15/6
Mike's Weblog is virtually dripping with fine hyperpointerisms, one of which is Dr. John R. Skoyles' webode. A guy after my own heart, Dr. Skoyles acknowledges that to "qualify" is to become less than whole.
"Scholars and scientists are irresponsible when they specialize: if an academic career prevents a dawn to dusk investigation then the career should be dumped, not the breadth of ones scholarship. Not to do so is unethical: many ideas critical to human welfare will never emerge to better human existence if everyone specializes." |
Biopsychiatry does have a contribution to make, at least of a quantitative nature, and Psychobiological Criminality, Hormones; Neurotransmitters; Vitamins & Drugs gives the best brief overview I have come across; complete with great tables that clarify things considerably.
Modeling the influence of a serial killer's residential location on choice of body disposal
locations is not a representative sample of the abstracts offered in this summary of the Psychology and Law International Conference, held last summer in Dublin.
The Culture of Future Conflict comes from the cavalry's mouth, so to neigh, as the military ponders it's prospective.
| "By the middle of the next century, if not before, the overarching mission of our military will be the
preservation of our quality of life." |
Do we dare look at ourselves through others' eyes? Human Rights Records in United States
| "Poverty has greatly affected the health and education of the poor. A report released by the U.S.
National Center for Health Statistics in July 1998 said the possibility of illness the poor face is seven
times that for the rich. In addition, the expected life-span of a 45-year-old with an annual income of
25,000 U.S. dollars is 6.6 years longer than that for an individual with an annual income of 10,000
dollars." |
Gosh, I need to lighten up! Contemplating endless bliss may help; but why is this essay titled The Taste Of Depravity?
| "This meditation on the plight of our fellow species
leads to one of the few precise, and potentially
falsifiable, predictions to be hazarded here about the
next couple of thousand years. At some momentous
and exactly datable time, I would surmise well before
the end of the fourth millennium and possibly even the
third, the last unpleasant experience ever to occur on
this planet will take place..." |
14/6
A Piece of Blue Sky is Jon Atack's online tome that opens wide the doors of Scientology and exposes the rot, nay evil that resides therein.
"Deprival of property, injury by any means, trickery, suing,
lying or destruction have been pursued [by the Scientologists]
throughout and to this day with the fullest vigour," and further:
"Mr. Hubbard is a charlatan and worse as are his wife Mary Sue
Hubbard... and the clique at the top privy to the Cult's activities."
Justice Latey, ruling in the High Court in London in 1984 |
Ons ,
a theory of truly elementary particles,
explaining the emergence of structure from void
in physics and psychology
| "In order to address the emergence of structure from void, I will propose a particle of being called an
on. ons are not particles in spacetime, they exist prior to space and time; they are not really mental
forms either, as they exist prior to the structures that define mind." |
In a passionate offence toward biomedical models of psychopathology, Linda Sisson, R.N. explores The Politics of "Normality".
| "Behind every diagnosis is a clinical judgment that the person's distress is caused
by a disorder and not some other factor such as abuse, poverty, or oppression." |
The extension of human lifespan can be attributed to clean water, sanitation and healthy food. That's it. Everything else is either anal compulsive projection of deeply planted meme compexes (outdid myself there), or cleaning up things we must exercise extreme caution with in the first place. Enter the twilight zone of Plastics Everywhere and Nowhere.
| "It is now believed that excessively clean
environments may lead to hyperactive immune systems, leading
to problems such as asthma. From a more macro perspective,
the hygiene that we are in the habit of demanding leads to a
consumption of individually packaged units that pushes the
consumption of plastics into unsustainable levels. |
13/6
Link acquired by way of The Imploding Plastic Inedible! An exchange between science writer superstars Matt Ridley and George Johnson puts into perspective the completion of The Human Genome Project.
| "This is a big week for life science, perhaps the biggest yet." |
Ian Hall explores Cosmic Matters in an eminently readable series of essays and conjectures. His ultimate, self-admittedly wacky, conclusion that Death is an Illusion is linked seperately for those who prefer their sweet before the meat.
| "Of course if our Universe was actually hostile to life, we couldn't be here to remark on the fact. This is the basis of the Anthropic Principle. To put it another way: without the right kind of physics you don't get physicists." |
Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully.
| "Most organisations have a serial bully. It never ceases to amaze me how one person's divisive, disordered, dysfunctional behaviour can permeate the entire organisation like a cancer." |
12/6
With the approaching dog days of political summer, I thought it might be fun to ruminate on the outgoing chief of state. C.J. Barr makes like a Hawking and heads Toward a Unified Theory of William Jefferson Clinton.
