This will be quick today, friends. You'll learn more going over to http://noosphere.princeton.edu/ and experiencing the wonders of the Global Consciousness Project [or as some of us like to call it, "The EGGs"]. I came into awareness of the EGGs when at the Society for Scientific Exploration listening to Robert Jahn and the Princeton group talk about how the mind could affect random processes such as instruments measuring radioactive decay. One session, a person who had talked the lab into the loan of an "EGG" [the nickname for the type of device used] reported that during problem-solving meetings, when the problem-solving group was "hot" [i.e. working in productive harmony], the EGG went on an "excursion", indicating that it was being affected [probably] by the "synchronous" mind-state of the group. Wow, I thought, I wonder how far that could go? Of course Princeton was far ahead of me, and a bright young scientist named Roger Nelson was already scattering EGGs around the globe and linking them together to see-what-we-could-see. Go to the website and see for yourself--it's rather thrilling. I'm a bit out-of-date, but the last time I heard Roger talk about his results, the GCP had more than 65 EGGs at work, about half of which were outside North America. They are all tied together in the sense that they send Roger their data streams @ one bit per second, twenty four hours a day. Should they go on Excursions "together" in a statistical sense, [thus indicating a possible response to something somewhere in the global consciousness] [what Teilhard de Chardin and Roger would call the "Noosphere"---you can see why the materialist/reductionists REALLY hate this] , then he and his analysis will spot it. At the time of my last listening, Roger had 160 "defined events" of statistical significance to point to. And, in case you are wondering, 9-11 was one of the most impressive ones. I often wondered why the group consciousness effect that the EGGs are measuring didn't affect things like home court advantage in college basketball any if at all? You rarely see the crucial free-throw from the opponent [in some of the most one-sided environments I've experienced] go flying off into the third row due to intense group hostility. So, we're still a long way from understanding this, and frankly I'm glad that sport is not ruined by group psychokinesis. Still, the statistical data is there that a sort of consciousness synchronization is present and measurable by the EGGs. My unfettered-by-facts imagination wonders if it is not we individuals in any direct sense that register the effect or whether it is rather some emergent consciousness more like what de Chardin seemed to be reaching for with his noosphere. Our minds are more "mental atoms" in that model. Or is this "just" GAIA? Or is that the same thing anyway? Back aways in the blog, I spoke of the Potawatami concept of the Life-force Entity, Manitou. Manitou? Gaia? Global Consciousness? The Earth's Arcangel? If the combined lifeforce of all the bears, or the cougars, or the walnut trees create a gestalt consciousness, a "Manitoug" of Bear, or Cougar, or Walnut Tree [as the Native Americans believed], and this Manitoug be "meetable" in Vision-Quest, then why not a Global Consciousness Manitoug, or Manitou Itself? Am I spouting nonsense, well it's me, so probably yes [as I've learned about my "wild Irish ideas" all these years]. Still, being Irish AND a West Virginian AND a professor, I should be excused for almost anything. And with the Potawatami AND the EGGs on my side, SOMETHING I just said was probably right. But don't take my word for it, visit Roger's website and open up your mind to a bigger world.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Does the EARTH Have a Mind?
This will be quick today, friends. You'll learn more going over to http://noosphere.princeton.edu/ and experiencing the wonders of the Global Consciousness Project [or as some of us like to call it, "The EGGs"]. I came into awareness of the EGGs when at the Society for Scientific Exploration listening to Robert Jahn and the Princeton group talk about how the mind could affect random processes such as instruments measuring radioactive decay. One session, a person who had talked the lab into the loan of an "EGG" [the nickname for the type of device used] reported that during problem-solving meetings, when the problem-solving group was "hot" [i.e. working in productive harmony], the EGG went on an "excursion", indicating that it was being affected [probably] by the "synchronous" mind-state of the group. Wow, I thought, I wonder how far that could go? Of course Princeton was far ahead of me, and a bright young scientist named Roger Nelson was already scattering EGGs around the globe and linking them together to see-what-we-could-see. Go to the website and see for yourself--it's rather thrilling. I'm a bit out-of-date, but the last time I heard Roger talk about his results, the GCP had more than 65 EGGs at work, about half of which were outside North America. They are all tied together in the sense that they send Roger their data streams @ one bit per second, twenty four hours a day. Should they go on Excursions "together" in a statistical sense, [thus indicating a possible response to something somewhere in the global consciousness] [what Teilhard de Chardin and Roger would call the "Noosphere"---you can see why the materialist/reductionists REALLY hate this] , then he and his analysis will spot it. At the time of my last listening, Roger had 160 "defined events" of statistical significance to point to. And, in case you are wondering, 9-11 was one of the most impressive ones. I often wondered why the group consciousness effect that the EGGs are measuring didn't affect things like home court advantage in college basketball any if at all? You rarely see the crucial free-throw from the opponent [in some of the most one-sided environments I've experienced] go flying off into the third row due to intense group hostility. So, we're still a long way from understanding this, and frankly I'm glad that sport is not ruined by group psychokinesis. Still, the statistical data is there that a sort of consciousness synchronization is present and measurable by the EGGs. My unfettered-by-facts imagination wonders if it is not we individuals in any direct sense that register the effect or whether it is rather some emergent consciousness more like what de Chardin seemed to be reaching for with his noosphere. Our minds are more "mental atoms" in that model. Or is this "just" GAIA? Or is that the same thing anyway? Back aways in the blog, I spoke of the Potawatami concept of the Life-force Entity, Manitou. Manitou? Gaia? Global Consciousness? The Earth's Arcangel? If the combined lifeforce of all the bears, or the cougars, or the walnut trees create a gestalt consciousness, a "Manitoug" of Bear, or Cougar, or Walnut Tree [as the Native Americans believed], and this Manitoug be "meetable" in Vision-Quest, then why not a Global Consciousness Manitoug, or Manitou Itself? Am I spouting nonsense, well it's me, so probably yes [as I've learned about my "wild Irish ideas" all these years]. Still, being Irish AND a West Virginian AND a professor, I should be excused for almost anything. And with the Potawatami AND the EGGs on my side, SOMETHING I just said was probably right. But don't take my word for it, visit Roger's website and open up your mind to a bigger world.
My theory is that humanity is creating the earth's brain/mind through the creation of the Internet. The manifestation of this structure being created is manifold and physical as well as theoretical. The system of satellites, the views of earth as systems of energy are seen from space, the search for a cosmic consciousness, the reality of information exchange and dissemination all point to a mind like structure being created that brings awareness to humans and potentially to the earth itself with humans having the roles of creators, agents and enablers for the earth.
ReplyDeleteWhat I read above suffers from being human centered conceptually and might be developed more clearly by being earth centered conceptually.