web analytics

Stephen Pickering

Category: Philosophy

  • The Mythic Dimension

    If I were going to help Deepak in his argument with Leonard (Leonard Mlodinow) I might say:

    Our eyes are only capable of seeing a tiny sliver of all the magnetic waves that exist.

    “Deepak, ask him whether he believes in the 4th dimension. After he says, ‘Yes,’ ask him to point to it.”

    He can’t. He can’t even imagine it. Our brains are incapable of even imagining it. They’re hard wired for only 3 physical and one temporal dimensions. Unfortunately they make a perfect playground on which Social Conditioning can make it’s stamp
    of reality only consisting only of what our 5 senses are capable of experiencing. Note that even our eyeballs, as advanced as they are, are only capable of sensing a tiny fraction of the lightwaves that are (Conveniently coined the “Visible Spectrum”)

    Isn’t that the same as Spirituality? We can’t point to it, but we know it’s there.

    It’s the “Mythic” dimension, which is constantly at right angles, known as “eternity”, to the arrow of time.

    “Eternity is in love with the productions of time,” said Blake.

    Why?

    Because like a beautiful work of art needs a canvass to act as a medium for manefestation, even in some sense acting as “foil,” eternity needs the “foil” of time and space to act as “relief” in representing it’s message of the infinite.

    Think about it. In order to represent something moving, you have to have another thing standing still, or the message can’t be conveyed.

    In the same way, in order to convey the message of “revelation” you need to have the backdrop, the blank canvass, if you will, of a mundane, restricted, and merely mechanical “Worldview.”

    Without the Labyrinth, there wouldn’t be the adventure, the magical thread that leads one out.

     

  • Spirituality vs Science: Missing the Point

    A few minutes into that video on the previous post Leonard Mlodinow says something like neither Hawking nor he, and presumably neither science in general, rule out the possibility of there being a God.

    But really thinking of “God” as a fact is not what spirituality is about. God as a symbol for that which is beyond fact or fiction, beyond being and non-being, beyond past and present, or any duality one can think of is what spirituality is about.

    Any kind of definition throws you out of the “Garden,” to which only “being” can bring you back.

    Also, I was really exited that Deepak tweeted me back. I had tweeted him “The Scientific Method did not create Relativity or the Quantum Theory. Inspiration did. The Scientific Method only verified them.”

    He tweeted back that he liked that, that way of putting it, that the Scientific Method hadn’t rested the physical laws but only verified them.

    But now that I think about, even he was missing my point a little bit. Of course the physical laws weren’t created by The Scientific Method, but what I was saying was that even the scientific theories themselves came from Inspiration & Imagination, and then only later to be verified by observation.

    So what I was saying was no we weren’t using the Scientific Method to explain our World. We were using imagination and creativity to do so, which are Zen like, Spiritual activities, and then later the Scientific Method to verify them.

    So, really Science and Religion aren’t so different. It’s just that the science of 4000 years ago is way different than the science of today. Today we have new explanations: The Big Bang, Inflation, String Theory. Non of which are incongruent with Spirituality. As a matter of fact each new discovery seems to invoke the Sublime and increase the sense of wonder that we have labeled “Spirituality.”

  • The War of the Worldviews: A Zen Review

    OK, so I haven’t read the book. Or have I? Quantum theory would say that there is at least one Universe in which I have.

    But we’ll stick with the consciousness that I am experiencing now. I haven’t read the book. I’ve seen Deepak tweet about it for a while now. I follow Leonard Mlodinow, and he actually followed me back.

    Once I tweeted him saying, “God is Symbol for that which is beyond all thought, beyond what is even capable of being thought.”

    He replied, “You sound like Deepak!”  I must admit that made me happy. Happy because Deepak is a hero. Happy because not only did he reply, acknowledging me, making me feel part of the conversation, but also because, though I disagree with him (Do I? Again, there is at least one Universe in which I agree with him, but also one in which I am him!) he was cheery. That was nice.

    I don’t like debates. That’s one reason I’ve been reticent to begin reading this or even to watch the videos, but I do feel like the fact that Leonard is such a cheery, warm, nice person, that perhaps some benefit can come from it.

