Tor Norretranders: The User Illusion Just a reference to a book that affected me very deeply and that speaks to the last post (and the subjust of group-mind in general) in a profound way.

The Club of Rome Reports Page

While not directly related to the subject of the last several posts my mind was turned to Futurism and that lead me to this page. Any of the reports on this page are worthwhile reading but "The Limits to Future Growth" (Dennis L. Meadows et al. Universe Books, New York, 1972) is a brick in the head.

The Club of Rome has been associated with global conspiracies, new world order and other fringe thinking. Most of us (I think, and speaking from my own perspective only.) Would associate it, at very least with dominant corporate republicanism, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective. After reading some of the material on this site I am of the opinion that they aren't the enemy. I have for just over one year bee en working a book that has hovered in the back of my life for many years. The book is an exploration of the potential future that we may face and speaks to the need for human kind to release its latent potential (it any exists...(stupid, of course it does) to be released) as the only means to avoid a dystopian future.

"We" , it turns out are the only salvation that exists. While it doesn't specifically state anything one way or the other, the future is rather grim if things continue. The models that they built predict a collapse of resources and population before the year 2100. Yes, the book is outdated, but the wisdom is not. If we do not intentionally take control of the future we won't have one. In a sense, this does speak to the Group-mind theory in that only if we act as one can we avoid future mistakes. I believe that "We" are telling ourselves this and that only "We" can act. Not individuals acting collectively, but rather a collective acting individually. I am not proposing the enforcement of some synthetic, outside coercion. I am suggesting that we are faced with this possibility because of the existence of the group-mind as a deeper dynamic. One that we have failed to realize.

Funny, This ended up being a "Group-mind" related post. Ok, since I've wobbled back to this subject, consider something. What if UFO's, Angels, and the content of NDE's (Near death experiences) are in reality the Group-mind trying to get through to us (...I...(?)) in order to warn us of the potential disaster that looms? What would happen it each of us began to listen to the same inner voice? What if that inner voice was, in fact, the individual named US? When you where 7 years old you had within you the potential of a 31 y/o. while the exact nature of that 31 y/o would have been out of the reach of any knowledge, the nature of the inner person would not. This leads to the acceptance of, (in some minimal form) a "soul" or true inner self. Be this nothing more than an immutable set of values and characteristic's that define who you are, for the sake of arguement, it would lead to the existence of the simulation of you as a 31y/o existing within you. This, at very least accords with the tenets of Dr. Freud and the general idea of the ego and the Id (funny, id..."I.D."). with the added flavor of the modern understanding of the capacity of the human mind. Ok, so your inner 31y/o could then be 60 or 1000 as it would be a function of your future potential with experience. This doesn't require mystical beliefs or science fiction, only the capacity of the mind to generate simulations of reality based on current input and past patterns. You are a "Sum-over-histories" in the Feynmanian sense (quantum physic's, Dr. Richard Feynman, Feynman Online! in that you are the sum of the experiences the you have had, the processed experience's that you've been given (knowledge i.e; "don't eat toadstools") by others and your ability to use that information. So deep within you lies a simulation of you in the future. Its talking to you. If this is so, then its only a short step to believe that there could be, on an even deeper level a collective future self that processes information as a distributed computer. Slower and over greater time but with greater power. (Wow, what a concept.) We base so much on the external, the names we are given, how we earn a living, who we mate with that the internal begin's to seem ancillary. I think that you are the tip of an iceberg, I think that I am too. I think that if the water receded enough, we would see that we are separate and individual tips of the same iceberg. thanx again.

(Editorial Note: The offending post has been corrected and re-published dated the 24th.)

