Hello, Cy, hello, OMF II

First topic message reminder :

Testing.......

Yes, it is working.

Congratulations to Cyrellys & Co.!

I will be continuing the BPWH blog from Compass Morainn, which was a continuation from the original OMF site on ProBoards, which is in the process of being re-archived from that site.



(cont.)

There is no edge of the world..... not in space. In time.....? That's what eschatology is supposed to be about. Eschatology is the height of metaphysical presumptuousness. But there are limits to growth, and humanity may not have been programmed for sustainability, and certainly not for the run-up to it.

This leaves us twisting in the wind, at the end of our rope, if not at the end of our world.


12pm---------

The cosmic mind knows no gaps, has no edges.... aside from the Alpha and Omega. How could it? What would those gaps or edges look like? Our altered states and imaginations are part of the filling and smoothing process. It is only finitude, self-containment/coherence, which demands that there be an A/O 'spark-gap', instead of an eternal return.

Do tree rings, strata and supernovas look smooth? There are cycles of various sorts.... astronomical and geological. There are punctuated equilibria. There are ELE's. Do we begrudge these, or place them beyond the reach of the cosmic mind?

Where would any mind be, without punctuation? The sky is not gray. It is punctuated with stars. History is punctuated with events. So is the background. Can we distinguish between foreground and background? Is there a line in the sand? What would the line look like?

The cosmic mind is omniscient and omnipotent. It knows no limits, other than those of its self-containment. We are its microcosms, destined to our at-One-ment. Can we ask for more? You name it, and it's yours.


3:20------------

It is the collective unconscious that does most of the infilling of the pleroma, with a big teleological boost from the Omega. Some of the punctuation may be implanted or seeded from above.

There are outliers like Jurassic Parc (R) and the home bases of some visitors..... all being functionally integrated.

Fractals abound in nature, especially in the background, such as in the plethora of noise spectra. Are auto 'accidents' in the foreground or background? I suppose they can be both. Something there is that doesn't love a wall. Do we love walls? It all depends.....

Where would life be, without entropy and critical phenomena? Life necessarily inhabits that boundary between order and disorder.

The background is not unlike a computer simulation. We are an online gaming community, complete with hackers. There are add-ons of various descriptions. OOP gives way to OOO.

The built-in teleology renders us more or less crash-proof.



(cont.)

I give lip service to virtual reality only on occasion, as I did yesterday, but it's not something that I'm very comfortable with. I can only use it as a metaphor, since, otherwise, it begs the question as to the nature of the cosmic platform upon which any such computational scheme might be implemented. And any computational scheme also raises the issue of reductionism, in a digital, rather than atomic, guise.

Are the concepts of virtual reality necessarily digitally based? Although I have not seen it mentioned, it is hard to believe that there is not a conceptual link between the Object Orientations, whether applied to programming or to ontology, i.e. OOP v. OOO.


4:45---------

Are we programmed to be moral, or would that be a logical contradiction. Are we programmed, rather, to have a conscience? What we do with that conscience is up to us.

What about sociopaths? Are they programmed to not have a conscience? Is there reason to doubt that altruism is genetic? Is it not genetic in insects?

Empathy, particularly in certain circumstances, appears to be virtually reflexive.

Yet, much of our sapience appears to be socially oriented. Can empathy and sapience be properly distinguished? I'm doubtful, despite the seeming intelligence of sociopaths. Are there sociopathic artists? Are sociopaths, however, not necessarily skilled at social deception? It may be that sociopathology is a dissociative disorder, brought on by abuse.

This is interesting, but it does not speak to digital and mechanical reductionism, or to the problem of implementation. How can downward causation be used to mimic upward causation, for instance?



(cont.)

I remain reasonably confident that the BPWH is the best possible alternative to scientific materialism. There's no competition that I'm aware of.

Where I continue to struggle is with the details of it. Where the materialists struggle with biological development, I struggle with decay. It would seem that my task should be far easier, but there is only one of me, competing with the millions of scientific matialists. It's not a fair match. It won't be, until the tide begins to turn, just preceding the MoAPS. Will I be around to see the turning? I have no reason to be confident about that.

After much effort, I still have nothing clever to say about evaporation, for instance. Am I not looking for a left handed monkey-wrench, in that regard? If that turns out to be the case, then has the battle been lost? That's why I like the problem..... it forces me to put everything on the line. The tree in the Quad is not the problem. The real problem is the dew on the grass!

Why couldn't Berkeley see this? The problem seems tantalizingly simple. There must be something clever to say about it. There must be a simple finesse..... I keep telling myself, as I twist slowly in the mist. Did I get led all this way, just to be defeated by a few stray atoms, swerving in the dawn?

Is there dew in Heaven? Do we breathe in Heaven? Same question. Why can't there be Platonic dew? I have no doubt that atoms are Platonic, so why should I be worried about the dew? I'm not really sure, why, and that may be the problem.

Given space and time, then atoms are essential. Virtual realities are constructed without atoms. There is always an artificial horizon or cut-off, both near and far, although it may be cleverly disguised.

How can I give atoms an inch, without giving them a mile? How can I constrain them, ontologically speaking?

Is there no logical precedence for this problem of the tyrannical nature of atoms? What about the tyranny of numbers? That doesn't seem to bother me. So what is the big difference between numbers and atoms? Well, the numbers are numbered, but the atoms are logically numberless, despite or because of their Platonic identicality.

The tyranny of atoms explains the attractiveness of Cartesian dualism. Descartes drew a line in the sand that has remained since, despite its obvious incoherence. Atomism defeats coherence.


7:10----------

In a previous post, I've suggested that atoms could be treated as emergent phenomena.

Is evaporation emergent? From whence does it emerge?





(cont.)

Am I saying that objects exist only at the behest of subjects? If not, then how do objects exist?

Should it be harder to explain atoms than to explain microbes? Or to explain evaporation than metabolism? I thought I knew why, but maybe not. Metabolism provides a (phenomenal?) containment for atoms that evaporation does not seem to, but it would be difficult to define the difference. Must there be an ontological difference between microbes and atoms? It is not clear why or how there could be. Can I accept a mechanical view of evaporation, without accepting a mechanical view of the mind?

It does seem easier to suppose that neurons emerge from the mind than to suppose that atoms emerge from evaporation. No? What does evaporation emerge from? From metabolism? That is more of an ontological stretch, or so it seems to my naive mind.

Our minds emerge from God's, and, otherwise, Creation is our jointly ordained, best possible, virtual playground. Microbes and evaporation are a logically essential part of the stage setting. The why and the how of Creation pose different problems. Necessity and sufficiency are different challenges. The former may not explain the latter.

Space and time necessitate atoms, and may even explain them to a significant degree. The peculiar ontological status of the former pair, need hardly be emphasized. Does this peculiarity do anything to curtail the autonomy of atoms or microbes?

Why need I be paranoid about the freedom of the A&M's? Need their freedom detract from mine? Is this a zero-sum game? Need their autonomy lead to hegemony? Why can't I settle for the usual dualistic notion of strong emergence? Need it be incoherent? I continue to believe so..... sorry 'bout that!

How does the problem of multiple embodied subjects, you and me, differ ontologically from that of the A&M's?

It's easier to see the projection of our bodies than the projection of atoms, or so it seems. But maybe I'm making a mountain out of an ontological molehill.

Why should evaporation seem harder to explain than cosmic rays? The latter are more artifactual, and so are contained within that context, whereas evaporation is ubiquitous and in our face. We can lump the cosmic rays and the Higgs boson into nearly the same package, I'm happy to suppose, both being phenomenologically esoteric, as it were.

The Sun? Well, that is kinda special. That's why we have a Sun-god. No? Er.... that is to go with our God particle?!

Why should I begrudge evaporating water molecules, if I don't begrudge air molecules? And what about our sweat glands? Are they not perfectly metabolic? Should the Earth not sweat? If it didn't, we'd be in big trouble!

Let's face it, sports fans, the way I do metaphysics is a lot like how children play with big words. We keep repeating them until we tire them out, like with thumb wrestling. The last metaphysician standing is the one who wins. There is a valid method of logical exhaustion, but perhaps I'm taking it a bit too literally!

By pointing out that the Earth sweats, I'm trying to mash together the how and the why. Is that ontologically acceptable? Probably not, but it's the best I can do, and it might provide a clue to a professional ontologist...... I just play one, on the Internet.....

But then you are going to ask me if we sweat in Heaven.......

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

That sounds like a curse. Eden was a no sweat zone, until Adam ate the apple...... poor sucker....

Or, perhaps more importantly, do we get to eat in heaven? If heaven were that great, then God would have had to trick us into coming down here, tricky fellow that he is. But, then, after the Millennium, why would we want to go back, for heaven's sake?

