A VISION OF THE FUTURE

CHAPTER 8

Sections of this chapter
The Ethical State
An Ethical Network
Foundations of the Moral Society
Structure of the Moral Society
The Option Everybody Has

We are going whence we came. We are evolving toward the Moral Society, Teilhard's Point Omega, Spinoza's Intellectual Love of God, the Judaeo-Christian concept of union with God. Each of us is a holographic reflection of the creativity of God. The Moral Society is an amplification of the hologram. Each of us is to the Moral Society as one of our cells is to us. The Moral Society is not God but it is a quantum leap which brings us closer to God. God is the infinite process that underlies all creativity and all evolution. The pattern of evolution is that the raw energy of the cosmic singularity evolved into elementary particles; elementary particles evolved into hydrogen; hydrogen evolved into all of the other atoms. The only fully autopoietic atom, carbon, evolved into organic molecules; organic molecules evolved into systems of self-reproducing molecules; systems of self-reproducing molecules evolved into autopoietic cells which then evolved into higher-order autopoietic systems of their own--the metazoa. The metazoa in turn evolved ever more complex nervous systems within themselves, resulting in the formation of the four complementary paired brains of humanity. And finally humanity has evolved to the point at which it has become "evolution conscious of itself" (to paraphrase Julian Huxley), ready to consciously and deliberately engage in autopoiesis and creatively transform itself into the Ethical State and the Moral Society.
 
The Ethical State

The Ethical State is a transitory state between what we are and what we can foresee becoming. As a transitory state it has no clear beginning or end. We only know when we have already passed it. The Ethical State begins with ourselves, but it only ends with more than ourselves. It ends when a critical mass of humanity has become moral and its constituent members have learned to love each other unconditionally.

What is "critical mass"? A critical mass is clearly not less than an octet. It may need to be more than an octet of octets, or, indeed, more than 88 octets (16,777,216 octets). There is at this time no exact theory that will predict what will be the critical mass of moral persons who will make up the Moral Society. What we do know is that it is not possible to ethically love too much or to ethically love too many.

Therefore, we begin the Ethical State with ourselves by doing our best to follow the evolutionary ethic. This involves doing the best we can to maximize creativity for ourselves and for others. This by itself will begin the creative transformation process in an irreversible chain reaction, if we make a full commitment to play the Game of Life. But we must take all the eight steps to become creatively transformed beyond the Ethical State into the Moral Society. At first each step is more difficult than the previous one. But eventually the steps begin to become easier. Furthermore, the act of taking each step tells us what the next step should be. It accelerates the process to know in advance what the eight steps are, even if we take only one step at a time.

It is relatively easy to make a choice to play the Game of Life, although so many of our species reject the Game out of ignorance and fear. It is always easier to do what we can do alone. But the second step involves learning to love each other. We cannot love alone.

It is easy to become smug in our self-righteous commitment to the evolutionary ethic and to justify to ourselves everything we do as subjectively doing our best to maximize creativity. But in the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing."

However righteous and ethical we are in our own life, if we do not love others we will fail to be creatively transformed. We cannot maximize creativity alone. Even God had to create us to maximize His creativity. Furthermore, it is insufficient to merely go through the motions of love. We must feel and give love from our souls or we will fail to be ethically transformed. I quote St. Paul because he failed, even though he knew what must be done. St. Paul, more than any other person, changed the teachings of Jesus into a religion of fear.

The only proof of the sincerity of our love for others is that we help reduce their fear and help them be more creative. Whenever we cannot help reduce the fear of others it is because (1) we have not yet learned to love sufficiently to be creatively transformed, or (2) the other person is unethical with irreversible entropy. Remember that even Jesus was not able to love enough to keep his enemies from killing him. When we fail in our love for others, we will do best to be humble and assume that the failing is inourselves and not in the person we sought to love. Otherwise we will tend to become smug and self-righteous and will fail to be creatively transformed. It is always best for ourselves not to judge others, and along with Jesus to forgive those who know not what they do. For if others know not what they do and we do know, then we have failed to teach through love. Creative transformation cannot be learned, taught, or achieved without love. Those of you who set on the path of creative transformation will find that the second step is much harder than the first but not nearly so hard as the third.

The third step is the conquest of fear. The only antidote to fear is love. We must have achieved a considerable increase in ethics and learned to love others before we conquer fear. Recall that fear is the belief that we cannot create. Every negative emotion is a manifestation of fear. If we ever have the slightest twinge of anger, greed, jealousy, hatred, or any other negative emotion, we are still being driven by fear. Furthermore, the last fears we overcome are unconscious - we do not even know we have them. Subjectively, we know we have conquered fear when we love all of our enemies from our soul and do not feel the slightest twinge of animosity towards them. The only objective evidence we will ever have that we have conquered fear is threefold: (1) we are never destructive to ourselves or others; (2) no one responds to us with fear; and (3) all whom we love from our soul return our love from their soul by reducing destructiveness and expressing objective creativity. Before we achieve this state we must learn to love those who hate us and reject our love. Autopoiesis is our ally in this process.

