Session 28 May 2013

[kanader]

Thank you for the session

 

[pucho]

thanks for sharing the session. Great job.

 

[monotonic]

I have a friend in Kansas who reported rain glowing yellow as the eye of the storm passed. He said the rain was glowing while in the air and on the ground if I recall correctly. He said this also happened a few years ago maybe.

Concerning triads and sound, the ear produces its own otoacoustic noises. If the ear hears notes 4 and 5, it will create note 3. 3/4/5 are the side lengths of an isosceles triangle, which is half of an equilateral triangle. Angles are 90/60/30 degrees which are 1/4, 1/6 and 1/12 of a full circle respectively.

If you think of the torus as its own coordinate system, it has two angles and two radiuses, but lacks any coordinate to negotiate the center axis. Thus as a mathematical construct it is not fully 3D. A spherical coordinate system that is fully 3D would have one radius and 2 angles and could reach any 3D point. I wonder if the torus is a projection of a 4D shape into 3D.

In that animation it does look like the torus is turning through a needle point, but the C's specified a cylinder loop, and that does not specify whether the inner edges of the cylinder meet or not.

 

[GAIA]

thank you for the session Laura and the crew.
By the way here in the Nord of Italy i observed that approximately since the beginning of April this year till now is raining continually ,maybe there are a couple of days with sun but the temperature is still low like 19-26 in comparison to the last year same period it started to be very hot the temperature were arriving till 30-34 and little rain for the whole summer and the month of September ,indeed this year from my little observation from where I'm i can say for sure the the weather has changed and a lot, a week ago i read in a news papers that here in the nord of Italy had snowed in some places and also saw the picture of a cyclist , the road on both sides there was snow,also here we have beautiful mountains they are not so big to say that the snow in the summer period it doesn't melt,this morning when i looked toward them they were white almost like in the period of the winter,sincerely i look forward to see how will be the weather in the next couple of months.
thank you once again.

I agree, I too live in northern Italy and the weather here is not in it's normal phase! It's been raining on and off since the 1st of april, and the temperatures are below normal, it's windy and we're having around 20-24 instead of 30+,

Thank you all for the new session, so much info and so many new questions that come to mind!
Thank you!!
Forgot to add that in Parma it has not rained this much in 200 years!

 

[Drazen]

Thanks for the session! Great stimulating info there. ;D

 

[Scottie]

The way I think of it, information is the shaping principle that decides "this way, not those ways." In other words, it chooses and arranges based on the possibilities present. So all the laws of physics, physical processes, and physical particles and shapes that we observe are 'informational statements' or their results. Change the information, and you get different laws (and different universes, if we go the multiverse direction). Electricity is an expression of information because it is a highly specified phenomenon (change the information, change the laws, and you would get different electricity, or no electricity). And then, on top of that, different arrangements and combinations of electricity (e.g., in a person's physiology) are another form of information, specific to the person. It can be more or less ordered (FRV?).

The first part quoted above reminds me of the Stoic philosophy of the logos, the informing principle of the universe. Truth arranges information, producing consciousness. Lots to think about there... Thanks for the session!

A couple of us were talking about this yesterday morning, and a few points came up that I wanted to share.

First, we kind of begin with the current understanding of the physical universe, which is what I would call a mechanistic and materialistic interpretation. IOW, it's all based on gravity, and the whole universe is supposed to work more or less like one giant mechanical model of the solar system... ya know, the kind where you have the planets stuck on metal rods, and it clicks and whirs and all the planets move around the sun at the center. All very simple, yes?

Except that we really have no idea what gravity is, or how it works, and the whole explanation doesn't really make a lot of sense in many ways.

So, then we find the electric universe stuff, and a light bulb goes off, and we say, "Oh! That explains so much more!" And really, it does. But still, we are once again left with a mechanistic interpretation of the universe. Instead of a mechanical model of the solar system, we can say this one is maybe more like a computer simulation.

Great, except that we STILL don't know what gravity is, or even what an electron is, or why it behaves the way it does. Everyone "knows" that electrons have a negative charge, but with respect to what? Electrons can be positive with respect to something else that is more negative. Thus, charge is not absolute. Or is it, but in some way we don't yet comprehend?

Next, we find information theory as it applies to physics (as we understand it). Once again, we go, "Oh! That's much better!" But still, our inclination is to ascribe yet another mechanistic interpretation; to force information theory into some kind of 3d-based "machine" that helps us to understand what's going on.

So, in thinking and talking about all of this, I think one of the most important things to remember is what the C's once said, which was: Learn to think in unlimited terms.

