Agoraphilia 

 

Now where were we, before our fish tank got rattled?  Here we go, back to the metaphysical salt mine, on the lookout for the occasional flakes of gold. 

The premise was that our pantheonic denizens of Mt. Olympus have an essential need for an Olympic venue.  Agoraphilia is obviously a natural state of mind that is unlikely to remain eternally unfulfilled.  Our world is quite probably an example of its fulfillment.  The Big Bang would certainly be one means of producing an awesome agora, but it is also a rather cumbersome, even awkward form of Creation. 

If the idea is just to generate a plaza, a Cafe de la Paix, then the Big bang would be using a sledge hammer to swat a fly.  There are just two logical courses to follow, relative to Creation: monist or dualist.  No, sorry, I can see nothing logical in dualism.  How we in the prophetic tradition ever got suckered into this incoherent mode of thinking is quite beyond me.  Only God could have so successfully engineered this red herring.  Clearly Descartes did not manage it all by himself.  

If you're going to have a Cafe, you've got to have some coffee.  Unbeknownst to us, this coffee was decaffeinated.  It was just intended to put us to sleep.  Asleep that is to our own creation.  If the gods go to all the trouble of putting on an Olympiad, they are going to want us to keep focused on the Games.  They don't want us to keep being distracted by ulterior questions.  There is only room for so many mystics on so many mountains.  The rest of us keep our nose to the nearest grindstone.  

But if the gods aren't crazy, can't they be lazy?  Trying to save all the appearances of a natural, uncreated world ought to keep them all a lot busier than a bunch of one-armed paper hangers.  Instead, all they would need to do is listen to Steven Weinberg for the First Three Minutes, then sit back for next 12,000,000,000 years and enjoy the show.  It sounds like a good deal to me. 

It may sound good on paper, but I'm suggesting that God is much more of a hands-on type of Gal.  The only caveat is that we are her hands,...and eyes, ears, etc.  More importantly, we are her Imagineers.  Yes, God takes more than one page out of Tom Sawyer, but not because she is lazy.  It's because we and she are all just chips off the same Matrix.  

 

[5/6] 

The struggle continues.  Clearly we're not quite ready for prime time, but I maintain that I am ready for the sort of limited engagement that could be greatly facilitated by Ron.  I am operating in a vacuum here.  Part of that vacuum has been created by my public association with Dr. P.  In those pre-Internet days, Ron's phenomenology network represented the only possible outlet for my radical cosmology.  And, yes, I was strung along with that possibility dangling in front of me for several years, before reaching the glass ceiling by about 1998.  I can understand the historical necessity of 9/11, especially in the context of Y2K and Y2C (and ref. X2).  It is a psychological bench mark.  And I can understand the hiatus in the Aquarium initiative before and after.  The dust has to be allowed to settle.  But there is window of opportunity here, which cannot be neglected.  There must be a sunset provision for the R & D show, and I surely would not envy the person who had to reinvent it.  Redundancy is not built into the BPW hypothesis.  I recognize that breaking the glass ceiling of the Aquarium by Ron would likely be irreversible and be fraught with uncertainty, but it is not clear that continued inaction is a reasonable alternative.  So be it, and now back to the agora. 

What I am struggling with are the psychological origins of space and time.  This is the critical piece of any immaterialist cosmogony.  Somehow we transform semantic into spatial relations.  The Matrix is the singular, indivisible cosmic potentiality.  It is the ground of being.  To be is to relate.  The most related thing we know is the self.  The self is the primordial being.  The only selves we know are essentially social in nature.  There could not exist a singular self.  The primordial being is a pantheon.  The Matrix has undergone a spontaneous multiple personality breaking of its symmetry.  The Matrix has become a Mt. Olympus, or a Zodiacal pantheon.  This is the logical and inevitable pretext of any and all relational being.  However, any Creational progress beyond this bare beginning is going to require a quasi-conspiratorial, deliberate transformation of Mt. Olympus into an Olympiad, or, more precisely, a spin-off of the former.  The Olympiad is a Zodiacal folie a douze (12), if you will.  It is a Cafe de la Paix, a la Star Wars.  

Without the benefit of the symmetries and translational invariances of space and time, the number of beings that might be accommodated by the Matrix will be severely limited.  Upwards of hundreds of fragmentary personalities have been reported in extreme MPD/DID cases, but you can see the logistical problem of attempting to socialize such a menagerie without taking advantage of spatial relations and combinatorics.  

If space is a social illusion, the main problem will be its sustenance.  The simple solution is the ritualization of the sacred space.  This would involve astrology, sacred geometry and choreography, and these elements would optimally occur in a megalithic type of context.  All we have to do is fit these pieces into a mythic or cosmogonic narrative.  There ought to be considerable flexibility at this point. 

The choreography would likely involve sacred processions and team games particularly using a ball court, as is evidenced in the Mayan culture (Pokatok).  In some such manner do we manage to routinize the illusional charism of the sacred primordial space.  The next biggest conceptual hurdle is from a sacred space to a metabolic space, or from 'mythology' to zoology and ecology.  Biological reproduction would be the major sticking point.  The phenomenology of seeds would be crucial.  How might this be routinized?  Might fertility rituals provide any clues?  

Or perhaps we reconsider the MPD.  In this case it is usually a trauma that produces the cloning of the persona.  Then consider the myth of the sacrificial god or king often associated with fertility rituals.  There is the associated complex of sadomasochism.  The dialectic process of cloning, the mark of distinction, the Zim-zum, etc., may all be relevant.  

Numbers are relevant to all of the above.  Pi, phi and 'e' seem particularly so, along with e^i*pi.  Sequences and functions all have seeds or generators.  Pi & phi and syzygys of them are involved in the delimitation of sacred spaces.  Fractal geometries inhabit the interface between algebra and geometry, and they usually involve the seemingly androgynous iota.  The imaginary iota is a seed, par excellence.  Symmetry groups are intimately involved in space, cloning and combinatorics.  Most of mathematics and physics is directly related to the structure of symmetry groups.  The Anthropic Principle of physics and the organicity of mathematics both manifest the vital force that animates all being. 

It may be fair to say that spatial and metabolic inflation are both just the logically inevitable outgrowths of the vital or dialectical principle that is inherent to the Matrix.  The Matrix is that potency.  The only countervailing force to this promiscuous inflation is the relational restriction inherent in coherence and narrational semantics.  The cosmic mind cannot expand beyond the relational limit of self-coherence.  Creation will surely push that envelope, but it cannot be broken without abrogating the relational essence of all being.  That would be tantamount to the logically impossible cloning of the Matrix itself. 

The deliberative process of Creation is the subtle interplay between pure potency and teleological coherence.  It is this process that necessarily results in the BPW.  Rogue forces can only be self-defeating in the teleological context. 

Atoms are the coin of any metabolic realm.  They, along with their cipher cousins, are the necessary limit of all combinatorial and recombinatorial processes.  Atoms are the spatial analogs of the dimensionless ciphers.  Coins, atoms and ciphers are all materialized in the rituals of the green eye-shaded, pocket-protecting technocratic cult.  Our passage through this analytico-reductive fire is how our souls are ritually purified for the rapture of the hierogamos.  These are the scales of Ma-at, the Egyptian god of measures.  This is the singular cosmic regeneration.  

The relational robustness of atoms is sufficient for their substance to spill over into the substantiality of our technological enterprise, which is the cosmic pivot of our sojourn into 'matter'.  It is the esoteric logic of the quantum that also enables the same substantiality.  It is the perpetual interplay of the projective Q and shape-shifting iota which plays out this analytic limit of the vital dialectic.  

We seem to be approaching a mnemonic of sorts: 

   vital potency (M) + relational coherency (Dia-logos) ->  AZO/X/QRP =  BPW. 

This is the BPW cosmology in one sentence.  M + D -> AZO/X/QRP = BPW. 

All of this has been fleshed out to a degree.  Each time around this horn, I stop to reflect on what seem to be the largest remaining logical and narrational gaps, and then proceed to fill them in, connecting the various dots.  Our skeleton remains reasonably robust, and reasonably accessible given some personal assistance on my part.  At some point I will need to recompile a topical index to afford an unassisted accessibility to the stout of heart.  All said and done, the BPW is reasonably prepared for its first round of criticism, IMHO.  

From still another perspective, the irresistible force meets the immovable object, yielding, after due diligence, the BPW.  Each interested reader should feel encouraged to produce their own paraphrase. 

In the meantime: the immediate opacity and seeming intransigence of the world is just one aspect or condition of its teleological transparency and amenability.  All is well that ends well. 

 

[5/8] 

I have been living with these radical, speculative ideas for more than a quarter century.  I am constructing from scratch an alternative worldview.  The last known person to make such an attempt was G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831).  I do not wish to compare these efforts with his.  He was a ponderous scholar with that peculiarly German style of philosophical exposition.  In contrast I am just a gadfly.  I am the Yankee Doodle taking pot shots at the 'German mercenaries', i.e. professional scholars, from behind the trees.  

I aim ultimately for coherence.  Not, in the first instance, for a coherence of exposition, but rather for a coherence of the subject matter.  My cosmology is organic.  The phenomenological cosmos is a living organism, albeit an immaterial one, which I attempt to understand, not from an analytical or biological perspective, but from a biographical perspective.  The coherence toward which I aim is that of the 'metanarrative'.  But we live in the postmodern era.  It is the sworn duty of every postmodernist to disallow and deconstruct any such construct.  The BPW hypothesis, if it were ever to come to their attention, would be regarded as just an atavistic piece of intellectual hegemony -- something quite distasteful or even boorish.  Political correctness is to be found only in an absolute pluralism, oxymoronic though that may be.  

This is a powerful current to be swimming against.  It is a lonely struggle, even as measured on the scale of Google's global purview.  How can such an off-the-charts effort not be dismissed as that of a crank?   A good question, that one. 

My only defense against the putative label of 'crank' is my purported coherence.  Purported, I say, because, quite admittedly, the existing website is nothing short of disjointed.  The BPW hypothesis is and will remain for the indefinite future a work, hopefully, in progress.  I can hardly imagine that there will not be written more than one book on this topic, but don't be looking for my name on any of them.  I have my little thing going here with Sophia, and the last thing I need are the distractions of publication.  Every morning I can wake up to a clean slate in my blog, and that is how it must be. 

 

[5/10] 

Dear Diary, I have submitted an informal request for a review of the BPWH.  I await a response.  Without prejudging the outcome of the immediate request, it might be beneficial, nonetheless, for me to use this space to draft some follow-up material. 

My request addresses the problem of 'phenomenology'.  The putative reviewer is likely to have some background in that area of collection.  This approach does raise anew the issue of Aquarium protocol.  The subject of uncorrelated phenomena is controversial.  More than half of our citizens believe that the government has been less than forthcoming concerning this type of information.  My correspondent is the only official who has admitted responsibility for its collection.  

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

My understanding is that you have responsibility for tracking 'uncorrelated' phenomena. I gather that you do this on a very ad hoc basis. For the last quarter century I have been struggling with the theoretical side of this coin. The Aquarium has functioned as a kind of think-tank. I attempt to correlate the previously uncorrelated aspects of the world.

Before the Aquarium there was science, and before science there was religion. Each has in its own manner attempted to correlate human experience. Each of the previous attempts has failed in more or less obvious ways. Those failures, however, should not excuse us from continuing our effort to grasp what is the widest possible context for human experience.

