The Age of Cosmic Immortals
Imagine product names like Ageless, Forever, or Pubé from the likes of Avon, Pfizer or Mary Kay meeting the plot of 1988 film Alien Nation: slave laborers work tirelessly, to the point of near-death, yet continue to drudge on, as they remain transfixed on their chemical reward—in their case it was a fictional narcotic. In our case it could be pharmaceutical youth.
Russian scientist Vladimir Skulachev seems to have a handle on bringing the process of aging to an end. However, putting a price tag on such a development has some rather grim implications. As with nearly all other profit-based motives, we are setting ourselves up for the possibility of an ugly circumstance in which only the wealthy shall endure.
“99% of the time oxygen turns into harmless water, but there's that one percent that turns into a super-oxide that later turns into very poisonous elements,” Vladimir Skulachev, Professor of Bioenergetics, reveals via Russia Today. “So the task was to find an anti-oxidant that stops that process.”
Aubrey de Grey, a British scientist and author, has also been working against aging as well. In a popular online video de Gray, while trying to win his audience over to the concept of “defeating aging” asked for those in favor of malaria to raise their hand. None did. De Gary then asked, “Why should we cure aging?” The answer is simple: “Because it kills people,” indeed, “considerably more than malaria.”
“Becoming frail and miserable and dependent is no fun.” When the romantic mystique and allure of rusting gracefully into an appearance like that of Gandalf subsides, it seems de Gray is putting up a solid argument (senile cataracts, arthritis and colonoscopies aren’t fun), but what of the commercialization of agelessness?
Skulachev’s findings are one of the advances listed by the late Robert Anton Wilson in his description of a Cosmic Immortal. “Life seems to be aiming at nothing less than the attainment of divinity. We are part of the process of evolution from amoebas to Cosmic Immortals. What are Cosmic Immortals? Cosmic Immortals are creatures who live anywhere in the universe they damn well please, travel as fast as they want to and never die. And that’s the idea of a god. A god goes anywhere, never dies and moves as fast as a god wants to move. That is what we are evolving towards gradually.”
See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqwoo-O_GwM
Image by JudeanPeoplesFront on Flickr Courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing
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~*~
Anti aging is more than a product or an immediate result. Agelessness is a belief system and to believe it is possible is the first step, the second and all remaining steps are a restructuring of the present operating system on this planet. The original operating system was pitch perfect on both micro and macro levels, but along the way it encountered some bugs, some parasites, and it has yet to shake them off and these parasites are a damper on life. They suck life out of things and so they are sucking the life out of this planet and it’s inhabitants and so we must cleanse and cleanse again. Lord only knows what half the population has feasting upon its insides from years of unhealthy food and habits, myself included and I’ve cleansed quite a bit.
A restructuring of the way we eat is completely necessary. Most of our land and oceans have been doused with so much poison that the food is near to glowing with a chemical cocktail so potent that the “food” grown from it should be enough to kill a cow in a heartbeat and the only reason it doesn’t is because we’re so used to it. Little by little we’ve eaten the poison so as to become immune to it. The land, the sea, the waterways, the skyways, all infused with the finest death potions a government could give a nation. How nice, how grand, how Chanel No. 5, but…how do we turn it all around in order to be young and healthy once again?
Through nature, through evolution, through a grand process of transitioning from a dying planet on the brink of extinction to a planet of healthy beings in love with life and each other and with the One Sacred Being who put us here and every sacred thing around us. We should stop eating meat because eating meat is just eating death. Nothing really wants to die until it’s darn good and ready and no matter how humanely you kill something you still killed it and suffering went out into the world and the collective unconscious and at this point in time, at this very fragile and delicate and near to total collapse point in time we the people can ill afford to kill one more thing to satisfy empty physical desires. All animals have a desire and a right to live just as much as we do and so why neglect a being it’s right to live just because we want to eat it? We don‘t need it. We don’t need to kill in order to live. Perhaps back in pre-industrial revolution times it was necessary, but not these days.
The world is evolving and we now have the means and the knowledge to eat not so high up on the food chain so as to relieve the world of it’s suffering for a while. A good long while I hope. In my experimentations with food and eating habits over the past 15 yrs I’ve whittled it down to supergreen foods, hemp, bee products, nuts and seeds, and various algae for food and they all seem to do amazing things for a person. I once thought I had to eat meat to make it in this world, but no longer. Those main components have been enough to satisfy me and to keep me going for quite some time throughout the day. What I eat is easily digestible and so less of my energy goes to the digestive process yet I get everything I need because it’s so easily broken down. It’s amazingly efficient and my body literally buzzes with energy. I can feel myself tingle and come alive when I absorb these nutrient dense foods. Bee pollen is one of the highest vibrational foods and I eat a lot of it. You are what you eat and the cleaner and more efficient your food is the cleaner and more efficient you will be. Since absolutely nothing died in the production of my food I am taking in only life and I feel more alive. No animal became stressed out in its death so that I could live so I am less stressed. Instead of eating a fish and the death of that fish, I am eating some of what the fish ate, algae, and I am now skipping the dead middle man. I am connecting to life instead of death. Seems rational and logical to me and honestly I am often mistaken for being ten years younger than I actually am. This I attribute to diet, exercise and my belief system that says “I never have to die.”
Getting rid of the mutated and heavily poisoned crops that Monsanto and the like plant all over this perfect earth and replacing them with hemp and other nutrient rich crops would help heal the planet and therefore all beings on the planet which would provide for an ease of life that would also help us to stay younger longer. When life is easy and pure and healthy there is no stress and so to heal our great Cosmic Mother is to heal ourselves as well. We are all reflections of the Divine One and every life is connected to the life of the planet and so to turn Planet Gaia back from the brink of destruction that it ever threateningly totters on and to keep it as healthy and alive and positively buzzing as long as possible would in turn keep every living being alive and healthy as long as possible.
