Programmed Reality

The Observer Effect and Entanglement are Practically Requirements of Programmed Reality

jim — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:34:00 -0700

Programmed Reality has been an incredibly successful concept in terms of explaining the paradoxes and anomalies of Quantum Mechanics, including non-Reality, non-Locality, the Observer Effect, Entanglement, and even the Retrocausality of John Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment.

I came up with those explanations by thinking about how Programmed Reality could explain such curiosities.

But I thought it might be interesting to view the problem in the reverse manner. If one were to design a universe-simulating Program, what kinds of curiosities might result from an efficient design? (Note: I fully realize that any entity advanced enough to simulate the universe probably has a computational engine that is far more advanced that we can even imagine; most definitely not of the von-Neumann variety. Yet, we can only work with what we know, right?)

So, if I were to create such a thing, for instance, I would probably model data in the following manner:

For any space unobserved by a conscious entity, there is no sense in creating the reality for that space in advance. It would unnecessarily consume too many resources.

For example, consider the cup of coffee on your desk. Is it really necessary to model every single subatomic particle in the cup of coffee in order to interact with it in the way that we do? Of course not. The total amount of information contained in that cup of coffee necessary to stimulate our senses in the way that it does (generate the smell that it does; taste the way it does; feel the way it does as we drink it; swish around in the cup the way that it does; have the little nuances, like tiny bubbles, that make it look real; have the properties of cooling at the right rate to make sense, etc.) might be 10MB or so. Yet, the total potential information content in a cup of coffee is 100,000,000,000 MB, so there is a ratio of perhaps 100 trillion in compression that can be applied to an ordinary object.

But once you decide to isolate an atom in that cup of coffee and observe it, the Program would then have to establish a definitive position for that atom, effectively resulting in the collapse of the wave function, or decoherence. Moreover, the complete behavior of the atom, at that point, might be forever under control of the program. After all, why delete the model once observed, in the event (probably fairly likely) that it will be observed again at some point in the future. Thus, the atom would have to be described by a finite state machine. It’s behavior would be decided by randomly picking values of the parameters that drive that behavior, such as atomic decay. In other words, we have created a little mini finite state machine.

So, the process of “zooming in” on reality in the Program would have to result in exactly the type of behavior observed by quantum physicists. In other words, in order to be efficient, resource-wise, the Program decoheres only the space and matter that it needs to.

Let’s say we zoom in on two particles at the same time; two that are in close proximity to each other. Both would have to be decohered by the Program. The decoherence would result in the creation of two mini finite state machines. Using the same random number seed for both will cause the state machines to forever behave in an identical manner.

No matter how far apart you take the particles. i.e…

Entanglement!

So, Observer Effect and Entanglement might both be necessary consequences of an efficient Programmed Reality algorithm.

Is Cosmology Heading for a Date with a Creator?

jim — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:49:00 -0700

According to a recent article in New Scientist magazine, physicists "can't avoid a creation event." (sorry, you have to be a subscriber to read the full article.) It boils down to the need to show that the universe could have been eternal into the past. Not eternal and there needs to be a creator. Even uber-atheist Stephen Hawking acknowledges that a beginning to the universe would be "a point of creation… where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God."

Apparently, there are three established theories for how to get around the idea of a creator of the big bang. But cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin demonstrated last week how all of those theories now necessitate a beginning:

1. The leading idea has been the possibility that the universe has been eternally expanding (inflating). Recent analysis, however, shows that inflation has a lower limit preventing it from being eternal in the past.

2. Another possibility was the cyclic model, but Vilenkin has shot a hole in that one as well, courtesy of the second law of thermodynamics. Either every cycle would have to be more disordered, in which case after an infinite number of cycles, our current cycle should be heat death (it isn't), or the universe would have to be getting bigger with each cycle, implying a creation event at some cycle in the past.

3. The final hope for the atheistic point of view was a lesser known proposal called the cosmic egg. But Vilenkin showed last year that this could not have existed eternally due to quantum instabilities.

Is science slowly coming to terms with the idea of an intelligent designer of the universe? The evidence is overwhelming and Occam's Razor points to a designer, yet science clings to the anti-ID point of view as if it is a religion.

Ironic.

Pathological Skepticism

jim — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:29:00 -0700

"All great truths began as blasphemies" - George Bernard Shaw

In the 1800’s, the scientific community viewed reports of rocks falling from the sky as “pseudoscience” and those who reported them as “crackpots,” only because it didn’t fit in with the prevailing view of the universe. Today, of course, we recognize that these rocks could be meteorites and such reports are now properly investigated.

In 1827, Georg Ohm's initial publication of what became “Ohm’s Law” met with ridicule, dismissal, and was called "a web of naked fantasies." The German Minister of Education proclaimed that "a professor who preached such heresies was unworthy to teach science." 20 yrs passed before scientists began to recognize its importance.

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs was called “ridiculous fiction" by Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse in1872.

Spanish researcher Marcelino de Sautuola discovered cave art in Altamira cave (northern Spain), which he recognized as stone age and published a paper about it in 1880. His integrity was violently attacked by the archaeological community, and he died disillusioned and broken. Yet he was vindicated 10 years after death.

Lord Haldane, the Minister of War in Britain, said that “the aeroplane will never fly” in 1907. Ironically, this was four years after the Wright Brothers made their first successful flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. After Kitty Hawk, the Wrights flew in open fields next to a busy rail line in Dayton OH for almost an entire year. US authorities refused to come to the demos, while Scientific American published stories about "The Lying Brothers."

In 1964, physicist George Zweig proposed the existence of quarks. As a result of this theory, he was rejected for position at major university and considered a “charlatan.” Today, of course, it is an accepted part of standard nuclear model.

Note that these aren’t just passive disagreements. The skeptics use active and angry language, with words like “charlatan,” “ridiculous,” lying,” “crackpot,” and “pseudoscience.”

This is partly due to a natural psychological effect, known as “fear of the unknown” or “fear of change.” Psychologists who have studied human behavior have more academic sounding names for it, such as the “Mere Exposure Effect”, “Familiarity Principle”, or Neophobia (something that might have served Agent Smith well). Ultimately, this may be an artifact of evolution. Hunter-gatherers did not pass on their genes if they had a habit of eating weird berries, venturing too close to the saber-toothed cats, or other unconventional activities. But we are no longer hunter-gatherers. For the most part, we shouldn’t fear the unknown. We should feel empowered to challenge assumptions. The scientific method can weed out any undesirable ideas naturally.

But, have you also noticed how the agitation ratchets up the more you enter the realm of the “expert?”

“The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.” – Mahatma Gandhi

This is because the expert may have a lot to lose if they stray too far from the status quo. Their research funding, tenure, jobs, reputations are all at stake. This is unfortunate, because it feeds this unhealthy behavior.

So I thought I would do my part to remind experts and non-experts alike that breakthroughs only occur when we challenge conventional thinking, and we shouldn’t be afraid of them.

The world is full of scared “experts”, but nobody will ever hear of them. But they will hear about the brave ones, who didn’t fear to challenge the status quo. People like Copernicus, Einstein, Georg Ohm, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk.

And it isn’t like we are so enlightened today that such pathological skepticism no longer occurs.

Remember Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann? Respected electrochemists, ridiculed out of their jobs and their country by skeptics. Even “experts” violently contradicted each other:

“It's pathological science," said physicist Douglas Morrison, formerly of CERN. "The results are impossible."

"There's very strong evidence that low-energy nuclear reactions do occur” said George Miley (who received Edward Teller medal for research in hot fusion.). “Numerous experiments have shown definitive results - as do my own."

Some long-held assumptions are being overturned as we speak. Like LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions; the new, less provocative name for cold fusion.

And maybe the speed of light as an ultimate speed limit.

These are exciting times for science and technology. Let’s stay open minded enough to keep them moving.

Yesterday's Sci-Fi is Tomorrow's Technology

jim — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:41:00 -0700

It is the end of 2011 and it has been an exciting year for science and technology. Announcements about artificial life, earthlike worlds, faster-than-light particles, clones, teleportation, memory implants, and tractor beams have captured our imagination. Most of these things would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago.

So, what better way to close out the year than to take stock of yesterday's science fiction in light of today's reality and tomorrow's technology. Here is my take:

Time to Revise Relativity?: Part 2

jim — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:25:00 -0700

In “Time to Revise Relativity: Part 1”, I explored the idea that Faster than Light Travel (FTL) might be permitted by Special Relativity without necessitating the violation of causality, a concept not held by most mainstream physicists.

The reason this idea is not well supported has to do with the fact that Einstein’s postulate that light travels the same speed in all reference frames gave rise to all sorts of conclusions about reality, such as the idea that it is all described by a space-time that has fundamental limits to its structure. The Lorentz factor is a consequence of this view of reality, and so it’s use is limited to subluminal effects and is undefined in terms of its use in calculating relativistic distortions past c.

So then, what exactly is the roadblock to exceeding the speed of light?

Yes, there may be a natural speed limit to the transmission of known forces in a vacuum, such as the electromagnetic force. And there may certainly be a natural limit to the speed of an object at which we can make observations utilizing known forces. But, could there be unknown forces that are not governed by the laws of Relativity?