The Aquarium effort is obviously on a very modest scale, and certainly on a modest budget. Yet, the very widespread post-modern mind-set has strongly favored philosophical pluralism and deconstruction. This 'zeitgeist' transforms even this modest constructive effort into something practically world-class, just by default.

Even this modest effort then deserves to be reviewed by someone cognizant of the phenomenology 'problem', if that is how it may be labeled. There is an issue here of global security. If the nature of reality is something significantly other than what is being assumed within science and/or religion, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to being blind-sided by possible cosmic developments. The problem of eschatology certainly ought to fall into this category of possibilities. Eschatology has become something of a specialty of the Aquarium, and it is an essential feature of the BPW hypothesis.

If I had any direct responsibility for phenomenology, I would want to keep myself apprised of the state-of-the-art for any correlational effort. In the public realm there can be little argument that the Aquarium's BPW hypothesis is on the cutting edge of all such efforts. So, at the very least, perusing the BPWH would be a useful exercise in mind-stretching for anyone burdened with second guessing the phenomenology scene.

So, just what is the BPWH?

Besides science, there have only ever been two truly distinct flavors of cosmology: theism and pantheism. The BPWH purports to be the one possible coherent synthesis of these two predecessors, which also takes full account of the scientific enterprise.

Metaphysical monism is the key to the BPWH. This has also been the basis of pantheism. Theism, on the other hand, has too easily fallen into the logical dead-end of dualism. This dualism, as later developed by Descartes into a mind-body dualism, turned out to be very convenient and probably even necessary for the development of the scientific, materialist worldview. Convenience, however, is not a concomitant of truth. Nor can the convenience of science ultimately deter us from our age-old quest for truth and gnosis.

Creation then was never meant to be a spectator sport for us creatures. We are the full participants in this 'participatory universe'. We are its co-creators. The pantheists have known this all along. But, and this is a very big BUT, they disavowed assigning any rationale or intrinsic value to the world. The world could have intrinsic value only if it were the result of a moral act. That Moral Actor can only be the theistic Creator. We can participate in that act only if we may ultimately be identified with that Actor.

This excruciatingly obvious synthesis of theism and pantheism is the single most neglected truth in the world. The Aquarium has staked its existence on the exploration and promulgation of this singular, coherent truth.

The BPW website is a daily chronicle of my struggle to understand and explain the literally earthshaking ramifications of this one simple truth. This is a burden that I am all too willing to share. I hope that you will facilitate my sharing of this crucial task. It is not at all clear to me that your facilitation will not be necessary to reach this goal.

Unless there is some blatant inaccuracy in the preceding, this ought to be a sufficient justification for you and me to take the next step: agree on a designated individual to undertake a preliminary critique of the BPWH.

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

Up to this point the Aquarium, with respect to the glass ceiling, has been functioning more as a terrarium.  Any positive action upon my request could be construed as abrogating that ceiling.  I would interpret it in that fashion, and I would probably not hesitate to inform others.  Without such action, however, it appears that the BPWH will continue to languish in obscurity.  Google alone is not able to stir up interest. 

The BPWH is radical to the point of being earthshaking.  It deals with issues that could impinge upon global security.  This fact would tend to overwhelm any individual interest or action in the absence of external sanction.  The Aquarium is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  The effort required to dislodge it would be like a swift kick to the sleeping dog that is phenomenology.  This rudely awakened critter might bite almost anything in sight.  

It is mainly a matter of timing, given any substance to the BPWH.  The timing of all this is outside of my bailiwick.  I'm just here to tell what I know.  When and if anyone else takes notice is another matter, but I will render an opinion, given the opportunity.  My opinion is always likely to be 'sooner rather than later'.  Can you blame me? 

Can any putative review of the BPWH not be strongly prejudiced by all of the above?  I doubt it.  This does vastly complicate the process.  Any content of the review is going to be overshadowed by the mere fact of it.  The provenance of the review has to be more significant than its outcome.  Should I be surprised that my request seems to have gotten lost in the mail?  Unfortunately, no.  Will I be able to damn the putative torpedo? 

 

[5/11] 

Yes, it does look as though the Aquarium will be remaining in this terrarium mode.  We'll have to continue to generate our own oxygen, with just about enough for one fish.  On the cover is the little sign, 'Break glass in case of emergency.'  Any day now, folks.  That leaves us outstanding in our new found agora. 

Permit me to elaborate on a previous thought.  My being given access to a limited number of people down stream in the phenomenology network would be unlikely to change outside opinion.  To achieve that end the review process would have to be networked into mainstream academia.  That could happen only with continuing input on the part of my correspondent.  It would then be a continuing struggle to keep attention focused on the BPWH, and not be distracted by the phenomenological questions implied by the apparent outside interest and influence.  Such practical considerations do complicate any possible compliance with the request that I have put forward.  

Whether the Aquarium pump could ever be primed without this kind of external input is problematic.  On the other hand, if the Aquarium cannot pull this off, who could, and under what circumstances that would not turn this whole affair into a circus?  Is there some larger scenario that is already in the works, or are we really expected to be flying by the seat of our pants?  These questions remain unanswered at my pay grade. 

But hold on a minute.  Previously I had spoken about networking away from my source.  Could that not be done effectively through an outfit like the 'Jasons'?  There could be provided access to a person with sufficient public authority to adequately buffer the link back to phenomenology.  Does this put us back on track?  It is still a long shot.  My specific request would be for a practice session preceding access to a Jason-type interlocutor.  This, in turn, would precede access to someone who could network to a more public venue.  

There is still the problem of handling the X-file aficionados.  Early on, they will want to get in on the act, and will be crying foul if they are rebuffed.  Who can read them the riot act?  Perhaps it has been the intention all along that they would be the canaries in this scenario.  Someone would have to do some hand-holding.  I'm not sure that my services in that department would be adequate.  Presumably there would be a concomitant increase in dissemination, spontaneous and otherwise. 

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

The agora remains a problem here.  However, it does appear to be the best encapsulation of the whole BPWH problem that I have come across to-date.  That is no small feat.  The emergence of the primordial agora is a set-piece puzzle.  Progress on this 'toy' problem could give us a handle on many of the larger issues.  Yet, it may turn out that further progress will have to be made on some of the more peripheral issues before this central one may be effectively addressed. 

The agora is our beachhead into the 'physical' realm.  Once secured, we can make further inroads.  All relevant tools will be brought to bear in establishing and maintaining the beachhead.  From what quarry will we obtain the megaliths?  My kingdom for a stone.  Where is Ben Johnson when we need him?  Sacred geometry must play a role.  How will it bootstrap itself?  At some point the zodiac is projected outward.  Rotational symmetry is established and broken in the same time frame.  Obviously this is a crucial step.  One might then wonder where the planetary wanderers fit into this scheme.  Mach's principle and the centripetal force warrant consideration.  The vertical dimension will have to be distinguished by gravity.  It is notable that several of these features could be tied together with a gravity pendulum; however, none such survives from antiquity, besides the bipedal figure itself.    

 

[5/12] 

Let me not forget that a primary tool of creation will be the telos.  In retrodicting the time-line for Creation, we need mainly to determine the path of least resistance between the already given Alpha and Omega.  NASA might have as much to do with the creation of space as do the players of Pokatok.  Materialism is a path of particularly low resistance.  That is why we have such difficulty extricating ourselves from this path.  There will come a turning point.  Coherence will not be denied indefinitely. 

It could have been that Mesoamerica was the cradle of civilization.  The strict timeline of modern archeology may only be a retrospective projection based on materialist presuppositions.  That timeline is superimposed upon the mythic dreamtime.  None of this precludes the possibility that origins of the different cultures were geographically separate at first.  Mesoamerica may simply have been the prototype.  Arising in a more compact region, the remnants may represent something more pristine.  Also I find the flat jungle setting to be more primitive and perhaps more conducive to a zodiacal interpretation.  The materialist interpretation can hardly do justice to the logical commonalities of the allegedly disparate origins. 

The megaliths were not just involved in the delineation of the local space, but more crucially were involved with a primordial geodesy.  The curious coincidence of the British and French measures is possibly a residue of an earlier global construct.  And keep in mind the light speed.  It will not be easy, and perhaps not even necessary to disentangle all these competing influences.  We may just appreciate the apparent overdetermination of both the Alpha and Omega.  The archeological attention to detail, the counting of every potsherd, impressive though it is, may be distracting us from a much more significant larger picture.  In a teleological world it may not behoove us to too readily succumb to a tyranny of the past.  

A jungle bound Pokatok court seems almost like a message in a bottle, indeed, a starry messenger washed up on these timeless shores.  Is it not something semantically irreducible?  The ball in question could only have been the Sun, being entertained and entrained in its nocturnal retreat.  Naturally there would be issues of death and resurrection, not to mention recreation.  

Next to consider is the origin of the megaliths.  I don't contest the existence of quarries.  Resorting to quarries will still require a non-materialist explanation of geology.  In the BPW scheme it remains an open question as to which came first, mega-Earth or megaliths.  Recall that the megaliths figured in the geodesy, i.e. geo-geny.  I'm just suggesting that the ceremonial rocks and the Pokatok players may have had a related and more teleological origin.  Every primordial ceremony is a cosmogonic reenactment.  And on this telic view, each enactment is a vital piece of the cosmic process.  Ritual failure has always been taken seriously, and often over someone's dead body. 

Speaking of which, body that is, there is a prevalent thesis, e.g. Schwaller de Lubicz, that body and temple are interrelated on various levels.  That their origins might be logically distinct would be contrary to the spirit of the Matrix.  Recall also that cosmogonic myths frequently involve dismemberment.  Is this a naive anthropocentrism, or is science a naive atomo-centrism?  Yes, we do have atomic bombs rather than mythic bombs, or is that how we need to redesignate the eschaton?  The peculiar choreography of Pokatok does seem to emphasize the individual body parts.  How better to embody and sanctify the temple than with a ritual, sacrificial ballgame?  What a sacrilege that would seem today.  Like everything else, our rituals have been compartmentalized.  The triune relation of temple, body and celestial zodiac ought to be instructive.  The maintenance of these ritual resonances is crucial to our ontogeny.  The ritual continuity between Alpha and Omega is maintained throughout history in a very eclectic, even promiscuous manner.  The network of being has its spatial and temporal projections.  In this connection recall also the concept of the 'chakras' and the sensory-motor body-map of the cortex.  Thus the primordial temple and constellations might be viewed as an exercise in phrenology.  Furthermore, the comparable schema for atom and solar system need not be coincidental, and may pertain to these other relations.  We are just attempting to locate the nexus for the network of being. 

The Pokatok ball-court was our cosmic beachhead.  This was our participatory, cosmogonic scheme.  Beyond the court was beyond the pale.  It was a jungle out there, psychological and otherwise.  Inside the court was a mythopoeic order, transpiring under the constellated heavens.  Hunting, gathering and planting emerged in due course.  

On second thought, we have established no metabolic course.  One can only imagine the relevant Corona beer commercial.  We'll have to do better than that.  At what point do our erstwhile ball-players break out into a sweat?  Where will be the nearest taproom?  Perhaps we'll first have to find out what is going on in that jungle out there.  At what point do we revert to Jurassic Parc?  Have will simply added a ball-court to the JPc scheme?  This might not be such a bad idea.  It's beginning to look more like Xcaret.  We may have to charge admission.  Somewhere the metabolic and spatial forms will have to meet.  That's what physics is about.  The Garden of Eden was pretty sketchy on metabolics and reproduction.  Our Cafe de la Paix is turning into a Rainforest Restaurant.  We are definitely on the slippery slope between upward and downward causation.  