| "Unfortunately, I believe that there is a compelling case that Clinton is a true psychopath." |
A conclusion of the Global Strategies Project is that we need to understand Patterns of alternation: toward an enantiomorphic policy. Permit me to encapsulate: We are diverse, and will thrive best when in a tensive process of cultural cohesion being informed by global necessity. When the two become one, it is not that there is no longer two, but that they are becoming.
| "Many commentators agree that social turbulence, chaos and uncertainty will characterize the immediate future." |
Transpersonal in approach, holistic in demeanor and we can all hope possible, here is A Study on the Psychospiritual Rehabilitation of the American Nation: The Patterns and Processes in Transforming a Culture of Crime and Violence.
| "This study seeks to discover, reveal, and make understandable the patterns and
processes related to transforming the American culture of crime and violence as part
of the psychospiritual rehabilitation of the American nation." |
It is meet and right that today's ride on the crest of curative opinion would deposit me in the inimitable, perhaps trans-fathomable vortex of
Kalotics; What is to be Done With Our World? Forty Basic Problems and Their Solutions: Forty Stases and Theses by Alfred de Grazia. Beyond any ready summary, this is part of a huge site - Grazian Archive consists of some 125, 000,000 bytes of which about 25
million represent pictures.
| "The pictures are difficult to comprehend as a story, but are intriguing;
the propositions are hard to grasp, too, being highly general and
abstract, possibly shocking, and employing various exotic terms: so
the viewer will look at the picture and turn in perplexity to the words
and thereupon turn back to the picture, and will also go from thesis to
stasis and back, and from one number to another and back. In all, her
mind will be churning, and if she is in company, conversation and
argument will ensue." |
11/6
Not usually one to read Free Republic, I hesitated to link this article. The information seems well researched however, and the discussions at the end are amusing. ECHELON: America's Secret Global Surveillance Network
One more note in this cacophony of subterfuge comes from a page originally intended to promote Jam ECHELON Day; which I'm about seven months late in discovering. But then we could make every day a jammin' day just by adding keywords to all correspondence. This is an informative site that abounds in related linkage.
| "...netizens around the globe are implored to
send out at least one email with at least 50 keyword words. You
need not be privy to knowing exactly what words Echelon uses. It
is safe to assume that words such as "revolution" and "manifesto"
and "revolt" [etc.] will work. Just be sure to sound as subversive
as possible." |
Addicted to Profit - Capitalism and Drugs is chock full of words that could be copied and pasted in the above suggested active defence of our privacy. Audrey Farrell provides an essay replete with historical context, damning indictments, and which is wonderfully non-American.
| "The UN identify sedatives as the most commonly used drugs, though the use of all drugs is dwarfed by that of tobacco with a world estimate of 1,100 million users and over 100 million people dependent upon the tobacco trade for their livelihood." |
I ran into Home Planet, a comprehensive astronomy / space / satellite-tracking
package for Microsoft Windows 95/98, a couple of years ago and was impressed. I have now upgraded to version 3.1 and am even more so. Absolutely top notch free software.
10/6
Mark Nunes has me take a fresh look at the world I presume to surf or chat so blithely in/with.
Virtual Topographies: Smooth and Striated Cyberspace is not for the faint of attention as it is a dense argument of some length, but it does provide an extraordinarily useful adjustment of perspective.
| "Perhaps, then, it would be more accurate to refer to (the) Internet not as cyberspace, but rather, as the pragmatic context for both enunciations of cyberspace." |
In a dated yet sensibly timefullessness essay, D. E. Cracraft gives a remakably prescient view of the road ahead; and comes up with a new one on me: "Teledildonics".Cyberhype gives us a unique sense of the present by seeing it from the past.
| "The imagination is the enemy of the powers that be; it is the last thing They haven't occupied. And if They can't Run It, they'd rather you don't go there. Come on: is there any other reason for the criminalization of such physically innocuous and non-addictive plants as hemp, peyote, and psilocybin?" (boldness theirs) |
LEVELS OF FUNCTIONAL
EQUIVALENCE IN REVERSE
BIOENGINEERING: THE DARWINIAN
TURING TEST FOR ARTIFICIAL LIFE
This link must be terribly important if it's all in caps, eh? Well right you are then, as we rapidly approach the point of needing to make moral decisions about and ethical decisions for (and vice-versa?) created intelligence of all kinds.
| "The only point of uncertainty is whether external functional equivalence (T3) is a tight enough constraint to fix the degree of internal functional equivalence that ensures that life and mind will piggy-back on it, or whether internal functional equivalence (T4) must be captured right down to the last molecule." |
Once again thanks to ghost rocket my Saturday night blop got off to an animated start with this article from New Scientist; Half fish, half robot I could blop no further as me bwain hurts!
