Who Are We and Why Are We Here?
YOUR MIND IS BIGGER THAN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE

Before we can appreciate the extraordinary capacity of the mind to guide, organize, and design, we must come to understand the profound potential of the mind to envision and imagine. The capacity of the human mind to envision its apparent infinite potential is as vast as the universe itself. Moreover, the mind is ultimately beyond anything we have yet witnessed in the physical universe. The mind’s inherent potential not only goes beyond anything it has seen to date in the physical world; its potential goes beyond anything it can currently imagine. It can even be demonstrated through simple experiments that your mind’s potential is bigger—in fact, much bigger—than the universe itself.

The human mind, along with its brain, has the ability to discover an infinite creative and organizing force in the evolving universe—that is, a G.O.D. process—because we are ultimately made of the same stuff and have the same infinite potential as “it.” Unfortunately neither you nor I can appreciate who we really are, and discover why we are here, until we come to recognize this fundamental truth.

Again, this wisdom is captured in that aphorism “The All is in the Small.”

I chose with a clear purpose the words “infinite potential” to describe the human mind. The history of philosophy and science reveals the human mind as being able to envision the infinite and furthermore as being able to develop a formal mathematics of multiple infinities even though humans cannot precisely picture what a single infinity actually is, much less a plurality of them. Just because we precisely picture something doesn’t mean we can envision it. Envisioning includes the capacity for metaphor and symbols—a power that science is just beginning to understand.

It turns out that it’s quite simple for science to demonstrate the capacity of the human mind to envision the concept of infinite, and then to go beyond it. As I take you through this purposely playful yet profoundly meaningful mental demonstration, I want you to imagine yourself performing this thought experiment with me. There is no substitute for having the direct experience yourself. In the process of experiencing this fundamental truth, you will realize that you can share this demonstration with your children, and help them celebrate the infinite power of their growing minds.

HOW OUR MINDS CAN EXTEND FROM THE “INFINITELY SMALL” TO “BEYOND THE INFINITE ALL”

Please take a quarter or other coin and place it in your hand.

We are about to take an unprecedented mental journey in eleven discrete steps—the size of the first nine steps ranging in scale from the infinitely Small to beyond the infinite All. We will jump from subatomic physics and chemistry, through biology and psychology, to ecology and cosmology, and beyond. The tenth and eleventh steps contain two surprising take-home messages.

STEP 1. A MASSLESS AND SIZELESS PARTICLE IN YOUR HAND

Imagine that the coin you are holding is a single photon of light. What does it look like to you? Is it bright? Is it pulsating? Is it changing colors? Is it heavy? Physics tells us that a photon is presumed to be a massless or “virtual” particle (it doesn’t have any weight at all) and it is infinitely small (it doesn’t have any size at all, either). Whatever you can imagine is okay for now. Just realize that you can imagine what a photon might be, and that physics experiments can be conducted to explore what part of your guesses might be correct. But not now. Remember, infinitely small photons are presumed to reflect the building blocks of everything in the known physical universe. As the Bible says and contemporary physics supports, the universe began with light.

STEP 2. A SINGLE ATOM IN YOUR HAND

Now, imagine that the coin you are holding represents something much, much bigger. The quarter has become a single atom of hydrogen; for the sake of time, we are skipping the intermediate steps of subatomic particles such as quarks or electrons and protons.

What does the atom look like to you? Is it solid? Is it pulsating? Is it emitting photons you can experience as colors? Can you see the nucleus in the center of the hydrogen atom? Try to see the electron cloud surrounding the nucleus. Again, whatever you can imagine is okay. The important thing is to realize that you can imagine what hydrogen might be, and that chemical research can be conducted to explore and confirm or contradict your images.

STEP 3. A COMPLEX BIOCHEMICAL IN YOUR HAND

Now, let’s imagine that the coin you’re holding represents something that is again much, much bigger. Once more skipping many levels, imagine that you are now holding human DNA in your hand. What does it look like to you? Does it have two strands? Is it shaped like a helix? Can you see the billions of bases that compose this essential biochemical molecule of life? Whatever you can imagine is okay. What’s important is that you appreciate that you can imagine what DNA might be, and we can conduct biochemical experiments to explore it.