It takes only a moderate level of ethics, love, and courage to begin autopoiesis, which is the fourth step. All who can begin the process and stick with it - modifying it and changing it, particularly in choice of partners, to fit their needs - will in time become creatively transformed. The essential feature of the octet is that it serve simultaneously both as a source of negative feedback and as an object for love. In this way we creatively transform ourselves by helping to creatively transform seven other persons. Autopoiesis is a quantum process which catalyzes the previous three steps and itself and facilitates our taking the fifth step, which is to become self-sufficient within an octet or network of octets.

Starting with autopoiesis each of the subsequent steps becomes easier and easier until creative transformation becomes an irreversible process. Autopoiesis is the critical step. We must have increased our ethics and capacity to love and we must have lowered our fear enough to take this step and then let the process work on us. If we can do this then, the process will become irreversible - if we have the ability and the courage to create octets around us.

We can be helped in the beginning by being incorporated into an existing octet that someone else has created. But eventually we must each serve alone as a seed which can recreate an octet that meets our personal,ethical, intellectual, and emotional needs. Only then will we be assured that creative transformation has become an irreversible process for ourselves. We will have then entered into an Ethical State.

This book has aimed to help each person achieve the Ethical State in his/her own way without having to depend on anyone. I hope you have learned from my mistakes and that you do not feel compelled to repeat them. I recommend that those who can begin alone, try it! You need no guru. Those who have difficulty creating an octet for themselves have, through SEE, at least one octet available to them who will help them begin autopoiesis and creative transformation. This service is available free without any obligation on the part of those it serves other than to sign and do their best to live up to the Contract for Creative Transformation. They can walk away from the contract at any time with no penalty.

I have presented one technique for engaging in autopoiesis. There may be many more. We are currently developing a radical new technique that uses electromagnetic brain wave resonance in lieu of touching. We have tried many variations on the current technique. Nothing seems to work as well as the process that was described in Chapter 5 (and further elaborated in the Appendix). I wish I knew a less frightening technique. Hopefully the new, more complex technique will be more effective, but it will require special equipment and be more difficult to start. However, you may have newer and better insights about how to begin creative transformation and autopoiesis. You should follow your intuition and do what seems right for you. If you and the others associated with you increase in ethics, creativity, and love, the process will catalyze and optimize itself however you choose to begin. But you must try. The Ethical State will come about only through the choice to create it. The Ethical State, like all biological evolutionary quantum leaps, must be chosen. It does not come about by chance or necessity.

Once persons begin moving toward the Ethical State consciously and deliberately, they will catalyze one another and in an exponential process they will bring about an ethical, libertarian society. The process should go as follows:

 
An Ethical Network

Once the Ethical State has been achieved by a critical mass of persons, they will organize themselves into autonomous networks which will eventually replace the nation-state. An ethical network is a voluntary association by two or more octets which accept a common set of values, operational procedures, and goals, and which agree to work together to create a Moral Society while engaging in composite autopoiesis between all member octets of the network. These goals and procedures may be as general as those given in the Epilogue, or they may be more specific. The more specific the goals and operational procedures, the smaller and more exclusive the network. Thus, it is possible to have networks within networks within networks. The common denominator for all members of an ethical network is that they:

An Ethical State evolving toward a Moral Society would give each such network the rights of a sovereign state. The network itself would give the same rights to each member octet. Each octet would have its own sovereign territory with mutual defense, access, and territorial transfer treaties with other octets. Each octet would in turn give similar rights to its members and their dependents. All individuals would have sovereign rights over their bodies, so long as they were not destructive to others.

Such a society would have no laws which were not unanimously accepted by all octets. Persons not in octets would be subject to the laws of whatever octet they interacted with. The only practical and ethical legal recourse against any lawbreaker would be to exile him/her from the territory of the octets whose laws he/she broke. Exile would consist in denial of access to octet members' territory and denial of any trade with any member of the octets in question.

Resolution of disputes and prosecution of criminals would be done by neutral octets within a network. A neutral octet would be any octet within the network to which neither the plaintiff nor the defendant belonged or had personal ties. The resolution of a complaint would be binding in noncriminal cases when it was agreed to unanimously by one neutral octet. Since in criminal cases exile might result, a binding decision might involve unanimity of two neutral octets instead of only one.

