A General Systems Analysis of the Creative Process in Nature
(revised Dec., 2010)
 John A. Gowan

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Abstract

The astrological "Sun Signs" consist of 12 ancient or classical archetypes which together purport to provide a complete description of the human condition. This is an attempt to reduce the complexity of humanity to 12 essential characteristics. In other words, if these archetypes are correctly chosen, and we could understand them fully, the "Sun Signs" will tell us all we need to know about humankind. This article investigates 4 of the Sun Signs (the "Mutable" signs) which make a major contribution to the creative life of Man. In the postscript, I note a few interesting details regarding the other 8 signs, but for a full description of the Sun Signs, the reader should see the two papers devoted exclusively to that effort: "The Sun Signs of Astrology: Part I"; "The Sun Signs of Astrology: Part II".

Table of Contents:

Abstract
Introduction
Light and Space
Language
Virgo and Gemini
Gemini - Leptons
IVBs - Intermediate Vector Bosons
Transformations of Increasing Order
Summary
Postscript

Introduction

It is a tenet of General Systems theory that certain fundamental processes in nature are isomorphic; that if we can understand one of these processes, we can use this knowledge to help us comprehend others of its kind. A General Systems view of natural organization is illustrated in Table 1, "The Fractal Organization of Nature", in which a General Systems growth model is incorporated into a fractal hierarchy. One difference between the General Systems and fractal views of nature is that General Systems tends to be an operationally defined classification, lumping together processes which may not be connected to each other organically (example: "thermostatic" vs "homeostatic" phenomena in mechanical and biological systems), while the fractal view consists of nested "self-similar" hierarchies whose structures are built of each other's parts in a completely organic relationship. This fractal connectivity is especially familiar in biology, where organelles compose cells, which compose organs, which compose organisms, which compose species, etc. The fractal mode extends below the biophysical realm into the microphysical world of atoms, and above biology into astrophysical phenomena. In table 1, a General Systems growth model developed by George Land and August Jaccaci serves as the dynamic element in a fractal hierarchy of size assembled by myself.

Fractal models of the Universe are in fact extremely old: the notion of "man created in the image and likeness of God", "man the measure of the Universe", "as above, so below" are all intuitive assertions of the fractal nature of the Cosmos. These hypotheses have a practical, heuristic consequence: through the study of the accessible "below", we can learn, at least through analogy and metaphor, about the inaccessible "above". This is the highest goal of General Systems study.

Humans have created an additional abstract "metaphysical realm", evidently isomorphic with the other physical realms, which is purely an intellectual product of our minds, consisting of two halves: 1) an intuitive, religious, spiritual, mystic, occult, or mythological component, often very ancient; and 2) a rational or scientific part, often very recent. It is especially the correspondence between these scientific and occult world views as they relate to the creative process in nature and humanity that I will consider in this paper. (For a more general treatment of all the astrological "Sun Signs" see: "Physical Correlates of the Astrological Sun Signs: Part One - Fire and Water Signs; and Part Two - Earth and Air Signs).

The scientific view of this natural creative process is represented in a 4x3 model of the unified field theory and the creation of matter in the Big Bang, while the occult or mythological creation story, with a similar 4x3 pattern, as found in the astrological tradition, is mapped as an overlay. If we allow the two systems to talk to and inform each other, both gain in comprehensibility. The bare physical system finds a translation into intelligible human terms, while the "fuzzy" human system is sharpened and delineated by the hard structure of the physics. (Both systems may also be represented as 4 x 4 matrices to illustrate emergent system properties, or resolution and closure.)

Light and Space - Sagittarius and Pisces
Visual Imagination and Language

In various figures below (perglass.gif, space.gif, astrograil.gif, flower.gif, asflower.gif), I have mapped the isomorphic patterns of two "world views" - the 4x3 "metric" of the unified field theory, a rational world view created by modern science, and the 4x3 pattern of astrology, an intuitive world view created by the ancient astronomers and astrologers, a part of the intuitive body of knowledge loosely referred to as the "ancient wisdom". Broadly defined, "ancient wisdom" includes religion and mythology as well as mystical and occult arts and practices. The unified field theory, as I have mapped it, contains a representation of the creation of matter and the Universe. From the point of view of General Systems, it is of great interest to see how the astrological model maps when superimposed upon corresponding points of the rational model, for if the central thesis of General Systems is correct, the two systems should be isomorphic and illuminate each other, and allow us to translate the creative process of the Cosmos into human terms, and vice versa.

In these models, the focus of our interest (for present purposes) is upon the 4 top points. These correspond to the "Mutable" astrological signs, and they represent the energy inputs in either the rational or intuitive system. In what follows, I relate these 4 points to 4 aspects of human mental creativity: 1) Imagination - the Visual Brain; 2) Language - the Auditory Brain; 3) Technology - the Manual Brain; 4) Symbology - the Reflexive or Abstracting Brain.

Light

The scientific representation of creation begins - as in Genesis - with light. Light is the primordial form of energy, the starting point of the Universe. We know this for two reasons: 1) light is the most symmetric energy form known, and therefore the most "primitive", as it cannot be derived from any more symmetric form; 2) light is the only energy form capable of creating and sustaining its own dimensional conservation domain, space - light creates space by virtue of its intrinsic motion, as gauged by "velocity c". (For a more complete treatment of the physical forces than is possible here, see: "Symmetry Principles of the Unified field Theory" and related papers on my homepage.)

Astrologically, light is correlated with (maps on top of) Sagittarius, the Sage or Philosopher (for an explanation why the mapping is coordinated in this particular way see: "General Systems and the Unified Field Theory" (part 3)). This correlation reminds us that most of the human brain is devoted to vision, so this connection between light and wisdom refers to the large capacity of our visual brain. We recall that the Sage or Philosopher is wise because he is a "visionary" or "seer", who can see the future by reasoning from past experience, and because he is able to form a mental visual image, an imaginary picture, of the future. The Sage has "foresight" and therefore foreknowledge; visualizing the future, planning for the future, foreseeing the future, this is the essence of wisdom. Other words that suggest themselves here are "insight", "illumination", and "enlightenment" - all qualities of mind suggesting great wisdom or sagacity, and referring specifically to the visual brain. There is a high state of meditation in which the practitioner becomes aware of "the clear light of the void", apparently revealing a resonant or "ground state" of the visual brain. Sagittarius represents the elevated mental capacity of modern humans, which is particularly expressed through visual imagination, foreknowledge, logic, reason, and the ability to foresee and plan for the future (not necessarily in the occult manner of premonitions, but in the sense that we foresee the cycle of the day, of the seasons, of life, etc., and plan accordingly).

