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 3 Nov 2009 @ 22:04
A great man has passed away last Saturday, a man who was able to see through the facades of today's societies and perceive the truths and structures within 'indigineous' social structures, blazing the path for what emerges now in Brazil as the potential of 'Ponto Zero', a new encounter of 'indigineous' people with the 'Western' people, trying to find a symbiosis between a technologized world and the fullfillness of living in harmony with nature.
He set himself the best memorial for himself in his masterpiece "Tristes Tropiques". impossible, it seems, to add another laudatio.
Born in 1908 in France, he went to Brazil as a professor in 1935 and found the dedication of his lifetime, studying indigneous cultures in remote areas of the Mato Grosso and the Amazon rainforest.
Lévi-Strauss used tribal customs and myths to show that human behaviour is based on logical systems which may vary from society to society, but possesses a common substructure, argueing that linguistics, communications and mathematical logic can be tapped to reveal fundamental social systems.
At first his approach may seem akin to Joseph Campbell's vision of 'the power of myth' but upon closer inspection, Lévi-Strauss arrives in a completely different way to a vey similar result, fortifying both Campbell's and his own work.
During his last years, sadly enough, he became so disenchanted with our current civilization that he refused to talk in public, a circumstance one must respect even though it's a shame... he would have many, many things to say, things that few dare to even think about, and he would have found at least some open ears.
Mankind has to say good-bye to one of his best ever... More >
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 17 Oct 2009 @ 16:21
Well, some time ago I mentioned the incredible, unlikely connection between Joachim di Fiore and Obama, as I gleaned out of the most strange book I've ever encountered and that I'm translating now.
I nearly mentioned it in my recent interview at Cafe Filosofico [link] when I talked about the impact of 'trinity' as ideology not only present in Comte's positivism but in modern politics at large...
Surprise, surprise, once more: 'reality' passed me by and I didn't even notice it until just now:
Here [link] we read the following:
(quote)
The Vatican has dismissed as a heretic a mystical medieval monk apparently cited by Barack Obama as a moral authority and visionary.
According to Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the Pontifical Household, the US President referred in campaign speeches to Gioacchino da Fiore, or Joachim of Fiore, as a ''master of contemporary civilisation'' who had sought to create a better world. Drawing on the Book of Revelation, Gioacchino envisaged a "new age of the Holy Spirit" in which the Church hierarchy would cease to exist and Christians would unite with infidels in an "Order of the Just".
(end quote)
Well, well, well, the circle is closing... More >
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 12 Oct 2009 @ 17:28
Here are my replies to unanswered questions from the live videocast (internet) audience Oct. 9th, 2009 at the CPFL Cultura in Campinas, Brazil [link] .
Time ran out after an interview at the Cafe Filosofico last Friday and some questions from the Internet community remained unanswered. The topic was "The Triad of Religion, Science, and Philosophy" in which I outlined this triangular relationship, its impact on our current civilization and approaches how to resolve or at least diffuse its problems.
In the following, I post the answers that I would have most likely given as they are of interest by themselves:
[to Ana] We need to de-confuse what was 'confused' (confused in the sense of melted together). But before separating religion, science, and technology and perceive this triad in a systemic fashion, we still need to apply linear thinking to outline the terrain, like enumerating the paradigms involved before juxtaposting them for comparison in order to construct a saner system. And, yes, we need to be careful about our methods employed and not lose awareness of what is confusing (melting together), of what is mixing, of what has been merged, of what is integrating, and what is a juxtaposition.
[to Carlos Lopes] As far as the Darwinian-Chomskian academic Steven Pinker is concerned, I just can't decide if he is a couragous visionary or a scientific opportunist. My own grandchild, from the age of 2 years on forward, 'falsifies' his theories at the rate of 3-5 times per day. It seems clear that he dismisses questions about ethics, dignity, art, and any kind of aesthetics at large as 'misfiring of synapses', a phenomenon that evolution will eventually weed out completely in his opinion. But his theories have nothing to do with Digital Physics. Him borrowing concepts from there would be tilting his position indeed - from a visionary to being simply just another scientific opportunist, making him truly a 'mixer' of paradigms. All of this to satisfy theories that any parent or grandparent can observe being falsified every single day in real life. To juxtapose Darwin and Chomsky is as good a match as Popper with Positivism. Witness the spin-boasting of some American politicians a few some years ago: "We define what reality is, and then it will be happening". Frameworks like that do not leave room for considerations of ethics nor aesthetics.