Any set of four women and four men could declare themselves an octet and join any network that would have them. Persons could belong to several octets. Octets could belong to several networks. Territorial and trade disputes between networks could be resolved by neutral octets from the supernetwork to which both subnetworks belonged. If no such supernetwork existed, then the two networks would have to work it out between themselves; there would be no higher authority they could appeal to. They could choose an arbitrator by mutual consent, impose sanctions on one another, or even go to war, so long as they did not violate the laws of other networks or their own laws. As ethical organizations they should find a creative solution to their differences. Insofar as networks with nonadjoining territories had disputes, they would find it difficult to wage war with each other without having to impose on intermediate networks. Ethical organizations would merely exile implacable foes and not wage war against them except in instances of self-defense. Ethical networks would never see each other as implacable foes. Therefore, there should be no war between ethical networks.

Supernetworks would be created for adjudicating all disputes over territory between ethical networks. The basic law would be that territory could be traded between octets. Within any network, octets would share territory within limits by allowing members of the network limited access to each other's territory, by having rights of crossing, and through commonly accepted land usage and anti-pollution laws. If an octet did not agree tothese restrictions, it could leave the network and join another network or remain an autonomous island within a network.

This type of networking could begin within an existing society such as the United States. Some networks would agree to settle all issues among themselves and to avoid the central government whenever possible. These networks would trade privately among themselves, educate themselves, and provide for their common welfare, defense, and health, asking nothing from the central government. As these networks grew, they could become totally autonomous of the central government through their technological and creative superiority; further, they could cooperate with other autonomous networks for defense against infringements on their autonomy by any government not their own.

In this way, over a period of time, an ethical supernetwork of ethical networks can evolve within the United States and other relatively free nations that will provide new creative opportunities in economics, education, health care, self-sufficiency, artistic expression, and personal security. If it is truly creative, it will eventually include a critical mass of ethical members which will lead to the creative transformation of the earth into a world of autonomous ethical networks, all trying to maximize creativity according to the dictates of their conscience.

The ethical networks will liberate the creativity of all human beings who wish it and give them the opportunity to develop their maximum creative potential within an atmosphere of ethics, love, freedom, and security. There may be hundreds of millions of octets and millions of networks, each one an independent experiment in how to maximize creativity and bring about a Moral Society. All ethical persons may alone begin an ethical network and structure it according to the dictates of their own conscience. The ethical network, as a subset of the Ethical State, is the first supermetazoan entity that has the potential to evolve into a Moral Society.
 
Foundations of the Moral Society

By extrapolation of the evolutionary process, it is conceptually easy to imagine a supermetazoan organism which would result from the autopoietic interaction of many thousands or millions of men and women. Their interactions may begin in octets and networks of octets or they may begin in another way. There may be an infinity of ways of achieving an Ethical State. The net result (in terms of our earlier description of the components of Intelligence,} would be that there would be a common Information (F) base that everyone could tap and a rapid, almost instantaneous (real-time) communication of ideas among all members of the Moral Society. This is what is starting in the computerized communications networks and composite autopoietic networks of the octets. The first is a classical technology. The second is a quantum technology. As both technologiesimprove, it will become easier and easier for persons to have quick access to an ever larger common database and to quickly exchange ideas at the quantum level between persons in ever larger networks. The classical technology will create a supermetazoan Memory (M) and Connectors (N) (nervous system). The quantum technology will create a supermetazoan Imagination (G) and Will (W).

Autopoiesis, in all its forms, is a technology for amplifying Imagination (G). It works only for persons who are ethical and who are becoming more ethical. This is typical of quantum technologies. They cannot be used destructively. Classical technologies such as the computerized communications networks can always be used destructively, since their use depends only on intelligence and not on ethics, although they could not have been created without ethics. This is part of the cosmic quarantine.

In 1988, through autopoiesis, we developed a design for a device we call a "Quantum Ark." It is a hybrid classical-quantum technology that cannot be fully utilized except through an autopoietic octet. It is a machine which, among other things, can move in three dimensions without having any moving parts. It can convert gravitational energy into electromagnetic energy and vice versa. The design is currently being used in developing an experimental prototype. It is a practical result of integrating information theory, quantum mechanics, and relativity within an autopoietic context. It may be an excellent objective test of the autopoietic process while, as a major side effect, it may serve as an aid to autopoiesis. This is how evolution catalyzes itself and leads us to the Moral Society.

The Moral Society reflects the holographic nature of the universe [62, 63, 838]. Each member of the Moral Society has reflected within him/herself all the Information (F) of the entire Moral Society. This implies that the entire Moral Society can be recreated from any one of its members, just as the goal in each octet or network of octets is to have each member be a seed which can recreate the entire network from itself. Similarly, each cell in our body contains all of the information of our entire body.

