The Desert of the Real

Philosophy
Comparing the Real and the Ideal

How does the ideal state compare to the realization of the ideal- the real state?
For instance, how does the platonic ideal chair compare to the realization of the ideal- the real chair?
This problem, -I can quite as easily call it a 'clue', 'realization', or pretty much anything else. These thoughts do not easily fit themselves into such categories- has emerged from the chaotic turmoil with ever greater frequency lately. I can't recall when I first conceived of the wording to the question that would surmise my considerations of late, but talking to max on the day before graduation I found it united the directions of many of the explorations I had been indulging in. The most recent book I read, actually the two most recent books 'Physics and Philosophy' by Heisenberg and 'The New Physics' both got me thinking about limiting cases, which has slowly expanded to questioning just what the difference between the real and the ideal is.
Lets look at the chair first- there are three legged chairs, chairs with seats, chairs with no seats, chairs with backs, no backs,... so what is the universal? What is common to all of them? The properties of a chair could be considered without end, and yet it would always be possible to conceive of a design without the supposedly critical aspect that is focused on for consideration.
And here is the trick out of the mess.
What must be searched for is not simply a particular choice out of a multiplicity of examples, but rather a higher level property- the meta-chair. The emergent property is a general concept, not a particular- to ascribe particular characteristics to it would be to simply return to the lower level multiplicity underlying the property. It would be to limit it's potential for realization (if you decided that a chair will always have 4 feet, you would be limiting your conception by removing the possibility for chairs with more or less feet, or some entirely different design whatsoever). Like an equation for a line, the particulars exist in variable form on the higher level. That is, they exist as potentialities that can be realized at the expense of ignoring all of the other potentialities. The general expresses all possible potentialities simultaneously, of which the particulars become simply limiting cases.
This is where the books come into play. You see, a large part of what I read in these books is an explanation for exactly how quantum mechanics was a revolution- how it emerged, and how it fits into the framework of science. Classical mechanics, it turns out, is derivable from quantum mechanics as a limiting case where the 'variable' for object size is realized to a subset of it's potentialities. To put this in other words, Newtonian physics is to be found in quantum mechanics when only large masses are considered. It is a limiting case of a larger singularity.
In this sense, the higher level singularity contains all of the particulars in it, but they are not directly apparent- instead they may only be gotten at by limiting a 'variable' in the singularity, and from this will come that particular chunk of the multiplicity corresponding to that limiting case.
What is a good example of this? I can see so many pretty good examples of such a thing, but no perfect, no 'killer' examples or metaphors. I'm reminded of the story of the blind monks and the elephant. Choose a part of the elephant, and it's particulars at that point can be determined. But from just this framed view of a chunk of the elephant, the higher level whole cannot be regained. No, that isn't illustrative enough. The line analogy again? It's a powerful concept, but I would like to come up with an original one for this description. Nuts. Sometimes I just get stuck, and no matter how much it made sense before or how obvious the concept is, I just cannot explain it. After a period of intense concentration, a brief loss of the concept signals a break time in my mind, for try as I might to come up with an example to the limiting case concept, my mind just keeps falling off track. I end up noticing that I have been staring at the screen for some time with my eyes unfocused, bringing the sharp glare to a soft, warm glow while I was imagining clouds on a summer day. Or the letters on the keyboard take on a life of their own and begin telling their stories- parts of a playground, castle shapes, nintendo game levels, all of the higher level meaning of the letters gives way to daydreaming about their shapes. Then I know I'm lost as it goes with the concentration. Time to go to sleep, anyways.
Ok, take two. Let's see, where was I...ah yes, the transcendence of a constant. I particularly like this concept, for it feels like a much richer vein of insight than I have yet delved. But about the example of such a thing, all I keep seeing is some sort of semi-fluid potentiality crystallizing into just one of it's parts. It reminds me of a chemical reaction- like dropping a little seed particle into a supersaturated solution- if that helps at all. Heck, I don't think I'll keep searching for an example- time to move on.
Such a dynamic is mainly apparent in the systems of ideas, it is slightly less apparent in physical systems like
Like what? I just had it a moment ago. The evolutionary process? Well, this one has always puzzled me, the fact that I'm having a tough time incorporating evolutionary theory in is nothing useful to the present moment. How about the multiple 'layers' of reality as created by people?
atoms to molecules, stars to galaxies, and people to states- all representative of the different layers of the organization of reality as created by the human mind. These show a system static in time, where the key change is the boundaries of the system in which the mind confines itself. Beginning with the smallest parts (atoms for instance) the mind slowly expands the system to encompass many atoms in the form of a meta-atom, a molecule. These are all the same objects, but the observer merely slides up and down the levels of comprehension of reality. It is the same conglomeration of matter whether regarded as many atoms in a particular pattern or a molecule, (or even many monomers, for example). Not the matter, but the understanding of the matter is changed. The real system that is being imagined is not changing in time- it is a snapshot of reality.
Thus the conception of the static system is what must be focused on- and the conception of a particular molecule contains by definition the understanding of the structure of the molecule, and thus each of it's lower level parts. But all of these parts are considered simultaneously, giving the rough approximation of the variable/constant aspect discussed earlier.
The systems which undergo change within themselves, where time passes and the system changes with or without an observer are more complicated in this aspect.
This is a duality I have been struggling with for a while now- between spatial change and temporal change. Spatial change is where the boundaries of the system are expanded when regarding a snapshot of reality, which is essentially the observer altering their comprehension 'level' of a static system. Here lies the relative nature of everything, where reality is different when viewed on different levels, with no one absolutely 'right' level to view things on. Temporal change is where the system moves through time, and alters itself following the auto-catalytic feedback that we first used to characterize the dynamic. It is the mind itself, with the interacting ideas giving rise to new ideas, etc. It is also the gradual movement of humanity towards a historical singularity and the process of evolution. It really bugs me to have the theory split in two like this, but I can't really deny the differences, now can I?

