Worldview Warfare (weltanschauungskrieg) & the Necessity of Illusion

“We are greater artists than we know.” Nietzsche.

• Everyone has their personal version of reality and everyone believes theirs is not only the best version, but the only one that really counts
• Our version of reality is dependent on our physical, emotional, psychological imprinting as infants, and has little or nothing to do with conscious processes.
• It never seems to occur to us, however, that our version of reality is built up from material that comes directly from other people’s versions of reality (the books we read, people we respect, and so forth).
• We cling to our version of reality as if our life depends upon it. Maybe it does. Yet we know that any version of reality is incomplete, and never can be complete.
• The way we view the world defines who we think we are, our constructed identity. We cannot see ourselves from the outside, except through the eyes of another.
• We agree the sky is blue without ever wondering if we are seeing the same color, knowing only that we have agreed to give it the name “blue.”
• We all desperately need others to agree with our version of reality, even while we insist that we are special and unique.
• Does anyone ever really upturn their version of reality in a way that is meaningful? It is akin to identity-suicide.
• Our versions of reality are our defense systems, our armor, against an incomprehensible, and probably hostile, Universe. It began as a necessary survival response to those first childhood experiences, the ones which presented the original threat to our well-being, so shaping the identity-armor that was later fully consolidated as a version of reality.
• Parents are the first to override our sense of reality by telling us that monsters do not exist and that our invisible friends are imaginary, that we are not hungry when we say we are, and so forth.
• We are looking for allies, most of all in our illusions. Complicity in denial. The rejection of conspiracy “theory” (a telling term, since it is often as fact-based as anything in the consensus realm) perhaps stems from our unconscious awareness that we are all conspiring, all of the time, to keep ourselves in the dark about this one, all-consuming fact: that we are the authors of our own beliefs.
• Friendship is opposition.
• When worldviews, versions of reality, go to war, the potential for breakthrough is great
• What we believe to be real becomes real. We forget that we chose to believe a version of reality because we had to. It was a necessary illusion.
• Jason Horsley

(full piece here)

Red Ice Creations Interview & a Meeting with Tom Priestley

On Saturday evening I was interviewed for over two hours by Henrik Palmgren of Red Ice Creations Radio. Red Ice are based in South West Sweden but have a following across the world. After listening to the interview and checking out their website I can quite understand why. These guys are really professional in every way. The website itself is a credit to them. Indeed I am so impressed with how they have manipulated my photograph to show both the "Daemon" and the brain that I have decided to use that image from now on in my promotional material. I have therefore changed the image on here.

The first part of the interview can be listened to, or downloaded as an MP3 at:

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2009/05may/RIR-090517.php

To listen to the second part you will need to become a subscriber to the site. However this is not a bad idea because this gives you access to some amazing interviews - many of them directly related to subjects that we have discussed and, hopefully, will continue to discuss on this BLOG and on my FORUM.

I am very pleased with how this interview went. I had just returned from a fascinating meeting with Tom Priestley. Tom is the only son of the playwright J.B. Priestley. As many of you will know I am involved in a "Platform Discussion" at the National Theatre in late July and I will be talking about J.B.Priestley's philosophy on time as presented in his "Time Plays".

I spent over an hour with Tom and he was very interested in ITLAD/CTF. Indeed he gave me the ultimate complement when I said that his father would have been quite fascinated by my work. As JBP wrote plays influenced by the ideas and theories of Peter Ouspensky and J.W.Dunne this was an honour indeed!

Tom will be in the audience for my "Platform Event" at the Lyttleton Theatre on Friday 24th of July. I only hope that after reading ITLAD that Tom is still as intrigued!

My theory suggests that there is something not quite right with the "common-sense" approach to reality. When I discuss these issues with the public I find that most people assume that the world "out there" is exactly as their senses tell them it is. A classic example of this was the heated debate on this very subject that took place on the Graham Hancock site in April. it is clear to me that for many there is no mystery and that I am somehow a little bit crazy in the way I evaluate consciousness and its interaction with reality.

However I suggest that it is common-sense that is in error and that the masses are deluding themselves in their enthusiasm to remain in their "comfort zone". Indeed I find that sometimes people can become quite aggressive when I suggest that they reflect back on themselves and for a second or two evaluate the real nature of consciousness and perception.

