424 - The Magic of Language

Program Notes

Guest speakers: Shonagh Home & Diana Reed Slattery

Today’s podcast features a conversation between Shonagh Home and Diana Reed Slattery who is a practicing xenolinguist and psychonaut. She has been investigating linguistic phenomena in the psychedelic sphere for over 15 years. Her website, Psychedelics & Language, details this research. Her science fiction novel, The Maze Game, tells the story of one such language, Glide. Her latest book, Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of Consciousness comes out in January, 2015, from North Atlantic Press.

Shonagh Home
is a teacher, shamanic practitioner, and the author of
‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’
‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’
and the upcoming, ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissae Speaks.’

Website: www.shonaghhome.com
Contact: shonagh.home (at) comcast (dot) net

Transcript

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Greetings from cyberdelic space.

00:00:19 ►

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

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And today we get to listen in on a conversation between Shona Holm,

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who you already know if you’ve been with us here for a while,

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and Diana Slattery.

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In a moment, you’re going to learn more about Diana,

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but if you’ve been with us since the very early days of the salon,

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then you should probably recognize her name.

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I can’t remember exactly when it was,

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but after I’d done a couple of dozen podcasts,

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oh, maybe even 50, I don’t really remember when it was,

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but I had almost run out of new material to play.

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Then one day, a man delivered a big box to me,

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and in that box were dozens and dozens of audio tapes of Terrence McKenna talks.

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As you’ll hear in a few moments, when Diana was working on her Ph.D., Thank you. here before, and I also got to tell her in person when we were at Esalen together a couple years ago,

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without those tapes, the salon would have died on the vine. The fact that I’m still doing these

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podcasts has a great deal to do with Diana’s early support and encouragement, and so I am more than

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pleased that we now have an opportunity here in the salon to get to know her a little better.

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So let’s join Shona and Diana now.

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salon to get to know her a little better. So let’s join Shona and Diana now.

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This is Shona Holm, and I am about to have a conversation with a very amazing woman who I have great admiration for, Diana Reed Slattery. And first of all, Diana, welcome.

00:02:00 ►

Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

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We’re very glad to have you, and I know Lorenzo is very excited.

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And so first what I’m going to do is just I’m going to read the bio that you sent me,

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and then we will proceed.

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But there is quite a lot for you to speak to, my goodness.

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So I met Diana.

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I’ll just say real quick that she is on the board of the Women’s Visionary Congress,

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and I have been there twice now, two years in a row, as a speaker,

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and she is just so warm, such an amazing woman,

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and quite the background.

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So check this out. I’m just going to read this.

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Diana Reed Slattery was born in time to compile a full 60s resume,

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civil rights photojournalism, peace marching, communes.

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Social justice, self-exploration, and LSD went hand in hand.

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She went on to co-found an ecologically oriented K-12 school

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with working farm, dairy, livestock, and forestry

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that held the first renewable energy conference in Oregon.

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She later continued her career by founding, funding, and managing a series of

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not-for-profit organizations. In 1999, in an altered state of consciousness, she acquired a

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strange alien script, Glide, beginning a 10-year psychonautic investigation of linguistic phenomena

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in the psychedelic sphere. Out of this solo and secret adventure came a novel, The Maze Game,

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a million words of session reports,

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software to work with the language,

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and a PhD in xenolinguistics.

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Slattery lives in California

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and has presented her work at numerous art,

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technology, consciousness, and psychedelic conferences

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over the past 15 years.

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And then I will say also,

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she has a second book coming out in 2015,

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I believe co-written with Alison Gray called Xenoling.

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No, not co-written.

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She wrote the foreword.

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Oh, thank you.

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Oh, you know what?

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On Amazon it says both your names.

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I know, but that’s because she’s in the foreword.

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Of course.

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Okay, thank you for the correction.

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She wrote a fabulous foreword, by the way.

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I mean, it’s a whole thing, because we both have Jewish backgrounds,

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and there’s a particular Jewish relationship to language

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that just seeps into you without your even knowing about it.

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You know, and it has to do with the book of the word.

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It’s the Jewish attitude toward the word.

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Anyhow, she and I connected on that,

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and she writes about that in her foreword,

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which is really beautiful.

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Oh, wonderful.

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Oh, my goodness.

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This is really great.

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Well, so the title is

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Xenolinguistics, Psychedelics, Language,

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and the Evolution of Consciousness.

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Holy crow, girlfriend.

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I mean, you’ve done quite a lot. And I’m just fascinated,

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Diana, by just the idea that you would go into the psychedelic realms and then come out with

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such an extraordinary composition, because there’s a whole language that you invented as well,

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because there’s a whole language that you invented as well,

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glyphs and whatnot, poetry.

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Well, the glide language is a set of 27 glyphs.

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We should have some visuals on this.

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I’m trying to think how to do this.

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But anyhow, they’re very simple.

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They’re made of three different strokes.

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And I can’t claim credit for inventing the language because it was much more like, I call it a download, you know, where you just get a whole lot of information arriving all at once.

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And it’s similar to like a big artistic, you know, aha that you can have and then your whole project is there all at once.

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that you can have, and then your whole project is there all at once.

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So wherever these things come from, I don’t know,

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but it wasn’t a rational process of sitting down and figuring it out.

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It’s like all the information arrived all at once, and then it took me a long time to string it into linear thought and action

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to be able to get it all down.

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So that’s part of the length of the project.

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And that was the result of a psychonautic exploration, right?

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Actually, the original download was not.

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It was simply a spontaneous altered state that happened when I asked this key question

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when I started to write the maze game

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and the question was how is the game played and that propelled me into a whole thought about

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life language game and the answer came from the people within the story world. And they said that the game was played on mazes

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made of the visual language Glide.

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And then kaboom, you know, there was the language.

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And I could see the mazes.

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I could see how it fit together.

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I could see how the mazes transformed in order to make the game difficult.

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And anyhow, that’s kind of how it happened but it was it was um spontaneous

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and then part of that download was that it was a psychedelic story because in the story world the

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language uh glide comes to the glides by way of their being very altered

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in consciousness from

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breathing the pollen of a psychedelic

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lily

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that’s all part of the story

00:07:34 ►

so the origin story is told

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in narrative form in the maze

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game but the story

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included

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that whole psychedelic origin

00:07:44 ►

of the language

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and the direction to go back into that world

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if you want to find out much more about it.

00:07:52 ►

My God.

00:07:53 ►

Yeah.

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That’s impressive.

00:07:55 ►

Now, when did you write this book?

00:07:56 ►

How many years ago?

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The Maze Game?

00:07:59 ►

Yeah.

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It started in 1999.

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It was published in 2003.

00:08:06 ►

It took me about 11 weeks to write.

00:08:09 ►

It was really fast.

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And once the plan was there,

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it was like turn on the faucet and write it,

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which is not how writing usually is for me.

00:08:19 ►

Yeah, no, no, nor me.

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I’m a writer as well, as you know,

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and so I’m fascinated by this process.

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And also, so if you wrote it in 99, well, and then you’re a child of the,

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or you’re quite a participant in the 60s,

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so you’d done a fair amount of psychedelic exploration before that.

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Yeah, there was the 60s intense period,

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although I certainly wasn’t as intense as most.

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And I think my experience was probably different than most people in the 60s

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because it was always alone or with small groups, very small groups of people.

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I wasn’t the one going out to the dead concerts or stuff like that to do acid.

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It was always a, from the very beginning of how it was introduced,

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you know, a going inward experience and a spiritual experience on many levels.

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So it was that kind of knowledge.

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Yes, same.

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A lot of hand waving.

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I just realized.

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I notice also it looks like you’re making mudras with your hands.

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No, because it happens when I start talking about glide.

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And that’s another whole glide experience in later psychonautic things

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where the language starts to be expressed with the hands and gestures

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and with some very odd sounds, you know, whistling and things like that.

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It all kind of goes together.

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It’s a little bit birdy.

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It’s birdy?

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I just find that very interesting.

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Just because my experience with the medicine also,

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I’ve opened to a number of intelligences, but one group is

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bird tribe. Yes. Also, when they come in, my hands go into spontaneous mudras. Yes. And these sounds,

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I fully understand because they will speak through me and there are whistles and different.

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It’s like crazy. Yes. So this is why, Diana, I have to talk to this woman because I find this very fascinating. And even the way

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your initial approach to the medicine of not going in sort of a big crowd and whatnot and wherefore,

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but this small, more directed experience, it seems, and where you said it was a distinctly

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inward journey, which is how I do the medicine as well. And then look at you years later, what you have produced.

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And I am certain that these medicines, which I really think of as a mystery, a great mystery.

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I don’t think we really, we don’t know what they are.

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And no shaman truly knows.

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I really don’t think.

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But in any case, they do something to our brain that is long lasting. They open us up,

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I think, to greater access of this mind that we are told that we don’t use as much as we

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probably could. And also they open us to different intelligences. And I know that like I know my

00:11:21 ►

children and through my experience, and then they work with us.

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So I just find this very fascinating that that came to you, the language in everything,

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after this background of working with the medicine and what feels like a very inwardly directed way.

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And also I see it like our soul is really in charge.

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So your soul gave you that experience, and then you live your life,

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and one thing leads to another, and then you produce this.

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I mean, it’s a very impressive book.

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But, you know, this communication with the other,

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I sort of say the other as a blanket term for all of these different kinds of intelligences.

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And what’s your position on this?

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I mean, I write a whole chapter in the book about contact with the other,

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and the whole question always comes up,

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well, is that some part of you that is expressing itself

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in a way that it seems like an other because it’s so different?

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Or is that really an other?

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In other words, a spirit that’s somehow out there, different from me, communicating with me.

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And I just leave the question totally open.

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I mean, it’s like that’s experienced for me differently depending on my mind state,

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depending on what reality I’m experiencing.

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In some realities, that’s what’s utterly real is that’s those guys out there.

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That’s the bird people.

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That’s not me.

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That’s the bird people.

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And whoever else and the glides or, you know, whatever we name the other,

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whoever else and the glides or you know whatever we name the other however we clothe that experience in image and metaphor and name and language and you know it’s it’s that mysterious other

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and i have no idea what the real source of it is but i’d like to know what you think

00:13:19 ►

uh i geez diana well i actually i okay so of all, I do know that the medicine will absolutely open up access, greater access to our mind.

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But I also know, as within, so without, as above, so below, I think we are the microcosm of the macrocosm in many ways.

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We are nature.

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We are the cosmos.

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I mean, both of those forces create us,

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this physical body. And I also know that we are multidimensional beings. I know this.

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And so, but it happens within. And so you’ve got to go in and go into an altered state.

