Hello, Cy, OMF II - Part 2

First topic message reminder :

And for the insane, or other wise, we present:

Schroedinger's Cat is not Alone

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.4206v4

Beatriz Gato, Beatriz Gato-Rivera
(Submitted on 23 Apr 2010 (v1), last revised 31 Mar 2011 (this version, v4))
We introduce the `Complete Wave Function' and deduce that all living beings, not just Schroedinger's cat, are actually described by a superposition of `alive' and `dead' quantum states; otherwise they would never die. Therefore this proposal provides a quantum mechanical explanation to the world-wide observation that we all pass away. Next we consider the Measurement problem in the framework of M-theory. For this purpose, together with Schroedinger's cat we also place inside the box Rasputin's cat, which is unaffected by poison. We analyse the system identifying its excitations (catons and catinos) and we discuss its evolution: either to a classical fight or to a quantum entanglement. We also propose the BSVΨ scenario, which implements the Complete Wave Function as well as the Big Bang and the String Landscape in a very (super)natural way. Then we test the gravitational decoherence of the entangled system applying an experimental setting due to Galileo. We also discuss the Information Loss paradox. For this purpose we consider a massless black cat falling inside a massive black hole. After that we outline a method to compute the contribution of black cats to the dark matter of the universe. Finally, in the spirit of Schroedinger, we propose that next generation double-slit experiments should use cats as projectiles. Cat interferometry will inevitably lead to the `Many Cats' interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, allowing to shed new light on old mysteries and paradoxes. For example, according to this interpretation, conservative estimates show that decision making of a single domestic cat will create about 550 billion whole universes every day, with as many replicas of itself.

Dan, have you written anything on the "nature(s)" of extra terrestrials, ultra terrestrials, jinns, guardian angels, etc to see what might be a "common denominator" among these ... if any?

"Jinn" always gets me to whistling,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlAjV8xH-gM

From: Dan
Date: July 26, 2014, 2:36:29 PM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike", Princess, [Skai].  

Subject: Re: Jewish Supremists Pt 2

Ron,  

I thank you for this clarification.

I am not condemning Anthony for holding an 'alternative' view of the fate of the Jews in WWII.  This is not a topic that I have studied independently.  I should not have used the term 'denier' in this context.  It does not promote an even discussion.  

My concern, like yours, lies with the present and the future.  Both you and Anthony hold pessimistic views about human nature and about the future of humanity.  Both of you are far from supposing that God is exercising vigilance, and that there is a plan for our salvation that will be in accord with this world having been the singular and best possible Creation.  

I am hopeful that Anthony and I will discuss this matter in a way that will enable you and the Princess to give some further credence to this alternative worldview.

Dan


On Jul 26, 2014, at 12:39 PM, Ronald wrote:

Dan,

Through your communications with Anthony you have an opportunity to learn and develop a greater cosmic perspective.  He never denied that Jews were harmed by the Germans, French, Russians, and most other communities in Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, just that the claim of a Holocaust was intended to tamp down opposition to atrocities committed by Zionists in the years following the War. The scale of atrocities committed by Japan against civilians in China and Korea, Germany against civilians in Russia, and US and British forces against civilians in Germany and Japan dwarf the claims of a Holocaust against Jews.  The scale of atrocities committed by Japan against US prisoners of war stands in contrast to the respect and humanitarian aid offered by Germany to US Prisoners of war.  And of course the atrocities being committed by Zionists in Israel against occupied Palestinians is long term and ongoing.  It is the current Holocausts that deserve our action -- including those against wildlife -- not the atrocities committed by past generations.

While I am disturbed by the disrespectful comments Anthony made concerning my washing the garments of the Princess. (It is my duty as Footman to ensure her garments are clean, smell fresh, and in good order.)  It is your duty as Scribe to record the truth in both absolute terms and proper relative perspective.  Branding people as "deniers" is theatrical stunt used to evoke negative emotion among the feeble minded crowd.

V/r,

Ron

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 8:25:27 AM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike", John S[Skai], David G, Paul Z, Bill L, Gary, Palmer, Sam

Subject: Re: Jewish Supremists Pt 2


(cont......)

I am going to have to take you to task for another statement that you made in your email, yesterday.....

<< Through your communications with Anthony you have an opportunity to learn and develop a greater cosmic perspective. >>

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry, or to wonder.... what is this guy (Ron) up to, now?  

I will give you the benefit of the doubt.  I will assume that you are being a highly paid agent provocateur, among various other things, who has finally seen fit to not slam the philosophical door in my face, as you have done on several previous, and noteworthy, occasions.  

You are going to have a more difficult time slamming that door, now that, after 20 some years, you have revealed that you were, for ten years, an adjunct professor of philosophy.  

That you should choose now to open this philosophical door, within a racially charged context, may not be too shabby, actually.

Going forward, into a time of global economic crisis, racism is liable to be the #1 problem facing humanity.  What witness do philosophy and cosmology have to bear on this problem?  

Well, I don't know about Anthony's cosmology.  If such does actually exist, I look forward to being enlightened thereupon.  

In my own cosmology, the BPWH/SWH, this subject has, quite admittedly, not received its due, up to this point in time.  Nonetheless, I will not play bashful.  That is not my protocol, now is it?

It is particularly on this topic that I part company with my pantheist brothers and sisters......


(cont......2)

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 9:20:38 AM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and 7 others
Subject: Re: Jewish Supremists Pt 2


(cont.....2)

(I note that Anthony, in the last few minutes, in his latest CRF group email, has partially responded to some of my earlier questions.  I will keep an eye on that chain of correspondence as I continue with this one.....)


I part company with the pantheists particularly in regard to transmigration.  Of all the evil in the world, the very idea of transmigration is likely to be one of our greatest challenges when it comes to rationalizing the history of ideas, in the context of this being the best possible world.  

I can and do rationalize the prevalence of the idea of transmigration, but only in an eschatological context.  In any other context, as with so many other manifestations evil or ignorant thought (sic), we might have to be fighting this idea with tooth and nail.  But not now.  Now, we can afford to excuse/redeem this measure of evil, along with all other such manifestations.  

Which brings us back to the question of the Holocaust.......

I propose to redeem the Holocaust, at once, from the perspective of both the skeptics and the believers.  And, it will not be rocket science.  

I doing so, I particularly invoke the notion of reincarnation, and, thereby, do I partially redeem the notion of transmigration, which may then be viewed as mainly just the collateral, philosophical damage resulting from the R(eincarnation)-bomb.  


(cont.......3)  

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 9:56:42 AM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and 7 others
Subject: Re: Jewish Supremists Pt 2


(cont.........3)


I am a monist.  Monism is the only ever coherent worldview.  In as much as Anthony or anyone else does not subscribe to monism, just by that much have they foresworn coherence.  

Is coherence the be all and end all of existence?  No, love is.  Coherence exists in its service to cosmic love.  

There are two great obstacles to coherence...... atoms and souls.  My mentor, Leibniz, was not, explicitly, a monist, he was a monadist.  Yet, he certainly did recognize a supreme cosmic Source.  To that extent, he and I are still in the same monistic boat.  

Back to the Holocaust and reincarnation.......

Who is in a position shake their fist at God, relative to the Holocaust or to any other instance of genocide, or simply mayhem?  Even Job was not in such a position.

Are atheists/materialists in any position to make a moral case wrt human evil?  No they are not.  On their own worldview, morals are merely window dressing, if even that is not affording too much 'substance' to moral thought, or to any thought whatsoever.

So, then, what is the complaint?  

We have here a prime instance of the problem of theodicy.  If God is good, why so much evil?  

In partial answer to this question, I turn the question to the future.

Is there presently a Jewish conspiracy to exploit the Holocaust to further a scheme of world domination, i.e. a Jewish Supremist plot, as suggests the title of this email thread.  


