Blog archives for July, 2009

The Power of Exponentiation in Time and Space

If you could fold a piece of paper in half 100 times, it would be wider than the entire universe.

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link to paper folding math

Exponentiation in Time

Exponential Technological Growth

link to a collection of kurzweil vids
or embed a good one

Excerpts From:
The Law of Accelerating Returns
by Ray Kurzweil

“An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity — technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.” – Ray Kurzweil

Quote a few more
The Intuitive Linear View versus the Historical Exponential View

The Singularity is Near
By Ray Kurzweil – Google Book Preview

Exponential Technologies: Cheer Up World—We Are On the Verge of Great Things

“Futurist Ray Kurzweil argues that the inevitability of a technological singularity is implied by a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore’s Law to technologies predating the integrated circuit, and which he argues will continue to apply to other technologies not yet invented.

Robin Hanson proposes that multiple “singularities” have occurred throughout history, dramatically affecting the growth rate of the economy. Like the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the past, the technological singularity would increase economic growth between 60 and 250 times. An innovation that allowed for the replacement of virtually all human labor could trigger this event.”
- Technological Singularity – Wiki

Moore’s Law

Graph of Mathematically Corellating Evolutionary Trajectories

Theodore Modis – Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change

check

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tmodis/Futurist.pdf

Acceleration Watch – The Developmental Spiral – A Curious and Unexplained Universal Phenomenon

Exponential Cyclic Growth Process
Is all evolution exponentially accelerating or progressing?
Is its cyclical nature a sign of its fractality or uroboric nature?

link to and from history’s hidden engine post
Link to sacred spiral post
Link to Eschaton Posts
Link to immortality post

Cultural Roots of 2012 Prophecy Hysteria

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Terence McKenna Timewave Zero 2012 Prophecy Uncovered

Mayan Calendar I Ching Predictions – History Channel

Timewave Zero – Part 5

Timewave Zero – Part 6

Terence McKenna on 2012

terence mckenna re-evolution the shamen

Terence Mckenna: 2012 Timewave Zero TV Show Sightings

Terence McKenna talks about 2012, the tree of life & worm holes

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 5/10

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 6/10

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 7/10

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 8/10

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 9/10

Terence McKenna — Exploring the HermeticTradition Part 10/10

Secrets of the Occult – Documentary

Secrets of the Occult pt-01 The Magicians

Secrets of the Occult pt-02 The Scientists

Secrets of the Occult pt-03 Bonus_ What is Occult?

link to and from magic post
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Chomsky, Jung, and others on Religious Statism

Link to Post: Mass Psychology and Cultural History

upload and embed aldous huxley interview

Post: George Orwell’s unpublished introduction to Animal Farm + Chomsky Excerpt

God and North Korea

Excerpt from Carl Jung’s book The Undiscovered Self:

“The bigger the crowd the more negligible the individual becomes. But if the individual, overwhelmed by the sense of his own puniness and impotence, should feel that his life has lost its meaning- which, after all, is not identical with public welfare and higher standards of living- then he is already on the road to state slavery and, without knowing or wanting it, has become its proselyte. The man who looks only outside and quails before the big battalions has no resource with which to combat the evidence of his senses and his reason. But that is just what is happening today: we are all fascinated and overawed by statistical truths and large numbers and are daily apprised of the nullity and futility of the individual personality, since it is not represented and personified by any mass organization. Conversely, those personages who strut about on the world stage and whose voices are heard far and wide seem, to the uncritical public, to be born along on some mass movement or on the tide of public opinion and for this reason are either applauded or execrated. Since mass suggestion plays the predominant role here, it remains a moot point whether their message is their own, for which they are personally responsible, or whether they merely function as a megaphone for collective opinion.

Under these circumstances it is small wonder that individual judgment grows increasingly uncertain of itself and that responsibility is collectivized as much as possible, i.e., is shuffled off by the individual and delegated to a corporate body. In this way the individual becomes more and more a function of society, which in its turn usurps the function of the real life carrier, whereas, in actual fact, society is nothing more than and abstract idea like the state. Both are hypostatized, that is, have become autonomous. The state in particular is turned into a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected. In reality it is only a camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it. Thus the constitutional state drifts into the situation of a primitive form of society, namely the communism of a primitive tribe where everybody is subject to the autocratic rule of a chief or an oligarchy.

The dictator state has one great advantage over bourgeois reason: along with the individual it swallows up his religious forces. The state has taken the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and state slavery is a form of worship. But the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevailing trends towards mass-mindedness. The result, as always in such cases, is overcompensation in the form of fanaticism, which in turn is used as a weapon for stamping out the last flicker of opposition. Free opinion is stifled and moral decision is ruthlessly suppressed, on the plea that the end justifies the means, even the vilest. The policy of the state is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demigod beyond good and evil, and his votaries are honored as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and besides it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things. Only the party boss, who holds the political power in his hands, can interpret the state doctrine authentically, and he does so as suits him.

Even a dictator thinks it necessary not only to accompany his acts of state with threats but to stage them with all manner of solemnities. Brass bands, flags, banners, parades and monster demonstrations are no different in principle from ecclesiastical processions, cannonades and fireworks to scare off demons. Only, the suggestive parade of state power engenders a collective feeling of security, which unlike religious demonstrations, gives the individual no protection against his inner demonism. Hence he will cling all the more to the power of the state, i.e., to the mass, thus delivering himself up to it psychically as well as morally and putting the finishing touch to his social depotentiation. The state, like the church, demands enthusiasm, self-sacrifice and love, and if religion requires or presupposes the “fear of God,” then the dictator state takes good care to provide the necessary terror.

As I have already pointed out, the dictator state, besides robbing the individual of his rights, has also cut the ground from under his feet psychically by depriving him of the metaphysical foundations of his existence. The ethical decision of the human being no longer counts- what alone matters is the blind movement of the masses, and the lie has thus become the operative principle of political action. The state has drawn the logical conclusions from this, as the existence of many millions of state slaves completely deprived of all rights mutely testifies.”

Chomsky on Religion (Interview)

Chomsky on Religious Fanaticism 1

Chomsky on Religious Fanaticism 2

Michael Bakunin – God and the State – book on tape part 1
Scroll through at the end for parts 2 – 21
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Comparing Religions and Subsects

Articles:
Catholic Perspective: Comparing Christianity & Hinduism
- Peter Kreeft

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Murray Gell-Mann: Beauty and Truth in Physics

Simplicity, Elegance, Beauty
6:50

Progessive Linguistic Description
Fractal progression – mathematical elucidation of physical laws

Self-similarity across scales
Symmetry
Successive Unification

Linguistic Consonance, Resonance, Harmony