 

[5/13] 

It looks like we're not quite finished with Pokatok.  Here's why.  Up to this point I have managed to avoid the topic of sex, but now may be the time to talk about the birds and the bees.  But I won't.  Sex is too important to leave to the birds.  I'm also thinking about the slippery slope.  More than that, I'm thinking about the dialectic.  If the dia-logos does not have a gender specific dimension, we are missing a good bet.  I am suggesting that sex has a lot more going for it than mere biology.  It has a cosmic dimension.  What else is new, you might ask.  The Matrix is too clearly gender specific to ignore that aspect of it.  Everything else must define itself relative to that.  

Biological sex is very useful when it comes to populating the BPW.  Genetic diversity would be impossible to rationalize without the double helix and the idea of assortment and recessivity.  The extended family is the basis of social structure.  

What do these considerations tell us about JPc/Xcaret?  They tell us that our Garden of Eden will necessarily be co-ed.  Our problem now is to make the necessary arrangements, while carefully balancing on the slippery slope.  For instance, does teleology give precedence to viviparity over oviparity, or do they represent parallel ontogenies?  

Meanwhile, back at the Pokatok court, we were looking for a way to jump-start metabolism.  Rather than invoke the 19th hole, I would invoke Rene.  The losers get checkmated and the winners get mated.  Nothing complicated here, and no one has to pay taxes.  It's death and resurrection right there on the center ball-court, by dawn's early light.  Of course, de rigueur, there will be a fifteen second spot for viagra.  Would this not also be a case of instant reincarnation?  After all, the show must go on. 

Would this be difficult to stage manage?  It might be easier than the ball-game.  The gestation process does not require the constant attention that must be devoted to Pokatok.  Its programming could be mostly object-oriented.  While the men-folk are watching reruns on sports central, their sisters, no doubt, are out planting the maize and malt, using the appropriate planting sticks: that oviparity logically paralleling their viviparity.  

Where does this leave us with JPc?  I trust we have made a little progress, but much work remains.  We may not be ready for prime time, but we are ready for the 6am Aquarium show.  Recall that Jurassic Parc was originally invoked just to deal with the dinosaur problem.  The rest of Creation was placed under the aegis of the archetypes, AZO/X/QRP along with M & D.  Now I am attempting to penetrate the fog surrounding Alpha, as a major part of constructing the metanarrative.  We are effectively adding an anthropic component to JPc.  This would now become the BPW's rendition of the Garden of Eden.  We might refer to it as Mayan Parc or MPc.  JPc would then be a logical derivative of MPc, as we gradually expand the envelope of floral and faunal diversity.  At this point, time is still purely cyclical.  Once the MPc phenomenology is firmly established, it would be comparatively straight forward to clone it into other climes and cultures, perhaps on an 'experimental' basis at first.  All of this is just the prelude to history proper.  

Given Alpha, we may wonder whether history proper starts with a bang or a whimper.  Clearly the is a major break in the cyclical symmetry of time.  Giorgio De Santillana, in Hamlet's Mill, points to an episode that is, at least, psychologically traumatic.  Prior to this episode there is a geodesic alignment of the various versions of MPc.  This is an archeoastronomical feat of the first magnitude.  The result was a prototype of our present terrestrial globe.  This much is fixed in stone.  Now forgive me my speculation.  There may have been a jockeying for 'pole position' among the candidate cultures.  If this competition got out of hand, there could have been a resulting 'pole shift', of popular vintage.  The losers would have been checkmated, e.g. Atlantis, etc.  The further result, nevertheless, is the ideal 23 deg. shift of the ecliptic, and a similar shift in the galactic plane.  The precession of the equinoxes is thereby set up to mark the historical Aeons.  I am merely demonstrating a good-faith openness to some populist dramaturgy.  Creation should not have to be boring.  There you have it, from Pokatok to Pole Shift.  The rest, as they say, is mere history.  It will require but a few more barleycorn syzygys to move us beyond history and into our Millennial alignment, hopefully without trauma this time.  

 

[5/14] 

Is a dream world possible?  It is if we can arrange for there to be dreams.  Dreams may or may not require a dreamer.  A dream world implies coherence which entails a cognitive subject.  A world also implies an intersubjective objectivity.  This then raises the issue of whether there must be a primary dreamer.  Is the cosmos a figment of the cosmic mind primarily, or is God just the foremost of the dreamers?  I somewhat dodge this question by positing a fundamental identity between dreamer and dreamee.  

 

[5/15] 

Hold that thought.  Here is something else.  

What is the most important question in the world?  It is the God question.  What is the second most important question?  I have no idea, nor, I submit, does anyone else.  In other words, there is no contest about which is number one. 

If there exists evidence that might have a bearing on our question, what would be the most likely repository for it?  Let me rephrase that.  If there were to exist evidence that favored the God hypothesis, where would it be?  The Vatican?  Well, if they had it, why would they not make it public?  What would be the next most likely place?  The CIA?  Yes, correct.  What would the third most likely place?  Again, I doubt that there could be any other consensus.  

If you were God and you wanted to arrange for limited gnosis, which venue would you prefer?  The answer should be pretty obvious.  What have we just demonstrated?  Not that a certain agency has any such evidence, but, rather, that it would be the most likely known venue.  We have reasonably established two significant facts.  First, what is the most important question; and, second, if there were an answer, where would it most likely be found?  But this is not the end of it.  Who then is the one known person who would be most likely to be able to corroborate any of the above.  I submit that there can be little doubt that it is Catfish, i.e. Mr. P.  Again, I am not saying he does know, but, rather, of all the known people in the world he would be the mostly likely to be able to shed any light on the subject.  Period. 

But this is still not the end.  What is the one venue in which Mr. P. has allowed himself to be openly questioned?  Right here in the Aquarium.  This is it folks.  What may we then conclude?  We may conclude only one thing: relative to the most important question, there is an incredible lack of demonstrable curiosity.  Is not 'incredible' the correct word here?  I can think of no more accurate adjective.  If you are reading these words, you are the second most curious individual known in the world.  Given a rational individual with access to the Internet, and some command of English, and a modicum of curiosity about the meaning of life, this would be the furthest that she could go on the Internet toward satisfying that curiosity.  The next step would be to email me about the continued pursuit of this issue.  That has not happened.  Not yet. 

If you were in this spot, would one test of your rationality not be to be feeling a touch of paranoia, or even more than a touch?  Would not the most rational response be to feel that the whole situation was a set up of some strange kind?  How else might this be explained?  To whom might I now turn to obtain a reality check?  The only one in the world seems to be Mr. P.  If this is a game, it is completely rigged.  It is curiously self-contained.  There is a notable lack of recourse.  One time I did attempt to consult a psychiatrist about this situation.  I think you could well imagine the response, or lack thereof.  This right here is the closest thing I have to a couch, or to a reality or sanity check.  

Why me, Lord?  Where is everyone else?  How do they manage to be so incurious?  Are they just pretending not to care?  Am I here on this spot just because of a ten minute encounter with Sophia some twenty-five years ago?  Why me, Sophia?  Enough about me.  

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

Back to dreamer vs. dreamee.  If the self is something essentially social, then there can be precious little distinction.  If we are created in the image of God, then God must be an essentially social being.  Does this contradict an essential aspect of monotheism?  Yes and no.  It defeats any absolutist rendition of monotheism.  The God of the BPW is the relationalist version of monotheism.  Within the pantheon, the Creator is readily distinguished: a very distinct personality.  This is just the X factor.  She is our Dreamer, we are her dreamees.  In a relational world, there can be no ultimate distinction.  Could there exist a non-relational world.  Sure.  Just ask the scientists.  They call it atomism.  

There you have it.  Dreamer, dreamee, it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other.  The only question is whether an immaterial self is possible.  The next question is whether a material self is possible. 

Frankly, I think you could shuffle atoms around for all eternity and never come up with a self.  In fact, if quantum theory demonstrates anything it is just that there can be no such thing as an unobservable or unobserved atom.  It is not at all clear that observation can entail anything less than a self.  Any evidence to the contrary is based entirely on the presuppositions of scientific materialism. 

Even if a material self were possible, that would not speak directly to the nature of our own selves or to the possibility an immaterial self.  It is only the functionalists who claim that science is presently in a position to explain the self, and functionalism overlaps with materialism only at that margin.  Functions are a far cry from atoms.  There exists no reductionist scheme for functions. 

Relationalism implies the existence of a singular Matrix, i.e. a source or ground of being.  Any resultant being then implies the existence of a non-contingent relational nexus.  That nexus can hardly be anything other than the socially creative self.  That is what I refer to as the Creator/Dreamer.  If we are anything more than atoms swerving in the dark, we must be chips off of that Block.  The BPWH flows directly from this excruciatingly obvious preamble.  What more could I or anyone else say about this whole matter? 

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

The Zodiac arises out of the cosmic potentiality as a nexus of quasi-real relational nexi or quasi-selves.  To take their reality to the next level, these beings conspire to play games.  For that to transpire there must be an agreed upon set of rules with an appropriate venue.  An obvious suggestion is a minimalist physics in a limited space.  If we wish to make contact with our own reality, the Mayan ball-game of Pokatok presents itself as a suitable candidate.  Each of the zodiacal psyches would present itself in this game as one in a set of reasonably similar avatars.  The game would progress as a shared lucid dream.  It would be an excellent exercise is synchronized concentration.  I would further opine that the Pokatok game brings us nearly half way to the BPW.  Heck, it is even further than half way if you allow to include that gestational reincarnation addendum.  And this latter item ought not to be a big deal within the given context. 

Would not this simple scenario sound rather more believable to the ingénue as the basis of reality than would a quantum atom?  It is a presumption here that we may have outsmarted ourselves when we take the quantum atom to be an absolute basis of reality, rather than as one of many useful models.  I am just suggesting the most coherent alternative to the atomic model of reality.  And if you can grant me this much, the we are half way home already.  There should hardly be a contest between these two models.  What compels the former is the technocratic turn of our history.  If history is to take another turn, the BPW will be the leading, or perhaps the only coherent candidate.  Where is the competition? 

 

[5/16] 

Before trying to figure out the next step of Creation, let us recapitulate and check for missing links.  One area that may need more work concerns the ball playing avatars.  

 

[5/17] 

It appears that we may have touched on a sensitive issue here, and we're not even talking about the avatars.  Just consider the ball.  To what degree is there a reality that corresponds to the appearance?  Is there actually anything out there behind all those appearances?  It certainly does seem like it.  We can see a tree in the distance and then walk over to it and feel its bark, smell its blossoms and hear its leaves rustle in the breeze.  We may even climb up in its branches.  How much more real can it get?  

This self-presentation of the tree has to do with our spatial perceptions.  It is not that these perceptions are deceptive, but they may not be fundamental.  These perceptions are neither relational nor functional.  We generally suppose that our relational and functional understanding is derived from our spatial perception.  I suggest otherwise. 

The brain is supposed to act as a behavioral transducer.  It transforms the external picture into a functional map that our body is able to act upon in the appropriate proprioceptive manner.  As a mentalist, I contend that the 'internal' functional map is closer to reality than is the planar map allegedly projected upon our retinas.  Perhaps the projection actually works in the reverse direction.  The Pokatok ball exists functionally in the minds of the avatars.  The resulting 'synchronization' problem is not a problem when we recall that there is ever only a single source of all relational being, which can therefore never become asynchronous.  There is no asynchronous protocol for the cosmic web.  There is ever only one cosmic mind, which now has the illusion of being a multiple personality. 

