Rather Good 

 

http://bak.spc.org/everything/e/hard/texts2/kaplan.html#top

------------------------------------------------

xxx,

Yes, rather good.  It deserves to be circulated to these lists.

This is postmodernism at its best. 

At its best, however, PM is unable, by its own internal logic, to effectively criticize the scientific worldview.  The only way to criticize one construction is to offer another more inclusive construction. 

If that other, more inclusive, construction is not essentially Leibnizian, then we have not the foggiest notion of what it could be. 

Yes, the mind abhors a vacuum.  And so does a mindful nature.  Science attempts to fill that vacuum with atoms swerving in the dark.  Was any more preposterous hypothesis ever put forward?  Has any hypothesis ever been more slavishly idolized by every would-be master of this universe? 

Dan

------------------------------------------------

Then there is..............

Alexander Batthyany and Avshalom Elitzur (eds.), Mind and Its Place in the World: Non-Reductionist Approaches to the Ontology of Consciousness, Ontos, 2006, 323pp., $94.00, ISBN 3937202986. Reviewed by William Seager, University of Toronto at Scarborough

 

[10/15]

Dan:

 

Might be a good idea for you to e-mail a brief CV of you[r] own to [...]  They don't know who you are or how you fit into the meeting vetting process on RP's behalf.

Mr. Smith [a] goes to Washington:

1975.  reads Jack Sarfatti's Beyond Space and Time, begins learning about anthropics, and going on to metaphysics. 

1977.  a Sophia encounter 

1978.  2nd masters in physics, from Univ. of Md. 

In between:  freelance computer programmer in and around Baltimore.

1991.  Phenomenological interlude seeming to result in connecting with CF/RP in DC.  First time that CF has heard of eschatology. 

c. 1995.  meets with Chris Straub of the SSCI.  Introduces Gordon to CF. 

1998.  almost introduced to James Woolsey by CF.  Glass ceiling effect? 

In between:  interesting interaction with CF on and about 9/11/01, as reported to FBI.  Very little contact otherwise. 

2004.  resumption of R&D show. 

2006.  interactions focusing on RD, GN and one other avian. 

------------------------------------------------

To learn about the end of physics, Google on Peter Woit and Lee Smolin. 

 

[10/16]

The end of physics hypothesis has gone mainstream, just in the past few months.  The next intellectual shock will come when this fact is linked to another idea coming out of physics, this from Robert Laughlin of Stanford University: http://large.stanford.edu/rbl/books/b01jan02/index.htm.  As stated in Wikipedia: this book is an argument against the overuse of reductionism in fields such as string theory, and emphasizes that the future of physics research is in the study of emergence.  But I wouldn't hold my breath.  This is where some sort of external political intervention will be required to jumpstart the necessary linkage of ideas. 

'Consciousness Makes a Difference: A Reluctant Dualist’s Confession' -- Avshalom C. Elitzur.  In this introduction to his book, mentioned above Avshalom claims a to have an irrefutable argument for interactive dualism and against materialism. 

 

[10/17]

Avshalom avers that the mind/body problem is real, otherwise it would not be so baffling.  There is no other problem in the world that is anything like it, nor even approximating its conceptual impenetrability.  If it can be argued to be a pseudo-problem, then there are no genuine problems in the world.  If it is a real problem, then we can be reasonably assured that our understanding of the world will require an alternative to materialism/physicalism.  Dualism being incoherent, this leaves idealism as our only path to coherence.  Why is holism such a bugaboo to the modern mind?  It has to do with all our compartments.  What will we do without them?  It is all about the tragedy of the commons. 

 

[10/23]

The following was sent out on 10/19:

Chris,

The message?  I recognize that the interpretation you give below has become the standard view/version of the message and its disturbing nature. 

This version, however, only partially resembles the version to which I happen to subscribe.  It is based upon the modern scientific worldview and states that the visitors are from ‘Planet X’.  In my (postmodern) version the visitors are from ‘Dimension X’.  The visitors do not come in space ships; they come through portals that may sometimes appear as flying saucers.   

So, yes, I am a radical immaterialist or idealist.  We are residing in a virtual reality, an actual (dream-like) creation in which all sentient creatures participate along with whatever additional cosmic intelligence there may be, which may be viewed as God-like.  What we so blithely think of as reality is actually the construct of a cosmic conspiracy in which we are the unwitting, now about to become witting, co-conspirators. 

In other words, the world is indeed a stage.  Deep space and deep time are merely the phenomenological appendages of any sentient existence that is designed to function in a pseudo-independent fashion, i.e. independent of the Creator.  This is merely a slight restatement of what is commonly referred to as the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP).  Phenomenal nature is the veil that necessarily conceals a self-revealing God. 

So, yes, the Creationists are right about the origin of the world, but wrong about its substance, because they are dualistic (mind/spirit vs. matter).  There are two great spiritual traditions: theism and pantheism.  The theists are right about there being a Creator, but wrong about there being any real distinction between the Creator and Creation.  That distinction is only an illusion (Matrix-like) meant for the temporary benefit of us creatures.  The pantheists are right about their metaphysical monism, but then they mistakenly throw out God along with the dualistic bathwater.  Wrong move.  Panentheism (Whitehead) was a partially restorative effort. 

All of these issues have sailed right over the heads of virtually every ufologist.  The Buck Rogers mindset of the ufologists has greatly muddied these phenomenological waters, and so they have been the unwitting co-conspirators in this sixty-year cover-up.  Not to say that their confusion hasn’t been aided and abetted with strategically planted bits of disinformation.  The Serpo story is a case in point.  It was designed to partially disguise the actual interdimensional nature of our ongoing cosmic intercourse.

Disclosure, then, is actually our awakening to the illusory nature of our ‘reality’.  It is the parting of the veil of nature.  It is simply the final revelation/apocalypse that is the historical basis of the theistic tradition, i.e. the self-revealing, self-concealing God.    

That is, what I claim to be, the message behind the visitation.  The three main visitors (EBE1,2,3) may be viewed then as the actual fulfillment of what used to be merely the apocryphal Biblical story of the Three Magi (as in Majestic, etc. and bearing gifts from afar).  They were here to help prepare us for our inevitable awakening. 

How do I know this?  Mainly because of a very well-directed nudge from ‘Sophia’ about thirty years ago, and some help from Jack Sarfatti’s ‘Space-Time & Beyond’ (1975), etc.  How do I intend to prove it?  Simply by continuing to provide an intellectually/spiritually coherent focus for an ongoing (accelerating?) process of disclosure. 

Dan

---------------------------------------

On 10/18 the topic of Korea [a] was raised.  This requires a little recap.

Let us recall the 'axis of evil'.  In that case Iran and Korea were linked.  UG has recently confirmed that he was called to DC last spring to brief GWB on Iran.  Now we have the other end of that axis.  We know that the Shiites are strong on their millennialism.  Ahmadinejad is widely seen as a Y2X contender.  On the other hand, China, whose proxy is NK, is extremely nervous about the millennial likes of the Falun Gong and the Moonies, while us Westerners simply yawn.  Is it possible the the axis has two poles relative to Y2X.  Who is Iran's sponsor?  Is it the Y2X friendly faction of the 'Illuminati'/Sufis, putting the squeeze on GWB and CF? 

If someone were to ask my opinion, that is certainly where my biases would lead me.  Then what? 

If there is a next step it is to Hollywood.  I'm ready to fly there on a moment's notice.  DI is the man on the spot.  He seemed favorable to the BPWH on Friday.  Has he since been read the riot act?  Is he inside or outside the circle of aquarium untouchability?  Will GN help or hinder the Y2X initiative? 

Yes, it would seem that Hollywood would be the best place to play out this hostage crisis.  It would be a remake of the 1980 hostage crisis.  The dailies could be posted right here.  This could be interesting.  So maybe there could be at least a virtual drama. 

All we need now is a serviceable treatment for this updated version of Kingdoms Come.  And what will be the update on the 1/21/1981 political denouement? 

 

[10/24]

Synchronicity [a] control: on 10/14 I mentioned a review of Mind and Its Place in the World.  One of the contributors is Peter Lloyd.  Peter sent two emails on 10/21 referencing this website.  I don't recall who sent the reference to the book, but Peter had recently met with Jack in Paris.  Peter currently resides in Malta.  A collaborator of Peter's is Susan Waitt who has been contributing on Jack's list for some time.  It was Susan who sent the BPW link to Peter. 

Active idealists constitute a small world.  That Peter and I had not run into each other earlier, indicates that our individual radars are not what they could be.  Jack is our mutual radar man in this and many other respects. 

Having said this and recognizing Peter's perspicuity in tracking me down, I will move on to an instant critique.  But first the links:

Peter B Lloyd home page. 

Consciousness and Berkeley's Metaphysics (1999). 

Paranormal Phenomena and Berkeley's Metaphysics (1999). 

And next some politics.  In his comment on the second book, Peter mentions Dale Graff as having been an inspiration for that book.  Peter may not know that Dale is a member of the Aviary.  If the Aviary were a positively functioning group, Peter and I might have been linked up long ago, but alack-alas.  Dysfunction rules.

I regret to say that our own CF is the source of much of that dysfunction, and it is no surprise that other avians look cynically upon anyone so associated.  I have to trust that there is a method in this madness.  It is about the timing and the nature of disclosure.  CF has been functioning apparently as an obstacle thereto.  What I continue to suspect and hope is that CF is operating from the larger, shall we say 'cosmic' playbook, a playbook not accessible to the other birds.  They do not realize the magnitude of this drama, and are being deliberately kept in the dark.  If I'm wrong, at least I am making one big mistake, and not just a lot of little ones.  The reason for the long and continuing 'delay' is simply because of the eschatological enormity of what is to be disclosed, a perspective that is lost upon the other avians. 

And this also constitutes a critique of Peter and every other idealist out there.  This is where the physics comes in.  With that comes the anthropics.  With the anthropics comes God, or some reasonable facsimile thereto.  As noted previously, western idealists tend to follow their eastern colleagues into pantheism at the expense of theism, except for those who come to idealism through their religion.  Recall that I came to the 'religion' at least in part through the metaphysics/anthropics, with a nudge from Sophia. 

Idealists, pantheists and even theistically oriented idealists all suffer from an acosmic blind-spot.  This can only be corrected with a strong dose of anthropics, a topic and body of evidence that they uniformly eschew. 

To put it simply, disclosure now becomes a piece of cosmic Revelation/Apocalypse/Apokatastasis.  Creation is nothing without the attendant veil of Nature.  The rending of that veil on a cultural/global scale can only have an eschatological function.  This is the cracking of our cosmic eggshell.  It is utterly irreversible.  The cover-up has simply been a piece of Creation.  The Great Revealer has been the Great Concealer.  Don't blame the CIA or the (anti-)Illuminati.  They were just accessories to our enforced ignorance. 

Y2X is the Great Party Pooper.  Well, that does depend on one's view of Apokatastasis.  Space and time are a piece of Creation.  Infinite time and space would simply constitute another barrier between the Creator and the creation.  The best possible world is necessarily finite in every quantitative sense, but not qualitatively.  Quantitative infinities are simply our usually misguided projections of God's qualitative infinity.  Infinite love militates against the former infinity.  That we have such difficulty comprehending that seeming paradox is owed largely to our materialistic misapprehensions.  If one piece of candy is good, then a infinite amount of candy would be the best.  Sorry 'bout that!  All good things must end.  The only thing that does not end is goodness itself.  The good too often obscures our vision of the Goodness.  Goodness is truly beyond all space and time.  Restoration of the cosmic ouroboros is the Telos.  There is only one such, although it may have infinite 'dimensionality' as well as functionality.  The Mandelbrot is the best quantitative metaphor that we have for the qualitative infinity that is God.

 

[10/25] [a]

If my speculation about a 9/11 conspiracy is correct, then there already exists a monotheist/eschaton conspiracy.  RS and BJ right now appear to be working overtime to break up this conspiracy, while CF is backing off.  But who is playing the China card?  What dog does China have in the Messiah plot?  NK?  Is their only agenda now to become the new Amerika, after the Xians, Moslems and Jews have killed each other off in their mutual Armageddon.  What does NK bring to that table?  Does the Armageddon pot need any more stirring.?  Any external, pagan intervention would be a pretext for the messianic plotters to pull together more. 

It is more likely that the Xians would be using the China card to add further weight to their Y2X scenario vs. Islam's Mahdi.  But I don't think that is a real issue.  Moslems already realize that the Mahdi is a piece of Y2X; it's in their scripture.  China would certainly sense this.  They simply don't want to be left out of the fun.  NK is a useful bargaining chip to that end.  Yes, China may only be playing for extra time.  Just a few more years, perhaps.  China might have actually engineered 9/11.  That would have been the smart thing for them to do.  But then we would have tried harder to stop it.  No? 