[to Ronaldo] The word spirituality is not very well defined, it is a catch-all that should be avoided. Technology are merely the tools and means of achieving the goals defined by humanistic or scientific endeavours and in itself is 'neutral'. This can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.
For me, mathematics is an approximation of the ultimate truth of existence by means of abstraction. If one is calling this ultimate truth 'God' would imply that 'God' in this sense 'is' absolute rationality. It also implies that in this world of relativities, the 'Absolute', and therefore 'God as such' is unobtainable, unreachable.
As a scientist I'm a monotheist in the above sense (believing in the existence of an 'absolute rational truth'), as an engineer I'm a pantheist (the world as a system of forces), and as a practitioner of Ifá I'm simply a pragmatist (If it works, it works!).
[to Mario] I'm dwelling in a sacred bosque called Nemus Sandorianus, Euclid was living in his orchard of one-dimensional trees, Rosa in the Grande Sertao - all of us are right from our own perspective.
[to Márcio] Dignity is the most basic element within the human experience. Without dignity, any progress, and achievement is utterly worthless. As such it is void of any specific location or allocation. Rather, dignity must be underlying every meaningful process. More >
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 5 Oct 2009 @ 15:05
By now nearly 6 years ago, my ex threw out most of my books (some claim she burnt them), including the legendary "Proceedings of the 4th World Conference on Robotics Research 1991/1898" which contained a paper of mine. Lost forever?
Far from it - thanks to the miracles of the Internet, my paper of more than 18 years ago resurfaced. techstreet.com offers all 11 pages of it for precisely 18 bucks (one dollar per year?) as a pdf for download or shipped in printed form in 24-48 hours, see [link] . The best parts, its colorful diagrams, are missing, 3 empty pages at the end are staring at me instead.
Of course, you can also buy the entire "Proceedings" of this legendary world conference, hosted in 1991 by the Carnegie Mellon University [link] for the modest sum of 132 greenbacks. A prophetic work, indeed, going at the same time backward and forward in time, spanning 103 years, and, according to vendor Amazon.com, first published in June 1988 by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers [link] , three years before I presented the article: "Software Development Concepts For Intelligent Control Of Concurrent Processes". Some time-traveling in the style of JD Flora [link], for sure.
Now, seriously, the power of documentation via the Internet extends itself backward into time. If this trend continues, we will see Cesar's ORGINAL 'De Bello Gallico', annotated by himself and his ghostwriter(s), perhaps published by Thomson Reuters under the heading 'Science' with subheading 'War'. Who knows?
For now, I still need to recover a thesis of mine from 1979, burnt by my mother in 1985, presenting a 'Meta-Parser for Compiler-Compilers', a precursor to my 'ConCur' system, precursor to the Toth diagram [link] , for the bold project of my mentors Wirth and Piloty to create a computer language to create computer languages and to model the world as such once and for all! (see Digital Physics [link] ). But, don't worry, I let Tony Smith [link] fight it out with Wolfram & Fredkin.
In any case, I bought my own paper back today and it feels strange to read my predictions about the future of computer programming languages. 19 years ago already ahead of today.
(see for example [link] that I RT-ed (retweed or re-twittered?) some days ago after receiving the link from Lionel [link])
Well, well, well... More >
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 21 Sep 2009 @ 01:46
If I had written last yeare about suspicions, if not allegations, that the current President of the United States, known as Barack Obama, really was and is a Muslim who changed his name from a non-Muslim-like name to a Muslim-like name, nobody would have believed me. But then, these days, googling the President's birth name Barry Soweto shows a million pages. Nothing wrong with changing one's name, of course, haha, nothing new so far. (Note: Yours truly mememe: at least I DO have a valid birth certificate, hint hint).
One of the other incredible news I found in the new, old book (see previous BLOG entry), is the claim of knowing JUST WHERE the PROMISED LAND may have been. But again, I am late...
