Is nature intelligent?

[K.J]

Sorry if I posted this off topic...I wasn't sure where to put it.

Daniel, in your book you touched a few times on the subject of nature and the universe as intelligent, rather than just blind processes of random mutations.

I wanted to suggest some excellent reading on this subject. It's an online book called "The Psilocybin Solution: Prelude To a Paradigm Shift" by Simon G. Powell.

The full text is available at:

http://www.lycaeum.org/books/books/psilocybin-solution

It's very well written and thought out. It should be read by all.

Jeremy

[ December 03, 2002, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Misterbeanz ]

[daniel]

Hi Jeremy,

I gave the chapter, "The Omega Point," a quick read. Like McKenna's discussion of the same points, I feel there is something to it but also something lacking. If we are coming up to an evolutionary step or a "catastrophic bifurcation," as W.I. Thompson discusses, that does not suggest to me a final conclusion to human history in an abrupt "concrescence." I am more into Steiner's reading of the Akashic Record, which foresaw many future stages of evolution - so different that they might appear like an apocalypse from where we are now, but still somehow congruent and logical as steps toward integrating freedom and responsibility.

[K.J]

Daniel,

The chapter you read doesn't at all encapsulate what this book is about. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure we're on the same page.

I didn't understand this book to conclude that we're coming to a "final conclusion to human history in an abrupt "concrescence." In fact, it seems to suggest the opposite; that life and the universe is a never ending, intelligent process of discovery and evolution aided by an intelligent "other" accessed through entheogens such as psilocybin. But maybe I should read it again.

Jeremy

[sidecross]

The word "concrescence" is an Alfred North Whitehead term, or at least that is where I first found it. The difficulity of the concept may be in the ability to recognize it.

[StSimon]

The point of debate essentially related to the geometric shape of the universe, or at least a three dimensional model which one can use as a metaphor to understand the absolute structure of reality.

Conventional scientific explanations are very linear. Big bang creation, expansion to present state, a possible contraction in the future - infinity expressed with line drawings.

I stumbled upon the Meru Foundation (http://www.meru.org) whist surfing the web some years ago, which planted the seed in my mind of a torus shape of the universe.

The innate feeling of these two models drastically differs, while each contains the same essential information, in my opinion. I tend toward the torus model, as it allows me to perceive these feelings of crisis as essential features of geometry - of our minds, of the universe, of the abilities of each to interact.

And in my own mind, the center of the torus becomes the black hole of my eye (my I) staring across space and time into the other eye (your I), creating the alpha and the omega and the infinite universe inbetween.

[daniel]

Checked out - briefly - the Meru website. It looks impressive and complex. I wonder if there is a book that organizes this material in an easy-to-comprehend way. The newest article, "The Shape of Information: How to talk to an Extra-Terrestrial," looks like it might have relevance to crop circle images and DMT visions:

http://www.meru.org/ShapeofInfoHTML/ShapeofInfo2002.html

The Shape of Information: How to Talk to an Extra-Terrestrial
by Stan Tenen
*
Abstract
Whether or not there actually are extra-terrestrials, it is worth considering what it would take to communicate with self-aware beings from thousands of light-years away in space, because this may shed light on how we can understand formal records (sometimes called "sacred") left for us by human civilizations thousands of (earth) years away in our own past. For this reason we ask: What if ancient, traditional, "sacred" numbers, letters, and symbols were, somehow, exactly what they meant? This claim of intrinsic natural universal meaning is, after all, one of the claims generally made. Usually these claims are easily dismissed, or they are reduced to the trivial by interpretations that explain them away as vestiges of numerology, gematria, and mythological meaning. This essay attempts to outline an alternative view. We find that the natural geometry of the cosmological, quantum-mechanical, and personal information gradients of all information systems follows the same topology, and can take the same geometric form. At the quantum-mechanical level, we find the twice-around orbit of the Dirac String Trick gives us a pair of spiral vortices, and Arthur M. Young’s 3-turn torus-hypersphere model of the photon—which he relates to the quantum of personal choice—gives us a similar set of spiral vortices. At the cosmological level, the negentropic star-plant-planet information-gradient described by Roger Penrose takes the same form. And at the personal level, our human hands, which are the form(s) we use to project our choices into the world, can also be idealized by the same spiral vortex form(s). In all three cases, cosmologically "as above," quantum-mechanically "so below," and in the middle on the "earth plane" where we live, we find the negentropic information gradient takes the same form—and this form shows up throughout ancient symbolism and at the root of the three great "sacred alphabets" in the Western traditions.

