Phi and the Human Experience:

To explain the meaning of Phi, we have to go back to our earlier idea that proportion does not have to be restricted to numerical values, and can instead be used to express relationships between non-numerical variables. For our example, we shall use proportion to describe a relationship that everyone can understand - the relationship between themselves and the world around them. To keep it simple, we will call the conscious awareness that experiences the phenomena of the world "the observer" and the phenomena that the observer experiences "the observed."

Let's start with a discontinuous proportion: A:B::C:D. To help us understand the idea of this discontinuous proportion, let us sdefine what each of these four terms can be taken to represent: B equals the observer right now and A is some specific phenomena that is being observed in the present, whereas C and D would have to represent something that has happened to someone else the our observer (B) is aware of. Although this sounds odd, it is in fact not that rare of an occurance, if we translate this into the statement, "The observer is relating to the current event in the same way that he/she heard that someone else related to an event in their life." In other words, the observer is relating to what is happening to them by comparing it to something they have heard about happening to another person. It sounds a bit odd when spelled out in this manner, but this is exactly the way in which most children learn to relate to their environment - by remebering what they have heard and been taught by their parents.

So, to step a bit closer to direct relation with the observed, we can relate via a continuous proportion: A:B::B:C, or "The observer relates to the observed in the same way that the observer related to an observation of their own in the past."

Continuous Proportion:
A : B :: B : C
where,
A = a current observation
B = the observer in at the present time
C = a past observation

The key factor that has changed, of course, is that it is the act of relating to their own past experience that helps them to understand what is happening to them in the present. This is an extremely common type of relation, and in fact describes quite well the type of relationship that most people have with their environments on a daily basis. To state the relationship through the language of proportion: "The observer relates to the observed just as the observer related to a similar observations in the past." In other words, as soon as something happens in our environment, we cycle back through our past experiences to find a comparable event, and then we react to the new phenomena in a similar fashion to the way that we related to the past event. All in all, it isn't a particularly bad way to relate to one's experiences, except for the fact that there is not a very direct relationship occurring observer and the present phenomena.

We can say that both discontinuous and continuous relations are not very direct relations because a type of prejudice (literally, to pre-judge) is intrinsic with both types of relation - basing one's understanding of what is occurring now on what one already believes from past experience is prejudice in its most simplified form. In a discontinuous proportion relationship, we are acting on the prejudices formed by other people that have been passed on to us, and in a continuous relationship we are acting on the prejudices that we have formed from our own experience.

So, even in a continuous proportion relationship, we are relating everything as it is happening to our past experiences, and as such we are pre-judging it, never allowing any room for new growth and new relation. Worst of all is if we consider that this type of pre-judgment occurs before we even give the phenomena enough time to manifest, and as such we are not really pre-judging it for what it is, but pre-judging if for what we believe it to be, thus making any type of true and direct relation to what is actually occurring extremely difficult.

Those who are familiar with eastern philosophy (particularly Buddhism) will know that the process of pre-judging that is being described here is nothing other than that part of our consciousness known as ego. Because the understanding of ego and its deleterious side effects are of particular importance to this discussion, we will give a quick summary for those who are not familiar with these ideas.

Simply put, ego is the product of a dualistic understanding of one's relationship with their environment (please see Lesson Two for more details on dualistic understanding). In other words, the observer views him- or herself as intrinsically separate from the observed. As we learned in Lesson One, however, all parts of the universe are in fact united at the base level, and as such ego is constantly under threat of being destroyed by unity. Quite literally, the dualistic mindset that tells the observer that he or she is separate from the world around them is afraid of being consumed and dissolved back into oneness with the universe. At the very early developmental stages the war between ego and the environment is much more pronounced, but as ego grows in strength the battle becomes less and less aggravated due to the fact that as ego has grown to dominatethe situation. Once ego is firmly established (and thus the dualistic mindset is deeply ingrained on the observer's awareness) it influences the process of observation by instantly relating all phenomena to past experiences of similar phenomena - in other words, it restricts all understanding of reality to its own personal system of categorization and organization, which it has developed from past experiences of similar phenomena. All new phenomena are judged as either desirable or undesirable, threatening or non-threatening, and then dealt with accordingly. By restricting understanding in this manner, ego manages to keep itself central to all phenomena that it observes, literally basing all understanding of the outside world on how that world relates to the separate and individual observer that it has convinced itself exists.

The unfortunate major side effect of the process described here is the fact that the observer becomes less and less a part of the world around them, and more and more wrapped up in their own particular understanding of the world. Naturally, any phenomena that manifests in the world that would break down the ego's fundamental system of categorization and organization is pushed away and denied, because any threat to the ego's system of understanding represents a threat to its very existence. The act of continually pushing away those phenomena that challenge the ego's system of belief results in a literal "ignore-ance" of the world around the observer. Who can honestly state that it could be healthy to ignore the actual events of one's life in favor of seeing only those events that make one feel more comfortable with what one wants to believe?

The destructive effects of the ego on the observer are well known to many spiritual disciplines, and several have developed practices, such as yoga, meditation, tai chi, and others, to attempt to lesson the control of ego over the observer. The desired effect is to bring the observer back into a direct relationship with the observed, to put them back in touch with the reality of their world, and thereby to reintroduce the observer's conscious participation with the unified aspect of the universe. Some would say that letting go of one's ego to re-submerge into the flow of unity from whence we came is the most noble of all goals for a human being to set for themselves.

Sacred geometry, and in fact a huge portion of nature itself, backs up this idea of egolessness as a prime goal of humankind. It does so through Phi, the Golden Proportion. In the examples provided above, both the discontinuous and continuous relations describe situations in which the observer is relating to the observed by past observations - either past observations of other people's (discontinuous relation) or observations of their own (continuous relation). In both cases, it is the process of relating through ego - through relating to new phenomena via one's pre-conceived beliefs - that is being described.

With the Golden Proportion, however, secondary relation is removed. A:B::B:(A+B), where A equals the observer and B equals the observed. In other words, the observer relates to the observed just as the observer relates to the observer and the observed conjoined, i.e., added together to form a unity.

The Golden Proportion Relationship:
A : B :: B : (A+B)
where,
A = the current observation
B = the observer at the present time

The implication is that all prejudice has been removed - not simply prejudice in the modern definition of having a pre-set view on race, gender, class, etc., but the very act of taking one's mind out of the present in order to refer to anything except for what is happening right now is no longer occuring. Despite the fact that the observer and the observed (A and B) are seperate entities, they are so closely internit with one another in this type of relationship that they have been tied together once again (A+B) into a unified state, all the while paradoxically retaining their individual status.

This is only one of the major interpretations of the Golden Proportion. The example of human consciousness as observer has been used here simply because it is a situation that all of us can relate to. As we shall see, there are others, although all relate to the same central idea of diversification of form within unity relating back to unity. Let's turn now to discuss a slightly broader example, so as to understand how Phi can be applied to ideas other than human transcendence.