STEP 4. A SINGLE CELL IN YOUR HAND

The coin you are holding is about to get much bigger again, jumping many levels of size. This time imagine that you are holding a cell, a human neuron, a single cell of the nervous system. What does it look like to you? Can you see the dendrites? Can you see the synapses? Can you imagine the neuron firing? Whatever you can imagine, the key is that you can try to picture the neuron.

STEP 5. A LARGE ORGAN IN YOUR HAND

The coin is now about to make a jump in size that will be particularly dramatic. Imagine that you are now holding approximately 100 billion cells in your hand, in the form of a human brain. What does it look like to you? Can you see its shape? Can you see the ripples in its surface that look like valleys? Can you see the brain pulsating? Can you imagine electrical brain waves flowing across the surface?

STEP 6. A WHOLE ORGANISM IN YOUR HAND

The coin is about to increase in size again. Imagine that you are now holding an entire person in your hand. What does it look like to you? Is she a child, or an adult? Can you see her hair color? Is she smiling at you? What is she trying to tell you? The key is that you imagine this person.

STEP 7. A ROTATING PLANET IN YOUR HAND

Once again, a huge jump in size is about to take place in your hand. Imagine that the coin you are holding represents the entire planet earth. What does it look like to you? Can you see which areas are cloudy and which are clear? Can you see the deserts and the oceans? Is the earth spinning on its axis? How heavy does it feel? We can conduct ecology experiments to discover the nature of this planet.

STEP 8. A SWIRLING GALAXY IN YOUR HAND

The jump in scale for the coin you are holding in your hand will now become even more extraordinary. Imagine that you are holding an entire galaxy in your hand! Can you see the billions of stars that are like tiny cells in its structure? Can you see its spiral shape? Is the galaxy spinning in your hand? How heavy does it feel? Imagine the galaxy, and we can conduct astronomy experiments to discover the nature of this almost comprehensively large system of stars that you are holding.

STEP 9. THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HAND

All these steps of imagination—from photons and biochemicals, through cells and people, to planets and galaxies, are but training for what you are about to do. You are about to go beyond what anyone has ever seen—beyond what the most sensitive telescope has witnessed. What I want you to do is to imagine that the coin in your hand has become the entire universe! You are literally holding everything that exists in the entire universe in the palm of your hand. What does it look like to you? Can you see the billions of galaxies cupped in your palm? Is the universe itself pulsating? Can you see it expanding? Is it spiral shaped, or is it like a ball? Is it evolving, becoming more complex as you observe it? Whatever you can imagine is okay. However, it’s not possible to test scientifically what you are experiencing, because what you are holding in your hand—imagined through the power of your mind—extends beyond the most sensitive of astrophysical devices yet conceived of by the human mind.

STEP 10. YOUR MIND HOLDING THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HAND

As you have seen, the coin can be imagined as a photon, infinitely small, or as the universe, infinitely large. There is nothing to stop you from imagining that the coin even contains an infinite number of universes, each having an infinite size. The fact is, whatever you can envision and imagine, you then have the potential to go beyond. Theoretical mathematicians do this all the time.

And next—this amazing step; along with a powerful question. Who is it who is aware that his or her hand is holding the universe? Who are you who can imagine holding an evolving universe or universe of universes in your hand? Clearly, the “I” that is “you” can look beyond virtually everything—and I mean everything. Your mind can witness all of this, and more.

The potential of your mind is so vast that it is beyond comprehension—but now, as a result of this innocent visualization exercise, you have some sense of its vastness. Over these ten steps, you have used your mind to hold every level of everything that has ever existed in the universe in the palm of your hand. The question is, where does all this mind power come from? Did the mind just happen by chance? Or is your mind part of something else? Can you imaging holding your mind in your hand?

