Super Free Will: Metaprogramming and the Quantum Observer
Contrary to popular belief among most brain scientists today, I will argue that free-will not only exists, but ultimately is all that remains in an ever changing, uncertain universe. In order to understand the body of my argument, we’ll need to delve into quantum physics, Skinnerian behaviorism, neurological imprinting, brainwashing and metaprogramming.
Here is Robert Anton Wilson’s definition of Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the infinite regress.
A demonstration by Dr. Von Neumann that quantum mechanics entails an infinite regress of measurements before the quantum uncertainty can be removed. That is, any measuring device is itself a quantum system containing uncertainty; a second measuring device, used to monitor the first, contains its own quantum uncertainty; and so on, to infinity. Wigner and others have pointed out that this uncertainty is only terminated by the decision of the observer.
What this means, and has been proven time and again in experiment after experiment, is that without a conscious observer, quantum states remain uncertain and in a state of indeterminacy. It is the conscious observer that makes the uncertainty wave function collapse out of an either/or “maybe” into something "real". No experiment has yet been able to remove this observer from the results. Therefore without consciousness, there is no wave function collapse, and no "reality". Scientists, including Einstein have been fighting this conclusion for more than 70 years, when he said, “God does not play dice”, but experiment after experiment has proven this to be the case. The Aspect Experiment in 1982 and its dozen follow up experiments have reproduced this non-local consciousness dependent result. This is most troubling to determinist materialists as it goes against their training and every other working scientific theory. Yet the power of quantum mechanics has made itself known in almost every field of technology and industry.
So why hasn’t this shattering revelation made greater waves through the scientific community? I honestly don’t have the answer to that, other than history is full of old paradigms dying slow, hard deaths. So rigid in their thinking are people (and therefore scientists), that as Thomas Kuhn, the author of the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), said, "The triumph of a new paradigm may therefore depend as much on this generation’s dying off as it does on decisive confirmation or refutation, as more traditional philosophies of science understand such things." This is an important point, which I’ll get back to in a bit.
Meanwhile, as our understanding of the brain has increased, we have been able to isolate and tie numerous psychological functions to deterministic brain chemistry. Tweak a molecule here, get a psychological effect there. Apply an electrode there, get a psychological effect here. This has led most neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, including the likes of Francis Crick, to conclude that any conception of having free-will is an illusion. Francis Crick says,
All your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free-will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
He is only partially correct, as we shall soon see.
Eastern yogi philosophers and psychedelic aficionados have said similar things as Crick. Either through advanced meditative techniques or psychedelic ingesting, these people have temporarily transcended their neural conditioning and brain programming, and from this higher, more self-aware perspective, have correctly concluded that most of what makes up "them" is arbitrary programming, robotic behavioral patterns inserted either through conditioning or imprinting at certain stages of their life.
So what are imprints? Imprinting was first demonstrated by Konrad Lorenz in the 1930s when he was able to imprint himself as the mother to hatched ducklings. He discovered that there are moments of imprint vulnerability where an electrochemical bond is formed in neural circuitry that precedes any further conditioning. Another way of looking at this is imprints are hardwired neurological patterns, whereas conditioning is composed of looser, more easily reprogrammed softwired patterns. Conditioning can be changed by positive or negative re-enforcement, but imprints require something altogether more traumatic. We could say that imprints form the basis of our personality and remain unchanged throughout our life, except under the most traumatic of experiences. It is here that the science of brainwashing comes in.
The most notable case of brainwashing is the story of Patti Hearst, who having been kidnapped a "rich daddy’s girl", came back six weeks later as a different person, robbing banks, and proclaiming the birth of a new "people’s liberation". This brainwashing was accomplished through a combination of drugs and extreme trauma. Kept in a locked closet for weeks, taunted by her captors, and fed only the smallest amount of food, Patti went into extreme shock, and in turn become imprint vulnerable. Unbeknownst to her, and after weeks of torment, these same captors befriended her as if they were the ones rescuing her. As they opened the closet door, they immediately started calling her a new name. Loving, comforting, feeding and taking care of her, they gave her a whole new identity and narrative. Claiming that her abductors were working for her father, she immediately came to love and accept these people, her saviors, completely forgetting her old life, and accepting this new reality imprint without question. In short, she was brainwashed.
Ok, so where does free-will come in? So far it seems like I’ve decimated every last shred of free-will and human dignity. Yes, and for good reason! Unless we understand the full extent of just how brainwashed and programmed we are, we will never have anything close to a free-will. To be free, it first helps to intimately understand just how imprisoned we are by our own nervous system. Freedom comes from knowledge, not ignorance. To know thyself is the pathway to liberation and freedom, as I will now explain.
Let’s start with simple conditioning. An addiction to something would be a good example of strong mental conditioning. Most people who are seriously addicted think they can’t stop their addiction, feeling they are slaves to their nervous system programming, compelling them to get more of whatever it is they are addicted to. We know that addictions can happen at both the psychological level like gambling, or in the physical (central nervous system level) like crack cocaine. If the person has a strong enough desire to seek adequate help, they can with assistance overcome their addiction. Some people are strong enough to be able to do this without help, but the majority look for others’ support to get them through the thick of it. Is this desire to overcome their mental conditioning the same as free-will, or just another higher level of programming? Some would argue that there were other programs, super-programs that eventually re-wrote these lower subroutines of addiction. Or what some AI researchers like to call super-goals. Ok, this has some computational basis, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to describe in adequate neurological terms precisely how overcoming ones programming is not the beginnings of something more uncertain and indeterministic. Remember the indeterminate conscious observer in quantum mechanical systems? We’ll get back to that.
So what are these supergoals then? I think there are many. The next layer beyond conditioning as I mentioned earlier is neurological imprinting; hard-wired electro-chemical bonds that program behavior and our subsequent perception of reality and self. Almost everyone you’ll ever meet has never re-imprinted their nervous systems. However, for those lucky or not so lucky individuals who have taken a large quantity of a psychedelics (what John Lilly calls metaprogramming agents in his groundbreaking book, Programming and Metaprogramming in The Human Biocomputer) these electro-chemical imprints can be re-programmed, or re-imprinted too. Lilly described this ability to re-program our programs, meta-programs. He then goes into considerable scientific and rigorous detail describing all the ways we can metaprogram our own brain, changing its programming as we see fit.