9/11 could have been to everyone's advantage as a surrogate for Armageddon, with Iraq as the main result.  With the clash of cultures, we are seeing a brief reprise of the Cold War, for the purpose of last minute adjustments and realignments in the global Intel.  By now, all the major players in the messiah plot have to be on board.  There can be no major holdouts.  Isn't everybody  more than ready for a new bit of fun? 

 

[10/26]

Xxx,

I have to go with the only thing that makes sense to me, which is the BPWH. 

CF has been something extra.  I would actually be able to survive without CF, but not without the BPWH. 

I believe that we are created in the image of the Creator, and the primary result is that we will be able to reason about Creation when the time has come for us to do that. 

You and I both know that the scientific-materialist paradigm is on its last legs.  A new paradigm is about to be born that will include the paranormal.  The paradigm will shift [actually be 'inverted'] in the nearly foreseeable future.  As always in the past, there will be a personal paradigm shifter.  This will be an historically unprecedented event that seems most likely to fulfill the most general expectations concerning the advent of the Mahdi, Maitreya, and Messiah. 

Knowing what I know, having the connections and resources that I have, it would be extremely irresponsible for me not to remain open to this possibility, and indeed, not to actively pursue that possibility at every opportunity. 

If you were to use your connections and resources to thwart such an obvious and cosmic opportunity, I would imagine that your future existence, in whatever form, would be even more unbearable than that of Adolph Hitler’s.  But, hey, I’ve been wrong before.

Dan

RS claims to have spoken with DI about these matters.  It could be he who passed along a cease and desist order, or several others.  All is fair in love, war and messianics.  We are not expecting anyone to roll over and play dead.  Que sera.  It is only marginally in our hands.  Obstructions can be transformed into facilitations in the blink of an eye.  Where there is a cosmic will, there surely is a way.

We were reminded yesterday of an accusation made against DF of a very peculiar sort, from an equally unlikely source.  'Bizarre' might be more accurate.  I happen to have been an observer on the alleged occasion as mentioned here previously, I believe.  It goes to show the unlikely extent to which folks go in attempting to keep their options open in these environs.  I would suggest that we are kidding ourselves in this regard.  Les jeux sont fait. 

-----------------------------------------

And the walls do have ears, and opportunities are often coincidental.  Whenever a bit of information is ejected from the black hole south of Baltimore, I do try to pay attention, hashing it out here.  I was having difficulty rationalizing this last reported incident, and somebody took pity on my rapidly diminishing cranial capacity. 

There might have been a drug deal in El Paso [a] that went sour/south.  This was not a government operation, but it did impinge upon the consciousness of one of us.  We don't need to know this, except as a cover story for a bigger drug deal, going down as we speak.  The bigger drug deal is the Aquarium deal, of course.  And, yes, there are concerns about foreign intervention in an allegedly domestic operation, as if our own put-upon DF did not have enough other things to contend with.  The only domestic thing about the Aquarium is the vino that is sometimes imbibed in its pursuance. 

So, yes, there was to have been a meeting with RD that was puthoff, allegedly due to indiscrete inquiries about a parking lot shootout, nearly south of the border.  I'll believe anything, once.  But this is now just a cover for a much bigger drug operation that we all know and love.  We speak of the viral memes being disseminated by Typhoid Rick, and the 'antidote' being disseminated by.........whom? 

I'm not making this up.  This is what I was being told a few minutes ago, by you know who.  Ok, so Rick is the particle and I am the antiparticle?  I don't know how else to interpret what I was just told.  Or is it the other way around?  This was supposed to have been for the benefit of Gary, who was raising this old (drug inquiry??) incident for reasons better known only to himself.  Can't you just see all of this being explained in some official report?  Not.  Make of it what Gary will.  The only way to kill off the rapidly spreading pandemic of conspiracy mongering is to point to an Uber-Conspiracy.  This does seem to be the function of the Aquarium vs. the Aviary.  And we are just being reminded that this is kosher and government inspected.  If there are any complaints they may be taken to the FBI, which has been thoroughly inoculated against these shenanigans for many a decade already.  And, yes, the SSCI was briefed on all of this, way back in c. 1995.  So why the shootout?  Well, that may have been for internal consumption only, to keep us all on our toes, even when things seem slack.  It is only meant to add a bit of spice to what should be old news to the interested parties.  Reminders can be useful. 

 

[10/27]

Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 1:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Check out Culture CampaignR

Mr Dan,

Before I reply to your last email, would you clarify these comments you made in our last phone conversation:

"I am A-48, I am RAM"

"xxx knew of the attack of 9/11 before it happened"

In addition

"If you were to use your connections and resources to thwart such an obvious and cosmic opportunity, I would imagine that your future existence, in what ever form, would be even more unbearable than that of Adolph Hitler’s."

Thank you,

Xxx

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Xxx,

You got me there. Since I don’t know or have forgotten what A-48 is, I have no idea what I might have meant by such a statement.

As far as RAM-Star goes, there is a rumor that CF was chairman and that he abdicated and left me in charge. I doubt that you will be able to find a paper trail on that.

There is speculation on the BPW site about various of the Aviary/aquarium actors. I believe there may be some speculation that might be interpreted in the manner you suggest. If you would like me to speculate further about that, try giving me a call at: ----------.  

As to the final quote, how might we best unpack that statement?

Here is one suggestion for you:

Adolph Hitler is often cited as the best example of pure evil in human form. He bears personal responsibility for the tortured deaths of millions. It is my belief, however, that he did play out a necessary functional role within the context of our best possible world history. I am prepared to offer some speculation about the deeper meaning of that role. Nonetheless, it will remain a stain upon his soul, for as long as that soul may exist.

Something similar might be said for Pontius Pilate. The sin of the crucifixion, like the sin of eating the apple, may be referred to as a 'felicitous sin'. It could be argued that Pilate facilitated our salvation by expediting Jesus’ death. Nonetheless, I don’t know of anybody who would want to trade places with Pontius or Judas. How would one go about removing such an albatross from around one’s neck? Only with a lot of help in high places.

That brings us back to the present. Many agree that humankind has never been more in need of salvation than now. There is a great deal of uncertainty as to what form that salvation could take. Many people pray for the imminence of that eventuality. Many people also act in creative ways toward expediting that eventuality. I place myself amongst the latter souls.

You, however, suggest that I am pushing this line of endeavor beyond the pale, that I am storming Heaven’s Gate. The worst case scenario is that such an endeavor could land one in the boots of the Anti-Christ. That is a risk that I am willing to take on behalf of a possible greater good. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You claim to be certain that I am misguided in this effort. I find such certainty about such complex matters to be problematic to the point of possibly constituting an evil in itself. Do you claim to know enough about God’s plan of salvation to be able to rule out the possibility that angels and/or aliens might have been enlisted in expediting such an Advent relative to the Powers-that-Be? The idea would be to enlist an advance party to neutralize the potential opposition. That, at least, is a significant part of the BPWH.

I understand that you have significant contacts with significant players on the world stage. You might end up playing a critical role on one side or the other of this issue. One could say that you have spent much of your life in the pursuit of being in just such a place at just such a time. I doubt that it is an accident.

I am simply pointing out to you that you have for better or worse been put on the spot. Whatever decision you now make, could be decisive on an historical scale. It is not inconceivable that this scale is absolutely unprecedented; that is how I choose to conceive it.


Dan
 

Gary Bekkum [a] passed along two links: 

• http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/ 
• http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20061024/

Here is George Dvorsky:

" Relatedly, Buddhist atomists like Dharmakirti argued that the only thing that exists are Buddhist atoms (described as being point-sized, durationless, and made of energy) and states of consciousness. Similarly, Gottfried Leibniz and A. N. Whitehead believed that systems ordinarily considered to be physical were constructed in some sense from more basic mental entities - what are now referred to in process philosophy as 'Whitehead occasions.' "

Yes, Leibniz referred to his atoms of consciousness as monads.  Nowadays we can simply speak of information.  Such is neutral monism.  This is also postmodern pantheism.  Must it be Godless? 

There is the problem of associationism:

This theory posits that all consciousness is the result of the combination, in accordance with the law of association, of certain simple and ultimate elements derived from sense experiences.

But then from https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/3.7.html:

If this is right, every part of this study would be perceived at first in the context of the totality of the personality and all recollections of the reader. Single parts would on subsequent conscious reflection become dissociated from this totality. However, associative connections such as those expressed through the hypertext-links on every page would then recreate an 'undivided unity of perception'. Seen in this light, the complexity of my work could not be reduced to a few elementary ideas, but would best be appreciated by linking it to an even greater complexity of ideas and recollections in the mind of the reader—which is, as Bergson argued, what happens automatically.

Ergo, God must exist as the ultimate Ideator of all irreducible ideas, this by including the principle of esse est percipi, and then voila you have the basis of the BPWH. 

How do pantheists and informationalists manage to avoid their reckoning with the God concept?  It beats the heck out of me?  Let's get real, boys and girls! 

 

[10/28]

I am now reading Informationalism (2004) by Damon Woolsey.  Damon casts this as a version of 'neutral monism', a moniker coined by Bertrand Russell, later providing a logical basis for Whitehead's 'process philosophy'.  The modern reemergence of informationalism is attributed to John Wheeler.  It was given a special impetus in its application to black holes by Hawking, Bekenstein, etc. 

Physical objects need not consist of actual substance, only mathematical descriptions.  Indeed, I hardly find it necessary to argue against materialism at all; physicists have done all the hard work for me. There is still the matter of why there seems to be real concrete physical stuff, consisting of what philosophers call substance, but as we shall soon see, appearances can be deceiving.

Yes, indeedy. 

 

[10/30]

Informationalism [a], in its ontological sense, remains the most prevalent alternative to physicalism among the intellectually and technically inclined, even probably unwittingly amongst many who have never actually encountered the term.  A good place to start is with the Wikipedia's information. 

Claude Shannon provided the only quantitative measure of information: for a binary message of length N, it is simply 2^N.  However,

It is important to recognise the limitations of Shannon's work from the perspective of human meaning. When referring to the meaning content of a message Shannon noted “Frequently the messages have meaning… these semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem.

Here is the rub.  We blithely think that information is something scientific and quantitative.  Claude cautions us.  The only actual definition of information is so narrowly construed as to be irrelevant to any ordinary, especially philosophical, discourse. 

In ordinary discourse we are concerned only with the semantic aspect of information.  When we say that we live in the Information Age, we confuse that with the Digital Age and so, very naively, we think we know what we are talking about, when in point of of fact we know virtually nothing of  the kind.  A very brief perusal of this last article will easily demonstrate what a muddle is this topic, form any formal or philosophical sense.  In short, 'information science' is simply an oxymoron from the git-go: 

Information is notoriously a polymorphic phenomenon and a polysemantic concept so, as an explicandum, it can be associated with several explanations, depending on the level of abstraction adopted and the cluster of requirements and desiderata orientating a theory. The reader may wish to keep this in mind while reading this entry, where some schematic simplifications and interpretative decisions will be inevitable. Claude E. Shannon, for one, was very cautious: “The word ‘information’ has been given different meanings by various writers in the general field of information theory. It is likely that at least a number of these will prove sufficiently useful in certain applications to deserve further study and permanent recognition. It is hardly to be expected that a single concept of information would satisfactorily account for the numerous possible applications of this general field. (italics added)” (Shannon [1993], p. 180). 

There simply does not even exist a philosophy of information that could deserve the appellation of 'informationalism'.  On the other hand, most of modern philosophy deals exclusively with the problem of semantics.  And we all know what a muddle that is. 

Information is essentially a subjective matter, yet amazing levels of intersubjective communication are possible.  There are indeed great communicators, whose communications are able to move people to sacrifice their lives in the context of the meanings contained therein and over time periods measured in millennia.  The relative ease of communication and translation does point to a commonality of mind that transcends any quantitative or objectifiable measure.  It is natural then to posit an overriding mental subject, of which our individual subjectivities are reflections.  Religion is simply the binding of humans together in webs of meaning.  The positing of a transcendent being is a perfectly natural reflection of the otherwise inexplicable effectiveness of human discourse.  Once again the burden falls on those who would deny the obvious.  The failure of the scientific method to have any significant impact in the realm of semantics, should alert us to the irreducibility of the mind, well apart from the even more intractable problems of consciousness.  Semantic holism is just an aspect of the unity of the mind, pointing directly to a collective unity of all minds.  I doubt that there can be any stronger or more prevalent indicator of something on the nature of a cosmic intelligence. 

In this same vein we should reexamine the Anthropic Principle.  This Principle manifests the necessarily subjective side of physics, a point that was first raised in the context of the quantum measurement problem.  Measurement is ultimately a semantic problem.  There can be no measurement without meaning and interpretation, i.e. observation.  Can there be observation without observers?  More technically we have the registration or recording problem.  Can there be physics without physicists?  Seemingly the universe can get on just fine without the intervention any life forms at all.  But explain to us then the ontic status of unobservable universes?  Is that the same status as the 'dark side' of the moon? 