[daniel]

Checked out - briefly - the Meru website. It looks impressive and complex. I wonder if there is a book that organizes this material in an easy-to-comprehend way. The newest article, "The Shape of Information: How to talk to an Extra-Terrestrial," looks like it might have relevance to crop circle images and DMT visions:

http://www.meru.org/ShapeofInfoHTML/ShapeofInfo2002.html

The Shape of Information: How to Talk to an Extra-Terrestrial
by Stan Tenen
*
Abstract
Whether or not there actually are extra-terrestrials, it is worth considering what it would take to communicate with self-aware beings from thousands of light-years away in space, because this may shed light on how we can understand formal records (sometimes called "sacred") left for us by human civilizations thousands of (earth) years away in our own past. For this reason we ask: What if ancient, traditional, "sacred" numbers, letters, and symbols were, somehow, exactly what they meant? This claim of intrinsic natural universal meaning is, after all, one of the claims generally made. Usually these claims are easily dismissed, or they are reduced to the trivial by interpretations that explain them away as vestiges of numerology, gematria, and mythological meaning. This essay attempts to outline an alternative view. We find that the natural geometry of the cosmological, quantum-mechanical, and personal information gradients of all information systems follows the same topology, and can take the same geometric form. At the quantum-mechanical level, we find the twice-around orbit of the Dirac String Trick gives us a pair of spiral vortices, and Arthur M. Young’s 3-turn torus-hypersphere model of the photon—which he relates to the quantum of personal choice—gives us a similar set of spiral vortices. At the cosmological level, the negentropic star-plant-planet information-gradient described by Roger Penrose takes the same form. And at the personal level, our human hands, which are the form(s) we use to project our choices into the world, can also be idealized by the same spiral vortex form(s). In all three cases, cosmologically "as above," quantum-mechanically "so below," and in the middle on the "earth plane" where we live, we find the negentropic information gradient takes the same form—and this form shows up throughout ancient symbolism and at the root of the three great "sacred alphabets" in the Western traditions.

[daniel]

Also in Joseph Chilton Pierce's interesting new book, "The Biology of Transcendence," he notes that the electrical currents radiating from the heart form the shape of a torus extending around the body, and suggests this might be linked to the astral body described by various mystical traditions a extending beyond the physical.

[StSimon]

For a short time, I attended a Pookah University, essentially a weekly lesson in rune lore given by a self-professed druid. What really got me interested in attending was how quickly this man's mind worked, playing tricks with language to point out additional meaning - for those who could keep up with him. Now, I remain skeptical of many of his claims, but he did have something, of which there can be no doubt.

One point he made was that the runes were graphic depictions that the "ancients" knew quantum theory, and encoded that knowledge into the runes. That idea I have come to realize is the biggest blasphemy in the current scientific world - that someone other than us "post-moderns" could understand the universal meaning of quantum theory.

This druid described the runes as an Ice language, and Hebrew as a Fire language, and through combining the systems he reurned them to their "true form". What I find most fascinating, the continual theme of changing your understanding with language to make dramatic "spiritual" evolutions: Kabbalists, Enochian tablets, the martian language in Stranger in a Strange Land. Once you can speak the correct language, all misunderstanding evaporates, or whatever vision of heaven or hell results - because with language comes responsibility.

A creative language, as practiced by the DMT tykes of McKenna, if bestowed on mankind, would destroy us rather than save us. How many times a day does "Goddammit" slip out our mouths? Or any other thoughtless comment condemning our existence? In one indulgent reverie I saw before me the "Lurker on the Threshold" - all of my words and the realities they could create, flashed as a shadow on the wall coming out of my mouth. You must practice extreme vigilance when considering what you call further into being by uttering its hidden name.

[sidecross]

"…That idea I have come to realize is the biggest blasphemy in the current scientific world - that someone other than us "post-moderns" could understand the universal meaning of quantum theory."

I do not believe anyone understands quantum mechanics "post-modern" or not. What recent empirical science has shown through the experiments of Alain Aspect, Leonard Mandel, and Nicholas Gisin to name a few is to move beyond the thought experiments of EPR and Bell's Theorem to proved experimental data. This data is not the end of the road to understanding quantum mechanics.

