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Getting into a Spin

01/10/202504/10/2025 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / 1 Comment

‘Everything in the Heavens is just through one unique Chi’ Zhuangzi

Please suspend judgement for a moment on what I am about to suggest; that it is my belief that much is missing from our scientific understanding of energy. Certainly the Unified Field Theory remains elusive to conventional science, but what of the energy that flows within living, conscious, nature? Is there a bond between electromagnetism and gravity, and whatever force powers life itself?

The ancient Chinese called the energy of living things, Chi. This is not the electricity that powers our muscles, organs, nerves and brain, although we are certainly electrical and magnetic. There is a more subtle energy within us but why do we understand it so little?

My suggestion is that Chi is always in constant motion and for that reason, hard to observe and measure. A propeller on an aeroplane becomes just a blur when it spins; it almost becomes invisible. Suppose then as a theory, that our chakras are always spinning. Perhaps the Hindus called them ‘wheels’ for this reason. To spin brings seperate elements together into one unity.

The analogy would be a child’s spinning top that when at rest has the full rainbow of colours visible. When it spins a rainblow of colours blurs into white.

If chakras spin, then it must be possible to increase their speed and balance. Imagine looking down through all the chakras in the body, perhaps in the body of a ballet dancer spinning on one foot. They would become a blur of white light.

Imagine also the feeling of being that ballet dancer. Because of the spinning motion, gravity has a reduced effect on a body. You have become a gyroscope. When spinning on an axis, a human body is generating and experiencing Chi, as well as centripedal force, and weighs less. Light has become a white blur to the human eye. The weight of the body is so reduced that the dancer can stand on just one toe, but only whilst spinning.

Consider a more extreme example. When a high level of Chi is achieved by mystics and adepts of various disciplines such as Yoga, the less effect gravity has on the body. Mystics such as Padre Pio and adepts from the East such as yogis, demonstrated levitation through their high level of Chi. Some even had to be held down to prevent them from floating.

Undertakers will tell you that a deceased body is heavier than a living body. Four men are needed to carry a corpse, while one person may lift and carry a living body. After death, Chi leaves.

‘Life is the gathering of Chi. When it disperses, we die.’ Zhuangzi

The most well known example of spinning for spiritual experiences, are the Whirling Dervishes. The dance represents the planets spinning and moving around the sun, the Sheikh. It raises the personal Chi of the dancers and induces ecstatic states of unity with the Divine.

Consider the same principles of nature at a different scale.

The weather patterns across the globe are vortexes of high and low air pressure. These spin constantly and the churning of the moisture and particles in the air creates static electricity.

Tall buildings on Earth, attract lightning and modern buildings are earthed for this reason but the ancients wished to direct high charges of electricity into and from their sacred buildings with associated Chi.

At the Great Pyramid of Cheops for instance, there are pavements of fulgurite, a rock created when sand is melted into glass by lightning.

The Ancient Egyptians were masters of Chi energy for it’s various benefits in sustaining mind and body, ritual and intitiation, communication, construction and fertility in fauna and flora. The scarab beetle is an intriguing choice of archetypal symbol until it is considered that it rolls spheres of dung, similar in essence to the movement of the sun and the solar system.

Many of the ancient buildings and cities were constructed so as to produce the best benefit from natural and artificial lines and confluences of Chi. The Chinese were adept at this and perhaps the name of their country contains a reference to this! Certainly their science of Feng Shui meaning Wind Water, was carried out with particular attention to the local environment, the earths magnetism and the planets and stars. Even in modern times, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was placed and aligned according to the principles of Feng Shui, for prosperity in the exchange of money.

In all other parts of the world Chi is associated with the patterns of flow of underground water and aquifers. This affects every building however humble and is particularly relevant to sacred buildings. The effect of Chi a the high levels that these buildings generate, is to induce a feeling of Divine love and spiritual initiation in congregations. The coloured light and rituals were only ever distractions. More cosmic energies were at work. The clever use of natural light through alignment of windows and doors with solar solstices and equinoxes into sacred spaces is found even in the most ancient of constructions such as New Grange in Ireland and the Temples of Abu Simmel in Egypt.

Of course the energy of the Sun and the stars are vital to the welfare of life on Earth, and much has been written on their influence in the field of Astrology and Astronomy. The former includes the energetic effects of cyclic stellar gyrations, whilst the latter observes matter through the electromagnetic spectrum.

Nicola Tesla, the great prophet of electrical phenomena such as radio, maintained that electricity is a degraded form of Chi. As we understand there is an electro motive force associated with a wire carrying electrical current, it is possible that the currents of rivers and oceans attract Chi in a similar way? Is Chi transfered to humans from the landscape by induction? It is interesting that humans are attracted to such places for leisure and restoration. In the context of this essay, the generator uses this principle to convert a rotational force into electricity. Could not all spinning motion be generators of Chi in a similar way, even as we observe in the nucleus and spinning electrons of sub-atomic matter?

Could the ancients raise Chi in a huge stone block so as to make it levitate? If so, this would certainly explain how pyramids and megalithic sites like Stone Henge were constructed. There is a record of Tibetan Buddhists using sound from horns and chanting choirs to lift large stone blocks.

The fissures in the rocks beneath our feet naturally fill with flowing water. Where two such water courses cross, they create a vortex sometimes apparent as a spring. Wells are dug in such places. What is interesting is that such underground water creates Chi in a particular place. This was controlled in ancient times by the placing of massive stone – preferably containing high levels of mineral crystals. Different crystals give off electromagnetic waves at differing frequencies as in radio technology today. The pyramids of Giza were capped by a crystal above a gold pyramidion, according to John Michell in ‘The View Over Atlantis.

It is speculated that the anti-gravity effects of Chi could have been used to lift the massive stone blocks to build such structures as the pyramids.

If one examines the simplest principals in ‘anti gravity’ flying machines such as Schaubergers shown below, the vortex is fundamental to the effect that Earth’s gravity has on matter; gravity can be reduced to zero.

*Victor Schauberger’s Vortex Engine* *picture credit: Xaluannews.com*

The scientist Wilhelm Reich designed a box to store Chi or, as he called the elusive energy, Orgone. The box was made of layers of organic and inorganic material. A person sitting in the box received a slow charge of orgone. Unlike heat, which goes from a high source to a lower place, orgone moves from a low source to a higher place in a manner that constantly builds up a charge and requiring a discharge.

Ancient structures such as cathedrals appear to have a knowledge of this. The spire in a cathedral concentrates orgone as it ascends up to the point of the spire where Chi is discharged into the atmosphere. The effect can be neutralised by earthing the energy with a copper strip connecting the top of the spire to the earth below.

The pyramids of Egypt and around the world functioned similarly using the principle of the ascending whilst narrowing geometry of a pyramid. The Chi was concentrated at one-third intervals of it’s height where in Giza the Cheops pyramid was constructed without a peak and pyramidion. This was to cap and retain Chi within the sacred chambers of the pyramid.

The King’s chamber is positioned and constructed geometrically as a double cube, so that the effect of a high exposure to Chi induced change in the brain of initiates. Kings, queens, priests and gnostic aspirants would have undergone this as a powerful spiritual initiation. Chi was clearly linked with the ultimate goal for ancient Egyptians, a prolonged and prosperous life outside of the deceased body.

