four in to one and out

The Loa.

Zero point theory, the singularity the virtual state

this piece is sloppy even for me but the simple fact is I don't have a great interest in explaining things to you. If I can trigger some response that's preferable -  as Dylan said the best you can do is inspire.

An homage to certain characters. Wittgensteins influence might be discernible – I increasingly work in the disjuncted paragraphs that made his blue book such a fun read. It is also a style put to good use in the Koran.

& secondly It's time I sent a word about Jack Kennedy

• none of us are perfect – be both had bartenders on both sides of the family and both had families that were enriched by the prohibition. His family was never referenced by Scott Fitzgerald on the other hand. More importantly both of us lived lives in the shadow of medicine and sickness and both realized that a good enemy was worth a dozen friends.

much of what follows ought be comprehend able to those familiar with my work – the new concept is Loa which is the African version of a polytheistic entity. We have long been aware that the difference between the greeco-roman pantheon and the African one is that the greeks modeled the gods after themselves whereas the africans transmuted themselves via mask and dance into the gods.

Thus far it hasn't made them rich and powerful but we are entering a new era – one where the ability to transform the self becomes far more important.

For instance the reason google makes a lot of money is because they can reliably inform customers about who you are- what you like, who you dream of fucking and so on

the NSA exists for the same reason – all information services need to know who they are dealing with - this is something of a change but the only way it can be defeated is to develop mental abilities.

For instance in a classical attempt at mind thought alteration you might think the thing to do is to remain constant in you believe that for instance the sun is purple, but once the crack is in and they have broken you via drugs, or sound or whatever, you will tell your interrogators what they want to know.

They will use this to enslave you in the way they are now. When bank corruption is paid for by the poor it is but a small example – and comparatively harmless . Subsequent to the singularity such concepts as genocide will have to be re understood in light of new realities and the 95 % who die must do so willingly

the must go to their graves willingly because the human race has never had the physical power to enforce the hierarchy any other way.

============================================

Today I’ll conclude the multiple popular topics essay, AKA buzzwords for geeks. Like most of what we deal with here these are survival concepts. I don’t deal with the specifics, after all they are constantly changing. As well, perhaps as well I no long address questions of causality or potential modification of coming factors.

To state this in the vulgate, my audience is aware that there is some weird shit coming down. As such on a one to one basis the individual probably cannot win, but I am not so pessimistic as to believe that consciously or sub consciously systems of survival will not be allowed to remain in place.

And to get to these avenues will not be easy nor a matter of chance. Part of the challenge is philosophical. Two similar models of cultural cohesion are the Kelts and the Jews. Interestingly enough the Kelts did it without language and in the case of the Jews language was the primary determinant . What they had in common was both groups were able to withstand the pressure to disintegrate under conditions of diaspora.

To restate this, cultures and nation states have traditionally identified themselves within territorial boundaries, such as Egypt, one these are moved along with the sacred spaces they contain, the connection is broken,

That the cohesion of nation states is torn asunder is no long questioned – increasingly we see questions of nationality, religion and race are made irrelevant. For multinationals in the post colonial era the matter is settled. In terms of actual family life this will take some adjusting to. When the robot nanny wish to apply aversive stimulus to a boy with his hand in the cookie jar she will merely apply electroshock to the miscreant via cranial implant.

Perhaps the most important variation of technology from it’s gradual innovation in the past is not so much the type of change but it’s speed. Both Gliech and Kurzweil have taken pains to indicate the difference between arithmetic and exponential change.

One minute we are making distinctions between Zulu’s and Americans and the next between humans and post humans.

Then this in turn is demanding of us that we identify not only linear determinants such as which town precedes which on the railroad line but contextual ones such as what town is within fifty miles of the route.

These all revolve around the famous needle and the haystack. Google, Enigma, recursive searching, all involve asking questions of what in the past would be considered chaos.

Psychologically it is a bitch. One has to sort of let things go and let for instance products develop themselves. After the singularity and to a large extent even today human interference with production can only be retardant of the process.

And in a strange way this may explain the continued existence of the God concept. In the past I had suggested that the unity of the God, even based on nonsense, translated into a tribal unity that provided and an advantage over other groups

The terror that post humanity holds for many is very real and perhaps for good reason to reduce it yet further in imagery what we are about to experience will take the role hitherto played by the unconscious mind out if the context of the individual.

What follows are ideas. What characterizes them are two things – they are important and they have only come into being in the past fifty years. For a long while in the beginning I would casually mention the Tamlinmediaco as the most important site on the web. Like most of what I do it was an experiment – the goal being to ascertain the average intelligence of the visitor and/or the famed seven degree of separation.

