Brain in a VAT

Subsequent to the suggestion made by Susan Marie a few days ago I am in the process of designing a book synopsis for my publisher. It is my intention to write a book discussing the philosophical underpinnings and subsequent implications of CTF. We have touched upon this subject many times on this blog and I am of the opinion that a really fascinating book could be written on this subject.

As part of my research I have started to re-read the fascinating The Matrix & Philosophy book edited by Professor William Irwin of Kings College Pennsylvania. (I know that Bill is an occasional reader of this blog so if you are out there in cyberspace, Bill, maybe post a comment). As we are all very aware The Matrix movies are profoundly itladian in their philosophy so a book on this subject will be full of fascinating parallels. One that particularly caught my attention last time I read the book is a thought experiment suggested by retired Harvard philosopher professor Hilary Putnam.

Professor Putnam's 'brains in a vat' proposal can be found in his "Reason, Truth & History" (Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp 1-21). He proposes a scenario:

"Imagine that a human being (you can imagine this to be yourself) has been subjected to an operation by an evil scientist. The person's brain (your brain) has been removed from the body and placed in a vat of nutrients which keeps the brain alive. The nerve endings have been connected to a super-scientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that everything is perfectly normal. There seem to be people, objects, the sky, etc.; but really, all the person (you) is experiencing is the result of electronic impulses travelling from the computer to the nerve endings. The computer is so clever that if the person tries to raise his hand, the feedback from the computer will cause him to 'see' and 'feel' the hand being raised. Moreover, by varying the program, the evil scientist can cause the victim to 'experience' (or hallucinate) any situation or environment the evil scientist wishes. He can also obliterate the memory of the brain operation, so that the victim will seem to himself to have always been in this environment. It can even seem to the victim that he is sitting and reading these very words about the amusing but quite absurd supposition that there is an evil scientist who removes people's brains from their bodies and places them in a vat of nutrients which keep the brains alive. The nerve endings are supposed to be connected to a super-scientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that..."

Putnam then adds an interesting twist on this scenario. He adds:

"This time let us suppose that the automatic machinery is programmed to give us all a collective hallucination, rather than a number of separate unrelated hallucinations. Thus, when I seem to myself to be talking to you, you seem to yourself to be hearing my words. Of course, it is not the case that my words actually reach your ears — for you don't have (real) ears, nor do I have a real mouth and tongue. Rather, when I produce my words, what happens is that the efferent impulses travel from my brain to the computer, which both causes me to 'hear' my own voice uttering those words and 'feel' my tongue moving, etc., and causes you to 'hear' my words, 'see' me speaking, etc. In this case, we are, in a sense, actually in communication. I am not mistaken about your real existence (only about the existence of your body and the 'external world', apart from brains). From a certain point of view, it doesn't even matter that 'the whole world' is a collective hallucination; for you do, after all, really hear my words when I speak to you, even if the mechanism isn't what we suppose it to be. (Of course, if we were two lovers making love, rather than just two people carrying on a conversation, then the suggestion that it was just two brains in a vat might be disturbing.) "

Is this not exactly what I suggest is happening in my Bohmian IMAX? However unlike Putnam (and, by implication the writers of the Matrix - the Wachowski Brothers) I suggest a neurological scenario by which this may be an actuality and not a speculative fiction. I present evidence that for most of those reading these words (specifically those who experience deja vu) this life, this 'phaneron', is an illusion, a Maya, created by the brain itself.

I do not need bizarre 'brains in vats' or malevolent aliens to bring about my thought experiment - just observed neurological science and subjective experiences as reported by many of my readers and thousands of others around the world - and in doing so present not only an alternative paradigm of existence but also a potential explanation of why mortality may be an illusion.

Of course, as I continue to stress, this is just a theory ......

Johann Gottlieb Fichte's "fictional" Daemonic Encounter

I have just started reading Fichte's The Vocation of Man and came across a really fascinating section. In the introduction to book 2 (Knowledge) Fichte describes and amazing encounter between Fichte and 'a wondrous shape'. The 'shape' explains to Fichte why it is that reality is not as real as he (Fichte) believes. Now I am fully aware that 'dialogue' such as this has been used a philosophical tool since Socrates but for a second suspend belief and assume that Fichte is describing a real event. Could this not be considered a Daemonic Encounter? Indeed does this not remind you of two particular scenes in that most Itladian of movies, Vanilla Sky? ( the scene in the bar where David Aames (Tom Cruise) first encounters the 'guide' implanted in his mind to tell him that the world he thinks is real is an inwardly generated illusion, and the final scene where the 'guide' convinces Aames that everything is really an illusion and that his only option is jumping off the building):

Chagrin and anguish stung me to the heart. I cursed the returning day which called me back to an existence whose truth and significance were now involved in doubt. I awoke in the night from unquiet dreams. I sought anxiously for a ray of light that might lead me out of these mazes of uncertainty. I sought, but became only more deeply entangled in the labyrinth.

Once, at the hour of midnight, a wondrous shape appeared before me, and addressed me: -

"Poor mortal," I heard it say, "thou heapest error upon error, and fanciest thyself wise. Thou tremblest before the phantoms which thou hast thyself toiled to create. Dare to become truly wise. I bring thee no new revelation. What I can teach thee thou already knowest, and thou hast but to recall it to thy remembrance. I cannot deceive thee; for in every step thou thyself wilt acknowledge me to be in the right; and shouldst thou still be deceived, thou wilt be deceived by thyself. Take courage - listen to me, and answer my questions."

I took courage. "He appeals to my own understanding. I will make the venture. He cannot think his own thoughts into my mind; the conclusion to which I shall come must be thought out by myself; the conviction which I shall accept must be of my own creating. [356] Speak, wonderful Spirit!" I exclaimed, "whatever thou art! Speak and I will listen. Question me, and I will answer."

The Spirit. Thou believest that these objects here, and those there, are actually present before thee and out of thyself?

I. Certainly I do.

Spirit. And how dost thou know that they are actually present?

I. I see them; I would feel them were I to stretch forth my hand; I can hear the sounds they produce; they reveal themselves to me through all my senses.

Spirit. Indeed! Thou wilt perhaps by and by take back the assertion that thou seest, feelest, and hearest these objects. For the present I will speak as thou dost, as if thou didst really, by means of thy sight, touch, and hearing, perceive the real existence of objects. But observe, it is only by means of thy sight, touch, and other external senses. Or is it not so? Dost thou perceive otherwise than through thy senses? and has an object any existence for thee, otherwise than as thou seest it, hearest it, &c.?

I. By no means.

Spirit. Sensible objects, therefore, exist for thee, only in consequence of a particular determination of thy external senses: thy knowledge of them is but a result of thy knowledge of this determination of thy sight, touch, &c. Thy declaration - 'there are objects out of myself,' depends upon this other - 'I see, hear, feel, and so forth?'

This dialogue continues for some time and in the end "I" (Eidolon) is convinced by "Spirit" (Daemon) that 'reality' (Bohmian IMAX) is an illusion.

Here we have Fichte being presented with one itladian theme (the Bohmian IMAX) by a being very similar to our Daemon in a very similar set of circumstances (late in a sleepless night) to those described by Friedrich Nietzsche:

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”

Could it be that both Nietzsche and Fichte had minds very open to their respective daemons and that these daemons gave clues to the itladian nature of reality?

(the painting at the top of this post is The Wanderer by Casper David Friedrich.

Philosophical Support of CTF

I have been reading a good deal of philosophy recently. I have always been interested in German Romantic painting - particularly the art of Casper David Friedrich. this has lead me to the philosophical underpinnings of the romantic movement in the early 19th century. I know that Susan Marie has written about the similarities between ITLAD and Kant and it therefore came as no surprise to me to find that central to Kant's philosophy is that the entire world as we experience it (the phenomenal world) is dependent upon our apparatus for experiencing it. As such he argued that things as thy appear to us are not identical with the things as they are in themselves ( the noumenal world). This position is known as transcendental idealism and sounds very similar to me to The Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr.