"Information is stored in consciousness." Okay, but what is consciousness? We can imagine that information is like a bunch of bits on a computer, and consciousness is like a hard drive or a DVD-ROM, but in doing so we've just limited possibilities for further understanding and discovery. Analogies are useful to understand things, but always in reference to something we already understand, which:

a) May itself not be correct
b) May be impairing our ability to think outside the box because in trying to understand, we're stuffing something new into an older, more familiar box

Well, that's kind of how our minds work, but I think that's part of the problem.

Then, I have a lovely collection of C's quotes about gravity (paraphrased in most cases, as they are from notes I made):

2009-11-28

Observation can enhance or cancel gravity.

2011-03-04

Gravity and EM are intertwined.

2005-08-06

Gravity is consciousness "expressed".

2002-03-30

Light is an energy expression of gravity. Utilization of gravity "generates" light.

2002-07-13

Sexual center is in direct contact with 7d in its "feminine" creative thought of "thou, I love". The "outbreath" of "God" in the relief of constriction. Pulsation. Unstable gravity waves.

1994-10-05

Mass effects EM transfer within gravity wave. Babel: EM concentration of all gravity waves.

00-03-18

Gravity and consciousness have a synchronous relationship.

1996-06-29

Gravity does not ever get increased or decreased; it is merely collected or dispersed.

1997-03-15

Gravity center of planet is also "window" to all other density levels and dimensional planes of existence, which is why electrically charged atoms "ground" in order to pass on to other planes through gravity binder.

Well, isn't that just peachy? Now, assuming that even 10% of it is accurate, what the heck does it all mean? Darned if I know! And how does information fit in? Darned if I know!

I suspect, though, that trying to understand the role of information for us is much like a cave man trying to understand how electricity is used to make a computer go. Of course, it's not EXACTLY like this, since here we have yet another analogy! And analogies can be dangerous.

Which brings me to the next point we were talking about, which is the whole idea of mechanistic science versus a "marriage of science and mysticism".

Science as it exists today is like one giant, really bad analogy that tries to use itself to explain itself. That doesn't work so well.

Mysticism as it is generally practiced today is basically some airy fairy nonsense that tends to ignore what science has to say - or rather it tends to ignore the use of a more scientific method of explaining and understanding reality in a more rational way, while still maintaining and allowing inspiration.

But put the two together, and be really careful, and you might get somewhere. Know too much, too soon, and in the wrong way (i.e. without truth and understanding), and you're pretty much screwed. Fracturing is bad!

Hmm... Funny how this whole hydraulic fracturing thing is in the news so much these days, and fracturing of people is exactly what is currently happening. Or, pressure cooker = terrorism, and planet Earth at the moment is basically one giant pressure cooker, in more ways than one!

But, I digress.

I am almost done with Stonier's book on Information Theory, and so far I have more questions than answers. Sometimes I think my head will explode with all the questions that keep popping up. We can say, "Okay, to get 1 mol of water from 'liquid' to 'frozen' requires 1023 bits of information." Don't remember the exact calculation/example, but incidentally, 10^23 bits is about 100 billion terabytes of data!!! That's a lot. For just 1 mol of water to change temperature/structure just a little bit... So if you have a 1 TB hard drive, you'd need 100 billion of them. Talk about thinking in unlimited terms...

Oh, and the BTW, time doesn't exist, so right "now", you are doing everything, and you're already dead and/or living other lives. And you're a dictator who rules Earth with an iron fist in another parallel reality. Oh, and Jupiter? That's a 4d planet. Did I forget to mention that electrons supposedly "emit gravity"?

Isn't this FUN?!

Anyway, my point in bringing all this up here is NOT to discourage discussion on the topic. On the contrary, it's one of my favorite topics! But I also try to remember that we're kind of "where we are" after years of a long, drawn out process of slowly, carefully acquiring knowledge, refining understanding, and keeping a proper balance between "science" and "mysticism", which it seems to me is the only way we're gonna "get there", wherever "there" is. Science and "scientific thought" as they exist today are rather bogus. Even the term "scientific thought" strikes me as an oxymoron. We're basically having to learn to think so that then we can think about reality and establish what is true, and what is not.

Plus, the ultimate aim is not to understand "the science" in normal terms, but rather to know what is true, and what is not... in terms of EVERYTHING. The Big Picture.

I am also reminded of this actual session, where it took Laura YEARS of hard research and pondering before she really understood the Triple Goddess thing and all that. And even then, who knows what is yet to come?

And then, think about the importance of "the science part" versus understanding the nature and effects of psychopathy! Sheesh! And yet, it's all connected somehow.

Anyway, that's what we were yapping about!

 

[Lindenlea]

Thank you Laura and all for another excellent session. So much to digest. :)

 

[Approaching Infinity]

His comment made me think... could we also call a sub-atomic particle (like a quark) 'information' and 'truth' for that particle would be it behaving in accordance to the laws of physics, which would cascade through larger and larger subsystems (atom, molecule (like DNA), proteins, etc) and produce consciousness?

