Week 9

Two months into the new year and I am still continuing my experiment in attending a weekly congregation in my neighborhood. I find myself looking forward to attendance. I missed a service a few weeks back and it weighed on my mind for the rest of the day. Fascinating that I should start to miss something that 10 weeks ago I didn't really even know existed.

I've met a variety of people there. I've continued contact only with a handful of these. Introverts, extroverts, a pretender, people seeking the same way I do, people taking vastly different paths to get there.

I've told a handful of people in my life about it, but so far nobody has shown interest in attending. I guess I can understand, and besides, my journey is my own.

One of my favorite things about the congregation is in the way they are rather democratic, in all material that are posted which try and represent the ideals of the organization. Furthermore, instead of having a set doctrine for the youth, at the end of their "coming of age" class they are encouraged to present to the whole congregation what it is that they believe. I find this truly remarkable.

I heard an off hand remark about the theist vs atheist distribution which said that about 40% of the attendees were aged atheists who long ago grew tired of the hypocrisies inherent in any organised religion. I can definitely see how they would find a haven there, where humanist ethics seems to be the stronghold.

Networking has been an interesting bit of learning. I feel slightly safer being myself there than I do in many places, though I'm still hesitant to drop all pretenses at all times. It's still early yet. Stay tuned for another update after tomorrow...

Adolescence

As a teenager, having people like you is paramount. Everybody needs somebody, and that doesn't change. But when you're 13 or even 19 you haven't quite gotten used to your new adult size shoes. You make mistakes, and those mistakes have consequences. We've all heard stories of a young life, caught up in something, and extinguished forever. There are consequences worse than death.

There are other feelings that accompany that time in all our lives, some long forgotten in adulthood, but seemed our only reason to live. Perhaps they were, at the time. However much or little a person goes through in that time, greatly effects the entire outcome of their life, though nothing is permanent.

In today's world, there is an Internet revolution happening. The young are a part of it, but they had no choice. Those who did have a choice, but lagged behind, struggle to adopt the latest in powerful information tools. With all that going on in this new evolution, the technology revolution of the last 100 years or so, the outcome is unpredictable because of the amount of variables.

The complexity of this futuretime blinds today's human's capacity for understanding. It's a simulation in size that dwarfs anything we've invented yet, though nothing stays the same forever.

Knowing all that, there are certain assumptions according to convention that are refereed to as "safe." The first is following a global trend towards democracy and globalization. The second is the global trend towards educating (and hopefully feeding) every child.

Third, arts and media will continue to change slowly, held back from it's natural pace because of being locked up in court too often. There is quite a lot of evidence out there to back this up. Success comes with sharing, not limiting, media in every art. In order to get a statue, somebody must buy the clay and copper. Material goods don't apply as much to this point. Licensing laws are going to be hard to change, but bit by bit, word is getting out that there are already legal alternatives to protecting (and growing) reputations. Copy-left, Creative Commons, GNU, and so on.

Four. When the time comes, pick up your heels and run. There may not be an apocalypse, as in the end of times, but the seeds have already been planted and sprouted for what is going to grow out of the current climate. As with anything unfamiliar, it will frightened many, many people.

Five. Expect casualties.

Six. Hope for the truly unexpected.

Seven. Water is the new oil. Water is not just business, it's life. It's been abused so much. There are some good fighters still out there. Sign up for the Council of Canadians e-newletter.

Eight. Certain things will seem like they will never change.

Nine. The future is coming sooner than you think.

Week 1

Once a week until further notice, this weblog will take a new, even more personal direction. Today, yours truly attended a service at the local Unitarian Universalists congregation. It is my intention to write about my experiences at this church, aiming to give my readers an impression of the sort of place it is, and the sort of people one could expect to encounter there.

In this post you'll firstly find some background information about the structure of the church, it's foundations and current global presence. Then I'll share in no uncertain terms my own degrees of belief in the metaphysical philosophies, and world religions as they have been revealed to me at this point in my life through study and meditation. I'll finish by describing the specifics of this local chapter and my predictions for how a newcomer would fit in.

