27943
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
read it for free at link. "“A paraphysical odyssey....Dazzles the imagination and causes you to rethink everything you ever thought you knew about the nature of reality.... A landmark in man’s new attempts to integrate realities within and without.” --Jean Houston, The Foundation for Mind Research “A brilliantly executed theoretical romp through the universe....To do all this with humor and suspense is indeed a major accomplishment.” --Dr. Montague Ullman, Maimonides Medical Center “A beautiful presentation of the elements of consciousness, creation, and matter.” --John C. Lilly “A ground-breaking work. Clear, imaginative, and inspiring, it offers a revolutionary image of the human mind and universe.” --Dr. Stanislav Grof In his exciting and original view of the universe, Itzhak Bentov has provided a new perspective on human consciousness and its limitless possibilities. Widely known and loved for his delightful humor and imagination, Bentov explains the familiar world of phenomena with perceptions that are as lucid as they are thrilling. He gives us a provocative picture of ourselves in an expanded, conscious, holistic universe, showing us that: • Our bodies mirror the universe, down to the working of each cell. • We are pulsating beings in a vibrating universe, in constant moti between the finite and the infinite. • The universe and all matter is consciousness in the process of developing. • Our brains are thought amplifiers, not thought’s source. • The universe is a hologram. And so is the brain--a hologram interpreting a holographic universe. • We can instantly reclaim any information ever known." source: https://archive.org/details/itzhak-bentov-stalking-the-wild-pendulum-on- the-mechanics-of-consciousness |
Responses:
[27946] [27947] [27954] [27956] [27961] [27962] [27964] [27965] [27950] [27953] [27957] [27963] [27966] [27951] [27952] [27955] [27958] [27959] [27960] [27948] [27944]
27946
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
URL: https://www.academia.edu/38008120/The_Holographic_Universe_by_Michael_Talbot
|
The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot Picture The Holographic Model Michael Talbot’s classic book, The Holographic Universe, (1) is a seminal work in anomalistics, one that built bridges between ancient spiritual teachings and the scientific knowledge of the twentieth century. When I found a copy at a local used bookstore, I made it a priority to read it over and see what all the hype was about. I was not disappointed, but at the same time, the book was not like I expected it to be. Background Michael Coleman Talbot was a science fiction writer who turned to non-fiction in an attempt to reconcile his mystical inclinations with his deep appreciation for modern science.(2) Since childhood, Talbot had experienced a wide array of poltergeist-like activity, which forced him to accommodate the paranormal into his view of the world. He devoted his career to helping scientists and laymen do the same. Unfortunately, Talbot’s promising career was cut short when he died of lymphocytic leukemia at the young age of 38, and he did not get to see the far-reaching impact that The Holographic Universe would have in the anomalistic and spiritualist communities. Talbot was not a researcher in his own right; The Holographic Universe is primarily a work of synthesis. As he explains from the outset, he conceived of the book after reading of two separate references to a “holographic” model of reality in the works of physicist David Bohm, and psychologist Karl Pribram. Talbot found the holographic model helpful in more areas than Bohm and Pribram had applied it to, including in understanding anomalous phenomena. Going in, I was not entirely clear on what exactly was entailed in a holographic model of reality. A real, laser-activated hologram, explains Talbot, contains the totality of the image it projects in every piece of its physical structure. This means that if you cut off a small corner of the hologram and shine a laser through it, you will see the same image projected as you would have if you’d shone the laser through the whole. One could keep cutting smaller pieces off of smaller pieces, and shining a laser through any one of them would still project the same, whole image; it would just get a little fainter each time. There are two main features of holograms that Talbot finds relevant to our understanding of reality: their ability to store the whole in every piece, and their ability to project a derivative image from a lower, condensed form. Pribram, who had been conducting experiments to locate where specific memories were stored in the brain, found that removing any piece of the brain would only diminish overall cognitive capacity, and would not eliminate any particular memories. He saw in the brain a kind of “holographic” way of storing memories: all of them in every piece. Bohm, meanwhile, had argued that the three-dimensional world of space and time that we recognize as reality is merely a projection of information stored in what he called “the implicate order.” The implicate order stores information as non-local wave-state possibilities, which our brains collapse to locate things in the dimensions of time and space that our perceptual systems are attuned to. Bohm thought that this implicate order stored information non-locally, much like the holographic brain, and he went on with Pribram to develop the holonomic model of human cognition, incorporating each of their insights. The concept of reality being stored and accessed in a holographic way is fascinating, but it’s not terribly well fleshed out. I had expected Talbot to build robust and testable theory of holographic physical processes, but he used the holographic model more as a metaphor for understanding anomalous process. This metaphor is invoked throughout the book in order to explain particular, observed