Wednesday 28 February 2007

Philip K Dick

I am really excited this morning. I am in the process of writing a chapter of my new book The Daemon Of Creativity. Central to this book will be that certain creative people are motivated and guided by their Daemon. I will argue that this is why many writers, artists, poets etc seem to show signs of temporal lobe epilepsy and even schizophrenia. The chapter is on the American Science Fiction writer Philip K Dick. This guy lived a life in which he experienced almost all the elements of the Ferryman Thesis - he was a living example of how credible the theory is. However one thing that I have only been able to get from secondary sources is that he was able to see the future - and these are questionable and open to interpretation. Well today, and quite by chance, I have found a series of letters that PKD wrote to a pen pal in 1974 on a really obscure personal website set up by the lady in question herself. I have most of the biographies of Dick and I regularly check out most of the websites on him and I have never heard of these letters. They seem virtually unknown. Imagine my excitement when I came across a zeroxed copy of one particular type-written letter that he sent to her on May 9th 1974. This date is very important because Dick had just encountered his Daemon in mid March of that year (he called it various names including AI, Sophia and VALIS). The letter is not that unusual but there is a hand-written note at the bottom that reads "P.S. What really scares me most, Claudia, is that I can often recall the future." Now what excites me about this is not just that he claims to see the future but his use of words (and Phil Dick was always very specific about his word use). He says that he 'recall(s) the future'. This implies that he senses that this is a re-experience of an already lived event. If you have read my first book you will be aware that this idea is absolutely central to my theory. We are all living our lives again in an inwardly generated illusion. Deja Vu (Vecu) is a short-term remembering of the last time you lived this moment. I argue that those with TLE and schizophrenia have uncontrolled access to these 'memories' and that is why they experience regular deja vu and precognitive feelings. It has long been argued that PKD had TLE and he himself claimed that he had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. I rest my case!

Friday 23 February 2007

Yet More Talks

Suddenly I am finding that the world and his wife are interested in me doing talks and lectures. Not that I am in any way complaining. What started off as a week long visit to my father- in-law's place in Mid-Devon (Zeal Monachorum) has turned into another book-signing and library talks fiesta. For anybody that is interested I will be at Exmouth Library at 7:30 pm on Tuesday 10th of April, Barnstaple library on Wednesday 11th April at 7:30 pm, at Waterstones Bookshop in Exeter at 5:30 on April 12th (my 53rd birthday!!), and at Oakhampton Library at 7:30 on Monday the 16th of April.

You may also be interested to know that my friend the American artist Myron Conan Dyal will be having his first book launched on Barnes@Nobles website on April 28, 2007. It is over a 100 pages of his art in full colour. The title of the book is: "Primordial Images of a Modern Mystic". You will recall that Myron has TLE and his art is influenced by both this and by his Daemon, 'Charon'. Check this out if you get the chance. Real life Daemon-influenced art and yet more proof of my Daemon-Eidolon Dyad.

Thursday 22 February 2007

Sunday's Radio Interview

The interview on Sunday went very well indeed. As well as meeting up with the DJ Chris Youngman I was also on the show with a guy called Graham. It is unusual to get on with somebody so well on first meeting but we seemed to find a lot of common-ground before we went 'on-air'. We talked about Birkenhead in the 1960's, under-age drinking in the Three Stags (now I know a lot of people will relate to that one) and Tranmere Rovers great day at Wembley. The radio progreamme was fine and we found a good deal of common -ground to talk about. They are a great bunch of people at 7 Waves radio so please check them out. Their website is www.7waves.co.uk so all you exiled Wirralians check them out.

I have even more book signings and talks set up. It seems that Ferryman is now bursting out of its North West enclave into The Midlands. On May 4th I will be at Derby Central Library from 1230 pm to 16:45 then my wife Penny and I will be rushing off to a book signing at Borders in Leicester. The next day we will be back in Derby for an all-day Psychic Fair run by Vision Magazine (www.visionmagazine.uk.com). This will be from 0930 onwards at The Atrium, Derby University. I have booked a table and will be sitting there until late afternoon.If anybody out there is around please pop in and say hi.