The connection between the visual brain and our intelligence and powers of reasoning is reflected in our language, where vision and light are common metaphors for understanding. Consider the following illustrative phrases and sentences: "a light came on in his head; an idea dawns; the light of common day; that's one way of looking at it; what's your viewpoint; I don't see it that way; what's the outlook; from this vantage, we see a new point of view and gain a wider perspective; we need a man with vision, foresight, and insight, an illumined, enlightened intellect, a "seer", who can look at this mess and see a solution."

Hence the first attribute of human creativity is the elevated capacity of mind and memory which permits the visual imagination of a future condition or physical state - a state which does not as yet exist in reality, or rather, whose only reality is electromagnetic - the "light" in the mind. This unrealized state may begin as a logical, reasoned prediction based upon past experience (winter is coming) which carries with it the implication of problems (scarcity of food, necessity for shelter, etc.). Solutions to these problems are then sought within the visual imagination itself. The whole process takes place internally within the mind of a single individual.

Some believe the power of visual imagination is by itself capable of bringing into existence a desired state. Be that as it may, here I treat imagination as, in any case, the essential first step of a creative process.

Finally, I associate with Sagittarius the rare gift of occult or prophetic vision, which some will interpret as Divine revelation, or in any case a form of ESP. The visions of the biblical prophets, so often associated with "a light from above", are of this type. Oracles, "fortune telling" and astrological prognostications are other examples of foretelling the future which perhaps belong to the foresight and predictions of Sagittarius. From such beginnings we have developed the ability to make exact predictions in certain areas of science - just those which are most amenable to reason and logic. For a general survey of the huge subject of ESP, see the book "Trance, Art, Creativity", available in full on the memorial website of my late father, Prof. J. C. Gowan.

Language

The second stage in the creation process of physics is the formation of space by the intrinsic motion of light (see: "Table of the Unified Field Theory"). Space is the dimensional conservation domain of light, an entropic domain created by the intrinsic motion of light for its own conservation. Light is a 2-dimensional transverse plane wave, but its intrinsic motion, as gauged by "velocity c", sweeps out a 3rd spatial dimension. Space is the structural component of light, making energy conservation possible, determining the magnitude of "c", establishing the spacetime "metric" and its conserving inertial forces. The intrinsic motion of light is the entropy drive of free energy, gauged by "velocity c", expanding and cooling spacetime. However, the intrinsic motion of light has a double gauge or regulatory role, also establishing the "non-local" metric and distributional symmetry of light, banishing the asymmetric dimension of time, as well as maintaining the inertial equivalence of the 3 spatial dimensions.

We should note that the spatial column headed by Pisces is also the gravitational column, a unification demonstrated by Einstein. The significance of this union for our present analysis would seem to be that just as language represents a useful and concrete structuring of the visionary imagination of Sagittarius, so does gravity represent a useful and concrete structuring of space. Gravity makes space real and useful for us, just as language makes thoughts and ideas real and useful for us. Like gravity and spacetime, the auditory and visual brains are intimately related. In the extreme case of blindness, which we may compare to that of the gravitational "black hole", we find the auditory brain taking over the functions of the visual brain, and appropriating its territory, just as in the black hole the gravitational metric takes over the electromagnetic metric and appropriates its functions. Language is indeed a form of seeing, even if "one picture is worth a thousand words". We are indeed blind to those things we do not have words for, or about which we are ignorant or misinformed.

Astrologically, space corresponds to Pisces the Poet. Pisces represents language, intuition, song, music, rhythm, rhyme, counting, storytelling, mythology, and with social evolution, all the literary and musical arts. Here we find an excellent parallel between the physical and human systems: just as space is the conservation domain of light, so language is the conservation domain of thought and imagination. The intelligence, foresight, reason, and memory of Sagittarius is conserved through the language, stories, song, mythology, and eventually, the literature of Pisces. The original function of music, rhythm, rhyme, and song is probably as a verbal-aural memory aid for passing tribal wisdom from one generation to the next.

Language has as its primary function interpersonal communication, the naming of things, and the description of experience. Language is a fundamental act of human creativity, in which thoughts, feelings, and things are given a secondary symbolic reality which is external, "real" or "concrete", communicable, and vocally structured. We are reminded of the mental, vocal, and creative effort the act of speech requires when we attempt in later life to learn a new language. The message for human creativity here is that once a visual mental image of a desired future state is formed, we need to give it structure and conserve it by naming it and talking/writing about it. This is, after all, the first thing we do when a child is born, and we need to do it also when giving birth to our ideas.

The imagination-language system works both ways: our minds create words to represent natural objects, but once learned, those words create images of those same objects in our minds. Our language, of course, has evolved far beyond the mere description of natural objects to the communication of truly abstract ideas, intuitions, feelings, and principles for which there is no adequate, simple corresponding mental image. In a good book or musical piece, one finds the conservation and communication not only of ideas and emotions, but of that most precious of all commodities, experience itself. Music is a language of the emotions, feelings, and intuitive aspects of the mind. Music, like visual art, is a more direct form of communication because its meanings do not have to be decoded by the symbolic language processing center of the brain.

The mixture of light and space, imagination and language, is the first and most important interaction in the creative process. It produces the internal imaginative world of visual and auditory sensations, which evolve to the musical and literary arts of Pisces. Language is a structured expression of the vision of Sagittarius, vitally important to the physical realization of the creative imagination. Language is a conserved, communicable domain of personal vision, thought, and imagination. While language is an alternative, symbolic form of reality, for humans it is in most cases equivalent to reality itself, and humans must use language judiciously in consequence. The gifted use of language can make one rich and famous, while the misuse and abuse of it can ruin one's life.

Already at this point, only halfway through the creative process, we can see why the creativity of humans is so different and so much greater than that of any animal. Humans have created an abstract, communicable, secondary reality, a conservation domain for their ideas - language. The full flowering of this personal creative potential, however, will require the engagement of the "particle" forces, the technical and social aspects of the creative process, discussed in the following section.

