The Next Copernican rEvolution - Chapter 1 - Our Fantastic Future
The Known and Unknown
“Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice no matter what the technical difficulties, if it is desired greatly enough. It is no argument against any project to say: “The idea’s fantastic!” Most of the things that have happened in the last fifty years have been fantastic, and it is only by assuming that they will continue to be that we have any hope of anticipating the future.” ~ Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future, 1962
“This book [not my book, but it applies equally as well] on the future of our civilization is not for everyone. Few will be able to read it without forming an opinion before they see the picture as a whole. To enjoy this book you will have to blend open-mindedness with critical skepticism. It is hard enough to face the problems of our own time. And it is many times more difficult to understand a projection of fantastic and shocking changes that may occur over the next hundred years…You will understand this book best if you are one who sees today only as a stepping stone between yesterday and tomorrow. You will need a sensitivity to the injustices, lost opportunities for happiness, and searing conflicts that characterize our twentieth-century civilization. If your mind can weigh new ideas and evaluate them with insight, this book is for you…If our predictions in this book seem plausible to you, we have probably failed to see far enough ahead. If our projection of the future seems completely impossible and utterly fantastic, there is a possibility that we may be on the right track.” ~Kenneth S. Keyes, Jr. and Jacque Fresco, Looking Forward, 1969
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I hope that the two quotes above will set the stage for the type of open, holistic thinking that is required for a proper understanding of the ideas that will be presented throughout this work.
The words from these two books were written a half- century ago. So much has changed since then. What does it mean that fifty years later I must remind you, my readers, to be open minded, that you might find my ideas to be “fantastic”? (Notice the word “fantastic” has a different meaning today. It once meant “impossible” or “fanciful”, as in divorced from reality, but today it mostly means awesome, or extraordinarily good.) In so many ways there have been radical changes that would have seemed implausible only fifty years ago. But in other ways, we have changed very little, which is indeed why our civilization is on a precipice.
This book starts off with the assumption that you have a good understanding of the global challenges that humanity is currently facing. Therefore, I will not be attempting to deluge you with facts and charts and inconvenient truths to convince you of the obvious need for major change. The worldview of the audience to whom I am writing allows, I believe, for an awareness of the multiple problems and predicaments that we face in almost every facet of our global human society. You already know that things cannot continue the way they are, that great change is upon us, and that indeed we will need to change our own consciousness if there is to be any hope of humanity’s survival. So I will attempt to refrain from preaching to the choir.
Rather, I will be exploring something fundamentally different, something that perhaps even you have not considered. That is the premise from which I will be starting, that indeed what’s needed is something radically different from what’s been considered before, ad nauseum. Therefore, I will be discussing not merely the need to change, but more importantly, the nature of the change needed, the scope of the change needed, and the span of the change needed if we are to arrive at “the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible”1
With this “radicalness” in mind, I will be discussing seemingly crazy ideas that might just form the basis for the next Copernican rEvolution, which can set us free, both individually and as a collective humanity. Indeed, when the pressures of our bio-psycho-social-economic systems become great enough, what once seemed radical becomes practical. That’s where we are now. Radically sane ideas are needed to get us through our epic human predicament.
Much like the early adopters who saw that the world was round and radically changed their worldviews accordingly, it is my hope that once you grasp what I will be discussing in this book that you will never see things the same way again, nor feel the same way about the beautiful world that’s possible. If you can make a mental shift, while also making a shift in your heart from fear to love, there is no going back. You will see waste and inefficiencies everywhere you look. You will experience a hypersensitivity to the injustices, lost opportunities for happiness, and searing conflicts. But this backdrop of contrast will, necessarily, provide greater clarity in seeing better ways of doing things just about everywhere you look. It’s truly a radical shift in worldview that just might alter the way you see everything, forever. And this is a heart- centered perspective that can set you free…set all of us free… free of blame, free of pessimism and hopelessness and cynicism, so that we may begin blossoming into the better humanity that we know we truly are.
So I will be talking of concepts and ideas that will indeed challenge your paradigm, and with any luck, shift it. The ideas presented in this work are not my ideas and I take no credit for them. Rather, this work synthesizes and builds upon ideas that are already out there, some of which have been around for a long time. Actually, many regular people like you and me from around the world are currently arriving at these same understandings independently. And these are not ideas that are so complex as to require a Ph.D. in mathematics, economics, astro-physics or philosophy in order to understand them. All it really takes is an ability and willingness to break free of the confines of our cultural conditioning, to open our hearts and minds, and challenge ourselves on what we think we “know for certain” about our current paradigm.