Friday 16 February 2007

Radio Interview Sunday 18th February - www.7waves.com

For those of you who may be interested I will be involved in a live radio discussion on Sunday 18th February at 1100 (GMT). If you live in the Merseyside area you can tune into the broadcast on 87.7fm. For those outside of the area the programme will go out as a webcast and can be accessed at www.7waves.co.uk . On my computer the link to the Windows Media Player did not work so I suggest you click on the Quicktime icon. The radio station is, suprisingly enough, 7th Wave. Given the day and the time I am informed by my interviewer (Chris Youngman) that the discussion will be from a spiritual rather than scientific viewpoint so please don't expect any 'hard' science as such but more metaphysics and philosophy.

My book has also been reviewed in Nexus magazine (Vol.14, No2) for February March 2007. This is available now in the UK, Australasia and Europe and will be published in the USA and Canada in March. The review can be found on page 67. In my opinion this is the best precis of the theory I have seen. As Nexus has a print-run of 94,000 copies world-wide (including 28,000 in the USA and Canada) I am hoping that this will assist in getting the book and its theory better known.

Thursday 15 February 2007

Synchronicity - Anarch Peak

For those who have read the book and indeed those who have not but have heard me speak you will be very aware that one great interest of mine is synchronicity. If my theory is correct then significant coincidences can be explained by either daemonic influence or else the coincidence is brought about because the subject 'remembers' something from the past-life re-run, a memory or recognition that is triggered by the familiarity of the circumstances or scene being perceived. I am also of the opinion that things you may have done in your past are, in some way, influenced by future knowledge.

When I first started researching the book I became fascinated by the work of science-fiction writer Philip K Dick. Looking back now I have no idea why this came about. I sometimes read SF but I had read none of his work. I was more into Philip Jose Farmer and Ray Bradbury. Indeed I became pre-occupied with both him and his writings when I discovered some amazing links between the Ferryman Thesis and the actual events that took place in Dick's life. Indeed I suggest that after reading my book you take time to read his novels VALIS and UBIK. The similarities are amazing.

I am now researching my second book and PKD is one of the main subjects. I have always wondered if in my previous life I read a good deal of his stuff and his experiences were subliminally responsible for the theory. Well yesterday I found another synchronicity that made me very excited. In one of his earlier novels, Counter Clock World one of the main characters is somebody called Anarch Peak - sometimes just known as A Peak. Now this guy - and this is were it gets creepy - Peak is said to have discovered that death and time are illusions, as is reality. Could it be that an earlier version of me read this story and was intrigued enough to continue reading the rest of PKD's writings and in doing so the seeds of ITLAD and CTF sown for a future version of me to reap?

Now tell me if I am placing significance where it is not but I do find this really weird ......

Sunday 11 February 2007

Heswall Library Talk

On Saturday I did a talk and book signing at Heswall library on The Wirral. Over 40 people braved the snowy conditions to turn up and contribute to a very enjoyable afternoon (well from my part anyway - I cannot speak for the audience). As with Birkenhead the week before I had some fascinating discussions with people afterwards. What is continuing to amaze me is how much anecdotal evidence there is to support the Ferryman Thesis. I was given personal examples from precognition to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and deja vu to The Daemon. I am now really quite excited about how this material will be used in my third book. I really feel that we are discovering together something very profound.

In all my one-to-one chats at the end of my lectures there is one constant theme - that lots of people have really strange and interesting experiences but they feel that the cannot discuss it with others for fear of ridicule. Now here is an idea. Why don't we set up an interest group that can meet on a regular basis to discuss these experiences in an open, friendly, and non-judgemental forum? If there is interest I am sure that I could set something up on the Wirral.

I think this small group idea would work really well because then we could have a collective exchange of ideas. Who knows, maybe we could form The Ferryman Society. Let me know what you think?

Obviously this invite goes out to all the individuals who have spoken to me after my library book signings, bookshop signings or have contacted me on the website.

Finally some more dates have been placed upon my talks schedule. I will be doing a signing and talk at Borders in Speke on Saturday 10th March at 2:00pm, at Borders in Stockport at 6:00pm on Saturday 17th March, Leigh Civic Centre at 7:30pm on Tuesday 17th April I am back at Borders Cheshire Oaks on Saturday 21st April at 2:00pm and 4:00pm, at Halton Library, Runcorn on Tuesday 24th April at 7:00pm and Borders York at 2:00pm and 4:00pm.

