Showing posts with label Matrix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matrix. Show all posts

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Does Time Slow Down in a Crisis?

Scientists are asking if we can turbocharge our time perception. In The Matrix, hero Neo wins his battles when time slows in the simulated world. In our real world, accident victims often report a similar slowing of time as they slip unavoidably towards disaster. We’ve all heard stories of people seeing things happening in bullet time or reviewing their entire about-to-end lives, but if we could toggle this tachypsychian switch by choice it’d be a real-life superpower.


The first question is “Can our consciousness affect our awareness of time?”, which is a tautological yes – of course our ability to be aware of things affects our awareness of things. The fantastically named Professor Eagleman is going further: he wants to find out if time really does slow down for subjects, no matter how many people he has to strap into experimental hardware and hurl off buildings.The hardware is a “perceptual chronometer”, an LED screen whose patter flickers slightly too fast to make out – it hops between patterns like “3” and “E” but looks like “8” to anyone operating at regular human speed. The “hurling off buildings” bit is SCAD, Suspended Air Catch Device, an activity which berates bungee jumping as wimpy because the latter allows people to slow down. In SCAD jumps you fall off a shaky ledge thirty meters up and fall full speed into a net.

Unfortunately the results are against creating the Flash anytime soon: while test subjects did recall the fall taking longer than it actually did, none could perceive the changing pattern on the watch. This would indicate that the effect is an artifact of memory – the brain writing more data more powerfully than normal, so the recollection seems to last longer than non-traumatic events. The problem is that this temporal effect is the ultimate in subjective data – literally so, as the brain often thinks it’s the last thing it’ll experience. So when you remember things happening in slow motion, it’s the remembering that provided that – not the original event.


Of course there are a thousand and one other factors which could influence this experiment – maybe the brain can deal with data faster, but the frame-rate from the eye doesn’t increase. Perhaps the subjects were simply too scared. Or it could be that SCAD just isn’t the right way to trigger the temporal boost (in which case God help Eagleman‘s next victims). There have been cases of people perceiving time differently under cranial magnetic stimulation, or the effect of tumors, but so far they’ve all resulted in slowing down or simply breaking previously observed effects – it seems that overclocking ourselves isn’t an option yet.




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Tuesday, 2 September 2014

STO and STS: A philosophical exploration

The following are philosophical explorations of the concept that there are two distinct polarities, STO (service to others) and STS (service to self), at work behind the scenes and within the human drama.


While some may find the following material to be impractical, many who have experienced the ultimate weirdness of gang stalking find meaning in considerations such as these. If such material is not useful to you, then it’s not useful; each individual must decide what is meaningful for them.


What many have come to call The Matrix is essentially a hyperdimensional teaching/learning system. Within this system there appear to be two distinct branches, or polarities: STO and STS , service-to-others and service-to-self. It seems as developing beings we encounter various experiences related to STO and STS , with the goal of becoming aware of these facets within the world and within ourselves. On the surface these are the good guys and the bad guys. At the deepest layers these are but two facets of the infinity of Creation, and do not really exist on other layers of reality, as everyone serves themselves and the Whole. It seems to me that distinctions like STO and STS are useful tools as humans because we are learning to take more active parts in the creation of reality as it unfolds. As people waking up from previous notions about reality and the way things work, our attention is drawn to the gray area in between these extremes. In this stage of development there appears to be a clashing of STO and STS.


Where did we come from?


At some point we each developed from a hive consciousness (also referred to as 2nd-density. Most animals belong to this group, with the most developed members about to reach soul individuation. Many humans still cling to this way of moving in the world). Having unique experiences eventually led to our branching off from collective consciousness to become the unique individuals that we are today.


In a larger view, STO and STS are different ways of experiencing and developing as conscious beings. In a less polarized perspective, even STS beings serve others because everything and everyone adds to the All. Within this larger view, STO and STS are seen merely as polarities that ‘do work’. For example, a circuit has both positive and negative poles, without these poles, no electricity is produced and no work can be done.


Since this 3rd-density realm is largely concerned with learning to discern between the polarities, we are given opportunities to do just that. These come in the form of encounters with both STO and STS entities and experiences. Some are humans who have decided on one path or the other, and some are higher (more developed in consciousness) beings who, as well as helping us learn, seek to offer a choice between the two paths. For STO beings this means offering additional perspective. For STS beings this means attempting to indoctrinate us toward the STS way of seeing things. This is where free will comes in. STS beings attack free will by attempting to influence us into giving up our free will. I do not believe that choosing a side means anything like a difference between those who will make it to heaven and those who will not move forward or go to hell. These distinctions STO and STS are just temporary labels/tools that can be useful in exploring the different ways in which we create and experience reality.