    My sister put it best on the phone just a while ago, “Maybe he isn’t coming from it from a place where he needs to win.” Debates could be productive activities if neither side had an absolute need to win, in as much as having a desire to come to the truth.

    So I don’t know if this post will even be finished. I’m just doing it “stream of consciousness” starting with a couple tweets I sent today (10/8/11) after watching the first 10 minutes of a video of them debating. Again, not liking debates, that’s all I could watch for now.

    So if this goes on, if I can continue and actually read the book, this post might actually get done, or at least expand.

    My niece who works at the Wall Street Journal, actually sent me a copy that she saw at their offices without even knowing I knew anything about it. I guess lying around. It is definitely an advanced copy. On it read, “Not for resale.” I feel special. Thanks Michelle!

    That fact seems kind of Zen to me already.

    So here goes the beginning of my ‘real’ post or the beginning of what I’m thinking:

    •  The Scientific Method didn’t create Relativity or Quantum Theory. Inspiration did. It merely verified them.

    OK, so what I’m saying here is that the two greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th Century did not come by way of the “Scientific Method” of which Dr. Mdlinow seems to constantly refer. Those discoveries came through imagination and inspiration. They weren’t discovered through a calculatory method, but rather through a creative method, and then later verified by calculations. These achievements have more in common with the revelatory nature of spirituality and mysticism (at least in their birth) than they do with the systems (Science! Physics! Computers!) that they gave birth to.

    • The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the Earth, yet men do not see it.” – Jesus

    Why don’t they see it? Here’s a story that might explain:

    A young yogi came to his master.
    “Master,” he said, “You say ‘Buddha is in all things’?”
    “Yes,” replied the master.
    “Is the Buddha in me?” asked the student.
    “No.”
    “But you said he is in all things.”
    “He is in all things, but not in you.”
    “But why?”
    “Because you are asking the question.”

    Do you get it? So the sense of asking the question is actually creating an “Ego” type separation consciousness, actually cutting one off from Unity Consciousness to which one must re-link (“re-ligio” .latin) or re yoke (“Yoga”) in order to have an understanding of that which is beyond thought.

     

  • The Age of Authenticity

    This girl is selling a MILLION copies a year of her fiction WITHOUT A PUBLISHER on the Kindle platform.

    Theseus killing the Minotaur, who is the child of Ego and Greed. The circle is the Soul, and the Labyrinth is when a Societal System is used to trap instead of free the soul.

    Here’s the Business Insider story about her.  Here’s the original blogger’s story about her, from whom BI got their story. Here’s her personal blog. (Hey, but at least everybody’s linking!)

     

    Arcade Fire not only is selling millions, filling up stadiums without a RECORD LABEL, they also just won the GRAMMY for Record of the Year.
    You can Google them.

     

    These are amazing stories. Publishing and Music have cracked because technology has enabled them to be produced for 1/10th, 1/100th, 1/100oth of what they cost 10, 20 years ago.

     

    Motion Pictures still cost millions. So that category hasn’t cracked. But even if you want to be an actor or director, you’ve got the tools to start (HD Cameras, Computer Video Editing) and a distribution channel for free to get you noticed (Mainly Youtube).

     

    I would definitely say this is the age of the person who wants to be “into” what they are doing. If you are the type of person who is just in it for the glamor and wants everyone else to handle the details, well there’s still room for about 5 of you in music, 4 in Pulp Fiction, and maybe 10 males, 10 females in “acting,” but even these positions are rapidly losing not only space, but more importantly  “authenticity” and “mind-share.”

     

    Whatever you want to do, if you are really into it. I mean REALLY into it. As in LOVING IT FOR WHAT IT IS and NOT IT’S REWARD, then your time has come. You have the chance to be on the edge of excitement all the time.

    Authenticity not only makes you happier and leads you to unexpected discoveries, authenticity SELLS. So in this day and age, the more you do follow your love, the more success your going to have.

    Follow the “Thin wax string of your desire.” That’s what the Theseus myth is about. It’s thin because it represents “intent” and following your “inner” voice which is unlike any other, unique to you.

    It will lead you out of the maze, the Labyrinth.