phenomena that appear to defy our understanding of time and space, even when the connections between these phenomena are not so clear. Holograms and the Paranormal After introducing the holographic model through Pribram and Bohm, Talbot spends the rest of the book discussing anomalous phenomena and how they might be understood as holographic projections from the implicate order. He mentions Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, and posits that its source is in the implicate order, which contains all information in the universe. Consciousness reaches in to the implicate order to retrieve symbols and sentiments from the totality of human experience, which we all share, and from which we all pull the same information. Talbot then goes on to propose a similar mechanism for dreams, lucid dreams, schizophrenic episodes, and psychedelic drug experiences. All of these experiences can involve people accessing information that they could not otherwise have retrieved unless drawing it from the implicate order. Talbot then goes on to explore the literature on dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder) and the holographic way in which the brain creates new personalities as wholes within the whole of itself. Like memories, these distinct personalities - every bit as complete as the patient’s original personality - are not stored locally in the brain, and their existence alongside others - sometimes hundreds of others - does not diminish the wholeness of any one. Spring-boarding from Jung’s concept of synchronicity, Talbot explores the possibility of a connection between “inner” mental events, and “outer” physical events. After all, if the mind is reading them both from enfolded wave-forms in the implicate order, why could there not be a link between the two? To demonstrate this possibility, Talbot explores cases of “miraculous” self healing and remarkable belief-based recoveries before broaching the subject of religious miracles. The idea that certain miraculous feats may actually have happened as recorded, but only as an effect of witnesses’ belief in divine power, and not because of the intervention of any divine power as such, was one of the most interesting insights that the book offered for me. For example, Talbot mentions the case of the Saint Januarius miracles, in which a vial of a red, crusty substance apparently liquifies before crowds of pilgrims on three appointed holy days per year, and spontaneously throughout the year. He theorizes that it is the spectators themselves who are causing the liquefaction: simply by believing that the liquefaction will occur, the spectators collectively retrieve a possibility from the implicate order in which this event occurs, and manifest it in the physical world. While I’m fascinated by this possibility, which helps to explain so many alleged miracles in history without necessitating belief in the hundreds of different and contradictory theologies used to justify them, it’s still rather speculative. Like most of the unifying theories presented in this book, it also seems only distantly related to the holographic model presented in the introduction. The second half of the book delves into topics more familiar to seasoned anomalists; poltergeist activity, the spontaneous or intentional materialization of objects, faith healings, psychic readings, and clairvoyance. I was fascinated to learn of “clairvoyant archeology,” and the promise it offers to our study of the past. Likewise, I was surprised to find out just how much research has been done on the concept of reincarnation. Having previously written a book on past lives, Talbot offers a wealth of knowledge on this topic. After being introduced to the work of psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson, who virtually proved the case for reincarnation by investigating, and often confirming, the past-life memories of 3000 children, I’ve been fascinated by the subject and its strong, empirical basis. The implicate order model applies particularly well to the research on precognition and remote viewing, by positing the existence of some atemporal realm accessible at all times and places by the conscious mind. It also helps explain why and how people undergoing near-death and out-of-body experiences report moments of omniscience, and engage with real-world people and places they had never previously encountered. Finally, Talbot addresses the topic of UFOs, which he aptly presents in all its complexity as both a physical and subjective phenomenon. In order to understand the UFO phenomenon, he claims, we need to integrate the data from quantum physics telling us that consciousness is a participant in the creation of the physical world, and to see UFOs as projections of the collective consciousness of all beings. Like all anomalies, Talbot suggests, UFOs maybe instances of “the dream dreaming itself.” (3) Even for its admirable attempt at integrating explanations for anomalous phenomena, it was this second half of the book that began to lose me, as I couldn’t help but feel that Talbot was straying beyond the parameters of his holographic analogy. For example, he devotes nearly 30 pages to discussing things like Yogic “layers” of energy, “therapeutic touch,” and auras, only to weakly connect them by positing that these fields of energy represent a kind of implicate order for the body, or the unconscious mind. The data is interesting, as it always is under Talbot’s curation, but not necessarily supportive of a holographic view of reality. Summary The book is a treasure trove of anomalous information and brilliant, alternative ontologies. If you choose to flip through a copy of Talbot’s classic yourself, you’ll be exposed to a wide array of paradigm-challenging facts and perspectives. You’ll enjoy letting Talbot guide you through the last half-century of anomalistic research, regardless of what you think of the holographic analogy. - Jason Charbonneau Published 2016/7/18 |
