“If the success or failure of this planet, and of human beings, depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?”— R. Buckminster Fuller

Hollywood director Tom Shadyac is best known for his blockbuster comedies—“Ace Ventura,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Evan Almighty.” But his interest in the “bigger” questions of life has been smoldering beneath the surface for many years—evidenced by his 2002 film “Dragonfly,” which explored life-after-death, ESP, and the near-death experience. These interests finally came to the forefront of Shadyac’s filmmaking after a serious mountain biking accident left him with debilitating post-concussion symptoms. Facing his own death, or at the very least, the end of life as he had once known it, he wanted to finally address these questions head-on. Thankfully, after many months of both traditional and alternative treatments, his concussion symptoms began to fade. Once they did, he took a small film crew on the road to interview an eclectic assortment of spiritual, political, and social thinkers—author/activist Noam Chomsky, Rumi historian/interpreter Coleman Barks, scientist David Suzuki, author Lynne McTaggart, Bishop Desmond Tutu, historian Howard Zinn, author/radio broadcaster Thom Hartmann, consciousness researcher Dean Radin, and many more. To each of these interview subjects, he posed the question—“What’s wrong with our world, and what can we do about it?” 

These questions, and the answers explored in Shadyac’s recently released documentary “I AM,” particularly resonated, because they intersect with many of the themes and explorations of our recently published science-adventure novel “The Shroud.” 

A key conclusion drawn by many of Shadyac’s interview subjects is that science has become the cultural filter through which many of our societal norms, behaviors, and institutions have developed and evolved. Newtonian physics established a physical reality composed of discrete and separate objects, operating according to predictable laws of time and space—the universe as a giant billiard table. And Darwinian theory established the biological world as a tooth-and-claw realm of scarcity, competition, and “survival of the fittest.” The end result of this centuries-old scientific story is that we are accidents of the cosmos, living on a lonely planet in the cold depths of space, vying for limited resources in a frequently violent and tumultuous competition for supremacy. The notion that we are walking husks for “selfish genes,” according to many in the Shadyac film, pervades everything from sports culture, to our economic and business institutions, to our day-to-day interactions.  

But according to many of these same interview subjects, this mechanistic take on the human story is fundamentally flawed. Recent scientific developments offer a more accurate and encouraging narrative. Quantum entanglement, or Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance,” demonstrates that our universe is interconnected in ways we might never have imagined, down to the most basic particle level. And the discovery of “mirror neurons” in humans and other primates demonstrates that simply seeing something happen to another creature lights-up the same neurons as if it were happening to us. In a very real sense, we don’t entirely distinguish between “the self” and others. And this is particularly true when witnessing suffering. Compassion and empathy seem to be hard-wired into us. 

While inter-species and intra-species competition is an inarguable biological fact, we are increasingly discovering compelling examples of connection, cooperation, and community. In reality, we may have even misinterpreted Darwin. In his “Descent of Man,” published in 1871, Darwin only mentions the phrase “survival of the fittest” twice, while he mentions the word “love” 95 times. As Thom Hartmann notes in “I AM,” behavior across the animal kingdom regularly demonstrates cooperation—from the group selection of a watering hole, to the flocking of birds, to the schooling of fish.  “It’s in our DNA,” says Thom Hartmann.  “We are born to be our brother’s keeper.  Dig beneath the surface of the natural world, and a tooth-and-claw narrative is clearly not the only one to be found. Bonobo apes, with which humans share over 98% of their DNA, live in highly cooperative societies based on matriarchal structures. 

From elementary particles, to cellular systems, to tribes, cities, countries, and virtual communities over the Internet, science and our deepest intuitions increasingly demonstrate that we are profoundly interconnected. And this connectedness may even transcend the physical plane as we now understand it. Research at the Institute of Noetic Science in California, co-founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, increasingly demonstrates that the interconnectedness once thought to exist only at the quantum level may scale all the way up to the macro level—such that conscious intention may somehow affect the physical world. As far back as the early 90s, focused group meditation experiments appear to have measurably lowered local crime rates during the periods studied. And globally positioned random number generators seem somehow affected by cataclysmic events, akin to the Star Wars phenomenon of a “disturbance in The Force.”  The numbers generated appear to become measurably less random during periods of global crisis.

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The second half of Shadyac’s question involves moving forward—how we can best remedy what is wrong with our world. This evokes a number of intersecting explorations found in “I AM” and our science-adventure novel “The Shroud.” In reality, many of the same hard-wired traits that have created the current troubled state of human affairs, can also empower us to alleviate them. Properly understood, we can leverage their power to our benefit. Beyond the diverse solutions offered in “I AM,” we would also propose: Myths, Memes, and Meditation.

