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question_for_joo
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Registered: 04/30/03
Posts: 1,591
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Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping
#4356518 - 06/30/05 06:00 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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I'm interested in what people think about Terence McKenna's notion that time is telescoping, in othe words that durations of time are like cycles and as we go forward from the big bang to the present these cycles started very long but have gradually becoming exponentially shorter. He specifically says, among other things, "the first short age is history" meaning that human history, all 5,000 years is the first age of the universe's evolution that is maybe past the halfway point towards the end?? he says this period's length is 4,600 years. or something similar to that perhaps. 64 years is the next shortest period..."august the 6th 1945 over Hiroshima, the big bang, it's little self" 384 days in duration is the length of the next one. then it gets shorter and shorter and you're there at 2012. rapid closures.
I would say the theory is worth considering if you just look at the history of life's evolution. 2 billion years as cells. 1 billion years as plants, 500000 years as fish, 250000 years as apes...or whatever it is, obviuosly that's not quite accurate but it seems like the pace of life's advance into something special gets faster and faster. it also seems like human culture's advance has gotten faster and faster. 2000 years as desert nomads...1000 years as farming peasants....10 years as disco hippies......but also There is some sort of fractal telescoping going on for us I'm convinced of that at least.
-------------------- youi was a pig informatnt so you can go fuckyoruselfs
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4356559 - 06/30/05 06:10 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hey that's not fair, how come nobody talks about my crazy beliefs?
Oh wait, I don't have a PhD
Anyway, if I get a PhD, does that mean I get to write books about how alien intelligence created the earth ecosystem?
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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question_for_joo
i'm left. youall can bite me
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: OldWoodSpecter]
#4356563 - 06/30/05 06:12 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Here on the shroomery you get to talk about alien intelligence creating the earth ecosystem whether you got a PHd or you don't gone one!
-------------------- youi was a pig informatnt so you can go fuckyoruselfs
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alsey
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4356566 - 06/30/05 06:12 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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mckenna's theories are mathematical - he has added his own meanings to what are really just mathematical expressions.
-------------------- "Gently return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels." - ven. henepola gunaratana
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question_for_joo
i'm left. youall can bite me
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: alsey]
#4356568 - 06/30/05 06:13 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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So what do you think of the meanings he applied to mathematical expressions?
-------------------- youi was a pig informatnt so you can go fuckyoruselfs
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4356571 - 06/30/05 06:14 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
question_for_joo said: Here on the shroomery you get to talk about alien intelligence creating the earth ecosystem whether you got a PHd or you don't gone one!
I'm embarassed to do that. PhD would give me confidence, and 50% of people would buy my crap because I have my name on a fancy paper
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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alsey
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4356603 - 06/30/05 06:22 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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to put it bluntly, bullshit.
to make a very simple analogy, its like saying '7 - 7 = 0, therefore the world is going to end in seven years'.
i don't know, i don't claim to completely understand his theory, but thats how it appears to me. its a wonderful piece of maths, but the meanings he has given to it have no foundation in observable evidence.
-------------------- "Gently return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels." - ven. henepola gunaratana
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alsey
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: alsey]
#4356614 - 06/30/05 06:26 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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there are also plenty of things that run contrary to the trend; for example, a few picoseconds of subatomic particles, a few seconds of hadrons, minutes of nuclei, hours of atoms, billions of years of more complex structures.
mckenna attached some sort of special importance to human life with his theory, without explaining why.
-------------------- "Gently return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels." - ven. henepola gunaratana
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question_for_joo
i'm left. youall can bite me
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Posts: 1,591
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: alsey]
#4356706 - 06/30/05 06:59 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
alsey said: there are also plenty of things that run contrary to the trend; for example, a few picoseconds of subatomic particles, a few seconds of hadrons, minutes of nuclei, hours of atoms, billions of years of more complex structures.
mckenna attached some sort of special importance to human life with his theory, without explaining why.
not following you.. the applies special importance to human life cause as far as anyone has been able to find out we are the only conscious entities in the universe so far.
-------------------- youi was a pig informatnt so you can go fuckyoruselfs
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orechron
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4357045 - 06/30/05 08:45 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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not following you.. the applies special importance to human life cause as far as anyone has been able to find out we are the only conscious entities in the universe so far.
The only concious entities that we, as concious entities capable of searching for other concious entities, are currently aware of. When you consider the size of the universe, how little we've explored, and how short this period of exploration has been I don't see how you could think this is anything more than unsubstantiated tomfoolery.
-------------------- Live by the foma that make you brave, and kind, and healthy, and happy.
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Huehuecoyotl
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: OldWoodSpecter]
#4357210 - 06/30/05 09:32 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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"Oh wait, I don't have a PhD"
You don't need a Phd...just write the book...call yourself a Doctor, Reverend, or Jedi Knight for that matter. Your credentials are not important. If you cater to the drug community you will find enough weirdos to carry your cause.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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primal
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4357309 - 06/30/05 10:04 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yea... Time has relative meaning, but ultimately has no real existence.
"...time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live." -A. Einstein
"Space & time are concepts which give context to experience. They have no reality in themselves. They are only forms of perception." -anonymous
How long is one "instant"?
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Penguarky Tunguin
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: primal]
#4357330 - 06/30/05 10:12 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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He didn't say the world is going to end, just this AGE. And what exactly, will happen? No one has any idea. But something is going to happen...it has to.