An example of this is that a few days ago I was in discussion with my optician. He was testing my eyesight with all his latest equipment and in the course of our conversation I brought up the question of the "blind spot" in our field of vision. There is a blind spot in each eye where there are no photoreceptors. This is because there has to be a place where the optic nerve is positioned. We don't usually notice the blind spot. However it is always there. I mentioned to the optician that I thought it odd that the brain seems to "fill in the missing section of vision". The optician disagreed with me and said that there was no mystery at all. He explained that we do not notice it for one simple reason; what falls on the blind spot of one eye does not fall on the blind spot of the other. He added that because the eyes are in constant motion so that what falls on the blind spot now does not fall on it a second later. For him that was the simple answer.
This was a typical response of a professional who was dealing with an enthusiastic layperson. I was wrong in my assumption and his opinion was correct. There is no mystery. However there is, a huge one, and one that I guess either he was not aware of or simply wishes to ignore it because it simply does not fit in with the present scientific paradigm. I could have mentioned this to him but decided against it. After all, what would be the point?

So why am I so sure that he is wrong? Well, try this experiment. Keep your head very still and stare at a blank surface such as a wall. Close one eye. Now there will be no overlap of the fields of vision so one eye will not compensate for the other (the optician's central argument). As you are not moving your head there is also no overlap of monocular vision as your single eye stares straight ahead. But still there is no blind spot! In fact it is quite difficult to demonstrate the blind spot and this involves staring at an object with one eye open at a specific distance. So for me there can only be two conclusions to be made about the opticians response - either he knew that the mystery did exist and pretended it didn't or he was simply unaware that the "received wisdom" was wrong.

And this really is a huge mystery because it implies that the brain, not the eye, fills in the missing information. But what is weird is that it fills in the information so seamlessly that we do not notice it. We are fooled into believing that we have an unbroken field of vision.
The philosopher-scientist Daniel Dennett argues that the information is not "filled in" but it is simply ignored. But this does not make the process any stranger. This suggests that the brain can manipulate or field of vision to the extent that areas are "ignored". This still implies that what we actually perceive is not what the eyes actually "see".

Indeed the above is somewhat of an understatement. Again most people assume that what is focused on the back of the eye is what is "seen" in the brain. They are taught that the retina simply acts like role of film at the back of a camera. The light comes in through the lens, the photons/waves (see my recent postings on this additional mystery below) then land on the light sensitive film and an image is created. This photograph is then sent to the brain and "presented" to consciousness. However this "snapshot" analogy is totally inadequate.

The amount of visual information that lands on the retina is extremely limited. There are two retinal images, not one, and they are are distorted, tiny and upside down. In addition the resolving power of the eye is limited and non-uniform. Indeed outside of the high resolution foveal region, the retina is nearly colour-blind and its powers of descrimination are severely limited. On top of this, as the optician rightly pointed out to me, the eye is in nearly constant motion. This movement is called saccadic motion and involves the eye changing position three or four times a second. As a result of this the actual image that lands on the retina takes the form of a succession of of alternating snapshots and grey-outs.

The perception philosopher, Professor Alvin Noe of the University of California, does not share the comfortable world of the "guy down the pub" about the nature of visual perception and its implications for the ultimate nature of reality. In an essay called “Is The Visual World a Grand Illusion?” In a book of the same title, Professor Noe writes the following in relation to the mystery of who the brain "creates" a stable and enveloping visual experience from such limited data:

“How, on the basis of this fragmented and discontinuous information, are we able to enjoy the impression of seamless consciousness of an environment that is detailed, continuous, complex and high resolution? This is the problem faced by visual theory.”

ITLAD/CTF and Karl L LeMarcs' CtCw attempt to explain these anomalies of perception (and those of particle physics) in a totally new paradigm ... an uber-theory... collectively known as BIGTOE. We do seem to have a workable theory that can explain many, if not all, of these "Black Swans" that so irritate and annoy those, such as my optician, who pretend that they have all the answers and there are no problems with the present paradigm.

Rather reminds me of the position of scientists such as Ernest Mach at the turn of the 19th/ 20th centuries. For me these curiosities are the "photo-electric effect" and the "black body radiation" of the 21st century. They have to be explained in order for us to advance our understanding of consciousness and its relationship with the Phenomenal World.

The Mystery of the Photon (02)

In my last posting I discussed the strange relationship between light and consciousness. I would now like to focus in on the second itladian issue regarding light. What I write below is, in many ways, simply a collection of notes and observations that I really wish to record now while they are still fresh in my mind. They may signify nothing, and I am sure that I have made some huge errors of interpretation, but this is a good indicator of where my Daemon seems to be taking me – particularly that recent synchronicities suggest that she is shouting at me at the moment!