9/6
In his testimony to the Senate Heath and Human Services Commitee, Dr. Thomas Peters makes it clear that tying health care to the means to obtain it is exactly backwards. The fact is, those least able to afford medical attention are the most likely to need it. Passive genocide is the calculated alternative.
| "I have said before, and I say again, the suggestion to deny prenatal care to developing babies is clinically misguided, ethically bereft, and financially a charade." |
I had not considered dance.
| "The quality and nature of the "fleeting moment" has been sought by artists and others from time immemorial." |
A time frozen in html is Van Morrison In Conversation With R. D. Laing, which is one of many short chapters in Memories of R.D. Laing, edited by Bob Mullen. This took place sometime in early 1986 prior to the release of No
Guru, No Method, No Teacher
"Our human experience is conditional, relative and limited. Within this conditional, relative, limited field, as we always are, we cannot determine unconditionally, absolutely or finally the scope of it's conditionality, relativeness and limits. Call this the principle of indecidability."
R.D. Laing
The Voice of Experience |
My brain is illegal. So is yours if you live anywhere that the possesion of DMT is prohibited. How is it that we have this powerful psychoactive naturally in our nouses, and what does it mean? The Function of Hallucinogens N,N-DMT and 5-Methoxy-DMT Endogenously
| "If McKenna is right, psychedelic drugs accelerated our ability to self-reflect and use
language, and may continue in an organism's epigenesis (process of change from genetic code to
actual organism which will not be exactly like the genetic code due to occasional mutations and the
manufacture of proteins coded from the genes) to nurture an organism to an adaptive advantage.
This situation would give societies that use psychedelics advantages over those that did not." (boldness mine) |
8/6
David Schuermer points out Utopian Ironies in his review of The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit of Property Value in Disney's New Town, by Andrew Ross.
| "It turns out that Celebration was built
upon the backs of unskilled migrant labor because that was the only
labor available in the booming Orlando construction economy. How
ironic that Disney was victimized by the very economy it was
attempting to take advantage of, by the very laborers it was willing to
exploit for profit." |
New Technologies, the Welfare State, and the Prospects for Democratization is an essay of warning and hope. Although written at the end of 1997, a significant distance in our accelerating technovolution, it's thesis that today media culture and new technologies are vitally transforming every aspect of social life in a process that is creating new forms of society, remains valid.
| "In the light of the projects of technocapitalism to dismantle the Welfare State, it is up to citizens to create new public spheres, new politics, and to use the new technologies to discuss what kinds of society we want and to oppose the society we don't want..." |
Moving forward about six months, to July 1998, Philip E. Agre argues against applying colonialist epithets to the new frontier - oh sheesh, just can't help it - and urges us to recognize the increasing inseperability of markets and politics. Yesterday's tomorrow
| "To engage in the process, we need a post-utopian imagination that embraces the
complexity of human institutions and a critical technical practice that embraces the coevolution of
institutions and technologies." |
Blogit reefered me to some more drug war madness - Smoke a Joint, Lose Your Loan.
ghost rocket exploded the story of John Whiteside Parsons into my consciousness, providing great pre-nappytime reading. A good !blopping! time indeed.
| "But deep inside any twentieth-century product are schemes of
product-agendas, those occult rituals of which the cultural "successes" of
science are but the masks." |
7/6
An English/European equivalent to America's NIDA site, mis-fortunately linked earlier, is the Drugs Info File, by Miriam Stoppard M.D., which uses a much more sensible, light-hearted and handily informative approach. No fear mongering here, just the facts, man.
Now it appears that mushrooms are not only good for cleaning perceptual viruses but also pathological ones; indicating New Hope for Mushroom Medicine.
| "Scientists at the Second Annual Congress on
Mushroom Nutrition at Middlesex University
believe some species could be used to relieve
the symptoms of certain diseases caused by
viruses." |
Bionomics: Economy as Ecosystem Outline gives us the meat, dessert and lemon water in this concisely argued, and quite well presented version of the book. Many an overstuffed tome could do well with this kind of treatment, especially when placed online
| "Think of this as something like a movie preview (except that we included the ending, not just the sex and car chases)." |
My ethical opinion cells are in overdrive with the pending clinical trials of a cocaine vaccine. Questions such as what the effect will be on the endo(ero)genous pleasure systems are notably unasked in this article.
| "Once inoculated, patients will be unable to feel any of the effects of
cocaine, no matter how much they take, because the drug will be
neutralised by the immune system." |
CBC Radio's Ideas has to be one of the finest examples of wireless media anywhere on our fine earthship, and many of their programs are offered for your streaming or downloading pleasure.
