Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Singularity is near, 2012 is coming, the synchronicity is always around, and I must me going mad.

Scott Adams got me thinking once again. I don't know how long this will stick with me, but right now everything just seems to be falling into place and fitting together in a strangely peculiar way, so I figured I'd better get it on paper, or on screen rather. 
In the past year or so I feel like I've learned more than I've learned in any other single year I remember. I attribute this mostly to the internet, and this is a weird thing in itself because the internet is a big part of the puzzle. The internet is highly underrated. People are not really using the internet to it's full advantage, at least I don't they are. The internet is still very new ground for us as a species. It connects the people of the world like never before imaginable. It is an unending source of knowledge that is always at our fingertips. Billions of questions are answered every month by people using Google. Where did people find these answers quickly before the internet existed and the library was closed or snowed in or burned down? They probably didn't. Imagine the number of questions that went unanswered, and the arguments that went unsolved. How much have you learned from Wikipedia? I know I've learned a lot. Anytime I want to know something I know I can find on the internet, I can pull a small device out of my pocket and connect with every other online computer in the world to find the answer. That is seriously crazy fucking shit. We have limitless knowledge at our fingertips, how much smarter do we need to be? What's really crazy, is that it wasn't so simple fifteen years ago and devices like that did not exist. At least I didn't have any friends with the internet on their phones in 1995. Not to mention, if I'm doing it I know the scientific community is tearing up the internet swapping information and new findings and ideas and shit. If that doesn't make you curious about what's coming in the very near future, you just aren't paying attention. Without the internet I surely would never have learned so much, so quickly about Ray Kurzweil's predictions and Theory of Singularity, Daniel Pinchbeck's extensive 2012 theory, Terrence McKenna's Novelty Theory, Zeitgeist, Littlewood's Law, Scott Adam's wonderful theories on life and the internet, Joe Rogan and his awesome DMT rant. Sure, these are all theories, but aren't theories the basis or building blocks of most science and knowledge? Maybe these guys are modern philosphers, I just like to call them Thinkers. Now, I can personally roll all these theories and ideas into one equation in my head, and the pieces start to fit into a truly extraordinary concept, which is obviously unexplainable at this time, that's why I said "personally" and "in my head". Until I can work it all out on paper, or on a screen rather, which could take years at this rate (this is a very large puzzle), here are some of the things I think may turn out to be true to hold you over:  
1) Clues and/or "breadcrumbs", in Scott Adams words, are all around us, you just have to look for and recognize them. Could be a book, a movie, something in the news, a coincidence, a dream, a hallucination, a vision. Moments of Clarity, when things just seem to make too much sense. Synchronicities, when things seem to line up too perfectly. Patterns that emerge. Weird shit, freaky shit, plain strange shit for lack of better terms. If you start looking for them they will come to you. 
2) 2012 is very significant and will bring the kind of change we can't even fathom.
3) Memory does not only work in reverse. 
4) This is not "reality" we are experiencing right now and/or we are all one in some form or fashion, something inherently and obviously unknown to us, or most of us, I know some people already agree on this point. 
Now, I know I know nothing for sure, but these are things I think about when I'm bored. I don't even know what kind of answers I'm looking for. Still, with every relevant "clue", weird coincidence, and synchronicity I've personally experienced I feel a little closer to something. And just in case your my Mom, and your reading this, no, I am not tripping on drugs right now. I haven't tripped in over three months and I don't have any immediate future plans on doing so. This search for an answer started with an obsession with death years ago, before any drug use, that evolved into this. This is the kind of stuff I have always been most interested in. Nevertheless, I do think psychedelics have played a rather important role in my understanding of the puzzle and life in general thus far. Mainly serving as a "spiritual tool" for gaining untapped knowledge, unknown potential, intense self-awareness, and a truly heightened perception of reality. I can't delve into this topic at this time lest I go way off track, I'm still not even sure how it fits into the puzzle or how big a piece it is. I was actually trying to steer clear of it altogether, but I just wanted to emphasize that drugs did not directly inspire any of what I am writing at the moment or this quest for knowledge I seem to be on, just in case that's what you were thinking. Why do I feel the need to justify my sanity or sobriety? I must be thinking too hard. Moving on...
I recently read Scott Adams' blogpost about Kurzweil, "breadcrumbs", and coincidences. It made so much fucking sense it drove me into a frenzy for more input on some of the concepts and ideas he mentioned. This took me on a trail until somehow or another, I stumbled across Littlewood's Law, which states: "miraculous events" (i.e. "freaky, weird shit") will happen to us at a rate of about once a month. That is if you agree with stating that the average, awake, and alert human has an experience about once a second, and you also agree a miracle can be defined as literally a "one in a million" experience. It's simple math, works out to about once a month. Personally, I can go with that, makes sense to me. Thing is I don't sleep as much as the average human and although the difference is probably minimal, maybe that's why I come across so many of these "miracles", or as Adams puts it "breadcrumbs", or as Pinchbeck refers to them, "synchronicities", I like that one the best. As a kid I just stayed up late every night because I was trying not to waste any on my life sleeping*, actually that's still true today, maybe it's finally paying off.
Anyway, Scott Adams' post focused on Kurzweil's predictions about how humans will find a way to live on through machines. If you don't know who Raymond Kurzweil is; he's a scientist/inventor and I'm sure he's smarter than me and you put together. These weren't all new ideas to me, as I was reading about Kurzweil and the Theory of Singularity before I was reading Scott Adams' blog, which is kind of weird I guess. What I read that was new to me was this theory, which I posted in a bulletin, but here it is in case you missed it or you need to refresher: 

