Terence McKenna, 2012, and the Eschaton

In 1975 an obscure, nasally voiced young man and his brother proposed what they claimed to be an empirical formula capable of mapping time—both past and future. The young man was Terence McKenna, who would later be referred to as the “Timothy Leary (and much more) of the discretely psychedelic 90s,” (Gabriel 1993) and the formula was the basis for a program known as Timewave Zero, which offered desktop access to McKenna’s alleged map of time. Such an allegation is certainly a hard swallow, particularly to the uber-rational, reductionist mind of the modern man; but to brush aside McKenna’s proposal as absurd without proper examination tastes of the very dogma which modern science purports to eliminate.

Any discussion of Timewave Zero must first begin with a discussion of novelty. To McKenna novelty is more than just a cute happenstance, it is a natural law—perhaps the most fundamental law in fact—for the “conservation and complexification of novelty is what the universe is striving for,” (McKenna 1994). Before jumping into Novelty Theory however, a definition of the term is in order and who better than to provide that definition than the late bard himself: “Synonyms for ‘novelty’ are ‘degree of connectedness’ or ‘complexity.’ Note that these are not terms that make a moral judgment. Novelty is not ‘good’ while entropy is ‘bad.’ Novelty is simply a situation of greater connectedness and complex organization, while entropy is the opposite of these qualities: it is less organized, less integrated, less complex,” (McKenna 1991)

But what of novelty as a law of nature? To McKenna,

It’s not a coincidence that electrons spinning around an atomic nucleus and planets going around a star and star clusters going around a gravitational center of a galaxy…observe the same kind of order on different scales and yet science would say that is a coincidence. PW Bridgeman, who was a philosopher of science, defined coincidence as what you have leftover when you apply a bad theory. It means that you overlooked something and that what jumps out at you as coincidence is a set of relationships whose casuistry, whose relationships to each other, are simply hidden from you, (McKenna 1994).

Continuing in reference to dark matter explaining the structure and organization of galaxies:

I don’t believe that 90% of the matter in the universe goes unobserved… It’s not that there’s mass missing–it’s that there’s a law missing…Why does the Milky Way tend to stay the Milky Way? The answer is: because, as a spiral galaxy, it’s a more complex organism, a more complex structure, than it is as a dissipated, homogeneous mass, (McKenna 1998a).

To McKenna, it is novelty which is the “missing” law of science that accounts for both the structure of things from atoms to nebulae and the seemingly exponential increase in technological advance seen in recent history.

The way the universe works is upon a platform of previously achieved complexity…new forms of complexity can be built that cross these ontological boundaries, in other words what I mean by that is that biology is based on complex chemistry but it is more than complex chemistry, socials systems are based on the organization that is animal life and yet it is more than animal life. This is a general law of the universe, overlooked by science, that out of complexity emerges greater complexity. We could almost say that the universe, nature, is a novelty-conserving, or complexity-conserving engine, (McKenna 1994). [Italics mine].

This perpetual creation and multiplication of complexity however, is not some homeostatic process but is in fact increasing, “each stage of advancement into complexity occurs more quickly than the stage which preceded it…Time is, in fact, speeding up,” (McKenna 1994).

McKenna’s theory seems greatly at odds with modern scientific thinking yet oddly in line with subjective experience. Things do seem to be progressing and growing increasingly complex at an ever increasing rate. The technological progress made by our culture in the last twenty years alone has been unthinkably swift. As McKenna suggests (McKenna 1998b) to try and extrapolate this forward 500 years into the future is an impossibility. If this is no mere stochastic trend, how could it be that science has somehow managed to overlook one of the main characteristics of our universe? McKenna answers,

Science is the exploration of the experience of nature without psychedelics. And I propose, therefore, to expand that enterprise and say that we need a science beyond science. We need a science which plays with a full deck, (McKenna 1994).
What is revealed through the psychedelic experience, I think, is a higher dimensional perspective on reality. And I use ‘higher dimensional’ in the mathematical sense, (McKenna 1994).

To Terence then, the psychedelic experience in a sense completes science, and it is through the psychedelic experience that Terence arrived at Novelty Theory.

I discern patterns in nature that cause me to believe that science…has overlooked very important aspects of reality that you don’t need an atom smasher or a DNA sequencer to register, (McKenna 1998b)

Through Novelty Theory, McKenna hopes to reconcile science with subjective experience through the kind of empirical method on which modern science is built. The basis from which McKenna built this theory (or more properly, the actual source of data for McKenna’s theory itself,) is the King Wen sequence of the I Ching.

[The I Ching] is a mathematical notation system… for the purpose of creating a physics of Time…based on human observation, and… it arises in a context, we presume, of shamanism and proto-Taoist values, (McKenna 1998a).

What is unusual about this approach, if not unique, is the effort to give a formal mathematical description of the ebb and flow of this quality. I might have called it Tao, but I chose instead to call it novelty to stress the fact that it is process growing toward concrescence, (McKenna 1991).

By concrescence, McKenna is using the term as defined by Alfred North Whitehead, “ ‘Concrescence’ is the name for the process in which the universe of many things acquires an individual unity in a determinate relegation of each item of the ‘many’ to its subordination in the constitution of the novel ‘one,’” (McKenna 1993). We will address more specifically what McKenna interprets this eventual concrescence as later, for now we will turn our attention to how McKenna and his brother created this map of novelty, which they call Timewave Zero.

Timewave Zero is based off of the belief that the ancient Chinese had an acute understanding of some relatively complicated astronomical phenomena such as the procession of the equinoxes and the sunspot cycles as well as “the assumption of hierarchical or resonance thinking in Chinese intellectual constructs,” (McKenna 1993) for which he attempts to illustrate in his book The Invisible Landscape. McKenna establishes that the Chinese knew the length of the lunar cycle to be 29.53 days by citing the scholarship of Joseph Needham (1965). He then suggests that it was recognized that 13 lunations equaled roughly 384 (383.89) which is equally to six (the number of lines (yao) in one of the hexagrams of the I Ching sequence) times 64 (the total number of hexograms).