However I was really surprised (and quite delighted) to recently come across the writings of another German philosopher of that period, Johann Gottleib Fichte (1762-1814). Fichte took Kant's transcendental idealism to its logical (and profoundly itladian) conclusion in suggesting that if reality is beyond all possibility of apprehension, as Kant claimed, then we have no grounds for claiming that there is anything out there at all. The entire phenomenal world is therefore not an independent reality, but the creation of the individual ego that creates this world for itself. Fichte argued that at his death his world will cease to exist with him. His world needs him as its observer to continue being. However he also argued that other people also exist in their own worlds and somehow we all exist independently but also interrelated. (Bohmian IMAX and Implicate Order).

Clearly ITLAD argues that there is a Kantian noumenal world that exists external to the observer. This has to be in order for the LeMarcsian Virgin Life to take place. The challenge is understanding how that relates to later iterations of the Bohmian IMAX which one could reasonably argue is a phenomenal model (I have aways considered ITLAD to be phenomenal, now I know why).

I need to read more of this guys stuff. I have ordered a copy of his book The Vocation of Man and I will work my way through it. Indeed I am now stimuated to write something (article, book?) on the philosophy of Itlad and how it reflects the ideas of many famous thinkers of the past.

How Soon Is Now (2) - The Phantom Premise

[a continuation of an evolving thought-process began in previous posts: How Soon Is Now and Peakeian Daemonology ; and stimulated by Ken, Jesamyn and Susan-Marie's recent comments regarding Time]

When, exactly, IS now? Is it now as I write this in a London hotel (at 4am on a particularly insomniacal night); or is it now as I type this (at 1.00 pm in a Thames-side pub); or is it now as you read this (whatever time that may be)?
The answer is most certainly, none of the above, as each instance of potential 'now-ness' has already become the past and was already the past well before you perceived the initial illusionary moment of now.

We think of Time as a linear progression from A to B with causality and effect: Past, Present and Future; Time’s Arrow! Time, in Einsteinian terms, is curved; curve something enough and it eventually bends back upon itself: But how soon is now? Is now an anomaly of space-time and indeed is your conception of now precisely that of mine? Recent neurological research would suggest not, as our perception of now is delayed, by the neuronal configuration in our brains, in being presented to our consciousness. Can this “Consciousness Buffer” be identical, to a trillionth of a second, for every solitary human being? I personally doubt it, so my now and your now can be very different.

Consider the now of an Eidolon and Daemon compared to the now of a Virgin Life; The now of the Eidolon and Daemon are by definition different to each other as the Daemon is conscious of future events; now-with-an-eye-on-the-past being necessarily different from now-with-an-eye-on-the-future. And consider the now of the Virgin Life: this now will also differ from the Eidolonic now as every moment is new and not a replay, but all of this leads me to more and more questions, the leading ones being:

Is Time a consciousness construct? Is Time an empty ephemeral evanescence? Does Time require an observer? Is Time a constant stream or a series of quantised 'Now's?

Or is Time the phantom premise.

A Dark Philosopher
Karl L Le Marcs

Apocalypse Now / Eternal return - Julian Baggini

First off let me highly recommend the amazing book by Julian Baggini "The pig that wants to be eaten" and 99 other thought experiments. It gives sevreral philosophical ponderings and ethical dilemas, it's one of the best books i've read in ages (*coughs*, oh apart from this one book, i forget the name of it).

Anyway number 69 (no serioulsy) The Horror makes an interesting speculation about the end scene of Apocalypse now:

" 'The horror! The Horror!'
Many have speculated about what inspired Colonel Kurtz to utter those famous last words. The answer lies in what he realised just before he let out his last breath. In that moment, he understood the past, present and future were all illusions. No moment in time is ever lost. Everything that happens exists for ever.

That meant his impending death would not be the end. His life, once lived, would always exist. And so, in a sense, the life he had lived would be lived again and again, eternally recurring, each time exactly the same and thus with no hope of learning, of changing, of righting past wrongs.
Had Kurtz made a success of his life he could have borne that realisation. He could have looked upon his work, thought 'it is good' and gone to his grave serene in triumph over death. The fact that he instead reacted with horror testified to his failure to overcome the challenges of mortal existance.
'The horror! The horror!' Would you react to the thought of eternal recurrence any differently?

Sources: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Fredrich Neitzsche (1891); Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1902)

Baggini goes on to point out 'Even if our lives are not fated to be infinitely repeated, whether or not we can bear the thought that would be is, for Neitzsche, a test of wether we have 'overcome' life. Only the 'overman', who has complete self-mastery over his fate, could look upon his life with enough satisfaction to accept his eternal recurrence.

It is important to remember that what Neitzsche is talking about is not a kind of Groundhog Day. IN that film, Bill Murray found himself in the same day again and again, but each time he had the opportunity to do things differently. Hence he had the possibility of redemption, of escaping the cycle, by finally learning how to love. Neitzsche's form of recurrence is one in which there is no awareness that one is doing the same thing again, and there is no opportunity to do it differently. It is literally the exact same life, lived again and again...

The overman accepts the idea of recurrence without the blinkers and filters that protect us from the pain of remembering. That is why Neitzsche believed the overman was so rare, and why the rest of us would react like Kurtz to the thought of history repeating itself again, and again and again.

Overman. Interesting. Discuss (my fingers are tired)

The Terminator and altering the future/past

I remember having a discussion about the plausibility of one aspect of the movie, The Terminator. A man appears and saves Sarah Conner and ends up being the father of her child, John. That child, in the future, sends the man back in time to save Sarah Conner. However, I had the scenario wrong and I was arguing that the child went back in time and was his own father. (This is not really a post about the Oedipus complex. Bear with me.) Viewed in linear-time, you have something like the following (and track left to right with your eyes):

_______\/_______/\_____

where \/ is a man who was not born yet appearing out of no where and /\ is a man disappearing into no where. So, the question is: How can a man who has not been born yet appear at some point in time. And if he can't appear then how can be ever be born?

But if we take the view of time as stations along a train track, as Anthony discusses in ITLAD, then you have something more like the following (and look at the whole picture at once):

         __________
        |        /|\
_______\|/________|_____

So, you can see that it makes more sense. The man goes back in time and is capable of being a father and meets a woman and they have a baby. That baby happens to grow up to go back in time and is capable of being a father ... Cause and effect are removed from the equation because all the pieces are there, always will be there, always have been there. This would be the view that time is an artifact of our perception. Nothing really changes in this view. Things happen and it's harder to assign cause and effect to the various pieces.

Now think about events where death was averted (such as in not taking our usual train because of a strong feeling that we should wait and the train crashes). To say that we avoided death or that our life was changed implies a linear time concept with cause and effect. What happens now changes what happens in the future. But if we think about the events in our life as static and we are merely tracking through them, then what we do now does not alter the future because the future has already been mapped out. So, we chose not to take the A train and thus avoided the fatal crash because that's what we do -- present tense.

I realize this all seems very boring and deterministic and does not leave room for free will, chance, randomness, whatever. But I've been thinking about our BIMAX and what if the recording was made at the Big Bang? What if the flow of time REALLY is an artifact and our DVD has always existed and we are simply watching a pre-recorded recording? I'm not quite finished ITLAD yet but Anthony spends quite some time on the nature of time and I'm wondering why since all the BIMAX, Many Worlds, etc. pieces seem to rely on time moving forwarded with the future unknown.

If any of this makes a lick of sense to you, comments are appreciated. Thank you and "I know you are going to say that" ;-)

Deja Vu and getting older.

I responded with a comment made by Dreamer with regard to my posting two days ago. On completing it I thought that it was probably useful to place it as a full posting as well as a comment. Dreamer made the observation that as we get older, the incidence of deja vu experiences become less and less. Dreamer's observation is supported by a good deal of empirical research on the subject. I presented an Itladian suggestion as to why this may be.

If the pure memory argument is to work (i.e. that these circumstances subconsciously remind me of a similar set of circumstances encountererd earlier in my life) is to hold water then surely the more life experiences we have (i.e. getting older) the more these coincidences should take place. The evidence suggests the opposite. I propose that there are two CTF reasons for this:

1. As we get older our ability to recall memories (engrams) of our previous 'life-run' fade. In our early years they are still there just below the surface of conscious awareness. As such they can regularly surface into eidolonic consciousness. With time these memories fall deeper into daemonic consciousness and thus are not so accessible to 'unbidden eidolonic recall'.

