Hello, Cy, OMF II - Part 2

From: Dan
Date: March 31, 2013, 11:40:05 AM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc:

Subject: Re: Jacques Vallee & Dan Smith's Messy Antics

(cont......)


How can we possibly turn the Juggernaut of modern civilization on a dime? Give God a fulcrum, and she will move the world. That fulcrum will be, as it has always been, the Logos from the prophet. Chris and I are just two who have volunteered to take up that torch. God has never been short of volunteers, whether we take up the cross or the vest.

Nor has God ever been short of physicists, be they fringe or straight. Who does God love more, the physicist or the jihadist? She loves us all, alone and together. She would not have made ten billion of us, if she didn't love every last one of us.

History has, indeed, reached its crescendo. Where can we possibly go from here? There is only one way to go...... up! To heaven, that is, through our soon to be prepared Stargates.

Can God not arrange this, oh, you agnostics, you?!

Give Jack the blueprint, and he will build it, won't you, Jack? Chris and I will be the cheerleaders.

p.s. And Chris and I will explain to Jack how to breath the old fire into his new formulas and blueprints.

That's all.



On Mar 31, 2013, at 11:09 AM, Dan wrote:

Well, Jack, it does seem that you have reached a high-water mark wrt your heroic physicalism.

As the hero of fringe physicalism, there is no doubt that you are my best possible antagonist and most loyal opposition.

The handwriting is on the wall. The prophets have spoken. The tide has turned.

In the End it's going to be your formulas vs. Chris' Logos. Formulas are mute. Who can breath fire into them?

The Logos is the fire, it is the spirit. The Logos is the implication of the implicate order.

Yes, poetry stirs the soul, and formulas only allow us to make better toys. When we run out of new toys, it won't matter how many old toys we have left.

We are left only to wonder who we are, from whence we came, and whither we go.

For all the trillions of dollars spent on science and technology, we are about to wind up freezing in the dark. What is it that will warm our souls? From where will come the light?

And for all those trillions, where have the atheists gone? When was the last time any of us met an atheist who garnered our respect as a person or an intellect?

Only now do we begin to have trepidation about our future. Is God going to let us twist in the wind? If you were God, what would you do? Should she come rushing to our side, like some genie..... yes, Master, what can I do?

God is in the implicate order, residing cheek by jowl, with our own selves. The Kingdom is within. It is up to us, now, to explicate it. We will build our Stargate on every land, where the megaliths once stood we will build the New Jerusalem. Therein comes our rapture.


(cont......)

From: Dan
Date: March 31, 2013, 1:30:21 PM EDT
To: Michael Kavanaugh
Cc: Gary Gripp, "Abernethy, Virginia Deane", Steven Earl Salmony,........

Subject: Narrow our focus....?!

Mike, Gary, Virginia, Steve et al.,

Yes, we are focused on population and societal collapse, and on the possible avoidance of the latter.

How many of us will be left, in a thousand years? Here's my bet...... 144,000!! And this, despite appearances, is not actually meant to be a joke, at the expense of my JW friends. No?

Allow me to explain........

We have just experienced a tremendous crescendo in both human and Earth history. Had it been choreographed as an historical drama, could it have been choreographed with any more skill and inspiration? I have seen no one attempting to upstage our own act, in this regard.

There is only one little fly in this ointment....... what will we do for an encore?!

What, indeed?!

Before we all rush to judgment, do let us keep in mind that the proverbial fat-lady has yet to sing.

But, nonetheless, I have to agree that it sure does seem that we are in dire straits. If there were any gods or a galactic federation, surely they would have intervened, at least, 100 or 200 years ago, before we got ourselves into this pretty pickle!

So, given any spectators, were they mainly interested to see the train wreck or the drama that preceded it?

Who cares about any spectators, ghoulish or otherwise? I'm just sayin'........ keeping my eye on the fat-lady......

Well, that's not totally accurate. I do have an iron in this fire..... I did bring some marshmallows, even enough to share a few!

'Tis true, I'm neither a deconstructive materialist nor a raging atheist. I just like to keep our options open, maybe a crack or two, and see if any breeze flickers the candles.

As long as you good people allow my proactive kibitzing, I'm as happy as a clam in a mud flat.

So humor me just one second....... If you were God and were trying to decide when would have been the best time to have, say, Jesus land on the White House Lawn, when would you have done that, or would you take a chance and wait until the last second, just before, say, there is a global run on the banks, supposing that the Dramaturge can pull such strings, and for the sake of argument?