Will this work?  We'll just have to see if and where we can poke holes in it.  After a hard days work, reality can often end up looking and feeling more like Swiss cheese, but by the morning it has usually managed to pull itself back together.  Which is the real world: inner functional or outer spatial?  

There has only ever been one Pokatok game: the first and the last.  Our world is just many variations on that one theme.  All the physical and biological cycles are derivative therefrom.  It can be our singular microcosm.  We have pushed that Pokatok envelope to its logical limits.  It is about time for us to start wrapping things up and getting our lives back in order for the finale.  

We'll have to work out the cloning process that allows us to do so much with so little.  We seem to be getting a lot of bang for our buck.  The dia-logos is our vital cloning process.  It appears most starkly in the planting scene outside the ball court, as mentioned above.  How big a problem will agriculture be for us immaterialists?  To what degree might farm and sport overlap in their metaphysical basis?  I have already suggested that floral and faunal reproduction should be closely related problems.  Human reproduction might even be given a logical priority in the ontogenetic scheme of the BPW.  

Can we institute a basic floral cycle without first having to implement every last metabolic detail?  How do we apportion this cycle as between final and efficient causes?  The more that we may appeal to teleology, the less work do we make for ourselves.  

Recall the high school chemistry experiment of growing those blue crystals out of a solution of copper sulfate?  For the immaterialist, it is a problem that is similar to growing a plant.  Must we invoke quantum physics to get these crystals started?  We take a crystal, dissolve it in water, let some of the water evaporate and then watch the crystal reform.  Then repeat.  How about that?  The phenomenology of dissolving is usually reversible.  Every substance will undergo some such process in the appropriate circumstance.  Glass melts, diamonds burn.  What is the teleology?  It has to do with entropy.  What is entropy for the immaterialist?  What is it for the BPW?  Do we chalk it up to planned obsolescence?  Is that not what mortality is about?  Here also is the logical basis of metabolism.  Here is the conservation of matter and energy.  Mathematical structures don't have this problem.  Or do they?  What if one is a constructivist?  Can construction exist without deconstruction?  Not according to the postmoderns.  

Finally, it may be simply a matter of time.  I don't mean abstract 'physical' directionless time, but phenomenal, directed time.  Without time, there is no history, no dramaturgy, no metanarrative.  Such time is not possible without entropy and atoms.  The mere fact of a narrational semantics requires the existence of atoms subject to quasi-reversible processes.  And, yes, the rest is history.  Or is it now just physics?  Physics does not come close to explaining phenomenal time, and I would argue that phenomenal time is inconceivable outside of a teleo-logic.  

Am I promoting semantics over physics?  Yes, indeed.  A semantic system relative to a physical system is like a monetary system relative to the cash system.  The latter is mainly for show.  It is the invisible hand that finally counts in the monetary system; it is the telos that counts in the semantic system.  Green eyeshades and pocket protectors are not strictly necessary in either case.  

The invisible hand in the semantic system is just you and me as the eyes and ears of God.  Yes, we are the normalizers.  Even the paranormal has its time and place.  Much more than that, however, threatens to upset the system, and before that it threatens our sensibilities.  We do keep the trains running on time.  The eschaton, after all, is just the caboose on our glory train.  Well, if you want to be technical about it, it is the engine! 

Is Pokatok irreversible?  Imagine trying to play it with a reversible memory.  Without entropy, how could the players ever decelerate?  At the least, they would need flywheels in order to do that.  Instead of using flywheels, they eat the breakfast of champions, which, conveniently, is being grown right outside the stadium.  

An important fact about the BPW is that it is a package deal, and not the kind that is put together with string and sealing wax.  The Matrix is the seal.  But the Matrix is not the point of maximum entropy.  It is the point of maximum potency.  The BPW is its permanent appendage.  The world is just the Matrix as refracted through the diffraction grating of our individual minds.  That requires work, our work.  The analytic tradition results in an increase in information and a decrease in entropy.  The molecular biologists are its latest, and probably its last installment.  We metanarrators are semantically repackaging the existing information, which technically does not effect the entropy.  

Strictly there was not a first planting or a first ballgame.  Their cyclical potentiality was gradually brought forth by the potency of the Telos.  But then at some point there was a psychological pole shift which managed to permanently break the cyclical time symmetry.  My only scenario at present is just the one given above. 

 

[5/18] 

Atoms still need some work.  They have to do mainly with biological cycles.  These cycles require the replenishment of information and energy.  They are not reversible.  

The chain of being, i.e. creator -> humans -> cells -> atoms, has to do with the distribution of intelligence.  The intelligence is found in the functional cycles logically entailing these forms.  Cycles are the phenomenal substance of the world.  

There is also the issue of multiplicity.  Could there be a participatory creation without multiplicative cycles?  The creational diversity inherent in the combinatorial possibilities is just the attraction of atomic matter.  This is just the logic of our sojourn into matter.  This is the central support for our bridge from Alpha to Omega.  We and the atoms are chips off the Matrix.  We are the droplets that make up the rainbow coalition of creation.  The cosmic holography could hardly function without the logic of atoms.  That is the logical envelope against which we may push the matricial potency to its limit.  

We have not yet minded our P & Q archetypes.  They must entail the input of the telos.  They balance the first and final causes.  They ensure and facilitate the anthropocentrism of the entire holographic process.  This is the p-IQ of the atoms.  Otherwise they would be inert.  The dynamic substantiality of atomic matter resides finally in the singularity of the Monster Group, which, in its turn, resides in the manifold symmetry of Pi.  This is how our rainbow coalition becomes the unbroken circle of the Omega.  This is the finality of Pi.  Every possible color of the Matrix is diffracted through it.  The MG is the invisible hand made visible.  Pi is the link between mind and the agora, i.e. between logic and space.  

Another aspect to be noted of the ballgame is its tendency to transform ritual or cyclical time into a functional or linear time.  This is a microcosmic symmetry breaking.  Temporal presence is thereby focused.  This microcosmic synchrony is followed up by the cosmic synchrony arising out of the symmetry breaking in the pole position contest.  There is probably a logical similarity between these primal 'contests' that is not yet visible. 

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

The revolutionary shift from materialism to immaterialism is the transformation in our understanding of the world from mechanical to functional.  The mechanical aspect of the world is then seen as merely one aspect of its functionality.  Atoms no longer constitute an absolute reality.  Quantum physics forced us, very reluctantly, to make a small step in this direction.  The BPWH requires that we leap across the remaining conceptual divide.  The phenomenology, fortunately, will be transformed in a much more gradual manner, as we better grasp the meaning of the various functions, instead of merely reacting to them.  We begin to comprehend the relativity of being. 

The problem we face right here is the inauguration.  On what formality do we stand, before we are willing to undertake this revolution?  Can it be a purely deliberative process, or must there be a coercive element?  Must there be a big stick?  Perhaps holistic health will provide an impetus sufficient to transform our metaphysical assumptions.  If this were to be the case, we would probably have to wait until molecular biology proves to be less of a distraction than it has been recently.  It distracts all of us from the larger, more functional picture.  The catch is that the balance between conventional and alternative medicine will be strongly influenced by our own perceptions and expectations.  The placebo effect speaks strongly to this point. 

It is apparently very difficult for even a few people to undertake such a large adjustment in their thinking merely on a contingency basis.  Immaterialism will still appear to most folks as a trackless wilderness.  It may require further years of concentrated effort here, before the next most motivated and properly positioned person may find these environs sufficiently surveyed so as to avoid a discomfiting disorientation.  A related problem will be to also get a better resolution on the messianic dimension of any such undertaking, but it is hard to see how this contingency might be resolved short of an actual transformation.  

My beef here is that although theism and pantheism have been with us since the beginning of recorded history, we have not previously attempted a coherent synthesis of the two worldviews.  Having noted this historical fact, what is it that now prevents us from pursuing this path?  Is this an opportunity that we can well afford to overlook?  On the scale of all intellectual endeavors, why should this one not be given a high priority?  Just on the face of it, should that not be the case? 

 

[5/19] 

We might wonder at this point if what we are confronting is a positive avoidance of coherence.  Coherence is simply taboo: 'forbidden to profane use or contact because of what are held to be dangerous supernatural powers.' [M-W Dict.]  This is, of course, true for paranormal phenomena.  Science, however, in regard to the paranormal has taken a different tack.  It denies the existence of all anomalous phenomena.  There is the presumption of normativity applied to nature.  Furthermore, there is a disallowance of any forces not sanctioned by physics.  Cases in point are vital forces and mental powers. 

Denial, however, is just an ontological form of taboo.  In practice the denial takes the form of a collective censorship of scientific speech and activity.  As with any human activity, there are implicit and explicit boundaries.  The theistic scientist crosses one such boundary frequently, which is acceptable as long as there does not occur a blurring of the boundary in the process.  Scientists advocating Intelligent Design must expect to find themselves under constant attack by the more established authorities.  This is all part of the fence building and maintenance effort.  Good fences make good neighbors.  

Postmodernism celebrates these fences.  The BPWH sees them as an obstacle to the larger truth.  This view consigns the BPWH to being subversive to the established order.  It is not a subject that may be taken up lightly.  There is an explicit threat to the historical order.  This is the eschaton.  The irony is that any order is either arbitrary or essential.  The BPWH points to a larger essential order that supervenes on all historical contingency.  With a stroke of the pen it legitimizes every historical fact, while at the same time it invalidates virtually every existing rationale or explanation for those facts by simply posing a rational Telos. 

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

I arbitrarily search on telos & cosmos (5,000 hits).  Near the top I find Narrative Telos- The Ordering Tendencies of Chance, a dissertation for English by Victoria Alexander, CUNY 2002. There are some other good selections as well, which I shall peruse: Against Philosophical Appeasement, Anthony and Mary M. (Maggie) Mansueto.  The others among the first hundred are less provocative.  The general effort is to append a telos to a material world, following mainly Teilhard.  One might as well pin a tail on a donkey. 

The Mansuetos make a provocative case against the nihilism of materialism and atheism.  Their Marxist oriented liberation theology also falls into the dualism of the Teilhardian cosmology.  Immaterialism would be pushing their Marxist envelope to the max.  I am looking at the back issues of Anthony's journal, 'Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society', for any idealist articles.  There is no indication of any such articles in the more recent issues despite the lack of any editorial prohibition of same.  

Victoria's thesis is billed as the most thorough explication of teleology to-date.  I don't doubt it.  It is written in a clear and provocative style.  She was mentored by a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute, James Crutchfield.  That this exposition of the largely scientific uses of teleology had to be written by a non-scientist is indicative of the scientific taboo surrounding this general idea.  I am about half way through this dissertation and am finding that it is world class.  I have learned more about teleology in the last two hours than I have in my whole life.  Our intellectual logjam relative to metaphysics is beginning to break loose.  If you are living down stream from the Aquarium, you might consider moving to higher ground.  

