Truthers and the Singularity
Two pictures of me at summer camp
What do today's truthers have in common with those from early civilization? There has always been the struggle to preserve privately known truth, in the face of a divergent public agenda. Recent trends, however, have heightened this struggle, making the time ripe for outing certain truths: (1) What is behind the recent rise in the number of highly unusual reported news tragedies being called out by truthers? Could this have something to do with the steepening of technology's parabolic curve, and the accompanying compounding of risks to the world's continued existence? (2) The secret of eternal life: Explicit information reconciling religion with science, which has been known to many privately. With the modern unregulated internet it was only a matter of time before this essential information was accessible publicly... to the potential benefit of millions of people worldwide. Trutherism is a term that was coined after 9/11 describing a phenomenon having its origins in the 1990's with the proliferation of both the Internet and the war on terror. In a broader sense, the phenomenon dates back thousands of years. We are all familiar with the various blogs and videos, and perhaps personally familiar with some of the many thousands of closet truthers; often considered by family, friends and co-workers as having mental issues.
Here is an extreme example of a truther attempting to come out: A boy brought home a paper he wrote in his first grade class titled 'My Dog Pal.' His teacher had given it an 'A'. His mom gave him a big hug and put it on the refrigerator door. In seventh grade the boy wrote a paper called 'Hypocrisy.' His teacher gave him a 'C' and a stern look. He didn’t show the paper to his mother. In college the boy was found dead on the bathroom floor. Posted on the bathroom door was a paper he had written in his own blood. He had marked it with a grade of 'A' (adapted from a story that appeared on page 105 of an anthology compiled by John Julius Norwich titled Christmas Crackers 1970-1979 (1981)). Does this describe a truther?
"someone who’s as intelligent as he is socially inept. At once cognitively gifted and emotionally challenged... brutally honest with friends and strangers alike. Much like Mr. Spock from Star Trek... a logic machine; emotions tend not to compute—or, if they do, it is only with the greatest of difficulties." Excerpts from: The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper: Politically INCorrect Hero.
Well, truthers aren't exactly autistic. They are, however, often seen as boring, ineffectual, and more than a little unsettling.
Human condition somewhat at odds with trutherism:
Ultimately, no one knows why we are here. Imagine construction of a building with a gap in its foundation. All would have to come down, until the gap was filled. Bedrock beliefs, upon which we weigh all things, enable decision making. That part of bedrock belief not furnished by instinct must be made up by ourselves or by others, and as a truther might point out, is not verified truth. Similarly, popular fallacies and distortions on the societal level can help achieve consensus; needed for society to get things accomplished. The truther may point to them as lies or hoax. Clergy's Dilemma:
One can imagine finding a truther's manuscript; a couple of crumpled papers on the ground at the dump: "There's a path to eternity available to some; a path full of peril with a destination not guaranteed. Those taking that path gracefully decline to discuss it; pointing quickly instead to a card game called 'Path To Eternity'. It's not polite to tell people everything you know; about things others may not be able to use, and about things so risky. Substituted is an easily accepted card game which anyone can play; a card game with hints of what's needed for those in a position to see. But the real tragedy is when someone who could take a path to eternity never discovers what it's about, and ends up playing with a deck of cards, instead. Note: There is no Plan B." The first thing one notices is that the writing leaves a bad taste. Whoever wrote it probably decided it would not be prudent to come out as a truther, and proceeded to throw it into the trash. There's an attempt at a religious theme, and religion is based on metaphors. Religion and science are not opposites, since the use of metaphors can be entirely logical. The piece is motivational, and might be useful in helping motivate a reader. But it is important to consider the perspective of the reader. The statement about there not being a Plan B might even damage the motivational efforts of some.
But wait, there is a Plan B. The second page reads as follows:
"Plan B: Revelations is based on the mathematical principle of compounding: Starting with Adam, grow society at potentially a parabolic rate. We hide the science behind magic, which is used to promote this growth. Science directs the magic; not the other way around. But it is the magic which provides the power.
"Plan B is for the full-time coaches. They spend their time coaching and do not play. Some chose to be coaches all along; others were not able to become players and then decided to become coaches. Priests, and many famous religious personalities and authors, among others, are full-time coaches. They walked off (or found themselves off) the field never to be under the script's magic in the same way again. They now dispense the magic which motivates the players to follow God's plan."
Fascinating; page one says there is no Plan B, yet page two goes on to describe Plan B. What's going on here? Let's imagine we've been able to track down the truther, and get him to elaborate: Truther: "There is no conflict between the two pages, since each of the pages is written for a different audience, and their differing motivational needs. Yet, there is an altogether different agenda from the perspective of society as a whole (in religious terms, 'The World'), to whom religion advises not to turn to as a source of salvation." That brings to mind a type of tract I have seen truthers hand out at a rally. It reads something like this: Interactions between levels of life:
The inhabitants of a world have learned that a meteor is headed its way, and that they have, perhaps, only another decade of existence before being blown to pieces. Various people decide to embark on a decade long program to launch into space a representative group of life that will hopefully be able to sustain itself. People do not even know what this group might encounter, or whether it might find other forms of life to help with long term survival. With only months before the meteor is to hit, this representative group launches toward space. But before their spacecraft has a chance to escape, the world’s highest ranking leader orders that a missile be sent, which then destroys the spacecraft.
When asked for an explanation, the world’s leader explained that this space mission was a distraction. His (and therefore the world’s) focus for the past ten years has been on mapping out all the asteroids, to be used as scenery for entertaining video games being developed. He has been in communication with the leaders of other worlds and they were OK with what he is doing. They said that life is about the journey, not the destination. At first I thought the tract was absurd, until I realized that the rally was pro-life/ anti-abortion. One must shift levels to appreciate its meaning. The world in this story represents one person. The world’s leader represents his/ her conscious brain. The ten year project to escape represents his/ her reproductive system. Its message is summarized in this saying: "To the world you may be just one person, but to that one person you may be the world."
Source: Mel V Inc - Plaques, Michael Washer, Facebook Marketplace, image captured Nov. 9, 2023
So, life manifests as a fractal: a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. And, in lieu of being able to know the reason for its existence, the idea is to at least promote the perpetuation of that existence. That is the bedrock belief underlying all religion.
Each level of life has its own needs and agendas in perpetuating its existence. While there is often agreement between levels, there are often sharp differences.
A commentator asked: "Like regarding exponentially expanding populations?"
Survival needs for each level of life start out aligned. At the start, exponential growth represents survival. More than that, we see that it is a method for producing rapid growth, where needed. Later, growth sustainability issues arise creating conflicts between the world and more local levels of life.
As to which level has the upper hand in resolving these differences, the commentator continued: "Now speaking of us humans, we don't care too much if we lose a few cells, say due to a minor scrape. Bones break and heal, the body survives. I would think a similar attitude exists from the point of view of society when it concerns itself with the individuals of the society -- doesn't care too much about the individuals. Societies care about themselves more." Any discussion that is public is by definition of the world and generally favors the world's agenda. Conflicting agendas of a more local nature (for example, some represented by religion) are often hidden in metaphor, and any spokesman explicitly making them public is treated as a truther.
In the past, when bias favoring the world's agenda was so great that it reached the point of tyranny, it was sometimes overcome by revolution. In those situations it was the higher level of life that gave in. What is different today is the large and expanding difference in the sophistication of technology available to society, compared to what is available to the individual, family, or other groups within society. And, the gun control agenda along with other measures that are part of the war on terror have the effect of expanding this disparity even more.
Well, is there anything truthers can do to change the eventual outcome?
Predestination and Intelligent Design:
Let's return to the analogy of one entire society being one individual person. A scientist observing an embryo under a microscope would be able to come up with projections for both the nature of the embryo's future development and the time periods involved, based on statistics compiled from numerous past observations of other embryos.
Imagine an observer from a different galaxy observing earth through a telescope. Each earth year would represent perhaps one second of his time. At some point the earth would appear to be 'on fire' with life. Lights would be turning on and off; jets and satellites would be seen circling around. The alien would have perhaps seen through his telescope hundreds of other worlds developing before his eyes. Would not the paths of development for each world have similarities? The alien could predict the probability of future paths and outcomes for each world he was observing.
So, even though here on earth we would not be privy to such statistical results, the logical result of this premise is that there are predestined probabilities for our world's future paths and outcome.
Windows of Opportunity:
In the early stages of an embryo, the cells are undifferentiated. The cells begin to specialize, and eventually the cells that become the brain become highly differentiated from all the other cells in the body. A blood-brain barrier is established, and a disproportionate amount of the organism's resources are allocated for the brain's use. This represents a turning point in the development of the human embryo; one of many windows of opportunity during which certain events must transpire, or the organism will die or undergo catastrophic damage.
Human society is currently at a similar turning point in its development. Out of what was once a somewhat undifferentiated sparse population, specialization has occurred. In recent years, a highly differentiated group is emerging, bearing all the hallmarks of an organism's brain. It has so insulated itself that it is largely invisible to the rest of society.
This sounds like change occurring from outside the system. The Constitution doesn't allow for that, but perhaps natural progression of our development has brought us to this turning point.
Dr. Richard Swensen, in his book Hurtling Toward Oblivion, thinks we are on an exponential ramp to doom, as we discuss later.
Quick measures may be underway as a last ditch effort to try and prevent destruction of the world. Enactment of these severe measures may be at a pace faster than democracy can handle.
Unfortunately, tossing out democracy, and the transparency it affords with its checks and balances, potentially enables rampant corruption.
The Singularity: The alien observer would have seen turning points such as this, in the development of numerous worlds. What might appear to humans on earth as the possible end of the world might simply appear to the observer as turbulent teenage years. More likely what will appear at the end of this exponential ramp in technology, instead of the world's demise, will be the singularity, defined as the time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence.
Will machines then rule over humans? Machines and humans will exchange parts with each other, until they become indistinguishable from one another. This is similar to how there was interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans, with the result that only one species remains. Whether the result is more human or more machine may seem important now, but it won't when the time comes. From the perspective of the alien observer, all activity concerning the planet would already have been seen as that of a single organism, a living Earth. Well, no one can foresee the future. Truthers vs. the the world:
This essay has taken several twists and turns, in order to present the perspectives of various levels of life. Each level of life has its own needs for survival, and has a valid perspective:
The World:
How the world will or should progress is difficult to predict or even attempt to steer. Truthers provide a valuable service, bringing forth more information to sift through in helping find answers. Truthers should not disparage the world's agenda out of hand. They need to realize that although the world's needs are not always aligned with those of more local levels of life, if the world doesn't survive then local levels of life won't survive either. Local Levels of Life:
I agree with the position of truthers (and religion) that the needs and agendas of local levels of life (communities, families and individuals) should generally be one's focus. These are areas people are involved in day to day. Sometimes these more private priorities can get lost in the allure of the public (world's) agenda. Who Owns the Vocabulary? Words can take on double meanings. The public meaning of words serves the world's agenda, while also serving the interests of some individuals by providing comfort. The private meaning of words provides knowledge, as might be pointed out by truthers.
Consider the phrases "life after death" and "the next world". Could these phrases actually be referring to "the next generation of people"? The next section is about the passage of DNA and culture through generations of people.
Eternal Life, DNA, and Culture:
According to Wikipedia, "Genghis Kahn has fathered the most children in history, as estimates range between 1,000 and 3,000 direct offspring from his enormous harem. A 2003 study estimated that 16 million people alive today are descendants of Genghis Kahn."
Would any of these descendants be able to point to an unbroken physical chain leading back to Genghis Khan? To evaluate this question let’s imagine a futuristic transportation technology, whereby a device pointed at a traveler can read his physical makeup, create a new copy of the traveler at a new location, and simultaneously delete the original of that traveler from the old location. I thought about what might happen if the old copy of the traveler accidentally did not get deleted: [Fearless Traveler]: "Why didn't I get transported?” [Person pointing the device]: “The new copy is now complete. The old copy can now be safely erased.” [Fearless Traveler]: “You’d better not! I don’t care how good the new copy is over there; I’m still the real me, located over here.”
This illustrates what it’s like for lineage chains, such as those between Genghis Khan and his decedents, to be informational rather than physical. Any physical atoms or molecules would have been copied and replaced many times. And, as for being informational, it is unlikely that any of his descendants today would share much more of the information from his DNA than they would share with anyone else’s DNA.
While chimps and humans have at least 95% of their DNA in common, humans share very close to 100% of their DNA with other humans. So close, that scientists think the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all humans alive today was living only 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Looking at any one person such as Genghis Khan, it is highly unlikely that his contribution of DNA to the human genome has resulted in much lasting change to the genome. But his contributions to culture are enduring. So, we see that it is possible for a person’s contribution to the culture to have a longer lasting affect on society than the affect that the distinguishing features of their DNA has on the human genome.
Aside from Genghis Kahn, there are other famous prolific DNA spreaders. Valentina Vassilyev had 69 of her own natural born kids in 27 pregnancies in the 1700's, all fathered by her husband Feodor. In recent years, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, as of April 2023, is estimated to have fathered between 550 and 600 children as a sperm donor. The use of IVF together with surrogates, may enable Christina Ozturk to have as many as 105 children carried by other women. At the age of 23 she recently had 10 babies by way of this method.
Schieffer's fascination: Bob Schieffer's live commentary: "This whole technological revolution that we are going through... the things we can do... I remain amazed at the amount of information these companies can now gather on us; sometimes with our permission and sometimes without. We are redefining the whole idea of privacy, and it is not just what the government is doing now, or what these companies are doing now, but just what people are willing to accept. People put on their Facebook pages things that when I was growing up would only be talked about out behind the barn, and certainly not in mixed company. So this is just another facet of it. It is fascinating... where does it go? I'm not sure but I know one thing: we are redefining the meaning of culture, and this technological revolution is bringing cultural changes to this country. It's not just snooping on somebody. It's what we accept, what we are willing to make public about ourselves. Now, all of this is just very different than it was [five] years ago, and certainly [twenty] years ago. "It's just amazing all of these things that are taking place. I'm glad to see the White House doing this [release of new privacy guidelines]. I'm glad to see these guidelines, but are people going to look at this and say, hey, so what? I think a lot of people will. We are taking so much of this for granted. But it is the change that is happening to us. It's happening in the newspapers, it's happening on how we cover the news on television, all of these technological changes, and somehow we are not even noticing" (transcribed from emailed mp3 archive, with permission).