(cont.........4)

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 10:16:57 AM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and 7 others

Subject: Jewish Supremacism


(cont........4)


If there exists anyone in the world who has never conspired with any second party to dominate any third party, then, quite frankly, we are looking for a non-human.  

Pecking order is all about conspiracy to dominate.  The mystic on the mountain?  How high is the mountain??

Of course, as most of you know, I am, allegedly, part of [a] two-person conspiracy to dominate the world.  For the past twenty years it has come under the rubric of the Ron&Dan show.  

And, in my quest to 'dominate' the world, I find the parallel Jewish conspiracy to be more than a little promising.  I would even go so far as to describe it as interesting.  

But, yes, just when things were beginning to get interesting, I have to head out to GFC/SfA, were I have been absent for the past three weeks......

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 3:30:08 PM EDT
To: Ronald
Cc: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and 7 others
Subject: Re: Jewish Supremacism


(cont.......5)


So what, we ought to ask, is going on with those crazy Jews?  But which ones?  

It's the Jews on the hills in the West Bank.  That's what this is all about.  It is all about eschatology....... hurry, Lord!   Ron had never heard of eschatology, not until he ran into me, one fine day.  Nowadays, thankfully, it is a bit more difficult to be a professor of philosophy, and be able to claim that you never heard of the Eshcaton.  

Yes, I'm talking about the Israeli settlements being built outside the Green Line.  This is where the historical action is located.  What is going on in the global money markets is, of course, not unrelated to the settlement movement.  Its religious designation is Gush Emunim, or, more recently, Ne'emanei Eretz Yisrael which is a messianic Jewish cult devoted primarily to establishing these settlements.  

On the other hand, we have Hamas and ISIL.  Together, as Sunni organizations, they are bent on a world Caliphate, but mainly under the rubric of the return of the Mahdi, which carries a somewhat Shiite bias, historically.  In the (Islamic) End, Isa and the Mahdi will rule the world together.  I am not making this up.  

On the ground, we have the US supporting Israel.  Besides AIPAC, it is the Evangelicals who provide the primary political support for Israel, and so for Ne'emanei Eretz Yisrael.  

My understanding, Ron, is that Anthony is something of an eschatologist, in his own right.  Has Anthony not read the Bible?  Has he not read the Book of Revelation?  

Does Israel not have a role in the Endtimes, Anthony?  Where have you been?  


(cont.......6)

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 3:57:33 PM EDT
To: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and Ron
Cc: 7 others
Subject: Re: Jewish Supremacism


(cont..........6)


It may sound, Anthony, as though I am rooting for Armageddon.  Well, I am rooting for an aboriginal Apocalypse, which is a rending of the Veil.  

Yes, I do hold God to certain standards of civilized behavior, despite all the evidence to the contrary.  

You, for instance, speak of a die-off of 6 billion, coming on or about 2030.  Most population/resource experts, of whom I am aware, would not be able to argue cogently against that estimation.  Ron, oracle that he may be, speaks of a 90% die-off, within that time frame.

I am about the only exception, within this informed cadre.  

I humbly suggest that God is simply playing brinksmanship.  Hey, Anthony, if I were God, I would want to be a drama queen, wouldn't you, wouldn't almost anyone?  

Yet, lo these last couple of millennia, God has been quiet.  God has been so quiet that many have concluded that God must be dead.  

But don't we all like surprises, once in a while, Anthony?  

I do think that God has a surprise in store for us, and I'm sure that you would like to hear about it, wouldn't you?  


(cont........7)

From: Dan
Date: July 27, 2014, 4:47:36 PM EDT
To: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" and Ron
Cc: 7 others
Subject: Re: Jewish Supremacism


(cont........7)


Are you ready, Anthony?

The surprise is that the Creator and Creation are not entirely separate. Should we stop the presses for this one??

Yes and no. At Grace Fellowship Church, this would be news. I could be labeled as the Antichrist, were I to make a federal case of it. The fact that I may have already made a federal case of it, has not been entirely lost upon them. Ron and the Princess have attended two sessions of the SfA seminar. But my fellow congregationists remain a tad skeptical, bless their hearts.

In fact, Anthony, this very question came up in our Search for Answers seminar, earlier this afternoon. It comes up in the prophetic context as creation ex nihilo.

Now, according to my understanding, creation ex nihilo was not even well formulated until Augustine. Even more surprisingly, it was not publicly questioned, theologically, until the middle of the last century.

So what, we might wonder? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Here is so what, Anthony.......

Matter is not an aboriginal or primordial substance. IOW, the Earth on which we reside does not exist independently of the will of the Creator, despite what every materialist tries to claim. On this matter, the Islamic occasionalists are probably closer to the truth than are the Christian fundamentalist.

When human history has come to its logical conclusion, the Earth can and will be rolled up, like a scroll. This is according to the prophetic tradition.

Do you have any problem with this notion, Anthony?



(cont.........

From: Dan
Date: July 28, 2014, 11:45:52 AM EDT
To: "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike"
Cc: Ron
Subject: Re: Exodus Unravelled


Anthony,

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the fundamental questions of the day.

I wish you well in your trials and tribulations.

Dan


On Jul 28, 2014, at 7:12 AM, "Rev Dr Anthony G. Pike" wrote:


Global Theocratic Movement

St Anthony - tough questions, smart answers

Just received an avalanche of mail from the Dan Smith mob of pseudo theological wackos who shan't be named here to protect them from attacks by non-pseudo theological wackos. Yes, folks, St Anthony has ignited a full scale theological thermo-nuclear war!! Now, for those who deny the Exodus, St Anthony has first-hand experience and knowledge of the event - so the deniers can go take a running jump!! Now, the crossing of Yam Suph (Sea of Reeds) occurred at the southern end of Lake Menzaleh on the Nile Delta and Mt Sinai (Gebal Halal) is located in Northern Sinai where Moses met God and received the 10 commandments on 2 hand-sized tablets of stone. By the way, the 'burning bush' is still there on the mount with a carpet of grass in front of it where Moses and God sat together during his 40 day fast. N.B. This is classified information, so don't tell anyone as the first thing that'll happen is McDonalds will open a burger joint on the summit!! [.....]

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 8:56:44 AM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John
Subject: VALIS and the CTC......

Ok, I thank you for helping me cut to the chase here.......

I continue to labor under the impression that I have been set up, even groomed, to play some sort of messianic role, but only to the extent that such a role may or may not be necessary.  

If we wish to move forward with this discussion, expeditiously, this little hiccup of mine will need to be kept in mind.  So, then, back to VALIS.......

VALIS has, first of all, to be considered in the context of Transhumanism.  And also in the context of the Boltzmann Brain, the Matrix and of the Teilhardian and Tiplerian Omega Points.  

As part of my setup/grooming, I have, as much as anyone might reasonably, studied these paradigm cases of Valis.  My autodidactery comes significantly from sussing out such paradigm cases, and using them to spin [my] own little web around the pop-cultural memes, such as presented by popular (sci-fi) authors.  Of course, the Matrix does also fall into that latter category.  

There is ONE absolutely crucial point that all of those paradigms, all of the popular authors and all three of you are assiduously/subconsciously avoiding, namely the CTC.  As much as any other single item, my anti-amnesic gnosis wrt the CTC qualifies me for a messianic role, herein.  The CTC is my paradigmatic web-spinning tool.  Get over it, get used to it!  

But, listen up, I can explain to you everything I know about the CTC in maybe a couple of hours of conversation or email.  I have no superpowers, here.  I am simply a few hours ahead in any messianic gambit.  I simply am practicing to be the SoT, and I'll bet that you have also, almost totally, failed to grok on that other little item in my bag of eschatological tricks.  


(cont.......)

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 9:32:36 AM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John
Subject: Re: VALIS and the CTC......


(cont........)


The CTC is exactly the cosmic web that holds everything together, and, foremost, the CTC enables the ontological possibility of the SWH, small world hypothesis.