The current model of physics, called the Standard Model, incorporates the idea that all known forces are carried by corresponding particles, which travel at the speed of light if massless (like photons and gluons) or less than the speed of light if they have mass (like gauge bosons), all consistent with, or derived from the assumptions of relativity. Problem is, there is all sorts of “unfinished business” and inconsistencies with the Standard Model. Gravitons have yet to be discovered, Higgs bosons don’t seem to exist, gravity and quantum mechanics are incompatible, and many things just don’t have a place in the Standard Model, such as neutrino oscillations, dark energy, and dark matter. Some scientists even speculate that dark matter is due to a flaw in the theory of gravity. So, given the incompleteness of that model, how can anyone say for certain that all forces have been discovered and that Einstein’s postulates are sacrosanct?

Given that barely 100 years ago we didn’t know any of this stuff, imagine what changes to our understanding of reality might happen in the next 100 years. Such as these Wikipedia entries from the year 2200…

- The ultimate constituent of matter is nothing more than data

- A subset of particles and corresponding forces that are limited in speed to c represent what used to be considered the core of the so-called Standard Model and are consistent with Einstein’s view of space-time, the motion of which is well described by the Special Theory of Relativity.

- Since then, we have realized that Einsteinian space-time is an approximation to the truer reality that encompasses FTL particles and forces, including neutrinos and the force of entanglement. The beginning of this shift in thinking occurred due to the first superluminal neutrinos found at CERN in 2011.

So, with that in mind, let’s really explore a little about the possibilities of actually cracking that apparent speed limit…

For purposes of our thought experiments, let's define S as the "stationary" reference frame in which we are making measurements and R as the reference frame of the object undergoing relativistic motion with respect to S. If a mass m is traveling at c with respect to S, then measuring that mass in S (via whatever methods could be employed to measure it; energy, momentum, etc.) will give an infinite result. However, in R, the mass doesn't change.

What if m went faster than c, such as might be possible with a sci-fi concept like a “tachyonic afterburner”? What would an observer at S see?

Going by our relativistic equations, m now becomes imaginary when measured from S because the argument in the square root of the mass correction factor is now negative. But what if this asymptotic property really represents more of an event horizon than an impenetrable barrier? A commonly used model for the event horizon is the point on a black hole at which gravity prevents light from escaping. Anything falling past that point can no longer be observed from the outside. Instead it would look as if that object froze on the horizon, because time stands still there. Or so some cosmologists say. This is an interesting model to apply to the idea of superluminality as mass m continues to accelerate past c.

From the standpoint of S, the apparent mass is now infinite, but that is ultimately based on the fact that we can't perceive speeds past c. Once something goes past c, one of two things might happen. The object might disappear from view due to the fact that the light that it generated that would allow us to observe it can't keep up with its speed. Alternatively, invoking the postulate that light speed is the same in all reference frames, the object might behave like it does on the event horizon of the black hole - forever frozen, from the standpoint of S, with the properties that it had when it hit light speed. From R, everything could be hunky dory. Just cruising along at warp speed. No need to say that it is impossible because mass can't exceed infinity, because from S, the object froze at the event horizon. Relativity made all of the correct predictions of properties, behavior, energy, and mass prior to light speed. Yet, with this model, it doesn't preclude superluminality. It only precludes the ability to make measurements beyond the speed of light.

That is, of course, unless we can figure out how to make measurements utilizing a force or energy that travels at speeds greater than c. If we could, those measurements would yield results with correction factors only at speeds relatively near THAT speed limit.

Let's imagine an instantaneous communication method. Could there be such a thing?

One possibility might be quantum entanglement. John Wheeler's Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment seems to imply non-causality and the ability to erase the past. Integral to this experiment is the concept of entanglement. So perhaps it is not a stretch to imagine that entanglement might embody a communication method that creates some strange effects when integrated with observational effects based on traditional light and sight methods.

What would the existence of that method do to relativity? Nothing, according to the thought experiments above.

There are, however, some relativistic effects that seem to stick, even after everything has returned to the original reference frame. This would seem to violate the idea that the existence of an instantaneous communication method invalidates the need for relativistic correction factors applied to anything that doesn't involve light and sight.

For example, there is the very real effect that clocks once moving at high speeds (reference frame R) exhibit a loss of time once they return to the reference frame S, fully explained by time dilation effects. It would seem that, using this effect as a basis for a thought experiment like the twin paradox, there might be a problem with the event horizon idea. For example, let us imagine Alice and Bob, both aged 20. After Alice travels at speed c to a star 10 light years away and returns, her age should still be 20, while Bob is now 40. If we were to allow superluminal travel, it would appear that Alice would have to get younger, or something. But, recalling the twin paradox, it is all about the relative observations that were made by Bob in reference frame S, and Alice, in reference frame R, of each other. Again, at superluminal speeds, Alice may appear to hit an event horizon according to Bob. So, she will never reduce her original age.

But what about her? From her perspective, her trip is instantaneous due to an infinite Lorentz contraction factor; hence she doesn't age. If she travels at 2c, her view of the universe might hit another event horizon, one that prevents her from experiencing any Lorentz contraction beyond c; hence, her trip will still appear instantaneous, no aging, no age reduction.

So why would an actual relativistic effect like reduced aging, occur in a universe where an infinite communication speed might be possible? In other words, what would tie time to the speed of light instead of some other speed limit?

It may be simply because that's the way it is. It appears that relativistic equations may not necessarily impose a barrier to superluminal speeds, superluminal information transfer, nor even acceleration past the speed of light. In fact, if we accept that relativity says nothing about what happens past the speed of light, we are free to suggest that the observable effects freeze at c. Perhaps traveling past c does nothing more than create unusual effects like disappearing objects or things freezing at event horizons until they slow back down to an "observable" speed. We certainly don't have enough evidence to investigate further.

But perhaps CERN has provided us with our first data point.

The Mayans Predicted the Coming of Green Lantern

thelayman — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:17:00 -0700

By now you have no doubt heard that according to astronomers and anthropologists, December 21, 2012 correlates to the “end” of the Mayancalendar. And, despite having repeatedly heard about this for many, many years now, it is also very probable that you still have no idea exactly what this means.The reason is because it’s very complicated. To even begin to understand it youneed to look to the Mayan myths of the Sacred Tree and understand theirincredibly complex Long Count calendar of tuns, k’atuns, and b’aktuns as wellas their concepts of the Great Cycle, the Great Great Cycle, and cycles withincycles. You’d also need to understand astronomical occurrences involving the precession of the equinoxes and the conjunction of the sun at the intersection of the plane of the ecliptic and the Milky Way. You can do all that, or, youcan simply read my interpretation of this summer’s Green Lantern movie, which shares the same message as the Mayan mythology.

If you’re unlike most people, you actually saw Green Lantern, the critics’ least favorite of this summer’s slew of superhero movies that included Thor, Captain America: TheFirst Avenger, and X-Men: First Class.Going in with really low expectations, I actually enjoyed the film, but was abit disappointed on how little of Green Lantern’s abilities were explored.Unlike every other superhero, Green Lantern must rely on his mind to conjure uphis powers. For this reason, he is only as powerful as his imagination. He isthe superhero of creativity, but the film only touched on this briefly towardsthe end, choosing instead to focus on fearlessness as the source of his power.

On the face of it, the film was pretty standard superhero fare,but looking deeper, I really dug the film’s unintended, subconscious message,channeled by the movie’s shamanic writers. In The Myth ofLost and previouscolumns, I wrote how I believe today’s writers, musicians, artists, andpoets are modern day shaman, translating the messages of the collectiveunconscious to the masses—even if they themselves are unaware that they aredoing so. There are many messages out there, and different groups of writersand artists are in tune with different channels, or frequencies. It’s likethere is a giant universal radio playing and the shaman have the volume tunedup louder than most people but are all listening to different stations. I’vesuspected that I have been listening to the same station as Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams, and M. Night Shyamalanbecause their stories often share the same mythological messages as whateverI’d been working on at the time of their release. It’s also the same stationthat Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park listen to. In fact, this week’s episode focused ona spoof of Thor and The HistoryChannel involving pilgrims, Native Americans and a space portal while mytranslation of the same message (which hit me back in June) involves Green Lantern, The History Channel, thenative Latin Americans and an energy portal from space. It’s the same coremessage for different audiences. This particular message is also the same asthat of the Mayan legends relating to 2012, since we are approaching the end ofthe same cycle that they are based upon.

To begin with, let’s get something out of the way. To theMayans, the end of their calendar had nothing to do with the end of the world.In fact, they made prophesiesabout dates that would occur well after the December 2012 end date (correlatingto their calendar’s K’atun 4 Ahau). The end just marks the end of a Great Cycle(5,125 years). Upon its completion, it simply begins again, with events, lifelessons, and growing experiences occurring in a similar fashion to the way theyhad when the cycle was run through previous times. Only now, with societieshaving grown since then, these events would play out differently. It’s justlike a vertical spiral where each point plays out similarly to the correspondingpoint directly below it but in a slightly elevated way.