What about outright attacks that violate a person’s free will?


There are differing views on this, as with most things. Some people believe that we essentially create what we experience through our thoughts and beliefs, and the choices we make that also contribute. The problem that some people see with this view is that it’s disturbing to think that of all the horrible things that can happen in life, even the most innocent people may have somehow attracted the experiences. I think that there is a lot of truth to ‘you create your reality’, but that such a simple phrase expresses a surface understanding; in practice it is much more complex and our differing levels of consciousness and development of free will have a lot to do with the complexities.


Some believe that we are each living out our lives with the help of a ‘life script’ created by our higher self, a portion of ourselves; the life script affording for certain learning opportunities to arise throughout our lives. If this is the case then seemingly even the most difficult or horrific experiences are things we can learn from. Of course the assumption of a life script is that there is more to existence than living just one life. I say assumption in the general analysis step, as for myself I have observed and experienced too many patterns of continuous life to have any other perspective –that said, I think we as beings endowed with free will can even choose not to continue -or something like that anyway.


I digress a bit here, but I think that where early STS types decide such a path through wanting to be sure they survive, someone who is further along on this path and starts to encounter the entropy that tends to happen when they do their best to suck on and leech energy from everything around them eventually starts feeling really uncomfortable and hating existence, even to the degree that they imagine themselves able to suck and suck until they Pop into a black hole of non-being. Similarly, it seems that those who are yet uncomfortable with the idea that our actions and ideas we hold all add up and create who we are, and that this is a never ending process, can sometimes feel so overwhelmed that they try to ignore the urgings from nature to grow up and take the reigns of their share of reality creation. Of course people in this phase are great opportunities (potential pawns) for more aware STS types.


The view of one’s life having a script does not mean that everything is predetermined, but that a list of lesson types is scripted (by us!), yet our decisions and actions, as well as those of others, determine how these learning opportunities come about. So too our actions and decisions play a role in how easy or difficult the lessons are to learn. Some lessons may take more repetitions to learn from if we are not able to discern the deeper meaning the first time a learning opportunity presents itself.


And then some believe that life’s misfortunes are a combination of scripted learning opportunities and rather unscripted interference by more developed STS type beings. Some feel that the higher self allows such interference to penetrate our experience for the sake of learning. Whether you believe that negative interference is allowed or not, the fact is that it does happen and the best we can do is to learn from these interferences by developing more awareness so as to be able to avoid them in the future.


Sides? What’s wrong with just mucking along and making ends meet?


The short answer: Nothing really, unless you run into an STS being (if you’re reading this, you probably have), in which case it’s an opportunity to either expand one’s understanding and consciousness, or to run the risk of being sucked into the STS hierarchy (or repeating this phase of learning until you grasp the necessary understanding).


Within a group of STO oriented people, self development is consciously in tune with a greater good, with awareness and caring about whether something is beneficial for another being in addition to what it means for us personally. Within STS groups, there is not a group per se, but a hierarchical food chain where the more powerful bid and feed on the less powerful. For the sake of discussion let’s label those who have yet to wake up ‘Undecided’. (Please note that this label is for discussion and understanding STS-STO dynamics for those experiencing negative interference. Some people who might appear to fall into the category ‘undecided’ may just be STO types busy acting out their own life mission which has little to do with direct STO-STS conflict. I refer to Undecideds here, as those people who are being manipulated by STS yet do their best to ignore it.)


Undecideds tend not to have as developed sense of free will and so do not fully utilize their free will when it comes to analyzing life’s opportunities. For example, if given choice A or choice B, such beings are less likely to discover and implement a ‘choice C’, an altogether different action of their own determination. Not utilizing free will makes people relatively easy prey for STS beings looking to inject their own views and agendas, which seek to limit the perspectives of others. Such STS lessons surround the basic tenet “it’s a dog eat dog world and the best self can do is look out for #1″.


Another concept worth interjecting here is that of ‘organic portals’. As touched on above, hive consciousness (some call 2nd-density) is a more primitive state where individual members are like fingers of a hand, they make actions based on a collective pool of information, without individually processing and understanding. The information that one picks up is eventually added to the pool of shared information, but is generally not consciously acted upon. While many people are fully individuated and have split off from hive consciousness, it appears that not all people have reached this level of individuality. There being degrees of development everywhere one looks, this is not as alien in concept as it may at first seem. In theory, organic portals are beings who, while on their way to full individuation, have yet to attain a breaking away from hive consciousness. As such, these beings appear physically to be the same as fully individuated beings, yet for the most part function more like robots who run on the beliefs and gathered information of the collective. On their own, these are not malicious beings, but portals through which the hive consciousness seeks to understand individuality. When manipulated by more conscious STS types, organic portals can become malicious agents. Granted, any one who lets go of their awareness can fall prey to STS manipulations, but organic portals do not have the same opportunity/capacity to learn and make adjustment to the individual perspectives and actions.