6/6
John Sinclair recounts his experience, in The Marijuana Revolution which first appeared as a pamphlet in July 1971.
| "Marijuana took rock and roll into the future, and rock and roll
took marijuana to the masses so they could climb into the
future too, and nobody's been the same since. The weed
shaped the music and the music shaped the people who came
in contact with it, and the people have gone forth to reshape
the world in the image of the freedom they know and love. But
they ran into a problem that hadn't been anticipated, the
people and the social order they wanted to change didn't want
to be changed, didn't want to change itself, was determined to
stay the same no matter what, and this realization has had
an incredible effect on the innocence of American youth." |
Effective means of practising behavioral modification treatments are always most welcomed by those who would have control; and the Hemi-Sync Process (yup, copy-rite, trade mark-of-the-narc, etc.) seems to fit the manipulative bill. Note the calmly resting person having a brain adjustment.
| "When appropriate, trainers encourage participants to reframe their
experiences into more useful perspectives." |
The theories that dis-enlighten most are those that see non-normative behavior as needing treatment. Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment; A Research-Based Guide claims that it is is the first-ever, science-based guide to drug addiction treatment, and in making such a statement lowers science to the role of promoting cultural values. In the relative sense many of these suggestions may have transient, and even contradictory effects, rendering the "patient" more confused than ever. Removing criminal sanction and relieving poverty are the only real hope.
CAM News led me to this article, wherein it is shown that Dr. William Pardridge has a new therapy in his craw; and designs on your higher nervous center. Researchers Sneak Gene Therapy Into Brain
By this point I'm ready for anything, and ghost rocket doesn't disappoint by sending me to this perhaps-Eureka! for the ages; and anti-ages. Scientists break speed of light.
5/6
Cybering led me to Charles C. Mann's look at The End of Moore's Law? Say it ain't so, Ma.
In a rebuttal of sorts, Synopsys, Inc. comes To the Rescue of Moore's Law.
| "By managing both complexity and physics, the design community and the
EDA community will come to the rescue of Moore's Law. " |
In the Company of Animals is a collaborative work that goes about re-minding our gaian kin, and reminding us of our animate-ness. These introductions just whet the informative appetite, with articles in the purchased version by such illuminaries as Daniel C. Dennett and Stephen Jay Gould.
| "The papers given at the conference,
and revised for this issue, explore how our relationships with animals have evolved over time and
place, and how they reflect different understandings of what it means to be human." |
Barton Kunstler shows us behind the curtain and Beyond the Illusion of Human Rights. This is a well argued essay that urges a re-examination of our present delusional state, and suggests establishing models whose logic reflects the counter-intuitive logic of giftedness.
| "Our economy can only devour, as if its own hollowness
can only be filled by every resource the earth has collected for literally billions of years. The problem
of rights is intrinsically linked to this, the essential problem of our time." |
Ten years of cocaine, a follow-up study of 64 long-term users in Amsterdam, indicates that like all other neurochemical self-adjusters, notably alcoholers, cocainers tend to mellow with age.
| "This leads us to believe that in a large group of experienced users, the mere
prevalence of high level use during a reported top period of use does not determine long term
cocaine consumption careers." |
4/6
Beware the behaviorist, for it dost gyre and gimble in the wabe; and with our head goes galumphing back. A next logical step in mind control will be....oh my, best not give those jabberwocks any more ideas!
| "For the past 6 years, the psychological science community has been developing a national behavioral science research agenda that illustrates the potential of behavioral science research in addressing critical areas of concern to this country." |
Banisteriopsis caapi is a key ingredient of yage, a drink perhaps best imbibed by experienced psychonauts. But then, if risking a truly 'bad trip' with terrifying visions, vomiting, rapid mood change,
synesthesia, de-personalization and increased suggestibility, also lets you talk to the lianas and listen to the gods...well, what do we s(h)ay, man? Makes the stock market sound pretty tame. An apt initiation rite for potential CEO's eh, eh; eh?
| "At first it was
pleasant, a wondrous sense of life and warmth enveloped all things. But then the sensations
intensified, became charged with a strange current, and the air itself took on a metallic density." |
A very thorough overview can be had at the Lycaeum - Ayahuasca, Yage and Harmaline.