It is simply the logical coherence of the CTC/SWH/BPWH that puts me three steps ahead of the best and brightest.  I have explained to each of you individually and almost ad-nauseum, each of these three steps.  

I can only hope that, on one of these fine days, one or more of you will sufficiently transcend your Valis-induced amnesia to attend to what I am saying about these three (3) steps.  If just one of you were able to overcome that amnesia, it could well be the turning point in this whole eschatology.  No [one] has been able to overcome, up to this point.  My hope springs eternal, nonetheless.  


(cont........2)

cc: OMF II, ufn.  

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 9:57:56 AM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John
Subject: Re: VALIS and the CTC......


(cont........2)


Strategically, I should point out that I am in a similar cognitive hiatus wrt OM, GFC/SfA and the R,A&D show.  

IOW, I have four (4) irons in the eschatological fire, and I sit patiently waiting to see which one might heat up first.  If one gets hot, the others, I'm quite sure, can be quickly brought up to 'speed'.  And that, sports fans, will be all she wrote.  It will be all over then, but the shouting, one fine day.

None of this is rocket science.  It is simply a VALIS-induced amnesia.  You all are just Snow White sleeping in the coffin, waiting for Prince Charming.  If that is not what the SoT is about, then I'll just have to eat my little hat.  My PC?  That was Sophia, back in 1977.  

I can hardly wait for the invitation to compare and contrast my Sophia with David's VALIS.


(cont........3)  

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 10:21:56 AM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John
Subject: Re: VALIS and the CTC......


(cont........3)


Here is the other crucial point that you and everyone else is asleep to....... ETH vs. UTH.

The simple point is that, from virtually any cosmological perspective, the UTH obviates the ETH.  

Again, this other simple fact is also not rocket science, yet, you, in your Snow White slumber of materialism, as immaterialistic as you may pride yourself on being, just don't get it.  Being the cosmic PC/SoT is going to be just about the easiest job in the world.  

And, yes, I do especially hold the Vatican to account for their myopia, in this regard.

But, wait, perhaps I should not be so harsh.  Perhaps the Vatican, even wittingly, is participating in my little setup.  Therein hangs an R,A&D tale.......


(cont........4)

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 11:53:23 AM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John S
Subject: Re: VALIS and the CTC......


(cont........4)


But, as a segue thereto, I did just relate this tale to John C of GFC/SfA, in the context of apologizing for my outburst last Sunday, which was not unrelated to the concerns I am expressing here.  

The story is that I did just have confirmed my recollection that the specific intent of R&A visiting the Vatican, early in 2013, was to have an audience with the Pope.  At the time, and at Ron's direction, I was blogging about the ufo's being observed over the Princess' ancestral home.  

I have just had a convo with John B of SfA, which I need to research.......


(cont........5)

 

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 1:10:05 PM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John S and John B
Subject: The nature of time......


(cont........5)


Yes, my recent conversations, particularly with John B of GFC, encourages me to focus on the problem of time.  

Now, as it turns out, time has become the special province of Christian philosophy, particularly wrt Molinism and Maranatha.  

Physicists are trying to catch up with the Christians.  They are doing so mainly in the context of the CTC.  

David informs me that both he and Jack S are taking the CTC seriously.  

Also, very recently, the Princess has urged me to contact Michael Tobias.  Tobias' PhD was in the History of Consciousness, way back in 1977.  

You note, above, that, with John B's expressed permission I have added him to this very small and select email list, with the additional proviso that there is a cc to OMF II ..... https://openmindsforum.forumotion.com/t175p570-hello-cy-omf-ii-part-2#5580


(cont........6)

 

From: Dan
Date: July 29, 2014, 6:17:47 PM EDT
To: Paul and David
Cc: John S, John B, Bill L
Subject: Re: The nature of time......


(cont.........6)


Ok, so there might be a trip to CA that would include Branson and Tobias.  This would be late next month.  

And I am trying to catch up with Paul's suggestions....... He has done a review of CTC's, and has sent an article by Frank Tipler..... General Relativity and the Eternal Return.  

And Michael T, [as already mentioned] may be meeting with us.  I will just be a stowaway.  I have alerted the folks is SF.  

And you will note an additional recipient...... Bill L.  He is a consultant to certain moneyed interests and/or managers thereof.  


(cont......7)  

And I have been alerted to this fact....... http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/07/international-tiger-day

We are aware of our once upon a time connection with the aboriginal Cat House, but it has been buried wrt google. It had to do with saving the Sakhalin tigers. Ancient history.

skaizlimit wrote:Dan, have you written anything on the "nature(s)" of extra terrestrials, ultra terrestrials, jinns, guardian angels, etc to see what might be a "common denominator" among these ... if any?

UT should have a subgroup or two..... Realistically... No?

UT (the more Earthen) should be a subcategory of DUT (Divine)?

My two feebleminded cents to toss into the discussions...

Bard,

I thank you for your input, here.  I am just about to cover the ET v UT question in the following email exchange, so please stand by.....

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 11:41:51 AM EDT
To: Paul Z
Cc: David G, John S, John B, Bill L, Gary B  

Subject: Re: The nature of time...... pointing to Coherence

Paul et al.,

What I mean to say, Paul, is that Christians see time as something personal between us and the Creator.  Space and time were created mainly to allow the interactions between Creator and Creation to be unrolled or unravelled.  

This is how the Infinite projects itself onto the 'Finite'.  I don't mean to imply an insuperable gulf between these two domains.  To the contrary, I intend to show that each is the essential element of the other.  This latter view is still considered heretical, within conventional christianity.  

How does this relate to VALIS?  

What I am suggesting, David, and what Paul was pointing to, is that your view of VALIS is exceedingly parochial, even old-fashioned, by the standards of modern physics.  By updating Valis, you will be amazed to see how the gap between the sci-fi and the traditional views of cosmology begin to converge.  It is the role of the BPWH, best possible world hypothesis, to provide an outline of how that convergence may optimally and rapidly play out.  

If the universe is possibly coherent, then any sufficiently robust model or outline of that final coherence, such as the BPWH, may well act as the agent of an-amnesia, or gnosis, that is implied in almost every non-nihilistic work of science fiction.  

Is this not what we are all striving to find?  


(cont..........)  

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 12:09:34 PM EDT
To: Paul
Cc: David, John S, John B, Bill, Gary.  
Subject: No way to get from here to there?  Unless there is a Cheat(er).


(cont.........)


In the last post, I made several leaps (of faith?!)......

What I am suggesting is that, if we do not keep our eyes on the Prize, we will never be able to reach it.  IOW, there is no way to get from here to there by business as usual (BaU).  

This is precisely the nature of any gestalt switch, there are no logical, sequential intermediate steps.  Does this mean that the mother of all paradigm shifts (MoAPS) will be impossible?  

There has to be a trick, and the trick is simply gnosis or our putative antidote to amnesia.  

IOW, you can know the Gnosis/Telos/Coherence by the logical fruit that it bears.  I am the authorized cosmic 'cheater'.  I got to peek at the final answer, and now you are here to help bring this Gnosis back down from the mountain, should you choose to accept this mission.


(cont........2)

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 1:26:24 PM EDT
To: Paul
Cc: David, John S, John B
Subject: VALIS  >> Cosmic mind


(cont.......2)


What I'm saying, folks, is that you will need to hear me out, to see where we're going before launching into piecemeal critiques.  Points of clarification.....sure!  

I hope to get from Alpha to Omega in just the next few posts, so you will not need to be overly patient.  In the interest of not taxing your patience, I will continue to make (smaller) leaps of 'faith', along the way.  I am necessarily painting a picture with broad brush strokes.  

Back to VALIS.......

Allow me to suggest to David a super Valis.  This Valis is a virtual reality machine..... a Holodeck, and we are on the holodeck.  