On Mar 31, 2013, at 11:15 AM, Michael Kavanaugh wrote:

Gary -- I am off to an Easter luncheon at the Lexington Country Club to dine with two of the three remaining members of my genetic heritage who have been more successful at wealth accumulation than I have. But they are nice ladies nevertheless. So this is in the way of an introductory answer to your rebuttal of my recent awkward post. Let me ask this question of any of us: How many zeros would you put after the decimal point to indicate what in your mind are the odds that there will be any remaining human presence on Earth after the next thousand years? Don’t weasel, take your time and venture your best guess. I am not going to load the dice with my guess, but will share after those who care to have spoken. Don’t be shy, if you think we have a 100% chance of still being around, let us know. Or you may feel we aren’t going to make it to the end of this Century -- that’s OK too. The point is to get a feel for our inner mindset regarding the human future.

Two books that have influenced my thinking come to mind in this context: Viktor Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning, and Carl Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul. I will add also Jung’s Answer to Job, where he looks into the Soul of the Divine in search of the origin of Evil. These concerns with our inner lives may seem irrelevant or meaningless to those smitten with the intellect and the outward aspects of our lives, but for me, there are important keys here that might free us from our self created imprisonment. More later…

Jake Reason wrote:The email stream continues. The Theme is? Will the Scientists and Religious Philosophers be able to save-the-day when D-Day hits the world's consciousness?

D-Day = Disclosure
Save-the-day = reduce global mayhem

A serious question!

And a few other VIPs were added to the short email list, presumably with consideration to this question's importance. Still a short list...under 20. Except for "bcc's", whom no one can know, but the sender.

Somehow, I just now, thought about the TOP forum. FYI, your "Disclosure Lite" is no where near the implied effective import of this email stream. However, your importance remains, imo. Albeit, fringe. As so, this little obscure OMF. To everything there is a purpose.

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

Designing the future projected paradigm, post D-Day? That is the question of Passover/Easter Weekend 2013.

Can mice and men do it? Or is it already set in the stars?

Forgive us Father, for we know not what we do.

But you implored us to do. So what should we do?

From: Dan
Date: April 3, 2013, 10:38:51 AM EDT
To: Dick Farley
Cc: Jake Reason, Gary Bekkum, and 18 others.....
Subject: Re: How to package the disturbing message.....

Dick, Jake et al.,

I am of the impression that 'societal engineering', such as it may be, logically follows from the truth, rather than leading to it.

The main thing we need to do now is to get (back?) to coherence, ASAP. Trying to engineer easily swallowed 'baby-steps' will only serve to perpetuate the incoherence, thereby prolonging the agony and confusion.

Generally, since the beginning, humanity has been laboring under a management by directive. Now it can only be management via a common objective, an objective which necessarily encompasses a redemption. We embrace destiny.

Jack.... >> Sure we may all be hologram images projected from our past and future cosmological horizons in a virtual Destiny Matrix simulation with the observer-participator programmers part of the simulation in what Doug Hofstader called a Godel "strange loop" and what John Archibald Wheeler called "the universe as a self-excited circuit. <<

>> machines with super-weapons coming through star gate wormhole time machine <<

>> Christ's message of Divine Love is a very nice fairly tale <<

Yes, Jack, it is a very nice fairy tale, unless it happens to be true.

Again, everyone on this list is wedded to the notion that the 'physical' world/creation is infinite. And this may well be true, but that would not be the best possible creation. That is simply the notion of the world that we have swallowed, along with the rest of scientific physicalism.

Once you accept the mere possibility of our phenomenal world being a projection out of a deeper reality, then all of those superficial bets are off the table. Get used to it. Get over it. Everything else becomes a miasma of incoherence.

Then we have only to wager on whether the guiding intelligence is more like us, or less like us.

If we possibly are the substantive co-Creators, then we know who we are and why we were created. We know that we are the children of God, and not a cosmic spawn. We are, every last one us, created as soul-mates, all sharing the same cosmic soul. Let the elitists amongst us chew on that fact.

We are not lab rats. This is not an experiment. This is Grand Central station in the best possible creation, wherein everyone is the reincarnation of everyone else.

Human history has been choreographed. Creation has both its temporal and eternal aspects. Its temporality is a Metanarrative, the best possible metanarrative. Try coming up with a better version. From God's perspective of Eternity, every moment of our history is a manifestation of the Eternal shining Presence.

Get used to it. Get over it.

Hey, I might be wrong. I've been wrong before.

But once we've seen Paris, it will be difficult to keep us down on your farm!