What We Know
There are some things we can know for sure, other things that we should know but don’t (but it’s not our fault), and other things that we can never know for sure. We will be exploring all of these things in this book, but primarily we will focus on the things we should know but don’t, and the reasons why we don’t know what we should. It is my perspective that most of the things we don’t know but should are due to money and power which distort and corrupt the real truths that all of us could know…not because of any grand conspiracies, but merely because of the systems we’ve created.
The issue of climate change is a good place to start. There are of course plenty of naysayers around the issue of climate change…whether it’s happening, whether it’s primarily caused by man, or whether it’s an issue of any significance at all. While I am convinced by the preponderance of the evidence that it is a real thing caused primarily by man and that it has significant ramifications, it is almost beside the point I will make here. Even if we are convinced, as I am, that climate change is perhaps one of, but not THE largest problems facing humanity, it is certainly not the only problem. If we take climate change out of the equation for just a moment, we can then focus on a laundry list of other problems that, either on their own or combined, have the potential to be equally as threatening to our species as climate change. I’m talking about ocean pollution and acidification, deforestation, mass species extinction and loss of biodiversity, mass poverty and starvation, disease and epidemics, industrial agriculture and GMOs, warfare and nuclear weapons, global economic collapse, fresh water scarcity, resource depletion including peak oil, and on and on. There are numerous and incontrovertible indicators (despite what our culture and media may indicate) that almost all of our major life support systems are in decline. So, anyone with sufficient awareness, who is paying attention, can see that there are several other major global problems that threaten humanity, and, for the first time in all of human history, they are mostly global in nature and interconnected with each other. To belabor the point, even if climate change were not a factor, there are other major problems, mostly human caused, that we must address, or the survival of humanity is threatened. That’s what I think we can safely say that we know, for sure.
What We Don’t Know
It’s amazing in some respects that we know as much as we do, and have come as far as we have, as a species, given all the things that we don’t know. A major theme of this book is that humans could know so much more if it were not for some of the systemic mechanisms inherent within our global society — cultural conditioning, cognitive bias, suppression of knowledge and information, skewed motives, false history, etc. — that keep us from developing to more of our capacity.
I think this provides a good foundation from where to start. For if we know not where we are, how can we know where to go? It is imperative then that we get a good, realistic and accurate baseline of where we are. One way of doing that is by questioning what we supposedly know for sure. Even if that means turning over what we thought we knew and discovering that indeed it is false, or at least partially true. And isn’t this the basis of the scientific method which has made such a huge positive impact on humanity since its conception?
For sure this act of “embracing the unknown” can be an unsettling task, but this is where we can find true liberation, or enlightenment, or, collectively, our salvation. If we talk in a mythical “hero’s journey” manner, we might say that humanity is currently in the “abyss” and facing a dark night of the soul, or a rite of passage where we undergo a death or a rebirth. We are in the midst of a metamorphosis to something entirely new.
Author Charles Eisenstein writes that “…nothing less than a miracle is needed to heal our world.” This doesn’t mean that a miracle is impossible. It only means that it is impossible from our current paradigm. It is incredibly possible from a new paradigm, which requires a transformation, a metamorphosis to something completely new. Eisenstein goes on to say, “…we need solutions that exceed the present bounds of the possible. Fortunately, as the old world falls apart, our knowledge of what is possible expands, and with it expands our courage and our willingness to act.”
We mustn’t fret too much. As mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” 2 So don’t worry. I won’t be taking you on a dismal and hopeless journey. On the contrary, I think this ride, if you choose to go on it, will be quite hopeful and positive. So let’s start by delving into some of our currently held beliefs, and do so with a sense of openness, or what’s been called a beginner’s mind, about everything we think we know of our current paradigm that’s no longer working for most people.
Next Chapter - Chapter Two Q&A: On Beliefs and Being Wrong — A Discussion with a Homeless Guy
Chapter Index
Footnotes:
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Tell Us is Possible, Charles Eisenstein
Joseph Campbell — 1991, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, Selected and edited by Diane K. Osbon, Quote Page 8 and 24, HarperCollins, New York, New York.