STEP 11. THE UNIVERSAL MIND OF GOD IN YOUR HAND

However powerful our individual minds are, we can raise the question “Is there a Universal Mind that is beyond ours?” Are our individual minds—our “small” minds—part of a much greater mind, the Universal Mind of the All? And does the Universal Mind of the All exist within our small minds? As we have asked throughout this book, is the All within the Small?

Can you imagine, as you hold the universe in the palm of your hand, and “you” have this experience, that a mind even greater than yours is witnessing you do this? This may be a new idea for you, but if you try, you can imagine this possibility, too. In fact, you have the inherent capability with your mind to imagine holding the Universal Mind in your hand.

So, even as you imagine beyond the All of the universe, you can imagine something even greater that is enabling you to do this. That is how gigantic the power of your mind is. You can actually imagine having the power of “God”—even holding the entire universe in your hand—while, simultaneously, you can imagine that you are a living expression of an infinite G.O.D. process.

AN ESSENTIAL CAVEAT

Those of us formally trained in clinical psychology, psychiatry, or social work have had experience treating mental madness. We know well that just because it’s possible to imagine something does not mean that the something is real. And although science fiction frequently precedes science discovery, some science fiction is precisely that—fiction. However, these criticisms are obvious, and they do not undercut the essential message of the exercise you’ve just been through.

Which is greater in scope: the currently known physical universe, or the human mind that contemplates it? “Who can hold what in one’s hand?” Yes, the universe is outrageously larger than our material body. This is an obvious physical fact. However, the scope of our mind is extraordinarily larger than the known physical universe. This is a less obvious psychological fact but a fact worth remembering, and celebrating. It is the key to awakening to the power of our minds and their role in the cosmos.

APPRECIATING THE EVOLVING MIND IN AN EVOLVING UNIVERSE

The truth is, no one knows what the actual potential of the mind is—because whatever greatness we have already achieved as a species suggests that there is no apparent limitation to the mind’s ultimate potential.

Facing reality in the twenty-first century causes one to ponder the scope of contemporary evolution as we witness it. When I use my word processing program on my laptop computer, in the righthand corner of my screen sits a little wizard who turns his head, blinks his eyes, raises his hands, and every now and again nods his head in approval. Sometimes he even raises a tiny wand in his hand. He reminds me of the amazing imagination of the human mind and the remarkable evolution of computer software over the past thirty years.

I can switch to my Internet browser with the click of a mouse, and immediately receive vast amounts of information about virtually everything—from superstrings and photons, through cells and people, to astrophysics, metaphysics, and science fiction. All this knowledge and information is a manifestation of the ever-evolving human mind.

Over thirty years ago at Harvard, I purchased a PDP11/GT40 computer system that came with 16K (16,000 bytes) of memory and cost $40,000. The computer took up a whole room. I purchased an additional 8K of memory that was the size of a large suitcase, at the cost of $5,000. This large machine did not have calendar, phone and address book, word processor, or spreadsheet software. I had to program the computer using Fortran, BASIC, or FOCAL to draw a graph or put text on the screen.

My PDP11/GT40 computer, though it cost a great deal of money, didn’t have a little blue and gold Merlin with a big nose, mustache, and beard. The little Merlin reminds me of the stupendous power of the human mind to both understand and shape the world, and in the process, understand and shape itself.

Today I carry a pocket digital assistant with 64 megabytes—64 million bytes of memory. It remembers my schedule, phone numbers, addresses, favorite quotes, ideas, writing plans, questions to ponder, expenses. It is a genuine mind assistant and was designed by human minds. I paid $500 for it in 2002.

What technology will exist thirty years from now? Will the jump be as great as over the last thirty years? What do you think?

The desk I had been using when I wrote this chapter was near a window that faced the entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Hanging from the upper ledge of the museum was a two-story green banner, probably twenty feet wide and thirty-five feet long, imprinted in huge white letters with the word GODDESS; it was meant to attract New Yorkers to the current art show. The potential of the human mind is certainly showcased by the work of great artists who, through recorded history, have envisioned goddesses and gods.

