The Social Masquerade
The science of prophesy and enlightenment
Every thing undergoes changes which occur periodically.
We record those periodic changes over split-seconds,
seconds, days, weeks, episodes, months, seasons, years,
centuries, eras, millenia, ...
These periodic changes are the only kinds of changes
that we can predict.
Any change that doesn't occur periodically in some sense,
cannot be predicted.
Even a linear motion can be expressed in periodic terms,
as we perceive its motion in time using the periodic
ticking of a clock to predict where it will be at some
later point in space and time. This is where the quantum
wave-particle duality arises.
It is the nature of time that requires prediction.
If everything happened all at once there would be
no need for prediction. If nothing happened at all
there would be no need for prediction. That anything
happens at all, necessitates the idea that prediction
is possible.
To be completely "random" or "uncertain" is to have
no information at all about something and so completely
random events, either do not happen, or if they do,
we never observe them.
Quasi-random or pseudo-random events occur all the time
and the lottery is quasi-random and so are the digits of PI.
Such "effective randomness" is not the same as "complete randomness".
Merely having a scheme for generating these quasi-random
effects makes them deterministic to some extent since
we deterministically know for certain, that we can make them.
We can also record space-like periodicities; deriving
a definition of such periodicity in terms of space
instead of time. Space-like "predictions" differ
from time-like predictions. Whereas space is fully
indexable in a asynchronous manner, the more subjective
time we experience is not.
The serial recording of events in a time series is not
truly 'temporal' in a dynamic sense. It is a static spatial
recording accessible asynchronously (or 'random' access) and
its periodicities may be analyzed via some suitable transform.
Only real-time adaptive algorithms approach the modelling
of 'dynamic time'. Rather than storing the events in a
time series history or its spatial equivalent the spectrum,
the real-time system undergoes state transitions after
each event. The system does not memorize the event other
than for the short time it takes to determine which
state change to make.
Such real-time systems do not work using random access
temporal histories and therefore cannot be called 'statistical'
in the usual sense. They are interpretive systems as opposed
to the compilative systems of statistics. This interpretive real-time
is more akin to what we experience subjectively and call "Time"
and the compilative time we call "memories", which are accessible
asynchronously either sequentially (causually or logically), or
spatially (associatively or analogically).
In computer science, the real-time and static-times are distinquished
only by the their extent of context. Real-time algorithms degenerate
into static or statistical time algorithms when its context is increased
from single samples or 'particles' of events, towards larger memories
involving many samples or events composing 'waves'.
'Waves' or periodicities, are as inevitable as 'particles'
in a quasi-random/quasi-deterministic world because they
embody the concept of periodicity and the periodicity is
rampant in this world since nothing completely random can be
experienced.
The world is "quasi-deterministic" in the same, but complementary,
manner that it is quasi-random. Complete determinism cannot
be experienced in the same manner that complete randomness cannot
be experienced. Any "completely determininistic" event would
imply that it will always be measureable exactly the same again
and again forever. Since the prospect of performing such an
infinite number of measurements is a subjective abstraction,
the best we can say is that some physical event is at best
quasi-deterministic.
The Mind is modelled after the Universe it perceives
Subjectively, we allow for infinity in the idealization of
complete randomness and complete determinism, but physically,
the universe is "quantum" or quasi-atomic; and that is what we
experience and what our brains have been optimized to experience.
Because there is this strong optimization to experience the
universe in a manner which is so closely tied paradigmatically
to _how_ we observe and measure, the mind itself is analogous to
our physical model of the universe. Our model of physics
(body) converges with the model we have of our own consciousness
of the universe (mind) to complete the evolution and revelation
of ourselves in the context of the universe as whole.
The Tides of Social Upheavel
Throughout history there has been a great tide of millenial periodicity.
Mankind has gone through radical revelations and apocalypses
several times. In each case, the drastic change in the world-view
of the human species lead to a traumatic upheavel of "biblical proportions".
In each case, these great phase changes were brought on by a sudden
"enlightenment" of many people causing a subjective chain-reaction and
a massive subjective explosion resulting in wars and many deaths.
This rapid enlightenment on a large scale, brings about a succession
of confusion, misinterpretation, racism, genocide, and all the
evils of mankind that were rotting away society up until that point.
Enlightenment- as a mental coordinate system
The "enlightenment" can be intellectual or spiritual. It can be
spiritual in the sense of that feeling you had when you
learned to ride a bicycle or it can be intellectual as
in Archimedes "eureka!". The enlightenment can be massive or feable.
Enlightenment can be had by a good person or an evil person.
Bad people will use their enlightenment to control unenlightened people.
Enlightened people recognize the value of both non-distinction
and distinction. They recognize where morals and ethics are definite
and where they completely meaningless, as well as all the combinations
and shades of gray in between. They know its rules in terms of
communications and how communications and information can be used to
control people.
Enlightenment is not something special. Everyone understands its
principles to some extent. It is built into everyone psychology and
biology (mind and body) and into the physics that the universe
is made from. It makes us all equal and at the same time recognizes
our differences. Enlightenment is a subjective coordinate system
where everything "makes sense" and where people can orient themselves
harmoniously with respect to each other and with respect to themselves.
The repression and denial of enlightenment
The adoption of Enlightenment was as rejected as much as the adoption of
the idea that the earth circled the sun. If you use the wrong coordinate
system, you may be at the center of the universe, but you will always have
problems. If you use the right coordinate system, you will not be at
the center of the universe but instead become a part of it.