You have to be really lucky, one in a thousand, to hitch a ride on Noah's time machine, to get sent back to our primordial, megalithic beginnings. Or, maybe, only one in a thousand will volunteer. You know what they say in the Army..... never volunteer!

Do note that, in the above ontological exercise, I'm playing fast and loose with the notions of macro and microcosms, putting some new wine in an old bottle.

.

Earth sweat.......? Hey, don't laugh, that may be my biggest break since Noah's time machine. In this business, you take your breaks where you find them. Have we finally tamed the atoms, with just such a cliched artifice? Perhaps. Metaphysics is a psychological battle, especially if you are on the far side of mount material.

I was trying to make the most of hydrological circulation, comparing it with blood, but, no, I think that perspiration is closer to the ontological mark, when is comes to the temperature regulation that comes with the statistical mechanics in which atoms are the essential component. It's all about the homeostasis of the micro and macrocosm, and that applies especially to us mammals.

I think that this latest development does further remove the importance of bodies in the great beyond.......


2:40-----------

Utopia may be transposed from Heaven to the Kingdom Come. The Millennial kingdom will be the last hurrah of our egos. After that, it's no more sweat. After that, it's blue sky dreams. Eternity is not about space and time, it's not about metabolism.

What happened to our glorified bodies? Well, IMHO, our glorified bodies are God. It is said that we are the body of Christ. Who said that? It was Paul in 1Cor 12:12, and in several other passages. Where did he get it from?


4:15------------

Paul extrapolates from the Eucharist. Is it a necessary extrapolation? I believe so.

This, then, is our glorified body, nothing else counts. Heaven has nothing to do with ego, only with Ego..... I am that I am...... YHWH. Be there or be square..... @ Apokatastasis.

And all of this comes from Earth sweat. Atoms no longer rule this roost. They are functionally constrained, from the Alpha to the Omega.

After atoms, we have only to deal with stars and fossils. No sweat. Had they not been part of the stage setting, then we should have hired a new stage manager.


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

Now, get this, sports fans.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorification#Receiving_of_the_resurrection_bodies

And then get this.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)

......also known as theosis.


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

Wiki.....

Deification, to which, in spite of its presence in the liturgical prayers of the West, Western theologians have given less attention than Eastern, is nevertheless prominent in the writing of Western mystics.

We might wonder why there was this differentiation.


8:10-------------

I'm inclined to blame this difference on Athens/Plato. This was the price we paid for science, and for Cartesian dualism. Was it worth it? It was an essential part of the the BPW..... we pays our money and takes our choice. The shortest path to truth is not always a straight line. Half the fun is getting there.

Metaphysics is often a study in contrasts. Plato provided the grist for our mill. The Athens/Jerusalem axis was the locus of the global fulcrum. It was not going to be an easy ride. Could we propose a better scenario, even with hindsight?

And, finally, we get to choose deification over glorification. Would we choose otherwise? I doubt it. Could Plato ever have discerned this eventuality?



(cont.)

Treating the Earth as an organism is our best chance of containing the inorganic atomism that is seen particularly in evaporation, which may then be analogized as perspiration. Does that change the physics? It meliorates the independence of the atoms so involved. It brings them back into the organic fold, which can, in turn, be reexamined.

If we have made a tiny bit of progress wrt the organic idealisation of atoms, what can we do with cells? Panpsychism or animism has been the strategy in the past. Perhaps we need only revisit that stratagem.

I guess I've been saying and implying that cells and even atoms partake of the cosmic psyche, as do we, sapients, along with the sentient creatures. Are atoms sentient? Well, there are aspects of quantum mechanics that do point in that direction, particularly wrt its relationalism/holism and the fact that observation plays an essential role in QM. And, yes, even sapience seems intimately involved with elementary particles, particulalry when they are viewed through the Pythagorean lens of mathematical physics.

We are the braincells of God, and it is microcosms all the way down, to the finite limit allowed by the quantum.

Why so much emphasis on microcosms? What's the big deal, or is it the small deal? Is God a communist? Well, I don't think that God is primarily a capitalist. Certainly she is a communalist, and so we have theosis. In theosis we lose much of our rugged individualism. The rough edges get 'ironed out'.

But, in theosis, do atoms get left behind, in the crush? Is there metabolism in heaven? When do we stop breathing, those of us heading out on one of the twelve motherships?

If we obtain glorified bodies, it is mainly just for the transition. After that, shape-shifting is the order of the day. It is atoms that provide the ballast for Creation. Atoms are smart bricks. It's how we phone home...? Is it? If atoms weren't already created, we'd have to invent them.

Like I say, every aspect of the BPWH has to be revisited every day, so it won't get rusty. We have to keep it polished.


11:15--------

Distributed intelligence is another aspect of panpsychism. Evangelicals have a strong antipathy to panpsychism. Deism is their default mode. They struggle merely to understand Jesus. A good saint is a dead saint, and if they don't make it in the good book, then they'd better keep quiet, spirit or no spirit. It's praise the lord and pass the ammunition. It's rugged individualism. Keep your nose to the grindstone, and don't stop to smell the flowers.

This stratagem works well, until the trumpet blows, until the fat lady sings, heaven forbid!

Panpsychism did not make the cut, in Athens, and barely made it in Jerusalem, and so we have reaped scientific materialism, bless our souls. Panpsychism is the persona-non-grata at our potlatch banquet at the end of the universe.

Organicism is the other side of panpsychism. Atoms are the servants of the organisms, including the Earth. Atoms are the currency of metabolism.

I have compared atoms to mathermatical objects, including numbers. Many such objects have a natural geometrical or spatial representation. Is phenomenal space an extension of mathematical space? And what about other mental objects, such as ideas, words, logic, sense data, etc.? Then we have OOP v. OOO. And we have internal v. external relations to deal with, as well as direct v. indirect perception. Ontology does become quite a mish-mash. Do we need to sort it all out, or is this 'messiness' an essential aspect of holism?


2:40---------

Perhaps atoms are bootstrapped through the metabolic imperative of us, of the imago-dei. This is just another phrasing for the teleological imperative of the BPWH. This is a distributed model of the anthropic principle. Cells and atoms are created in our image, with a sufficient degree of retroactivity, as we awaken from our slumber of materialism. The periodic table may well reflect aspects of the zodiac and numerology. Why not, for heaven's sake? Alchemy got there first. There is but one source and one end.

If we can explain creatures, then, in the same breath, we can explain cells and atoms. I don't have a knock-down argument for creatures, beyond pointing out that a Creator would look pretty silly without creatures. Organic creatures? Is that merely to hide her fingerprints?

Speaking of which, I do like the argument about whether Eve had a belly button. There is even a name for the idea of it...... see the deadly serious wiki article..... Omphalos hypothesis. It even reminds me a bit of Julia Childs' recipe for the Primordial Soup.

If humans hadn't existed, would we have been able to invent/bootstrap them? I'm inclined to say that there could be no Dei without the Imago-dei..... x10^10? Creation has got to be participatory, despite the misgivings of the Deistic fundamentalists.




(cont.)

If we can explain humans, then we ought to be able to explain atoms. That is how the path of explanation will proceed. There needs to be a level playing field, and so we have space. There needs to be a metanarrative, and so we have time. There needs to be a chain of being/food/ecology, and so we have metabolism. That's about all she wrote.

Sapience is the social 'disease', par excellence. That's why I suppose that God doesn't have a soul. She is timesharing ours. Only our singular shared soul is sufficiently socialized to be sapient.

But hold on, a minute..... I used to suppose that the big distinction between the sapients and sentients was that only we had individual souls, as demarcated by our individual eidetic memories. I guess that I'm now supposing that our memories are shareable, if not actually shared, at present.

And, yes, that atoms are mainly the product of our teleologically mediated collective memory/Cs. They provide, along with the stars, a kind of registration/calibration device for the proper alignment of our consciousnesses. That's the best explanation I've managed so far. Please, forgive my ineptitude. Why does God have to pick dumb clowns? Life could have been a lot easier for all of us.

End of story? Well, there is still the small matter of theosis. I'm sure glad I discovered that little word. Aren't you? And when do we stop breathing? Do the 144,000 returnees ever stop breathing? Maybe not. Perhaps they remain segregated. The rest of us get over it. Our transitional bodies are more or less shape-shifting. They suffice for whatever are our transitional purposes. The glorified bodies fulfill their purposes, and fade away. No big deal.

Is there a final state? Eternity? Does time stop? I would suppose that time gives way to a shining Presence. Can we then backtrack? I would suppose, unless there is a good reason why not. There is no erasure of memory..... more like its reconfiguration. Keep in mind that most of what we experience now are reconfigured memories. Our fullest presence is but a shadow of the real thing.... 1Cor13, is it not?