I think the answer is yes. Subatomic particles would be the most 'primitive' expressions of information.

As we get into a larger scale, say the human mind, we should be behaving in accordance to higher laws (truth and objectivity?) which would lead to a balance or stability of some sort. If that same quark stopped behaving according to truth and acted on those laws based on a 'subjective interpretation' (or lies in our case), the whole system would fall apart and 'disintegrate'. Is it something like the state we are in now is sort of the result when information is there but no 'truth' and behaving in accordance with? So not just an individual but humans as a collective, where "consciousness and individuality fractures and disintegrates."

That makes sense to me. It reminds me of something Ark wrote in his Physics of the Mysterious:

I think that the answer has to do with multiple realities and branching universes, and perhaps any civilization which would receive messages from the future on a daily basis has ceased to exist because communication through time is a very dangerous game. You produce paradoxes and these paradoxes remove the paradoxical universes from the repository of possible universes; if you create a universe with paradoxes, it destroys itself either completely or partially. Perhaps just intelligence is removed from this universe because it is intelligence that creates paradox. Perhaps we are very fortunate that even if we can receive some of these messages from the future, we still continue to exist.

 

[Psalehesost]

Q: (L) Which reminds me... There's another question here. What is the nature and function of the human capacity for belief?

A: Automatic pattern recognition software run amok.

This seems to relate to what I posted in the Affective Neuroscience thread:

[Note: The SEEKING system is emotional brain circuitry that drives exploration, active interaction with the world, and anticipation. It is activated both in connection with pleasant and unpleasant situations, and generally drives us towards action, e.g. to acquire resources. It drives exploration both on a physical and a mental level. Its activity is stimulated by dopamine.]

Panksepp mentions adjunctive behaviors - when a situation activates the SEEKING system but meaningful action cannot be taken, a substitute action is taken - it can be related in context, or a completely irrelevant activity. This makes one feel more of an effective agent in the world, hence better.

In general, SEEKING arousal has this effect of making one feel more of an effective agent - and anything that one seeks to avoid (consciously or otherwise) tends to activate the SEEKING system, so as to motivate a solution.

The greater the strain - unless hopelessness and depression sets in - the greater the activation of the SEEKING system, and the greater its hold on behavior. [The same also goes for elevated moods.] Without activation, there is depression and lethargy and an absense of perceived meaning; with activation, the stronger it is, the stronger is the tendency to see relationships and meanings in things - which, at an extreme level of activation, gives rise to psychosis. And I think that conditions giving rise to very strong activation without going into that extreme nevertheless can increase the tendency to form false beliefs, as the brain becomes readier to see relationships and perceive meanings. [So in addition to distress, euphoria can also make people tend to jump to conclusions and form blind beliefs.]

If correlations (no matter how accidental and objectively meaningless) occur between a behavior (including adjunctive behaviors) and a good outcome, then the result is what is called autoshaping - basically, the brain learns the connection (real or illusory), and the behavior can turn into a ritual.

On the collective scale, this can give rise to cultural beliefs and habits, including but not limited to superstitions and accompanying rituals.

On the individual scale, this can affect a person under psychological strain. It can result in all manner of meaningless coping mechanisms forming and becoming ingrained.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Next, we find information theory as it applies to physics (as we understand it). Once again, we go, "Oh! That's much better!" But still, our inclination is to ascribe yet another mechanistic interpretation; to force information theory into some kind of 3d-based "machine" that helps us to understand what's going on.

Ahh, the curse of materialism, bastard child of religious supernaturalism! That's the problem with the ID folks, too, I think. Yes, they identify a problem: information requires intelligence. But they still see the universe as an insentient machine that needs to be ordered by some completely separate form of consciousness. That's why I think panpsychism is the way to go.

"Information is stored in consciousness." Okay, but what is consciousness? We can imagine that information is like a bunch of bits on a computer, and consciousness is like a hard drive or a DVD-ROM, but in doing so we've just limited possibilities for further understanding and discovery. Analogies are useful to understand things, but always in reference to something we already understand, which:

Plus, the analogy is a category mistake, i.e., comparing something immaterial (consciousness) with something material (a hard drive). That's the problem Searle makes when he compares the emergence of sentience with the emergence of liquidity in water: there's no comparison, since physical descriptions by their very definition have no sentient properties. I don't necessarily think it's hopeless though. If the universe is fractal or holographic (like the Stoics thought, but they didn't use those words), then our own experience can be used as an analogy.

Then, I have a lovely collection of C's quotes about gravity (paraphrased in most cases, as they are from notes I made):

2009-11-28

Observation can enhance or cancel gravity.

If gravity is a law, and if laws are informational statements, then observation can change the information, perhaps as in PK, where conscious intent can change the information (probability) of events? But then there's this:

1996-06-29

Gravity does not ever get increased or decreased; it is merely collected or dispersed.