The question now needs to be asked, if we are nothing more than our programs, imprints and conditioned reflexes, then who is the "we" who is doing the programming? Who is the metaprogrammer? Some might remain steadfast and say that this new higher you is also just a collection of programs, or metaprograms. In either case, for those of us lucky enough to have metaprogammed ourselves and not been metaprogrammed against our will (brainwashing), it sure feels like we are a lot more free than we are ordinarily. Any so-called free-will we have in an ordinary state of consciousness feels contrived and robotic compared to being in a metaprogramming state. So if nothing else, this thing called free-will is relative. There are states where we are more "free" than others.
John Lilly has gone further in exploring the depths of the mind and the limits of metaprogramming, and said that after a while of metaprogramming, you eventually realize there are limits to certain metaprograms, or what he also likes to call beliefs about beliefs. Robert Anton Wilson is fond of calling them catmas, with dogmas being absolute beliefs, and catmas being relativistic metabeliefs. And as you play around with metaprograms, then there is a new "self", the self that is meta-meta-programming! Programming ones own metabeliefs. Or what John Lilly also liked to call supra-meta-beliefs. John Lilly quickly realized there is no limit to this self-recursion when he uttered his most famous quote,
In the province of the mind, what the mind believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind there are no limits.
In other words, as you become more aware of your supra-metabeliefs, you can continue upwards to meta-meta-meta-beliefs, ad infinitum – the neurological equivalent of the Von Neumann Catastrophe. If this relative scale of increasing neurological metaprogramming freedom is not some kind of free will, then I think the meaning itself has been destroyed, and for no damn good reason, other than dogmatic stubbornness on the part of people unwilling to let go of an old dying deterministic paradigm, against the new empirically verifiable new paradigm of quantum mechanics. All physical systems are subject to quantum mechanical principles, which are in turn subject to a conscious observer. So no matter how you slice it, the conscious observer is both separate and a part of the physical world. Consciousness it would seem is a fundamental in the universe, possibly the one and only fundamental, preceding all other observed physical properties, which are determined by consciousness.
Quoting Robert Anton Wilson again:
Since all human knowledge is neurological in this sense, every science may be considered a neuro-science; e.g., we have no physics but neurophysics, no psychology but neuropsychology and ultimately, no neurology but neuroneurology. But neuroneurology would itself be known by the nervous system, leading to neuroneuroneurology etc., in an infinite regress.
But as John Lilly humbly admitted, even though in the mind there are no limits, the body on the planetside trip has definite limits locked in by biology. So as long as we return to and operate within it, we are subject to its limits. However, each day we are becoming more aware of how these genetic limits work, and soon will figure out how to overcome those limits, first with genetic engineering, then nanoengineering.
So here we are altering our own molecular DNA, and soon the entire physical world, down to the atomic level. Another way of looking at this is, having evolved out of the slime, DNA is now becoming recursive enough to begin altering itself with intentionality and purpose towards something stronger, smarter, and more versatile. Going further, the atomic world is now becoming aware of itself, and as it becomes aware of these limits, just like we becoming aware of our own programming, will begin to re-program this matter to become more expressive to this internationality, to the logos, the memeplex that is our noosphere.
Will this self-recursion ever end? Probably not. Do we have free will? As I have shown, free-will is a matter of degree. It is easily demonstrated that we can increase the levels and degrees of freedom as we become aware of our own limits. I would say, not only is there free-will, but eventually everything in the universe, including the very essence of ourselves will become re-defined by it. In the end, everything will change, but one thing will remain and increase: the level of our free-will, our consciousness, the fundamental that is and comprises everything.
Citations
Crick, Francis. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul. Scribner reprint edition, 1995.
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962.
Lilly, John C. Programming & Metaprogramming In The Human Biocomputer. Three Rivers Press; 2nd Revised Edition, 1987.
Wilson, Robert Anton. The Illuminati Papers. And/Or Press, 1980.
- 3-26-08
- Paul Hughes's blog
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consciousness is not 'non local' as it is not a thing
Christian de Quincey www.deepspirit.com warns not to describe consciousness with 'energy talk', because consciousness is not non-local but rather not-located. It is not a thing, and so has no location or measurement, but is rather how matter-energy feels-from-the-inside, and intelligently self organizes.
"But as John Lilly humbly admitted, even though in the mind there are no limits, the body on the planetside trip has definite limits locked in by biology. So as long as we return to and operate within it, we are subject to its limits. However, each day we are becoming more aware of how these genetic limits work, and soon will figure out how to overcome those limits, first with genetic engineering, then nanoengineering."
This is what I deeply fear. And images of the worst depictiions of human folly hell from the brushstrokes of Hieronymous Bosch come flooding to mind!
Because you see, you miss a vital point.
THE same mindset that is creating willy nilly the hell which is our world has much money invested in this you are talking about, Transhumanism. It is the carry on from Eugenics! It is 'making Nature better' as 'man' sees fit. I don't want any part of this. So this oppression will create a huge very dangerous schism between the powers that be, their mindcontrolled gullible followers (sorry) and those of us who do not see any need whatsoever, and do not want--as is OUR free will, to be 're-DNAed' or whatever sorry Orwellian schpeel sell they got ready for those of us who need 'bringing up to speed", and 'bettered'.