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

Permit me please to add yet another sidebar.  I refer frequently to the chain of being.  One version of this is God -> human -> cell -> atom.  From this sequence one might infer a possible analogy: cell is to human as human is to God.  These ratios do happen to involve one of my favorite numbers: 10^10.  I have long supposed that we might be thought of as the brain cells of God.  This has some strongly pantheist overtones.  I feel motivated right now to carry this analogy a bit further, with your patient indulgence.  Yes, there is a spatial relation between our neurons, but more importantly they are embedded in a neural network, which can easily be represented as a matrix.  My simple point is that you and I, relative to the cosmic mind are embedded in a very similar sort of subconscious telepathic network.  That is how we are embedded in the Matrix, a partial projection of which is God's mind.  Now hold on.  Amidst all of the electrical activity in our brains, and with only a modicum of very transient external input, we are magically able to reconstruct a remarkably stable worm's eye view of the 'world', which is phenomenally impressive.  Now I am saying that in God's mind there is an even more impressive and more stable functional 'representation'.  But the caveat is that it may not actually be merely a representation of the world.  It may just be the real world.  Yes, this is a vicious circle.  No, it is a sublime circle.  It is the reality behind what we naively refer to as the 'world'.  This metaphysical cycle circulates in both directions simultaneously.  This is the 'mechanism' of our participation in Creation.  Perhaps I should set this idea aside before I have second thoughts.  What is real and what is appearance?  This need not be an easy question.  

And here is your homework assignment: how do atoms fit in, what role do they play in this reality circuit?  If you come up with the correct answer before I do, you will go to the head of the class. 

 

[5/20] 

The atoms find themselves entangled in a non-spatial quantum matrix.  It is, however, controversial as to whether quantum phenomena play a significant role at the level of the electrical connectivity between neurons.  

There is another analogical ratio here.  Creatures are to cosmos as atoms are to cell.  Creatures and atoms participate in a similar peripatetic, interchangeable fashion in the information and energy economies of their respective spheres.  There is a functional, microcosmic similarity to their respective 'ballgames'.  There are two complementary microcosms: self and cell.  This cannot be a gratuitous fact about the world.  Likely it points to a yet to be discerned level of connectivity.  It is also likely that the archetypes of QR&P play a role here.  The MG may also be viewed as a kind of microcosm that could enter into this same context.  In this case there is yet another analogical ratio: group elements are to the Monster Group as cells are to the body.  This second analogy is structural rather than functional.  And let us not forget the planetary model of the atom.  In the sky it is the milky way that takes an ouroboric appearance.  The nodes of intersection between the lunar, planetary and galactic planes were often considered to be waypoints in the transmigration of the souls.  Pi inhabits the node of intersection between the logical and geometrical realms.  Q&Pi combine to constitute the node between the mathematical and physical realms.  X is the narrational node between cosmos and microcosm.  Let's see now, have I left anything out of this witches brew?  Dig deep, doggie in the bottom.  What we may have here is a recipe for the Adam Kadmon or Cosmic Anthropos that somehow constitutes our reality circuit, or else it is a Rube Goldberg contraption.  The previous question concerning atoms has now been blown out of all proportion. 

 

[5/21] 

The Creator is fascinated with her creatures.  We, scientifically speaking, are fascinated with our cells and atoms.  That fascination has temporarily blinded us to the presence of God, that is until we begin to stand back and ask the larger questions.  At the height of our infatuation with matter, we were unable to see the forest for the trees.  Now we have a carrot and a stick.  The carrot is the anthropic principle, the stick is the mind-body problem.  The universe is incredibly suited to life.  The brain is credibly unsuited to mind.  Then give these two facts a slight twist.  Matter is deployed in the extrinsic support of intelligence, and yet matter by itself is intrinsically unsuited to that task. 

Here we have a major conundrum.  We get a small break with the quantum.  It turns out that the process of observation is an essential feature of atomic reality.  Combining this fact with the previous facts, we then have confront the following fateful question which speaks directly to the meaning of life.  Is it the atoms that bring forth mind, or is it the mind that has brought forth the atoms? 

This seems like a difficult question so let me make it easier for you.  We have spent billions of dollars over the last half century building the most impressive machines on Earth, just to smash atoms.  Talk about fascination!  And what is so fascinating?  Behind the atom we find another reality.  This reality is composed of the improbably intricate symmetries of Pi, and the incredible complexity of the mathematical Monster Group.  And then according to the prescriptions of 'Monstrous Moonshine', these two features of the sub-atomic reality are intimately related.  To get a firm grip on these facts you would have to absorb many thousands of pages of mathematical proofs.  It seems that virtually all of mathematics may be brought to bear upon the makeup of a single atom. 

Am I making it easy for you?  What is nature trying to tell us here?  She is telling us in excruciating detail that atoms are nothing fundamental.  What is fundamental to the existence of every atom are the most abstruse and complex structures that the human mind has been able to produce.  There is just one remaining question. Which came first, God or the Monster?  This is a question with which I have struggled.  Here is my best answer, as of today.  Neither one.  The Matrix came first.  

Then came the ouroboric bootstrap consisting mainly of creator and creation intermixed in zodiacal, MPD/DID fashion.  The problem we then have is to be fruitful and multiply.  We will need to be able to do combinatorics, and in the process we will maximize the diversity of creation by pushing our symmetry breaking of the Matrix to its logical, coherent limit.  We deploy the chain or network of being to its fullest extent. At the far end of that chain, at the fourth level of being, is our fascinatingly abstruse atom.  That atom is the phenomenological stand-in for the Monster.  This bootstrap is indeed looking ouroboric.  Creator and Monster are two aspects of the head of the serpent.  The MG allows the ouroboros to swallow its atomic tail.  It is how the cosmic circuit is completed by minding the P&Q.  If X is the Creator, then the MG is the anti-X, almost eschatological.  This is how the Anthropic Principle works.  Mathematics is naturally anthropic.  It is necessarily a bio-logic, and the only logic is the dia-Logos.  Mathematics can exist only as a formalization of language.  It does not arise ex nihilo.  It is a social game par excellence.  The MG is the fulcrum by which the world is able to turn itself inside out.  As in Communion, we end up swallowing God.  

The mathematical syzygys help to give away this game.  They are where chance meets necessity, and where subjectivity meets objectivity.  This is a role that was formerly reserved to the quantum and the work of art.  Those syzygys are our own footprints on that distant shore.  They are our monogram.  The combinatorics of our life game is played to the max.  Therein resides 10^10.  The BPW rests in the balance.  10^10 is an aesthetic limit, and the MG enforces that limit anthropically.  The vital essence of the MG is visible mainly on this scale.  Its relational existence is a crucial part of the larger picture.  Mathematics is as essentially holographic and coherent as is the world in general.  

 

[5/23] 

Pelican remains upbeat about the Aquarium, but insists that it acquire a new name.  We're open to suggestions.  How about 'Fusion' in honor of our oriental restaurant venue near I & 17th where the Pelican's Geo broke down on the way to the Zoo?   That would make us the fuses, trying to prevent short circuits, or something.  Is this good enough for government work? 

 

[6/14] 

I have been hanging out on the Sarfatti list.  There was a useful exchange with KG, but that cannot go further without input from RP.  

Jack's fringe physics folks are in a logical trap.  They are forced to use UFOs to justify their questionable physics.  But then they have to explain why the visitors are not cooperating with us in a technology transfer.  They end up supposing that the visitors are largely of hostile intent.  But then where are the good guys?  Why aren't they protecting us?  

The best way to explain the standoffishness of the visitors is by supposing that they are preparing us for some public event.  This event would focus on the dissemination of non-technical information, presumably concerning our future.  It's content would be perceived by many as disturbing, and it could be socially disruptive if not transmitted cautiously.  This is where a 'fusion' group would come in handy. 

Any further advance of physics into the paranormal domain raises the issue of mind over matter.  There is the question of whether the laws of physics are unreasonably conducive to technical advancement.  At what point must we consider a cosmic teleology?   At some point we must consider a mentally bootstrapped cosmos.  This is where the weak goes over to the strong anthropic principle.  This transition is the point of my impasse with Jack & Co.  This is what stands between here and eternity.  Why don't I go back on the list and pursue this issue? 

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

[('misanthropic') WAP  ->  SAP] 

It is not clear to me why Jack and the others here are so hesitant to embrace the Strong Anthropic Principle, in contrast to its weak sister. Jack seems to hold Tipler and Wheeler in high regard, and they certainly embraced the idea.

The visitor phenomenon would be much easier to understand on the basis of the SAP rather than the WAP.

Everyone here subscribes to teleology and time warps. Why then can we not allow there to be teleology and a time warp on the cosmic scale? Would this not be the logical venue for such constructs, in the first place? Would not a teleological bootstrap be more scientific than having to posit an infinity of worlds? Would it not force us to look for explanations, rather than hide our ignorance behind an Infinity of Worlds Hypothesis?

Come on guys and gals, let's show some intestinal fortitude. The IWH is the end of thought. A dynamical bootstrap is a launch pad for further inquiry. Why not the dynamical model instead of a statistical model? Is not dynamics the whole point of physics?

Who's afraid of the SAP?

The SAP does not preclude the possibility of parallel universes. Not at all. It just means that we don't lean upon that unobservable infinity as an explanation for every last resort. Think of poor Occam!

And finally think of your fellow humans. Does not the SAP lend meaning to our lives, by the same token that the WAP robs us of significance? This should be a no-brainer for us!

Yes, this is a critical issue, alright.  

Of course, the SAP is my stalking horse for immaterialism.  Do these physics types subliminally sense that?  It is for a similar reason that Jack abandons his Bohmian determinism on the cosmic scale.  

Clearly the good guys, the Federation, the cosmic intelligence is going to participate in the bootstrap.  They are it.  

If I can get my foot in the SAP door, I'll be off and running with the 'Fusion' vision.  Just wait.  

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[Berkant:] Sufi tales say there are seven earths and seven heaven..

I don't know what they exactly mean with seven earths.. maybe you have an idea to share with us..

IMHO some of the unfriendly "ETs" are from the "underworld".. so they are "earthly" not heavenly beings.

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

I would definitely prefer this sort of 'interdimensional' model for the ETs. Even if they lived in this dimension, they would need to travel via the others.

I have no problem with multiple worlds, as long as they are not redundant, i.e. as long as their existence functionally supports and enhances the organic whole. Our Earth would almost certainly be the main one. This would be the focus of the cosmic action. The ETs could be from heaven and hell, or the under-earth and over-earth. They are the supporting actors, are they not?

Also this interdimensional cosmology is much more in accord with an SAP-bootstrapped reality. Are there others here who share this POV??

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

[Jack:] There is no contradiction between SAP and WAP. You can have SAP in SOME of the WAP Universes - no problem! WAP does not preclude SAP. Some WAP Universes are God-Universes others are not.

God means IJ Good's "GOD(D)" or Stapledon's "Star Maker". God need not be a Moral God, but can be.

There may be War of The Gods across different Universes in Hyperspace.

The Devil is also there if God is. It's Milton's Paradise Lost! 

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

Hold on, Jack. Let's think about this. Being a Creator is a major responsibility. No Creator worthy of the name is going to start picking fights with other Creators out there in Hyperspace, thereby jeopardizing her own Creation, would she?

It would be the height of folly for there not to a Federation of Creators, would it not? Why must we always anthropomorphize our Gods by projecting the worst of our follies onto them??

Furthermore, I see no reason to suppose that being a creature would be involuntary. If you and I were going to be creatures, would we not want as our Creator a moral, loving God who would be a good citizen of the Federation of Creators??

Sure, there might be amoral Gods out there, but imagine how much trouble they would have recruiting their creatures. Don't you believe in the all volunteer Creation?

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

John,

I understand the entertainment value of science fiction, but need we make it into a philosophy and a religion? I hope not.

What most amazes me about the sampling of Sci-Fi that comes my way, is the incredible lack of metaphysical imagination that is generally manifested, present company excepted, of course. Instead of a horse opera, we have a space opera.