2. As we get older it is more likely that we will experience a Daemonic Mutation. By this I mean an intervention by our Daemon that brings about a change that takes us off the path of our Bohmian IMAX and trajects is into the Bohmain IMAX of another version of ourselves - the one that followed the path after the intervention. For example a daemonically induced precognitive dream is heeded and the subject does not catch a particular airline flight. Last time the subject was killed when the plane crashed. This time they avoid death. From that moment on the 'plot' or 'script' of that person's Bohmian IMAX has been changed totally. As such they (and their Daemon) will have no memories to recall because it is all new experience. As such Deja vu's will also cease.

So it is not at all surprising that as we get older deja vu's happen less and less. However I am becoming very interested in the theories that suggest that there is a 'Consciousness Field' (suggested by Laszlo, Halliday and McTaggart among others). It may be that some post-Daemonic Mutation deja vu experiences could be facilitated by memories not contained within daemonic consciousness but within 'The Field' - what Eugene Halliday termed Reflexive Self-Consciousness and a similar concept, The Akashic Record. For me these are both potential elements of David Bohm's Implicate Order and compliment CTF.

7 Waves Radio Interview - Thursday 20th March

I will be interviewed by 7 Waves Radio here on the Wirral this coming Thursday (20th March) at 13:30 (UK time). I was interviewed by this local station this time last year so I will be giving an update on what has happened over the last year and discussing my new book. Although only broadcast over a small area 7 Waves can be listened to on-line. If anybody out there is interested you can send a message or question via the 'contact' tab at the top right hand side of their web page into the station whilst I am 'live'. It would be great to hear from you - even better if you say where you are contacting from. Log on at:

http://www.7waves.co.uk/live-across-the-wirral/

I am hoping that if this goes well we may be able to have a longer 'phone-in' session that will allow an on-line discussion that will involve you guys from far afield such as The States, Canada, New Zealand etc.

Deja Vu and song lyrics

One of the stimulants to write ITLAD was to find an explanation for deja vu. I have had this sensation since I was very young and like most people I had the sensation before I knew that there was a word for it.

In recent years I have them fairly rarely and as such when the take place they always take me by surprise. This morning I had the overwhelming feeling that I had read Dreamer's comment on my IONS posting before. This was quite precise. At some indeterminate time in my past I have read that comment sitting on this sunny spring morning looking out my study window. Both the contents of the comment and the circumstances are fully entwined. Clearly for me this is not a simple 'subconscious recognition' of a similar event in my past. I know that these set of circumstances have never happened before.

Because I was in a state of heightened observation I was able to 'observe' the sensation as it took place. I knew exactly what Dreamer was going to say at the end of the comment before I read it. I knew that Lynne McTaggart would be mentioned and that Dreamer would place references to ITLAD and CTF on the sites she is involved in. For me this was a possible precognition.

Of course one could argue that I had already subconsciously scanned the end of the email but my mind had not processed it. But if my mind had not been involved how could I recognise it?

Indeed this is something I seem to experience a lot; that something - an idea, a song or a memory, will leap unbidden into my mind and stimulate a displacement action. A classic took place recently. For some reason when I open or close the curtains in one of our rooms I will, unfailingly, start to non-verbally sing one particular section of the song Machine Gun Kelly by James Taylor (off the simply excellent album Mud Slide Slim). I was at a loss as to why this took place every time I closed one particular curtain. It was only a few days ago I realised what was happening. Part of me, a part of me outside of my everyday awareness (my Daemon?), would glance at the bookcase to the right of the curtain in question. This is one of my wife's bookcases, so contains books I have never read (we have quite different tastes in reading). As I was about to close the curtains, but before James started singing in my head, my everyday awareness (Eidolon?) spotted one book - Just Between Us by Cathy Kelly. There was the answer to the mystery. Every morning and evening my subliminal consciousness was making a series of links that went something like this; Cathy Kelly will probably also be known as Catherine Kelly - Katherine Kelly was the wife of Machine Gun Kelly. Machine Gun Kelly is a song I have known since 1971 and one lyric of that song is:

I'll tell you about Katherine Kelly,

Tired on being such small time

Figured they'd kidnap a rich man's son

Make it in the world of crime

But the odd thing is that this was not the verse that my mind picked up upon but an earlier verse:

Machine Gun Kelly was a simple man,

But the woman was as heard as hell

And these were the lines that crept into my mind. I had unconsciously read the book title which had stimulated an unbidden memory of a song which then immediately appeared in my mind - but not the section of the song that mentions the actual link - the name K(C)atherine Kelly.

Could this be what happened this morning with Dreamer's comment?

Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)

I have recently joined The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). I have now spent a few days looking round its website and enjoying the benefits of its membership and I am sure that many members of this blog (particularly you guys in The States and Canada) may find it of great interest. I have already placed a handful of my blog entries on this site onto it and they are causing a fair degree of interest. Early days but I am sure that sooner or later ITLAD and CTF will be noticed by this organisation. It would be great if we could have some of our fascinating debates that we have on this site mirrored on the IONS site - particularly as a lot more people will be reading them. If any of you would like to check out IONS and consider joining please take a look at the website http://www.noetic.org/ . I think the best option is the 'Shift In Action Partnership Program'. This costs $10.00 a month and the benefits are really quite impressive. Like anything else the more you put in the more you are likely to get out. You get your own section of the site and you can then blog to your hearts content about any subject (including ITLAD and CTF!)

It will be interesting to see if non-members can log onto the Shift In Action site - this is

http://www.shiftinaction.com/

I am also keen that some of the UK bloggers think about joining up. I note that IONS is not very well represented in the UK. If we had enough members I am sure that we could set up a second UK branch. There is one in London and that really seems to be it.

Of course I do not wish this to in any way replace this blog site, but as a way of expanding our profile in the USA.

It would be interesting to have your feedback on this suggestion.

The Fountain - My Review (As Promised!)

So i watched it this morning and found it quite an interesting watch. I definately agree that it needs several viewings before a fair opinion can be formed. The film captures the absurdity of being afriad of death. Death is as necessary as life, they're two sides of the same coin. Like Rachel Weisz put it, stars die and give birth to other stars, it's true that we are just like them. The ending in particular gives a nice visual on one of the many themes of this film, that being that we are all connected. It's fragmented chronology bears similarities to Jacobs Ladder, which shares similar themes to this film.

Throughout the film i was reminded of another film i saw probably over ten years ago now. You know these films you catch late one night (or i should say morning) at like 2-3am and then you never find out what they were called and forget about them? This happened to me and then about 6 years later i was at a friend's house in Manchester flicking through the channels and after about 1 second i recognised the film straight away!! The film is called Being Human and Stars Robin Williams. He plays several everyman characters throughout history and the film shares the same fragmented chaos which manages to show how we are all connected. I remember very little about the film so this will probably be next on my list *rushes off to ebay!*

Definately many ITLADian themes to explore throughout the film and good performances from both Jackman and Weisz. I'll probably give it another watch again soon as i think it deserves multiple viewings aswell. Below is a link for the film Everyman.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106379/

Stephen Hawkings - Part Deux (the remix)

So i watched the second part to "Master of the universe" last night and loved it. I found the explanation of string theory, 11 dimensions and membranes absolutely fascinating. The thought that there are these big sheets of time and space and our universe is one of many that form out of 3d is amazing. I would be very grateful if the plethora of brilliant minds on this blog could share their knowledge and opinions on this amazing M theory. Any books recommended? Any problems you're particularly fascinated by? I now feel slightly more equiped to understand Karl's vast amount of posts on Gravity! From the little extra i've learned in the past 24 hours i understand this helps to shed light on why gravity was thought of to be the weakest of the forces but now may simply be filtered out by other dimensions. Visual aids are so, so helpful aren't they? Anyway, oh the point? I liked part 2.

Philip K Dick's precognition in Dean Radin's 'Entangled Minds'

A very curious case of coincidence/synchrondipity has just taken place.

I have recently been in contact with American science writer and researcher Dean Radin. I placeca comment on his blogger site (http://deanradin.blogspot.com/) and he responded with interest in both my theories and my website. I am hopeful that at some stage Dean will also take a look at this excellent (thanks to you guys) blog. As I have recently joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in which Dean is a senior scientist I am keen to have his involvement.