more later

Philosophy

I'm hoping to post some of our older writings on the blog, but they won't really be organized in any discernable pattern. It is a non-linear fractal theory though, so a little less organization shouldn't hurt anyone. Eventually we will assemble it into some coherent text (or a website in the intervening time) - all for the reader. It's a hard job, but someone has to do it (like max).

So while max is ranting politics, i'll be posting a singularity theory 'manual' for anyone who's interested in the soul-less engineering perspective on the philosophy. here's the intro:


Welcome to Singularity theory- as we refer to it traditionally, but perhaps more aptly called system philosophy- our online accumulation of written material on a particularly obtuse philosophy… of everything.
Before going any further, a quick mention of ourselves. In saying ‘we’, the reference is to Max Berger and Bob Panas, the creators of what you see here. We are both just entering college, and thus are following a rather unpredictable schedule in terms of discussing, writing, posting and planning. This website (now blog) has been our goal for some 8 months now, and beyond this step our next hurdle is rapidly becoming evident- the compliation of a cohesive text explaining singularity/systems philosophy. But to the theory.
If you are seriously interested in the concepts put forth here, do not expect to understand much less read everything in one time, day, week or even month. What is presented to you in this website is the critical concept that there may be some connection, some meaning to the whole crazy world that we swallow in uncomprehending gulps every day. This is to say, the parts that are being connected will be mentioned, but you must read/consider/imagine them for yourself. We will do everything in our power to elucidate the concepts, but they will always remain simply flat and lusterless representations of the undefinably complex understanding that exists in the mind. You must gain this understanding through your own search. To put it bluntly, We can show you the door, but you must pass through.

I would like to state this with all possible earnestness- we make no pretensions to the attainment of the ultimate truth. I do not doubt this theory, these concepts will be found lacking, criticized and broken apart by others, possibly even ourselves. What we have taken for constants will be transcended, and those strange examples that just don’t quite seem to fit in will suddenly make perfect sense. What is important above all else is simply that people know of it, regardless of their value judgments. If someone were to ask “Is this true?” in reference to our theory, I would only laugh at their question. For the only meaningful answer to their question is ‘mu’, an utterly meaningless answer to anyone who does not already understand the theory and thus know the answer to their question to begin with.
Confused? For the answer is both yes, and no. It is true in that it does align with reality in some parts, but like the separate views taken by the blind monks, it is not the truth. This returns to the question of where the person is that exists within the body. Is John in each of his cells? Well, yes and no. ‘mu’. The very concept of an emergent property is that it exists in the system as a whole, but is not to be found in the individual components of the system. It both ‘is’ in the components in that when these pieces are placed together, they are the emergent property, but it also ‘isn’t’ in the components by the intuitive conception of the definition.
That our theory is wrong is quite correct, but that it is right is also undeniable. But enough of that question.

This is a rather long warning for something with so little real value, but my hope is to discourage those would could not possibly benefit, and who would only sourly criticize. We have no place for serious and plodding people. Also, some may not wish to supplant a set of rock solid constant values with a set of concepts based on the melting of these constants into a sea of unformed potentialities. It is a value judgement. It cutting your ‘chains’, you are also cutting your safety line- you may float up, but you will more likely fall to those very depths into which your chains protected you. Neither way is more right than the other, it’s simply a matter of opinion, a matter of choosing how you wish to live your life. Safety and solidity at the expense of fluidity, or chaos at the expense of peace and stability? But I think Nietzsche put it best:

"On the aim of science. —What? The aim of science should be to give men as much pleasure and as little displeasure as possible? But what if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other—that whoever wanted to learn to “jubilate up to the heavens” would also have to be prepared for “depression unto death”? And that is how things may well be. At least the Stoics believed that this was how things were, and they were consistent when they also desired as little pleasure as possible, in order to get as little displeasure as possible out of life. (When they kept saying “The virtuous man is the happiest man,” this was both the school’s eye-catching sign for the great mass and a casuistic subtlety for the subtle.)
To this day you have the choice: either as little displeasure as possible, painlessness in brief—and in the last analysis socialists and politicians of all parties have no right to promise their people more than that—or as much displeasure as possible as the price for the growth of an abundance of subtle pleasures and joys that have rarely been relished yet. If you decide for the former and desire to diminish and lower the level of human pain, you also have to diminish and lower the level of their capacity for joy. Actually, science can promote either goal. So far it may still be better known for its power of depriving man of his joys and making him colder, more like a statue, more stoic. But it might yet be found to be the great dispenser of pain. And then its counterforce might be found at the same time: its immense capacity for making new galaxies of joy flare up."
--“The Gay Science” by Nietzsche (Book 1-12)


The very heart and soul of singularity theory (systemism?) is the transcendence of any constants or stability- to give the soul the power to soar to ever greater heights and sink to ever greater depths.