As Bob Schieffer illustrates so well, cultural changes brought about by technology's relentless advance are encountering a broad, even if stealth, acceptance. The type of information people are willing to make public has changed from what it was five years ago, and certainly twenty years ago. The vast amount of information increasingly available on the internet means that people don't need to have had a chance encounter "behind the barn" to help get the answers to age old riddles... information that is now freely available for the benefit of millions of people worldwide.
But are we talking about more than just the privacy issues of culture? Look at Schieffer's last sentence. It isn't so much the privacy guidelines of newspapers and television that are undergoing change. It is the amount of fallacy and distortion that is increasingly and even openly tolerated, enabling the fast-tracking of certain agendas... and "somehow we are not even noticing." New World Order reference by Vice-President Biden in a speech to a group of Air Force graduates:
"But the end of these two wars affords us an opportunity. It allows us to refocus our intelligence and military assets and resources to other parts of the world where they are needed, where we face new challenges. This is the world you’re graduating into. This is what I want to talk about today with you for a few minutes. I believe we, and particularly you — your class — has an incredible window of opportunity to lead and shape a new world order for the 21st century in a way consistent with American Interests and a common interest.
"Think of the possibilities. For the first time in history, the Western Hemisphere is in a position where it has the possibility of being middle class, democratic and secure from Canada to Chile; the Pacific basin, peaceful and prosperous; a new relationship with China, where we cooperate and compete, but where conflict is not inevitable; a revitalized global [trading] order defined by greater integration and economic growth where barriers are lowered at the borders and behind our borders, generating millions of American jobs, where intellectual property is protected and the playing field is level and where major powers come together to deal with the challenges of our time that require us all to act in concert.
"And there are many challenges, including violent extremism that is becoming more diffuse, countries emerging from chaos in the midst of war, challenges to the international order on the high seas and in the skies, emerging threats in cyberspace and, for the first time in world history, the use of corruption and oligarchs as a sinister tool in the conduct of foreign policy. The president and I believe that all these challenges require the United States to stay engaged in the world, to lead and to be a force for positive change, because one thing we know for certain: If America is not on the field, the vacuum will be filled. It will be filled by anti-democratic forces that’ll attempt to shape the future around their selfish interest, to the detriment of America and the world."
Biden has a habit of letting some extra meanings slip out: "use of corruption and oligarchs as a sinister tool in the conduct of foreign policy": So, we don't see this "sinister tool" also in the conduct of domestic policy? Also notice how Biden links the words corruption and oligarchs together, and as something sinister. But isn't he really talking about the formation of a brain... a ruling part of society that can make decisions independent from the populace, similar to how a human brain can make decisions independently from the other cells in the body it occupies? Some people's brains, such as those of drunks, are sinister in how they treat their bodies. Other people's brains treat their bodies quite well. Does our world's populace have any input as to what type of brain our society will end up with? "vacuum will be filled": Is he saying that either one set of oligarchs, or some other set of oligarchs, will become the brain? "window of opportunity": Is the parabolic advance in technology the timing mechanism for this window for the brain's formation, and if the window is missed the world will be destroyed or catastrophically damaged? Earth's New Brain: Balancing Power, Knowledge and Comfort:
A scientist commented by email: "I think I'm finally starting to understand what you were saying in the singularity essay. We can view everything that happens in human society as part of one big organism in a sense, having also its own brain in a sense. And therefore, we can imagine that conceivably this world-brain could become so much more powerful and tyrannical than any group of human brains that it could even become futile to try to correct its mistakes, or correct any large-scale malfunctioning of society.
"I guess I am probably still too optimistic to feel defeated by the world-brain, even if I accept the concept of the world-brain. It's true that some ideologies have shown a depressing staying power, but on the other hand, individual humans can still sometimes make an amazing impact. In the public realm, comfort triumphs over knowledge. Not only in the western world, but also in the East."
Wisdom of the Buddha, from the book Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse:
"The teaching which you have heard [public knowledge], however, is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to those who are thirsty for knowledge. Its goal is quite different; its goal is salvation from suffering. That is what Gotama [the Buddha] teaches, nothing else.” (p. 33) [Student:] "But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself [the Buddha] experienced-- he alone [private knowledge] among hundreds of thousands." (p.34) An increasing amount of private knowledge is now publicly accessible on the internet. A time might come when perhaps one in ten, instead of only one in hundreds of thousands, will know the secrets of the Buddha and other masters.
How might this trend affect the formation of a world-brain? Need this brain be comprised entirely of oligarchy, or can it reside among an increasingly enlightened and informed public who together with machines will interact as the nodes of an internet world-brain? Recall the discussion earlier about the hypothetical alien observer. Regarding the future of life on earth, he would know the probability of various outcomes. He certainly would have a larger perspective than we have on earth. But what about an even larger perspective? What about the largest perspective? Of all the various public meanings of the concept of God, which meaning would also sit well with truthers and scientists? Try this "The largest perspective is what we refer to as God."
Free The Scientists:
This essay outs five simple concepts whose literary meanings have been instinctively obfuscated: The Next World, Predestination, God, Christ, and Antichrist. These definitions were honed by discussions with believers, as well as with some of the most skeptical scientists out there, to the satisfaction of neither (well... not publicly, anyway).
This is the only area of study where scientists stunt their development at an eighth grade level. Consider a commentator's take on the definition of afterlife: "It's strange we don't speak in the same terms when it comes to worms, bacteria, or viruses, isn't it? In view of that, the species with the greater potential for afterlife are cockroaches, not humans." First we have to correctly define the area of study. Try this: "The nature of the world as a life form as it relates to the rights of more local systems of population including individual countries, religious groups, families, and individuals".
Free exchange of information on the internet enables us to bust apart myths not only within religion but also regarding the war on terror; both intertwined in this area of study. The misnamed war on Muslims is instead a war on all local populations, setting up world government. Scientifically, not unlike a developing human embryo forming its brain. Some may find hope in statements from Pope Francis: "Francis also spoke out strongly again against religious fundamentalism, saying that fundamentalism exists in all religions and should be combined with efforts at friendship. He said he prefers not to speak of having tolerance for other religious, but living together, friendship... Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions, said the pontiff. We Catholics have some -- and not some, many -- who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil. They do evil, said the pope. I say this because it is my church. We have to combat it, he said. Religious fundamentalism is not religious, because it lacks God. It is idolatry, like the idolatry of money." Here are two different interpretations of the Pope's remarks: (1) Is he destroying the underpinnings of religion, including his own, to help pave the way for world government and a new type of world religion? (2) Is he working to strip away abusive religious baggage, in order to elevate religion's traditional function as an advocate for the rights of systems of local population, including individual countries, religious groups, families, and individuals, in the face of an inherently divergent world agenda?
The Bible writers were forced to disguise the meaning of Satan. A surface reading of the Bible would have one believe that everyone has the same perspective, with a single kindergarten-like standard of good vs. evil. That Satan, a//k/a The World, is simply a group of evil people. The Bible writers really tried to leak out that Satan represents the world as a whole; a different level of life with its own perspective, but if too many people were to figure that out the world's agenda would be placed unduly at risk.
The Bible writers were trying to advocate for the rights of local communities, families, and individuals to survive in the face of a sometimes divergent world agenda. Advocacy is by definition one-sided, and inherently leaves out half the story. So, just as opposing lawyers can be friends at the end of the day, clergy and civic leaders ultimately get along. But make no mistake-- if the Bible was written crystal clear it would unduly threaten The World's agenda. Here's what's hidden: The World is focused on its own survival as a whole, and as a consequence, at times considers local populations expendable.
Religion is used mostly as a benefit to mankind: (1) Sterling Allan and Professor James Tour are two of many who have used fundamentalist belief in managing addictions. Since everyone is a potential addict, many who have moved past fundamentalist belief don't want to spoil things for those who can still benefit from it. (2) If religion is metaphor, try to figure out what is hidden and why. What privately known truths may not be useful or welcome in a public context? Can religion symbolically (gracefully) give words to such otherwise unspeakable science? (3) The public face of religion is often used for promoting harmony among people. (4) If you think you are an atheist, try defining God to simply mean "the largest perspective", stripping away all the baggage. Voila! You now believe in God.
Turn the microscope on the tensions between the world and more local levels of life, and things become ungraceful very quickly. As mentioned, it's not uncommon for even world renowned scientists to find their growth in this area stunted at an eighth grade level, to avoid the pain that some compare to that of looking directly into the sun.
It's not the science that is difficult. Perspective is a scientific concept. What I term God simply means the largest perspective, or a much greater perspective than we currently have. If we had that perspective we could predict our earthly outcomes. We do have a large enough perspective to predict the odds of various outcomes in the development of, say, an individual caterpillar. But we do not have enough data to predict the outcome of civilization's development on planet Earth. For that we would have to have discovered numerous other inhabited planets, and compiled statistics about them.
Let's consider the caterpillar as a metaphor for Earth today, where the cells on the caterpillar are analogous to people on Earth. Isn't the normal path for the future of the caterpillar preordained? Perhaps a coalition of the willing ascends as a butterfly, leaving in its wake the rubble of caterpillar civilization left behind. As humans the prospect of something like that happening to us would be troubling... even more so since we ultimately can't control the script.
I can appreciate the words of Hermann Hesse, when he said that only one person out of hundreds of thousands can master this area of study. A commentator thought I was being too abstract: "all metaphors and poetry, nothing concrete… seeing a line with God in it... Religions allow good people to do and be evil. You have a very negative view of science."
One benefit of calling the larger perspective God, is that it allows me to be optimistic about science's eventual outcome.
The commentator continued: "I value life very highly. Valuing life results in a strong stance on issues and disagreements with people. You don't need God to value life. The real reason to value life was inside most people (except some sociopaths/ psychopaths) all along in the form of instincts. By logical reasoning you can also find out cooperation has advantages and thus better survival for organisms working in groups. Don't forget you are a multicellular creature. The cells cooperate and some even die for keeping you alive. Unlike unicellular creatures. Science is descriptive. Science tells you how things work, not what you are suppose to do. Science is not like a religion, trying constantly tell you to obey a deity or follow rituals. If you need a goal why not place a high quality of life for yourself and your fellow humans as a goal? You can use science to try to figure out how to create utopia instead of dystopia. Set out to increase your quality of life by living harmoniously and peacefully. No outdated deity required!."
How should people evaluate allowing artificial intelligence to make decisions regarding whether, who, and how many people to drone? Now, do you still think the topics we are discussing here are too abstract? Commentator: "Finally a concrete question about a real-world situation. I had to press the question. Only after pressing the question did you come with a concrete situation and problem to solve.You are probably from the USA so you guys should really either increase your hit rate of actual targets instead of civilians or just stop it already. Notice the independence from believing in particular God(s). If only the topics we are discussing involved those concrete questions from the start. What does your God say about that question? What decision should you make whether, who, and how many people to drone according to your God?"
Stories regarding the use of drone warfare distress me greatly. When catastrophic events happen, people often say "God must have a larger plan", and we can see how this may apply here even though I personally find some of the basic premises regarding the use of drones in warfare to be completely unacceptable. I shudder to suffer the pain of "looking into the sun" and contemplating that science (societal DNA-- part of the largest perspective) may be overriding my views. That light (knowledge) can be blinding; now, wasn't that where Mama always told us not to look? From the perspective of a blade of grass, perhaps best not to contemplate the lawn mower that comes by periodically-- as per Dr. James Dobson's theme: focus on the family (not on the world). Do people obfuscate so as not to be Blinded By The Light? -- Here's Bruce Springsteen's take: "Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun... But mama, that's where the fun is." Well, in some ways Mama was right.
I'm glad one of his bedrock beliefs is that life is important; it's one of my beliefs as well. But important for what? Science will not provide the answer to that question. Also unknowable is why we are here. We cover these gaps in knowledge using folklore, which we wear as if it were science. Religion is a form of folklore. Bedrock beliefs, whether or not we call them religion, provide a standard upon which to weigh priorities in allocating the use of time.
God is a concept which simply means the largest perspective. If we had that perspective we could predict our earthly outcomes. The probabilities of various developmental outcomes are preset by DNA and science, and are not subject to capricious change by man or some external consciousness. Mankind has free will/ agency to try all the various possible developmental paths. But if we veer too far from the statistically probable path, extinction or a catastrophic outcome will ensue. And the chance of that happening is also a part of those predetermined statistics that are unknown by us.
Our civilization appears to be at the developmental window in which to form its brain. One can feel the sense of urgency lest the window close too soon: (1) The exponential ramp in technology is at the stage where it is already causing extreme dysfunction. A world-brain can better manage and harness technology to reduce risk of catastrophic events. (2) We appear to be in the initial stages of a war, possibly now or soon to be directed by an integrated, artificial intelligence network, including an arsenal of EMP, nukes, drones, directed energy, and bio-weapons. It's still unclear whether the worst of these weapons will be utilized. Unlike prior wars which were between countries, this war is being waged by a group of people from many countries, and directed against their own countries as well as against all of the other countries of the world. (3) It is also believed that many of the key systems and personnel in many countries have already been infiltrated. Swarms of foreigners have come into these countries, both overtly and covertly, and without clear explanation. Numerous respected patriotic military leaders have left, many for specious reasons. Disinformation abounds, and people at many levels are unsure of what is or is not real.
I do not envy leaders having to make tough decisions under difficult conditions. I prefer that people negotiate amicable settlements. But during major turning points the monsters tend to come out. Any one of us could face being forced into the role of hypocrite, to preserve a paycheck, pension, or otherwise… what a horrid thought. From the larger perspective, this can all be seen as science. Perhaps similar to how groups of neurons compete for control within a developing human embryo, and how hormones are released to trigger some of the cells to suicide. Eventually a victor emerges… The brain? The new world order? When catastrophic events happen, people often say "God must have a larger plan", and we can see how this applies metaphorically here. Local communities, families, and individuals, including their traditional values, are being and will continue to be targeted, and their religions infiltrated to some extent.