Einstein, as a young man, used to wonder what it would be like to travel on the end of a light beam. It was these thoughts that led to the paradigm changing theory of relativity and, as they say, the rest is history.Last night I had a similar, but probably a good deal less, iconoclastic series of thoughts regarding light. These were stimulated by a few passing comments by Michael Shallis in his book On Time.As discussed in my previous posting, light seems to be both a particle and a wave. The particle element of this curiously counter-intuitive dyad is called a “photon”. And photons are weird!Most people who think about this (and few do) visualize a photon as being a very small solid bit of light. This is very, very small, but still a solid thing. However this is not the case. For example a photon has no mass! This means that it has no physical existence in the way that we would normally use the term. If you collected every single photon in the universe and placed them in one place (which would be impossible as they have no real ‘location’ see later) you would still have no mass. They would displace nothing and as such one can only assume that they do not exist within space as we know it.Because they are mass-less they can travel at exactly the speed of light – no faster and no slower. This means that they do not accelerate. When a light switch is turned on the photons that leave the bulb they travel at light speed instantaneously. Now at that speed the universe becomes a very different place from the one we observe.For example from the viewpoint of a photon there is no time. At the speed of light time ceases to flow. So for a photon it is still the moment of the Big Bang!Indeed there are even stranger conclusions that can be drawn from this timeless state experienced by a photon. If I am right in my interpretation then it means that they can travel backwards and forwards in time. We do not have to create exotic super-luminal (faster than light) particles such a tachyons to suggest possible time travel. The humble photon does it all the time (pun unintended).It is known that Space (and, I assume Space-Time) is curved. As such if an object travels for long enough it will arrive back at its initial location. This is like somebody circumnavigating the Earth. This line is technically known as a geodesic. This will apply to a photon. Our photon leaves the surface of Rigel and heads off into the vacuum of space at 299,792,458 metres per second. As long as the universe is expanding at less than the speed of light (which it cannot do anything other than) and it is not absorbed en-route, eventually that photon will end up back at its starting point on the surface of Rigel*1. Now as far as “our “time perception goes, this will take an enormous amount of time, billions if not trillions of years. However, and this is the amazing thing, from the viewpoint of the photon no time will have passed. It will find itself instantaneously back at the start of its journey and ready to do it again and again. Indeed it could do this journey countless times and it would still take, for the photon, no time.Michael Shallis observes:

‘It is strange that light to an observer has a finite measurable speed, when to light there is no time and therefore no space (italics mine).Light seems to interpenetrate the whole universe as if everywhere and every time was “here and now”, and yet to the human observer it travels and it travels at finite speed.’ (On Time – page 62)

So imagine that our photon described above leaves Rigel and arrives on Earth to enter your eye one winter’s evening (assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere). From your frame of reference the photon left Rigel in 1236 C.E. (773 years ago) – when Cordoba was being retaken from the Moors as part of the Spanish “Reconquista” – but for the photon no time has passed and the fall of Cordoba*2. For the photon the encounter with your eye and the fall of Cordoba are contemporaneous events!Now what is important for me is that light, as a photon or as a wave, is the medium by which we perceive most of the world, and universe, around us. Without light we would quite literally, exist in complete darkness. Light is the medium by which we communicate with the world outside of consciousness. It carries information and yet this medium is mysterious in the extreme. It exists in a timeless place beyond our understanding. Indeed without electromagnetic radiation such as heat, life would not exist and the universe would be a cold, dead place.

The Gnostic Mystic Mani called matter “Bottled Light”. Could this be the real secret regarding the nature of reality? That light, matter and thought are all related in some deep, meaningful way? Could this be a clue to the “Implicate Order” suggested by David Bohm. Could light be the building blocks of my Bohmian IMAX?.

(I am aware of a slight error of logic on my part. If the photon had travelled round the universe it would arrive somewhere on the surface of Rigel but it would be unlikely to be the same place. Rigel’s relative position will have moved in the billions of years of travel and, even more likely, it would have gone supernova eons before the photon gets back. Of course, if we apply the concept of the “Eternal Return” and assume that time, like space, is circular, then maybe the photon would return to the point of its creation on the surface of Rigel and, then, in a form of Stellar Bohmian IMAX, start on its timeless journey again..)