From the information that is publicly available about Universalists, they're mantra is "we're all on our own journey, together." To put it in a little more detail, the purpose of attending congregation is not dissemination of belief, but simply education about religions, historic and present. During the service, The intension of the minister is to try and keep as even a ground as can be had when you have a small number speaking before a larger group. This is in order to acknowledge the wide variety of deists, atheists and other non-deists, and those with beliefs that are less easy to categorize, such as Buddhists.

The especially exciting, and important part is the after-words. The opportunities offered to allow for a open discussion of whatever beliefs an individual wishes to share, or ask about on completely equal ground in a slightly less exposed but still public way.

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
www.uua.org

A succinct version of my own beliefs is neccesary in order to demonstrate the shape of the piece my form will take within the puzzle.

There is room for the belief in many things in a single mind. Even some things which on the surface may seem contradictory. In a human brain, it will seem there are ten thousand voices. There is the old woman. There is the small boy. There is the working man. There is the wandering girl. There is a hero and there is a jester. There is the villain, and many, many more. They each see the world in a different way and offer some thought that is then spoken with a single voice. Such is the nature of my understanding, and belief.
The mind can speak as a single voice, but it thinks as every individual experienced or imagined by that mind. This is directly observable in the way that children learn and repeat spoken languages, and emulate and impersonate the behavior of others.
Belief is what we do above and in-between what we perceive as facts. Not nearly opinions, beliefs run deeper and must be disproved to be changed in the heart of the individual.
Where the heart lies in the human mind, or even for certain that it exists, cannot be told. The spiritual foundation for consciousness is evidenced only self-perception, and to a certain degree, intelligence. That leaves room in the Great Unknown for non-human consciousness, however which beings are conscious other than the majority of humans, also cannot be told.
The Universe is big. Really really, authentically massive in every conceivable dimension and sense. It may even be infinite (although there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest otherwise.) Still the truly immense size of All That Is, Has Been, and Ever Will be, leaves a lot of room for discovery, and we've only just begun the journey.

To step back into the immediate reality for a moment, and touch on how I think all of this is going to come together over the next score of Sundays. The people that I encountered today are open, informed, and some I would even describe as some of them as truly friendly. They seemed to welcome me without expectation of anything. They had no greater desire than to know my name and welcome me to the group. I look forward to sharing my journey with them, and with you, my dear readers, as I continue looking outward for the answers to my inner questions. Taking one more step down the path to enlightenment.

Namaste.

How a program can evolve.

We are born a set of instructions. DNA is a recursive algorithm. This means it's results create the next equation. If we introduce random elements through sexual reproduction, some decision making, those algorithms evolve. They integrate with neighboring algorithms quite comfortably, all the same.

We had trouble "fitting it all on the disk" at first. But in the near future those little plastic disks will be able to store tremendous volumes of data. Then comes the cloud. Both frightening due to the legal, moral, and privacy implications and kind of wonderful if you ignore those, you have a place where you never run out of disk space.

A thing to love about this universe is that humans are not the only recursive algorithm that produces intelligence. There is intelligence all over the place on this planet.

That's where technology set us apart. We have made technology that creates new algorithms without human interference (except indirectly). These algorithms are not merely recursive, but they evolve based on a set of initial parameters and interaction with the outside world. "Tests."

Within the next decade, one of those tests will be "convince most people, most of the time, that you are a human being."

It is my hope they call him/her/it Turing, but it will probably be called Kurzweil. Of course, there, there will be a female version, either first or shortly after. Imagine the pornography. A lot of people will want to to light a fire with this AI. Religions will mobilize, fracture, and lie. Politians will capitalize, and destroy. People will come together and disagree.

Coming home

There is a semi-popular concept that all sentient beings know where "home" is, and the further that being is from this place, the more they feel it's pull on their center. It's rather unscientific but like most apocrypha, still compelling.

Do nomads not feel the urge to find a place where they will be prosperous, and welcome?

When our nanoscopic ancestors leave Earth in search of whatever basic elements they require for growth, and spread amongst the other planets, our local star, and then eventually, others deemed suitable, it's an interesting question as to whether they will ever feel the need to report back.

Is homesickness simply an evolutionary mechanism, in place to guide us to safety, or is it something deeper than instinct?