Certainly positive revolutions will happen on all levels in the creation and sustaining of life, but if we only focus on the humans and forget all other life in the race for immortality then we may as well forget the whole thing. We will get nowhere if we do not take the immortality of the entire planet into consideration. Changing ourselves on a core, basic, bio-logical, fundamental level is where immortality starts. From the inside out. To become more conscious of ourselves and the things we do to ourselves and to see our bodies as divine temples given to us by God will make us more conscious of this Earth, that God created as if it where the heart of her, and to see it as one giant temple, one that deserves our respect and our help and our love. Together, with the planet and God as everyone’s creator, is the way to Forever Ever Land and only together will we get there.
In Lak'ech Ala K'in
"Sacred Being/sacred thing"
Dear Tezcatlipoca,
You are clearly an intelligent, emotionally tuned, well intentioned person. As such, I hope you don't take what I am saying as detriment to your character, but instead observations which from my perspective come easily as dawn.
There is a confusion when you say parasites are sucking the life out of this planet, as it implies parasites are an unworthy part of this planet. A parasite is not a black hole; any energy they usurp must continue to flow in some form in the waste they produce (on that note I am speaking of all consumptive black holes as defined by the current dogma ridden scientific paradigm). In fact, it does not take the lord to know that your infinitely complex intestinal ecology is one of the main sources of immunity to illness, that indeed you are sustaining a feasting community of life that FAR outnumbers your own "human" cells by a long distance.
I agree completely that the way we view our food must change drastically in terms of social sensibility as to what is acceptable, and there are those all around us who as individuals are re-discovering the sanctity of food - and all things for that matter. Also of note when reading the following is the fact that I understand the horrors of factory processed meat - even of "organic" standard, not to mention the enormous arrogation of resource it takes to raise meat vs plant food, the inherent toxicity of eating higher up the "food chain", etc.
But please, do not delude yourself into believing you are taking the virtuous path by claiming to live without killing anything. To only take what is "ready to die".
Sorry for my indignance but who do you think you are to decide when something is ready to die? Or that animals are more worthy of your respect than plants? This planet begins healing when we as humans stop focusing just on us as humans, yes - but it does not mean we just focus on what is very much like us. We cannot heal this planet by transitioning from:
"Okay, humans are sacred"
"Okay, humans AND animals are sacred! All better!"
It sounds as though you sit by the waters edge slowly waiting until the algae signals so you may slurp up the individual right at the moment it chooses to die, waiting patiently for the next volunteer.
How about those plants you eat? You know for certain that they don't suffer as your teeth gnash and tear their cohesion cell from cell? As your gastric juices rend their living membranes into amino acids and vitamins and enzymes? And unless you are on your hands and knees in a garden you grew yourself, eating those plants straight out of the ground, there is some medium of storage at the very least, the plant has been severed from its connection to Earth and understandably is probably distressed over such. Even worse if you buy said plants at all - from the "death middle man" no less.
Eating SEEDS!?! Sounds like you're a plant abortionist.
Bee pollen may not kill bees directly, but do you think that maybe as of yet unexplained (conclusively) Colony Collapse Disorder that is currently annihilating world wide bee populations might have something to do with the fact that we rob their homes of the hard earned food that would have otherwise sustained new generations of bees?
By this logic I could starve animals to death and claim to not be killing them.
And if at this point you are getting ready to type an angry - or enlightened - response: Please think of those poor bacteria you would be crushing with each keystroke. You and I cause an enormous amount of suffering, and by virtue of being alive will continue to do so. The choice is: Be grateful or don't. I am grateful to those seeds whose aborted life sustains mine. I am humbled by what they give me, and recognize that all that buzzing energy I now possess is the potential of the majestic flowering plant each seed held in its imagination, waiting and willing to come to fruition in a different form through me.
Life sustains life in a complex web of interconnected relationships - with the caveat that life only continues with death. They are the same thing, deluded notions of duality aside. The only real blasphemy is to take a gift, and give nothing back.
Do you defecate into a toilet?
All that life you eat, and then commit into clean water only so it may be run through dark and dirty pipes for miles and miles to emerge in a fecal broth to be repeatedly shocked with chemicals that DESTROY LIFE through pure brute force and contribute back to the environment the very poison you describe... sounds like the pinnacle of suffering to me.
In every conceivable way we are not even worthy of terming what we're doing to the earth as parasitic. As I mentioned before, even a parasite is producing food for some other life through its waste.
It is always pointed out that we are truly the only creatures that produce actual useless waste. We take what has been circulating for time untold, and remove from the gift web that life is composed of. Even our - ESPECIALLY OUR - crap; coming from a healthy person it is so full of life and life giving nutrient...and we destroy almost every last bit of it while also polluting the planet further. Bravo.
Why not "end the suffering" of the wood which holds up your walls? Or perhaps end the suffering of the prokaryotes "trapped" in your intestines? The end of suffering...is the end of life. There is no love without pain.
The respect you connote in writing "One Sacred Being" in contrast to "every sacred thing" through capitalization denotes a superiority of the clockwork creator to the dead components left assembled. Separation in a faux spiritual finish.
Understand that there is none of the balance you seem to be hoping to achieve contained within a hierarchical sense of value and sacredness. That no one "life" - or for that matter "thing" can be considered more or less alive and sacred than any other - but still respected accordingly for its unique place in this world: the gifts it has to offer.
As to be (finally) properly on topic: Technological transcendentalists that jump on this drug when it is all ready (and I'm even going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say it works perfectly) will find their hopes and dreams fulfilled...for about 10 years...maybe...at most. Suddenly they will die. They won't be any older...but the suffering remains with no way to be expressed.