Regarding the Cordoba comment above this is strange, and curiously synchronistic.

If you have not already done so, please check out the “Cordoba” postings by “Mick” on this Blogsite. This will explain why this random choice of the star Rigel is curious. I could have picked any star but my Daemon suggested Rigel. My Daemon then suggested that I find out what event would have been taking place in Europe at the time that the photon left the surface of Rigel. Had to be something to do with Cordoba did it not!

The Mystery of the Photon (01)

I have just finished re-reading the Peter Shallis book On Time. I am particularly intrigued by the things he discusses about the nature of light. Indeed it kept me awake for most of the night. Below are my thoughts and observations regarding my nocturnal ruminations. I am sure that I am really missing something but if I am not I feel that I have really isolated a massive mystery regarding the nature and process of vision when analysed in the “light” (pun unintended) of the Copenhagen Interpretation and the famed “collapse of the wave function”. I would like your opinions on this.

(This is the first of two postings. The second one will focus in on the universe as perceived from the viewpoint of a photon).

Light, or more accurately, the electromagnetic spectrum) is an essential component of our understanding of the universe around us. Everything we see needs particles (or waves) of light to be bouncing off it and entering our eyes. These photons carry the message of shape, colour, texture, brightness from the object to the retina of our eye. At this point the message from the photons is converted into nerve signals and these are sent to the sight centres of the brain. Here something “magical” happens and the signals are “converted” into an “image” that is presented to consciousness. This process in itself is shrouded in mystery (how does a small, inverted image on the back of the eye create the huge, vibrant, colourful field of vision that we take for granted every moment of our waking life? Indeed who does the “perceiving” of this image …. an image that only occurs on the retina, not in the brain itself?) But this is a mystery that demands another post. For now I just wish to discuss the external nature of light.

So light is the medium of communication by which the external world is presented to “consciousness”. But what exactly is light?

Well for a start, modern science cannot even make up its mind if light is a “wave” or a “particle”. Now this is of profound importance. A wave is a disturbance in some other substance such as a wave in water or a sound wave in air. The wave needs the substance for it to travel along. Without the substance a wave does not exist. For example imagine those giant ocean breakers without the water. Where are they? Imagine music being played in a vacuum. Where is the sound? In both cases without the medium the wave simply does not exist. But a particle is a very different type of “thing”. It is a solid point that has both location and mass. It is a solid bit of something or other. Particles of light, as we have seen, are called photons. However photons are very strange particles in that they have no mass and, as we shall see later, no location either.

But light shows particle-like and wave-like behaviour. Sometimes it acts exactly as one would expect a solid particle to behave …. Photons can be shot at a surface and it will kick out electrons just like the surface was being hit by grains of sand and being sandblasted. Individual photons can be fired through a slit and will appear as points on a screen the other side of the slit, just as particles would such as bullets fired from a gun.

However light also flows. It can flow round an object. When shone through two slits it acts exactly as a wave would be expected to. It develops an “interference pattern”, a classic wave-effect.

But how can light be both a particle and a wave?

But it gets stranger. Experimentation has shown that in order for light to show particle-like behaviour it has to be “observed”. Without an “observer” it behaves as a wave.

To explain this mystery physicists have suggested that an electromagnetic wave (of which light is the visible part) is not a wave as we understand the term. It is not a wave moving through a medium such as water or air but a wave of “probabilities”. In this way an explanation was found as to how light/electromagnetic waves can cross the vastness of space …. known to be a vacuum. This was for a long time a huge problem for scientists who were convinced (from the experimental evidence) that light was a wave. How is it, they asked, that a light wave can leave the sun and arrive at the Earth eight minutes later when between the Earth and the Sun is empty space, a vacuum? They suggested that space was not empty but was full of a mysterious substance known as “luminiferous aether”. It was this that carried the light waves. However in a very famous experiment by Michelson and Morley in 1887 it was shown that aether did not exist. However if light consisted of particles travelling at the speed of light then no aether was needed.

However the experimental evidence that light was, indeed a wave, was overpowering. Something was clearly wrong. The solution was that light is a wave that contains a probability of finding a particle (photon) in one place or another. Before observation the particle is smeared out over space as a “wave function”. In order for this wave function to “collapse” into a particle in a particular location something has to take place ….. and that something is the “act of observation”.

The big issue is what constitutes an “observer”? Can it be a measuring device or does it need to be a conscious observer such as a cat? Or does that observer need to be self-aware, a “reflective self-consciousness”?

