The Conjunction of the Sun and Moon

Higher Mind and Lower Mind Reunited

Layers of mind.

What if the whole universe is nothing except layers upon layers of fractal mind parts?

Layers, relationship, and intelligence, these are the ideas that must go along with one another. Think of the universe as a holo-fractal, with each piece containing the whole, yet having its own individual intelligence on it’s own layer of mind and it’s own unique relationship between itself and the whole.

The universe is a holon: a term describing systems that are simultaneously whole unto themselves and parts of larger wholes. Everything in the universe is made of parts from lower substrates while being integrated into a larger substrate. An important point we will explore further is that higher orders on the holonic chain express an increase in complexity.

Here are some visual examples of holons:

The Intelligence of Everything

As to the idea of “layers of mind,” we can point to evidence that everything is layered with intelligence. Scientist Michael Levin, for example, believes he has solved the Cartesian cut, or in other words, mind-matter duality.

Where, he asks, do you draw the line between “just matter” and an intelligent mind?

You don’t, he says.

That’s because what we call “just physics” also shows signs of intelligence. It seems that intelligence scales as you go up the chain of higher order, but that doesn’t mean the lower levels are devoid of any intelligence.

See below for a slide from one of Levin’s lectures where he shows that even proteins show signs of intelligence “just physics” seems to be anything but.

This is probably the most difficult concept but also perhaps the most important to understand: other intelligences can work in many other problem dimensions.

Problem Dimensions: Intelligence Beyond Our Perception

For example, we mostly think in 3D problem space, we think in terms of can we eat it, can we reproduce, how to navigate our surroundings and manipulate our environment. As we became more aware of the world, we started seeing that there are more than just 3D spaces where intelligence is applied.

Genes, for instance, work in transcriptional space, morphospace, and physiological space simultaneously. Each of these presents a type of problem, and the intelligence at the cellular level is able to work within these spaces to solve particular problems.

In Levin’s experiments, cells demonstrate competency in navigating multiple problem dimensions at once, coordinating chemical signals, spatial positioning, and functional outcomes to build complex structures.

If intelligence is this complex at the cellular level, how many problem spaces are operating at levels we could never even conceive of? The number likely approaches infinity. It both boggles and humbles the mind to even get a glimpse of the vast intelligence of the universal mind at work.

See below from another Levin lecture when he discussed how cells have competency in multiple problem dimensions.

The Wisdom of Knowing Nothing

This brings me to Socrates’ line that named him the wisest man in the world: he knew that he knew nothing. Regardless of what we know, it is a pale comparison to the vast intelligence that is at work at every level of the higher mind.

Like in Levin’s experiments, the individual cells don’t really know how to build a hand or a head, but by tapping into the field of intelligence they are guided step by step to build whatever it is that needs to be built. The cells themselves possess limited knowledge, yet they participate in creating structures of breathtaking complexity.

How does this happen? We don’t know, but it seems encoded in the field, perhaps even within the math itself.

Platonic Duality and the World of Forms

This brings us to platonic duality. Levin, while he seems to have solved the Cartesian cut, does advocate for a type of platonic duality, meaning that there is a world of forms and a world of ideals, and the world of ideals seems to be primary. It is the causeless cause that the world of forms is attempting to manifest. There is some kind of goal system, a teleology inherent in the world of forms that shapes how the form comes into being.

That said, Levin doesn’t agree with Plato entirely. He thinks that these eternal forms aren’t some unchanging monoliths but are actually intelligent and capable of change. Almost as if the universe is a chain of intelligent agents up and down the universe of mind and these higher mind agents set the goals for the lower substrates to manifest.

So perhaps, to bring it back to Socrates, “know that I know nothing” is trusting the higher intelligence to do the work it is already doing. Perhaps by not interfering we synchronize ourselves to that becoming process which is linked to some ideal that we may never fully reach.

One thing Gurdjieff made clear is that when you develop your will, it’s not a matter of enforcing cognitive control on the subconscious, but about developing one’s inner coherence between conscious and subconscious, or in Jungian terms, making the unconscious conscious.