Kamal Salibi, [link] already wrote a book about it and there are even web sites agreeing with him such as [link] . A good overview, albeit a bit boring, is at [link]
Of course, Kamal's political incorrectness hasn't brought him many friends. Cornuke, the real-life "Raider of the Lost Ark", see [link] , at least makes some interesting videos about it.
In short, is the pre-exodus Jerusalem in reality Mecca. And the REAL Dome of the Holy Rock housing the Ka'bah? The implications are significant, for all sides. Better to not come to rush conclusions...
But be it as it may: Obama's true religion - the true location of the Promised Land: all this makes you think about what else still could be wrong about the history of today's states and statesmen? Could it get worse? Rest assured, it can always get worse! More >
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 6 Sep 2009 @ 00:15
These days I'm working on a translation project that landed on my table as a response to my Call for Papers for a Conference on On Systemic Flaws and Solutions 2009. Although I postponed the pŕoject itself until a time of more courage amongst our thinking elite, a stack of letters, written in various languages, together with a book arrived and an accompanying letter granted me the publishing rights of the letters if I agreed to translate the book that came with it.
Intrigued by the little I read in these letters and postcards, and interested by the title of the book, I jumped onto the opportunity, signed the contract proposal and mailed it to a law office in Lima, Peru, as specified in the contract.
Now I see myself translating a book that has a style worse than Anastasios Nordenholz (is that possible? YES, it is!). 10 years ago or so I desisted a translation, already in progress, of the second edition of his book titled "Scientologie", published in the year of the Lord 1937.
Well, the book on my table exceeds the complexity of the grammar and style of Nordenholz by far - in short, a nightmare!
The complete original title is "Wurzeln der Ideologie der globalen Elite - von Joachim da Fiore bis zur Trilateralen Kommission" verfasst von Franz Speck und herausgegeben von Boaz Felsenhauer.
In case I shouldn't give up before, I'll post some translation excerpts in the future here on this BLOG.
The book, as I understood so far, is trying to demonstrate a direct link from the apocalyptical vision of Joachim da Fiore concerning the '3rd Imperium (Reich!) as the basis for the 'Religion of Positivism' which in turn laid the foundation of modern elitist thinking along with the entire 'New Age' paradigm.
Interestingly, within the collection of intriguing letters that arrived in the mail, one, written by a certain Frater Otto in Casteldangolfo. Italy, to a 'dear Brother Frater Nove' in Lima, Peru, seems to corroborate a wild speculation which is being presented in the book:
namely, the recalculation of Joachim da Fiore's 'New Millennium' from the year 1260 to the year 2012, and the allegation that world's 'New Age' fans have been instilled deliberately by the elitist's frontmen with this date as the 'Mayan end of the world' even though no one ever provided a proof for the latter calculation. Well, there are even more incredible things to read in there... from the Solfeggio frequencies to the TRUE way of chanting the Gregorian way and why the German Shepherd in Rome did what he did. see [link] for a more 'independent' view... More >
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 24 Aug 2009 @ 15:13
A rerelease of my album "Shango Overdrive" is now available at Amazon.com, see [link]
In the moment only as an MP3 download (itunes and others to follow shortly), in a few days as a 'real' (physical) CD.
This was MUCH faster than expected. I'm profoundly impressed by the efficiency of the service, especially from tunecore.com [link] which will distribute this album and (its tracks as mp3) to 48 (fortyeight!) online music retailers worldwide.
Amazon also intelligently/automatically connects correctly my books Polar Dynamics (with Edward J. Dawson) and 'Logs of JD Flora' (under different name!). Impressive, even if they're throwing in a few books about Bismarck, Maximilian Shell and Stalin (huuh!?) as well... see: [link]
A few notes about the album:
the first tracks were experiments for communicating some key attributes of 'archetypes', also called archons or orishas, to participants of my workshops on recognizing the archetypes of the people around you and to connect positively to your own.
After some time, I had 15 such tracks together, and someone said to me: wow, you've got an entire album together! It took me a second to realize that this was indeed true. I never thought about it before.
The past 8 years I made copies by hand sent it out by e-mail. Now, thanks to Jeffrey (see the previous blog!) I got the inspiration to enable a distribution via tunecore.com. HIGHLY RECOMMENDABLE !!!!