Pisces represents the auditory brain, as Sagittarius represents the visual brain. These perceptual areas of the brain are connected; some people see musical tones as colors. In the blind, it appears that the visual areas of the brain participate in the auditory perception of the world, helping the blind to "see" with their ears and thereby achieve a more acute hearing than normally sighted people. Language skills are so innately human, or so inherently complex, that all parts of the brain are involved or connected to the language center, not just the ears and vocal chords. Thus in addition to speech, language can also take the form of signaling (sign language), touch (braille), and symbology (written language).

In the category of ESP, we can associate "the muse", the traditional inspirational agent of the poet and musician with Pisces. Readings of the "Akashic record", the information content or memory of historic spacetime, would also fit here. Finally, any type of contact with the "metric of spacetime" in terms of resonance or harmonics or "vibrations" finds a natural placement in Pisces. Some authors, musicians, and religious leaders have apparently "received" entire texts and musical scores intact from "celestial" or "Divine" sources, the verbal and symbolic analog of the visions and light of Sagittarius.

Virgo and Gemini
Technology and Symbology

This is the second half, the matter or material section of the hourglass diagrams, generally conceived as the product of light and the spacetime metric, produced by the symmetry-breaking interaction of the weak force with the energy of light and the metric structure of spacetime. While the physical process of the conversion of light and space to "ponderable" matter is not fully understood, the first step evidently involves the entanglement of an electromagnetic wave in the fabric or metrical structure of space, creating 4-dimensional "knots". These knots of higher dimensional energy cannot be transmitted by space as can the 2-dimensional vibrations of light; therefore they become stationary massive particles. A symmetry-breaking process follows, which is necessary to complete the conversion. (For a more complete discussion of this process, see: "The Formation of Matter and the Origin of Information"). The mass and momentum of particles conserves the raw energy of light, while the structure of particles is apparently derived from the dimensional metric.

Virgo the Inventor, the Blacksmith or Mechanic of the Gods, represents the tool-making capacity of humanity - man the toolmaker. This is the special relationship humans enjoy with their hands, the hand-brain connection, the manual brain of Homo sapiens, a direct consequence of our upright stance. Bipedal walking freed our hands to create, manipulate, and handle tools and weapons of defense and offense. Virgo represents the "practical", "physical", "hands on", or technological stage of the creative process.

In physics, Virgo is correlated with the quarks and gluons of the strong force. The quarks are the mass carriers, hence Virgo and the quarks are comparable to Sagittarius and light as energy inputs to their respective halves of the hourglass diagram. The quarks are the mass equivalent of Sagittarius' light energy; this is the vision manifest, its physical form. This transformation comes about due to the ingenuity of the human mind and its special connection to our hands, producing our unusual dexterity. There is physical labor, the skill of the artisan, the fire and noise of Vulcan's forge, as well as mechanical ingenuity and technological invention involved in this stage.

This is the hands-on, down and dirty, blood, sweat, and tears stage of creativity: "ninety-nine percent perspiration, one percent inspiration". Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin are great American examples of this type of genius. Archimedes is the classical example. Inspiration in this sign comes mainly from the hand-brain synergy unique to humans. We can also associate Archimedes' famous cry "Eureka" with the type of inspirational flash of understanding that suddenly grasps the solution to a mechanical problem - reminiscent of the instantaneous collapse of a wave function - a wave function of information, in this case.

This is the analog of the physical labor of childbirth, which every project must pass through to manifest. In addition, the clever hands of Virgo boast as well an important abstract mode: mechanical drawing, draftsmanship, blueprints, maps and cartography, and perhaps most importantly, geometry - the "mother of mathematics". Note, however, that Virgo's drawings are models, not symbols - they intend to look like what they represent.

Gemini
Leptons

There are two kinds of leptonic interactions (everything in Gemini seems to come in pairs) that are common in physics; one is the familiar chemical interaction between the electron shell of atoms. Here electrons act as the alternative charge carriers for the electric charges of protons: protons do not have to balance their electric charges with antiprotons, because the electrons do it instead. These are low-energy chemical interactions which are typical of biological processes. The leptonic function of alternative charge carrier is analogous to the alphabetic function of alternative sound carrier in written language. Writing is an alternative carrier of spoken language; similarly, electrons are alternative carriers of electric charge for protons. This type of leptonic interaction I designate as translative (since electric charge is translated from protons to electrons), or simply as Gemini's informational creative mode.

The second type of leptonic interaction in the symbolic stage of Gemini involves neutrinos, and is the most mysterious of any type of creativity we have seen thus far. This is the transformative mode of Gemini. It is associated with humanity's spiritual awareness and is the wellspring of religion. This second, transformative mode we will discuss later, beginning with the section titled "IVBs".

Information

In Gemini's information mode, symbology is applied to both the visual perceptions of Sagittarius (art) and the aural perceptions, the speech and song of Pisces (writing and musical notation). Art develops as an alternative carrier of the vision and imagination of Sagittarius; art carries information, and in its most extreme symbolic form becomes pictographic writing and calligraphy. Ordinary art remains a form of conserved visual communication, description, and representation, with varying symbolic content at the discretion of the artist. Sculpture incorporates an additional tactile, 3-dimensional communicative mode from Virgo, conserving the Blacksmith's touch and workmanship. Michaelangelo's "David" is descriptive; the Statue of Liberty is symbolic.

Alphabetic writing addresses Pisces' aural perceptive mode of spoken language. All writing is symbolic speech, but alphabetic letters are symbolic phonetic elements. A similar concept is applied to musical tones, producing written musical notation. Finally, a numbering system is developed for the elements of counting and a notation system for the operations, relationships, and quantitative concepts of mathematics. The development of mathematics seems to have been a whole group project, first incorporating the reason and logic of Sagittarius, then the rhythm and counting of Pisces' poetry and songs, then the geometric drawings of Virgo, and finally the abstract thought and symbolic notation of Gemini.

Gemini's symbolic translations of the visual, aural, and mechanical perceptive information modes of Sagittarius, Pisces, and Virgo have made possible today's information age (writing, musical and math notation, computer codes). Gemini's transformative spiritual mode is connected to Gemini's informative symbolic mode as identity is connected to information - identity being the first and most primitive element of information, the foundation stone upon which all the superstructure of information is elaborated. This is exactly the relationship between the neutrinos, the alternative identity carriers, and the electrons, the alternative electric charge carriers, of physics. This carries a message for us as well: "identity" is the most important piece of information in our lives.