Thursday 8 February 2007

Enthusiasm

After my talk on Saturday one of the audience came up to me and said that what came across strongly was my enthusiasm for my subject. For some peculiar reason the thought leapt into my mind that I should check that word up in the dictionary. Why this was I have no idea but these days I am allowing myself to listen more to my 'inner voice' so when I got back home I checked this commonly used word out.

It came as no surprise that there was a 'hidden agenda'. The word comes from the Greek word enthousiasmos meaning inspiration or possession by a divine presence (termed afflatus in Greek). This is exactly the kind of linguistic support I need for the whole Daemon-Eidolon Dyad theory. That we are sometimes 'taken over' by enthusiasm is because maybe our Daemon is being more active in our life.

This reminds me of another word that seems to have daemonic connotations - inkling. In the first version of ITLAD I had a footnote about this interesting little word. I explained that it is believed to be of Middle English origin and derives from the word inkle which is to utter in an undertone. The implication is that another ‘voice’ is heard by the observer, a voice that speaks in a whisper and warns of events to come. And who may be the whisperer in this context?

TLE Artist & Synchronicity

In the course of my research into creativity I have discovered an American artist by the named of Myron. This guy's work is really interesting. Slightly similar to H.R. Giger (the Austrian conceptual artist who was responsible for the design of the creatures and sets of the film Alien). I came across Myron because he considers that the driving force in his creative vision is his temporal lobe epilepsy. He and I are now in contact and after checking out my website he came back to me to say that he can really relate to my theory, particularly the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad. However what really stunned me was not only that his Daemon regularly communicates with him but also what this Daemon is called - Charon. This is so synchronistic as to be disturbing. Those of you that know me well know that the original book title was to be Cheating The Ferryman. A central character in this scenario is, of course, the mythical ferryman who takes the dead souls across The River Acheron (or Styx). The Ancient Greeks had a name for this being, they called him Charon. Those of you who have attended any of my library talks will know that I spend a good deal of time explaining why I called the book Cheating The Ferryman, and in doing so I have three or four slides showing various images of this ferryman. The name Charon, for some subliminal reason, has been central to my book since its inception - and now I find that the first real daemon that I may be able to communicate directly with has the same name (Myron/Charon is happy for me to discuss with him/them in detail their 'relationship').

Now if my whole theory is correct then this was bound to happen. My 'memory' of my past-life will contain the name Charon and, for some strange reason - maybe simply a temporal joke - my own Daemon had me reference Charon right from the start. Total 'pandemonium' isn't it!?
Paul,

I am very interested in the similarities between what you are doing as a management trainer and my theory of what I term the 'Daemon-Eidolon Dyad'. Indeed I can really take on board the concept of 'the Working Self' as a model of memory. Now if the Working Self' is just a variation on my Daemon then we have some very interesting outcomes. As you rightly say this being, with its knowledge of both future as well as past events, can adapt the behaviour of its eidolon to take one particular course or another and in doing so flip that consciousness from one Everett Universe to another - in a similar way to that described by Jorge Luis Borges describes in his wonderful short-story 'The Garden Of The Forking Paths'. One could argue that this change in future-outcome almost acts in the same way as mutations do in evolution. A 'temporal mutation' will start a new personal time-line of experience that will, in turn bring about many new consequences (as shown in the film 'Sliding Doors').

Now your point that the Daemon is fallible is an interesting one. However it may be argued that the Daemon knows far in advance what the outcome of any choice will be. These choices may initially seem wrong but when viewed at a distance may assist avoiding a bigger problem awaiting in the further future. I keep thinking of that advert showing the skinhead chasing the older man down the street - I think is was for the Guardian newspaper - the implication being that you have to have the whole picture to make a valid judgement. Our Daemon has the whole picture. Does this make sense?

Monday 5 February 2007

The Amateur Philosophy Society

Anthony,

Many thanks for your invitation to join your blog.

I have been interested in the phenomena you call Daemon for many years now and have been used to calling it the voice of the 'Higher Mind'. This term is used to describe the inner reosurce we go to for advice and help when faced with difficult decisions or traumatic situations. Just for clarity I am a Leadership Consultant and have studied Psychology [cognitive] for many years now.