One is tempted to dismiss such abstract concerns until one begins to appreciate the very abstract nature of physics itself.  From whence comes all that mathematics?  Can mathematics be said to exist in the absence of mathematicians?  Why do otherwise sober physicists find it so tempting to conceive of a Pythagorean God?  If mathematical physics did not exist, we would pay no more attention to the ontic status of mathematics than we do to the ontic status of tennis.  Is the semantics of mathematics and logic so very different from linguistic semantics?  Are the two fields not mutually dependent?  I would certainly hesitate to draw a bright line.  As in every branch of knowledge there is the endemic and perfectly intractable problem of foundations.  Everything is supported by everything else.  No wonder that the ouroboros should be the mascot of every metaphysician. It is certainly the icon of the BPW. 

It is not at all difficult to wax poetic about the holistic nature of mathematics, as I have in these pages.  Take any significant theorem of mathematics and you will be amazed at the breadth and complexity of its proof structure.  I remind you simply of the 15,000 pages constituting the derivation of the theory of exceptional groups, of which no one mathematician has a full grasp.  Seemingly every field of mathematics was required to support the long sought proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.  Holism is rampant in mathematics.  Is it not also rampant in physics and everywhere else?  From this perspective, the Anthropic Principle is perfectly natural.  It should hardly be remarkable.  It is all one 'semantic web'.  What else could contain such a superstructure other than some cosmic subject?  It beats the heck out of me. 

 

[10/31]

On the philosophical side, I wish next to address the problems of perception and of the continuity of mind, as in the question of survival.  Both of these issues gain and lend support in the context of the Semantic Web, i.e. Network of Being.  But there are two more pressing political matters that need to be addressed first.  There is also some recent correspondence which bears posting. 

I notice, however, there is a review in the New York Times today of  Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong by Marc Hauser (2006).  Here is prime example of how a reductive science, e.g. molecular genetics, struggles to explain a very significant piece of the Semantic Web, i.e. morality.  Anybody can tell a Just-So story, but that is hardly science.  Just-So story telling is, however, a legitimate piece of the coherentism that is the foundation of the BPW.  If the scientists are not careful, they will be skewered on their own petard.  They can just think of me as Cupid.  Later.........

(Remind me to discuss this interesting paper: Jon Barwise  --  Information and Impossibilities (1997).) 

This was from yesterday:

Dearest Jack,

It has been awhile since you and I have had the pleasure of discoursing, but as usual we have the God question before us.

You pride yourself on your pragmatism, and perhaps in the past I have not appreciated nor exploited this proclivity of yours to its fullest extent.

So may we wax a wee bit pragmatic about the God question? There are two pragmatic issues that stand out:

Where lies the burden of proof for the (non)/existence of God?
Given the positive likelihood of that existence, who will then deign to represent said entity?

Since there already exists a vast, proven proclivity for a deep felt belief in a cosmic intelligence, pragmatically speaking, the burden of proof in the intellectual arena lies with those who choose to deny this most distinctively human of all our traits.

Virtually no one doubts that modern scientific materialism and pure physicalism have had their heyday. Postmodern eclecticism is upon us, with a vengeance. Everything is once again possible and tolerable amongst the intelligentsia. The God question is easily the most significant of all these resurrected possibilities and topics of intellectual discourse. There is not much point in discussing any lesser issue, until we are able to properly dispose of this one.

The intellectual burden has shifted and is still shifting back into the laps of the God deniers. Nolo contendere?

Thus the only truly practical question before us is who will now deign to represent said entity?

But here again, there hardly is an issue on the pragmatic side. If there were an issue, it seems to have been settled in a nicely political fashion. The simple fact is that there is no visible competition. Must I apologize for this fact? Should we not rather thank goodness, and get on with what little remains of the representational job at hand?

There are only two things that needed to be done: Link revelation with disclosure.  Link the putative Visitation with the cosmic agency of said revelation.

These have already been accomplished herein.

If there is to be a human agent of disclosure/revelation, this is exactly where you would expect to find any such, already politically linked to the putative Source.

I simply defy anyone within the sound of my voice to come up with a better scenario for revelation/disclosure than the one given here, which is an integral part of the Best Possible World Hypothesis. Simply by definition, there can be none better than the best of what we may collectively imagine. If I have done only a passable job of representing and initiating our collective/cosmic imagination in these regards, then it is a fait accompli. You need hear nothing more from me in this case. The ball is in your court. Get on with the game of Cosmic Pokatok or Apokatastasis.

Dan

 

There are two upcoming meetings of note: one with BJ this Hallowed Eve, and then with Eduardo and CF & Co. tomorrow.  The latter is being billed now as the second annual 'Aquarium meeting', but note that several very significant fish will be absent from this administrative-type meeting.  This is not a board meeting, in other words.  And as before, any absent souls are invited to send their proxies, in whatever form is most appropriate.  Some might think it would have been more convenient to try to combine these two meetings today, but besides a logistical problem, there was also the semantic problem of meeting with a 'witch doctor' on Halloween.  The water-cooler commentators would have had a field-day, bless their hearts!   

But listen up, now.  Here is the word from on high.  BJ has concerns about the professionalism of CF relative to these sorts of shenanigans.  It may be BJ, though, who is having a problem with the semantic web.  BJ equates professionalism with compartmentalism, we are told.  This is well and good with well-defined problems, but when dealing with something such as threat assessment in its fullest meaning, compartmentalizing is liable to lead to tunnel vision.  There are risks of muddying the water, but there may also be benefits that are deemed worth the risks.  Crystal balls do tend to be cloudy, but they may still suffice.  Where were the crystal balls on 9/11, you may ask?  That is a question that more than a few of us have attempted to divine.  I can certainly tell you where one of them was.

And how about them threats?  I'm not overly concerned in the long-run.  But could there be something worse than 9/11?  Would it come from that same general direction?  An outstanding threat is that of a paradigm shift.  The makeup of the meeting itself, and the fact of its being noted here might well be taken as a sign of these paradigmatically unsettled times.  It is my suspicion that threats of the kind being considered may be intended, humanly or otherwise, as inducements to sticking with the cosmic plan.  This is not a poker game that I would voluntarily choose.  Fatalism has its role, but this does not preclude every reasonable precaution.  At the point of its matriculation or hatching out of our cosmic shell, humanity is at its most vulnerable, as our visitors of all stripes would be well aware.  It behooves us to beware that we are all persons possessed.  Possessed of what or for what is the issue at hand.  What exorcism is desirable?  What we may be looking for is cooptation.  That is the radical alternative.  That is the paradigm shift/inversion.  Damned if we do, damned if we don't.  It's easy enough to see the stick here, but where oh where is the carrot? 

The world is getting to be more dangerous, in that there are more things to go wrong, and more disgruntled and misguided people around to make sure that they do.  We decry the excesses of fundamentalism/fanaticism, but that is one of the strongest inhibitions we have against further corrosion of the social fabric.  Literalism of any kind is the first victim of changing concepts.  The literalists are then the most threatened, and the first to act out.  Terrorism may be seen as a logical reaction to the disruptive threat of the Internet.  The fact that terrorists have to resort to the Internet does not argue against this idea. 

Then there are the economic threats.  Peak Oil being the most obvious of these, not to mention Peak Debt, etc.  Do our creditors plot against us?  Debtors and creditors have to be cautious with each other.  When will that caution vanish?  When will patience end and panic set in?  Is Armageddon not avoidable?  This simply describes the mental state of the panicked paranoid.  What can be the checks on panic?  If there is any external intervention to this end, we would immediately become enslaved to that externality, at the expense of any further internal development.  Fireside chats with God.  How does that sound?  It is all in the bedside manner.  Where is the model?  What will happen with the people staying home and not going to Wal-Mart?  Those will be interesting days. 

The centrifugal forces are extreme.  Will the center hold?  What center?  Haven't I been saying that we need a center?  That is what the semantic network is about.  To be is to relate.  There has to be a relational center of gravity.  That is what YX1 and YX2 must be about.  I'm still here typing because the meeting with BJ is off.  I hope that is not an omen.  It may be beneficial not to make two trips in two days, and hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. 

 

[11/3] [a]

The lunch meeting on Wednesday was scaled back to CF, myself, Eduardo, AF and Mark P.  I was told that about an hour before the scheduled lunch, there was a spate of talking amongst the prospective office guests, who then decided to go elsewhere.  The day before, I was told that elements of the BPW site had been circulated in the office.  We can only speculate as to whether this reaction was a reflection of the ongoing tension between the Aviary and Aquarium. 

In the meantime, Gary Bekkum continues to report on a re-substantiated(?) FBI visit presumably to BJ, although CF had claimed recently that the report by BJ was suspect.  Just further indication of the poor state of communications hereabouts. 

The confrontation between the Aviary and Aquarium also includes PM [DIA] and GN, on opposite sides, not to mention RD who may already be resurfacing in a new Serpo context.  The ultimate concern may be with DI in connection with the 'KC' treatment.  In this latter connection, have I reported on the breakdown in communication between myself and RS concerning the BPW version of Y2X?  Before that breakdown, RS had told me that DI had been gotten to, in this connection and wrt GN.  I have never heard back from DI.  RS is close with the Roil Family, and one can only imagine their take on these shenanigans.  Laurence R has also been resurrected in these regards. 

So what about the threat assessment?  Well, Eduardo is returning to Ecuador to vote on the 20th.  The leftist contender, Rafael Correa, would place his country squarely on the Chavez/Morales axis.  The two of us later mainly discussed the more etheric connections.  There was mention of the connection between the Mayan and Toltec calendars.  He described their flood story: very similar to that from the Middle East.  In their case, the Serpent is the agent of the Flood.  There was mention of the tribal warriors now returning from the Sun.  He and his brothers will be working on a video that might parallel some features of the 'KC' treatment.  We talked about the pyramid symbolism, common with many cultures, including the Masonic symbol.  The eye is the portal of the travelers, and reminiscent of the tail biting ouroboros.  It is also the cosmic intelligence, which is the grail destination of every quest.  The flood is the outpouring of knowledge and the upwelling of the collective unconscious.  At the same time my spouse dreamt of my being washed over the railing of a boat by a wave.  Who has their finger in the dike?  Is this the Aviary vs. the Aquarium?  The seals on the back of the Dollar: bird, olive branch, mountain, ark, serpent(?), etc., do seem to point to the aftermath of a flood and the return of the bird tribes.  Eduardo also recalled my showing of the Mandelbrot some time ago. 

 

[11/4]

I'd like to get back to George Dvorsky.  His blog is most informative, an excellent example of transhumanism in the raw.  Dvorsky's blog links to a useful article in US News:  Is There Room for the Soul? New challenges to our most cherished beliefs about self and the human spirit By Jay Tolson Posted Sunday, October 15, 2006.  Restated, transhumanism attempts to graft an artificial telos to a materialistic world, which is, of course, blatantly self-contradictory.  But just try to find a transhumanist who has more than a superficial grasp of ontology.  Those few who do are lead into the labyrinth of a Matrix, never to escape its soul-negating paradoxes. 

Tolson, as does the BPWH, blames the mind-body problem on the dualistic Platonic cosmology, especially as reformulated by Descartes.  The answer is Buddhism.  Are we surprised?  Which is to say that the answer to bad cosmology is no cosmology or acosmism.  But that is not quite right.  According to the BPWH it is mainly the quantitative or scientific/objective aspect of cosmology that is illusory, while the subjective side is what finally is real, just inverting the modernist paradigm.  Buddhism posits both sides to be illusory.  Buddhism places its absolute Brahmin beyond all subjectivity.  This is similar to the via negativa so prominent in Islam.  That negativity can be overcome only by a positive trinitarian or sephirothic plurality of some kind.  Thus can gnosis transcend mysticism and theism transcend pantheism.  Only thus is communion possible.  The subjectless object is an empty abstraction, a false projection of a misguided mind, the epitome of all illusions.  It is designed to exercise social control by truncating human inquiry and discourse.  If the BPWH is correct, then x'ianity is the closest approximation thereto.  It is this impulse toward rationality that made science possible.  Science however became, quite logically, too much of a good thing, and in the process it sowed the the technical and intellectual seeds of its own transcendence, thus perhaps the BPWH & Internet.  Is there a more rational denouement? 

 

[11/5]

Yes, Jay's article provides a very useful summary of the core issues between Searle and Dennett: what is the meaning of meaning?  Is there a difference between semantics and syntax?  Searle posits there is no objectivity to meaning; it is purely a matter of intersubjectivity.  Syntax is purely objective.  Semantics is nothing without a cosmic subject. 