By and large humanity failed the test, Actually, being generous, it would be better to say that the information systems that serve humanity failed the test. Had they worked in an optimum fashion they would have triggered a response somewhere down the line telling some interested party that here was a source of the description of some things of immense power.

The problem apparently is that the information retrieval and dispersal systems are not sensitive to power as such, but rather tend to focus on monetary goals. In some regards this is not a bad thing.

Montezuma, for example , had a great deal of gold but was defeated by the power of a few Spaniards with guns. Gold is always deceptive in that way. The later day Romans also had plenty of gold but because their society was so diverse they had no one capable of turning that gold into military power and hence were slaughters by the northerners.

In my own life I owe something of a debt of gratitude both the destructive senseless economic policies of later day America and to a mother with a compulsive gambling problem, because it was not until I lost a considerable amount of money and went essentially broke that gold, or currency , was stripped of its hitherto semi divine qualities.

So today when I come across someone with a one track mind - making money- I regard that as a weakness and not a strength. Cecil Rhodes was speaking with Rudyard Kipling one time about a subordinate who was so concerned with advancing his career that he was borderline useless as an employee and would never go anywhere. Kipling remarks that thirty years on Rhodes predictions had come out to be true.

So today I will introduce you to four concepts that were you not the superstitious slaves of the technostate you probably would have heard of. If you have heard of them give you self a pat on the back. All of them have had numerous books written on them byt people with long strings of letters written after their name.

The are , Loas, Zero Point Theory, The Singularity and the Virtual State. I present these concepts from the abstract to the practical.

The twentieth century proved a watershed in the discovery of the mechanisms of myth. Much of this had to do with man’s discover that the myths he considered eternal truths existed in other times and places, some of which seemed to have no connection with each other.

The myth of the God who dies for three days and then like the dark moon is resurrected, obviously could not be seen for what it is until the sense of a supernatural entity was removed. As is often the case it was the quantitative amount of evidence that finally won over the nay sayers as to for instance evolution.

That said it does nothing to remove the reality of religion, or dare I say, the need for it. Most of use adopt the political and religious codes of our parents and most societies in turn have a predominant code which they take with them when they move. Likewise when a culture moves to a new place they invariably are either absorbed by or replace the extant culture.

Hence the stone age myths and religious ideas were replaced in Europe first by the Greco-Roman “thundergods” and then by the messianic religions.

Christianity (and now Islam) moved north and westward from its origins in the euphemistically named holyland. This also happened with the Romance languages and both religion and language pushed the previous cultures to the extreme western shores , to Brittany and to Ireland.

That’s why if we want to study the myths of central Europe in the Stone age we must go to Ireland, where cattle raids, a ritual kingships and such remain.

One of the reasons for the continued strength of religions is they give the “believers” an advantage over the non believers – that being the shared system. Plus the modern religions tend to be more specific as to rulership then the ancient ones. Christianity justified kings and wars and the same held true with Islam in Northern and Western Africa. Further more Africa was subject to intense colonization, one result being the destruction of African ways.

And, as well, we know that along with political failure there is often the sense that the native gods, or God has failed the people and have consequently lost their power. Note we need not concern ourselves with chicken or the egg questions.

Quite often as well there’s a rural, urban dichotomy. When Red China sought to suppress democracy activism they brought in soldiers from the conservative provinces. In the late Egyptian Empire that same was done when Alexandria grew restless and in the current United States the urban rural spread results in definite differences of opinion.

Like Ireland then, Haiti alone, in the Black diaspora, can provide us with a glimpse of the African religious ethos. It was the first independent black state and the very fact that it was French speaking instead of English helped isolate it from prevailing influences.

Suffice to say however, as in the case of Jamaica, where ganga smoking and Rastafari is frowned upon by the upper classes, the further up in class one goes in Haiti, the less the influence of the Voudon (Voodoo) religious constellation.

Let me begin by noting that much of the “Civilized” world purports to believe in Messianic religions. They believe in other words that a single semi-divine semi human individual provides a conduit between this world and the eternal supernatural world. The world religion itself indicates this - it means “the linkage.”

The oriental world does not believe this as such, but there are strong similarities between the teachings of the Christ and the Budda.

The great question that religion resolves is “do I exist and if I do, am I eternal?” Unfortunately this is not a dialectical exercise. B movie screen writers in Hollywood occasional refer the problem to the rose solution.

“The rose is the symbol both of lifes beauty and it’s transitory nature.”

Classically the body is transitory and the soul is eternal. There are nearly a limitless number of illustrations of this concept.

As a little catholic boy the nuns would lecture us continually about the notion that when we pray before a statue of a saint we are not praying to the statue but rather to the saint that the statue represents.

