AWM: Two Key Concepts
The universe is really one continuity in the process of becoming, but we perceive things, people, organizations
The truth is that it is all continuous—that it is one universe arising into being as itself. But it appears in the Actuality as an infinite number of separate entities.
The understanding that we are separate is an illusion of the creative process. Individual expression and action function in the universe the same way multiple colors are used by an artist to create a single image. Each object that we identify as separate is just a focus of activity (locus of information), which is functioning as a seemingly separate as part of the dance. It has its own arising potential and persistence, and its own ability to act. But they are only seemingly separate from the whole.
So an entity, an object, a person or an organization is the expression of information about its current state of being, its potential (possible future states), and a localized ability to choose and to act. The potential of an entity is arising into being as the entity and its environment. It is a flow of becoming that has complex structures of change and persistence. That is what we mean by updraft. A group of entities (a family, a business, a bus full of travelers) comprise a confluence of their individual potentials creating more complexity and expanded abilities to choose and to act.
The Concept of Persistence
Some things have a great potential for persistence, that is, they stay around in fairly static states. Other entities (both objects and people) express wide variability in their patterns of persistence, sometimes chaotic. Water can be water for a very long time, but the form it takes on is a chaotic structure.
The world of objects embodies a vast range in the qualities of persistence, though we can see with careful observation that nothing is perfectly persistent. The Himalaya mountain range, while seemingly a fixture for time immemorial, is changing every day as tectonic plates shift and surfaces crumble. The planets shifts, the sun burns, the waters flow. Everything is changing and the variety of changeability is core to the fabric of the world. Humans also embody this variability in persistence and changeability.
So what is persistence? It is the preponderance of likelihood that something will stay the same. A rock is more persistently a rock than a flower is a flower. And the opposite truth is that something that is ephemeral, fleeting, amorphous has the likelihood and ability to change. It is easier to change your thought than to change the color of your eyes; the thought has a smaller preponderance of persisting. Something that is very persistent has a lot of potential to remain the same, and therefore it requires a lot of accurately generated potential to change it. Something with little potential to remain the same does not require the same effort.
What is most persistent about a person? Which parts of a human being express stability? Is it:
- Bones? Muscles? Teeth? Brain?
- Personality? Emotions? Knowledge?
- Ideas? Beliefs? Intents? Thoughts?
These attributes represent a great deal of variability in persistence, but none of these are the most persistent attribute of a person. The most persistent element of a person is the process that causes the person to come into being—the ongoing becoming that creates a focus of activity, which we call a person. Each of us is the arising result of a process of becoming. And everything about us has more or less persistence. Our bones are more persistence than our hair. Our beliefs are more persistent than our thoughts. My location on the planet is more persistent than my emotions. We are a complex mixture of elements that express a wide variety of stability. This particular complexity is what defines us a human. And freedom in the elements that are highly ephemeral—the ease of potentiating change—are where the possibility of evolution is most available.
Moderate persistence is required for creative expression and the ability to evolve. A tree needs to maintain its existence as a tree in the midst of growing. A person has to maintain his existence as a person to evolve his capacities. There must be enough stability to perceive, choose and act; but enough dynamism to evolve. If we are too rigid, we cannot learn. If humans were so chaotic that we had no persistent pattern, we could not express what we might have learned. Evolution is the process of changing our relationship to the world in a way as to express a moderately persistent way of being in the world that, over time, continually shifts into a greater capacity for engagement and understanding.
We live on an edge between chaos and static order—this is where creative choices have meaning and evolution can proceed.