In 1973 the Arabic world was the epicenter of a vast economic tsunami that rocked the planet. The stopped selling oil to the United States of America. From the October of '73 to March of 1974 the United States lost 35% of its energy supply (until 1950 we where self-sufficiant in energy). The price of a gallon of gas went from $0.30 to $1.20 in less than one year and never looked back. The price of a barrel of oil shot up from $3.00 to $11.65 in just 4 months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Went from a high of 1051 on 1/11/73 to a low of 577 on 12/6/74 a 45% drop in just 2 years. Without belaboring the details, this represented the greatest body-blow to the USA since 1941, (and arguably, far worse) in the aftermath We where, as a people, resolved to prevent this from ever happening again. A flush of idea's and projects involving alternative energy spring up, the trans-alaskian pipeline is started and finished by 1977. Ford developed a prototype hydrogen powered car and a great furor started about the relative safety of hydrogen storage (as if gasoline is safe and stable...). in 1973 the USA uses 74 quads of energy, in 1986 the figure is 74 quads, conservation more efficiant technology leads to nearly zero growth in energy consumption. As of 2002 the USA's consumption of energy is just shy of 100 quads. We Currently import 50% of our oil supplies and vehicles use 60% of that. By 2020 consumption is expected to increase to between 127 and 175 quads, potentially a 75% leap in demand. In the face of these facts is seems rather confusing to answer the question "Why?"

If the USA where to stop importing oil it would mean a savings of between 80 to 100 billion dollars per year. It would certainly change the international balance of power with the arab states suddenly dropping back to 3rd world status and the wind being knocked out of the sails of radical islamic fundamentalism. atmospheric emmisions of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" would decline dramaticly. What if America's use of oil, coal and natural gas declined to less than 50% of total energy consumption with the balance made up from hydrogen and other renewalble resources? What if this had been done between 1973 and 1986 when conditions demanded it? Would 9/11 have happened? What about the gulf war? Would global warming be the growing crisis that it is? Consider the potential strategic advantage of becoming fully independant and self-sufficiant in energy during the cold war. The answers to these questions are obvious, the answer to the question of why is not. Why would the worlds most powerfull nation fail to impliment programs to create such an obviously advantagous set of circumstances? Choising a course that leads to decades of insecurity, conflict and damage to the environment? Kind of like declining a $200,000.00 per year job in favor of a carrer as a heroin addict. The First answer that comes to mind is the lobbying power of the oil industry. while being a compelling answer and very valid I don't believe that it explains the development of our current situation fully. I also refuse to believe that any group, organization or international "cabal" would have either the wearwithall or the power to cause such a chain of events over such a period of time. Even Hitler had to spin a good story to keep the public from finding our what was really going on and stopping it cold in its tracks. There are a host of socio-economic, political and cultural forces that would have pushed the situation either way, however, from 1973 to 1986 it was in the best interests of the US to move in the direction of alternative power. I belive that something more fundamental caused us to slowly falter in that effort.

The theory of group-mind doesn't require some mystical force or supernatural agency. Mob psychology is more than enought to support the idea of interpetation of world events as the actions of an individual. Beyond that level of interpretation the mind remains a mystery (for the most part) and we can not say what other mechenisms may exist that would support the idea. There is one factor that I think is very telling, 20th century history. Since the onset of the 20th century world events have been increasingly recorded, analysed, processed, archived and communicated to a wider and wider audience. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century (btw, does that weird the hell out of anybody else?) we are fully immersed in the Information age. Human Society is beginning to become cybernetic. self-referential in that the individuals who are most responsable (we) are now responding to the responces of others in our evaluation of a situation and what to do. The news media follows two rules, "if it bleeds, it leads" and "market share is truth". In order for that to happen, they must us Madison ave. and market analysis to determine what will elict the strongest response. Television producers use the excuse that since "Sex Sells" the closer that public television comes to hard core Pornography the better and its justified because you watch and pay for it. This then leads to a greater acceptability and then to greater availability and so on. A self-referencial feedback loop is created. its not as if the people producing the media aren't consumers of it as well, feeding it to thier families. So why would we quietly shrink from developing a renewable, sustainable, self-sufficiant energy source that would give us a major strategic advantage in global economic's and politic's? Could it be that there is something deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious that caused us to falter at the last minute? Viewed as an individual the first thing that you'd think is that the USA has issue's and is trying to avoid something. Perhaps its not just us but the whole of the human race and its most visable here. For 20 millenium we have lived under the idea of being controlled, ruled, guided by some agency or entity such as a government, king, shaman or God (through the "voluntary" intercession of a human intermediary). Perhaps the idea of natural, sustainable energy freely available to anyone anywhere triggered a sudden realization of the possibility of face a future without the external control of the human race and we just didn't trust ourselves.