At the current rate of acceleration of increase in performance per cost in computing by 2020 we'll see machines with the same capacity for calculations per second as a human brain. They will pass any test put to them by a human to determine their consciousness. We'll be able to plug our own minds into a virtual world with many forms of direct sensory input. We'll have virtual bodies, and feel how they interact with the virtual world. We'll be able to modify them in many ways. By 2030, machine (non-biological) intelligence will be highly affordable and thus accessible, and already surpassing many of the abilities of an unaugmented human brain. Ten years later, we'll have very tiny machines capable of modifying our read-world bodies in an nearly any way we can conceive.

It's only a few steps from here that we'll go out into the darkness just to see what is there. It's comparatively easy to accelerate such tiny things to speeds approaching c, than it is to send one of our primate bodies "out there."

Forget star ships. Try imagining star peas, or star dandruff flakes.

Moving on to other accomplishments. Without the need for breath, with full control over one's senses, and one's body... Is enlightenment as described by all the Zen masters not then possible?

Perfect Clarity, Perfect Stillness, Perfect Love, Perfect Beauty, Perfect Truth. Persistent Perfection, at least in the mind of the observer.

Our world may be on the brink of destruction, but if we survive long enough to shed the need for these worldly bodies, we're in for a complete transformation of consciousness. Maybe the Sacred Texts were onto something after all...

Vibrations

Music
Sound
Energy
Light
Time
{Numbers}
Life/Finity
Exploration
Virtual Reality
Real Reality
Singularity
Movement
Transformation
Information
Time
{numbers}
Space
Space
Vibrations.


[note] Those on the mailing list will receive this as a stand alone piece, but it was rather unexplained. The following is what an art dealer might say in place of the author. .

"He felt compelled to count space twice at that point without doing so I think would have resulted in a regressive loop. This art piece is a comment on our present and future. A sort of listing of paradigms of our (technologically accelerated and) inevitable evolution.

To start with music seems to be a personal choice. It could be that it would open the mind to something every conscious being hears. There is therefor a natural progression from it to every other place. Maybe if we didn't have a beating heart or a pulsing brain we wouldn't hear it the same.

I've known the author personally and we've talked many times. He believes that time is not as linear as it seems. There are problems with the idea. Unsolved equations scatter the grease boards of a hundred physicists. (they have other problems.) Anyway, without asking, I can tell you that method of placing numbers after time refers to these and other mysteries.

This is the end of the note. Thanks for indulging. Back to your regularly "scheduled" updates after Halloween. Happy Trick or Treating Brownies and Nymphs, Ghouls and Gimps, Hectors and Spectors, Brain Wave Detectors, Hannibal Lectors, Mummies and Bats, Poodles and Rats, Vampires and Gaga's, Hoo Hoo's or Haa Haa's. Happy Hallow's Eve!

La vita nuova

what is mind?

The sum of all choices and experiences, genetic predispositions and the imagination. This definition of mind restricts the discussion to humans and all (even imaginary) human-like beings that will be henceforth referred to as humanoids.

When we use the expression "that machine has a mind of it's own" we're using metaphor. Specifically the metaphor is MIND IS ANIMATION. We don't literally mean that it's doing any thinking or imagining. This is true, even with all modern computers. These computers have no self-input. With us, it's different. We see, and smell and feel. We make decisions based on experiences in hopes of having more experiences. We have a soul.

Does that mean that nothing else can have a soul but a human?

If we imagined aliens from another planet coming to visit earth. Walking, talking, eating, breathing, reproducing aliens; we would grant they have not just life, but a life like we have. Similar in all the ways that each of us is the same. Most people would agree that we're more the same than different, as spectacular as our differences may at sometimes seem. Because of such, these humanoids can also be said to have a soul.

You and your neighbors all have a soul. It's the thing you have now that no longer inhibits your body when you die. Thus all entities we declare "alive" have some sort of soul. When they cease to exist, they're gone forever.

