INCOMPLETE WORK IN PROGRESS - please contact: john@newschool futures

Shamanic consciousness

(see autopoiesis, consciousness and other relevant keywords)

A working definition

• Our use of the term shaman is hypothetical, rather than attainable.
• We define it as the upper limit in terms of team consciousness.
• It refers to a living system's ability to be 100% aware of its interior and its exterior conditions, simultaneously.
• A living system's heightened awareness of the monistic nature of things, but described from an outsider's perspective (i.e. in dualistic terms).

The logic of cells

• Each individual (single) cell is bounded by a membrane that is semi-permeable.
• Dualistically speaking, this has two domains - interior and exterior.
  • The interior is where its metabolic processes (food processing / dreaming etc.) take place.
  • The exterior is the (rest of) the whole universe, from which it accesses all of its life-support assets.
• Loosely - a cell's autopoietic task is to manage these two domains in order to survive.
• Its consciousness denotes the coordination of many local states of awareness (inside & outside).