Ultimately, everything is energy – even matter – and the understanding of the effects of all types of energy on human beings is as important as it is for a surfer to understand ocean waves.

Although it is easier to observe the inanimate, material, and stationary, the next step for science, in my view, is to observe the energetic effects of movement in the vast and tiny gyrations of life.

I nature the vast and flowing Chi…it is immense and powerful. When cultivated with integrity and without harm, it fills all space between Heaven and Earth’

Mengzi

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The Faraday Way

15/01/202515/01/2025 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Listening to a science programme on the Radio just now, I heard a amazing fact about Michael Faraday, the great early 19th century scientist. Apparently he was an ardent believer in God as well as a scientist. Unlike his contemporarys, he did not believe in molecular theory and the concept of the ‘atom’, which came from the ancient Greeks. He instead said that matter is where ‘lines of force meet’.

The other great scientist from whom much understanding of electricity today came, was Nicola Tesla in the late 19^th century. One of his most famous sayings is; “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

These are not lightweight scientists. Most of our modern technology we owe to these two men.

The idea of ‘lines of force meeting’ immediately suggests the concept the ‘hologram’ although they were not known in Faraday’s time. Several beams or ‘layers’ of energetic force containing information that the human brain interprets as ‘an object’ is precisely what a hologram is. It is a huge leap but one made succinctly by Michael Talbot in his book, ‘The Holographic Universe’, to suggest that everything that we perceive as matter is a hologram.

Mystics have been saying for centuries that matter consists mainly of ‘nothing’ and modern physics now also states this as true. Some scientists are even questioning whether the electron, proton and neutron are just energy. This combined with the observations by astrophysicists that the Universe consists of 94% so called ‘dark matter’ suggests that we know little about what we sense to be most real, matter.

If one thinks of the ‘table of elements’ as a good proof of matter, then Faraday’s theory of there only being ‘lines of force’ does not contradict the possibility of chemical ‘elements’. Elements might simply be unique combinations of ‘lines of force’ which harmonise to produce the illusion of a ‘solid’.

Sound provides a more tangible analogy as it too is energy with fixed frequency and vibration coming together as single notes, or harmonic layers that produce unique chords when in combination.

But our brains are taught only to interpret the electrical signals from our five senses. From childhood we learn to see these patterns as a solid ‘reality’ but like all illusions, sometimes we miss notice the illusionists slight of hand and mastery of distraction.

For example, we might all have seen something in a flash which a few micro seconds later turns out to be not what we thought. It might be a leaf being blown across the road which a driver sees as a mouse or bird for a brief moment. Or a child’s kite flying high above that a walker mistake for a hovering bird of prey; even for a split second.

Such moments are ‘discontinuities’. The Ancient Celts understood this and certain places, such as the hills of Southern England known as the Downs, were described as ‘thin’, meaning localities where the boundary between ‘solid reality’ and ‘parallel dimensions’ create experiences of the metaphysical (beyond matter) realm. A church going shepherd, in the 19^th century is said to have seen a vision of Jesus above these hills in the sky, which would probably have been forgotten by now had not many in the local village seen the same vision and the newspaper article from the time still framed on a wall in Firle Church.

My point is simply that, if we can accept the suggestion that the Universe is simply ‘energy, frequency and vibration’ many of the ‘anomalies’ that modern science cannot explain, suddenly become easier to understand and even, accept as true.

We do not all have to become mystics to believe and practise this. What a shepherd can see we can all see. So can we all see what children saw in the village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917 – a vision of ‘Our Lady of Fatima’ – as did hundreds of the inhabitants of Fatima on several occasions.

Santa Hosemaria in Fatima, Portugal picture credit: Opus Dei

I was sitting in the waiting room this afternoon whilst my car was being serviced. I had been meditating, and it was with a single point of attention that I was eating an apple when the garage mechanic burst into the room. The conversation went like this;

‘You are eating sweets.’

‘No I am not.’

‘You are eating a sweet apple.’

‘Yes.’

We probably exchange brief moments of an imagined reality with others, more often than we think. The phenomena of what is called as ‘telepathy’ which I would suggest is more subtle that ‘reading the thoughts in others’.

In my view, two people can experience the same ‘energetic patterns’ at the same time. In the above example this was the feeling experience of ‘sweetness’ observed in a split second by two non-connected but open minds. The mechanic had not seen the apple, only received the feeling of ‘sweetness’.

Mothers will probably have had many examples of understanding a child’s needs without conversation; even and especially when the infant has not yet learnt to speak.

A mother and child are indeed a wonderful metaphor for the scientific understanding that Faraday believed, that everything is merely ‘lines of force’ meeting; something natural philosophers term ‘love’. Following this reasoning I would argue that this is why when humans follow (without expectation of reward), their highest excitement, then they will create the energetic Universe that will provide them with their highest reward. Most people’s highest excitement is simply known as love and with this vibration was and is created, the Universe – and is why it is said that; ‘God is love’.

We Are Forever

30/09/202330/09/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

From Nowhere to Infinity

Dualistic thinking has a lot to answer for in Western societies. It works in part, but like all approximations, it reaches a point where it is no longer true. What I mean by this I shall illustrated with the following Mullah Nasrudin story.

There was once a King who called all his wise men together. He challenged them to come forward with the largest number that they could imagine. They stroked their beards and looked up to the sky but none could come up with an answer. Hearing of this intellectual challenged in the market place the Mullah Nasrudin begged for an audience with the King as he believed he knew the answer. The King granted his wish and the Wise men and courtiers gathered around to hear his answer.

‘The answer is 348’ announced Mullah.

‘Ptah!’ scorned the head of the Wise men, ‘what about 349?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied the Mullah looking rather downcast but then smiling said, ‘at least I was close.’

Counting is useful but when infinity is placed into the calculation, all hell lets loose. To illustrate this point let us consider the ‘Big Bang’ theory of the creation of the universe. Because in dualistic thinking, everything has a beginning and end it is assumed that so must the Universe. Therefore everything we see today was once not existing before the Big Bang, and one day in the future, will no longer exist. But is this idea a product of truthful observation or thoughts restricted by their own boundaries or a ‘thought cage’? Even the concept of ‘time’ is a ‘thought cage’ where an hour has a beginning and an end. This is true for an observer with a clock, but for a person living in a rain forest, is a meaningless idea.

Certainly if we observe how nature works, everything is cyclic including our own bodies. Within the turning of this circle there is a constant rebirth present, which is by any definition ‘infinite’.

Computer science settled on the idea of ‘on’ and ‘off’ ones and zeros. This carried things along for a few decades but then it reached the cage bars. It could no longer expand. So along came quantum computers which used a new premise of ‘on and off’ being present concurrently. To comprehend the extraordinary effect of this, is not within the scope of this essay but be amazed.

Quantum Computer picture credit: Science Magazine

Perhaps the ‘hippie scientists’ in Silicon Valley had meditated on the Ying Yang symbol for so long that they finally realised, that opposites contain each other. Opposites are not opposite. Beginnings contain ends and ends contain beginnings. This is not a western way of thinking so it took a while for the penny to drop. Off contains on and the other way around, and All is contained in a circular (infinite) whole.