This is an horrific vision. I just hope anough people will see through it and demand NO MORE!
re: consciousness is not local
Hi Zezt, Thanks for sharing your concerns... I think you might have misunderstood the larger picture I was attempting to convey. I never said consciousness is a thing that can be located... quite the contrary. The entire reason I used so many materialist analogies, is because it is those analogies that those people you fear (tranhumanist, eugenicist, etc.) use to dehumanize, deconstruct and denigrate consciousness to nothing more than a mere epiphenomona of material reality. It is they that are trying to lock it down and explain it away. What I've attempted to do here, is take THEIR framework and deconstruct their paradigm, turn it on it's head from the inside out, and show that even from their perspective we still have free will, not just free will, but something greater still - nirvana, liberation, moksha. This is what all the great sages and mystics have been saying for centuries - that we are consciousness, that everything is consciousness, that it can't be located, or pegged, because consciousness is the very thing we perceive all of this material reality with. Consciousness is not the epiphenomona, material reality is. In the meantime, we must come to terms with the this material reality we experience, and what it means to "be human" on this planetside trip we call life. So on that note, I'm sorry you're experience of it so far is hellish, and becoming more so. What do you suggest to get out of it?
do we understand NOW? never MIND the 'future'?
Hi Paul, and others joining this fascinating debate ;)
As I say in title of my response, do we even understand our reality now? How we are being played?
OK, fact: millions of children are being drugged in schools, homes, and foster homes. How do you feel when I say that? Are you shocked? Were you aware? Are you alright with it?
But it is so. Now are these drugs a 'technology' would you say? They are supposedly to stop children being 'defective' so they can behave and get their 'education'.
So, what is 'education' they want us to have. That is forced on all children. Do we know what this is? Or do we take it for granted? For all you know it may be the most dire mindcontrol. And I am claiming it is!........
And I am completely opposed to the drugging of children, and their general abuse from the scam education mindcontrol system.
Now, it is but a short step away from drugging children to also genetically modifying unborn foetuses so as to make them 'uber children' right?
Or do you feel that unborm babies and children have no rights and should have their devlopment 'jacked' by technology.
I see it as horror. So what happens to the likes of me who is strongly opposed to this abuse against humanity? Termination?
If you argue it is only natural. Are you saying that drugging babies, infants and children is natural? ( I know you didn't say that Paul, I am trying to include all reponders remarks as well as your own)
Someone tries to compare a child foetus growing in a mother's womb with what this mindset is doing to the planet. I strongly disagree. A mother and her unborn baby are in symbiotic union. Our situation faced with a mindset trying to take over role of of the Mother! And this process is more like CANCER!
Are you not aware what is happening to all the species of Earth, to the trees, seas, and the biosphere. This is an unprecedented assault on the very rich taprestry of natural dynamic balance we all need to live in unison with. All species need this not just us!
If one doesn't agree and comply with the dominant paradigm then you can be classed as being 'mentally ill', and dealt with. That procedure has been and continues to go on as politcal control. This is in great part what I mean by 'do we understand now?'. Are we aware of the game being played, and by who?
Eventually people have to stand up and say enough. Leave me the fuck alone! Leave my children alone. Leave the animals and the land alone! It is WRONG!
Excellent Post!
I wonder if you have encountered Mark Pesce's Bios and Logos talk from Mindstates 2002?
Much of what you speak of relates greatly to his particular take on 2012 eschatology, concrescence, and the rise of intentionality.. the alchemical work.
As for Zezt's concerns, which are really quite valid, I can only say that this flow of technology is really quite inevitable.. (I know I will probably not be very well liked for that comment..but I feel it is true.)
Samsara is Nirvana. Nirvana is Samsara. Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is form. The tao which can be deviated is not the eternal Tao.. and All is Buddhamind.. including civilization as it exists today.. in the form of a corporate leviathan sucking as a parasite upon the face of all we perceive to be beautiful.. but I dare say to you that the same thing can be said of a child within it's mother womb. It ravishes the body of it's mother.. and lives as a parasite upon it's mother. Sometimes, more often in past ages, the pregnancy would even kill the mother. Does beauty not emerge from the pain of birth?
I think the fundamental problem exists in the way in which you perceive a dichotomy between the actions of human and the natural order. It is 'making Nature better' as 'man' sees fit. I think that the problem that creates this hell you speak of, is the fact that man perceives himself as separate from nature. There is NOTHING upon the face of this planet that is not natural. Not a single thing. Atom bombs, coke cans, plastic rotting in landfills, factory farms, concentration camps, sweatshop factories, chemical weapons.. Mother nature can be a bloody bitch. (See- George Carlin's exceedingly wise take on the Environment)
The Kali Yuga is not a pretty time but this process of birth must be gone through. Anyone who has taken a psychedelic before knows that very often, you learn the most from the hardest experiences. You can have three hundred psychedelic light shows and not learn a damn thing but one experience where you delve into the deepest coldest layers of the hell parts of your self- you are able to bring those problems to the forefront and confront them head on. To look your demons in the face and tell them to fuck off. Otherwise- they stay within the shadows waiting for their turn to take the helm.
No amount of Neo-luddite anarcho-primitivist retreat from the inevitability of technology is going to save us..If you destroy all of civilization and technology and go back to a primordial state, you are merely running away from a problem. I perceive it as a retreat into the unconscious. Sociological regression in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. That energy of invention, which is a fundamental part of spirit, will find a way to manifest itself again.. Just as it did the last time we lived in hunter-gatherer societies. I am not 'pro-technology' but I am pro-reality.. The situation we are in does indeed look dire.. which is why we need to learn how to make our technology sustainable and find the middle-path. We can't just turn a blind eye or try to wish it away. We must deal with technology not as the adversary but as a fundamental part of nature. Our human nature and that of the planet; because the two are one and the same.
We build the door in order to walk through it.
The predator will be a predator whether he is using his teeth, a blunt rock, a carved out spear, a bow and arrow, a musketgun, a sub-machine gun, or a atom bomb. Corporate domination certainly favors the use of technology.. but that's only because it is engaged in what it sees as survival of the fittest. It uses the best tools it can at it's disposal and always will. It wants the sharpest fangs to catch it's prey. This is why we cannot disregard technology. It is far too dangerous to be willfully ignorant of such things. The technology itself is neutral.. as is knowledge. This is what we must see. Ignorance may be bliss.. but it is not nirvana and it is not wisdom.