Shaman-Artist-Magician-Priest

Gemini is the shaman-artist-magician-priest; Gemini is known as the Twins, because Gemini represents the capacity of the human mind for symbolic, abstract, and reflexive thought - a mind that can think about itself thinking. This is somewhat different than the visual powers of Sagittarius' imagination; Gemini's abstract thinking is the source of written language, musical notation, mathematical symbols, symbolic works of every kind, including painting and sculpture. Unlike visual imagination, a symbol may bear no resemblance whatever to the thing it stands for (witness modern art). In its information mode, Gemini reprises the conservation role of Pisces, and carries it to a new height - ideas caught in the net of spoken language become manifest through the physical symbology of the phonetic alphabet and written word. In a similar fashion, graphic art, whether representational or symbolic, is, like music, a direct nonverbal form of information/communication, the visual or imaginative experience of Sagittarius, frozen in time, usually needing no translation by the language center of the brain. Even the geometry of Virgo receives an algebraic translation to math equations, while Gemini's machine language, computer codes, or "software" is necessary to animate and instruct Virgo's electronic computer "hardware".

Language in a spoken form is an abstract, alternative carrier of experience; in this form experience can be conserved in memory and passed down the generations as a story, epic, myth, legend, or history, in poetic and/or musical form to aid memory, perhaps ritualized to emphasize only its essential features. Written language is a symbolic abstraction of speech, with the concrete symbology of the alphabet, written word, or pictogram replacing memory as a more reliable conservation mode. The invention of printing perfected the process of information replication, making dissemination to a diverse public possible, a further conservation measure, and an invitation to the evolution of information. Art serves a similar conservation function for visual experience or symbolic and iconic representations.

The genetic coding of molecular information in DNA is very similar to the alphabetic coding of phonetic information in written language; in both cases a meaningful, communicable grammar and syntax is produced from symbolic or alternative carriers of charge, sound, and significance, creating an alternative reality which takes on a life of its own - literally, in the case of molecules and modern human society - the latter is of course unthinkable without writing.

Biological Creativity

One reason why symbolic abstraction of information leads to creativity is because it mimics the creative behavior of life - abstract information transformed to concrete form via physical symbols (written words as alternative carriers of sound and significance vs electrons as alternative carriers of charge), which can be replicated, conserved, dispersed, and finally subjected to natural selective forces - the analysis of science and its empirical methodology of observation and experiment - producing the negentropic evolution of information.

This type of creative process in humans, which I will call symbolic, informational, and social (correlated with electrons and chemistry), as opposed to transformational, spiritual, and personal (correlated with IVBs, neutrinos, and radioactivity), is ultimately successful because the information mode mimics the creative pathway of biology: information is created from a raw material - atomic electron shells - producing a complex state with structure and meaning - DNA and its genetic code - which is conserved and communicable through heritable genes and replication. Through the genetic language of life and the negentropic evolutionary drive of Natural Selection, life has become the molecular conservation domain of information in the Cosmos. Humans have learned to mimic this process through the conversion of their ideas into concrete, reproducible, and conserved forms - speech and written language. The molecular language of DNA orchestrates the chemical activity of amino acids, cells, and higher system functions; the symbolic language of humans orchestrates the activity of individuals and families, and higher social functions. We are the "point of the spear" in the cosmic and biological evolution of information, the arrow tip on the vector of Teilhard de Chardin's cosmic intention, indicating the direction of the Omega Point of Universal reflection, when the Universe shall know itself completely.

IVBs (Intermediate Vector Bosons)

In physics, Gemini represents the weak force, the IVBs and the leptons. The leptons are alternative charge carriers for the quarks (quarks carry most of the mass or bound energy component of particles). The IVBs (Intermediate Vector Bosons (W, Z, X)) mediate all particle interactions which require an (unpaired) elementary particle (quark or lepton) to enter or leave 4-dimensional reality, or otherwise transform its identity. It is the leptons which allow the quarks to manifest by substituting alternative charge carriers for their antiparticles - that is, the charges of quarks do not have to be balanced by antiquarks, because the leptons balance them instead. If the leptons did not provide this service, the quark charges would have to be balanced by antiquarks, which combination would immediately undergo a matter-antimatter annihilation, and the quarks would remain in the unmanifest and virtual form of light. The reason why leptons are physically able to provide this carrier service is apparently that both leptons and quarks share a common ancestor, the hypothetical "leptoquark", which was an early, heavy member of the elementary leptonic family, internally fractured into quarks in the mighty forge of the "Big Bang". (The creation of atoms in the "Big Bang" can be seen as a primordial function of Virgo the cosmic Blacksmith or Mechanic.)

In addition to "spin", the leptons carry two types of charges, electric charge and "identity" charge (also known as "number" charge). Identity charge is carried in two forms, a "hidden" or implicit form carried by all massive elementary leptons (such as the electron), and a "bare" or explicit form carried by neutrinos (such as the electron neutrino). A neutrino is simply the explicit form of an identity charge. An electron is simply a neutrino that has acquired an electric charge. The relationship between massive elementary particles and their (nearly?) massless neutrinos is analogous to that presumed to exist between the human body and soul - the soul is the "bare" or explicit form of personal identity, which is also carried by the living body, but in "hidden" or implicit form.

Now it is a most interesting fact that elementary particles cannot come into existence without a neutrino to conserve and balance their identity charge. Many religions presume an analogous arrangement to exist between the human and spiritual realm: manifestation can occur only if the body is accompanied by a soul. Not only the "very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matthew 10:30), but every elementary particle in every hair is numbered and recorded by an antineutrino somewhere in spacetime. Furthermore, because gravity is a warpage of spacetime, through the combination of gravity and the neutrinos, the location, mass, and identity of every elementary particle in your body (and in the Universe) is recorded by the charge and metrical structure of the Cosmos. Add to this the conservation of every event and act within the temporal domain of historic spacetime, and we begin to appreciate the notion of the Universe as a scrupulous and thoroughgoing conservation domain for electromagnetic energy.