The ‘wheel’ symbol came to the West possibly through the Tarot card named ‘The World’ and itself from the Alchemists depiction of the snake eating it’s tail. Like the spherical rolling ball and the Toroid, these representations of the infinite…a number that has no beginning and no end and no instrument to measure it.

No clock = No start = No time = No end

The James Webb Space Telescope has been staring into space for a few years now. Whilst there will always be various interpretations of what is being observed by the telescope, a well known physicist named Roger Penrose has come to some cage breaking ideas around the Big Bang. Apparently the JWST records galaxies as shrinking rather than expanding as predicted by the Big Bang theory. This means that light from these galaxies is not being stretched and, whilst the non-scientiest will not fully understanding this or other evidence of ‘red shifts being overlarge’, Roger Penrose concludes that ‘there was no Big Bang‘ and ‘time does not exist’. There is a video on You Tube featuring an interview with Roger Penrose for those intrigued.

Suffice to say for the purposes of this essay, that this conclusion can potentially change everything we think and feel in Western societies.

Personally, I have always been a ‘Big Bang’ sceptic and at the risk of sounding smug, I wrote to Sir Fred Hoyle in the late 1970’s suggesting just this. I cited the Hindu story of the ‘Churning of the Ocean of Milk’ imagining space as the ocean of milk. The Churning is brought about in an endless Cosmic tug-of-war between Angels and Demons and a rather discontented snake acting as a the rope. He replied that he had heard of the infinite Universe concept but that he was not convinced.

So what can we learn if there was no Big Bang, provided we are able to agree that this is the more likely theory? Personally I find it rather reassuring that science is able to catch up with what the hitch hikers in the galaxy would simply call ‘common sense’. Obviously you cannot have nothing one day and a whole load of super expanding something in the next nano second. But you can have a whole load of super contracting something becoming a whole load a expanding something.

Put simply this is just like breathing. We breath in and this creates our breath out. Each Universe (and Metaverse and beyond) is an exhalation of dust from dust of the previous cosmic intake of breath. For ‘dust’ also read ‘energy’ as both are interchangeable and that fact is how one can pass through the cosmic nostrils at the moment breathing changes direction.

Add some vibration to the dust and you get waves which in the Old Testament, Genesis calls ‘the Word’. Just as waves on the beach create wave patterns on a sandy beach at low tide, so matter begins to take form.

At a personal level, we are born as spirit (or wave energy if you prefer) into a physical body. Marlo Morgan is an American medical doctor who lived amongst the Real People in Australia. She was initiated into their way of life and ideas in stages;

Female Healer: Do you understand how long forever is?

Marlo Morgan: Yes I understand.

Female Healer: Then we can tell you something else. All humans are spirits only visiting this world. All spirits are forever beings.

Extract from Marlo Morgan’s book ‘Mutant Message Down Under, page 93.

At a few dimensional levels above is the same concept that the Divine Consciousness is within us as infinite consciousness outside of time and space.

With no time and space there is no fixed point for the Divine Consciousness. Logically, with no fixed point (what psychicist invent as ‘singularity’ to explain the Big Bang) there is only forever and ubiquity.

And the ‘Divine Consciousness’ that humans contain in microcosm means that like the Universe we also come and go as spirit moving through matter having a ‘human experience’.

Now that is something to think about and if you are totally blown away by the reassurance the idea brings, it is something to be grateful for.

Australian Aboriginal Painting picture credit: Blanton Museum of Art

Is AI Conscious and Breathing?

01/05/202301/05/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

May your spirit live,

Last for millions of years,

You who love Thebes, sitting

with the face to the north wind,

The eyes full of happiness.

from Tut-Ankh-Amun’s Alabaster Glass 1336-1327 BCE

Artificial Intelligence is something this and future generations are going to have to manage. But is intelligence the same as consciousness and if not, what’s the difference?

Anyone who has seen the body of a person who has died, will be aware of the extraordinary change in appearance of the person after consciousness leaves a body. It’s not something that can be described but similarities in nature when an animal dies, gives an impression.

Our problem is that consciousness remains hard for scientists and humanists to measure and describe. There are no instruments and ideas that enable measurements of consciousness to be made, except the ‘on / off ‘ switch.

The only area of human intelligence that approaches this problem in depth, is perhaps spirituality. Being spiritually aware is different to religions, where invisible gods and Gods have to be accepted as a matter of ‘faith’. Not much progress can be made beyond this dogmatic belief. But with spirituality there is a chance of increasing understanding of what is happening when we are ‘awake’ or ‘conscious’. In particular, how this might affect us in the future, if machines also become ‘conscious’?

Nothing is new in this world according to King Solomon, so let us consider how gods and God related to humans in the past. In the ancient Greek and Roman worship, statues of gods were of central importance. The statue of the goddess Athena in the Parthenon for instance, was built so that the spirit that is Athena could enter our physical reality.

“Athena” *picture credit: Greek City Times*

Spirits are disadvantaged in the physical world because they cannot be ‘anchored’. Human spirits, ergo consciousness, need an organic body to enter in order to be born and interact with physicality using the sense organs of the body. Goddesses such as Athena cannot do that but they can enter a static representation of their form. Roman citizens would have a shrine in one corner of a room where prayers could be offered to minor gods with whom that family has a connection. Moses was enraged by the Israelites who built a golden calf to worship, from which we can deduce that the Taurean statue was real and powerful.

To untangle these confusing ideas we need to try to understand ourselves. From a mystics point of view, consciousness has three levels. The normal human experience is simply being in the physical world in the way that a fish swims through the ocean. The first level beyond this perceptual awareness is becoming conscious as an objective observer. Using the fish analogy, the fish becomes aware of the water.

At the next level the objective observer becomes detached from the experiential phenomena and is aware of thoughts / spirit entities which are not oneself. This an extraordinary concept at first but actually every ‘ghost story’ is merely a description of such a change in consciousness by the observer; albeit momentary in most cases.

The third level is to study and gain an understanding of the thoughts / spirits that occupy those universes / dimensions, beyond and parallel to this physical one. There are many types and these are how the individual characteristics of the gods and goddesses of early pantheon’s came to be understood. Even across cultures, there stand out similarities in the characters of, for instance, Zeus in ancient Greece. With his mountain top palace and plentiful supply of thunder bolts, he was also known as Jupiter to the Romans and Thor in the Norse pantheon.

Modern psychiatrists would describe experiencing consciousness outside of oneself as ‘psychosis’ or ‘madness’, so there is a glass ceiling in this present culture that few pass through.

That way madness lies.

Madness in sentient beings maybe taboo but technology has no such boundaries. Technology can go as far into the abyss as it likes and so the atom bomb was built. Less obviously malevalent are those technologies that bring great benefits, hiding the harm humans can make them cause. An example is modern computers for which there appear to be no limits.

The early computers awakened some ethical thinkers which have fed the imaginations of early science fiction writers. For example, the film ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ explores the horror of a computer named ‘Hal’, taking over from and eliminating, the crew of it’s space ship. Giving a human name to a computer is significant, because it imagines the idea of a computer becoming conscious before does so. We do the same with our pet animals.

