for British industry and agriculture, direct support being severely constrained under the firm and ungenerous thumb of Brussels (as it stood while the UK was in the EU).

Suppose the housing benefit, the winter fuel payments, the child tax breaks and all the rest of it were swept away in one fell swoop.  What would happen? Rent and mortgage payments would white ant the rest of the family budget. Then what – rent default on a huge scale, hundreds of thousands of simultaneous evictions? If that were the only consequence, well, rents and mortgages would simply have to drop. So what? The consequences of that are not hard to calculate – thousands of highly geared landlords going bankrupt, for a start.

But that would not happen, or at least not quickly, because experience shows that most people will freeze and starve before they give up their home to go – where?

If there were any slack in the system, the lowly paid might stand some chance of enduring the shock. But there isn’t any, at least not nearly enough. My partner’s son and his family simply could not survive on their meagre earnings alone, in spite of the fact that he is a hard-working and successful bed salesman. Most people would simply choose unemployment and the dole and it would be a valid choice. You can’t hold your job if you can’t afford to get there. You can’t put in a day’s work if you’re constantly hungry. You can’t show up to a retail or office job in shabby old clothes. Of course the first to go would be the Smiths, the Perkins, the Jameses. The Wronskis, the Odungas and Wachikes would hang on longer, the ones who will live six to a room and subsist on rice and beans, a dynamic already observable under the current system. Cue deepening hatreds, the oppressed turning on the oppressed.  So often ‘taking our jobs’ really means doing our jobs for low wages we refuse to accept and should not have to accept.

Such scything cuts to workers’ welfare could not be made without declaring the whole plan, being an intention to divert those billions into supporting capacity and advancement in agriculture and industry, research and development, and where necessary direct price support. The British public has become so used to ubiquitous welfare it is likely that, even if the scheme were openly described as a reallocation of resources, the reaction from the street, the pulpit and the leader page would still be to flay the heartlessness of the politicians driving them. The British sense of entitlement to welfare has become endemic. From the other side of the fence, the beneficiaries of these hidden subsidies would howl about the unavoidable wage increases which would follow, ignoring or not trusting the intention to replace them in a more open and targeted manner.

It is a fact that failing that strategy forbidden by the EU many British products and services would become more expensive than those of their competitors. So we see what this really is all about – international competitiveness. A deeply dishonourable covert subvention that reduces workers to the role of part-time beggars on their knees before the armies of bureaucrats employed to administer their welfare. Their day-to-day existence haunted by the spectre of The Cuts. Perfectly honest hard-working employees who deserve decent wages and the respect due to those who thrive by their efforts are often driven to become cheats, sharing with their mates every new wrinkle to work the system, escape deductions, drive up entitlements through falsehood and secrecy. Absolute loss of belief in the political process and the law.

It is (was) a terrible price to pay for staying in Europe and exalting the Holy Grail of free trade.

This is (was) the hidden cost of Europe: the humiliation of the British worker.

So why, now the UK is no longer subject to Brussels, does it continue?

Mrs Bevan Looks Bad

A Very Short Story

Mrs Bevan next door puts out the recycling. Joanna sees her. Mrs Bevan waves and says hello dear like always but Joanna, 4, notices she looks different. She tries to tell her mother but can’t explain. All she knows is that it’s bad. Mrs Bevan’s face looked bad.

“No dear, Mrs Bevan’s not bad. She’s a nice lady. Now go and play with Ninni and Rabbit.”

Joanna fetches the dolls and puts them on the windowsill, so she can talk to them and watch Mrs Bevan’s house as well.

Time passes. She brings her dolls a blanket in case they get cold. Nothing happens at Mrs Bevan’s. The light in the snug doesn’t go out and the kitchen light doesn’t come on.

Danny, her father, comes home. After the usual ‘how’s my girl’ she tells him Mrs Bevan looked bad. Again, she can’t explain why she looked bad. Danny persists.

Did she look sad?

A … a bit.

Was she sick, do you think?

Maybe… I don’t know.

Danny looks out the window.

Well that was probably it. She might be a bit under the weather. Don’t worry about it. What’s Mummy made for dinner?

Later Kirstin comes to tuck Joanna in to bed. Joanna repeats her worry. Kristin reassures her again and turns out the light.

As Kirstin is going down the stairs she glances next door. She notices that the lights are still on at the back. But Mrs Bevan goes to bed before Joanna, every night.

She mentions it to Danny. Perhaps we should check?

No. From what Jojo says, she’s a bit sick.  Probably couldn’t be bothered.

Let’s go to bed and watch telly.

OK.

Danny stands up and turns to receive the full brunt of the clearly insane Mrs Bevan wielding a bloodied axe.

If this made you laugh, read https://playwithstrangers.com/?s=Simon%27s+skill

From the Autobiography: Weirdness in NZ Public Life

In 1995 I was hired as the Communications Manager for the new office of the Health & Disability Commissioner. I was now a highly-paid civil servant. It was a not entirely agreeable and often bizarre experience.

The office politics could become toxic, perhaps inevitably with a CEO with an out-of-control ego. Further stress arose out of the politically correct environment, with far too much time wasted on Maori ceremonies that were meaningless to most of us. We had a kaiwhakahere, or Maori affairs manager, in the form of Moe Milne. That made good sense as the health status of Maori in New Zealand is well below that of the general population. I liked Moe, a thoroughly good sort who taught me a great deal about the iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) of the areas we visited. At the time and to some degree even today I could point at any location on a map of New Zealand and tell you which iwi held tangata whenua status (hegemony) there. I learned a lot of te Reo, necessary because both Robyn and Moe were women so on marae I was the one who had to respond to the mihi (greeting). We also learned a number of Maori songs which I enjoyed because I love singing and Maori is a beautiful language for song.