I began to wonder, is the need to visualize goddesses and gods simply a reflection of human ignorance and superstition combined with a heavy dose of arrogance and wishful thinking? Or does our need to imagine some sort of a G.O.D. process actually reflect our implicit understanding that our true potential genius as an emerging species expresses the infinite genius of a conscious intelligent evolving universe?

Are we humans like little Merlins—tiny goddesses and gods—gifted not only with personal and family responsibilities, but planetary and cosmic responsibilities as well?

As you now have learned, chance will never create a Michelangelo painting, let alone a simple sand painting or a little painting of Merlin. People create paintings. What is painted is a reflection not merely of what already exists but of what can exist in the future.

THE EVOLUTION OF DESIGN AND OUR EVOLVING UNDERSTANDING OF DESIGNERS

Although this book offers evidence that leads inexorably to the conclusion that some sort of cosmic Guiding-Organizing-Designing process exists in the universe, I want to step back for a moment to consider different ways of envisioning what a designing process is. Clarity of thought is necessary in order to appreciate how this book’s conclusion is dependent on the scientific evidence. If we are to ever conceive and understand intelligent evolution, we must become intelligent about evolution, and therefore become intelligent about the process of design.

There are at least five different ways of envisioning how design operates on the earth and may operate in the universe as a whole.

The first and simplest way is to posit that each designer functions independently of every other. Independent design creativity is viewed here as completely individual, reflecting the unique propensity and personality of the designer. Most thoughtful people recognize that this simple perspective, by itself, is incomplete. Humans do not exist or learn in a vacuum—we learn from one another, as well as from nature.

This leads to the second and third ways of envisioning the designing process. Here we assume that designing is governed partly by shared genetics (gene-mediated design) and partly by shared experience (environment-mediated design). In other words, our capacity to design—as well as the particulars of what we design—reflects our common genetic heritage plus our common environmental heritage. Whatever we design—automobiles, buildings, computers, drugs, games, jewelry, music, poetry, software, trains, weapons—reflects a combination of our DNA code plus our respective experiences and education.

These three ways of envisioning the designing process—independent, gene-mediated, and environment-mediated—though obviously true to various degrees, reflect only part of the designing process. A fourth way of envisioning design can be termed “interdependence.” The fact is, typically we do not design as individuals; we design as groups, teams, or systems. From software to automobiles to weapons, teams of tens, hundreds, or thousands of individual minds are brought together to design things that work. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” applies to the designing process and the evolution of designs over time.

Those who are open to the existence of a larger spiritual reality—as described by the evidence reported in my book with Bill Simon, The Afterlife Experiments—will be able to envision the possibility of a designing process that includes team members “from the other side.” While serious investigative work in this controversial area has only just begun, scientific integrity and responsibility still require that we include the possibility that a designer or design team could be influenced from this other side source as a fourth way of understanding design. However, the question arises, are these four ways of envisioning design sufficient to account for all aspects of design—not just by us, but as it is expressed all around us? The evidence from Parts Two through Four says “No.”

Based on the evidence I have presented, it is beyond reasonable doubt to conclude that all things existing—from subatomic particles, through humans, to galaxies and beyond—have not occurred by chance. Therefore there is some sort of a fifth evolving creative design process, which I term G.O.D. It is also beyond reasonable doubt to conclude that humankind’s capacity to design things, as well as the particulars of what we design, reflect a purposeful manifestation of this universal designing process.

HOW DOES THE G.O.D. PROCESS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR INTELLIGENT DESIGNS?

What is the reasoning that leads us to conclude that our personal efforts at designing are guided, at least in part, by a higher if not universal designing process? There are many reasons why I include a fifth way of envisioning human designing, as reflecting the expression of a universal, macro, or meta-designing process in the universe. Here are a few of them.

First, as you now appreciate, complex orders in the universe cannot come about simply by chance—they require some sort of an intelligent designing process. Hence, the premise that some sort of universal Guiding-Organizing-Designing process exists everywhere in the universe is a required logical deduction.