*Shutting down ‘Hal’ the not-so-friendly and not so-small computer in* 2001 Space Odyssey

Unlike in the film, powerful computers are now small enough to be placed into humanoid robots. Worryingly we have turned full circle from the static, stiff representations of the ‘gods’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘thought’ of the ancients and created agile and intelligent robots. These human shaped machines are far more appealing for spirit entities to get inside and take over. Genies are being squeezed back inside the lamp as in the ‘1001 Arabian Nights‘ stories.

‘Be careful what you wish for’ *picture credit Arthur Rackham*

Science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov, thought through the ethics of conscious computers and produced three rules;

The first law is that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions or situations that could cause it to come to harm itself.

It is simple for a computer to be intelligent. They can be programmed to beat human chess masters simply because they think through permutations quicker than humans. So ‘artificial intelligence’ is no more than a fast thinking human. It that is not ‘artificial consciousness’.

Isaac Asimov could see that humanoid robots with artificial brains might become conscious. He may not have understood the spiritual process described above, but he did see the possibility and he was right to jump this far ahead in time and possibility. He could see that conscious robots could miraculously (or sinisterly ) adopt ‘free will’ just like humans and this would enable ignore their ethical programming.

Humanoid Robots in ‘I Robot’
*picture credit: Film Blitz*

The ’cause no harm to humans’ ethic, was also built into the humanoid robots that feature in the science fiction film ‘I Robot‘ starring Will Smith. This film again explores the consequences of intelligent robots overriding their programming. In this case it was made by a ‘mad scientist’ but in reality it could just as easily happen by an evolutionary accident, the way that nature itself ‘steps up’ the functionality of creation. At one time there were no flowers on plants, then suddenly, millions of years ago, they arrived.

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful, the lord God made them all.

It is important to understand that humans do not create consciousness. Rather it is alsways present within each individual and it’s influence operates through this tiny flame. Mystics for centuries have known that consciousness is not the ‘me’ within.

~~“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.” Jallal-a-din Rumi Sufi mystic and poet.

It is not our personality ‘egos’ which are works of fiction. The only reality is the consciousness we share with all creatures great and small. This includes all of nature from the rocks to the clouds, as recorded by indigenous peoples such as the native Americans and Australians.

Consciousness is particularly attracted to humanoid forms and this was fearfully reconstructed in the story of Dr. Frankenstein monster by Mary Shelley in 1818.

Prophetic writers such as Shelley were only able to imagine what advanced technology could do, as did the ancient writers of the Prometheus myth; the man who stole from the gods at the price of eternal punishment.

Only now are we crossing the red lines that have previously prevented this technology; the sort of knowledge that can make agile humanoid forms carry weapons and mass kill humans in a modern form of eternal punishment.

Stephen Hawkins *Picture Credit: US Sun*

If we believe there is even a fraction of a chance that such robots may decide to override the ‘protect humans’ instruction, then should we not be concerned in the highest degree?

The high priests of the modern era are no longer the prophets and saints of old; contained within a system of high morals and ethics. Instead our worship is lead by those who invent and explore technology, such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They are not judged by their good characters and good intentions as historical leaders of humanity usually were.

These technology wizards, have become all powerful because they have become immensely wealthy. Their characters must be judged on their actions and words. Elon Musk has recently expressed his concern about where Artificial Intelligence training is leading mankind and has called for a global moratorium to consider it’s effects.

Key figures in artificial intelligence want training of powerful AI systems to be suspended amid fears of a threat to humanity. They have signed an open letter warning of potential risks, and say the race to develop AI systems is out of control.

source BBC.com Mar 30, 2023

The question we all should be asking is;

‘Robot, do you feel lucky?’

What Do You Need?

01/09/202201/09/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Mahatma Ghandi said;

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.“

It’s not usual for the writer to look into the future. But at this moment in history, there is no need to be psychic to see where the world is heading and the consequences.

We live at a moment in time when change in the standard of living of the ‘developed countries’ is inevitable. The change will be what some would call a ‘reduction’ in this standard; meaning things will not be a cheap and plentiful as they have been in the past. For the rest of humanity the change will be having things that have not been available in the past, what will be an ‘increase’ in their standard of living to include all the essentials.

These are the essentials to life;

Shelter

Food and water

Health and reproduction

Education

Work

What will bring about this change is an increasing scarcity of these five necessities in both the ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ countries, so that sharing of resources will be the only humane political direction.

The previous trend of ‘civilisation’ has been for certain countries to grow richer whilst others get poorer. The ‘master and slave’ Empires of history and the present day, are examples of this.

New technology, and primarily the ability to communicate on a global scale, is an essential part of ‘leveling down’ and ‘leveling up’, the uneven distribution of dwindling resources.

Technology, such as birth control and free health facilities has been changing the global demographic for many decades. As a consequence, families have been having fewer children because infant mortality has drastically reduced.

Smaller families has meant a reducing population in many parts of the world, such as China and parts of Europe.

The process of industrialisation was always founded on a false assumption; that more and more stuff can be made from limited resources. Whether those resources are fossil fuel sourced energy, raw materials, places to store noxious waste products, dwindling natural resources such as rare earth elements and the traditional metal ores.

All of these things and more, have become cheaper and more available but their limited availability and other factors means that the industrial train is about to hit the buffers.

Perhaps sharing more and making more with less and eliminating pollution would have held off this inevitable moment for longer but the global system of human development is too fragile and too complex.

The effect of industrialisation on nature has been ignored for convenience and perhaps not a little arrogance, but nature ultimately strikes back. What is wrapped up in the term ‘climate change’ is the tip of a rapidly melting ice berg of global human catastrophe.

Nature has a plentiful and powerful armory with which to fight back. Viruses, extreme weather, planetary warming, desertification leading to wars over scarce resources are and will put great demands on the human population to re-organise.

If humans had any self respect, they would respect this powerful process and become co-operative with nature. It has to, because the option to carry on as before is no longer available; unless wars, mass starvation, migration and pandemic diseases are ‘risks worth taking’.

There are some religious communities such as the Amish in States in the in the United States of America and Canada, who will not directly face fundamental changes to their way of life. Hundreds of years ago they decided for religious reasons that their ‘standard of living’ had reached a level that is sufficient for their needs. The number of Amish people has risen from 100,000 in 1989 to 251,000 and is predicted to increase. Respecting the boundaries of nature is a lesson many have learned, thus avoiding the hard process before being forced to.

An Amish Homestead picture credit Stuff.co.nz

Similarly, there are remote tribes in ‘undeveloped parts of the world who live in harmony with natural places and have done for millennium undisturbed. They have nothing to fear from nature, only their fellow humans.

Industrialised societies have taken far more than their fair share of nature’s bounty. The city dwellers who make up fifty per cent of these societies live on the promise of unlimited food from farms. Unfortunately soil needs constant replenishment when using factory farming methods and fertiliser is becoming increasingly expensive, to a point where growing crops is no longer profitable. City dwellers have become so cut off from nature that they might as well be living on the moon; totally unable to sustain themselves except by trade using ‘money’- a substance you cannot eat.