Near to madness lies wisdom, but common sense is far distanced from both.

Supporting the Troops

Funny how those so quick to stifle dissent on the basis of supporting the troops have no problem with rollbacks in veteran care, the continued death of american soldiers, or the fact that our boys died for lies. The crass nationalism and militarism, combined with the derision faced by anyone who dare even voice disapproval, was unprecedent in this nation's history.

Remember those folks who supported optional wars of aggression, by lying to their people and using the popular misconceptions to bludgeon dissent? They supported the troops like few others, even held huge rallies to support them, with their heroic leader coming to their cheering crowd to declare a "mission accomplished."

Oh now I remember what we used to call those folks. Nazis.

Tipping Point, and why it took so long

It seems the tipping point is near. Finally. This article about the American Matrix seemed very well suited for a link on this here blog.

I got me thinking about the run up to war, and just how the hell, even now with the overwhelming evidence coming back to confirm the suspicions and warnings of the anti war forces, the public submits to the decpection. I have come to think its the inevitable result of the large forces operating upon our society. Time is speeding up, things change faster and faster, and we expect more and more. The Brave New World is created when instant gratification becomes more important than truth. The people feel that the truth no longer matters, because the falsity in the nobles lies being told does not affect their everyday lives- untill they see the towers falling. Most people are just fundamentally unable to concieve of abstract thought; the spectrum of what people consider to effect their lives is very limited. In our society we have reached a point where we don't have to concern ourselves with being lied to, because the lie works. We have our SUV's, our white, middle class homes, and our reality TV, and that is enough. The blue pill is easier to swallow for most people, because life inside the matrix isn't that bad...
I just hope that when the truth breaks out from under the weight of it's chains that we all can leave the matrix with it.

Truth Squad 1, Bush 0

Turns out Billmon already has a pretty decent list of quotes about "Iraqi freedom"

Truth Squad

On a blog somewhere (unfortunatly I can't remember where) I read an idea that someone put forth about a team, set up by the democrats, that would go around to all the Bush events that would present the reality of the situation, as oppossed to the stream of unmitigated ignorance pouring forth from his mouth. This seems like a useful, if audacious, idea, and while it would never happen by the dems, someone still needs to be categorizing the Bush lies, and contrasting them with the reality of the situation.
Over the next couple of days, I will try to start compiling links to do just that on issues such as: taxes, the FCC, the war and WMD, terrorism, education, healthcare and the election. Any help you can offer in terms of serving up links or info on any of these subjects would be much appreciated.

Why can't I be Paul Krugman?

More Good News

The FCC decision made headlines today (finally). Even with the decision, there is a ray of light shining at the end of the tunnel. It appears that the political opposition to the ruling is signifigant enough to garner the support of the senate.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators opposed to television networks expanding their reach expressed confidence they had the votes to roll back a rule adopted by communications regulators on Monday.

The group said it was pressing ahead with legislation to retain limits keeping a network from owning stations that together reach more than 35 percent of the national audience.

While it remains unclear whether they would choose to keep the other restrictions, the fact that this is in the news, being debated by the public, and oppossed bipartisanly in the senate has to be a good sign for american democracy.

the truth shall set you free… eventually

It seems, finally, that the pendulum has begun to swing back the other way. In discussions with several friends today I have begun to see various scenarios that the Democrats win the White House in 2004. The problem is that Bush has been able to gloss over the underlying shitty reality- up to this point. At some point the problems he is creating will get to such a point that they absolutely necessitate an admittance of failure, and inevitably, the placing of blame.

Several pieces of news in today’s papers give a feeling that the shift from the barrage of propaganda to a return sanity is finally near. First of all we have a solid condemnation by the justice department of the way aliens have been detained since 9/11:

Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, today issued a report examining the treatment of aliens held on immigration charges in connection with the investigation of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Department of Justice (Department) used federal immigration laws to detain aliens in the United States who were suspected of having ties to the attacks or connections to terrorism, or who were encountered during the course of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) investigation into the attacks. In the 11 months after the attacks, 762 aliens were detained in connection with the FBI terrorism investigation for various immigration offenses, including overstaying their visas and entering the country illegally.

This may not cause a major scandal, but could provide a beginning for the checks to start balancing out the damage that has been done to our political system. The other ones, formerly known as the members of congress, have begun to show signs of life. The fact that people’s credibility (the intelligence community, the congress, the media) are being threatened might be our saving grace. While these folks were duped, dumped or disgraced by the administration’s claims about the threat posed by Iraq, in the absence of the discovery of WMD are scrambling to save face. No intelligence officer wants this painted as a failure of intelligence, because it was the Office of Selective Intelligence, mockingly derided as the cabal, that was providing the pro war intelligence, and not the professional intelligence community. It is quite clear the intelligence that was collected by the CIA and others was lied about, purposefully, by an administration bent on war. The intell community won’t take the fall for the misuse of their good work.

No congressman or woman wants the failure pinned on their inability to see through the president’s bullshit (although that was the case). So now we have this:

Lawmakers from both parties, saying the United States' credibility is at stake, on Monday pressed the Bush administration to offer more information behind its charges that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said his panel would hold hearings on the issue, possibly along with the Senate Intelligence Committee, because "the situation is becoming one where the credibility of the administration and Congress is being challenged.