Just the opposite tack is taken with Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong by Marc Hauser (2006).  It is reviewed in the NY Times on 10/31.  The unstated assumption in the book is that innate = genetic.  It is about nature vs. nurture and argues only against the view that morality is something that is taught or acculturated.  I am not aware that anyone besides the behaviorists has held such a simplistic view.  It borders on the obtuse, that such a straw-man argument is even presented, and then allowed to go un criticized.  This has, however, been the nearly unstated assumption of sociobiology since its inception by Edward O. Wilson in 1975.  The problems of reductionism are patently ignored throughout its history.  Originally it was put forward as an attack on behaviorism, an idea that had been found logically faulty many years previously.  Having very successfully beaten the dead-horse of behaviorism, it was soon retargeted upon the almost dead-horse of theology.  Only a very ill-defined group of anti-analytical, anti-reductionist philosophers take exception to its thesis.  Theologians have been eschewing logic for centuries, with neo-Thomism and process theology as the only even partial exceptions still extant, both being decidedly acosmic.  Theology has long since abdicated all reason to the scientific enterprise.  The only political obstacle to science is fundamentalism which is notably a-theological.  There simply is no contest from that quarter either.  Due to the absence of any rational competition, science has grown flabby in its intellect.  And now, in its very fragmentary state, it cannot even conceive of a global or coherent attack. 

 

[11/6]

Back to Marc's Moral Minds.  Nicholas Wade points out.....

Dr. Hauser argues that the moral grammar operates in much the same way as the universal grammar proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky as the innate neural machinery for language. The universal grammar is a system of rules for generating syntax and vocabulary but does not specify any particular language. That is supplied by the culture in which a child grows up.

As with language, these rules of 'grammar' have never been codified.  It is fair to say that no one has even attempted to codify them.  Moral behavior: you know it when you see it.  You may not always agree with the particular behavior exhibited, but can there be any real disagreement as to an underlying intent?  You speak French, I speak English, but neither of us can accuse the other of not being linguistically competent. 

Since morality and conversational coherence cannot be codified, they can only be perceived directly, they cannot be analyzed in any compelling fashion.  Direct perception is the radical thesis underlying any non-analytic ontology.  It is only the supervening illusion space and time that allows us the occasional illusion of analysis.

The digital processing of images and sounds, does help to maintain the illusion of sense data, but nary is the philosopher who would defend such today.  There simply do not exist any ontological reductionists anymore.  There are not even any representationalists amongst the epistemologists.  But neither are there any coherentists, simply because there is no place for them to go, except ultimately to the confessional, and that is not going to happen in a modern secular environment.   The theologians cannot go there either, because such a paradigm shift would set them on the path to the Spirit of Truth, and that should be fodder for analyst's couch and then professional ridicule and worse.  Postmodernism has to maintain rigid political boundaries on thought, since there are no longer any rational boundaries.  Most of all, the thought police have been well internalized over the centuries of modernism.  It takes a Sophia to free the thought of an individual.  It will likely take the three Magi to free the thought of any collective. 

The only perception possible in a non-local, non-localizable world is direct perception.  Then the only perception possible is that with a cosmic Telos.  There is no logical middle ground between pluralism and monism. 

But wait: 

Dr. Hauser believes that the moral grammar may have evolved through the evolutionary mechanism known as group selection. A group bound by altruism toward its members and rigorous discouragement of cheaters would be more likely to prevail over a less cohesive society, so genes for moral grammar would become more common.

Many evolutionary biologists frown on the idea of group selection, noting that genes cannot become more frequent unless they benefit the individual who carries them, and a person who contributes altruistically to people not related to him will reduce his own fitness and leave fewer offspring.

Aye, there's the rub.  Notice the leger de main.  The reductio of Darwinian selection is avoided by the invocation of of an indemonstrable 'group selection'.  The molecular geneticists will have none of it.  What is left of reductionism is an empty shell game.  There simply is no pea.  Every one passes the buck of coherence.  What is left but a circle jerk, speaking of our beloved ouroboros?  Coherence does come piecemeal.  It is all or nothing.  Can mathematical coherence distinguished from linguistic coherence?  Not in the end, and not in the beginning. 

But there is a gentleman's agreement between the specialists: you don't piss in my soup; I don't piss in yours.  Thus is the larger Truth held hostage to a thousand professional compromises.  Thus is Gulliver ensnared by the Lilliputians.  How do we break the grid lock of reductionism?  How else but by the minimal intervention of the Telos?  How else but by a second Advent and a new Pentecost?  Speaking of which. 

Can we get to the bottom of the problem of analysis?  I have spoken much of Quine, but little of Kripke.  How do they relate?  One's arguments are the obverse of the other's.  Saul Kripke is said to have made metaphysics respectable again with the publication of his Naming and Necessity (1980/1970).   Saul is perhaps best known for his 'causal theory of reference', outlined therein.  What does the CTR say about reductionism?  A name might be reducible to a single act of baptism, but to what might that act be reduced.  Baptism is one of the most elaborate acts around.  And, furthermore, it is merely a significant component of the semantic web.  Was he such a genius that he cannot now be criticized/exorcized?  The reduction of that web to one of its strands, was an act of unpardonable hubris, and I ought to know of such.  It was a lifeline tossed to the drowning analysts.  They cling to it for dear life.  The illusion of a physical causality excuses their surrender of descriptivism, the last bastion of analysis, a sensory data version of epistemology.  Notice that it even seems to bring a kind of communalism to the project of episteme.  Shades of group selection?  So much for the idolatry of the solitary Genius.  Idolatry is the end of thought.  Professionalism is just that.  The BPW is the death of prophecy and the beginning of thought.  Is that just slightly pretentious?  Well, thought has to begin somewhere, and where else can it begin, other than with its own end? 

Note further that physicists gave up on causality centuries ago.  Causality is partially resurrected only in the context of the quantum observer paradoxes.  We are left with a web of mathematical abstractions. 

It is the CTR which gives rise to the paradoxes of modal realism.  And who am I, adherent to the BPWH, to cast such a stone?  I am a conceptualist concerning modality, not a realist.  Free will is only locally valid.  It applies to God only in the 'hood. 

Perhaps this is truly the end of analysis (Kripkenstein):

Kripke finds in Wittgenstein all the difficulties that beset analytic philosophy, especially those that shake the very possibility of certain knowledge. He restores certainty by declaring that common sense is the guide to philosophy. He ascribes to Wittgenstein this idea, without denying that G. E. Moore had advocated it too, but without subscribing to Wittgenstein’s rejection of all philosophy as nonsense. Kripke adds to Moore’s view an answer to the most obvious criticism of common-sense philosophy that Bertrand Russell has so eloquently expressed in his Skeptical Essays: common sense and science diverge. Kripke recognizes this, and even gives an example: common sense asserts and science denies that the whale is a fish. He says this difference is marginal. He does not address the more serious differences between science and common sense, nor the criticism that there are different kinds of common sense, and that most extant common sense is imbued with magic.

Has there ever been, need there ever be, a more succinct statement of the end/telos of formal philosophy?  Common sense is communal sense, neighborhood, neighborly sense.  Can this 'hood be logically restricted to anything less than the cosmos?  There can be no common sense without a direct perception of that commonality.  The semantic web is unavoidable.  (See also sense and reference.)

There simply exist no rules for naming.  What's in a name?  We only know one when we perceive one.  See also semantic externalism:

Externalism is generally thought to be a necessary consequence of any causal theory of reference; since the causal history of a term is not internal, the involvement of that history in determining the term's referent is enough to satisfy the externalist thesis. However, Putnam and many subsequent externalists have maintained that not only reference, but sense as well is determined, at least in part, by external factors.

But then consider B Russell's omphalos hypothesis:

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.  

N.B. that the BPWH embraces a moderate version of the OH.  Some such a version is a logical extension of the semantic web.  Did Adam and Eve have navels?  Probably, yes, they being the substantial representatives of an indefinite reproductive cycle. 

Another important reference here is Chalmers' 'Sense and Intension'.  Well, sorry, I'm not able to get the sense of this lengthy paper.  The most I can say is that all of these issues remain muddled.  Opinions wax and wane over these fundamental issues.  Fashion rules.  There is no discernible foundation for ontology or epistemology.  Rules don't rule.  Semantic intuition is the final judge of the basic issues.  If there is an external foundation it will remain unknowable.  Rorty is perhaps the best known of the anti-foundationalists, pragmatist and story teller that he is.  He views philosophy from the perspective of interwoven narratives.  Metanarrative?  Not hardly! 

Elsewhere: 

Rorty encapsulates the essential goal of postanalytic philosophy in that it is not intrinsically opposed to analytic philosophy or its methods, but only to its ultimate aspirations. Postanalytic philosophy may also be known as postphilosophy, a term used by Rorty to emphasize the fact that philosophy no longer serves the role it used to in society and that this role has been replaced by other media.

 

[11/7]

Rorty suggests that we should see knowledge as a matter of social practice rather than as an attempt to mirror nature.  This reading, however, fails to do justice to the unreasonable effectiveness of the mind in its mastery of nature, an effectiveness which may be taken as an extension of the Anthropic Principle.  How could the philosophers be so dense about this crucial factor?  It's simple a matter of professional myopia as usual.  Never underestimate the power of social and professional solidarity.  It is a real force that must be treated with caution, but cannot be ignored. 

Is the BPWH sufficiently cautious?  It does the only thing it can do: follows the coherence to a logical conclusion.  Does it not put too much stock in the appearance of coherence?  My only point is that there are no partial measures that suffice when dealing with the matter of coherence.  Coherence is all or nothing.  Show me a piece of coherence and I'll show you a curiosity, or I will attempt to make something of it.  Coherence is either fortuitous or it is global. 

Can there not be a local coherence?  Coherence in the 'hood?  There can be, but without a context it remains a piece of flotsam.  Without a teleology, there can be no rhyme or reason.  There is a holistic imperative in any bit of reason.  There cannot be a microcosm without a cosmos.  Does mathematics provide an example?  Can there be numbers without a number system?  This is rather like the argument between the realists and the constructivists in mathematics.  I will use the Wiki article as a starting point.  Or not. 

As a possible example of isolated coherence, consider the game of tic-tac-toe.  It is a finite, self-contained (meaningful?) system of action.  A computer could be programmed to engage in an exhaustive acting-out of the game.  There is a rub.  One may easily imagine the implausible but possible circumstance of accidental tic-tac-toe.  One could take most any sufficiently complex natural process and, with suitable definitions, overlay the functional equivalent of a tic-tac-toe game upon it.  I suggest that this possibility constitutes a counter-example to the idea of isolated meaning or coherence.  The idea of subjectless coherence is incoherent.  In any ideal system, there is the presumption of a universal subject.  A purely natural proxy of such a system violates that presumption.  Unobserved or unobservable coherence is oxymoronic, and so is accidental or a posteriori coherence.  Coherence is empty without a coheree.  And, as with Wigner's Friend, there is implied thereby a transcendental telos.  This may only be an elaboration of Quine's thesis of linguistic holism.  It does suggest that epistemology and ontology are two sides of the same coin. 

Speaking of overlays, consider this: (Hans Moravec, 1998)

Perhaps the most unsettling implication of this train of thought is that anything can be interpreted as possessing any abstract property, including consciousness and intelligence. Given the right playbook, the thermal jostling of the atoms in a rock can be seen as the operation of a complex, self-aware mind. How strange. Common sense screams that people have minds and rocks don't. [...]  Is a ventriloquist's dummy a lump of wood, a human simulacrum, or a personality sharing some of the ventriloquist's body and mind? Is a video game a box of silicon bits, an electronic circuit flipping its own switches, a computer following a long list of instructions, or a large three-dimensional world inhabited by the Mario Brothers and their mushroom adversaries? Sometimes we exploit offbeat interpretations: an encrypted message is meaningless gibberish except when viewed through a deliberately obscure decoding. Humans have always used a modest multiplicity of interpretations, but computers widen the horizons. The first electronic computer was developed by Alan Turing to find ``interesting'' interpretations of wartime messages radioed by Germany to its U-boats. As our thoughts become more powerful, our repertoire of useful interpretations will grow. We can see levers and springs in animal limbs, and beauty in the aurora: our ``mind children'' may be able to spot fully functioning intelligences in the complex chemical goings on of plants, the dynamics of interstellar clouds, or the reverberations of cosmic radiation. No particular interpretation is ruled out, but the space of all of them is exponentially larger than the size of individual ones, and we may never encounter more than an infinitesimal fraction. The rock-minds may be forever lost to us in the bogglingly vast sea of mindlessly chaotic rock-interpretations. Yet those rock-minds make complete sense to themselves, and to them it is we who are lost in meaningless chaos. Our own nature, in fact, is defined by the tiny fraction of possible interpretations we can make, and the astronomical number we can't.
 

Another example of isolated coherence would be an isolated subject.  This seems related to the private language problem first posed by Wittgenstein.  Kripke relates this problem to Hume's skepticism concerning unique causation.  There can only exist intersubjective patterns of communally reinforced behavior.  In the final analysis, the sun will rise tomorrow, not by law, but only by tendency.  Rules are only a human rationalization of the generally cyclical nature of a temporally oriented world suitable for habitation. 