ScaRZ wrote:
I have often wondered what I would do if everything lay in my lap.

Would it be a full disclosure of everything at this given moment,or only in timely sections.

There is no doubt I would spill the beans,there's only the question of how I would spill them.

From: Dan
Date: April 4, 2013, 10:50:54 AM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: Paul, David, Chris, Rick, Gary, Dick F

Subject: No competition.... nolo contendere....

Apparently a setup.... a done deal.....

Chris is the closest to being a competitor, but he is not quite prepared to take up the eschaton baton. He doesn't wish to stick his neck out quite that far, yet. Give him a few more months. Yes?

In my case, at least, it went back to a one night stand with my dear little Sophie in 1977..... hmmm, make that ten minutes! Where I was before that...... I'm not quite sure.

Everything I say is completely obvious, given the possibility that that the world is more like a great thought than a great machine. It is a bootstrapped, self-reinforcing thought process, wherein God is the buckle and we are the belt, all operating on a closed time-like curve (CTC).

This is not rocket science, nor brain surgery. It's all about simplicity and coherence. Everyone else is just too smart and too compartmented to be able to revel in the simplicity. It takes a true simpleton! This is just Occam's razor operating on the ultimate, monadic scale. Everything else drowns in its own infinities.

History has been a great pageant, a great ride. A great story deserves a great ending, and that we are about to witness, in the form of the ultimate gestalt switch, from materialism to immaterialism. It will simply turn out that our world is of the spirit, by the spirit and for the spirit. This is who we are, from whence we came, and whither we go.

We are just the monad, pretending to hide from itself, behind the wondrous veil, we call nature/cosmos. Once we were lost, now we are found!

We now prepare to become one with the monadic spirit, in our own sweet time, which I'm guessing will be, say, a couple hundred years. Yes?

Everything else is just footnotes......

From: Dan
Date: April 4, 2013, 3:16:06 PM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: 8 others.....
Subject: Clement Vidal's thesis......

Yes, Jack, I'm game for Clement.......!

Clement has a thing for black holes, as do most physicists. He is mainly attempting to extend Lee Smolin's idea of cosmological natural selection (CNS), 1992. He does briefly take up the idea that our world could be a simulation.

No, actually, most of chapter 8 of his thesis is devoted to this idea.

Mainly, see ch. 8.3.3, wherein he does speak of the best possible world! This is likely the first time that this notion has appeared as a key concept in a scientific paper.

I will continuing reviewing his thesis.......


(cont......)

From: Dan
Date: April 4, 2013, 5:03:14 PM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: 18 others......
Subject: Re: Clement Vidal's thesis......

Jack,

And how about this from Clement, p.181.......

>> Although it is at odds with our knowledge of cosmic evolution, to avoid a shift of the fine-tuning issue and a tower of turtles, one can suppose that the tuning of new universes is not enhanced as the universal reproduction cycle repeats. Indeed, if we assume a complexification between universes, we will automatically shift the fine- tuning problem. In addition, we must assume that there is no “first universe”. This sound strange for our inclinations towards point-like cognitive attractors. We are used to think in a linear way, with a beginning, a middle and an end. However, it is possible to postulate a cyclical metaphysics (the cycle-like cognitive attractor), where there is no beginning at all, only a cycle. To sum up, in this metaphysical picture (iii), CAS describes an infinite cycle of self-reproducing universes mediated by intelligent civilization.
Again, it is important to emphasize that circular explanations and infinite regresses are not necessarily vicious (Gratton 1994). One attributes viciousness to such reasoning, but this is based on the assumption that “there is some obligation to begin a beginningless process or to end some endless process” (Gratton 1994, 295). Again, instead of trying to avoid an infinite explanatory regress, we can choose to embrace it, without any contradiction. <<<

He almost has a CTC.

From: Dan
Date: April 5, 2013, 10:46:18 AM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: 28 others......
Subject: Re: Clement Vidal's thesis......

Jack,

I'm on sect 8.3.13, p 190, of Clement's thesis.

If I do come to London, a significant part of the reason would be to visit Clement in Brussels, on the way. As you point out, it is only 4 hours by train.

I would hope to engage him by email before then, with some of you being copied.

Why might Clement be crucial........?

1.) The only one of us to be currently in academia, and he already has a significant following therein.

2.) He is definitely looking at the big picture, and not just from a physics point of view. He is strongly including the philosophical and moral perspectives.

3.) His CAS, cosmological artificial selection, is the next step beyond Lee Smolin's CNS, or natural selection. As [Paul Z] pointed out, he is a cosmological Larmarkian.