So if this is the case, why all the focus on world disasters,crashed economies, and world upheaval? We’ve seen major uprisings in the MiddleEast, devastating tsunamis in Japan, floods in the Mid-West and earthquakes allover the place. In New York City this year alone I’ve experienced a hurricane,earthquake, and massive blizzards, not to mention a major Nor’easter inOctober! What gives? Well, since we are reaching the end of a cycle, we arecoming to a checkpoint that allows us to continue up the spiral. If we had beenproactive and grown enough on our own, it would’ve been smooth sailing.However, we have not done this and so must experience challenges that will helpus to grow. Government upheavals are happening to help rid the world of corruptdictators, crippling tsunamis to push us away from our reliance on nuclearenergy (since the station in Japan was flooded), a major oil leak to encourageus to move away from our reliance on fossil fuels, global economy crashes totry to get us to move towards a more equal system, and natural disasters tohelp us to work together to solve many our current problems including watershortages, crumbling infrastructures, and bankrupt cities. We are not beingpunished; we are being pushed to growbecause we did not do enough on our own. The world is about to evolve and if weare going to stay here we must evolve with it.

So, what does any of this have to do with Green Lantern and how does that film in any way resemble Mayanmythology? As described in Kenneth Johnson’s Parabola article, “TheShape of History: Time and the Mayan Calendar,” the final segment of theMayans’ Great Cycle calendar is known as K’atun 4 Ahau, representing a roughlytwenty year period that began (in its most recent appearance) on April 6, 1993and ends on December 21, 2012. Each of these k’atuns last about twenty yearsand has its own set of prophecies expressed in poetic metaphors. The mostrepeated prophesy for this k’atun is: “Hulom kuk, hulom yaxum,” translated as“Come is the quetzal, come is the blue-green bird.” The quetzal is a bird thatis symbolic of the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatal—theFeathered Serpent whose spirit was believed to return during each repetition ofK’atun 4 Ahau. If you know mythology, or at least mywritings about it, you probably know that snakes (most likely because theyshed their skin) often represent the illusion of time in the physical realm (asopposed to the spiritual realm where time does not exist as we know it). To me,a feathered serpent would be a portalbetween the material world of time and the spiritual world (spirit is light asa feather, and feathers allow creatures to fly high, where the spiritual realmis thought to exist).

According to Johnson, “the reference to the ‘blue-green bird’ ispuzzling when applied to the quetzalwhich is in fact bright green in color”—green, much like our superhero friendand the ring that is the source of his power (which I’ll get to soon). Johnsongoes on to write that, “In Mayan thinking, the center of the universe isblue-green” and the word used to describe it, “yax” is also often used to referto “beginnings or to the center point.”

So during this final k’atun, which we are quickly approachingthe final year of, the Mayans believed that the spiritual energy of theFeathered Serpent will reach our world from the very center of creation. Whileit may bring about massive growing pains, this energy is in fact meant to liftus higher so that we can exist on the next, higher plane of existence, just asit did the last time it came around. Since the Mayan Great Cycle is theequivalent of 5,125 years, that is how often each of these k’atuns repeat andhow long it takes for the Great Cycle to go full circle and begin again. Thelast time humanity experienced the end of a Great Cycle was in 3,114 BCE (thescientific equivalent of B.C.), which corresponds to the beginnings ofcivilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia and with it the start of urbanization,writing, and the spread of metallurgical technologies. Before that the GreatCycle came full circle in 8,239 BCE, which marked the transition from huntingto agriculture, allowing humans to settle down and build societies. Since 1993when our current k’atun began, we’ve seen the rise of the Internet, which hashelped unite the world and push technology along faster than any other time inhistory. We are now at a point however, where we must grow to be responsiblefor the effects of this technology on ourselves and our world. That, will mostlikely be the theme as we enter the next Great Cycle beginning December 21 ofnext year.

Interestingly, there is an incredibly rareastronomical event that coincides with December 21, 2012. This event is foretold in Mayanmythology and has remnants in our own mythology involving the snake in the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life. Onthat day, our sun will align at the exact intersection between the plane of theecliptic (the path that the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars appear to travel,from east to west, as seen from Earth) and our Milky Way galaxy. This cosmiccross was known as the SacredTree (Tree of Life) to the Maya with the north-south band of the Milky Waybeing the trunk of the tree and the main branch intersecting the tree being theplane of the ecliptic. The ecliptic intersects the Milky Way at a 60 degreeangle near the constellation Sagittarius where there is a 13th constellationthat crosses the ecliptic known as Ophiuchus. It is representedas a man (humanity) grasping a snake (the illusion of time) and is oftenconsidered the mysterious 13th sign of the zodiac. According to Mayanmythology, when the sun crosses at the center of the Sacred Tree (the center ofthe Milky Way where there is said to be a massive black hole), an energy portalis created between the earth and the world beyond so that we can interact withthe spiritual realm. Many spiritualtypes today believe that the alignment will open a channel for cosmicenergy to flow to Earth, raising us to a higher vibration.

Due to a phenomenon known as the precession ofthe equinoxes caused by a slight spinning top-like wobble of the Earth, theposition of the stars as seen from our perspective slip a little from year toyear (one degree every 71.5 years), becoming more noticeable over long periods.For this reason, the apparent location of the Winter Solstice (December 21st)sunrise has been inching towards the galactic center. Because ofthe Earth’s wobble, a true alignment takes even longer than a Great Cycle of5,125 years. In fact, the sun has not aligned this precisely with the galacticcenter in 25,800 years—long before the Mayans even existed. So December 21,2012 not only marks the end of the Mayan’s Great Cycle, but also the end of theGreat Great Cycle of 25,800 years known scientifically as a Great Year orPlatonic Year—the time it takes the precession of the equinoxes to make onecomplete rotation. This is a pretty big deal.

The question you may be wondering then is how did the Mayansknow all this? Did they learn it from a more advanced civilization thatpredated their own? Was it gleaned using an ability to mind-meld with theplanet? Did ancient alien visitors clue them in? While I am open to any ofthese possibilities, the real answer is probably more feasible. As a societythat lived much more directly off of the land, they were far more in tune withits cycles than we are today. Having a simpler way of life also made it easierto recognize repeating patterns, and having a far clearer sky not polluted bysmog or lights made it possible for the average person to see the stars andcalculate their movements fin order to chart crop cycles and other importantrituals. Like many civilizations of its time, Mayans also relied on shamans tointerpret events and make predictions. While shamanism is making a comebacktoday, for the most part our modern society has lost a way to get in tune withthe natural pulse of the planet and the heavens.

Ancient shamans were gifted with the ability to hear thefrequencies of the world and their people, and they used the fresh, naturalplants all around them to enhance these abilities further. These medicines werea more natural mix of plants than the synthetic, enhanced, pesticide-rich, nutrient-poordrugs of today and were used by skilled shaman who either took them themselvesor guided others on how to properly do so. Ancient drugs used by Mayans,Egyptians, Greeks, and others allowed shaman to connect with consciousness, orwhat they would consider their gods. When Christianity came around, it banneddrug use because why should anyone need the church to interpret what God wantswhen drugs allowed you to do it on your own. Being illegal and then synthesizedinto increasingly potent combinations, drugs than led to abuse, which is why wehave such a negative connotation of them today. Truth is, the banning ofnatural mind-enhancing drugs has effectively slowed our evolutionary processand losing our connection to relevant rituals, shamans, and a connection to therhythms of life have practically brought it to a standstill. This is whyancient man could build gigantic pyramids, predict the movement of the heavenswithout telescopes, and move gigantic stones on top of one another while theaverage modern man wouldn’t last a week in the wilderness without anytechnological toys.

Thankfully, due to the incredible challenges mankind hasovercome over the past 5,000 years, we have grown to the point that we canconnect to universal wisdom without the use of drugs, and many artists,inventors, and game-changers have used them anyway to help fill in the gaps.The problem is that modern man no longer recognizes the messages of artists andstorytellers for what they are—clues to where we are and where we are headed.I’m sure that few people walked out of GreenLantern with a message that ties in with Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent,the galactic alignment, and the new era we are entering in 2012. For whateverreason, I did.

Green Lantern is our Quetzalcoatl. In our modern mythology, herepresents the same archetype of the Feathered Serpent. Green Lantern is abright green, just like quetzal, the symbolic bird representation ofQuetzalcoatl. He is able to travel though portals like Quetzalcoatl, and infact, the ring, which is the source of his power, took him through one of theseportals to receive his initial training after he stated the oath. That oath is:

In brightest day, in blackest night,

No evil shall escape my sight

Let those who worship evil's might,

Beware my power... Green Lantern's

Interestingly, since the Earth will align with the sun and the Galactic Center on December 21st, I assume that it is also in relative alignment six months later on June 21st 2013, albeit, on the other side of the sun. These two dates are, of course, the Winter and Summer Solstice when we have the blackest night and brightest day on Earth. The oath also alludes to Green Lantern’s light—much like the blue-green light that emits from the center of the galaxy, the Mayan word for which also denotes a beginning or center point.