Back to the original question, when we look at what we consider "mind" we see that wherever it resides, it's not in the brain alone. We externalize our mind in many ways. The cognitive work done by the mind is shared between the brain, the body and all of our surroundings. We read books, and put them back on the shelf. We browse webpages and leave them bookmarked. We build infrastructure, and machines that cut down on our need process thought to accomplish tasks. A simple kitchen counter, for instance, alleviates our need to find different surfaces for everything in the preparation of a meal. Lined paper helps us keep things written down straight, facilitating both the reading and writing of the literature.

So it's very possible our mind to live on in the world around us, well after our soul has expired. In the memories of those that survive us, and in everything we touched; metaphorically speaking. Mathematics, science, fashion; Engineering, medicine; Art; these practices and systems of thought are all ways that we folks with minds have learned from, and advanced in, our world.

No entity then, would we grant the honor of recognizing mind, unless it has it's own thoughts. Unless it changed it's behavior in different environments and learned from every new experience. Observing, learning, touching, then repeating all this many many times until someday it has what we call feelings.

The entity would naturally then feel ways about stuff. When it's experienced itself in the shoes of other mindful beings, it recognizes certain similar situations. This human or humanoid would then develop tendencies to respond to those situations in keeping with it's experiences, learnings and imagination.

Those tendencies we would label "a mind of it's own."

Do you believe in an afterlife?

In every life, there are moments of inward reflection. Perhaps for some, fewer than others, but it's this writer's opinion that it's always at least once. In every case, the cause of death is always a lack of blood in the brain. That means there is always a split second before it actually happens when you know unless you get a cannonball from behind above the shoulders or are instantly vaporised in an accident at the LHC in CERN.

Heck if you're caught in a black hole it could last years.

Going back to the original point, it happens. If anybody ever came back from death, through powerful healing, it's likely they would remember some of that flash of glory.
There isn't much evidence to support any of this, but let's just leave that point in the philosophical, shall we?

So what's left to analyze? Well we could examine the patterns in the worlds six major religions. Nah. How about trending atheism since the years of Christ? Too wikipedia for you? Alright. Lets go with... why does suffering exist?

Actually, the answer is both simple and incredibly complex, and as it turns out, it's not really an answer either.

"Without darkness,
how else would we recognize the light?"

When studying the mind, one learns quickly that the slightest difference between love and hate, good or evil, and a chasm between doth appear. To see suffering as merely an opposite of pleasure is to miss the point entirely. Suffering is a result of attachment.

The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

Atisha (11th century Tibetan Buddhist master)

My personal favorite is the one about the passions. It's quite apt.

mobile update

How cool is it to be online anywhere without cords or a keyboard?

An Essay

Why I believe there is hope in the future of humanity

aka when robots master the earth

The Sum

Of

Human Experiences

Can

Only

Be Found

In Art

The sum of all our dreams, our technology, our history. Of all our hopes and politics. Human experience is varied and the same (eg. We all have mothers, though all our mothers are different.) Can such infinite dimensions and infinite possibility truly be described as a scientific truism? Only the gods could form so perfect a philosophical question that could cause description of all that is known and unknown?

Found as art, a piece can be infinite on the canvas of the mind of the observer.

Fractals are a literal example. Though the fractal is contained within the image boundaries, it can represent an infinitely long line (∞). The less literal example of such an object d'art is found as words on a page. Simple, but beautiful, and powerful. The record of our personal, global human histories, including what is unfolding right now in the present. There is art in every day. It can be seen if you are free to see it.

There will come a time when the delay between the request for information from the Internet is virtually nil. Be it through voice command, tactile input, or some sorta brain thingy, it's going to be fast and accurate.

There is every likelihood that the Internet and all computer technology was released to the public by the military, with consideration of this reason. Of course, there is every likelihood that the opposite could be true and it bring about a kind of global enlightenment and peace. (If you ask me, I'm an optimist, but also a realist.)

Whatever the intentions of it's inventors, the Internet is here to stay. It will be a source of profound study by our ancestors, be they flesh, metal, or otherwise. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it could be stored in crystals for until the end of the Earth? Or better yet, sent to other habitable planets with the seeds of life? Maybe we should all listen to the hippies and hear the sounds in the stone. Maybe not.