Indeed. And the good senator from Virginia, along with many other senators across the board are starting to wake up to, or at least publicly acknowledge, the less than honest nature of the march to war.

The american system of checks and balances assumes only one thing: everyone is out to save their own ass. Although so many public "servents" failed us in the march to war, they now have to stand up to the truth to salvage their credibility. The boots stomping out the freedom they were suppossed to marching for have fallen silent, and filling that silence is the voices of those who were stampeded over.

What is the Matrix

The only way a democratic society can save itself is if it uses the language of the image as a means of self reflection, and not an invitation to hypnosis.
- Umberto Eco

The world our generation has known has been filled with play dates, soccer games and rising stock markets. We have known only the unimpeded march of prosperity, sparkled with special effects produced by the gadgetry of the digital revolution. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the beginning of our school careers; the formative conflict of our childhood was between Michelangelo and Shredder. The sexual affairs of the president were considered a major political problem and the custody battle of a 5 year old Cuban boy posed as an international incident. It seemed we had reached the end of history.

And then came September 11th. How many times have we heard that since that fateful, tragic day? Let us not forget, it began as any other day. It was a Tuesday, our second day of school. I was a junior in Ms. Roney’s 3rd period English class. I was sitting in the back of the class when Mr. Pierce frantically came over the loudspeaker, desperately trying to make us aware of the days events. The wobbly voice on the loudspeaker explained, “Two planes have been hijacked and crashed. The pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York have been attacked.” There were a few minutes for us to gather our thoughts and move on with class.

We went home and were bombarded with images of terror and destruction. “It’s just like a movie” became a mantra, a motto, to the MTV generation. It was the only way we could conceive of such epic events. Our eyes had seen this violence before, wrought by our own hands with controllers to video games. This history unfolding before our eyes could not fit in that universe we had previously inhabited, it was no longer real enough for reality. It was time for a paradigm shift.

No longer was our generation assured of a cakewalk. We had been promised a future similar to the placidity of our former lives. We assumed there’d be budget surpluses and high speed internet access, 401k and social security, liberty and justice for all. More importantly, we didn’t have to care about it. We used to be able to watch “West Wing” without knowing the current news of politics, because we didn’t think it mattered in our lives.


For the first time to many in our generation, the events of the larger world hit home. The stories on the local news about cats in trees, or the dangers of insect repellent no longer seemed merely frivolous and extraneous, but meaningless. While the tremendous lose of life focused us on the importance of the small things in our lives, the somber mood of the day allowed for a level of introspection that as a culture we seem reluctant to allow. America is what it is today because it forges on, full steam ahead, through anything that happens. The gravity of the moment caused a brief pause in the daily manifestation of destiny. For a few days, the magical kingdom was devoid of visitors.

Americans pronounced their commitment to their freedom, and promised to do whatever it took to protect it. The flag became ubiquitous in post September 11th America. We were rallied to a common cause in the face of an attack on our home land. The attention of the public was acutely focused on the ideals this nation was founded upon. It seemed that the images of the colossal carnage would be the impetus for our society to reflect upon how we reached that point in our history.

Since then, we have had a tremendous failure of American democracy. The images of September 11th have been used to hypnotize the public, while the administration has taken advantage of a misinformed and scared populace. The administration purposefully obfuscates the truth to accomplish goals they would not be able to if we were to have a frank discussion. The media have been coerced into a position of conformity of official thought, to a degree that is unprecedented in American history. Fundamentally, however, the failure lies with the people of the United States, even those in our generation, who are being able to be lead around because of their blindness.

In the build up to war this violation was particularly egregious. Time and time again, we were told of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and his weapons of mass destruction. While there was substantial evidence from the intelligence community stating the lack of a threat posed by Iraq, and a total lack of evidence, our government was pronouncing to the world the necessity of this action. The administration now admits that it trumped up the charges of WMD to build a case for war. The administration felt it necessary to take the fight overseas after September 11th, and thought a war could “send a message.” The war was perpetrated against Saddam Hussein because he fit the criteria of a good target, and fell in a key region.

Is “sending a message” a sufficient reason to initiate a war? That is debatable, and a case can certainly be made for its necessity. However, that case was not made to the American public. We were led off to war for false pretenses. The case Colin Powell made before the United Nations was proven bogus by the administrations own admission that we are not likely to find any WMD, because they didn’t exist, or were destroyed.

And yet, on the eve of the war, 60 % of American’s believed that Saddam Hussein was personally linked to the September 11th attacks, which was never even claimed by the government. A full 80 % believed that Iraq had links with Al Qaeda, a claim that has come under fire from current and former intelligence officials. If, as Thomas Jefferson said, “The basis of a healthy democracy is a well informed public,” then we must be concerned for our health.

The march to war also allowed the government to take vast new and secretive powers. These powers do not come under scrutiny in the public domain, so there is no way for us to know if the government is misusing their new abilities to stifle dissent, or other threatening and illegal means. The Patriot Act of 2001 was passed without any debate, essentially doing away with the fourth amendment. Our freedoms we vowed were so important are being eroded, and most of the country has no idea about it.

We have already reverted back to normal. The public has receded from the brink of abstract thought, to a mode of emotionally driven thinking plagued by a fundamental inability to pierce the veil of misinformation. We have returned to the mall, to our SUV’s, to the magical kingdom without an appreciation for how the minutiae of daily life fits into the vastness of the universe. We went from reality to reality TV. With “embedded reporters” and a vast Hollywood setup at CENTCOM, there wasn’t really much of a difference.