Transhumanism and Informationalism both point in this direction.  So does the Boltzmann Brain hypothesis of Alan Guth, et al.  And the Omega Point theory of Tipler.  

And, yes, so does Jack Sarfatti's idea of the mind of God being embedded in our future event horizon.  

Everybody, and their uncle, is headed in the direction of a cosmic mind.  What have we go that they don't?  

They have not connected the cosmic mind with the CTC.  


(cont........3)

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 2:20:06 PM EDT
To: Paul
Cc: five others
Subject: Re: VALIS  >> Cosmic deception?


(cont......3)


Why is there a natural fit between the cosmic mind and the CTC?  

It is because the CTC is, or suggests, a 'natural' bootstrap.  The closed timelike curve suggests the Ouroboros of the ancient cosmologies.  The tail-eating, self-generating serpent of the aboriginal cosmogonies.  

Note bene..... I am using the CTC as a metaphor, in the first instance.  I am not suggesting it as a concrete physical model.  I am suggesting that natural science is replete with models that point to and reflect higher, metaphysical truths.  

David insists that his 'real' Valis, like its fictional versions, was a technological artifice of some more advanced species of sapient creatures.  It is just by this posit that David and the sci-fi authors wish to close the door on just the sort of theological revisionism that I am suggesting here.  

Here is the founding assumption of the Sci-fi genre...... Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear to us (primitives) as magic.  Ok, but, might there not be a rationale for standing that mantra on its head?  

This is just where the notion of the gestalt switch logically enters this little narrative.  

I speak of Jacques Vallee's Messengers of Deception.  I speak of George Hansen's Trickster phenomenon.  


(cont.......4)

(cc: OMF.....)

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 3:10:07 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: five others  
Subject: Cosmic concealment vs cosmic deception


(cont........4)


I appeal to Plato's analogy of the Cave.......

From the perspective of the Holographic principle of cosmology, it is entirely possible that we are the prisoners in Plato's cave.  Then, David, don't we have the Bastille problem?  

During the French Revolution, the Bastille was liberated.  The walls were breached, the cells were opened.  Did the prisoners rush out into the sunlight?  Many did not.  The suffered the prisoner's version of agoraphobia.  

All I am suggesting, David, is the perennial view of Earth as a prison planet.  You have been vouchsafed a glimpse of the great beyond.  Was this a trick?  Yes, and no.  

As Paul suggests, David, recall that VALIS is precisely a Vast Active Living Intelligence System.

Do you disagree with this original definition?


(cont........5)

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 3:43:09 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: 5 others
Subject: the full Monte??


(cont........5)


On 7/30/2014 11:15 AM pdt, David Gladstone wrote:
Are you so oblivious that you don't realize
that Valis is connected to the Cosmic mind and
the relevant Jung Pauli fields of maybe 5000 sentient species!!

This, David, is precisely the point that Paul and I were trying to convey to you!  

Right here, David, we see a veritable instance of gnosis at work.  With a little help from our friends, all of us will be able to bootstrap ourselves right back into the cosmic mind!  

And allow me to remind you of that other gnostic, Paul/Saul....... for now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

Are we ready, David, for the full Monte wrt VALIS?  


(cont.........6)

From: Dan
Date: July 30, 2014, 4:06:21 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: 5 others
Subject: Re: the full Monte??


(cont........6)


So, yes, David, you were vouchsafed a glimpse of the Cosmic mind.

But it was filtered, as if through something that you could relate to in your normal experience, a solid-state device. Is this being deceptive, or is this simply respecting your own personal boundaries[?] Valis would not want to cause PTSD to you or to its other contactees, now would it?

What I am suggesting to you and the others, David, is that, if we were Valis, we would want to come up with a scheme for revealing ourselves to the rest of the world.

Over the years, this has been done in any variety of ways, from phone calls to ETs and UTs.

But, now, perhaps, it is time for something that can be more widely disseminated. I am suggesting a MoAPS. How would you prefer to have this MoAPS presented? I ask you. I ask myself. I ask everyone.

We have the dual problem of both the medium and the message. Yes?


(cont.......7)

From: Dan
Date: July 31, 2014, 9:51:59 AM EDT
To: David
Cc: 5 others.....
Subject: Big or Small World?


Ok, sports fans, now here is my final point, before moving on to the problem of saving the world....

Do we live in a big or a small world?  

For purposes of saving this world, I will argue for the small world hypothesis (SWH).  

I understand that the SWH seems to have been totally outmoded, and I have not even heard of another SWH person who was not also a bible-pounding fundamentalist.  

Even amongst evangelicals these days, the fact that there still exist Young-Earthers is considered an embarrassment.  I am the only such person in the Search for Answers seminar at GFC.  The others would agree that Creationism, which is the last stronghold for the YEH, is a primary obstacle in attempting to evangelize educated youth.  John B, here, also of the GFC/SfA, would, I think, readily agree with this assessment.  

But it is just at this point in my exposition that the CTC comes into its own.......


(cont.......)  

From: Dan
Date: July 31, 2014, 12:31:43 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: 5 others.......
Subject: Re: Big or Small World?


(cont.......)


The CTC is a bit of finitude immersed in infinity.  It is precisely how we can have the best of both worlds..... YEH and OEH, as in the Old Earth hypothesis.  

My metaphysical CTC model owes its existence to two disparate physical cosmologies......

1.)  The possibility of a CTC solution was first suggested by Godel in 1949.  His model was proposed as a compact region embedded within an Einsteinian universe.  

2.)  The One Electron Universe hypothesis (OEUH) of Wheeler and Feynman (1940).  

In the BPWH/SWH, #1 is reinterpreted as a quasi-physical construct, embedded in, well, the cosmic mind..... And, in #2, the 'one electron' is reinterpreted as the self-circulating bootstrap of the cosmic Monad.  

So, yes, I have taken two wild speculations out of physics, and, by combining them metaphysically, and adding the CohTT, the minuscule odds of conventional probability theory become substantial, indeed.  One might say that I have placed Bayesian theory on steroids.  

Here I have connected four dots...... CTC, OEUH, CohTT and Bayes, to come up with the BPWH/SWH synthesis, in which the whole is greater, or much more likely, than any one of its parts.


(cont........2)

From: Dan
Date: July 31, 2014, 1:23:25 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: and five others........
Subject: Spawn or Children......?  or Deism vs. Theism


(cont.......2)


But this next topic, spawn or children, cuts through all the abstraction and brings us to the crux of cosmology.  

This is really about deism vs. theism.  

If you are a theist, rather than a deist, then you have virtually no logical alternative to the SWH, small world hypothesis.  The only problem is that the theists have not figured this out, quite yet.  

Well, it is their problem and our opportunity.  It brings us to the crucial part of the MoAPS.  

David, with your permission, I would like to pose you as Exhibit A for Deism........

This is on the relatively firm grounds, that you have stated more than once, that your primary objection to the God hypothesis is the oft implied personality aspect.  

You share this aversion with many of the best and brightest of the Enlightenment, right up until the modern ascendancy of the New Atheism.  


(cont.......3)

From: Dan
Date: July 31, 2014, 3:12:46 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: and five others........

Subject: BOMFOG


(cont.........3)


At this point I am reminded of BOMFOG..........

According to one source, BOMFOG was coined by the reporters following Gov Nelson Rockefeller, who, on their view, was too often referring to the 'brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of God'.  I recall, however, hearing this acronym being used in my youth.  

Is BOMFOG an outmoded political cliche, or is it humanity's one last hope for salvation?  

I humbly suggest the latter.  And this is the whole point of theism vs. deism, or children vs. spawn.  

It is only Christians, qua Christians, who have ever taken BOMFOG seriously.  

I know of no deists or atheists who hold any such view.  