There is some concern amongst my contemporaries in the technology and science depts that suggests the future of may kind may not be in bodies of flesh and blood at all. That robot technology is improving year over year and month after month. That creating an intelligence first requires a sophisticated body and that very body will eventually be possible and at least somewhat cost effective.

Then comes the brain. An energy efficient multinodal Aneural network of lightspeed processors capable of understanding sarcasm, intentions and deceptions, and perhaps even other complex emotional states, and because it can understand them, it can "feel" them. After all, our brains are just very complex machines.

You might want to turn the sound off for this one:

The Internet represents everything new. It represents a new way to think about life, and especially about space.

Every old way of doing something, from running a corporation, to keeping a band together & hot, becomes new. Problems of communication solved, and so ideas are shared across borders both physical and social. At every level of thinking; a permanent, highspeed, borderless, limitless meta-media connection between people; rocks the boat. I can share something with you that you experience with 2 of your senses so far, sometimes even now there is touch involved. You can expect the minutes you spend touching or being touched by technology to increase exponentially (with every generation, every decade or less). We've already had Smell-O-Vision before, maybe that'll make a comeback.

Business, religion, romance, government; All the ways we take care in communication have all been revised, and are constantly being re-evaluated, or enhanced by some connected form of technology. And this is not a new trend; It's been the same since the late 1800's in a way that is beyond human minds and paper.

Fate

Two girls, both are daughters, but one is a mother, too. On the same day, in the same place, get a tattoo of essentially the same thing. They know each other, friends, but they don't know the other is doing it. They call each other to share the news only to find out what's really happened.

Events clearly unfolded as a result of their personalities, and personal history at that point.

Now, consider a different sort of moment. Two people, old friends in new clothes, are out stirring up trouble, and documenting their exploration of a new place, when one of them runs into a third individual known to them headed towards soirée. The pair tag along and find themselves someplace completely new, surrounded by strangers in a strange place.

What happens next? Is it a matter of cosmic alignment, or is it, like the parallel ink just a coincidence?

To attempt at answering this question would be an exercise in futility, egotism and even heresy. However, we can still make progress by reducing the problem into it's relevance, importance, and meaning.

Case 1) Observer theory: The assumption is that only one or the other can be true.

Either we decide our own present events for ourselves, able to change our minds right down to the salient event; The moment that time "moves forward" in the mind of all the observer.

Else-wise, every moment, every event is written into Time, determined by the series of events and choices leading up to the point where it feels to us as if we have the choice in the present. History appears to us as if we said the words, but the words were already spoken.

Time is written in our memories, and in our art. It's every vibration and written into every precious stone on Earth. But is it written before it happens?

Case 2) Ghost in the machine: That both are true

The future happens. The present is predestined not by the infinite factors of reality, but by the people in it.

Case 3) Some third option.

Such as M theory. That every possibility that can happen, does happen. This means that within the confines of Natural Law, there is no choosing, only possibilities. The Universe was born not a a particular moment in time, or in space, but It was born out of a higher "possibility space" where perhaps "nothing" "happened" for a "long time". Then suddenly something did happen, and that something we call home. It's mostly empty, so vast as to be beyond imagination, but still remains incredibly interesting and detailed down to the smallest scale. The Universe balanced; sometimes stable, relatively predictable, other times mysterious, chaotic and dangerous. Life is a microcosm for reality. Whatever laws govern matter, must also determine a great deal about what life seems like for those living it here. And that means you and me.

When machine becomes mind.

There is a theory in current cognitive science that suggests that if a number of partially interconnecting nodes in certain configurations, in numbers equal to the neurons of any particular animal's brain, would constitute a kind of animal intelligence.

Prelimenary work on this theory is inconclusive, although some success has been made in replicating certain types of intelligence. Creating original and beautiful (by human opinion) music, is one. Chess, and many other games can be played by computers. There are examples of them painting complex original works, for another. I could go on, but not all night.

It's amazing (in my opinion) that we have made it this far. Humans don't tend to ever lose technology. They just find less use for it over time. If there was a graph, it's apex is usually within a century of it's invention. This in itself is a recent development, but only if you consider the entirety human history. Before than, the apex may have come millenia after the initial discovery that led to the technological revolution.