Shaman-Priest-Magician

In physics, it is the role of the IVBs (W, Z, X) to marry a "real" particle with the appropriate "virtual" alternative charge carrier so that a transformation of identity can take place. The alternative charge carriers (leptons and/or mesons) exist in the "spirit world" of quantum physics, the Dirac-Heisenberg vacuum "sea" of "virtual" particle-antiparticle pairs, which wink in and out of existence continuously as they form, self-annihilate, and form again. Essentially, the IVBs provide a bridge between the real world and the virtual world; the real particle and virtual particle pairs meet on the IVB bridge, where the particle receives from the virtual pair the alternative charge carrier it needs for its transformation, then returns to the real world with a new identity. The similarity of this process to the trance possessions of shamans and mediums and their purported journeys to the "spirit world" to effect healing or other transformations is evident. The shaman or medium is in the specialized, high energy role of the IVBs, providing a bridge between the real and the spirit world of "virtual" or unmanifest beings. This is the mysterious and magical personal transformative creative mode of Gemini. (For a discussion of the physics of the weak force, see: "The "W" IVB and the Weak Force Mechanism"; "The Weak force: Identity or Number charge"; and "The Higgs Boson and the Weak Force IVBs".)

In the human world, the priest, shaman, or medium provides a bridge between ordinary people and the spirit world. It is the role of the priest, shaman, or medium to ensure that proper rituals are followed, so the exchanges can occur and the transformations take place; this is the analog of the IVB insuring that the proper quantum rules are followed, while it provides the special high energy, dense metric in which the joining of the worlds can take place. When the ceremony is over, the people and the spirits return to their respective worlds, both transformed. The church is always a special "holy" place, where the "wholeness" of life is celebrated, that is, where the spiritual realm is united with the physical, the "virtual" or 2-dimensional realm is united with "real" or 4-dimensional particles and people. In some sense the church (priest, building, and institution) acts as the massive IVB, producing a "special metric" or "holy space" in which the manifest and unmanifest worlds can meet and effect transformations of identity and/or charge (for example, "born again"). (In this analogy, the "Higgs boson" would play the role of distinguishing the creed - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.)

The services of the priest are most necessary when identity transformations are occurring between this and the spirit world, such as at birth (baptism), marriage, and death. The joining of people in marriage requires the services of the priest because it is a genuine transformation of identity: names are changed, families are joined, and hopefully new life is conceived. Marriages are usually declared to be consummated in the spirit world as well as in the material world ("What God has joined together...").

The archetypal magic trick of Gemini is to vanish or create a real item - "now you see it, now you don't". The rabbit comes out of the hat and disappears again. The quarter disappears from the hand and reappears behind the ear. This is also nature's ultimate magic trick - the creation of real particles from light or virtual reality, and their disappearance or return into the vacuum. This is likewise the ultimate trick of the shaman, the creation of prey animals for the hunter by intercession with the spirit world through the use of alternative identity carriers, symbolic drawings and sculptures which can be compared to "animal neutrinos" or souls. The "voodoo doll" of the witch doctor is another example.

The baby doll we give the little girl and the toy tractor we give the little boy are alternative identity carriers which are intended to assist the manifestation of the real items from the virtual or spirit world in their later lives. These examples all illustrate the (unconscious) realization that manifestation does not occur without an alternative identity carrier, a neutrino or soul; the shaman attempts to assist the process by offering a substitute or "decoy" in the form of a drawing or sculpture - in addition to personally taking the animal form, and traveling to the spirit world (through trance as well as art). While no one knows what an "animal neutrino" or soul might look like, the best we can do is assume it bears some resemblance to the animal, and that in any case a symbolic image will suffice for the occasion.

Transformational Creativity

This special type of transformational creativity, which is related to the unique religious behavior and spiritual awareness of humans, is not in the typical pattern of biological creativity which concerns itself with the negentropic evolution of information, but rather is patterned after the creative process of radioactivity and the Big Bang, which brought the Universe and matter into being. This type of creativity is centered upon the production and transformation of identity, which is, after all, the first element of information.

Gemini represents the artist as well as the shaman (recall the prehistoric painted caves of Lascaux). From the viewpoint of the shaman or priest, every birth is a manifestation of the spirit world, and from the viewpoint of the artist, the same can be said of every "serious" work of art. The only difference is that in the case of art it is man rather than God who is the creator. "Serious" art begins to bridge the difference between the informative and transformative creative modes of Gemini. In watching great opera, for example, one definitely senses that this artwork contains more than just information, but has something of "spirit" or "identity" besides; it begins to have "a life of its own". The fascination people feel with the "Mona Lisa" is another case in point.

Depending upon the depth and intent of the work, "serious" art is a manifestation from the realm of ideal form, the report of an intellectual excursion and reconnaissance into the realm of virtual reality and spirit. How far one penetrates into this realm depends upon the artist's skill, desire, and gift. Hence the artist and the shaman may both be in the role of the IVBs, mediating with the virtual world, the shaman dealing with souls and spirits, the artist with ideas and images. The artwork retrieved from the ideal realm is an alternative identity carrier, a "neutrino" or "soul" from the vacuum, given form and substance by the efforts of the artist, and in the best cases, informing us concerning some facet of ultimate reality.

The Universe is spirit manifesting, exploring, evolving, realizing, and even enlarging its creative potential, recreating the wholeness, symmetry, and unitary connectivity of light as a fractal iteration of spirit, but structured, constrained, and temporally conserved in 4-dimensional material reality. The physical force and principle driving this evolutionary manifestation of spirit is entropy and matter's eternal search for antimatter: the conservation of symmetry ("Noether's Theorem").

Transformations of Increasing Order

Further extending the analogy between the transformative roles of the shaman-priest-medium and the IVBs, we note that the priest is in the role of the ordinary IVB, the "W", which is the mediator of the typical transformations of life (birth, marriage, death), and in physics of the usual transformations of the identity of elementary particles accompanying fission or fusion reactions in the atomic nucleus. A much more profound transformation accompanies the formation of matter in the Big Bang, which involves the creation of baryons (protons and neutrons) from leptoquarks, or their ilk. This is the equivalent transformation to proton decay, and requires the mediation of the much heavier hypothetical "X" IVB, an interaction which is predicted but which requires so much energy it has never actually been observed.