Does this then reduce the problem of meaning to mere convention?  It passes the buck of individual intelligence to collective intelligence.  But wait!  What is to block the infinite regress?  Nothing, says I.  And right there you have the whole shooting match of the BPWH.  At least subconsciously, we suspect there cannot be a finite end to the chain of being and meaning.  Cannot meaning bite its own tail, like the ouroboros?  Can there not be self-reference?  That is the only reference there can be, to an interminable self.  No lesser construct will suffice. 

Am I not just cribbing from the Ontological Argument?  This may be the obverse of that.  Meaning is either an illusion or not.  Matter is illusory relative to meaning.  Meaning is illusory relative to what?  Meaning is illusory relative to felt meaning, i.e. to (some) 'gut feelings'. 

Try a google on 'Wigner's friend regress'.

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And we interrupt this program to bring you a message from (to?) our sponsor:

[CF],

I tried to call you at your new number, but there was no answer and no answering machine. 

I have just spoken briefly with [RS].  He said that he had already sent you some additional pricing information this morning relative to your request below. 

Furthermore, he questioned the reason for my calling him at all.  He stated that he did not want to talk to me until I had offered a proper apology for my prior transgressions. 

So, allow me take this opportunity to recap the situation between [RS] and myself, at least as I understand it.

Last week [RS] and I had a phone conversation concerning our respective views on the Second Coming.  This was partly in reference to the [DI]/[GN] treatment of Kingdoms Come. 

The upshot of that conversation was that [RS] did not wish to discuss with me his views on that topic, besides his stating that he adhered to a literal, scriptural view of that prospective eventuality.  This was in response to my attempt to explain to him my own take on the possible relevance of the Aviary/Aquarium/BPWH to such an eventuality.  This scenario is succinctly captured in the putative equivalence of the Magi/Eben interventions in human affairs, as described in numerous communications and blog entries.   

As you well know, I feel a personal obligation to move forward with the Magi/Eben scenario as best I can.  Based on my admittedly sketchy information, it is not difficult for me to surmise that [RS] is the primary and proximate proxy for all those who might wish to oppose such a Magi/Eben gambit relative to a Second Coming scenario.   

If there is any substance to the ‘Core Story’, then there is some level of historical seriousness to the speculations just outlined.  If that is indeed the case then there is likely to be an historical linkage between the above proximate duality and the traditional duality seen between the Christ and the anti-Christ.  Which way this polarity might be projected upon this present company is moot relative to the conclusion that we here are quite possibly engaged in a passion play with a moral scope of cosmic dimensions.   

This is the information that I meant to convey to [RS].  If I failed to properly convey this information, then I surely apologize for that failure, and I trust that this explanation will make amends for that failure. 

Dan

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Back to the observation/regression problem:

Does this mean that up until the transferred potential is received that the 2nd twin is collapsing the combined wave-function of the lst twin and the radioactive atom instant by instant based on her knowledge of what she has not yet seen transpire on her own EEG? No physical influence has passed either inwards or outwards across the walls of the chamber and it has never been opened. Only a non-classical quantum jump was made between the two twins in the form of a transferred potential. What meaning can we now ascribe to the terms observer, observation, measurement, consciousness and knowledge in a situation such as this?

Good questions, but a faulty premise.  I would submit that the quantum problem is the result rather than the cause of the observer problem.  This reversal should be seen as a corollary of the logical reversal of the usual mind-brain problem in the context of immaterialism.  Wigner's paradox, especially as specified here, demands that we take a collective/Jungian view of the mind. 

But what I think we should really be interested in is the epistemic horizon problem, but I am having a problem locating a statement of this problem.  It is generally treated only as a physics problem.  Now I see what my problem is: 

If one's mental horizons are allowed to expand too far, there will be serious consequences. If not contained, this cognitive process can become quite disabling. Fortunately, modern medicines and other forms of treatment enable increasing numbers of us to avoid the worst of these consequences. The mind's tendency to expand its horizon of meaning can be kept in check. Our sensitivity to semantic and phonological relationships does not have to become so acute that we can no longer focus on the problems of everyday life.

On the other hand, there is the problem of existential alienation when one's horizon of meaning is arbitrarily circumscribed.  Does this not contribute to Sartre's Nausea?  Thus it seems that we choose between paranoia and nausea.  The only non-arbitrary, natural (sic) horizon of meaning is just the Telos.  Thus do we see that the Telos provides the only vantage point for reflective equilibrium for creatures burdened with the power of ratiocination.  In that one stroke is the enterprise of Science rendered ultimately Sisyphean.  Which is not at all to say that Science has not had an absolutely essential role to play in the historical development that carries humanity from its premodern to its postmodern posture. 

The Telos has a role in human thought that is similar to the point at infinity or vanishing point in drawings.  It need not have an explicit presence, nonetheless is serves to render coherent the entire work of art.  We may choose to ignore it, all the while taking advantage of its local supervenience in the tangible realms of immediate interest.  This point at infinity comes into consciousness only when we stop to reflect upon the coherence of the larger picture.  The scientific view of the world compares with the teleological view, rather as a pre-perspectival drawing compares with a perspectival drawing.  A pre-perspectival drawing and the scientific view present a subjectless perspective.  The perspectival view, however, explicitly acknowledges the presence of the subject.  The scientific response is atoms swerving in the dark: castles in the sand. 

Presently I'm reading Graham Hancock's Supernatural: Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (2005).  Not a bad read. 

 

[11/9]

Any attempt to formalize or in any other way to restrict the scope of meaning leads to an artificial horizon of thought.  The act of human genius is simply the refusal to accept artificial horizons.  The act of human spirituality is to recognize the necessary natural horizon of the ouroboric Telos.  Without that cosmic object, there can be no cosmic subject, and vice-versa.  Both are captured in the dialectic/trinitarian/etc scheme of love.  Use or lose it, and we'd sure look funny without it. 

A case in point is Godel's Incompleteness Theorem:

Later, Roger Penrose entered the fray, providing somewhat novel anti-mechanist arguments in his books, The Emperor's New Mind (1989) [ENM] and Shadows of the Mind (1994) [SM]. These books have proved highly controversial. Martin Davis responded to ENM in his paper "Is Mathematical Insight Algorithmic?", where he argues that Penrose ignores the issue of consistency. Solomon Feferman gives a critical examination of SM in his paper "Penrose's Gödelian argument".

In that paper, Feferman concedes that mathematics requires a non-algorithmic understanding, while declining to accede to Penrose that mathematical reasoning cannot even be represented in algorithmic terms.  One may also say that mathematical understanding, which is necessary for mathematical reasoning, is necessarily informal or supra-formal.   

To put this yet another way, there seems no way to strongly distinguish mathematical sense from common sense.  Common sense is notoriously non-circumscribable.  Nor is there any way to circumscribe one mathematical specialty from any of the others.  There is also a general consensus that proficiency in mathematics requires an aesthetic sensibility.  Is this not true of any mental proficiency?  There is simply no fine distinction between art and any other mental activity. 

This brings us right back to tic-tac-toe.  This game is not a game at all if it is not embedded/embodied in a social context.  Seashells by the seashore engage in tic-tac-toe-like behavior on a sporadic basis, but we are reasonably sure that nothing is thereby signified. 

 

[11/10]

A final question.  I have given the answer already, but it is worth repeating.  Can there exist two or more uncorrelated semantic webs?  The answer is that Nature abhors a vacuum.  What is the vacuum that could separate these two webs?  It would be a magical vacuum, indeed!  There can only be one Cosmos.  So much for atoms, monads, strict polytheism, the Many Worlds Interpretation of QM, modal realism, etc., etc.

Leibniz posited his monads as not having windows.  Could he actually have been that stupid, or is he being misinterpreted??  My hero! 

All intelligible roads (and ex hypothesis there can be none other) lead to the Singular Semantic Web of the Best Possible World Hypothesis. 

"Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum strong enough, and single-handed I can move the world." - Archimedes.  We have the fulcrum, but we're not quite sure where the lever is.  I'm suggesting it is the wired Hollywood.  Could Archimedes have conceived of Tinsel Town?  Tomorrow is 11/11/06.  Do we really want to wait 'til 11/11/11??

 

[11/11]

From someone we know................

Artist: Snow Patrol Lyrics
 Song: Run Lyrics

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up...

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess
 
 

[11/17]

Back to Graham Hancock, who may be something more than just a good read. 

He raises some issues that I have not properly dealt with.  In Supernatural he explores the history of shamanism, particularly as it relates to the prehistoric cave paintings found around the world.  In his other books, Graham speaks of a lost civilization.  This is an idea that I have considered in the context of Hamlet's Mill.  In a nutshell, the idea of an ancient civilization is just the flip-side of our Kingdoms Come, if you will.  It is the Alpha reflecting the Omega in ouroboric fashion.  The shamanic mindset is the repository and the harbinger of the Alpha/Omega teleology. 

What then do we say of Jack S and GN?  What is the technology of teleology?  I suppose it is a kind of Transhumanism, but with a human face.  Here we need also consider the Mandelbrot cosmology.  Each sub-world is a mindset, and that includes especially our own Earth.  Our world has the thickest walls.  Our minds are the most set in their ways, the most mesmerized by the 'ordinary'.  Our thick skin is technologically reinforced.  Technology has helped to get us into this hole; can it get us out?  The Internet is the primary technical shadow of the Telos.  The various EEGs and CAT scans will surely help us to redirect our consciousnesses in some coordinated fashion.  I have to be more skeptical about the role of conventional physics, or any logical extension thereof, in our passage between worlds.  Nor would I advocate a global popping of LSD pills as an eschatological aid.  The eschaton will be primarily a culturally and rationally mediated mind shift.  It cannot be short-circuited with other than disastrous results. 

The artificial enhancement of natural portals or star-gates is where the action will be, or may already be.  This stratagem I have already discussed.  Or it might be better to think of this as the stabilization of relatively spontaneous shamanic processes.  This was done traditionally with tribal ceremonies.  This would have to be done in cooperation with groups of helpful entities, which could include the dear departed.  There must be general limits on the unilateral invasion or interference in other spaces, as an extension of the Prime Directive.  The eschaton has arrived when the entire Earth functions as a portal.  The veil is then lifted.  It would be naive to suppose that human competition will not extend to these endeavors and realms.  Precautions and restraints will be needed. 

 

[11/18]

A basic problem is to explain the seemingly physical interactions of non-physical beings.  Simple materialization presents a serious problem for physics.  The proto-typical trace phenomenon is the 'fairy ring', the precursor of the modern crop-circle phenomenon.  Another such are the radar traces of UFOs.  How might these differ from the phenomenon of stigmata? 

 

[11/19]

The conveyance of information from one 'dimension' to another also implies a physical interaction between the two.  This could happen on a quantum level without violating the conservation of energy. 

In chapter 19 of Supernatural, Hancock attempts to enlist DNA as the repository for the shamanic mythos.  This is an ill-conceived gesture toward scientism.  In just a few pages his thesis degenerates from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Graham has the choice of following Jung or following Crick.  He falls from the supernatural to the super-technical.  Our mythos has been coded into our 'junk DNA' since time immemorial by interdimensional genetic engineers, just waiting for us to discover LSD to unlock the code.  No, sorry, our DNA was fedexed via conventional rocket ship.  We segue from Lucy in the Sky to Buck Rogers. 

 

[11/20]

In chapter 23, Hancock finally comes out against a reductionist view of the shamanist phenomenology, positing rather an ontology of other dimensions of existence, i.e. the 'supernatural'.  The issue posed by the ufologists is whether our intercourse with these other dimensions is purely ideational.  They would strongly argue against this.  And so, it would seem, does Graham in his describing the Fatima and other such encounters.  In such situations there would have to be physical portals or even a more robust overlapping or interpenetration of the dimensions. 

I, more or less, equate the supernatural with the Telos.  Not quite.  There are the other worlds or dimensions as represented by the other, off axis, 'bulbs' in the Mandelbrot scheme, but the central cardioid would then represent an ultra-dimensional Telos.  Something like Serpo would be one of the other, presumably 'lesser'... less 'dense', less populated, etc., worlds.  I have not attempted to describe the divine Telos, leaving that to the mystical encounters with the God-head. 

At some point there must be a collision between the teleological and the evolutionary accounts of the world.  Give teleology and inch and it will take a mile.  Let teleology get its foot in the door of reality, and it will take over the whole cosmos.  There is no rational compromise between teleology and materialism, short of immaterialism. 

But then in the last ten pages, Graham reverts to his buck-passing scheme.  Rather than positing a Telos, he enlists an earlier evolving, extraterrestrial species with having been our genetic engineers.  He refuses to choose between the genetic engineering and the ontological hypotheses.  Thus does he avoid facing the immaterialist consequences of the latter worldview.  He simply cannot face it, and so he persists in his waffling up until the end.  The narrative account is strangely discontinued at the beginning of what was billed to be Hancock's definitive psychedelic trip. 