     

    The electronics revolution reduced the cost of production, and the Communications’ Revolution is rapidly reducing the cost of distribution.

    The cost of finding what you love is infinite if you listen to the outside World and ZERO if you listen to your INNER VOICE.

     

    Sources:

    Business Insider:  “This 26-Year-Old Is Making Millions Cutting Out Traditional Publishers With Amazon Kindle”

    Novelr: “The Very Rich Indie Writer”

    My Blood Approves: The Blog of Amanda Hocking

     

     

     

  • Ebert, Dawkins, Maher, & Hitchens’ Neo-Determinism

    Painting from "The Red Book" by C.G. Jung

    Determinism, the idea that everything can be explained, has a “reason”,  died in 1906, the “Miracle” Year when Einstein came up with Special Relativity. Turned out Light didn’t care what the Victorians thought and didn’t obey “reason.” By 1925, with the Quantum Theory, whatever vestige of this mechanized view of the World was laid to rest once and for all.

    Or so one would “think.”

    But it seems lately in the voices and writings of Roger Ebert, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and Christopher Hitchens, among others (those are the ones who spring to mind), it seems to be the “Pragmatist’s Badge of Honor” to drag this dusty, worn out, good for nothing idea, back up from the basement.

    For what “reason,” I have no idea, and the irony is that they seem to be invoking “Science,” the very craft of which is the idea’s undoing, as their main witness. Even though “Science” has testified time and time again, that what it saw and is seeing under that microscope and telescope is totally irrational and makes no “sense” at all.

    There’s always been this sense that Science and Mythology are at odds with each other, but in this century and with every day that passes, Science seems to be only confirming what the roots of mythology has always been symbolizing.

    This “Neo Determinist” Zeitgeist has been on my “mind” a lot over the last few years, mainly because of the above mentioned and other “influencers” of the day, it has become a Zeitgeist, even a hundred years after it was Scientifically swept away. But reading Roger Ebert’s “meta” review the Clint Eastwood movie, “Hereafter,” today motivated me to write comment on his blog, and then hence this blog post.

    I say “meta” because it was mostly, not a review, but his take on the whole “new age” movement, so to speak, spirituality specifically, and of course his cynical view of it, but through the course of the blog it seemed like he was trying to rationalize or “bail” Clint Eastwood out, saying the subject matter of the movie could be “explained” without the need of the “supernatural.”  One of the first lines of his “review” jumped out at me:

    “All the events we can perceive take place in a rational universe governed by physical laws.”

    And lead me to leave this comment:

    “Actually there’s nothing rational about the Universe at all. From what we can tell from the IMAP satellite images it began about 13 billion years ago from something weighing less than an ounce, and then for reasons unknown expanded at faster than light (Inflation Theory), symmetries fell apart under these extreme conditions forming “forces” that condensed matter into what we know and see today. But even today the very fabric of the Universe is un-rational. The very fact that electrons, for instance, are in multiple places at once around the nucleus is the only reason our bodies hold together. We can describe this but we don’t know how it works.

    Even if we knew how they worked, who’s making them work? We describe the physical laws but who or what is executing them? In this sense then “God” as Joseph Campbell said, is a symbol of that which is beyond thought, beyond what is even possible to be thought.

    “Reason,” as Blake said, is simply “the bound or outward circumference of energy”

    So, we may can come to “know” this mystery, but not through reason or thinking. We can study for years, for instance, a chemistry book on “how” a baby is born, but a woman’s body actually executes the act without thinking.”

  • Fail Whale: The Shadow Side of the Social Media Experience

    Update Thursday Aug. 26th 2010 – As you can see I wrote this Sunday the 22nd the day after Leo’s blog post. I was a bit too negative and ranting. So I sat on it a few days. Read the always non- controversial Louis Gray’s piece that was also in response to Leo’s original piece Soaked it in. All in all, I’d rather have had Twitter and Facebook over the last few years than not. They are exciting in many ways. Facebook’s like rediscovering old friends. Twitter is new friends. There have been a lot of positive experiences. Still I’ll publish the original rant I felt and wrote Sunday pretty much unchanged, because going forward these negative issues are important and need to be addressed and kept in mind.