For all who bought the original release: I took some tracks off and had to change the cover because I don't find the original artwork anymore and the low-resolution jpg I still have doesn't qualify for the artwork at stores with physical distribution. The photo was made by a friend during the last 'Project Nagual' [link] encounter (the next one will be end of October, reserve early!!!) More >
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 18 Aug 2009 @ 16:26
What do you do in Spain if you have nothing else to do?
Compose an album, or at least envision the concept!
Jeffrey Crace ( [link] ) did exactly that.
On the cover he wrote:
"There in Spain, I was dumb and breathless. The cathedral was home to many clamorous birds. It does not follow: If the birds nor the spires are neither vital nor inessential, Then beauty is not a thing. Each note shining in tandem With other shining players, as in: An orchestra, an audience, a headache, a star, etc., etc. I find no right to life in the presence of utter beauty. I escape to empty washrooms and throw water on pale faces… Speak soothing sounds to faces in mirrors. I gather myself and forget, that Infinite beauty is conflagrant death. "
Cool music with a smooth swing and colorful chords!
Downloadable mp3 from Amazon (also in parts:
[link]
Known as a drummer (check out youtube.com together with Eddie Grey), Jeffrey was working for a whole year, just with the help of a keyboardist and an editor for the final downmix, the album is his very own creation, from composition to guitar and vocals.
check it out!
and ENJOY :)
And, click more to see a video for one the tracks "Everyday Killer": More >
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 3 Aug 2009 @ 18:35
Little Anthony wasn't satisfied with the tuning of our guitars and retuned all of them the other day. With just a bit more than 2 years in this world, he didn't conform with our self-set musical standards. A good time to think about tuning (once again) and see where it may lead us.
Mathematically the base of 440 Herz in 7-stage tonal system is a bit strange, quite chaotic, some say. But what else is out there?
Well, there is the Solfeggio scale (not to be confused with the Solfège method!), of course, and I took the opportunity to tune down from 440 Hz to 417 to get in range. The result was a real mind opener (or should I say heart opener?)
In any case, hearing is believing but unfortunately not a lot of music exists (yet) that is based on this tuning and some that do exist have some errors, like some videos on youtube.com that promote the concept as a meditation tool.
Of course, after playing a bit on the newly tuned guitars and bass, one of the first things that I checked out was the claim that the chords that seem more harmonic would be within the same numerical 'group' of tones, namely:
1. 174 417 741
2. 285 528 852
3. 396 639 963
Wow! That IS interesting. Magick ;-) Check out the diagonal sums too ;-)
Next step, you guessed it, let's look at where the frequencies would be on the Toth diagram (see drawing)! To allocate them without further own meditation/contemplation, I used the existing descriptions from the Internet, and lo'n behold, here they are:
(Solfège name / binary number / frequency (Hz) / descriptions by others)
... 285 Quantum Cognition
UT 396 Hz Liberating Guilt and Fear
RE 417 Hz Transmutation, Undoing Situations and Facilitating Change
MI 528 Hz Love, Transformation and Miracles (DNA Repair)
FA 639 Hz Connecting/Relationships
SOL 741 Hz Consciousness Expansion, Awakening Intuition
... 852 Hz Returning to Spiritual Order
We identify the Ifa prime energy (Odu) for 528 as Otura and immediate recognize the next nodes as a clockwise progression as a wheel within the fourfold wheels of the Toth diagram: Otura, Irete, Ogbe, and Oyeku. We can chip in the remaining Odus even without a description of Solfeggio fans as Oturupon (963 Hz) and Ika (285 Hz). For the latter 'quantum consciousness' is an odd description as in Ifa it is the sacred energy of birth (and death).
Then we'll have:
(binary number / Ifa name / frequency (Hz) / descriptions by others)
4. Ika 285 Quantum Cognition
5. UT Ofun 396 Hz Liberating Guilt and Fear
9. RE Oshe 417 Hz Transmutation, Undoing Situations and Facilitating Change
13. MI Otura 528 Hz Love, Transformation and Miracles (DNA Repair)
14. FA Irete 639 Hz Connecting/Relationships
256. SOL Ogbe 741 Hz Consciousness Expansion, Awakening Intuition
0. Oyeku 852 Hz Returning to Spiritual Order
2. Oturupon 963 (?)
Back to the harmonic triangles: the missing corner of the first triangle must have a frequency of 174 or 1074 since all frequencies of the Solfeggio scale are 111 Hertz apart. Note that the sum of individual numbers needed to maintain the phenomenon of equal sums is PRESERVED either way: 1+7+4=1+0+7+4=12 (the other triangles add up to 15 and 18 respectively). This is a very interesting property of the sums of 111.