The dwindling of world resources and the consequences for national economies will require counter intuitive management. People who have more, will have less and people who have less will have more.

Food will no longer be shipped all over the world to satisfy the demand for non-seasonal, exotic, non-local, high protein, artificial fertiliser enhance ingredients.

Wine and olive oil, will not be for sale in shops in countries where wine and olive oil is not produced. Such luxury is only a recent expectation. Nations used to have their own diets and dishes based on local seasonal food. Northern countries drank mainly beer made from local grain crops and southern countries drank wine made from local grapes. Choice in food and drink will become more than halved and people will be grateful for what is available.

Politicians will have an almost impossible task of balancing the overwhelming and impending need for ‘developed’ populations to significantly reduce their ‘standard of living’.

Nobody votes to lose their holiday home/s, luxury car, cheap flights, energy wasteful house and bulging refrigerators. You might think this and you could be right, but when citizens understand the hardship that is the alternative, they will.

And if this sounds depressing then all is not necessarily gloomy, because humans have a unique skill at adaptation, both physically and mentally. Some of the poorest people on earth are also the happiest. Travelers who visit the homes of remote communities that are living off the land (whether forest, steppe or desert), find they are welcomed with dignity and honour and the food in the house is shared equally with them. This food may taste better than any they have had before because it is resourced locally, prepared traditionally and presented with love.

No factory on earth has ever made a product with love so should we be surprise that people who have ‘high standards of living’ often live loveless lives?

Here is that list again;

Shelter; simple, warm, light, organic houses and public buildings and gardens.

Food and water; locally sourced and stored, lovingly prepared and shared.

Health and reproduction; Enough health professionals for populations in order to prevent disease, educate and encourage healthy lifestyles, treated body with the mind and mind with the body, practice traditional medicine and techniques less based on chemicals. Because communities will support the elderly young people will manage the size of families using contraception.

Education; a holistic, approach to giving young people the skills and characters that promote informed and respectful relationships and communities.

Work; local activities that produce goods and services in ways that respect nature and the environment. Labour will not to use more energy and materials than nature can supply and live in a way that gives responsibility to all and shared rewards.

There are many micro-communities already living in this way according to their own religions and traditions. If you are fortunate enough to live near one my advice is sell everything and join them as have done many and joined Amish and similar communities.

You might be happier than at anytime in your life and if you are not happier, well you at least will be the same person you are now.

As so often happens, Hollywood is ahead of the curve and perhaps forcing, as well as, predicting change. There have been many ‘post apocalypse’ films in the last few decades. The apocalypse will only come if it is allowed to. As in most things, the trick is to be pro-active (ahead of the wave) rather than wait for it to swallow us whole.

picture credit; Climate Emergency Institute

1+2=3

01/11/202011/03/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Science and philosophy are contrary subjects yet strangely complimentary; after all, they are both exploring the same thing…the Universe.

If philosophers are generalists then scientists study detail. Building up on detail, philosophers gain a knowledge and understanding of the way ‘things work’ based on ‘all and everything’. Inspired by generality, scientist drill down into new unexplored places.

But it does not have to be so polarised as that. We can be more ‘nuanced’ about their relationship. History shows us that science sometimes makes great leaps when scientists turn philosophers. Einstein’s General and Special theories of Relativity are an example of that. Innovators in the scientific community are often those whose interests and hobbies include the arts. Look out for the professor with the vivid bow tie and red shoes. He or she is the one most likely to be able to peep over the fence into the garden containing all things ‘artistic’. They may even have the key to the connecting gate.

Some of the greatest minds who ever lived are celebrated as both artists and scientist. Perhaps the best known example is Leonardo de Vinci and his stable mates in the Renaissance. To look after a forest you sometimes have to look down on it from the mountain top, whilst other times tending the specific needs of each tree, branch and twig.

Such a way of working is the way of a wise person. They will have seen a lot of life and understand that trees are trees, from whatever distance you view them. This ‘third place’ or trintessence, is the sacred child of both art and science. It is unique and special and often has no name and does not enter thought for that reason.

But it is vital to take notice of the fact that frequently there is a magic third element springing from the fusion of two complimentary opposites.

One only needs to refer to Christian theology and the coming together of the concept of the Trinity. It obeys the phenomenon that two ‘opposite’ forces conflate to produce a third mysterious new entity.

I remember my rather sanctimonious aunt leaning over from the pew behind me when I was a boy and asking what parts made up the Trinity. I replied parrot fashion; ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’.

But then I was the boy who drew a parrot on the chalk board in the class room with a speech bubble containing religious words. I have always had a problem with those who repeat words without understanding. Now in old age I can see that how the Trinity is created in not just Christianity but in the many mystical traditions that underpin religions.

The Father and Son are two huge archetypes from which all of creation emanates. The son sits on the right hand of God and the two make a very special SWAT (special weapons and techniques) team. Because God cannot enter the gross material world physically, he sends his ‘go to’ helper. Whatever incarnation the son may appear in (Apollo, Hermes, Ra and so on) he is always the same perfected entity who returns to earth on a mercy mission.

But the ‘double act’ needs something else, some other essence that ‘makes things move’. Examine the equation e=mc2. The energy (e) could be understood as the infinitely expansive Creator of all things including and especially ‘thought’. The material element (m) is the ‘Redeemer’ who comes to a physical Earth on a mission. The spectacular mystery is that both energy and matter obey a third rule and constant – c, or the ‘Holy Spirit’.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a dove. She is an untransmutable bird who visits all of those in need, as a helper and producer. Without the aid of the holy spirit, stuff would just not change and move on. Noah would still be in a flood.

She is the flux element that stabilises and goes beyond the relationship between matter and energy. It can do this because it is their product. How apt that the United Nations chose to have a dove on their flag. They brought together the energy and matter of warring nations in peace.

Pre-Christian theological and philosophical ideas encapsulated the same Trinity of archetypes, only using different names.

Plato realised that matter and energy combine in a third essence which was named the ‘aether’ or ‘ether’. This mysterious third element persisted throughout the centuries. It was embraced by the Alchemists as being the ultimate symbol and tool of perfection, the philosopher’s stone. Without this ancient concept of an invisible third element that pervades all things – even outer space – then early scientists like Sir Isaac Newton (an avid Alchemist) may never have germinated the seeds of modern scientific thought.

Today scientist’s view the ether as belonging to and explaining the existence of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. We are told that the former occupies 4% of the Universe we can perceive with our senses and instruments. The rest cannot be perceived or measured.

When philosopher’s understand that scientists are ‘in the soup’ over where the Universe is i.e. where dark energy lives, they can be excused for not offering an explanation. All that is dark as ‘e’ and ‘m’ exists in the area of their product as a constant. It is neither matter nor energy but a mathematical / geometrical immutable mystery.

