THE WEB OF MEANING

Spider web at dawn

by jeremy lent

During mystical experience, certain characteristics – such as sensations of timelessness, paradoxicality and oneness – may be understood as expected phenomena from the flood of neural connections overwhelming ordinary attractors of conceptual consciousness that usually regulate functions such as time-keeping, logic and a bounded sense of self. But why do people frequently view these experiences as one of the most meaningful of their lives? And why are they associated so often with enormously positive emotions?

I believe that exploring these questions can open us to a deeper understanding of meaning itself. This is because, in my view, meaning is itself a function of connectedness. Just as music is an emergent phenomenon arising between a player and listener attuning through patterns of vibrations, so meaning is an emergent phenomenon enacted by a conscious entity as it relates an experience to other experiences. The more extensively we connect something with other parts of our lives, the more meaningful it is to us. The meaning of something may be understood as the network of relationships it is perceived to have – a more extensive and integrated network makes it more meaningful.

To understand meaning as a function of connectedness, consider how a dictionary works: it offers other words and phrases that you use to triangulate a meaning for a particular word. Contemplate for a moment what is most meaningful to you: perhaps it’s your loved ones, your vocation or your spiritual practice. In each case, you may find that the meaning arises out of its depth and breadth of connections within your own being, with your past and future and with others around you. Once we conceive of meaning as a function of connectivity, it becomes clear why a mystical experience, with its flood of massively interconnected linkages through a person’s neural networks, would feel so intensely meaningful.

As I describe in The Patterning Instinct, humans have evolved an instinct to pattern meaning into the world to a greater degree – as far as we know – than any other species. When an infant experiences the sounds and touches of her caregivers, she uses her patterning instinct to connect these disparate sensations and make meaning out of them – and thus begins to learn language. Instincts such as hunger, thirst, sleep or sexual drive wield their power over us by causing us to feel bad when their needs are not met, and feel good when they’re fulfilled. Our patterning instinct is no different. When we are disconnected from things, when things lose their meaning, we feel bad. When a new pattern comes together, we feel good – think of that ‘Aha!’ moment you get when you solve a difficult problem, or Helen Keller’s delight when she discovered the linkage between language and concepts.

This would explain why the sensation of massive interconnectedness in a mystical state brings a flood of positive emotions to those who experience it – their patterning instinct achieves a kind of ‘orgasm’ of consciousness as it undergoes a phase transition from a more limited pattern of meaning to one that is vastly more expansive. We may remember Jill Bolte Taylor’s experiences after the stroke that temporarily disabled the reducing valve of her brain’s left hemisphere: ‘I was completely entranced by the feelings of tranquillity, safety, blessedness, euphoria, and omniscience,’ she recalled. ‘I was the miraculous power of life … I was simply a being of light radiating life into the world.’

The work being done with psychedelics to treat people with chronic depression sheds further light on meaning as connectedness. In pre-treatment interviews, patients suffering from chronic depression frequently described their depression as a state of disconnection – from other people, from nature and from their own feelings, as though they were stuck in a mental prison. ‘I would look at orchids,’ one reported, ‘and intellectually understand that there was beauty, but not experience it.’ Treatment with psilocybin had dramatic results, with 94 percent reporting that they felt a new sense of connection to the world and to other people. ‘I would look at people on the street … I felt connected to them all,’ stated one. ‘Before, I enjoyed nature; now I feel part of it,’ said another. One patient declared, ‘I was everybody, unity, one life with 6 billion faces. I was the one asking for love and giving love, I was swimming in the sea, and the sea was me.’

Once we understand meaning as a function of connectedness, it becomes clear why die-hard reductionists, who look for reality in indivisible particles, claim the universe is without meaning. Do you remember physicist Steven Weinberg’s lament: ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible the more it also seems pointless’. A closer look at his statement is revealing. Like many in our dominant culture, he uses the word ‘pointless’ as a synonym for ‘meaningless’. For something to be meaningful, it’s assumed, it must have a point. This conflation arises from Western culture’s focus on linear, purpose-driven behaviour – actions with a beginning, middle and endpoint. However, if we see meaning as arising, like Indra’s Net, from an infinite array of interconnections, we would not expect any ‘point’. On the contrary; each point is really a node that only contains meaning to the extent it’s connected to other nodes in the web of meaning.

gravity is a form of love

Is meaning, then, intrinsic to the universe? Like the rainbow, the interconnectivity of the universe creates innumerable meaning potentials, but we must actively participate in attuning to those potentials in order to actualize the meaning. We saw how different parts of the brain must tune in to the right frequency to bind with each other and create consciousness. Similarly, we must tune in to the deep connectivity of the cosmos in order to enact its meaning. As philosopher Jorge Ferrer puts it: ‘All spiritual experience is participatory.’