"One wonders how peoples in primitive societies, with no knowledge of chemistry or
physiology, ever hit upon a solution to the activation of an alkaloid by a monoamine oxidase
inhibitor."
Richard Evans Schultes |
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of DMT and harmaline, we vow to recover from the side effects. Headache Treatments By Native Peoples of the
Ecuadorian Amazon:
A Preliminary Cross-Disciplinary Assessment
Donald J. McGraw appraises Two Takes on Our Pulpy, Leafy Friends and Their Charms and finds that Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman is an essential resource.
| "This is probably the magnum opus of the field.
A quarter-century in development, it considers 44,691 uses for the 4,029 plants he discusses." |
3/6
John David Ebert interviews Ralph Abraham and discovers the Foundations of Chaos.
"The strata of Western cosmogonic myths have been built up out of layer upon
sedimentary layer of peoples, races and tongues which the ebb and flow of
time has fossilized into the broken torsos and fallen colossi which crowd
our historical landscapes."
John David Ebert |
His name? Hound, Rock Hound. Disguised as a geologist with the British Geologic Survey, he has a license to dig.
Making a serious attempt to have a light and frothy Friday night, I zoomed into Hypermatter - The Story.
| "Apparently, you can't fool hypermatter into
thinking it hasn't already evolved into matter without first
removing its quantum signature." |
Formerly The Journal of MUD Research, The Journal of Virtual Environments may turn your brain to mush with such catchy yet obfuscatereous articles as MUDS, Metaphysics, and Virtual Reality. Wesley Cooper explains:
| "I study MUDs both as exemplars of postmodern culture and as evidence for a postmodern or
'irrealist' philosophical thesis according to which there is nothing external to our representations." |
2/6
The Alchemind Society, The International Association For Cognitive Liberty, has chosen psychedelics as a focus.
'The most dangerous message of all is the
one that says all drugs are equally
dangerous' .
| "The members of the Alchemind Society believe that the unique qualities of
entheogens distinguish them from other drugs, and call for particularized
legal treatment in keeping with our society's highest traditions for protecting
religious freedom, privacy, and basic human rights." |
Michael L. Benedikt points out in Physics for Phantoms that despite the maturation of the information age, with the Banff Centre and Softworlds leaders in vision, the abdication of the web to PanoptiCorp leaves little hope for a cognitively free future.
| "And something else happens when these virtual worlds are never turned off, when life goes
on there whether you witness it or not, whether you participate in it or not. Games you cannot afford
to leave are not games." |
The Church of Insanity is sweet relief for my free brain rolling around in it's case of cultural inanity. I can see, my world-view is complete, I have understood the Five Steps to Utopia.
| "This is real truth." | For my pick as one of the most annoying pages to read, here is Grand Gaia Cycles - I give you 20 seconds; tops. There is the partially redeeming List of Links however, with some real goodies.
Ah, the unheralded generalist, easily forgot in our special age. Ray Tomes is a Renaisance Homo Noeticus who follows in the steps of the great men who have studied cycles in the universe in the
past; Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Kondratieff, Chizhevski,
Dewey and Wheeler. Cycles in the Universe
1/6/00
Music has a direct connection to the emotions, the emotions cannot be separated from consciousness, therefore music...?
Brain and Sound Frequencies
| "(Melinda Maxfield) found that the
steady-rhythmic beat of the drum struck four and
one half times per second was the-key to
transporting a shaman into the deepest part of his
shamanic state of-consciousness." |
The Onset of Process and Data as Aesthetic Communication ushers us to the departure lounge for a journey out of the atmosphere of music as we know it and into the space of infinite possibility.
| "Technology's impact on music can now be likened to an exploded supernova. During the long
blinding moment, it is hard to see the detail of an increasingly diverse and extreme musical
environment." |
Johnny Asia is one of the audionauts exploring Quantum Listening, from Practice to Theory.
| "Inspired by Ravi
Shankar, Wes Montgomery and Ritchie
Havens, all rolled into one." |
Dig this, man!
Music, Pattern, and the Neuro-Structures of
Time
Or
The Infinite Return of the Eternally Unequal
| "Thus, pattern is the "infrastructure" of neuronal processing happening in our brains, below,
and a few miliseconds before our working consciousness experiences the "phainomena" and
"noumena", the Gestalten of discernible impressions and thoughts." |
So to conclude today's decidedly aural fixation, I had to know what lay beyond; to reach for the Musical Grail. transmusic
| "The examples here assembled, though crude, will I hope suffice to convey a
sense of the potential for generating music using cellular automata, as well as
for better understanding the structure of CA evolution by making use of the aural
modality." |
|