STO and STS beings and behaviors regarding gang stalking


In one sense, stalkers and targets are all learning lessons about discerning between STS and STO, ’service-to-self’ and ’service-to-others’ (respectively). ‘Undecideds’ are those who are ignorant of the distinction –that is, they are relatively unconscious or asleep; they have not chosen to be on either side, and/or they stand to benefit from better understanding through experiencing one or the other more distinctly. This is the whole notion of there always being someone behind the wheel of our thoughts and emotions, hopefully it’s ourselves, but someone/something is controlling our actions even if it’s not a conscious self. When a person does not utilize their free will (all the related nifty tools like observation and intuition) they are essentially vessels, or vectors of attack for battles between blossoming individuals on more particularly STS or STO paths. –since STS beings have no problem with manipulating others they try to actively puppet Undecideds, where STO types tend to be more solitary and develop their strength through the attack by multiplicity that STS types dish out when they can.


It seems that many targets tend to be very compassionate people who are working on STO lessons in which we as individuals are taking on multiple ‘Undecideds’ who are influenced by those working on STS type lessons. STS beings serve themselves by manipulating anyone and everyone they can, again, to suit their own selfish ends without regard for other’s individual needs or desires (except for where it suits their own). Because consciously STS types work at influencing others to give up their free will, and seek to limit the perspectives of others, it seems that Undecideds tend to fall under the influence of STS (either through negative encounters or indoctrination) unless their own development is balanced enough to be able to discern such attacks.


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Thursday, 28 August 2014

Enlightening Cinema

SPIRITUALITY: Enlightening Cinema

by: Jed McKenna


“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Like a splinter in your mind — driving you mad.” -Morpheus, The Matrix


This isn’t a movie review list and it’s not comprehensive. It’s just some notes about a few movies I think are useful for the purposes of awakening and why, or that aren’t and why not. With tools of understanding, bad is often better than good.


Major themes represented on this list seem to be these:


Heresy

Captive/Captor

Teacher/Student

Nature of self/man.

Death/rebirth. Cataclysm/epiphany.

Untrustworthiness of mind/memories.


The only thing I might advise with regard to movies and books is to raise the material up to the level where it becomes of value to you. Orwell might have been writing an anti-communist manifesto, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is much more interesting viewed as the struggle between man and his confinement. Apocalypse Now is about something more than Viet Nam, How to Get Ahead In Advertising is about something more than rampant commercialism, etc.


::: American Beauty


American Beauty (film)

American Beauty (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



“I feel like I’ve been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I’m just now waking up.”


I’ve included American Beauty mainly for what’s wrong with it. Lester’s major death/rebirth transition shows promise, but what does he transition to? Backward to teenage crap, not forward in any sense. A fear-based regression. Stupid car, stupid drugs, stupid vanity, stupid skirt chasing. Not at all redeemed when Lester sees his own folly near the end or by sappy/smarmy dead guy voice-over.


The movie is slightly redeemed by the presence of the quasi-mystical neighbor kid and his video footage of a windblown bag:


“That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.”


::: Apocalypse Now


Apocalypse Now Redux

Apocalypse Now Redux (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



“In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action — what is often called ruthless — what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.”


You’d think that Apocalypse Now Redux, the director’s cut, would be the version to watch, but all the stuff that was rightly cut from the original has been wrongly replaced. (Raising the interesting point that directors and authors often don’t understand the higher applications of the stories they’re telling.) Stick with the original over both Redux and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.


Apocalypse Now is all about the Horror. A journey of discovery, into the heart of darkness, arriving at this horror. What’s the horror? How do you get there? Why would anyone make such a journey? Should you make such a journey? Why or why not?


Note the powerful epiphanies that drive the film. The first assassin’s letter home, (“Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids…”), Dennis Hopper’s youthful exuberance, Kurtz’s diamond bullet, Willard’s “…I wasn’t even in their army any more.”


::: Being There


“Spring, summer, autumn, winter… then spring again.”


A lovely film ruined by a foolish walking-on-water stunt tacked on to the end. Without that nonsense the viewer would be free to think, to decide, to wonder. Instead, the movie zips itself up tight with its clever little dumb-it-down twist. Hit the stop button when Chauncey is straightening the sapling, before the ruinous denouement, and it’s a fun, lovely film.