What interests me about this faculty of taking advice, or ignoring it, from somewhere or someone inside our own consciousness is that it links directly to what congnitive psychologists call the 'Working Self'. This is a model of memory that includes a central executive, short term and long term memory. The working self is described as almost the 'doorman' that lets certain information in and out of long term memory and as such shapes our sence of self based on past experience.

My question is, what if the working self not only controlled past experiences coming to the surface of our consciousness through recall and recognition, but also controlled our future memory? This working self is explained in an evolutionary light as being the arbiter of selecting memories for recall that will help us achieve our goal state.

However, it is fallible and this can be demonstrated through 'flash bulb' memories that can occuer in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. How could we open up an unsupervised door to our memory of the future?
JMK, thanks for your interesting 'fable'. In style it reminded me of Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. Indeed this wonderful book opened up my mind to the concepts of the infinite regress that I discuss in the last chapter of ITLAD (Is There Life After Death) and as a central concept of the whole CTF (Cheat The Ferryman) idea. Indeed I also thought that it reminded me of the film version of Jerzy Kosinski's novel Being There. You will recall that in this, his last film, Peter Sellers plays the role of a gardener called Chance who makes very simple but seemingly meaningful statements about philosophy etc.
I personally really enjoyed reading your story and it most certainly made me think.

On Saturday I gave a lecture at Birkenhead Library. May I thank the forty or so people who turned up and contributed to a very interesting afternoon. I would also like to thank the library staff for their help and assistance (and, in some cases, involvement in the debate). Next week I am at Heswall library and I am hoping for a similar turn-out.

This week I am going to be busy writing the first chapter of my new book, The Daemon Of Creativity. All the research and notes have been completed and now I have to get down and become 'creative' myself. I hope that my Daemon is ready to assist me!

Saturday 3 February 2007

A Theory of Nothing...

A THEORY OF NOTHING!

Thanks for inviting me to your blog. You may recall I’m the freelance writer who contacted you after reading your excellent book. You may also recall me mentioning this theory I’d come up with. The original version was rather rough so I’ve attempted to polish it up a little. I must stress here and now that I’m not putting it forward as a serious scientific theory. It’s from a satirical book I’m working on and is merely intended as a bit of fun. Being human and therefore fallible, it will contain certain flaws and therefore be open to criticism. I suppose the only consolation is that my critics are also fallible, so their contributions will likewise be flawed. However, knowing my luck, they’ll probably be less flawed than mine. Anyway, here goes...

During a science documentary, a female TV presenter called Juneberry tells Stephen Hawking that her gardener, a man called Bert, had come up with a Theory of Absolutely Everything...

HAWKING: A Theory of Absolutely Everything?

JUNEBERRY: Yes, it’s based on absolutely nothing.

HAWKING: A Theory of Absolutely Everything based on absolutely nothing.

JUNEBERRY: That’s right. Apparently, he was considering the concept of Absolute Nothingness, as gardeners are often wont to do. He called this AN. It was composed, (if that were possible) of nothing to the power of nothing. He added a jocular note and asked me to imagine the inside of George Bush’s head. If I cared to think about it I would see that Absolute Nothingness cannot exist because there’s nothing there to exist. According to Bert, in a state of Absolute Nothingness there can be no form of existence whatsoever. Even to say that AN exists is a contradiction in terms.

She paused, but Hawking said nothing. He was just staring at her.

JUNEBERRY: So, if AN cannot exist, then its opposite – Absolutely Everything – must. According to Bert, Absolutely Everything or AE, is a state of existence that contains everything that can exist. I asked him about unicorns. They don’t exist. Bert responded by telling me that AE included everything real and imagined. Unicorns may not exist in the real world, but they do in the imaginary one. He pointed out that they also exist in drawings and animated cartoons. Absolute non-existence, he said, refers to something that does not exist in the real or the imaginary world. Could I think of such a thing? It was clearly a trick question and I said I couldn’t because as soon as I did it would exist. There you go, he said.

Hawking was still staring at her. He seemed mesmerised.