Memories may seem like an indirect perception, but that is only so they don't overwhelm the present. Sub specie aeternitas, there is nothing absent from the Presence. Be there or be square.

Atoms are a bit like the roulette wheels...... if they don't play fair, they get smacked. If an atom ever shape shifted, something bad would happen to it. And there is only one atom, rather like there is only one electron. No? How does that work? Well, it tells us something about the mirrored aspect of space. Yes? If your reflection doesn't behave, then watch out. And it tells us something about the Imago-dei. There is a lot of filtering, on this level.


11:40-----------

Sam sends the following link to our four person discussion group, meeting tomorrow.....

http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-change/

One of us responds as follows.......

Sam, et al.,

    I don’t think the Story of Change is a very accurate view of the world as it is or as it might become.  The real story is the impossibility of change without some major disruption like widespread famine, financial collapse, nuclear war, a major pandemic, etc.   The only people on this planet really desiring change are those billions living on a few bucks a day, and the change they want is to live like us.  We all know how that would work out.

    Personally the only changes I want are those that would make my current lifestyle more secure or those that would make it possible for Carol and me to travel the globe in our declining years.  Somehow I think those two values are probably near the top of the list for most middle class folks in the Western world.  What do I want to give up? – can’t really think of anything other than meat in my diet.  

    When the incredible necessity for change runs into the incredible resistance of those who are comfortable, I don’t see self sacrifice carrying the day.

And I respond.......

Yes, this does sound like food for our discussion, tomorrow.  

Change can come from within and from without.  The most leverage comes from within.  Witness the Copernican revolution.... that was a combination, was it not? 

The modern minded amongst us have been sold on Copernicus, and for very good reasons, or so it seems..... to the modern minded.  

We have grown very accustomed to the notion that we are lost, in space and time.  Can you imagine what it would do to the modern psyche to learn otherwise?  To learn that we may not be quite as lost as we are wont to believe?  That demonstration could come overnight, or it could come over a decade, whichever best suits our situation.  

In the meantime, I kibitz the modern media with a certain sense of irony and bemusement.  

2pm--------

So, what are our heavenly bodies? Perhaps the best example is the one ascribed to Jesus, especially in his sudden appearance to the eleven. It is pointed out that the door had been locked, giving the presumption of a non-physical 'translation'. Yet, his body was solid to the touch, and he supped with them. In this example of a transitional(?) body, the physicality is somewhat ambiguous, or, shall we say, ad hoc! I can go with that.


4pm-----------

Surely this is some sort of a fable. It may well be. But on this fable may hang human destiny, according to the BPWH, and that, in turn, accords with my best opinion, FWIW. If this story does not speak to our destiny, then I am at a loss to know what might do so, in its stead.


On another note, I have sometimes been given to wonder why the laws of physics need be quite so elegant, in their mathematical glory, although I do not recall having made this question explicit. Might we not also wonder whether some of their anthropic functionality might not have been sacrificed thereby? Or, OTOH, is that elegance not, somehow, an essential feature of that functionality? It's hard for me to believe that God is merely showing off his mathematical prowess, or merely wanting to paint a pretty picture.

I have speculated about the organicity of mathematics, and how this might relate both to its elegance and to its functionality. Yet, the sort of elegance to which I refer is not something to be found in biology, where intricacy might be the more appropriate descriptive.

The elegance to which I refer is nothing superficial. It is, rather, a deep beauty, the secrets of which have required the utmost efforts of the most gifted of human minds many centuries to uncover. To even catch a glimpse of it is to have one's mind boggled. I often refer to Srinivasa, in this regard, despite the fact that his work never focused on mathematical physics. Evidently, there is a music of the spheres to which only the most gifted amongst us can have a direct, intuitive perception. The rest of us....... we hear the music through the PA system.

That's lovely, but where is the biology? Or is there a direct connection to our CNS? Or does it bypass our CNS to go right to our uCs? One might as well ask how organicity works, or what it is, in the the larger scheme, or is it the larger scheme? I would suspect it is. It is about panpsychism and the panpsychic catastrophe.




(cont.)

Animal2012 has pm'd me that the OMF Archive I is nearly complete in its restoration of the original forum as it existed prior to its being closed down last winter. The Archive II appears to be an only partially restored copy, and is being hosted on another site.

The navigation to particular pages of a thread may be a bit tricky...... I had to experiment with the routes and buttons.

I've suggested that there be an introduction to the OMF Archive, where the restoration work could be described, and where questions and suggestions could be fielded.

I and others owe a debt of gratitude for the mostly anonymous work that has been contributed.

Thanks to one and all!!!


4:40----------

I've been trying to think what is the next biggest obstacle to the BPWH, after atoms and the reboot/exodus/Apokatastasis, about which items there seems to be a reflective equilibrium.

I'm having difficulty thinking of an old or new obstacle of any particular note.



(cont.)

I don't recall having previously achieved this present sense of a reflective equilibrium. There has always been one or more things that stood out in my mind as needing special attention. I'm not saying that I've achieved any breakthrough in terms of making the BPWH more believable.... I haven't. Nonetheless, there is a new level of comfort for myself, even if for no one else.

One might now suppose that this would be a logical point for me to consider writing a book, as has been suggested in the past, but that is not where my own thinking is taking me.



(cont.)

Starting tomorrow, I'll be on the road for almost a week. We'll be attending the opera in Glimmerglass, NY, and then probably heading over to Maine to visit Deborah. Last night we saw Mike Daisey's controversial monologue/critique of Steve Jobs and of Apples' labor issues in China. It was also a spoof on us, electronics consumers, generally. Steve Wozniak may be putting in a cameo, in this fall's production.

Write the book finally....? I'm not holding my breath. I think it's just too late now for me to get into the publishing frame of mind. If a book is needed, then there will be plenty of time and people who could be inspired to that particular task. I'll be glad to be the cheerleader.


1:15-------------

I try to work and think as spontaneously as possible. Publishing a book would be a major distraction from that life-long orientation, with only a minimal prospect of making a significant difference. If the timing of D-day depends on something as chancy as that, then we need a new management team. I prefer the posture of simply being on perpetual standby. Am I a lazy procrastinator......? I should hope so.

Yesterday's lunch with Sam and Peter M. is a case in point. Peter, an environmental engineer, was a student of Herman Daly at U of Md, who, in turn, along with Charles Hall, was a student of Howard Odum. Sam had just come to the realization that all three were, seemingly, climate deniers, and wanted to check this out with Peter.

This is true, in the following sense....... All three are biophysical economists, and they are primarily concerned about the limits to growth, and the economic effects of those limits. They see the climate doomsayers as being mostly a distraction what will be the more immediate impact of the economic crisis that is presently being brought on by the end of economic growth.

This hearkens back to a lunch meeting that Sam and I had with the Hopkins economist, Chris Carroll, several years ago, probably in 2007. Sam was attempting to get Chris concerned with Peak Oil. Chris, rightly, with hindsight, pointed to an impending credit crisis. There is a good argument that these two crises were closely linked, and, from a longer perspective, it is the limits to growth that are mainly exacerbating the global impact of the credit crisis.

Climate change is another aspect of our limits to growth. But the biophysical economists are pointing out that the economic crisis will be anticipating the climate and resource crises, and that it will have the greater human impact, in the intermediate frame. This, at least, is my understanding of the academic situation.

And this is where I began to put in my two-cents worth...... And let me tell you this, the best way to deal with a religious fanatic, such as Chicken Little, is simply to humor us. After forty years, Sam is still trying to figure out how to do this, and Sam has known me longer than I've known Sophia, come to think of it. Peter? Peter has nary a clue. And, yes, I did get onto his case a bit, as I'm wont to do. He was a good sport, nonetheless. Am I a good sport? Well, what do you think, sports fans?!

Much too often, my conversations devolve into oneupsmanship. Is this entirely my fault? Is this democracy in action? Peter wondered, well into the conversation, if I had heard of the God particle. Isn't that a bit like asking Al Gore, if he has heard of the Internet, if you catch my drift?

I came away from the lunch with a somewhat fuller realization that immaterialism and the BPWH are going to be a more difficult obstacle for engineers than for anyone else on the planet. And this is not an auspicious understanding. Engineering is ground-zero of the modern mind. Think Blue Sky Dreams..... and, yes, the ETH.

I raised the mind-body problem..... I gathered that he had heard of it, but only as a vague abstraction. I raised the problem of perpetual progress, and he responded with Eternal Return, quasi-pantheist that he is, as are all environmentalists. There was nothing new here, but there was a significant reinforcement of my gut instincts concerning the modern-minded. Every once in a while, I need to touch base with ground-zero.