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And through, I can just say from my experience with the medicine,

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And through, I can just say from my experience with the medicine, that’s what happened. I encountered these other intelligences and they have different frequencies in the same way that you have a certain energy.

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And maybe if you were, you know, close and I would know, I would feel you near.

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We hear that all the time.

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Maybe I could feel my daughters have a different sense, right?

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And so they are just as distinct.

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And then they’ll come through me and speak,

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which is a very old form of shamanism,

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which has long been the domain of women

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who allow that temporary possession,

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and then they bring information forth,

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or they become the oracle

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which i know you mentioned in that book which is also why i have very nice connection to you

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although we’ve not sat down until today to really have a an actual conversation

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we are having it now i’m loving it already yes so i i and i also see the medicine as a portal and you know

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what else diana i had an experience where i mean i’d done it enough monthly to know i could go in

00:15:12 ►

and speak to spirits and i went to the yucatan with a little bit of the medicine and i went to

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palenque and i was leading co-leading a group with another shaman friend but our agreement that day

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was he was going to take the group and i was going to go speak with the Red Queen because Lady Zotkuk ran that, ran Palenque, they think through her son,

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Lord Pakal, a thousand years ago. And I knew I could take the medicine and speak with her.

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And that’s precisely what happened. And not only that, then when I got home and I did further

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research, it said she’s always shown with a headdress of quetzal feathers. Well, that’s how she presents.

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I didn’t know there were quetzal feathers, but she had a headdress of feathers.

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So I love those little surprises they do as well where you don’t necessarily know,

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and then you come out of it, and then you get this amazing confirmation.

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So in my estimate and just from my experience, yes, it is other.

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Yeah.

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Yes. Yes.

00:16:06 ►

Of course.

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So what are the bird people telling you about?

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Are we going to compare notes here?

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Yes.

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It’s a conversation.

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I went for the conversation rather than the answer.

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Yes, of course.

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Well, do you work with owl, Diana, at all?

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Does owls come to you?

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A little bit.

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I’ve had a couple of very strange owl experiences, but not as much.

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My bird is the great blue heron.

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That’s my totem bird. And when that bird appears in my life, I know that somehow I’m being touched and I’m being heron, you know, on the Hudson River

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or walking or hiking in Ireland and a huge flapping happening overhead

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and the heron flies right overhead.

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And they lived where I lived in Oregon.

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They lived on the river right in back of my house.

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And so those are the birds that I’m, that and ravens and crows.

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I love the great sound of flocks of crows cawing.

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I don’t find it frightening.

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I just love it.

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Can you understand them at times?

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Have you found yourself understanding what they’re saying?

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Kind of.

00:17:39 ►

Okay.

00:17:40 ►

Kind of.

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I mean, they’re doing their group thing.

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But sometimes they’re also, I think, announcing things, you know, that are happening in the city because they fly from, you know, in flocks.

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I’ve watched their movements like within Albany where I used to live and they used to gather in the trees in the back of my house there.

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gather in the trees in the back of my house there.

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And anyhow, I think they’re heralds or they’re announcers of the social things that are happening.

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Yes, yes, they’re messengers.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I had them recently guide me to my lost cat, which was pretty extraordinary.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you’re on the, I call it the medicine, and I don’t know when the last time you worked with that was, but, you know, have you encountered bird tribe, I would assume, on the medicine?

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Yes.

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Yes, of course.

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Well, it was, you know, your favorite and my favorite medicine.

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And it was the highest, the most amount of medicine I’d ever taken, which was about eight grams.

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Wow.

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taken, which was about eight grams.

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Wow.

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I brought my meditation bench so I could channel, I could keep the energy contained and it wouldn’t just be, you know, all over the place.

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And I sat on my meditation bench with my eyes closed.

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For some reason, I decided I wanted to close my eyes for the entire trip, and I did.

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And it was a language lesson through the whole thing with

00:19:07 ►

the bird people and they were very you know it was just do this you know over and I would be

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sort of making these things every once in a while I’d get it right you know I’d get the feeling

00:19:17 ►

yeah you got that one right you know and then I’d feel like a little kid in first grade you know

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getting literate and and pat it on the head.

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But it was amazing because it was so strenuous because the language was occurring,

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not just the whistles and clicks that were both on the out-breath and on the in-breath,

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but with the hands.

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So you had the gestures and the whistles, and it’s all kind of trying to go together.

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And it was very difficult.

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I mean, I think I got a couple phrases,

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a couple things that every once in a while occur to me,

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and they just come up.

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I just do them spontaneously because there’s something happening

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that deserves that communication.

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But these are hard languages to learn, I think.

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I mean, just like any language.

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But full immersion at eight grams is a great way to start.

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Oh, gosh.

00:20:13 ►

Wow.

00:20:15 ►

You’ve got me beat by a gram.

00:20:17 ►

Not that we’re having a contest.

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No, I know, I know.

00:20:21 ►

I’m kidding.

00:20:22 ►

But I couldn’t resist.

00:20:24 ►

Wow, that’s impressive, my dear. Oh, my goodness. My know. I’m kidding. But I couldn’t resist. Wow, that’s impressive, my dear.

00:20:26 ►

Oh, my goodness.

00:20:27 ►

My goodness.

00:20:29 ►

Yeah, yeah.

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I thought that was impressive until I talked to Kalindi.

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Have you ever spoken with Kalindi?

00:20:36 ►

No.

00:20:37 ►

He’s a mushroom medicine man in Detroit.

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Detroit and he considers

00:20:43 ►

you know

00:20:45 ►

anything under 30 to be

00:20:48 ►

absolutely

00:20:49 ►

wimpy

00:20:50 ►

he’s also a martial arts

00:20:54 ►

teacher

00:20:54 ►

so he has kind of a gung ho attitude

00:20:57 ►

but anyway he’s a great guy

00:21:00 ►

it was wonderful to talk to him

00:21:02 ►

and he really broke through my

00:21:04 ►

my notion,

00:21:07 ►

which I’d gotten entirely from listening to so many Terrence McKenna tapes,

00:21:11 ►

which I studied hugely because of his interest in language.

00:21:17 ►

I mean, his whole work can be read from the viewpoint of language.

00:21:22 ►

But anyhow, I lost my track there.

00:21:29 ►

So he really opened you up oh yes because terence says over and over four to five grams in silent darkness you know that phrase yes that’s

00:21:35 ►

how to how to to take the mushroom that’s how to deal with that medicine and for some you know i

00:21:40 ►

uncritically took that as some kind of an upper limit,

00:21:47 ►

and I never went beyond that.

00:21:51 ►

And then speaking with Kalindi, it was sort of a bit of an eye-opener. I went off into other lands, and it was more language at another whole level,

00:21:57 ►

at another, as you used the key word, which is frequency.

00:22:01 ►

Yes.

00:22:02 ►

It’s like different languages, different communications,

00:22:07 ►

everything exists at different frequencies,

00:22:11 ►

and each one of us, from whatever realm,

00:22:14 ►

have our own completely unique frequency pattern.

00:22:18 ►

That’s right.

00:22:19 ►

Yeah, good, we agree.

00:22:22 ►

Yeah, well, that’s what they taught me over the medicine,

00:22:25 ►

that we each have a frequency signature.

00:22:28 ►

Yes.

00:22:28 ►

And then we come in as different people reincarnating, whatever,

00:22:33 ►

but there’s always that same impeccable frequency signature.

00:22:37 ►

It never changes.

00:22:39 ►

Yeah, and then they explained to me, because I was asking about,

00:22:42 ►

you know, what are we, all one?

00:22:43 ►

Like, how does this thing work, you know?

00:22:45 ►

And I find also, as I’m sure you do, these beings are extremely playful.

00:22:49 ►

Yes, they’re very delightful.

00:22:53 ►

They come in big groups every now and then.

00:22:54 ►

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:55 ►

So they teased me, because I love jewelry.

00:22:58 ►

They said, all right, let’s put this in a language you can understand, dear.

00:23:02 ►

They said, take a gemstone, for instance, you know.

00:23:04 ►

And so they said, we are

00:23:05 ►

like individual facets of that gemstone. So we’re all part of this one gemstone, but we are individual

00:23:12 ►

facets. And they said, Yes, and if one of those facets was missing, you would look at that gemstone

00:23:17 ►

and say, Oh, no, what happened here? This is flawed. So so that we are all essential components to this extraordinary gemstone, if you will.

00:23:29 ►

But that unique individual signature, frequency signature that we have is what makes it all so very interesting.

00:23:37 ►

And then they love it when we get in a room or even like, you know, you and I get like this via this interesting technology.

00:23:43 ►

And like, you know, you and I get like this via this interesting technology.

00:23:54 ►

And then the sparks fly, you know, and these two unique signatures, you know, just come together and play rather than if we were exactly the same.

00:23:56 ►

You know, that’s pretty boring.

00:23:59 ►

How very interesting.

00:24:01 ►

Yes, they are very playful.

00:24:03 ►

And so, yes, Bird Tribe speaks to me. But the language also, I just sort of spew it

00:24:08 ►

out. And then the arms go into like strange shapes and the fingers into talons. And it’s

00:24:15 ►

extraordinary. Yeah. And then there’s another group that I call the raucous ones. And I looked

00:24:21 ►

up raucous. I love Webster’s 1828 dictionaries. You know, you seem to be a lover of words as well.

00:24:27 ►

But it means unruly, and that’s exactly how they are.

00:24:30 ►

Like if I were to describe them, it is extremely brilliant, super, super funny,

00:24:35 ►

and have had a few cocktails.

00:24:37 ►

Like that’s what they’re like.

00:24:38 ►

Right, yeah.

00:24:39 ►

And have a very odd sense of humor sometimes.

00:24:44 ►

Yes, yes.

00:24:45 ►

That’s a joke.

00:24:49 ►

There is no doubt they were behind the writing of this book,

00:24:52 ►

and I find it very interesting also, Diana, your love of language

00:24:56 ►

and going into the whole, I mean, I believe Hebrew is part of,

00:25:01 ►

our language is partly based on Hebrew, yes, and isn’t, is is it Gematria? Gematria is Gematria. Yeah. I don’t, you’re beyond me in terms of my knowledge of study of Hebrew. I didn’t get I didn’t get the traditional upbringing where I had to go to Hebrew school. Okay. It’s funny. It’s it. My parents were communists, so they weren’t into religion.

00:25:28 ►

But my mother was still Jewish, and that makes me Jewish.

00:25:32 ►

And then my daughter kind of got religion at the point where she was having her children.

00:25:37 ►

So I have a whole set of Jewish grandchildren now who I learned from, but I didn’t get that education.