As a final note, I appreciate when people begin giving the divine feminine the respect that is deserved of her. I bring this up because I see so much mention of the female aspect of existence needing respect in your post - "Gaia" and the "Cosmic Mother" among other things.
But what is the mother without the father? Not one male pronoun used to describe anything sacred?
All too often in the fervor to respect the female, we forget the male. We say, oh, this planet has seen enough of male qualities for one age. We don't realize that our conceptions of the male are just as distorted as conceptions of the female have been. That somehow it is conceived that all male qualities are bad, and that rekindling connection with the male aspects of this planet would do no good. No.
Both are gifts. To be female is to have unique gifts. To be male is to have unique gifts. These gifts are only fully expressed in the synthesis of these realizations.
We don't right patriarchal society by reverting to matriarchal society. In fact I don't think we are even a patriarchal society any longer except on a surface level. We are a society in which neither the male nor the female are worshiped, despite the "man-god" people still pray to in church.
We are, to coin a new term: a dehumanarchal society.
Huh. Goes to show what an emotionally driven response can elicit: genuine novelty, as far as I can tell.
Dehumanarchal: The conception that there is nothing sacred about being human - our gods are no longer gendered, but objects.
In a sense, this is closer to animism than we've been in thousands of years.
I'd call that a separation in the right direction...
hmmmmm....
I think you are taking what I wrote a little too far.
I never said I was in control of who lives or dies and I'm only eating as far down on the food chain as possible so as to leave the smallest footprint possible. Everything has my respect, I never said I didn't respect plants, it's just that blood didn't flow when the honey was harvested and the bees are only doing thier job and will die anyway, everything must die, but I'm not going to slaughter a cow so i can live.
I think you are wanting to fight a little more than I am. It's sounds like you want to just pick apart everything to show me how terrible I actually am in my eating habits. I'm sorry I exist and must eat and shit into a toilet and kill everything in the process, I never said I was perfect. If you have a way in which I can live and not eat or shit anything out so as to not hurt anything then by all means, let me know. I'm all ears. In Lak'ech Ala K'in
I wish more bars were like this
TAG!!
*"Agelessness is a belief system..."
Belief, seems to be an impediment to any kind of realistic intellectual, social, or consciousness-related legwork. I could go into this for quite some time. This is one MAJOR criticism I have for the contemporary psychic pilgrim—assumingly, given the content of this website and it’s sister blog community, you’ve encountered something (no need to guess what) that significantly shattered your perceptions at some time in the past. My point is this: here you’ve encountered something, pick any three-letter acronym, or zen if you’re cool like that, and hopefully if it fulfilled its age old promise of wiping clean your “cultural operating system,” you walked away like a babe in the woods…again. And you probably ran into something kinky on that trip, no doubt. Yet, once the mind is cleaned like that, the knee-jerk reaction in most cases seems to be to take upon a mission of re-building and re-newing and reconstructing and re-filling the vase of your mind with more assumptive, belief-rich content. I would expect more of a demeanor of uncertainty after such an episode, yet instead it seems to breed dogma and an exuberant interest in the occult and arcane—While it’s the uncertainty that truly remains worth a damn. None of those societies and practitioners did any good (we are the walking history of their social-psychic experiments, systems, and so on and look where we are now: monetary systems, conflict galore, Lady Gaga’s everywhere, ego-worship, etc.) In other words, this interest in “the archaic revival” as well as the pantheon of nebulous new age thinking that’s resurfaced is a point that doesn’t further the true utility and freshness of these insights. The “cultural operating system” and the congruent belief systems are deleted, but a crusade is embarked upon just as the whiff of lucidity returns and its back to the business and building a new program. This is folly. There is no certainty and there is no security—outside of maybe consciousness looks like the name of the game in all directions. We have a statistical, probabilistic, subjective situation going on here at best (digital mechanics).
* "The original operating system was pitch perfect on both micro and macro levels..."
Nothing in physics, cosmology, archeology, biology or any other field supports this assertion. It seems like an Eden Hypothesis—there is no evidentiary reason to accept any situation other than the “brutish and short,” anywhere at anytime in the case of the organism. Evolution requires a digestion of something (law of conservation of energy--all employs are required under law to have a lunch break). The only option seems to be “improving the quality of our consciousness” and again on such a path the airing out of our mental apartments and getting off our prized, beloved, seductive and comfortable mental furniture (beliefs, opinions, ideas, memories, the very content of our consciousness) seems to be the only legitimate recourse. Only in the space of this admitted ignorance can insight and breakthrough occur. Otherwise we are just flirting with ideas and all ideas are inherently virtual, simulacra.
Furthermore
* "...but along the way it encountered some bugs, some parasites, and it has yet to shake them off and these parasites are a damper on life..."
Agreed, for instance: fight or flight was a necessary mechanism to insure biological survival and now we have to outgrow these predatory, dominator mechanics because it's actually pulling off the opposite effect--apply it to today's armaments and you've got a real revelation on your hands. But the idea that there was a perfect way and that we've fallen from grace lacks any and all necessary evidence. But in these parasites and bugs, I’d reckon we don’t stop there and throw in religion, myth, even philosophy. This may sound like unreason and postmodernism at it’s worst, but nay—keep the reason. Just take a peek at what systems do. They are like bugs: “If you’re a Catholic, or a Hindu, or whatever it is, you repeat it over and over again.” Thought assaults thought and all go home screwed. Theory, however, is a suggestion based on the least amount of assumptions, which also derives reality (observed phenomena, evidence, etc) and makes predictions. But Theory is never stagnant. Theory opposes the functions of rigid powers in thought and society (dogma, etc). Though Theory can be mismanaged, inflated with innumerable assumptions and stretched to allow, even confirm and glorify real-world devastation (Übermensch meets Die Endlösung), it is, at heart, an attempt to reconfigure new potentialities for human behavior, experience and understanding. Therefore it must never remain fixed, as new evidence is always arriving—whether it be via a waking operational state or another.