The Theory of Group-mind doesn't in any way conflict with, or require the elimination of individuality. Only the recognition of a deeper, more fundamental strata of thought and consciousness that is the ultimate source of our idea's of God, self, morality. That and the fact that we share a common mindscape in the same way that we live on a common planet. I will try to post 3 times per week in the future and to be a little less rambling. Please be indulgent with me, my idea's may seem "crackpot" at first blush but they are based on what I consider to be some very rational basis's. Thank you for reading.

(This is an editorial note. Due to an HTML coding error the most recent post is formatted wrong. Please accept my apologies.)

Well, events of the last several days have derailed me from posting until now. I've been on "vacation" this week from work (the thing I consider the greatest barrier to my work...) but my position and the current crisis at the company demanded my presence yesterday, I became so angry and resentful that I drank a 6 pack of imported beer and went to bed. I do think however, that it's a good thing that I'm so needed as it keeps what little I earn flowing. Now that I've bored you...

As I awoke last night, at about midnight, I sat down at my computer to watch TV (Ati "All-in-Wonder" card) and tuned into a PBS segment from the "Nova" program (I believe) on the manufacturer of money and counterfeiting. It caught my attention and as I watched the FBI counterfeiting expert mentioned that in the last 10 years or so the incidence of "casual" counterfeiting has increased dramatically due to the existence of advanced photo-copier technology. People running off a few hundred in $10.00's or $20.00's on the Xerox. That struck me with the quiet force of an internal realization. Its truly a moral statement by anybody's standards that thousands of "average" Americans feel that they can, (or should) cheat the system a little for a small profit. While one could argue that a little pilfering has always existed and that (for example) teenagers often shop lift, cheat on tests, lie or steal from parents in the process of growing up and that this behaviour is reasonably comprehensible, I believe that there is something far deeper to be considered. During the program it was mentioned that the recent changes in U.S. Currency where motivated, at least partially, by the need to prevent this type of counterfeiting and that at least one of the new features, the "security strip" (the numbered thread that is visible running vertically through the note) was designed to foil photo-copying. This tells me that it had become a significant enough problem to warrant the justification of the costs and work involved in the changing of the currency of the United States of America. (There where other more pressing reasons, admittedly).

The reason that I mention this is that it speaks directly to one of the keystones of my work, that being the theory of group mind or "collective consciousness". There are several existing sciences that speak to this perception while not supporting, or detracting from, the central idea. Obviously, psychology is one. Several theories (both accepted and controversial) deal with the apparent non-individuality of human consciousness. First, is the Jungian theory of the "Collective Unconscious". This is a theory, first proposed by Dr. Carl Jung, based upon his (Dr. Jung's) research into the concept of archtypal symbols, ideas and images that are common to all humans regardless of whether they've been communicated previously. (Offering an interesting view to Immanuel Kant's arguments regarding A Priori knowledge). Essentially, as I understand, Jung proposed that certain thoughts and ideas are basic to the human makeup in the same way as our physical form. I agree whole heartedly with this and in fact believe that it is only the beginning of what underlie's the nature of consciousness and information. Jung's theory may provide that basis, or underling strata of a shared Consciousness Space. (The idea of an actual "Spatiality" being ascribed to the nature of consciousness is not mine see The Geometrical Approach to Consciousness by Dr A. Green ). Jung's work could be seen as the mapping of the outstanding features of this "mindscape", like a map created from a very high altitude. Memetics, (Dr. R. Dawkins, 1976, The Selfish Gene) The idea of independent behaviour of transmitted thought forms (idea's, concepts, feelings and words) would represent the dynamic's of the mindscape, its ecology if you will. (Interestingly enough, an investigation of the basic's of Memetic's reveals an Artificial Life aspect to the dynamics of the behaviour of "Memes") The effect is the re-enforcement of the image of an existent, dynamic, and common landscape ("mindscape") that is shared in real time. The external evidence of this phenomenon (if true) is found in ideas such as group psychology, sociology, political science, history, the arts and so on. It is our common behaviour, or that strata of behaviour that is perceived through time and is the result of collective action. Information forms the "Periodic Table of Elements" of the "Infoverse", its building blocks, if you will. Knowledge is the resulting assembly of information into "Molecules". Consciousness is Organic Chemistry. The Theory of Group-Mind follows as the result of the existence of an Infoverse analog to the universe and our presence in it.