Now the ordinary priest stands in relation to the "W" IVB and its commonplace radioactive transformations, in the same way as a great prophet or healer, such as Christ, stands to the "X" IVB and its much more difficult and rarer transformations of proton decay and the creation of baryons. For example, whereas the priest can perform minor transformations and healings, Christ, with much greater power, can raise the dead and save souls, and stands on the threshold between Heaven (the spiritual conservation domain) and Earth, controlling the manifestation of baryons (neutrons, protons) and souls ("...no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)). However, as with the "X", these great miracles require so much energy they are very rarely seen, outside of the Creation Event (the "Big Bang") itself. Finally, the creation of the Universe requires a still greater "miracle", the slight temporal asymmetry in the rate of decay of neutral leptoquarks, which has nothing to do with the IVBs but is apparently an asymmetry at the anterior level of natural law. This can be compared to an intention of Divine Law, or perhaps to the mischief caused by Satan, resulting in the "fall" of symmetric light into mass-manifestation-matter, time, gravitation, and the charges (symmetry debts) of matter.

The truly curious fact is that the more we understand physics, the more parallels emerge between modern rational science and ancient intuitive religion (including topics we have not discussed here, such as the central role of light, conservation, symmetry, and non-locality in both systems). General Systems notes that science and religion are both looking at the same Universe with the same highly intelligent brain, one rationally, the other intuitively, and so it is not surprising that both have discerned a similar pattern in the phenomena of the Cosmos. As to what to make of all this, every man will have to decide for himself. Personally, I take my stand with Teilhard de Chardin and my father, who both saw the Cosmos as a system of energy and information evolving toward an "Omega Point" of total self-knowledge.

ESP

We can associate each of the "Mutable" signs with some element of ESP - extra sensory perception - suitable to its astrological and physical description. Hence in the case of Sagittarius, the Sage, Philosopher, and "Seer", such an association would correspond to some analog of light, sight, visionary intelligence, or foreknowledge. This suggests the ability of the oracle, the seer, the prophet. Common premonitions, as well as grand prophetic illuminations of the future, therefore are assigned to the visual and imaginative mind of Sagittarius.

In Pisces, we recognize "the Muse" of the poet and musician, the mysterious inspirational source for creativity that seems to come from "space" or "Heaven". Mozart seems to have received many of his works this way, all at once, "in a piece", in complete detail. I also assign "intuition" to Pisces; Pisces is the feminine aspect of Jupiter; intuition is the feminine aspect of reason and foresight. We associate both Sagittarius and Pisces with ESP of a long-range or "spacetime" character, visual or auditory informing waves or impulses that seem to come from external, distant, and unknown sources in spacetime. Some prophets, religious leaders and founders (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, among others) have received entire sacred texts in this way.

In Virgo, there is a special physical perception we call a "gut feeling", or "hunch"; it is a sensation akin to touch, but centered internally within the body. This perceptual mode may have its evolutionary origin as a response to predation - recognized in the uneasy feeling of "being watched", the hair standing up on the back of the neck, causing us to reach out with a "sixth sense", attempting to locate the hidden danger. There is also unusual sensitivity associated with the hand-brain connection in Virgo - this has something to do with the extraordinary perceptions reported by psychics when touching people or objects, and the healing associated with "laying on of hands". Virgo is also the Inventor as well as the Mechanic, so we associate the inspirational genius of the Inventor of new ideas and technology with Virgo. Among many others, the Wright brothers, evolving airplanes out of their bicycle shop, would seem to be prototypical of the inventive genius of the mechanic and Homo sapiens, the dextrous, versatile, and ingenious Tool Maker.

Finally in Gemini, we find the "altered states of consciousness" of the shaman, the alternative realities associated with ecstasy, trance, and religious fervor, the ability to confer with the spirit world and the dead, etc. Here, too, is the "esthetic sense" and inspiration of the artist, who mediates with the virtual world, manifesting a personal vision of reality. In this, the artist and shaman are alike: the spirit world is undefined until their personal vision "collapses the wave function" of virtual reality, bringing, at the very least, a vision or report of the spiritual or ideal world into manifestation. Note that both Virgo's and Gemini's type of ESP are associated with the body or with an internal state of consciousness, as appropriate to the short range or "particle" forces they represent. For a complete and scholarly discussion of ESP and its relationship to creativity, I refer the reader to Prof. J. C. Gowan's book "Trance, Art, Creativity", available in full on his memorial website.

SUMMARY
Life as the Conservation Domain of Information

Life is a molecular conservation domain of information, and life is the most creative force in the Universe. The two phenomena are connected; life is creative precisely because it has learned how to conserve information through its genetic system (via heritable genes), multiply information through reproduction, diversify information through sexual differentiation and dispersal, and evolve information through the negentropic process of natural selection.

Humans, in turn, are the most creative of life forms because they represent a further iteration of the biological fractal: humans are creative because they have learned to use abstract, symbolic information in the same way that life uses molecular information through the genetic system of DNA. Humans conserve information through the structure of language and memory; they make this information concrete or manifest through the symbology of an alphabet (or pictograms) and writing, they reproduce this information through printing and electronic technologies; they disseminate and diversify this information through many cultures; and they evolve this information through the empirical selective process of science.

Human creativity, like life itself, is an individual as well as a social process. Creativity in science is more socially dependent as it is technologically driven by its operational base of experiment and observation; art is less dependent upon technological advance, but all art is a reflection of its times, and no great art is without a social context and component. In both art and science, individual creativity remains the indispensable source of innovation, synthesis, and evolution.

We see the role of the 4 "Mutable" inputs to this creative process falling into two natural pairs, in either the human or the physical system: the first of these pairs is the long range or "spacetime" force pair, electromagnetism and gravitation, light and space, Sagittarius and Pisces, corresponding to visual imagination, memory, reason, and foresight (Sagittarius), and language, intuition, music, and counting (Pisces). The first step in the creative process is the transformation of thought or mental "light" into a manifest form, in this case, highly structured sound - that is, sound with a grammar, syntax, and meaning - spoken language, including song and chants. It is the structured meaning that is important, not the sound, as the equivalent communication can occur visually through signaling (sign language). Nevertheless, the musical richness of speech and song, not to mention music itself, is a pleasurable component of communication and a source of emotional information we would not willingly give up.

Native intelligence, imagination, language, counting, and music are all that is required, in terms of intellectual inputs, to the personal or family half of the hourglass diagrams. Humans need no more than this to find mates, beget children, and raise their families. This is the personal, family, biological half of the hourglass diagrams, the long-range forces of electromagnetism and gravitation so familiar to our daily lives, the Arthurian model of family life in which each man is a king in his own home.