"… Once you can speak the correct language, all misunderstanding evaporates, or whatever vision of heaven or hell results - because with language comes responsibility."

I find that kind of language rooted into 19th century determinism. It is not only incomplete and out dated, but it is also the cause of much of our problems as a species. Who is to be the arbitrator of "correct language"? Is it President Bush, bin Laden, or you?

.

"…A creative language, as practiced by the DMT tykes of McKenna, if bestowed on mankind, would destroy us rather
than save us."

Terrence McKenna is a performance artist, and art and ideas themselves have neither the power to destroy us or save us.

[StSimon]

Terrence McKenna is a performance artist, and art and ideas themselves have neither the power to destroy us or save us.
Adolph Hitler was a performance artist too, one whose art and ideas brought about the extinction of several million people (Jews, Gypsies, mentally and physically retarded, homosexual...), engaged the entire world in an armed conflict - one which was brought to conclusion by opening the possibility of atomic warfare, whose shadow the world has lingered in for the past sixty years.

Pardon me if I disagree with you.

I do not believe in a "correct" arbiter of language, one can only speak for themselves. And words are subtle things, whose lasting currents are difficult to detect, but inescapable.

[daniel]

Rudolf Steiner writes in Cosmic Memory that in the next phase of human evolution, the organ of generation will move from the genitals to the throat chakra - the organ of communication. In other words, we will enunciate beings into existence. He wrote that in the 1920s when it must have seemed impossible, but with the merging of information technology and biotech it begins to make a strange kind of sense.

I think that use of language is very important in that we can only talk about what we have language for. I see my task in the last book and in future ones hopefully as one of articulation. By increasing what we can articulate, we throw more light into the darkness that surrounds us. I am also seduced by McKenna´s shamanic notion that the universe is made of language - therefore the act of mythmaking or storytelling is primordially initiative and creative. There is no ¨correct¨language, but there are more and less expansive worldviews and possibilities created through how we limit and create our language.

[Charlie]

In other words, we will enunciate beings into existence

Say what?

I think a future possibility for language might be something I call Thought Projection. I have found through my own experiences that my cognitive abilities and profundity of thought were greatly enhanced by the increase in physical space surrounding me. People have a wider, more expanded consciousness standing on top of a mountain as opposed to being enclosed in a small box. In the same way that planes fly in the jet stream, maybe there are “thought corridors” in the atmosphere for normal thought, and certainly, wavelengths that carry telepathy more effectively. If Science (yes, that dirty word) can discover where these are located, and what corresponding neural transmitters are affected (for telepathy, that is), it may lead human communication to a higher level.

[sidecross]

"…I am also seduced by McKenna´s shamanic notion that the universe is made of language - therefore the act of mythmaking or storytelling is primordially initiative and creative…"

It is my understanding of Terrence McKenna's work, that the human world is confined to language and not the universe. He linked human understanding to current restraints of language, but seemed to imply human language will fall short of being inclusive of the universe.

"Adolph Hitler was a performance artist too,…"

If this is how you see Hitler, you might think about quitting your day job and go parading in search of humor.

[StSimon]

maybe there are “thought corridors” in the atmosphere for normal thought, and certainly, wavelengths that carry telepathy more effectively. If Science (yes, that dirty word) can discover where these are located, and what corresponding neural transmitters are affected (for telepathy, that is), it may lead human communication to a higher level. Timothy Leary described the evolution of consciousness with his 8-circuit model, 4 circuits for terrestrial adaption and 4 more for post-terrestrial life. All "magical" or "supernatural" happenings can be described as expressions of the post-terrestrial brain, including telepathic communication. Ecstatic experience helps to open up the later circuits, or one can just enter a zero-gravity environment. Astronauts tend to describe some sort of mystical experience from looking down onto earth; I've seen this bit mentioned in a few sources now, and would like to know if any detailed accounts have been written - does anyone know?

[michael heany]

An astronaut named Mitchell had one of these experiences. Can't remember his first name. He conducted some psi "experiements" from the surface of the moon. He co-founded something called Noetic Sciences. Not sure what his focus is though.

[amj]

Hi,

Don't know if someone may have posted this elsewhere... the astronaut's name is Edgar Mitchell. He founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences and wrote a book (reading it now, although it's a bit dull to start out)... they have a website: http://www.noetic.org/ions/new.html

kinda interesting... we'll see...