Quantum Living - Part Fourteen - A Quantum Society

Quantum Society

As we turn from pure materialism, there are many mistaken ideas that will need to be shed. One is that a non-materialistic life is one where we all have to make do with less. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our present society is enormously wasteful in the name of competition, and this waste is costly. Stores throw out valuable product daily, rather than allow them to be discounted and 'spoil' the market. In a paradigm where harmony and co-operation were the norm, we would reap the benefit of reduced waste and the result would be greater abundance for all. Quality products are cheapened continually in the name of price competition - the result is a lowest common denominator, a product that works reliably but not well.

The old paradigm, the physical, sees each of us as separate, joining together briefly now and then to accomplish various tasks. We build institutions which are of slightly greater permanance for the purpose of carrying on larger and more complex functions. For a time, we may identify ourselves with one or more of these groups or institutions.

What might a new paradigm look like? We would start with the knowledge that we are not separate, but one. As one, all institutions are outgrowths of the One. Therefore, there would be no philosophical basis for competition between institutions. A new philosophy of co-operation is needed which can accomplish the purpose now served by competition, or maximizing the overall efficiency of the larger group.

This new model may be made possible now by using the new forms of electronic communication to permit mass decision-making on a grand scale - the 'instant plebiscite'. Perhaps a large societal group can begin to mimic the behaviour of a single organism.

A different way of Life must be visualized in order to bring this new paradigm into being. A detailed and complex picture must be formed and spread widely so that the vision becomes commonly accepted. We have a lot of work to do, just to identify the ways in which our thinking is locked into the model of separateness and isolation.

It generally seems to take at least 100 years for a fundamental new discovery to lead to a new way of thinking. Although the beginnings of the quantum revolution were in 1905, with Einstein, the impact of quantum theory did not blossom till well after mid-century. Today, we see products everywhere that are based on quantum effects, but without the consumer's knowledge or understanding. This includes digital tuners, microcomputers, laser and memory devices. But this is all just hardware. People don't really 'get it' that ours is a world of interlocked electron orbits. Nobody really stops to think that our 'solid' world is 99% empty. Electric fields are the origin of our so-called reality.

Ours is a culture based on material, which means, in effect, that it is based on an illusion, on Maya, as the Hindus told us centuries ago. When we accept that and integrate that into our philosophy of life, I can't predict what might change for us - but in 50 more years, we should be seeing something new.