Mutaogenesis takes it well from here…
This should probably drive it pretty hard home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t18zgu9gZfo
hmmm indeed...
I was looking for a fight in fact - as had you read what I wrote you'd understand I was all for the point that suffering and adversity is a driving force behind all life and growth. So, despite your sardonic exit I never once implied there was a way to live without causing suffering: that was entirely antithetical to my post. I admit as well that there is little I care for less than non-constructive criticism. I apologize for offering very little constructive direction as it was my original intention to simply highlight to you that it doesn't make you a better person because you choose not to end one type of life over another. I wasn't trying to pick apart your eating habits for real; I was trying to show you the perspective that you take against meat eaters can be applied to you for being a plant eater. Life is life. You clearly value animal life over plant life if you choose to end one and not the other - and I hate to break it to you but a "bees job" in a wider sense; is to pollinate the crops you eat, among the other countless plant beneficiaries of their busy work. It is not their job in nature for you to domesticate and steal their reward for fulfilling an ecological niche. This is akin to a thief repeatedly taking your hard earned money and justifying it by saying you are just doing your job...
Just because there is no bloodshed it does not make violence any less. Please keep in mind that these are only metaphors. Try not to get too caught up the specifics which will at once inspire defensiveness. The obsession with leaving a "small footprint" smuggles in the ideology that our footprints must be inherently destructive. We should seek to leave as large a footprint as possible by more completely fulfilling our role in nature, instead of hiding from it, as though all we touch is destroyed. That way of thinking is what caused this mess to begin with.
To offer an example you asked for; start composting your waste perhaps. One simple method: you could get a shovel and each time dig a new hole under the top soil where your waste will naturally decompose with the action of anaerobic bacteria. If this sounds unrealistic but you'd like a different way: look up bio-char or home waste remediation or countless other ways you can rejoin the gift circle.
Let your example be their light, not your pretention. You cannot change people by telling them there is no reason to eat meat. You show them why YOU don't eat meat. If they respect you, they will learn. You just chase people away by trying to change them.
It is important to note that being "all ears" in a text based conversation shows you have no room for eyes - and yes I understood the intention but you didn't read very carefully what I wrote, for whatever reason...which means you didn't really respond to what I wrote. So please, as I give you the courtesy of doing; read it again before you think you get it.
Theory is belief...
You seem to be under the impression that all the cultural accumulation of humanity, all the philosophies and religions and beliefs were mistakes. Steps in the wrong direction - in other words: useless wrong turns without purpose or meaning.
"there is no evidentiary reason to accept any situation other than the “brutish and short,” anywhere at anytime in the case of the organism."
This is simply not true. Appealing to evidence is the same guise as you describe belief to be - in fact evidence is only ever wielded in one direction or the other according to your beliefs as to what it means.
I look around me - and inside me - everyday and see evidence teeming from every conceivable corner of my existence that life is more fundamentally rooted in providence, empathy, love, and interconnectedness than it is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Being a multicellular organism defies any logic that implies we exist as purely rational actors serving only self interest - if it were such then we would be a cancerous blob with each cell fighting itself at every turn for primacy of resource. We would never have achieved the level of symbioses required to function on this level without cooperation and complete trust between otherwise discrete organisms. And besides the evidence...I feel it more than anything. Evidence cannot account for the awe inspiring power of intuition, nor can it ever assume superiority over it.
In studying any undisturbed tribal cultures we see that what we call a biological imperative is fallacy. Predatory, dominator mechanics are unknown concepts in cultures operating in the spirit of the gift. The social order reflects their place in nature and beliefs regarding self. They are a part of a larger gift network in which they give and are provided for freely. It is a life without any of the stress that accompanies a mentality of scarcity - built into agriculture (though interestingly not all agricultural cultures to the same degree).
If the only legitimate recourse is to forsake the whole of civilization...isn't that a step even further backwards than just reclaiming old spiritual modalities? From the perspective of ignorance again, what would make us any less prone to seeing these religions and philosophies as steps in the right direction than we were the first time they were discovered and elaborated upon by us? We would just have to go through this whole course of civilization all over again to learn the lesson - because even if we seemingly only accomplished the near complete subsumption of all that is sacred on this planet through the course of humanities growth: know that it was and is no mistake. The only mistake is not to learn from what we have done.
You describe in part what we have learned and part of what we need to reclaim - the perspective of admitted ignorance; the humility required for breakthrough. This humility is to know that their is no growth in isolation, but only through our relationships respected as equally as we do so ourselves. To trust the world. To be at play with the world and each other. Theory is founded upon humility - as the entire scientific revolution was - a means for all to experience truth without mediation. But then it quickly became a system - perpetuation ad infinitum...
I don't believe we can just brush off the concept of theory and reuse it as though it will just work differently this time - theory is as you said based on observed phenomena - but seems in direct denial of participated phenomena. It has no basis for intuition, only reason.
All in all I am very conflicted -I agree wholeheartedly for a line or a paragraph but vehemently disagree with the next. I hope very much we can continue this dialog!
Theory is suggestion
“You seem to beunder the impression that all the cultural accumulation of humanity, all thephilosophies and religions and beliefs were mistakes. Steps in the wrongdirection - in other words: useless wrong turns without purpose or meaning.”
