The Earth's nervous system and the Matrix

(Written two years ago as a response in a forum. I'm just putting this here for someone to read, and to reference it later in the Pantheism stuff - when I get down to blogging a bit more of it)

And hey, I got a decent one for the hilltop:
Think of the Earth's consciousness as a really, I mean _really_ slow thing.
And try visualizing the greater part of the earth's 'nervous system' as a fuzzy sort of mold, a fungal thing, very thin, on the surface, slowly growing, absorbing consciousness.
And speeding up its 'thought processes'.
...
Now think of the telephone, the internet, multiplying the neural network capabilities of the mold.
Fractal interconnectedness, strange attractors, William Gibson's* Singularities popping up in the Matrix...

We may be in for a few surprises, and the Earth may be too :)

* William Gibson, Count Zero,1986, the Matrix Voodoo thing was such a stroke of genius, not that the guy lacked any.

46

(This was meant to explain why I always had 46 frendz on FB (which has changed since then :)

The Rule of 46 was Michael Crichton's idea, actually, in The Andromeda Strain (1969).
He called it the Rule of 48, but it could have been the other way. The rule states: "All scientists are blind".
Scientists counted the human chromosomes throughout the '40s and '50s and always came up with 48 chromosomes. Until someone counted them again and said, hey, they're 46. So all the others counted them again and they had to admit that, well, there were only 46 of them.
Known fact.

What is not a known fact is that 46 is the absolute mystical number of all times.
Check out mystical numbers on your favourite internet sources and you'll find that all the ancient mystical numerologists never came up with 46. Never.
Which shows you how much they knew. Even if they hadn't been blind anyway.
AND taking the piss...

Why is 46 the absolute mystical number? Well, take a hint from Crichton's rule, it's the number of Man. When we are conceived, 23 chromosomes from the mother combine with 23 from the father to make a 46, which defines us.
The absolute magical mystical moment of our lives, some nine month or so before we are born (which could also give you a few hints on now much astrology is worth as relating to magical mystical moments).

46 is also a great number for me because it is the number of this guy, the greatest rider of all times*, and those of you who know me a little in real life know what motorcycles are for me, especially my Ducati, Amanda.

Footnote:
Q: - So how did Douglas Adams (whose initials were DNA, Douglas Noel Adams) miss 46, and use 42 as the number for Life, the Universe, and Everything?
A: - Well, first of all L,U&E are a bit bigger than Man, and the he obviously wanted a meaningless number, so I don't think he missed it at all. If he missed anything, it was the ground.

* I personally met Giacomo Agostini, and although I consider him the greatest of all times before Valentino, I think Valentino got him, and by quite a bit.

Banging the Big B.

I wrote this some two years ago. Someone somewhere asked:

What happened before the Big Bang?

So I wrote (more or less :)

What happened before the Big Bang?

Probably the Big Foreplay.
Or maybe even the Little Silliness for what we'll ever know.

What if what we construct as the Big Bang was nothing more that the popping into our space-time of something like [choose pretty whirly region in the image below] this?

What if the Universe is actually bigger, like a lot bigger, than we commonly imagine?

What if gravitational/time/c/whatever distortions make us see what we see outside our solar system in a, well distorted sort of way, and on top of it we filter that through a, well, distorted convention of reality, or we'd see it a lot more like [choose pretty whirly region in the image above]?

In other words, what if we don't even need the Big Bang (let alone Creation:) to explain the Mandelbrotian God/Universe?

If we just see it as a constant unfolding of the Divine Iteration through a multi-dimensional space-time continuum, it just fits in a lot more smoothly with the Mandelbrotian Pantheist concept.

And that's all I had to say about that.

You eat what you are

(just a silly little poem :)

You are
what you eat.
And drink. And breathe.
And absorb
through your eyes. And ears. And mouth.
And all sorts of other places.

You are
what you think.
And feel. And dream.
and expect to be
through your senses
and your sense of reality.

You are
something else. Altogether.
But your sense of reality
through your senses
makes you expect to be
what you feel. And dream. That...

You are what
through all sorts of other places
like your eyes. And ears. And mouth.
You absorb. You drink. You breathe.
You eat
what you are

Moto GP riders

My take on the top six Motogp Riders (by current ranking)

Jorge (Slingshot) * Lorenzo.

The UKOD. Except he generates more ozone around him than he destroys.

He has it all, talent, courage, zanshin. Testosterone levels to give Miura bulls the heebys.

I wouldn't be surprised if he lost most of his hair by the time he's 29.

At the moment, barring major cataclysms, he's absolutely unbeatable at the championship level.

He certainly does not have the charisma of the Doctor, but he's presently a better rider.

About the charisma... I live in Mallorca, where he grew up, and I've heard first-hand accounts (and I mean first-hand, and reliable too) about his family, especially his father, and if you take those into account, he's doing all to well on the personal level. Considering.

If you have any doubts on what he's capable of by now, watch the Qatar race. The Jerez race. All races this year. He could start from fourth row, go wide at he first turn, and still win the race, he's the only one who can do that.