At this point in the process, it is reasonable to suppose that the Chinese love of cycles, hierarchies, and resonances would have led them, having cognized the 384-day year as a hexagram, to assume that 64 x 384 [64 x 64 x 6] days was a natural division of time [approximately equal to six minor sunspot cycles]…And indeed, 384 x 64 x 64 [64 x 64 x 64 x 6] also shows interesting resonance periods [roughly 2 zodiacal ages, further multiply this number by 6 (64 x 64 x 64 x 6 x 6) and you get 25,836 years, a very close approximation of the time of the procession of the equinoxes]. In fact, several phenomena that have been found to be cyclical appear to have relationships of correspondence to the cylindrical hierarchy on one of its levels, (McKenna 1993).

McKenna then uses these patterns, which seem clear enough, and then a fair amount of fractal geometry and wave dynamics to create his Timewave Zero map of novelty. Let me take a moment to be explicit: Timewave Zero (see image below) is intended to be a map of the total novelty over time, or in the words of McKenna, “these time maps or novelty maps show the ebb and flow of connectedness or novelty in any span of time from a few days to tens of millennia,” (McKenna 1993).

The story of the universe is that information, which I call novelty, is struggling to free itself from habit, which I call entropy… and that this process… is accelerating… It seems as if… the whole cosmos wants to change into information… All points want to become connected…. The path of complexity to its goals is through connecting things together… You can imagine that there is an ultimate end-state of that process–it’s the moment when every point in the universe is connected to every other point in the universe, (McKenna 1998a).

In an interesting contrast to our Newtonian or even Einsteinian notion of time, the wave characteristic of Timewave Zero predicts a “progressive spiral involution of time toward a concrescence;” in other words, an endpoint (McKenna 1993).

Implicit in this theory of time is the notion that duration is like a tone in that one must assign a moment at which the damped oscillation is finally quenched and ceases. I chose the date December 21, 2012 A.D., as this point because with that assumption the wave seemed to be in the “best fit” configuration with regard to the recorded facts of the ebb and flow of historical advance into connectedness. Later I learned to my amazement that this same date, December 21, 2012, was the date assigned as the end of their calendrical cycle by the classic Maya, surely one of the worlds most time-obsessed cultures, (McKenna 1991).

Above is an image from the Timewave Zero program of the novelty wave over the course of 1500 years. Shown on the image are a number of significant events which were used (among many others) to help fit the wave to our Gregorian calendar. Here “novelty” is maximized when closest to the x-axis, therefore a singularity will occur at any point that the wave has a value of zero. This however, only occurs once, at December 21, 2012, at which point according to McKenna, the universe will reach a concrescence as novelty reaches a singularity. The events shown above are just a few of the many events which McKenna used to map the novelty wave.

Let me explain that we chose the end of the Mayan Calendar as the “end date” for this graph because we found good agreement between the events that comprise the historical record and the wave itself when this end date was chosen. The end date is the point of maximized novelty in the wave and is the only point in the entire wave that has a quantified value of zero [infinite novelty]. We arrived at this particular end date without knowledge of the Mayan Calendar, and it was only after we noticed that the historical data seemed to fit best with the wave if this end date was chosen that we were informed that the end date that we had deduced was in fact the end of the Mayan Calendar, (McKenna 1993).

McKenna himself remarked at his own surprise in the conjunction of the end date with the Maya calendar. After fitting the data to the past, he claimed astonishment that the end date was “not hundreds or thousands of years into the future,” (McKenna 1998a) but in 2012, in conjunction with the Maya calendar end date.

Despite initially claiming independence to the Maya calendar (“The only thing that I have in common with the Mayan calendar is that both I and the Maya took psychedelic mushrooms,”) (McKenna 1998a), McKenna grew intrigued at this synchronistic turn of events and began to speculate about the possible meaning of this correspondence:

In the early 1990’s, while in correspondence with John Jenkins, we discussed the possibility that the end-date of the 13-baktun Great Cycle was intentionally chosen by the Maya because of the conjunction of the sun with the intersection of the ecliptic and the plane of the Milky Way on December 21, 2012—the 13.0.0.0.0 of the Long Count calendar. In my revised 1993 edition of the The Invisible Landscape, I stated that the end date for my own mushroom-revealed model of the cosmos ended on the same date as the Maya calendar but that my calculation had been done by different methods than those of the Maya and without the knowledge of those methods, (Jenkins 1998).

The Maya believed, for reasons which are perhaps forever lost, or perhaps soon to be revealed, that the coincidence of the winter solstice sunrise with the part of the Milky Way that they called xibalba be would not be, as some have stated, the end of the world, but its moment of true creation, (Jenkins 1998).

Irrespective of what the Maya knew, Terence McKenna certainly appreciated the astronomical significance of the period as the possible end of the 26,000 “Zodiacal great year” and the so-called alignment with the “galactic center”:

This will occur sometime in the next two hundred years. It is difficult to be more accurate, since the term “galactic center” is ambiguous…the galaxy may by presumed to have a gravitational center, a radio center, and a spatial center…the most likely heliacal rising of the galactic center with the solstice sun occurs on December 21, 2012….That such a situation would have noticeable effects on life on earth is totally speculative, (McKenna 1993).

