A Deadlock With A Way Out

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The external world around us is reflected in our heads in the form of a certain cognitive structure. This structure, which was formed with the help of our five senses, does not correspond to the true picture of the world. Hence, the internal image of this realm within our brains is quite distorted. When the knowledge is being transferred, it has to be verbalized either orally or in writing. Strangely enough, when we describe an N-dimensional model, we still define it as a one-dimensional space; it means that we allow multiple misrepresentations.

Some time ago, Aristotle mentioned that “the one who tries to put one’s knowledge in writing is unwise, so is the one who later on hopes to find it intact and thinks that it is ready for further use.” Why has nature created such a weird and complicated way to visualize a real picture of the world? Why in order to transfer knowledge are we using a tool that is so “defective”?

Answer: Everything that nature does is perfect, although we use our trivial, tiny potentials to take advantage of it at our current low egoistic level, like a monkey playing with a computer. We will never comprehend the world that exists outside of us if we don’t acquire qualities similar to it. Aristotle and Plato clearly understood this fact and described it in their works. They thought that the direction would develop egoistically (as in our time, modern science), for its own goal.

Thousands of years of evolution that were flowing in this direction led us to a deadlock and made us finally realize that we are simple little creatures who think of themselves too highly because of our narrow-mindedness; at this time, we have to turn the wheel in a new direction. However, not too many people understand it! There are very few special individuals who not only clearly recognize that we have been trapped into a deadlock, but they also know that our further development can happen only through profound changes in human beings.

A man is the lowest developmental stage of nature, not the highest one. This is a problem. The only thing that the lowest level of nature can do is start climbing back up.

To the extent of our ascent, meaning the modification of our properties from egoistic to altruistic, from linear and individual to global and integral, we will acquire new tools for analysis, synthesis, and conceptions. Then, we will create new devices, an innovative cognitive apparatus, and a novel language.

Thus, everything will be subject to changes. It’s as if we are being born anew internally by perfecting ourselves. Both components of which we are comprised (desires and intellect) will also change. The major difference between them is that the desires are original, whereas the intellect is ancillary.

So, if we intend to explain to a person what the world is that he lives in and what “externality” is, we have to change him; otherwise he won’t understand us at all. He will be on the same wave with the egoists who describe the world using a “square” system that is similar to them, not more than that. None of them realize what the authentic realm in fact is, nor do they feel it whatsoever.

Only the deadlock that we are in at this time can “shake and sober” us; it can force us to think in quite a different way by triggering tremendous sufferings. Instead of changing the world around us, we will have to change internally. We will stop considering everything around us as “damaged,” but rather will re-direct any modifications inward. Only through our internal changes can we alter the society. When the society (us included) starts changing, everything there is (inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature) will be exposed to us as a new upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World: Formula of an Integral Society” 7/3/12

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