Our problem doesn't stem from technology.. Technology is merely the externalization and amplification of functions that were already present.. The problems of today stem, not from new technology, but from very old outdated technology. The reptilian brain. The brain stem, the neocortex, and the limbic system. When these parts of our evolution are running the show- we get corporate predation. It's lions and gazelles to the fifth power. Everything happening today is completely "natural". It is nature amplified exponentially as we move up the spiral of time.
You cannot destroy technological civilization. It is impossible. It is impossible because you are a series of technologies. The first technologies were biological. As the first single celled organism evolved, it gained a trait that amplified a function that gave it an advantage over the other organisms. Thus- the first technology was born. Significant technological innovations soon followed with the advent of the nervous system, the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and finally, the culmination of the previous biological forms- the human brain.
This is the ultimate biological technology. The human brain represents the point where the biological sphere reached it's maximum point of radial (or external) complexity.. which brought with it - consciousness.
At this crucial point of bifurcation- The system begins to fold in upon itself in the processes of tangential (or internal) complexity. Consciousness then becomes the new cutting edge for the unravelment of further complexity and novelty.
Soon after consciousness- we get the technology of language. The ability to transfer consciousness. The first artifact of a truely human technological civilization. At first- an amplification of the previous technology of hominid mouth grunts and gesturing. Eventually- we discover the technology to covert these mouth grunts into visual images and we arrive at the technology of the word. Carved into rock and written in sand.. but then we get the technology of papyrus which leads to the technology of the manuscript. Following soon after is the technology of the book. All the way up the spiral to the technologies of today. One of which you are using right this moment as you read these words. Technology is inescapable where consciousness exists. It is a very easy scapegoat but the problem is much more substantial and complex. It lies in the detritus of our path through radial complexity.. These leftover adaptation functions were at one time the cutting edge but now they are impediments to further evolution. We must use our tangential energy of consciousness to see the problem that lies not outside of us but within. You must free your mind and your body will follow.
Perhaps if we understood that we are in this world but not of it, we would take better care of it and be able to prevent out un-naturalness from destroying it.
Just look at the good this dualism has wrought us thus far. There are many people that have felt that way in the past and it certainly didn't make them altruistic by any means. This dualism is what gave us the Inquistion and the Witch Trials. Now it gives us evangelism and Christian Neo-cons who plunder the Earth to death because they come from 'another place' and know that they will be going back there.
The earth is often quite welcoming and accomodating to us, but that doesn't necessarily mean we are not alien or partly alien. It is more magical and loving when two distinct entities can live in harmony, despite their differences. Or when a living planet opens its arms to an alien entity as well as it does for her own.
Materially, in the forms of our radial self, We are of this Earth. We share common DNA with every lifeform that exists on this planet. We may seem out of place but only in the same way that a ten month old baby is out of place in it's mother's womb.
Spiritually, in the form of our tangential self, We have the divine spark within our consciousness. This consciousness is without location.. but it is also in all locations. It is both alien and native. It is at home everywhere and nowhere. Except for it's true home which lies in the emptiness, the mirror of the infinite silence that lies behind your eyes.
mankind as cancer
'(See- George Carlin's exceedingly wise take on the Environment)'
It's true that mankind is a part of Nature and I'd say George Carlin is a very funny man, but I'm, not sure if he's all that wise.
He says -
'The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!'
But has the planet ever had to contend with mankind as a planetary cancer?
'Its interesting that if you take a photograph of a city from the air, and look at the way the city spreads out into the environment, its very reminiscent of the way a cancer grows in the body. . .
Lets look first at why a cell in the body becomes cancerous. In the centre of each cell are the genes. They contain the information that keep you functioning as a single living organism, rather than just a bowl of biological soup. Now if the genes in a cell are disturbed, that cell may become selfish, . . it may no longer support the system as a whole, but instead go off, doing its own thing, at the expense of the body , - - it becomes a cancer' Peter Russell
http://www.peterrussell.com/GB/GBtext.php
If something doesn't
If something doesn't change.. the planet will survive.. but most of the more complex lifeforms on it won't. It hasn't had to deal with humanity before.. but it wouldn't be the first ice-age it has had. After the ice-age- the planet would most likely return to an equillibrium state.. minus several billion humans, higher mammals, and other complex lifeforms. I could be wrong though.
I don't think the "cancer" (if it can be called that) is humanity as a whole. I certainly don't consider myself cancerous and I am sure you feel the same way about yourself. I try to avoid being as "cancerous" as possible.. This source of this "cancer" is not it's material manifestations. You could destroy all of them but still have the same problem because it's source is the dualism of the ego. The ego is a psychic tumor that prevents us from perceiving our source, our real identity...and this, my friend- is what psychedelics are for. =)
All three of these responses
All three of these responses so far address many important questions regarding this somewhat bizarre world we find ourselves contemplating. I've only been constantly catching my breath in this world for a little over twenty years. Entering adulthood and being met by a typhoon of mind-blowing information and ideas has been a little overwhelming (you guys could have made a cartoon or something, you know?), but what I am now seriously considering is that I don't know what belief is, something a little bit more solidified from this post.
Believe in nothing and trust in everything, a friend once told me. It seems to me that humans have brought into the material world everything we've ever truly wanted, no? For the more rationally based it has been in the material world, and for the more visionary in the world of the imagination. Why wouldn't there be a quantum leap into an evolution of consciousness upon the depletion of the material planet? Could that be the hardest and most beautiful lesson? I wonder.
The events that are happening in the world today are drawing the outline for a picture whose obscenity is beyond our imagination. This is perhaps due to our decision to move away from a more collective mindset, and assert our powers individually. Not much different from the adolescent no? I feel/think/sense (I am not sure) some things being unveiled the further we continue on this path. To me, growing up in the 90's as a complete consumer of media culture, this transformation of my perspective/consciousness (again I am not sure) has been the most exciting, radest thing ever! The words of Willy Wonka no longer seem so crazy.