McKennaDMT
-------------------- Every mistake, intentional or otherwise, in the above post, is the fault of the reader.
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orechron
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: Penguarky Tunguin]
#4357337 - 06/30/05 10:13 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Nothing is something.
Why does "it" have to happen?
-------------------- Live by the foma that make you brave, and kind, and healthy, and happy.
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Diploid
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4358336 - 07/01/05 02:46 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Terrence McKenna's choice of dates and numbers was arbitrary. His pseudoscience did not converge on those dates and numbers; rather he adjusted his data set to fit his invention.
There is nothing in the I-Ching that leads to any of this. Let me say that again because it never sinks in: McKenna's choices of dates and numbers was arbitrary... made up to fit his ideas. None of his data has any basis in reason.
That he picked the end of the Mayan calendar as significant shouldn't be surprising given his obsession with psychedelic mushrooms which figure prominently in the Mayan culture.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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alsey
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: question_for_joo]
#4358486 - 07/01/05 04:18 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
question_for_joo said: not following you.. the applies special importance to human life cause as far as anyone has been able to find out we are the only conscious entities in the universe so far.
that's a an assumption, not a fact.
-------------------- "Gently return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels." - ven. henepola gunaratana
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a_h_w
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: Diploid]
#4358537 - 07/01/05 05:05 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Terrence McKenna's choice of dates and numbers was arbitrary. His pseudoscience did not converge on those dates and numbers; rather he adjusted his data set to fit his invention.
There is nothing in the I-Ching that leads to any of this. Let me say that again because it never sinks in: McKenna's choices of dates and numbers was arbitrary... made up to fit his ideas. None of his data has any basis in reason.
That he picked the end of the Mayan calendar as significant shouldn't be surprising given his obsession with psychedelic mushrooms which figure prominently in the Mayan culture.
I'll quote McKenna and let him stand up for himself:
"Whitehead had this idea of what he called 'concrescence' and he said, you know, that the universe had an appertition for novelty, an appetite for novelty that moved toward a nexus of concrescence, and I believe that, yes, we are so close to the transcendental object at the end of time that really it is going to occur probably in late 2012. The reasons for being so specific are too complex to go into now, but I'll just give you a short of throw-away explanation which is that's the end date of the Mayan calendar. That's not why I chose it, but I later, after choosing this date, discovered it was the end date of Mayan calendar. Well, the only thing I have in common with the Maya, they took mushrooms and I take mushrooms, so it's almost as though, you know, this is the bar code stamped on the psilocybin paraphoniae, when you get it all pieced together, no matter where in time and space you are, there's this vector pointing at the early years of the 21st century as the place where we, where it becomes explicit that we are in a process of exponential transformation. "
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a_h_w
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: a_h_w]
#4358548 - 07/01/05 05:23 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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one more quote, now from Jan Wicherink
"Years before the end date of the Maya Calendar was finally established in the nineties by Jose Arguelles, Terrence McKenna and his brother Denis developed a Time Wave zero theory. The Time Wave zero theory explains that time is recursively imploding like a fractal to an end time that mysteriously is the exact same date as given for the Mayan Long Count Calendar, the 21st of December 2012. It is important to notice that the brothers McKenna derived their Time Wave Zero end date long before Jose Arguelles established the end date of the Mayan calendar."
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Diploid
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: a_h_w]
#4358563 - 07/01/05 05:35 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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That's not why I chose it, but I later, after choosing this date, discovered it was the end date of Mayan calendar.
That's convenient, especially given McKenna's long and well known fascination with the Mayans including numerous trips to Mayan ruins in southern Mexico and Central America before he invented his Time Wave thing.
Here, I'll quote McKenna too, commenting on the debunking of his Time Wave mumbo jumbo by a mathematitian named Matthew Watkins:
From "Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination?"
http://serendipity.nofadz.com/ft/autopsy.html
"Recently, while in Mexico at the classic Maya site of Palenque, I made the aquaintance of a young British mathematician and psychokinesiologist named Matthew Watkins. Watkins offered the strongest and most interesting critique of the timewave and the assumptions of its construction yet made. Watkins is confident that he has condensed the theory of the timewave into a formula (given below) and is further convinced that there is no rational basis for assuming that the timewave represents the fluctuation of any quantity which can be meaningfully understood as 'novelty'." -- Terence McKenna
And a few key excerpts from Watkins' analysis:
Strangely, McKenna's description of the derivation fails to yield the data points which appear in the appendix and which have been used since.
and
By the final discussion he [McKenna] seemed to have fully grasped the nature of the problem, and had admitted that the theory appeared to have "no basis in rational thought".
and
As a mathematician who has met and talked with him [McKenna], who is sympathetic with the majority of his other work, and who is only interested in spreading clarity, I must conclude that the "timewave" cannot be taken to be what McKenna claims it is.
Of course, the complete debunking of the basis for a True Believer's beliefs has never stopped one from continuing to believe anyway.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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sox24
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Re: Terence McKenna's beliefs about time-telescoping [Re: Diploid]
#4358631 - 07/01/05 06:14 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Some of you are describing kind old Terrence like he was a madman. I thought he was sound in his beliefs. Don't attribute these outlandish beliefs to Terrence. He was never claiming to have the truth, he was just saying what he thought. He wasn't a pseudoscientist at all, he would be a humanist way before that. But I'm certain if he had to choose he would say that he too was indescribable and didn't fit in any labels, especially ones that aren't true.
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