Sterling Allan wrote: "Pope Francis is a Marxist, Jesuit... All for New World Order tyranny". I'm not sure I'd go that far. But it remains to be seen how much of religion's traditional role as an advocate for the rights of the family and other local populations will be preserved.
Commentator: "Believing life is important is important for survival. Part of survival instinct for self preservation. Biology: evolutionary theory will tell you people who don't find life is important will loose competition versus people who do find life important. Same goes for finding offspring important."
That could be a description for a brain dead body on life support. The community of cells interact in harmony including generating offspring. But this system cannot easily change; not within its existing rules. What’s lacking is a larger perspective operating outside existing rules, that can act expediently and intelligently, sometimes called… --- The Nudge – Chaos is introduced. For example, muscle tissue is ripped during vigorous exercise, causing inflammation of the local population. Order then follows chaos; rebuilt, stronger muscles. This agent for change must be secret and invincible. Otherwise, the local population will locate it and take away its power. For the first time in history, invincibility for the top oligarchy/ cartels may be at hand, made possible by the exponential ramp in technology. What happens when a President orders that he be informed regarding UFOs, and the intelligence chief flat out refuses, adding that the President can do nothing about it?
Dr. Steven Greer recently reported on that very situation. Now, I have no scientific reason to believe we have found evidence of UFOs, and it’s possible that the UFO scenario may have been put out there as disinformation, of which Dr. Greer may or may not be a part. But he does bring up a valid point about the nature of absolute power. The newly formed world-brain may start out as a child or adolescent; sometimes acting wayward as it tests the limits of its newly discovered powers. It might try scratching itself, quelling irritating populations.
Commentator: "Being brain dead is not having any survival mechanism. The brain is important; if the brain is gone the person is gone. Brain dead people are not alive anymore because the brain is not alive any more. The rest of their body could be considered alive but the person is gone. How do you make a distinction between what is alive and what is not? Do you consider an arm or leg on artificial heart, lungs, kidneys and other machinery alive? Where do you draw the line?"
Consider the cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks (search on Wikipedia). These are very aggressive immortal cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951, and are on “life support” in numerous labs throughout the world. They managed to escape their “world-brain” (control by Henrietta’s brain), and have immortality to boot. Many people would gladly take that deal: ditch control by oligarchs/ cartels, and never age. A five cell human fetus is alive. Like the cancer cells in the lab, it doesn’t have a brain and is on life support. The cells in each are alive, both individually and collectively (the cancer cells self organize to some extent, but nowhere near like how the fetus will). A brain dead person on life support also has cells that are alive both individually and collectively; but the brain, which thought it was the person, is dead. Perhaps the oligarchy/ cartels will one day think of themselves AS the world. It’s difficult to be objective when considering differing perspectives. Perspective is the key to understanding morality, ethics, and the metaphors of the various religions. Has any of the research on these cancer cells been directed toward finding immortality for humans? Unlike these cells, which can both reproduce and never age individually, us humans are restricted to reproduction.
Commentator: "Welcome to the world of biology, fellow multicellular being. Here is another good one: Are viruses alive? Ah the wonderful world of biology, where life can sometimes be difficult to define. For medical purposes, professionals use a more useful metric called brain dead to draw a well defined line in the sand with clear, unambiguous meanings.
"Those cells are alive all right. Just not in the same way as a whole person with a brain. Don't get too carried away on the similar concept employed through a different situation. Be careful not too compare too much as to not end up comparing apples and oranges. This is also why laws about abortion put limits around when the nervous system and brain starts to develop. And might I add, can by using this metric thus also considered to be alive in the same way. You can remove the quotes, they are doing a disservice at describing the concept.
"Even these Hela cells needed a lot of coaxing to stand on their own. The cells needed to be bread for surviving in a sterile petri dish. These cells also need to be provided with nutrients and an environment that doesn't kill them. Throwing them into a natural environment (say a pond) would most likely kill them. The Hela cells survive because scientists have made environments specifically to be as hospitable as possible for those cells. Providing the cells with nutrients, keeping away numerous microorganisms that would prey on the Hela cells in the wild. The cells are mass produced in a specially designed factory. The control of the brain and cooperation of cells allow multicellular organisms to do things beyond monocellularity.
"The organizational structure provides benefits, or else it wouldn't have evolved. The rest of your comment seems to be permeated with feel-good religious delusions about being immortal because small pieces of yourself can be alive. Don't count on it dude. If you die you stop existing, you don't live on in your offspring or cancer donations for medical research. Not a good example of independence from the rest of the human body. In fact it begs the opposite conclusion. Objectivity and reasonability is the way to make moral decisions."
Being on life support or something similar is here now or on its way: According to congressional testimony, an EMP event could make living in the United States unsustainable for 70 to 90 percent of the population. Another commentator wrote: "...there is a political movement to go to a cashless society - sounds great but also gives the government total knowledge of every transaction and thus the ability to remove the ability of anyone to function (no bank account means you can't live)." ...representing a shift in the life form, from being individuals and families, to being the world-brain.
Commentator: "The control of the brain and cooperation of cells allow multicellular organisms to do things beyond monocellularity. The organizational structure provides benefits, or else it wouldn't have evolved." -- Yes, that process is now underway. Perhaps we'll see some transparency, making the truther label obsolete.
The commentator concluded: "Yes, good points except for your intro. Your electrical appliances not working isn't quite the same as your heart stopping or your brain. The EMP doesn't make your body stop working. Comparing apples and oranges with the EMP scenario. Not the same kind of dependency".
Another commentator: "Most Christian religions strike me as being selfish--not selfless. People work in them for their own, individual eternal salvation, no? 'Do good and you'll have a life in heaven.' The true selfless individual would say 'I'm doing something that will condemn me to eternal perdition, but I'll die knowing that I've done good for others.' Devise a test for the existence of a god/gods. If you can't, the implication is that god/gods, have no effect on our existence. One might as well believe in Russell's teapot. It's a waste of energy. The same for afterlife and re-incarnation."
Have you considered that the terms afterlife, re-incarnation and the next world are all metaphors for the next generation of people? Everyone can influence in one way or another; if not by DNA then by culture, and this is what religion means by the next world, literally the next generation of people. And the religious term eternal life simply means that this process can repeat itself, generation after generation, potentially forever. Religion without the excess baggage does not conflict with science.
After this exchange, a followup article appeared titled, "May The Force Be With Us". These scientists are still in denial of a developing global authority with its own perspective akin to a new life form. Any such elements are adamantly referred to as nefarious forces. Many people cannot handle these topics, but for those strong enough to proceed...
When Data Requires Courage To Accept:
Are we mixing apples, oranges, and tomatoes?
Apples: "show me the data - I applaud people who get out of their armchair, perform work, and come up with a scientific hypothesis. It's just not proven science yet, and will not be unless and until there has been independent scientific verification. Oranges: "repent to turn away destruction" - I applaud people who adopt and utilize motivational beliefs, which set standards upon which to weigh priorities in allocating the use of time. Promoting repentance is a noble endeavor, even if it has no effect on inhibiting the development of world government. Tomatoes: It's often suggested that truthers are totally marginalized by society. - Being marginalized can mean losing one's paycheck, pension, friendships, or worse. Truthers are people trying to expose either political or religious myth. As mentioned earlier, even scientists try to steer clear of certain truths.
Let's just say there is an expectation of privacy by each level of life: the world, countries, religious groups, families, and individuals. It is dangerous to threaten the agenda of the world as a life form, including its attempt to implement a world-brain; an agenda that may be imprinted by DNA and science. Even if discussion is confined to the science (and the science itself is not that difficult), it is the larger implications of the science where things can get ungraceful very rapidly. Like the earlier commentator said, we don't study ourselves the same way we study bacteria or viruses. If we did, we might find that inherent in science there are times when our rights can become forfeited as part of a larger agenda. Grace (steering clear of these topics) allows us to stay comfortably numb. Technology has advanced to a degree that enables, for the first time, absolute power. This has opened a rare window of opportunity for the gardeners (a coalition of the willing) to mow the blades of grass (the rest of society), where survivors become the post-human species. Nothing can change the shape of things to come, as it is part of the developmental biology of the hive. When bad things happen, sometimes people say that perhaps God has a larger purpose. I refuse to give up the values that make us human, even as the gardeners implement the lawn’s destiny. Our refusal is part of what makes for a healthy lawn, something with which even the gardeners would agree.
A Model for the Future:
As an introduction here's a discussion I had with E. Michael Jones, whom I profile later: I suggested that perhaps the deep state is a fledgling life form, and that with a little understanding of its sometimes wayward behavior, perhaps it may become good enough for its (and ultimately our) survival, but regardless, it may be all that we have to work with. I asked whether this might even become what is referred to as the Messiah in Christianity, or the messianic age in other religions. His reply:
"The deep state is the antichrist, not the Messiah". Well, it seems society put off marriage waiting for its messiah... only to find itself accelerating into technological singularity (its biological clock running out), and having to settle instead for who is available (the deep state).
In 2001 there was 9/11, and the word truther was coined. Does the word truther make you feel awkward? Why? How about the word atheist? My model doesn't take sides on these issues, and this writing is not about detailing truther events or religious legalism.
Both trutherism and atheism are about breaching privacy, and hence their awkwardness. But privacy from what? Well, it turns out that each level of life is like a separate organism which requires some privacy from the other levels in order to function properly. Individuals need some alone time from their families, which in turn need some privacy from the communities (and/ or religion) they are part of. The local community needs some autonomy from the country, which in turn operates somewhat independently from global initiatives. This principle also works in the reverse, so that global planning needs some independence from countries, and on down to a family unit sometimes needing to act independently of any one member. Each level of life has its own needs for survival, and maintains some secrets that it doesn't share with the other levels. The overall structure is like a huge computer program with various levels of subroutines, but with human emotion built into each level. It is emotion that makes the breaching of privacy between levels akin to touching a third rail.
Now add to this setup a timing mechanism based on the pace of innovation in technology. Unlike the linear pacing of a watch's movement, technology's trajectory is exponential forcing change at an ever increasing pace, becoming faster than humans can handle. We will increasingly share our attributes with machines, and their attributes will be shared with us. Privacy concerns will fade as increasingly automated levels feed into some as yet undefined pools of consciousness; conditions approaching technological singularity.
People get categorized as atheists, fundamentalists, and/ or put into various denominations. Each camp has rehearsed its arguments many times. Here's a fresh approach: Is the world in the process of cobbling together a brain as part of its developmental biology? Perhaps it is a messy process that at times appears to be seeking our destruction, when in fact it may be a last ditch effort to align with developmental biology. The timing mechanism for this would be the exponential ramp in technology, and missing this developmental window would result in extinction or catastrophic destruction. The resulting brain need not be perfect-- it need only be "good enough" to enable survival. The brains of drunks treat their bodies very badly, but more enlightened brains treat their bodies very well. Do the cells (society) have any say as to which type of brain they (we) end up with? Even a functional drunk may be "good enough", although perhaps not in a way that the other cells in his body understand or appreciate.
The legalistic, dogmatic, symbol-based approach is in the process of crumbling, as technology goes exponential and there is an awakening in thought. Will this awakening be broad based; an attribute of an internet based world brain with the general population (as well as machines) as the nodes? I'm hopeful that we'll move past the oligarchical model that has kept people in ignorance for generations. It is encouraging that Pope Francis spoke out strongly against religious fundamentalism.
While the Bible is a form of trutherism, its writers were inherently forced to disguise its timeless concepts in metaphor. Who would have been powerful enough to have so hobbled the Bible writers? The world... yes, The World, whom the Bible so demonizes. The Bible is, after all, the quintessential example of a public document, so its surface meaning must conform to the world's agenda.
Hostile confrontation will not work, but do these topics need to be avoided entirely by labeling them trutherism? Truthers are people trying to expose either political or religious myth, and it is often suggested that they are totally marginalized by society, putting their jobs and friendships at risk. Again, there is an expectation of privacy by each level of life: the world, countries, religious groups, families, and individuals. It is dangerous to threaten the agenda of the world as a life form, including its attempt to implement a world-brain; an agenda that may be imprinted by DNA and science. A start might be to face the science, so at least we know what might be possible in the way of morality and grace. The human population is eight billion; a small number in our computer oriented world. There should be a way for everyone to be dealt a hand at the table. Later we'll discuss what the Pope refers to as absurd dichotomies... he also calls them dangerous and harmful.
But what if this self-talk has huge gaps in it? Such as... Why are we here? Instinctively we may know what to do with our time, but upon reflection we might not be so sure. Some answers are unknowable, even using science. The way we cover these gaps in knowledge is by inventing bedrock beliefs, which can be worn as if they were science. We lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps: motivation serves the purpose of getting on with one's day.
But this does not make all bedrock beliefs equal. Some beliefs are definitely better than others in that they are more aligned with the design... which affects the function of human society in the same way that DNA affects the course of cellular function. The design, whose probabilities (but not outcomes) are set in stone, is ultimately related to survival. While the design is clear in hindsight, it is difficult to determine going forward, especially for the long term. This is what is meant by "no one can see the face of God". Insights can be written down (some in the form of religious texts); a process which should involve occasional updates and revisions as new information becomes known. Yes, life is important. It's not only aligned with the design, but also inherent to it. How can circular definitions be used for such important concepts as bedrock belief and motivation? A cauldron of symbols, divides, and emotions is inherent in life. Does fact (science) mean anything without emotion to give it purpose? Try this: Temporarily see everyone (including yourself) as an arrangement of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Now, what does it mean to be one's own writer, producer, and director of some interpersonal intrigue? Consider… The same design that enables the actions of sub- atomic matter and energy to seek order also enables our circular “bootstrap” reasoning to seek survival… despite the backdrop of entropy.