If you look on Amazon USA you will find that a high percentage of people who buy ITLAD also buy Dean's book Entangled Minds. I now have my own copy and I settled down to read it this morning. I am very much enjoying it and I can highly recommend it to anybody wishing to look into greater detail the implications of quantum physics. However I was stunned to discover that on page 25 Dean discusses our very own Philip K Dick. As I have a whole chapter of my book dedicated to PKD I was keen to read Dean's 'take' on this great man. Dean takes a quote from Dick's autobiographical work "How To Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later". I have not read this because if I had the following quote by Dick would have had pride of place in "The Daemon":

'In 1970 I wrote a novel called Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. One of the characters is a nineteen-year-old girl named Kathy. Her husband's name is Jack. Kathy appears to work for the criminal underground, but later, as we read deeper into the novel, we discover that actually she is working for the police. She has a relationship going on with a police inspector. The character is pure fiction. Or at least I thought it was.

Anyhow, on Christmas Day of 1970, I met a girl named Kathy - this was after I had finished the novel, you understand. She was nineteen years old. Her boyfriend was named Jack. I soon learned that Kathy was a drug dealer. I spent months trying to make her give dealing drugs; I kept warning her again and again that she would get caught. Then, one evening as we were entering a restaurant together, Kathy stopped short and said "I can't go in." Seated in the restaurant was a police inspector whom I knew. "I have to tell you the truth," Kathy said. "I have a relationship with him."

Certainly, these are odd coincidences. Perhaps I have precognition.'

Now what is really interesting about this is that in my chapter on PKD in The Daemon I cite many examples of his precognitive abilities (including having a vision about his own death which, as far as I am aware has not been published anywhere else) but none about him using events yet to happen as plot devices. However the book has many examples of other writers who have done this. I argue that there is strong evidence to presume that PKD had TLE and that he had a particularly active Daemon - a Daemon that was to become even more active in March 1974 (three years or so later than these events) when PKD experienced what he called his 'theophany'. Now if CTF is correct then PKD was subliminally aware that the future was, in fact, the past, a past that he had experienced in his previous loop round the Bohmian IMAX. As such he subconsciously (or via direct Daemonic inspiration) wove the 'real' events that he was about to experience into a story.

With TLE being a major topic after Daza Vu's contribution this 'discovery' is particularly significant.

So Far, So Good

I just came across this very ITLADian quote in an American magazine called The Sun:

"I intend to live forever. So far, so good." -- Steven Wright

[Coincidentally, Wright appears in the film Coffee and Cigarettes, highlighted by HurlyBurly below.]

KERRANG Interview

The interview this evening went very well. my congratulations to the interviewer Nick Margerrison who very quickly took on board some of the more intellectually challenging concepts of ITLAD and CTF and asked some very perceptive questions. What should have been ten minutes ended up as half an hour. This will now be edited and will be broadcast at some time in the future. It is also possible that it may be turned into a downloadable podcast. Please be aware that contrary to what I was told it will not be broadcast tonight (11th March). I will, of course, announce the actual broadcast date and time as soon as I am informed by Kerrang.

Proof of CTF?

I never thought that I would have a meeting so profoundly influential on my thinking as the one I had with 'Margaret', a temporal lobe epileptic, back in 2000. However my meeting with Daza Vu on Friday afternoon (7th March 2008) was simpy amazing (see posting below). If I ever had any doubts about the power of CTF this meeting would simply blew them away. Our chat in his living room was a simply amazing experience. To have somebody describe in great detail exactly every section of one's theory is humbling, exciting and not a little scary. I really feel that I am onto something so important it takes my breath away. His mother was with him and corroborated all of the events that she was witness to including the hyper-hearing which amazes her.

The synchronicities of the meeting and the significance of what Daza Vu told me and writes about above (and that is only part of it, believe me)are stunning.

For example: I, for some weird reason, asked him about his favourite band. It was to lighten slightly the intensity of the discussions. He said it was the band Chicane, and then he said that one of their videos so much described how he perceived the world. As he described the storyline of the video I realised that it is based upon the movie Paycheck. Now Paycheck is an interesting film but what makes my blood run cold is that it is based upon a novel by - guess who - Philip K Dick. I am sure that all Dick's stories are attempts to present they way he saw the world - through his illness which was believed to be, wait for it - Temporal Lobe Epilepsy!

Daza had not heard of Philip K Dick and therefore had no idea of their mutual TLE. Daz related to the video simply because its contents suggest a world as perceived by somebody with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9iY8L6J51Q&feature=related

By the way, listen to the start of the video. A voice is heard to say to the main character :

"Get yourself out of here, try and remember what's going on"

Is that the voice of his Daemon? Also interesting that the word 'remember ' is used.

I am hoping to see Daza again soon. He is a very down to earth and sensible young man, a young man who may be living proof that ITLAD is far more than mere conjecture.

Oh finally, if you watch the video through to the end it adds something that is not in the Paycheck movie. The character in the video takes out a red pill, takes it and finds himself back at the start of the video. Classic Eternal Return. But there is more. He takes a red pill. Not just a clear reference to The Matrix movie but as all of you who have seen my lecture will confirm - I term my book 'the red pill'!!

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy , Deja Vu & The Daemon (Personal Experience)

Posting by Daza Vu using the Doppelganger Facility.

I have had Temporal Lobe Epilepsy since the age of 16 (I'm now 30). I underwent an operation back in November 2006 to have part of my left temporal lobe removed. I have been use in the past to a lot of things that where mentioned on your youtube video. For example when I have an petit-mal absence (which can last hours) I am literally taken over by some other part of me that has, in the past, shown knowledge and performed actions without my involvement. I also experienced exactly the same kind of time slowing down as you describe in your lecture happened to 'Margaret'.

When I go into an absence I seem to not feel pain. I once had a seizure whilst making a cup of tea. I continued pouring the boiling water over my fingers whist I was in the 'absence'. This badly scalded my fingers. Normally that would bring about an instinctive reaction to pull my hand away from the scalding water. This did not happen. I poured the whole boiling contents of the kettle onto my hand and felt nothing. It was only later, and after the petit mal had come to an end, when my hand swelled up like a balloon that my mother realised what I had done and rushed me to hospital.

My absences and seizures became so regular that I simply couldn't go on. I didn't want to continue with my medications and agreed to have an operation to cut out the parts of my temporal lobes that the epilepsy started from.

When I awoke from the operation my first words were not my own, something in me said to the doctor "What am I doing alive?". I have subsequently felt that something strange happened on that operating table. In one universe I died but in this one, and for some strange reason, I survived.

Since my operation I have been attack free for just over 1 year but my deja vu's have increased a lot, I have met people I've never met before and when they've started a conversation I can finish the story and tell them what they are about to tell me. Just last week I went out with a friend and a few more people and whilst everyone was in conversation I was just sat there blown away because I just felt I'd been there before in the past. I feel as though I'm re-living life again but this time making the opposite decision to what I would of made in the previous life to see the outcome. This is exactly how you describe it in your lecture. All the time I keep changing the future for myself but another me follows the other path. The weird thing is I know that even if I committed suicide I would wake up again as if nothing had happened.

I also have heightened senses. I can have my music on really loudly in my bedroom but if my mother is talking about me in the kitchen something in me hears this and I am aware of every word. It is as if somebody has moved a hifi speaker much closer to me. I can also sometimes focus my vision onto distant objects and 'zoom in'.

I feel that the reality I see around me is an illusion - just like the Jim Carrey character discovers in the movie "The Truman Show". I had always felt this but it is even stronger since my operation. My deja vu sensations prove this to me. Last week I was watching the Everton game on TV with a group of friends. I had a weird deja vu like feeling and I told them that Everton would be beaten 2-0. It may have been coincidence (which I know it was not) but that was the correct score.

There is a video by one of my favourite bands (Chicane). It really defines exactly how I feel about the world. It is as if there is a hidden pattern to everything and my epilepsy helps me see it - but just as in the video, I am mostly in a state of confusion, the meaning becomes clear when something else happens. I know that I have experienced these things before. My deja vus are memories of the last time I lived this life. I am going round and round as the guy is in the video.

(link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7jZ1zaH6IA)

I met Anthony on Friday and after discussing my experiences and his theory I know that he is suggesting something of profound importance - I know because I am living his theory every day. For me his 'Cheating The Ferryman' explains everything that is happening to me.