This brings us to the symbol of Green Lantern’s ring that healso bears on his chest—a glowing circle between two horizontal lines inanother circle. Viewing the symbol through the lens of Mayan culture, itinitially reminded me of the hoop for one of their games called pok-a-tok that issimilar to our basketball and that I first learned about on a History Channelspecial about 2012. According to the special, the Mayan’s goal of gettingthe ball into the hoop represented the alignment of the sun with the galacticcenter. The victor of the game would be decapitated allowing him to passdirectly to the spiritual realms without having to take the usual 13 steps toget there (correlating to the 13 constellations perhaps?). For the record, theloser would be killed as well, but without the express ticket to heaven.

The symbol of Green Lantern could also represent the galacticalignment itself. The glowing center would be the center of the galaxy with thelines above and below it representing the straight band of the Milky Way. Allof this occurs behind the spherical sun represented by the bigger circle that surrounds the two parallel lines and the smaller, glowing circle. Put it together and the symbol represents the galactic alignment as it would appearfrom Earth

If these similarities weren’t enough, even the plot of Green Lantern can be seen to representthe galactic alignment. It involves an evil entity known as Parallax—adark, shapeless creature that sucks up all in its path—much like a black hole(such as the one at the center of our galaxy) would. Interestingly, theDecember 2012 alignment also occurs with the Dark Rift—a dark band thatruns along the Milky Way, parallel (sounding like Parallax?) within it from itsgalactic center northward. The Mayans called this Dark Rift the Black Road. Soin a sense, on December 21, 2012, we will be aligned with our sun at thecrossroads of dark and light.

At the conclusion of the film (spoiler alert), Green Lanterndefeats Parallax by using its own immense gravity against itself, causing it tosuck into the sun. To do this Green Lantern, representing the Earth, alignshimself with Parallax (the Dark Rift black hole) and the sun and must keep fromgetting sucked into either as the sun pulls Parallax into its fiery core. Byproving himself, Green Lantern elevates all of humanity which is now acceptedamong the Guardians of the Universe as an elevated species worthy ofprotection. And what initially chose Earth for this honor? The alignment-shapedring, representing the galactic alignment of 2012. It is interesting to notethat while Green Lantern was created way back in 1940, the same year Batmanappeared in his own comic book, it took until 2011—the year before the galacticalignment—before he would star in a motion picture. Why? I’d say because onlynow are we ready for the mythological message that the character represents.Its the same message that Quetzalcoatl represented for the Mayans: that we areentering a new era and are on the verge of being ready to enter it. To bedeemed worthy, we must successfully overcome challenges we have never facedbefore. Challenges that will force us to grow so that we can handle the higherenergy of this new era. Successfully doing so will earn us the respect of otherentities and perhaps even other beings of this universe which may revealthemselves to us during this next Great Cycle.

As I mentioned earlier, we have many modern shaman and it isn’tjust Green Lantern that is giving us this message. I also recognized it in thisSummer’s J.J. Abrams/Spielberg film, Super 8. The film is about a group of children in 1979who discover a dangerous monster that adults are unaware of (due to agovernment cover-up) and are initially belittled for their belief that itexists. They use their childlike innocence, inner spirit, and imagination torepel the monster (which represents adult fear, superficiality, materialism)and send it away from our world. On a metaphorical level, the movie speaks tohow people today have become disillusioned by government, big business, andmaterialism and believe we are headed for certain doom. Only those who are tunewith a higher vision will be able to steer our world away from devastation(those who were kids in the 1970s perhaps?). Both Green Lantern and Super 8share a hero who is courageous and creative and an otherworldly villain thatthreatens mankind by consuming it. They also both feature governing bodies thatinitially are hindrances to mankind (the Guardians in Green Lantern and U.S. government in Super 8) because they don’tview them as mature enough to handle the real-world challenges.

Getting away from movies,someone else who was preaching a similar elevation message is the recentlyridiculed Harold Campingwho made the failed predictions of a worldwide rapture/judgment for May 21,2011 and the end of the world for October 21, 2011. While his predictionsdidn’t come to pass, I think he may have been onto something. Perhaps we arecurrently going through a judgment of sorts. One where we are tested withday-to-day challenges—some even seemingly trivial like a handicapped personasking for help or a homeless person angrily threatening you. Your response maydetermine the level of challenges you will need to undergo in order to handlethe world to come.

I may be wrong, but just incase, I’ll be keeping my eyes open for strange encountersand tests from now until at leastDecember of next year and really make an effort to growout of my comfort zone. And you might want to do the same. Because even ifnothing out of the ordinary happens on December 21, 2012, the world we live innow already requires us to tap into inner strengths we didn’t know we had. Andchallenging yourself is the best way to get them to rise to the surface.

May your inner spark grow to light your way,

Marc

Marc Oromaner is a New York City writer whose book, The Myth of Lost offers an alternativesolution to Lost and uncovers its hidden insight into the mysteries of life. Hecan be contacted on the wall of The Mythof Lost Facebook page or on his blogThe Layman’s Answers to Everything.

The Myth of Lost is available on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com.

Abiotic Oil or Panspermia - Take Your Pick

jim — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:07:00 -0700

Astronomers from the University of Hong Kong investigated infrared emissions from deep space and everywhere they look they find signatures of complex organic matter.

You read that right. Complex organic molecules; the kind that are the building blocks of life!

How they are created in the stellar infernos is a complete mystery. The chemical structure of these molecules is similar to that of coal or oil, which, according to mainstream science, come from ancient biological material.

So, there seem to be only two explanations, each of which has astounding implications.

One possibility is that the molecules responsible for these spectral signatures are truly organic, in the biological "earth life" sense of the world. I don't think I have to point out the significance of that possibility. It would certainly give new credence to the panspermia theory, suggesting that we are but distant relatives or descendents of life forms that permeate the universe. ETs are our brothers.

The other possibility is that these molecules are organic but not of biological origin. Instead, they are somehow created within the star itself. Given that they resemble organic molecules in coal and oil, it would seem to indicate that if such molecules can be generated non-biologically in stars, and the earth was created from the same protoplanetary disk that formed our sun, oil and coal are probably also not created from biological organic material.

In other words, this discovery seems to lend a lot of support to the abiotic oil theory.

That or we have evidence that we are not alone.

Either way, a significant find.

Buried in the news.

Time to Revise Relativity?: Part 1

jim — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:09:00 -0700

Special Relativity.

Causality.

Faster than light (FTL) travel.

Most physicists says that you can only hope for at most two of these three concepts to hold.

Special Relativity has the advantage of 100 years of supporting experimental evidence.

Causality has the advantage of 1000s of years of philosophic thought, and daily experience (at least until very recently - see Rewriting the Past)

Which seems to be bad news for faster than light travel. But we all so much want FTL travel to be true. How else are we supposed to communicate with ET?

Well, Special Relativity may have received its first chink in the armor. Particle physicists at CERN recently released a report on the experimental evidence of FTL neutrinos. The 6-sigma quality factor reported implies that the margin of error for this experiment is insignificant, meaning that these results may need to be taken seriously.

So, which concept falls by the wayside: Special Relativity (sorry, Albert)? Or Causality (sorry, Aristotle)? Alternatively, maybe the "2 outta 3" rule needs revision.

As usual, I have an opinion.

And it is...

1. Special Relativity holds for the moment. But we need to stop using circular logic for relativistic effects. We need to stop drawing FTL paths on Minkowski diagrams that are based on the assumption that FTL is impossible. And, finally, we have to come to terms with the fact that Special Relativity has to do with subluminal speeds and is UNDEFINED at FTL.

2. Causality holds for the moment. At least in the context of our conventional space-time. Throw in inter-Hilbert Space travel or Programmed Reality and all bets are off for Causality. (again see Rewriting the Past for more on the latter)

3. Given the caveats in #1, maybe we can get 3 outta 3.

Here's just one example where it seems to fit:

Imagine a supersonic jet travelling at twice the speed of sound (2S meters/second) in the land of the blind. A blind observer stands at 10*S meters from the jet at t=0. At t=0, an audible event (call it Event A, the cause) occurs on the jet, such as an explosion on board the plane. The sound waves from Event A reach the observer in 10 seconds. At t=1 second, the entire jet explodes as the gas tanks catch fire (Event B, the effect). At t=1, the jet is 8*S meters from the observer since it is traveling at 2S, so the observer hears Event B eight seconds later. In other words, the observer hears event B at t=9 and event A at t=10. Therefore the observer observes the effect before the cause.

But that doesn't mean that the effect happened before the cause. It only appeared to happen that way in the observer’s reference frame. Similarly, anyone on the jet (who could actually hear things happening outside) would observe a full sequence of events happening backwards in time. Is this time travel? No. No one is going back in time. They are just experiencing a sequence of events in reverse chronological order happening in someone else's reference frame. Is there any reason to assume that the same arguments would not also hold in the domain of light?