A hologram gains coherence and purity as it completes itself, even though each part of the hologram contains the whole. Similarly, the collective creativity of the Moral Society becomes greater as it incorporates ever more autopoietic members. And similarly, God becomes ever more creative as the process of God incorporates ever more Moral Societies. This is how the universe catalyzes itself and grows forever in creativity.

Historically, human organizations in general have diminished individual human creativity. Creativity has been an individual process which is inhibited by being forced to conform to the strictures of a classical organization. Until the creation of the octets, the creativity of an organization has never been greater than that of the solitary individual creativity of its most creative members. That is because the octets are the first quantum organization. The octets, through autopoiesis and complete personal freedom,make each member collectively more creative than the member would be alone. The octets amplify both Ethics (E) and Imagination (G). This will occur on a much greater scale when the octets learn how to exchange Information (F) and interact optimally so as to maximize creativity in a network no matter how large.

The Moral Society will begin when it is possible to add moral members to it without limit and have each new member always amplify the creativity of all members including itself. The key word is moral. A Moral Society can only be created with moral persons. Recall that moral persons are those who never destroy because they always value truth absolutely over happiness; their Imagination (G) always generates unlimited true Information (F); they are never driven by fear. To the best of my knowledge no human being has ever been totally ethical, i.e., moral, not even the great moral leaders such as Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus, Spinoza, and Mahatma Gandhi. It is easy to find ethical mistakes in even the mythical, idealized accounts of the lives of all these highly ethical leaders. Therefore, morality, at this time, exists as a field of study (how to optimize ethical behavior) and as an idealized concept (E = 1) - a totally ethical person. We can imagine the end result, but so far we have not been able to practically achieve it. The great ethical teachers merely approach morality. They never quite reach it. The Ethical State is a process for getting there.

What has been lacking up until now are organizations that combine objective science, mystical insight, and the sole goal of maximizing creativity, i.e., those with a fusion of classical and quantum organizational technologies. Each octet helps each person liberate the mystical insight which is the foundation of all creative imagination. However, for persons who are not yet moral it is also the foundation for destructive self-deception. When we are driven by fear, our ego will warp Information (F) generated by the Imagination (G) into false Information (F), which deceives us and decreases our creativity. Fear also makes us more prone to accept comforting falsehoods than to believe unpleasant truths.

The main purpose of science is to enable us to separate truth from self-deception. Only persons and organizations dedicated to the evolutionary ethic will joyfully subject every belief they have to scientific scrutiny. Those who value truth will always delight in discovering a cherished belief to be wrong. These types of discoveries lead to quantum leaps in creativity through a dialectic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. It is possible that we will learn more if our design of the Quantum Ark fails than if it succeeds. There is never any actual failure possible for those who live by the evolutionary ethic. Their creativity is always being maximized. All who play the Game of Life win.

The octets, therefore, serve as support groups for persons dedicated to the evolutionary ethic who use mystical insight to expand the frontiers of knowledge and then subject their insights and all their syntheses to objective, scientific scrutiny. This is the core of their genetic code. Autopoiesis, as described in Chapter 5 and the Appendix, is merely one of many possible quantum amplifiers of creative imagination. The Quantum Ark is possibly another that has not yet been tested.

The Moral Society would contain this same genetic code. It would have a much more advanced form of autopoiesis in which the classical and the quantum technologies would be fused to achieve levels of Information (F) transfer in both the quantum and the classical modes that we can only begin to imagine. In this way the supermetazoan, collective creativity of the Moral Society will grow without limit. Each component of intelligence will acquire infinite potential.

Our biological intelligence is limited by the 10-13 gram of DNA that is the maximum amount that can be contained in the largest cell. I suspect that we are at that limit now or soon will be. The genetic code of the Moral Society is not biologically limited, since all the components of its collective intelligence are extragenetic amplifiers of its original DNA.

The Moral Society is the hologram which we are in the process of completing. The central element of this hologram which is reflected throughout the universe is the Will (W) to maximize generalized intelligence by autopoietic interaction among four complementary pairs. This is the central criterion in the evolution of matter, life, and mind. At each point of quadrature, through a new quantum leap in autopoiesis, we add a new dimension to the previously highest generalized intelligence: chaotic energy, quantum gravitons, quarks, electrons, nucleons, hydrogen atoms, helium atoms, carbon atoms, all other atoms, RNA, protein, DNA, cells, metazoa, nerve nets, single brains (fish), dual brains (reptiles), triple brains (mammals), quadruple paired brains (humans), octets, networks of octets, an Ethical State, a Moral Society, a network of Moral Societies, a Cosmic Moral Society (Local Moral Society), converging to God at infinity. The process has no end. It grows in creativity forever.