However, social and national life requires more; this is the role of the second force pair, the short range or "particle" force pair, the strong and weak forces, Virgo and Gemini. Virgo is the Inventor, Tool Maker, Mechanic, and Blacksmith, the creator of technology; Gemini is the Shaman-Artist-Magician-Priest, representing the abstract mind and the creation of material symbols on one level, and self-awareness and identity transformations on another. Identity transformation involves personal interaction with the spiritual or virtual world; symbol creation involves the translation, transcription, or transferal of information from one physical carrier to another. The two are connected because identity is the first element of information, and art also functions as an alternative identity carrier.

The role of Virgo is the mastery of nature through the development of tools and technology. This is the manual brain, the hand-brain connection in humans which is the special consequence of our bipedal locomotion. It is through Virgo that we have the pen, printing press, and computer, as well as the more abstract gifts of Virgo's clever hands - mechanical drawing, cartography, and geometry. Virgo's contributions to information conservation tend to be in the form of "hardware;" Gemini's contributions tend to be in the form of "software".

Gemini abstraction in its information mode is the translation of ideas - which are essentially electromagnetic signals in the brain - the "light" of the mind - into concrete symbols and forms which can be conserved, communicated, and reproduced. Writing (including math, computer code, and musical notation) and art are alternative carriers of reality and significance for hearing, speech, vision, and imagination, and ultimately for experience itself, providing a symbolic physical form capable of conservation. The transformation mode of Gemini involves exchanges of personal identity in interactions between the body and the spiritual realm, especially at times of birth, marriage, and death, and possibly at other times during "peak experiences", love, meditation, creativity, or through the intercession of a shaman, priest, or medium.

We have not a single creative process here, in human terms, but at least four, characterized by the visual brain, the auditory brain, the manual brain, and finally the abstracting brain. Together they have produced our arts, sciences, technology, and religion, in short, the creative elements, stimulus, and inputs of human civilization.

POSTSCRIPT
The "Alternative Reality Show"

Working together, Virgo and Gemini, in their roles of inventor and alternative charge carrier ("translator, encoder"), seem to be running an "Alternative Reality Show". In concert, they have produced the electronic entertainment industry, including sound and visual recording, films, TV, computers, etc. All this seems to have begun with the magical torch-light ceremonies of the ancient shamans. Mercury is the planetary co-ruler of both Virgo and Gemini, in classical tradition the messenger of Jupiter, who in turn is the planetary co-ruler of both Sagittarius and Pisces. Mercury is clearly evolving in the ability to give full expression and conservation to the imagination, speech, and music of Jupiter. The result is the audiovisual electronic entertainment and recording industry, essentially just a technological upgrade of the communicable alternative reality carrier first produced as speech, then conserved through writing and art. These days, anything Jupiter's mind can imagine, from Tyrannosaurus rex to the star ship Enterprise, or from Shakespeare to Beethoven, can be seen and heard, faithfully reproduced through the virtual reality of Virgo's electronic inventions and Gemini's electronic, magnetic, and computer language.

Money

Money is another example of a symbolic carrier of meaning created by humanity, in this case a carrier of energy-value rather than identity. The convention in the case of money is that nothing has identity but everything has value, and money, whether gold, silver, paper, or plastic, will be the designated carrier of this common denominator, monetary value. Thus whether we buy carrots or automobiles, the currency is the same because everything has lost its identity and been reduced to the common denominator of money (energy), varying only in quantity of currency, not quality or kind of currency. The same dollars buy carrots, cars, or cats, irrespective of identity.

The symbolic convention of money has allowed the development of commerce and industry, as well as centralized government and power centers such as cites, because money, having no identity itself, can (like energy) be transformed into anything. The closest analogy for this "mutable" quality of money is energy, and to a fair approximation the accumulation of money corresponds to the concentration of energy, which, in thermodynamic terms, enables work. In the broadest sense, money is a symbolic carrier or form of energy, and like agriculture, allows the conservation and gathering of energy and power necessary to the commerce, industry, and social life of the modern city and nation-state.

Connections
The Air Signs

(See the following linked figures and tables for diagrammatic representations of the classical astrological relationships referenced below): The Personal Hourglass Diagram; The Civil Hourglass Diagram; The Spacetime Hourglass Diagram; The Double Hourglass Diagram for Sun Signs; The Physical Flower Diagram; The Astrological Flower Diagram; Combined Table of Astrological and Physical Elements; Table of the Astrological Sun Signs.

There is an interesting connection between Gemini the Priest and Aquarius the Truth Seeker or Academician. Gemini is concerned with the symbolic transformation of information as well as the magical transformation of identity, and the connection between Gemini and Aquarius is through the leptons and the electron shell of atoms, that is, through information transcription and conservation. For most of history, it has been the priests who have preserved the tradition of study and the writing of books and manuscripts; the priesthood was often the only educated class, as few others could read or write. The University of Aquarius has only very recently emerged from the Seminary of Gemini. To this day both academics and priests wear the same black robes. The third Air sign is Libra, the Jurist, at the governmental center of the diagram. Again we see in the Jurist and Judge the learned tradition of the Air signs, which are the signs of the mind and intellect, and again in the Jurist we see the black robes of the priest and academic; the same black robes are often used by the magician.

The recurrent appearance of this black costume in the priest, jurist and academic (and the magician), is serendipitous evidence that these three learned professions have been properly identified as belonging to the same class, and properly assigned to the intellectual family of the Air signs. (Note: I use as my astrological authority the beautiful text by Isabelle M. Pagan: "From Pioneer to Poet", Theosophical Publishing House London LTD, 1969)

The Earth Signs

In a similar vein, we can sketch the connection between the three Earth signs, Virgo the Inventor, Capricorn the government Officer or Parliamentarian, and Taurus the Builder. The connection between Virgo the Inventor and Taurus the Builder is rather obvious - the Builder will be using all of Virgo's tools and inventions (including geometry and mechanical and architectural drawing) in creating his cities and industries. Capricorn is in the center between the two, representing government infrastructure and the regulation of development and industry. The phenomenon of the automobile provides a good example of how the three Earth signs interact: Virgo invents the automobile and runs the mechanic shops and garages; Capricorn provides the public highways (and the traffic regulations); Taurus builds Detroit. These three Earth signs working together can move mountains, as the coordinated development of our modern "automobile culture" amply demonstrates. If these three "down and dirty", "can-do" physical Earth signs share a uniform, it is the hard-hat, coveralls, clipboard, and pickup truck of the mechanic, highway engineer, and developer.