Daniel (Dani) Pedrosa.

Incredibly talented. A virtuoso of the motorcycle. He has it all, talent, courage, zanshin... the testosterone levels may not be up to the challenge, though :)

Mind you, he's a real Ninja warrior. Except, maybe just too much of a Ninja. He really should be Japanese, not Spanish. Sort of has it all, but lacks... creativity, you know ;)

He also has, in my opinion, the best bike on the circuit at the moment, and he can certainly use it.

Andrea (Dobby) Dovizioso.

He also has, in my opinion, the best bike on the circuit at the moment, and he can certainly use it.

Does he lack something? Time will tell. He's young.

Does he look like Dobby? Hmmm... I bet if he really put on a Dobby face, he could :)

Does he ride like Dobby? Well, no, but I wouldn't mind seeing Dobby ride a Honda, give him a few practice laps...

Casey (Crasey) Stoner.

He's my favourite rider. He sort of rides like me... well sort of. (I also ride a Ducati).

I think he hasn't quite got the talent of any of the above, but he certainly makes up for it with vigour :)

He's sort of a Rodeo Rider, taming the Beast turn by turn, race by race. With mixed results.

He certainly was the first to tame the Italian Beast. It took his present teammate a lot longer, and most other riders never did it at all.

I just love to watch him ride.

Valentino (The Doctor) Rossi.

The Greatest. Whatever he does from now, he's already done it all.

And he has the top charisma of all times.

There's not much to be said about him that hasn't been said already. Except... my take on this season...

Maybe Yamaha should sue him for malpractice. I mean The Doctor and all, goes and pretty much blows the season on a motocross accident. Who's to say whether the shoulder injury wasn't a key factor in the Mugello crash too? Hey? Hey?

Still, I'm really curious how long it'll take him to tame the Beast from Bologna next year. Probably not long, but... Lorenzo has an eight-year advantage in age, which is not going to get better, and a four-year (by next year) advantage on the bike. Hopefully, it will be interesting.

Nicky (KFC) ** Hayden.

Great guy. Great rider. Deserves the top six.

It took him a while to Tame the Beast, but he seems to have made very good progress. Though a very talented rider, he's not, in my opinion, in the same league as the ones above. The championship he won was a rather "cilly" one. He may well be the first (for the moment) of the rest of the league, though.

* A little cultural-historical note on the "slingshot" nickname.

The Balearic Islands are historically famous for three things: warm sandy beaches, cocktails with little straw hats, and hondas (which are called "fones" in the local language, but "hondas" in Spanish. Up to the 16th century, Balearic slingers were among the most highly prized mercenaries in Europe. The fact that Jorge never won anything much on a Honda seems to be just one of those historical ironies :)

** KFC obviously stands for Kentucky FireCracker ;)

A small note on Randy (Le Gauloise) De Puniet:

The guy is amazing. He rides like a true Gallic warrior on a magic potion overdose.

The thing is, he's way too Gallic. He's like Asterix, Obelix, Abraracourcix and Tragicomix all bundled together, with the consequent explosive results.

He's also the only true metrosexual rider in the championship, born on February 14, and sponsored by Playboy. And he's called Randy to boot.

"The rabbit theory"

This was posted in the same Pantheism group as the Modern Pantheism stuff. Since it's referenced there, I'll post it here too :)

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What we call reality is just a consensus, there's lots of other possible ones that would work just as well in practice.

Our perception of reality is just a practical one.

We see things upside down. Our brain compensates for that, that's one reason we take so long to be able to take a spoon to our mouth when we're little.

We give someone a pair of glasses that turn the image upside down.
Within a few days his brain has learned to compensate for it and he can function again. Take away the glasses, it takes a few days again to readjust.

You can try that yourself with your computer mouse, turn it upside down and see how long it takes to adjust to it (very little) but also how long after that to readjust again (very little, but not much less).

Reality is just a consensus. It's not "real". :-)
(You can get another hint here.)

It works in "practice".
Try achieving an "open" state of consciousness.
In that state, it's easy to see lots of nice things, how everything is interconnected, how small you are and how that's not a problem.
It's so obvious and clear.
You try to catch and skin a rabbit in that state. Not very efficient.
Not to mention cooking it.

So get into a practical, efficient state. Relatively easy to eat the rabbit, but somehow all those nice things seem a bit less obvious, come to think of them.

Thing is, you got to eat, whether it's rabbits or people's time to get the rabbit for you.

So you agree on a "reality" that lets you eat, even if it has to make you blind to some pretty obvious things.

It works, by consensus it works pretty well, it's still arbitrary, one of many possible ones, shouldn't take it too seriously though.

Some notes on Modern Pantheism - Part 1

These notes were originally written in a Facebook Pantheism group in early January 2009.

I'm reposting them here for several reasons; I lost them once already when the FB account was arbitrarily deleted, and it took me a while to recover it. The group wasn't particularly interesting as feedback went, and it was also badly moderated, with posts deleted for no sensible reason. And you can't point anyone to them who's not using FB.

So here they are, with a little editing.