The ninth energy node (Olodu), we could speculate, could be on the OUTER wheel of the Toth Diagram.
Let's look at the properties of the harmonic triangles that are complete:
Ofun-Irete-Oturupon are all describing spiritual qualities, and Ika, Otura, Oyeku are on the emotional and basic life side, the side of what I came to call the 'soul side'.
The triangles are composed of two Odu nodes of a basic wheel in sequence PLUS one Odu node of the 'super wheel of manifestation', Ogbe, Oyeku, Ofun, and Oshe.
The subgroups that produce harmonies are triangles within the wheel, namely:
1. ?, Oshe, Ogbe
2. Ika Otura Oyeku
3. Ofun Irete Oturupon
OK, let's look at the binary code:
1. ? 1010 1111
2. 0100 1011 0000
3. 1010 1101 0010
Obviously, (2.) results from (1.) by adding a binary '1' and (3.) from (2.) by adding 2 (binary '10'). Therefore, if the internal math would be consistent, the missing Odu node would have the binary code of 0100 minus 1 and that would be 0011 which is Owonrin, the upper left node on the Toth diagram.
Owonrin is characterized as 'form' in contrast to 'essence' (irosun), slow or frozen flow in contrast to energy bolts, mental images in contrast to 'movies', giving permanent shape to things. The frequency (174 or 1074?) would result in moods of creative contemplation, imaginery, phantasy, but easily also slowing down energies, in this sense relaxing. Owonrin, in 'classic Ifa' is the bridge between 'will' and 'physical manifestion'.
As a temporary final note, the 'sound of creation', as a chord, would be 'Owonrin-Ogbe-Oshe', (174,417,741 Hertz), and whoever knows Ifa good enough, knows the above combination very, very well. The Universe is a woman, one might conclude from the above, if it wouldn't already be clear enough. The 'sound of silence' (oyeku) together with the 'sound of the heart' (otura) results in life (Ika, which, as a name, also contains the root of literally 'heart'): 285, 528, 825 Hz. Finally, the great harmony of the spirit would be the wisdom of Ofun, the relations within the world (Irete), and the ethics and sovereignty of the spirit (Oturupon) as 396, 693, and 963 Hz.
Hmm, time to get back to the noise-making toys, eh.. tools, and play with that after playing enough with numbers for now :-)
PS: Aug 6th: I corrected the binary writings of the odu since I goofed. And found that the math is not as clear for the first column. It is still Owonrin (as I happen to know through other sources) but one doesn't arrive there by simply subtracting 1. I left it there because it is still fascinating. I also made the graph a bit clearer since several people wrote me that they couldn't see the basic loop. You can look at the Toth diagram description earlier in this BLOG to verify the sequence. In itself it is quite amazing, lending credibility to BOTH the Toth Diagram and the Solfeggio Sound Theory.
Also, dear reader, check out the sound files Mortimer made (see the 'comments'). More >
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 16 Jul 2009 @ 14:09
Contemplating the paths of worms in our new composting bin, Harrah, our shepherd, remarked "Pretty ugly, these worms, hugh!?"
"Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?" I told him.
"Yeah," said Harrah, "Matthew 7,3, right? But I have neither splinter nor beam in all of my three eyes, don't you see?"
I looked closely and had to confess, there were neither of them.
"Maybe all esthetics depend solely on the distance of the observer from the object?" he mused.
"Ho ho," I said, "some pretty wise words from a 2-year old shepherd. "Wait until you're grandpa before trying to be a wisecrack!"
"No chance, you know it. But think about it for yourself!" and off he went, chasing some rabbits in the woods.
"If you see the White Rabbit," I called after him, "tell him I saw the documentary that he talked about the other day, about the mushrooms...". [link]
But I doubt he heard my words in his excitement over the chase. More >
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