Nobody really knows the answer to this question but the implications are incredible; that photons may need a conscious observer to bring them into existence! If this is true then vision works in a very weird way. As a light wave hits the retina it is technically “unobserved” because it is yet to reach consciousness. As such it can only be a wave at this point. However the wave is then converted into a nerve signal that is sent to the visual cortex to be reassembled into an image. But that image does not consist of photons. It is simply a nerve signal. The recreated image is then presented to consciousness and is “perceived” – the act of “observation”. If we accept the “collapse of the wave function” then where (and when) does the collapse from a wave to a particle take place? It cannot be before consciousness “observes” it, because that act of observation is right at the end of the process when the “wave” has changed to a nerve signal and is no longer light in any form, wave or particle. Can it be that the retina “observes” and in doing so collapses the wave function? But can this be an option? I am very aware that the retina is technically part of the brain, not the eye, but is it is not in any way “conscious” and definitely not “self-conscious”.

So we have this brain-generated “image” of the external world that projects itself into and wraps around our field of vision like a super IMAX picture. However this image is not made up of waves or photons, they have been long lost in the process. This view of the world is, at best, a facsimile and, at worst, an illusion. And of course we have an even deeper mystery …. where are the photons in this model?

So have I missed something?

If my theory is correct then 70% of us exist inside an inwardly-generated "illusion" that we perceive to be an external "reality". The philosophers call this the "Phaneron" and I term it the "Bohmian IMAX".

If this is correct than this "world" should be full of self-referential clues that hint at this illusion. I suggest that these clues are presented to us all the time. Some of us see them and others just ignore them as just chance and coincidence. Those who have reflected on these things have another term .... they call it synchronicity. From Karl Jung to Arthur Koestler there has been a fascination with this "significant coincidences. Jmaes Redfield in his "Celestine Prophesy" books came to the same conclusion. These synchronicities mean something. So what should I make of this one:

Yesterday I was travelling through on the Merseyside Metro system from Liverpool James Street Station to my home station of Spital. I was reading the Michael Shallis book [i]On Time[/i]. Michael has a fascinating section on coincidence and meaning and I had just started this as the train left Birkenhead Central. As usual I was listening to my Archos MP3 player (as you all know from previous postings this machine has around 14,000 individual MP3 songs and I was, as usual, listening on random play. So there is a 1 in 14,000 of any one track being played. As we approach Rock Ferry Station I was overcome with what initially felt like a mixed deja senti/vu sensation. The first few bars of the Duffy song "Rockferry" started to play as we drew into Rock Ferry station. Now many of you know that a few months ago I recorded on this FORUM that exactly the same set of circumstances conspired to select this track as I was looking at the song's subject matter through the train window. And it was happening again! The odds of this happening once are very high .... but twice on a "random play" starts to stretch belief. Of course in order for coincidences to be significant there has to be another linkage at work. That was that I was reading a chapter on COINCIDENCE AND CHANCE!!! Indeed at that point Michael was discussing the statistics of coincidence and what made them significant. I got home feeling quite strange about all this.

That is interesting I hear you say, but not THAT interesting.

I agree, but today it continued.

Usually my journey to work consists of a metro journey, then an overground train journey then a short bus journey. For the last three weeks there has been improvement work on the Central Loop Line of the Liverpool metro service. This means that I have been obliged to take a bus from central Liverpool to my work location in Speke. Every day I have caught a bus numbered the 500. This goes to John Lennon Airport (note the Beatle link) and takes the quickest route. This morning I am at Paradise Street Bus Station waiting in my usual place. A bus draws in and I assume it is the 500 and get on. It is only as it drives away towards the city centre that I realise I have got on the wrong bus. I knew that this route would get me to work eventually but the route takes much longer and drives through the inner suburbs of the city before heading out to the airport. I have my archos on (random play as usual) and I am still reading the Shallis book and enjoying some of the fascinating coincidences that he describes. As a Wirralian I do not know Liverpool that well so I was not exactly sure where I was when The Beatles starting playing on the Archos. As soon as the song began to play and I recognised the tune a shiver went right up my spine (I mean this literally, it was one of those "somebody walking over your grave" type sensations). I knew exactly where I was going to be as I looked out the bus window. Literally (and I mean literally to the second) as the Beatles sang

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes

There beneath the blue suburban skies

I sit, and meanwhile back ...."

The road sign "Penny Lane" appeared in my field of vision. This really scared me more than anything that has ever happened in my ITLADIC journey.