"Eventually, when all humans have robot bodies and computer brains, it will seem silly to be encased in separate physical bodies when reality could be better handled via simulation. So all the individual computers would agree to download to one huge computer and live a simulated reality for the rest of time. 
The imagined reality would feature each "person" in flesh form. Upon the death of a particular simulated human, the host computer person would "reincarnate" into another simulated human baby. 
By the way, it already happened. Your flesh form died a billion years ago. To make the simulation meaningful, you walled off the memory of being in a simulation. But you left the digital equivalent of a bread crumb path back because, being human, you couldn't totally release on the past. So we see hints and clues in this simulated life that give us a way out of this simulation if it becomes too brutal.
For example, in this simulated life we continually create simulations of our own. We call them TV shows, plays, movies, books, and even computer games that are simulations of life. Everything in this life is a metaphor. And our coincidences aren't as coincidental as we think.
I'm guessing you don't buy this explanation of your reality, but consider this: If the prediction of the future seems reasonable, and time is infinite, it is infinitely more likely it already happened compared to the possibility that it will happen in our future and hasn't yet. We could be imagining the universe as only 14 billion years old in the simulation.
"

Yes, it does sound a lot like in the Matrix, almost like the Matrix on acid. I must mention that the Matrix was a very seminal movie in my life. Years after watching it and slightly obsessing over it and thinking "That would never be possible", for it to actually seem feasible to me now seems ridiculous right? I mean, I'm supposed to be getting more intelligent, correct? Well, it's strange to think that it may be a huge clue, or a big fucking breadcrumb. I'm not saying I believe it or disbelieve it, I think its possible though. Plus this is different from the Matrix, in that we wouldn't actually exist in a physical body like they do. We would be the machines and the humans simultaneously. I know it's hard to wrap your head around.
After reading and thinking about all this for awhile I noticed the background on my desktop that I've had for over a month. It's a humanoid robot with wires going into the back of it's head, makes sense I would have that for my background, right? The funny thing is I wasn't really thinking about that when I made it my desktop however long ago, I just thought it looked cool. Now, is this a coincidence? Not really, but kind of. Is it meaningful? It really felt meaningful but I couldn't tell you why, other than I got a bad case of the heebie jeebies and that seems to happen to me when real weird shit happens. Lets just assume for a moment that we are in some kind of technological or spiritual simulation that we are none the wiser to, and I'm picking up breadcrumbs and figuring it out one piece at a time, and everytime I have a weird or eerie coincidence and I feel all tingly, I know it means I'm on the right track. Does that sound crazy? Yes it does, I know. But stick with me, let's assume it is true, could you disprove my anymore than you can disprove the existence of God? Now, how many people believe in God? Are they all crazy? Don't answer that. Once again I find myself trying to prove my sanity. This all reminds me of a comicstrip I found recently, which is very relevant and very worthy of sharing:

Photobucket

I also think Saul Williams puts a similar concept nicely into words (from his song "Wine"):
"The new wine, is dying on the vine.
How much must you age, before your ageless?
Align yourself with the divine.
Allow your inner sage to burn you rageless.
Cause I find the testaments of time.
There is no space for time within your mind.
If your looking for yourself, yourself you'll find.
Through the crystal of your spirit you'll inherit the divine.
You are God, you best believe.
Don't waste your time down on your knees.
It's everybody for themselves.
You are the fire and the cross.
Don't save your soul, it's our loss.
Collective soul, collective well.

Now do you know how I feel tonight?
Now can't you see I'm surreal tonight?
See how I shine? I'm a star, oh yeah.
Now do you know who you are yeah?"

So hypothetically speaking, what happens if or when this simulated reality catches up with the real reality? I don't know, but I hope I live to find out if it ever does, as unlikely as it may or may not be. I can't help but visualize the snake or dragon eating it's own tail, the ancient sign for infinity. I'm not sure exactly what it meant back then, but I should find out. The circle of life has taken on a whole new meaning for me. It does lead me to think about the infinity point, the novelty theory, and back again to 2012. I haven't even mentioned that I just learned about the discovery they made over in Japan which basically means we will one day see our dreams on a fucking television screen, which ties into my previous post about science-fiction becoming reality, and if your keeping up that comes back to this post and the Adams/Kurzweil Matrix theory. I can't help but feel like I'm bout come full circle somehow and figure it all out, it makes too much sense to me at this point, feels too familiar. Maybe I'm too open-minded and my brain fell out. Maybe I'm too curious. Can you be too open-minded? Or too curious? Am I paranoid? What's going on here? Am I asking too many questions? Do I need Jesus in my life? Am I Jesus? No, I'm not, but I am laughing out loud at this point. Like Scott Adams said at the end of the post that inspired this one, I may be taking a bunch of ideas and throwing them together, but that doesn't make it wrong, that just means we left breadcrumbs and clues for ourselves. And if any of this or any of my previous posts about crazy theories is the slightest bit interesting to you, and if you've read this far I guess I'm talking to you, please take one thing from it that intrigues you and just research it. Use Wikipedia and just follow a trail of links from there, learn something new, and then be sure to tell me about it. The more people looking, the more clues we can find.




*I was very aware of my mortality from a fairly young age. I dwelled on it almost morbidly for years being just as aware of the very good chance of no afterlife whatsoever. Since then the thought of no afterlife has become not so much scary as it is boring. That and it seems entirely too simple. That and psychedelics have led me to believe in an afterlife, I couldn't really tell you why if I tried.