Things really haven't gotten much better in the last 23 years on the topic of the Origin of Life/Abiogenesis.
For better or worse it seems that the Cosmos has within it a capacity for what contemporary Science and Philosophy call Emergence. The simplest forms of this most people learn in Chemistry Class, where atoms with specific properties are combined together creating a more complex outcome with features that would never be deducible based upon what is know about its component parts, i.e. molecules.
Like most things the folks on the fringe were among the first to notice this. Arthur Koestler coined the term "holon" to describe the way that a given thing can be a complete whole in and of itself but which can also be subsumed in a more complex emergent system. Our atom in the above comment doesn't cease being an atom in any way shape or form when it becomes a part of molecule. In turn higher, more complex system cannot exist without lower systems existing, but this does not apply in the reverse. In other words, if you destroyed all the atoms in the Cosmos you'd also destroy all the molecules, yet you could destroy all the molecules and the atoms themselves would be just fine. [For those interested in diving really keep into this Holonic Model the main writer on the topic is Ken Wilber, whose more then a bit fringy as well but who has some interesting insights of a Perennialist nature and who is trying, tenuously, to figure out how bringing those ideas forward can be done.]
In the broad emergences that we've seen within the Cosmos there are a couple of big leaps that are not terribly well accounted for. The first one is how non-living matter undergoes the complexification necessary to emerge as the Ordering of Life. The next is how the Biological Ordering undergoes a complexification in consciousness causing the Emergence of what we think of as the uniquely human kind of consciousness, or the Ordering of Mind.
It certainly leaves at least two really important Black Holes in what we know: How did Mind emerge from Life? and How did Life emerge from Matter? There is also the really significant mind-mangler of just where the hell this Matter stuff came from in the first place, but we'll leave that for another time.
To go on a bit about my own interests, Human consciousness has a number of major features, but I'd like to concentrate for a moment on two of them. The first is that we are amazingly adept at manipulating the Ordering of Life. We're blind to it but we've had an amazing effect upon the entire Biosphere due to our selective breeding of animal and plant life and our use of the environment in which we have done this. The second is our capacity for the manipulation of the Ordering of Matter itself. Now a number of species share certain aspects of this but what they lack is the Linguistic capacity to map, model and transmit this knowledge and as a result ephemeralize our capacity to manipulate both Orderings.
Our ability to do more and more with less and less of Life and Matter may be coming to another critical juncture in the next century when we move from the kinds of gross manipulations of the past (breeding life forms/burning material resources) to a fundamental manipulation of both orderings. The real turning point of this for the Ordering of Life was the discover of the DNA sequence and the progressive capacity to treat the fundamental building blocks of Life itself as a kind of Linguistic system. The "grand finally" of our capacity to manipulate Matter is still a ways off but the potentials of nano-technology and sub-molecular manufacturing to transform Matter itself into a linguistically manipulatable system should not be overlooked.
Now for the questions that arise from some of this:
If we do get to a point where the Mind has the potential to act as the Ruling force of both Life and Matter, how do we train the Mind to do this?
If we have an emergent sequence of Matter to Life to Mind might it be possible that the Rulership denotes the onset of the emergence of another Great Ordering? If so what might this new Ordering entail?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Renaissance =/= Utopia
The original Renaissance was a time period of rapid transformation, shifting social complexities, bloody revolutions, international exploitation and generally a period which one might not have chosen to live in.
From the standpoint of "Intellectual Travel" or "Initiatory Anthropology" the Renaissance can be a useful time period to look into. We share many features with that time in terms of shifting social complexities population booms, globalization, new forms of perception and related semantic coding, cheap and easy spread of information technologies, Apocalyptic interpretations of Social and Diamonic currents, etc.
There's nothing particular rosy about realizing that you are at a point of catastrophic transition where breakdown is as real a possibility as breakthrough. Learning to see the good and the bad of similar previous times, especially what was overlooked in those perdios of change, can help one see the Real in present transitions.
For those interested in exploring periods of significant transitions in human social organization, the so-called Axial Age may also provide fertile ground.
From the standpoint of "Intellectual Travel" or "Initiatory Anthropology" the Renaissance can be a useful time period to look into. We share many features with that time in terms of shifting social complexities population booms, globalization, new forms of perception and related semantic coding, cheap and easy spread of information technologies, Apocalyptic interpretations of Social and Diamonic currents, etc.
There's nothing particular rosy about realizing that you are at a point of catastrophic transition where breakdown is as real a possibility as breakthrough. Learning to see the good and the bad of similar previous times, especially what was overlooked in those perdios of change, can help one see the Real in present transitions.
For those interested in exploring periods of significant transitions in human social organization, the so-called Axial Age may also provide fertile ground.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Yankee and Cowboy War
For those Robert Anton Wilson fans out there who have never read it, Carl Oglesby's The Yankee and Cowboy War can be found, with the author's permission, at
The Education Forum
The conflict between Eastern Banking interests and Western "Cowboy" interests seems like a perfectly timely topic.
The Education Forum
The conflict between Eastern Banking interests and Western "Cowboy" interests seems like a perfectly timely topic.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Two Posts
The following posts were made on two different, unrelated, forums.