The WAP is the Mis-Anthropic Principle. This is the metaphysics of the space opera. What you never see in any space opera is the Strong Anthropic Principle. Frank Tipler, however, felt compelled to limit his SAP model universe to pure materialism, a limitation that should be obviously oxymoronic in this context.

Any self-consistent, coherent application of the SAP will have to include a mind-field as its essential element. Jack makes a stab at this with his psi-field, but then he retreats from the full challenge it presents.

Some of us will take up this challenge. It is the only way we will ever be able to explain the mystery of our phenomenal world. I grapple with this challenge on my website, and in this forum.

Rather than plunge into the daunting metaphysics of the 'spontaneous' symmetry breaking of the cosmic mind field, which I shamelessly call the Matrix, let me revert to the more familiar ground of cosmic politics, just one level removed from our beloved Space Opera:::

When I last had Jack on the line, we were discussing Jack's notion of Creator Wars in Hyperspace. I have a problem with this notion. Why should we model the Cosmos on Dodge City? Aren't there any better models? Need a better model be less exciting? I think not, but let's see.

The Gods, after spending a few Aeons of bashing each other's creations, get tired of all the cosmic mayhem, and decide to cooperate, even if only for once in their lives. This new found cooperation was not just their own idea. The creatures were getting tired of being hockey pucks on the cosmic ice rink. A Creator has a major problem when she decides to have a Creation and no creatures show up. The show gets cancelled for lack of participation.

The SAP, unlike the WAP, demands participation. Its implied bootstrap is made up of its co-creator creatures, they are just chips off the pantheonic block, after all. The Creator now become orchestra conductor, cum motivational consultant.

OK, so the Creators and Creatures finally get smart and put their collective heads together and decide to outdo themselves. They will make the best darned creation that can possibly be made.

To make a long story short, and not to give away the plot of my website, that's where we are.

But wait, you say, there must be some mistake. This can't possibly be the best possible world! A short answer to that is, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. A more thoughtful answer is: the best possible world will be chock full of diversity and surmountable adversity, a diversity that we are challenged to transform thru adversity into an organic unity: pantheon -> theon. The co-creator bit is no joke!

And then the visitors appear from stage-left. There is a rolling of the drums..........

Dan 

 

[6/15] 

[What price innocence?] 

Yes, Jack, this evidently is a political and not a physical question, so I guess I'll have to handle it.

I see in these environs many protestations of innocence in regard to many aspects of Creation. I see a great reluctance to accept the designation of co-Creator. Who, in their right mind, would wish to take responsibility for this mess? Politicians always get to blame the previous administration for the mess, up until the next election. As co-Creators we would not even be afforded that luxury.

I'm the bad guy, I'm here to dole out the responsibility. Shoot me, I'm a co-Creator!

Clearly you all cherish your precious innocence. How precious is it, and will we ever be willing to give it up?

Innocence must be precious indeed, because we have been willing to pay a very great price for it.

Now do you understand why the Visitors remain in hiding? Now do you see why they were so desperate to find another messenger to deliver this bit of bad news? Was I the biggest sucker to walk in the door, or what?

Yes, Jack, you have met the Aliens, you have met Satan. Look in the mirror, He is yours and ours, soon to be lost, innocence.

Surely you all have heard of that famous river, the River Lethe. Did you never wonder why it existed, and why all of us mortals must cross it to get to these shores?

This has to be something that is worth contemplating.

Mortality in the mantle we don to participate in Creation. It is also our innocence. Beneath that innocence is our immortality.

Every time we cross that great river, that great divide, we are granted the priceless privilege of being allowed and being able to reinvent ourselves. In fact, my friends, we have just hit upon the core purpose of Creation. We are just the means for God's self-reinvention.

For every Gandhi there is a Hitler? It seems that God has been willing to try everything once. The envelope of possibility has been pushed to its limits. Here in this garden of eden, in this vale of tears, God has played hide and seek with herself. But like all good games, even this one, the greatest game that will ever be played, must come to an end. Ole, ole, infree!

Sorry 'bout that, guys and gals. It's time for us to move on.

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

From: Jack Sarfatti [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 11:35 AM

To: Dan Smith

Subject: Re: What Price Innocence?

Dan is mainly concerned with theology and morality. Fine. I am focused on the "how", the physics, not the "why."  The planet is warming. Bush is ignoring that fact. The rank amateurism and incompetent post-invasion management of Afghanistan and Iraq of the Neo Con Cabal inside The Pentagon has not helped. I do note, however, that the rate of suicide bombing in Israel has gone down dramatically at a cost of almost 1000 American lives and at least 5000 American wounded out of a force of ~ 130,000. Eco-catastrophe is almost inevitable. I am Noah. It seem obvious that billions of people now living on this planet will die in a virtual Apocalypse. We have too many people on too small a planet. Only if we can make star gates for massive population transport to virgin Earths in the Universes Next Door in hyperspace do any of these people, including your children and their children have a chance of surviving.

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

Jack,

Well, are we making any progress in integrating the how and the why, the science and the spirit?

If there is an essential moral component to the UFO phenomenon, then, at the very least you may have to install a plastic Buddha on the dashboard. It may be mandatory, and there may be more.

What I do notice is that you and most of your colleagues have rushed to a negative judgment of Alien morals, and then you use this judgment to justify your own disregard of all things moral and spiritual concerning you own proposed conquest of the Cosmos. It's might makes right, and to hell with the Golden Rule!

[If you will refer to my first message: we labor on these shores in the privileged state of cosmic amnesia, thanks to the waters of Lethe. I suspect that the visitors have no such privilege. They do, however, have a solemn duty to monitor our well-being. Furthermore, they are under a moral obligation not to disturb our amnesiac slumber. Thus must they refrain from the usual mundane formalities of informed consent, which otherwise I am sure we would not hesitate to grant. Perhaps, in their stead, it is I who has been granted the sublime honor of serving as your cosmic alarm clock. But do I detect just a tad of the 'Mondays', viz. 'Office Space' w/ Jennifer Aniston?]

I am not terribly concerned about this [disregard] because I have reasons to have faith in the moral character of the Cosmos. I am confident that the Federation will not tolerate your 'shoot first and ask questions later' methodology. Nor will they stand by while you or anyone else sets out to pillage and plunder. If there were not such safeguards, we would have been eliminated long ago.

What concerns me is that your one-dimensional, physicalist mind-set may be hindering a broader based approach to understanding what is almost certainly a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It may be that the visitors have a much less dualistic view about the world than you do. Your own formulas, you claim, demonstrate the unity of mind, body and spirit. But when it comes to implementing them, you act as if these dimensions have no connection. It's full speed ahead and damn the spirits.

But rather than sit here and argue about this, why don't we do an experiment? Why don't we see if a more unified approach to the UFO phenomenon will yield more information about it?

I'm thinking that we might be able to perform this experiment without leaving our chairs.

Dan

P.S. I have been hesitating to xmit this missive. What I imply at the end here is what Scott seems now to be insisting upon, i.e. dredging up old business. I am not the only ufologist or avian to have mixed feelings about any such dredging. But, if this has not been attempted in the last few years, perhaps we owe this much to posterity. Evidently there remain many loose ends.

Unfortunately, this puts the ball back in my court. I will have to take my own incautious suggestion under further advisement.

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

To go further than this with Jack & Co., I'll need some additional input of the avian variety to better resolve either the Rick Doty or the 'phenomenology' problem.  I'm waiting now to get word back on this request. 

Persistent Transient Failure: Delivery time expired - Delivery last attempted at 16 Jun 2004 14:33:20 +0000

And so it goes............ 

 

[6/18] 

I've been reviewing my recent pages, preparing to get back to the blog. 

Previous examples of how the BPW is supposed to work:::  

• We, operating as psychically connected units, stabilize the phenomenal world in a manner analogous to how our interconnected neurons are able to stabilize our individual perceptual worlds.  
• Jurassic Parc + Pokatok Court  =  Garden of Eden (Mayan Parc) (and see Heliotropism)
• The vital, archetypal equation for the BPW 
• Atoms compared with currency, numbers, letters.  
• Ouroboric bootstrap [siteSearch] model for our self-organizing, self-creating cosmos 
• Teleology and Telos [siteSearch] and dream causality 
• Upward vs. downward causation [siteSearch] 
• Cycles, memes, normativity [s/S], functionalism [s/S] 
• Network of being (see Relationalism and [siteSearch]) 
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking of the Matrix (MPD/DID) (Zodiacal circuit [s/S]) 
• WAP  ->  SAP (Anthropic Principles) 
• Direct realism (anti-representationalism [s/S]) and telephones, photos, etc. 
• Organicity [s/S] of mathematics, Mandelbrot  
• Leibniz' PSR, II & BPW [s/S] 
• Filling in the blind-spot 
• Synthesis of theism, pantheism and telic science 
• (note the last recap)  

 

It might be a useful exercise to try combining these items into a single exposition. 

 

[6/19] 

Sometime soon I should attempt another recapitulation of the BPW and how it works.  Before that, I need to assess the plausibility of the BPW hypothesis.  What are its weakest links?  Where is the explanatory coverage the thinnest?  What are the most difficult areas to justify? 

Stars, atoms, fossils and computers remain especially problematic.  Each of these concerns the problem of upward causation in its particular context.  My strategy for incorporating upward causation into immaterialism is to employ distributed intelligence in the form of archetypes and cycles.  This is a latter-day version of animism or panpsychism, and it fits in with the notions of relationalism, organicity and functionalism.  Mathematics, games and language provide examples of such schemes.  In each of these examples it is normativity which provides the stabilizing factor.  It is in this light that I compare the operation of normativity with physics.  The cycles and archetypes are rooted in the emergence of the primal Zodiacal circuit along with the Mayan/Jurassic Parc.  Linear time may result from a sudden, purely phenomenal 'pole shifting' or celestial symmetry breaking, but only very gradually does it disrupt the cyclical time frame and begin to accelerate us toward the eschaton.  

Naturalism is the primary rival of theism.  Naturalism may be accounted for in the following manner.  There are two epochs of processes that take us past the aboriginal confines of the M/JPc platform.  First there is an animist version of Lamarckism, which is attenuated through history.  Much later the scientific enterprise fills in the remaining phenomenological gaps with the projected normativity of its techno-logic.  This latter occurs mainly in the microscopic, astronomical and geological domains.  Finally a teleologically mediated metabolic and alchemical bridge spans both epochs.  Scientific instruments greatly extend the range of our phenomenal world.  That there is a coherent infilling of the resulting phenomenal gaps is a further outworking of anthropic coherence and Leibniz' PSR.  

Note that there is no explicit invocation of deity.  God must be invoked mainly to ensure the proper closure of the ouroboric bootstrap, and that is no mean feat.  The Matrix may supply the necessary condition for closure, but it is God who finally suffices, or, should we say, 'satisfices'.  There is a great deal riding on coherence, but that is just the manifestation of our monistic idealism.  God is the ultimate arbiter of meaning and being, but the emphasis is on arbitration.  Leibniz is wont to keep God on a short leash.  It is the X archetype that is the cosmic pivot.  That is a very short leash.  That is also the root of Pi, the cipher of closure. 

The preceding is a three paragraph synopsis of the BPWH, a bit shorter than I had in mind.  Elaboration may be the main remaining task.  Elaboration and system are not my strong suit is this arena, but there is not much choice for now. 