4pm----------

For the record, I've emailed Gary, concerning a quasi-personal matter. It might have something to do with L/RP. That is a ground-zero of a somewhat different sort.

I continue to follow the drought..... Meteorology was my entre to physics, not counting D Menzel. Yes, if you were wishing to grab the attention of the modern-minded, you might wish to engineer a scorched Earth, all the way to the sea..... one of several possible plagues.

This indirection would need to be accompanied by something a bit more direct, IMHO. That part will not be easy, considering the mindset of Peter&Co. How can that be done without directly involving the visitors? That aspect would tend to confuse the anthropocentric thrust of theism. The other, related, consideration is to not directly involve the POTUS. That is more difficult, because any eschatological issues will necessarily involve that one. If it turns out that s/he has not been properly briefed, it will be a cause for general consternation. This is one of the stickiest wickets wrt orchestrating D-day. How far can we push the acclimation w/o triggering the POTUS question? I would stress the ontological/philosophical issues to their utmost. The politicians can plead ignorance, right up to the final day.

How do we push the philosophy......? I'm not a good target because of the L/RP issues. How much of the BPWH can be invoked w/o implicating the Aviary, for instance?

Even just a mention of immaterialism will quickly devolve in that direction, given google. OOO is a possible interlocutor wrt immaterialism. How far could that be pushed? Not too far, because I would quickly chime in, bless my heart! I could be dissuaded, but it would take some serious negotiation..... something that has probably never happened in this very general arena.

For instance, try googling immaterialism & eschatology..... I swear.... the first four hits are on my BPW website. How long will it take to make this connection? How many days.... how many hours, pray tell?! Like I say, we are at the glass ceiling of eschatology. Who is going to cast the first stone?

Materialism is like a virgin/balloon....... one anomalous/uncorrelated prick, and it's all gone....! This might even explain the lrp show. How could I have explained this to Peter&Co? Where is the princess when we need her?


5:30--------

Or, hey, try plugging in OOO & immaterialism....... And you immediately come to an un-canny ontology....... I love uncanny. And I love the panpsychic catastrophe. Don't tell me that I can't play the google game.

For instance, if I put pansychic into my google browser, the first two items are panpsychic pantheism and panpsychic catastrophe. When I click on the latter, the first two hits are the web44 archive and compassmorainn. So, there you go. There is very little wiggle room between here and eternity, IMHO. But how do I explain that to the rest of you, whomever you may or may not be.......?



(cont.)

OMG..... we just saw the first showing of a revival of Lost in the Stars, here at GGF. A powerful production it is, with most of the cast from SA. This is the operatic version of Cry the Beloved Country (1948). The most powerful staging I can recall..... of anything.... There you go. Now we're OTD..... Nice to see that the Manx Missile cleaned up, speaking of staging.



(cont.)

Another great matinee at the opera, this time Aida, in quasi-modern dress, complete with AK47's and waterboarding. Love wins by losing, tragically. The conductor was straight from the Cairo opera, with some 200 performances of Aida. We tried to ascertain the the operatic politics in modern Egypt, without much insight into that particular aspect of the clash of cultures. Afterwards there was a soiree with the divas...... a more intimate interlude. We had a strong thunderstorm last night, complete with hail, on the other side of the lake.
----------------


The whole business of the ETH v UTH has been very useful in controlling the acclimation process. The mythos of the ETH has been exploited to maintain a partial disclosure, one that also touches upon eschatology and paradigm shifts, without invoking their full-blown renditions, nor invoking the BPWH, needless to say.

The evangelical crowd, however, is not taking this bait. They remain much more on the side of the UTH, even those who also adopt the Old Earth Hypothesis (OEH), viz. this book from Reasons to Believe. The fact of this built-in bias toward the UTH, on the part of a significant segment of the US, puts a strong constraint on the exploitation of the ETH, wrt controlled acclimation.

Also, wrt to triggering D-day, it could well be that climate change, despite its lengthy timeframe, could provide such a trigger, when leveraged with an ongoing credit crisis.

I'm thinking of the changing patterns of precipitation that are brought on by the lessening of the latitudinal temperature gradient resulting from the polar emphasis in the greenhouse effect.




(cont.)

Question with regards to panpsychic catastrophe....why would you think in order to understand more or improved you say it is necessary to understand less (reductive elimination of the Psyche/[Consciousness],)? Eliminate parts of the Consciousness?

Quote: the philosophy of the mind, as it struggles to contain the contamination of the mind with phenomena or Qualia, and other non-analyzable aspects of the mind.

To remove any complexity from our Consciousness also by attrition(?) would remove complexity from the processes and collectives we contribute to...if the Source benefits from increase in complexity then we would be reducing or hindering it's consciousness when we do so to our own. Assumed: all things are interconnected multi-dimensionally. In this we are already part of the Source and there is not any 'need to return' or go 'anywhere'. Instead more complex utilization of consciousness interconnectivity would seem apparent.

Just because something is currently beyond the capacity of the mind or social institutions to analyze does not make it impertinent to understanding or contamination vs part of the reality.

If the apple falls from the tree you are contemplating, the apple is part of the tree's reality whether you choose to think it qualia or a contaminating event...the tree at its inherent level has a program that instructs a purpose and act toward reproduction...but if your contemplation of the tree is yet unaware that a tree can contain instructions, or you are yet unaware of dna or even that the apple is vessel containing seeds then you would entirely miss the boat of its significance.

So why rule out any present detail as insignificant or contamination?

any panpsychic event will be multi-dimensional whether it is catastrophic or not.

Cy

dan wrote:Another great matinee at the opera, this time Aida, in quasi-modern dress, complete with AK47's and waterboarding. Love wins by losing, tragically. The conductor was straight from the Cairo opera, with some 200 performances of Aida. We tried to ascertain the the operatic politics in modern Egypt, without much insight into that particular aspect of the clash of cultures. Afterwards there was a soiree with the divas...... a more intimate interlude. We had a strong thunderstorm last night, complete with hail, on the other side of the lake.
----------------


The whole business of the ETH v UTH has been very useful in controlling the acclimation process. The mythos of the ETH has been exploited to maintain a partial disclosure, one that also touches upon eschatology and paradigm shifts, without invoking their full-blown renditions, nor invoking the BPWH, needless to say.

The evangelical crowd, however, is not taking this bait. They remain much more on the side of the UTH, even those who also adopt the Old Earth Hypothesis (OEH), viz. this book from Reasons to Believe. The fact of this built-in bias toward the UTH, on the part of a significant segment of the US, puts a strong constraint on the exploitation of the ETH, wrt controlled acclimation.

Also, wrt to triggering D-day, it could well be that climate change, despite its lengthy timeframe, could provide such a trigger, when leveraged with an ongoing credit crisis.

I'm thinking of the changing patterns of precipitation that are brought on by the lessening of the latitudinal temperature gradient resulting from the polar emphasis in the greenhouse effect.




(cont.)

? Greenhouse effect? How about something big enough to affect both our sun AND us?



This video is from one year ago



And this video is from June 3

quote from poster: If you're bored to wait, go to 1:27 and see what you want to see. View in fullscreen! =)

ZetaTalk Comment 7/7/2012: Increasingly, private funds are being placed into space endeavors that can only be interpreted as helping cash strapped governments watch the approach of Planet X and be alert to the whips of its debris ridden tail. Where NuSTAR, deployed June 21, 2012 for x-ray detection, is a NASA satellite, the Square Kilometre Array ground based radio array is privately funded. Where the X-B37 plane was sent aloft by the Air Force, Brandson’s Virgin Galactic rushed to fill in for the ISS shuttle by 2012, and Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin and other endeavors are a private push to get man and machines into space, for unspecified reasons. Now we have the nonprofit B-612 Foundation sending a privately funded satellite aloft to watch out for asteroids.

We have stated that in the past the elite assumed they could escape to Mars or to the dark side of the Moon to ride out the devastation of the Pole Shift, and certainly assumed that their underground bunkers would be secure. What went wrong with these plans? Escape to Mars or the Moon required assistance from Service-to-Self aliens, who lied as the Service-to-Self are wont to do. Underground bunkers proved to be filled with radon gas and other emissions from increasingly stressed rock, deadly within days to those placed there as test subjects. Now they are on the surface of Earth along with the common man whom they expected to leave to their fate when Planet X passed. They are frantic to get advance warning on the hour of the passage and any advance warning they can on large debris ridden swipes of the tail.

http://www.zetatalk3.com/ning/07jy2012.htm

http://goingglobaleastmeetswest.blogspot.com/2012/07/alert-level-36-nibiru-is-near-john.html





Excerpt from article:

CP .. "When you watch the video you will see a map of the U.S. that shows the approximate areas of the continental U.S. that may be flooded as a result of Nibiru's affect on our planet. Do a Google search on the Edgar Cayce map of U.S. and the U.S. Navy map of the flooded U.S. for more references. I am not trying to scare, but want to inform so that you may make some preparations in case we have a gigantic Katrina situation in the U.S. that could disrupt our way of life for quite sometime. Remember, The people perish for lack of knowledge, and God, in his mercy has been sounding an alarm of an event that is coming and it is a good thing to know and be vigilent so that we can help our families and neighbors just in case"

This video that was posted yesterday, July 11, 2012, is a very serious about a report that the U.S. military has been conducting briefings with military families that are located along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. They are being told that they will have a 2 week notice and will only be able to take 2 bags with personal items when they are given the green light to move away from their areas.