Responses:
[27947] [27954] [27956] [27961] [27962] [27964] [27965] [27950] [27953] [27957] [27963] [27966] [27951] [27952] [27955] [27958] [27959] [27960] [27948]
27947
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
I haven't read that one, but read this a couple of decades ago & loved it...looks ssimilar "This book is a series of articles that attempts to ‘break out into natural language’ meanings implicit in the formal mathematics of quantum mechanics. The whole materialistic, reductionist, logical positivist arc of western science has, at its greatest apex (quantum mechanics), seemingly given birth (from this viewpoint) to Rosemary’s Baby. According to this model life is a vast machine; meaning, once the parts are properly labeled and relationships between the parts adequately understood, all mysteries will be resolved and we will then live in a perfectly predictable world. This model seemingly reveals a self-assembling, blind process of trial and error within the framework of space/time. The problem here is that quantum mechanics thoroughly overturns the idea of mechanism along with its space/time infrastructure. I’ll let David Bohm, a physicist and colleague of Einsteins explain… “The quantum theory…overturned mechanism…I’ll give here its three main features. First of all, all action was in the form of what is called discrete quanta. For example, one found that the orbits of electrons around the nucleus would have to be discrete, as there were no allowed orbits in between, and yet, somehow, the electron jumped from one to the other without passing in between—according to this view. And the light shown on these things was also shown in the form of quanta, and in fact, every form of connection of energy was in the form of quanta. Therefore you could think of it as an interconnecting network of quanta weaving the whole universe into one, because these quanta were indivisible… Secondly, all matter and energy were found to have what appears to be a dual nature, in the sense that they can behave either like a particle or like a field—or a wave—according to how they are treated by the experiment. The fact that everything can show either a wave-like or a particle-like character according to the context of the environment which is, in this case, the observing apparatus, is clearly not compatible with mechanism, because in mechanism the nature of each thing should be quite independent of its context. The third point is that one finds a peculiar new property which I call non- locality of connection. In other words, the connection can be between two particles at considerable distances in some cases. This violates the classical requirement of locality—that only things very close to each other can influence one another… There is another point we can bring out in this connection, which is that the state of the whole may actually organize the parts, not merely through the strong connection of very distant elements, but also because the state of the whole is indifferent to exactly where the parts are. …I want to show how this contradicts the basic mechanist assumption. Firstly, the action is through indivisible quanta, so as I said, everything is woven together in indivisible links. The universe is one whole, as is were, and is in some sense unbroken. Of course, only under very refined observation does this show up. Now the second point was the wave-particle nature, and the third was non-locality. So you can see all these things deny mechanism. The people who founded quantum mechanics, such as Schrodinger, Dirac and Pauli, and so on all understood this; but since that time this understanding has gradually faded out as people have more and more concentrated on using quantum mechanics as a system of calculation for experimental results, and each time a new text book is written, some of the philosophical meaning gets lost. So we now have a situation where I don't think the majority of physicists realizes how radical the implications of quantum mechanics are.” --Unfolding Meaning, David Bohm The fact that the most elementary particles are connected in a faster than light, non-local manner seems to imply one of two things; either Einstein was wrong and the speed of light is not the absolute speed limit in space/time, or the whole foundation (ground) of space/time emerges from a ground beyond space/time. As Einstein’s theories seem unimpeachable, most scientists accept the validity, if not the implications, of non-locality. The question then is this—what is the ground of the phenomenal world if not space/time? Bohm’s model (to grossly simplify) views the brain as a passive screen (like a TV) enfolding information unfolded from a higher dimension—the implicate order—which, in turn, receives that information from a source he calls the superimplicate order, or pure intelligence. The Bohm/Pribam holographic model is described here in the following way… “The theory, in a nutshell: Our brains mathematically construct concrete reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension, a realm of meaningful, patterned reality that transcends space and time. The brain is a hologram interpreting a holographic universe. ---A New Perspective On Reality, The Holographic Paradigm And yes, these sorts of theories are, for the old school scientist, the equivalent of having birthed Rosemary’s Baby. When it comes to the death of their world-view, they are still in the denial stage of grief. Q: Would the community of physicists accept this interpretation? Bohm: Oh, I think they have to, yes. They do use the idea of fields and particles and so on but when you press them they must agree that they have no image whatsoever what these things are, and they have no content other than the results of what they can calculate with their equations. Q: So it’s pragmatic? Bohm: Well, at least it’s in pragmatic language though it isn’t consistently