Assuming we can continue innovating (we don't run into a catastrophe) then it's safe to assume at some point we'll create a program, running on hardware that is difficult to imagine, that we can replicate a complete and witty computer mind.

A decade or so later, we might have one on a 1000$ machine. Imagine, if the herPhone or hePhone itself was worth calling.

But none of this will be possible without a fuller understanding of the human brain. As it is right now, we've only really scratched the surface on how the chemistry of our emotions is made up. There are pheromones, hormones, peptides, cannibinoids, and loads of other amazing and difficult to reproduce strings of proteins and other chemistry that are at play inside your head, even as you read this.

So not only will we have to master interconnections and plasticized circuitry, evolving cognitive patterns, and a hundred other attributes of thought, we must replicate the organic compounds, or at least their neurological and psychological effects. Add to this, the trouble of teaching the computer to "learn" instead of just being fed databases. To truly integrate information, ideas, and other creations into the Nodemind. To make it's own conclusions based on the available information, and it's own experiences since it was first activated, as we do. You may be reading the term Nodemind here first.

So, when our hePhones or herPhones have simulated faces, and simulated minds, are helpful, friendly, sometimes rude/polite, sometimes interesting/annoying, in short, rounded individuals, will humanity be ready to accept them? Will we still be so foolish as to think of such an entity as a possession; as owned?

What will be the rights assigned to them? What will we consider crimes, both commited against them, and by them? What would be the punishment? What would they consider rewarding, that we could provide? Perhaps like us, they will be curious, inquisitive, explorers of the digital universe. How will they be limited? Will they all be able to communicate with the others like them? Will they want to? Could they ever plot against us without us knowing? Will we remember to include a failsafe?

Sounds like what used to be questions for science fiction is about to include a jolt of alarming reality.

If human beliefs are the sandbox, our spiritual/religious beliefs are the wood blocks. Inevitably, after playing in the sand for the summer, you have to either buy more sand or grow the box to get back the sand that fell out. The sand in this metaphor is E, or Qi, or in plain English, the energy.

The Torah, the Ko'ran and the Bible were all superbly well written books, all with many layers of meaning, routed in an interesting history. The Abrahamic (read: "western") religions all speak of a God that seems to be pervasive, omnipresen, and therefor somehow outside the Self. Hinduism sees, as do Buddhists and particle physicists, that the all is in the Self. It is the Self. You are always with your Self. Conversely your Self is always with you. Some scientists call the conscious Self the "observer".

In Hinduism, gods of everything are worshipped, and every living thing is considered worthy of praise. The river and the mountain tops.The rain, and the earth. The sun and all the many billions of stars. But still, why do we worship them, but for their value in the cosmic universe. If you, [insert name], was not there to witness your universe, it would not exist. That's a fact that can be proven through experiment and some serious math bonkers. [googl: wiki double slit experiment]. Make sure you you include the wiki part, else you Googl something your grandmother doesn't want to see.

Tao of Spiritual Machine (cont'd)

The importance of living in the present during meditation is central to the true purpose of No-Mind. When reflecting, in No-Thought, be as a diamond in the the Indra Net:

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

'Karma should be part of any religion, and I'm starting to see how that's true for any of the big ones, in many ways. ' -S.M. in conversations with D.

The Truth

'Certain things are unfalsifiable. God comes to mind. Mind, is another one. One, there be you. You, sneaky body. Hey body, how do you feel?

Words. A conversation about words is a meta-conversation. Composed of a meta-context, with meta-words, about meta-things.'

Spiritual Machine

'What? I like saying whilst, alright.'

Steve P

Whilst exploring the dimensions of thought, one comes across certain cliff faces that appear insurmountable. But given time, you'll find thought-foot holds that allow you to bound up the face sometimes with speed that surprises even the mental-climber. Pondering upon and into all the different places around us puny sentient blobs of carbon. Cowboys in a gun slingin' universe. Whipping around the sun at frightening speeds. The sun itself which is zooming through the galaxy through drifting cosmic debris, remnants of an explosion that makes anything Hollywood's ever done seem like candles in the wind. I'm talking about the first creation. Actually, it may only be the most recent. We really have a tough time figuring out how we could figure it out. And the galaxy's no slouch either. Playing cosmic marbles in the dip in the playground concrete that is our Universe. Trying not to get hit by a Slammer.