McKenna's mention of coincidencia opposortum makes me smile. With the dawn of potential "complete synchronicity"? could this investigation of consciousness and the quantum model explode into the final claiming of our birthrights as dreamers of the dream? Nassim Haramein, a quantum theorist exploring ancient spiritual/sacred geometric traditions is surely inspiring in this vein.
When I was a child, about 10-13 years ago, after a long day/night of immense "fun" I would every now and then lie awake in my bed, with my eyes open dreaming the same landscapes I had experienced during the day. Friends would accompany me in my room, sometimes an entire amusement park would lay before my eyes. For years I had no plausible explanation other than "my mind was playing tricks on me" but maybe it was a little glimpse of the possibilities. Believe in nothing, trust in everything? I don't know, "for talking monkey's to speak of truth is hubris of the highest degree!" -mckenna :)
I recently compiled Rena Jones Driftwood (2007) with Imagination in the Light of Nature...It's a really nice combination and awesome lecture by McKenna, check it out here
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9fbirp
hi friend
hi friend-of-the-waters,
thanks for the sensitive comment! I often wonder what it would be like to be plunged into this world as a 20 year old today. It is hard for me to imagine to be honest, though in some ways it might be better, depending on what particular social reality you have been thrown into. I definitely see a huge amount of evolution compared to when i was young.
as for making a cartoon, I am trying that as well - at least animated videos. Please check out www.iclips.net/2012 . We just put up a new segment with Green Fest founder Kevin Danaher, and my original segment is there as well.
My goal is to push in a variety of media and also see how these ideas of sustainable transformation, a new planetary culture, etc., can be crafted to reach different subsets of the global population
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
free will
I'd say free will is a convincing illusion. All is One, there are no individuals, so how can there be individual autotonamous free will?
'Our normal sensation of ourselves as isolated egos inside a bag of skin, is a hallucination. Because, when you describe human behavior, or the behavior of a mouse, or a rat, or a chicken, or anything that you want to describe, you find that as you try to describe its behavior accurately, you must also describe the behavior of its environment.—Alan Watts
"..there is no boundary between subjuct and object, self and not self, seer and seen. ..of all the boundaries we construct, the one between self and not-self is the most fundamental. It is the boundary we are most reluctant to surrender. It was after all the first boundary we ever drew. It is our most cherished boundary." Ken Wilber
"Who Cares?" by Ramesh
hi ada,
I agree with you in a way. I am very persuaded by the Vedantic perspective of Ramesh - check out his wonderful book, "Who Cares?" He was a student of the guru who wrote "I Am That", another great book. They agree that on the level of the "bodymind organism," the individual ego, there is no free will. "Enlightenment" is the "extinction of personality" because it reveals the totality of conditioning - that it was just God's decision, having nothing to do with your intention, that led to your "enlightenment," if it occurs.
However, in this schema, which I think fits Paul's article fairly well, there is, ultimately, still free will - just not at the level of the individual but at the level of the Atman, the non-local consciousness that emanates all manifestation. All you would have to do is switch your locus of identification from your little self to the big Self, and you would realize that free will is infinite - even, as Paul writes, all there is.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
ramesh balsekar/wayne liquorman
I studied their teachings for many years which is probably why I'm a little bit fanatical about defending it.
'All you would have to do is switch your locus of identification from your little self to the big Self,'
That's something I'm trying to work on - I actually try to prompt myself to remember that I am in a sense 'within mySelf', 'mySelf' being the world - if that makes sense.
But I still feel that I have no free-will, whatever comes to me, I have no control over, and how I react to it is anyone's guess.
why worry, be happy
' ...the basis of my extreme optimism is that I think that everything is under control, we are in the grip of a force so powerful that the notion that we could jeprodise or overthrow it is completely preposterous because we are acting in accordance with a resonance that was set millions and millions of years ago..'
Terrence Mckenna
respons to Ada
It is a common notion that our world is a materialist universe ruled by deterministic forces. This is an arbitrary and preferred bias of many working scientists, because it's easier to understand a world that can be fully explained by some equation. But here, we are talking about consciousness itself. Now, if like many brain scientist, you believe that consciousness is a by-product of materialist forces, then of course there is no free-will. However, as quantum mechanics has shown, things are not ruled by deterministic forces. Further, consciousness appears to play a vital role in the outcome of probalisitic events. However, even then we are still working within a materialistic paradigm, which, regardless of how insistent anyone might argue, is still a bias.
There is another bias, one which I prefer to take, which is that consciousness is primary, and material reality the epiphenomena. Can you prove or disprove that one bias is more valid than the other? Each has presented evidence, but because we are dealing with consciousness itself, the very thing we are examing this evidence with, we are beyond proof. However there is one thing the consciousness bias has over the materialist bias - it is inclusive of both western scientific "objective" knowledge and eastern mystical "inner" knowledge. It is the science of Vedanta, yoga and tantra. If consciousness is primary, then it is not a product of materialistic and deterministic forces, but the other way around.
Regarding the individual versus the whole, there is no difference between these two. Each is part of the other. Are you a human experiencing god consciousness, or a god experiencing human consciousness? Yes, unitive consciousness, nirvana, god consciousness, this is the ultimate freedom, this is the super-free will I'm talking about.
I do think that
I do think that Consciousness is primary.
I also think the body/mind is completely at the mercy of the whims of this Consciousness/Tao. A body/mind has no control, over this Universal Force, so speaking as a body/mind i have no control.
Response to Memetic Alchemy
Yes, I am aware of Mark Pesce's talk. He was instrumental in helping me with Future Hi during it's hey day. I wonder about your comment when you said "I can only say that this flow of technology is really quite inevitable.. (I know I will probably not be very well liked for that comment..but I feel it is true.)"
To this day, the cultural divide between psychedelicism and transhumanism continues to elude me. Each is operating under a deeply mistaken notion of the others philosophy. Transhumanist are by and large hard-nosed materialist, because they see it as the bedrock of all technological development. However, what they fail to see, is that many of the most critical scientific and technological breakthroughs came not only from human minds, but from human minds in touch with transcendental consciousness. For gawds sake, silicon valley is the brain child of acid heads!
