Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
A friend and former coworker told me something quite a while ago. It sparked some curiousity and I plunged into every source I could think of to get more info about it. A few bowls later, I had constructed a hypothesis shaped by the information presented to me. According to sketchy sources, the drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is naturally produced in the brain and is a very intense hallucinagenic. DMT is believed to be released at extremely high doses twice in a person's life, at birth and at death. This occurrance, if true, provides an explanation for near death experiences. The stories of experiences provided by people who've 'seen the light' all describe effects of DMT. The light at the end of the tunnel, the out-of-body experience, seeing and communicating with dead relatives. This intense dream-like experience is alot like dreams themselves; Lasting nearly hours, while, at the same time, not long enough. The experience, in fact, only lasts an average of 30 minutes. Can you imagine the uninhibited dreams you could have at extraordinary lengths with DMT? take, for example, the length of a 'normal' dream; Lasting a few seconds in real time, but seeming to sometimes stretch out through the entire length of your sleep. Multiply these few seconds of dreams by the 10 or so minutes it takes for the brain activity to stop after you die. Combine that with a potential dose of DMT and you've got yourself your own personal afterlife. The movie that gave me this idea was Pan's Labyrinth - stop reading and go watch it before reading on - at the end when the little girl dies and slips off into her last dream after death. It was a beautiful ending despite her death. Perhaps death will bring that last final trip. An intense dream that makes us see who we really are. Our bodies sending our minds off with one last farewell gift: Heaven or Hell (depending on how we treated it)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Stairway to Heaven live (Rodrigo y Gabriela)
Rodrigo y Gabriela if you haven't heard of'em. Check out their cover of Metallica's Orion when you get a chance. There's a few songs available on youtube.
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Lucifer Project
First of all, let me explain the title. The Lucifer Project is a conspiracy theory, in a sense. Apparently, NASA has been planning to crash the Cassini–Huygens orbiter into Saturn. This crash could cause a nuclear fusion reaction (triggered by Cassini's fissable, reactor grade, plutonium core) that would ignite the Jovian planet into our solar system's second sun. This project's primary goal is transforming Titan's environment into a more habitable atmosphere - specifically more habitable to human life (think mass relocation).
This conspiracy has sparked some debate concerning safety (possible environmental and physical effects to Earth) and 'morality' (Scientists playing God). Let me first comment on the safety issue to get it out of the way. I'm definitely not prepared to go into detail on the effects this ignition would have on our atmosphere, what with it being constantly bombarded with chemicals from below and all. Or the consequences of the inevitable aftershock of the initial blast. This whole idea, in this regard, just seems like a bad idea to me...even if we would have a second planet to which to ship the population overflow. The second issue is my favourite and makes me all tingly inside. This takes me back to a blog I wrote well over a year ago (and since deleted). The conservative religious sect preaching that godlessness is synonymous with immorality. I'm an atheist, but by no means do I consider myself immoral - I'll go into this another day. The issue is that some people are concerned about the scientists trying to play god. In order to really have any rational problem with this one, I think, would require a belief in god. In my opinion it's this attitude that keeps us from conquering other feats that could be solved with, say, stem cell research?! Not to mention the possibility of creating new life on another planet. Now I know I said I was against the idea, but, for the sake of argument, let's assume I could be convinced that the whole thing is safe.
I used to get pretty excited about human advancement - technological advancement to be specific. I never used to wonder IF we were going to make it to space (as a species, not personally) but WHEN we were going to get there. I also wonder about WHEN, not IF, we will cure every disease on the planet. I'm extremely optimistic about our path and hope that elitist control freaks like Bush don't fuck it up (like banning stem cell research). You can imagine how aggravating this whole situation is to me. It is a secret hope of mine that one day religion in general (I'm not singling anyone out) would be a myth like Greek or Norse mythology. All that would be left would be a society who isn't blinded by the idea of hands of wrath waiting to smite them down at the first thought of trying to be 'godly'. Kind of like children who, not only refuse to take that first drag of the cigarette, but actually tell the parents of all the kids they see doing it - nobody likes that kid! Speaking of rebellion and Lucifer, I find it interesting how a generation that glorified the rebel with movies such as Cool Hand Luke, Godfather, and just about every James Dean movie, can not see that it is almost an exact reference to the ultimate symbol of rebellion, Lucifer (or any other name by which this particular character goes in other religions). This guy was disowned by his family and fought a tyrannical higher power. A story like that with any other protagonist would be a heroic tale, don't you think?