Not so agreeable was the fact that Robyn had arranged for a Commissioner’s kaumatua (elder), an elderly Maori of no particular distinction whom, when special occasions called for it, we would fly to Auckland or Wellington and put up in a hotel so he could deliver a speech which only Moe could understand. He showed no interest in us as people and happily toddled off after getting his cheque. Whenever we hired someone new, a frequent event in the first year, they would be presented with (or subjected to) a powhiri (welcoming ceremony). Both I and Tina, the investigations manager, were particularly vocal behind the scenes about the absurdity of welcoming a new non-Maori staff member with a powhiri attended by over-whelmingly non-Maori employees when the traditional Kiwi cake and cup of tea would have been much more welcome. What rankled most was the hypocrisy entailed in the karakia. Tina and I and various other staff members objected bitterly to having to bow our heads in prayer as civil servants in a supposedly secular state. This was enforced religious observance in an office that had been set up to define and protect people’s rights, an odious farce.

Then there was the Treaty of Waitangi workshop, conducted in the Wellington office by a milquetoast with a huge bone carving dangling from his scrawny neck. Tina, myself and others curled our toes and gritted our teeth through a day openly designed to underscore the irredeemable inferiority entailed in not being a Maori, garnished with a liberal serving of imposed guilt. Of course it achieved the exact opposite effect. Tina was a middle-aged woman with a lifetime of experience in the health service who suffered fools not at all. I admired her courage in saying exactly what she thought of the so-called workshop when the ‘facilitator’ outlined a map of New Zealand on the floor and told everyone to stand where they had been born. Those who had been born outside the country were supposed to stand some distance from the map, driving an egregious point home with a sledgehammer. Tina flat-out refused to participate. I took part reluctantly but my patience was almost gone.

Next we were instructed to take our positions on the spot where we or our ashes would be buried. I returned to my seat. Challenged, I simply declared that I would not be buried anywhere because I would certainly not tolerate such a thing while alive and had no intention of dying.

“But you have to die someday,” came the predictable objection.

“Sorry, but to indicate where I supposedly wish to be buried when I have no such wish is absurd. Besides, in my culture such matters are personal and private.”

Tina and a couple of the braver souls actually applauded. By the time the farrago of misinformation and brow-beating ground to a close no-one was happy. Moe, Robyn and the milquetoast could see that no hearts had been won and the usual feedback session that closes most workshops was silently dropped.

Working closely with the Department of Health and to a lesser degree with Te Puni Kokiri and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs brought home the disturbing realisation that New Zealand is losing its status as a secular state. It is no exaggeration to say that the Treaty of Waitangi has become an object of worship in the offices of the bureaucracy. It was quite common to enter an office and see a huge framed image of the Treaty draped with flags, flowers and Maori symbols. Certain self-evident truths, for instance the fact that New Zealand has no indigenous people, that every single one of us is descended from immigrants, could cost you your job if spoken aloud. A peculiar version of Maori traditional culture was being enshrined as the official religion, that version being the state of Maori culture and beliefs as it stood in, say, the year 1890. Christian prayers, obviously not an historic component of the original culture of the Maori, played a big part. Our being forced to sing a Christian hymn such as How Great Thou Art at an office event would have rightly provoked an outcry. But translate it into Maori and suddenly we were obliged to join in.

Such a slant celebrates colonialism as much as Maori culture. If you give it a moment’s thought you must acknowledge that if this country were to truly honour the authentic culture of the Maori we would hold annual tribal wars – with real weapons. We would allow utu (payback)as a defence for murder. In fact there actually are quite sizeable and significant organisations living out the true culture of the Maori: the Mongrel Mob, Black Power and the Filthy Few, among others. They not only embody the drawbacks to society resulting from gang activity, they also hold fast to the values of family, of tribal loyalty, of territory. No wonder they attract so many young Maori.

Don’t get me wrong – I personally enjoy participating in Maori cultural events. I loved returning the mihi in the Maori that Moe taught me. My family has a multi-generational association with Ngati Whatua o Orakei, a treasured privilege. But enforced submission to any culture under the threat of losing one’s job and the abandonment of the strict secularity of the state are evils that must be called out.

At this point I could very easily launch into a diversion on the appalling erosion of personal freedom in this country. We have more laws and regulations allowing various officials to enter our homes than any comparable democracy. We allow the police to stop us from going about our business to perform any check they please, be it a breath test or to check that we have paid our road tax. No other first-world country I have lived in would tolerate such a thing. I believe I understand the reason for this national lack of spine: it is because we have never had to defend ourselves, never had a revolution. We remain only loosely attached to a freedom that we have never had to defend.

Der Schweiz

Writing the second book of my autobiography, I have just covered the year 1975 that I spent in Switzerland. Visiting in 2017 I found it changed, much for the better, but back then it was grimly conventional, horribly judgemental of any deviation from their iron-bound social norms. I remembered a poem I wrote at the time and had long forgotten.

Komm mit mir und mit mir schlafen
Im ein alt hotel am Freidrichshafen.
We’ll drink stolen wine from stolen glasses
And laugh at the füdeliburghers’ arses.
I will bring you traffic signs,
We’ll rip up the tickets, won’t pay the fines.
We’ll sit in church in our dirty jeans
Reading pornographic magazines.
And then we’ll walk for miles and miles
Past military tulips, synthetic smiles.