Prospero's Books : Signs. Stories. Systems. Spirit.

Here is a link to a wonderful blog that was brought to my attention by the Masonic Traveler website.

Tomorrow evening I am supposed to make a presentation to my New Age metaphysical discussion group on the subject of Seth. I spent the past week doing research by purchasing and reading several books on physics, chaos theory, and the human brain. The one I am particularily enjoying is titled 'The Quantum Brain'. What I expected to find was New Age twaddle about quantum weirdness but, to my surpise, the first hundred pages are much more like a book on computer programming by Koza.

The author, Jeffrey Santinover, is an excellent science writer; on par with Steven Levy. The first half of the book recaps developments in biological computing models; from neural nets to genetic programming. I haven't finished it, but I can already see where it is heading.

We all know that, at the macroscopic level, the Universe follows the laws of Newton and Einstein quite well. At the sub-atomic level some of us know that particle physics becomes a bunch of probablistic nonsense (yet, on the whole, quite predictable nonsense). We have learned this largely due to the fact that, since we operate at the macro level, when things we are describing in the quantum level 'sound goofy' it is only because we are looking at it from the wrong perspective. Ideas like super-string theory (a mathematical conception of reality that appears to make more 'logical sense' since the equations tend to work out) appear to operate in 'higher dimensions'. This merely suggests to us that the 'deep structure' of reality is outside of the framework of our macroscopic senses. This is all well and good. It just reminds me not to take the 'thought experiments' of quantum physics all that seriously since they aren't really problems at the root level of reality. Our senses are crude and rude devices to measure the deep structure of reality.

What we have learned, yet not fully assimilated in the past few decades, is the true meaning of chaos theory. We love simple equations, like F=MA and E=MC2. They look so elegant and simple. Yet, these stunning equations cannot solve something as simple as swirling a stick in a cup of water. Tubulent flow, chaotic systems, fractals, are anything but 'simple mathematical equations'. Instead, they require massively parallel computational systems to arrive at an approximate solution. We use highly iterative simulations with billions of connections to approximate inexact models to match the most simple things in nature.

As we study life, the Universe, and everything all we find are layers, within layers, within layers, within layers. No matter what it is you think you understand, you are only peeling the slice of the onion. The complexity of nature, from the highest order down to the lowest order, is utterly integrated into a giant feedback system that boggles the mind.

Are macro effects at the Universal level 'real'? Sure, they are. How about at the level of a solar system? That too. How about at the level of a planet? For sure. How about at the level of a continent or local ecosystem? No doubt? How about within the evolutionary life-cycle of a particular species? No question. And, let us take an individual creature? It's brain, it's heart, it's lungs, it's nervous system, it's cells, DNA, mitochondria, it's neural net, the layers of the neural net, it's biochemoistry, it's microtubules, its molecules, it's cells, it's atoms, it's quantum interactions? All real.

From the entire universe down to the tiniest sub-atomic particle in the tiniest grain of sand to the largest superstructure it is all a part of the whole. Top to bottom, bottom to top. Anyone who has tried to find 'the end of the fractal' (with sufficient floating point precision) knows what I mean. It never ends. From the superstructure to the infinite microscopic scale. You cannot easily seperate one from the other without breaking the whole.

So, imagine my surpise, when a bunch of nonsense and gibberish channeled by a New Age bubble head in the early 1970's says exactly all of the same things.

Of course the word 'fractal' or 'chaos theory' didn't exist at the time the New Age bubble head transcribed this trancendent meaning. Instead the ghastly ghost used phrases like a 'psychic pyramid gestalt', but it means the same thing.

I love every time Seth uses a phrase like 'your scientists do not yet understand...' yet, nearly forty years later, the next statement echos something I read in a book yesterday.

My presentation tomorrow evening at my tiny discussion group will begin with some quotes ranging from Pythagoreos to Albert Einstein. Next I will discuss Bohm's concept of the implicate and explicit order (his interpretation of the true meaning of quantum entanglement) then I will finally recite some of my favorite passages from the Seth material. The fact that the concepts are, without question, exactly the same is what completely fascinates me. I'm pretty sure I am not the only one. Maybe I'm just one of the few willing to admit it.