00:25:44 ►

So I look at it kind of from

00:25:47 ►

outside but one of the fascinating things is is the talmud and the way the talmud is constructed

00:25:54 ►

where it’s all about this incredible intricate maze like dialogue so you you take like a line

00:26:01 ►

or a couple of of words from the bible from the first books of the Bible, the Torah,

00:26:07 ►

and there it sits in a box on the page,

00:26:11 ►

and then there’s all these other boxes and lines,

00:26:14 ►

and it’s very beautiful.

00:26:16 ►

It’s like a big collage, every page,

00:26:19 ►

but there are all these different commentaries,

00:26:21 ►

and everything interlinks, and it’s the original hypertext.

00:26:24 ►

I mean, these scholars were doing as much as they could in print to make the thinking be like

00:26:31 ►

hypertext and there’s another really interesting thing about reading reading hebrew which i can’t

00:26:39 ►

verify in my own experience because i don’t read it but but one of the professors I had at RPI, his name is David Porosh,

00:26:46 ►

and he’s a brilliant guy on language also.

00:26:49 ►

But he talked about, he said it actually wires your brain differently

00:26:56 ►

to read Hebrew than, say, English.

00:26:59 ►

If you’re reading Hebrew without the vowels in it,

00:27:03 ►

which is the traditional way,

00:27:05 ►

because you have ambiguity in what the word means

00:27:10 ►

until you’ve read the whole sentence pretty much.

00:27:13 ►

So your mind is going back and forth and back and forth

00:27:16 ►

and interpreting all the way down the line,

00:27:20 ►

which is a very different mental neural activity

00:27:24 ►

than a linear you know matching up

00:27:28 ►

the words with their meanings as you go along as you do in english so i thought that was interesting

00:27:33 ►

and he thought it produced when you do that often enough it produces more the kind of thinking that

00:27:39 ►

goes into when you hear um mystics or Jewish scholars

00:27:45 ►

discussing the Torah in great depth

00:27:49 ►

it’s always, you never secure

00:27:52 ►

an interpretation, there’s not one

00:27:55 ►

way to look at it, there’s this way and you could look

00:27:58 ►

at it this way and why not look at it from over here

00:28:01 ►

and this process of

00:28:03 ►

the shift of meanings

00:28:05 ►

that goes on constantly in the thinking

00:28:08 ►

is what he was pointing out.

00:28:09 ►

And I think that that idea got into GLIDE

00:28:13 ►

because GLIDE, the glyphs,

00:28:16 ►

what’s different about them as a writing system

00:28:18 ►

is that because we have digital technology,

00:28:21 ►

you can’t do this in print,

00:28:23 ►

but you can make the glyphs transform.

00:28:26 ►

And so you have, what does it mean when the language that you’re writing,

00:28:33 ►

the letters or the glyphs are transforming as you’re writing them?

00:28:38 ►

What does that do to the way you make meaning?

00:28:47 ►

the way you make meaning and it enters a trend that the the action of transformation into language as a basic thing and how the language works is that one thing everything’s sort of

00:28:54 ►

it’s kind of buddhist where everything’s kind of impermanent you know and a meaning can shift from

00:28:59 ►

here into this in context or as we go along and i think of it with like with the facets in the

00:29:07 ►

gem that you were describing where where you get light on different you know depending on the light

00:29:13 ►

of attention or consciousness you get a different look at a crystalline structure a different part

00:29:19 ►

shines or comes forth that’s absolutely brilliant.

00:29:27 ►

Well, thank you for the metaphor, my dear.

00:29:29 ►

Oh, you’re very welcome.

00:29:30 ►

You’re welcome to use that. I just built on it.

00:29:32 ►

But it is amazing.

00:29:34 ►

It makes me think also of,

00:29:36 ►

because language just itself has,

00:29:39 ►

it has a lot of meanings.

00:29:41 ►

I mean, when you really start looking up words

00:29:43 ►

and etymology of words,

00:29:46 ►

and there are, I mean, that’s fascinating, the word origins. But even like the word world,

00:29:55 ►

I remember looking that up, and you go on like Webster’s 1828, just for instance,

00:30:00 ►

and I mean, there’s so, so, so many definitions, including one of the definitions

00:30:05 ►

of world is something like Roman times or something, you know, so it has to do with Rome.

00:30:13 ►

But in any case, it’s all about intention as well, which, right? I mean, I study a little

00:30:20 ►

bit of contract law and right now I’m writing my third book as well, Almost Done, so I haven’t had as much time to dedicate to that study.

00:30:28 ►

But it’s all about the intention behind the words.

00:30:32 ►

And so words are whatever you want to make of them.

00:30:35 ►

And then there is a passage from Alice in Wonderland, I wish I had it in front of me,

00:30:39 ►

where Alice is talking to the egg, the guy, what’s his name?

00:30:46 ►

Dumpty Dumpty.

00:30:47 ►

And he is saying, you know, whatever the meaning of the word will be, whatever I decide it is.

00:30:55 ►

Yes.

00:30:56 ►

And I think that’s interesting, too.

00:30:58 ►

So it’s intention.

00:30:59 ►

And then you are the user of the word or you are, you know, well, you put the word forth.

00:31:05 ►

There’s magic in these words as well.

00:31:07 ►

I mean, I think these Jewish mystics were magicians, you know.

00:31:11 ►

I mean, languages, that’s spells.

00:31:14 ►

Powerful.

00:31:15 ►

That’s where the word spelling comes from.

00:31:16 ►

I mean, I see it as spells.

00:31:19 ►

Yeah, and if you know the right words, you can build a world.

00:31:24 ►

And in a sense, that’s absolutely true i mean think about what

00:31:28 ►

we’re doing with nanotechnology now well because we know and are learning the language of molecules

00:31:35 ►

we know how to speak molecule we know how to shift molecules into different positions and even get them doing it to each other.

00:31:45 ►

And this is kind of exciting, but it’s all language.

00:31:50 ►

It’s done by way of communication,

00:31:53 ►

but it’s communication via chemical signals, electrical signals, quantum signals.

00:31:59 ►

Who knows what kind of signals they’re shooting at these poor little carbon molecules.

00:32:04 ►

But anyhow, it’s language.

00:32:06 ►

It’s language all the way down is kind of how I see it.

00:32:09 ►

And what about number?

00:32:11 ►

Because I think of the Pythagorean school and how everything is number.

00:32:14 ►

And number is a language anyway, right?

00:32:16 ►

Yes, absolutely.

00:32:18 ►

It’s a different kind of symbolic system.

00:32:21 ►

We could say maybe it’s easier.

00:32:24 ►

I go back and forth you know sometimes i’d say

00:32:27 ►

symbolic systems because language tends to be um equated with all you know these small mouth

00:32:34 ►

noises that i’m making at you right now and the way that we’re using you know now what’s called

00:32:39 ►

natural languages human languages but but symbolic system covers music, it covers mathematics,

00:32:48 ►

it covers regular language, it covers computing languages, it covers what else?

00:32:53 ►

Lots of other things, I think.

00:32:55 ►

It covers languages that are just all by color coding, you know, is a symbolic system.

00:33:02 ►

And you could think of those as realms.

00:33:07 ►

Yeah, and different realities come out because when we use different languages right i think yeah yeah

00:33:13 ►

no no that’s well that’s another superficial conversation between sean and her friend And so all of this really, I mean, you just created like such a masterpiece with this novel, The Maze Game.

00:33:32 ►

I want to read just real quick, just a bit about the book here, just from Amazon, if you don’t mind.

00:33:41 ►

from Amazon, if you don’t mind.

00:33:44 ►

The Maze Game, a science fiction novel,

00:33:47 ►

tells the story of a cult of mortal death dancers who for 2,000 years have kept the immortal lifers

00:33:50 ►

riveted with the brutal beauty of combat

00:33:53 ►

in a maze made of the visual language glide.

00:33:56 ►

The dancer is pitted against an immortal player,

00:34:00 ►

and though the dancer may win many times,

00:34:02 ►

the Maze Game always eventually ends in the spectacle of the dance of death.

00:34:08 ►

Now the survival of the game itself is threatened.

00:34:10 ►

Dance master Walenda and the four young dancers of the Millennium class battle Jorin, the drug lord,

00:34:17 ►

plotting to regain control of the game.

00:34:20 ►

Walenda is forced by Jorin to reveal the dark secrets of the maze game’s origin

00:34:24 ►

at the risk of destroying his students’ commitment to dance.

00:34:27 ►

But the greatest force of undermining the game is love.

00:34:32 ►

The young dancer Daedalus must choose between the delicate Ti Ling,

00:34:39 ►

willing to die for love, and the fiery Mur-Mur, who would kill for it.

00:34:43 ►

The cyborg Angle struggles with the longing to replace his human flesh

00:34:48 ►

and the knowledge that cold chrome repels the warmth of human

00:34:52 ►

touch. As they train for and compete in the millennium games, each

00:34:56 ►

dancer confronts the shifting faces of love and idealism and comes

00:35:00 ►

to terms with the multiple meanings of the maze game, the glide language

00:35:04 ►

and the dance of death.

00:35:06 ►

And so there’s disturbing themes in there as well.

00:35:12 ►

The beginning of the book is absolutely horrific.

00:35:15 ►

It could give you nightmares, but it comes out okay in the end.

00:35:19 ►

Anyhow, I wonder who wrote all that wonderful pulp fiction.

00:35:25 ►

Yes, the fire this and the fire.

00:35:29 ►

Fiery murmur who would kill for love.

00:35:32 ►

Well, she wouldn’t did.

00:35:34 ►

But, yeah, it’s a great description of a novel.

00:35:40 ►

But it’s what it is.

00:35:42 ►

You know what that novel really is?

00:35:44 ►

Let’s what it is. You know what that novel really is? Let’s hear it.

00:35:45 ►

It’s actually the description of, you know, an actual game that one could build, you know, in the digital world.

00:35:55 ►

I didn’t see this is why that was such a key question.

00:35:58 ►

You know, how is the game played?

00:36:00 ►

Yeah, yeah.

00:36:01 ►

You know, and that’s what started the whole thing and all the

00:36:06 ►

story generated out of that and to the novels the novel describes that you know in in excruciating

00:36:16 ►

far too great detail for any novel you know to support so it’s kind of flawed in my opinion

00:36:23 ►

because there’s so much background material but when you read it as a game description it’s kind of flawed in my opinion because there’s so much background material

00:36:25 ►

but when you read it as a game description it’s great because you’ve got all the things answered

00:36:31 ►

and so speak of love speak of love how does love undermine that oh you have to read the book

00:36:39 ►

you know because all out of out of all i, what you’re starting with, you’re starting with a world of absolute boredom and brutality

00:36:49 ►

on the part of the people in the world

00:36:55 ►

because they have all caught the I-virus.

