I’ve recently been fascinated by the work of Federico Faggin.
Faggin is a physicist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who has developed a theory of reality—grounded in quantum physics—which sees consciousness and free will as fundamental.
A key element of his theory is the understanding that human beings—and everything in nature—is a “part whole”. (See 11 mins 30 seconds mins here.)
Take the human body as an example…
You have roughly 30 trillion cells.
And every one of them contains the genome of the egg that created the entire organism.
This means each individual cell in your body—all of them roughly 20 times smaller than a grain of sand—contains the “knowledge” and creative intelligence required to create a whole human.
So the cells in your kidney — although currently being used to perform kidney functions — also have the genetic potential to be brain cells, liver cells, eye cells, etc, if they were in a different environment.
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Where Faggin’s theory gets interesting, is that it suggests that this same “part-whole” pattern scales up in nature.
So in the same way that each of your 50 trillion cells are “part-wholes” of the human body, each of the 8 billion people on our planet are “part-wholes” of a larger body.
And just as individual cells contain the creative intelligence of the entire organism…
Each individual human contains the universal knowledge of this larger whole we all belong to — although it often remains untapped and in the realm of the unconscious for most of us.
This may be why different thinkers from completely independent cultures have arrived at the same truths — not because they copied each other — but because they were tuning into the same deep structure of reality.
In addition to the Perennial Philosophy, it also aligns with the idea of the “Self” in IFS, as well as Jung’s discovery of the archetypes — universal patterns and themes that connect tribes and cultures who have had no previous contact.
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For me, this also has practical implications.
Because if we are “part-wholes”, we are likely only expressing a tiny segment of our innate archetypal potential — similar to the kidney cell mentioned above.
My hunch about this is twofold:
1.) The more varied the archetypal energy flowing through our system is, the more well-rounded and whole we’ll be as people.
2.) If we expose ourselves to different environments, more of our innate potential will come to the surface.
As a rough example, let’s say we have the following archetypes inside:
1.) Warrior
2.) Lover
3.) Joker
4.) Creator
We’re all likely over-developed in one of these areas, and underdeveloped in others.
So if we want to experience more of a particular type of energy, then we need to expose ourselves to environments that require this part of us to surface.
For instance, if you want to experience more warrior energy, you could join a martial arts class.
Or if you want to experience more joker energy, you could sign up for an improv comedy course.
And so on.
So a question to think about…
Which elements of your innate archetypal potential are currently not being expressed?
And what environments or challenges can you expose yourself to, which would require them to surface?
