Posts by Rev Illuminatus Maximus
How a von Neumann probe might work
Having dispatched copies of itself, a probe would begin to explore the star system in which it found itself. It would conduct scientific research and transmit the results back to the point of origin. It could also be used as a means of interstellar colonization by constructing an artificial life-sustaining environment and then implanting this…
Read MoreSocial insects and collective intelligence
We often envision extraterrestrial intelligence in the form of individual autonomous beings, each of which possesses an extraordinarily high level of intelligence. But alien intelligence could alternatively take the form of a distributed, or collective, intelligence in which the cognitive abilities of cooperative groups of organisms far surpass the intellectual capabilities of any single individual.((http://intelligence.seti.org/pages/social_insects))
Read MorePhysical Matter
Recent science has also challenged the belief that physical matter is completely inanimate, unresponsive, and substantive. In their explorations of wave functions, scientists have found physical reality to be both ” idea-like” and “matter-like.” The division between mind and matter, which corroborated the Christian division between heaven and earth, is not true scientifically. The physical…
Read MoreTyson on Stars
The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically…
Read MoreAbout emergent phenomena
Life’s order is characterized by… the spontaneous development of self-organized order among ensembles that can neither be predicted nor explained by examining component parts in isolation. Spontaneity and self-organization mean that no external agent is sculpting the organism: it sculpts itself. ((http://jap.physiology.org/content/104/6/1844))
Read MoreComplexity, Self-Organization, Emergence
Self-organization is more likely to be achieved in undirected states, such as meditation, fantasy, or reverie, that border on waking. Dreaming serves to loosen associations lest they become obsessively tight. Francis Crick theorized that we dream in order to forget. Dreaming may be our most creative conscious state, one in which the chaotic, spontaneous recombination…
Read MoreGod the Metaphor
One problem with Yahweh, as they used to say in the old Christian Gnostic texts, is that he forgot he was a metaphor. He thought he was a fact. And when he said, I am God, a voice was heard to say, You are mistaken, Samael. Samael means blind god: blind to the infinite Light…
Read MoreAbout the Sorceror’s Apprentice
When you’re dealing with these forces or powers in a philosophic and scientific way… that rationalistic approach is useful. It is quite profitable then to regard the gods and goddesses and demons as projections of the human mind or as unconscious aspects of ourselves. But every truth is a truth only for one place and…
Read MoreSelf-Organization of Consciousness
To be more specific, we are now coming to understand the innate tendency of energy systems to evolve into structures that capture energy and use it to organize even more complex, flexible, and tenacious structures… It turns out that systems which exist far from equilibrium are the natural product of the self-organizing tendencies of energy…
Read MoreRupert Sheldrake on Memory
Memory is a relationship… across time between past experiences and present ones. The brain is… like a television receiver [which] doesn’t store all the images and programs you watch on it; it tunes in to them invisibly… The whole of the past is potentially present everywhere, and we access it on the basis of similarity……
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