JUNEBERRY: Bert told me that the proof AE exists is in the pudding. We are the pudding. He also said that AE is infinite. And, because he knew mathematicians and philosophers liked to quibble about the definition of this term, he decided to save them a lot of hot air. He said his infinity, was infinity to the power of infinity. That’s pretty big, I said. Wrong, he said. This infinity has absolutely no size at all. According to Bert, infinity is both the largest thing there can ever be and the smallest. Like quantum particles, it exists in two states at the same time. In other words, said Bert, if there were an infinite number of universes out there they could, theoretically, fit inside the pocket of my jeans. However, in order to do so, the pocket of my jeans would need to be larger than infinity. This would make my jeans very big indeed. Not to mention, I laughed, the person inside them. Maybe I should go to Weightwatchers?

She wondered if the electronic voice were programmed to laugh. But there was no sound from Hawking.

JUNEBERRY: Then Bert explained that within AE, time exists. However, it is composed of two parts: there is infinite time that can be described as an infinite state of “now” and finite time. Of course, he said, the two are linked because finite time stretches to infinity. This, he said, throws up an interesting philosophical point. Within AE everything that can happen has already happened. Within the infinite now we have already lived our present lives and any future ones we may have. There, cried Bert, goes our free will! Is nothing sacred? Is this making any sense to you?

HAWKING: It’s all very interesting. He’s your gardener, you say?

JUNEBERRY: That’s right.

HAWKING: Do go on.

JUNEBERRY: It was at this point that Bert, (a simple man of the soil with very little formal education), began to ponder the nature of AE. He decided that in order for AS to exist it would require an awareness of its existence. After all, there would be no discernable difference between a state of Absolute Nothingness and a state of Absolutely Everything in which absolutely nothing is aware that there is something there. I was about to ask him to repeat this, but the warbling of a Blackbird had momentarily distracted him.

HAWKING: The warbling of a Blackbird.

JUNEBERRY: Yes. It was on a tree nearby. Fortunately, said Bert, one of the things that had to exist within AE was consciousness. It was when he began to think of consciousness as a form of energy that everything clicked into place. What if AE was composed of consciousness itself? An Absolute Consciousness, or AC.

HAWKING: This gardener of yours seems to have a very vivid imagination.

JUNEBERRY: Yes. So Bert asked, how is AC aware of itself? (He preferred the term “awareness” rather than “observation” because the latter implies something than can be seen. Unless, joked Bert, AC came in the shape of an infinitely large eye!) The answer, he said, was obvious. Because AC contains absolutely everything that can exist, it must contain living creatures. Each of these creatures would be conscious and this consciousness comes from AC. I must have looked sceptical because he asked me to imagine a power station pumping out electricity. The electricity is separated into small packages that are used by a particular appliance – like his lawn mower. It may look like the lawn mower has its own individual source of electric power, but that’s an illusion. In the same way, each organic sensory organ takes a small portion of Absolute Consciousness. He told me that the impression that his consciousness is totally independent of mine is a similar illusion. Given the limitations of the brain, most of it is separate, but it all springs from the same source. The bits that aren’t separate might explain telepathy.

HAWKING: I imagine the Paranormal Research Society will be delighted to hear that.

JUNEBERRY: By now I was convinced that Bert needed help. The colloquial expression, “nutty as a fruitcake” sprang to mind. Bert asked me to think of AC as a reality generator. It acts like a simulator except that it creates actual reality rather than a simulation of it. In fact, it creates every type of reality that can exist. Actually, he said, that’s not strictly true. Being infinite means that AC has already created them. The universe we inhabit is just one of the realities created by AC. Of course, said Bert, there’s a downside.

HAWKING: There always is. Take me - I have the best brain the world, yet I’m stuck in this bloody wheelchair.

JUNEBERRY: The downside is that absolutely everything must also include destruction as well as construction. Bad luck as well as good luck. Evil as well as good. Disease as well as health. And the element of chance. Actually, he said, that’s a paradox. Chance being created by certainty. If chance had been created by chance then it might not exist. But, if its creation was certain, then we have a contradiction in terms. I didn’t have a chance to ponder this because Bert continued with his thesis. This, he said, means that some of the organisms AC inhabits will have a happy life and others won’t. For example, he said, you could be the wife of a Taliban in Afghanistan instead of a middle-class TV presenter in London. It is pure chance that determines what creature each portion of consciousness inhabits. You could even have been a winkle on Blackpool beach. I told him that even a winkle would have been preferable to a Taliban’s wife. He then went on to say that there were numerous other realities. He didn’t know how many, but they would cover all possible realities. These realities, he said, were like parallel universes. Some of them would contain every possible permutation of myself and every other creature on earth. Others would contain life forms totally alien to ourselves. Some would be living in other universes. Indeed, he said, all possible universes have been created and exist out there. I asked him what had triggered these ideas and he told me it was dreams.’