Apparently the 10th planet, Nibiru, has entered our solar system and it is expected that these coastal areas will be flooded along with earthquakes and 200 mph winds as a result of this 10th planet's affect on our earth.

Most likely we have been experiencing the pull of this very large "planet" or possible binary star to our sun. This "planet" has a 3600 year orbit around our sun and has been referred to as The Destroyer by past civilizations and has been thought to have contributed to major catastrophic earth changes in the ancient past.

The gentleman, John Moore, on the video, spoke to a caller who lives about 75 miles from Cleveland, Ohio who asked how far should she be from Lake Erie. He said that she was probably okay but it would be good for her to be at over 100 feet above sea level.

The families that attended these briefings have to sign non-disclosure agreements that they won't relay any of the information told to them.

Shrug. Cy

Cy,

With reference to your comments on the Panpsychic Catastrophe, I'm not sure that we're on the same page........

Where you speak of complexity, I speak of simplicity.......

I humbly submit that, in this age of the knowledge/information explosion, any and all attempts at simplification should receive the utmost consideration. The BPWH is the most radical of such simplification schemes, and, as such, it should be receiving a priority of consideration.

The fact that it is receiving virtually no public consideration, I consider to be THE essential component of the coverup of the Eschaton. Am I thereby/hereby complaining? Heck no! I am primarily a spectator to these events, which I find both interesting and amusing. Nothing else has ever compared, IMHO. It was almost 35 years ago that I cast my fate to the wind/Sophia. Some days have seemed better than others. Today I'm focused on the opening of the Olympics, which may or may not have a connection.

If I'm misreading your comments on complexity wrt the PC, then please elaborate.


Wrt Nibiru, I have mixed feelings........

I see all such prognostications through the lens of the MoAPS..... They are attempts to materialize the MoAPS. As such they add to both the anticipation of the MoAPS, and also to its confusion. Am I complaining? Heck, no!


2:50----------

Here is a useful article concerning strategic preparedness......

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/us/armys-plans-to-relocate-gear-offer-roadmap-to-future-roles.html?hp

There was a lengthy convo with AMP concerning L/RP.

And I sent the following email to Sam's short list......

From: Dan Smith
Date: July 27, 2012 2:32:33 PM EDT
To: "Charles......
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel shortages vs. Climate Change: New article by Bill McKibben

Sam and Charlie, 

There is a crucial point here that we perhaps ought to discuss....... 

I labor under the impression that the primary human impact of climate change has to do with the diminished distribution of fresh water, due to the diminished jet-stream, brought on by the diminished temperature differential between the equator and the poles, since global warming is supposed to be most pronounced in the polar regions.  If this is a new idea to anyone on this selective list, then it deserves some discussion.  

Dan 

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

OMG, the Queen arrives at the stadium......

I just had an 80 minute convo with Palmer concerning Rupert Sheldrake, Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme.

And Palmer recommends this book.....

http://www.amazon.com/American-Grace-Religion-Divides-Unites/dp/1416566716


7:25--------

And then there is this.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/from-the-beatles-to-dizzee-rascal-music-was-the-heartbeat-of-olympic-opening-ceremony/2012/07/27/gJQABOafEX_story.html

It is quite exciting, but no big surprises, fortunately. I did have a 35 min convo with R. He assured me that there was nothing professional wrt phenomenology. There was only a concern that the Ruskies we exploiting UFOs.

Tom B. leads off the coverage, whose wife, Meredith, I spoke to last month, at the ranch of a mutual friend.


8:50-------

And so it continues.......



(cont.)

Allow me some further speculation concerning the ontology of mathematics......

A primary corollary of the BPWH is that mathematics provides us with an eternal slice of the Dialectic. And this fact is manifested particularly in the Pythagorean nature of mathematical physics.

Mathematics is a maximally abstract slice of the organicism that lies at the foundation of the world. The is organicism may be viewed most clearly in the Mandelbrot, although that object seems, at present, to stand quite apart, along with the other fractals, from the rest of the mathematical corpus, where the term 'corpus' is used very deliberately.

TBMK, ground zero of mathematical organicity is to be found in number theory, in general, and in questions concerning the distribution of primes, in particular........

The Riemann Hypothesis, which speaks directly to the distribution question, is widely considered to be the most important unsolved problem in mathematics.

The non-randomness of the primes is most directly visible in the Ulam Spiral. TBMK, there exists no rationale concerning this most obvious mystery of mathematics...... but do see this note concerning Hardy-Littlewood.

Before heading off to SfA/GFC let me just note the interesting Skewes' number. I'll have more to say about this, after church.


4pm---------

I've forgotten what I was going to say about Skewes. It's about Hardy-Littlewood and Riemann. There is a connection here with spectral theory.

My understanding is that, in the theory of Hamiltonians, there is a 'natural' repulsion between individual energy levels, so as to prevent 'accidental' degeneracy. Here is one such study...... http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0610139 ..... "To date, no double zeros have been found in the Riemann zeta function." This is a big issue, and it relates directly to repulsion of quantum energy levels. This is why prime numbers are not randomly distributed. I'm not sure if this also relates to twin primes.

And then see this...... http://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/ND.pdf This about beauty in mathematics and the Langlands program, and how it connects with number theory.

So, yes, mathematics is highly organic, and it has to do with mathematical physics, which is why I brought up the connection with spectral theory.

And now I'll be glad to bring up quantum theory and Srinivasa. Srini and the youngest mathematician prove that the human mind is totally tuned into the cosmos, and that we are thereby tuned into the mind of the Creator. This is, very significantly, about Apokatastasis.

Orgnaicism is about monism, which is about the Dialectic, which leads to Trinitarianism and the Zodiac.



(cont.)

Yesterday, I was stuck on spilt milk, or, more dramatically on broken glass. In general this is the problem that entropy poses for the immaterialist.

Less famously, entropy also poses problems for materialists......

I'm disappointed with the wiki entry on entropy. Nowhere is there an indication that there might be a problem with our understaning of entropy. This is no small part of our denial of ignorance. There once was an Encyclopedia of Ignorance (1978). There now is just Ignorance (2012). I would recommend both of them, but both of them pull their punches, away from science and towards God, implicitly.

The issue of scientific ignorance has been politicized beyond all repair or redemption. It will only ever be addressed under the threat of the MoAPS/BPWH. That political sensitivity is a prime component behind the disclosure strategy of our dramaturgic demiurge.

Scientists, qua materialists, will only admit to a gappy ignorance, and so whenever the Intelligent Design folks raise an issue like irreducible complexity, the materialists respond with the God of the Gaps (GoG) argument.

The ID'ers leave the argument hanging there. Chicken Little presses on. Why no followup by the ID'ers? Why are they so timid? It's very simple....... the next logical step beyond the God of the Gaps requires that one invoke the Spirit of Truth.

The only logical response to the GoG argument of the skeptics is to take a gnostic stance concerning the possible shape of our ignorance. But the only coherent shape that one may posit is that of the BPWH along with it's eschatological MoAPS, and this explicitly invokes the SoT as well as the X2, which, of course, is the 3rd rail of any philosophical/religious discourse. It is the game stopper, to end all game stoppers, and this ring-pass-not is just the trip-wire of our dramatic demiurge. It is the glass ceiling of all intellectual discourse....... in case of emergency, break the glass. And so we come back to the question of entropy and glass breaking, as seen from a spiritual/eschatological dimension.

Time is strangely irreversible, unless, according to the BPWH, you have access to Noah's Ark, which is the time machine to end all time machines.

Just in this one measly entry of the blog to end all blogs, I have probably given more shape to our ignorance than has anyone. Hey, check it out...... check google..... call my bluff...... make my day!

Folks are afraid to look too far into the dark glass, the cloudy crystal ball, of our ignorance, lest they see a light, a light that has a structure to it. If anything, my job is just to quote the angel of the Lord..... Fear not!

Yes, we are sore afraid of the Eschaton, and very understandably so. We daily pray for the Lord to hurry, but always with the caveat...... Not on my watch! Unless, perhaps, you wish to strap on one of those death-vests..... and good luck with that..... speaking of entropy and drama!