Established scientific narratives such as “survival of the fittest” and mechanistic Newtonian physics are slowly being recognized as only part of a much greater story. Recent scientific discoveries are pivotal in creating newer and more accurate cultural narratives. The Human Genome Project has revealed amazing commonalities among all living creatures. The project has also found that there is greater genetic variability within a given race than between them. In short, in spite of superficial appearances, we are far more alike, at a fundamental genetic level, than we are different. And studies in the recently emerging field of neuro-theology also find the commonality of spiritual transcendent states, regardless of religious belief system. So we are also far more alike, at a spiritual and religious level, than we are different. 

Even so, we retain hard-wiring from a primitive past that was directed toward survival-based judgments and assessments of others. Studies find that this programming leaves us constantly primed to gauge others as “in-group” or “out-group,” based upon such criteria as race, gender, age, and perceived cultural and socio-economic status—and that such analyses occur within milliseconds. This tribalism can be surprisingly dynamic. In one study, teen boys were exposed to the art of either Kandinsky or Klee. Even though the boys were previously unfamiliar with either, and had been randomly assigned to view the works of only one artist, the Kandinsky “gang” quickly showed a greater willingness to loan money to other Kandinsky in-group members. And the same proved true of the experimental Klee “gang.”

Because such tribal-bonding is dynamic and shifting, it is also highly malleable. Once recognized and understood, this hard-wiring can be consciously subverted. A measurable aversion to the image of a homeless person or drug addict can be rapidly transformed by an assignment to plan a soup kitchen and choose appropriate menu items for people in need. In this way, out-group members almost instantaneously become fellow in-group members as part of a joint undertaking. The key to such subversion of tribalistic tendencies is that cross-group members must share a larger common goal, and have the support of recognized authority figures.

Another important transformative vehicle is the weaving of myth into cultural narratives—from literature, to motion pictures, to social movements. Martin Luther King expertly used Biblical narrative within his 1960s Civil Rights movement—describing parallels to the oppressed, enslaved, and disenfranchised of Biblical times, and a visit to the mountaintop to see The Promised Land. This not only energized his followers, but also transformed the filter through which white America viewed the struggle. As pointed out in “I AM,” Dr. King also re-framed the movement to his own followers by describing their opponents as “spiritually damaged,” yet capable of being healed and made-whole by the use of non-violent civil-disobedience. It was a brilliant example of myth, cultural narrative, and political Judo—inverting the power dynamic to one where the oppressed were instead seen as “chosen people” on a mission to heal those in need.

Myth and media together can profoundly transform the perception of a given issue. Charles Dickens had originally planned to write an editorial letter to a London newspaper, decrying the economic inequality and poverty of his time. Having actually spent several years in a workhouse as a child, Dickens knew of the conditions first-hand. But he decided instead to present his editorial points within a fictional story. And “A Christmas Carol” was born—a work that profoundly altered the view of urban poverty of the time, and which is still being read and experienced on the stage and in film almost 170 years later. 

Sometimes transformative revelations can be virtually instantaneous. Returning from the moon aboard Apollo 14, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, a military pilot and MIT-trained engineer, experienced a profound moment of spiritual unity as he stared out at the distant earth and the grandeur of the cosmos. With a flash of insight, he suddenly knew that he was fundamentally linked with the entire universe. And this revelation forever changed him. When he returned to earth, Mitchell co-founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a research facility in California that employs the rigors of experimental science to explore consciousness and the intersection between science and spirituality. On a related note, the Apollo program’s stunning photos of the “whole earth,” picturing a luminous blue globe suspended in the blackness of space, served as a catalyst for the 1970s environmental movement, as well as inspiring Buckminster Fuller to coin the term, “Spaceship Earth.”

And then there is meditation. An overwhelming body of research demonstrates meditation’s benefits in terms of reducing stress and moderating mood. By its very nature of dissolving our entrenched sense of “self,” meditation also serves to mitigate hard-wired tendencies toward tribalistic identification. And with growing indications that focused intention can actually influence the outer physical world, there is a very real possibility that coordinated meditation and intention can have additive effects. Such potentials and possibilities become all the more intriguing when coupled with the global connections of the Internet and social networks. 

While competition is an inarguable aspect of all living systems, science increasingly makes clear that this is only one part of an expanding conceptual landscape. Our entire universe is profoundly interconnected, in ways that we are just beginning to imagine. Cooperation, community, and compassion are all hard-wired in us. Neuro-science now demonstrates that we feel the suffering of others in ways that mimic our own experiences. As Shadyac concludes in his film, by exploring what’s wrong with our world, we are increasingly learning what’s right about it.  

Tom Shadyac’s movie “I AM” is now screening at selected theaters across the country: http://iamthedoc.com/.  

“The Shroud,” by Steven and Michael Meloan, is a science-adventure novel exploring the spiritual impulse, tribalism and its manifestations in human behavior, and the intersection between science and spirituality:

http://www.TheShroud.net

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