It is noteworthy that McKenna does not throw his full weight behind this claim of further correspondence between his theory, the Maya calendar, and the “galactic alignment.” Terence clearly went to great lengths to attempt to make his theory as empirical as possible and in lectures even went to some effort to explain the ambiguity of the concept of a galactic alignment (McKenna 1998b). What McKenna did not shy away from however, is that irrespective of the Maya Calendar, galactic alignment, or even Novelty Theory, we are in a period of great flux and change of a magnitude unparalleled in recorded history.

But the McKenna’s referred to The Invisible Landscape and their introduction of Timewave Zero as their magnum opus, clearly they believed their work to be more than merely a coincidence of the times. So what did Terence really think of Timewave Zero and the coming singularity?

My interpretation of the zero point is that it is the point at which the ingression into novelty and the degree of interconnectedness of the separate elements that comprise the concrescence will be such that the ontological nature of time itself will be transformed, (McKenna 1991).

McKenna further defines the concrescence as an achievement in which, “ego and the Tao are perceived as one, or rather, only Tao is perceived, but as though it were ego,” (McKenna 1993). This fairly abstract explanation is aided by a further expansion on the idea:

It’s reasonable to suggest that by the end of the Mayan calendar—which is in 2012 A.D.—we will be unrecognizable to ourselves, that what we take to be our creations, computers, and technology, are actually another level of ourselves…we will recover what we knew in the beginning: the archaic union with nature that was seamless, unmediated by language, unmediated by notions of self and other, of life and death, of civilization and nature. These are dualisms that are temporary and provisional within the labyrinth of history…We are not alienated and outside of the natural we are somehow the cutting edge of it. And this vast output of buildings and highways and all the things that characterize the modern world is actually a feature of the natural world, (McKenna 1991).

Throughout his career Terence was asked to expand upon his own personal opinion of what 2012 might bring but perhaps there is no articulation of his own ideas laid out any more beautifully than as he put it above. What always remained more elusive however, was a personal guarantee from Terence as to the absolute validity of his theory: “I am still willing to argue that what I put down about the I Ching is true, or that a truth is very close to the surface in all of that,” (McKenna 1998a). Or as he put it in his introduction to the 1994 edition of The Invisible Landscape:

My faith that the ideas explored here will be found to have an extraordinary explanatory and persuasive power remains unshaken. As for Truth, I will argue today—as I did in 1971 at La Chorrera—that these ideas are, in Wittgenstein’s wonderful phrase, “True enough,” (McKenna 1993).

McKenna was always very careful to avoid pegging himself down and saying, “Yes. Here it is! I’ve got all the answers,” because he knew that he didn’t. He would likely say it is for that reason that science is failing us today and it is perhaps along this vein in which he has proposed this theory in the first place, at least in the eyes of friend, colleague, and creator of the Timewave Zero software, Peter Meyer:

Perhaps the real value of Novelty Theory, at the end of the technological war-driven 20th century, is that it is a parody. It is not a scientific theory, nor is it a pseudo-scientific theory—it is a parody of a scientific theory. It basically mocks the pretensions of 20th century physical science. It purports to explain the nature of time and to elucidate the inner workings of the temporal world, yet it is obviously absurd, at least to a more than superficial examination. Novelty Theory says to us: This is what any Cartesian-Newtonian scientific theory really is—basically absurd. And since it is absurd, we should not, and do not have to, believe. This basically knocks the foundations out from under the assumptions of modern Western society, built as it is on a faith in modern physical science as being the authority as to the nature of the real world. In this sense Terence McKenna's thought is both liberating and subversive, (Meyer).

It is the above message which the user of the Timewave Zero software sees as she exits the application. McKenna is not alive today to confirm his former colleague’s conclusion, but it is not an unreasonable assumption to make. Terence often lectured on the absurdity and hypocrisy of modern science (though equally as often, its merits) and made an art of proposing ideas from the lunatic fringe and then showing them as completely plausible. McKenna was a master of using the rules of science and logic to illustrate the dangers of dogma and expectation among our modern society.

I’m more rational than I may sound, here…because I doubt. I know absolutely how flakey this sounds… I’m not here to found a cult. I just had a very wiggy experience… The problem with most people’s really wiggy experiences is that it never gets down to the nitty-gritty… and by the nitty gritty I basically mean a mathematical formula that you can then throw up on a blackboard and say to the experts, “this is what God said to me, is it horseshit or what is it?”…[but] the good thing–in my view–of what happened to me is, it actually got down to a mathematical proposition… a hypothesized law…it may turn out to be false, but it is a contender. It played in the highest class of competition of all which is in the realm of formal mathematical theory, (McKenna 1998a).

McKenna was acutely aware of the potentiality for dogma in the acceptance of his Timewave Zero theory and in his other ideas and musings as both a lecturer and writer; it is for this reason that he went to such extraordinary lengths to provide a mathematical foundation for his theory.

Certainly one of the main themes of Terence’s life’s work was to expose and subvert the cultural programming and dogma of our society. One of McKenna’s most recognizable and memorable lines is “culture is not your friend,” as he viewed our cultural programming as “the most powerful imprisoning factor in our lives,” (McKenna 1994). In fact, many of his lectures were devoted to anti-dogmatic rants which found Christianity and modern science but also the New Age movement and guruism among his favorite targets. It is the latter two which McKenna seemed especially adamant in attempting to distance himself from, and understandably so as both some of his ideas and his audience partially overlapped with the two movements which he viewed as just different flavors of cultural programming.

McKenna’s distaste for the New Age ideology is evidenced by the following quote in which he discusses the difficulty in being perceived as credible while pursuing a common academic interest:

The task of appreciating the Maya is not made any easier by the fact that the specious archaeological fantasies of the New Age have poured scorn on all ancient knowledge that does not flow from the putative founts of lost Lemuri, high Atlantis, and even more dubious realism that are far away indeed, (Jenkins 1998).