::: Blade Runner


“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”


Were you born five minutes ago? Of course not, and you have the memories to prove it. You’d know if they were artificial implants, because, uh…


::: Cast Away


“I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.”


If a man screams on a deserted island and there’s no one to hear him, does he make a sound? Is it enough that he hears it himself? What if not? What’s left when you take away everything?


Self stripped bare.


This movie raises many intriguing questions about the substance of self, or lack thereof, and includes a very Zen eulogy.


::: Dead Poets Society


Heresy.


::: Harold and Maude


“Vice, virtue. It’s best not to be too moral… Aim above morality.”


American Zen, master and disciple.


::: Harvey


“For years I was smart… I recommend pleasant.”


Elwood P. Dowd, wisefool. A sweet depiction of a higher order of being misinterpreted as a lower order of being. Would we know the Superior Man when we saw him?


::: How to Get Ahead In Advertising


“Everything I do now makes perfect sense.”


A thwarted bid for freedom. A failed attempt to overthrow Maya. Enjoy the insanity of the epiphany.


::: Joe vs the Volcano


Cover of "Joe Versus the Volcano"

Cover of Joe Versus the Volcano



“Nobody knows anything, Joe. We’ll take this leap, and we’ll see. We’ll jump, and we’ll see. That’s life, right?”


Death and Rebirth. Unlike American Beauty, this is all about moving forward, “away from the things of man.”


::: Man Facing Southeast (Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste)


Watch especially for the visual poem of a man crumbling a human brain into a sink while looking for the soul.


::: The Matrix


Cover of "Matrix-Trilogy [Blu-ray]"

Cover of Matrix-Trilogy [Blu-ray]



“Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.”

Plato’s Cave for the people. As allegorically lucid as Joe vs Vocano, Pleasantville and Star Wars.


::: Monty Python’s Life of Brian


“No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the face and head!”


Sacred Cow-tipping at its best.


“Meaning of Life” also belongs on this list.


::: Nineteen Eighty-Four


“If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”


This movie is unique in the sense that it’s as good as the book, which is an extremely intimate portrait of the captor/captive, Maya/man relationship. Compare this to Moby-Dick or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which are superb books but useless movies.


::: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest


As with Moby-Dick, Hollywood castrated the book. They stripped it of its archetypal dimensions and reduced it to a meaningless pissing match between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. Great entertainment, but for meaningful insight, read the book.


::: Pleasantville


“There are some places where the road doesn’t go in a circle. There are some places where it keeps on going.”


A cheerful tale of heresy in which no one is burned at the stake and the new paradigm is, eventually, embraced by all.


::: The Razor’s Edge


“The dead look so terribly dead.”


The razor’s edge is what makes it interesting; seeing Larry shakily balanced on the fine line between what he was and what he’s becoming. He is walking the edge between two lives. The Bill Murray version is a bit unfocused… stick with Tyrone Power or read the book.


Maugham supposedly used Ramana Maharshi as the model for the novel’s holy man.


::: Star Wars


Star Wars timeline

Star Wars timeline (Photo credit: The Official Star Wars)



“The force will be with you, always.”


The first one, where Luke makes the transition from flesh to spirit.


The Hero’s Journey.


::: The Thin Red Line


“Maybe all men got one big soul everybody’s a part of, all faces are the same man.”


A sublime inquiry into the spiritual nature of man. More a sad/sweet song than a narrative film.


::: The Thirteenth Floor


“So what’re you saying? You’re saying that there’s another world on top of this one?”


Layer after layer. Turtles on top of turtles.


::: Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos


“Open your eyes.”


If you like Vanilla Sky, check out the original, the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). These two films may be the best of the bunch for our purposes; the closest to an enlightenment allegory.


Of course, the interesting thing about enlightenment is getting there, not being there, and that’s what these films are about; awakening from a false reality, opening your eyes. They’re not so much about what’s real as what’s not.


It’s the story of the journey one takes to get to the place where anything, even jumping off a tall building, would be better than continuing to live a lie, even a beautiful, blissful lie.


Note the presence of the true guru, explaining in clear terms why leaping off the building is the best thing to do, and waiting patiently for it to be done.


::: Waking Life


“They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?”


Wide-ranging philosophical inquiry. Provocative. Amusing. Potentially disruptive.


::: Wings of Desire


“When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin and where does space end?”


A lovely, intelligent, thought-provoking film. Can the awakened being return to the dreamstate? Would he want to?


::: Others


Some other films that reward thoughtful viewing are The Wizard of Oz, About Schmidt, What Dreams May Come, Total Recall, All the Mornings Of the World (Tous les Matins du Monde), and, of course, many more.


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