Now, back on track. Human advancement, god-like heretics, and the pursuit of happyness (but not actually). Again, EXTREMELY excited about the possibilities the future of our civilization holds. How will our minds and bodies evolve? Would that evolution be natural or artificial? A Scottish author named Iain M. Banks wrote a series of books about a futuristic culture practising a form of Libertarian Socialism. There were no laws and definitely no law enforcers. everyone was telepathic but nobody intruded on anyone else's thoughts without permission. there was no crime, just complete harmony. This culture completely abolished every disease known to man and were biologically perfect in every way. If humans were to breed together and eventually become one race, or at least blur the borders enough, racism would cease to exist. It's hard to look at certain aspects of our own technology and not wonder how that will lead to similar advances. Inventing bionic enhancements for sight and sound, Bioengineering perfect babies and air scrubbing organisms, or discovering telepathic qualities to our own DNA. Breakthroughs like these paint an identical portrait to those 'predicted' by Banks. It's exciting to think those worlds could be less than a dozen generations away. But, hey, it's immoral to play god, right?
This conspiracy has sparked some debate concerning safety (possible environmental and physical effects to Earth) and 'morality' (Scientists playing God). Let me first comment on the safety issue to get it out of the way. I'm definitely not prepared to go into detail on the effects this ignition would have on our atmosphere, what with it being constantly bombarded with chemicals from below and all. Or the consequences of the inevitable aftershock of the initial blast. This whole idea, in this regard, just seems like a bad idea to me...even if we would have a second planet to which to ship the population overflow. The second issue is my favourite and makes me all tingly inside. This takes me back to a blog I wrote well over a year ago (and since deleted). The conservative religious sect preaching that godlessness is synonymous with immorality. I'm an atheist, but by no means do I consider myself immoral - I'll go into this another day. The issue is that some people are concerned about the scientists trying to play god. In order to really have any rational problem with this one, I think, would require a belief in god. In my opinion it's this attitude that keeps us from conquering other feats that could be solved with, say, stem cell research?! Not to mention the possibility of creating new life on another planet. Now I know I said I was against the idea, but, for the sake of argument, let's assume I could be convinced that the whole thing is safe.
I used to get pretty excited about human advancement - technological advancement to be specific. I never used to wonder IF we were going to make it to space (as a species, not personally) but WHEN we were going to get there. I also wonder about WHEN, not IF, we will cure every disease on the planet. I'm extremely optimistic about our path and hope that elitist control freaks like Bush don't fuck it up (like banning stem cell research). You can imagine how aggravating this whole situation is to me. It is a secret hope of mine that one day religion in general (I'm not singling anyone out) would be a myth like Greek or Norse mythology. All that would be left would be a society who isn't blinded by the idea of hands of wrath waiting to smite them down at the first thought of trying to be 'godly'. Kind of like children who, not only refuse to take that first drag of the cigarette, but actually tell the parents of all the kids they see doing it - nobody likes that kid! Speaking of rebellion and Lucifer, I find it interesting how a generation that glorified the rebel with movies such as Cool Hand Luke, Godfather, and just about every James Dean movie, can not see that it is almost an exact reference to the ultimate symbol of rebellion, Lucifer (or any other name by which this particular character goes in other religions). This guy was disowned by his family and fought a tyrannical higher power. A story like that with any other protagonist would be a heroic tale, don't you think?
Now, back on track. Human advancement, god-like heretics, and the pursuit of happyness (but not actually). Again, EXTREMELY excited about the possibilities the future of our civilization holds. How will our minds and bodies evolve? Would that evolution be natural or artificial? A Scottish author named Iain M. Banks wrote a series of books about a futuristic culture practising a form of Libertarian Socialism. There were no laws and definitely no law enforcers. everyone was telepathic but nobody intruded on anyone else's thoughts without permission. there was no crime, just complete harmony. This culture completely abolished every disease known to man and were biologically perfect in every way. If humans were to breed together and eventually become one race, or at least blur the borders enough, racism would cease to exist. It's hard to look at certain aspects of our own technology and not wonder how that will lead to similar advances. Inventing bionic enhancements for sight and sound, Bioengineering perfect babies and air scrubbing organisms, or discovering telepathic qualities to our own DNA. Breakthroughs like these paint an identical portrait to those 'predicted' by Banks. It's exciting to think those worlds could be less than a dozen generations away. But, hey, it's immoral to play god, right?
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