Leo-Aries

It is instructive to compare the Virgo-Gemini "Alternative Reality Show" with the Leo-Aries "Sports and Gladiator" show, a combination of ritualized military combat and play, always a big draw at the colosseum, ancient or modern. Sports entertainment still uses real people in real athletic competitions, a refreshing change from the virtual reality of film and computers. (The third Fire sign, Sagittarius, is represented in sports as the runner in the Track and Field events. The bipedal running ability of humans has come to be considered as one of the defining characteristics of our evolutionary history).

In the long-range or "personal" half of the hourglass diagrams, virtual reality is not nearly so much in evidence; but it has its origins in the imagination of Sagittarius and the speech of Pisces, where it appears as the fictitious and imaginative element in songs, plays, operas, music, and as fantasy in literature. Plays, operas, and concerts, however, like sports, are still performed by real people. Leo the king still shows up at the stadium to throw out the first ball of the season of our "national pastime", and sports events are still considered major features of the national life. There is also an almost shameful amount of money involved in professional sports, as there usually is in anything in which the King and the military are involved, if only symbolically.

Cancer-Scorpio

In the biology duo of Cancer and Scorpio (the Naturalist-Agriculturist and the Physician-Botanist), we also find a personal, real version of life's fractal iteration, the programming of evolution through the agricultural domestication and selective breeding of plants and animals, and currently through the manipulation of the genetic code itself. Evolution, like the other forces of Nature, has been harnessed by man. As we are now in charge of our own evolution, humans represent the beginning of a new evolutionary iteration of nature's fractal expression. This biological version of "altered reality" involves real people, real plants and animals, and the real environment. The greatest creative potential of humanity lies in our evident control of the biological process of evolution. For all our past achievements, our finest hour of creativity lies in our future, as we determine the course of our own evolution, including that of our domestic plants and animals, and much of the life we and they touch.

Religion

The notion of a spiritual realm of ideal form is the natural psychological product of a mind capable of highly abstract, symbolic, idealized, and imaginative thinking and fully aware of its own mortality. The concrete information symbology of Gemini has given rise to the information age (in concert with Virgo's technology), and the ideological thought and symbology of Gemini has fostered religions and governments, both of which control mass behavior through propaganda and the "imprinting" of symbolic images upon the public, especially the young. All religious symbology and art belongs to Gemini; these same symbolic powers are used by secular governments to further their own purposes - we have the flag, the Statue of Liberty, the American Eagle, the Great Seal, etc. Washington DC is the center of our national symbology and identity, with its great public buildings, documents, monuments, tombs, art, and pageantry. Similarly, the Vatican in Rome is the center of the religious symbology of the Christian church, where the same mix of public buildings, documents, monuments, tombs, art and pageantry is on display for similar purposes, the control of public behavior through the impact of symbology and "awe", so effective with the young, for whom, because of their innocence, helplessness, and small size, all these effects are greatly magnified.

Because we are a new iteration of the biological fractal, a creator in our own right, it is natural for us to suspect there is a Creator who stands behind us in the fractal series. Because man creates, he also believes that someone has created him, not just his biological father, but the All-Father, the Creator of the Worlds. It is quite impossible for the intelligent human mind to look at the beauty, majesty, and magnitude of the Earth, sea, and sky, and not ask if there is something more here than meets the eye. Where did all this come from? Who made it and for what purpose? Why is it so beautiful? Who and what am I? What is the meaning of life? What is the consequence of death?

It is also impossible for the intelligent mind to contemplate death without seeking some psychological support - perhaps a completely necessary support - against madness. Spiritual awareness may be an evolutionary adaptation comforting a mind complex enough to be acutely aware of its own inevitable destruction. Is the universal spiritual awareness of humanity a universal self-delusion, a psychological reversion to and projection of parental care in terms of "Mother Earth and Father Sun", a "feel good" buffer to protect our complex brain, compromised by its own foreknowledge of death? Or is this universal awareness instead the threshold effect of a brain which has become intelligent enough to intuit a subtle truth about the holistic connectivity and unity of the Cosmos?

Science wonders why religion and the "ancient wisdom" remains so popular, but it is hardly a mystery. Religion tells people they are important, significant, and immortal; science tells people they are unimportant, insignificant, and mortal. God and the spiritual realm give meaning and significance to the Cosmos, and by extension, to us, and offers at least some hope of escaping the utter black oblivion of death. In terms of PR, science has a lot to learn from religion. Teilhard de Chardin makes the point most clearly: to imagine that the axis of evolution in the Cosmos is the increase of entropy, as science seems to do, is to demonstrate a profound ignorance of the "Phenomenon of Man", which in the strongest possible language shouts at us that information is the chief evolutionary axis of the Universe, with consciousness and self-awareness as its goal, and the concomitant increase in entropy is but the necessary means to this end, the simple physical cost of negentropic evolution.

In terms of size, man is an insignificant atom in the cosmic order; in terms of information, he takes his proper place with the stars. Spirit is throughout matter, but it is in the connections between things that we feel and see it. It is the connectedness of matter, spacetime, and the Universe as a whole that provides the evidence for the activity of spirit, patiently reconstructing in matter the original unity and symmetry of light. Life is the means by which the Universe awakens to itself; through us, the Universe becomes self-aware and experiences itself. Hence the purpose of life is the experience of life.

Love, Identity, Soul

Anyone who has ever been in love will recognize that experience as a true merging of personal identities - quite as if the identity were an entity related to, but distinct from, the body. Indeed, it is the experience of love, whether of a family member, mate, or friend, that will convince people of the reality of the soul and the spiritual realm, for in the experience of love we come into the possession of our wholeness, the awareness of our spiritual component, our identity-soul. Love is therefore a "holy" experience, an experience of "wholeness", which is why it is so exhilarating. Suddenly we discover we have a soul (awakened by love), a connection to the spiritual realm, a connection to another person and to the Universe at large; we are whole; we are holy; love is sacred; life is sacred. Love is the gift of the Universe and the prefiguring of "Heaven", the enlightened state of awareness in which the soul "falls in love" with its Creator, finding unity not just with another person, but with the Cosmos entire.