novelty theory

[mnaz]

speaking of aliens, and the spiritual desert of runaway consumerism and the end of the world and stuff . . . . i thought i might post some of terence mckenna's "timewave zero" elucidations . . . .

http://deoxy.org/t_adt.htm

--- " . . . Have you ever noticed how ahh, there's this quality to reality which comes and goes, and kind of ebbs and flows and nobody ever mentions it or has a name for it except some people call it a 'bad hair day' or some people say 'Things are really weird recently.' And I think we never notice it and we never talk about it because we're embedded in a culture that expects us to believe that all times are the same . . . . And so what I noticed was that running through reality is the ebb and flow of novelty. And some days, and some centuries are very novel indeed, and some ain't. And they come and go on all scales differently, interweaving, resonating. And Science has overlooked this, this most salient of facts about nature . . . .

And from the very first moments of that most improbable big bang, novelty has been conserved because in the very beginning there was only an ocean of energy pouring into the universe. There were no planets, no stars, no molecules, no atoms, no magnetic fields; there was only an ocean of free electrons. And then time passed and the universe cooled and novel structures crystallized out of disorder. First, atoms; atoms of hydrogen and helium aggregating into stars. And at the center of those stars the temperature and the pressure created something which had never been seen before which was fusion. And fusion cooking in the hearts of stars brought forth more novelty: heavy elements - iron, carbon, four-valent carbon. And as time passed there were not only then elementary systems but because of the presence of carbon and the lower temperatures in the universe, molecular structures. And out of molecules come simple subsets of organism. The genetic machinery for transcripting information, aggregating into membranes, always binding novelty, always condensing time, always building and conserving upon complexity, and always faster and faster and faster . . .

Five million years ago we were an animal of some sort. Where will we be five million years from tonight? What we represent is not a sideshow, or an epiphenomenon, or an ancillary something-or-other on the edge of nowhere. What WE represent is the nexus of concrescent novelty that has been moving itself together, complexifying itself, folding itself in upon itself for billions and billions of years. There is, so far as we know, nothing more advanced than what is sitting behind your eyes. The human neocortex is the most densely ramified complexified structure in the known universe . . . . But now, and by now I mean in the last 10,000 years, we're into something new. Not genetic information, not genetic mutation, not natural selection, but epigenetic activity: writing, theatre, poetry, dance, art, tattooing, body piercing and philisophy. And these things have accelerated the ingression into novelty so that we have become an idea excreting force in nature that builds temples, builds cities, builds machines, social engines, plans, and spreads over the Earth, into space, into the micro-physical domain . . . .

Something is calling us out of nature and sculpting us in it's own image. And the confrontation with this something is now not so far away. This is what the impending apparent end of everything actually means. It means that the de-no-ma(?) of human history is about to occur and is about to be revealed as a universal process of compressing and expressing novelty that is now going to become so intensified that it is going to flow over into another dimension. The wave of novelty that has rolled unbroken since the birth of the universe has now focussed and coalesced itself in our species. And if it seems unlikely to you that the world is about to transform itself, then think of it this way: think of a pond, and think of how if the surface of the pond begins to boil - that's the signal that some enormous protean form is about to break the surface of the pond and reveal itself. Human history IS the boiling of the pond surface of ordinary biology.

We are flesh which has been caught in the grip of some kind of an attractor that lies ahead of us in time, and that is sculpting us to its ends; speaking to us through psychedelics, through visions, through culture, and technology, consciousness. The language forming capacity in our species is propelling itself forward as though it were going to shed the monkey body and leap into some extra-surreal space that surrounds us, but that we can not currently see. Even the people who run the planet, the World Bank, the IMF, you name it, they know that history is ending. They know by the reports which cross their desks: the disappearance of the ozone hole [?], the toxification of the ocean, the clearing of the rain forests. What this means is that the womb of the planet has reached its finite limits, and that the human species has now, without choice, begun the decent down the birth canal of collective transformation toward something right around the corner and nearly completely unimaginable.

A shaman is someone who has seen the end, and therefore is a trickster, because you don't worry if you've seen the end. If you know how it comes out you go back and you take your place in the play, and you let it all roll on without anxiety. This is what boundary dissolution means. It means nothing less than the anticipation of the end state of human history. A return to the archaic mode. A rediscovery of the orgiastic freedom of the African grasslands of 20,000 years ago. A techno-escape forward into a future that looks more like the past than the future because materialism, consumerism, product-fetishism, all of these things will be eliminated and technology will become nanotechnology and disappear from our physical presence. If we have the dream, if we allow the wave of novelty to propel us toward the creativity that is inimitable to the human condition . . . . We are all survivors. We are the inheritors of a million years of striving for the unspeakable. And now with the engines of technology in our hands we ought to be able to reach out and actually exteriorize the human soul at the end of time, invoke it into existence like a UFO and open the violet doorway into hyperspace and walk through it, out of profane history and into the world beyond the grave, beyond shamanism, beyond the end of history, into the galactic millenium that has beckoned to us for millions of years across space and time. THIS IS THE MOMENT. A planet brings forth an opportunity like this only once in its lifetime, and we are ready, and we are poised. And as a community we are ready to move into it, to claim it, to make it our own . . . ."

wow...

[stilltrucking]

A shaman is someone who has seen the end, and therefore is a trickster, because you don't worry if you've seen the end. If you know how it comes out you go back and you take your place in the play, and you let it all roll on without anxiety. This is what boundary dissolution means. It means nothing less than the anticipation of the end state of human history

They are so cute when they are young, it could change in a generation, maybe it already has and I have not noticed. With a little luck I might be gone, but part of me would like to stick around and see the end of human history. The end of humans. Geez so got dam many of us, hard to wipe out seven billion critters.

Or does he mean something else, that there will still be humans but we will not have history?

Pretty deep thinking, I don't get it. I want to stumble on in ignorance and hope that if we can just keep prolonging the end we will make it all disapear into nano technology. "all watched over by machines of loving grace?"
is that the point?
I hope so I am grasping at straws, "Novelty" yes the same old same old in the middle east, nothing new under the sun they say, well maybe thermonuclear weapons. I would sure like to see some novelty here too. Is there good novelty and bad novelty I wonder.

thanks for something to write about

[mnaz]

yeah man. pretty mind-blowing stuff. "out-of-the-box" and then some. i just find his ideas fascinating. they inspired that "stoned ape evolution" poem i did a while ago...

at least he puts "history" in its place, so he couldn't be all bad ....
jeez, i've been bouncing around this place for years claiming history is overrated. finally, someone who agrees !!

[stilltrucking]

I guess I like history for its entertainment value.
He is fascinating, I just barely skimmed it. That first bit about the shaman just jumped out at me, also the bit about nanotechnology and hope.

A techno-escape forward into a future that looks more like the past than the future because materialism, consumerism, product-fetishism, all of these things will be eliminated and technology will become nanotechnology and disappear from our physical presence.

http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.p ... n+#p125937

Thanks for posting
thanks for something to think about besides the eyewitness news.

Human history IS the boiling of the pond surface of ordinary biology.

[Steve Plonk]

Kind folks & gentle people, I think we live on a USED earth on BORROWED time...
We are the supposed "crown of creation" on this planet and I think it is
almost too late to be good stewards of creation that G-d entrusted to us...
We need to get on the stick & think of every single day as EARTH DAY...
We need to get out the vote and VOTE OUR PREFERENCE...salvage what remains...

[mnaz]

yes, vote for one side or the other of the dominator culture. the one that's failed us for untold thousands of years . . .

yes, i'm mr. sunshine this morning . . .