That ignorance is no longer acceptable. As a citizen of this nation, a nation composed by the people, of the people, for the people, we all have a responsibility to stay informed, and to protect our rights and values against tyranny. We do this by questioning the reality put forth to us. This is not just our right, but our duty. We have allowed the mere images floating before our eyes to pass as reality, caught up in an expanding matrix of information. But this video game has no reset button, no pause, no controller. It is impossible to confront the lurking agents that threaten your freedom while asphyxiated by this devoutly American dream. We have been hypnotized long enough.


Wake Up.

The home of the free...

Stop the FCC

Michael Powell and the FCC need to be stopped. Their plan to deregulate the already deregulated media industry would diminish public debate, which has already been seriously dampened. The FCC has been paid off, and is in the pocket of big media. They will claim that new mediums, such as blogs, will be able to counter the massive offensive capabilities of the giant media megaphone conglomorate. As this conglomorate allies itself with the powers that be, innovation, dissent and conversation suffer, culture suffers, democracy suffers, and Rupert Murdoch gets rich. While I like the Simpsons as much as the next guy, a media totally dominated by News Corp and the like (even more than it is today) is a frightening thought.

I'm from the Boston area, and the idea of media consolidation hits very close to home. The New York Times Corp owns both local papers, and both the Boston papers. The radio, which used to set a standard of independance nationally and could be counted on to find new, exciting music, has become... well the same as everywhere else: boring, stale and unable to take risks. Consider your own area, and I'm sure you'll find it the same. We, the public, has a right to those airwaves, and we have to ensure for a diversity of voices. While we'll continue to assert our rights, asking blogs to take on the media machine is like trying to kill a vampire with a tooth pick; its the right idea, but good luck to the guy who has to do it.

Hessian Transformation - From Bob Panas, nano tech student at MIT. Hessian transformation is another explination of the basic dynamic of singularity theory.

Herman Hesse proposed that characters in novels follow a recognizable pattern of transformation throughout the story. This pattern begins with complete innocence, where the character exists in a state of simplicity, ignorance, and commonly some sort of Eden-like joy. Some transformative action serves to knock the character out of this unified world, opening the character’s eyes to the true nature of reality around them. They are booted out of the garden of Eden and fall into a harsh and unforgiving world. This transformation comes as a sort of awakening of the understanding, the mind is released from the simple and orderly world in which it had dwelled and shown the vast depths of the world that surrounds this old paradise. In this can be seen the metaphorical ‘fall from grace’ and the corresponding sense of being adrift. For it is the new world, the one much larger and so much less comprehensible, that the character now seeks to find meaning in. But the old methods of innocence no longer work, and the character must redefine their very understanding of themselves as they try to come to terms with this new existence. Everything is seen in a new light and must be judged using new methods, for the old have simply ceased to have meaning in this different world. This state is strongly antithetical to the initial state of innocence, and is marked by sorrow and suffering where the other was marked by joy. The meaning and wholesomeness of the first falls to the confusion and disconnectedness of the second. From the second phase, the transformation can take two paths. First, the character can reach the final stage of ascention, or he/she can fail to do so. In other words, ascention or death. Out of the sorrow and separation of the second phase, the character may find themselves and in doing so come to understand the world. In doing this, the character returns to the initial state that they were in, but it is now at a higher level, for it encompasses the whole world. Where it once covered a small, singular world, now the character’s understanding reaches out to grasp the whole world with all of it’s new distinctions and infinite potentialities. Through another transformative act, this formerly piece-meal understanding of the world is brought together into a meaningful unity, returning the character to a meaningful existence- but on a fundamentally higher level now. If this process of ascention is not successful, the character is doomed to remain in the state of ‘the fall’, being unable to return to the original state of grace. Once the unity of the original state is broken by the first transformative act, it is impossible for that vision to be forgotten by the character. Like wanderlust, the character cannot escape this ever-calling compulsion to a greater realization of the self. Because of this, the character is caught in the second stage of suffering until they have either ascended or died trying.
There is little need to describe the singularity dynamic here, for it is perfectly represented part for part, change for change. The initial state is a singularity, which is found to be a multiplicity on a higher level by the character. The character then gains knowledge of multiplicity, with the necessary categorization of reality that gives rise to differences and hence better or worse, good or bad. The multiplicity either interacts in a self-accelerating fashion to reach infinity and hence a singularity on a higher level; Conversely, the system ‘dies’ and the self-interaction is in some way bounded. Thus, it will not reach infinity, and the process of transcendence can never be achieved.

Divine Conception: some writing on singularity

The history of mankind is inexorably linked to the progression of our conception of the divine. At the most basic level of knowledge, from our widest vantage point, we view the world through a lens that is colored by the instinct to make order out of the perpetual blur of earthly events. The continual evolution of existence manifests itself in human understanding and we constantly reorganize our selves, as institutions and individuals, to reflect the divine order we seek to piece together.

We now see our world through the reflection of our past. Scientists now can describe to us to a reasonable degree of certainty most of the major events in the development in humanity from the big bang to the rise of civilization. From our modern perspective we are able to see the sequence and ascertain a degree of order to the process. We can see the pieces of the puzzle coming together as life in its current incarnation came into form.