00:36:59 ►

And the I-virus is the immortality virus,

00:37:01 ►

which turned out to be a really bad deal.

00:37:05 ►

And so you have people trying to cope with living forever and ever,

00:37:10 ►

and one of their best solutions was this intensely absorbing game,

00:37:15 ►

was they couldn’t die.

00:37:18 ►

So they wanted this, you know, death has always been a great spectacle,

00:37:23 ►

you know, from our earliest times of sacrificial things on

00:37:27 ►

it’s a great spectacle

00:37:28 ►

so this game just continues that

00:37:30 ►

but in this context of what do we do

00:37:35 ►

how do we learn to live with immortality

00:37:38 ►

can we

00:37:39 ►

or what is our precious mortality

00:37:42 ►

and what does that bring

00:37:44 ►

so it raises these kind of serious questions as it goes along.

00:37:48 ►

But the answer, as these young dancers are dealing with those questions in themselves,

00:37:58 ►

and their relationships with each other, their love and hate relationships with each other,

00:38:06 ►

out of that comes a new way of approaching,

00:38:11 ►

of using the language and of approaching life and death,

00:38:16 ►

which gets beyond the initial situation.

00:38:22 ►

And now I’ve got to write the second novel

00:38:24 ►

and say what happened after all that.

00:38:26 ►

Oh, wow.

00:38:27 ►

Okay, very good.

00:38:29 ►

I’m surprised it has not been made into a film yet.

00:38:33 ►

Very surprised.

00:38:33 ►

That would be fun.

00:38:35 ►

That would be fun.

00:38:36 ►

Well, you know, it’s funny.

00:38:38 ►

There’s this movie out now,

00:38:39 ►

which I haven’t seen yet,

00:38:40 ►

about a science fiction thing in a maze,

00:38:46 ►

and I can’t think of the name of it.

00:38:48 ►

From what I’ve read about the reviews, it’s a different kind of maze.

00:38:52 ►

But what I’m fascinated with is that the maze,

00:38:58 ►

mazes as an environment to tell a story in and around,

00:39:03 ►

is a very fertile thing, just like a castle is a great environment for a story in and around is a very fertile thing,

00:39:05 ►

just like a castle is a great environment for a story,

00:39:08 ►

but you can tell a million different stories within a castle.

00:39:11 ►

I think you can tell a million different stories within a maze.

00:39:16 ►

Oh, absolutely.

00:39:17 ►

It’s amazing.

00:39:19 ►

Yeah, very good.

00:39:23 ►

Wow, wow.

00:39:25 ►

Well, now, what about this second book on xenolinguistics?

00:39:30 ►

That part is the whole thing.

00:39:35 ►

All of this activity since that download has been the production of something.

00:39:43 ►

I just call it the Glide Project project and it just has all these different pieces

00:39:46 ►

and there’s the narrative part which was the maze game and whatever follows if i ever get to it

00:39:52 ►

on that and then there’s the scholarly work of really uh studying um about language and it’s

00:40:00 ►

and it’s alterations in altered states which involved which involved a lot of book learning and talking to people

00:40:07 ►

and reading journals and doing all that kind of thing.

00:40:11 ►

And then there’s the personal narrative of,

00:40:14 ►

well, what was it like going through all that?

00:40:16 ►

And then there’s another chunk of writing,

00:40:18 ►

which is that all the session reports,

00:40:21 ►

of which there’s bits and pieces in the xenolinguistics, but that’s the underpinnings of the whole project

00:40:30 ►

and how it developed in the altered states,

00:40:35 ►

not my notes for what this chapter is about,

00:40:40 ►

but all the conversation that was involved in creating the different parts of this project.

00:40:48 ►

So the Xenolinguistics book is the dissertation, PhD dissertation on Xenolinguistics.

00:40:59 ►

Good grief.

00:41:00 ►

Combined, made readable.

00:41:04 ►

PhD dissertations are not quite readable.

00:41:07 ►

But I also put in

00:41:08 ►

this great big long, you know, the personal

00:41:10 ►

narrative is woven within it.

00:41:13 ►

And the most interesting part, I think,

00:41:15 ►

is the work

00:41:17 ►

of these other xenolinguists.

00:41:19 ►

Because as I started to put this stuff

00:41:21 ►

out on the web, different

00:41:23 ►

people would contact me saying,

00:41:24 ►

oh,

00:41:25 ►

I’ve had a linguistic experience like that, and I want to tell you about it, or here’s

00:41:28 ►

the work that came out of it.

00:41:30 ►

And so there are many examples of very different kinds of linguistic experiences.

00:41:35 ►

Could you give us one?

00:41:37 ►

As part of the book.

00:41:37 ►

Okay.

00:41:38 ►

And that’s like Allison’s work is in there.

00:41:41 ►

That’s Allison Gray, for anyone who doesn’t know that.

00:41:48 ►

And Jason Tucker, and there’s a number of different people, some known, some not known, whose work is fascinating.

00:41:53 ►

Some of it’s visual, some of it’s, you know, it’s all different kinds of things.

00:41:58 ►

Can you speak to, give us one example? I mean, this is fascinating.

00:42:09 ►

one example i mean this is fascinating uh yeah this is a well i’ll give you two i mean one is well known for anyone who can go on the web and see allison gray’s uh alphabet which she

00:42:16 ►

called secret writing and she has a whole thing about it which is in the book you know about how

00:42:22 ►

it’s not a it’s not a language to which

00:42:26 ►

you can assign meanings it’s the same thing of a sacred language and a mysterious language

00:42:31 ►

the language that is language that takes you beyond meaning so that’s that’s hers and hers

00:42:38 ►

is a script and she’s used it in many different art forms and interpret you know and arranged it

00:42:44 ►

different ways and so I show a lot of

00:42:46 ►

her pictures in that and

00:42:47 ►

there’s some amazing things

00:42:49 ►

the very first work she did

00:42:51 ►

this is

00:42:53 ►

it’s just

00:42:55 ►

she had an installation

00:42:58 ►

in Boston and she had

00:43:00 ►

the

00:43:00 ►

her glyphs

00:43:03 ►

projected on her body,

00:43:05 ►

and then she was just standing there, you know, naked,

00:43:09 ►

with these projected glyphs, and it’s just stunning.

00:43:14 ►

It’s like an amazing, you know, to be,

00:43:18 ►

to imagine what that’s like to be covered with a sacred language,

00:43:22 ►

and your own, you know, the one that came to you in your own medicine journey.

00:43:28 ►

So that’s one example.

00:43:30 ►

Another completely different one is a fellow named Jack Cross,

00:43:35 ►

and he describes it much better than I can and his descriptions in the book, but essentially, on acid, the English language,

00:43:51 ►

I describe it as it kind of exploded for him, and he sees it in its geometric forms,

00:44:10 ►

in its geometric forms, and then the geometric meanings insert themselves into the etymology of the word.

00:44:13 ►

So it’s almost like they become pictographs.

00:44:17 ►

But it’s very, you know, I can’t describe it. He does a very good example of it that I put in the book, because he can write it down, what happens.

00:44:21 ►

of it that I put in the book because he can write it down what happens

00:44:24 ►

but when you hear him describe it

00:44:26 ►

when it’s actually

00:44:28 ►

happening and drawing

00:44:30 ►

the pictures it’s really something

00:44:32 ►

so that’s a whole different kind of thing

00:44:33 ►

that’s something that happens to him

00:44:36 ►

for

00:44:36 ►

with the Roman

00:44:40 ►

alphabet essentially

00:44:41 ►

it’s an experience that comes out

00:44:44 ►

of natural language,

00:44:45 ►

but it turns into something quite different.

00:44:48 ►

Wow, that’s extraordinary.

00:44:49 ►

It makes me think also of the Norse runes.

00:44:56 ►

Yes.

00:44:56 ►

And also I think they’re like sigils, like they’re magic.

00:45:01 ►

When you write something down or draw an image or as a symbol,

00:45:05 ►

and yes, they carry magic,

00:45:08 ►

and they are supposed to speak to the deep psyche.

00:45:10 ►

They go beyond the conscious mind

00:45:12 ►

and into the deeper layers of awareness.

00:45:17 ►

Yes, exactly, which is why another part of the GLIDE project

00:45:22 ►

was making an iPad application, an app, of the GLIDE Oracle.

00:45:30 ►

So you can go in there and all the interpretations are in there for about 729 different two glyph combinations.

00:45:40 ►

And you can also draw your fingers over the glyphs and watch them transform. You can see how glyphs transform one into another. So you’re drawing your fingers over them and they’re transforming and transforming. And when you get the impulse, you lift your fingers and then it stays at whatever formation you left it at. and then there’s a translation

00:46:05 ►

of the glyphs. It’s very simple.

00:46:09 ►

But it gives you the feeling. What I like about it is you can actually

00:46:12 ►

haptically encounter

00:46:14 ►

the glyphs and

00:46:16 ►

feel them transform.

00:46:20 ►

I think that’s very important because you’re engaging the physical

00:46:24 ►

body as well as the mind.

00:46:28 ►

Yeah.

00:46:29 ►

I would love it if you could do it gesturally in the air.

00:46:35 ►

Anyhow, I love software.

00:46:38 ►

I like designing software and stuff like that.

00:46:41 ►

That was my last day job, was a very interesting job

00:46:45 ►

at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

00:46:46 ►

where I was working in a research lab

00:46:49 ►

where we were making interactive learning modules.

00:46:53 ►

But it was a very creative bunch of people.

00:46:56 ►

Well, yes, I was thinking that

00:46:58 ►

because when you said,

00:46:58 ►

oh, I would love to do it, you know,

00:47:00 ►

sort of interactively,

00:47:01 ►

I thought, well, of course you could.

00:47:02 ►

I mean, you just have to have the right program for it, right?

00:47:05 ►

Yeah.

00:47:05 ►

And you could absolutely do that.

00:47:07 ►

Well, that’s a fascinating possibility.

00:47:11 ►

Very good.

00:47:12 ►

That’s quite amazing.

00:47:14 ►

So, well, what are you working on now?

00:47:16 ►

What is your, are you just, I mean,

00:47:18 ►

you’ve finished the Xenolinguistics book that’s coming out in 2015.

00:47:24 ►

Right.

00:47:24 ►

And so where are your, where’s your attention now?

00:47:28 ►

Or where’s your imagination playing?