Negative. Philosophiesand religions are sometimes semi-theoretical, yet more often than not builtupon a foundational assumption (e.g. Original Sin, democracy is the closest toorder to “freedom,” philosopher rule, autocracy, etc.) No, I perceive these as valuable experiments– though I see no active system that doesn’t warrant criticism; classism,conflict, corruption and proactive depletion are all observable externalities. It seems the most intelligent avenue isa kind of, and I recoil at sounding flakey here, but a CosmicCollectivism. Though this kind ofthing sounds as mystic and scathe-worthy as the notions previously set fourth,I’ll do my best throughout this response to provide evidentiary backing forsuch a perceptive.
“This is simplynot true. Appealing to evidence is the same guise as you describe belief to be- in fact evidence is only ever wielded in one direction or the other accordingto your beliefs as to what it means.”
This is a point of contention and I think perhaps if I moreaccurately define Theory, you will come to disagree with the idea that Theoryis as disposable or parallel to belief systems.
Let’s begin by outlining the nature and purpose of Theory aswell as evidence, I think you’ll find it an absolute necessity, universallyapplied by organisms, and the only game in town. To borrow from Deluze “A theory does not totalize... Itis in the nature of power to totalize... theory is by nature opposed to power.”Whether or not you are inclined to agree with Deluze and his capitalism fueled schizophrenia, hisbodies without organs, or his shitting machines (as in the case of RobertWolin) this assertion that Theory opposes the functions of power in thought andsociety seems an apropos conjecture.
But the very simple purpose of Theory is to crate aflexible model. Not to represent reality as it is, no communication can, but itcan be a flame that guides our walking experimentation (existence). One ventures a guess, gathers evidence,and then attempts to predict future scenarios. This is vital for any organism to survive. Predator cats need to guess where theprey will be. It will look fortracks, urine, feces, etc. If thecat finds its prey, it will attempt the same maneuvers in the future, giventhat nutrition was in the end secured. This will continue until prey no longer is found and then a new strategywill be formulated. If the catbelieves that its current methodology is the only recourse, then it may doomitself to an early grave. Herein,we see the model as Theory. Modelshave the fortunate element of evolution and refutation. In this way, they are not beliefs.
If your career or your emotional psychology is hellbent on a hypothesis and refuses certain discoveries, than your theory is notTheory as I am so describing it. It is another belief system, with SOME evidence.
Unfortunately, thanks to the rise of mediasaturation, we have a misunderstood concept of Theory. It is the most strident ofpersonalities and statements that are well known in the public and intellectualspheres. Take for instanceDawkins. In the face of Theory,atheism is as guilty and useless as theism, in that both rest on a foundationof assumptions and park in the deserts of certainty. Belief is as useless as disbelief. It was the Polish-American scientist AlfredKorzybski in Science and Sanity whoillustrated that in reality there exists only degrees of likely and unlikelyprobability of a potentially infinite value (given circumstances). To be 100% psychologically certain isto go beyond flirting with dogma and land in the wasteland of the confirmed, asis our Aristotelian heritage displays with Fox News pow. In an observably (and indeedparticipatory) uncertain universe, this is a disaster of behavior and bydefinition: irrational and unscientific. Good data via repeatability is the only legitimate recourse. It is also, for the believing or thedisbelieving, the most psychologically nonnegotiable and threatening terrain,as all data is infinitely reflected against career, identity, emotional andspiritually invested beliefs or disbeliefs. Here we are dealing with a kind of self-exile orself-damnation, forever isolating those whom are invested, from breakthrough orinsight.
The approach that seems most legitimate to me is one of“open-minded skepticism.”
“I look aroundme - and inside me - everyday and see evidence teeming from every conceivablecorner of my existence that life is more fundamentally rooted in providence,empathy, love, and interconnectedness than it is solitary, poor, nasty, brutishand short”.
Though, the definition of “improving the quality of one’sconsciousness” is a that empathic, unconditionally loving, interconnectedbehavior is the equivalent to the evolution of the larger consciousness system(WTF, I know, citations will be provided)—dismissing the reality of “brutishand short” scenarios as being a very real circumstance for some (if not most)is denying the competition (nutritional, territorial, sexual) asirrelevant. However, I agree thatwhat we see in the universe is a rather providential and that empathy,interconnectedness and love will assure an organism such as ourselves with thebehavioral traits that will ensure a very real progress; I can’t say thatstalking and killing and consuming the pumping flesh of your prey doesn’t helpyou from starvation. However, wewill hopefully get beyond this kind of thing with the application oftechnologies and insight.
“Being amulticellular organism defies any logic that implies we exist as purelyrational actors serving only self interest”
Agreed; complex co-operative colonies (like our very biologicalsystems) do seem to work out rather nicely. But if you take a look at something like Conway's Game of Life, or an ant colony or a tribe, self interest ispumped up to become the interest of not only you but your neighbors aswell. However still, otherneighbors will be eaten when the going gets starving.
“if it weresuch then we would be a cancerous blob with each cell fighting itself at everyturn for primacy of resource. We would never have achieved the level ofsymbioses required to function on this level without cooperation and completetrust between otherwise discrete organisms.”
Agreed. We don’tfuck over EVERYBODY and that does keep the ball rolling.
“And besides the evidence...I feel it more than anything.Evidence cannot account for the awe inspiring power of intuition, nor can itever assume superiority over it.”
Now Mutaogenesis,my stalwart discourser, this is where “the weird turn pro.” For quite some time the problem of mindhas been keeping science in a constant tail-chasing hellhole (M-Theory,U-theory, etc) that makes Lewis Carroll look like a novice when it comes tophantasmagoria. However as old asproblems as they are (mind, subjectivity, the measurement problem,entanglement, metaphysics, etc) all have been rather elegantly brought into anew focus from a NASA physicist – and it’s not you Daniel Dennet style straightbut near denial of these things, but a 4 decade long meticulous investigationinto all the kink that’s so near and dear to my heart; the non-local featuresof mind that we see in the laboratory and throughout our historic literature. Campbell’s model not only accounts forintuition, he describes as the very force behind everything. Intent as in organization ofpsudeo-information into meaning, which is then pushed “outwardly” into evermore organized and profitable states and forms.