 

[6/22] 

In my ken, postmodernism dates to 1966.  That was the year of the Free Speech movement at Berkley, and the year I dropped out of physics.  That may also have been the high water mark for materialism.  The turning away from scientific materialism was marked by a turning inwards.  The emblem of the latter was Edgar Mitchell's Apollo 14 flight in 1971.  The irony of his sudden conversion from astronautics to noetics was not lost on my generation.  

The turning from outer space to inner space was marked by an upsurge in meditative practice, almost entirely of the Eastern variety.  The only theistic support for an open ended spiritual quest was to found in Sufism.  Although there was a parallel upsurge in Christian evangelical denominations, with many featuring 'charismatic' services, there was virtually no contact between these developments.  Nonetheless, the communalism of the early Christians and the communalism of Haight-Ashbury both had a distinctly millenarian outlook.  The inward quest is necessarily a solitary one.  It may have been the logistics of drug use among the 'hippies' that was a principle, if temporary, source of social cohesion.  It was their version of communion.  Sustained communal practice almost invariably involves a devotional dimension, viz. the Hare Krishna and many other such cults.  Even tribes must have at least totemic or ancestor worship.  

If there is ever to be a global village, there will have to be a common devotional basis.  The problem with refined monotheism is that it invariably becomes legalistic.  The sacred text becomes the primary cohesive element.  The sacred text cannot survive modernity, let alone postmodernity.  That leaves us with only Gautama and Jesus, or some future messianic figure.  I'm not aware that Gautama can hold a candle to Jesus in modern practice.  Where is the passion?  Will we ever outgrow our need for passion?  Could there be a Millennial 'kingdom' without it?  In terms of millennialism, there can hardly be a contest.  Social pragmatism, even in this utopian context, is the foundation of rational theism.  

Nevertheless, there will still have to be a messianic episode to initiate the epoch of the Millennium.  It is hard to imagine that the label of 'second coming' would not be prominently attached to this advent.  Could civilization survive without a millennial coda?  If we had the choice, would we really want to find out?  I don't expect there to be a real choice in the matter.  

I have produced this scenario just out of historical considerations.  There has been no allusion to the BPW.  That the coherence of the BPW's metanarrative demands a very similar finale to history is, however, no accident.  All paths of coherence must lead to the same Telos.  The Matrix can only sustain one ultimate point of convergence.  That we might be approaching a false summit, would not augur well for any relational metaphysic or coherent cosmology.  It's 'Pikes Peak or bust', is it not?  There won't be any rain checks or retakes.  This is where theism and pantheism must part company.  Could coherence get us that far and then fail?  The divine closure, noted yesterday, is our cosmic seal.  If the world were going to fall apart, it would have had ample opportunity prior to this. 

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

A very practical question, needing a virtually immediate answer, is whether we could now revert to a sustainable human presence on the Earth without recourse either to a chaotic reversal, or to cosmic intervention.  In other words, from the clearly unsustainable growth curve on which we now find ourselves, could we muddle through to a long term equilibrium state and still be able to think of ourselves as civilized?  In more practical terms, this question might be rephrased as to whether we can confine the trauma of our inevitable growth slowdown to isolated or quarantined regions of the world?  That seems to be what we are in the process of doing now.  On the one hand there is continued globalization for the haves, and on the other hand is increasing isolation for the rest.  I suspect that these two trends cannot be sustained.  At some point, globalization would start to be reversed.  Without that liberalizing force and outlet for the developed world, there would be an escalating inward turning and protectionism.  Once these reactionary forces are set in motion, where do they lead?  Will it be to something we can call 'civilization'?  

 

[6/23] 

A principle ingredient of postmodernism is its denial of progress, whereas the notion of a universal progress has been essential to liberalism.  Globalization has been just one facet of the idea of progress.  This is to underscore that postmodernism is likely to be the harbinger of reaction.  A global deflation of economic and political expectations is a real possibility that we are now facing.  Reaction and depression are concomitants.  

Modern society is a complex and fragile construct.  Its psychological dimension is just as real as its material dimension.  When we lost our positive psychological edge in the last global depression, we were quickly delivered into a World War.  Once the fabric of modern society starts to unravel, we will be reminded of how far we have come and how far we have to fall back.  If the shock of that rude awakening is not sufficient keep us on the straight and narrow, then we will be in serious trouble. 

The last world war did unleash a technological advance that has sustained our economic growth through the last half of the century.  It is true that we have not completely used up our our technological potential, but the problem is that there is nothing equivalent to the earlier rise of atomic physics that is presently on our scientific horizon.  Nanotechnology and bioengineering are still exploiting the same physics that was discovered a century ago.  Instead, physics is treating us to the Theory of Everything, which is to say that it is no longer going to be a source of new discoveries.  Atomic physics was a one-time event.  That scientific envelope has been pushed to its logical limits.  

If we find a new source of energy, such as ZPE, and if nanotechnology begins to deliver on its promises, then, indeed, we could return to another few centuries of material progress, and a revival of modern liberalism.  But it is not clear that we should bet the farm on these two contingencies.  The way forward may not be such a straight line.  We may need to make an historically sharp turn.  That is where the BPWH comes into the picture.  It will deliver us a Millennium, but it won't come for free.  We have our work cut out for us. 

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

What I am thinking of just now is a Millennium Initiative, MI(1.0).  This would be a citizens' effort to publicize and/or privatize what has been the Government's 'phenomenology problem'.  A significant part of the problem is how to handle the potential overturning of the scientific materialist worldview.  The Aviary, Aquarium, Fusion -> MI(1.0), is looking to take up this challenge.  The first order of business would be to arrange for a meeting of the principals, which, hopefully, would be later this summer.  I have sent the first email in this regard.  

There is a ray of hope now that our little initiative may getting back on the track, but at a more modest pace than I might have wanted.  Before there is any breaking of any glass ceilings, there are quite a few loose ends to deal with.  More secure and dependable communication between me and my contact person are needed.  I am hoping to enlist a third party in this effort, someone known to both of us, who can help with continuity and background info.  Then there have to start being regular meetings.  None of this will be easy to coordinate.  

The Sarfatti group may still be a primary outlet, but I will need help to bring Jack into better compliance with some adequate protocol.  That there often seems to be a rivalry between the two of us has not helped matters. 

Perhaps it's time to reopen a discussion with Jack.  The topic I have in mind is downward causation.  Is this not the weakest point in the physicalist fortress?  I can also discuss with Jack any developments on the MI front.  

 

[6/24] 

The ray of hope is flickering.  Now, even my interlocutor is MIA, and Jack remains intransigent in his physicalism.  With the help of the former, I could probably deal with the latter, but let's reexamine physicalism now, anyway.  

On the practical side, I would argue with Jack, that if there were a purely technical solution to our problems, it would be easy for the good guys to supply that answer to us.  Shall I go back on the net to say this?  

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

Jack, et al.,

Yes, this is how Jack and his fellow traveling physicalists see the Universe. It is their private Tit. Getting between Jack and his Tit will invariably and understandably incur his boundless wrath.

Jack, by the age of 65, even most men have been weaned. You, however, are still hanging on to the Tit, for dear life. Like Peter Pan, you remain forever the Weenie.

Let's see if we can help you with your problem of arrested development.

Like most Weenies, Jack thinks all his problems will be solved if someone just gives him the right Formula. But even the Nestle Co. will not be able to help Jack in his predicament.

Yes, ZPE is the Great Tit in the Sky. It is being widely touted as just this. Shades of 1849, the great Gold Rush is upon us once again. Mammon is always just around the next bend in the river.

Why can a few of us afford to be skeptical? How can we bide our time?

Yes, if God had wanted us to be Weenies, She would have provided us with a Cosmic Tit. She would have provided us with ZPE. Like the Gnostical Knights of yore, the latter-day Physicalists search desperately for the Magic Key that will unlock Pandora's Box. Cornucopia is ours if we just recite the correct formula.

Like the crazed 'Miner, 49ers' before them, our ZPErs can exercise only tunnel vision in their headlong, headstrong dash to Eldorado. They are so anxious to reach their destination, they do not stop to think what they will find when they get there.

The Mammon will either be limited or unlimited. If it is limited, it will have already been used up by whoever got there first.

If the Mammon is unlimited whoever found it first will already have found a way to distribute it throughout Hyperspace. Unless we are the first to find the Mammon, it will already have found us. The game would already be over.

Subliminally, the Physicalist/ZPErs realize that in either case, their jig is up. If there is a Cosmic solution to the problem of existence, then we would already be existing under its Aegis/Aeon.

On the other hand, if there were not already a solution to the problem of existence, then it is extremely improbable that any life as advanced as ours would ever have been produced in the first place. We would simply be a miracle out of the blue.

Those of us who are not wearing cosmic blinders, those of us who can think outside the Gold Rush mentality, those of us who are not spiritual Weenies, who are older and wiser, can afford to bide our time. We can even enjoy the spectacle of grown men slobbering for the Big Tit.

Because we don't believe in miracles, we know that we are not here by accident. There is a plan and we can see it gradually unfolding in a remarkably orderly and rational fashion. In fact, in this spectacle of Latter-Day-Physicalism we see a clear omen of much bigger things in the offing. Yes, even eschatological things. It is not about Mammon, it is about the Matrix. There are similarities between the two, but there are also profound differences, differences which our Physicalist/ZPErs would find completely mind boggling.

Well, my little friends, prepare to be Boggled..........

Dan 

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

Not too bad.  

 

[7/1] 

Lately I have been ruminating on the interface between biology and physics.  It is not clear how to handle this boundary from an ontogenetic or phenomenological standpoint.  This goes back to the game of Pokatok where the ball and the players seem to be of distinct provenance in this respect.  What to do?  What is the phenomenological origin of physics? 

One possibility is to use a discrete space-time as in the game of chess.  The rules of chess are an elementary form of physics, but then there is no connection with biology, which depends on a continuous space-time.  Are we going to have to animate the pokatok ball, as in object oriented distributed intelligence?  

As it stands, our ontogenesis has been oriented toward biological cycles.  I was hoping the physics could take care of itself, somewhat along the lines of metabolism, thus avoiding a heterogeneous ontogeny.  No such luck? 

Historically, and thus phenomenologically, the discipline of physics originated with our study of celestial phenomena, viz. Copernicus and Newton, etc.  However, I have suggested that ontogenetically, a cyclical heliotropism would be the more logical path to those phenomena.  It is even the case in the game of pokatok, with the ball representing the nocturnal sun, that this non-cyclical version of heliotropism could still be brought under that rubric.  But at some point, one will have to give classical physics or mechanics an independent standing.  The use of stones as weapons is a classical example.  I see very little biological precedence for such a phenomenon, but could the bodily mechanics of perambulation be extended to locomotion in general?  The phenomenon of gravity comes to the fore.  Jumping becomes complexly physical.  The bio-mechanics of gravity is also complex for both flora and fauna.  Perhaps gravity is our best bridge from biology to mechanics.  Besides heliotropism we also have gravitropism.  Perhaps these can be logically combined.  These two forces combine to determine much of the structure of the biosphere.  We might wonder, however, whether it would be possible to produce heliotropism without its being driven by photosynthesis.  But this would tend to push our ontogenetic sequence back in a Darwinian direction.  A minimalist, idealist version of Darwinism will be necessary to maintain genetic continuity.  This is part of the Jurassic Parc scenario. 

