What are the implications of a knowledge club of which we are all born members?

Writers, scientists and inventors, by the nature of their work, clearly articulate and place their concepts in the public domain. They frequently discover that other people have insights paralleling their own thinking. Innumerable cases document separate but simultaneous scientific discoveries or inventions, without prior direct or indirect communication between the parties. While writing a column in advance, I was chagrined when "my point" surfaced in another's story before mine. Later I realized we did not steal each other's ideas; we both, somehow, tapped the same source.

In the conventional view, knowledge comes only from the accumulation of discrete bits of information derived from physical acts: A baby touches a hot stove and learns that it burns (or is told that by someone else who experienced it). A scientist does an experiment and notes the results; thus, new knowledge is acquired. When someone writes of or photographs direct experience, others must see or hear it to know it. The materialist believes that knowledge only comes from external experience, our own or others', via five physical senses.

As the first paragraph suggests, that belief is incompatible with lived human experience. All of us receive our knowledge through many channels. Therefore, when addressing the question of whence comes human knowledge, we must keep all the evidence on our "screens." Like air traffic controllers, we cannot ignore data on one section of the screen and make a good decision. People who have prejudgments about truth (whether scientists, religious dogmatists or politicians) ignore unsettling facts.

(Note the arrogance of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to let judges select in advance those witnesses deemed to have valid knowledge. This means a judge can arbitrarily label testimony as "non-scientific" and exclude it. While justifiably wanting to insure reliability in testimony, the justices "threw out the baby with the bath water," confirming the prior-approval-of evidence procedure characteristic of the Inquisition and witchcraft trials. They apparently did not believe jurors can discern truth.)

What are the many ways humans come to have knowledge? How can we test for ourselves that we think we know?

Obviously, we do receive much information through our physical senses. Additionally, we also have flashes of intuition where an idea, picture or concept springs full blown into awareness. Albert Einstein (daydream in a tram leads to theory of relativity), Nikola Tesla (design for AC motor comes in unbidden flash), James Watson (ruminating on borrowed ideas leads to view of DNA form as double helix), and many others less well known have reported such moments of inspiration. They obviously received real knowledge because it proved itself in the subsequent testing.

Practical problem solving through dreaming is now a well-known and widely practiced procedure. Group brainstorming can get workable results, new solutions never previously considered by any of the participants. Controlled meditation uncovers unique and valid knowledge (e.g., health diagnoses). Going into a trance enables one to channel usable knowledge from sources outside the person (e.g., history or remote information). Infrequently, individual consciousness appears overridden by another being (walk-ins or possessions) for the transmission of actionable information. [This article does not discuss the evidence for direct transfer of knowledge by advanced beings (ABs) to humans.]

One can access these general fields of knowledge by conscious choice or simply being in a state of relaxation or openness. Shamans, psychics, or healers deliberately seek information from inner sources. Described in Jeremy Narby's wonderful book, The Cosmic Serpent, Amazon-area shamans using a hallucinogen can obtain pharmacological and DNA knowledge about plants from the noumenal field. Psychics search people's energy fields to discern alternate courses of action. These areas of knowledge appear to be available to any seeker.

Using the scientific rule of Occam's razor, what is the most simple and direct explanation of these various nonphysical routes to knowledge? All knowledge exists in a singular field from which any conscious being can access any part. All other explanations require the supposition of intermediaries (other beings), selective channels (only certain categories of beings), specified rituals (do it only this way), hierarchies (this being has to go through that one), or other imagined routes to truth. With these more elaborate explanations, one must have blind faith in the imagined intermediate variable that cannot be tested in our four-dimensional universe.

What are the implications of a single knowledge club of which we are all born members? (1) It is common to all of us; no individual owns any part. (2) Anyone can challenge any other's assertion of truth.(3) Alleged facts that oppose each other must be resolved in synthesis before they can be considered true. (4) Everyone is obliged to explicitly distinguish between beliefs or hypotheses and collectively established facts.

If those four points are correct, it is contrary to the laws of the universe for any being to claim ownership of any particular knowledge. The copyright and patent processes are therefore incompatible with the inherent nature of the universe. Jonas Salk set a marvelous example when he did not patent the polio vaccine, saying, "You cannot patent the Sun." That is why I no longer copyright my creative materials. (Other ways need to be found to justly compensate people for their productive efforts.)

Administratively awarded licenses only selectively reward the one who gets to the office first. They do not recognize the contributions of other humans to the idea pool or the nonhuman sources of the primal patterns (soft copy) from which physical details (hard copy) derive. Assuming that individuals own the rights to ideas and patterns from a common legacy leads to arbitrary economic rationing and domination. (The same happens in land use due to our acceptance of the concept that common resources can be divided into private plots.) The open-source movement in computer software started in the mid-'80s by Richard Stallman at MIT, where no company owns the codes and anyone can contribute to their improvement, exemplifies the true nature of the evolution of collective consciousness.

Paul Von Ward, MPA and M.S., researches and writes in the fields of prehistory, consciousness and frontier science. His most recent publication is the book Solarian Legacy: Metascience and a New Renaissance. An Oughten House imprint, it is distributed by Medicine Bear Publishing and is available to individuals in bookstores, on www.Amazon.com, or by calling the publisher at 207/374-3831. Paul can be contacted at www.mind.net/solarian.

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