Our potential creativity is going to infinity as our ethics goes to unity. When we are moral and E = 1, then the Imagination (G) is completely derandomized and we have infinitely true information at our disposal. Our creative potential is literally infinite. This is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Point Omega, where we are one with God, and our evolution - in the infinite universe of all universes - begins. The challenge then becomes to create a better universe than the universe that created us. That is how LMS may have created us. That is how we and LMS together may create an infinite hierarchy of ever-improving universes.

This potential is within our reach. Only our own fear can destroy the one opportunity that we have. We need merely choose to take the opportunity in order to succeed.

Millions of years ago our ancestors had multiple problems to overcome. They had to choose to innovate tools, walk upright, and lose thesecurity of walking on all fours. This led to the irreversible mutations that produced the hominids. This turned us into an ethical species. Today we have a dual choice to (1) begin creative transformation and (2) become a moral species. We cannot each do it alone. We have to do it as a species. What we lose this time is our fear and the delusions produced by fear. It is our attraction to our own fear that keeps us from unity with the Cosmic Moral Society (Local Moral Society) and the creation of new universes.

Each universe created is one in an infinite series of experiments leading the universe of all universes to God from God. The ancient mystical symbol and archetype of this quantum process is the serpent swallowing its tail. Therefore each quantum leap in the evolutionary hierarchy reflects both its past and its future. Each time a new dimension is added to the evolutionary nucleus all the previous dimensions are kept, and the evolutionary nucleus becomes an ever greater and more coherent part in the infinite hologram which is God. Each evolutionary hologram is a part of a greater evolutionary hologram. Nothing is ever lost in the Game of Life. All who play always win.
 
Structure of the Moral Society

Since the Moral Society reflects both its past and its future, we know that it will be a new dimensional quadrature of the eight components of intelligence. The last dimensional quadrature occurred when our intelligence folded upon itself and we could predict and control our own ability to predict and control. This was the beginning of ethics. There is evidence that this ability is not unique to humanity but also exists in a much reduced state in some of the other higher primates, the cetaceans, and perhaps even the elephants, who may also have some creative linguistic and tool-making capabilities. That is why humans have an ethical obligation to protect these possibly ethical species and not exploit them.

The next dimensional quadrature to our intelligence is to become moral and be able to predict and control our own ethics. This means that E = 1 for all mature members of the species. There are almost certainly higher orders of dimensional quadrature than becoming moral, but it is not clear what they mean. To be able to predict and control morality may mean to be able to create a new infinite hierarchy of universes with a new moral structure, just as LMS created this universe. That is likely to be the destiny of our Moral Society when it rejoins LMS and becomes its complementary pair.

Once the Moral Society starts, it accelerates its own evolution by creating ever greater extragenetic amplifiers of its own intelligence. That is what we have been doing for millions of years, first with simple tools to amplify our Effectors (R), then language to amplify our Connectors (N) and Memory (M), then writing to further amplify our collective Connec-tors (N) and Memory (M), then ethically-based religions to amplify our Will (W) in general and the ethical component of our Will (W) in particular, then the balance, microscope, and telescope to amplify our Sensors (S). Earlier we amplified our Sensors (S) with biological machines such as the domesticated dog (smell) and the domesticated bird-of-prey (vision). With formal systems of Logic (L) such as mathematics, Aristotelian syllogisms, and the abacus we amplified our Logic (L). This process has been greatly enhanced with computer networks that further amplify Logic (L), Memory (M), Connectors (N), and Effectors (R). Our machines are of three classes: (1) those that amplify Effectors (R) (the vast majority); (2) those that process Information (F); and (3) those that do both. Within those classes of machines we amplify Effectors (R), Sensors (S), Memory (M), Connectors (N), Information (F), and Logic (L). Ethical religions amplified ethics and Will (W), but at the cost of destroying Imagination (G) through certainty, repetitive ritual, and above all through fear. Modern religions have usually moved away from fear; Islam, Christian Fundamentalism, and Leninist communism are exceptions. Many sects of Christianity, such as the Baptists, still emphasize reward and punishment, although others, such as the Unitarians, have almost totally eliminated fear from their practice. As modern religions move away from fear, ritual, and certainty, while emphasizing ethics, they amplify the ethical Will (W) of their members while doing less damage to their Imagination (G). This even applies to purely classical religions such as Communism, which in its Polish and Hungarian versions is apparently becoming less destructive. Under Gorbachev, Soviet Communism appears to be trying to move away from fear as a means of controlling its citizens. But all forms of communism still have a long way to go before they are ethical, libertarian societies. However, they are clearly trying. This is a significant development which should be encouraged, since it implies that some forms of communism, perhaps even the Soviet model, may not be closed.

