Mean-spirited statements on social media seem to proliferate after someone or some group suffers a loss in a contest of almost any kind—political, social, athletic, legal, cultural. The "team" loses, and the fans attack one another over the Web. A politician loses, and proponents attack one another over the Web. A beauty pageant or talent contestant loses, and idolizers attack one another over the Web. Nasty.
Okay, we get it; losing is difficult to accept. The inability to accept a loss in a contest isn’t new. But as we all know, mean-spirited statements and the hurtful actions of losers directed at winners have become quite frequent behavior.
Maybe we should look at the oft-quoted statement by fourth-century Church Doctor St. Ambrose: “No one heals himself by wounding another.” It’s obvious that wounding another is the “healing” tactic that prevails on social media.
Is there another healing tactic of which we can avail ourselves? Try this one. Think peace.
“Now why would you say that, Dear Professor? Do you believe that just by thinking peace, people can change themselves, heal themselves, or change one another?” Your questions initiate my monologue.
“I’m beginning to wonder whether or not there isn’t an actual discernible evil effect on social media. All the mean-spirited statements, all the trashing, might not be just empty words floating around in cyberspace, but rather are causes of further mean-spiritedness. And I don’t mean just by imitation. I’m not arguing that there’s propaganda out there. Everyone knows there is, and everyone knows that minds can be influenced. But I think there might be something out there that is actually influencing brain, that chemo-electric entity that is deemed to be part, if not all, of the physical base of mind.
“What makes me wonder so? My thinking derives from reports of experiments that seem to have been run rather objectively and that appear to have some relatively strongly convincing conclusions about consciousness and its relationship to matter. We all know the story of Schrödinger’s Cat and the role observation plays in quantum mechanics. Seeing makes it so. All possibilities exist until we notice, and the noticing collapses them all into just one. A conscious observer influences what is observed.
“The experiment in question was run by Dr. Dean Radin and others. Running the famous “double-slit experiment,” Radin’s group had people think about the double-slit and the subatomic particle that, wave or particle, passed through to a target. The experimenters did a fairly good job at eliminating any kind of interference that might swing the results one way or another. They even used people who were at great distance from the apparatus, and they ran many crosschecks. The experiments seem to show that just thinking about the experiment was a form of observing. That is, consciousness determined the result just as physical observation is known to determine the result. You can watch a YouTube presentation by Radin at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSBaq3vAeY .
“How does this tie into St. Ambrose and social media’s ad hominem attacks? It suggests to me that those who argue that consciousness itself is an active agent in the Cosmos might be on to something of a truth—not one beyond argument, but certainly one to be taken seriously. If, as Radin reports in his YouTube talk and as others have reported in scientific literature, even random number generators can be influenced by a number of minds working in unison, then minds working in hateful unison might also have influence, even when those minds are connected only over the Web. Again, I’m not talking overt propaganda that influences lazy thinkers or the weak-minded. I’m arguing that the very consciousness of haters has a real and negative effect on brain, mind, and the behaviors and attitudes of the majority on the losing side of a contest. The group consciousness collapses all possible reactions to loss in a contest to a single outcome: Hate. Thinking makes it so.
“Sorry that I’m taking my time in making this point of departure for your own thinking. Ambrose noted the same mean-spirited nature of humans of his time, thus, his statement. Today, hateful speech and ad hominem attacks on the Web have self-fulfillment. They wound in an attempt to heal, and in doing so, they do no healing. The world of the losers collapses into only one outcome. The Cat is dead. Hate is the observed quantum.
“What if,” I argue, “we practiced the consciousness of peace? Yes, I know, gurus, formal church leaders, and even cult leaders have attempted to get followers ‘to think peace’ with varying and often failing results. Obviously, some intense focus would be necessary. In Radin’s experiments, meditators performed better than non-meditators. Many people would have to work in unison to effect a change. But ‘many people’ always includes ‘one person.’ Does that not mean that each of us can consciously contribute to and actually cause a quantum of peace?
“Here’s thinkin’ at you.”
Okay, we get it; losing is difficult to accept. The inability to accept a loss in a contest isn’t new. But as we all know, mean-spirited statements and the hurtful actions of losers directed at winners have become quite frequent behavior.
Maybe we should look at the oft-quoted statement by fourth-century Church Doctor St. Ambrose: “No one heals himself by wounding another.” It’s obvious that wounding another is the “healing” tactic that prevails on social media.
Is there another healing tactic of which we can avail ourselves? Try this one. Think peace.
“Now why would you say that, Dear Professor? Do you believe that just by thinking peace, people can change themselves, heal themselves, or change one another?” Your questions initiate my monologue.
“I’m beginning to wonder whether or not there isn’t an actual discernible evil effect on social media. All the mean-spirited statements, all the trashing, might not be just empty words floating around in cyberspace, but rather are causes of further mean-spiritedness. And I don’t mean just by imitation. I’m not arguing that there’s propaganda out there. Everyone knows there is, and everyone knows that minds can be influenced. But I think there might be something out there that is actually influencing brain, that chemo-electric entity that is deemed to be part, if not all, of the physical base of mind.
“What makes me wonder so? My thinking derives from reports of experiments that seem to have been run rather objectively and that appear to have some relatively strongly convincing conclusions about consciousness and its relationship to matter. We all know the story of Schrödinger’s Cat and the role observation plays in quantum mechanics. Seeing makes it so. All possibilities exist until we notice, and the noticing collapses them all into just one. A conscious observer influences what is observed.
“The experiment in question was run by Dr. Dean Radin and others. Running the famous “double-slit experiment,” Radin’s group had people think about the double-slit and the subatomic particle that, wave or particle, passed through to a target. The experimenters did a fairly good job at eliminating any kind of interference that might swing the results one way or another. They even used people who were at great distance from the apparatus, and they ran many crosschecks. The experiments seem to show that just thinking about the experiment was a form of observing. That is, consciousness determined the result just as physical observation is known to determine the result. You can watch a YouTube presentation by Radin at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSBaq3vAeY .
“How does this tie into St. Ambrose and social media’s ad hominem attacks? It suggests to me that those who argue that consciousness itself is an active agent in the Cosmos might be on to something of a truth—not one beyond argument, but certainly one to be taken seriously. If, as Radin reports in his YouTube talk and as others have reported in scientific literature, even random number generators can be influenced by a number of minds working in unison, then minds working in hateful unison might also have influence, even when those minds are connected only over the Web. Again, I’m not talking overt propaganda that influences lazy thinkers or the weak-minded. I’m arguing that the very consciousness of haters has a real and negative effect on brain, mind, and the behaviors and attitudes of the majority on the losing side of a contest. The group consciousness collapses all possible reactions to loss in a contest to a single outcome: Hate. Thinking makes it so.
“Sorry that I’m taking my time in making this point of departure for your own thinking. Ambrose noted the same mean-spirited nature of humans of his time, thus, his statement. Today, hateful speech and ad hominem attacks on the Web have self-fulfillment. They wound in an attempt to heal, and in doing so, they do no healing. The world of the losers collapses into only one outcome. The Cat is dead. Hate is the observed quantum.
“What if,” I argue, “we practiced the consciousness of peace? Yes, I know, gurus, formal church leaders, and even cult leaders have attempted to get followers ‘to think peace’ with varying and often failing results. Obviously, some intense focus would be necessary. In Radin’s experiments, meditators performed better than non-meditators. Many people would have to work in unison to effect a change. But ‘many people’ always includes ‘one person.’ Does that not mean that each of us can consciously contribute to and actually cause a quantum of peace?
“Here’s thinkin’ at you.”
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