4.) He does entertain the simulation hypothesis, but seems mainly concerned with 'concrete realizations'.

5.) He alludes to the 'problem' of circularity.

There are three main things that he does not consider......

1.) Closed time-like curves, CTC's, and 'back from the future' ideas.

2.) The holographic models of Suskind, Sarfatti, Davis, etc.

3.) Quantum models, observer participation and weak measurements.

I will attempt to quickly finish reading his thesis, and then contact him about a visit. Larry and I should be visiting Ron in the next few days. I would like to enlist their support, if we wish to crank things up another notch in London.

From: Dan
Date: April 6, 2013, 9:59:07 AM EDT
To: Clement Vidal
Cc: Jack, Paul, Chris, Larry and Aliyah

Subject: Beginning and End......

Dear Clement,

I was only recently introduced to your thesis. I'm hoping that you might be willing to discuss it with me and a few friends.......

We are particularly interested in your idea of Cosmological Artificial Selection (CAS), as well as your structured survey of the philosophy of cosmology.

It does appear that you have been willing to push 'classical' cosmology to its logical limits, particularly in chapters 8&9. In your more philosophical chapters, you demonstrate an interest in pre- and post- classical models.

Jack and I have been working on cosmological models since at least the 1970's, and he has developed a considerable personal network in the US and Europe. He has invited me to join him and his wife, Tina, in London, on the 19th of April. This would be a good excuse to visit you in Brussels, if that is where you will be, before the 19th. Jack and Tina will be leaving San Francisco on Tuesday.

I believe that it could useful for us to compare notes wrt my Leibnizian take on Cosmology.

Jack has introduced me to closed time-like curves (CTC's) and to various of the holographic models, as well as to the Aharanov theory of weak measurements, and how they might apply to cosmology.

If we can interest you in some of these more esoteric possibilities, we could likely arrange for you to join us in London, as well. But, if all else fails, we would still like to avail ourselves of your expertise, when possible.

Dan

dan wrote:Golly, Cy, do I look like an extremist??

From: Dan
Date: April 6, 2013, 10:14:33 PM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: Paul, Chris, Larry, Jake, Aliyah and Gary

Subject: Clement Vidal's mentor.......

Clement Vidal's mentor/colleague at ECCO.....

http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/30

is John Smart, who has some interesting bio's.......

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/bio_johnsmart.html

....note that he has taught at the Naval post-graduate school in Monterey, CA.

And then read this.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smart_(futurist)

>> In what he calls the "developmental singularity hypothesis",[3] Smart proposes that STEM compression, as a driver of accelerating change, must lead cosmic intelligence to a future of highly-miniaturized, accelerated, and local "transcension" to extra-universal domains, rather than to space-faring expansion within our existing universe. The transcension scenario (vs. expansion scenario) proposes that once civilizations saturate their local region of space with their intelligence, they need to leave our visible, macroscopic universe in order to continue exponential growth of complexity and intelligence, and thus disappear from this universe, thus explaining the Fermi Paradox.[4] Developments in astrobiology make this a testable hypothesis.[5] A related proposal may be found in the selfish biocosm hypothesis of complexity theorist James N. Gardner. <<

Some interesting stuff coming down here.

dan wrote:But, Cy, I thought my guy was the meanest guy in town, meaner than a junk-yard dog. If not, I may need to ask for my money back.

In the meantime........

From: Dan
Date: April 6, 2013, 10:14:33 PM EDT
To: Jack Sarfatti
Cc: Paul, Chris, Larry, Jake, Aliyah and Gary

Subject: Clement Vidal's mentor.......

Clement Vidal's mentor/colleague at ECCO.....

http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/30

is John Smart, who has some interesting bio's.......

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/bio_johnsmart.html

....note that he has taught at the Naval post-graduate school in Monterey, CA.

And then read this.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smart_(futurist)

>> In what he calls the "developmental singularity hypothesis",[3] Smart proposes that STEM compression, as a driver of accelerating change, must lead cosmic intelligence to a future of highly-miniaturized, accelerated, and local "transcension" to extra-universal domains, rather than to space-faring expansion within our existing universe. The transcension scenario (vs. expansion scenario) proposes that once civilizations saturate their local region of space with their intelligence, they need to leave our visible, macroscopic universe in order to continue exponential growth of complexity and intelligence, and thus disappear from this universe, thus explaining the Fermi Paradox.[4] Developments in astrobiology make this a testable hypothesis.[5] A related proposal may be found in the selfish biocosm hypothesis of complexity theorist James N. Gardner. <<

Some interesting stuff coming down here.