The Sparknotesversion:
1. Consciousness if fundamental, primary.
2. All realities are virtual, staticallyprobabilistic games for consciousness to better organize itself (eg love).
I promisedweird, but look it up -- It will enhance the evening, I swear it.
I strongly suggest you take a look at his material, which willbe included at the bottom of this post. In fact, I doubt very strongly that we will be able to continue thisvery pleasurable exchange until you’re mildly familiar with this very new, veryfringe theory.
“In studyingany undisturbed tribal cultures we see that what we call a biologicalimperative is fallacy. Predatory, dominator mechanics are unknown concepts incultures operating in the spirit of the gift.”
This is not the case in all aboriginal groups. Tribal warfare, cannibalism,headhunter, social competition, are all very real, as well as the strongpresence of forced genital mutilation, classism, and other powerstructures. Domination doesn’tdisappear in these societies. Ittakes on, instead, a mytho-poetic form, rather than our intellectual one. Both are equally brutish.
“The socialorder reflects their place in nature and beliefs regarding self.
They are a partof a larger gift network in which they give and are provided for freely. It isa life without any of the stress that accompanies a mentality of scarcity -built into agriculture (though interestingly not all agricultural cultures tothe same degree).”
This is in SOME cases.
“If the onlylegitimate recourse is to forsake the whole of civilization. isn't that a stepeven further backwards than just reclaiming old spiritual modalities? From theperspective of ignorance again, what would make us any less prone to seeingthese religions and philosophies as steps in the right direction than we werethe first time they were discovered and elaborated upon by us? We would justhave to go through this whole course of civilization all over again to learnthe lesson - because even if we seemingly only accomplished the near completesubsumption of all that is sacred on this planet through the course ofhumanities growth: know that it was and is no mistake. The only mistake is notto learn from what we have done. ”
Alright, here is a BIG ONE. I am not suggesting this whatsoever. I am in fact I’m impressed that somerefer to the last few millennia as civilization. I’d reckon it’s orderly chaos.
Firstly, we will have to define culture againstcivilization. Most would venturethat they are hand in hand, but no.
“[Edward] Tylor started his seminal book, Primitive Culture,with the following definition, which is still quoted today in almost anyintroduction to the subject: ‘Taken in its wide ethnographic sense, [culture]is that complec whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom,and any other capability or habits acquired by man as a member ofsociety.’ Culture is understoodhere as all human traits that are not the result of instinct – in other words,as a synonym for nurture as opposed to nature. Culture thus encompasses all the aspects of our behaviorthat have evolved as social conventions and are transmitted through learningfrom generation to generation…through imitation rather than gene.”
Furthermore,
“…Culture masquerades as human nature.”
(P 8-9 Through the Language Glass, Deutscher)
I am trying to illustrate that culture is largely accidental,experimental, and raising hell. Itis also used to protect the psyche against its own awesome ignorance, toinstill modes of cohesion and to keep the potentially curious as blind anddiscouraged as possible. I do notsee culture as civilization, just as I don’t see culture as nature—norunnatural, it’s more anatural, if you will. At face value culture is thought to bring us together,however our acceleration into conflict, destruction and devastation is anexternality of competing cultural ideologies (belief-secured mental patternswhether they are tribal, national, religious, scientific (Big Bang is amystical assumption too), philosophical, intellectual, economic, and so on). This is obvious.
I think we have a lot of culture and a little civilization, orin other words people are “unsane.” We go with the flow.
Also, this is just obvious, but you can’t discover what you areor what anything is via culture. That is a meaningless red herring. Cultural operating systems are placeholders so one doesn’t have todiscover what they are – they can submit their bodies and minds to laborinstead. It’s a game of, “You’vegot questions? We’ve gotanswers.” Even those that are “enlightened”reiterate, a position that basically amounts to “there is nothing I can do foryou, because anything I offer will be another idea for you to grapple with.”
What we should learn from all this is the failure of currentmodels, that the order and utopia they’ve promised is a sham, that images,ideas and beliefs about the moon will never be a visit to it’s surface. I encourage us instead to discoverourselves, not through thought, but rather outside of thought, but not toabandon reason in our enthusiasm.
One final note on this: we could actively come into the direct experience of our consciousawareness, not its contents. Forit is a mobile, nonlocal, information system (decades of remote viewing datafrom SRI and the EGG machines at Princeton confirm this). For what we have in common are not ourideas and we will never come upon the unconditional love necessary to matureour attempt at civilization if we try to meet on the stage of ideas (all ideasare inherently simulation, virtual, etc). If we meet in the knowledge via direct experience that whatthe suffering of one effects the many and the blanket of consciousness thatwarms us all into budding life forms, again rather than through cultural nuances,then we’ll be closer to the EVOLUTION I think is being implied in many ways onthese web sites.
In the end, this seems to be a participatory game seeminglyengendered to maximize potential evolutionary states under a constraineddecision space.
ALL THE BEST!
Bitchin’ homework:
ThomasCampbell & MY BIG TOE: http://vimeo.com/1989597
TomCampbell – A Better Physics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imiRye38dYM
Tom’sCampbell’s youtube: http://www.youtube.com/twcjr44
AlanWatts Illustrates a cultureless POV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mkia0RE6A
http://realitywideweb.tumblr.com/
http://typeonecivilization.tumblr.com
http://remoteviewingnow.tumblr.com/
Campbell!!