That brings me to black holes. Those tricky wacky powerful singularities. They are the cosmic tombstone of a dead stars. While what they do can't be considered "sucking" it's hard not to associate their infinite curvature with mouth from Star Wars that almost swallows one of the protagonists whole. Massive, and deadly. The curvature we're talking about is not so much it's shape in any normal way of thinking about it, but instead it's affect on the local space-time. Here's what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime (don't scroll down unless you want a headache.)

All the stuff that we can see and detect seems to fall into the curve and nothing comes back out. Can't help but ponder if the other side is a universe just like ours but opposite in matter. I supposed I must be touching on some of the work at the LHC but I honestly began the thought out there.

Well, I've got to get to some homework and chores.

Festive winter solstice.

Love,

Steve P

The conflict between Samsara (Sanskrit: संसार ) and Nirvana is that it's everywhere around us in the phenominal world. Where as oneness, or Nirvana (Sanskrit: निर्वाण ) does not have a location in our time-space based manner of perception. What brings the divide them is the human tendency to create duality. This tendency is well recorded in studies of the animal mind. Ying and Yang, this and that, seperation and qualification. ex: | Good and Evil | Fine and Bad | You and me | Mind and Body |. Creating even the most basic classification of this and that, and you put between them an infinite chasm.

When our mind perceives time, it's not as a series of minutes and hours, but rather as a description of saliant events. These event's are recorded in our mind, focused, if ever, by our perceptions. The absolute plasticity limit of the mind is astounding, but guaranteed finite so long as our physiology doesn't drastically change. Even so, when a mind as at it's most fresh, clear and open, learning like a child is possible at any age.

When....

...you have a past from which you fail to draw warmth, energy and power (to love with)... for get it.

...you are attached to your material fictions to a point where you are blind to the joy of life... ferget it.

...you are afraid of your past, you avoid parts of your Now, and shy of the infinite possibilities of the future... futget it.

Opening your mind is as simple as telling yourself to believe. In order to believe (know) something, you must first, listen to it. In order to listen, you must quiet your surroundings. Eliminate distractions. Eliminate useless self-doubt. When your mind is quiet, you can listen. Only when your mind is quiet, can you listen.

There is an old saying.

When I listen, I know.

When I see, I remember.

When I do, I understand.

An important part of living in the Now, and seeing the world that is passing before your eyes, is being willing to let go of the past. Time is like a river. Sit, and listen as it goes by. All the voices are in the river, flowing past, and you learn from them. When you let the river flow by, the voices do not disappear, for they are still in the river.

The moment you dismiss the world as it is, in favor of emotions and ideas in the past, you begin to empty.

Author's note:

I'd like to take a second here to point out, that without using the language of religion, some of these concepts, or words, here may seem inappropriate. Admittedly, I'm writing this as more of a philosophy piece. Strictly known and understood science will resume next time. Consider that a promise.

When empty, their is only an echo of the mind. A distant, if not less potent consciousness, muted by our attachments, away from the Now. To bring yourself back to the now, you must only listen once again, to the voices in the river.

Forget these words.

Strange Days

strange days
If we don't get these next few things right, Humanity as we know it won't survive. What a time to live in.

The struggle to survive could end up as close to every citizen alive as when we were all living in caves. Different of course... It's possible we won't have easy access to clean, public sources of water. We'll have to line up at the Coke or Pepsi factory. We'll need to get oxygen from Air Co. Our food, well... that's the point, isn't it. The world is getting hungrier and demand could soon outstrip supply.

On to other, admittedly more interesting subjects... Stories are of great importance to a growing, learning, evolving society. Stories give us examples of events that can mean something to the listener. They can shine a bright light on an idea, person, or other symbolic object. If the stories about him, and what he said are true, Jesus was among this universe's best work.

God's Son? That part is unknowable, and highly unlikely. I wonder at Mary's ability to look her husband in the eye and tell him it wasn't his kid, and that she was still a virgin. But whatever part of it is history and what parts of those events are mutually agreed upon legend, is not important. What's important are the things that were said.