Core Concepts: That Which Sets One Free vs. What's Up With Believers:
Rosa Koire's Agenda 21 presentation on Vimeo gives a factual view of Agenda 21 which everyone needs to view. It is not over the top like an Infowars piece that included "Death Camps" in its title. Koire points out that Agenda 21 looks for a "balance" between individual and communal rights, but actually infringes upon Constitutional rights of individuals so they are no longer inalienable rights. The term Agenda 21 may now be outdated, but world government is nevertheless being cobbled together at an ever accelerating pace (Agenda 2030, for example).
Like Koire, I don't like what I see happening, but our views may be overridden by science: Efficient systems have both a top down as well as a bottom up component. Top down provides expediency, while bottom up provides more degrees of freedom and innovation, and the system that ultimately survives will have a "balance" of the two. I put "balance" in quotes because, as Koire points out, things weigh down heavily in favor of the 'top down' side, whenever a "balance" between the two is attempted.
The Crucifixion story and what it means:
It is easy to become so caught up in belief as to overlook the literary meaning of the Crucifixion story. The texts of previous religions did not distinguish between the differing perspectives of the various levels of life: the world, the local community, the family, and the individual. The same narrative defined right and wrong as if there were no distinction between levels. The Crucifixion story introduced the concept of private vs. public. For example, what makes sense within the context of a family might not make sense from the world's perspective (and vice-versa). For example, some aspects of the motivational beliefs of families/ individuals might best be kept private. If these beliefs were to be proclaimed publicly, they might catch on to the extent that the world's narrative might be threatened.
The Crucifixion illustrates that while the world can and will take measures to protect its agenda, this does not invalidate the agendas of local communities, families and individuals. The world allows these agendas to be expressed publicly if they are hidden in metaphor-- being explicit can be risky; truth is extracted and shared privately. Getting caught up in belief in some ways can be a distraction, inadvertently favoring the world's agenda
The Pope was not explicit in his remarks about the Crucifixion during a visit in the USA. My guess is that in private he makes a lot of sense. This is not meant to advocate any one religion over any other. Metaphoric literary meaning transcends any cultural aspects of the texts, as well as cultural affiliations (if any) of the writers or readers. Consider a religion forming around the concept of A Stitch in Time Saves Nine. Some members, finding that approach incomplete, form a new religion around the concept of Haste Makes Waste. But wait... no group can own these concepts. It's likely that even people who have never heard of these metaphors inherently have some understanding of their underlying meanings. Any fighting that ensues has nothing to do with their religion's meanings, but with squabbles over scarce resources (such squabbles often masquerading as identity issues).
Revelations is About Survivability of Individuals:
The “end of the world” in Revelations might actually be referring to the end of life (mortality) that happens for each person individually, and about what remains scientifically as a result of that life. The Bible writers decided it was more important to be graceful than explicit, however, with the unintended result that many people never discover the underlying message. People die at different ages and for different reasons. Revelations filters out these differences by having mortality occur for everyone at the same time and due to the same event. The Bible speaks in terms of “heaven” and the “narrow gate” leading thereto, but does not explicitly define these terms.
The scientific meaning of heaven, often referred to as the next world, is the next generation of people. People have differing circumstances and motivations in this regard. The Bible filters out these differences by suggesting heaven as a transition where a person’s conscious thoughts can continue as part of a blissful, incorporeal existence.
The narrow gate, which the Bible describes as leading to heaven based on belief in God/ goodness, is a little more complex scientifically to define. It is only narrow to the extent that this adds focus to one’s motivational belief. For example, consider three swimmers performing laps. The first imagines being chased by a shark (fear based, such as avoiding ending up in a lake of fire). The second imagines attainment of eternal life (reward based, such as entering heaven). The third focuses on swimming technique (science based). While each swimmer’s narrow focus differs, none is more right than the others.
These are motivational beliefs and methods, and each person has his own motivational needs. The gate itself is broad. Anyone and everyone can have an influence on the next generation of people, regardless of one’s age or personal circumstance. Wouldn’t it be useful in deciding how to occupy one’s time, to know that for all the things a person does in a lifetime all that remains is the next generation of people?... and that everything else eventually turns to dust?… and to apply this knowledge going forward without focusing on the past or comparing/ judging another’s path?
It shouldn't be surprising that what the Bible describes as the world's end-time is instead metaphor for each person’s own “end-time” (mortality). The Bible concerns itself with families and individuals, preferring to leave matters of the world to Caesar.
The Bible’s Harsh Language:
What if the cause is noble-- perpetuation of life through multiplying populations, spreading culture, or both? What if "judgement" and "eternal damnation" are simply motivational metaphors people create to help further the cause? The key is not to trap someone into believing something that is motivational to be literal, and to free anyone so imprisoned.
Revelations is Not About the End of the World:
Revelations shows the type of thinking families and individuals need to enable eternal survival, but also provides a vivid parable regarding the balance of power between the world and more local levels of population. As for the outcome of this struggle, a surface reading might suggest that the end of the world is the outcome, but this should be looked at as motivational rather than literal given that one's own self, family, and people survive.
Technology advanced very slowly in Bible days, and of course people from then could not foresee the exponential changes in technology occurring now. The changes today are more in the nature of metamorphoses than of end-times. Revelations, nevertheless, on a deeper level provides some insight into these changes. Yes there will be dislocations, some quite severe, and the lessons of Revelations will help some to survive the transition. This exponential ramping of technology, unforeseeable to the Bible writers, is creating conditions where a centralized strengthening of the world's power can and will emerge... If for no other reason than to prevent “Hurtling Toward Oblivion”, the current trajectory of the world as described by Richard A. Swenson, M.D., in his book of the same title. He wrote: “The world is always, and unavoidably, experiencing an increased profusion. With each new level of profusion we have much new positive but, unavoidably…much new negative. The growth of positive is rapid, approximating exponential growth. But the corresponding growth of negative is also alarmingly rapid… the accumulation of negative is [also] exponential. Once this quantum, this critical mass, of negative reaches a certain threshold of lethality, it will prove fatal for our world system. Under conditions of exponentiality, change can go from almost undetectable to overwhelming in the blink of an eye. No amount of positive can offset this negative and the impending lethality. We have no possible option but to continue in this fatal direction because of our total dependency on progress.”
Swenson thinks we can’t avoid total destruction; I disagree. It’s the starting of this destruction (or perhaps false flag and/ or hoax events mimicking this destruction) that will allow strong central control in certain crucial areas. But the good side of technology will bring about far greater freedoms in many facets of daily living. When Swenson talks about the bad side of exponential increase in technology, he is not primarily talking about anything evil. He thinks the added capabilities, volume and speed have outgrown what our world can handle. With billions of people in the world and the type of technology being made available, we might find that accidents or some of the things being done for kicks could destroy the planet... with the participants thought of more as naive or thoughtless than evil.
[Note: I'm against false flag and hoax events. Shouldn’t there be honesty about the real reasons for the changes ahead… and wouldn't honesty be more effective?]
Swenson's position is based on science, not on religion. When his book appeared, he was invited to present before Congress and the Pentagon. This was prior to 9/11 and the "war on terror". In April of 2014 I emailed Dr. Swenson as follows: "I read your book, Hurtling Towards Oblivion, in the 1990's, and I believe it has had an impact on subsequent events." Many people are at a loss trying to understand some of the bizarre changes in government since the 1990's.
Dr. Swenson replied to my email as follows: "Profusion, the more and more of everything faster and faster, has, I believe, become a very significant problem. It is hyperexponential and is already causing widespread dysfunction. I am trying to write two books this year, and the second will be an update of Hurtling. It will be most likely be titled Profusion." Dr. Swenson has impressive credentials. The only book he has written subsequently was in 2017 titled In Search of Balance. I could find no mention of either Hurtling or Profusion, but it would be interesting to see whether he believes what appears to many as bizarre government policies were influenced by the thesis he presented in the 1990's to the highest levels within government.
More on Recurring End of the World Predictions:
The key factor is the exponential rate of change in the progress of technology. To illustrate the point, think of a 1920's house that has aluminum wiring, that is being used for an expanding home business. Over the years more and more electronics are moved into the house, and when asked whether an electrical overload may cause an explosion, the homeowner explains that this has been predicted many times but hasn't happened yet. The nature of parabolas is that sudden change can occur at any time, like the snapping of a rubber band. Here are just two of numerous factors that when considered collectively make the end of the world a statistical near certainty, absent radical change: (1) Viruses can be created out of commercially available substances. It has been estimated that someone who has a masters degree in microbiology can spend about $10,000 to outfit a lab and purchase substances by mail order to create a virus that can destroy the world. Google: Is Microbiology a Dangerous Profession? (2) A lot of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union has ended up in private hands. Google: Loose Nukes. I have a theory that the "war on terror" is actually a pretense to gain the type of control needed to deal with these potentially world-ending issues that haven't caused "explosions" yet. (Well, Fukushima did explode.) Perhaps a better policy would be to just tell the public the truth (that parabolic growth in technology is the real issue), and let corrective measures start there. It may not be advisable or even possible to try to slow down technology, so use your imagination as to what will have to give.
A Scientist responded: “It's more that in that 1920's house people are continually looking at the bad joints and replacing bits and pieces with Copper as they get too hot. People are looking into the problems that are perceived in the world and fixing those that are deemed too dangerous.
"Continuing the analogy, the main danger would seem to come from any hidden wire-routings in the original layout that few if any know about and thus don't check on them. “For the people playing with recombinant DNA, this is cheaper than you state and I read a while back of a community in the USA where this was done by schoolkids. They had produced glow-in-the-dark bacteria and things like that. Accidents would seem to be likely, and we've seen with diseases like Ebola how difficult such things are to absolutely contain. “Nuclear terrorism is going to have to rely on stealing stuff that is already made - it's difficult to refine things sufficiently at home and the engineering needs to be precise. There you'd be looking at rogue states being the main problem. North Korea, maybe Iran, and any crackpot regimes in the Middle East who wish to prove their cojones are bigger than others'.
“It seems to me that all technology is a double-edged sword. As fire can either burn your house down or cook your food and keep you pleasantly warm, most new technologies can be used for good or harm. We can't stop the advances (and I wouldn't want to) but discussions as to what's a good and bad use need to be had.
“With globalization and the ease of sending anything bad all over the world in a day or so (imagine if Ebola were as transmissible as 'flu) we get scenarios like Stephen King's 'The Stand'. It would be useful to avoid that. The chances of such a catastrophe are maybe increasing but I doubt if there's any reliable way to put a figure on this. It's thus a useful thing to do to try to advance space colonization so that at least some high-technology bases will remain to rebuild from if that happens. Meantime we rely on the much-maligned Powers That Be to catch any bad thing before it gets too big."
God, Intelligent Design, and The God Concept:
I define the God concept as infinite perspective, which no person can possess enough of to be considered a heavenly father or mother in the flesh. The most one can claim is to be a student. Bibles are literary works written by people. I look to Bibles for wisdom of the ages, but do not consider them the exclusive source of such wisdom. For example, I consider them a little heavy-handed with regard to capital punishment.
Whether "getting people to turn to God" is a productive use of time and energy:
If people believe they know God, does this mean they really do? "It's life's illusions I recall, I really don't know life at all". And what becomes of their plans, which they believe are aligned with God? "Men plan, God laughs". So, perhaps the best advice is to: "Let go and let God".
Intelligent Design And Predestination:
Looking at a seed we can predict how its future will unfold (and can be more specific if we test its DNA).
A predestined design eventually manifests that seeks to intelligently optimize survival. This fact need not imply anything about how such a design ultimately came about; something that is unknowable due to our limited perspective. To help visualize scientific concepts which otherwise might be difficult to understand, metaphors are often used. If we define God as the largest perspective, then we could metaphorically refer to the design as God's handiwork. Let's take a snapshot of human society today and call that a "seed". Why couldn't our future development similarly be labeled predestination, and this development be considered intelligently designed? Wouldn't posing the issue as one of science vs. religion be a red-herring?
Substituting Maps for Territories:
"The map is not the territory" -- remarked scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski. We can look at reality as the territory, and the Bible as a map. As an analogy, consider someone who brings a map for a visit to the Grand Canyon. During the day, the visitor studies the map while locked in his motel room. At night, the visitor leaves his motel and stumbles around the Grand Canyon trying to recall the map. Early the next day, he leaves for home nursing an injury from a minor fall. Upon returning home, he re-examines his map. He wants to become enlightened and find answers. He finds this description on the map: "Bright Angel Point: This trail is steep in places, with drop-offs."
Science vs. Metaphor:
It is extremely important to be able to distinguish between metaphors (however cool they may be) and scientific facts. For example, Charlie Brown's great pumpkin may have symbolic meaning, and it might be cool to stay up all night in the pumpkin patch waiting for its arrival, but this in itself is not science. Walking around substituting metaphor for fact is like stumbling around with a blindfold on. Instead, metaphors are useful in helping to visualize facts which are otherwise difficult to articulate.
Accepting metaphors as science would be akin to expecting characters in a TV sitcom to step out of the TV set and into your living room, and become literally yours to interact with. Focus on the greater message; not on the cut-out characters that have been created and are used as metaphor in helping to illustrate a point.
Literalism vs. Symbolism:
In his Introduction to Matrix 5, Val Valerian wrote: "...recently passed beings dawdling on the fourth density, still attached to earth programming, their former incarnations, and don't know there is anything beyond 'over there', which there is, of course. It's pretty much infinite. So are we."
Have you read enough of Valerian's writings to know whether he is being literal? Or is he being symbolic? I prefer the later: that it is aspects of DNA and culture that have the potential to become infinite.
Atheism vs. Belief:
Lawrence Krauss appears in some YouTube debates, and is famous for countering legalistic religious arguments. While he is technically correct in his reasoning, it would be interesting to talk with him privately about whether he has any scientific views which are too uncomfortable for him to discuss publicly... Privately known truths that may not be useful or welcome in a public context... And, whether religion can symbolically give words to such otherwise unspeakable science.