Building on this understanding of meaning, we’re ready to consider another vast and ineffable concept frequently raised in spiritual settings: love. To the extent that a mystical experience leads to a sense of purpose, it often revolves around a vision of unconditional and universal love. ‘From here on, love was the only consideration,’ declared terminal cancer patient Patrick Mettes after a six-hour psilocybin immersion at Johns Hopkins. ‘It was and is the only purpose.’ Another patient, a philosophy professor, concluded in the simplest terms, ‘Love conquers all.’ This insight has been shared by spiritual teachers throughout the ages. William Richards summarizes much of the mystical literature with the observation that ‘the ultimate nature of matter and mind (if you take the mystics seriously) appears to be an ontological source or force of energy called love.’

Love is a difficult term to define, partly because of the vastly different contexts in which it appears, from the cheap sentiments of a Hallmark card to the deeply felt bond between life-partners and to expansive unconditional love. However, I believe that, like meaning, love may be defined in terms of connectivity – specifically, as the realization and embrace of connectedness. It can be as simple and ephemeral as two people greeting each other on the street, as when Louis Armstrong sings, ‘I see friends shaking hands saying “How do you do?” … They’re really saying “I love you.”’ And it can be a vast, cosmic ontological force, as Richards indicates – the force of connectivity in the universe.

The cosmic power of love is an ancient idea. An early Greek philosopher, Empedocles, described the universe as comprising two opposing forces: strife, which pulls things apart, and love, which brings them together ‘to become one’. Modern physics validates this venerable theory. The dark force of entropy is pulling the universe inexorably apart. Meanwhile, gravity – described by cosmologist Brian Swimme as a form of love – exerts a countervailing force responsible for congealing energy into stars and planets. Life itself can be viewed, from this perspective, as an act of cosmological love, as it stages its four billion-year-old rebellion against entropy through the connective powers of self-organization.

Many people find it difficult to accept the sweeping statement, ‘Love conquers all.’ After all, it’s easy enough to point to countless examples in our everyday experience that seem to prove just the opposite. This is a legitimate concern, which impels us to probe a little deeper. What can we learn if we apply the deep principles of life itself to clarify our own place within the web of meaning?

The connective force of life, as we’ve seen, incorporates all kinds of competitive and differentiated elements within it. We saw how the elaborate interweaving of organisms within a larger ecosystem can best be described as a state of harmony, where the multifaceted components of a system – competing and cooperating – are blended into a whole that is richer than the mere sum of the parts. The mystical realization of oneness often includes an appreciation of harmony along with love. ‘I was learning a song and the song was simple,’ recollected Patrick Mettes. ‘It was the vibration of the universe … a collection of everything that ever existed … all together equalling God.’ Another volunteer in a psilocybin study envisioned herself as being one of countless musicians in a cosmic symphony orchestra. Nothing she did could detract from the beauty of the symphony as a whole, but by playing she became part of the music herself.

The core concept of integration is central to every complex self-organized process, including life, consciousness, flourishing and ecosystems – a dynamic state of unity with differentiation, where each part maintains its unique identity while actively participating in generating a larger whole. As Dan Siegel observes, ‘When we embrace integration as a central drive in our lives, we cultivate meaning and connection, happiness and health … Beginning with integration within, extending integration to those you are connected with, and moving integration into our larger world: these may just be the reasons we are here … in this life.’

The web of meaning is, above all, an integrated web. The realization of meaning as a function of connectedness doesn’t require merging everything into an undifferentiated oneness. Instead, it celebrates all the different elements within us, within our communities, within the variegated fabric of humanity and within the stunning diversity of life on Earth. As Christopher Bache describes one of his visionary experiences: ‘Life here was not the assemblage of parts but the harmonious expression of a unified whole rippling through life, the way wind ripples through a wheat field … Diversity did not rupture oneness. Oneness expressed itself in diversity without itself falling into diversity … Reality was a fluid energy expressing itself in diversity.’ This description of deep integration encapsulates the possibility of true flourishing for each individual organism as part of the infinitely complex web of meaning that we all are collectively weaving.

An excerpt from The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Spirituality to Find Our Place in the Universe (Profile Books, 2021).

Jeremy Lent , described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. Read more about his work at: https://www.jeremylent.com/