A Similar thing happens in Voodoo where the Loa, or God is not localized or even personified but the spirit of such and such a thing. Thus Acqu is not the ocean, nor water, but the oceans spirit. The ocean is like the statue, a transitory materialization.

And to refer to a term that is often misunderstood Legba, or Papa Legba, is not so much the toll collector at the crossroads as the man in the doorway. He’s in other words a more benign spirit then westerners often suggest.

In the American Blues tradition he’s often associated with a devil who’s primary goal is to trap ones soul. This recalls th western concept of the dragon, a natural force which wants our goods and would castrate us, as opposed to the oriental idea of the dragon as a fortuitous symbol of luck.

I seem forced to spend more time then I want explaining this in western terms but it seems necessary. Hence most recent religions, the Mormons, the Japanese Family cults are messianic in form. One advantage these systems have is nearly always you have hard evidence of the transitory aspect of life, meaning the founder dies.

The term Loa itself is capable of multiple definitions. The black population in Haiti comes from about a dozen nations, or tribes in west Africa. This is the Africa of the Jungle and the people were taken as slaves from internecine warfare in a comparatively short period of time.

Voudun itself is most often practiced with a mixture of Christian ideology. Unlike the spirit guardians of Tibetan Buddhism, the bodhisattvas, or the “noosphere” the loas are principles or even styles such as crane style, and monkey style in marital arts.

These are not saints in the sense of once being mortal men and women and herein we hit upon the critical difference between this system. ordinary polytheism, and messianic religion.

I’d even go so far as to suggest it is capable of post messianic religious impulse. Rather then to invoke the presence of the God through the ritual the goal here, through drumming, dance and even masks is to transform the participant into an agent of the God, a manifestation.

This then invokes a different relation ship to what we call “Sin”. One has to be careful here. The sin concept is so deeply embedded in the west, all with retribution that we can hardly conceive of existence without it.

As well, at first mention it is a deeply frightening thing. The idea that those who do wrong will be punished , sooner or later, is one of the glues of our society. Even as we know that very bad people have no problem sleeping at night.

And as well when we become, as god, in the dance, it may not be the same all powerful being that we ascribe to in our religions. We are taught, in effect to follow the leader but this can be taken a little too far.

Dante tries to explain this in El Paradiso. The inferno, of course is totally hierarchal - everyone has a place and everyone knows their place, whereas in heaven in the presence of God each place is as good as everyone other place and since everyone is so full of the joy at beholding the Godhead there is no competition for a better seat, so to speak.

Now of course the point is if we don’t watch ourselves we are heading into a technological inferno.

The joke about nuclear war used to be it was bad enough so that the living envied the deadm and don’t kid your self what google and all the rest of the web does is it creates a hierarchy / You are because you consume and the more you consume the more you are.

My flirtation with wealth in the 1990’s taught me the truth of the saying the poor pay more. And lets be real, it is not going to be easy to convince the privileged to give up those advantage’s. Not being interested in starting a religion I see my task as energizing the monads.

Maybe it’s yours as well. I hope so.If it is not that’s not my job to correct, but I won’t protect you either.

   Appendix   

One

Go gog go



(The limitations of language  and  historical parallels between concepts 

of "Knowing" and the physical world.)
 Several years ago I introduced a hypothesis which has held up fairly well. 

It suggests that our understanding of the physical world is paralleled by

 our epistemological concepts. So you have the rigid world of Aristotle

 and the Gods, - then in the time of Locke we understand how "Truth" could

 be shaped by the means of perception - the tabula Rosa, which in turn 

could be compared to the gravitational constant of Newton.

 In 1905 Einstein suggested that both perceived and perceive r 

were in flux and this soon led to the suggestion that we could 

know either location or direction, but not both. Quantum information 

theory is a strange bird indeed. Wittgenstein despaired of ever getting

 language to make sense other then perhaps as the thing in itself, but like 

hope from Pandoras box, the fact that we remain must contradict all such despair.

 We might well draw an analogy with religion, which wile not proving the

 existence of a God, nevertheless proves the existence of man's desire to 

believe there is. It is as if by transmitting one letter of the alphabet 

we would be able to convey an encyclopedias worth of information.

 The problem, which I make no claim to be able to solve, is how to 

find the correct original unit out of a near infinite number of 

possibilities, or perhaps an infinite number of possibilities.

 As it stands however such challenges need not be undertaken if 

world domination is our simple goal. Here's the kicker -

 as technology amplifies the data field it consequently

 simplifies the amount of information needed to be transmitted 

in order to effect a response, in particular from the human population. 

In other words in dealing with a school of fish or a flock of birds

 in flight you no longer have to convince each one of them of the 

direction you want them to go. All you have to do is "convince" 

the point bird. To draw the quantum analogy further consider

 a wall of doors. Each of the hundreds of doors has a number on it.