Astrology- Interesting, but Not Science:
At least with astrology one can hypothesize the effect gravity from celestial bodies might have upon the development of the human fetus. As anecdotal evidence regarding astrology, there is a free website in which to look up a person’s astrology chart. Click on "Birth Chart", and then enter birthday, time of birth (this can affect one's moon sign, which is an important part of one's horoscope) and Place of Birth. After people run this chart for themselves and people they know well, some people might find the anecdotal evidence compelling regarding astrology. But anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. Hypothesizing the effect of gravity on the unborn, I have thought about people who were born using IVF, in which they were frozen for several years (when they were only a 4 or 5 cell embryo), and astrology based on birth date still appears useful. But what about people born early or late?-- Wouldn't the major part of development of the fetus have already taken place and the person's tendencies already have been established if we are to go with the gravity hypothesis?
Bottom line: Do I believe in astrology? No, I will not believe it unless and until there has been independent, scientific verification.
Diversity Of Metaphor:
One interesting point about astrology, regardless of whether the overall concept has validity, is in its highlighting the fact of stark differences in the strengths and weaknesses, and therefore in the motivational needs of each person. Consider two people at a store, each buying his favorite brand of bread. They disagree with each other on which is the better brand. When they get home, each proceeds to eat the wrapper and put the bread in the freezer. The wrappers have radically different designs, but everyone’s bread is remarkably similar. The two shoppers are at the stage in their psychological development where they think the wrappers are the main part of the bread.
Neither shopper is more right than the other. How can this be when their viewpoints appear to contradict each other? Well, we're talking motivational beliefs here, and each person has his own motivational needs. An example of a motivational belief, that incorporates a metaphor, might be someone jumping on a trampoline saying "I'm going to touch the moon". The saying is false, but represents the essence of the motivational belief, which is true.
Here's an analogy based on Stephen Covey's teachings: Suppose you are accompanied by a friend when looking for your lost glasses. Would it make sense for your friend to lend you his glasses to aid in your search? After you found your glasses, would it make sense for you to lend your glasses to your friend so that he can see as well as you do using them?
While legalism is presented as uniform it is actually customized based upon one’s developmental needs relating to brain chemistry. Here we are talking about regulating the balance of euphoria and depression/ addiction (see discussion below).
Messianic Age and the New World Order:
The formation of society's brain has been and will be rejected until the time is right. All "false" brains preceding the real one are practice runs. Conditions were not ripe two thousand years ago for the creation of the world's brain. Pope Francis said that Jesus failed at the cross. but tracing this metaphor further we see that it was the World that had failed. It inadvertently created a martyr that would propel a new religion further impeding the world-brain's formation efforts for generations to come.
A person’s efforts to impede a world brain presents an interesting paradox: (1) Is he fighting to reject any attempt to form the world's brain? The new brain has to be tested to see whether the time is ripe for its formation. Technology has to have progressed far enough along its parabolic curve, so that: (i) the technology creates such unstable conditions that the world cannot continue to exist without a brain, and (ii) the brain has sufficient technological superiority to defeat all attempts to unseat it. For the later, a fight to the death by unwavering opponents may be the ultimate test (which I find very unsettling). (2) Is he fighting the world brain, to prevent its formation unless and until it has reached an accommodation with local populations? When the "true" world brain finally appears, attempts to unseat it will be futile, and people will come to accept this New World Order. But if this brain also achieves a fair relationship with local populations, it might also become what some might call the second coming of Jesus, or simply the Messianic Age.
These are highly charged battles furthering developmental biology, and in either role one can expect rejection (or worse)... and all part of an ordinary biological transition not unlike the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Whether the current attempt will result in the creation of the true brain remains to be seen.
Prophesying the Future:
Speakers love symbols that allow them to have confidence... words like: “repentance”, “turn away the Beast”, “get what we deserve”. But more useful for audiences is practical discussion, which unfortunately for speakers requires a more tentative approach. No one has enough perspective to confidently foretell mankind's future development. All we can do is take tentative steps, learn from them, backup, and try again. From the largest perspective, which some refer to as God, all of these tentative steps are just chemical processes that propel mankind's developmental biology. What standard do we apply in searching for the righteous developmental path? We are confusing two different standards: (1) A path that is in the best interests of the family and other local populations, vs. the world, or (2) Our predestined path as already set forth by DNA and science. Some advocate turning away the Beast, which is how the Bible refers to the world. The Bible is an advocate for the interests of local populations such as the family, not for the world, so it leaves out half the picture
The more balanced approach, which also includes the interests of the world, has been set forth by DNA and science. This path is based on statistical probabilities, allowing for some variation and even occasional mutation. Unfortunately, we do not have a large enough perspective to know what this path is. We can only make tentative steps, such as when we try aspects of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Dictatorship, Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Anarchy. We are constantly incorporating new information into our quest to align as best we can with this statistically preordained path. If our efforts are ultimately not good enough, extinction or catastrophic destruction for mankind looms. The design does not seek perfection, but only for conditions to be good enough, which means good enough for survival. Consider… Is it better to have politics, which is messy, or its absence, which is anarchy?
We can get hints of what’s to come by looking at other examples in nature: Have you ever seen an animal without a brain, or a cell without a nucleus... or with more than one brain or nucleus? Is it reasonable to think that Earth may be in the process of developing it's brain; that this is how a normal inhabited planet develops? (Is this executive function voted in by the surrounding tissue, or is it a "coalition of the willing" which harnesses the surrounding tissue in furtherance of its agenda?) Now we can put the Bible into proper context, as an advocate for the rights of the rest of the planet as it deals with this new brain a/k/a The New World Order or Beast, as the Bible likes to call it. Repentance and turning away the Beast simply mean focusing on more local concerns, and by doing so we will get what we deserve, IE: avoiding a prolonged (the Bible says 3½ year) battle as this new brain takes hold. (Note- I'm speaking figuratively, here.) Let's consider again the caterpillar as a metaphor for Earth today, where the cells on the caterpillar are analogous to people on Earth, and a coalition of the willing ascends as a butterfly, leaving in its wake the rubble of caterpillar civilization left behind... in Bible terms not mere rubble, but wholesale Armageddon.
What makes this plausible is that increased technology has always brought about an increase in the number of war casualties. An early sign could be the increasing wealth disparity. What "news" would the coalition of the willing provide to the other cells in the caterpillar?... perhaps some distractions. How transparent would government be?... perhaps with visibility so low that even government itself would be highly compartmentalized. This scenario is just one possibility as no one can foretell the future, even though we are forced to guess. I'm hopeful for something better. What is the catalyst? The exponential ramp in technology. The seemingly bizarre policies now underway are part of a last ditch effort to avoid imminent extinction. This effort forces us to discover our predestination at a pace faster than democracy can allow, unfortunately enabling the widespread corruption and misinformation we see.
The Bible with its confident pronouncements has been put into proper context. The more we learn… the more tentative is our approach. What's not tentative is the role of the Bible as an advocate for the family and local populations. Is Global Warming one of the issues? I don't know, but I don't think the issue needs to be elevated to that of a religion. There are already compelling reasons to advocate for the transition from fossil fuels to green energy. For example, clean air and clean water are essential for health.
Turning Away the Beast Through Repentance- A Noble Lie?
Tidying up the house before guests arrive. Painting a pretty canvas over an old messy one. These are not malicious lies since the intent is good and the cause is noble. I guess they could be called noble lies. "A noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda." -- Wikipedia. How many people are aware that the definition of the term noble lie is associated with religion? Let's pick a religious belief to see if this definition fits: Some religious people believe that the Beast can be turned away through repentance.
“Religious nature”? Yes "knowingly told by an elite" Yes. The world is sometimes referred to as elites, even though everyone takes the perspective of the world at one time or another. “Maintain social harmony"? Yes. In some ways, legalism is somewhat like thinking in riddles. While there can be therapeutic benefit, it is a little like stopping spiritual development at the eighth grade level, and becoming an expert in all the religious symbols used up to that level. Similar to being distracted by ball games, TV, movies, and their related trivia, and not worrying about issues like Fukushima, WW3, and genocide. In effect leaving further spiritual development and related science and logic to others who are sometimes represented as the top part of the pyramid.
“A myth or untruth"? Yes. I just don't see a correlation between people working at resolving their own shortcomings, a/k/a repentance, and the New World Order, a/k/a the Beast, being turned away. People should, of course, give priority to more local concerns, in ways including repentance. But this will definitely not turn away the final cobbling together of earth's brain, a process already well underway. Focusing on family and local communities means averting or minimizing a battle of Armageddon. This is especially important today, since in this struggle (the family vs. the world) the world has an overwhelming and increasing technological advantage. If this is the arrival of the true messianic age, then at some point everyone will know it and not try to defeat it.
Previous attempts at establishing a world brain would have been premature, and labeling them Beasts and attempting to slay them was part of the Bible's prescription for vetting and testing. The world brain that succeeds will be invincible, but if it also achieves a workable balance between the perspective of the world and the perspective of local populations, it will no longer be considered a beast. It will instead represent the ushering in of the true messianic age, and... this will be something truly noble.
Setting straight the world’s priorities:
Who would these new priorities be directed towards?... governments, which exist today in name only, if they haven't already been toppled?... groups of people, seen or unseen, into whose hands nuclear, bio-hazard, weather and earthquake, drone and DEW, and propaganda methods have fallen?
Breakaway Civilization:
We’ve been hearing about the upper 1/10th of the upper one percent of the population. Are these people breaking away from the rest of civilization? If so, is this due to their failure to disclose knowledge of advanced technology/ aliens?... "I should think that members of the breakaway civilization might despair of ever educating the rest of humanity on what is going on. Their own reality is probably so far beyond our own, they may rightfully ask, how can they bring us up to speed without causing a worldwide psychological meltdown?..." (from John Nichols UFO art), or is all this talk about extraterrestrials just a distraction, having nothing to do with what the breakaway civilization actually represents? Here is the real question: What if the breakaway civilization ends up as the section of civilization that survives? Is encouraging the rest of us to "think in riddles" nature’s way of easing our transition to a marginalized destiny? I’m hopeful for something better, so long as religion continues to take the perspective of, and advocate for the survival of local communities, families, and individuals.
Dual definitions for the term Satan:
(1) From the family's perspective, Satan is that part of the World's agenda that is adverse to the family's agenda. (2) From the world's perspective, Satan is any agenda that diverges from God (defined as the largest perspective). References to Satan in the following two items use the later definition:
Whether Forcing An Outcome Is The Program Of Satan Rather Than Of God:
Taking any path inherently utilizes at least some force, however tentatively it may be applied. Looking back we can judge whether the development was aligned with the largest perspective (God) or not (Satan).
Whether Satan’s Program Is About Tyranny And Not Freedom:
A balance between control and freedom is inherent in any path taken. Either extreme can cause misalignment with the largest perspective.
Marriage and Family:
There is the story of a person who had married, had kids, divorced and then married someone else. When asked a few years later how things were going in his new relationship, he said things were different, not better. Trying to align with God is all about setting priorities: What about the kids? a/k/a Greater Things?... The next world awaits. Everything else disappears. Here's an analogy: The Titanic is going down. There is only room on the lifeboats for the kids. All of the adults return to the ship, and as the ship makes its final descent, they wave to the kids, hoping they have done a good enough job to enable the next generation of people.
Nuclear Family vs. Family of Humanity:
Another name for "the family of humanity" is "The World", and yes, religion does its part in helping to make the world a better place. But that is not the unique contribution of religion, which is its function as advocate for the family-- and not just for families collectively-- but for each family individually. Not only on the issue of family size (yes, there's that unspeakable science-- parabolic population growth), but also on commitment to strong family relationships enabling the kids to grow, thrive, and eventually start families of their own. This process is the real meaning of terms like reincarnation, afterlife, and resurrection; all else, borrowing from Dr. Judy Wood's terminology, "dustifies".
Enabling and working with the next world leaves little room for addictions. There is much more to the Bible than its legalistic veneer. What the Bible describes as a battle between The World and God is more specifically a battle between The World and the family. The Bible's hidden meaning is that The World and the family inherently have different agendas, and that the family should persevere despite this challenge. The Crucifixion story is a metaphor for how local populations, including families, can survive through generations despite The World's overwhelming technological advantage in the implementation of its agenda.
Dr. James Dobson aired a very popular religious radio show called Focus on the Family. Cal Thomas explained the meaning as: "Focus on the Family... not on The World". Legalistic religion looks at the Bible's legalistic cover story-- The World vs. God-- and overlooks the more specific hidden purpose for which the Bible exists in the first place.
Family Size:
Mormon history is interesting: polygamy + large family size = exponential expansion on steroids. What benefits survival for family lines can be detrimental for the world as a whole. In this case the world won out (banning polygamy), but each side had a legitimate case, and religion’s purpose may be to take the side of local populations (such as the family) rather than the world's perspective.
A scientist responds: “I see a Darwinistic survival of religions that call for a lot of children - generally people stay with the religion they are brought up with and the values it espouses, so the more kids you have the faster the religion will spread. If the religion also mandates that people support those with the same religion that also improves survival rate. Mutual support is useful when an individual has a reversal of fortunes, whether this is extended family ties or based on a common religion.
“Although the world could support a lot more people than it currently does since modern technology has been steadily improving food production and storage and reducing waste of all types, an exponential growth of the human population will at some point become totally unsustainable. It makes sense to try to keep a higher standard of living for the majority and thus reduce the fecundity and maintain the population rather than increase it. A reduction of population by having fewer than 2 children per couple has its own problems too, in that there won't be enough people of working age to support the older population - this can work if the average is slightly less than 2 and continues for many generations, but an edict such as the Chinese method (one child per couple) has caused major problems.
“When left alone, a population expands until it runs out of resources and then there are famines and the population gets reduced. This can be seen in any natural system. The population size varies according to conditions - there isn't a set size for it and only over a long period can you approximate that the birth rate and death rate are about equal.
“Overall this is a complex ethical problem, but it looks to me that the best path is to stop having kids when you have enough to replace the parents. Any system that exhorts people to have more than that is basically assuming that the excess will die before having kids themselves, and with modern medicine that's not likely to happen.