Hugh Jackman and "The Fountain"

Several posters to this blog have mentioned the film "The Fountain," which is definitely a must-see for anyone interested in ITLADian concepts.

It's difficult to describe exactly what this film is "about," but it's been described as "a love affair that transcends time." I'd prefer to leave the more detailed analysis of the film and its ITLADian implications to our resident film guru, HurlyBurly, once he's had a chance to watch and digest it -- for one thing, I think I'd need to watch the film several more times before I could do it justice. However, I just wanted to highlight an interview with Hugh Jackman which appears as a Special Feature on the DVD and which fits in with Tony's idea that ITLAD is part of a broader cultural phenomenon engineered for some ulterior purpose, with the participants (screenwriters, actors, etc.) not always necessarily fully aware of how their work fits in with the theory.

In the interview (which originally aired on MTV, I think), Jackman describes how he felt on first reading the script for "The Fountain":

"I had this feeling of hope; I just felt very light. . . . I thought, there's some message here that really connects to me. . . . I felt like it was a myth, a modern-day myth. I couldn't necessarily [explain] all the themes, etc., of the piece, but it really connected with me, and I thought, 'Yeah, this is what life's about.'"

He said that if he had to sum the film up in a few words, he'd say it was about the importance of dealing with death before you can fully live.
Jackman said his feelings on reading the script were so strong that he committed to the project immediately, even before he's spoken with his agent. And once the film had been made, he felt "exhausted yet satisfied." He described the experience as "an opportunity I've never had before."

I found this interview inspiring and encouraging. It reminded me that the ideas raised in "Is There Life After Death?" ring true for many people. And it confirmed that "The Fountain" -- like many of the films with ITLADian references -- requires and deserves multiple viewings.

Coffee and Cigarrettes

Right, way too many film referencing going on without me lately! Coffee and cigarrettes is a great film made up of about 10 different 8-10 minute conversations between people drinking coffee and, yes, you guessed it, smoking cigarrettes. One of the topics that pops up is dreaming and how it is affected by drinking large amounts of coffee. I think it is Iggy pop (this film has an enourmous plethora of celebs including my favourite scene with the hysterical Steve Coogan) that says he likes to drink copius amounts of coffee because it makes him dream in fast forward. This is then repeated by another actor later in the film.

(here comes my clever link that justifies me posting this!!!) Does anyone here find doing certain things or eating or drinking certain things affect their dreams? The reel of film that is our life, is it including our dreams or is it on pause while we're asleep?? If our dreams are part of it why is it that large amounts of coffee would cause it a fast forward result of our projected images? Oh Bill Murray's in it too, great scene with members of the Wu Tang Clan!

The Last Moment

If we live our entire lives again in the last moment of our approaching death as suggested by the Bohmian Imax I must also assume then that the recording of our lives is rewritable? The evidence that people have been saved from death or disaster would imply that the Daemon has the ability to rewrite the Bohmian Imax and therefore 'burn' a new recording like a rewritable DVD?

I've just watched a film called Stranger Than Fiction by the way and it is very ITLADian in concept. It is about a man who can hear the narrative of his life and thinks he is going mad save for the fact that the voice accurately predicts not only his actions but his feelings. In fact a psychiatrist suggests he has schizophrenia but he refutes this and sets out to find the source of the voice and in doing so confronts his own mortality. Thought I would share it with you, anyone seen it, any thoughts or comments?

Arthur Schnitzler's "Leinbach Proof"

In his novel "Flight Into Darkness" (1931) the Austrian novelist and playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) has a fascinating short section which is a pure precurser of CTF (without the supporting science). In this incredible section (pages 29-31) Schnitzler discusses the theory one of his characters, Leinbach. He wrote that Leinbach had:

"discovered a proof that there really is no death. It is beyond question, he had declared, that not only the drowning, but all the dying, live over again their whole past lives in the last moment, with a rapidity inconceviable to us others. This remembered life must also have a last moment, and this last moment its own last moment and so on; hence dying has itself eternity; in accordance with the theory of limits one may approach death but never reach it."

Clearly Schnitzler does not explain the mechanism by which this takes place but it is nevertheless a very similar, if not identical, proposition to CTF.

I found this particular quotation by chance in a book on interesting mathematical anomolies called Fantasia Mathematica by Clifton Fadiman.

As an interesting synchronicity the most famous work of Schnitzler is 1926 novella called "Traumnovelle". The story was used as the basis for the 1999 movie Eyes Wide Shut. This was Stanley Kubrick's last film and starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Yet again we seem to have a weird link between Tom Cruise and his choice of movies!

The Vision And The Riddle

[not concerning Nik Kershaw] *smile*

Following on from Tony's post on Friedrich Nietzsche (here) and my own post on Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" (here) I was reminded of Nietzsche's narrative of Zarathustra walking gloomily through the deadly pallor of dusk – gloomy and hard, with lips pressed together – on a trail that ascended through shrubbery towards a mountain path; here he meets a dwarf and they reach a gateway:

[…] “Behold this gateway, dwarf!” I went on: “it has two aspects: Two paths meet together here: no one has ever reached their end.
This long lane behind us: it goes on for an eternity. And that long lane ahead of – that stretches for another eternity.
[…] The name of the gateway is inscribed above it: “Moment”
But whoever would follow one of them, on and on, farther and farther – do you believe, dwarf, that these paths contradict each other, eternally?”
“All that is straight lies”, the dwarf murmured contemptuously, “All that is crooked – time itself is a circle.”
[…] “Behold this moment!” I went on. “From this gateway “Moment” a long, eternal lane runs backwards: an eternity lies behind us.
“Must not whatever can happen have already happened: have been before, have passed by before?”
“And if all things have been here before; what do you think of this moment, dwarf? Must not this gateway, too, have been here – before?
And are not all things bound fast together in such a way that this moment draws after it all that is to come?
Therefore – itself too? For whatever can walk this long lane out there too, it must walk once more.
And this slow spider that creeps along in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you at this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things – must we not all have been here before?
And must we not return and run down that other lane out before us, down that long, terrible lane – must we not return eternally?”

[The above is composed of excerpts from Friedrich Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Part III "Of the Vision and the Riddle" (2)]

A Dark Philosopher
Karl L Le Marcs

Daemon Demo Programs

In discussing John Lennon, Tony brought up the idea that the Daemon may set up certain incidents to demonstrate its presence, and that my vision of the Angel telling me Lennon would die the day before he did was an example. I also went back and read biographical material about Lennon's death, and it would seem that on December 7, 1980 I had to have been standing next to Mark David Chapman at that little guard house next to the Dakota's entrance. Cause he was there and I was there.

Anyway -- in looking at this idea of an ongoing Daemon Demo Program, I can see my experiences in this light -- shocks which taught me to listen to the Angel. For instance, in a grocery store one afternoon, I heard the Angel’s voice telling me to get out NOW. I left all my groceries in the cart and walked away. I berated myself for being such an idiot all the way home, but when I got home there were helicopters in the sky and news reports on tv – an armed man had walked into that grocery store and taken 12 people hostage. If I hadn’t got out when I did, there’s no doubt I would have been one of those hostages.

I’ve kept journals all these years, so if someday someone wants to go back and confirm my wild stories, they’ll be able to verify them either through police or news reports. This incident occurred at a Ralph's Supermarket in LA.

Perhaps the shocking aspects of the Daemon Demo Program serve as the original source for stories about how difficult The Great Work is. If you do the Great Work, they say, much sacrifice and suffering is required. Perhaps learning to lean on and trust the Daemon, and the circumstances the Daemon may set up to serve this goal, are the root of these stories of difficulty.

They Give Birth Astride Of A Grave..........

[I am presently writing a rather lengthy thesis for the International Beckett Foundation and the Journal of Beckett Studies on a new psychological interpretation of mine on Samuel Beckett's plays, but in light of a request from Tony in a comment on his previous post I shall post a snippet here.]
(specially adapted for the Cheating The Ferryman Blog)

Samuel Beckett’s seminal masterpiece “Waiting For Godot” has been disseminated, deconstructed and dissected many times owing to its deeply metaphoric content, working on a multitude of levels.