Despite his clear disdain for any New Age association, McKenna undoubtedly seems to walk that dangerous line to those unfamiliar with his work. However, to those familiar with McKenna, he provides an invaluable service as a brilliant thinker willing to stray outside of the narrow confine of what is deemed acceptable in modern society.

Just over a year prior to his death, McKenna gave a lecture in San Francisco in which summed up his later views of his work with the I Ching:

For those of you who care about my theories in this area of mathematics and deconstruction of the I Ching and analogizing to the Mayan calendar: it is a mathematical game, it is an intellectual game. I discern patterns in nature that cause me to believe that science… has overlooked very important aspects of reality that you don’t need an atom smasher or a DNA sequencer… to register, (McKenna 1998b).

The second sentence of the above quote, (which was quoted previously, in less context) betrays to us what seems likely to have been Terence’s ultimate motivation in creating his Novelty Theory. Terence recognized, quite early, that science has stripped man of his place in the universe, reduced him to a cosmic accident, and disallowed purpose from having any meaning in our universe. Novelty Theory, it seems, is McKenna’s effort to rewrite humanity back into the great cosmic play.

If you will join me in this belief that the universe works as I have described…a light comes on on the human condition… Who are we in science’s story? We are nobody. Lucky to be here. We are a cosmic accident. We exist on an ordinary star, at the edge of a typical galaxy, in an ordinary part of space and time. Essentially our existence is without meaning…But if I’m right…then we are the apple of [the universe’s] eye. Suddenly, cosmic purpose is restored to us. We left the center of the cosmic stage in the 13th century and haven’t been back since. But this idea says “No [to that notion]. People matter.” You are the cutting edge of a 13 billion year old process of defining novelty. Your acts matter. Your thoughts matter. Your purpose: to add to complexity. Your enemy: disorder entropy, stupidity, and tastelessness…suddenly then you have a morality, you have an ethical arrow, you have contextualization in the processes of nature. You have meaning, you have authenticity, you have hope, (McKenna 1998b).

Regardless of whether or not Terence McKenna believed that on December 21, 2012 a switch would flip and the universe would be forever changed, it is clear that he believed that the universe needed to change. To claim that “Terence believed this” or “Terence believed that” regarding the literality of Novelty Theory would be to miss the very point he was trying to make.

Terence McKenna passed away in early 2000 before he could ever see just exactly what kind of truth his Novelty Theory held. In the years since his death, the further complexification and integration promised in his Novelty Theory seems to have lived up to its billing, though its ultimate test still lies beyond the horizon. Will 2012 bring the monumental change that Terence and others have speculated it would? Who knows? Terence certainly did not.

Bibliography

Gabriel, Trip.
1993 Tripping, but Not Falling. New York Times 2 May. New York.

Jenkins, John Major and Terence McKenna
1998 Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. Bear & Company, Sante Fe, New Mexico

McKenna, Terence
1991 The Archaic Revival. Harper Collins, New York, New York.

McKenna, Terence and Dennis McKenna
1993 The Invisible Landscape. 2nd ed [1975]. Harper Collins, New York, New York.

McKenna, Terence
1994 From Eros to Eschaton. Lecture. Seattle, Washington

McKenna, Terence
1998(a) In The Valley of Novelty (Part 3). Podcast 29. Psychedelic Salon

McKenna, Terence
1998(b) Dream Awake. Lecture. San Francisco, California.

Meyer, Peter
Timewave Zero. Dolphin Software, Berkeley, California

Crazy Video

I found this video on the Psychedelic Salon forum over on the Grow Report. It's pretty interesting to say the least, and very short, absolutely worth checking out. To view in full resolution (which I highly recommend, the video above doesn't really do it justice), click here

Lorenzo (of the Psychedlic Salon podcast) really finds some great stuff and posts it to his site over at matrixmasters.net

First Ever Trip Report

Well, after nine months of actively pursuing my first psychedelic experience, I finally got what I asked for. It took me a surprisingly long time to actually find anyone with mushrooms, but it finally happened. The following experience took place at a cabin on a tree farm owned by my grandfather in the Catskills and on an eighth of mushrooms.

In all, it was an absolutely beautiful experience, certainly one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Originally, I had intended to have a more introspective trip a la the Secret Chief method of just chilling out in a dark room with a couple of blankets and a carefully selected playlist of some of my classical favorites. But about an hour to an hour and a half after chewing them down I decided to move around a bit. One thing led to another and I ended up getting outside for a walk along a path short path I had cleared the day before through the forest steps from the front door. Inside, I did not really visually experience anything of great interest. Certainly I was feeling different ("fucking great" is how I described it), and I think some of it had to do with me peaking as I walked outside, but the second I stepped outside it was as if a switch went off. Right away I noticed a spider web spun the night before hanging a few feet in front of the front door. I immediately was absolutely mesmerized and intrigued--I had seen spider webs before, but I had never REALLY seen a spider web before this one. Normally, I'm somewhat afraid of spiders and easily bothered by anything creepy and crawly, but not in the least when I was on my trip. To skip a few of the details (which were extraordinarily interesting to me, but naturally are difficult for someone else to appreciate) I spent about 2 hours in the 200 feet from the front door and the spider web to the spot halfway down the trail where I first noticed I was beginning to come down. Everything was just so absolutely fascinating, I was noticing normally insignificant details as if they were the only thing one could help but notice. I would glance at a branch and instantly see the seven caterpillars on it or I would notice a fly on a leaf ten feet away. I was even finding single strands of spider silk floating off of the trees in the wind. Particularly fascinating were the water droplets that had collected as morning dew (I tripped first thing in the morning) on the leaves, grass, spider webs, even on the hairs on the caterpillars. I could easily see how an experience like this would be useful to the artist and it certainly was--if nothing else at all--absolutely beautiful, though it was certainly more than that.