pragmatic because all sorts of nonpragmatic ideas are allowed to be introduced in the mathematics. It’s confused rather, I would say; it’s a mixture of some pragmatic aspects and some highly speculative nonpragmatic aspects but in a very unbalanced way. It’s saying speculation is only allowed in the equations, but in the physical ideas they are rather fixed and essentially the physical ideas are only images of the equations, that is, they have no content other than as the convenient vehicles for stating imaginatively what the equations compute, so that you can grasp it in some imaginative though confused form. Q: But isn’t that like saying that they are not anchored in anything real, that they have no actual ground? Bohm: Their only anchor is the experimental results. They’re saying that these numbers that they get out of the calculations agree with numbers that come out of the experiments. Q: And how would you perceive this differently? Bohm: Well, we are trying to give a description of reality whether wrong or right, we are proposing a view of reality, a description of reality which will faithfully be about or fit this reality, and we can now regard the mathematics as a way of calculating what’s happening within this reality. Q: It’s a very different claim from this current utilitarian one. Bohm: Yes…reality is the implicate order and the equations are describing that. Q: Whereas in the other view, i.e., that of most contemporary physicists, the equations are as it were almost both the means and the end? Bohm: Yes, the equations are the truth. Q: The truth about what is the question? The Enfolding-Unfolding Universe, The Holographic Paradigm" |
Responses:
[27954] [27956] [27961] [27962] [27964] [27965] [27950] [27953] [27957] [27963] [27966] [27951] [27952] [27955] [27958] [27959] [27960] [27948]
27954
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
"The fact that the most elementary particles are connected in a faster than light, non-local manner seems to imply one of two things; either Einstein was wrong and the speed of light is not the absolute speed limit in space/time, or the whole foundation (ground) of space/time emerges from a ground beyond space/time. As Einstein’s theories seem unimpeachable, most scientists accept the validity, if not the implications, of non-locality." my understanding is that the speed of light is relative to the level of reality it is discerned on... |
27956
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
Sounds good to me. "..or the whole foundation (ground) of space/time emerges from a ground beyond space/time" This feels right to me too. So everything is relative. Maybe |
27961
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells
|
I really resonate with Robert Lanza & Bob Berman's ideas.. Biocentrism’s Take on the Cosmos There is no separate physical universe outside of life and consciousness. Nothing is real that is not perceived. There was never a time when an external, dumb, physical universe existed, or that life sprang randomly from it at a later date. Space and time exist only as constructs of the mind, as tools of perceptions. Experiments in which the observer influences the outcome are easily explainable by the interrelatedness of consciousness and the physical universe. Neither nature nor mind is unreal; both are correlative. No position is taken regard God. Consider the 7 principles we have established: First Principle of Biocentrism: What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. 2. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be separated. 3. The behavior of subatomic particles-indeed all particles and objects-is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves. 4. Without consciousness, “matter’ dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state. 5. The very structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The universe is simply the complete spate-temporal logic of the self. 6. Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe. 7. Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life. |
27962
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells
| That’s a really skilled treatise on metaphysics! Thanks for sharing! |
27964
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells
| We agree! yay! |
Responses:
[27965]
27965
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells
| ;D |
Responses:
None
27950
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Huh... ;)
|
"According to this model life is a vast machine; meaning, once the parts are properly labeled and relationships between the parts adequately understood, all mysteries will be resolved and we will then live in a perfectly predictable world." Fascinating. For me, the belief that highest spiritual understanding is reached by having intellectually demystified how everything here *works,* rendering it all "predictable," is the exact opposite of my truth. ;) One of the most unexpected sources of spiritual support, inspiration and nurturance I find consistently easing my way is how much more increasingly obvious it's becoming how the power of the Divine, God/ess, Source/Infinite Love can translate Itself literally into *whatever context of understanding* each and every individual requires, within wherever they're at upon their own perfect soulgrowth path, without fail, catalyzing their process of self-realization... ;) |
Responses:
[27953] [27957] [27963] [27966] [27951] [27952] [27955] [27958] [27959] [27960]
27953
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
| a purely "intellectual" understanding of reality is lopsided and prevents a holistic understanding...my intellectual understanding of reality is that the mind (and heart) have to be turned off or stopped in order to be able to receive objective truth, or as you say, the highest spiritual understanding...the heart and mind are the producers of desires, which block the flow of objective divine guidance...that i believe, is the essence of subud... |