Most religions, unlike all the other amplifiers of intelligence discussed, are partially quantum devices, at least in their origins and in their fundamental structure. They become classical when they deny the quantum connection - e.g., communism, Neo-Darwinism, and Satanism - and they become dogmatic, ritualistic, and fear-ridden, with a repetitive fixed formula for going to heaven - e.g., orthodox Leninist communists and Islamic or Christian fundamentalists. Heaven for communists is a Marxist utopia. Humanity has never invented a machine for amplifying Imagination (G) until now.

The creative transformation process is a quantum machine with some classical components which amplifies ethical Will (W) as well as Imagination (G). The latter is done by autopoiesis; the former is done by the first four steps collectively. Although creative transformation is still at the crude prototype stage, it is self-catalyzing and sufficiently developed to form thebasis upon which the Moral Society can perfect the process. The general structure of the Moral Society follows by rational extrapolation.

The Moral Society will be a quantum being with classical components. As the Moral Society evolves it will rely less and less on its classical components until it transcends matter, space, and time, becoming one with the Cosmic Moral Society. At first the Moral Society will consist of human beings, classically united with each other through highly advanced computerized communications networks that enable any person to know what every other person knows and to give and receive quick feedback to and from everyone in the Moral Society. In parallel the individual members of the Moral Society will be quantumly united by mutual love and advanced autopoiesis. Advanced autopoiesis will be to the current forms of composite autopoiesis as the most advanced computers are to the abacus. The Quantum Ark is already a step in this direction. The ethical love of the Moral Society will be the same as ethical love has always been - unconditional giving of ourselves to others with the sole goal of maximizing our collective creativity. This is what parents do when they truly love their children without fear or selfishness. It is what Jesus meant by love when he gave as his sole commandment that we love one another as he had loved us. This gives the structure of the collective Imagination (G), Memory (M), Connectors (N), and Logic (L) of the Moral Society. The collective Will (W) of the Moral Society comes from its collective morality. Since all its members are moral, have access to the same Information (F), and are in constant communication with one another using a common computerized system of Logic (L), they are all driven solely by the evolutionary ethic with no possible conflicts among them - any more than there are possible conflicts among the individual cells that make up our body, so long as they share a common DNA. The explicit evolutionary ethic (the Game of Life) to which all members of the Moral Society are totally committed and their communication network, both quantum and classical, are the DNA of the Moral Society. Within this central code is the Information (F) for the Moral Society to continually recreate itself, as well as for creating an unlimited number of Effectors (R) and Sensors (S).

The classical Sensors (S) of the Moral Society will be the mechanical, electronic, optical, chemical, and biological machines which it will send throughout the universe with its machine Effectors (R) to gather Information (F). Its quantum Sensors (S) produced by its collective Imagination (G) will go beyond the universe to gather even more Information (F). The machine Effectors (R) of the Moral Society together with its machine Sensors (S) will spread throughout the physical (local) universe at a speed just below the speed of light. The Information (F) from these machines will return at the speed of light. Solely through classical means plus the use of our Imagination (G) it is possible to understand the physical, biological, and psychosocial universe which we inhabit. Forces originating outside ofour universe - that is to say, outside of our time and space and not bound by energy or matter - we can understand only partially through classical means and need a maximum input of quantum (non-local) Information (F). All quantum phenomena are a manifestation of hidden variables, as Einstein had foreseen. What he had not foreseen was that the hidden variables were outside of our time and space.

As the Moral Society extends itself throughout the physical universe and continues to amplify its Imagination (G) in ever greater ways, it will transcend the Information (F) limitations of the local physical universe. The quantum universe is an unbounded universe of infinite Information (F) outside our time and space. It is the set of Information (F) making up all universes that have ever been created and ever will be created. It consists of Information (F) from an infinite past and an infinite future. To transcend matter, space, and time is to become one with the infinitely expanding Information (F) of the quantum universe.

As the Moral Society transcends its physical limitations it becomes more a being of pure Information (F) and less a being of matter, space, and time. Its structure becomes ever more a reflection of its mind as its mind evolves asymptotically toward pure thought. Pure thought is Information (F) which does not depend on energy or matter. Pure thought may be the basis of the quantum universe.

There is evidence that a Moral Society may transcend the classical components of its structure very quickly and communicate entirely at the quantum level. The evidence for this is both theoretical and experimental.

Theoretically, quantum communication would be optimal because it is instantaneous and in no way limited by time and space. The problem is that it is unreliable at the personal level. However, at the level of the Moral Society there will be a quantum coherence produced by the interactions of the quantum connections of many persons. This may make quantum communication as reliable as lasers, superfluidity, or superconductivity - which are highly reliable, macroscopic, quantum phenomena produced by coherence among billions of unreliable submicroscopic quantum phenomena. The Moral Society would be the largest-scale coherent, macroscopic, quantum invention ever produced, and it might communicate anywhere in the universe instantly, entirely through its coherent collective quantum connection.