Most importantly, if these same tranhuamnist honestly look at where all of this liberating technology is heading, it is towards a profound liberation of matter and therefore of consciousness. They talk "bravely" about the wonders of uploading, yet steadfastly refuse to explore the frontiers of their own consciousness right now.
So the question remains - will these technologies liberate or enslave us? Very valid concerns, which we need to address, not by hoping it will go away, but bravely facing it square on, and looking to it as an extension of ourselves, and through our own liberation, these technologies can become extensions of our highest good.
Exactly. =)
Exactly. =)
matter as emerging from consciousness?
As I see it, the opposite of the scientific materialistic notion of consciousness as emerging from matter--ie., matter as emerging from consciousness is really still part of the same misunderstanding.
That, now, instead of matter being primary, and thus spiritual reality is made off-limits/taboo, degraded, we get belief systems that denounce material reality. The proof of this is the Eastern philosophical concept of matter being an illusion, which they term 'Maya'. Which is Idealism.
What we rather need to understand is a more phenomenological intersubjective experience of reality. If this is not understood, then we fall into the belief that matter needs liberating, when all the time the very reason we don't feel this is already so, is precisely because of our boxed in conceptual beliefs. Either materialist or idealist or dualist, etc.
We cannot be so naive after all we have been through. The promises of the 'new shiny techno world' (images of those cheesy 1950s ads spring to mind). To imagine that at long last 'transhumanist techno' is goona be our saviour...? Please! Many of us have lost very humanity!!! Never mind onward to a 'brave new transhumanism'. We rather need to re~member what it feels like to be a human being.
Really think about it I urge you. Who were they called who dreamed of the 'ubermensch'. Hmmmmm?
I would love to continue
I would love to continue this discussion on technology.. but I don't want to derail the discussion any more than I already have. I think comments on this post should be about Paul's most excellent article.. so if anyone wants to comment about my comment direct that to memeticalchemy@gmail.com.
Otherwise- Let's stay on topic.
oh the 'stay on topic'
Hold your horses there cowboy.
Ah- no. It's not out of censorship that I asked this.. You seem to be projecting all kinds of dark shadows onto me.. and so I really want to avoid this turning into some kind of back and forth personal vendetta that hijacks dialogue on this thread away from the actual subject matter of the article.. My call to stay on topic is out of respect for Paul. I don't wish to send the discussion on his article into a widely divergent tangent anymore than I already have. I think this subject is thoroughly worth discussion but I just don't think it's worth delving into on this particular thread. If really wish I'll talk about it with you on any public forum you wish..and we can put a link here to it.. but I think you are widely mistaken on what I am saying here.. which is leading to some pretty harsh misdirected pre-emptive attacks upon myself.
So far according to you- I believe in drugging children, I am a transhumanist techno-singularitarian (which I most certainly am not), you try twice to tie my thought to Nazism, and now I am THE MAN trying to censor you.. Um- Yeah.
Like I said- I'm not pro-technology.. I just think that it is here and it is transforming our conscious reality in fundamental ways.. and I think the important thing to realize is that we are not separate from nature. The subject/object dichotomy that keeps MAN over here on one side and NATURE over here on the other is what has misled us into situation in the first place. You are not man separate acting upon the environment. You ARE the environment. There is no zezt, and no memetic_alchemy either, only tao. ;)
"Human history, which is you know, generously fifteen thousand years old, signals to me that nature has entered a new domain of accelerated complexification. And then with the advent of post industrial revolution technologies, globalizing of technology, its clear we've entered into yet a tighter twist of the spiral. And so this situation which alarms us so much of uncontrolled change and dissolution of all boundaries and previous models of how the world is supposed to behave, is nothing more than our coming to awareness of how the world apparently really works.
The other great intellectual revolution in the last 15 years, has been the realization that nature is the same across scales. The so called fractal breakthrough, that explains why an atom and a galaxy and a solar system look the same way. It's because the same laws cause form to condense along the same lines at every level. Well, then you can look into the dilemma of your own personal existence and what do you discover? You discover death as the ever present conclusion. Well, then when you extrapolate that fractal understanding across scale, you see that apparently this mysterious thing called complete transition of form and energy which we call death, is supposed to occur at every scale. And I think we are not witnesses to nature or an accident on this planet. If nature really values complexification, then we're what its all about. And whatever we're about to do, is what its all about. And so the French has this expression to step back to leap and I think that's what we're doing here at the end of this millennium, we're stepping back and we're preparing to make the leap into a dimension as unpredictable and profound as the land masses must have seemed to the denizens of archeozoic oceans. And we don't know what it means but, change on a massive scale is what nature is about and we're about to come around the corner. It may be you know, that life intelligence is the placenta of something unimaginable, that our technology which we're extruding in this global organism which we're putting in place, is a mere glimmering. So, I'm very, I think it's all very mysterious, but I don't feel human beings can leave nature's plan and somehow fuck things up, I mean nature made the galaxies and the local group, I mean the hubris involved in the idea that we are running against the grain. No, we're just some kind of catalyst species that is making the terrestrial womb uninhabitable, apparently, because life is about to be expelled into a dimension that it can't even conceive of."-Terence McKenna
(excerpt from Esalen panel, transcript of which is available here -http://www.well.com/user/suscon/esalen/dayone.html)
so that ISN'T 'off topic?
I am not the one saying it is off topic, I am just reflecting your interpretation, and action, as someone agrees with your dream of the way things should be according to your accumulation of theories, at this present phase of learning you are experiencing, that anything which contradicts your entheusiastic flow must be 'off topic'. THAT is what I mean.
So can we now just have the freedom to explore? I won't call you off topic, nor you me, nor her him etc. Unless someone starts talking about the price of fish?
This is a massive subject and it does very much involve very very much millions of children getting drugged in our schools!
Some Indigenous people, and insightful westerners, have seen that why we 'moderns' can be so blind to the whole picture is because we think--have been 'educated'--in a compartmentalized way instead of being encouraged to have integrated vision....!