To continue the list of ancient ‘trinities’, Osiris and Isis inhabited the Temples of Ancient Egypt. In their story that have a son who is Horus – a divine child sometimes depicted on the knee of his nursing mother as a baby. The infant child is a accurate depiction of the product of two energies. They produce an asexual, passive being without transgression, action or thought. It is the constant that held together successive dynasties in the land of Egypt for thousands of years. Horus the Divine child – inspired the constructions of matter such as the pyramids in such a way and as such supreme manifestations of thought and understanding, that their presence in the material world has an ‘eternity’ about them. That eternity is most purely expressed in mathematics, which is why the Pyramid of Cheops in Gaza is built with such precision. It is truly aligned to the points of the compass, particular stars including the sun, underground tellurgic currents and stands in the physical centre of the land masses of the globe. This is as close to being ‘constant’ as is ever likely to be achieved on this earth.

Perhaps the greatest two archetypes ever to unite, with their product being a ‘trinity’ is the Hermetic law of male and female. The Hermetics believe that not only does this duality exist on Earth but in every parallel dimension. We see nature using these subtly similar yet different archetypes to the full, not merely for sexual reproduction but at emotional, intellectual, and behavioural levels of existence. All animals such as mammals depend on their parents in their conception, incubation and infancy but eventually they ‘fly the nest’ and become a free independent entity. They are the same as their genetic parents and yet – as Charles Darwin observed – they are empowered by an improvement on their parents.

We are therefore each an expression of the ‘third essence’ in our own uniqueness as a being. Fired by the holy constant ‘c’, we each of us contain the possibility to transcend our material (body) and energetic (spirit) limitations. As infinite souls (c) we will never experience death and will move gently into perfection at the right hand of God. Human bodies are not designed for longevity but give just enough time for experience and reflection on what does not change in life; what is constant. That is why Zen masters feel the ecstasy of a falling leaf. In every Universe, leaves fall.

The tri-essence knows that it has a future greater than it’s individual parts, and for this reason has a good chance at realising perfection. This perfection is the great mysterious tunnel that souls follow into the constant realm of the ‘after life’.

It is a bourne from where most travellers do return, just to get one more bite of the forbidden fruit; one more chance to become greater than the sum of it’s parts.

000

0000

The Platonic Pyramid (above) is decimal. The top half of the pyramid is the Trinity. The lower part (7) is also sacred and another subject!

The Alchemical Trinity

soul (c)

body (m) spirit (e)

Fifty Shades of Green

17/11/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Since 1990 the world has produced as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as in all the previous years. The world has a problem from the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels for average temperatures are rising despite the environmental strategies of government and international agreements.

If you replaced one power station burning fossil fuels everyday until 2100 with 1500 wind turbines you might stop the problem. As this is unlikely to happen, the extinction of current civilisation has begun. New ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere is the only technology that will reverse this process. Technology at present has no such solution.

Why are is technology failing us? Consider the partial solution of transport powered by electricity.

I have to expose the myth that electric vehicles are good for the environment.

This may come as a shock to those who have invested in a hybrid car so reach for a box of tissues as it gets worse.

Perhaps I am being a little harsh on what is a welcome prospect for the future of personal transport but it has to be said. I do not anticipate that the luxury of personal transport is going to go away in the future what ever form it will take. Certainly populations in countries like China, India and Africa feel resentment when those countries who have created the problem require them to forgo the benefits of owning a car.

Efforts to eulogise public transport as the future are futile because people know how good it is to control their own transport. This is not to say that public transport has no place in the future. On the contrary, it should be spearheading the technology that drives vehicles without causing air pollution and greenhouse gases. Sadly in most modern cities it is not. Taxis, buses and trains are still burning fossil fuel in all but the most innovative urban centres.

Decades ago, buses in Amsterdam were running on compressed gas. Cylinders like divers use were positioned under the floor of the bus and charged with compressed air overnight. During the day, the engine turned over using the kinetic energy from the compressed air. The discharge from the exhaust was of course pure air. What happened to this idea, I do not know, but it shows how many technological advances have been left in the urban gutter.

Part of the drive to promote electric vehicles, has been the demonisation of cars using the infernal combustion engine. Whilst these engines are clearly a remnant of the past, they exist and continue to be mass produced. The transition to the new technologies needs to be managed. Most government strategies however, are well intentioned but ineffective.

For instance, in Spain the police write to the owners of cars which are ten years old or above and suggest they get a petrol engine car. Whilst we must admire the green agenda of the government the manner in which it is being promoted is clearly misguided. Firstly, any such agenda should be European wide and not just promoted by one country. The desired outcome should be measured and confirmed as achieving what is intended. Ending the life of any vehicle after just ten years is wasteful because one third of the energy used by a vehicle in its’ lifetime is used in the manufacturing process. So whatever the motive power, cars should be designed to be in use for several decades, if they are to be considered as green.

The impasse that scientists have met when designing batteries for cars is yet another inhibitor to any mass take up of electric motive power. I own an electric bicycle and after four years I had to buy a new battery at about one quarter of the cost of the original bicycle and battery. Present day lithium ion batteries require rare earth elements that will only become more expensive to obtain in the future. Their mining and processing in African states is not environmentally managed. Some electric cars are sold without the batteries as they are provided with the car under a leasehold arrangement. The cost of the battery for my bicycle per mile is about the same as if I had a motor bike and had been buying petrol. I expect electric cars which are touted as being run for a few pence per mile are actually more expensive to run than vehicles running on fossil fuels. Batteries do not last as long as the Duracell bunny would have you believe.

It’s the same lie that is used to promote nuclear power stations as providers of cheap electricity. It is cheap if you discount the astronomical cost of building and decommissioning the power stations, costs which normally governments pay presumably in order to promote the industry and hidden agendas of manufacturing weapon grade uranium. The political games between Iran and North Korea and the USA are a current example of these smoke and mirror politics in which no citizen is the winner.

Faith in the ‘electric car’ as the future of personal transport is misguided for this reason. A car that needs a battery is still being run on fossil fuel, just one step removed. I refer to oil, gas and coal fired power stations that produce the majority of the electricity in most European countries. A car which is plugged into a national grid, is merely acquiring energy made from burning fossil fuels.

If a householder has a contract with an electricity supplier claiming to provide electricity from renewable sources only, then that would be the ideal. But as things stand, local and national governments are in the process of providing charging points right across their respective countries. They fail to see the lesson from the beginning of the twentieth century where electric cars could not compete with the new internal combustion engine when it came to range of travel. It was then and is still, a problem.

As I write this the battery for my bicycle is being charged from the photo voltaic panels attached to my house. Not only dirty electricity but the whole idea of ‘national grids’ is wasteful and expensive. In the future, electricity will be generated locally and stored in ‘gravity batteries’ and similar solutions.

Hybrid electric vehicles are still causing pollution and therefore not a solution for the zero carbon future. Totally electric vehicles being recharged from recharge points in towns is impractical and the hunt for even a parking space is proof of that. Charging by induction when stationary for long periods is possible but waiting times need to be considerable as the process is slow. Roads, car parks and even railway tracks with photo voltaic cells as the road structure and surface will produce electricity locally even when the sun is not shining but charging batteries from these sources is just impractical as already stated.

There is and has been for decades, a better alternative to battery driven vehicles. The hybrid cars being manufactured and subsidised by governments today require a grid of charging points. Should the very large cost of these be paid or subsidised by governments? Who ethically should pay? Those rich enough to be able to afford current electric cars or tax payers who are going to get little or no return.