So, no, there is no encyclopedia of ignorance, not one that lives up to the name, outside of the BPWH/MoAPS/4M/K/SoT/X2. I predict that there will not be such an Other.


11:40-----------

And, now, briefly back to the prime numbers, which, along with, say, the Mandelbrot, may be as close to an analytical core of our ignorance, as anything, with the understanding that Agape is irreducible.

It may be fair to say that the prime numbers form a quasi-fractal, perhaps not unlike the quasi-crystal of Penrose. If I were to speculate that there might be a deep connection between these two mysteries, and so, between all quasi-natural mysteries, I would be, and have been, accused of mystagoguery. I wear that badge with no small amount of pride.

What more can I say about the revealed organicity of mathematics? All of its deep mysteries appear to be related. Are there any that are not? Certainly they are related to the mysteries of Anthropics and consciousness. Need I say more? The glass of mysteries..... is it half empty or half full? How might it conceivably be filled, other than with something that looks very much like the BPWH?


Here's another point to keep in mind...... the end of ignorance necessarily spells the end of progress, and so the end of history, both of which have been and are being touted, with more or less degrees of prematurity, given the logical impossibility of Perpetual Progress. We might wonder why so few intellectuals have ever even broached this topic. There is a distinct aroma of the Tabu, surrounding this topic, not at all unlike the proscriptions surrounding the Tetragrammaton, and, I firmly believe, for the same reasons.

Ray Kurzweil dances around this bonfire of all our vanities, e.g. as noted here.

This G&S site is new to me. At first I wondered how I might have missed it, but further examination provided the answer. It is severly truncated wrt its apologetics, even more so than is RTB, from which it is a spinoff. In the 'end' it is another good example of the SoT barrier in apologetics.


3pm---------

I have spent some time attempting to explore again the RtB site. I am disappointed, but hardly surprised, to see that is has been dumbed-down, just in the last year or so. It is moving toward slickness, and toward favoring a wider audience with shorter articles and videos, and there is not even a way to directly access the older, more meaty articles, without wading through the newer stuff.

Is this dumbing-down deliberate? It may be, to a degree, but mostly I'm willing to suppose that it is simply following a logical 'business' model that gives minimal weight to intellectual rigor or coherence. Will more sites, with possibly more coherence, like G&S be spun off? If so, they will not be easy to find, unless they cooperate, which is not too likely, given the tunnel vision of most evangelicals.


Back to breaking glass and entropy.........

I don't think it is terribly difficult to program believable entropy into a virtual reality. Entropy is, per force, a principle component of most VR environments/simulations. This does raise the question as to the cosmic substrate of our VR.

Put in a more general perspective, how does entropy relate to direct perception (DP), which is another basic component of the BPWH and immaterialism, in general.

Wrt DP, one problem with it has to do with its Platonism, which abhors entropy. In Plato's world, entropy exists only in the sub-lunar or corruptible mundane realm. Heaven is all about the eternal forms. This dualistic view remains an essential component of the Helenized prophetic tradition.

There is a dual pronged strategy, here, wrt organic v. inorganic entropy generating processes. I would subsume the organic processes to metabolic cycles within ecosystems. OTOH, the inorganic processes would be subsumed within chaos theory and fractal dynamics.

What does this say about Platonism and DP......?


6pm----------

We cannot perceive an object w/o also perceiving its history. But why can we not then also perceive its future? How is the future kept so shrouded?

OTOH, how are the other space-time boundaries of our nathropocentric world rendered so transparent? These two conditions appear contradictory.



(cont.)

We did manage to cover quite a bit of ground, yesterday. If I could do as well, everyday, we might be able to see the Eschaton, on a clear day. But still, entropy does leave a sour taste wrt to the BPWH.

But it is probably not my fault. It is the bitter legacy of Descartes, inevitable magical genius that he was. Every thing that has happened since Descartes has been an attempt to reconcile mind and matter, somewhat along the lines of the Athens-Jerusalem axis.

Pythagoras has spearheaded the reconciliation, in the tradition of mathematical physics. If we could understand the math/phys interface, then we would be very close to understanding the mind/matter interface. These are the yin&yang of any cosmology. There is obviously a boundary/bonding problem, which is a key problem in organics and inorganics, as with the immune system and surface physics, etc. Atoms do play a key role, but they are, at the same time, emergent properties of the cyclic phenomena.

And, you see, therefore, the great significance of the Alpha/Omega gap, and why the J-person is, necessarily the master of that Gap. The SoT/CL merely has to explain how that works, as if we didn't already intuit it, but we do need a timely refresher course.

What are the boundary/entropy problems of math? Generally there are boundary conditions on differential equations that need to be satisfied at the origin and/or at infinity, with possible discrete poles elsewhere. Boundaries can also be dealt with by the introduction of higher dimensions, as has been done with string theory. When we speak of the 'point at infinity' we are using a dimensional reduction. Another trick in physics is dimensional regularization and the renormalization group.

OTOH, math knows no boundaries, and that is an integral part of its seductive beauty. It's just numbers, all the way down. There are no infrared or ultraviolet catastrophes. There is no panpsychic catastrophe.

But wait, there is a sort of boundary between the decidable and undecidable. Is it Chaitin who has looked at this, particularly? Gregory, that is. This has to do with the halting problem and with Godel's incompleteness. His work is sufficiently esoteric so as to attract philosophical criticism.

No small part of the fascination with the Riemann Hypothesis is that it seems to lie about as close to the decidability boundary as it is possible to get to. The closer you get, the deeper you go, into the heart of the mathematical beast. Where is Sir Gallahad, when we need her? But we suspect that SG has already slain the beast, we're just trying to explain how it worked. Clearly, it has something to do with the meeting of our Enemy......

The Eschaton..... is it friend or foe? Will it be the death of entropy? Will life go on? Atoms..... we'd look funny without them. And mind the Gap!

But, no, see, it's not numbers all the way down. At some point we run into intuition. Mathematicians love to fight about the three different flavors of mathematics, particularly since the death of Hilbert's decidability program.


10:20--------

But the 'intuition' referred to, here, is not to be confused with intuitionism, one of the many flavors in the philosophy of mathematics, which I'll need to review, after I review the history of the Alawites, speaking of boundary problems.

I notice that the original 3 flavors of math have multiplied considerably, just since I checked, a couple of years ago. It's rather like sectarianism, wherein the splitting of hairs is the order of the day.


11:30----------

Wrt the Aliwites, I'm trying to make sense of the various messianic offshoots of Islam. I've not yet found a coherent/concise summary of messianic Islam. The bigger question is how has Christianity managed to avoid any such, specifically messianic, sectarianism, while Judaism and Islam frequently experience such schisms.

Where is the messianic exception to non-messianic Xianity? These are to be found in the various claimants to the SoT prophecy, wherein Joachim de Fiore seems to stand out, as, at least, being the prophet of the prophet.


Most Shiites are of the Twelver/messianic persuasion, expecting the 12th Imam, al-Mahdi, to reappear, with Jesus, in the Endtimes. As part of their belief in their messianic fulfillment, some offshoots, such as the Bahai and Aliwites, observe some of the Christian ceremonies, albeit often in private.

In their more frequent and schismatic Millenarian enthusiasms, the Shia are more like the Protestants, whereas the Sunnis are more like the Catholics, in their amillennialism. That the Philippines and Indonesians are almost exclusively Catholic and Sunni, respectively, may indicate a cultural convergence of some kind. One could even point to a north/south divide, but, in that case, the exceptions would prove instructive. Confucianism is an instructive exception. Taoism seems to carry the Millenarian seeds that are lacking in Confucianism. Millenarianism does seem to infect the populist idigenes of a given society or region.

Just try to find these bits of observations in the academy, or even on the Internet. In general, the PtB are not prone to eschatology. Duh!? The notion of Perpetual Progress, tabu though that subject is, is their best attempt, ever, to channel the plebeian enthusiasms into a work ethic, of some kind. So you can see why PP is such a sensitive topic. It is the thin blue line against anarchic charisms.


Hey...... here is a perfectly good overview of messianism, right in front of my nose!


IMHO, a very consequential lacuna of the above review is the non-mention of the cargo-cult messianism of ufology. The stone that the builders rejected is to become the cornerstone of eternity. Does MJ12 know this? They might.


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

Wow, yes, do read the above summary very carefully. It has offered several new insights.

As I preach and practice it, the Wiki movement is a crucial vehicle of the global messianic implosion of knowledge, i.e. of the MoAPS.


Next, I'll be comparing the Wiki and SEP versions of the philosophy of math.......