The Sun and the Moon

This principle of coherence rather than control brings us to a powerful analogy: the sun and the moon.

Let’s return to the idea that there are layers of mind and we are fractals of that mind. That means that all of creation follows the same patterns, even the stars, planets, and solar systems. That same fractal pattern is within us.

So what is the sun and the moon in this pattern? According to Gurdjieff:

Given that man is the microcosm that replicates all that exists in the cosmos, this line from the Absolute to the Moon also exists in man. The representative of the Absolute in man is full consciousness, about which our knowledge is incomplete. We do know, however, that the effort to free oneself from identification creates a corresponding amount of free attention. The presence of free attention in man is a second order representative of the Absolute: it is a foretaste of what he might eventually come to know as full consciousness.

The Moon-in-man is sensation. It is that broken part of the original consciousness of man, and it is that part towards which a man who wishes to work has a primary responsibility; for sensation in man is the growing part of his inner cosmos. The Ray of Creation inside man extends from free attention to sensation.

Just as the Moon in the sky requires vibrations from Earth for the growth of its atmosphere, sensation is the atmosphere of being. No growth of being will take place without a corresponding growth in sensation.

“Of course, when we apply the term growth to sensation, we must understand that it refers to growth of the roots not the leaves, that is, sensation is not only of a man’s skin, which we might think of as leaves, but of the entire inner structure, which includes the skeleton, muscles, and organs as well. In lifting his arm, everything on the other side of intention is sensation. A man must be able to radiate particles of free attention from the moment an intention enters his bloodstream and neurological system.

“The work on sensation is the infrastructure of being.”

The Language of the Lower Substrates

So attention is the sun and sensation is the moon. Sensation is the language of the intelligence of the lower substrates that make our organisms: our organs, nervous system, cells, all send us information through sensation.

The trouble is that we don’t speak the language of sensation very well. This is the broken, or fractured part of us that must be rejoined to attention. From attention to sensation, that is our consciousness, and the deeper we go into sensation the richer experience of consciousness we have.

Perhaps as this article does a great job of explaining, there is a link between the inner mind and outer events that is connected by the meaning we feel, the emotional intensity between ourselves and the outer event that is our connection to the field of intelligence which manifests the platonic ideals.

The key is not to force control from the top down, but to develop coherence between our conscious and unconscious minds. To grow the roots, not just the leaves by growing one’s somatic intelligence.

The Three Elements of Doing

Gurdjieff used to say that there were 3 elements needed in order to “do”, in other words in order to manifest one’s higher will:

1. I am

2. I can

3. I Wish

I believe this corresponds broadly to the centers of intelligence within our organism.

“I am” corresponds to the mind, the cognitive attention which extends itself to sensation and can take both the outside world and inside world and the sensations of its being into account.

“I can” refers to the body, the energy that the body expends to sense itself and to exert itself towards a goal. This is the will that powers free will.

“I wish” corresponds to the heart, in other words, the emotional state of the organism. When our emotional wish connects with the platonic goal of our higher purpose, we gain resonance and a feedback loop of synchronicity.

But what good is a wish if there is no will in the body to carry it out? Or the ability to deepen our sensation to experience and fine-tune our awareness?

This is the work: to radiate free attention into sensation, to make the unconscious conscious, to synchronize ourselves with the becoming process that links us to an ideal we may never fully reach.

In knowing that we know nothing, we open ourselves to the vast intelligence operating at every level of mind. We become like those cells in Levin’s experiments, individually limited in knowledge, yet capable of participating in something far greater than ourselves when we tap into the field of intelligence that guides all creation.

Perhaps, in that humility, in that willingness to grow our roots deep into sensation rather than merely extending our leaves into abstraction, we finally begin to truly grow. We align ourselves with the fractal pattern that extends from the smallest particle to the largest cosmic structure, each layer of mind communicating with every other through the universal language of intelligence itself.