“I've seen a few videos by Campbell, but have not gotten to the bottom of the details of his philosophy. I sense, though, that such `phenomena' as ``randomness generators responding to world events'' from the noosphere project at Princeton, figures prominently in his work; however, having scanned the data myself once, I am not convinced that these are ``real'', in the sense that they are (1) reproducible, and (2) anythng other than the usual statistical flukes (which are bound to happen eventually).”
Negative. Campbell’s theory DOES NOT come from the Princeton figures. They were just used as an example. And I'm afraid, "a few videos" leaves me guessing...His work comes from direct experience, not merely the data of adding machines. The following was lifted from his website:
“Tom Campbell began researching altered states of consciousness with Bob Monroe Journeys Out Of The Body, Far Journeys, and The Ultimate Journey) at Monroe Laboratories in the early 1970s where he and a few others were instrumental in getting Monroe's laboratory for the study of consciousness up and running. These early drug-free consciousness pioneers helped design experiments, developed the technology for creating specific altered states, and were the main subjects of study (guinea pigs) all at the same time. Campbell has been experimenting with, and exploring the subjective and objective mind ever since. For the past thirty years, Campbell has been focused on scientifically exploring the properties, boundaries, and abilities of consciousness.
During that same time period, he has excelled as a working scientist, a professional physicist dedicated to pushing back the frontiers of cutting edge technology, large-system simulation, technology development and integration, and complex system vulnerability and risk analysis.”
More can be found here: http://www.my-big-toe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=54
I encourage you to deeply investigate his work. Here’s a very simple introductory interview (the who’s, what’s, where’s, when’s, and the how’s of the matter):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gp8RcoX9qQ
“In some ways this reminds me of gematria (i.e. Bible Codes). At the end of the day... not much there to get excited about.”
Whoa. The bible codes are a cultural document built out of the randomness of number and word associations. It is NOT a model, nor a proposal, nor a suggestion that is roundly simple, accessible, or even based on any sort of potent evidence procedure. It is not Theory, as we’ve been discussing, but a kind chicken bone conjuring.
Why is this theory important? Because culturally speaking, once science develops something (a model or a technology) it trickles down into the cultural psyche (heliocentric universe, evolution, electric power, nuclear mechanics, space travel, and so on). Outside of a clique, the gematria is NOT going to result in any kind fundamental paradigm shift in our culture; it is not going to encourage folks to investigate the nature of reality/consciousness being (one could invoke synchronicity as being a catalyst for investigating the seemingly deeper levels of reality at play, perhaps) nor is it going to break new ground scientifically speaking. And if you take a quick glance at the screen you’re looking at, it is Theory, science, and technology that have a major sway on shaping the general cultural frame of reference. Prophecy, the occult, the arcane, are not going to see a significant revivalism and if they by some bizarre miracle do, then I submit that we would be falling closer to myth rather than evidentiary procedure. Bible Codes are a little to open-ended anyway: you could hack all kinds of (seemingly) meaningful associations, as you could Nostradamus or Crowley.
I’ll give Satinover a look; but I should reiterate that Campbell’s isn’t just a theory of consciousness – it’s a theory of everything and although these claims saturate the Internet, I strongly endorse examining his material.
PS – Attempt remote viewing. It makes for one hell of an evening.
http://www.realitysandwich.com/loging_reality_wide_web
http://realitywideweb.tumblr.com/
Dogmatic Theory
“Good data via repeatability is the only legitimate recourse.”
Have you ever thought of what “repeatability” is, and by virtue of what it is, what it encodes? You seem 100% psychologically certain in it if it is “the only legitimate recourse”. With it comes numerous dogmas which have been nearly lost to modern perception, but I assure you its superiority is as much instilled by culture as any of the beliefs you criticise.
The entire concept of reproducibility is a belief founded upon notions of determinism and causation. That nothing happens that is not caused to happen. To believe that one can have absolute control over the initial conditions of an experiment to the degree where the outcome will be completely the same as the first time and in all conclusive trials is a dogma – an attempt at securing certainty. Even when it comes down to the most finely calibrated and controlled experiment the problem remains that the experimenter is different – even if it is the same person conducting the experiment. You may ascribe this to new-age hooey; but is there any other way to explain that repeatability seems to nullify the progression of time (in whatever form you may conceive time) and thus inherently possesses the dogma that the universe is static (even in some small area or way) – which all evidentiary accumulation is mounted against as you yourself claim? This is an atrocious assumption, which if I wrote of it clearly enough, should unsettle you to your core. Let me elaborate:
Repeatability is only possible through the reduction of reality: that two moments, things, places, people – any of the determining factors going into an experiment – may be for all intents and purposes considered the same. Can you see the dogma of such a belief? Can you also see how the cultural conceptions of the universe being composed of “building blocks” of fundamental elements which within their elemental classification are all uniform and without defining individual characteristics arises from the scientific revolution? That this dogma of uniformity is essential for the entire scientific-technological edifice it has produced? For the concept of repeatability to be valid?
I feel you’re so very, very, very close to what you’re striving for, but still there is a left brain dominance rather than whole brain balance as Campbell talks about in your videos. I understand approaching from the perspective of your audience entails a certain amount of (over) appealing to logic and reason, but for future regards if indeed you are approaching me with the thought of who I am; you can drop the pretence and be yourself so I get a better idea of whom I am talking to.
Despite claiming that theory is in its essence humble (which I agreed with in my original post towards you), your theory concerning theory is presented as superior to other methods of belief – going so far as to claim it is not even something you believe in – that it is “the only game in town” – an objective facet of the universe - thus inscrutable, infallible and in its constitution superior to all other forms of human mental constructs. For all the uncertainty you speak of, your theory on theory seems to be the only certainty which you possess. To admit that you believe in something is not a weakness. It is a strength to know your own divinity and trust to your beliefs without condescension or implied superiority – to also know that beliefs change just like theories do.