3pm---------

I was reading the wiki section on empiricism in mathematics, where Quine and Wilson were mentioned, and this led to Fodor who is (paradoxically?) both anti-Darwinian and anti-holism, but not a reductionist, either. He is a modularist and functionalist. This combination had not occurred to me. Not sure what to make of his anti-Darwinism. Is he the only non-theistic philosopher of that persuasion?

Fodor, particularly in his anti-Darwinism, is to be strongly distinguished from the New Mysterians, who, nonetheless, with their postmodern skepticism, somewhat muddy this water. These mysterians strike me as a particularly pernicious bunch. I may have their number, however, when they suggest that evolutionary progress in cognition may solve these mysteries. What then of AI, and Kurzweil, pray tell....?!




(cont.)

I'm a bit late getting on line today, and now I'll have to run out for a couple of hours......

The Baltimore Green Forum is having a planning meeting on Sunday, after I attend the SfA/GFC. Sam and I will need to discuss a bit of strategy. I will probably be allowed to give a presentation at the BGF, something I've not been allowed to do at the SfA, only with individual members.

My message to the BGF will be that we face an existential threat, and so we need to think outside the box. I have attempted to give the same message to the SfA, but they are refusing to give it any consideration.
-----------

In the meantime I've been reviewing object oriented ontology (OOO).......


And perhaps this afternoon I'll have time to outline the reasons why we can AND should take immaterialism seriously. I don't recall when I last attempted such a summary/review. This a good indication why I'm still in no position to contemplate a formal publication.


4:20---------------

And here is a quote from an article on correlationism v. OOO....

In some inspired passages from the second chapter of After Finitude, Meillassoux shows how correlationism, despite its central critical impulses, has opened the door at a conceptual level to all forms of religiousity. For where the in-itself is barred from knowledge, there is nothing to prevent one making any claim about the in-itself he might like so long as it remains at the level of faith or belief. Thus, paradoxically, correlationism, which destroyed the dogmatic path, provides the greatest and most secure refuge for religious irrationalism against the Enlightenment project. As such, Meillassoux will write, “[w]e are trying to grasp the sense of the following paradox: the more thought arms itself against dogmatism, the more defenseless it becomes before fanaticism” (AF, 48). Philosophy which is born with the rejection of mythos now finds that it must suffer the proliferation of superstition, religious fanaticism, and ideology everywhere due to its own internal constraints. The question of whether or not we can think a world without thought is thus the question of whether or not philosophy is possible.

IOW, OOO is an academic hail-Mary attempt to keep the transcendental out of modern discourse by enforcing an intellectual flat Earth.


Ok, now on to immaterialism........

1.) Materialism has not made any substantive inroads into the mind-body problem.

2.) Reverting to Cartesian dualism does, however, open the door to immaterialism.

3.) The resource/environmental crisis poses an existential threat to humanity.

4.) In facing that threat, we need to think outside the Box of modernism and materialism.

5.) We cannot move forward without considering whether, wrt humanity, we are dealing with a cancer or with a chrysalis.

6.) Something radical is required...... but will it be a surgery or, possibly, the mother of all paradigm shifts (MoAPS)?

7.) Therefore, I am asking BGF and GFC to consider the MoAPS.

8.) This could simply be seen as an exercise in thinking globally and acting locally.


6:15--------

Then there is a slight hitch, having to do with Chicken Little..... and just had another convo with CK.

And now a convo w/ Jack S about possibly going to SF before he goes to London.



(cont.)

For the record........

From: Dan Smith 
Date: August 3, 2012 10:24:40 AM EDT
To: CA and 11 others
Subject: Re: The AQUARIUM Reports ... case studies of mind and madness masquerading as espionage

>>>> Ebert acknowledged in his "Great Movies" essay that, like many viewers, he had initially underestimated the film's many virtues and only came to truly appreciate it through repeated viewings. In 2009, the American literary theorist and legal scholar Stanley Fish named the film as among the ten best American films ever. 

1.)  Do note the similarity between Punxsutawney Phil and the Aviary story of Ocelot and Ferret, the two birds that are not birds.  

2.)  In the conversation, CoK/RP asked for my take on Romney's eschatology, which had resurfaced on his visit to Israel.  I had not been aware of this stance.  

3.)  Our current predicament in history is rather similar to that of Phil's.  How do we break the loop?  Love is the answer, of course, but that will not come w/o an eschatological paradigm shift, i.e. the mother of all such shifts (MoAPS).  That is what I wish to discuss, yet again, with Jack, God willing.  


On Aug 3, 2012, at 6:03 AM, CA wrote:

Groundhog Day
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/plotsummary

"A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day" !!!

C...
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

From: Gary 
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2012 01:21:21 +0000
To: Dan Smith
Subject: Re: The AQUARIUM Reports ... case studies of mind and madness masquerading as espionage

CoK35 has yet to clarify his position on the religious, scientific, and IMHO deeper Platonic aspects of the issue raised by Dan.

Gary 

On Aug 2, 2012 6:01 PM, "Dan Smith"  wrote:

I just had a convo with Jack about possibly coming to SF before he leaves for London.  

I would be interested in interviewing Jack about the possibility of theism...... as in what DO we mean by 'God'?  

I have a call into Kim to check on the details......  

This was partly motivated by a call from CoK35.  


On Aug 2, 2012, at 5:57 PM, JACK SARFATTI > wrote:

100%
but it depends what you mean by "God"
The Judeo-Christian-Islamic "God" is a crock of $hit of primitive minds.
I agree with Christopher Hitchins on this.
God Is Not Great - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Is_Not_Great
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a 2007 book by the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens in which he criticises religion.
Contents - Critical reception - Sales history - See also
Just look at the Middle East
On the other hand, if you mean a conscious cosmic VALIS hologram computer on our future horizon - that's another can of wormholes.



On Aug 2, 2012, at 2:53 PM, Dan Smith wrote:

Jack, 

How certain are you that the existence of God is a fantasy?  

Dan 


On Aug 2, 2012, at 5:24 PM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:

as you like it, but this stuff is trite in my opinion

On Aug 2, 2012, at 2:13 PM, Gary  > wrote:

A sane world is a boring world :-)

Gary 

On Aug 2, 2012 1:34 PM, "JACK SARFATTI" > wrote: 

basically not interesting or important on what Dan's fantasies are - I like Dan as a friend but he is mad, quite mad, and so are you Gary. ;-)

On Aug 2, 2012, at 9:13 AM, Gary  wrote:

Just FYI for the record: I personally view Dan's experiences, often related in detail by Dan, as analogous to Jimmy Stewart's character, detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, in (what is now voted as) the number one best film of all time, "Vertigo." I was fortunate to have been dragged by a girlfriend into the theater to see the official re-release of "Vertigo" on the big screen in the early 1980s.

The point of all this is, of course, one must first experience the ride to understand the madness, but in the end, there will be (reasonable) resolution and explanation of behind-the-scenes psychological manipulation.

http://www.starpod.us/2011/08/12/conspiracy-theory-cia-911-cover-up-fbi-told-senior-official-had-prior-knowledge-2/

Discovery of the role played by Tom Drake, the senior NSA whistle-blower, which is now being examined by a documentary filmmaker for the BBC, may be the first step in that direction.

And then there is (yet another?) book on the question why...... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/why-does-the-world-exist-by-jim-holt.html?hp .....

Several of Holt’s cosmologists explore the possibility of there being universes “as plentiful as blackberries” (C. S. Peirce’s phrase). Universes may be popping into existence right now: each moment may generate billions of new ones. Perhaps all possible universes have existed from the start, including one that contains nothing. Perhaps everything exists because of fluctuations in quantum particles, or because an initial zero separated itself into +1 and -1, forming matter and antimatter. Perhaps only mathematical entities are real, and our physical world is an “outcropping” of mathematics. >>>

Could the world be an outcropping of consciousness? Does all nature have a subjectivity of its own? Or is the universe a device for producing goodness?

Anyone for a Panpsychic Catastrophe?


12:15-----------

This is the same book I've mentioned before, so now I broke down and bought it. It's hard to put down. I could easily spend a day or two just skimming it..... or just stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.....

I need to try to figure out Jack's future hologram..... how does it fit into the Allegory of the Cave that is a central feature of the BPWH/MoAPS? In the Susskind(?) model, strings of different lengths interact as if separated by space. That is how the holographic part works.


I just had a brief convo with Kim B, who works on Jack's website and video productions, to discuss some details about SF......


I'm on p. 6/309....... nothing new, yet, but the conciseness is breathtaking.....




(cont.)

Ok, here is a possibly not so minor epiphany wrt atoms, my old bugaboo......

Can't understand atoms w/o understanding God, and can't understand God w/o understanding atoms. Nothing new here...... No....? Well, maybe..... It's just that it is so easy to forget, and I often do. How could I, we might wonder? Well, allow me to put this in a different perspective......