But as I started to come down, about halfway through the 100 yard trail, I had a quite profound experience. I was standing with my face inches away from a branch of an elm tree in the rain (it was raining by now, but that was perfectly fine) noticing all of the things that I had been noticing all morning, when I glanced a few inches up and noticed that the branch right above the one I was looking at was of a different tree, a maple actually. I followed that branch in to the trunk and noticed that this maple was much bigger, broader, and somewhat dominated the area more. Then I looked at the elm and noticed that the first few feet of its trunk, some 20 feet from the base of the maple, grew straight up but that after that, it grew at an angle moving away from the maple. Then I looked back at the branch I was looking at, I noticed that the leaves only grew where they would receive direct sunlight and that the entire branch leading back to the base of the elm was bare where the maple had blocked out the sky above. I looked around at the other trees in the area and noticed another tree, growing at a 45 degree angle away from the larger maple tree. That it could grow at such an angle and not fall over was amazing to me, even now as I think about it. It's roots would have needed to stretch far beyond the maple in order for it to hold itself up. A fourth tree grew right against the base of the maple. But it didn't grow vertically, rather after the first two or three feet it split in two, growing like a "Y" with wilting arms. But one side of the Y, the side directly under the maple, had died and was beginning to rot, the other though, was growing away from the base of the maple and was thriving. I realized that the tree itself must have cut off the right side from whatever nutrients it was absorbing from the ground and that is why it must have died. That side of the tree couldn't have been receiving much sunlight and must have been a burden on the other half of the tree so it just cut it off in order to live. These thoughts all occurred in a sort of revelation as I recognized--for the first time in my life--that trees were not just these inanimate things which, yes, were alive, but that lacked the sort of defining characteristic of what I considered to be life. But these things were alive in every sense of the word! They were active, they were animate, they even have a sort of conscious intent to their movement. The one short tree even made a DECISION in order to best adapt itself to a particular situation.

As I marveled at recognizing these trees as my brothers in life, the experience merged with the previous two hours and I FELT that all of these things, the caterpillars, spiders, flies, slugs, dew drops, birds, the bedrock under my feet, the clouds over my head, were all quite literally inseparable. When I say that I FELT that way, I don't mean it in the ordinary way ("I feel like a slice of pizza"), I mean that I EXPERIENCED it, I KNEW it but not in the way that I know that 2+2=4, but I knew it experientially, emotionally, I KNEW it in some way that I can't possibly articulate. This wasn't quite the experience of the "one" that I've often read of, but I think I was close. What was missing however, seemed to be me. As I looked around, it was still the "I" that had experienced this, it was still me that FELT this. I felt like a full blown mystical experience was just out of reach, almost as if it was on the tip of my tongue. While still in the moment of this feeling of the inseparability of everything, I looked down at my feet standing on the wet grass, on top of the roots, which were in the soil, which was above the bedrock, which at the time, meant the entire planet itself, which was ALL connected, but "I" was still there, inside my head, observing--externally--the connection in all things. I was what was missing. I say "I" not in the sense of my body, because my body was a part of everything else, but my conscious self was still somehow outside of all of this. And I knew that this particular trip, I would not be going any further.

I don't know if I needed a larger dose to break through, if the circumstances were not quite right, or perhaps I was just not ready for it, but I stopped right there, on the verge of what I knew intellectually must be true, but hadn't yet experientially KNOWN to be true. It was a beautiful experience, and the moment under the tree was profound, but I know I've only touched the tip of the iceberg.

I am sorry (mostly for myself) that it had taken so long to have this experience, but I am glad that I did and am looking forward to future explorations.

EPR Paradox and Bell's Theorem

In 1935, Albert Einsten, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR) proposed an argument in which they attempted to show that quantum mechanics is an “incomplete” theory. The argument—now known as the EPR paradox—hinges upon the condition that a “complete” theory would require that “nothing that’s an ‘element of reality’ of the world, gets left out of that description” (P.61). The three colleagues further define the condition (in their own words): “if, without in any way disturbing a system, we can predict with certainty the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of reality corresponding to this physical quantity.” In the language and form used by Albert, this would mean that if you measure the color of electron 1 to be [color = +1>, you will also be able to (instantly) measure [color = -1> on electron 2. This is not due to the non-locality of quantum mechanics (to EPR), but because the color was an element of reality prior to its measurement on either electron 1 or electron 2.

In making this claim, and in the further extrapolation of this position, EPR make 2 assumptions:

1) That the predictions of quantum mechanics about results of experiments are correct (Albert’s words), and

2) Locality: things can be set up so that electrons 1 and 2 cannot share information (EPR will use this in attempt to show that experimental results must be actual elements of reality prior to any measurement).

Based on these two assumptions and the reality condition, EPR argued that if you separate electrons 1 and 2 so that they cannot easily exchange information and measure the color of electron 1 to be [color = +1>, you can know with certainty (probability 1) that the color of electron 2, if measured, would instantly be [color = -1>. Since they hold locality to be true, EPR concluded that the color must have existed prior to the act of measuring it. They further took advantage of the principle of locality by saying that you could measure the hardness of electron 2 instead of its color, without interfering with electron 1. Thus, since you know the color of electron 1 and you know the hardness of electron 2 you can simultaneously know both the color and hardness of each electron. According to the standard way of thinking about quantum mechanics, these observables are incompatible and to know both simultaneously is impossible. EPR concluded then, that the standard way of thinking about quantum mechanics must be false. For EPR, both observables (or any observables for that matter) are simultaneous elements of reality, unexplained by quantum mechanics.