No??

From: Dan
Date: April 8, 2013, 11:11:30 AM EDT
To: Larry
Cc: Princess, Jack, Paul, Chris, David, Jake, Ron

Subject: Saving Kashmir

Saving Kashmir is a worthy cause, and is definitely worthy of an excursion or two.

BUT, I'm skeptical that any individual country can be saved, without saving a whole bunch of other countries as well, and this applies especially to the USofA.

The Princess is perturbed by the lack of a business model for the BPWH. We spent some time yesterday attempting to put one together, but to no great avail.

Failing the BPWH, Kashmir was, quite naturally, next on the list of priorities. And, certainly in honor of our own Princess, we should seriously consider a trek to Kashmir this summer to discuss Sufi philosophy in conjunction with the recent UFO sightings near her home town.

There will be a meeting of the minds, within the next few days.

In the meantime, there is still the question of London....... The possibility of a major excursion has been ruled out, but here is another possibility....... I am only beginning to get focused on the transhumanist Futurists, namely Bostrom, Smart and Vidal. I see a big opening here.

And my basic offer to the Futurists is an offer that they cannot refuse..... a novel approach to combining science and religion, yes, you guessed it..... the BPWH! And, IMHO, this intellectual link could easily be the 'straw' that breaks the logjam/gridlock between these two cultures.

Finally, my response back to the Princess is that I must continue to work on building the network, which entails a unique combination of the personal and conceptual, and this could well entail a trip to visit Nick Bostrom's Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at Oxford, on the way to meet up with Jack in London.

Dan

Cy,

I think you would be interested to check out bio's of Nick and John, mentioned below, as well as Clement's.......

From: Dan
Date: April 9, 2013, 1:39:24 PM EDT
To: Clement V
Cc: Jack Sarfatti, Princess, Ron, Paul, David, Saul-Paul, Jake, Rick, Chris, Larry, Gary.

Subject: Re: Beginning and End......

Clement,

Jack and Tina should be enroute to London, about now. It turns out that Jack has been acquainted with Amara Angelica since the 70's, who is well known to both Ray Kurzweil and John Smart, I understand.

Anyway, my Leibnizian or non-Newtonian take on cosmology eventually led me into the realm of eschatology, something which all futurists have to deal with, in one form or another. At the end of the day we come to a singularity, if only when the Sun goes nova, or we reach the Big Rip.

You and I look for something more hopeful, I believe, along the lines of a Tipler or a Teilhard, for instance.

It was in my capacity as an eschatologist that I became acquainted with Aliyah's husband, Ron, and that was twenty-some years ago, and he and I have gained a bit of local notoriety, over the years. It is not totally implausible that our wonderful government tries to keep its options open wrt the future. We do pay them to watch our backs! It is in that vein that I would like to strike up an acquaintance with a few of you who are open to such speculations, far out though they may be. I am certainly not an academic, although I am sometimes mistaken for one, on the Internet, where I have been pretty active, over the years, although usually just talking to myself. I am usually able to converse with both physicists and philosophers. Jack keeps me reasonably up to date on the physics side, isn't that right, Jack?!

Ok, I am beating around the bush, or the eschaton, as the case may be. I do have that proclivity, sometimes for good reason.......

Suffice it to say that I'm more than a tad impatient, in regard to my eschatology, and this has something to do with the Fermi paradox. Yes, IMHO, our destiny is written in the stars, but might not actually be in the stars. Even here, we seem to agree. You do see us as headed to a 'stargate', eventually. The contingency that I may represent, as the Chicken Little of the Ron and Dan show, is that we may be living in a holographic virtual reality, of some sort. Yes, both Wilhelm and I, along with Nick, I believe, do incline toward immaterialism or Boltzman brains or whatever...... something pretty radical. Yes, my views are even closer to sci-fi than are yours, I'll bet. So, maybe that is the vein in which we might have a discussion...... sci-fi. The Matrix also comes to mind. Perhaps there has been a disturbing message from the 'stars', and we're just looking to do some relatively serious networking around that contingency, with a few folks who are already prone to some far-out ideas. Do I have any access to classified info? I certainly do not. And even Ron may not, although he has alluded to a 'phenomenological' problem. His job, such as it may be, is to keep me isolated from the ugly facts so that I may continue luxuriate in the best possible world hypothesis (BPWH)!

And sometimes I just can't keep my darn mouth shut.......

Dan