HAWKING: Dreams?

JUNEBERRY: Yes, it had all come to him whilst he was thinking about dreams. As one tends to do, he said, when pottering about amongst the weeds. He realised that what he sees when he’s awake lies outside his head. So, what about when we dream? Where do we see those images? We see them inside our heads, I said. This seemed to amuse him. He said that if I was right, then we must be able to see inside our brains. He added that his mate Chalky must have been looking at something else when that clot formed – the one that killed him. He then asked me how big my dreams were. I was puzzled. All right, he said. Last night he had a dream that he was standing outside this large Victorian house. So how big was this dream image? It couldn’t have been the same size as a real Victorian house because that wouldn’t have fitted inside his head. I responded by telling him that the house wasn’t real.

HAWKING: Good for you.

JUNEBERRY: Very well, he said. Real in what sense? Was I saying dreams have no physical reality? Yes, I said. In that case, he replied, what are they composed of? Was I suggesting they’re composed of nothing? They’re composed of memories, I said. In that case, he said, what are memories composed of? Surely they must have a physical composition because if they were composed of nothing, they wouldn’t exist. Of course, I had to admit that I didn’t know what dreams or memories were composed of. Of course, he conjectured, one-way around this problem would be if our dreams appeared in another dimension. Maybe one of these parallel realities. Maybe he could work on that problem whilst watering the Delphiniums. By this time I was beginning to regret employing this particular man. I asked him if all gardeners were like him. He told me that a few of his mates were into cosmology. Others were dabbling in subjects like philosophy and medicine.

HAWKING: Perhaps they’re trying to put people like me out of business.

JUNEBERRY: He then told me that various theories had been formulated as to why we dream.

HAWKING: Yes they have. But no doubt he had his own.

JUNEBERRY: Yes. He told me to remember that we all belong to the same consciousness. In the same way that the electricity used by the lawn mower belongs to all the electricity that exists. Dreams, he said, were the clue. According to Bert, when we dream we are merely tapping into all the other realities created by AC. For example, he said, he once had a dream that he was flying on a magic carpet. Who’s to know, he said, that there isn’t a reality out there where science is imaginary and magic is real. Actually, he said, the very fact that he was able to imagine this reality means it must exist. Once again, he said, there was a downside. Nightmares. What about that dream, I said, where you find yourself naked in the middle of the road. He said he hadn’t heard of that one. I told him I thought everyone had experienced that. I proposed a theory of my own. Perhaps some dreams belonged in a sort of imaginary reality – a reality that can only exist in the imagination.

HAWKING: What did he say to that?

JUNEBERRY: He told me that reality exists in the eye of the beholder. He asked me if I’d ever taken LSD. I said no. He said if I did I would experience a different kind of reality. He then asked me if the dream that I was naked seemed real. I said it was all too bloody real. He said it meant that, for the duration of the dream, you entered a different reality. A parallel reality. Chemical substances can send you into a parallel reality. So can mental illness. I decided to make another joke. I told him I hoped Absolute Consciousness never took LSD or we’d all be in trouble. Worse still, what would happen if this AC of his became a paranoid schizophrenic? Bert asked me if I was trying to extract a certain bodily fluid. Consciousness, he said, is a form of energy. Although it can never be destroyed, it can be affected by other things. Like LSD. Perhaps in a parallel reality consciousness is not affected by anything. But it is in our parallel reality. All right, I said. What if I didn’t like this parallel reality? How do I get out? Take LSD, he said. Or kill yourself. He explained that one parallel reality was always the strongest. And that’s the one we’re stuck in. What about when we die, I asked.

HAWKING: I’d be interested to hear what he said.

JUNEBERRY: There’s good news, and there’s bad news.

HAWKING: Give me the good news first.

JUNEBERRY: The good news is that because consciousness is a form of energy it cannot be destroyed.

HAWKING: Is that it?

JUNEBERRY: Yes.

HAWKING: Then what’s the bad news?