Second, if everything that exists in the universe is a reflection of this universal creative designing process, then by definition the “everything” includes you and me and all of us. It logically follows that if universal design is the rule and not the exception, then humans are an integral expression of this designing process. We apparently carry the latest evolution of the designing process, at least in terms of what is known on the planet at this time. Simply stated, if any evolved organism on this planet has the capacity to serve as an antenna-receiver for the universal G.O.D. process, it is the human organism.

Third, it’s well known that most of the energy and information that science has documented as existing in the universe cannot be directly experienced through our five senses. What we see with our eyes—as exquisitely complex and beautiful as it is experienced through vision—reflects only a tiny number of all photons in the universe. The visible frequency spectrum of light is but a tiny slice of the entire electromagnetic/photonic frequency spectrum of energy discovered and accepted by current science.

Invisible fields affect the functioning of every cell in our body to various degrees. By definition, the All of energy includes the complete set of known energies in the universe, as well as those yet to be discovered. We should resist the temptation to be arrogant and conclude that current science has uncovered everything there is to discover about potential energies and evolving fields in the universe. The existence of dynamic invisible fields provides one plausible means by which a universal designing process could potentially orchestrate infinitely complex unfolding plans and designs.

The evolution of cell phones reminds me of the vast potential for invisible communication and guidance in the universe. I recently attended a University of Pennsylvania graduation ceremony and witnessed something I could never have imagined forty years ago when I was an undergraduate at Cornell. There were approximately three thousand graduating seniors sitting in chairs in Franklin Field, and there were probably more than fifteen thousand family and friends in the stands.

While the faculty was marching in, everywhere I looked on the field I saw undergraduates speaking into cell phones, and everywhere I looked in the stands I saw family and friends speaking into cell phones. There were probably more than a thousand simultaneous cell phone conversations taking place between the field and the stands at that very moment. The radio waves were of course invisible to the naked eye. There were no wires connecting the students to their parents and loved ones. The calls were interconnected via the invisible radio frequencies. Most remarkably, each of them could hold a separate conversation—they did not experience one massive jumble of frequencies and words!

It’s valuable to remember that humans did not create radio waves; the universe did. However, humans have learned how to use radio waves for long distance communication and control. Is the existence of radio waves, and their remarkable properties, merely an accident of nature that humans have harnessed for special purposes? Or do radio waves exist for one or more purposes provided by a Guiding-Organizing-Designing process? Could radio waves be a manifestation of intelligent evolution?

ARE PHOTONS PURPOSELY DESIGNED TO BE “WEIRD”?

Sir James Clerk Maxwell, the distinguished nineteenth-century scientist—who believed deeply in God—was the first researcher to provide an explanation and set of mathematical formulas that integrated the entire electromagnetic spectrum. His formulas led the way for scientists in the twentieth century to discover how all electromagnetic waves, including radio waves, could function as photons. And, as mentioned before, most photons vibrate at frequencies that are invisible to our physical senses.

Yet there is a curious property of photons—including the visible ones—that for years struck me as particularly odd until I asked myself the question, If photons were designed this way, what was the purpose of the design? The word “odd” is a modest term for this truly amazing fact of photons. A more honest term is “beyond extraordinary.” Many people who learn this fact will make a point of never forgetting it. Moreover, if one were looking for a phenomenon that deserved the label “miracle,” it would be this property of photons.

If in a vacuum we take one laser beam, and then cross it with a second laser beam, an astounding phenomenon occurs. When the second laser beam is turned on and it reaches the first laser beam, if the two beams are completely in sync, the streams of photons will summate when they cross. If the two beams are completely out of sync, the streams of photons will cancel each other out when they cross. But after they cross, the beams continue as if nothing had happened at all. The two beams cross, they combine or cancel, and then after they cross, they return to their prior state as if nothing had happened.

Simply stated, visible light is “invisible” to light. Though the statement is simple, the explanation remains a mystery. While the totality of the light—termed “interference”—is momentarily altered when the light beams cross, the individual beams are completely transparent to each other: they do not lose their individuality once they have crossed.