There will be no point in another waffling account of shamanism.  There will be no point in attempting another preamble to immaterialism, such as this one.  This one is definitive.  The next stop on this path can only be at the BPWH. 

In Appendix I, Graham details the last fifteen years of controversy surrounding the 'neuropsychological', i.e. shamanistic, theory of cave art.  He fails to understand the vehemence of the opposition facing the shamanistic theory.  He fails to do so, because he fails to comprehend the magnitude of the ontological stakes.  It is tantamount to the landing of a UFO on the White House lawn.  The slope from cave art to alien abductions is a slippery one, indeed! 

Further related material comes from Rick Strassman.  He too is compelled to ascribe ontological status to the entities encountered by half of the volunteers in his, the first and last, legally sanctioned experimentation with psychedelics in this generation in the US.  Circumstances and politics contributed to its discontinuation.  I recommend this chapter from his book. 

We do seem to have two types of portals into the other dimensions: 'physical' and 'mental'.  This sounds like a capitulation to dualism.  How can we bridge this gap?  This is THE fundamental issue, certainly in the context of eschatology, which is our primary context. 

One may distinguish two types of psychedelic experience: dream-like and waking.  The usual experience is the former, when one becomes unconscious of one's normal surroundings.  In the latter type, the psychedelic effects seem to intrude, more or less spontaneously, into one's normal surroundings.  The next step toward 'physicality' is then the folie a deux.  I am not aware of such experiences being other than purely spontaneous.  A relatively rare exception is in the case of coordinated lucid dreaming, but then we have reverted to a quasi-dreamscape.  Another exception is in the case of a poltergeist phenomena, even such as at a spoon-bending party.  Collective hypnosis (C/H) is not difficult to achieve, but the results are difficult to verify intersubjectively. 

The collective hypnotic model is perhaps our most robust model for understanding the intersection of otherwise independent realities, given that our normal 'reality' is only one such.  Under (collective?) sensory deprivation or disruption we become open to other domains of intersubjective phenomena.  Waking alien encounters may then be deliberate intrusions into the communal trance state that we call the Earth.  Space travel is one well-documented means of weakening those inter-subjective bonds.  Just ask BJ, who was responsible for debriefing the astronauts. 

In the C/H model, 'spiritual density' and physical 'regularity' could readily be related to population density taken for the whole world.  I have discussed this model previously, but I have not yet found the links.  Indeed, I find no variation of 'hypnosis' on the website.  I will have to make amends.  I am more than a little surprised by this unexpected omission. 

What I do find on the website is 'mesmerized', e.g. see aa, bb, cc. dd, ee.  The pokatok model for Creation is another version of the C/H model.  The Hindu concept of maya is closely related to the C/H model, which exists without all of the negative connotations of the former. 

While we are recapping, I would suggest that the alien reproduction phenomenon, as reported particularly by many female abductees, may provide some insights into the phenomenological origins of biological reproduction cycles, in general. 

 

[11/21]

The CHM is, per force, a corollary of the BPWH.  Breaking that hypnotic hold is the task of the Y2X. 

The reproductive cycle is simply the mother of all cycles.  It is inherent in the ouroboric 'cycle', with the proviso that the latter is actually a singular circuit.  We could say that some form of biological cycle is the conceptual prototype of the ouroboros. 

 

[11/22]

Here we are at Deep Creek Lake with a password protected 4K dialup jobbie.  I won't try to update the blog 'til we get back to Baltimore.  In the meantime I can use this as a scratch pad for emails. 

There is an ongoing discussion with TF concerning the reality of contact.  He argues with Dawkins that religions are the result of viral memes that are self replicating. 

We might ask about the context of this discussion.  I labor under the impression that there is a serious phenomenological problem.  This is what I have been told by CF.  In contrast, TF claims there is a serious viral meme phenomenon.  The remedy, Rx, is vastly different in these two cases. 

I wonder if TF will be willing to engage in this hopefully developing discussion? 

If TF is not willing, then I guess it will be a one sided discussion.

If this is not a matter of national security, then I will stand corrected.

------------------------------

This discussion continues without benefit of TF.  C'est domage. 

Then we have to wonder if CF will contribute.

I maintain that Hancock and Strassman have effectively demonstrated that the only rational explanation of shamanism and the prehistoric cave paintings is an actual contact with alien intelligences. 

 

[11/23]

Where do 'we' sit wrt phenomenology in general and contact in particular?  'We' includes especially the Aviary.  There are now only two skeptics in the Aviary: TF and CF.   TF has come to his skepticism only within the last few years.  This only after lending his imprimatur to the opus that became Collins' EfD book, which endorsement is still on display there.  He continues to be a public supporter of Rick Doty and all his many tales.  This latter continuing support seems now strangely at odds with his turnabout on the Core Story and on the premise of contact in general.  What is the rationale?  What is the explanation for TF's public pronouncements? 

It does seem that TF is severely conflicted.  How much of this conflict is personal, and how much is political?  CF tries to make out that TF is psychologically unstable and veridically challenged.  I kid you not about this.  Of course, according to CF, CF is the only sane and truthful person in the world.  Nonetheless, in the case of TF, CF has been unstinting and especially detailed in his unfavorable diagnosis.  Even so, this position of CF relative to TF is likely to be strongly colored by political exigencies.  This is not to say that CF is anything like your normal political denizen of the Beltway.  If he were even slightly normal he would long ago have foresworn all avian/aquarium associations.  But this has certainly not happened, nor does it even seem to be in the offing. 

What is going on here?  Is there not some kind of avian evolution?  The birds have always been players.  There has always been an unofficial sanction for these birdgames.  The quasi-official side of the aviary has tracked increasingly with the career track of CF.  This track has occasionally been reputed to be stellar, but those imputations remain unverifiable.  Nonetheless, the original sanction has and will only gain in it's quasi-official status, rather like an increasingly established public right of access into the bowels of MJ-12, all in the interest of acclimation to Kingdoms Come (NWO?). 

In this context, TF becomes the lead trickster.  The prime shape-shifter.  That is about as close as I can come to a rationale for the recent gyrations in this perennial soap opera. 

 

[11/24]

I am still of the opinion that the logical outlet for for this soap opera is tinseltown.  But at this point GN has a death grip on the A/A access to TT, with the possible exception of J&VA.  I had been assigned to baby-sit for GN, but in a weak moment I fronted a modicum of cash, which sum spoilt my role as parentis in locus.  CF is now back again holding that bag.  Sorry 'bout that. 

Meanwhile the ufology crowd remains deathly afraid of the shamanistic perspective on their bailiwick.   They refuse to accept any mentalistic, paranormal, non-technological, tricksterish interpretation of their beloved nuts & bolts spaceships.  They are wont to ignore odd and inconvenient socio-political details such as CF supplementing his meager scholarship funds with vampire performances. 

This is exactly how modern society manages to ignore the postmodernists.  There is no rhyme or reason beyond the atoms swerving in the dark.  Well, there are plenty of rhymes in the fundamentalist scriptures, but precious little reason.  The semantic vacuum left by materialism is easily filled by the bible pounders, the more shrill, the better.  There is no competition. 

The A/A microcosm is left with a heavy social burden to bear.  Almost by definition, there can be no competition.  The US, amongst all nations, does retain its manifest (masonic?) destiny amongst the stars.  Poor little Pelican is left holding that bag, as well: the hopes and fears of all the years, in the hands of a vampire impersonator!  Pelican is the albatross around the necks of the ufologists.  All ufo roads lead to Area 51.  DIA/MASINT is the PR office for Area 51, viz. especially Serpo, which may be about to resurface after a less than stellar debut.  RD/Falcon is probably back in that mix, contra his probationary NMSHP status, but now on an even shorter leash than before.  TF is the wild card in the A/A deck.  Just imagine typhoid Mary with an MD and an NMRI.  Wisely, perhaps, he refuses to debate the merits of mimetics vs. shamanism.  He can easily hide behind his exclusive access to the NAS/NRC Tiger Committee.  CF refuses to level the playing field by even so much as allowing SF a parking coupon for the NAS.  I remain the demented uncle in the attic.  And TF still sees fit to complain about these paltry and obscure scribblings. 

 

[11/25]

In Oakland yesterday I picked up two books:  Mysteries of the Middle Ages - The rise of feminism, science and art from the cults of Catholic Europe - by Thomas Cahill (2006), The Left Hand of God - Taking back our country from the religious right - by Michael Lerner (2006). 

These two books may be seen as cautionary addendas to Hancock's Supernatural.  They outline the very hard historical lesson that we had to learn in the process of our being weaned from the cosmic tit.  This is the lesson very conveniently forgotten by our New Ager cousins. 

This very same lesson now needs to be learned by the nuts & bolts (physicalist/materialist/ufology) crowd.  Shamans had us feeding off the Big Tit for the millennia that it took us to learn our ABCs.  With the alphabet came monotheism and/or pantheism.  It was the jealous paternalistic God who severed our cord to the cosmic/pantheist Mother and her Zodiacal/Mandelbrot, often fratricidal, brood. 

It required the incarnation of the favored Son, to bring the mariological Mother in the ecclesiastical back door.  And so Sophia tamed the patriarchal excesses of the Hebraic/Islamic/Fundamentalists.  Sophia/Orpheus, in the guise of Scientia, finally left us the cosmic, existentialist Orphans, having to reckon with the absurdity of life in a meaningless Universe. 

This brings us to the cosmic precipice that we now face.  Modernism has brought us to this existential brink.  There is a tremendous undertow that pulls us back into the premodern tribalism/shamanism/totemism.  It is our Islamic brethren who, never having experienced the modern, except in the most vicarious, insubstantial fashion, are most susceptible to this undercurrent.  It is they who most ardently raise the black flag of an eschatological nihilism, followed not too distantly by their Christian, unwittingly co-conspiring, fundamentalist cousins.  

This brings us back to the A/A microcosm.  The fundamentalist branch is presently being represented by TF & RS.  There is an older Xian contingent going back to DG, EK and JM, the latter two coming out of Kirtland AFB, then EK connecting with DG at W/PAFB.  There is rumored to be a larger invisible contingent of Xians in the MJ-12 orbit.  This is the Avian axis of resistance to the Aquarium/Y2X/KC initiative.  They rightly see this initiative as being part of, or susceptible to, an Anti-X/NWO gambit. 

It is not too surprising that the Xian axis wishes to remain anonymous.  They are content to blackball the Aquarium from the shadows, definitely avoiding any dialog.  A possible switch hitter here is RH.  He was reported by CF to have come around to an aquarium agenda some months ago, but then fell of the radar screen.  Might he have been waylaid by TF/RS? 

What we do continue to see are the attempts of TF/RS to undermine any Hollywood/KC/DI/GN gambit.  In the microcosmic fishbowl, the role of CF remains strictly C/I.  His job is to keep the thumbs of any pre-programmed outsiders off of these fish-scales.  This is part of our untouchability.  There will be no tilting of this playing field.  Nature takes its course, slowly, inevitably.  The opposition is brought to the end of their tether.  There is no stopping the slippery slide to 'disclosure'. 

Here the term 'disclosure' may be used in its most generic sense.  It can simply mean the spontaneous demise of materialism and dualism.  There need be no substance to the 'core story'.  That story may have been a deliberate hoax; it will make no difference in the larger scheme.  This would constitute a strict adherence to the Prime Directive.  Even if there never were any Magi, the pre-eschatological Millennium, the pre-millennial Y2X may unfold unimpeded. 

Humanity cannot escape its rendezvous with its own inherent divinity.  We are closer to that divinity than any angel ever hoped to be.  Not even Satan could know more about evil than do we.  Having committed every possible evil, we have nowhere else to go.  The fundamentalists wish nothing more than to be left to wallow in their own sinfulness, until the trumpets sound.  They will be the very last to see their own inner light. 

Is there any irony to the necessity that nearly every possible evil must be committed in the best possible world?  This is simply the other side of the 'prime directive' coin.  Must the PD be sacrosanct?  We cannot truly see the light without confronting the heart of darkness.  It is that which makes us stronger than the angels.  We are given no choice, but to rise to the ultimate challenge of our own salvation.  That this apokatastasis is logically inevitable does not detract from its metaphysical import.  Our self-salvation is the logical outcome of the ultimate self-sacrifice of God.  That is the pearl of great price. 

When we finally grow tired of being ignorant and doing evil, we will have nowhere to turn but to salvation.  The angels and aliens will be instrumental in the salvational economy, but we will provide the salvific brains and brawn.  The historical sacrifice of God is a singular event.  The Earth is God's better mouse trap.  The cosmos beats a path to our doorstep.  This is Her legacy to us.  The message directed to us from the stars is 'God help us'! That is the one request we cannot refuse.  And who do I think I am to possibly get away with stating this?  Chicken Little! 