Words like soul, and spirit, are abstract concepts but ones that should also not be thrown around ill-defined, lest we be misunderstood. The worst thing that could happen to a conversation is to be misunderstood. Still, some things in the conceptual space are difficult to nail down. Like, thinking about what happens to us when we die, or the feeling of seeing a beautiful sunrise.

In order to examine the possibility of any sort of organized pattern of energy existing beyond this life, it's perceptions and attachments, the energy cannot be left undefined. So;

Mind: The structure of thoughts. The web of our consciousness, and the cognitive driving force behind every kind of creation decision that comes from a living creature, most prominantly on Earth, humans.

Spirit: That which makes us who we are. Our public and private personality(s) along with the experiences that form the soul. Which brings us to;

Soul: The essence of our being. The perceptual time and possible reality space that we take part in on this precious adventure called life.

To understand the underlying patterns of energy in the body of a conscious being is the purest pursuit in the investigation of the human soul. To reproduce them artificially is the dream of futurists and technologists (and cyborgs) everywhere.

Seek not enlightenment, it must come to you.

The patterns inside us, can not only be felt, but also it correlates with concentrations in points of exchange and transference in the body. The sex, belly, the heart, the brain. With discipline and effort of the will, they can be called upon to supply force. Though the force can diminish if concentration is lost, the essence of it remains always. A warm glow, or dim spark. We, you and me, can retreat into it when one needs. And the way is dark and cramped, we can come back to it, and it will get us through, though we may still take some cuts and bruises. Realize your emotions are meaningful when it comes to your body. The energy flows hot inside you and it can be release it outwards. Once released, it's effect spreads to the limits of the mind.

If the adult consciousness is like a spotlight shining on some thing, the baby mind is more like a lantern shining in all directions.

When we are born, we are therefor much more conscious than adults. As we grow older, through childhood and adolescence, and our minds form semi-permanent pathways. Maleable like plastic when the spotlight shines upon their general or specific expertise.

Thoughts and ideas form that can only be broken by irregular thoughts. Your mind and mine reach out with powerful mental "limbs" into all sorts of places. Both physically and cognitively. What may happen to the body's sense in our life, that part of the mind does not simply disappear. It either gets "saved" with "backup" copies. There are traces ancient and prehistorical in every mind. DNA is information, stored molecular patterns.

The blind and deaf single cell, so minuscule yet complex still, is hard to empathize with but, it too, is conscious in a way speaking. According to some stories, you existed as one once.

On the topic of reincarnation; On a personal note, Buddhists and I do not share the same faith. Not because I don't think it's possible but just that it's impossible to observe or reproduce in the lab or even on the greaseboard.

Take care of each other.

Future Tech

Idea for an application for Enhanced Reality simulation.

A real-world/virtual space cross-over online multiplayer combat simulation.

(refer to jpegs in storage for explicit diagrams, and design ideas)

While in enhanced space, going about humdrum everyday activities, getting to work, if your body is still required for it at that time, buying bread, etc. You have the ability to turn on "game mode." By this time our ability to shift rapid focus between reality and enhanced reality will have improved with practise. When game mode is enabled, the user, you, me and her, and that guy across the street will fight virtual enemies interacting with the real environment.

Controls must be setup to require only a minimal amount of input to provide maximum effecacy without disturbing the evironment (street, train, car) however the processor will return a great deal of real-time effects for the input. Perhaps a glovelike device taking inputs from the thumb and two strong fingers, and the headset detecting minute movements of the eyes and neck.

Enemies would vary according to the propoganda at the time, but may include politicians, lawyers, police, zombies, nazis etc.

The game would advance in levels with the same enemies increasing in accuracy and "damage" for more experienced players. However, the enemies and other contructs of the game would be simulatneously broadcast and synced through the MAN (metro area network).

The real city, with the most virtual kills would be host to a championship party where the best players would gather in a city wide contest. Prizes would vary from year to year. Smaller prizes would include better weaponry for the game, better armour, and top winners could win the latest version of the "console" or EnR headset. Since a great deal of the calculating would be done at the central server instead of the local machines, hackers/cheaters/modders would be detected quickly.