27957
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
Okay... ;) The way I see it is that mind and heart, thought and emotion, are both entirely human "polarized" contexts that, yes, source from *desire,* which is egoic in nature and can only be focused upon either 1) the past/regret & judgement/wishing things had been different, or 2) the future/fear & projection that all will be well *only* if what happens fits our desires...just to throw a few words around it that fit, there are many others... And, yes, I agree that these past/future human/egoic fixations are only truly interrupted when something occurs that literally stops/shocks BOTH in their tracks, and allows in what you are referring to as *objective divine guidance*... How's that so far? I remember reading a post of yours here at some point that had me making all kinds of faces to myself, a definition of *true objectivity,* Gurdjieff-sourced I'm sure, that was not washing w/me... ;) But when you add the words "divine guidance" to "objectivity," that feels to translate to my context of spiritual much more easily... ;) See, for me, this is where that Einstein quote really serves, about how an issue that originates with polarity or duality cannot be resolved from within that context -- it can only do so within a third context *that includes the truth of both polarities* and generates resolution on a new level that respects and honors the truths of both "sides"... Mind and heart, thought and emotion, that experiential polarized duality in our human experience is also characterized by other, even more divisive mindsets -- like head's "rational, logical thought/intelligence" as being "superior to" heart's emotional, intuitional wisdom. ;) Even the terms I've often utilized toward grasping what soulgrowth out of our human, or fear-based psyches into our spiritual-love-based elder selves actually consists of, can't help but contain the limitations of these inherently-oppositional terms... If I line up yours with mine in this way, I can only see your/Gurdjieff's term of *objective divine guidance* as being parallel with my own understanding of the Infinite Love that IS that *third reality* that includes/serves/unites/resolves all polarities and dualities from Its *highest spiritual understanding*... This does, yes, also line up beautifully with subud, which, along with its other several-Sanskrit-word interpretations, clearly includes surrender to the Will of God...which for me is synonymous with Infinite Love's Will and Wisdom for our lives & processes, which can only truly be discerned and felt *in Moments of true Presence in the Now,* when we are not humanly/egoically/intellectually obsessed with past/ future, analysis, negotiation, running unconscious patterns of reaction to everything, etc... And yes...breaking that default/habitual spell of being does often (almost always!) require immense shocks/interruptions of how we've been living them... Any of that track for you? |
27963
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
"How's that so far? " that is the essence of what i was trying to convey... "Any of that track for you?" like the train to truth... |
Responses:
[27966]
27966
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
| ;) |
Responses:
None
27951
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
Um, perhaps read the preceding paragraph for context. (hint= Rosemary's baby) |
27952
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
Um, well, yeah, I read and understood that...as well as the rest of the article for context and content... Doesn't change my comment, really, except to emphasize the last paragraph... ;) |
27955
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
| Oh, the irony. lol |
27958
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
| Oh my yes. lol |
27959
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
"According to this model life is a vast machine; meaning, once the parts are properly labeled and relationships between the parts adequately understood, all mysteries will be resolved and we will then live in a perfectly predictable world." What you seemed to miss is that the author of that statement is likely more in agreement with you than not. The above perspective is the antithesis of the perspectives of the scientists's views discussed in the book. It is the evil spawn of limited, misguided beliefs. :) |
Responses:
[27960]
27960
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Huh... ;)
|
Why are you so sure I've missed this, akira? Yes, I quoted that excerpt as reflecting the opposite of my beliefs, but meant it only as one illustration of my last paragraph. I can see how I could have been clearer. ;) My post to Ryan probably conveys it better. For me *all intellectualized understandings/beliefs of the nature of reality, even from higher mind's metaphysical context, can't help but fall short.* In other words...in my experience, most all of what falls within the domain of "beliefs" are once-removed from that which most powerfully enlightens, catalyzes and integrates spiritual wisdom into the human experience, which is all I'm engaged by... Just my context... ;) And who knows? Could be that underneath all these words experiential orientations are not as dissimilar as they seem... That'd be grand... ;) |
Responses:
None
27948
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
After I read this I tracked David Bohm down in England & sent him a small book of excerpts from the Course in Miracles. lol I wonder if he received it or read it. He must have died shortly after that. |
Responses:
None
27944
From: shadow, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness
|
Wow, haven't seen this referenced in so long! An excellent tome on reality as seen through the context of higher mind/metaphysical understanding of the time... Thanks, great to remember this... ;) |
Responses:
None