In fact, the same thing might happen if you hopped aboard the tachyonic neutrino express. First of all, I should note that there is some debate about this whole idea of time unfolding in reverse at superluminal speeds. Much of it stems from the nature of the Lorentz factor:

This is the factor that gets applied to time and distance to calculate time dilation and Lorentz contraction effects at relativistic speeds. It is also the factor applied to mass in general relativity. It can easily be seen that as the velocity approaches c (the speed of light), the factor under the square root sign approaches zero, causing the Lorentz factor to approach infinity. For this reason, time stands still, mass goes to infinity, and the apparent size of the rest of the universe shrinks to zero at the speed of light. Or, more accurately, “apparent size” as you would SEE it. But, what happens if you go past the speed of light? In that case, the factor under the square root sign is negative. For mathematics, this is not allowed for real numbers. However, trigonometry has a trick, which is to define an entity i that, by definition, is the square root of -1. Numbers containing i are considered “imaginary” or complex numbers. In the real world, these numbers actually have a great deal of use in fields like electrical engineering, where they are used to determine the phase between periodic signals, or in physics, where they are used to determine the relative angle between field vectors. But what they might mean to relativity is really anybody’s guess. But it is for this reason that many physicists claim that you can’t accelerate past light speed; that is, that it would necessitate mass exceeding infinity or becoming “imaginary”. Thus, the entire idea of traveling back in time is just one interpretation of what happens when the Lorentz factor goes imaginary.

So, let’s go with that idea on our tachyonic neutrino express, for the moment. If you had hurtled through space superluminally in 1804 toward Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, you would watch Hamilton "fall up" into a standing position, the bullet flying out of his stomach and back into Aaron Burr's gun. The assassination would still have taken place in their reference frame. Once you arrived in Weehawkin, NJ and got off the transport, your reference frame would have shifted back to theirs.

One might wonder what happens when you land. Does the sequence of events go forward again, in which case you could predict the future? No, that would truly violate causality. What happens is that you have to decelerate to stop, and as you approach light speed, the backwards time effect slows down. When you cross over into subluminal, it reverses and the events start forward again from whatever point in the "past" was hit at light speed. Then, you get to watch the events unfold again in the normal temporal direction. By the time you decelerate and land, you are at the same point in time as Burr's reference frame, well ahead of the event that you just witnessed. Hamilton would be dead, of course. No time travel, no ability to interact with the past. No grandfather paradox to solve. All relativity equations still make sense, from the standpoint of the observations that we can make via known observational methods. We would still experience time dilation and Lorentz contraction up until we hit light speed. After that, what happens is anybody's guess. But I have a theory.

It's just going to have to wait until Part 2.

Smart Phones as Transformative Devices

jim — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:27:00 -0700

I live in Southern California, where, at any point in time, about 1 out of every 2 people are staring at their phone. As a long time iPhone owner, I have to admit that I also fall into that category. Smart phones are simply so enticing - camera, stock ticker, weather forecast, stored music, videos, and photos, GPS, maps, email, texting, twitter, facebook, games, radio rebroadcasts, internet, newpapers, webcams, and so much more. What's not to love?

The internet is often hailed as a transformative invention, which it certainly was. But it kind of pales in comparison to that Droid in yourpocket. After all, the smart phone includes the internet at your fingertips, which, by itself is transformative in how people interact. Instead of having to call your buddy after you get home and look up the factoid that you argued about at the bar, now you can settle immediately. But, as the web app is just one of the thousands of apps that can be stored on the phone, it stands to reason that transformativenature of the smart phone can be much more than the web.

For one thing, there is the impact on existing products and services. Who needs GPS anymore, when you have an iPhone? Who needs to hear terrestrial radio stations in your car when you can stream Pandora channels tailored to your interests. Pagers? - a thing of the past. With all of the market data available at your fingertips and mobile trading easily accessible, do we need the financial section of the newspaper any more? Or stockbrokers? While consulting at a large toy manufacturer recently, it was observed that people use smart phones to comparison shop on the fly. You're standing in front of a camera at an electronic superstore and in seconds you can determine if their competitor sells it cheaper. Macy's doesn't have your size of that perfect shirt you found in the store? Check online and find out who does. I'm less inclined to stay at home to watch a game when I know I can keep track of my team at any time. Don't need to carry a pen to write anything down when I can take notes on my phone. Shazam has savedme tons of time trying to figure out what that song was that I just heard on the radio.

But it's not all good.

How many deaths are attributed to texting and driving? Reuters estimatesover 2000 per year and growing. Celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan drove off the Pacific Coast Highway while texting about his dog last year.

Still, these are all relatively small impacts to our society. The real transformation is in terms of socialization. At a glance, you can determine who among your friends is nearby where you are dining or drinking, potentially enabling slightly higher socialization. But, to come back to my original point, what about all of those people starting at their phones all day? If you are at a restaurant with your family orfriends, but are obsessed with twittering, you aren't really getting much out of the social outing. When was the last time you made eye contact with someone walking down the street? It's kind of difficult ifone or both people are staring at the device in their hand. Maybe you just walked past the person that could become the love of your life. You'll never know it. Maybe you just passed a former colleague who knows of the perfect new job for you. Opportunity missed. I even thinkthat people are losing the ability to think. Some of the best daydreaming, the best brainstorms, occur when you are out and about and simply thinking. That doesn't happen much anymore. Standing at the curb waiting for the walk sign? Might as well check email. Waiting foran elevator? Might as well see what's going on on Facebook. Sitting at a stoplight? Might as well see if anyone responded to my last tweet.

We are doing less reading, more microblogging. Less thinking, more context switching. One has to assume that this will impact ideas, innovation, creativity.

Don't get me wrong. The last thing I am is a Luddite. I embrace technology, I love technology. For $10 I can download a Groovebox app for my iPad, the equivalent of which used to cost $600 and take up rack space. I can't wait to "goggle in" in "Snow Crash"parlance, and experience other realities. But I also can't help but wonder what we have lost whenever I watch two people crossing a street collide mid-intersection because they are both texting.

Oops, got a text message, gotta run...

Things We Can Never Comprehend

jim — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:36:00 -0700

Have you ever wondered what we don't know? Or, to put it another way, how many mysteries of the universe are still to be discovered?

To take this thought a step further, have you ever considered that there may be things that we CAN'T understand, no matter how hard we try?

This idea may be shocking to some, especially to those scientists who believe that we are nearing the "Grand Unified Theory", or "Theory of Everything" that will provide a simple and elegant solution to all forces, particles, and concepts in science. Throughout history, the brightest of minds have been predicting the end of scientific inquiry. In 1871, James Clerk Maxwell lamented the sentiment of the day which he represented by the statement "in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals."

Yet, why does it always seem like the closer we get to the answers, the more monkey wrenches get thrown in the way? In today's world, these include strange particles that don't fit the model. And dark matter. And unusual gravitational aberrations in distant galaxies.

Perhaps we need a dose of humility. Perhaps the universe, or multiverse, or whatever term is being used these days to denote "everything that is out there" is just too far beyond our intellectual capacity. Before you call me out on this heretical thought, consider...

The UK's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees points out that "a chimpanzee can't understand quantum mechanics." Despite the fact that Richard Feynman claimed that nobody understands quantum mechanics, as Michael Brooks points out in his recent article "The limits of knowledge: Things we'll never understand", no matter how hard they might try, the comprehension of something like Quantum Mechanics is simply beyond the capacity of certain species of animals. Faced with this realization and the fact that anthropologists estimate that the most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimps (aka CHLCA) was about 6 million years ago, we can draw a startling conclusion:

There are certainly things about our universe and reality that are completely beyond our ability to comprehend!

My reasoning is as follows. Chimps are certainly at least more intelligent than the CHLCA; otherwise evolution would be working in reverse. As an upper bound of intelligence, let's say that CHLCA and chimps are equivalent. Then, CHLCA was certainly not able to comprehend QM (nor relativity, nor even Newtonian physics), but upon evolving into humans over 8 million years, our new species was able to comprehend these things. 8 million years represents 0.06% of the entire age of the universe (according to what we think we know). That means that for 99.94% of the total time that the universe and life was evolving up to the current point in time, the most advanced creature on earth was incapable of understand the most rudimentary concepts about the workings of reality and the universe. And yet, are we to suppose that in the last 0.06% of the time, a species has evolved that can understand everything? I'm sure you see how unlikely that is.

What if our universe was intelligently designed? The same argument would probably hold. For some entity to be capable of creating a universe that continues to baffle us no matter how much we think we understand, that entity must be far beyond our intelligence, and therefore has utilized, in the design, concepts that we can't hope to understand.

Our only chance for being supremely capable of understanding our world would lie in the programmed reality model. If the creator of our simulation was us, or even an entity a little more advanced than us, it could lead us along a path of exploration and knowledge discovery that just always seems to be on slightly beyond our grasp. Doesn't that idea feel familiar?

Deciphering Hollywood’s Hidden Messages

thelayman — Mon, 30 May 2011 19:17:00 -0700

As mentioned in last quarter’s column, there have been a lot of “life-as-illusion” themed movies coming out lately. While I suspect that the success of Avatar and Lost are partly responsible for this trend, I think people’s fascination with 2012, drastic world changes, and a surge in our search for meaning are also fueling the recent string of films about alternate realities and simulated worlds. When airplanes are crashing into buildings, cities are submerged underwater, the Middle East is revolting, and the world economy is collapsing, real life almost seems more fantastical than our dreams. Jon Stewart summed it up perfectly at the 2008 Academy Awards: “Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.” Yes, we are now officially living in the future, and we all know what kind of stuff happens in the future—exactly the kind of stuff that’s happening right now. But at least, thanks to Hollywood, we’ve been warned. And Hollywood’s heads up may even go much deeper than prophesies of events to come. They may help explain the reality we all find ourselves in.