 You wish to convey a great deal of information but your means of

 doing so is limited. What you do is tell the bird the right door

 to open - so it only need to know one thing even as it provides 

he receiver with a wealth of info. The problem facing mankind today

 is just this. It is a two sided sword. We control the masses by controlling

 the lead birds in the flocking behavior; behavior which has been made

 possible by the ubiquitous presence of media. 

nd in turn we control any contrary messages by arresting people in extreme

 cases - but ignorance has a subtler and vastly more effective way of

 advancing it's purposes. And once again, we create “opinion leaders to

 give the masses condoned thoughts, even, as in the case of the Soviet

 Union's “Krokodile”, or the John Stewart show to the extent of officially 

sanctioned opposition and then at the same time does not reach the level 

of exposure as to even require censorship. Hackers, libertarians and people

 on all sides of the political spectrum, consciously at least, express 

concerns that the world is taking on the model of 1984. It's important to

 remember though that Orwell was not speaking about right wing or left

 wing political systems - nor was he even speaking about the excesses

 of the technostate. Difficult as it may be to accept one of the primary 

criteria for the existence of a 1984 is that the celebrity has taken the

 God role. It simply refuses to admit the validity of anything that

 opposes it's core principles. The NRA, which I do not oppose offhand,

 suggested that the way to prevent mass killing of schoolchildren was

to arm five year olds and give them lessons in shooting. They did not

 understand how out of place this seemed to be to most people. We create 

things, sometimes even things meant to do good, and they get out of hand.

 Thus along with promotion of the official line there is the seeming 

ignoring of the non sanctioned points of view until under the guise of

 preservation of the state offenders are silenced. In my own life, in a 

case that I've seen happen to many others as well, I began as something

 of a writer researcher who worked for the government and as I continued

 learning I became less employable as the years went by. My understanding

 was not the understanding that gets paid for. I was not saying what the

 employers wanted to hear. Or consider the case of Reagan. He's a guy, 

whatever you may think of him that provokes widely varying reactions from

the public. some see him as the savior, others as a monster, and It's save 

to say neither side is being duplicitous. The key factor here is that, as in

 the case of politics and business as well, technology favors market domination,

 which means it does not tolerate differences of opinion - the gun and the

 bow and arrow may coexist for awhile- but not for long.

 Appendix two Prelude to a new world 

For behold, we venture forth to a new world

 a world where fame comes to they who do nothing

and achievements are ground into oblivion where right and wrong,

 good and bad and ye even life and death are predicated by no more

 then the wheel of fortune where nothing adds up 

Where the gods preen before their mirrors and their 

dogs sign checks with paw prints The Senators bathe at three

 Children carry the firewood The “little fishes” age

prematurely on the Isle of Capri 

"When I return the dead shall rise from their graves

and they shall outnumber the living" 

Ishtar, Sumerian goddess, circa 2500 BCE 

Conclusion: The Technostate has two requirements;

 1) It must be free to create and expand markets*

 2) It must be rendered immune from prosecution for anything done in

 furtherence of the creation of markets *By the expansion of markets

 we mean markets for business to flourish in. What it means 

It means that no one is safe from the fluctuations of systemic variance 

- you personally may do a good job at what you do but that does not

 prevent the decision to move to somewhere where economic advantages

 are greater. And I repeat - one does not have to be convicted of a

 crime to be punished. The trial itself becomes the critical object,

 not the verdict. The trial demonstrates to the system that actions

 are being taken - that the controller/decision makers have a desire

 or direction that they want to see instantiated. We witness here

 technology taken to it's fullest extent - to wit- to the "world lever",

 amplified beyond any previous abilities. 

You can think of it in terms of flo

cking behavior, or schools of fish. Think of the incredible ability

of flocks to turn as directed by the bird at the point.

In classical democratic decision making paradigm each

 individual would consider the options available and reach a 

conclusion that would be best for them- but in the technostate

 that does not happen - under the quite possibly questionable belief

 that what is good for one is good for all.

 This sometimes false belief in the commonality of interest

 can in turn be manipulated for the interest of very small

 segments of society through propaganda. The tendency of humans 

groups to surrender individual thought in favor of the crowd has 

long been known and studied. As the case may be many technological 

developments of the past century have served to create a sense of

 intimacy which in turn has replaced actual direct human communication.

 This is evident from radio, to movies, to television, and now to Facebook

 - all of which bring the semblance of human lives into our own

 There is a difference however that should be obvious.

 A friend in real life may be one of maybe ten people, on face book 

it is one of 50,000 - hardly comparable.