The sight of this progression leads to a conception of an intelligent creator. We see subatomic particles coalescing into heavy atoms, and then lighter atoms. Dark matter canceling out light matter, and the elements being formed. Stars growing out of the nebula, whole galaxies of them in the newly formed existence. We see planets and satellites. Earth bares witness to the creation of oceans and land. We grow from single celled prokaryotes into complicated networks of specialized eukaryotes. We climb out of the oceans and make a name for our selves upon the land. We make the leap from vantage point of the dumb beasts. We can speak. We have fire, and now we can see. These are the movements in God’s great symphony. This begs the question: must there have been a conductor?

A fractal can serve as a perfect example of this type of thoughtless design. A function of relatively simple complexity is graphed. The function is repeated over and over and over again. With each iteration the picture becomes more complex. Patterns emerge and the fractal takes shape. The shape can not be predicted by the original function, but must be graphed out. The different layers of the fractal are each manifestations of basic structure, and are identical to each other. This does not occur as a result of design on the part of the person who conceives of the function or charts the graph. The extreme complexity and fractal symmetry arise because of the multiplicity of the iterations.

The belief in an intelligent creator is founded on the assumption that these events could not have happened without an intelligence to shape them. This comes from a perspective that allows one to observe the events after the fact. Those type of a posteriori judgments are ignoring the simple fact that the appearance of order does not, in retrospect, signify any type of planning, intervention, or thought.

There is a simple explanation for an observer’s prejudices in this regard called the anthropocentric principle. It states that human’s are limited in their ability to conceive of different forms of life because we only have knowledge of one form of life. We find that our perspective can not be aided by virtue of having known another perspective to consider. We think of ourselves the way we do because we are the way we are.

The odds of us appearing the way we are simply by chance are infinitesimally small. However, this does not demonstrate the inevitability of a singular intelligent creator who designed the universe to be suitable to our conditions of growth. The odds appear this way because we do not realize the other possibilities that could go into the numerator; while earth might not have intelligent progeny inevitably some place in the vastness of the universe would bear witness to the creation of some sort of sentience.

Freud once said that anatomy is destiny. While this phrase in particular has become something of an antiquity we can still identify with the essence of the remark. An underlying theme of many of the scientific and philosophic inventions of the modern era has been the idea that all abstractions derive from a physical process. The essence of an object is not separate from its disparate pieces, but is contained in the sum of those pieces.

Physical existence is composed of matter and energy. We have come to see that these distinctions are themselves false, and these two concepts are two sides of the same coin. Tangible objects that exist have dimensions in space time, and have energy. By this definition it could be said that ideas do not exist, because they have neither dimension in space time or energy, as in the ability to do work.

Ideas exist, but they do not constitute objects in the physical realm. They exist as frameworks, ethereal structures on which to hang objects that can be identified. Ideas are abstractions of the physical, in that they are based upon the level of existence we are based in. We perceive things beyond matter and energy. This distinction is key, in that it demonstrates the simultaneous casual relationship and separation between body and mind. In a relationship comparable to matter and energy we find body and mind are connected.

An example of this distinction is made in a visualization of communication between individuals of an intangible idea. When one person expresses to another the idea of love a complex transaction takes place. The person vibrates their vocal cords and moves the air at distinct frequencies to create different words. The air moves and the sound is interpreted by the other individual. They identify the frequencies and piece together the meaning of the words, as neurons fire in their brain, codifying different emotions and thoughts. Past memories relating to the occurrence are activated. The individual reinterprets the vibrations of the other person’s vocal cords and can derive meaning. This occurs because the idea is not contained within the throat or the air that moves or the neurons in a person’s head, but is abstracted from the physical process, separated, but made possible by the existence of the different means of transport of the idea that exist in the physical realm.

It is language that separates man from the brutish harshness of material existence and connects him to the world of ideas. Abstraction is made possible by language, because language allows man to derive meaning from the physical process by assigning values to different words. The words themselves serve to allow man to view the world as distinct bodies. Words serve to break the world down, from the holistic view of what physically is to an intangible world of what could or should be.

The existence of language is the impetus for the creation of the world of ideas. The physical process of animal existence gave rise to the creation of language, which began the creation of this higher level of consciousness that we recognize as human sentience. Without language we could not conceive of ideas, because they would not be separated from the physical process. The degree of separation is necessary to our conscious ability to discern meaning.

In the same way that language creates a higher level of consciousness by separating itself from the world it was based upon, other levels of consciousness are possible. In our human form, we have seen only the physical world as we know it, and the world of ideas as is based on the world we have seen. Anything conscious beyond this point, or as a sum of these worlds, is attributed to god, and can not be defined in human terms.

Again, the anthropocentric principle makes us aware of our ignorance. The fact that we do not know of or can not conceive of other levels or realms of consciousness does not preclude the possibility that they exist. Nor does our inability at this point to decipher such matters mean that these possible forms of consciousness are God. In fact, these different sentient beings may not consist of matter or energy, and could exist in a possibility we had not accounted for.

A sentient being that transcends its universe creates another universe. The being’s previous universe would not fail to exist, but the new universe could either be based on top of the physical structure of the previous, as with the human invention of language, or could be a completely separate physical universe. More likely, words are not able to fully describe the mode of existence of the being’s previous universe. By definition it is completely different from anything we’ve ever known.