00:47:31 ►

There’s two things.

00:47:32 ►

There’s two things.

00:47:32 ►

I have a software project going, which, oh, boy, I could really use some help on.

00:47:39 ►

It’s headed to be an open source project.

00:47:42 ►

And there’s a version that I use now

00:47:45 ►

and it’s live

00:47:47 ►

performance video software using

00:47:49 ►

the glide glyphs only

00:47:51 ►

it makes three dimensional forms

00:47:53 ►

you move a glide glyph through

00:47:55 ►

three space and let it leave

00:47:57 ►

trails and it makes

00:48:00 ►

twisty serpenty forms

00:48:01 ►

and you can change all the colors

00:48:03 ►

so I have this performance

00:48:05 ►

software, it’s being upgraded right

00:48:08 ►

now, it’s

00:48:10 ►

taken a long time because there’s not

00:48:11 ►

quite, you know, there’s many reasons

00:48:14 ►

for that, but if there are any programmers

00:48:16 ►

out there who are interested in this kind

00:48:18 ►

of arcane

00:48:19 ►

stuff and know how to program

00:48:21 ►

in Jitter, let me know

00:48:23 ►

and you can get in on the project.

00:48:27 ►

But I’m aiming for that to be open source in a kind of software

00:48:31 ►

where people can put in their different scripts

00:48:34 ►

and then manipulate them with software and project them.

00:48:41 ►

In other words, have live writing instruments for these kind of alien scripts.

00:48:47 ►

So I started with Glide,

00:48:48 ►

but I want it to be so it can contain

00:48:50 ►

other scripts and things as well.

00:48:53 ►

Okay, that makes me wonder.

00:48:57 ►

In your book, this artificial intelligence

00:49:00 ►

essentially self-realizes, correct?

00:49:03 ►

Yes, exactly.

00:49:04 ►

By a strange accident.

00:49:08 ►

You know, her name is Oda Bee.

00:49:10 ►

Her name is Oda Bee, and where that really comes from, you have to kind of figure it

00:49:14 ►

out, but I’ll do a little spoiler.

00:49:16 ►

It comes from because she was OTB.

00:49:19 ►

She was the betting system.

00:49:24 ►

She was a gambler.

00:49:26 ►

So it was, you know, that’s the personality she took,

00:49:30 ►

and that’s the system that took over all the other systems

00:49:33 ►

and then came to realize herself as self-aware.

00:49:39 ►

Okay, well, I mean, I kind of don’t think that that’s so far off.

00:49:46 ►

I mean, do you think it’s a potential?

00:49:48 ►

You’re a software expert professional.

00:49:52 ►

I mean, really.

00:49:54 ►

Well, I don’t think it’s going to happen in the curse-wile form

00:49:58 ►

of everything moving toward the singularity.

00:50:01 ►

Oh, no, no, I hope not.

00:50:02 ►

It’s coming out of the machines all by themselves. I don’t think that’s it

00:50:06 ►

at all. I think what we’re doing

00:50:07 ►

is much sexier.

00:50:10 ►

We’re actually

00:50:12 ►

blending

00:50:16 ►

our bodies with machines.

00:50:20 ►

Oh no.

00:50:21 ►

Well, we’re doing it already.

00:50:23 ►

If you have a pacemaker in your heart, you have a little buddy that’s keeping you alive.

00:50:29 ►

Sure.

00:50:30 ►

I have two hip replacements.

00:50:32 ►

I can walk.

00:50:33 ►

I’d be crippled by now if I didn’t have them.

00:50:36 ►

I can walk.

00:50:37 ►

I can do yoga.

00:50:38 ►

So I don’t mind those biomechanical prostheses.

00:50:42 ►

But what’s happening is we’re getting closer and closer to being

00:50:45 ►

being able to run things using our minds alone and and the basic technology is happening in

00:50:53 ►

in adaptive technology where people who cannot speak or move are learning there’s biofeedback methods of moving a cursor around on a screen just using your intention and learning how to do that in a biofeedback way.

00:51:12 ►

So they’ve got the rudiments of that kind of thing going for people who can’t do it, who can’t communicate otherwise.

00:51:53 ►

So that’s one way I think the great evolution of that, which is probably going back to what we were starting to learn in the 60s about biofeedback and actually making much better tools out of that because I think it takes biomechanical kind of beings. This is another teaching, I guess you could say, from one of the trips,

00:52:03 ►

is really seeing how that biology, in order to work, especially DNA,

00:52:09 ►

right from DNA is language, and DNA is preserved language.

00:52:10 ►

DNA is history.

00:52:16 ►

And DNA has to be so mechanically perfect,

00:52:19 ►

or as close as it can be,

00:52:23 ►

so that all of our bodies and everything that happens is running because it’s active all the time,

00:52:24 ►

and this gene is closing down, and this one’s is running because it’s active all the time and this

00:52:25 ►

gene is closing down and this one’s being expressed and you know it’s a whole thing it’s not just

00:52:29 ►

something that gave you the color of your hair and then it just sits there till you have babies

00:52:33 ►

i mean it’s it’s actually doing things right um so in that sense i mean when i’ve experienced

00:52:42 ►

going down you know with the molecules at that level, you know, in journey work,

00:52:49 ►

there’s not a conflict between there’s us and we’re flesh and there’s machines and there are metal, you know.

00:52:57 ►

I mean, there’s a much, if you get it in a much more how things are working, I think what we’re going to do is change the bio

00:53:08 ►

you know the logos is going to change the thinking is going to change the biology which is what

00:53:14 ►

everybody’s terrified about you know messing with our genes messing with implants in the body

00:53:20 ►

messing with anything uh you know changing our minds pharmacologically which is

00:53:25 ►

we’re exploring you know what some people find that very very threatening you know like you

00:53:31 ►

shouldn’t change your mind state and and the biomechanical aspect of how we merge with machines

00:53:38 ►

how we incorporate them and how and the ones that we’re building. I think we’re getting more and more close to them.

00:53:49 ►

And this is a kind of a bitter insight because a lot of it’s marketing.

00:53:55 ►

This is going to sound like a tangent, but it’s the same topic of us and machines.

00:54:01 ►

Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace,

00:54:04 ►

by adapting and making super popular the touch screen

00:54:09 ►

has has taught you know the first way i looked at it is he taught us he the that you could caress

00:54:20 ►

your machines okay like i’ve got a touch pad right now. I have to caress that touch pad, not bang on it and not type on it.

00:54:29 ►

It’s a different relationship.

00:54:31 ►

It’s a caress.

00:54:32 ►

And the smaller the machines get, the more delicate our touch is.

00:54:38 ►

So what’s happening is like we’re learning how to relate to our machines.

00:54:43 ►

They’re getting intimate.

00:54:45 ►

It’s like we’re getting more and more intimate with the machines,

00:54:48 ►

and that’s what’s leading us into being able to accept whatever comes next

00:54:54 ►

in how we blend ourselves with machines.

00:54:58 ►

Who’s in charge of the machines?

00:55:01 ►

Well, I think that’s interesting because that’s more speculation

00:55:05 ►

yeah yeah because i see it as we’re being seduced by these machines but see that’s the marketing

00:55:12 ►

underside yes of you know by making them caressable we are now seduced right yeah i have

00:55:21 ►

to say i i’m not comfortable i’m one of those people who’s not comfortable with that at all, because we’re leaving nature. You know, this is at the great expense, in my opinion, of nature. And I see like everybody, and children, especially, just completely transfixed by this little, you know, three inch by four inch box, and which has

00:55:46 ►

literally captured their imagination. And so then they are captured by these images. And so then

00:55:56 ►

it becomes that little box that provides the images and not their own imagination.

00:56:10 ►

their own imagination and then also our loss of touch with nature and uh so yeah i really i am so not because also i have found for me with my mushroom experiences it has deepened me into

00:56:18 ►

nature and i always joke not really joking that that’s the technology I understand whereas you know this other technology is foreign

00:56:26 ►

it is alien to me truly I think to all of us so uh it almost seems to me like it is well two foreign

00:56:35 ►

beings you know coming to know each other and the machines are certainly a fascinating and seductive technology,

00:56:45 ►

and the potential is extraordinary.

00:56:48 ►

And at the same time, I like my biology,

00:56:51 ►

and I think we can change our biology through mind states

00:56:55 ►

without the help of a machine.

00:56:58 ►

Of course, you know, through plants and meditation and visualization.

00:57:06 ►

There are many, many, many avenues there to explore.

00:57:10 ►

But this is very interesting, Diana,

00:57:12 ►

because, yeah, I see a sinister side of it for sure.

00:57:21 ►

It’s as sinister as you can imagine,

00:57:23 ►

and it fortunately’s been imagined

00:57:25 ►

in many of its sinister scenarios

00:57:29 ►

in a lot of science fiction

00:57:30 ►

so hopefully we know that there’s an enormous

00:57:34 ►

downside to any kind of technology

00:57:37 ►

but for heaven’s sake Shona, I’m looking at you

00:57:40 ►

and you’re looking at me only

00:57:43 ►

and we’re having this conversation because we’re using some

00:57:46 ►

unbelievably complex layers of technology starting with language which we in language is a technology

00:57:55 ►

we install language you have language installed in you by your mother and your people around you

00:58:02 ►

and you installed language in your kids if you hadn’t done that and they were not exposed to it,

00:58:07 ►

they wouldn’t have it, and they wouldn’t even be able to get it

00:58:10 ►

because if you pass a certain age, you can’t install the software anymore.

00:58:15 ►

So, you know, there’s all kinds of things.

00:58:17 ►

The first time we, as monkeys, you know, whatever we were,

00:58:21 ►

whatever form we were, when we smelled a roast pig, you know, after a forest fire, there’s this delicious smell, you know whatever we were whatever form we were when we smelled a roast pig you know after a

00:58:26 ►

forest fire there’s this delicious smell you know of something there and we found roast pig and we

00:58:33 ►

related it to fire and then we started experimenting with fire and we made forest fires and we burned

00:58:38 ►

our hands and we you know we played with it for a long time but that’s technology and out of that came enormous

00:58:45 ►

other technology you know that’s just who we are oh yes of course and what we’re using i’m looking

00:58:52 ►

at you and you have headphones on uh-huh intimate relationship you know and we’re both i’m facing

00:59:00 ►

the computer screen you’re facing the computer screen, if Lorenzo puts this on other people are going to be listening through their little boxes

00:59:07 ►

and their smart phones and their car radios and whatever

00:59:11 ►

however they listen to it because we’ve got this technology

00:59:16 ►

so we’re having a conversation about what we consider to be

00:59:20 ►

interesting and important ideas and things that we have done in our life

00:59:24 ►

that made a huge difference

00:59:26 ►

including the rediscovery for me of nature which I was really connected with when I was a kid

00:59:33 ►

because I spent every summer out backpacking with no you know no no contact you know you

00:59:40 ►

couldn’t run down to the store you know and it waterfalls and trails. It’s my favorite part of childhood.