Alright, there is a possible and glaring exception, coming straight out of the Enlightenment....... Egalitarianism.  But, in this regard, I recommend perusing... http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/#EquFunHumWor

Equal fundamental human worth is a very abstract concept that barely touches upon what may be the well-springs of altruism.  Jesus did strike closer to the (spiritual?) source of altruism than has any historical figure.  Do I hear a challenge?  Without a global renewal of that passion, what hope do we have of avoiding a human catastrophe?  

The MoAPS is the only rational path back to the recapture of that passion.  

Can reason restore passion?  That is what we are here to investigate.  No?  What else is the worth of reason?  


(cont........4)

From: Dan
Date: July 31, 2014, 4:30:23 PM EDT
To: David
Cc: five others.......

Subject: Humans vs God..... a zero-sum game?


David,

I think what I hear you alluding to is the commonly held perception that cosmology is a zero-sum game played mainly between humans and God.

The more power and glory that we ascribe to God, the less power and glory is left for the rest of us.

Instead of trying to bring God down to our level, I'm suggesting that we raise ourselves up to God's level. This is the whole point of the BPWH/SWH. No??

And if God does not already exist, well, with sufficient technological progress and moral evolution, would we not, asymptotically, become omnipotent?

But, then, David, if you seriously believe in the possibility of time travel, would not our future, omnipotent selves already be able reach back to help bring about our salvation? Is this not the cosmic Bootstrap that I so frequently allude to?

The modern human mind is so besotted with the absolute objectivity of time, that it is very hard for us to ever imagine the transcendence of the temporal treadmill.

The whole point of esoteric physics and metaphysics is just to so transcend. Isn't that what we are here to discuss?

Dan


On Jul 31, 2014, at 3:39 PM, David wrote:

Perhaps some of the functions of what we primitives leave to god, can be appropriated by less than god, to some extent anyway. How's that?

While catching my breath, and looking to the next step on the BPWH front, allow me to reconnoiter the origins of Christianity, while making liberal use of David Gladstone's expert and contrarian insights on that score.  However, I will be referring to David's work only as a point of departure for my own idiosyncratic variety of speculations.......

I am not all that enamored with history, with the possible exception of the history of ideas, noting that the history of religion is closely allied thereto.  

As a eschatologist, I am, necessarily, a teleologist, and so ascribe a greater significance and reality to the Omega than to the Alpha, i.e. the future is more real than the past.  

As there is downward causation, so there is future causation.  We are awaking to the Omega as if from a dream.  I ascribe to the aboriginal notion of the Dreamtime.  

This historical relativism/holism forms a significant part of the heretical nature of my christianity.  For instance, there is the matter of biblical inerrancy.  Alongside that, there are the scientific and historic versions of inerrancy, to all of which I look askance.  

As an idealist, I see time as the primary component of the cosmic construct.  History is constructed like a suspension bridge.  A bridge that we actually traverse at our own collective risk.  Like the castaway on the desert island, we never know when the Bridge will take on a life on its own.  This is what eschatology is about.... living with the Beast!  


1:30---------

The standard contraian account of Christianity is that Paul stole it, while acting as a Roman agent.... being himself of the Herodian usurpers in Jerusalem.  

David then goes on to explain that the Old Testament did not originate with Israel, but rather with the Judeans who supplanted Israel in Jerusalem ~800 BCE.  Much of the biblical account prior to that time was a construct of the Judeans.  

As the story goes, Paul and his Herodian clan were instrumental in fomenting and then crushing the Jewish revolts against the Romans.  This marked the end of Jewish christianity, giving way to the unobstructed ascendency of its Roman/Herodian counterpart.  

David agrees that, otherwise, Christianity might never have become the force in history that it did.  


What we have left in place is the Sermon on the Mount and the crucifixion, along with a modicum of messianism.  

Ok, but what was it that Paul&Co supplanted........?  

In this regard, David borrows from Robert Eisenman, the anti-establishment biblical scholar.  He also borrows from the sfi-fi genre, particularly from PK Dick and his VALIS trilogy.  

James the Just, Jesus' brother's clan in Jerusalem is part of a wider gnostic movement, seen particularly in the Dead Sea, Qumran, Essene scrolls, which are our primary written source.  


David suggests that this particular strain of gnosticism can be traced back to megalithic times, and he points to Rujm el-Hiri (~3000 BCE) near the Sea of Galilee.  A few miles to the east of Rujm is Atlit Yam (~7000 BCE).  


What we have in Jerusalem, at 0 CE, is a three-way collision, or historical syzygy of singular proportions.  We have the coincidence of Greek rationalism, the prophetic tradition and gnosticism.  Perhaps all emanating from a global Megalithic culture.  The latter being the culture partially identified in Hamlet's Mill.  The suggestion is of an aboriginal ancient wisdom that resurfaced in Jerusalem, just long enough to kindle a second global revolution, from those fragments.

With the BPWH, I am suggesting a third and final syzygy, this with an eschatological culmination.


In the Aether, in the Akasha, in our singular yet eternal, best possible, CTC/Ouroboros, the wisdom that goes around has also come around to complete our singular cosmic circuit, our bootstrap with the Creator, resist it though we may.

You will note from yesterday that we still have the three ages, as first taken up by Joachim da Fiore.... the ages of the Father, then the Son and, finally, of the Spirit.  

The latest full exposition of these three ages belongs to Owen Barfield who speaks of the three ages of consciousness......

1.) Original participation, tribal consciousness, a mythopoeic dreamtime.  

2.)  Non-participatory or egoic consciousness

3.)  A final participation in cosmic consciousness.... an eschatological or Teilhardian outworking

The BPWH provides the cosmological background for this tripartite history.  It also lends specificity to the unfolding of the 3rd stage.  

Note bene...... Owen was an expat mentor for the Oxfordian contingent of Christian idealists, including Lewis and Tolkien.  His 'Saving the Appearances' is the historical forerunner of the BPWH, coming in, perhaps, just behind Leibniz.  

Barfield places the first transition in the late Middle Ages.  In that regard, I adhere more to Julian Jaynes' timeline, which places the transition to ego consciousness about two thousand years earlier, triggered by the cataclysm of Tera that ended the Minoan civilization, in the Mediterranian (~1400 BCE).

I seriously doubt that the timeline of our second transition will be quite so fuzzy.


Barfield, more than any other scholar, pins the historical tail on the 'donkey' that is science, with his metaphysical notion of saving the appearances.  

Now, when I critique science, I am often reprimanded for applying too broad a stroke.  My target should be confined, say, to the 'four horsemen' of atheistic materialism.  

But this misses the whole point of my cultural/historical critique, that is founded in Leibniz and Barfield.  Yes, perhaps then, my focus on just science is too narrow.  But this complaint does not take into account the crucial import of the MoAPS.  

Strategically, the MoAPS is aimed at the silent majority of the scientists who have been cowed into their silence by the theatrics of the Four Horsemen and their running dogs of the new atheism.  

In point of fact, it has only been a few Christian evangelicals, who also happen to have a scientific background, rare in itself, who have taken up the cudgels.  When a non-christian, such as Nagel, makes that scene, it is headline news.  


noon-------

But where is the opening?  

Even with my five little irons in the five little fires, I am still not seeing the light at the end of this tunnel of modern myopia.  

Point of fact is that many moderns are only too aware of our living on borrowed time.  They are also aware that the global psyche seems poised on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  An intellectual romancing of the Eschaton would, in that context, be the very last thing that the world needs.  Yes?  


Furthermore, our little MoAPS begs for a paradigm Shifter, of biblical proportions, no less!  Now, tell us, how many fools do you know who are volunteering to rush into that no-man's land?  Can you count them on one hand?  

Aren't I just about the perfect exception to prove this rule?  If Catfish and Sunfish cannot pull this off, then who could?  The President?  The Pope?

It's much too late for baby-steps.  It always has been, sports fans.  

Am I not just batting the ball back into VALIS' court? Of course I am. Why should I get my knickers in a bunch, if VALIS seems unwilling to lift a finger, certainly not in my direction?

