INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN SWIMME
--Craig Schmalz

"By learning the ways of the universe and by reflecting upon them as they surface in the daily life of family and work and community, we take the first steps into a new form of human understanding and existence."
--Brian Swimme, Author of "The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos"

With respect to his mind, he is closer to the heavens than most.  Brian Swimme is a pioneer in thinking. He is a specialist of mathematical cosmology and a philosopher of the universe.

A faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies at San Francisco, Swimme senses, as do a growing number, a shift in our ideological philosophies about the universe and our role as human beings.  These changes can be viewed as the next evolutionary step.

In recent years, discoveries of our expanding universe has prompted a new wave of thinking, a forth dimension ideology.  Our Universe is the fourth dimension. We are surrounded by it.  We are inside it. Swimme refers to this new way of thinking as the "power of consciousness."

Swimme is quick to point out that our consciousness is unique among life on this planet.  Animals, like chimpanzees and dolphins, have consciousness, but they are unaware that they are aware.  A dolphin doesn't know why it is killed.  Nor do chimpanzees know why they eat.  Hunger is the only motivation.  Only human beings have the awareness that they are aware.  We understand what's happening around us and we understand why it is happening.

To Swimme, human beings evolve as the universe evolves. For example, our bodies produce thousands of blood cells a day.  Think back billions of years to the first days of biological life on earth.  The first cell evolved and became us.  Now we mass produce thousands of cells every day. Just as the universe mass produces stars, planets and galaxies.

Swimme questions human beings' integral role in the evolution of the universe and hints that it is confusing.  In an attempt to simplify the thinking he suggests that our role is to wake up life in our universe.    If the universe is like a pyramid, he explains, it would take a tremendous amount of energy to budge. But if the universe is more like an inverted pyramid, the slightest disturbance will cause it to move he said. 

Human beings are mere specks in the 15 billion year evolution of the universe and a relatively new species of life on earth, considering that our oldest ancestors are around 4 million years old.  And "civilized man" has only been roaming the earth for periods that are measured in thousands of years. 

In that short time we have changed global weather patterns by partially destroying the ozone layer, exterminated thousands of unique planet and animal species, and eliminated hundreds of thousands of acres of forest.  On top of that, we have managed to pollute almost every single aspect of this planet, the surrounding space, and ourselves. And, we have created a power that could potential destroy all life.

The time is ripe for a new wave of thinking. With a more expansionistic ideology, we have the chance to move that inverted pyramid in another, less self destructive direction.