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A few different folks I know teach fisting classes, both vaginal and anal. There's nothing about the experience aimed at causing pain. It has more to do with a very extreme altered state of relaxation. Bert Herrman's Trust: The Handbook is one of the better sources and touches upon the connection between the practice and an attempt to create a kind of homosexual monastic movement (shades of the OTO XI*). It also mentions the absolutely brilliant pro-fisting t-shirt that said "My heart is yours if you can reach it."
Tristan Taormino, Thomas Pynchon's neice and all around fun character, wrote a decent piece on the topic at
http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-09-13/columns/the-art-of-anal-fisting/
Worth a read.
Edited to add: The Moon Landing totally happened, but doing the denying it in a group of people can be a real education in how the "dumbest" person in the room can control everyone's emotions.
________________________________
David Keenen's England's Hidden Reverse has a decent overview of the early and late periods of the Temple ov Psychick Youth proper. The due to be re-release Thee Psychick Bible, which is a compliation of TOPY related tracts is a decent source as well. Genesis P-Orridge's contribution to the Disinfomation collection The Book of Lies shows some of the roots of the group in Gen's interactions with both Burroughs and Brion Gysin. From there you'll probably be able to follow the threads to other sources.
TOPY's primary method involved a conscious exploration of your desires, the highly somatic ritualized articulation of those desires and the commitment to fulfilling those desires*. While individuals were free to do this kind of Work whenever they wished there was also an expectation of everyone involved conducting a simultanious Working on this theme at roughly the same time and on the same date around the world.
The secondary methods included the use of novel spelling built around the idea of this causing a break in mind set in the reader and to emphasis some of their ideas. This included creating a specific code system for their own writing as well as some people looking into both linguistic and imaginal origins of words.
Third, and perhaps the most interesting, was the emphasis upon using contemporary media and modes of expression to show latent patterns in the culture and self and to act as means for the fulfillment of desire.
Finally methods, often using sound and light, aimed at causing changed in states of perception, were utlized. Gysin's Dreamachine was the original inspiration but entrainment in general became an area of interest and was woven into the beat-patterning of the precussion tracks of TOPY related acts with the 120 bpm usage on their early Acid House material having the largest effect upon the culture beyond the group.
All that and a tremendous amount of social engineering that I won't even get into.
In a single sentance however I would sum up the underlying theme of TOPY project as this:
I've refered to the actual group, particularly as manifest after GPO departed from the network, as "Gutter Punk Spooge Magic" which admittedly is rather dismissive.
_______________________________________
A few different folks I know teach fisting classes, both vaginal and anal. There's nothing about the experience aimed at causing pain. It has more to do with a very extreme altered state of relaxation. Bert Herrman's Trust: The Handbook is one of the better sources and touches upon the connection between the practice and an attempt to create a kind of homosexual monastic movement (shades of the OTO XI*). It also mentions the absolutely brilliant pro-fisting t-shirt that said "My heart is yours if you can reach it."
Tristan Taormino, Thomas Pynchon's neice and all around fun character, wrote a decent piece on the topic at
http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-09-13/columns/the-art-of-anal-fisting/
Worth a read.
Edited to add: The Moon Landing totally happened, but doing the denying it in a group of people can be a real education in how the "dumbest" person in the room can control everyone's emotions.
________________________________
David Keenen's England's Hidden Reverse has a decent overview of the early and late periods of the Temple ov Psychick Youth proper. The due to be re-release Thee Psychick Bible, which is a compliation of TOPY related tracts is a decent source as well. Genesis P-Orridge's contribution to the Disinfomation collection The Book of Lies shows some of the roots of the group in Gen's interactions with both Burroughs and Brion Gysin. From there you'll probably be able to follow the threads to other sources.
TOPY's primary method involved a conscious exploration of your desires, the highly somatic ritualized articulation of those desires and the commitment to fulfilling those desires*. While individuals were free to do this kind of Work whenever they wished there was also an expectation of everyone involved conducting a simultanious Working on this theme at roughly the same time and on the same date around the world.
The secondary methods included the use of novel spelling built around the idea of this causing a break in mind set in the reader and to emphasis some of their ideas. This included creating a specific code system for their own writing as well as some people looking into both linguistic and imaginal origins of words.
Third, and perhaps the most interesting, was the emphasis upon using contemporary media and modes of expression to show latent patterns in the culture and self and to act as means for the fulfillment of desire.
Finally methods, often using sound and light, aimed at causing changed in states of perception, were utlized. Gysin's Dreamachine was the original inspiration but entrainment in general became an area of interest and was woven into the beat-patterning of the precussion tracks of TOPY related acts with the 120 bpm usage on their early Acid House material having the largest effect upon the culture beyond the group.
All that and a tremendous amount of social engineering that I won't even get into.
In a single sentance however I would sum up the underlying theme of TOPY project as this:
Imagine a future so compelling you want to fuck it. Then make it happen.
I've refered to the actual group, particularly as manifest after GPO departed from the network, as "Gutter Punk Spooge Magic" which admittedly is rather dismissive.
Friday, July 25, 2008
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