Living in these times is very surreal. Our current lives were the stuff of science-fiction just a generation ago. Shows like The Jetsons, couldn’t even imagine the concept of email, so the space-age family received their paper mail by pneumatic tubes instead; Dick Tracy had a phone in his watch; James Bond gave audiences their first look at remote controls, pagers, and pocket-sized voice recorders; and nanobot technology explored in such sci-fi as the X-Files is is currently being tested for medical applications and more. So if Hollywood was pretty close or even dead-on in bringing up these seemingly far-fetched ideas, what are we to make of the most recent string of films that demonstrate how we will be able to zap ourselves into other realities? Films like Avatar, TRON: Legacy, and Source Code illustrate some fascinating uses for technology. And they also bring up some interesting questions about what, if anything, is really real?

If a baby spends it’s entire life as an avatar of a being on another planet, was that experience real? What if you were downloaded into a videogame world, or plugged into an alternate reality to help prevent a terrorist attack? Which aspect of you is real, if either? While these concepts make great fodder for philosophers and futurists, for me, I am most intrigued by what they seem to be telling us about our world right now. In addition to the films listed above, Hollywood has provided a plethora of movies such as Inception, The Adjustment Bureau, Sucker Punch, and Limitless that allude to other realities that are going on behind the scenes. Much like Inception, these myth-movies can be deciphered on a bunch of different levels.

I can watch Limitless and initially be entertained by a story about a struggling writer who takes a pill to increase his brain function and winds up becoming one of the most powerful people in the world. If I look deeper I may see it as hint to our brains’ hidden potentials. Looking deeper still, I may see it as a warning about the abuse of technology and class. According to the brilliant inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, in the near future, we may all need to get brain upgrades or implants just to be able to keep up with the rapidly changing world. Of course, not everyone will have access to this technology. Those who aren’t among the privileged therefore will fall even further behind as the gap between the classes stretches to epic proportions. The “Haves” will get the brain upgrades and be able to successfully compete in society. The “Have Nots” won’t, and will eventually be relegated to the status of workers, slaves, or even animals. (Both X-Men and The Planet of the Apes also work off of this theme, and interestingly, the prequels to both films will be out this summer).

In The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon’s character discovers that life on earth is manipulated by a clandestine group of agents following an overall plan of their executive and chief. Is this a story about God and angels? About the programmers of our simulated world? About the secret societies that manipulate oil prices and provoke wars? About your life and the series of coincidences that seem to guide you to some predetermined destiny? The answer to all these questions, is “yes.” The movie applies to many truths of our world just as most myths do. These truths all seem to fit into some kind of general rule or template, with the difference only being in the details. It’s almost as if every event in our world is a take on an overall grand theme—different versions of the same story again and again. Not only does this repetition of themes happen in our world, it happens in our stories as well. (For a darker take on the exact same theme as The Adjustment Bureau—including the mysterious men in Fedora hats—I highly recommend Dark City.) In truth, most myths are simply updates of stories that came before, just as the events of our world are updates of previous events that happened before: the collapse of the banks that were too big to fail was an update of the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic which was an update of the fall of the mighty Tower of Babel. Once you realize that the series of steps that make up a movie also make up much of our lives, you can begin to use this information to help you on your journey. This wisdom in and of itself is demonstrated in another recent life-as-illusion movie, Sucker Punch.

In Sucker Punch, a young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather, and begins to have delusions of living in an alternate reality as a coping mechanism. The mechanism helps her to do more than cope, but work out an escape from the corrupt mental institution. So her dreams can be thought of as the movies, and her life as your life. One of the messages of the movie therefore, is that you can use the wisdom found in films to help you in your life. And that the specific movies you choose to see, are designed to work sequentially to help you through what you are going through in the moment you view them. The movie I saw before Sucker Punch just happened to be The Runaways, about Joan Jett’s rocker grrrl band she was in before going solo. The theme of kick ass chicks definitely fits into both films, but the real connection for me came in the name of a plane in Sucker Punch—Cherry Bomb—the first hit for The Runaways. After I noticed that during the film, I whispered to my fiancée that there would probably be a link between Sucker Punch and the next film we were about to see—Limitless. Shortly after Limitless began, she noticed that both films shared the same actress. Despite looking very different in the two films, Abbie Cornish kept the connection going. My takeaway was that all these stories fit together into some kind of personal instruction manual. Show me the exact order of movies and stories that someone has experienced over the course of their life, I’ll show you that person’s destiny and the challenges and successes they had on their path towards achieving it.

At the start of my first film class during my freshman year in college, the professor warned us that we would never again be able to simply just watch and enjoy a movie. Obviously, I didn’t heed his warning, but I definitely prefer the insights that the class and the school of life have given me. These insights apply not just to the way movies can be interpreted, but all stories—including those of the Bible. As I wrote in one of my Lost In Myth columns, there are four different perspectives from which the Bible (particularly, of the Old Testament or Torah) is traditionally studied and interpreted. These four levels are the literal, metaphoric/parabolic, searching, and hidden/secret level. To demonstrate how much mythological meat a typical life-as-illusion film can provide, let’s examine one of this year’s better movies with this theme using these four levels.

From a literal perspective, Source Code is an action flick about a soldier who finds himself in another man’s body as part of a secret government mission to uncover the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. We quickly come to learn that the train has already been destroyed but that the soldier, Colter Stevens played by Jake Gyllenhaal, can be continually downloaded into an alternate reality before the train exploded in order to find clues as to the identity of the bomber. The majority of movie critic reviews focus on this level—the plot, story, characters, etc. Also, the majority of Evangelicals interpret the Bible from this perspective. In my opinion, they are missing three-quarters of the message.

From a metaphoric or parabolic (allegorical) perspective, the movie brings up all kinds of interesting questions about the morality of technology, messing with people’s lives and free will, as well as questions about fate and the possibilities of alternate versions of our reality. Looking deeper into this perspective, a train can be seen as representing time, our lifetime, or our destiny. It chugs along a certain path, continually moving forward. And along the way, certain people get on and off—coming in and out of your life. Those in closest proximity to you will likely have the biggest effect on your personal voyage, while the hidden elements of your ride—the engineer, the system that assigned your seat, those who designed, built, and maintained the tracks, have the greatest impact on your overall journey.

In the film, Stevens is told to try and ignore the distractions of the people on the train in order to fulfill his mission. This is a metaphor for how we often get caught up in the trivial elements of life and miss the big picture of our life’s purpose. Often times, it seems as though these day-to-day distractions are put in our way to give us something to overcome—a challenge to rise above so that we may grow and do what our soul truly wants us to do. Our destiny is the ultimate result of us overcoming these obstacles, giving us the strength we need to fulfill our final mission. The fact that it’s a lot like a videogame, where you must overcome obstacles to defeat the toughest opponent at the end of the level, is no accident. Even our videogames are full of useful wisdom. In fact, instead of these life challenges being for the good of our soul, perhaps we were put into a simulated world so that our real-world selves could grow in a controlled environment. Different details, same overall message—one that’s illustrated in a way we can understand, at least subconsciously, thanks to this movie.

Once you are open to viewing our world as some sort of simulation, created to help us work past our challenges, millions of other possibilities arise. What if the myth of angels is actually about avatars of beings from outside the game who help guide us through it? I’ve had many experiences that have had me wondering about this. Recently, I saw a homeless man downtown that I usually see by the subway station near my Upper East Side apartment. Most homeless people are pretty territorial, so I thought it a bit strange. I was all the way by Wall Street and he just happened to be at the subway exit I was getting out from. I said “hello,” since we sometimes talk but he didn’t seem to recognize me. An hour later, I was returning to the station on the other side of the street to go home, and the same man was on the platform on that side now. We had a brief conversation and he now remembered me. In those brief minutes, he brought up some perspectives I hadn’t thought of before and then I took the train to go to work. That was at 11AM. At 7:30PM, I was heading home. I had just made the local train as the doors were closing at 33^rd Street and slipped out through its closing doors again at 42^nd Street just as the express train pulled into the station. I got on the train and moved to the corner and looked down. There, in front of me, was David—the homeless man I’d seen twice earlier. He was sleeping but I tapped on his knee. He slowly opened his eyes and upon seeing me, gave a knowing smile. He got off at the same station as me and we went our separate ways. I offered to buy him a hot dog but he had declined. Since becoming homeless, I’d say he’s gained about fifty pounds. Perhaps I should’ve offered a salad.