In recent discussions with Tony I have spoken to him of my own psychological and Daemonological interpretation of “Godot” and indeed several other of Beckett’s dramatical works – indeed I am currently writing a thesis on a particularly ITLADian psychological connection within Beckett that, as far as I am aware, has not been previously suggested.

So, for now, I shall keep that particular angle under wraps *smile* and shall address merely the Nietzschean Eternal Return elements of Godot alongside that of my Peakeian Daemonology.

The play itself is a prodigy of sorts. Easily one of the most profound and suggestive plays of the 20th century, it's also among the most profound and suggestive ever written; its plentiful vaudevillian comedy notwithstanding. The dialogue is a marvel as well, and contains many worlds in its concise, tightly coiled lines; lines that pierce my heart, mind, and soul as with daggers even as they entertain.

Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (GoGo) are simply waiting for a gentleman by the name of Godot - I must stress at this point that Beckett intended absolutely no connection with the nature of God within Godot; Beckett wrote the play in French as “En Attendant Godot” and in the original French "Godot" has no phonetic connection with God.

They play consists of two acts which take place on consecutive days, Act II mirroring Act I to a degree but with minor subtle alterations and Vladimir becoming more aware of the recurrence whereas Estragon remains very much with the feeling that there is "Nothing to be done."

To me, the other two characters in the play, Pozzo and Lucky seem a potential epiphanic vision to Vladimir and Estragon by Daemonic communication; a vision of the reality of what they're waiting for as it really is [guidance in my opinion], as opposed to what they but dimly imagine it might be. Pozzo is Godot incarnate, and Lucky is the incarnate whole of mankind that is Vladimir and Estragon — and us. Part (but only part) of my reason for being driven to that view is that Beckett puts into the mouth of Pozzo (in Act II) the most profound and searing lines in all of Godot, and perhaps the most ITLADian ever uttered by any character in any play whatsoever:

Pozzo: (Spoken to Vladimir in a fury) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he [Lucky] went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer, and more to himself) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

That simultaneously searing and chilling speech is towards the play's climax, its crisis, after which Pozzo and Lucky exit the tragicomedy, and it's left to Vladimir to musingly, all the while feeling the full weight of it, round off the horrific image while Estragon sleeps:

Vladimir: (Looking at Estragon sleeping) He'll know nothing. He'll tell me about the blows he received and I'll give him a carrot. (Pause) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens) But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at the sleeping Estragon) At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause) I can't go on!

But he will go on. He's seen a glimmer of the truth; more than is seen by most of humanity, and certainly more than is even imagined by his sleeping-even-when-awake soul mate. He will go on, as will Estragon but Vladimir is becoming awakened to reality as in one of the many quips in the play:

Estragon: I can't go on like this.

Vladimir: That's what you think.

Vladimir is becoming aware of the Eternal Recurrence and Godot may well be the direction and guidance of the Daemon. He sees the manifestations of Pozzo to be the pathway to escaping the wait and Lucky's "think" monologue in Act I is symbolic of the stream of waking consciousness within us all. This post is merely the tip of a titanic iceberg (pun very much intended) which will form a mere fraction of my Beckett thesis (and hopefully, one day, lecture. With gags obviously!)

A Dark Philosopher

Karl Le Marcs

Waking Life - Vanilla Sky

The idea that we are all existing in some form of dream has been posted a few times on this blog. There is also a great interest inthe phenomenon technically known as "false awakenings" - when you wake up and then wake up again. The question is; could life be living in a moment before you wake up? CTF proposes that many of us are existing in the final moment of our life - existing within a self-generated dream sequence containing our whole life from the moment of our birth to the moment of our (approaching) death.

Of all the movies that seem to be echoing CTF in this fascinating weltgeist phenomenon none, in my opinion, are more accurate than the two movie versions of Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil's Abre Los Ojos - Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) and Vanilla Sky. If you have not seen these films I strongly advise that you do. Indeed the final sequence of Vanilla Sky (You Tube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6upe63pVMM&feature=related

contains many elements of ITLAD. Watch this with ITLAD/CTF in mind. You have The Daemon (the guy in the white suit), a fall that stimulates the glutamate flood and a full past life review in the second before Tom Cruise (David Aames) hits the ground. This past-life review is fascinating in that it is images from the life of the director, Cameron Crowe. Pure CTF on film!

An interesting synchronicity is that I wrote most of my next book with the Icelandic ambient rock band Sigur Ros playing in the background. Although I have watched Vanilla Sky many times (ditto Abre Los Ojas) it was only today that I realised that they do the soundtrack. Clearly I had picked up some subliminal link.

Those of you who have seen my CTF lecture on YouTube or live will know that at the end I use a falling skydiver to explain the workings of CTF. In many ways this is strangely similar to the movie sequence, don't you think?

I end this posting with the words of David Aames (Tom Cruise) when asked by his Daemon "What is happiness to you David" he replies

"I want to live a real life, I don't want to dream any longer"

Am i awake ?

For as far back as i can remember i have been waking up in my dreams if that makes sense.I feel as though i am awake then realise i am dreaming.This can happen several times during sleep.When i do eventually wake up it takes me a while to realise im back in reality or am i ?.It used to scare me but i am getting used to it now.But a strange thing happened the other day,as i was opening my eyes the room i was viewing was not mine.It was a totally different room but i knew this was my house and my wife was lying next to me,so where was i?the multiple universe theory springs to mind.

Apocalypse Lite Redux

Ya know, I wrote that Apocalypse Lite thing and I need to supplement. (I’ve been invited here with the understanding that people are interested in my view of things, so I hope nobody minds if I express some ideas about how I think the Daemon contact works on a day to day basis.) Shock and trauma have their place, by the way, in hooking up the circuits initially, but I’m writing of day to day contact here.

There’s a certain attitude that can assist contact with the Daemon. The problem with apocalyptic fear is that it tends to put the eidolon’s mind into a state of fear. Which shuts down learning. Apocalyptic beliefs should only be subscribed to by people who don’t believe them. LOL!

But seriously, desperate fear or belief tends to turn off the higher circuits. Another example of a posture that does nobody any good – a teacher who sets themselves up as a guru on high who must be obeyed. If you’re busy bowing and scraping, you won’t learn anything except bowing and scraping. Need to be on equal footing with whoever is teaching you. So that means eidolon and Daemon.

The Daemon responds to a light touch. I think if you keep your humor and a bit of objectivity, you become aquainted with the Daemon faster and more dependably. For instance, I tend to argue with my Angel because this is my nature. I was in New York the day before John Lennon was shot and saw my Angel at the Dakota. Angel told me Lennon would die the next day. I told the Angel he was completely out of his mind and furthermore, he was probably an undigested bit of potato and why can’t I be normal? Any personal Daemon worth its other worldly salt has no problem with an eidolon’s honest reaction to things. And Lennon did die, which was traumatic, but that’s another story.

Nonchalance toward the Daemon’s existence. Ya gotta be cool but at the same time KNOW it’s there.

Apocalypse Lite

As I undertand it from the Angel, humanity's deterioration, as reflected in the state of the environment, is quickly becoming so severe that extraordinary rescue measures seem likely. Sort of like ropes being dropped down from on high, doors are opened more easily, secrets aren't quite so secret anymore, in the hope that something can be done for more humans. I would tend to include knowledge of the Daemon along these lines.

I know humanity thinks they're advancing with all their material accomplishments, but the things we now use machines for were once done by us internally. Our reliance on machines is an indication of our regression. Humans have gone backwards and.....truly, I don't like to speak Apocalypse, I mistrust all predictions of doom .... perhaps humanity needs an internal growth spurt. Contact with the Daemon is the next step of growth for the individual human, once the physical, psychological, emotional and intellectual are functioning reasonably well. At least that's how I understand it.

Humans in large numbers who do no inner work create a vacuum, and Nature abhors a vacuum. Nature will respond. She's on geological time, so she takes a while to get going, but once She does we're not going to have a good time.

There. I think I phrased that in a relatively friendly manner. Let's call it Apocalypse Lite!

Peakeian Daemonology

[a new Le Marcsian Science of Self-Awareness]

Is Consciousness Quantifiable?

If we theorise that all consciousness is energy (of such a high frequency, that it may not be detectable within the observable dimensions) and we take Mind to be the “special kind of matter” of Descartes’ Cartesian Dualism together with my own assumption that “all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration” then consciousness transcends mere qualitative and quantitative aspects - Quantum Consciousness or Field Consciousness?