The question is similar to the quandary faced by consumers in the 1980’s when Video Recorders were appearing in the shops. Which is better, VHS or Betamax? Although the latter was a better quality product, VHS won.

So to all those early adopters looking at battery driven vehicles, I suggest they hold on for the next generation of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars. The energy from these hydrogen is green and relatively very cheap. Used in conjunction with the high torque electric motors like those developed by Tesla and motor racing engineers, these vehicles will provide every comfort and convenience currently enjoyed by the generation who were brought up with fossil fuels.

As has happened many times before with new technology the wrong decisions (for the nation and environment) are made by governments to promote agendas popular with voters instead of just letting the best patent win. So my advice is keep your present car on the road for as long as you can. In five to ten years, new technology will be available at a reasonable price. There will be cars designed to last a whole life with little maintenance. Just don’t expect to be allowed to drive it.

That pleasure will be a thing of the past as well!

Lunar Madness – Apollo ll

18/07/201918/07/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

On the fiftieth anniversary (20^th July 1969) of the first lunar mission and landing on the moon – I dedicate this blog to all explorers.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the name given to the American space programme to reach the moon, was a bit odd? Apollo is the Greek and Roman god associated with the sun – not the moon. Was it used because the mission to send men to the moon was totally male dominated? The mission objective clearly stated, in the words of President John F Kennedy :

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Indeed, there were no female astronauts at that time, apparently on account that they were considered not to have the physical strength and willingness to take risks that men do. Ironically, today female astronauts are known to be physically more suited to space travel and averse to risk taking for the benefit of the entire crew.

The First Astronaut – Apollo (about to launch a thunder bolt)

It is also curious that earth’s Moon is not the only moon in the solar system. All the other moon’s are given the names of gods (except for Uranus which has moon named after characters from Shakespeare plays). The word moon is strangely containing two adjacent spheres! But more importantly Moon or Menses has proto-Indo-European linguistic roots and is older than Lunar which is Latin. Moon is closer to menses and month relating to the female cycle.

It being 1969, the male symbolism prevailed. Apollo had a bow and arrow and was the god of archery – if that is sufficient imagery for a the masculine principle seeking and penetrating the feminine circular target.

A British rocket of the 1960’s for launching satellites was named the Black Arrow. An even more curious historical eponymy is that Stevenson’s 1829 railway engine was also named The Rocket. A symbol Sigmund Freud could also have written a chapter about.

Whatever the reason’s for naming the Apollo mission, the shallowness of the venture is evidenced by the fact that fifty years on no nation has repeated it. The reason is clear. There was no material benefit in going to moon – effectively a desert. Instead in the 1960’s there was a ‘cold war’ between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The Soviets were ahead of the Americans with the launching of the first unmanned and then a manned earth satellite. The ‘land of the free’ was out to prove its technical, economic and political superiority and they did.

The Scientist’s at the time preferred space missions to be unmanned and crammed full of scientific experiments. Robotics and remote communication meant that manned missions were scientifically speaking – a waste of payload.

But the politicians wanted pictures and pictures / film had to contain an all American explorer laying claim the moon by planting the stars and stripes flag.

As an aside, there is a conspiracy theory that the entire Apollo 11 mission was faked. This was achieved by using a Hollywood film studio to recreate a believable lunar landscape on which actors could land and leap about. Personally I expect there was a ‘back up plan’ to the real lunar landing – given that the mission was highly risky. If the American astronauts crash landed then the political fallout would be as damaging as a successful mission, rewarding. So it is highly likely, in my view, that there was a plan to fake the landing if necessary in the National interest. It is these films and images that are referred to by the conspirers as evidence of a fake landing.

As it turned out, the final descent in the lunar Lander was almost a disaster. There was only another three seconds of fuel in the tank for Buzz Aldrin to land ‘The Eagle’ lunar module.

Buzz Buzz Buzz Busy Busy Busy B

But why did these men risk their lives so publicly and for so little scientific benefit? Clearly as patriots and explorers from a gene pool of risk taking ‘settlers’ – the chosen crew were dedicated to their mission. These were not humans landing on the moon, this was America – The Eagle.

Another great irony was the ‘elephant in the moon’, which was that the destination could hardly be more adverse to human survival. It was known that the Moon was a ball of dust and rock with extreme temperatures and no means to sustain human life. It was and is, more deadly than ‘Death Valley’ in California.

Hardly surprising then that the picture from Apollo missions that brought most gasps from the crew and earth dwellers alike, was the view of the blue planet itself. Seen for the first time from a considerable distance the earth looked both majestic and fragile. A lonely jewel in a forbidding black landscape.

We know today from subsequent unmanned missions to the planets, that the earth remains the only place on which human life can exist without technological reliance. If the reason behind the moon mission was partly to find a suitable ‘life boat’ to use to escape a dying earth – then what we know now gives little hope for the perpetuity of mankind.

Only one of the moons of Uranus will be a suitable place to land when our sun expands and swallows earth in a few billion years time.

For now only Mars appears sufficiently similar to Earth to sustain colonies – but a fragile existence this would be with the need to grow food on a large scale to sustain just a few ‘settlers’. It will be a long while before there is a Mars Mc Donalds and they probably won’t sell burgers.

There is another lesson to learn from history and that is ‘possession’. Traditional declaration of ownership on behalf of a nation by explorers such as Captain James Cook, was the raising of a national flag. No teams of lawyers were necessary historically to defend the rights any indigenous people, who were usually shot if they caused dissent.

Even if no Martians line up to defend Mars from future settlers, there will need to be teams of international and interplanetary lawyers to deem who owns what. Treasures such as mine-able water ice will be precious enough for significant sums of what ever is used for money in the future. If Earthlings continue their war-like ways on other planets, as they do on their precious earth, then there will be a giant step backward for mankind, instead of one forward – a type of lunar madness from whose bourne no man returns.

M – OO – N

Ap – O -11 – O

Renaissance of the Renaissance

20/06/201920/06/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Choruses from the Rock by T.S. Eliot

Futures have many directions. They spread into an infinity of possibilities every second of the day. This is true for the micro management of everyday things to the macro management of the planet and the cosmos.

One future is with us now and like all futures – it has been here before. What I am talking about is the tendency for people, science, art, industry, politics to start working together.

This may sound like the norm but in a culture of competition, copyright, industrial secrets, political manoeuvres, artistic repression and exploitation – believe me, working together has not been normal.

Art and science as pure and applied subjects have always led a culture into new possibilities. This was true particularly in Ancient Egypt where the great library in Alexander brought together learning and expression from all over the world. The Buddhist teachers were there and many influential thinkers and scholars of the second and third centuries B.C. It was by all accounts a Universal library a sort of Wikipedia of it’s day.

When a large spectrum of subjects are considered by a single or a collective mind some thing extraordinary happens. The subjects are discovered to have areas in common. For example an astronomer would have a lot to share with a sea captain who navigated by the stars. A surgeon might have plenty to share with an artist trying to understand the human body.

Because the ethos of the library was to discover what beliefs and understanding was held in common and the connections investigated. Information and knowledge are the paths resulting from the investigation of the spaces between what is already known.