In a related story, just yesterday a handicapped man in a wheelchair stopped me as I was jogging to the park. He asked if I could wheel him there. I did. His name was Dan and he told me he had a Ph.D. in psychology and was working on an autobiography, which, he added, was a very interesting story. He reminded me of physicist Stephen Hawking and with his two hearing aids, slurred speech, and arms awkwardly bent, seemed to be suffering from a similar, debilitating disease. When I got him to the park, I wheeled him over to a section near the park benches. As I stretched out, I kept an eye on him, wondering what he was going to do. He was pretty much just sitting there, slightly moving back in forth to the best of his ability. I began to wonder if I had possibly just inadvertently kidnapped this man. Perhaps he was making a break from his caretaker or nurse. I thought I’d walk over and ask him his plans. But when I looked over again, he was gone! I quickly scanned the area. Had some volunteer offered to push him around the outer path? I looked on the path, but he wasn’t there. I’d only looked away for a minute at most! There was no way he could’ve stopped someone, explained the situation, gotten them to push him off of the dirt area and onto the path, and be out of range in that time. Had he just vanished? Was it a test? How did I do? I keep expecting to see missing posters of the guy on mailboxes in my area. Either that, or some report about how the guy had actually died a week before I’d met him. Perhaps I’ve watched too many Twilight Zones. I prefer to believe he was an avatar or angel, sent to give me a little nudge—a slight correction to help me get out of my me-zone and reach out to someone else. Sometimes, a slight turn of the wheel is all it takes to avoid hitting an iceberg. Assuming you do it early enough.

One more story to add. Just this morning, I was awoken at 8:21AM by an Angel. Angel Rodriquez apologized for having the wrong number, but I don’t believe in accidents. Having written most of this column the night before, perhaps it’s just the universe, the powers that be, or the beings outside of the simulation having a bit of fun, or providing some sort of confirmation. Of course, all these strange events could be originating from me somehow, and being that they usually fit my quirky sense of humor, I’ve suspected as much. In last quarter’s column, I wrote that, “We are subconsciously giving ourselves the clues that are sprinkled throughout our lives because our souls—or future versions of ourselves—already know the path we are meant to follow.” Plug in the metaphor of a simulated world, and the clues can be originating from the program itself, the programmers, or our own subconscious minds as they exist outside of the program. If we are in this program against our will, perhaps we are attempting to wake ourselves up. If we are there by choice, perhaps we are attempting to help ourselves succeed. Either way, so far, these clues have helped me on my path so I will continue to pay attention to them. The more I do, the more I seem to get. If nothing else, I feel that they make life more interesting—kind of like a fun puzzle or mystery we’re meant to solve. As part of the Scooby-Doo, Encyclopedia Brown, Choose Your Own Adventure, Myst, and Lost generation, somehow, I bet there are many others who enjoy solving the clues too.

Getting back to the four perspectives, we come to the third one—the searching perspective. This view requires outside references. In Source Code, there’s a line about how sometimes it’s easier to rebuild from rubble than to fix problems that have gotten too severe. And of course, to get the rubble, you have to destroy what you have. The scary thing is when it’s society you’re talking about, and scarier still when you can see the logic in this perspective. There is a lot of talk of end times and apocalypse lately. Personally, I’m not in the camp of world destruction for 2012 or anytime soon. However, I do feel like we are going through a major change, and that many people aren’t going to be able to adapt. My feeling is that those who value themselves based on what that own, rather than who they are, are going to have a hard go of it during the upcoming years. While I don’t think society or the world will be destroyed, I think the way of life we’ve gotten used to will be. But then, in its place, a much more productive one will arise. Mythology is full of the theme of things breaking down only to become stronger. There’s the phoenix, Jesus Christ, just about every hero’s journey including superheroes, the rebuilding of the Holy Temples, etc. It’s a theme that makes up the story of humanity, and one that I think we’ll see repeating for our society very soon. Source Code shows us how we are all traveling on this journey together, and our journeys may be cut short. We may see what seems like needless destruction, but it may turn out to be for a greater good. Even if you or I don’t survive the changeover.

The name of the film itself is also a tipoff. Source Code reminds me of the Bible code—the word search-like system of hidden messages in the Bible that contain messages related to the stories from where they are found. Some mystics believe that the sequence of letters in the Hebrew Bible is a literal code for the program of this world. If a binary code of 1s and 0s can reproduce every movie you’ve ever seen, what could a code of 22 Hebrew letters create? Perhaps the reality we find ourselves in, with its repeating themes and cycles within cycles. In many ways, Source Code can be seen as the story of our entire reality—a game with a program that allows for any action as long as it has been written into the code. So we live in the reality we notice, but every time we make a decision, we leap into another where everything is exactly the same except for the one aspect we changed and the repercussions that result from it—repercussions that could have effects we aren’t even aware of. This idea is the stuff of quantum physics and applies in theories about many worlds and mutiverses that I’ve discussed in other columns. But the fact that these relatively deep concepts are now showing up in mainstream movies, is telling of how we are evolving and the level of information we are growing to be able to handle. Whether you are conscious of it or not, shows like Lost and movies like Avatar, Inception, and Source Code are all helping us to understand how the world may really work.

Finally, we reach the fourth level of interpretation: the hidden/secret level that is derived from mystical, kabbalistic techniques. Unfortunately, I am not learned enough in the wisdom of kabbalah to do this movie justice from this level. But one area of the teachings that I am familiar with is the idea of “as above, so below.” This relates to the belief that everything that happens in our realm, is reflected in a realm beyond this one. Call it heaven, an alternate reality, the code of this programmed world, or whatever, but nothing can happen here, that doesn’t also happen there, and vice-versa. For a movie like Source Code, you could have a field day with plugging this movie into that perspective. The basic premise alone is chock-full of implications, but especially the film’s takeaway. Sort of like kabbalah, I can’t talk much about this level of the film because it requires giving away some spoilers, but once you’ve seen it, I’m sure its overall concept will give you much to think about…or not, if you just watch movies to be entertained. Considering that you made it this far into the column, somehow, I doubt that is usually the case.

So, once you become like me, and can no longer simply enjoy movies without looking at their deeper meaning, can you ever go back to the bliss of ignorance? The answer is no. Much like the hobbits at the end of The Lord of the Rings, the adventure changes you, and you begin to hear a greater calling. One that is no longer satisfied with just the trappings of the material world, and instead, longs for deeper meaning. Of course, the higher your potential, the harder the challenges will be needed to take you where you need to go. And if you haven’t fully let go of your old life, your new one will be challenging indeed—much like society as a whole in the years ahead.

In M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, the character of Aang (the last airbender) runs away after learning that to fulfill his destiny he must give up ever having a family or even any kind of love. It’s a story similar to most superhero myths, and often, the story for those who chose to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. On a more personal scale, it’s our story when we sacrifice having a family for our passions, a career for our kids, more money for more fulfillment, our ego for our instincts, and our holiday weekends for what we believe to be our calling.

May your inner spark grow to light your way,

Marc

Marc Oromaner is a New York City writer whose book, The Myth of Lost offers an alternative solution to Lost and uncovers its hidden insight into the mysteries of life. He can be contacted in the discussion section of The Myth of Lost Facebook page or on his blog The Layman’s Answers to Everything.

The Myth of Lost is available on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com.

Material-Ism

Tracy — Sat, 14 May 2011 07:42:00 -0700

Materialism, the theory that all which exists is matter, and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. Physicalism, the theory that all things that exist are no more extensive than their physical properties. Those be the Wikipedia definitions. Technically I suppose these are two seperate isms, but they are both what I refer to as Materialism. By "ism" I mean religion, or metaphysical theory. I hate to use the word religion, religion seems less about spiritual or metaphysical concepts and more about politics.

Tenets of Materialism, if I understand properly, according to Materialism consciousness is simply a thing which arises from the neural complexity of the brain. Mind does not exist as such, it is just the result of bio-chemical, electrical, mechanical functions. We are biological machines, mindless biological robots, automitons. And the world is just what we see, just as we see it. The Watchmaker Analogy, an old argument for the theory of intelligent design, is dismissed as a bad analogy. You can't possibly compare the Universe to a watch, because you have nothing to compare the Universe to. As the Universe is not what I would call a Virtual thing, it's impossible for us to see evidence of design in nature. And the Universe is not finely tuned to support life, because the Earth is the only place we know of in the Universe where life exists. And only a small fraction of the Earth can support life. And in that very small area of the Earth where life can exist, there are so many ways to die.

We are born, we live, and we die, and that's it, lights out.

Materialism is, in my opinion, wrong thinking. It does away with the need for such things as ethics or morality. It promotes materialist attitudes and things like competition, conflict, war, corruption, greed and poverty. You see this materialist attitude all the time, just watch the news. It is contrary to everything I know.

I know my own mind, Descartes said it's the one thing I can know if I know nothing else. I know that in the world, or my minds experiencing of it, I see evidence of design everywhere. And I see that life does exist. I always like how Materialists use the theory of evolution, or claim to be making the scientific argument, they own these things you know. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but to my mind evolution, as well as science and mathmatics and their relation to what we call reality, would seem to be indicative of design.

The Watchmaker Analogy, the updated version being Simulism, or Programmed Reality. I still like to think of it as, "A work of art implies an artist."