"If nature really values complexification, then we're what its all about. And whatever we're about to do, is what its all about. "
And your mentor guru Terrence Mckenna says these words, and I can tell your motion is along those lines. You are saying that 'we' are Nature and whatever we willith shalt be the law, right?
Well I ask you, whose this 'we'? I don't want your dream so where's that leave me then? A simple question. over to you.
Free will; both Personal and Transpersonal
You really got me wrong here man. I didn't say you were off topic. In fact- I specifically said that it was I that had brought the conversation off topic. I definitely wasn't trying to stifle your speech, and I resent that.. now that this is advanced a little; I see, only now, that free-will is what is at the heart of this discussion.. So I whole-heartedly retract my statement and apologize for making you feel as if I was trying to shut you up. That was very far from my intention.. but since that is obviously how I made you feel, I sincerely apologize.
Terence McKenna (only one 'R' in his first name) definitely isn't my mentor guru. I think he was one of the great geniuses of our time.. but I don't buy into everything he says 100%. I don't buy into any idea one hundred percent except maybe model agnosticism itself..but in truth, I'm even agnostic about my model agnosticism. McKenna was a great speaker and synthesizer of ideas. His thought, while highly original, is a synthesis of Chardin, Whitehead, Eisler, McLuhan, and many other thinkers. His truly original ideas, Timewave Zero and the 'stoned ape theory', I find extremely mind-boggling and interesting.. but I don't dogmatically buy into them.. They influence my thought but don't dominate it.
Are you not aware what is happening to all the species of Earth, to the trees, seas, and the biosphere. This is an unprecedented assault on the very rich taprestry of natural dynamic balance we all need to live in unison with. All species need this not just us!
I am completely aware that these things are happening. I feel, from my influence from taoism and zen- that the tao cannot be deviated from. I think that the problem is evident in the language here- Natural.
I feel that it is, in all aspects, a meaningless word. It is a linguistic construct forged by the subject/object, figure/ground relationship. It carries in it the inherent alienation of the ego which is what has lead us to this inequality with the environment in the first place.
Corporations have long figured this out and I guarantee you when a product says 'NATURAL' while not coupled with more specific terms such as organic, sustainable, fair trade... et cetera; it is meaningless. When it says 'Natural'- it is most definitely just like every other piece of GMO crap that they try to feed us. It is a meaningless word.
I am, in all respects, a optimist.. and honestly- perhaps that is the one thing that I am probably dogmatic about. It is a faith that most of the time I seem to return to. I am aware that it is a faith of a sort. It is my intuition. It rises from my experience of a higher wisdom than my own rationality. My rational self feels the environmental apocalypse without a doubt. I am not blind as you seem to think. I equally see problems with deforestation, climate change, the pharmaceutical industry, factory farms, genetically-modified organisms, the Human Genome Project, and commodification of all of life. I think that the human enterprise, history, is a terrifyingly destructive process.. but creation is destructive. That is why the age we live in, in Hindu cosmology, is called the Kali Yuga.
Those who ignore her or see her outside themselves risk destruction. Those who worship her as ishta-devata, or divine self, taste her Age of Iron as if it were gold, knowing the alchemy of her presence.- Hakim Bey
As a life form which seeks to preserve life and the sanctity of it, these things scare the living shit out of me too. They go against my instinct for self-preservation.. I don't know if 'Gaia' shares my view. The life on this planet may be concerned with it's own self-preservation as the fundamental whole as opposed to just it's significant parts. Our sun will eventually burn out.. and if our planet is a conscious entity as I often intuit it to be; it might be concerned with the survival of life as a whole.. What we as humans could possibly be is a catalyst species in this process.
I think the metaphor of birth is entirely accurate. It is a process with all kinds of screaming, blood and fluid lost, and intense excruciating pain. The child coming out of the birth canal certainly does do damage to the mother.. The possibility of death looms for both mother and child throughout the process.. but the gamble is made for creation and extension of the life stream into future ages. I intuit that this is what is happening.
I could always be wrong.. but I do not feel that what is happening is a random process. An intelligence permeates our world other than that of our ego and it's exploits.. This intelligence includes our ego but is not limited to it. Our ego only assumes it is in control.. but it lies within a nested hierarchy or holarchy. The question of free will lies within the parable of the ego's identification within itself with only one level or holon in the entire sphere. There is free will but it is free will on all levels of the holarchy..
the linear fascistic mindset
This is how it goes--the myth: well it all began back yonder....in the swamps. Nowww. That were the first technology. then...bla bla bla. we invent writing, then computer. ......and so on. Get the myth-making?!
Who is making this myth?
Who is spouting this linear story that all people who have been crushed BY it, and are crushed by it, must bow down to this great myth of technocracy? That we are told is inevitable.
It is complete rubbish.
Please understand DIVERSITY.
look at Nature. Its diversity. Are you trying to push your tecno=myth on all Nature? How foolish
To the Reverend Zezt:
Honestly- this is like debating an evangelical on evolution. You speak in heavily charged words and do nothing but finger-pointing. I am a fascist because I am putting forth a set of memes that you don't like. It's perfectly fine to disagree with someone but calling someone a fascist just because you disagree with them? It's the intellectual equivalent of calling me a heretic. Dogmatic Rigidity is the same whether it is from a Evangelical Christian, Neo-con Capitalist, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, a Neo-Nazi, Anti-Civilization Primitivist, or anarcho-fascist ("I believe people should be allowed to do anything they want as long as I approve of it").
Of course- anyone that disagrees with you is myth-making while whatever you espouse is divine law. You ask- "Who is making this myth?" and " "Who is spouting this linear story.." to your hypothetical audience like a true fearmonger. You say it like you are trying to imply that I am an avatar of the corporate leviathan. I can't help but think that you sound like a Evangelical Eco-pastor.
"Be afraid, my people! Do not be swayed by his forked toungue for here lies the Beast! Call him out for what he is! A heretic and sinner so that he may repent! THE END IS NIGH!!"