With all its promise, enlightenment was rejected by the power hungry,
and like locusts arising from their own slumber of denials and repressions,
many people revolted against "enlightenment" because it was in a sense,
a mirror held up to the ugliness they had groomed with greed and other
vices.
Many civilizations and religions have vivid accounts of these rare upheavels,
but those historical accounts were meant to survive the aftermath.
So these accounts were disguised in poetic verse so as not to prolong
the upheavel which in the times that soon followed, died down.
These accounts were usually hidden away in secret places (The Name of the Rose).
But any repressed enlightenment cannot stay so for long and many years
later, that "sleeping beauty" or "Snow White" of enlightenment surfaces
from the unconscious once again to expose society to a judgemental mirror.
Prophesy is a soft science
A prophecy can say:
* this will happen soon again with certainty, but not exactly when.
* that many people will die and some will survive, but not how many.
* express facts and vaguaries with quasi-certainty and quasi-uncertainty.
"Legitimate" prophets of the past have exploited imagery in their prophesies.
They may base the prophesy on a deep understanding of human psychology
(enlightenment) or the prophesy might be a totally unconscious revealing
of that deep understanding which they cannot express consciously in rationale
terms. Their minds try to find the right coordinate system but their
lives have rejected and repressed it.
They live brain-washed lives which unconsciously they realise, but consciously
the repression will manifest itself as neurosis which society recognizes as
normal behaviour. All the while a person will think they are behaving appropriately
in the synthetic "social coordinate system", but nature has instilled in
them the correct and "natural coordinate system"; which they repress in order
to conform to that synthetic system.
Any prophetic imagery is meant to be interpreted. If a prophet uses gargoyles
in holocaustic imagery it is merely symbolic and not literal. It may
have an element of literalism in terms of a metaphor like "a soldier",
but it will not be a completely literal metaphor.
Prophesy has also been fabricated in the past to exploit people.
The southern american cults are well noted for their prophesies leading
to mass suicides and communes. These prophesies may be legitimate in
the sense that these people experience a social repression which
manifests itself as a prophesy of doom. But this upwelling of inspiration
is as misguided as any psychological illness and may be correctely
be called a social manifestation of psychoses.
But in no manner is the imagery in prophesy likely to be literal.
No space ships, no winged angels, no hand of god coming down
from sky,... Such imagery is a side effect of "prophesy" which can be
likened to a psychotic episode revealing unconscious knowledge, or a
psychological disturbance. Prophesy may be correctly predictive
of coming events or of an intellectual revelation, it is a fictional
fabrication of subconscious knowledge which may lead to valid knowledge
if correctly interpreted. Prophesy in a more controlled form is the
basis of "creativity".
Prophesy is a completely non-sectarian form of prediction. It is not exploited
by science except by theorists and then only in a poorly understood "creative"
capacity. That theorizing and prophesy can be rigorously defined and exploited
opens up a vaste new frontier. At the same time is relegates humanity to
a much more humble status in the universe.
The revolt against understanding "Creativity"- propagating the social masquerade
That we can understand ourselves so completely as to simulate ourselves
mathematically, is in some manner a denial of that "specialness" we have
always attributed to ourselves. Many people will revolt against this, and
bloodshed will result. But eventually a more humble form of science, will
procede to explore beyond that horizon we always thought was forbidden fruit.
It may be that this science will again be repressed in the aftermath of
of the inevitable upheavel and it may procede underground in its work as
have many secret cults in the previous upheavals.
As the Hopi elder Dan Evehema has said, we cannot stop it from happening
but we can only do our best to make it less painful.
The "enlightenment" cannot be repressed and will always seek to expose
itself as if it, itself, were alive. Until we reach the point where we
can accept it without pain, this millenial tide of revelation and holocaust
will keep coming and going. It may be that nature will not allow this
to go on forever. The acceptance of the "enlightenment" is the acceptance
of nature's implicit definition of "sanity" and "creativity".
It may also be that I myself misinterpret what is going on, and that
this cycling is what nature considers "normal": the oscillations between
sanity and insanity; that the massive creations and extinctions are
part of nature's intention. This may be so, but if we look at an
enlightened person or a person so unfettered by the social masquerade
like a retarded child or children suffering from Williams' disease,
we see peaceful and "good" people; nature's people.
But, there is also value in a sword in times of need; the same as the value
of pragmatic science. Sometimes the sword must be
drawn from its sheath, not for imperialism but for survival, and once
drawn 'wisdom' is diminished. We must recognize the sword is a tool
and it must be replaced in its sheath when it is not being used to
prevent that corruption that follows, the rust, when we make a distinguishment
between war and peace, and between cold-hearted pragmatism and
irresponsible complacency.
This suggests that the millenial tides can never be completely gone,
but that we may learn to live more gently with them.
Disclaimer
I am sorry that the basis of my rationale is not made completely clear here.
It comes from many fields, non-fictional and fictional, and years of study.
Is it so difficult to see that it would take a life-time to try and explain
life itself ?
The best I can offer is perhaps a better space-time map than the one
you may now be using; where you go in that map is completely up to you and
if you get lost, I hope you will find the map useful for finding your way home.
It's not a perfect map.
In Douglas Adam's "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", Ford Prefect also admits
"the guide" is not perfect.
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