So here you go, a work of art, it not the 5-sensory, 3-D experience I had of it, but I like it:

Is LIDA, the Software Bot, Really Conscious?

jim — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:52:00 -0700

Researchers from the Cognitive Computing Research Group (CCRG) at the University of Memphis are developing a software bot known as LIDA (Learning Intelligent Distribution Agent) with what they believe to be cognition or conscious processes. That belief rests on the idea that LIDA is modeled on a software architecture that mirrors what some believe to be the process of consciousness, called GWT, or Global Workspace Theory. For example, LIDA follows a repetitive looping process that consists of taking in sensory input, writing it to memory, kicking off a process that scans this data store for recognizable events or artifacts, and, if something is recognized, it is broadcast to the global workspace of the system in a similar manner to the GWT model. Timings are even tuned to more or less match human reaction times and processing delays.

I'm sorry guys, but just because you have designed a system to model the latest theory of how sensory processing works in the brain does not automatically make it conscious. I could write an Excel macro with forced delays and process flows that resemble GWT. Would that make my spreadsheet conscious? I don't THINK so. Years ago I wrote a trading program that utilized the brain model du jour, known as neural networks. Too bad it didn't learn how to trade successfully, or I would be golfing tomorrow instead of going to work. The fact is, it was entirely deterministic, as is LIDA, and there is no more reason to suspect that it was conscious than an assembly line at an automobile factory.

Then again, the standard scientific view (at least that held by most neuroscientists and biologists) is that our brain processing is also deterministic, meaning that, given the exact set of circumstances two different times (same state of memories in the brain, same set of external stimuli), the resulting thought process would also be exactly the same. As such, so they would say, consciousness is nothing more than an artifact of the complexity of our brain. An artifact? I’m an ARTIFACT?

Following this reasoning from a logical standpoint, one would have to conclude that every living thing, including bacteria, has consciousness. In that view of the world, it simply doesn’t make sense to assert that there might be some threshold of nervous system complexity, above which an entity is conscious and below which it is not. It is just a matter of degree and you can only argue about aspects of consciousness in a purely probabilistic sense; e.g. “most cats probably do not ponder their own existence.” Taking this thought process a step further, one has to conclude that if consciousness is simply a by-product of neural complexity, then a computer that is equivalent to our brains in complexity must also be conscious. Indeed, this is the position of many technologists who ponder artificial intelligence, and futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil. And if this is the case, by logical extension, the simplest of electronic circuits is also conscious, in proportion to the degree in which bacteria is conscious in relation to human consciousness. So, even an electronic circuit known as a flip-flop (or bi-stable multivibrator), which consists of a few transistors and stores a single bit of information, is conscious. I wonder what it feels like to be a flip-flop?

Evidence abounds that there is more to consciousness than a complex system. For one particular and very well research data point, check out Pim van Lommel's book "Consciousness Beyond Life." Or my book "The Universe - Solved!"

My guess is that consciousness consists of the combination of a soul and a processing component, like a brain, that allows that soul to experience the world. This view is very consistent with that of many philosophers, mystics, and shamans throughout history and throughout the world (which confluence of consistent yet independent thought is in itself very striking). If true, a soul may someday make a decision to occupy a machine of sufficient complexity and design to experience what it is like to be the "soul in a machine". When that happens, we can truly say that the bot is conscious. But it does not make sense to consider consciousness a purely deterministic emergent property.

a moment in the sun

dustynostrils — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:48:00 -0700

After a long walk I stopped down by the boat docks, walked through a bit of brush--until I made it the last ten feet or so down to the water. I was surrounded by rocks, arranged nicely, with a big, flat rock perfect for sitting down and relaxing. It's the kind of spot where the brush has been parted and a hint of a trail can be seen when you're walking down to the water. Obviously, I'm not the first person to witness this wonderful spot.

About an hour before sunset I sat admiring the still water, lack of boats, and people, just relaxing a bit when I began to pray. After a few minutes of rambling on about things I wanted to change--didn't like, etc., I began a ten-minute, maybe a bit longer, meditation session. Soon after closing my eyes I could feel and see the sun almost vibrating--pulsating to some rhythm I wasn't hearing. Suddenly, with my eyes still closed, I saw what had to be the sun brighten, then the vibrating feeling intensified--at the same time--an overwhelming feeling of acknowledgment came over my entire body. Soon after, I opened my eyes and noticed that the blue sky had shifted into a darker, more pronounced looking sky. This new sky didn't simply go away after looking somewhere else for a second or so; it stayed that way until I walked away from the boat dock. When I looked up again, minutes later, everything looked and felt like it did before I sat down by the lake.

In the time after seeing the sun get brighter and having the feeling that something understood me, which lasted for a few minutes...nothing changed, yet, nothing mattered--in a good way. For the first time in a long while nothing bothered me; nothing seemed wrong and everything felt interconnected. What was strange to me, was the fact that all of my thoughts seemed so unimportant--as if a supernateral being had just communed with me--and there was nothing I needed to fret about because some being had just listened to my thoughts and let me know it heard them. Here I was sitting there, then boom--an incredible feeling of being noticed by a higher form of intelligence!

What does one say or think after that type of feeling?

I can't believe the sky stayed a darker blue, either. It must have stayed that color for a few minutes, because I looked around several times, thinking that if I looked away things would go back to normal.

Any ideas on what happened to me?

I've been meditating fow a few months and this type of thing I wish everyone could experience--even once.

If we live in a programmed reality, which I highly think is likely, then who or what interacted with me?

Introduction (Part 1)

Tracy — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:26:00 -0700

Where to begin? Jim Elvidge, the author of one of my all-time favorite books, wants us to contribute to The Universe - Solved! website by posting our own blogs. That's a great idea. It presents me with a bit of a problem though, where to begin? When I start writing like this I always want the beginning to be perfect. I've been thinkin' and thinkin' on it, but if I keep thinkin' on it I'll never actually post a thing. I guess the best way to start would be with a bit of an introduction, and on how it is that I got to be here.

Here goes.

Why all the interest in metaphysics? That branch of philosophy that asks all the big questions? What is it all? What is the purpose of it all and what is our place in it all? How did it all begin? I seem to have developed an interest in all that at an early age, I blame it on several things, like my Parents. As a child they made me go to church on Sundays. I wasn't particularly thrilled with getting up early, getting dressed up, and going to church. I did, however, develop an interest in the reading material. I would say that by no later than the age of twelve I had read my KJV of the Bible, got to the end, and had to go back and read it all over again. It a crazy read, it fired up my imagination.

Then there was television.

Don't laugh, but my earliest memory of television, of seeing it and recognizing, was of Star Trek. I don't remember the exact episode off the top of my head, but I remember Captain Kirk watching the viewscreen and the Klingon commander telling the Enterprise crew, "Prepare to be boarded or destroyed!" And I remember the start of the show, seeing the Enterprise zip by at warp speed seemed to have made a bit of an impression.

Hey now, I said don't laugh.

I remember watching tv and seeing images of these guys, they called them Astronauts, they were blasting off into space and exploring the moon. I also saw a short bit on tv, something about "Yog - Monster From Space", those Astronauts must have been absolutely fearless! I wanted to be just like those guys!

And I remember seeing images from back here on Earth, images of protests and war. I didn't care much for that, the Astronauts and the bug eyed space monsters were what got my attention.

Television was different back then. The tv was this big old console type thing, like a big piece of furniture. There were only four or five channels, seven or eight if reception was good. And if you wanted to change channels you actually had to get up, walk over to the tv set, and turn a dial! And in the wee hours of the morning an odd thing would happen, all the channels would show the flag while playing the national anthem, when it was over they would "sign off", and then all you would get on tv was this thing called a test pattern, or in some cases nothing at all! A bit later they would play the national anthem again and, "Begin a new broadcast day."

We didn't have alot of this technology back then. The phone was something that hung on the wall, it was hooked up to this thing called a "land line." There were no home computers, no internet. If I wanted to read about stuff I had to look it up in The Worldbook Encyclopedia. It's amazing that those Astronauts made it to the Moon and back without technology. Once I'd learned how to read, if I didn't have my nose in the Bible it was in an encyclopedia, or a comic book, or maybe something like Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars novels. God, science, and science fiction, those were the things that got my attention.

And trains.

I loved trains. The railroad was everywhere. It went right through town. Until around the age of four we lived in Milford Center, on Railroad Street. if a train went through town at night I could watch from my bedroom window. And if Mom and Dad ever took you anywhere in the car you would always come to a railroadcrossing, half the time you'd have to stop and wait on a train, it's a wonder we ever got anywhere. Times change, if you looked around my hometown or surrounding countryside today you'd never even know the railroad had ever been there.

"You know one thing I hate? It's how quickly people just forget things these days. I mean, who here still remembers that time a couple of years ago when the whole Earth blew up? You don't? When they put us all in the big space ark? And they brought us to this planet? And the government said not to tell the stupid people..." -Steve Martin

I'm afraid I have to wrap this up for now. Next time I'll conclude this introduction bit, telling all about our journey on the space ark, from the Old World to the New World, how I developed an interest in other "isms", the arrival of technology, and how it all relates to the concept of Programmed Reality.