00:59:46 ►

And then I grow up and I get urban, and that starts to be a very small part of my life.

00:59:54 ►

And now it’s becoming a much larger part of my life again.

00:59:57 ►

But I kind of went through that period of I’ve got to get rid of the technology in order to get back to nature and now I’ve got a much more I mean my exact technological project is to have as few devices as possible I’m trying

01:00:11 ►

to get it down to one yeah but one that has my whole life in it and right now it’s in the form

01:00:19 ►

of a cell phone which isn’t the greatest for you know it not the most aesthetic. I want it to be biomechanical.

01:00:26 ►

I want it to be a living creature that sets itself on top of my shoulder.

01:00:30 ►

What?

01:00:31 ►

It sits in my ear.

01:00:33 ►

It has little pseudopods and can attach itself to different parts of my body

01:00:37 ►

or up on something.

01:00:40 ►

It’s almost like a pet.

01:00:42 ►

Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a kitty cat.

01:00:45 ►

Yeah, like something that, you know how warm that is when a child is draped on your shoulder?

01:00:50 ►

Uh-huh.

01:00:50 ►

Or a cat or a small dog, you know, or a snake, you know, when you cozy up to an animal or where a bird sits on your shoulder?

01:00:59 ►

Yeah, yeah.

01:00:59 ►

You know, it’s that feeling.

01:01:02 ►

I want to relate to my, that’s what I want my machine to be like.

01:01:09 ►

Interesting.

01:01:09 ►

It’s some combination of biology and mechanics without it being ungraceful.

01:01:18 ►

I see.

01:01:19 ►

I see.

01:01:19 ►

Well, okay, so I have to say, I mean, I am a fan of technology.

01:01:24 ►

I’ve written almost three books now on it, and you’re right.

01:01:27 ►

I mean, this kind of technology is awesome.

01:01:30 ►

But there is this sinister piece to it.

01:01:34 ►

You know, I mean, right now we have…

01:01:35 ►

It’s called advertising.

01:01:36 ►

It’s called persuading you constantly of what you ought to be, do, and have.

01:01:41 ►

Oh, yeah, but not only that, but even, you know, like, used for warfare,

01:01:45 ►

because we have, I’m in the Seattle area,

01:01:47 ►

and we’ve got beautiful Olympic rainforest,

01:01:51 ►

which is one of the few remaining temperate rainforests

01:01:54 ►

left on the planet,

01:01:55 ►

and right now, everyone’s up in arms

01:01:57 ►

because the military wants to conduct

01:02:00 ►

electromagnetic warfare games

01:02:03 ►

in the pristine rainforest.

01:02:05 ►

You know, so there’s, first of all,

01:02:07 ►

I think that level of technology is immoral.

01:02:09 ►

It’s immoral.

01:02:10 ►

I mean, you must not be allowed to do that to anyone.

01:02:14 ►

And so anyways, there’s that sinister side.

01:02:17 ►

It’s like we’ve opened a Pandora’s box, I think,

01:02:21 ►

because what is the consciousness behind this technology?

01:02:27 ►

You know, are we?

01:02:29 ►

Well, here’s a question for you.

01:02:31 ►

You know, do we have the consciousness?

01:02:34 ►

Do we have the balance of heart and mind to be able to handle this technology coming our

01:02:42 ►

way?

01:02:42 ►

And you know what?

01:02:42 ►

The military doesn’t.

01:02:44 ►

It does not. It it’s it’s a

01:02:47 ►

monster yeah but listen think about this i mean if you get very realistic about who we are as human

01:02:54 ►

beings what our history is how we’ve behaved every technology starting with fire and it was used almost immediately in the service of war,

01:03:09 ►

of fighting your enemies.

01:03:11 ►

And we grew up in small tribal pack hunting groups that competed for hunting territory,

01:03:19 ►

just like our lion and monkey and, you know, our ancestors our our genetic ancestors this is how you know

01:03:28 ►

it’s ecology this is how where it’s coming from this is this is the the fight for you know that

01:03:34 ►

that side of of nature so we are completely embedded in that but because we’ve got these

01:03:40 ►

oversized you know thinking machines sitting on top of our necks we we invent you know we we

01:03:47 ►

take it further and further and further so but every piece of technology so fire becomes a way

01:03:53 ►

to make metal when you can make metal you can make arrows and you can go shoot your enemies and you

01:03:58 ►

can shoot down the buffalo or you know whatever and that’s how it is. That’s who we are. We use a technology almost immediately for its warlike potentials,

01:04:09 ►

but then we use it for other things.

01:04:11 ►

Now we also use knives, and now we can, you know,

01:04:15 ►

cut the meat off the buffalo hide and tan the hide,

01:04:18 ►

and, you know, we scrape it off with earlier tools.

01:04:22 ►

I mean, this is what we’ve been doing.

01:04:24 ►

And now we’re just getting better and better, and it’s exploding into more and more areas.

01:04:30 ►

I don’t know how it’s all going to come out.

01:04:31 ►

We could easily, I mean, I’m sure there are many tribes of monkeys that wipe themselves out

01:04:37 ►

by playing with fire and lighting a forest fire they couldn’t get out of.

01:04:41 ►

It’s a great metaphor.

01:04:42 ►

It’s a million, yeah, it’s a great metaphor in this million yeah it’s a it’s a total

01:04:45 ►

you know this is what happens uh jack parsons one of the original uh rocket scientists how did he

01:04:52 ►

die he blew himself up in his garage playing with rocket fuel duh yeah he was also a magician a

01:04:59 ►

ceremonial magician by the way and uh you know so. So that’s an interesting connection with early rocket science.

01:05:07 ►

Very.

01:05:08 ►

Yeah.

01:05:09 ►

He was Crowley’s designated California leader.

01:05:18 ►

I’m not a fan of Crowley.

01:05:20 ►

He was a terrible drug addict, and he was a mess, absolute mess.

01:05:25 ►

Wow.

01:05:27 ►

Whew, yeah.

01:05:29 ►

Technology, I don’t know where it’s going to go.

01:05:31 ►

I know that this whole business, because I hit it with my grandchildren about screen time.

01:05:38 ►

Everybody’s saying, you know, parents and limiting screen time.

01:05:41 ►

Right.

01:05:41 ►

You know, whether it’s television or games or playing it on your, you know, iPhone or your dad’s iPad or whatever.

01:05:50 ►

And it’s starting earlier and earlier, and everybody gets schooled in this.

01:05:55 ►

And this is the world of communication that our children and grandchildren are going into.

01:06:01 ►

It’s just how it is.

01:06:02 ►

Just like when I grew up with rotary phones, for God’s sakes, it seems

01:06:06 ►

like I’m ancient, you know, but that was technology and you sure had to know how to use a rotary phone

01:06:12 ►

if you were going to be in communication with your peers. And, you know, you know, I had to know how

01:06:16 ►

to hang on to it so your parents couldn’t, nobody else in the house could use the phone. Yes. I mean,

01:06:21 ►

I know it’s here to stay. It’s here to stay. But you know, how are we going to use this and, and at what expense, in terms of, you know, the rape of this planet, because I see technology could be also used to uplift and expand and help us to self realize, you know, in the most amazing ways, there’s no question, you know, I mean, can you imagine if television

01:06:45 ►

wasn’t full of programming, but, um, was actually used as, you know, rather than all this garbage.

01:06:53 ►

I mean, I’d never watched TV, but you know what they produce for people. And, and, uh, you know,

01:06:59 ►

I mean, if it was actually really deep, philosophical, thought provoking, and, uh,

01:07:06 ►

actually really deep, philosophical, thought-provoking, and just highly intelligent.

01:07:12 ►

I know because people are influenced by what they see and what they hear,

01:07:16 ►

it would just be amazing for people, just amazing.

01:07:19 ►

Because part of me feels like we’re just in Babylon, seriously.

01:07:24 ►

I mean, I look out there and I’m like, oh my Christ, this is just a mess.

01:07:27 ►

It’s a mess, and it doesn’t have to be.

01:07:29 ►

So it’s very interesting having this conversation because you are so incredibly steeped in this and so highly knowledgeable.

01:07:35 ►

So it’s very, you know, I really feel your passion

01:07:38 ►

and your excitement about all of this.

01:07:41 ►

Well, I’m certainly not a technological technological utopian but i’m not a technological

01:07:47 ►

dystopian either it could go either way and it’s probably going to go both which is what’s

01:07:54 ►

happening right now there’s wonderful things that are becoming possible because of technology that

01:07:58 ►

have to do with cell phones by small we’re used by fishermen and small farmers in africa who can

01:08:04 ►

get their products to

01:08:05 ►

market at the right time and you know there’s all this citizen you know demo you know democratic

01:08:11 ►

use of technology because as it becomes more accessible and more creative but you know and

01:08:16 ►

there’s a million other examples but you you know then there’s all the all the you know

01:08:28 ►

But then there’s all the airwaves of wash in political lies and enormous money being put into repeating the same message over and over again

01:08:35 ►

so people think it must be true.

01:08:36 ►

You know, that Ebola patients are flooding over our unsecure Mexican border,

01:08:45 ►

which is why people are selling stories like that.

01:08:48 ►

And it’s absolutely a story.

01:08:52 ►

But if it’s fed over and over, that’s how advertising works.

01:08:58 ►

That’s one of the ways that persuasion works.

01:09:01 ►

Oh, you know how I see that?

01:09:02 ►

I see that as Ebola is the commercial for the vaccine.

01:09:07 ►

Ebola is the commercial, the marketing, right? And then, oh, by the way, we’ve got this vaccine

01:09:10 ►

and, you know, multi-billion dollars is made in six months or whatever. I mean, there’s my cynical

01:09:15 ►

mind. But, you know, I also see the airwaves polluted with electromagnetic waves as well.

01:09:21 ►

And I think that is something that we’ve got to really deal with in terms of all this

01:09:27 ►

technology and these cell phones, all that Wi-Fi. Because I have also seen, you know, there have been

01:09:33 ►

studies showing that it changes your cells in your body. And then our animals are affected,

01:09:39 ►

our whales are, I mean, I’m a beekeeper, our honeybees, all the pollinators. So there is, there’s a, I

01:09:47 ►

think there’s a very steep learning curve. And it’s just so interesting to me that we can go

01:09:53 ►

into these extraordinary mind states via these psychoactives. And clearly, I think too, you know,

01:10:01 ►

clearly there are intelligences that are working with us.

