ZENO’S PARADOX
JUNE 18, 2011. Zeno was a very clever Greek philosopher who offered proofs that time and space are continuous and can’t be broken up into segments. An attempt to do so would lead one to the absurd conclusion that traversing any distance, large or small, is impossible.
I use that as a metaphor to move in the opposite direction: any group activity, in the long run, diminishes the energy, vision, and creative power of its individual members. Whereas it might seem, by addition, that the sum of the strengths of the individuals would make the group more effective and powerful, the opposite is true.
In the early 1960s, through my friend, Richard Jenkins, an extraordinary healer, I was asked to sit in with a small group in New York. These people were, at the time, doing unusual things: acupuncture; psychic work, energy-center release, and alchemical compounding of minerals. Each person had his own practice.
The group decided to take on the case of local diplomat who was having severe arthritis problems. After much discussion, it was agreed to try to help him with collective action. A number of sessions were done. The patient sat in his bedroom in Manhattan while, gathered around him, the four members of the group transmitted energies to him.
After a month, no noticeable changes were observed.
New discussions followed. Confusion and disagreement began to set in. Finally, the acupuncturist said, “You know, working by myself, I’m sure I could do more for the patient than all of us together.” The other three practitioners agreed. “What are we doing?” said one of them. “We’re compromising ourselves. We’re unconsciously trying to tune our energies to each other because we think that’ ll be more powerful. But it’s not true. We’re becoming fools.”
When I went back to Jenkins and told him what had happened, he shook his head. “Temporary insanity,” he said. “I’ve seen it lots of times. This group thing. Who said the group is dominant?”
Consider a group myth about groups, about the collective. It starts here, from a seed: the observer affects what is observed. That idea comes from the so-called Indeterminacy Principle—which was about something quite limited.
Heisenberg, its author, stated that you couldn’t measure the position and momentum of an electron at the same time. If you shined a light (a photon) on the electron to measure it, depending on the characteristics of the photon, you could either determine the electron’s position or its momentum, but not both.
This was eventually taken to mean that the observer, the human observer, was somehow affecting what was observed. And it was extrapolated further to indicate that any observer of anything affects that thing. And it was taken still further to mean that consciousness affects matter and energy. This last statement, which I believe to be true, isn’t, however, derived from the Indeterminacy Principle.
To trace a bit more cultural history, the next thing that was made out of Indeterminacy was: we’re really talking about mass consciousness affecting matter and energy—not individual consciousness. Because the world is all about the group, not the individual.
Now in fact, Dean Radin and others have done some experiments to show that random number generators, sitting in various locations around the world, continuously spitting out strings of numbers, suddenly “alter the shape of their randomness” just prior to major events, such as 9/11. This is inferred to signify that mass consciousness seems to have undergone a pre-cognitive insight—which physically alters the mass and energy of those number-generator devices.
But don’t expect such outcomes to be permanent.
Mass consciousness making changes or being affected by the changes—the operative word is, in either case, GROUP. And that spells decay in my book. The group always disintegrates into something that considers the individual less than he really is. Going down that road sooner or later reinforces that concept.
And if we want a good metaphor and multiplier for Quantum Entanglement in the human sphere, it is the entangling of the individual in group goals. This sharing can perhaps happen at the speed of light or even faster, but why should humans behave like quanta? In my experience, something untoward always happens: the most attractive ideas turn into hot grease. People do some odd things when they join up. They filter their dreams through a collective lens, and this alone begins to corrode what would otherwise be their highest aspirations.
How can admirable ideals and best intentions wind up heading toward a swamp? Involve a group. Bring on board people who are “admirable and best,” and watch what happens after a while. They know, at some level, that they’re changing their own energies and creative impulses, in order to fit an agenda.
It may be the best agenda ever conceived, but as time passes, the individuals react like minerals with a diminishing half-life.
And again, whatever change they may render comes undone.
It’s worth noting that all lab experiments testing whether paranormal abilities exist are done with groups of volunteers, whose efforts are tallied as a collective statistic matched against the law of probability—itself a group concept.
I have no ax to grind with groups who try to achieve paranormal aims. I simply point out that, finally, the individual has more power than the group. There can be no science behind such an assertion, because science defines itself in terms of groups and repeatability.
This is a good thing. It leaves the territory wide open.
JON RAPPOPORT