All that Valis has to do is make another phone call to Ron and/or Aliyah, like the one she got about a month ago, but just a little more pointed, say. Is this not all it would take? So here I am, beating my little head against five different brick walls, while Valis, studiously and publicly, acts like she could care less. Shouldn't I give OM a rest? This latter possibility just doesn't quite seem to be in my make up. But thanks for the thought, sports fans!



(cont.)

In SfA, yesterday, I kept my mouth shut, attempting to atone for my outburst, the previous Sunday.  But I do see that I am up against the beast...... BaU, business as usual, on all five fronts.  

BaU....?  Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!  

While catching up on my reading, a few days ago, I came across an article on Sean Carroll, in the New Scientist (5/17).... Quantum twist kills the multiverse.

Now, Sean is someone frequently mentioned by Gary, and he is the rare cosmologist who is also an outspoken atheist.  He is junior faculty at CalTech.  

There is something, here, that is not computing.  The Multiverse is the pet theory of the weak anthropic crowd, with Mad Max leading the pack.  We have noted that Max T. has recently been shifting his tune, relative to the quantum mind issue.  It seems that Sean is also strangling the multiGoose that laid the golden egg of atheism.  Is something afoot?  Is the rough beast slouching?  It the intellectual weather cock twisting in the wind?  

It seems that two of Sean's articles were being conflated in the NS article by Lisa Grossman......

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/07/28/quantum-sleeping-beauty-and-the-multiverse/

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/05/05/squelching-boltzmann-brains-and-maybe-eternal-inflation/

Let's see if I can make any more sense out of Sean than Lisa does.  And, in the meantime, note-bene...... http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physicists-should-stop-saying-silly-things-about-philosophy/  


2pm---------

Sean refers to another sleeping-beauty article, in which is easier to grasp the quantum aspect.... http://skepticsplay.blogspot.com/2014/07/sleeping-beauty-and-quantum-mechanics.html

Also see..... http://philpapers.org/browse/sleeping-beauty


4:50----------

Sean Carroll's philosophical bent has steered me back to a review of continental philsophy, etc.......


6:20---------

OOP, object oriented philosophy, prides itself on being anti-anthropic.  Yet, when you push that form of realism too hard, you will, like G Harman, end up with panpsychism..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_realism#Object-oriented_philosophy ....

Harman proposes a new philosophical discipline called "speculative psychology" dedicated to investigating the "cosmic layers of psyche" and "ferreting out the specific psychic reality of earthworms, dust, armies, chalk, and stone"

Wowser!  

Inspired by the occasionalists of Medieval Islamic Philosophy, Harman maintains that no two objects can ever interact save through the mediation of a "sensual vicar".

Double wowser!




(cont.)

And it would appear that I have been conflating analysis in philosophy with reductionism in science.  This is not fair to philosophy.  

The irreducible dependence of analysis on language renders it idealist, in the final 'analysis'.  And, yet, for too long, and for too many analysts, their job was merely to clarify the language of science.  Inevitably, but especially with the ascendence of the mind-brain problem, the analysts have been forced into a corner by the scientific materialists.  When they have not come out fighting, they come out snarling!  

The obvious fact is that scientists cannot do science without language.  I submit that even, or especially, logicians cannot do logic without language.  Maybe individual mathematicians can do proofs in their head.  But that possibility just raises the extreme confusion of the LoTH, language of thought hypothesis, speaking of vicious circles.  That one is downright ferocious.  


Anyway, I would like to circle back, briefly, to the panpsychism of the speculative realists.  What is their problem......?

It was something over a year ago that I mentioned Ned Block's 'panpsychic catastrophe', a bon-mot from a lecture at JHU.  He is a colleague of Nagel's at NYU, I believe.  I would love to overhear one of their conversations!  

Has this catastrophe already come to pass?  Certainly, in the hands of the OOPers.  And we might even say the same for the informationalists, bless their hearts.

The OOPers wish to ascribe metaphysical depth to their beloved objects.  They strive, at the least, for a neutral monism.  Yes, there is a distinctly Whiteheadian tinge, with their 'prehensions', etc.  

Good grief, what about Plato?  Is panpsychism not just a training wheel for would-be immaterialists?  

What is objecthood, without a robust relationalism?  Objects are the logical nodes of any relational/immaterial schema.  They may function rather like topics in wikipedia.  

So, maybe, you can take the objects out of the psyche, but can you take the psyche out of the objects?  Evidently not.  But I don't have a clrear aprehension of this latter point.  What exactly is the sticking point?  

Yes, I believe they do have a distinct struggle with substantivalism.  What is their account of substance?  How does their objectivism not dissolve into Meinongianism?  Plato avoided this only at the great expense of the mundane.  It became otiose, if not odious.  

Panpsychism is their Indra's net.  No?  It is their aether.  It is the ultimate substance, as the neutral monists were at pains to point out.  How slowly we learn.  


11:40-------

Do recall the 'sensual vicar', from yesterday's quote..... an interesting take on occasionalism.  How do these disparate objects interact, if not through some medium of exchange?  Atoms to the rescue?  

What brief do the OOPers have against atoms?  Hmmm....... wouldn't I like to know!  

The Sensuos Vicar comes straight from 'vicarious causation'.

Here is Gilbert Harman, hisself!... http://dar.aucegypt.edu/bitstream/handle/10526/3504/HrmanVicariousCausation.pdf ...

Instead of the dull realism of mindless atoms and billiard balls that is usually invoked to spoil all the fun in philosophy, I will defend a weird realism. This model features a world packed full of ghostly real objects signaling to each other from inscrutable depths, unable to touch one another fully.

You gotta love it......

And this from a review of his book, Weird Realism ... http://lovecraftzine.com/2013/12/12/review-weird-realism-lovecraft-and-philosophy-by-graham-harman/

Instead of a kind of representational realism, with Lovecraft we only have some nominal access (in so far as it is possible, which it isn’t) to “weird realism”; as Harman puts it “reality itself is weird because reality itself is incommensurate with any attempt to represent or measure it.”

Are we beginning to understand why traditional philosophers love to hate speculative realism?  

I should note that the OOPers follow Hume(?) in the problem of how thoughts interact.  I.e. associationism is a form of occasionalism.  Ooops, associationism is not even listed in the SEP.  Neither is thinking or thought.  Ooops, again.  I mean, are there no other theories of thought.  How do we think?  How does a bumblebee fly?  

Neurons are to thoughts as atoms are objects, after a fashion or two.

Ok, with the SEP, the way to thought is through the mind and intentionality, etc. See the listings at the end this entry ... http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognition-animal . But, still, do we not detect a philosophical lacuna? Ok, again, the closest we have come, recently, is with the now discredited language of thought. The only theory still standing, wobbily, is computationalism.

LoTH, connectionism and computationalism remain virtual philosophical orphans. The orphanage is the overriding mind-body problem, itself



(cont.)

Still reading Harman's Vicarious Causation article......

He is at pains to construct a non-anthropic metaphysics.  Most OOPers are ex-cons, that is ex-continentalists, as opposed to ex-analysts, although there are some of those, too.  

It seems that they are trying to invent a non-Kantian, non-Cartesian metaphysic.  They struggle bravely.  They must ascribe quasi-perceptive/intentional states to insentient objects, such as marbles.

We may be tempted to laugh, but I am facing the same problem, just from another perspective, wrt my atomic nemeses.  


3:50--------

More from Harman....

Back in stage one, even my relation to the sensual pine tree is not a real object, but simply a sincere relation of two distinct elements inside a larger one. Unified objects can be molded at will from that clay-like interior. This already shows a way for sincere relations to be converted into real connections. Whether it is the only such way, and whether this method belongs to humans alone, is still unclear.

Hmmm......