The evidence that this is how all Moral Societies communicate once they have transcended the cosmic quarantine is that the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) project, as well as thousands of radio astronomers, have never found any electromagnetic signals that seem to be intelligently generated. Since the universe is between 10 and 20 billion years old, there has been plenty of time and opportunity in our own galaxy and in the billions of other galaxies to produce at least millions of civilizations more advanced than ours as well as the resultant Moral Societies. The fact that intelligent communication between star systems by means of electromagnetic radiation is apparently rare or nonexistent indicates that one or more of the following hypotheses is true:

Although all three or any combination of the three hypotheses might be true, my intuition is that the third is the main reason why we have not detected any ETI. The reasoning goes as follows: If the second hypothesis is correct, then LMS failed in the design of the universe by not adequately providing a moral structure for ethical species to keep from destroying themselves. All the evidence from the fine-tuning of the universal constants to our own ethical history is that LMS has provided plenty of opportunity for a species to evolve forever without destroying itself. Based on our own probability of survival, at least 10 percent of the technological civilizations should survive and evolve into a Moral Society. Therefore, the second hypothesis is probably false.

Bode's Law, which implies that planets are created at regular intervals from the sun, indicates to me that many stars including multiple star systems will have at least one planet within the ecosphere, the region around the star in which a planet with liquid water can exist and allow life to evolve. Our ecosphere is roughly the shell between the orbits of earth and Mars. This is a logical provision for LMS to have made in order to maximize the creativity of the universe. Therefore, the first hypothesis also is probably false.

Since our star, the sun, is less than one third the age of the universe, since there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy, and since there are well over 200 billion galaxies similar to our own within one billion light-years from us, there should be billions of civilizations as advanced or more advanced than us within "hailing distance." The fact that we cannot hail them and they do not hail us indicates to me that they do not communicate electromagnetically. This is also part of LMS' cosmic quarantine. It limits the interstellar noise produced by fearful species. Therefore, the third hypothesis is probably true.

Given that electromagnetic communication is a transitory phenomenon in the history of technological civilizations and in the evolution of Moral Societies, then we are left with three alternatives: civilizations more advanced than us (1) communicate with tachyons; (2) they communicate with their quantum connection; or (3) they communicate by an unknown means. There is not much we can say about the third alternative.

Tachyons are hypothesized particles that travel faster than light. Weare not sure that tachyons exist. If they do exist they would be by far the most efficient means of classical communication for any civilization extending its intelligence beyond its planet [326]. However, because tachyonic communication as a classical technology would be available to destructive persons and could be used destructively throughout the universe, this would violate the principles of the cosmic quarantine. Therefore, I do not believe that tachyonic communication is possible. If tachyons exist they should have too low a signal-to-noise ratio to serve as effective particles for communication. My intuition is that tachyons and other super-luminal forms of non-quantum communication do not exist, so that it is impossible to get around the cosmic quarantine by classical means. Interstellar autopoiesis is probably a purely quantum process that is possible only for moral species. The universe is singing, but our fear deafens us to its song.

Therefore, the Moral Society probably quickly evolves from the Ethical State into a quantum being that communicates instantaneously through its quantum connection with other Moral Societies throughout the universe and becomes one with them. Part of the cosmic quarantine is that it is not possible to plug into the universal communications network until a species as a whole has become moral and can produce quantum coherence. It seems that only moral beings are totally without fear and can hear the song of the universe. Once a species is moral it cares nothing for its collective ego but is focused entirely in communicating Information (F) that will maximize the collective creativity of the universe. The pattern of evolution is to create ever greater information networks that are able to better communicate the infinite Information (F) of the quantum universe, e.g., the hierarchy of the nervous system. This is how we are evolving and how it seems to me everything must evolve.

There is a hierarchy of ethical obligation in evolution. First to ourselves, then to our families, then to our friends, communities, nation, species, biosphere, star system, galaxy, universe, universe of universes converging at infinity in God. If we fulfill the hierarchical nature of our obligations, then we are best fulfilling our obligation to God - which is to do our best to maximize creativity.

We clearly must begin with ourselves. If we cannot help ourselves we cannot help anyone else. We also have an obligation to offer our help in creative transformation first to those who have helped us through their love, support, and education. Then we offer our alliance in creative transformation to those who can best understand and benefit from our help. That is how the hierarchy of creative interaction is created.