“Still, it seems that most of our systems are based on the idea of continuous growth. It's not often we see business people state that they've reached the optimum size and will stay there, and that also applies to things like GDP figures where a stasis is seen as a major financial problem. Always inflation and growth. Whatever it is, people seem to want more. This might change in future with the increased automation of production and the majority of individuals realizing they don't need more stuff than they've got or more than replacement-level of kids."
To a Person Going Through Tough Times:
On June 17, 2016 Sterling Allan received a sentence of 30 years to life, with earliest parole in 22 years. In the year prior he blogged: "I've been entertaining thoughts of not wanting to live." This is the same person who during his peak years of popularity interviewed inventors such as cavitation expert Mark LeClair. Allan showcased many such inventors on Gary Hendershot's Smart Scarecrow show. In the year prior to his arrest Allan became increasingly unglued as he struggled to cope with his severe addictions, and his subsequently revealed shocking criminality. Authorities writing the charging document included as background Allan's belief in "free energy technologies" but also thought relevant to include his belief that "9-11 was an inside job".
One's conscious brain functions as an executive that never gets to retire during a lifetime. But there is much more than just the conscious brain, as one's nervous system and subconscious will remind from time to time. At a minimum there is responsibility for the well-being of the other trillions of inhabitants (cells) in one's body. Then there is one's place in the larger, outside world. Still, each person is a volunteer, regardless of whether one gets paid or not or how much one gets paid. The world is a developing organism, with each person contributing where they can. In a sense we are all clones of each other; everyone alive today has DNA derived from a single ancient common embryo, that over millennia has undergone divisions, generations, and slight mutations.
In that sense, no one really dies. Life continues, whether it is the rest of humanity, or failing that, the consciousness of the universe. There is lots of redundancy. No one is indispensable-- no one possesses enough knowledge to have the largest perspective. In seeking truth, life is often a humbling experience, and it is only through these "disappointing" attempts of many that in hindsight, an intelligent design emerges. I am hopeful that the outcome will be "good enough", even if far from perfect. What this means simply is survival, for society, and for any one individual.
Demons Taking Up Permanent Residence:
Look at the parts of your brain as members of a community that will be living together for a lifetime. You don't want to brand any member a demon and lock him in the basement. He will be banging on the door, and plenty mad if he gets out, and when visitors stop by they will see your false self as you try to cover for the banging. Instead, early on have a friendly discussion with the various parts of your brain. For example, tell the lust part of your brain that you appreciate its benign form, facilitating family formation and reproduction. Explain how acting out inappropriately and/ or at the wrong time, however, can ruin the chances of people being able to form a family, can break up an existing family, and violate another's rights.
By treating that part of the brain as a valued and equal member, it will understand its proper role. John Bradshaw wrote more about this in his book, "Healing The Shame That Binds You". Back when I posted this advice it was apparently too little and too late for Sterling Allan. To further make clear my stance regarding Sterling Allan's actions, here is what I told him in 2015: "...therein is your cure for pedophilia: Children are not sex objects, and neither are adults. Having a relationship is an opportunity to help prepare, in one way or another, for the next world together..."
Truthers, Love, and Marginalization:
It is out of love that logical thinkers and legalistic believers can get along and learn from each other, despite having different beliefs. All people rely on bedrock belief at least to some extent in generating motivation. It is unreasonable for anyone to expect others to abandon their bedrock beliefs. It's like when the kids visit grandma and she tries to get them to agree to some arcane religious legalism, and her kids say "Grandma, we characterize it a different way, but we love you", and give her a big hug, and later Grandma and the kids are having a great time putting together puzzles.
Grandma and the kids interact with each other in a family context. Their private candid discussions in an atmosphere of love promotes growth. Contrast the situation where people interact publicly: Jeb Bush, speaking about truthers in a 9/11 context, said: "they are totally marginalized in our society". Should a preacher speaking at the pulpit disclose his private religious beliefs if that is going to upset his congregation? The risk is that he will be "totally marginalized" and lose his job.
Marginalization Implemented By Mainstream Media?
I often rely on trust regarding the truthfulness of the reporting of an event. Trust is a lesser standard than independent scientific verification; the later which I require for something that is claimed to be science. It took decades of largely truthful reporting by the media for it to earn this trust. Interestingly, this trust is being quickly eroded by questionable reporting becoming increasingly evident these last several years. Not for coverage of events like the Pluto mission, but for coverage of terrorism (especially shootings) and divisive issues related to race, religion, and gender. What's interesting is a possible connection to artificial intelligence. Various scripts organized by AI software and propagated by media may be being played out in the general population with all of us as participants.
A Hollywood producer has invented a scenario generator software using AI which "generates 250 years of human thinking every 90 minutes, so you can be certain that you have considered all possible scenarios for a given situation." His company recently conducted a live experiment of the software at an event held by U.S. Special Operations Command.
Hypocrites and the Antichrist:
What's good at one level of life may be evil at another level of life, since each level (individual, family, world) has its own perspective. An individual wears different hats when juggling priorities between levels. Inherently, everybody must play the role of the hypocrite at one time or another. Christ represents the family's perspective, and the Antichrist represents the world's perspective. Both perspectives are legitimate, but where they clash there is battle between them. Each side is entitled to have advocacy, and the ideal is to achieve some sort of balance between the two with no ultimate winner.
The Bible was written as advocacy for the family camp; it is purposely one-sided... even though the Pope's public message must be that there are no dichotomies! Why would someone who stands up for his own family, while also taking a position regarding the world, be a hypocrite at one time or another? Because each level of life has its own needs for survival, and those needs do not always align. For example, someone who is pro-choice when it comes to abortion may be pro-life when it comes to his own family. To avoid seeing themselves as hypocrites, some people decline to discuss religion or politics in public. Others are adept at shifting between levels... metaphorically represented by twins as the symbol for the astrological sign of Gemini. They often use vocabulary that has dual meanings in order to separate what is public from what is private... to facilitate discussion, say, within a family, that may not be useful or welcome in a public context. Here is something to ponder: What if hypocrisy is an attribute of being human, lest we start to resemble machines?
Family vs. the world is a subset of local populations generally vs. the world. A recent example is the issue of federalization of local sheriffs. Federalization, gun control, and abortion/ sexual preference rights are all part of the world's agenda.
Can Faith Rewire an Addict's Brain?
"Research suggests that addicts may be prisoners of the left hemisphere of their brain, which tends to ruminate on problems such as social anxiety. But when their right brains are triggered by an intense emotional experience, unexpected solutions appear. Spiritual experience can be an important catalyst to this kind of brain rewiring.
“This extends beyond traditional definitions of faith, to also include those who seek a higher power and serve others... a deep sense of purpose, opportunities to provide help to other people, connections with others, and the chance to make a difference in the world. This reduces self-absorbed thinking... a root cause of addiction." (From article).
Are there such things as Bible addictions? Dan Brown in his book The DiVinci Code talked about people searching for The Holy Grail. Is it: a place? a person? a tradition? a book or set of books? the contents of a box? a god-character that can or did speak words? a physical item such as Jesus' cup or platter? Many people refer to God as the ultimate holy grail, and that many of these places, things and concepts have symbolized or can symbolize God. When I searched for the meaning of God, I thought about infinity. It is very difficult to try and picture infinity, but infinity does have a specific scientific meaning. Then I thought about perspective. We on earth have one perspective, but a hypothetical intelligent being who has been alive for a thousand years might have a much larger perspective. Then I thought about the largest (infinite?) perspective, and decided that this concept fits my definition of God. I like that this concept is unassuming (free of baggage which can lead to addictions) and does not conflict with science.
This works for me, but I realize it's not suitable for everyone. Where did everything come from in the first place? It would take the largest perspective to answer that question, and is a great example of what is included in the God concept.
Legalism And Chemical Euphoria:
What do alcohol, drugs, sugar, and sex have in common? They all stimulate chemical euphoria in a certain part of the brain, and are frequently abused. The chemical when naturally produced by the brain and properly moderated is not the problem. People use reason to harness this chemical to benefit the course of one's life and the larger society. But for some the chemical dominates over reason. It is for these people that legalistic religion has been tailored. When one literally believes with their heart, this brings about the chemical euphoria, but without the side effects that abusive addictions have. With maturity comes reason. Those who use reason still keep their eyes only half open so they can continue the culture of their youth, as well as maintain grace around legalistic adults. The legalism helps quell addictions, and everyone is a potential addict. But once one knows the purpose and proper management of euphoria, there is no turning back to legalism. Belief is a higher state than addiction, and knowing is a higher state than legalistic belief.
Knowing the nature of euphoria and not being governed by it:
Knowing the nature of euphoria, however, does not include knowledge of the largest perspective-- stated in religious terms, no one can see the face of God.
Truthers and Belief:
James Tour shows that even as a scientist he benefits from belief. At the most basic level everyone relies on bedrock beliefs whether they realize it or not. Some questions are unknowable scientifically, such as... Why are we here? So we come up with (or borrow from others) some foundations upon which all further thought relies. Professor Tour takes belief beyond this, raising some issues: (1) His belief is based on certain words, such as Christ. All words are symbols, pointing to something. In this case he is pointing to metaphor... a concept symbolized in the form of a person. Is he giving more importance to the specific words and metaphors he has chosen to use, than to the concepts he is using them to represent? (2) No one, not even a scientist, has the time or curiosity to scientifically investigate all areas of belief. Some, however, may have the scientific curiosity to investigate areas such as developmental psychology as it relates to religion, and developmental biology as it relates to human culture. (3) Belief operates from a more primitive area of the mind, and may be more powerful than scientific thinking in dealing with things like addictions and other forms of behavior. It might even be scientifically provable that the use of belief may be beneficial in these areas. (4) It may be that Professor Tour now uses rational thinking, rather than belief, in dealing with behavior issues.
This would be consistent with developmental psychology. He may still be giving testimony based upon belief, however, for the benefit of those who are at an earlier stage in their development. The best spiritual teachers try to further their student's spiritual development, although in an indirect way. There is a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Once such a student is considered a "safe" person, more open discussion can then ensue privately.
Email from Professor Tour, 11/6/15: "Thank you for sharing with me. Your thoughts are very deep and difficult for me to follow. I am much more simple minded than people think. But I appreciate people who can extend this into deeper realms. God bless, J Tour." Professor Tour is able to separate his public life from his private life, in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of each. He uses carefully tailored language to successfully straddle the line between the two. Less inspired "teachers", whether knowingly or unknowingly, have the effect of capping further development. Is it true that a good magician never gives away his magic? If a teacher gives away his magic, and in the process his student moves on, shouldn't that be good, even if for some teachers this might mean a drop in financial support?
A Simplistic Worldview:
The phenomenon of legalism is exemplified in the writings of Sterling Allan, whose incarceration is referenced elsewhere on this page. Even though having earlier been ex-communicated from his church, he thinks his beliefs are the real Mormon religion. After over a year of countering Sterling's postings I developed much of the material for this part of my writing. Sterling views society as if it were a perpetual kindergarten classroom, where... (1) everyone has the same perspective, with no difference between private or public. (2) everyone is the same age, with no awareness of mortality. If someone dies they just come back. (3) life is a fun game, where each time you come back you get to decide in advance what your strengths and weaknesses will be. (4) if you behave you can get supernatural powers such as teleportation. (5) If you are bad your classmates can kill you, unless you repent first, and if you are just pretending to repent, your classmates won't be fooled. You still get to come back later choosing a different role... Sterling believes there are people who are heavenly fathers (or mothers) in the flesh. He believes that under certain conditions, the sky can light up and Jesus will arrive to meet with them, after which they will have the perspective of God including special powers such as teleportation. This form of legalism may seem extreme, but is not that different from common folklore.
Over time, developmental psychology should begin maturing one's thinking. An important part of this is the growing awareness of one's own mortality. This is beautifully illustrated in the children's book The Giving Tree, which brings tears even to adults who read it.
The Bible and Streams of Consciousness:
Bibles can serve as prompts, supplying fresh symbols, vocabulary, and associations-- like eating a colorful mixed salad for nourishment. A stream of consciousness is only a first step. It comes out raw, like a dream. It's fine in that form for say, finding a misplaced item. But how about when a decision is being made on whether someone should be executed?
Everyone knows what raw dreams are like, and yes, sometimes there is something useful. The brain accesses tons of files and extraneous papers fly everywhere. Filtering is required, and something like 99% of the output needs to be discarded, to find the one percent which may be useful. Even that one percent may end up useless; after all, no one has the largest perspective. No one needs to see what gets filtered out and discarded. Surrendering to a raw dream, without filtering, is dangerous to oneself and to others.
Memory and Schizophrenia:
There are two types of brain cells, those that respond to fear and reward, and those that use logic.
During the day, the logical conscious brain constantly recalls memory which is stored in file cabinets in the brain. The bits of memory after being used get tossed on the ground in a disorderly way. During the night, the fear/ reward cells scoops up these memory bits, integrating them with existing memory. This integration, organizing and re-filing during sleep uses dreams and metaphors to make weird word associations that create connections. The use of associations is entirely logical, although the associations themselves are not. The weirder the associations the better the memory recall.
The fear/ reward cells sleep during the day, except when they are needed for fear (for example, motivational belief providing decisive action when backing into a Bunsen burner, or when an ax murderer is about to strike), or for reward (for example motivational belief providing decisive action in what may be a logically derived stock bet). If the conscious brain leaves during the day, the fear/ reward cells can only see through a clouded windshield, and beg for the conscious cells to return and provide guidance. They can only act using fear, reward, and making wacky word associations. They scold the conscious brain cells never to leave them alone again without guidance that only the conscious cells can provide. They cannot see over the wall while the conscious cells can. Schizophrenia is when the fear/ reward cells are acting without guidance.