In drawing this conclusion (and thus, illustrating the incompleteness of quantum mechanics), EPR relied upon 2 constraints:

1) The deterministic constraint: the value of every spin-space observable for electron 1 must be opposite the value of electron 2 (Albert’s words). For example, if electron 1 has [color = +1> then electron 2 must have [color = -1>, and

2) The statistical constraint: If we measure the color of electron 1 to be [color = +1> then we know with certainty (and without measurement) that the color of electron 2 is [color = -1>. Since EPR assumes locality and a color measurement is not made on electron 2, and if the 2 particles are sufficiently separated so as they cannot interact, then the measurements made on each particle would have no effect on the other particle. Therefore, the fact that electron 2 would have [color = -1> after measuring the color of electron 1, must be have been a preexisting element of reality as it is impossible for the particles to exchange information instantly (which would be in violation of the principle of locality). It is locality then, which allows us to use quantum formalism to show the probability of a simultaneous spin observable (say scrad) and to actually make that measurement, thereby knowing both observables (color and scrad) simultaneously.

The EPR paradox appeared to show that the contemporary version of quantum mechanics was incomplete, thus opening the door for a future local hidden variable theory to complete the picture. That door however, was slammed shut nearly thirty years later by theoretical physicist John Bell. In a paper, entitled “On the Einsten Podolsky Rosen Paradox”, Bell proposed what would (naturally) become known as Bell’s Theorem in which he showed that the deterministic constraint and the statistical constrain described above were mathematically inconsistent and furthermore, that not only was EPR’s conclusion false but one of their assumptions must too be false!

Before addressing the implications of Bell’s Theorem, it is worth briefly investigating the particulars of the theorem itself. To illustrate the (insurmountable) inconsistency between the two constraints, Bell first derived mathematical relationships to represent each constraint. The deterministic constraint is identified as:

P(a,b) = -a•b

where a and b are both vectors along which the spin of an electron will be measured (one vector per electron) and P(a,b) is the average value of the scalar product of their spins. The statistical constraint is represented by the Bell inequality, which is arrived at in a more involved (though similarly straightforward) method than the deterministic constraint. For the Bell inequality we have

│P(a,b) – P(a,c)│≤1 + P(b,c)

which can be shown—quite simply—to be “patently inconsistent with Bell’s inequality,” (Griffiths p.426). Experimental results are in excellent agreement with Bell’s Theorem and it has been nearly unanimously accepted in the physics community. What then does this mean?

In making their argument, EPR made two assumptions; Bell has now shown that one of those assumptions must be false! Either the predictions of quantum mechanics about experimental results are false and quantum mechanics is not only incomplete but it is wrong, or the physics governing the universe must be nonlocal in nature. With a perfect experimental track record (if electron 1 is spin up, electron 2 is always spin down) it was locality—not quantum mechanics—which was proved false. Ironically, the argument Einstein (and Podolsky and Rosen) proposed not only failed to show quantum mechanics as incomplete, but it overthrew the notion of absolute locality which he had championed, a result Einstein would have found more appalling than what he had started with.

What is Love?

What is love? Is it a feeling? An emotion? Does it come in fits or does it fade in time? Love, I think, is none of these things. Love is knowing. Love is inf act the only thing one can ever really know. It is the one universal truth and the only thing there is. It doesn't require anything nor is it something that can be found. Love just is--to say anything else is absurd. Love is everywhere and nowhere. It is all time and never. It penetrates space and time and exceeds all dimensions. Love is the universe. It is the lifeblood, the force, that flows through everything--without it, there is nothing. That is Love.

Pearls Before Breakfast

I just read an article called "Pearls Before Breakfast" where one of the world's most renowned musicians played some of the worlds most renowned musical pieces at a metro stop in DC dressed as an ordinary street musician.

Not surprisingly (to me at least) most people (over 1,000) walked by without so much as turning their heads or slowing their stride. I think part of it has to do with the fact that people are uncomfortable dealing with other people--we are all completely anonymous most of the time and have come to like it like that. Whether you are walking around campus or in this case, walking around the metro plaza in downtown DC, most people are completely alone despite being surrounded by thousands of other people. We as a culture have come to like that and have grown uncomfortable recognizing the fact that there are other people in this world (RIGHT NEXT TO US IN FACT!!!). So what do we do? We walk around and pretend no one else is there, and when we are confronted, whether directly by someone asking for money or to inform us of a cause, or indirectly like a musician playing an instrument or a person sitting next to us, when this happens we grow uncomfortable and try our hardest to pull ourselves back into our cocoon of isolation.

We have many tools at our disposal to remain disconnected from the world around us. Cell phones allow greater connection and interaction with others...right? Not when its used as a tool to isolate yourself from those in your immediate physical presence. And hell, if you've got an iPod with you you're golden, you'll never have to talk to anyone. Even if someone somehow strikes a conversation with you all you'll need to do is plug your earphones back in whenever you want out and PRESTO! you've got yourself out of that frightful jam!
Around campus here at the University of Maryland I find myself in these little social experiments all the time. I imagine we've all been walking down an empty hall with someone we don't know before. If you are coming from opposite ends (walking towards each other) most people will divert their eyes, look at their feet, pull out their cellphones, or fiddle with something in their pockets. I find that normally, I actually do look at my feet a good deal, but when I'm walking towards someone I'll dart my eyes around so as not to LOOK like I'm looking at the floor. When I feel I'm at the appropriate distance I'll glance into their eyes and say hello if they are looking, and just keep walking if they aren't. It's so terribly sad. But worst of all is when someone is walking in the same direction as you and you are side by side. In this situation you become dangerously close to actually having to talk to someone! Again, the cellphone is many peoples weapon of choice here, but also people will change their pace so that they can remove themselves from this potential contact as quickly as possible.