Where did I say that you must bow to my idea? What do you mean by trying to push my "techno-myth onto nature"? How am I doing that? You tell me to "understand diversity" but you can't even engage in an intelligent dialectic with someone without calling them a Fascist because they don't have an identical paradigm. It's either/or with you. Black OR white. Yin OR Yang but never TAO. I either have to accept your dualistic view of man and nature or I am a fascistic corporate technocrat who wants to drug babies, kill kittens, enslave humanity, and pave over the planet. You project your shadow onto me and I am now the big boogeyman.
I dare say you should look into the mirror and examine your approach to human relationships. Say hypothetically, that everything I am saying is dead wrong. Then instead of attacking me.. why don't you try to get me to understand your view? No one outside of your own memetic pool is going to get what you are trying to say. How do you suppose you are going to get the billions of people who don't think exactly like you to understand your point of view? Are you going to scream at them, try to scare them, attack them- Mentally? Physically? Tell me- how do YOU define fascism because that's how I define it.
You say "look at nature, it's diversity". Although- Your statement really isn't saying anything. I completely agree that our world is very diverse. Gaia springs forth a plethora of diverse forms. Each one is unique and beautiful in it's own right. In fact- it is so diverse that it even formed a self-reflecting hominid species. However- for all of it's diversity. There is still the underlying notion that we all formed from that first protozoa which was a result of the maximum complexification of the sphere of molecular chemistry.. You, however, seem to percieve this as "myth-making" so I dare ask you what you think (or judging from your responses thus far.. absolutely believe dogmatically) the origins of humanity and life are?
I view all of Gaia's manifestations as sacred. That is why I have been a vegetarian since I was seventeen and a vegan at the age of eighteen. (I'm twenty one now.) I also recognize that through all of nature there are predators. The lion does not lie with the lamb. I see this predatory nature manifest itself throughout the animal kingdom and so far it hasn't ended with humans. We have our pack hierarchies and our fair share of Alpha-males. The entire dominator culture is the behavior of over-amplified domesticated apes.
This is why technology, which I feel is neutral, can either just amplify primate-territorial games.. or it can be liberating. It all depends on the nervous system of the primate being amplified. An example is right here in front of your face, the hyperspatial sphere of linguistic intentionality that is the internet. It is the nervous system externalized and amplified. I'm sorry to break it to you but you are equally embedded in techno-culture. You have been on your computer quite a lot in order to preach the anti-technological gospel against me.
The internet can be both a tool for liberation and a tool for control. It can bring people together or it can alienate them from each other. It depends on how it is used. I am a child of the nineties so I grew up with the internet. My dad was a computer hobbyist of a sort and so since about 1993.. I've been exposed to this place. The internet allowed me to see and learn things about the world that I wouldn't have otherwise. It amplified my learning process and provided a escape from the bondage of my immediate surroundings, the stripmall corporate wasteland of Orlando, FL. My media space would be limited to books found by chance, corporate radio, and corporate television.. Through it I was able to find myself.
I think that this, the internet, may be a fragment, a foreshadowing, or what is to come. Growing up with the internet shaped my thought. It partially patterned my cognitive process as it imprinted part of it's own structure into my values such as my belief in the free flow of information and inherent decentralization. You can use it to spread memes of peace, love, sustainability. It can just as easily be used as in-home global shopping mall. You can use it to learn what is going on in the world.. but it can also be full of disinformation (see- foxnews.com) It is neutral.. but I think movements such as the rise of Open Source culture could be seen as models for how to take that structure of decentralization and the free flow of ideas and adapt them into social situations. The Internet is one of the most catalytic innovations yet and it is transforming our culture. It takes power out of the top-down television/radio media structures and redistributes it to the bottom-up structure that Internet allows.
So I must ask you- If you despise technology so much... Why are you being such a hypocrite? Why not sell your computer and all the rest of the technological innovations which I am sure surround you at this moment? Take that money and donate it to a good cause. Give it to someone who will feed the hungry or care for the sick. Or perhaps give it to an organization which is seeking to preserve wildlife or the rainforest? Then go live off of the land in some remote location.. Don't bring any tools with you though.. and no creating tools either. That is still technology. Either do that- or quit preaching because you just sound like a holier-than-thou eco-hypocrite.
the magic pixel box
Hey memetic_alchemy
I am not really a technophobe. I think the world wide web is amazing. And can get really pissed off when people are too timid to really use it and use it for home shopping or godnknowswhat
Let me ask you though. You say you grew up in the internet culture. What would you have preferred. That or having woods, and rivers, and hills to play in? Maybe you did I dunno. But I am assuming you, like most youth now spend most of their time online
Golf = Public Enemy #1
I would very much have preferred to have had lots of woods to explore.. but my woods were a few acres behind a subdivision and a wooded lot between the gas station and a strip mall. My river was a large retention pond behind my house.. and the only hill I ever knew was a man-made dirt mound that they eventually turned into a funeral home.
However- In my teenage years- my parents moved us to another part of town where our house backed up to some conservation upon the Little Econolahatchee River that was truely beautiful and I used to explore those woods thoroughly. Being a conservation- it is probably one of the only areas left in the Orlando area that is like that. Last time I visited there I could barely recognize the street I grew up on. Instead of having rivers for heron to land in they have subdivisions named 'Heron's Landing" or "Rivers End". The worst of it was this stretch of woods probably about twenty acres that they completely demolished in order to make-... get this.. a fucking driving range. Twenty acres of woods.. for a fucking driving range. Who knows how much of the planet would be saved if we could only do away with Golf.
we AGREE!!! I hate and loathe golf too!
I feel ya!
But that mindset that does that. That is really what I am wary of. That is the bottom line of how I feel. How is it that mindset has become so dead, so spiritless. So that that it seeks to flatten everything out and make it as souldead as itself?
And when I hear of the 'dreams of technology', I am seeing that mentality in control, and it scares the livin shit outta me!
Because it is a mindset that sees no wonder in what it hasn't made. Nature.