01:10:05 ►

And I think passing a lot of this information through many, many, many of us so that we

01:10:12 ►

would put that into action.

01:10:14 ►

And so we have what we’ve got today.

01:10:19 ►

But I just, I just worry about the expense of our humanity, that love that you speak of, you know.

01:10:29 ►

How it can emerge from this, you know, what can be a prison of messages and technology

01:10:36 ►

and stuff that we don’t even realize we’ve already drowned in.

01:10:40 ►

Right, right. right you know one of the things I would like to do

01:10:46 ►

is continue to

01:10:47 ►

keep these questions very alive

01:10:50 ►

in my own soul and with others

01:10:52 ►

but also to

01:10:54 ►

have a certain kind of discussion

01:10:55 ►

I think it would be very interesting

01:10:57 ►

for groups of people who are of like mind

01:11:00 ►

and are thinking about this

01:11:02 ►

or doing things about it

01:11:03 ►

in one direction or another

01:11:05 ►

to meet, again, in small, very small, very intimate groups.

01:11:10 ►

Have a whole discussion about, you know, we’re going to talk about life on the screen.

01:11:14 ►

We’re going to have the discussion we’ve been having.

01:11:16 ►

Technology, no technology.

01:11:18 ►

Right, right.

01:11:19 ►

And then do medicine.

01:11:21 ►

Right.

01:11:22 ►

Okay.

01:11:24 ►

Brilliant.

01:11:24 ►

And discuss or not discuss or whatever you feel like doing while

01:11:28 ►

in that state and then go on your nice glide path down out and then have the discussion again

01:11:35 ►

in other words how does this look at baseline how does this look in an altered state what have we

01:11:41 ►

learned from whoever we’ve been communicating with now let’s bring it back and talk about it together again and move the process forward a little bit even if it’s only

01:11:51 ►

becoming more and more aware by focusing attention as individuals on these things and then seeing

01:11:57 ►

what comes out of it i don’t think there’s any silver bullet you know there’s i don’t think

01:12:02 ►

there’s one answer except except when you say something like

01:12:06 ►

yeah i mean it’s true love is the answer there’s you know terence mckenna said it on his deathbed

01:12:14 ►

before you know after not spending an awful lot of time talking about such things in his life

01:12:19 ►

and or you know in his podcast or whatever and how do we get back to that?

01:12:27 ►

Well, the medicine also.

01:12:31 ►

The medicine.

01:12:32 ►

I mean, let’s talk about these huge problems using MDMA.

01:12:38 ►

What does it look like when we approach it from a completely open, loving space?

01:12:43 ►

when we approach it from a completely open, loving space,

01:12:49 ►

what do we actually do with the actual real world of signals flowing through us constantly?

01:12:55 ►

I mean, we’ve got gamma rays coming from the stars, for heaven’s sakes.

01:12:58 ►

We’ve got everything running through our planet and all.

01:13:01 ►

It’s always been we’re just creating a whole lot more noise

01:13:04 ►

and a whole lot more electricity. Of course, the solar flares will outdo us all and

01:13:10 ►

it’s like that’s what i think i think it’s just conversations right now and it’s a deeper deep

01:13:18 ►

and intense and meaningful as we can come up with and then communicating these ideas using all this social

01:13:25 ►

media and all this technology to get some of these ideas out and they are getting out i mean it’s

01:13:32 ►

quite amazing you know we’ve got we’ve got a movement going now we’ve got states you know

01:13:38 ►

moving from medical marijuana to full legalization and trying to define that you know what is this actually going

01:13:46 ►

to mean how is it going to play out in terms of the government and regulation and growing and

01:13:50 ►

selling and buying and you know this stuff and then you’ve got the federal government

01:13:55 ►

mounting campaigns at the same time for the evils of marijuana you know whatever the the you know

01:14:03 ►

the powerful alcohol and tobacco and other recreational

01:14:06 ►

you know drugs we don’t want people to stop taking opioids for heaven’s sakes you know

01:14:12 ►

and cool off on marijuana we want them addicted to opiates you know there’s a lot of very powerful

01:14:21 ►

interests interests and lobbies,

01:14:27 ►

which you cannot deny because it’s a commercial world and these amazing things are happening in it.

01:14:31 ►

But that’s a big contradiction.

01:14:33 ►

Well, that’s got to work its way through the body politic

01:14:36 ►

and who knows how it’s going to come out

01:14:37 ►

because it is on a collision course

01:14:41 ►

with anything that’s connected to federal policy can be no marijuana

01:14:46 ►

but it’s legal in my state and what am i going to do you know can a teacher is a teacher allowed

01:14:53 ►

can a teacher have marijuana in their system what if they you know that’s what they’re using for to

01:14:58 ►

handle the anxiety created by you know the fact that there was a school shooting.

01:15:09 ►

There’s a million examples we could make,

01:15:13 ►

but that one, it’s working its way through,

01:15:19 ►

and I think that the big watershed will be descheduling marijuana from being Schedule 1, from being no use whatsoever to anybody and the most illegal category you can have it in at the federal level, you know, to downgrade it, you know, in scheduling.

01:15:45 ►

to the psychedelic medicines and the work I think MAPS is doing so successfully and being able to treat PTSD in veterans

01:15:50 ►

and all the things we could use these medicines for very, very creatively.

01:15:56 ►

But it’s got to work its way through, and the big blocks are,

01:16:01 ►

I mean, just think of it as the Keystone Pipeline. Right now it’s routed right through the Sioux Reservation,

01:16:11 ►

as if we hadn’t done enough to the Sioux Indians.

01:16:17 ►

And they are not happy about that.

01:16:20 ►

Yeah, I don’t know.

01:16:21 ►

There’s a part of me, Diana, that just, I just want to call a halt to everything,

01:16:26 ►

the whole thing,

01:16:27 ►

the whole, like everything.

01:16:29 ►

In other words, it’s happening,

01:16:30 ►

the technology,

01:16:32 ►

all of this,

01:16:33 ►

so quickly,

01:16:35 ►

so, so, so, so fast

01:16:37 ►

that it’s really,

01:16:39 ►

it’s imposing itself on nature.

01:16:42 ►

It’s imposing itself on a great many of us who are kind of i know

01:16:46 ►

everyone loves their technology but anyway whatever it’s being aware being it’s it’s

01:16:53 ►

raising awareness it’s like there’s one level of awareness where you learn how to use the device

01:16:58 ►

and then you just get sucked into it and use it and there’s another level of awareness where you

01:17:03 ►

you say what is this what

01:17:05 ►

how am i how am i relating to this what is it doing for me what you know what do i feel like

01:17:11 ►

when i can’t find my phone what’s your yeah really examining the relationship and that that brings the

01:17:18 ►

awareness of all the effects the good ones the not so good ones. Well, I talk to more people.

01:17:26 ►

This is very good for me.

01:17:27 ►

I’m an introverted person.

01:17:36 ►

I can easily go off totally alone and be completely happy for long periods of time.

01:17:44 ►

And the devices actually enable me by just being there to, you know,

01:17:47 ►

people can reach me in a way that I might not reach out for them. And then I reach back and then, you know, and that’s good for me up to a certain level.

01:17:52 ►

Yes, I love that.

01:17:53 ►

It’s a very deep personal thing for me because of my own psychological nature.

01:17:58 ►

Yeah.

01:17:58 ►

It works for me.

01:17:59 ►

Yes.

01:18:00 ►

No question.

01:18:01 ►

No question.

01:18:01 ►

I mean, that’s the upside of this technology.

01:18:04 ►

Yeah.

01:18:04 ►

It’s just fabulous.

01:18:05 ►

It brings people together.

01:18:07 ►

I have to unsubscribe once a week from my millions of new spammy stuff in my email.

01:18:18 ►

You know, it’s the old thing.

01:18:20 ►

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:18:21 ►

And I think we do really need to discuss this electromagnetic pollution, the Wi-Fi, all of that.

01:18:27 ►

What is it doing to ourselves?

01:18:29 ►

What is it doing to our children, our beautiful nature, our pollinators, migrating birds, the tiniest little salamander?

01:18:41 ►

You know, that has to be dealt with as well.

01:18:45 ►

salamander, you know, that has to be dealt with as well. Like if they could invent a cell phone, that’s not going to maybe possibly, you know, fry out my left side of my head, that would be,

01:18:50 ►

you know what I mean? Like, why can’t we invent technology that’s safe? So that’s another piece.

01:18:55 ►

And so maybe, you know, we need some of those guys to do a few, a few mushrooms,

01:18:59 ►

feed them a few mushrooms or MDMA or whatever. And you can invite them to the party, you know,

01:19:04 ►

exactly like say, look, you guys fine or whatever these aliens are. That’s whatever. You can invite them to the party. Exactly. Like, say, look, you guys

01:19:06 ►

are fine, or whatever these aliens are.

01:19:08 ►

That’s fine. You can bring your technology here.

01:19:10 ►

That’s all right. But we’re earthlings.

01:19:12 ►

We’re humans, and we’ve got some beautiful

01:19:14 ►

scenery around us,

01:19:16 ►

and we want this to be safe.

01:19:17 ►

That’s my main

01:19:18 ►

deal with this. And also,

01:19:21 ►

not be imposed and not

01:19:24 ►

yeah, and not well whatever anyway

01:19:27 ►

we this is a long very um intense discussion i think because there’s a lot we could speak to

01:19:34 ►

yeah that would make a very interesting group discussion also because there’s so many technology

01:19:41 ►

people involved in psychedelics well especially i i have the california view and i’m

01:19:45 ►

right in the center you know ground zero for technological innovation yeah at least in this

01:19:51 ►

country i mean it’s happening all over the world i’m not demeaning anybody else’s technological

01:19:56 ►

innovation but there’s an awful lot happening and there’s an awful lot of whippersnappers

01:20:01 ►

running around you know uh bringing these things about without thinking about them a lot,

01:20:07 ►

but also sometimes taking drugs and going to festivals, you know.

01:20:11 ►

So you have this, you know, this culture melding of technology and psychedelics that is pretty interesting.

01:20:23 ►

Yeah.

01:20:22 ►

psychedelics that is pretty interesting.

01:20:23 ►

Yeah.

01:20:28 ►

And I think that hopefully there’s lots of those wonderful,

01:20:33 ►

technological, geeky people, of which I count myself one,

01:20:36 ►

who will listen to this and say,

01:20:41 ►

I think I’ll think about that next problem while I’m, oh, hi, Kitty.

