How much new information is created each year? Newly created information is stored in four physical media – print, film, magnetic and optical – and seen or heard in four information flows through electronic channels – telephone, radio and TV, and the Internet.

This study of information storage and flows analyzes the year 2002 in order to estimate the annual size of the stock of new information recorded in storage media, and heard or seen each year in information flows. Where reliable data was available we have compared the 2002 findings to those of our 2000 study (which used 1999 data) in order to describe a few trends in the growth rate of information.

Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about 5 exabytes of new information in 2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard disks.

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Terence McKenna Interview by Carla Sinclair from bOING bOING #10

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The Big Bang sounded more like a deep hum than a bang, according to an analysis of the radiation left over from the cataclysm.

Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle has created audio files of the event which can be played on a PC. "The sound is rather like a large jet plane flying 100 feet above your house in the middle of the night," he says.

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The complexification of Novelty is "insofar" as I can tell the primary theoretical "landmark" as to what can be anchored down, in the form of organized thought; to be observed on the way into the untamed chaotic dynamic adaptive system (aka The Tide) called (for lack of a better term); the complexification of novelty and present reality.

Through these tiny peepholes, we have been gazing from afar. We have been altered, genetically, and sociologically, in order to match the flow of an exponential form of novelty, propelling us towards the future, albeit a future that looks much more like the past than the future, but one that fits only the framework of a condensed information source acting as an attractor, pulling us nearer, closer, as we observe from the dispporortionate levels of complexification and what is also known as the 4^th dimension: time.

Not to be confused with the 5^th or the 11^th dimension, which must be a certainty in order for the micro/macro complexification of "String Theory" to be more than just a philosophy, but to fulfill the required defintions to be a science.

I percieve the "event" we are all talking about here, (re: T.M's Timewave) as the actualization of the understanding of a "Unification"- type theory "of everything" that could behave like the pinnacle event in the next transformation of the human species that, I believe, will look, in retrospect, much like the life of a catapilliar, who instantaneously becomes unrecognizable to himself.

When the underlying scientific approach to phsyics is that in which we have known all along; that ALL matter is energy vibrating at a certain frequency, and in the 4-8% of ordinary reality that dark matter and dark energy have left room for; it is all made out of the same stuff that lights the stars at night; that makes a B-note sound like a B-note, and makes a pancake taste good and lets us fully comprehend which dimension of existence made it taste so good.

But of course, I, and others could be wrong...

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String theorists are betting that extra dimensions do indeed exist; in fact, the equations that describe superstring theory require a universe with no fewer than 10 dimensions.

But even physicists who spend all day thinking about extra spatial dimensions have a hard time describing what they might look like or how we apparently feeble-minded humans might approach an understanding of them. That's always been the case, and perhaps always will be.

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Stay Tuned... Airs on PBS Oct. 28^th & Nov. 4^th @ 8PM

Following the broadcast the entire three-part series will be available to view online.

The first 2 hours are already available online......

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Basic Concepts in Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos

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Early in the 20th century, there was a discovery that minute electrical pulses, one milliampere (mA) or less, directly applied to the head, could affect human perception and the brain. [1]. Pulses were used to promote relaxation and sleep. This line of research was further developed and refined by the Soviets beginning in 1949, treating sleep disorders, and later moved into using pulses to relieve some psychological and emotional conditions like depression and anxiety.

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...To create an interface between silicon-based hardware on the one hand, and brain cells (“wet ware”) on the other, the two entities need to speak the same language. Researchers have made great advances in understanding how the cochlear of the ear and the retina of the eye function at a neural level, and these advances have led to developments such as the cochlear implant (a device that can restore a semblance of hearing to the severely deaf). What people understand much less well is how the central nervous system communicates. However, this area is slowly starting to give up its secrets.

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Journal of Consciousness Studies
Volume 10, No. 9-10, Sept-Oct 2003

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Astronomers have compiled the largest, most detailed map of the Universe so far and believe that it shows beyond doubt the presence of an all-pervading "dark energy" throughout the cosmos.

The three-dimensional map contains 200,000 galaxies and covers six per cent of the sky. The furthest galaxies in the map are two billion light years away. Such maps are invaluable because the large-scale structure of the Universe reveals the interplay of cosmic forces during the last 13 billion years ...

...These results confirm that 70 per cent of the Universe is dark energy, 25 per cent traditional dark matter and just five per cent ordinary matter, such as makes up Earth and the stars....

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"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."

-- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc., 1989

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The neuroscientific breakthroughs of the last decade have established beyond doubt that given the proper type of stimulation, the ordinary human brain has extraordinary or exceptional powers, that what we call "normal" consciousness is in fact a sort of sleep from which we "awaken" when we enter peak or heightened states. And, as the neuroscientific research has made clear, these nonordinary or "metanormal" powers are not mysterious, but the result of clear and quantifiable changes in the patterns of neurological activity of the brain.

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LOS ANGELES (Wireless Flash) -- Mainstream culture is about to be dosed with a new psychedelic era -- but it might only last less than an hour.

According to occult analyst Richard Metzger, there's growing interest in psychedelics in various U.S. cities -- especially for DMT and Salvia Divinorum, which cause intense hallucinations lasting less than an hour.

Metzger says the renewed interest in psychedelics is happening "because they work" but insists it isn't just for kicks.

He says 21st century day-trippers are "travelers, not tourists," and looking to access other realms for personal, creative and spiritual growth.

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The purpose of this essay is to suggest that a phenomenon called "consciousness evolution" exists and that it can be described by Complexity Theory.

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Just a reminder. ;-)

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Analysis of DNA samples from patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related illnesses suggests that these neuropsychiatric disorders affecting mood and behavior are associated with an uncommon mutant, malfunctioning gene that leads to faulty transporter function and regulation. Norio Ozaki, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the collaborative study explain their findings in the October 23 Molecular Psychiatry.