 

[11/26]

The historical fact is that the 'official' secrecy, once enforced by the national intelligence apparatus, has been privatized to a latter-day Xian cabal who see themselves as holding their collective finger in the dike against an onrushing tide of satanic forces from beyond what little is left of the Xian pale here on Earth.  We are left with the nearly anonymous silence of the imperial catacombs.  That is all except for the residual chirpings and gurglings of the A/A. 

Has the Visitors' trail grown cold?  Were there never any visitors in the first place?  Visitors?  Yes.  There have always been such.  Did they manage to penetrate the inner sanctum of the National Security regime?  Certainly to some substantial degree.  No security fence has ever held them at bay.  One could even say that they find nothing more enticing than a locked door.  But was there ever a coherent message from our starry messengers?  Likely not. 

It was the task of the Phenomenology Network to extend itself into a Civil Phenomenology Patrol, thus the A/A and their many extensions.  We are the latter-day Josephs, wearing our Technicolor dream-coats, interpreting the alien 'dreams' of Pharaoh.  We too were virtually abducted into this imperial service.  The message finally is in the medium.  The last bird chirping gets this worm.  Chicken Little is the energizer chick in the chirping department.  The only competition is JS, GN and RD.  Someone of the DI ilk may get to decide the winner, that is if the Xian Cabal releases its death-grip on the time-honored A/A conduit to Tinseltown. 

 

[11/28] [a]

The religious soul, of whatever persuasion, has been badly buffeted by modernity.  It has acquired a very thick shell.  It will not be easily coaxed out of its shell of fundamentalism and/or mysticism.  Nonetheless, that will be the job of the Y2X advent.  Postmodernism is helping to soften the shell, in proportion to the weakening of the pall of materialist orthodoxy.  That orthodoxy will probably never recover from its conflation with the Marxist creed, but it has endured a long bout of sclerosis.  It survives now as the only historical alternative to fundamentalism.  The recent electoral defeat of the 'moral majority' in the US midterm election does provide breathing space for a liberal religious revival.  We speak here of a so-called 'progressive christianity'.  It is a tribute to the Xian spirit that, unlike virtually any other religious tradition, the term 'progressive' may be appended to it in a non-oxymoronic fashion. 

The soul of this movement for social justice was  resurrected most recently in the abolitionist movement, mainly in the US.  This movement was commandeered by the socialists in the 19th century.  But the collapse of secular liberalism globally in the latter half of the 20th century, leaves its spiritual core as its last remnant.  Will this spark reignite spontaneously?  I suggest not. 

Why the pessimism?  The spark of social justice was last ignited by the euphoria of the nascent confluence of the movement toward liberty and scientia coming out of the Renaissance.  The rationale of this movement was utterly destroyed by Social Darwinism.  Fundamentalism was the only possible religious counter to Darwinism.  The political conservatives naturally co-opted that reactionary force to their own ends.  Only now is that co-optation running out of steam in the US.  Read Cahill's Mysteries for a well articulated summary of the Xian roots of Western progressivism.  No such spark animates the other traditions.  But the tinder remains drenched in the leavings of materialism.  I do not foresee an entirely spontaneous combustion. 

Thus a minimalist Visitation in the spirit of the Prime Directive.  That Visitation deftly drove a stake into the heart of the beast of modern materialism and the power structure that has grown up around it.  That Golem now stumbles aimlessly, soullessly.  The A/A is a terrarium where a cosmic seed may be allowed to sprout.  Will that sapling stand up to its inevitable scrutiny?  Only one way to find out.  The only issue is the trigger for that scrutiny.  Is CF somehow the delayed political fuse?  What trick may be up that sleeve?  Does anyone know or care to speculate? 

 

[11/29]

Jack,

You can be entertaining at times, but this exercise is not strictly for entertainment.

I am here primarily at the behest of the US intelligence officer who is in charge of tracking ‘phenomenology’.

You are here as the ex-officio representative of the (fringe?) physics community, in its belated effort to provide a physical explanation for a panoply of previously unexplained phenomena.

By your own admission, you have failed to provide any adequate explanation for all but possibly a very small subset of such ‘paranormal’ phenomena. It is not even clear that you have been able to make a case for the conceivability of a ‘physical’ explanation.

It does not appear that you or your fringe physics colleagues are making any progress in persuading the scientific establishment even to take a second look at these phenomena. Debunking remains the response of choice for this establishment.

That does not mean that the Phenomenology Group wants you and your colleagues to give up your quest. It won’t hurt for you to keep trying, even against all odds. ‘Damn the torpedoes,’ you like to say. It might be more realistic to be saying, ‘Damn reality,’ but realism in these phenomenal domains is not your strong suit.

Let me also remind you, Jack, that if, per chance, God does exist, She does not do so by your leave. You claim to find the concept of God to be personally repugnant. By holding such a belief, you represent a vanishingly small fraction even of the scientific community.

Show me one person, even amongst your fellow travelers, who would claim that there is no conceivable manner of God/Creator that would be preferable to taking our pot-luck in the Big-Bang/ Many-World lottery. This is an absurdist position that we ought to suppose is simply a gimmick for what you suppose is our entertainment.

But I remind you, Jack, this is not about our personal preferences; this is alleged to be about national security.

And what might God have to do with national security? A lot of things.

First and foremost, there may be a ‘divine’ plan for the world. It would not behoove us to disregard any such plan. Even if the powers-that-be did not like the plan laid out for us, they would be well-advised to be cognizant of what the possibly higher powers might already have in mind. Only thus might the PtB attempt a work-around.

Failing a viable work-around, the PtB would do their level best to keep their thumb in that pie. I submit that I am that thumb, or am some sort of proxy or decoy for said ‘thumb’. To some approximation it would also be my job to represent those Fat Kats, but I don’t suppose that would be the end of it.

This is where I am. If this is not what I’m supposed to be doing ‘here’, then I have been frequently encouraged to labor under a false flag over a rather large number of years.

The Revelation of the Kingdoms Come will come as a shock, even to the most spiritual amongst us. No community will be more shocked than the scientific community. I am placed here to hold that hand and practice my best bedside manner. If you have a problem with that, then you ought to consult with CF.

Dan

 

[11/30]

David,

They’re right; the squeaky wheel does get the oil, or is it the one sheep in ninety-nine that strays.

Evidently, David, you hate the very concept of God. I don’t know of anyone who has made it past Theology 101, who does not take it as a truism that we are nothing other than a temporary and illusory extension of the trinity, or, more crudely, that we are one with God.

It is logically impossible for the atheist to hate God. Otherwise, to hate God is tantamount to hating oneself. I say this out of no sense of pity, but simply as the baldest expression of theo-logic.

What does it mean to hate oneself? I have been with you on several occasions. I generally see a hale fellow, well met. It may well be that you feel that you have failed to live up to certain of your expectations, or having managed to meet your own expectations, you feel that you have failed to meet others’ expectations, and so on.

In short, you may feel that God has not done right by you. But doesn’t everybody entertain such doubts on a daily basis, and yet 99/100 go right on loving God, also on a more or less daily basis.

Perhaps the problem lies closer to home. I doubt that you go around with a sign in public, proclaiming your hate for God. It does seem then that I have a peculiar knack for triggering that feeling and expression in you.

This could indicate several things. First it indicates that, although you may not take me seriously, at least you credit me for doing so. But, no, you must partake of some of my seriousness, because clearly you are seriously perturbed by my elocutions. You do not see fit just to laugh me and my posturings off the stage. Come to think of it, that is the one thing that has not transpired in this little sojourn. T’is a minor miracle.

It does seem rather like you have a score to settle with God, and, lo’ and behold, guess who shows up on your doorstep?!

But wait, what is the point of these slings and arrows? The vast bulk of humanity, directly or vicariously, knows deep down that we have already performed the crucifixion thingy. I also credit you with knowing that, on some level of your historical/Jungian being.

I don’t suppose that you are so obtuse as to want to bring more coal to Newcastle.

I am trying to see things from your perspective. You may be trying to see things from mine, and not quite getting it. You may realize, deep down, that there is a phenomenon here that calls for an explanation, and you are frustrated in your failure to find one.

If you could understand what makes Dan tick, that would settle it.

Let me see if I can help. What you and others may find to difficult to believe is that somewhere behind these posturings there is not at least a modicum of willfulness. That is probably the reason for the slings and arrows: scratch the surface and see what emerges. I hate to appoint or disappoint you, but it is just turtles all the way down. Yes, it is WYSIWYG. After this sojourn, that acronym will probably have to be retired.

What I think I come by honestly is the truth. Being the Spirit of the Truth is not terribly far fetched, if I am right about the immaterialism and the eschatology, and that is not nearly as big an if as many would like to think. That was practically a no-brainer. It is the Messianic thingy that may induce sweaty palms and a dry throat. From day one, I knew there would likely be some confusion about the latter-day roles of the third and second persons. That is until c. 1995 when CF & SF were named in an, oh so, casual remark. Three persons in one substance is supposed to be the formula. But it could as well be 10^10 persons in one substance. It’s all just one big multiple-personality disorder. More precisely it is a personality reordering or ‘recycling’. The quotes are to indicate that this is not a quantitative cycle; it is rather a singular, qualitative, ouroboric loop of ‘time’. The First shall be Last and the Last shall be First. Alpha = Omega.

Whatever may be the problem, David, between you and God, it will get worked out in the end, or my name isn’t Dan.

One (2?) last point(s) before we turn to the below:

The power of God and the Spirit is real; it is more real than TNT. Like TNT, it must be handled with care, and all too often, out of sheer ignorance and occasional malice, it is not. When it is mishandled, many suffer, seemingly unnecessarily. Does that mean, however, that we can or should renounce the Spirit? Science has been one very long exercise in spiritual renunciation, and look where that has gotten us: bigger and better bombs.

Given that there is to be something, at least, vaguely recognizable as a messianic second coming, to whom would we entrust such an advent?

Why not the proverbial saucer landing on the White House lawn? That would meet most of our expectations. Come to think of it, that is almost exactly what did happen. What you see unfolding here is just a considerably delayed reaction to that event.

The next stop may be Hollywood; at least that is my present inclination. Any suggestions?

<<<<<<<<<
[Dan] "I do believe that the very worst characteristics ascribed to God were simply lifted straight out of the 'old testament'."

Oh, really?! You reveal your bias with that remark Chum. It just so
happens that your arrogance is only matched by your ignorance. Listen
and learn:

Who was it who said that the child should not suffer for the sins of
the father and vice versa? Jesus? NO! That was Ezra the Lawgiver. It
is he who contradicted the nearly global belief that punishment for
sins should be applied to one's family and descendants.

How long have the Christians continued to apply this barbaric idea to
the Jews for supposedly killing Christ? The title 'old testament' is
a Christian invention. The Jews do not call it old as if it had been
superceded by something new, which is an egotistical way of taking
center stage. The Moslems have done the same thing and it's bunk.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

David. This, too, should be a no-brainer. Well, maybe not quite! It is actually a brainer.

This is simply the difference between theism and pantheism, to wit:

The pantheist/materialist/transhumanist would prefer to fly in an airplane that is on automatic pilot. This would be certainly one way to solve the problem of hijackings.

When the pantheist meets God on the path, he is under strict orders to kill Her. So it would be better to think of me as a hijacker, in connivance with the CIA, all in the interest of ‘national security’, mind you!

Wait, where were we?

<< …..which is an egotistical way of taking center stage. >>

Egotistical? Yes, the CIA has aided and abetted my attempt to purloin the messianic persona from the Jews. Shame on me! The question I put to you, David, is, if you were God, how would You rather handle the all too evident global messianic fever and expectations that were caused, in no small part, by Your alleged historical machinations? Do you dare to second guess the CIA?

True story: The day before his assassination, I confronted RFK concerning the ‘Population Bomb’, you may recall his eleven offspring. His rather annoyed response was, “You handle it!!”

<<<<<<
And how do you know what the God of Jesus was? The God of Jesus was
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Christianity, or let
me put it this way, the Three headed polytheistic faith called
Christianity is posing as a monotheist faith, it is more like
Hinduism, with innumerable demigods. Basically, a pagan faith, perfect
for the degraded Greeks of the Roman era. Pericles and the rest were
long dead.

"Are you claiming, David, that such a being is not conceivable?"

Sure, it's conceivable, many people conceive of just such a God, but
it's fiction. Just like the Greek romances that form the subtext of
the NT.

"I would go further and state that any other such Creator would be inconceivable."

Only to those of limited imagination. I can certainly conceive of
other creators. Read Olaf Stapledon's 'Starmaker'.
>>>>>

You are nit-picking here. Do you really suppose that God would have created so many people, if, deep down, She were not a people person?

Yes, on occasion, She has man-handled us, but has that not been, at the very least, a collective form of ‘tough love’? And did she even spare Her own Son, for God’s sake??


