My Philosophy: Everything is a form of Conscious Energy

Hi! My name is Arthur Robert Kopp. Everyone calls me Art.

This page is a short version of a book I planned to write many years ago titled "Metaphysics for Hardheads" :) I'm a recovering hardhead myself, so I can relate. I'm now seventy and was in my forties when I came around to a mystical point of view. My philosophy is not greatly dissimilar to the views of philosophers such as Spinoza, Leibniz, and others. It's pantheistic and panpsychic in nature. Similar mystical views are as old as the earliest recorded religion (Hindu). Today, we have many kinds of sources of information to draw on. There is paranormal research, regression psychoanalysis, and even physics.

I'll be using the term consciousness in a way you may not be familiar with. Perhaps you think of consciousness as simply your waking consciousness and your sense of self awareness. However, consciousness continues while you sleep. You will see that you were conscious before your earliest (unregressed) memories in this life. You were conscious in the womb and before the womb.

Let me begin by illustrating the continuity of consciousness in humans. Here is an interview with Dr. Graham Farrant of Australia: http://www.real-personal-growth.com/res_fixing/graham_farrant/graham_farrant_interview.htm

Dr. Farrant is by far not the only psychoanalyst to have arrived at the conclusion that cells are conscious. Roger Woolger in his book "Other lives other selves" asserts there is a consensus view among regression psychoanalysts that the fetal infant is aware and absorbing the thoughts and feelings of the mother from the moment of conception onward. The analysts confirm this via interviews with the mothers of the patients.

In connection with this, note also the following quote taken from here: http://www.supraconsciousnessnetwork.org/ch14p10.htm

"There is also compelling evidence that consciousness is centered in some location other than the cerebral cortex, as based on a relatively recent discovery that many individuals with hydranencephaly have both relatively normal intelligence and consciousness. Hydranencephalic individuals have no cerebral cortex but can have apparently normal intelligence. One man in particular had a measured IQ of 126 and achieved a first-class honors degree in mathematics at Sheffield University. A CT scan demonstrated "virtually no brain." John Lorber of Sheffield University has studied hundreds of hydranencephalics with CT scans, many of whom had no significant loss of intelligence. He found that half of those who have lost 95% of their cranium to fluid have IQs greater than 100.39...This gives undeniable evidence that the cerebral cortex is not nearly as vital to mental competence and consciousness as has been previously assumed by scientists."

Continuity of consciousness prior to that of cellular life is suggested strongly by those regression psychoanalysts who help patients overcome phobias due to past life traumas. Perhaps the best evidence of reincarnation was accumulated by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson who studied thousands of cases involving very young children who spontaneously begin speaking of their "other mommy and daddy". Usually in such cases the person the child believes it actually is (or should be) was recently deceased. This affords a possibility to check out the situation factually. In a good case, the child supplies sufficient clues that the family of the deceased can be tracked down, often to some nearby town the child has never visited in his current life. The child is brought to the town and points out certain facts, such as that a certain building he expected to see is no longer there (it was recently torn down). The child meets his former parents and knows family secrets, etc. There is no doubt that in some way or another, the child is the deceased person. The reincarnation hypothesis, while it cannot be proved, becomes the least far fetched explanation of the facts.

Stevenson accumulated birthmark data on many cases where the deceased individual died from a wound, and the child bears marks where the deceased was wounded: http://www.sinor.ru/~che/birthmarks.htm

If the reincarnation explanation is accepted, we see not only a continuation of individual consciousness from one life to the next life. We see also the primacy of consciousness and its independence of matter.

There is no reason to think that other animals aren't also conscious. Cellular consciousness implies the consciousness of plant life as well. Note that cellular consciousness is "psychic", since the fetal infant is in telepathic communication with the mother. It should be no surprise that humans can communicate telepathically with plant life. We have also the concept of "kinds of consciousness" or "types of consciousness".

The mystical view is that even a subatomic particle has a consciousness of of its own kind. Here's an article by a philosopher proposing his case for panpsychism:
http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/CONSC_INFO_PANPSY.html
Physicists have had to deal with the issue of the significance of the "observer" in quantum physics. When considering so-called scientific evolution on earth, I see conscious energy taking increasingly complex forms. It has been established in paranormal research that humans (and other animals) have a mental effect on inanimate matter. One might say that matter cooperates with mind. But I say further that the "mind" in matter (its consciousness) cooperates with our minds (our consciousness). In fact, following on that, it's natural to imagine all consciousness cooperating to continually form the universe we know. Matter is one form consciousness takes. Consciousness creates matter. In a certain sense, the terms consciousness and God are interchangeable. That's why it's just as fruitless to seek God "somewhere" as it is to try to locate consciousness in the human brain. God is the All That Is. It is also itself as the Source of Being.

My maternal grandfather liked to say that he goes to the church without a roof. He preferred going fishing instead. I'm with him. God is everywhere so why go to church? I love the woods, mountains, valleys, lakes and streams. I love communion with nature. That's my worship of God.

I did once have a religious experience of a certain kind. It was back when I first started chewing on the idea that we are born into various circumstances and conditions of life as both sexes. It's a humbling idea. It does give you a perspective. In my case, the idea eventually led to a powerful feeling. I was out working in my garden. The phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" kept running through my mind. Something was wrong with it but I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me so much about it. Suddenly "There go I" went through my mind, and simultaneously I experienced a beautiful high vibe emotion of unconditional love of all mankind and of all things. I was then reminded of the following poem (excerpt) by John Donne:

"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

I realized that Donne most probably had experienced that feeling, as have many spiritual teachers. It's something that arises from within and cannot be taught. It's one thing to have a intellectual concept of interconnectedness. It's quite another to feel interconnectedness and "I am thou", free of the tyrannical outer ego and with utter humility and love.

When I was fifteen I denounced religions and dogmas, and proudly announced to my parents that I was going to die like a honest animal without vain hopes and illusions. At age seventy I have the same sentiment, but I do now have a hope. I'd love to be done with earth school (reincarnations) and I hope to be engaged in creative challenges as I've done all my working life as a electronic engineer. I have little doubt that the Source of Being will forever remain a mystery. Maybe it finds joy and meaning through its creations as we do.

I wish you all high vibes and joy expressing your creative selves, as well as joy in the creations of the All That Is. Please see my articles on the subjects of time and zombies: http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg/time.html

Art

By the way, below is a pic of my life partner Peg, all set for gardening. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last September. Back in my hardhead days, Peg used to tell me that scientists put everything in a box. She was right. Interesting how some people know intuitively what's wrong with science.