The only thing I can think of is that gravity and information are somehow deeply related. I have no idea how to even begin thinking of that at this point.

Mysticism as it is generally practiced today is basically some airy fairy nonsense that tends to ignore what science has to say - or rather it tends to ignore the use of a more scientific method of explaining and understanding reality in a more rational way, while still maintaining and allowing inspiration.

But put the two together, and be really careful, and you might get somewhere. Know too much, too soon, and in the wrong way (i.e. without truth and understanding), and you're pretty much screwed. Fracturing is bad!

David Ray Griffin wrote a book I liked called "Religion and Scientific Naturalism." Basically, he thinks (along with Whitehead) that the role of philosophy is to provide a framework where both religion and naturalism make sense with each other. I think he's on to something. In a nutshell, science is naturalistic, but adds mechanism/materialism (as well as strict atheism and sensationism) on top of that. But it's possible to have a naturalistic science that doesn't go that far. It denies a supernatural God and everything that implies, but allows for panpsychism (everything experiences), non-sensory perception (which is what makes mysticism, math, morality, ESP/PK, and even sense perception possible), and panentheism (God is the Soul of the World, or in other words, there is a Cosmic Mind).

 

[dant]

@ Mr. Scott:

Excellent summary & comments!
And you can sow the fabric of information together?!?!

Incredible!!

 

[Era of Love]

You know...the weather going all screwy is how ice-ages get started. Esp in the northern hemisphere. Winters get longer and longer, then suddenly, one winter, 90 meters of snow falls. And that's it, you've begun the ice age. Ice core sample records show this to be the case. First there is real hot weather for a number of years - all across the globe, then comes this drop in global temperatures that looks as if it completely came out of nowhere.

 

[aaronfransen]

Yikes, that's kind of scary. Make me want to move somewhere more tropical :/

I wonder what housing prices are like in St. Thomas...heck, if there is an ice age, all the islands are about to get a whole lot more land!

 

[Psalehesost]

I'd like to second "Information and the Nature of Reality" by Davies and Gregersen. Some chapters aren't great (it's an anthology), but some are particularly good. [...]

There's also a relatively inexpensive book on [Information Theory] here. I received a copy of it a couple days ago and have only flipped through it, but the math doesn't look too terrible (could be famous last words, though!).

Have ordered these two, to be read along with The 5th Option.

Then, I have a lovely collection of C's quotes about gravity (paraphrased in most cases, as they are from notes I made):

2009-11-28

Observation can enhance or cancel gravity.

If gravity is a law, and if laws are informational statements, then observation can change the information, perhaps as in PK, where conscious intent can change the information (probability) of events? But then there's this:

1996-06-29

Gravity does not ever get increased or decreased; it is merely collected or dispersed.

The only thing I can think of is that gravity and information are somehow deeply related. I have no idea how to even begin thinking of that at this point.

We have one idea, that of STS (subjectivity) and STO (objectivity) being related to contraction (or "collecting gravity"), and expansion (or "dispersing gravity"), respectively. (Where the C's also gave the example of black holes being large-scale reflections of STS.) Interaction with gravity would in this instance be a function of how information is organized, determining the nature of a consciousness.

It would have been more fine and dandy if they had said:



A: information arranged by a truth becomes (a more coherent) consciousness.


And this actually does flow...logically and without contradiction...with what follows.


A: That is why truth and objectivity are so important. Without it, consciousness and
individuality fractures and disintegrates.



But they did not. And as I noted, precision is their trademark.

Consider the progression through densities. Where initially you'd have sleeping matter which is "unconscious" due to strongly believing the ultimate lie of nonexistence (the consciousness has "destroyed" itself), and as alignment with fundamental truths occur, consciousness reshapes/reassembles itself in several steps/densities.

 

[wanderingthomas]

Jeez this session's timing is ridiculously precise!

Here in Croatia it has been raining like crazy for the past couple of days! Sheets of rain indeed!

And it is kind of unusual. It falls sort of periodically, first heavy rain falling, then it decreases, then 30 or so min. pause then again heavy rain.

Here in the country side when I go out with my dog for a walk in the field as you walk you can hear the ground, soil absorbing the water. It sort of has these points in the ground where you hear that sucking in, that shsshshs sound (like the sound in the sink when water is pouring in the pipes). And you can here it all around yourself in the ground, it kind of sound as if the ground is trying to devour you.

It's kinda scary.

And also, bearing in mind the comments made about the interaction of approaching alien bodies and climate, it is interesting to note the close passage of this asteroid.

_http://www.sort.net/article/262122-A-Global-Extinction-sized-asteroid-to-sail-past-Earth-next-week-Comets-much-more-dangerous