This was really significant. Think about this. "Penny Lane" was indeed "in my ears and in my eyes". I was listening to it through headphones and I was looking at Penny Lane through the bus window. But it gets weirder. As many of you know Liverpool is in the North West of England. Known for its rainy skies. This morning had clear blue, cloudless skies..... I was in the Liverpool suburbs looking up at "Blue suburban skies". Now I admit that on its own this is of no significance but taking into account what was happening that I also had blue skies above me added to the weird feelings going through my head. Oh, and of course ..... I was sitting.... ("I sit" as the lyrics say). So when this 14,000 to 1 track came on I could have been walking (I wasn't I was sitting) the skies could have been cloudy (they were not, the were clear blue). I was in Penny Lane. I was reading a book about coincidences. The night before I had the Rockferry incident. It was verrrry weirdddd ..... almost Twilight Zone stuff). I have just done a quick check on my Archos about local place names in song titles within the 14,000 tracks. I am sure I am right but I only know of four:

Penny Lane by The Beatles,

Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles,

Rock Ferry by Deaf School and

Rockferry by Duffy (what is it about Rock Ferry that inspires people to write about it in song?)

As I got off the bus I watched it drive away. Along the side of the bus was painted a large picture showing, among others, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Now I need to check this but I am also sure that the road sign "Penny Lane" was featured in this advert for Liverpool 08. As it disappeared in the distance its destination was shown on the back of the bus ..... "John Lennon Airport". I felt the shiver hit yet again!

Tessa Dick - the latest Itladian?

I am delighted to announce that Tessa Dick, widow of the late and great Philip K Dick, and I have opened up email communication. I would like to thank archaeologist and member of the Graham Hancock "Phorum", David Campbell, for facilitating this.

Tessa (and David) are now active members of my own FORUM at www.anthonypeake.com/forum .

Tessa has already made a posting on the Anthony Peake Forum (discussing Julian Jaynes) and I am hoping that she will become a regular contributor.

Indeed Tessa has her own Blog site which is well worth checking out. Tessa discusses Phil, his writing and the events surrounding Phil's "Theophany" of March 1974 - an event so central to the issues discussed on this Blog and on my FORUM. Tessa's site can be found at http://pkdmemoir.blogspot.com/.

Tessa has also written a book about Phil entitled Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright. Signed copies of this book can be ordered direct from Tessa at her Blogsite. I have already ordered my copy and I am convinced that this book may prove to be of profound importance in the development of ITLAD/CTF and will also contain proof of the widening theory of BIGTOE and Karl's CtCw.

Tessa has already posted a comment about my work and I would like to thank her for this. she has already read the PKD chapter of "The Daemon" and a copy of this book will be winging its way across the Atlantic to her tomorrow.

Exciting times indeed!

As many of you may be aware, I have been invited to contribute to a "Platform Event" at The National Theatre in London. I will be on stage with Professor Jeff Forshaw of Manchester University.

The event will start at 1800 and will last for about 45 minutes. Note that this will take place in the Lyttleton Theatre.There is an intention for any itladians in the audience to meet up afterwards and go for a drink at the Doggetts Coat and Badge, a nearby drinking house much frequented by A Dark Philosopher in recent years and in the late 1970's by himself (although I am sure that it has much changed). Check it out at http://www.doggettscoatandbadge.co.uk/.

It is planned that Jeff and I will be signing copies of our respective books after the event. For details on Jeff's book (co-written with Professor Brian Cox) check out:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Does-E-mc2-Should/dp/0306817586

It is possible that some itladians may wish to sit together in the auditorium. If so you have two options. The theatre has a Groups Department.Their number is 020 7452 3010. and tickets can also be booked in-line at:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/45917/platforms/an-experiment-with-time-and-the-conways.html

This could be one of those special nights (particularly if the weather is nice and we can sit outside - I mean the pub event by the way, not the theatre event!)

You may be interested to know that a new(ish) review of ITLAD has appeared on Amazon USA. I think that it is a very fair evaluation and one that has picked up on some of the "concerns" long discussed on this Blogsite. I was delighted to discover that the reviewer also has a Blogsite location. This can be found at:

http://wwmentaltraveller.blogspot.com/

I have already added a comment on the actual posting at:

http://wwmentaltraveller.blogspot.com/2009/01/peake-experience.html

thanking "Gardening In The Centre" for this review (and for placing a link to this site and to The Forum).