This phenomenal property of photon action raises a fundamental question. Answering this question requires that we go beyond the current comprehension of science. How can one beam of light have its energy add or subtract from another beam of light, and then continue as if nothing has happened? How is this physically possible?

The interpretation provided by contemporary physics leaves one’s head spinning in disbelief—yet may be correct. We are told to accept the idea that photons are massless “no things” that are “spaceless” and function metaphorically as “ghostlike somethings.” Photons are described as “infinitely small,” and we are told they vibrate with utter accuracy, and because they are massless, they are invisible to one another. And this is what physics asks us to accept without proof.

Why does light behave in this curious way? Why would the universe create invisible massless and spaceless quanta of energy with this bizarre property?

I conclude that the reason for the bizarre quality of light is communication—communication of both existing and potential orders and designs!

A simple way to picture this is as follows. Imagine that you have two children—Skott and Kim (the names of my godchildren)—and they are standing a few feet apart from each other. The light that reflects off Skott reaches both of your eyes. The light that reflects off Kim also reaches both of your eyes. If you doubt this, try closing each of your eyes in turn as you look at two children in a row. You can see both children with either eye. The light from Skott and Kim must therefore cross in complex ways as they reach each of your eyes. If photons were like billiard balls—objects with mass—then as the objects bumped into one another, they would change their direction and behavior. By the time the billiard photons reached your eyes, you would see a mess—a mixture of the two children.

However, photons do not function like billiard balls—they function like virtual particles. Because they are completely invisible to one another, they can convey the individual shapes and behaviors that capture the individual structures and functions of Skott and Kim. So we can see two people at the same time as distinct beings because of the extraordinary properties of light. Is it reasonable to speculate that this extraordinary property of photons happened by chance alone?

When I look at the sky at night—especially at the big sky over Tucson—I can see thousands of stars with my naked eye. Through powerful telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory outside of Tucson, I could see millions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. And with the Hubble telescope located in space, I would be able to see billions of galaxies. All this light crosses in the vacuum of space. The light from billions of billions of stars crosses in the vacuum of space, yet each and every star maintains its individuality. It can communicate its uniqueness. Try to imagine this fact!

Photons not only have a kind of immortality—which is how we can see light that has traveled for millions if not billions of years, but they also provide information with such precision and accuracy that incomprehensibly huge amounts of information can be contained in incomprehensibly small spaces.

If mere humans can design future space telescopes to look into the farthest reaches of the universe, isn’t it possible that the universe—so to speak, a cosmic astrophysical G.O.D.—could have designed the nature of light itself in such a way that would make it possible for us to look into the farthest reaches of the universe? Remember, for the light from the edge of the universe to reach our eyes, and for us to see the images clearly, the light would have to function in such a way that it preserved the information carried over billions of years of time. Is it possible that “God’s codes,” as in Pagels’s “cosmic codes,” are expressed as information in invisible light beams? For example, could there be an infinitely complex code of information carried by cosmic superrays that penetrate all objects to various degrees?

Perhaps the universe acts like one huge cosmic cell phone. Perhaps the Guiding-Organizing-Designer messages are being broadcast throughout the entire universe. If so, perhaps everything that exists in the universe picks up this signal to various degrees.

Is the world awakening to this profound cosmic communication process? Are humans on earth meant to discover this process just as we discovered radio waves? Are we, as the philosopher Spinoza wondered, germinating intelligent cells in the evolving body of God?

The word “science” comes from the Latin scire, which means “to know.” I believe that if such questions are not asked, answers may never be found.

Remember, you—and your children—have the potential, with your individual minds, to conceive of holding individual photons in one hand and simultaneously holding the whole universe in your other hand. You are meant to wonder and to know.

It has been said, “As above, so below.” Systems science teaches that the reverse is also true. “As below, so above.” The Small is in the All, and the All is in the Small. The implications—for science, education, business, politics, law, religion, and all of human society—are staggering.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.