JUNEBERRY: The bad news is that once your consciousness is free of the brain it returns to AC. You become absolute consciousness. Bert added that this is great news for the various religions. Clearly, they would consider AC to be God. This means that after you die you become God. No Big Judgement Day. No awkward questions to be answered. So Hitler, I said, became God. Yes, said Bert. But minus the personality of Hitler. Because of the law that nothing can cease to exist in its entirety – although parts of it can – Hitler’s personality was passed on to some other unfortunate. AC has no personality. It is neither good nor evil. Powerful or powerless. It is all these things. You may be lucky, said Bert. You may be one of those consciousnesses that gets reincarnated in this parallel reality and retain some of your past memory. Or you may be reincarnated and not remember a thing. Or you may end up in another parallel reality. All I can say is that when you die one of the things that could happen to you will happen to you. It’s all up to chance.

HAWKING: Not much comfort there.

JUNEBERRY: I know. That’s when he told me not to lose hope. What I wanted to know was, did the “I” exist? What’s that? I asked. He told me to imagine someone who was suffering from total amnesia. Although their memories had gone, one thing remained. Their awareness of self. The “I.” So I asked him if that remains. He said it was a little more complicated. There was only one “I” and it belonged to Absolute Consciousness. However, whilst we inhabit a physical body we all shared it. His “I” was exactly the same as my “I.” The only things that separated the two were our memories and our physical bodies. Take those away and there would be no difference. When and if we inhabited another physical body then our personal “I” returns.

HAWKING: That’s a relief. For a moment there I thought I might be a gonner.

JUNEBERRY: He finished by saying that some people might find his Theory too simple. He stressed that it was simple because he himself was a simple man. Indeed, his Theory is Ultimately Simple. In other words, there is nothing simpler than this. It is the Bottom Line. The theory about the existence of Absolutely Everything should be used as a starting point for cosmology. Bert reckons it makes better sense than saying nothing existed before the Big Bang. This way, the Big Bang becomes a product of AS. He said that better brains than his can take it from there.

HAWKING: That was nice of him.

JUNEBERRY: Bert wanted me to ask you if there was any scientific law that prevents the existence of an Absolute Consciousness. If there is no scientific law, then he must assume that his theory could be true. Not that it matters. He said has far more important things to worry about. Like those damned dandelions that keep springing up on the lawn. So, what d’you think of that, Mr Hawking? Mr Hawking? Are you all right? Your machine seems to be making some funny sounds...

Friday 2 February 2007

Reviewing the comments

I have noticed that if you hit the comments tab after each message a new window opens. On first view it seems that this contains a blank form that allows you to add your own comment. As such it does not seem to contain the previous comments. However if you tab up in the window you will find the comments there.

Thursday 1 February 2007

Schizophrenia

Hi Ruth,

Thanks for the post. I am glad that you enjoyed my talk in Switzerland. I am sure that given more time the group would have debated the issues raised for many hours.

I am intrigued by your son's reaction as the plane descended. Could it be that it was something to do with the change in altitude bringing about a change in blood pressure in his cranium? My Father-In-Law has a similar problem. He has a trapped air-pocket in one of his teeth. When the air expands as a plane climbs it presses on a nerve and causes great pain. However as I understand it this happens as the plane ascends not descends.

Your comment regarding the film 'A Beautiful Mind' had me grab my copy of the book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. I have to read this as part of my research for my next book. I had planned to read it on our little Greek island retreat (Halki for anybody who is interested) this summer. However your comments have fascinated me so I will bring it forward. I note Art's question about the temporal lobe focus and I am interested as to his opinions on this.

In early November I visited an organisation called The Hearing Voices Network and had an interesting chat with a young gentleman who, I presume, 'suffered' from schizophrenia. He simply amazed me at his level of knowledge and his analytical abilities. You will recall in my talk
I mentioned the 'Tower Analogy' of Australian schizophrenic physicist Raynor Johnson. The actual Raynor quote is as follows::

“We are each rather like a prisoner in a round tower permitted to look out through five slits in the wall at the landscape outside. It is presumptuous to suppose that we can perceive the whole of the landscape through these slits – although I think there is good evidence that the prisoner can sometimes have a glimpse out the top!”

My young friend was in total agreement with this saying that he felt that he 'sensed' the real nature of reality whereas we are 'protected' by the inhibitory nature of 'normal' conscious experience.

Does this bear any resemblance to what your son reports?