In attempting to solve the physics problem, the photosynthetic problem comes to the fore, where earlier it had been held in abeyance.  What's a body to do?  But this is a problem that should have been attended to earlier.  We have ourselves a classic chicken & egg problem.  Can we arrange for heliotropism without invoking every detail of photosynthesis?  Is there no room for teleology here?  

 

[7/2] 

It may be that I will, at the same time, have to confront the larger JPc problem, which also remains in abeyance.  Can we do JPc as a mind game?  By how much will the intelligence have to be distributed?  And how so?  All we need for now is a handle for this problem.  

 

[7/3] 

The only handle we have so far is Z -> JPc.  The other handle is the fact that JPc can exist outside of historical time.  It need not be situated within history.  There may be some confusion here because MPc was to serve as our Eden.  This means that Xcaret would mix the metaphors, i.e. Xcaret  /=  JPc + MPc.  One way to sidestep this problem might be to employ an expanding A/O loop.  There would be a core ring of coherence that would be expandable, and be multiplied, but the core remains outside of the ordinary phenomenal domain.  It is a reference loop.  Then we have Z -> Rf, where Rf is the reference version of our archetypal R, the bio-cycle.  A two step version of this would be Z -> Rf -> R.  This fudge might temporarily pull our irons out of the fire.  

When we equated X with Freya, we might have been touching upon this stratagem.  We have the lunar weekly cycle and the zodiacal monthly cycle.  We need to understand how the various cycles (1, 2, 3,) interact.  Also, which ones are primal or referential and which are derivative or phenomenal.  For now, it remains a puzzle.  

 

[7/4] 

We need to rationalize the transition from Z -> R, from psycho-cycle to bio-cycle.  We somehow transition from a psychic chain to the food chain.  The former may be reconstructed in light of the latter.  This could be the crucial link of the BPWH.  It could become the buckle of the bootstrap.  

We think of the psychic world as running on ZPE or zero point energy.  The potency of the Matrix is our ZPE.  Is there anything like conservation of energy in the immaterial world?  With total symmetry breaking, there can be nothing conserved.  Coherence, however, is a form of symmetry, and so it relationalism.  Might thinking not require energy, beyond its associated metabolics?  Symmetry breaking might require energy.  Would it come from the Matrix? 

In the past I have alluded to the idea that the cosmic self might be in the business of growing and consuming its created selves.  Is that why we sometimes feel paranoid?  This is cosmic agribusiness, it is the harvest of souls.  It is often reported that discarnates seem to be living off our psychic effluvia.  Can thoughts not radiate?  Does this render God to be a vampire?  Is the material food chain just a shadow of the immaterial one?  

Does the immaterial chain have the equivalent of a photosynthetic base, or are the selves the simplest actors?   What is the simplest self?  At the lowest biological level, the colony or species might constitute a collective self.  On the other hand, there might not exist robust long-term individual eidetic memories much below the level of human.  It is reported, nevertheless, that some fish can remember the social status of their peers over a lifetime.  Every entity must be minimally microcosmic. 

Does every material process have an immaterial analog or association?  

It may be that the material world serves mainly the purpose of minimizing psychic predation or parasitism, deliberate or otherwise.  Good fences make good neighbors.  Creation without a material 'substance' would perforce be a much more limited affair.  It is ignorance of the psychic world that is the main barrier to our abuse of it.  Once materialism starts to unravel, there will have to be cosmic intervention to minimize the resulting abuse.  We spend all our time exploiting matter.  Psyches between lives must be contained by  deactivation and compartmentalization.  

We might wonder if computer viruses provide a model for psychic intrusions.  We need to know the nature of firewalls that could function in various contexts.  Biological viruses might also be instructive in this regard. 

 

[7/5] 

If you are playing pokatok, you will not have time to attend to psychic affairs, and the discarnates will find it harder to intrude upon the more structured and independent egos.  Nowadays, we have pokatok as well as atoms and electrons to play with.  If metabolism does not keep us busy there will be plenty of other distractions.  Beyond mere distractions, our attention will begin to turn more toward coherence.  The discarnates are advised to do likewise if they do not want to get left out of the hierogamos, or I should be saying hieros gamos (33,000 hits) (1, 2,) or rapture.  God will be having us for the wedding feast.  It is important that our switch from analysis to synthesis be made cleanly so that there is not the effluvia, or the crumbs off the table, to attract the spirits.  Drug addiction provides a happy hunting ground for the shades.  They don't want to kill the hosts, but just keep us incapacitated.  Failed states are another happy hunting ground. 

The question does arise as to whether the Millennium is essential to the eschatology.  It may not be.  If it were not part of the story, that would go along way toward explaining the high resistance to an X2 event.  That event would no longer be pre-Millennial.  It would rather signal the eschaton.  Our rapture would then occur in real-time.  This rapid 'hatching-out' is a common strategy that a prey species uses to overwhelm its predators.  Witness last month's 17-year cicada event here in Maryland.  1970, 1987 and 2004 happen to mark significant dates for my sojourn in Maryland.  I first mentioned this possibility at Al's house on 6/26.  It had occurred to me just before then.  This amillennial eschatology was my first take on immaterialism, but then I gradually moved toward the less radical view.  That move may have been motivated more out of a sense of political correctness than concern for coherence.  However, superficially at least, the amillennialism does seem more in the spirit of the BPW.  Yet, concern for the table manners of the discarnates and several other considerations, including even the confrontation with my sister, played a role in this very recent shift in my thinking.  The previous MI(0.5) came just before 9/11.  The apparent failure of this last MI(1.0) got me rethinking the metanarrational possibilities.  

As I phrased the issue at Al's, are we going out with a bang or a whimper? 

I'll have to try out this amillennialism for a bit and see how it goes.  We'll have to see how the shoe fits.  

If the Millennium were possible, it would be hard to argue against its desirability.  It may just not be in the cards.  If we are meant to go out with a bang, the orchestration of the eschaton will be rather more demanding.  Will it not place greater demands on the putative X2 event, if that event is still in the revised narrative?  

It is a bit odd how we have managed to get from pokatok to the eschaton in one not very linear line of argument.  It is hard to see how anyone could argue effectively for an imminent eschaton without having a fairly detailed picture to offer.  This would also make it more difficult to minimize cosmic interference in the X2 event.  The problem of authentication becomes acute. 

 

[7/6] 

There must be a whole bunch of ducks to get lined up prior to any public awareness, besides the usual background of fundamentalist expectations.   May we expect to see a continuing run up in those expectations.  

The issue of universalism comes to the fore with this new, more dramatic scenario.  We would now have to contend with the likes of Hal Lindsey.  Rapture would be very low on the list of paranormal phenomena that one might expect on the run up to the eschaton.  The earlier than expected X2 event would serve the purpose of minimizing any such phenomenology, that is until we get a better collective or, hopefully, a universal handle on our situation. 

A governmental intelligence organization would then have to be involved in facilitating X2.  Their arm would have to be twisted by ET/UT.  There would be no hope of generating an Internet initiative without a triggering event or announcement.  There would at least have to be a handful of credible, independent witnesses to specific UT intentions and actions.  This would be enough to provoke global speculation of a public sort.  There might not have to be any further pump priming with regard to the concomitant phenomena.  Once the phenomena get into the media pipeline, they would quickly become self-generating, according to the immaterialist metaphysic.  The Internet would play a crucial but ancillary role.  The orchestration of these phenomena would also be crucial, and that problem would fall initially upon X2.  The Internet might be necessary for this full orchestration, and the rapid decentralization thereof.  There would likely be a natural sequence that would need some cybernetic adjustment.  What then has to play out would occur in just a few years before the calendar time would no longer be uniformly applicable.  There might be some temporary new types of symmetry breaking prior to the cosmic realignment.  

Our individual psyches are wound up tightly into our egos.  Once these start to unwind, the process is likely to produce a chain reaction, with much phenomenal fall out.  We will quickly have to get our bearings in this expanded reality of presence.  We should expect the flora and fauna to participate as we make a partial return to the primal dream-time.  

If the powers-that-be were to have their druthers, the Hieros Gamos would be postponed well beyond the global optimum.  Thus do we need some external intervention to maintain the BPW.  The idea of the Millennium is a good idea mainly in the abstract.  There is nothing wrong with the idea of God's kingdom on Earth; however, it might imply that we would have to be superhuman humans.  The new heaven and new earth might have similar implications.  No sense in dilly-dallying.  People will mainly want to get on with the show, once we have been apprized of it. 

With respect to the Garden of Eden, we have been there and done that.  Let's not wax overly nostalgic.  The HG is something else entirely. That is where all the action will be.  No one will want to miss that show.  Let's not short-change the HG.  The Millennium seems too much like Limbo.  

The only real question is who, when and where.  Does there need to be a run up to the X2?  What are we waiting for?  Upon what ceremony do we stand? 

 

[7/7] 

The question arises as to whether my knowledge of an imminent eschaton will make any difference in the run up.  Could I not have been informed at the last minute, prior to the final networking?  Is there something I am supposed to do with this new understanding?  Am I supposed to do a preliminary networking just on this basis?  Or am I just supposed to rework things here on the website?  Probably both. 

I need to figure out the best possible scenario for an imminent eschaton, and then be prepared to help explain and implement it.  I'll have to go back and tell folks that I was being too cautious about the timing of the big E.  It's going to be more like, 'Let her rip.'  

I have mixed feelings about this development.  I will need plenty of assurance that we will not miss the Millennium.  It is an awfully big item just to toss aside at the last minute.  I'll have to spend at least a month, if not a year on the rework.  Longer than this might put me out of commission.  I would go back into mothballs, a place that I have not actually been. 

How great will be our opportunity to put our house in order?  How serious will it be?  Can the Middle East be resolved without an eschatological context or pretext?  Certainly the Fundies think not.  How much flexibility do we get in the timing and the content?  

Will there not be greater resistance now without a Millennial buffer?  Will we not all be getting cold feet?  Will this not reduce our degree of participation?  Is this to be a spectator event?   The greater burden on X2 ought to be putting it well out of my league.  Is it?  When should I expect any feedback?  What's the hurry for now? 

 

[7/8] 

There are two related items to be concerned about relative to our now putatively imminent eschaton.  First there is the question of the proverbial apocalypse and/or tribulation, and secondly there is the issue of the judgment.  As an ameliorative  universalist, neither of these items sits well with me.  I have had endless, unproductive arguments with my other sister about these.  With this new and more dramatic end game, I will have to be paying more attention to these unwanted details.  There are a lot of fundamentalists out there who will be very disappointed if there is not going to be blood in the streets, and if that spilled blood is not constituted by that of a very substantial majority of their conspecifics.  It will be an uphill battle to get these items tabled for the duration.  Do we need yet another scapegoat?  Don't look at me. 

My hope is that an eschatological shot across the bow will be sufficient to awaken the vast majority from their present and various somnambulations.  That is hoping for a lot.  What is the need for punishment?  A lot of that is redirected guilt, and who doesn't feel guilty about something?  And besides, will we not all have an eternity to reassess our sojourn in time?  I suggest that we have already done this and have already forgiven ourselves, because we know that this can only be the Best Possible World.  It can logically be no other.  Have not one third of the Jews already forgiven Hitler, and this is without benefit of a BPW hindsight?  

We wish to punish our conspecifics, mainly because we think that God is not doing her job properly.  It is our only recourse for sanctioning God for her apparent failures. 

Those who are metaphysically incapable of overcoming their grudges against the world will find themselves clinging to it as it descends to oblivion.  This is the adequate object lesson.  Move toward the light.  That is all we ever need to know.  

 

 

 

 

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