It is important to consider the different layers of organization that exist. The different layers of organization are distinct selves. In the same way that if the neurons in our brain are conscious we don’t know it, we would remain ignorant of higher levels of consciousness that we are a part of. Layers of organization have a fractal complexity built in. The dynamics of the different layers are separate, but mimic each other. There is symmetry between the dynamics of the macroscopic and the microscopic. In the same way that ontology recapitulates phylogeny we see that dynamics of complex systems create similar trends in dissimilar bodies. To put it more boldly; the human mimics the divine, the personal mimics the universal.

This is seen most clearly in the will to singularity. The will to singularity can be seen in human terms throughout the culture of all civilizations. The exile from the garden of Eden comes after the acquisition of knowledge, and the awareness of multiplicity. Christ is also a significant story in the return to singularity. The Christ figure sacrifices his personal perspective and self to become a part of the universal self that is a higher level of consciousness. This return to singularity is closely associated with transcendence.

Transcendence is a form of existence beyond or above physical matter. It is an abstraction of existence. It is what one would be if their body became like mind, real like ideal, matter like energy. It is the intangible leap that ideas make into the realm beyond the physical. This leap leads a form of life beyond the physical process which it was born out of.

Singularity is a condition of transcendence. In birth and death, we are singular, and they are singular events. The universe as we know it began with a singularity, which was followed by the big bang. The big bang destroyed the singularity of the primordial atom and hurtled out matter and energy. Physicists now see two possible fates awaiting the universe: 1) a heat death where entropy and the eternal expansion of the universe lead to the degradation of all energy into heat, or 2) a big crunch, the opposite of the big bang. Either way even such a large entity as the universal self is faced with a problem that strikes at the very root of existence; die or become a singularity and transcend to create a new universe of existence.

Humanity has also began to take the first steps down the road that leads to that unavoidable question. Since the inception of man we have had a basic duality that has shown itself in many ways; between beast and god, real and ideal, mind and body, capable of good and evil. These distinctions are all at their heart expressions of the same idea. It is the overwhelming feeling that humanity has the ability to create something on a truly divine scale. It may be possible for humanity to either themselves transcend the physical realm, or to create another universe of existence, in which we ourselves are God.

The possibility of a Nietzschean superman became plausible the day that man invented computers. Here was an intelligent machine we had created, out of our own image. The intelligent designers of computers have created a universe that exists outside the physical realm of our existence. This is not transcendence however, we still can die inside the physical realm, thus the abyss has not been crossed.

We can consider the intelligent creator as a similar singularity of a previous generation of life. Transcendence from one universe leads to the creation of another form of existence because it is outside of the universe it is born out of and must exist somewhere. This conception of the intelligent creator certainly consists of a higher intelligence, but is not an absolute. If there is one thing our modern age has taught us, it is that everything is relative.

Computers are interesting beyond the possibility of being our own little universe because they are one of the only human inventions that is not based on any evolutionary phenomenon. Art is man's sole metaphysical activity, all other innovations are extensions of basic survival needs, easily connected to their roots in the physical process of evolution. Computing is the first technology that man has invented that is not based on a survival need in some way. It is the first bridge of the gap between our level of consciousness and one beyond us.

As any parent will tell you, after a child achieves knowledge they will not believe in their parents infallibility. In fact, this point of understanding the fallibility of those above ones self is in many ways one and the same as the acquisition of knowledge. With the creation of language man acquired knowledge, and as in the garden of Eden, lost his unspoken link to any god that might exist. We had intelligence of our own. This in and of itself separates us from god as a designer because we could recognize what he had done wrong. Whether or not a god existed before this, it became obsolete with the rise of language.

Any argument for god, and that is what the argument for an intelligent designer is, must contend with the existence of evil. The teleological argument must refer to more specific faults of the programmer. It is hard to believe that any programmer worth his keyboard would willingly allow for bugs in their software. Cancer, and other similar conditions that occur within the very programming of life, seem to be defects in the sense that in a world created for life to flourish cancer would not exist.

A life affirming mentality is not to consecrate the necessity of an intelligent designer that had us in mind in his creation of the universe. This diminishes the randomness of our form of life and ignores the physical processes that paved the road to our destiny. To assume the existence of an intelligent designer is simply superfluous; for humans to arise the way they did the creator did not need to have us in mind.

The physical process of our universe strives for a return to singularity. The life forms that arose from these processes also strive for singularity because they are the products of the physical realm. When humanity creates a universe inside a computer we control time and space, and are omnipotent gods. This is because computers are not sentient, they can not live for a time when they themselves can propagate their offspring into the world, and strive for higher levels of consciousness. The development of artificial intelligences will lead to a loss of control over how our creation thinks. This parallels our own rise to sentience.

The most broad view of the anthropocentric principle will stretch far enough to show us that because we exist the way we do, we conceive of existence the way we do. We must allow for forms of existence, and consciousness that are beyond those found in our universe. We can still listen for god's music, revealing in the awesome sound, ultimately not minding whether it is meant for us or not. We are satisfied because we know, one day we too shall make music. Soren Kierkegaard’s last words were, "Lift me up!" We can only hope that humanity has it the same way.