This brings me back to the original inspiration for this article, the marked increase in casual counterfeiting. Could it be that we as a people are beginning to show signs of collective "Juvenilization" a retreat to immaturity and irresponsibility driven by the rapid development of technology and the possibility of realization of forgotten dreams and fantasies of childhood?

Sun, 08/18/02 03:18:16 PM
This is my first real attempt to publish myself, and my work to the web (or anywhere for that matter...). A short description of myself and my "work" is in order. I am a 43 y/o male living near Philadelphia Pa. with my wife of 2 years, three children (14,12, and 10). I am currently employed as a project manager in charge of an ecommerce development project for an import Wholesale/Distributor. I finished my formal education with the completion of the 9th grade. I failed the 9th grade due to the violent conditions of the school I was in and my own delicate nature, transferred to a marvelous new school with bright new possibilities and passed the 9th grade there with reasonable grades. That summer I became very ill and missed 120 out of 180 days, was transferred out of the new school (placement in the program was in high demand and they could no longer support my presence there) and back to the old school from which I had emerged, one (1) year behind. I lasted one semester and quit. I have, until recently, never held a job more than 1 year, with the exception of the US Navy, my fathers construction business and my current position. I have traveled a good deal, vagabond style and with the service and I am wholly self-educated. The details beyond this may come out in the blog, they may not. Caveat Emptor.
My intention for this site is to act as a surrogate journal. In the pages of this publication will appear the thoughts, ideas and considerations that form the interior of my work. Here will also be the personal experiences, frustrations, conflicts (within myself...) dreams that I go through as I move forward through time. Life is a time travel experience. So, what is my "work". Well...I hope that before long we will have discovered that together as I have never been truly able to define it or explain it. I only know that since my earliest memories it has pre-occupied my thoughts and efforts to the detriment of all else. I recently encountered the word "Teleology". 1 a : the study of evidences of design in nature b : a doctrine (as in vitalism) that ends are immanent in nature c: a doctrine explaining phenomena by final causes 2: the fact or character attributed to nature or natural processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose 3: the use of design or purpose as an explanation of natural phenomena - tel.e.ol.o.gist /-jist/ noun, (Merriam-webster dictionary) This word defines better than any other the core of what I do, and why. I seek patterns in nature. Where I depart from this is that while traditional mainstream teleologists concentrate on the fundamental patterns in physics and cosmology I depart from that narrow path and extend into the metaphysical, the religious, the "supernatural (which I firmly disbelieve), psychology, history and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on. While I am not necessaraly tring to "prove" the existance of god (I personally believe that the very question of whether "God" exists proves the answer.) The idea of some over-all unity and purpose to existance itself is unavoidable. Either that, or I'm just another putz on the web spouting mind garbage. I hope that someone will read this and in doing so, draw from it something of value.
Thank you.
Thomas Torpey