Some politicians love to say that this is the information age. They believe that processing information in such large scale as we are capable of today is the ultimate in our achievement and, therefore, the information age is the golden age of our civilization. This is a very narrow view of the human potential.

What is information?
If you don’t have any information about the answers to a problem, then all answers are equally probable, a not-sodesirable situation. With information, the probability of particular answers grow, and your chance of the getting the appropriate answer improves. So information is certainly useful. But information does not make you happy. Sure it can be exciting to use the e-mail to communicate extensively around the world and gather a large amount of information in a short time. And that may help to keep our worrying mind at bay. It is also an occasionally effective medicine against boredom to go surfing on the internet for information that may come in handy later.

We live our lives based in what we believe. When we think about the truth of this statement, we immediately recognize a startling reality: Beyond anything else that we may actually do in our lives, the beliefs that precede our actions are the foundation of all that we cherish, dream, become, and accomplish.

From the morning rituals that we go through to greet the world each day, to the inventions that we use to make our lives better, to the technology that destroys life through war - our personal routines, community customs, religious ceremonies, and entire civilizations are based on our beliefs. Not only do our beliefs provide the structure for the way we live our lives, now the same areas of study that have discounted our inner experiences in the past are showing us that the way we feel about the world around us is a force that extends into that world.

It is obvious, even to the most Prozaced-out individual, that today’s global crises impacting the environment, health, economics and social stability are threatening the survival of human civilization. Suddenly, the old cartoon of some bearded weirdo carrying a placard reading, “The World is Ending!” doesn’t seem that funny. Media and government continuously focus our attention on the darkness of impending crises, however, recent advances in physics and biology offer a significantly different and amazingly hopeful alternative for these very same symptoms.

New scientific insights suggest the evolution of human civilization resembles the recurring fate of the Phoenix, a sacred firebird revered in ancient Egyptian mythology. At the end of its lifecycle the Phoenix builds a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes. From the ashes arises a new and greater Phoenix.

The limitations of rational thought become clear if we consider the simple premise: “God does not have to think.” Thinking is not possible without information, and perfect information makes thinking unnecessary. When you have information, you simply know, there is nothing to think about. There are no decisions to make, situations define themselves and what needs to be done is obvious. Thinking is a compensation for inadequate knowledge. It is a substitute, and a poor one at that.