Frankly we have a very poor understanding of how consciousness interacts with reality in the first place.
For instance, as mobile organisms, necessitating a sequential process of perception, in order to navigate and then narrating our journeys to one another and building civilizations out of the collected knowledge, we think of time as the narrative flow, from past to future. Even physics codifies it as measures of duration.
The reality though, is that change turns future to past. Potential, actual, residual. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. Duration is this physical dynamic, as events coalesce and dissolve, future to past.
There is no “dimension” of time, because the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform it. Aka, causality and conservation of energy.
Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think frequency, or metabolism. That much of human history has been about getting everyone reading from the same page, dancing to the same tune, following the same narrative, speaking the same language, etc. might create the belief in a universal time, but there is rabbit time, turtle time, tree time, etc. The usual result of everyone being on the same page is that it becomes a race and so everyone is on rabbit time, but remember the turtle is still plodding along, long after the rabbit has died.
Energy is “conserved,” because there is no physical past for it to recede into, or future from which it arrives, as it is the changing configuration of this dynamic that creates time.
So while process goes past to future, the patterns generated go future to past.
Consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts go future to past.
Lives go birth to death, while life moves onto the next generation, shedding the old.
Products go start to finish, while the production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product.
The feedback is that the patterns define and direct the process. Motor and steering.
So reality is this dichotomy of energy radiating out, as form coalesces in.
Galaxies are energy radiating out, as form coalesces in.
Our bodies have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system to sort through the forms/information precipitating out, as well as referee the emotions bubbling up.
Society is that dichotomy of organic energies pushing out, as civil and cultural forms coalesce in. Youth and age, liberal and conservative.
The heart and the head. Desire and judgement.
Yet our version of reality is this monist idealism, where the narrative arc leads to some pot of gold. Be it God, or Mammon.
A spiritual absolute would necessarily be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgment, from which we fell. More the conscious desire seeking pleasure, power, knowledge, etc, than any form or brand of it. The fire within, seeking fuel to live. The appetite giving meaning to the banquet of life.
Which judgement needs to regulate and sort, otherwise it becomes that race to whatever carrot is being waved in front of us.
Money, for instance, functions as a contract, with one side an asset and the other a debt, but we experience it as quantified hope and try saving and storing it, like a commodity. Thus Econ 101 tells us it is both medium of exchange and store of value, but they are very different functions, as one is dynamic, while the other is static, like processes and patterns.
Blood is a medium, while fat is a store. Roads are a medium, while parking lots are a store. Obviously economists would fail at medicine, or highway engineering.
In order to store the asset, similar amounts of debt have to be generated. Which creates a centripetal effect, as positive feedback draws the asset to the center of the community, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. Since finance functions as the community value circulation mechanism, this is like the heart telling the hands and feet they don’t need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get, with predictable results. Just ask those with student debt how this works out.
The other factor is the government has become debtor of last resort. Where would those trillions go otherwise? Bid the markets up a little more? So we blow up other countries to sustain the illusion of abstract value.
Our tools become our gods.
Since its functionality is in its fungibility, we own money like we own the section of road we are using, or the fluids passing through our bodies. So, just as a hypothetical, what if government was to threaten to tax out what it currently borrows? Obviously this can never happen in real life, as those with these enormous piles of surplus cash effectively own the government, just like the bank effectively owns your house, until you pay off the mortage. So just hypothetically… Then people would quickly start finding other ways to store value.
Since we all save for many of the same reasons; children, housing, healthcare, retirement, etc, investing in these as community functions might make more sense than trying to save for them individually, in a parasitic financial system.
The irony of our individualistic culture is it creates atomized societies, that are more easily controlled by the very institutional authority which this individualism is in opposition. Not to mention that most relationships are mediated by that parasitic financial system! Networks matter as much as nodes. More dichotomies!
Obviously we are not changing our beliefs, until they well and truly crash, but it might be worthwhile bouncing ideas around and see what might stick, since a plan B seems inevitable.
It really is the yin and the yang, than God Almighty.
Friction makes it seem real.