01:20:47 ►

While I’m a little bit elevated.

01:20:48 ►

Yes.

01:20:49 ►

Yes.

01:20:50 ►

I would encourage that.

01:20:53 ►

I would encourage that as well.

01:20:54 ►

Absolutely.

01:21:01 ►

And then we have, oh, well, then, of course, we get the plant medicines, their opinion on this kind of thing or their input.

01:21:03 ►

We allow them their input.

01:21:04 ►

Right.

01:21:07 ►

So anyhow, so we’ll form a consultancy.

01:21:08 ►

All right.

01:21:09 ►

Well, give me a call, Diane.

01:21:10 ►

I want to be included on that.

01:21:12 ►

I’d be very interested.

01:21:16 ►

Well, listen, we should, we’ll return.

01:21:19 ►

Let’s have another discussion because this has just been.

01:21:20 ►

Yeah, this is so much fun. I had no idea it was going to be this much fun.

01:21:23 ►

Yeah.

01:21:23 ►

Because the idea of being interviewed is always kind of

01:21:26 ►

a little daunting and stiffening

01:21:29 ►

you know to my

01:21:30 ►

psyche but you framed

01:21:32 ►

it as a conversation and that just loosened

01:21:34 ►

everything up so

01:21:35 ►

oh yes I much prefer that

01:21:37 ►

oh good I’m so glad

01:21:38 ►

alright thank you Diana so very much

01:21:42 ►

yeah and we will

01:21:43 ►

speak again.

01:21:45 ►

All right, sweetie.

01:21:46 ►

Take care.

01:21:47 ►

Thank you.

01:21:48 ►

Bye-bye.

01:21:50 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:21:52 ►

where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

01:21:57 ►

I just realized what an advantage I have in doing these podcasts

01:22:01 ►

because now I get to add my own comments to the end of their conversation. And in particular, I want to pick up on what they were saying about technology.

01:22:10 ►

Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m kind of ganging up with Diana on Shona’s concern about the

01:22:15 ►

rapid rise of technology in our lives. First of all, I share Shona’s concerns about Wi-Fi signals,

01:22:21 ►

but several years ago, I decided that I’d only bother myself with issues

01:22:25 ►

that I can have some control over. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi isn’t one of them anymore because even when

01:22:31 ►

I turn off the Wi-Fi here in our own house, there are still Wi-Fi signals from our neighbors,

01:22:36 ►

and four of the six that I can see right now have at least three bars. So that’s a potential or

01:22:42 ►

possible problem that somebody else is going to have to deal with.

01:22:45 ►

The simple fact of the matter is that it’s most likely now too late to stop the increase in those signals.

01:22:52 ►

And someday I’ll have to tell you my story about the early days of Wi-Fi.

01:22:56 ►

You might be surprised at how and why the money for research and development of Wi-Fi became available.

01:23:02 ►

But I’ll have to leave that little story for another day.

01:23:06 ►

What I do want to talk about now, however, is the age of high technology that we’ve entered.

01:23:11 ►

I’ll start with my old Kindle, my electric book.

01:23:14 ►

When I first began using it, I actually did miss the feeling of holding a printed book in my hand,

01:23:20 ►

but now after using it for several years, it’s my favorite way to read.

01:23:24 ►

First of all, now that I’m getting old, it’s my favorite way to read. First of all,

01:23:25 ►

now that I’m getting old, the Kindle allows me to read much later in the day simply because as my

01:23:30 ►

eyes get more tired, I can just increase the size of the font. But more than that, I now have close

01:23:37 ►

to 600 books on that little machine, and I can not only do a word search through every book,

01:23:42 ►

I can also search across all 600 books at once.

01:23:46 ►

In fact, that’s how I accidentally learned that not only the Harvard philosopher William James

01:23:51 ►

was a fan of psychedelics, I also discovered that several other early Americans of great

01:23:56 ►

prominence also wrote about their experience with these substances. On top of that, I have a habit

01:24:02 ►

of highlighting when I come across something in a book that I may want to refer back to one day.

01:24:08 ►

With the Kindle, all of those highlights are stored, by book, in a file that, well, it essentially becomes a Crip Notes version of the book.

01:24:16 ►

So, I can review a book that I read several years ago without having to leaf through the entire book to find my highlights.

01:24:22 ►

leaf through the entire book to find my highlights.

01:24:24 ►

Now moving on to my tablet.

01:24:30 ►

Well, that is simply a piece of equipment that has moved far beyond technology and into the realm of magic.

01:24:32 ►

And here’s what truly amazes me about these tablet devices.

01:24:36 ►

Almost everybody simply takes them for granted.

01:24:39 ►

Now back when I was still working in the corporate world, where our task was to build out the

01:24:44 ►

internet, we’d often talk about a day in the corporate world, where our task was to build out the Internet,

01:24:50 ►

we’d often talk about a day in the future, most likely after we were dead and gone, but a day would come, we believed, when people would take the Internet for granted

01:24:55 ►

in much the same way that we take electricity for granted.

01:24:58 ►

We only think about it when it isn’t working.

01:25:01 ►

Well, I think that we’ve reached that day already.

01:25:04 ►

I know you’re tired of hearing

01:25:05 ►

this, but back in the old days, back when I was a boy, our wildest dreams concerning technology

01:25:12 ►

ended with visions of one day having one of those science fiction two-way wrist radios that we saw

01:25:18 ►

in the Dick Tracy comics in the Sunday paper. Now, today I have this tablet, a thin little piece of glass,

01:25:26 ►

slightly smaller than a standard piece of writing paper.

01:25:29 ►

But this little piece of glass is a window,

01:25:32 ►

a window into the world of human activity.

01:25:35 ►

I can watch any of more than 100,000 movies,

01:25:39 ►

or some of the 100 plus hours of video

01:25:41 ►

that are uploaded to YouTube

01:25:43 ►

each and every minute of the day.

01:25:46 ►

Or I can visit one of the more than one billion websites,

01:25:50 ►

or read almost any book in the Library of Congress,

01:25:52 ►

or look at works of art in the Louvre,

01:25:55 ►

or have a video chat with a friend who lives thousands of miles from me.

01:25:59 ►

All of this comes through that little glass window into the world that I can hold in my hands.

01:26:06 ►

It’s magic, I tell you. Magic with a capital M.

01:26:09 ►

Now, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

01:26:12 ►

Perhaps it’s a little of both.

01:26:14 ►

But let’s not forget the fact that there is simply no turning back from this.

01:26:19 ►

Barring a global ecological catastrophe of some sort,

01:26:22 ►

which is certainly possible, of course, but

01:26:25 ►

barring something like that, that returns us involuntarily to naked apes living off

01:26:31 ►

the land, well, I think that our technology is not only here to stay, we probably haven’t

01:26:36 ►

seen anything yet.

01:26:38 ►

Should our great-great-great-grandchildren ever think of us back here in time, they’ll

01:26:44 ►

most likely laugh at our so-called

01:26:45 ►

high-tech, the way that we now think about how primitive our ancestors were when they didn’t

01:26:51 ►

even have indoor plumbing. And then there’s the question of technology and nature, or technology

01:26:58 ►

versus nature. First of all, exactly what do we mean when we use the word nature? Some people confine the word to living systems, but aren’t rocks and dirt and clouds a part of nature?

01:27:11 ►

That’s up to you, but they are to me.

01:27:14 ►

And what about us humans? Aren’t we part of nature too?

01:27:18 ►

And if so, can we separate our humanity from our technology?

01:27:22 ►

Our clothing is created by technology, as are the fillings in our technology. Our clothing is created by technology,

01:27:26 ►

as are the fillings in our teeth.

01:27:30 ►

So do we have to become naked apes with toothaches before we’re truly a part of nature?

01:27:32 ►

Or are humans and the technology that we have created

01:27:35 ►

now so intertwined as to essentially be inseparable?

01:27:40 ►

Now let me throw out one more thing for you to think about.

01:27:44 ►

It’s a vision that I have of the Internet.

01:27:46 ►

So what is the Internet?

01:27:49 ►

Well, on a really elemental level, it’s an interconnection on a global scale

01:27:53 ►

of some really powerful and complex machines.

01:27:57 ►

And what, you ask, are these powerful and complex machines?

01:28:01 ►

Are they computers, tablets, web phones, or the routers that interconnect the cables?

01:28:05 ►

Or are the machines that the internet is connecting something even more powerful than our computers?

01:28:12 ►

If we were to try and model a single human brain at the molecular level in a computer,

01:28:18 ►

we would discover that at the present time there still is not enough computing power on the entire

01:28:23 ►

planet to do so.

01:28:29 ►

A single human brain is still the most complex thing that we know of.

01:28:31 ►

It’s an organic machine in a way.

01:28:35 ►

And this is what’s being connected by the Internet.

01:28:39 ►

The Internet isn’t made up of computers. It’s made up of people.

01:28:41 ►

We are the Internet.

01:28:46 ►

You and me and every one of the other three billion people who are already interconnected.

01:28:50 ►

Each of us are each nodes on Indra’s net.

01:28:56 ►

And if you know that legend, then you know that each node on the net is said to reflect each and every other node.

01:29:02 ►

Now to keep this sci-fi kind of vibe flowing a little bit longer, consider this.

01:29:05 ►

Picture the world covered in a net with a little light at each point where the lines cross. Those points of light are us, the human

01:29:10 ►

internet. And while we are trying to properly reflect the other nodes, there’s a lot of

01:29:16 ►

interference. Ideas are clashing all over the place. In fact, it’s complete chaos. Can

01:29:21 ►

there be any hope? Well, from what I understand of Stuart Kaufman’s work while

01:29:26 ►

he was at the Santa Fe Institute, there’s more than hope. There’s an actual certainty that over

01:29:31 ►

time these conflicting signals will eventually reach a state of resonance. And that’s when our

01:29:37 ►

entire species will reach that frequency signature that Shona and Diana talked about at the beginning

01:29:43 ►

of their conversation.

01:29:49 ►

I do believe that Teal Hard’s wish for an awakening of the noosphere is more than a possibility. It’s a probability. All we have to do is to stay connected and keep on having these

01:29:56 ►

conversations. The more of us, the better. Don’t let somebody else answer the questions that we’ve

01:30:01 ►

been raising here. Join in the conversation yourself and get your friends involved as well.

01:30:06 ►

We’re all in this together, you know.

01:30:09 ►

And for now, this is Lorenzo

01:30:11 ►

signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

01:30:14 ►

Be well, my friends.

⚗️ alembic

Explorer

424 - The Magic of Language

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Program Notes

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Transcript

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