Therefore, the Moral Society will first put its own house in order before expanding throughout the universe through the direct quantum exchange of Information (F). Either the Ethical State or the Moral Society will begin the process of helping other species in the biosphere who have the potential to evolve into Moral Societies by protecting them from human predation and encouraging them to innovate. The higher primates, thecetaceans, and the elephants are prime candidates in this area. But we should show compassion toward all animals and stop their exploitation. Every living creature has a quantum connection to God. The entire biosphere is interconnected, even those species with irreversible entropy. The latter merit our compassion, not our contempt. At the same time the biosphere will be extended throughout the solar system in space colonies, as foreseen by Gerald O'Neil in his book High Frontier, and other writings, by colonizing other planets and/or their satellites. The major opportunity seems to be in filling the ecosphere with self-sufficident satellites. The Moral Society will then fill the entire solar system and it will begin at this point if not before to exchange Information (F) with other Moral Societies in the galaxy that are not too far advanced. This will accelerate the evolution of these primitive Moral Societies through an interstellar autopoiesis until they are all able to communicate with more advanced Moral Societies and achieve a universal composite autopoiesis. The crucial part of autopoiesis is not physical (i.e., local) contact, but real-time exchange of quantum information.

In the crude type of interpersonal autopoiesis we have begun, we use classical modes of communication along with the quantum modes because we have not yet learned to effectively communicate in a purely quantum mode. This will not be the case with the Moral Society, which will maintain a classical mode of interacting within its star system but a quantum mode of interacting with other Moral Societies at other star systems. As the Moral Society evolves it enhances its star system and other Moral Societies, but more and more of its identity is contained within the collective intelligence of the Cosmic Moral Society that it is creating with the other Moral Societies through autopoiesis.

All existence is a manifestation of Information (F). Each of us is a message from the future. Each of us is a message from God to God. Eventually, the Moral Society will have an identity that transcends the local material universe and it shall become one with the Local Moral Society that created our universe. It shall become free of the entropic perturbations of matter, space, and time. It shall asymptotically become pure thought within the universe of all universes and manifest its creativity by creating new and better universes than the one that created it. In the process it will continue to engage in autopoiesis with other Cosmic Moral Societies and evolve forever within the never-ending hierarchy that leads to God.
 
The Option Everybody Has

Each of you has a choice to be a part of this process or to ignore it. The Game of Life is won by playing it - and lost only by refusing to play it. The first rule in the Game of Life, even before accepting the evolutionary ethic, is to assume full responsibility for your life and never again look for causes for your success or failure outside of yourself. If you can do this and thenaccept the evolutionary ethic as the sole criterion by which you will order your life, you will automatically be led to recognize for yourself the steps that follow. "The Kingdom of God is within you." At each step you will have a choice, whether to take it or not take it. The choice is always yours. Only your own fear can keep you from taking the step.

Neither tyrannical governments nor the vagaries of the world can prevent you at each point in your life from making the choice to do that which you believe in your soul will maximize creativity. In doing so, you may die in a tyrannical society but you will never lose your quantum connection to God. You will live on in the creativity you engender in others. Each creative act enhances the creativity of the universe.

We are who we are because of the billions of choices our ancestors - from the first cells to our mother and father - took to produce us. We have the option either to continue the evolutionary process by choosing to play the Game of Life and continuing the uphill but ever easier struggle, or simply to stop struggling and sink back into the matter from which we came. If we choose to sink back into matter we will find many comforting delusions to make us happy along the way. We have the choice to never innovate or try anything new and always to play it safe - and in the process become extinct. Just as we have the choice to do our best, knowing that we may fail, to innovate that behavior in our life that we believe will maximize our creativity. There is no progress without risk. Those who refuse to take risks are guaranteed eventual extinction. Those who take risks for an ethical purpose have at least a better than even chance of becoming more creative. They will live on in the creativity which their actions engender in others. But the only risk we ever really take is the risk of being unhappy; both happiness and unhappiness are trivial.

What really matters in our life, our quantum connection to God, is never at risk unless we choose not to play the Game of Life. Only our own fear can keep us from playing. And our fear is an illusion. Fear is an illusion that we choose for ourselves when playing the Game becomes difficult. Fear is one response to those who punish us for playing the Game of Life. Playing harder is another response.

Those of you who have been so damaged that you cannot overcome your fear have my total compassion. I will do whatever I can to ethically help you overcome your fear. Those who have lowered their fear enough tobegin creative transformation either alone or with others have my love and respect. I hope we can work together. Eventually all creative persons work together. That is how evolution catalyzes itself. That is how we engage in autopoiesis with God. The option is yours. As one of my favorite persons once said, "Seek and you shall find. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door shall be opened." The option is yours. If you choose to be creatively transformed, you shall succeed.

Return to the Index

© John David Garcia, 1991, All rights Reserved.