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Introduction to Technoshamanism

Neuroaesthetics

Neural Plasticity

The Proto-Self

Chaos as the Universal Solvent

Medical Applications of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

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The advent of sophisticated neuroweapons that can be used for mind control, coercive truth detection or to erase memories are on the horizon. Whether they are used for national defense or for offensive purposes, national governments are spending billions of dollars each year to improve soldier performance.

In the October Global Futures Report, The Institute for Global Futures described neurowarfare as follows:

Shape shifting realities, contextual synthetic intelligence, mind morphing...if none of this sounds familiar, that's okay as NeuroWar has not been invented ---maybe. NeuroWar, the use of advanced neuroscience technology for defense is in it's embryonic stages.

What do you think about the prospect of neurowarfare?

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(This article discusses exploratory work that was interrupted early in 1966 when the Food and Drug Administration, as a strategy in combating the illicit-use problem, declared a moratorium on research with normal human subjects. In view of the preliminary nature of the work, it would not under ordinary circumstances have been submitted for publication. However, because of the significance of the hypotheses, and because they are consistent with experience gained in a previous study of four hundred subjects who received psychedelics in a therapy context, and because of the hope that when it is again possible to resume psychedelic research the non-medical applications will get long-overdue attention, the decision was made to release these results in their present, unfinished form.)

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Creativity is the principle of novelty. Creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The creative advance is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates.

The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the 'many' which it finds and also it is one among the disjunctive ' many' which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesises... (Process and Reality, p. 26)

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Theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram.

By Jacob D. Bekenstein
Scientific American

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Stay Tuned for a theatrical modern dance interpretation of Terence McKenna's " Timewave Zero" from "Alien Dreamtime", redesigned for the Austin stage. Coming Spring 2004...Website to come... !!

cheers
- valis

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Astronomers have found the first "dark galaxy" - a black cloud of hydrogen gas and exotic particles, devoid of stars. The gloomy galaxy lurks two million light years from Earth...

... If they are right, this could resolve a problem in dark matter theory. In our local group of galaxies, we know of only about 35 dwarf galaxies, but simulations of galaxy formation using dark matter suggest there should be about 500.

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01-Archaic Revival.mp3

02-Transient Generator.mp3

03-Alien Love.mp3

04-Speaking In Tongues.mp3

05-Aerobatic.mp3

06-Timewave Zero.mp3

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This paper explores connections between contemporary cultural trajectories, traditional shamanic and techno-shamanic practices. Technoshamanism can be located as being on the fringes of a wider pagan revival being a hybrid of rave and internet cultures and spiritual expression. I argue that technoshamanism is about the transgression and dissolution of boundaries particularly those between culture and nature, performance and audience.

Using Foucault's concept of heterotopia as a heuristic, I explore the spatial and psychic significance of these transgressions. Furthermore the cognitive strategies which underpin technoshamanism resemble the nomadology of Deleuze and Guattari. This is confirmed when technoshamanic use of the internet is considered. In these ways technoshamans appear to be going beyond superficial retraditionalizations of premodern shamanic practice, rather they seem to re-framing such practices through the use of technology - psychedelic, musical, as well as computer hardware - as a gateway into the altered discursive and cognitive states of the premodern anthropological matrix.

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The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.

The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event.

Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in the urban-industrial nations take its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as psychological pain, too, could be banished is equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and ethical choice.

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An interesting Deoxy thread.

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We must discover new frontiers... People have been standing for centuries before a worm-eaten door, making pinholes in it with increasing ease. The time has come to kick it down, for it is only on the other side that everything begins." - Raoul Vaneigem

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers at Purdue University are making it easier to read life's genetic blueprint.

They have precisely placed strands of DNA on a silicon chip and then stretched out the strands so that their encoded information might be read more clearly, two steps critical to possibly using DNA for future electronic devices and computers.

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The physicist Erwin Schrodinger famously said that quantum theory would allow the existence of a cat that was simultaneously living and dead.

Now a team of physicists has published the recipe for making a large object - not cat-sized, but certainly bacterium-sized - in such a quantum quandary. A tiny mirror, they propose, can be in two places at once.

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The world's first project to map key chemical changes that switch human genes on and off has begun. The endeavour could provide a crucial link between human genetics and health.

The Human Epigenome Project follows the completion of the Human Genome Project and aims to map the way methyl groups are added to DNA across the entire human genome. These "epigenetic" changes are believed to turn genes on and off. Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, and Epigenomics, a Berlin-based company, are leading the project.

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Writing in this month's issue of CIO, Ray Kurzweil examines the impact of future technologies and warns that nanotechnology should be developed in concert with a nanotechnology-based immune system. "Future dangers from new technologies may appear alarming when considered in the context of today's unprepared world," Kurzweil writes. "The reality is that the sophistication and power of our defensive technologies and knowledge will grow along with the dangers. When we have "gray goo" (unrestrained nanobot replication), we will also have "blue goo" ("police" nanobots that combat the "bad" nanobots).

The story of the 21st century has not yet been written, so we cannot say with assurance that we will successfully avoid all misuse. But the surest way to prevent the development of the defensive technologies would be to relinquish the pursuit of knowledge in broad areas. We have been able to largely control harmful software virus replication because the requisite knowledge is widely available to responsible practitioners. Attempts to restrict this knowledge would have created a far less stable situation. Responses to new challenges would have been far slower, and it is likely that the balance would have shifted toward the more destructive applications.

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The identity of the Universe's dark matter may finally have been discovered. In what seems to be the most convincing claim for dark matter so far, researchers in England and France say gamma rays coming from the centre of our galaxy show hallmarks of these ghostly particles.

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