We can't understand atoms, without understanding glass, for instance. And we can't understand glass w/o understanding fragility. And we can't understand anything outside of a network of paradigms that includes both good and evil.

For example, we cannot understand glass, without understanding the Crystal Nacht. And we cannot understand the Crystal Nacht, without understanding its redemptive potential.

This is a paradigmatic case of the hermeneutic circle that is the BPWH.

That's all.........!

Why haven't I seen this before. Well, I have, but not quite in so many words, and words are important....... something about publish or perish...... as they say.


This is also about spilt milk, and other entropic incidents. These are about our boo-boos and our bugaboos. God can kiss them and make them better. Don't we know? Why does our faith sometimes flag and fail? Faith is supposed to do that..... we've looked at faith from all sides, now.......

We are in the midst of making a difficult/traumatic transition from faith in Eternal Progress to faith in Eternity. That's all! This is our time of global tribulation. Let's make the most of it.


You and I are atoms of God, and it is so easy for us to forget this. Atoms are also atoms of God...... the only difference is that they never forget. They can't. We can.... and we can and will take that to the bank...... the big Bank in the sky.


So, when can we start holding our breath......? Just as soon as we're ready. Houdini was ready, but you and I are not...... not quite yet. I'd give it a couple hundred years, or so. Then we'll be ready! And, the funny thing is, we won't even notice. If we did, we'd turn blue in the face. Where there's a will, there's a way. Mind over matter, as they say......


And I do understand that watching the grass grow can be boring. But patience is a virtue for all of us, especially in these 'interesting' times. I do endeavor to be interesting, but in a way that our modern minds are not well accustomed to. The noise level is very high, these days, but this is also my best cover, speaking of fragility, wall flower that I am...... also keeping in mind Tennyson.


12:30--------

So, it is mainly about networking, but the nodes...... atoms, persons, God, etc., cannot be lost sight of. They will bite us in the backside, if we do. Mosquitoes are a favorite case in point..... a burr in our saddle that is Creation. Mosquitoes will be with us always? No, only for as long as we need them. It's kinda like breathing.

Mosquitoes, and the like, will help us to figure out the best path to the Eschaton. There are carrots and sticks. Half the fun will be getting there....... from Cancer to Chrysalis.


All I have to do now is figure out how to take over the BGF. IMHO, it will be like taking candy from a baby. After the BGF comes the SfA/GFC. After that, it's the world....... or I'll just have to eat my hat.


It has been said that we live in an unobstructed universe. Well, we have met the Obstruction, and it is us. The only question before us is what do we wish to do about it, and when do we wish to do it.




(cont.)

Jack Sarfatti wrote:

but it depends what you mean by "God"
>
>
>
On the other hand, if you mean a conscious cosmic VALIS hologram computer on our future horizon - that's another can of wormholes.

I have never had any serious problems with Jack's theoretical conceptualization of G-d.

Upon deep comparative analysis to Torah/Tanakh and New Testament theology, I find that Jack's view does not contradict biblical and extra-biblical representations of G-d. And further find that his hypothesis synergizes with biblical eschatology.

It's just semantics.

Jake,

Very good! So what can we do about this common ground?

I'm waiting for Jack to responded to my follow up, yesterday, about my coming out to SF.

Perhaps you and I should discuss the format for this next video......

I can include you in our email exchange.
---------


Jack has just responded positively to our meeting, prior to the 16th. I'm pressing him to have a preliminary discussion of an outline for our video session.


I'll be calling Sam at 5 to discuss tomorrow's BGF planning meeting.


What Jake and I need to discuss is the possibility of springboarding off of BGF and Jack, in order to 'take over' the SfA. It is a long shot, but is it a shot that we can afford to miss?



(cont.)

Certainly common ground, at least as it pertains to a conceptualisation of G-d. Don't think your BPWH could ever synergise with Jack's hypothesis though. As Jack's cosmic view is (in my understanding) considerably more expansive than yours.

Also, Jack's 'H' incorporates a construct for "perpetual progress". At least, for another few more billions years. And I don't see it possible for science to ignore the supportive data for this view.

And So....for a another video interview series to be productive (with you two), you would best be served to define/target 'topic' and desired outcome, as a framework. And of course, you two could still go off on your tangents, to add spice and entertainment, but agree to return to topic and resolution.

>

We could talk sometime this weekend. However, I'm going out to trim the hedges. So later. Sure, add me to your email:
jake_reason@zoho.com

Jake,

>>>> perpetual progress, for another few billion years, anyway.....?

This is the crux of the difference between us.....

Is Creation finite or infinite?

You suggest that the only Creation befitting an infinite Creator would be infinite.

Yes, superficcially, that sounds quite reasonable.

But, you need to remind yourself, Jake, that your reasoning is based mainly upon the ETH.

What you fail to understand is why most Christians support the UTH over the ETH. I have attempted to discuss this fact with you, over the past several years. Can you not even begin to appreciate why your fellow believers are overwhelmingly opposed to the ETH?

Only you and the Vatican appear to favor the ETH. Why should that be. I have a possible explanation for that, which we need to discuss.


The crux of the ETH v. the UTH has to do with the OEH v. the YEH. Am I right?

No modern minded person still accepts the young earth hypothesis, except ours, truly.

What are we to make of this impasse?


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

In effect, I'm putting out an APB concerning a putative CL initiative. By APB, I'm referring to Grace, Green, and Jack S, plus the IC. That pretty much covers my waterfront, without mentioning any possible siblings.

D-day is all about timing and cosmic intelligence (CI). This raises the very significant issue as to any putative connections btw the IC and CI. I continue to labor under the impression that there is such a connection, which, in the past, has come under the rubric of MJ12. It is hard for me to believe that there is not a residue of MJ12, nor that the old Aviary is not a part of that residue, whether or not any such individuals may or may not have been recently contacted.

My very first public communication with CoK had to do with the Chicken Little protocol wrt the Eschaton. If that protocol is not still in effect, then I must be out of the loop.

So, until we hear otherwise, we may, not unreasonably, assume that a four pronged eschatological initiative is in progress. I am present on this public forum by way of soliciting comments and suggestions as to this putative initiative.


IOW, OMF II constitutes a bona-fide fifth prong of the eschatological initiative, that has been underway since 9/'91. Have I left any stones unturned? Not TBMK......


And now there is this...... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/the-british-gift-to-american-letters.html?hp

Hey, I've always had a soft spot for those Brits, which, in no small part, may be due to my regicidal ancestry..... viz. the Scrope-Throop connection. Hey, being drawn and quartered in London is just a bit of sibling rivalry. No? No offense taken.

Adrian may have been the last such, prior to the 'modern' era. Don't we love these moderns?

This tidbit of history may help to explain why I am never too reluctant to fraternize with the IC. Hey, wrt to the nasty stuff...... been there and done that, and I may even have the T-shirt.

And let's not forget that another ancestor(ess) was scalped by the indegenes. So, yes, we seem to have it, coming and going...... Serves us right....?

That would barely be published today, at least in those parts of the American media that make a solemn cult of accuracy and balance, fearful of even honest opinion, to the point that statements of the obvious must be sterilized by such quaint circumlocutions as “analysts say that ...” I’ve no doubt at all that there have been budding homegrown heirs to Mencken and Macdonald, but they’ve been educated out of their wits. And so when America wants guilty journalistic pleasure, it has to bootleg in bad boys from the old country. It might be our final revenge for Yorktown.

Educated out of their wits........ or http://www.amazon.com/Too-Smart-our-Own-Good/dp/052176436X ?


And now this, also from the NYT (op-ed).......

Palestinians were genuinely saddened, however, by the fact that he deliberately chose to ignore us. There was nary a word about our plight, our day-to-day challenges, our rights and our future. We were here, just meters away from his entourage, yet we were not on his radar or on his agenda.

To paraphrase an ancient observation: Romney came. He saw only what his advisers permitted him to see. And he conquered his fund-raising goals by saying what his boosters insisted on hearing, while completely ignoring one of the two peoples who live here.

But peace is not made by ignoring one party while lionizing the other. In Palestine, we stubbornly continue to hope that the occupant of the White House will one day recognize this.

Shame on you, Mitt.


6:15--------

Because of Mitt's lack of openness, he does not deserve to be the POTUS. I will be glad to pronounce a fatwa on his presidential ambitions, should that be appropriate.

I did discuss my potential meeting with JS, with my sister. She has been aware of him, or so it would seem.


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

Convo w/ ck suggests that I will not get a fair deal w/ js. He suggests a conversation with sh or ap. I'm still waiting to hear from kb.

I should mention that he was resistant wrt the ca v. ch dichotomy, but I remained insistent, and it seemed that he relented, IMHO.

.