Dan

 

[12/2]

Sam et alia,

<< We would be naive indeed if we too easily dismissed the concept of a technological god thing at this juncture when we haven't even figured out what the hell Dark Matter/Energy are, and we have no idea how far a living being can evolve technologically in this universe yet. >>

What most of you physicalists/technologists fail to appreciate is the actuality of mind over matter, as in the simplest of PK phenomena.

There is only one mystery that really counts, and that is the mystery of the mind.

Sam implicitly espouses here transhumanism. That implies a teleology that is focused on the power of the mind to transcend nature. This, in turn, implies that the mind is an essential aspect of reality. It is not an accidental or epiphenomenal aspect nature.

If you accept that reality is essentially a mind oriented, teleological system, then it is natural to posit the fact of mind over matter. That is no longer a mystery. It is simply the basis for any conscious system.

This is simply to say that VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System) is not an accidental byproduct of the world, but is at the heart of reality.

There is no way to avoid this logical deduction. If you see a way, then please spell it out.

This simple deduction is the basis of the BPW hypothesis. QED.

Dan

 

[12/4]

Subject: Re: The measurement and signature of the non-local mind

Dan,

You are fixated with the idea of dismissing the phenomenological carrot on the stick that drives us forward, in favor of direct consultation with the master(s) that placed it there.

I have already been there, done that.

The stick, nevertheless, continues to serve a vital purpose. Without the stick we would cease chasing after the dream(times) and give up our material existence.

That would appear to defeat the entire purpose of a 'virtual' reality, or am I wrong here?

The non-local mind and many worlds suggest that any shift away from following the reality stick will only bring about passage into a different world, no more and no less. If we already inhabit the BPW, then any shift into 'elsewhere' or 'elsewhen' would be a step for the worse, don't you agree?

Are you suggesting a rebellion against the powers of the heavens, the same that sought fit to place us in the BPW ?

Gary

--------------------------------

Gary,

You are raising a valid issue, as best as I am able to decipher your thoughts.

What I am saying to you and to others trying to push the scientific envelope to encompass the teleological dimension is that you will not be able to get there from here; that is, not without a better understanding of the carrot, to use your analogy.

I can best explain this epistemological problem with an analogy from the construction industry.

Your donkey and carrot analogy dismisses the fundamental idea of theism, which is that we are created in the image of the Creator(VALIS?). This fact tells us that we must always be trying to think and act like God. Keep this in mind as we examine our present predicament or challenge.

We appear to have reached a very critical and unprecedented point in our history. This is true from many perspectives, be they scientific, political, existential, spiritual, etc., etc.

It is as if we have come to a precipice, the brink of our existence. There is no clear way forward.

Can we stop dead in our tracks? That hardly seems possible. Human history is the story of our Long March. None of us has the power to halt this parade. We can only attempt to bridge the chasm before us. The fog is thick. We cannot see the other side; we cannot see the bottom.

(NASA was an attempt at an escape plan. It seems rather too little, too late, and probably ill-conceived, too 'linear' in its vision.)

Like the shaman of a 'threatened' jungle village, we consult the oracles. The spirits bring mixed messages. The most consistent message is that we must consult our own innermost spirit, i.e. God is within.

The upshot of these machinations is quite simple, What would God (have us) do?

The BPWH is just my attempt to answer that question. I construct the simplest coherent cosmology that can be obtained from the sum-total of our historical wisdom, to-date.

Back to the engineering analogy: the bridge across the chasm.

Theism tells us that there will come a 'judgment' day. The vast majority of humanity believes this, in one form or another. I, for one, do not place my own intuitions above those of 90% of humanity. Rest assured that some sort of cosmic intervention this way is headed.

The least apocalyptic intervention scenario would be the 'bridge' design. That is what I am attempting to replicate/anticipate with the BPWH.

There must be an advanced team that can establish a foothold on the far side. That is what the Aquarium is about. Going to the other side to establish the beachhead from which a lifeline can be suspended and then a bridge constructed over the chasm from our space-time world to beyond space time on the far side of the chasm.

That bridge is our only alternative to a physical apocalypse on the near side, in the near term. The way to avoid a physical apocalypse is to be open to a mental/spiritual apocalypse/revolution. The Visitation was to prepare us for this revolution.

(to be continued...)

 

[12/5]

Gary and Caryn,

So we have arrived here at our historical watershed, with its combined spiritual, material and scientific crises, an existential abyss, a global clash of cultures, etc. Pure science appears to have run out of answers for our multiple predicaments. Politicians fare no better.

Those of us on the intellectual/spiritual margins look to something like VALIS (non-local mind) for a clue. We readily detect strong intimations of extra-mundane agendas.

It is most natural to take a Jungian slant on VALIS. It has impacted our cultural traditions up to the advent of our scientific, analytical, reductionist enterprise. VALIS is the veridical source of what is irreducibly holistic.

We can only suppose that our own minds must, to some degree, reflect VALIS. If there is a deeper, nearly subconscious coherence in the human mind, it represents our most likely point of access into VALIS. That slender thread of coherence is our one known lifeline to the far shore of the existential abyss that we confront.

Within the human spiritual tradition there is the one great divide between theism and pantheism. If our Jungian thesis about VALIS is correct, there must be a coherent synthesis of these two traditions. That historically neglected synthesis must contain the long sought philosophers' stone that is the singular, unified foundation for the wisdom of the ages.

I submit that VALIS is simply Pantheos, i.e. the God that is everywhere. Our job now is just to look for the footprints of Pantheos.

The most likely place to look for these footprints will be in the universal aspects of the human mind. These should include the universal aspects of language, aesthetics, morality, and, of course, mathematics.

Furthermore, the positing of Pantheos provides a solution for the unsolved problems on the frontiers of science, all of which appear to be pointing in a pan-Theist direction. I'm referring to the Anthropic principle, to the unreasonable effectiveness of math in physics, to the organic nature of mathematics, to the unreasonable power of mathematical genius, to the mind-body problem, to the shamanic origins of our historical cultures, to the origins of life, to mention the most obvious.

VALIS/Pantheos provides a coherent, unifying answer to these looming scientific anomalies.  Pantheos is nothing more nor less than the ultimate unifying field theory. 

Correlating VALIS with the anomalies of science cannot fail to give us an insight into its nature. Clearly it must be embedded in the fabric of reality, i.e. in the mental, physical and biological components of reality. Should we not posit that VALIS is simply the foundation of the world? It is the creative principle behind all existence.

Then we must ask, from 'whence' came this non-localizable VALIS? The answer is not difficult to discern. VALIS/Pantheos is the ultimate, cosmic bootstrap principle. It is the logical precursor of all localizable existence. Space and time, for instance, must be counted amongst its byproducts. VALIS 'exists' beyond space and time. It has no origin. Like the Ouroboros/bootstrap it is logically self-originating.

This sounds terribly abstract. What does this have to do with the here and now? It has almost everything to do with the crises presently facing our civilization. It is what lies on the far side of the existential precipice we now face. It is the cosmic mind upon which we must focus our own minds in order to bridge the chasm before us.

Our visitors are another manifestation of this cosmic lifeline, that and nothing more. They are not our rescuers bringing lifeboats to take us to planet X. They are only here to facilitate our awakening to our cosmic situation. They can contribute to our gnosis of Pantheos, but only to the extent that we realize that our primary access to Pantheos is within ourselves, both individually and collectively. Our ultimate destination is 'dimension x', if you will.

There you have the most basic elements of our present situation. We have 'merely' to connect these dots. To play the 'game' that confronts us, we will have to have a full deck of cards. There are many players in this arena who cherish and hoard their own pieces of the cosmic pie. But to eat their pie they will have to find their places at the table. That requires a unifying vision.


Dan

 

[12/6] [a]

Per Jack's suggestion, I am presently reading

• Hepburn and Peacock,  Begging the Signaling Question: Quantum Signaling and the Dynamics of Multiparticle Systems --
     http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906036

• Raphael Bousso, The holographic principle -- http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0203101

Both of these papers deal with the problem of non-locality: the first in QM, the second in GR.  The issue before us is whether these two problems are somehow related.  The further issue would then be whether both of these problems point to the larger holographic problems pointed to by M. Talbot and K. Pribram independently.  All of these problems leave a rather large opening for a VALIS version of a 'hidden variables' interpretation of physics.  All of this is to say that physics is a phenomenological theory rather than ontological.  There is a deeper, non-local, 'informational' layer. 

The above, fairly standard speculation is a just bare step away from the BPWH.  The BPWH is the only way to avoid the logical absurdities of of infinite modal worlds.  I do not have a problem with infinity, per se, as along as it is essential to a qualitative semantic web.  There can be no separate realities, because there can be no real separation, without an infinite regress.  A cognizable semantic web is the unavoidable universal glue and solvent. 

Then Jack calls to complain about Eric Julien and Gordon.  We agree that the technology is premature, at best, and that the 'physics' is ill-founded, at best.

The we get onto Bousso and Hepburn.  We agree that these lead to VALIS, and I enquire as to the difference between VALIS and God.  Jack insists that I watch his video, produced by Sam Arnold, which I transcribe below, reproduced with permission:

• Sarfatti-Causation (c) (R)
• No joke about 1953 either
• Consciousness, Cosmology and Gravity
• Think of <A,B|x,x'> as an advanced wave from the future
• and <x,x'|A,B> as a retarded wave coming from the past.
• VALIS = Einstein, Podolski, Rosen tensor product of
• the Mindscapes of all transient, conscious minds
• everywhere-when.
• The facts are: signal nonlocality exists in living matter.
• Is consciousness some kind of physical field
• that can couple strongly to the fabric of space-time itself?
• You cannot reach the stars without dark energy powered vehicles
• [or] dark energy stabilized star gates. 
• The boundary between fact and fiction is not as sharp as it once was.
• Because of signal nonlocality violating micro-quantum mechanics,
• the parts of the whole can be aware of each other.
• I suspect there are discarnate cosmic scale intelligences like V.A.L.I.S.
• Vast Active Living Intelligence Systems.
• I get attacked by both sides: the debunkers [and] true believers.
• I am even skeptical about my own crazy ideas.
• The question is: are they crazy enough to be true? 
• If you have a will to survive, there is no choice but metric engineering,
• warp and wormhole to achieve Timothy Leary's SMI2LE:
• Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension.
• Do not seek, VALIS will find you.
• ODLRO [off-diagonal long range order]:
• Space-time fabric is spun out of the super-conscious mind of God
• VALIS not God [!?]

I have no problem up that last point, the one that I raised with Jack on the phone. 

We agree that VALIS is very likely to have the capacity to restrain Susskind's Landscape of possible worlds associated with the 10^500 mathematically possible versions of string theory. 

But given that VALIS is able to constrain the ontological profligacy of the mathematical possibilities of physics, and given the Cosmological Anthropic Principle, then how far are we away from something looking a lot like the BPWH??

The basic bootstrap principle of the BPWH requires that all sentience participates in the cosmic mind:

<<VALIS = Einstein, Podolski, Rosen tensor product of the Mindscapes of all transient, conscious minds everywhere-when.>>

Perhaps the most basic notion of the BPWH is that the space-time manifold is a projection of the cosmic consciousness:

<< According to ODLRO[/VALIS]: the Space-time fabric is spun out of the super-conscious mind of God.>>

Given all of this, then I am failing to find any logical distinction between Jack's version of VALIS and the cosmic intelligence/Telos of the BPWH.  The only real distinction between the latter being and the God of traditional theism is the degree to which we are perceived to be separate from each other and from that being.  I suggest that the separation between ourselves and between us and God is mainly a matter of perspective. 

Thus do we see a convergence between the wisdom of the s/ages and the deepest insights of modern science.  This should be a cause for celebration.  It should indicate that we are close to the completion of our intellectual sojourn.  All in all, it should be no great surprise.  We are finally drawing nigh to our Destiny Matrix/Telos. 

-------------------------------------

Jack mentioned on the phone another cute idea that he derives from Bousso (p. 45).  The IQ (informational entropy) of God/Cosmos varies as the inverse of the cosmological constant.  Our cosmic 1/Lambda = 10^120, which is rather far above the genius level of 1.4x10^2.  Presumably, however, we can make up for our individual deficiencies tuning into the clear signal God channel, to whatever extent possible.  Practice makes perfect.  We could easily settle for a few crumbs off that plate.  Will this compensate for my arteriosclerosis?

Where Jack and I may still differ is on the technological front.  I am rather more skeptical there than is he.  The issue at hand is that of the design of portals or 'star-gates'.  Jack hypothesizes that dark matter must be used to construct such portals, whereas the BPWH posits that cosmic intercourse is mediated by mind over matter, as is everything else, ultimately.  Creation, such as it is, is a mental construct, after all.  This is simply in accord with the definition of immaterialism.   

 

 

 

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