History is littered with ideas of unified consciousness: Gestalt Psychology; Jungian Collective Unconscious; the Information Universe; Akashic Records; Bohr/Pribram’s Holographic Universe; Crowley’s Thelema; Zero-Point Energy Fields; Quantum Vacuum and Peake’s Daemon/Eidolon Dyad are merely brush strokes in the portrait of the consciousness landscape where I assert that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively – suggesting perhaps a Collective Daemonic Consciousness.

Given the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, we all exist in our own Everett Universe but whereas this leads most to posit the existence of Parallel Universes I contemplate the existence of Concurrent Universes within a Many Minds Interpretation functionality. We ARE effectively, a Universe in ourselves, we are the observer that collapses the wave functions, we create mind and matter and our interactions with others’ "thought-forms" create Quantum Entanglements which alter and shape the nature of our very existence at every quantum event.

Dion Fortune notes that these “thought-forms” (Egregores) or structures of mind are vessels of power and the true means of genuine communication with our higher self. This “spooky action at a distance” as described by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR Paradox) where two particles with a quantum entanglement communicate instantaneously with each other is paralleled in life with the psychic abilities of twins; the synchronisation of menstrual cycles in co-habiting females; the synchronicities between lovers and the instant understanding between friends. Our consciousness is shared, and by our quantum entanglements we can learn to tap into this vast energy and change the way things are perceived and the way our life is played.

Decoherence suggest that objects/consciousness interacts with the environment and the slightest interaction with that natural world can disturb the two wave functions and then separate, once the two wave functions are no longer vibrating in phase with each other, the two wave functions no longer interact with each other. This leads me to the state of sleep and the importance of dreaming within the realms of consciousness. I believe that is only when our consciousness is removed from the false empirical bombardment that it receives from our perceived environment that it is allowed to return to its true nature - oneness.

Does Decoherence make Consciousness unnecessary in Quantum Mechanics?
*I think I'll leave that question for another day*

Through dreams our consciousness returns to swim in the objective ocean rather than flapping about in the subjective puddle of our waking empiricalism. Through meditation, relaxation and communication with our higher self we become at one with reality.

Peakeian Daemonology must teach the world of the secret self and share experiences and techniques of how to reach this communication.

Finally, if we do infact inhabit our own personal universes within our minds then communicating with the Collective Daemonic Consciousness is surely the true realisation on ones self in the nature of the multiverse here in our existence, AND surely this would mean that every single instance of conception where two universes meet in creative union the moment of sexual unity would quite literally be...........A Big Bang !!
*groans*

A Dark Philosopher
Karl L Le Marcs

Nietzsche - The Three Metamorphoses

"Of the three metamophoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel a lion; and the lion, finally, a child. Thus spoke Zarathustra".

The quote above is taken from Friedrich Nietzsche's great work Also Sprach Zarathustra. In this he presents a philosophy that has become known as the The Three Metamorphoses. I suggest that this proverb is how Nietszche aviods the pitfalls of the eternal return as suggested in his famous 'Demon' quote from The Gay Science. You will recall that this goes:

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. "

In The Three Metamorphoses Neitszche has Zarathustra say that we will all have three changes that will take place in our conscious existence. In my opinion he was proposing something very similar to CTF.

If my reading is right then Neitszche suggested that consciousness, whilst in the first life re-run (reccurence), is analogous to a camel. The unknowing Eidolon is dutiful and does as it is told. It follows the rules and carries the load unaware of the fact that it is following exactly the same route as last time. (this is very similar to the byt people of the other great philosopher of the Eternal Reccurence - Petyr Ouspensky). This may go on for many re-runs of my Bohmian IMAX. It all depends upon the involvement of the Daemon. It is possible that some Daemon's simply cannot communicate with their Eidolon. This may be an evolutionary thing. Maybe the Daemon itself needs many Bohmian IMAX re-runs before it learns how to influence its Eidolon. Whatever the circumstances there will be, in one of the re-runs, a moment when the Daemon breaks through and communicates for the first time. This may be a dream, a deja vu, a precognition, an aural 'hallucination' or just a hunch, but it will bring about a temporal mutation in the life of the Eidolon. The Eidolon will do something different, something it did not do last time. At that point (similar to Borges' Garden of the Forking Paths), another path is followed. By some mechanism yet unknown, the Eidolonic, and by definition the Daemonic 'passenger' are thrust into another Everett Universe and Minkowskian time-line. The original Eidolon remains as a Nietzschian 'camel' but the new one moves on into the new, subtly changed Everett universe. Nietzsche called this the 'Lion Stage'. To take this new path the Eidolon must, in Nietzsche's words 'slay the dragons'. These are the 'ideas that enslave us' - what I would term the engrams of our first life's negative decisions. With the Daemon's subtle assistance the Eidolon ensures that all the 'dragons are slayed', possibly over many refined Bohmian IMAX performances. By following this path the Eidolon expunges the engrams (rather like scientology this isn't it) and in doing so move into the third stage. Nietzsche termed this 'the child'. This is because by getting rid of all the negative karma (engrams) we become 'innocent' again.

Now Nietzsche was one of natures pessimists. As such he saw no final destination. He argued that all new reccurences created other engrams and they have to be 'slayed' to. For him there was no final, abstract, utopian destination. It just goes on and on.

For my part, in this is purely conjecture (and possibly because I am an optimist) I have to believe that after many re-runs the Eidolon becomes so child-like (perfect) by creating its 'perfect life' that a melding of the Ediolonic and Daemonic conscious states takes place and the newly unified consciousness then moves on to the next stage of existence. Again this is, interestingly enough, very similar to Scientology's state of "Operating Thetan".

Clearly this is all metaphysics rather than science but I am quite teleological in my philosophy and if CTF is a valid construct then the question has to be asked "For what ultimate purpose" does CTF exist?

K-Pax, Eternal Return, Poincare

Hurly Burly has mentioned on various occasions the similarities between CTF and the final speech of the K-Pax character Prot, played, curiously enough by Kevin Spacey (what is it with Kevin Spacey and 'end of film 'talk-overs and CTF?).

In this Prot explains that the K-Paxians have been around long enough to know that the universe will expand, stop expanding, collapse back on itself and then expand again. as such we will all live our lives again. However everything will be the same, every action and mistake of our lives will be repeated. Prot says:

"Whatever mistakes you make in this life you will live through in the next pass, every mistake you make you will live through again, and again, and again, for ever."

This is a description of a scientific/mathematical principle known as Poincare's Recurrence Theorem. This has been defined as:

"For a (time-dependent) Hamiltonian system a trajectory returns to a given neighbourhood of a point given a sufficiently long (or an infinite) time."

( The Laws of Nature by Peter Mittelstaedt & Paul Weingartner, page 162 - Spinger 2005).

In simple terms this means, as I understand it, that if we live in a finite universe with boundaries then once the universe has expanded into all the available 'space' then it can expand no further and deflates back to the 'big crunch'. I am aware that the latest research from COBE implies that the universe will go on expanding forever (but if this is the case then given an infinite amount of time the universe will become so diffuse that it will cease to exist as a coherent entity).

So if Poincare's Recurrence Theorum (and Prot's suggestion) has any validity then we are back facing what I term the 'Strong Cheating The Ferryman' Interpretation (SCTF) that we all are doomed to live the same life as Nietzsche suggested in his famous 'demon' analogy (see my next posting). However WCTF (the 'Weak Cheating The Ferryman') proposes that Daemon-induced warnings and interventions can change events and as such contribute to a far more evolutionary Bohmian IMAX within Everett's Many-Worlds (Many-Minds) Interpretation.

(note my use of 'Weak' and 'Strong' - this is deliberate and reflects two other fascinating theories of modern cosmology, the 'Strong Anthropic Principle' (SAP) and 'Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP). These are well worth a posting in their own right).

If you are interested the K-PAX Prot speech can be viewed on YouTube by following this link (you need to go in for about two minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B00fMfa-ZJM

Electricity

I was diagnosed with epilepsy a long time ago. I’ve had blinding migraines ever since I came back from the NDE – it’s those electric storms in the brain. I went to UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and the doctors tried to figure out my brain stormage.