6pm-------

We do not transcend the world, but only descend or burrow towards its numberless underground cavities – each a sort of kalei- doscope where sensual objects spread their colours and their wings. There is neither finitude nor negativity in the heart of objects. And each case of human mortality is just one tragic event among trillions of others, including the deaths of house pets, insects, stars, civilizations, and poorly managed shops or universities.

And this is a deal breaker for the OOPers, IMHO.  Can a metaphysics of atoms still be salvaged?  


It appears that, with his 'vacuum-sealed' objects, Harman is trying to resurrect Leibniz' monads, without the cosmic harmony.




(cont.)

We are at the Ola Belle Reed festival in NC.


After getting over Harman's deal-breaker from yesterday, the last several pages of his article are NTBM. He has made a breakthrough, on the long road to immaterialism.

With his notion of sensuous unity, he has constructed a step-ladder from the noumenal to the phenomenal.  Now we need only to remove the noumenal, or show how it can be merged with the sensual unity.  I would suggest the strong application of teleology.


9:30--------

Graham's redemption is at hand.

He speaks frequently of a presumably overriding intentional context.  What could this be, if not the Telos?

Quentin Meillassoux, OTOH, is more dogmatically anti-anthropic.  He uses mathematics to defeat secondary qualities.  Does that not originate with Descartes?

With both Meillassoux and Brassier, nihilism figures strongly in their agendas. How they get on with Harman is a bit of a mystery. I had better stick with Graham.

It doesn't take too many hours, mainly on the wiki, to get the goods on the OOPers.  Where do you draw the line between the anti-anthropics of these neo-continentalists and good ol' mis-anthropics?  

Graham is the only one of the bunch who has any socially redeeming qualities, IMHO.  His saving grace is that he takes his metaphysics as an end in itself, and not merely as a tool to defeat the anthropology of the classical continentalists.  

My metaphysical point here, which Graham seems implicitly to understand, is that there is nothing more quintessentially anthropic than the very act of objectification, itself.  It's only the residual, non-metabolic atomism that is any threat to immaterialism.  

There in do I appeal to a logical emergentism. The atomic monads logically reflect the recycling of the personal/cosmic monad/self.

How can there be objectification without subjectification? Everything else is just a blooming, buzzing phantasmagoria, until the 'rise' of sapience. And if your primordial sapience is not smart enough to bootstrap itself, you'll just have all eternity to cry.



(cont.)

The very silent focus group is so focused that there is no longer a group here...

All the Kings men...and all the Kings horses....

Bard,

Nobody home, but us chickens, huh?

Are you taking off? What happened to Cy?

Me? I just mind my own business.......

dan wrote:Bard,

Nobody home, but us chickens, huh?  

Are you taking off?  What happened to Cy?  

Me?  I just mind my own business.......

I was thinking, feeder-fish. I'm always around, no place to go but hOMe.  

Cy? She's probably off hobnobbing with the patriots minus the pigskin - illusions of sleep in hand.  What a curse to endure, illusions can be, not to mention lack of sleep.  Everyone has been a bit, odd, the last year or so, 'round these parts.  I'm just doing my part: Transformational Entertainment.  I'd hate for the shutters to close around here should enough of us leave. This was the third OM.  

So much to do, with little time to do it, seems to be the affliction of mortal men. So, I just spend my time trying to ascertain my genealogical parentage amongst the other mundane chores before me.  Experts say all roads lead back to Africa, but then what of cosmic dust?  How long did that take to settle after the dino-kebabs?  A thought just crossed my mind in regards to the ole Coats of Arms, offhand.  Wouldn't they be like the gang signs of yesteryear?  

I do try to stick to my obscure enclave for good reasons.  Even the privy, seems unsafe.  Lindsay Sterling * now leads the way.

Bard,

Thanks for the update.  I don't like to feel quite so isolated.  

Lindsey Stirling....... she doesn't quite do it for me.  I'm a fan of Anushka's, via the Princess....... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SY275LMS9zc


I'm still trying to engage with Graham Harman via Heidegger, or is it vice-versa?  

It is about those darned objects.......

Graham is a pluralist with a vegeance.  Pure objects do not interact.  They have no windows.  He can blame this on Leibniz, I suppose.  But, in another way, he is sometimes taken as a panpsychist.  

His idea of real, inaccessible objects comes from Heidegger's analysis of tools..... transparent when functional, opaque when not.  We might also consider the idea of the Extended Mind, which may verge on panpsychism.  

In his Road to Objects... http://www.continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/viewArticle/48 , Graham speculates about unobservable objects.  

Interaction can occur only within a third object.  He is doing everything he can to avoid the aether, the sensorium.  He is an anti-phenomenologist who demonstrates its necessity, nonetheless.  

From: Dan
Date: August 11, 2014, 2:16:57 PM EDT
To:  Bill L
Subject: Re: RIP UFO?


And, IMHO, the ufo phenomenon has accomplished its mission of preparing the ground.  There is now just bickering over the timing.  


On Aug 11, 2014, at 10:16 AM, Dan wrote:

Bassett is something else!  Good story, though.  


On Aug 10, 2014, at 11:12 PM, Bill wrote:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/end-of-ufos.html

On Friday, Ron left a message to the effect that he was taking a look at the rapid expansion of Ebola.  Me?  Do I look worried?  


Does the above foray into OOPology and phenomenology get me any closer to the dark heart of atoms?  Atoms are God's tools?  

Then there was the part about psychologism wrt logic, in particular.  This is a favorite whipping-boy amongst modern philosophers.  But then is not logic ineluctably normative?  What does the SEP say?  

See Pelletier, 'Is logic all in our heads....?' (2008) for a recent revival of psychologism.



(cont.)

Harman remains a puzzle for me.... does he manage to find a reflective equilibrium, or does he succumb to the flux?  I am partial to his anti-reductionism, but he does so at the expense relations, in general.  Real objects are windowless monads, without benefit of a divine harmony.  

His scheme of ontogeny seems much too flimsy and promiscuous.  Did he ever meet an object he didn't like?  Is this naturalism run amok?  

His study of objects starts with Heidegger's study of tools, but what happens to that explicit teleology?  Graham is concerned with the breakdown of tools.  I used to be concerned with car crashes, but I chalk that up to metabolism and the ineluctable logic of atoms.  


I should report that Ron seems not especially concerned with ebola, but neither is he willing to say that we are out of the ebola woods, just yet.  He applies predator-prey models to the epidemiology.  


And, yes, I have been intrigued with the recent article on 'Cosmic entanglement', in the New Scientist.  It refers to the following ... http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.3194 .  

It turns out that (physical) interactions are not necessary for the creation of quantum entanglement.  It can be obtained by the judicious application of pre- and post-selection.  Entanglement is not, strictly, about contact.  It is about......  how we(?) go about objectifying the world, through our sequences of observations.  I gather that Graham is not student of the quantum.  


Graham prides himself on his unobservable, inaccessible real objects, but does this not beg the question of ontogeny?  Is a sand pile truly inaccessible?  If I take my wreck to a body shop, what exactly transpires therein, 'objectively' speaking?  

I think I'll stick with my objectless Telos.  Objechood is exhausted by its relations.  What of ideas?  All objects are subject to analysis, and so we have nihilism.  Are we saved by the hermeneutic circle?  By the CTC?  Perhaps.  

The CTC should be allowed to borrow some of its ontology from the great chain of being (GCB).  They are part of the relational akasha that is the glue of cosmic entanglement.  


1:15-------

Phenomenal and metabolic cycles are another aspect of this glue, see the BPW website.  Are we back to the Cartesian vortices?  

We may well wonder how to stabilize the vertices of Indra's net.  How do we stabilize the number system?  Does stability come from both above and below, from past and future?  

Our memories can have astonishing stability and detail.  They are an essential part of our personas, which serve as the glue or containers.  The lack of any robust theory of memory retention and access is, perhaps, the greatest weakness of the entire materialist enterprise.  