Personally, this would be the trap I'd be most likely to fall in if I had been at the metro station that day. I've before noticed street musicians that struck me as extraordinary. In fact, I'd heard a violinist in Paris that was certainly of a lesser caliber than the man in this article, but was enthralled by her music. I did not stop and listen or pay or anything, but tried as much as I hard as I could to listen and once I stepped onto the train started a conversation about how wonderful that was (with my friend...not a stranger, god no!). But I've been making a concerted effort to notice beauty in my life and it has not been easy. I read a different article, this one about survival skills actually, that mentioned that when facing near-death experiences our senses of perception are often radically altered. The article went on to say that when we are born, we are sponges absorbing all possible sensory input. As we grow older, as a matter of survival actually, we learn how to process this information and it becomes subconscious. Our brains function as filters (Huxley mentions this in Doors of Perception) that take all of the available information and only deliver what is considered vital or necessary for our conscious processing. This may be one of the reasons that time always seems to be going faster as we grow older. In addition to the fact that each successive year becomes a smaller and smaller proportion of our life (when you are 5, a year is a fifth of your life, when you are 50, it is one fiftieth) is this processing and suppression of sensory data. When you do the same thing every day, your brain is able to more efficiently reduce the amount of information that you need to deal with in order to survive. If you are working in a cubicle for twenty years, your brain undoubtedly gets pretty good at processing the information you need in this environment and you recieve only that minimal amount of information. So while individual working days may seem to drag on to eternity, years go by quickly and in a blur, everything is the same as everything else. Time in fact becomes marked by breaks in this continuum, such as a vacation to Cabo or a ski trip in British Columbia. So it is no surprise that the pedestrians at the metro stop the day that this artist came to play his violin did not stop to listen (and even appeared to deliberately ignore him), it is because their normal experience in the metro stop is so routine that they become numb to the experience.

So I think, these are the two major reasons for the ignoring of the master musician. If people did REALLY notice, we've all been conditioned to remain isolated even amongst each other that it is outside of the social norm to break that isolation, and most were unwilling to do that. And also, for the regular commuters, this break from routine might not have even really been noticed. Something like this may seem extraordinary-and it is- but many people grow comfortable with their set routines and live their lives within certain fixed parameters. Anything outside of this (any change that is) is unwelcome, even if it is something positive.

With all that said, I think there's plenty that can be done as an individual in order to break from this. Regarding the social isolation that I discussed, leaving the cocoon is easy (though it may be emotionally difficult, as sad as that may seem). All that is needed is a deliberate break from convention. Say hello to that person walking down the hall, even if they aren't looking at you. If you want to talk to someone, DO talk to them.

Freeing yourself from these social restrictions becomes easier if the latter issue of numbness and monotony is addressed as well. You must question the things that you do. For instance, if you always turn on the radio when you get in the car, just out of habit, ask yourself if you really want to listen to the radio. You might find that you do most of the time, in which case great, but sometimes you might find you'd prefer to think, or to listen to the wind or your rickety old car. Or when you walk to class you always call someone on your phone. Maybe this time don't call someone, maybe just walk, and when you are walking, don't do anything else, just walk! This may sound odd and obviously simple, but it isn't odd and it IS simple! Do what you are doing, when you are doing it. Live in the present. Be aware of what you are doing, the choices you are making. When you walk to class, maybe you'll notice a tree with leaves that glow with the sunlight from above them, or you'll see someone you know, or maybe you won't see or do anything, just walk. Would that be so bad?

Here's the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

A Brief History of Western Society

The following is a dumbed down culture sketch I composed for an Anthropology and Language class:

The Beginning

The Universe was born from an infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity which exploded some 14 billion years ago. From this explosion, known as the Big Bang, all matter comes. Within three minutes of this event, the fundamental elements were born. A billion years later, the first stars and galaxies formed. Our sun was born five billion years ago and the earth, five hundred million years after that (“Origins”). Nearly four billion years ago, life first appeared on planet earth. In a process called evolution life progresses from simple, single celled organisms to more complex organisms over large periods of time. A half a billion years ago the first fish swam in the oceans around the same time plants first colonized land. Fifty million years later and animal life could be found on land. The earliest mammals roamed the earth alongside dinosaurs as early as two hundred million years ago. Hominids, the humanlike primates that are our direct ancestors, split from our nearest relatives around five million years ago. Finally, within the last five hundred thousand years, modern man came into being in the heart of Africa and over the last forty thousand years, has colonized the world (Gould 25).

History

Western society can trace its origins back to the development of hydraulic agriculture in the major river valleys of the Middle East some five thousand years ago. The success of irrigation practices led to a doubling in the world population in the two thousand years that followed (Mazouyer and Roudart 25). Additionally, more efficient agricultural practices meant fewer individuals could supply food for a greater number of people. This increased efficiency allowed for the invention and practice of many occupations other than agriculture (Peters-Golden 22)). A direct consequence of this was the socio-cultural evolution of man through increased complexities of language, culture, and political and economic systems. The advent of irrigation could be considered a mass crossing of the “First Rubicon.” Once this event occurred, the world could not go back.

From Mesopotamia, the practice, as well as the culture and language spread west. This is best evidenced by the existence of a common ancestor to nearly all Indo-European languages. In 1926 archaeologist V. Gordon Child provided evidence for this common language by compiling a list of common words shared between vastly different Indo-European languages (such as Celtic and Sanskrit). In all, he found sixty six nouns in common including fifteen involving the practice of agriculture, indicating that this mother language came from an agricultural society (Brody 145). Colin Renfrew, in an earlier work had speculated that this would be the case and commented on the spread of agriculture by saying:

The new economy of farming allowed the population in each area to rise, over just a few centuries from perhaps 0.1 person per square kilometere to something like 5 or 10… this would gradually result in the peopleing of the whole of Europe by a farming population, the descendants of the first European farmers…in that case we would expect the language of those first farmers…to be carried across the whole of Europe (150).