    Original Post from Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

    Leo Laporte’s post yesterday “Buzz Kill” about how Google Buzz had failed him recently, and more importantly how Social Media had failed him in general, really got me thinking.

    A) I totally agree with him. He nailed it. You should read the piece. We put all this energy into “Social Media” and what do we have to show for it? That information and energy goes into a vacuum, a black hole, if you will, and never comes back out again.

    It’s our energy that’s creating the value in these networks, the content, and not only are we not compensated for our energy, we’re practically slapped in the face for it. “Who the heck are you, you pion with your 50 followers? You worthless piece of nothing loser! Why can’t you be more like Aplusk or John Mayer with their millions of followers or at least a porn star with their thousands? Yeah, you heard me, you’re not even worth what a porn star is worth in our eyes!”

    Dial it down, Stephen. Dial it down! OK, I’ll meditate on it a few days before posting this, but isn’t that what Twitter, if not literally,  seems figuratively to be screaming at us all day long?

    If they hadn’t had the followers number highlighted would the service have taken off? I don’t think so. So Twitter had to appeal to a lowest common denominator “High School Popularity Contest” mentality to, not only make it work, but for it to keep working.

    When I first joined Twitter in early 2007 thanks to following early adopters like Leo and Scoble, I thought, “How cool is this? Even though no one in my small town knows about this, I can do all kinds of cools things.” I had always noticed how inspirational or ‘insightful” thoughts would come to me when I least expected them, usually when I was out somewhere in my car, at dinner with friends, etc. and now I could simply text such thoughts to my Twitter account and retrieve them later for expanding. Or if I simply wanted to remember something cool that I saw or heard while out. Just tweet and retrieve. A repository of my daily life, my existence, my continuum, my stream of consciousness.

    But where are these insights, these things I wanted to remember, this digital outline of my life that I so dutifully recorded the last 3 years? Gone. I can’t retrieve them. I can’t search them. I can’t find them. And even though one hears that Twitter has been working on such a feature that will be released ‘sometime’ in the future, its like “Gee thanks Twitter, it’s my information, for God’s sakes. I don’t need it some time in the future. I need it now, and every day since I’ve been using your service, feeding your service, so that you could sell me out down the river to Microsoft and Google with your ‘firehose.’

    If instead all of this info had flowed into my blog, it would still be there, searchable, mine, the true archive and repository that it was meant to be. Some will say, “Well that is the price you pay for ‘free’”

    Oh yeah really? You know, I’m not the biggest fan of Ma.tt in the world, but look at WordPress.com. Totally free. Holds at least a thousand if not a million times more information than Twitter or Facebook, and it yours, you control it. You can put it in and you know you can always get it out. He’s not selling your information to third parties for his gain. He’s upselling (the freemium model) on additional features and using the popularity of the WordPress site and name to make a cut on Web Hosting purchases for those who choose to self host their wordpress blog. He’s Smith Barney. He’s making his money the ‘Old Fashioned’ way.

    But look, this is not an attack on Twitter, per se. Facebook is 10x as bad. At least Twitter is semi part of the ‘Open Web.’ Facebook hides behind its wall, not because it wants to protect the privacy of its users, but because it wants to protect its monopoly at the expense of its users. You post a picture into Facebook, it ain’t comin out again. You post a video into a Facebook, not only is it not coming out again, you can’t even SHARE the damn thing with the internet. I mean, how evil is that? That is crazy evil. All the comments and exchanges and time you put into writing messages on the Twitter or Facebook platform? They’re not yours. They belong to these companies. And they can and do disappear at the drop of a hat.

    Not to single out Twitter and Facebook. Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, Flickr, (just go to Scoble’s Google Profile to see a list of every Web 2.0/Social Media company that’s every existed) just to name a few are all the same. ‘Evil’ gets thrown around a lot. That’s too strong. ‘Evil’ is Hitler. How about ‘Unethical’? More interested in building a brand, a critical mass or ‘network’ effect as they call it, ala the Zeitgeist of the ‘Start Up’ crowd, so they can have a profitable ‘exit’ and IPO rather than being ‘into’ it and wanting to build something cool to benefit the user him or herself.