Nixon Remixed- ignore that man behind the curtain

The memory of the Nixon presidency remains a blight upon the democratic principles the US is based on. Nixon himself is a joke, nothing but a caricature. The picture of the increasingly paranoid Nixon standing with Elvis vowing to wipe out the corrupting influence of drugs is a staple in dorm rooms around the country. The legacy of the Nixon administration is a warning of what happens when the executive accumulates power, wraps themselves in secrecy and is left to it's own devices. The trajectory from the continuation of the quagmire in Vietnam, to the secret war in Cambodia, to the "secret strategy" to get America out of the war, to the cover up of the pentagon papers to the bungled burglary at Watergate is the story of an administration abusing its power to protect itself. It shows a president who did irrevocable damage to the democratic process, and who misunderstands the way to govern a democratic society.

Nixon continued to perpetrate the war in Vietnam even as it became more and more obvious that the situation was unwinnable. In extending the war to Cambodia he desperately sought to avert a situation where his presidency had to admit defeat. The war was withheld from public view by the manipulation of the media. After it was found out, the government tried to cover it up, even resorting to out right lies. The manipulation of the media and the public by the Nixon administration was amateurish, and ultimately failed because of it's heavy handed approach.

The suppression of the pentagon papers, and the use of the national security apparatus to discredit political opponents were such blatant abuses of power that Nixon was caught red handed. To break into a building and use slush funds to stifle dissent are direct contraventions of the democratic process that the nation was forced to take notice. The courage of the journalists who exposed the lies, the public servants who took their duty to be more important than their career and the presence of the eyes of the nation that bore witness to these crimes saved the nation from the run away authority of the executive. There was no reason to accept these anti democratic action, there was a political process that was dedicated to questioning the statements of those in power and a press that was willing and able to examine the veracity of publicly accepted facts.

The Bush administration is as egregious in it's anti democratic abuses of power as was the Nixon administration, only it finds an environment where such abuses are ignored, obfuscated, unquestioned, or at times when fear is exploited, even accepted. From the arrival of George II on the national scene in the 2000 presidential campaign, he has shown disdain for the democratic process. Thousands of black voters were wiped from voting rolls days before the election by a company with Republican ties, supported and chosen by brother Jeb. The illegal annotation by the supreme court, who illegally intervened in a process that was very clearly within the jurisdiction of the Florida state supreme court, threw out thousands of votes and gave a ruling so suspect that it claimed no precedent, and asked not to lay one.


The national psyche was made vulnerable by the September 11th attacks. The terror attacks fulfilled their intent- the public was fearful. This vulnerability has been exploited by the Bush administration. Instead of a reflective and wise leader, inspiring us in our moment of fear, we had scare mongering tactics like this:

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. Here

Terrorism is used just as communism used to be, as a straw man enemy to scare the public into accepting things they otherwise wouldn't. This administration persecuted the war in Iraq much the same way that the Cambodian war was prosecuted- because the president didn't want to lose a war- or appear to be losing a war. It has become quite obvious that the claims that justified the use of force were at least hyped, and at worst lies. These same abuses of power, lies and cover ups got Nixon kicked out of power, but Bush has learned from Nixon's mistakes. Karl Rove, the president's top political operative, worked on Nixon's CREEP campaign in 1972 and realized that the candidate who conquered the television, who could make the images sell the politics, would win the election.

This president has learned the lesson of the image well. While the truth of the president's offensive against freedom since 9/11 is well documented, his alleged vigorous, heroic defense of freedom is the version the public believes. Today, we don't have pentagon papers, but there are substantial leaks of misuse of intelligence, and a politicization of the intelligence apparatus that was instrumental in the lead up to war. These are allowed into the public domain, but are covered up by stories alleging discoveries of WMD (which inevitably turn up false), allegations about Iran (or whoever the new Enemy is), a rising of the terror threat, or a triumphant image of the president stepping off a jet. While the real response to September 11th was paranoid, secretive and irresponsible- even to the point of complicacy- the public will get the image the administration wants them to get- through a TV movie they are producing.

Justifying Our Existance

The title for this blog was taken from many sources, which, considered together, show the different areas of interest to it's authors. The phrase "desert of the real" has been used by philosophers for centuries, and refers to the underlying reality that is unsullied by perception or perspective. It was used by Camus to discuss the problems facing humanity in modern and post modern times, when our successes in freeing ourselves from absolutes results in a profound emptiness at the heart of existance.

The pharse was recently updated to the cutting edge of culture when it was used in the first Matrix movie. Morpheus says to Neo upon entering the matrix for the first time, " Welcome to the desert of the real." He explains that humanity has been taken hostage by machines who enslave us for our energy, that human civilization reached its pinnacle in the late 20th century, before artifical intelligence was created and took over the world. The world he lived in was a giant computer simulated reality to keep him subdued. Mundi Vult Decepi- The world wants to be decieved. The burnt out city that lay in the background was an artifact of the deserted reality.

This was the current desert of the real, the world as it existed in it's present state. The Matrix was a film that could only come out a time when the matrix itself was presenting itself. The only way the desert of the real could be presented as distinct from reality was when the truth was being obfrusciated, distorted, marginalized, commodified or just plan covered up.

Again, life imitates art imitating life. The political situation of day involves a war, in the desert. Our media is embedded in the military machine that perpetrates the war, creating a flow of images designed to consign the public to a hypnotized mass, blinded by the false reality. The war on television was inevitably a fiction, while in the desert, the war was unmistakably real. Our intelligence turned out to be artifical, and the agents took full advantage.

It's time to wake up.