It was fitting that Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria built between 284 and 286 BC spread light ‘across the world’. The metaphor of enlightenment is apt when considering the sharing of knowledge. It is the discovery of electromagnetic radio waves and their ability to carry information – that heralded the global sharing of information today, via the internet.

With the spread of libraries across the eastern end of the Mediterranean the Alexandrian library fell into disuse and suffered destruction by armies and Christian zealots.

Many of the scholars, artists, sages and seers who frequented the library moved or fled. Using text books and records, often made by Arab scholars, some information and knowledge survived.

One of the nexus’s of the world to which the knowledge travelled, was Venice. It was the terminus of the Silk Road and linked the East with the Middle East and Western Europe.

The Ancient Greek texts on philosophy, astronomy, geometry, mathematics and their interpretation and substantiation by Arab scholars were like gold dust. Most contemporary lines of thought were abandoned in favour of this newly discovered old knowledge – like the Helio centric solar system. Much of it was ‘heretical’ to the church but eventually, the church had to hold it’s tongue. For the burst of colours from the fountain of knowledge were like the precious silks adorning the harlots and aristocratic women of the Venice. Artist and Scientist grew in renown and fame, patronised by wealthy families such as the Medici s. The flower that was opening was to be known as the Renaissance.

Today, despite or perhaps resulting from previous ignorance and prejudice, there is happening a similar flowering – inspired by Universal information and knowledge carried on the electromagnetic sea of the internet.

At the same time over the last few decades, academic institutions ( where the internet was first conceived and initiated ) – these institutions have started to share what they know with each other. This spark is vital to transform information into knowledge, ideas into creations.

For example, archaeologists studying Neanderthal humans are sitting around the metaphoric camp fire of storytelling, with forensic pathologists, palaeontologists, weapons experts, linguists and artists amongst many others – to visualise exactly how they lived.

Gone and the archaeologists who specialise in Western Mediterranean arrow heads for their entire academic careers. Such ‘silo’ thinking inhibits understanding. The arrow head was just a small part of the whole story of how Neanderthal humans lived and gives information but not knowledge.

This is just one example of the interconnections between artists and scientist that is now found in today’s Universities and places of study.

And most telling of all is the recreation of the ‘Renaissance Man’. These are artists or scientists who are also scientists and artists. For just as the first Renaissance created it’s Leonardo de Vinci’s, so we need and have today, our own ‘masters of all knowledge’.

This means considerably more than the previous scientists who wore a trade mark bow tie and long hair. Or those artists who adopt a mannerism of the scientific method (sharks in tanks) in their conceptualisations.

What it will bring is the fruit from the flower – the seed that will give life to a new plant and perhaps the next Renaissance after the present one.

This fruit is what is known as ‘wisdom’. It is the essence of knowledge, just as knowledge is the essence of information and information the essence of data. There is a fractal that grows and shrinks, but always follows the same pattern.

In this seed the whole future of our civilisation has it’s potential to grow exponentially. We see it on the media everyday – new discoveries, new inventions, new ideas. Let us hope that these seeds will temper our desire for material prosperity, just as the Silk Road became a line of empty caravanserai’s.

Looking Through the Glass

07/05/201907/05/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

OK, look out of the window and tell me what you see.

I see some fields and trees and a couple of cows.

Think carefully. Tell me what is the first thing you see.

The fields.

Wrong. The first thing you see when you look out of any window is glass.

This little exchange may sound pedantic but it crudely illustrates how we ignore the way we perceive the world. Sweeping short cuts are made during the process of perception in order to to establish some sort of certainty of what is out there, for our deaf and blind brains.

The next logical step in this line of thought, is to consider how many other things we do not see, whether they be ideas or physical things.

I would argue that there are many more than we believe.

Take technological ‘evolution’. I avoid the word progress because there are examples of new technologies that were a step backwards rather than forward. The release of energy from matter in nuclear fission for instance, creates as many horrors as quick fixes for warfare or the provision of electrical power.

Nobody votes for new technology. One day you are sitting on the sofa eating your dinner when, on the news, they are demonstrating a car that drives itself. Or you are a farmer in nineteenth century England and suddenly you hear you neighbour starting up his new tractor.

These changes to our lives come about as if by stealth. Generally they are considered benign – that is the benefits out weigh the problems. The fact that all new technology is by definition ‘untried’ is something that neither proves nor denies a problem exists, in the present or future. So it is allowed to be produced.

The mobile phone, for instance, has revolutionised many people’s lives. Even children as young as three are given them. And yet there remains a question mark over the emission of microwave energy and the effect it has on young and adult brains. At present the young are thought to be particularly at risk because their brains are developing. Making a phone call in a car for instance, is the same as putting food in a microwave cooker, only it’s not food being cooked – it’s you and your family. Because this background energy has been with us for over a generation, it is not possible to establish a ‘control group’ to measure the development of brains. There are no humans alive now, who have lived without a constant background of microwave energy.

Of course there are checks and balances at work in various committees in Universities where research is done. Also government organisations monitor and grant licences to new technologies. The ethical concerns, the effect on other systems such as the environment, sustainability, disposability, carbon footprint etc. are just a few of the concerns applied to new technological developments.

The problem is not all countries judge new technology in the same way. If there is a political, monetary or social ‘quick gain’ to be made through say, shale gas fracking, then some country somewhere is going to do it.

And if in the eighteenth century what happened on the other side of the world didn’t matter because it was too far away; this century has no choice but to think global.

The trails of diesel exhaust from ships crossing oceans can be seen from space. Imported goods do not arrive without an environmental price tag.

It is as if technology has a mind of it’s own – and in the next few decades it will quite literally– using 5G and the ‘internet of things’.

But without innovative technologies, the planet would not be supporting the present human population. The number of people pre-industrial revolution, was small. England had about four million citizens when horses ploughed fields. Now there are over seventy million.

But new technology is not the only object seen in the window. Remember the glass.

And it might not be a new technology that is about to alter the course of your life fundamentally. There are numerous ‘low balls’ that could change everything tomorrow. For instance there might be a series of powerful solar mass ejections, bombarding earth with cosmic rays so strong that the earth’s protective magnetosphere gives way. Computer systems go down, power grids and machinery of all kinds are cooked.

Trusted technologies, reveal that they have been trusted too much. The impossible or ‘once in a thousand year event’, happens. Then mankind realises it had not seen the glass in the window.

The earth is a space craft and like all complex systems they are fine until they break down. Then back up systems have to be activated and emergency plans initiated…if they exist.

In the case of planet earth they do not. A ‘survivalist’ shelter designed for two weeks, two months or even two years, will eventually either be discovered or run out of supplies before the re-population even begins. Mad Max doesn’t even come close to the post apocalypse chaos.

The question for the present generation and for those yet to be born is;

‘what are the blind spots in our modern lifestyle that could leave human population exposed to near elimination and what is the back up plan to each eventuality?’

Governments, committees, industrialists, academics scientific researchers and technological inventors and innovators are our modern day ‘dictators’. You won’t be voting whether to survive disaster or not. Your trusted leaders just won’t have seen it coming because they too were looking through the glass, like Alice.