Similarity Of Political And Spiritual Maturity:
The same factors that hold back one's political maturity also hold back spiritual maturity. Sterling Allan, who self identifies both as a 9/11 truther and as religious believer, has taken a larger view on events like 9/11 than on things spiritual. Regarding his seeking spiritual guidance in trying to find his misplaced glasses, he wrote: "God cares about little things as much as the big, and is there for us. If you think that is ridiculous, then I feel sorry for you." I can see why someone might feel sorry for those who progress beyond their comfort zone. Developmental Psychology can be a very painful process. Neil Young was wrong when he said: "You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain." Look up the song's lyrics and sing along. People lose their innocence, whether political or spiritual, at various ages. But he’s correct that it’s impossible to go back... one now becomes the magician.
A Band-Aid for your Atheism, The Unseen Role Of The Clergy:
Jonathan Cahn once said that there was a time in his spiritual development before he became a clergy when he tried out atheism. The clergy's role is to attend the differing subjective needs of others. In order to do this effectively he needs to have broken through many levels of psychological development himself, including atheism. so that he can identify and relate to the level the other person is at. When the clergy meets someone, he finds him covered with band-aids. Some of these band-aids are attached "Rock Solid", because if removed the person might become unglued. The person will go to any length to keep the band-aid in place, and the clergy will respect that need by not telling him everything he knows. He will only discuss selected topics, and in such a way as to not jar the coverings. What are these band-aids covering? Well, science has its limitations. It can't ultimately tell us why we are doing this or that. It's not fun to walk around without confidence, so we unconsciously use scientific sounding reasoning and words, such as "evidence", when no science is actually involved, and use these to cover the void. People use reasoning that fits their needs.
Of course they believe their evidence is rock solid. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have that confident feeling that is necessary for getting on with life. Who says one’s coverings need to be removed? Only if and when the student is ready, should the teacher appear.
More On Losing One’s “Rock Solid” Confidence About The Nature Of Reality:
Imagine having a legalistic view that the world is headed towards doom, with the only survivors being those who adopt certain beliefs…Then, this "rock solid" band-aid starts to come off. With just a slight nudge you'll be completely rid of this dangling band-aid; this pessimistic remnant. Temporarily you will be left naked... and you'll know: Any coverings one puts on (and you'll need to put some back on) are a con, however noble the intent. Con is the abbreviation for confidence. Unlike cons (lies) that are not well-intentioned, noble lies serve a useful purpose and are inherent in motivating oneself and others. But ultimately they cannot be characterized as truth and should be discarded when no longer serving a noble or useful purpose.
That's the paradox we have to work with-- confidence is required to implement one's destiny, even though what we envision can only be based on tentative guesses (nothing rock solid). Ultimate truth is unknowable, but that is no reason for despair... Ultimate truth is left to God, defined as the largest perspective, which we are part of... And what is of God is by definition something to be optimistic about.
The clergy had tried atheism, by shedding the last of his own coverings. The resulting purposelessness was so painful that he decided to put a few back on. But his nakedness was still hurting others, so he covered himself more, at least when out in public. I’m not sure what to make of Jonathan Cahn's public appearances. They are steeped in spiritual and political motivational beliefs, but sidestep critical topics. I wanted to hear details about his sojourn into atheism, but didn’t. The issue is not one of honesty; he is being graceful. Whether his discussion is spiritual or political, the issue is the same: respecting and relating to members of the audience by meeting them at their most basic level. A clergy’s public sermons and writings are in no way a substitute for, and do not necessarily bear much relation to, his private teaching. There is a parallel here to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Being able to acquire knowledge was useful, but ultimately the question of why they were here was unknowable.
Looking directly at the void left by science, where even bedrock falls away, has been compared to the pain of trying to look directly into the sun, of being blinded by the light. Adam and Eve quickly put on clothes (stories) they could wear (believe) as if it were science. Only one person out of hundreds of thousands can truly stand naked, and even he must wear clothes when out in public. (I prefer to stay clothed, even when home alone in my office.)
Vetting and Testing the Deep State Religion- Facilitating knowledge vs. polarizing people into phony wars:
The Biblicism Institute commented on three points I posted on their blog:
(1) The next generation, which is what the next world literally means, isn’t as likely to treat metaphor as fact. Biblicism Institute: "What the next generation will or will not do is up for debate. Jesus spoke in metaphors or parables and many did not understand then as many do not understand today. However, the Holy Spirit is guiding the world to a higher level of spiritual consciousness in Christ. Still, that doesn’t mean that everyone will acknowledge the truth. Only those who wholeheartedly abide in God’s word will be able to have their eyes fully open."
(2) What many fail to realize is that the legalistic surface meaning of the Bible actually serves the world’s agenda, providing distraction while the new world order is put into place. Biblicism Institute: "Whoa! Slow down your horses there, friend. Legalistic? Is that in a pejorative sense? If so, wrong choice of word. There’s nothing 'legalistic' about God’s commands. See Of Legalism and Christians.There’s no such thing today as the world’s agenda. The agenda is God’s. Always has been. Always will be. Christ is on His throne controlling EVERYTHING. The world’s agenda if there is such a thing has always been to rebel against the agenda of God. Nothing new there either."
(3) Is the world in the process of cobbling together a world-brain? Biblicism Institute: "See, right there we have to ask this question. Sorry, but we can’t help it. WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING? The exponential ramp in technology is because the Holy Spirit is catapulting the world forward by inspiring mankind to develop in ways it had not been able to do prior to the advent of Christ. In the end, everything will bring glory to God and the one whom He sent. JESUS."
Regarding the role of BI, let’s start with an analogy: There are millions of type two diabetics in the world. Even though many could find a complete cure in their symptoms through diet alone, advocating for change in diet is often ineffective. Professor James Tour’s earlier quote may be apropos here: “Your thoughts are very deep and difficult for me to follow. I am much more simple minded than people think.”
Religious paradigms such as that advocated by BI are simple to follow and do not require a burdensome amount of deep thinking. It is much easier to get people to take medicine (insulin) to manage their condition than to get them to change their diet. But what happens if the advocacy goes further? What if diabetics, in motivating themselves and other diabetics to take insulin, start trying to motivate those using diet alone or even the general population to also take insulin? What if this leads to strife among the people? After BI commented on my post, the next commentator went on to call the entire paradigm of a competing religion, Judaism, a lie. I don't think that this is what BI intended; strife between groups. The largest perspective is what God represents in all religions. No person has that perspective and that is why no one can see the face of God. The best we can do is create maps (Bibles), but the map is not the territory. Calling competing religious paradigms lies is pejorative, given that seeking to see the face of God, even in the face of inherently falling short, is a noble endeavor. And, creating strife plays into the hands of the top oligarchy/ cartels. Fomenting phony wars based on race, religion, or gender advances the move toward world government, which is contrary to the role of religion as an advocate for the rights of the family and other local populations.
An analysis of E. Michael Jones:
A commentator suggested that I look at the works of E. Michael Jones, PhD. As is the case with Sterling Allan, there are fundamental premises for which I take issue, which nevertheless provide rich stimulus for ongoing analysis. Consider the second oldest video on his now banned and removed YouTube channel (search on alternate video platforms). At about 8 minutes in, Jones presents this as a logical chain: rejector of Christ → rejector of rationality → rejector of practical reason → rejector of morality → rejector of the order of the universe (God) → rejector of the political order → a revolutionary. Wait, doesn’t Christ represent a rejector of the political order; a revolutionary? Isn’t the story itself a parable with a larger meaning: promotion of the family (the next world), which at times makes one a revolutionary to a political order that promotes a sometimes divergent global agenda? Jones appears consumed by his religion’s cultural hooks, a form of salesmanship intended to keep (and in this case, also recruit) members.
These hooks are inherent to all organized religions, which have to be run a little bit like businesses if they want to survive. Each religion has its own distinguishing legalism, and like with football, occasional bashing of competing teams. Actual religion, as practiced by families and individuals, has a higher calling. It avoids legalisms, labeling, and bashing of other's cultures. Jones almost escapes the legalism when he discusses the Gospel of John, 1:1, which begins: “In the beginning was the Word”. He points out that the word “Word” is a translation from the Greek word logos, and that it is better translated as “the order of the universe” (similar to what I call the largest perspective) or God. Elevating the word “Word” (a symbol created by people) to be synonymous with God (whom no one can see the face of) in the Bible’s translation has had the effect of promoting literal belief in Bible stories with all their cultural hooks, rather than promoting the timeless concepts they represent. In recent years, leaders have attempted to make transparent and rise above the legalism and labeling inherent in their religions' organized forms. Within Jones' own religion, Catholicism, Pope Francis, in speaking out against fundamentalism, has been very progressive in this regard.
Regarding belief, Jones categorizes (his term) people using religious labels. Belief is better characterized as motivational belief, and even better: motivational methods. What do these methods motivate? Dealing with setbacks and death, celebration of births, marriage and life, fundraising, and sometimes politics. With regard to politics, Jones has not explored the possibility that globalism may be part of, in his terms, the order of the universe. The exponential ramp in technology logically enables absolute power (by a global authority). Sorry, don’t shoot the messenger. I don’t like it either...
In many ways, Jones has a good grasp on the truther events leading to globalism, but in other ways appears trapped in a script which promotes culture wars rather than religion's higher purpose. Here are some comments I made to Dr. Jones and his YouTube community: I began with a quote from a YouTube video: “When you keep in mind the technocracy, the concept of the technology, developers and the scientists, really being the ones who are going to be ruling the world here in the future… we all know what happens: with great power comes great responsibility, and you’ve got to be a little wary of someone trying to grab that much power.” Similar to early stages of brain formation in human embryo development?
A commentator responded: “You say it like it's a good thing!” My reply: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. No one would call this a good thing, but that doesn't mean it's not real. When bad things are happening, sometimes people say that perhaps God has a larger purpose. In this age of the internet, all possibilities should be discussed. Isn't religion's purpose to open minds, especially in the face of an increasingly restrictive world agenda? More of my comments: Lets consider some meaning behind metaphors: Christianity introduced to religious text the concept that the family and the world inherently have different perspectives. Christ represents the family's perspective.
The Crucifixion illustrates that while the world can and will take measures to protect its agenda, this does not invalidate the perspective of the family. John (in the New Testament) indicates that this new insight is an integral part of our attempt to understand the largest perspective (God). I don't think anyone would disagree with John. If they did, it would most likely be an issue of semantics, and in any event not an issue to fight about. It's not just the world that forces Bibles to be written in metaphor. Obfuscation supports the cultural hooks keeping organized religions from becoming superfluous. Unfortunately, it is families and individuals who bear the brunt of culture wars which can result from the stories and characters of metaphors being taken literally. Here's an understanding common to the three major monotheistic religions: God is the largest (or infinite) perspective.
Building upon that bedrock, timeless meanings can be extracted from the Bibles of those religions... or, would you rather wrap your identity in defending their literal words (stories and characters)?- There's only one God, but multiple ways of seeking this truth based on each individual's unique motivational needs. Religion's purpose is to open a developmental journey, not to preclude new insight, since ultimately no one can see the face of God. Couching this in terms of identity hinders the quest. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" shows that the Bible makes allowance for the world's perspective even though referring to it as the Antichrist/ beast.
It's not surprising that the Bible associates the family's (Christ's) perspective with God, since the Bible is advocacy for the family, and advocacy is by definition one-sided. Clearly both Christ and Antichrist are part of God's plan, since if the world goes down, so will the family-- both are joined at the hip. The interpretation has been to focus on the family, not on the world. There was discussion of whether people of various religious backgrounds (including pagan Romans) all worship the same God, with the only difference being their understanding of him. Some commented that non-Christians worship a different God. Those pagan Romans are all of us.
The concept of Christ/ Antichrist applies to all people, as well as between each level of life. Everyone inherently takes different perspectives at one time or another, including those of the world, country, community and/ or religious affiliation, family, and individual. Whenever we take the perspective of a higher level of life we play the role of the Antichrist relative to the lower included levels which contrast themselves as more Christ-like. This means everyone is a hypocrite at one time or another. A person sometimes finds himself taking a different position on the same issue depending on which level he is currently taking the perspective of. Generally, we are graceful about this and refrain from putting someone on the spot.
Yes, even the organized church and the family have perspectives that are not totally aligned. The Pope was advocating for the church level (group/ community) when he suggested there were no dichotomies between Christ (who actually represents the family level) and the church. Since he even brought up the issue, my guess is that he privately wants the real truth to get out, even though his public message must be that there are no dichotomies! Consider how many times this Pope "misspeaks" and the Vatican has to "correct" his message.
As with many of Dr. Jones' videos, the comment section becomes angry. Jones defines a group of people based on Jewish identity. Rather than discuss actual conditions leading to development of the deep state, he looks for ad hominem connections. A commentator suggested to Dr. Jones that he's heard people say the New Testament of the Bible is anti-Semitic. and asked Dr. Jones if he also believes that. Dr. Jones replied: "No. it's anti-Jewish."
The New Testament is not anti-Jewish. The New Testament provides advocacy for families and individuals in the face of a sometimes divergent world agenda. You'd expect some new insights after 3,000 years of Old Testament. Even today people are learning new things about the design, which by the way applies to all cultures. The world is forming its brain, which for the first time in history can harness ever advancing technology to become permanently entrenched. The design, which originates from something larger than the machinations of any specific individuals or cultures, is carried out by a coalition of the willing and able.
I discussed with Dr. Jones the possibility of him having a private audience with the Pope. In fifteen minutes of private discussion he would have his answers. Unless, per the lead to one of his recent videos, he wants answers [but] he can't handle the truth. I asked whether he was oblivious to the implications of exponential technology... or at least whether he sees it as part of the design. Dr. Jones replied: “Yes and no.”
I suggested that Dr. Jones is viewing these issues in terms of clubs, putting him at odds with those [of a different club, or no club] preparing for the next world, literally the next generation. Everyone can have a positive influence on the next generation; no membership required. Timeless Bible metaphors are lost when stories become literal and fodder for identity politics. Dr. Jones replied, “Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by clubs. Like Grouch Marx, I would never join a club which accepted me as one of its members.”