It is memories that hold our thoughts together. But, then, I sometimes suppose it is the Telos that holds our memories together. In the last analysis, the BPWH is a theory of coherentism. Coherence, then, is the universal glue. The Telos is the nexus of all coherence, the cosmic monad. Is God just an appendix to the Telos? There may be some truth to that.




(cont.)

I am tempted to say that the reification of atoms is not unrelated to the reification of photons, which was to avoid a UV catastrophe.  What would be the analogous atomic catastrophe?  

If there were no atoms, what would happen to matter?  Atoms are a function of there nucleii or their quarks.  Why does the continuity of matter require such discontinuity?  

Well, otherwise, there would be a dust catastrophe.  But, also, there would be a divergence in the heat capacity of substances.  Also, there could be no phase changes.  But I'm still assuming an immaterial substantiality, which is hard to characterize without conceptual atoms, of one sort or another.


(Gary, re: objectivity of ideas......  this is from Harman, but I do not disagree with it.  You seem to object, however.)


There is a degree of substantiality within the logic of our dreams.  In immaterialism there is no absolute distinction between waking and dreaming.  Rather, there is a gradation of substantiality that is correlated with the coordination of the public dream that we call 'reality', our grand folie-a-deux, our collective hypnosis.  

Our dreams may coordinate, but not adhere. Space must be maintained, but there cannot be space without substance. How is that obvious? There must be tertiary objects to maintain a referential separation. Extension must be delimited, somehow.

I understand that I'm trying to reinvent Kant, who got such a bad rap from Riemann and Einstein, allegedly.



(cont.)

Ideas are objects. You seem self-referentially confused, but "hey, what do I know?" :-)

By the way, another GRAHAM petitioned the BHO White House:

http://www.starpod.us/2014/08/13/hey-mr-president-whats-up-with-these-classified-ufo-documents/#.U-uA4BU04S8

A point I may have been missing is that atoms may only have a local or an ad-hoc existence.  

There is also a conservation theorem for the numbers of fermions.  I need to consider that mathematical mechanism.  


Pace, Gary..... Ideas are more like bosons than fermions.  


Ok, the conservation of fermions is, evidently, a result of the Pauli exclusion principle, which is a purely relativistic effect.  Does this relate to immaterialism?  

Besides the Pauli principle, there is also mass-energy conservation, and this is also a relativistic effect.  

With regard to the PEP, see the spin-statistics theorem, which has to do with space-time symmetry.  

And from whence derives this space-time symmetry, we might ask?  

IOW, does the conservation drive the symmetry, or symmetry drive the conservation?  Yes, Emmy, we would like to know.  

The conventional wisdom is that the symmetry comes first, but maybe not.  The former is more akin to the Newtonian view of an absolute/primordial space and time.  

And it should be noted that gravity appears to break the space-time symmetry, due to its long-range, unshielded effects.  


9:15---------

It would seem, then, that gravity drives the direction of time.  It creates the long-time entropy 'violations' of star formation.  It is also an essential component of evolution, on the standard view, thereof.  

And Emmy's theorem is the result of applying the least action principle to the (symmetric) action function of a system.  Out of this also come the various conserved 'currents'.

It should be noted that the E&M field allegedly derives from similar symmetry considerations, although Paul Z, for one, has qualms about the local gauge invariance.  I'm not recalling the nature of these concerns.  Yes, connecting that symmetry with the specific field is more than a bit facile.  Gauge theories in general do not sit well with Paul.  


11:10-------

I note that a common setting for field theories is AdS/CFT, which is often compactified via a torus, e.g. a CTC.  

The AdS/CFT correspondence was discovered by Maldecena in 1997.

Paul's problem with gauges may be connected with the equivalence principle vs. the Unruh effect.

http://wtdowell.com/Maldacena.htm ...

Theoretical physicists rarely achieve the status of rock stars, but Argentina's Juan Maldacena, 30, may be an exception.  Last summer at a banquet for some of the world's leading theoreticians at Santa Barbara, California, a chorus energetically took up the tune of the Macarena with Maldacena as the focus of attention.  The lyrics, admittedly understandable only to a select few, were a lighthearted testimony what most physicists see as a stunning achievement.  "You start with the brane/and the brane is B.P.S/Then you go near the brane/And the space is A.D.S.3/ Who knows what it means?/I don't,  I confess./Ehhhh! Maldacena!/Super Yang-Mills/With Very large N/Gravity on a sphere/Flux without end/ Who says they're the same?/Holographic, he contends./Ehhh Maldacena!"

1pm--------

I'm now watching https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sYxWgjKwfLw , a talk by Shamit Kachru at Strings 2013.  I have spoken many times of Monstrous moonshine, but here we have Mathieu moonshine.  

And here is the paper...... http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.4981 .  

What I have neglected wrt atoms is that, instead of atoms, I should be using string loops as my basic monads.  I.e., the SWH/CTC should be built up from toroidal monads.  Why didn't I think of this sooner?  This also relates back to my cyclic phenomenology.... http://bestpossibleworld.com/index06.htm#Cycles .  Even Descartes and Kant were warning us about this, with their vortices, not to mention the autocatalytic cycles of Eigen and Prigogine.  

With toroidal monads, we can invoke the microcosm ...

Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). In the system the midpoint is Man, who summarizes the cosmos.

2:45-----------

I think we may be having a little breakthrough, in glancing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_charge .... does not the central charge/winding number relate to the cosmic cycles of the monad, with the number ~10^10.  


3:30----------

I have spoken with Paul about these developments, and he will see if he can provide some backup.....

Paul is not at all partial to the obvious excesses of string theory.  But we do agree that the moonshine aspects of it, as well as its continued popularity, well beyond any seeming physical relevance, may point to a deeper Jungian/archetypal dynamic, which is likely to have metaphysical implications, IMHO.  

And, now, the double moonshine may also point to a more robust Pythagorean dynamic.  We should expect some such psychic convergence to be a prime portent of a benign apocalypse, viz. Cor13.  


For the record, let us note that a key link in the above chain was the Lobos Motl blog ... http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/06/strings-2013.html , Lubos often being a physics curmudgeon.  He self-identifies as a Christian atheist.  He is noted for his 'over-the-top' defense of string theory.  


One might also recall Penrose' twistor theory, in these regards.  


4:30-----------

Off the top, we might expect a connection between the 10^10 monadal windings and the large number coincidences (DLNH) ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis .  

The obvious question is how do we get from 10^10 to 10^40.  Just a walk in the park?  

Here is real rocket science.... 10^10^4 = 10^40.  No kidding?  

But while I attempted to type that, the iPad took me back to the  CTMU slides, from my KC encounter with CL.  Is there a message here?  Are four-dimensions important?  

It should be noted that the 10^10 factor appears in nature/biology/physics not infrequently.  


5:30----------

Earlier today I found these slides very helpful...... http://www.phys.columbia.edu/~kabat/colloquium.pdf . This is from Dan Kabat at Columbia.  

Now the question is how to get from the DLNH to a winding number that is also astronomical, if not biblical.  

And don't miss ... http://www.phys.columbia.edu/~kabat/why_strings/why_strings.html .

And here we have the case for windings, W, >>1 ... http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4695 in relation to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM).  

The KZM has to do with topological defects in the early universe.  Well, is the Monad a cosmic defect??  Yes, there is the O -> A 'defect' or gap.  


6:40---------

How is the gap introduced into the cosmic torus?  Taurus?  Yes, actually, there is Friday in the weekly cycle.  Friday is Freya, as I have pointed out on several previous occasions.  Freya has the shape-shifting qualities of Hermes/Mercury/Trickster.  It would be useful to relate the weeks to the zodiacal/cosmic cycles, as per Hamlet's Mill.  

Shape-shifting in physics is often related to phase transitions, i.e. to long-range correlations, therein.



(cont.)