I’m also precognitive, and this is my least favorite aspect of being a poster child for ITLAF. The precognition tends to center around an ability to see Death coming. I even have a theory for this – because I died and came back, I see Death coming because I know the vibration of the experience. It may also be the time loop thingie, but I see so much of the future before it happens that I truly hope that theory doesn’t apply because I don’t think it’s fair to see all this Death lifetime after lifetime.

Having excess electricity in the brain makes me not all that enthused about electricity in my environment. I bring this up because about a month ago I had another precognitive episode and it involved my big new widescreen tv which is kept waaaaaaay on the other side of the room so as not to over-expose my delicate little brain to its output.

It was nighttime, and rather using the remote I walked over to the tv to turn it off. As I did so I heard a pop, and turned around. Standing in the darkness was someone I knew only vaguely, life-size, radiating a funny glow. He was staring past me, blank expression, I could see him perfectly, then he disappeared. 3 days later he died. The death was a shock because he was a young man and healthy. But then Death is always a shock.

What I noted in the moment was the clarity of the vision and that accompanying pop from the tv. So much so that my first thought was, what the hell is this guy doing in my house? I think the electricity amped up the vision and gave it that glow. Usually my visions don’t have that glow.

The dying of others upsets me tremendously, especially the ones I see before they happen. It’s been one of the hardest things to live with. Why should I see something I usually can’t change? Truthfully, I resent it.

Deleted Post

I am hoping that not many of you saw my mistake earlier. I placed a posting reminding everybody that I was to be interviewed tonight on Kerrang Radio. Thanks to 'Eagle-Eye' Hurly Burly, who spotted a confusion in the dates, I was able to withdraw the posting before it caused too much confusion.

The interview is still scheduled to take place and it will be on the 11th of March.

My apologies ... and thanks again HB!

Crowley and Wilson

I was 18 when I encountered my Daemon during a near-death experience. Except if you ask me, there was nothing "near" about it. I was dead, the Daemon came, gave me grief for dying prematurely and ordered me back. I refused, we fought, and then we cut a deal that I would return to Earth only if I had regular contact with him throughout this incarnation. I refer to him as my Angel rather than my Daemon...just semantics.

Back then (mid 70's), there were no references to explain this experience. So my Angel directed me to Aleister Crowley’s books since he noted similarities between my experience with him and Crowley’s experience with Aiwaz.

Crowley was the only reference I had for a close relationship with an Angel until I encountered Robert Anton Wilson a few years later. Bob Wilson had begun, in the early 70's, to experience communication from an entity which seemed to be an Angel from Sirius, and in trying to figure out what was happening to him, he also had found resonance in Crowley's work.

The works of Crowley and Wilson kept me sane as I lived through an experience my culture vehemently informed me was not possible. Bob Wilson left us not long ago, but before he died someone asked him if he ever heard from the Angel from Sirius again, and Bob replied that his Angel had never left, so he wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Yay Bob!

My Angel has continued recommending reading materials over the years – bicameral, qabalistic, quantum, ancient stuff ... I could list the references but most of them are in ITLAD. If I could have read your book when I was in my early 20's, Tony, it would have saved me a whole lot of grief. Can’t wait to read your new one.

Stephen Hawkins: Master of the universe

Tonight, 9pm channel 4...

derde derde derde derde derde

dats all folks.

ITLAD literary reference: "Vallande Ouders" by A.F.T. van der Heijden

In this Dutch novel two characters, Albert and Thjum break into an empty hotel late at night. As they do so they both experience a simultaneous deja vu:

"Wait a second, wait a second ... standing here loke this with a flight of stairs going down and a flight of stairs going up ... and after that a couple of boys go looking through a cupboard, pull the drawers open ... it's all so familiar.'

'But when ... when?'

'Yes, yes, carry on talking: I know exactly, and I mean exacly what you are going to say next.'

'Go on then, tell me ... what am I going to say next?'

'"Go on then, tell me ..." that's it - the very words. The moment you said them I remembered them. "What am I going to say next" - when did you say those words before?"

It is only when they get on the roof that the deja vu stops. Van der Heijden has them philosophise about whether this event provides proof of the Eternal Recurrence. The author has Thjum disagree with this and he goes on to suggest the following amazingly itladian explanation:

"You know they always say that at the point of death we see our life pass like a film - and why not? - before our minds eye? To me, feelings of deja vu are like trailers, fragmentary previews of the film. Like a foretaste. Deja vu should really be called deja prevu."

If ITLAD is right then it is both vu and prevu!

(this reference is from Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma - Cambridge University Press 2004)

ITLAD movie reference: "American Beauty"

With regard to my theory one wonderfully emotional reference can be found in the great movie American Beauty. Although none of the science or neurology is referenced the ending is a simply wonderful visual, musical and verbal evocation of everything I suggest in ITLAD. This is yet again support to my suggestion that ITLAD is simply part of a wider cultural phenomenon engineered for some ulterior purpose by the weltgeist. In this section the character Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey - who interestingly enough plays another profoundly itladian character in the movie K-Pac) has just been shot in the head and is lying dying. As the glutamate flood hits his temporal lobes he begins his adventures within the Bohmian IMAX. As the curtain comes down on the Cartesian Theatre his mind drifts away in space in time and a piano starts to play. Spacey's voice-over says the following:

"I have always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean in time. For me it was: lying on my back in boy-scout camp watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from maple trees that blind our street. Or my grandmother's hands and the way her skin seemed like paper."

Simply beautiful and so close to ITLAD that it could have been written by somebody who had read it. (it was, in fact written by Alan Ball - I always rated him at Everton but his writing was even better *joke*).

I think that the real telling line is the very last one of the movie when Lester says:

"I am sure that you haven't a clue what I am talking about - but you will one day".

Totally, totally Itladian!

To watch this fantastic piece of cinema by director Sam Mendes follow this YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYrgHju3d-E

Questions

I am now on page 103 of ITLAD and loving the ride so far. As someone who has had some exposure to the ideas of collapsing wave functions but as a "newbie" in pondering the ramifications of such quantum events, here are some questions floating about in my gray matter. Don't feel obliged to answer all of these as I'm sure many of them will be answered as I continue ITLAD and do some extra-curricular reading. But if you fancy a comment or two, they will all be read with relish (and perhaps some mustard). Also, some may not be very well formulated questions as I probably don't understand enough to even ask the question intelligently. But, in any event, here goes in no particular order (the numbering is merely a convenience for responding to them) ...

1) How do you get from the two-slit experiment to the effect on me? I.e., how does the wave function collapse on the quantum level effect the macroscopic world?

2) Why does that rock over there always appear over there? If I stop observing it and then start again, it always appears exactly the same as if the wave function collapses the same way every time. If I observe it differently --- e.g. if I touch it with my eyes closed --- it still seems to be the same.

3) If each and every possibility occurs in one of the many worlds, then doesn't that mean that good and bad balance each other with the result being an indifferent universe? So, not only are children who die as infants born healthy in other worlds, but in some worlds, I die as an infant.

4) Related to #3: Does the macro-world probability of an event derive from the wave function (or vice versa)? E.g. in mothers who are of such an age with certain factors, a certain percentage (say, P) of births result in a child with Down Syndrome. So, would such a child be born with Down Syndrome in P percent of the many worlds and born without Down Syndrome in (100-P) percent of the many worlds?

5) Does Cygnus X-1 exist in the world of someone who has never heard or observed it? How does my world differ from the world of someone who is blind since they cannot "observe" things in the same way that I do?

6) Does the need for "conscious observing" explain the exponential growth in scientific discoveries? As we look for things, our looking "creates" them so the more we look the more we find?

7) When someone is sick in our world, are they only sick in "our" world but healthy in their own world? When we interact with someone who is sick in our world and they admit that they are sick, who is doing the admission if they are not sick in there own world?

8) How does all of this jive with the Buddhist/mystical idea that we are all the same; that we are really God playing a game? Doesn't this imply a unique, impartial, supra-reality?

9) How does all of this jive with reincarnation and karma?

10) Doesn't this obliterate evolution? If there takes conscious observers to create the world, how did we evolve? We could never be unconscious pond scum because there would not be a world in which the scum could evolve into conscious beings.