If the first step in creating a theory is to venture a guess then that is a belief founded upon nothing but intuition. Theory is belief. Not ONLY belief, but it does seem to predicate upon that first step. If belief is as useless as disbelief then this is the equivalent to agnosticism. Uncertainty must be practiced to a point; if in your quest to remain completely humbled you never make a decision with certainty you will never get anywhere. You will never formulate a theory because you have no hypothesis to believe in to test.
In the approaching of that theory do you not believe the hypothesis, no matter how loosely held is still an influencing factor in the direction of the experiment? That in order to formulate a hypothesis you had to believe in it enough to create it? To believe in the validity of your experiment enough to want to create it?
I would never go so far as to claim that there is nothing brutish etc. about the world. It is my belief that these qualities are less fundamental – that unity came before division. Well, perhaps not, that is a bad way to describe it. That…life only exists because of love, but changes due to suffering? Again, bad explanation. Anyway, I never denied the negatives existed – in fact my first post in this discussion was all about how suffering is a defining force in growth and life (then is it even negative other than in our perception?). My mistake for making such a grand overarching statement regarding tribal culture. It seems either someone focuses only on the barbaric, or only on the noble aspects of said cultures, rather than the balance. In future discourse I will be less guilty of such.
One cannot attribute theory as a certainty to animals: this is an abstraction onto the animal, a definite representation of reality. I doubt very much that the cat considers itself a theoretician. Projecting human philosophies onto behavioural aspects which are decidedly older than us is illogical. This is very much the case with theory: don’t believe that theory is the only way to approach the world with humility; as that is decidedly not humble. Beliefs change as they are tested and no longer work to explain the world around us; and yes they only change with humility, once they are no longer able to explain what they pertain to. The thing about a belief though, is even with the limitations you’ve described, it can go further than theory has the potential to…as belief is inherently subjective and not singularly verifiable by repeatability – you may still see this as a weakness but it embraces that which makes us human. When we have held and practiced a belief long enough and it continues to make sense…it becomes something we don’t just believe in our minds anymore…but know in our hearts. To know something fully it then is expressed in every facet of our relationships with the world, we don’t have to ask ourselves if an action is in accordance with our beliefs or theories, if the action is natural it is something we know is right. You might point to this as the bane of your existence “but that is certainty!” Yes. This is how we act with conviction, instead of airily testing hypothesis after hypothesis and living in a realm of abstraction that leaves us unable to trust another human being – decidedly non-collectivistic.
“Also, this is just obvious, but you can’t discover what you are or what anything is via culture.”
So all these cultural influences you are pointing me towards will not help me in any way discover who I am? Then why go to the trouble. All these people whose beliefs you are pawning didn’t help you construct your view of the world? It is through our collective investigations and contributions to culture that we offer to others parts of our own realizations to which they then build to their own realization. If you didn’t believe in the people you’re referencing at so many turns, if they didn’t help you discover more who you are, you wouldn’t be telling me about them. You wouldn’t have been exposed to them in the first place without culture.
Calling something “unscientific” denotes it is inferior – which then places science in the position of : “the finest method to winnow truth from lie”. The word “unscientific” is the fallback of the skeptic. Even “open-minded skepticism” means you can’t just trust someone at their word. Ever. The skeptic is a dehumanizer. For your claims that culture cannot teach you about yourself, you’ve let this culture invalidate your very self – if as you said self interest can involve helping your neighbours – perhaps this deserves an exploration and redefinition of self? If the theory of self is failing…then theory should not be so stagnant as to fail to undertake a new quest for understanding. I really enjoy the concept of Cosmic Collectivism, but I believe there is some dissent between your operating system of belief and what you would like to achieve. I appreciate the view that we explore and further our knowledge whilst growing but without projecting purpose onto things as though they are without it already. It is one of our main conceits and I agree that there is no present system that has it right – including mine and your systems of belief.
The problem of mind has been keeping science in a tail chasing game because science can only constitutionally understand what is measurable, deterministic, verifiable – objective. The quest to bring all things into the realm of measurement and predictability is ultimately the quest for complete control and thus certainty. Science can only give meaningful answers in the realm of the quantifiable – and if there are realms that are unquantifiable? This is why there will never be a “Theory of Everything”. I know deep in my heart with humility that never will numbers capture beauty in so moving and perfect a way as I feel when I experience beauty. It doesn’t matter if you can count every neuron being fired and every chemical interchange in my body at the time of experienced beauty…if you made me read the enormous printout that described it all…I doubt very much it would convey any kind of beauty.
Making things “mean” something can often interfere with the perception of what it “is” – which is a sentiment I know you obviously can appreciate. Even the most humble theory is just an explanation, and will ALWAYS be lacking what the experience that led to the theory had to offer. There is something indescribable lost in the description, no matter how minute or nuanced it may be – no theory can ever fully account for direct human experience.
Campbell’s ideas are beautiful and intriguing yes, but they are not certain, nor are they a true theory of everything for anyone but himself. If you would like elaboration upon Campbell’s work, I should highly recommend one of your fellow Reality Sandwich contributors: Charles Eisenstein. My introduction to his work was through “The Ascent of Humanity” which is a monumental undertaking for anyone desiring to have a more complete understanding of the current world and thus the shaping influences and oft hidden undercurrents that propelled us here. And you can read it online in its entirety if you so choose.
As a final note, this type of discourse is nice…but it is also sadly lacking when both of us can pontificate to such great lengths as to only be able to respond to small amounts of what each of us is writing. I am especially guilty of this. So, if you feel I sorely overlooked any part of what you have tried to convey please let me know!
In the meantime I will be reading further on Tom Campbell...and getting some much needed sleep!