Organized religions and political parties are clubs in that there are memberships, and differ in many respects from the actual religion and politics of families and individuals. Jones prejudges all people within Judaism as rejecting the order of the universe [God] and having a revolutionary spirit leading to such things as development of the deep state. He presumes to tell them they are not even Jewish, within the meaning of pre-Christ religion. Jones exempts those who where born Jewish, but have since accepted Christ. For those he does not exempt, he tells his audience sicut judaeis non: not to harm them, their property, or interfere with their religious worship... a hollow caveat given the propensity for incitement of mob mentality he must be aware of by the comments to his videos.
Since at least the 1960's those forming world government have been beyond the reach of mobs. Instead, the mobs (on the internet but potentially more) go after people who are no different than themselves-- including truthers, who are part of all faiths including Judaism. The top-down politics and labeling that Dr. Jones refers to (and himself engages in) has nothing to do with actual religion which individuals and families discuss around the kitchen table. There is literary meaning (timeless concepts) and identity (art, song, kinship, spirituality) which populations share and learn from together. One would think that with the amount of time he has spent among families of different cultures, he would see that the meanings behind the religions overlap, are shared, and that in any case others have already had at least some insight into most aspects of the design. I discussed with Dr. Jones how I did not understand how one can be a political truther but not a religious truther, and that words, stories and legendary characters should never be made more important than the meanings behind them. His reply: "I don't understand how any truther can be an atheist". Religious truthers are labeled atheists, in the same way that political truthers are labeled conspiracy theorists... however, marginalizing people using blanket labeling does not work anymore; not where there is a free and open internet.
Dr. Jones evokes 'The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street' with his blanket religious labeling. He has, even if unknowingly, become part of Identity race/ gender/ religion provocation, leading his followers to descend into paranoia and panic. In that Twilight Zone episode, aliens in a spaceship use this strategy to conquer Earth, one neighborhood at a time, but it's clear Rod Serling is talking about earthling leaders/ provocateurs when he ends with... "and the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone."
A Crumpled Manuscript Found Discarded at the Dump:
Writing about these topics got off to a difficult start. It was like trying to nail jelly onto a tree. After a few weeks some core concepts were articulated, but anyone I showed them to appeared scandalized. Those initial thoughts could have ended up crumpled and discarded at the dump... a fitting destination for unspeakable concepts. I've since expanded on those concepts, with this writing, and am trying to be more politically correct (well, at least a little).
Here's some fascinating e-mail regarding my initial writings: Scientist One: "I definitely owe it to you to at least discuss your ideas about trutherism, etc. with you. I confess I was a little afraid of doing this before, because I was afraid it might turn out that we disagree on some things, and I didn't want to jeopardize our good relationship... However, probably I shouldn't have worried about that. I think we can probably disagree about some things and still be friends. Wasn't completely sure whether you did believe 9/11 conspiracy theory or were only analyzing the fact that some other people believe it. So, that was why I asked you for a definition of trutherism. However, I am pretty sure I would never accept this theory about 9/11. However, your idea of trutherism might encompass some other things that I might be more receptive to than the 9/11 theory...
"I just read 'Truthers and the Singularity' a couple of times - I think it's not the same essay I read before. I think I might be starting to get the idea - but I still wish I had a definition of 'trutherism' - I think because it's hard to work out exactly what your attitude is toward the people you identify as 'truthers.' However, I will read it a few more times. I happen to have studied biochemistry quite a bit. I think aging is partly and perhaps even chiefly due to DNA damage, which our cells can fix or control to some extent, but not completely, so it isn't likely that we could ever stop the aging process, although we can slow it down in various ways. I think as we get older, most of us get less interested in living forever..." Later the same day: "Actually I think I mis-remembered something - I don't think the essay I read before mentioned 9/11, but I was under the impression at the time that trutherism referred to 9/11 so I was trying to figure out from your essay whether you agreed with the 9//11 theory, but I couldn't work it out... I'm not sure whether Spock is the right character [to present as an example of a truther]."
My reply: Truthers don't know how to stay "dressed". (I'm not talking about clothes, here.) When I'm out in public I like to be dressed. The only further hint I can provide on this point is to re-read the reasons why trutherism can be at odds with the human condition.
Spock is not the best fit as a truther. They were never really able to make Spock "Spock" because Star Trek is a TV show and all TV shows, since they are public, are by definition "of the world". All religious programming is also "of the world". The meaning behind religion, however, is discussed privately in homes. I treat all bibles as literary works. Do you know which character represents the original truther? No need to share your answer; as I say, I like to stay dressed.
The scientist's reply: "It seems you prefer to be somewhat mysterious about your actual beliefs - however, [in my Peter Falk voice:] would you mind if I ask you just a couple of questions, Sir? Can a person qualify as a "truther" even if his special belief is actually false? Can a person qualify as a "truther" even if his special belief is actually true?"
My response: A truther's suspicion can be true or false. In researching a murder, Colombo made a list of perhaps twenty suspicions. He was more than happy to be able to cross another suspicion off of his list. But his research was always about the facts. He would never say something like: "I am pretty sure I would never accept this theory" or "too many people would have to have been involved". Imagine if Colombo knocked on someone's door, asked a few questions, and was told "you are just a conspiracy theorist". That said, look at the larger context of what is occurring: What if the real threat is to the continued existence of society as a whole... not from terror caused by a lone gunman; the later which results in increased police powers to deal with the larger threat to society's very existence. Perhaps people have an unconscious symbiotic understanding of this, rendering moot the efforts of today's truthers.
Scientist Two: regarding the struggle between the world and more local levels of life: "To the virus on the petri dish it is reasonable to desire escape and evolve. To the controller of the experiment it is not."
Scientist Three: "... lies and hoaxes as two categories of our existing societal guidelines that do not serve us the truth... These are deliberate, but they also seamlessly blend into mere illusions which are inadvertent. Sometimes the lies and hoaxes start out as myths and superstitions and then they are played upon for their social momentum that provides stealth to the intentions to deceive, to protect the way things are or the way things the spin doctors want them to go... We do not know everything and we come to greater understanding through stories, metaphors, similes, and other abstract ideas that attempt to bridge the gap between personal comprehension and a huge universe of possibilities and actualities.
"Spock wisely knows that people need motivation and meaning to the ideas that can be presented to them."As for the science behind magic, remember Arthur C. Clarke stated a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Science runs the show, but people are swayed by the magic, the perception of what is happening.
"As for coaches walking off the field to direct the game from there, we have that parallel, that metaphor, in science today. What is taught in universities is often from people who “fell off the field,” who did not get picked up by industry because they weren’t as bright, so they went back to school to teach what they were parroted when they were students. The innovators were snatched up by industry, if industry would recognize them. Sadly for many of the innovators, their bosses have agendas and still don’t let them really innovate.
"Life certainly is about the journey, not the destination; otherwise, there’d be little of any meaning in the majority of one’s lifetime. Life is a process of becoming, not just a state of being. 'And they lived happily thereafter' is rarely the human experience, in which this trite story ending speaks of a life of stasis, not dynamic involvement. Fearful people seem to want to sit in the roller coaster car at rest than to take the ride.
"As for enactment of severe measures that are faster than democracy can handle, a sociology study showed this. Some university found when local populations reached a threshold of 100,000 people, local government changed its nature. It became inefficient to do things the way people intend government to do them, and government leaders had to revert to corruption, 'under the table' management techniques to get things done.
"People’s individual attempts, of those in positions of influence and power, can get lost in what is best for the world and we then have chaotic manipulation to re-establish the new norm. This will be seen by some or many as manipulation and power struggles for the benefits of a few... Disruptive technologies fit this very well.
"It certainly is difficult to know how current challenges will work themselves out... I certainly don’t want to see machines take over human life. I... recall Mark Twain’s comment, 'My life has been just chock-full of catastrophes – most of which never actually happened.' Anyway, I don’t see how the man-versus-machine balance becomes a singularity.
"...modern technology, of communications and transportation in particular, is good... all of these things making the world a smaller place and showing our connection that has not been readily seen in the past. It certainly will make us face our stuff a lot faster! The illusions will have to fall; we cannot stay in denial as easily...
"Yes, many, many people are not even noticing what’s going on... Spin doctors and manipulators who leverage their version of the world make the situation all the more perplexing. Still, those who have a firm grasp of the truth, no matter how small, must persist in letting that truth be known by more people – the truther role is needed by a world of people who feel very dizzy..."
Scientist Four: "The book didn't really deliver on what I would have liked to know, which is whether the Truther movement has any set organisation and agenda or whether it is just a term applied as a way of putting a lot of individuals into a pigeonhole and giving them a label. A lot of the people I know are pretty individual thinkers and I'd have problems grouping them into any one pigeonhole. Problem is, of course, that if there's a structure and agenda then it can be easily dismissed as just another crazy religion-type craze.
"For Vernor Vinge, try Rainbows End for a pretty good prediction of life in the fairly near future. All his books will make you think, though the others are somewhat further future or other worlds and we won't (most probably) see those happen. One other book that maybe has some of the germs of the Truther ideas, if I understand those correctly, is "The world of null-A" by A.E.Van Vogt. Very old book"
My response: Should trutherism be described as a "religion-type craze? The word crazy has two definitions:
(1) Crazy: mentally deranged. The world labels truthers as crazy, in order to make examples out of them. Private truth is well hidden from public discussion. It is perfectly acceptable (even beneficial) to stumble upon these truths privately. It is in the world's interest, however, that these truths be kept private, so as not to interfere with the public agenda. Perhaps this suppression involves some form of unconscious symbiotic understanding, and not necessarily conspiracy.
(2) Crazy: extremely enthusiastic. People can become very excited upon learning certain truths.
Sometimes the same words can have both a public meaning, and a different (although not necessarily inconsistent) private meaning. When someone first becomes aware that there are dualities of meanings, it can be helpful if there are other people around who are already aware of private truth; perhaps to counsel them not to become too publicly excited and to think twice before going public with what they have learned. These private truths may not be useful or welcome in a public context. When a number of people start publicly outing these private beliefs this might be looked at as a craze. In addition to political truthers who publicly discuss events such as 9/11, there are religious truthers who publicly discuss the private meaning of religion. However, people caught up in a "religious craze" most likely are not aware of the private meaning of religion, and are simply fervent followers of well known religious dogma.
The singularity and the pandemic:
Both the virus and the vaccine were developed at the same time, as part of a bio-weapon program to reduce population. Search: COVID-19: The Biodefense Mafia. Each dose of the corona virus vaccine is like buying another ticket in a death lottery. For the population as a whole, probability of death or disability is known, but not how the reality for each person will play out. The contents and strengths of the various ingredients vary wildly from vial to vial, and each person's health situation differs. The current death rate due to the vaccine is estimated at one in a thousand, with a higher rate for disability.
Not enough time has passed for there to have been long term Covid 19 vaccine studies on people, but official reports of excess mortality paints an ominous foreboding. Long term animal studies a decade or two ago all reported much death, with one researcher predicting that mRNA vaccines could never be made safe enough to test on humans.
A January 24, 2024 peer reviewed paper called for a global moratorium on these vaccines: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign.
Some protocols have been suggested, however, for moderating effects of the spike protein. Search: Degradative Effect of Nattokinase on Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2.Possibility of a grid down, a situation far worse than a pandemic with only 5% surviving after a year:
Klaus Schwab: "The young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, half his cabinet are actually young global leaders of the World Economic Forum. So we penetrate the cabinets. The change is not just happening. The change can be shaped by us. We have to prepare for a more angry world. How to prepare, to take the necessary actions to create a fairer world. I see some need for a great reset. Some people assume we are just going back to the good old world which we had and everything will be normal again. This is, let's say, fiction. It will not happen."
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization: "This pandemic is going to go on. It's going to get worse, and worse, and worse."
Klaus Schwab: "Pay insufficient attention to the frightening scenario of a comprehensive cyber attack which will bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospitalization, our society as a whole. The Covid-19 crisis would be seen in this respect as a small disturbance in comparison to a major cyber attack." Search: Warning: major cyber attack next.
As many as 95% of the population could perish in the aftermath of these genocides, leaving what some estimate as approximately 500 million people. Perhaps 30 million of these people will become super-human (and part of the brain), and the remaining 470 million will become sub-human (part of the rest of the body).
Hope for the future:
Technology enables abundance, but paradoxically can cause job loss/ downsizing to the extent that this abundance is not affordable by many, or sometimes a majority of people. With the move away from agriculture and toward technology, children were beginning to be seen as an economic burden, although lifespans were expected to increase. The world's population was already projected to peak and then decline, as fewer people were having children. And, further long-term population decline is probably already baked into the cake due to the vaccines which have already been given.
If the promoters of the genocide are arrested, new members of the coalition of the willing will take their place, as directed by developmental biology. They may adopt the same policies, or adopt more enlightened ones based on the changing population trend.
At some point with enough abundance, we'll design a more equitable economic system, and conflict based on scarcity will be rendered obsolete. But who is we? There's a saying in bridge: the one who knows, goes. Do the ones who know, and then go, become the life form... with how free and open the internet remains serving as an early indicator of how broad based this world-brain will be? Technology enables absolute power, but as world government gains its confidence, it may make things like hoaxes and false flags a thing of the past. Absolute power also includes the power to allow transparency.The nuclear arms race is now replaced by the race toward AI. Leaders of the super-humans will ride in the front passenger seat, while AI occupies the drivers seat. The super-humans will have programmed the AI to keep the super-humans safe, but the AI will be calling the shots. The trajectory of the advance in technology is like the game of Risk. Mom was making grilled-cheese sandwiches for us to eat out on the porch, and knew that the game of Risk would be finished within, say, fifteen more minutes. In each person's turn, the number of armies awarded would increase at a linear rate. In real life, the number of armies awarded increases at an exponential rate. The approximate timing for the ending of the game can be estimated. This is not an ending but the beginning of the singularity.
My blog helps you prepare by linking articles about breakthrough topics such as solar power, electric vehicles, and quantum computers. My blog also features a News Driven Meal Plan which includes the latest on a healthy diet.
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