Influences

Interesting article on New Scientist.com….here is the first paragraph.

Is the matter in the universe arranged in a fractal pattern? A new study of nearly a million galaxies suggests it is – though there are no well-accepted theories to explain why that would be so.

Can’t really comment on it right now because I haven’t had time to digest it…and I need to get a proposal out. But the concept strikes me as obscenely profound.

I will definitely be chiming in on this in a bit.

It’s funny.  I was reading an article about a really elegant model of spacetime in Scientific American on the crapper last night…I tend to do all of my reading in there…sort of my version of “a study”.  Anyway, the geometry described in the piece reminded me of “the reality” that users of DMT often see.

I find this very interesting because, as you probably know, I am very interested in the unexplored space between science and spirituality.  I believe that there is a set of fundamental ideas that unify these ways of exploring reality.  And to that end, I believe, as do many others, that altering your state of consciousness whether through meditation, entheogens, or otherwise can provide powerful insight into the true nature of reality.  It’s a simple matter of changing your perspective.  Is THAT perspective any more or less real than the basal state?

Maybe Joe Rogan isn’t as crazy as everyone makes him out to be.

Great article in the New Yorker on Buckminster Fuller…best known for his geodisic domes…the guy even got a molecule named after him.

Anyway…he was walking by Lake Michigan one day in a depressed mood contemplating suicide…or at the very least, the point of his existence. He says that all of a sudden, he was suspended above the ground…floating, if you will…when a voice spoke to him.

“You do not have the right to eliminate yourself,” it said. “You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe.”

It was this experience that pushed him to begin his lifelong quest to enhance “humanity’s success in the universe”.

Pretty profound stuff.

But, the article goes on to explain

He rejected fundamental tenets of modern science, most notably evolution. “We arrived from elsewhere in Universe as complete human beings,” he maintained. He further insisted that humans had spread not from Africa but from Polynesia, and that dolphins were descended from these early, seafaring earthlings.

Clearly, this is not nearly as profound.

Chrysler Building to be sold to Abu Dhabi (NY Post)

It’s oil-rich foreign governments who are using the money that we give them to buy our country out from under us. Essentially, the balance of power is shifting because these “third world” countries now hold the most valuable resources.

What are we going to sell next to feed our insatiable appetite for convenience? The Statue of Liberty? Yankee Stadium?

We need to put our frickin’ noses to the grindstone and get the fuck off of foreign oil. Actually, any oil. If we can get to the moon using Tandy computers from the 1960s, we can figure out how to harness the power of the frickin’ sun and desalinate water.

It’s about time we started getting our asses in gear. I’m encouraged by the direction that we seem to be leaning…but for Christ’s sake, I hope that we figure it out before the whole thing goes to shit.

P.S. The Italians just bought the Flatiron Building.  The end of American dominance is ending.  We’d better learn how to play well in the sandbox with the other kids.

Originally published August 18, 2003

Trust me. I don’t completely understand theoretical physics. In fact, I barely understand theoretical physics. But then again, I barely understand all of the stuff that the nuns and priests fed me for the first 18 years of my life too.

That being said…I am completely intrigued by theoretical physics. It pushes toward the metaphysical in ways that other scientific disciplines simply cannot or at least will not. Theoretical physics allows us me (the ex-scientist) to understand the universe…or at least to give me a vocabulary of the universe that I can sort of understand. Take the article that I reference above for instance.

Again, I don’t completely understand every word of it…but then again, I didn’t understand every single concept in biological chemisty but I was a year from a Ph.D. in it at one time in my life. I digress.

What strikes me as fascinating about this holographic concept isn’t the 3D to 2D paradigm shift. It’s the idea of infinite parallel universes. Infinite parallel universes says to me that there is such a thing as immortality. Not in the “if you give your $20.00 to the church every week, you’ll go to heaven” kind of immortality. I’m talking about the kind of immortality that is possible when you abandon the fact that what we are experiencing right now is the only reality…or reality at all.

If you can do that, then you can imagine that “death” is simply a shift in perspective. A new reality of sorts…which, according to theoretical physicists (or at least my read of them), are happening infinitely.

My brain is starting to hurt…and I’ve probably confused anyone and everyone who may read this. But it brings me to a fantastic quote that I read today.

“Religion and science are opposed, but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed - and between the two, one can grasp everything” - Sir William Bragg.

That’s Dave Matthews.  In 1992.  On VHS.

If you didn’t know, the name of that song is Blue Water Baboon Farm.  I’ve been using “baboonfarmer” as my alias since about 1994.