It is however, worth noting that irrigation was not a unique discovery of the ancient Mesopotamia but was also practiced in China, India, Southeast Asia, and in the Americas where it similarly spread. So why then was it Europe that came to dominate the world politically, economically, and culturally? The advent of the animal drawn plow and the practice of fallowing (Mazouyer and Roudart 25).

These further increases in agricultural efficiency led to even larger increases in population. In just a century during the Middle Ages the European population tripled (Mazouyer and Roudart 25). These population explosions led to additional socio-cultural evolution and increased political complexity. With large populations and surpluses of food, large and complex political systems were required to manage resources and economies.

Eventually, technological and agricultural developments in Europe combined to create populations that could not be sustained on the resources of the region. This resource deficiency led to colonialism which established Western culture as the dominant culture in the world and created a social schism between Westerners and the rest of the world. Other cultures that stood in the way of the Western machine, whether they be hunter gatherers, pastoralists, small scale agriculturalists, or even major civilizations were forced to either conform or to be destroyed.

Today, further technological increases in agriculture, industrialization, and medicine have led to even more dramatic increases in population. Over the last century alone the world population has more than quadrupled from around 1.5 billion to nearly 7 billion (United States). While colonialism has technically come to an end, globalization is now the dominating force of the world. Globalization allows for goods, food, ideas, and culture to be shared around the world as if people living across oceans were neighbors. This results in a global economy and the homogenization of culture. People are given incentives to put their culture, language, and individual identity aside and to learn English and either grow crops that are of value in some first world country or labor to manufacture products of global worth.

Political System

Modern Western society is composed of a number of individual states which are interdependent of each other. These states vary minorly in individual characteristics such as financial systems, religions, and customs, but the forces of globalization require relative homogeneity.

While each individual state may have its own system of government. The Western world has a rough system in place that establishes control over the constituent states. Actual organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, exist which attempt to set rules and provide consequences for the violation of those rules. These organizations however, lack the power to truly enforce these rules as most states show more allegiance to their own interests than they do these global organizations. In lieu of a more formal global government, the majority of the political power on the global level is in the hands of the corporations and states which control vital resources. As the primary source of energy for the Western world, oil is a valuable resource that can be wielded by the countries that possess it to exert international power. Similarly, the production of food is being consolidated into the hands of a few powerful corporations. Multi-national companies like Monsanto are able to wield more and more power as they control increasing amounts of the market share of many of the world’s major food staples.

Economic System

The global economy of the Western world is a large, complex organism that operates beyond the control of individuals. Specialization has become a fixture in the global market as more and more people and countries specialize in producing one particular crop or product that will maximize their profits.

With agriculture being the main source of food in the world and agricultural practices becoming increasingly efficient, less and less people are directly responsible for producing their own food. This allows individuals to contribute to society in other areas such as the manufacturing of goods or in the service industry. For their labors they are compensated in the unit of currency used by their respective state, the value of which is rooted in the faith of the people rather than in material worth.

In Western society, generalized recipricocity is rarely practiced except perhaps among individuals on a small scale. While redistribution of wealth has historically been attempted in the Western world, it has been unsuccessful and is rarely practiced any longer. Rather it is the market principle of capitalism which dominates Western economies.

Social System

The majority of Western sub-cultures are patrileneal with the last name of the father being passed on to the son and the wife taking the last name of the husband. In historic European society, eldest sons were often the sole inheritors of their father’s possessions; this practice however, is no longer widespread.

The Western world has a roughly open-class social system where the main tool for achieving social mobility is money, though other factors are certainly present. While anyone of any race or sex can achieve social mobility given enough money, the opportunities to earn money are far from equal. It may be true that women and minorities aren’t as socially limited as they have been in the past, they are still very much limited by these historical prejudices. However, the greatest opposition in achieving money, and therefore social mobility, is lack of money. As an example, an individual born in a third world country has a nearly non-existent chance at earning the kind of money that would allow for social mobility, regardless of work ethic. On the other hand, someone born to a wealthy family in a first world country has an excellent chance of maintaining their wealth. In this regard, the wealth you are born into is the largest factor in achieving social mobility. The same is true of states; it is much easier for those with money and power to maintain it, such as most traditional Western states, than it is for third world countries to attain it. For many in this Western world the deck is stacked against them.

Religion

Westerners hold an anthropocentric worldview. This worldview finds its roots in the creation myth that is the basis for a family of traditional religions (called Abrahamic) that were widely popular in Europe for around fifteen hundred years. In this myth, an all knowing, all powerful god creates man and tells him, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Holy Bible, Genesis 1.28)

Though the Western worldview finds its roots in this story, these religions have been gradually losing their influence since the Enlightenment due to the increasing influence of science. Though these religions are still practiced by a large portion of people, science has replaced these systems of belief as the ultimate explanation of reality.

One of the most significant elements of the religion of science is the belief in progress. Progress is the idea that more technology, more efficient agriculture, and better medicine all lead to a better world. This idea that socio-cultural evolution always yields positive results has been a widely held belief for thousands of years. Whereas historically Westerners believed their fate lay in the hands of a deity who created man in his image, they now believe that the laws of science alone govern their fate and through progress man can gain control.

Brody, Hugh. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World. New York: North Point Press, 2001.

Gould, Stephen Jay, ed. The Book of Life: An Illustrated History of the Evolution of Life on Earth. Hong Kong: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Holy Bible: A New American Standard Translation. La Habra: Lockman Foundation. 1995.

Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart. A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis. London: Earthscan, 2006.

Origins: History of the Universe. Jul. 2004. NOVA, Public Broadcasting Service. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/universe.html>

Peters Golden, Holly. Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006.

Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

United States. Census Bureau. Historical Estimates of World Population. 16 Oct. 2008. <http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html>