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1) Religions, religions... let's not even talk about religions, which I see as just means of controlling people, not teaching them, let's just talk about belief systems.

Up to not so many years ago, no matter how much you knew, you looked out at night, saw the stars. Have you ever thought what_you_ would make of that if you had _no_ idea whatsoever what they are?
Sure, if you were "educated" you could work out their movements, calendars, eclipses, you still hadn't a clue what they were about.
(Of course, try that now, most of you probably can't, you live in urban environments, but back then most of them did every night, and you all know how it looks when you can really see it).

So imagine you live back then, outside a city, you see that every night, you really have no idea what it is, no-one can tell you.
What sort of belief system do you make up?

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2) Nowadays we have good reason to believe we know what they are.
Billions of immense masses of gas slowly burning down, arranged in galactic mainly spirally patterns. And we also have good reason to believe that we live on a little planet circling one of those burning gas masses.

We can also see that all those patterns, and down to the atomic level most patterns around us and within us, seem to resemble incredibly simple mathematical formulas which at some level or other resemble... well, everything :)

Now, what sort of belief system can you make up from this outlook?

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3) So take the basic pantheist tenet, Everything is God, God is Everything.

Filter it through a belief system that sees yourself at the center of it all and the unexplainable stars around you.

Or filter it through one that sees you as a little part of very interesting and look-alike-everything patterns.

You get rather different pantheist concepts, don't you?

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4) What's consciousness?
We don't know.
You could read all of this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
(if you can get past the second paragraph, which I find particularly obnoxious)
and I guess the conclusion would be, we don't know.
If anyone here knows, please let me know.

* (These things [ ] basically mean "you can skip this unless you read it a second time")
[ That second paragraph, though, is basically talking about what I call "restricted consciousness", and includes all the first three stages of Vedantic consciousness. (see Vedanta on that same page).
It's fine for catching rabbits to eat, being productive, resting, even having fun.
The fourth stage is what I call "expanded consciousness". Good for going a bit beyond the bare necessities of life, but not for being productive in any material sense.
They seem to be mutually exclusive, or at least interfere a lot.
See http://donbcilly.blogspot.com/2010/07/rabbit-theory.html

Still, I guess we can take Descartes's "cogito ergo sum", I think therefore I am, as giving us a common ground on what we call consciousness, and agreement on the fact that we have it.
But why do we have it, whatever it is?
I think that
consciousness accretes to shapes. It aggregates to them, fills them, whatever.
It is actually in the fabric of things, of the universe, something like the c constant of physics.
The more complex the shape, the more complex the consciousness.
It's a bit difficult to explain, unless it's already clear to you, think about it for a moment and leave it for a few days.
It may come to you.
It took me awhile to digest it, and it was my intuition.

So, we (humans) have got it.
Just about 100% of people will agree to this.
Even if we don't know what it is, we'll agree we are conscious.
As you start to ask people around you, has a cat got it, a plant, a car, a stone, you'll probably find the percentage going down sharply.
But why should we human beings be so special that we have it and other things don't?
No reason for it, really, is there?
If anyone here knows of a reason, please let me know.
(outside Deist or "Man is king of the Universe" sort of stuff).

But does it do it totally "randomly"?
In my view... no.
It does it according to "music", and the same "music" (see below for a definition) also makes shapes accrete.

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5) Soul-music.
(the "soul", "music", and "information").

Note 1: Another good word for "music" in this sense could be "magic", but that can be even _more_ confusing due to its other uses so I'll avoid it.

Note 2: This may take a little while to digest, too :)

Again, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul
Just skim it, roll the mouse moderately fast down to the bottom.
Right. Difficult concept.

So, if we take that concept very loosely and move it to "music"?
The soul concept is a bit restrictive. It doesn't take into account multiple, interconnected consciousness.
Nor the fact that it, too, can disperse just about completely at death, rather than migrating into another form, or another state, as a whole.
It can still migrate while dispersing (and not just at death), according to "music", or the interaction of "information", in the particle physics sense.
And it can still accrete while migrating (and not just at conception, although a lot of music certainly goes into conception), but not into single shapes, or consciousnesses, except maybe in very exceptional cases.
Birth is rather irrelevant in a soul-music sense, except of course as a (conscious) experience.
Which modifies the music. And makes it interact differently. And so on.
It is my belief that the music in us, and the way it interacts with other music, modifies our information, during life.
Steve Hawking had to concede that in physics, information survives black holes, even if matter and energy do not.

This information is what survives our death and determines how our music will accrete to other shapes (plural) to make up their consciousness.
It's very similar to the classic soul-and-reincarnation concept, except the soul is not seen as surviving death as a "single" entity, but dispersing and re-accreting.

The way I see it, it does not do so just at death but throughout our lives. Reproduction is a typical example (note Carlos Castaneda's concept by Don Juan when he says that "every time you conceive a child a part of your luminous being is lost") but not just that, just about everything we do changes our music.

Just as very little of our physical body is the same as it was even a few years ago, we change most of our cells, so it is for our soul-music.
It's only consciousness that gives us a semblance of an identity, and that is pretty much an illusion.

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