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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense
    #14476471 - 05/19/11 12:58 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

2012: Prophet of nonsense #8: Terence McKenna– Novelty theory and timewave zero

by Johan Normark


Why is it so difficult for the prophets of nonsense to even get some basic facts correct? As shown in my post on Calleman, his cycles do not fit world history. Here is yet another example of pseudo-scientists. Terrence McKenna was an ethnobotanist who loved numerology and as we have seen before, numerology is one these prophets main tools. They constantly claim that they have come up with an exact formula of cyclic repetition and the like, but as any person with basic knowledge of world history can see, these cycles never fit the data.

What was McKenna’s “great” idea then? According to McKenna’s novelty theory (apparently inspired by the important philosopher Alfred Norton Whitehead which definitely should not be associated with this New Age mumbo jumbo). Like Whitehead, McKenna argues that the world is constantly changing, creating novelty. I have no problem with that idea so far, but then McKenna goes astray and his association to spiritualism, shamanism, and pseudoscience is revealed. When “novelty” is graphed over time, a fractal waveform known as timewave zero emerges. The graph shows at what times novelty is supposedly increasing or decreasing.

The timewave itself is a mathematical formula created from McKenna’s interpretation and analysis of numerical patterns in the I Ching, an oracular tool based on Chinese philosophy and associated with magic. McKenna used I Ching to show that the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times Things change at an increasing speed and reach a point where change is all that exist and when will this occur? What do you think? Of course, on the 21st of December 2012. However, apparently McKenna’s followers claim that since he and his brother came up with the 2012 date from another source than the Maya calendar this supposedly support the idea that the world ends or is transformed on this date, since having proof from more than one source is better.

I-Ching is composed of 64 hexagrams, which are six-line figures. Here we run into numbers, numbers and more numbers, just to confuse or amaze the reader. If you multiply 6 and 64 you get 384 which is very close (but not exact…) to 13 lunar months (383.8978 days). Well, if you multiply 64 with 384 (not 383.8978) you get 67 years, 104.25 days which supposedly is the length of 6 minor sunspot cycles (11.2 years each). But, for what reason are 13 lunar months associated with sunspot cycles? They are clearly different astronomical phenomena. Of course, multiply the last period by 64 and you get roughly 4306 years (2 Zodiac ages). This must then be multiplied by 6 (not 64) to reach the time period of 25836 years which is the precession of the equinoxes (which is popular among other 2012 prophets).

McKenna choose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the starting point for his last 67.29 year cycle (as you know, all prophets believe they live in the final era, so it is and has always been). At the end of this final cycle the novelty should reach a singular point beyond which we do not know what will happen. This should happen in mid November 2012. But since this was close enough to the end of Baktun 12 in the Long Count calendar (December 21, 2012) he decided to adjust the end date so that it fit this calendar! This means than that the last of these 67.29 years periods did not begin with a major event like the atomic bomb, but with a more general idea, such as the end of WWII…

McKenna used the fractal pattern on the rest of the world history as well. By subtracting fractals of 67.29 years from 2012 he claimed to reveal the important phases of world history. As mentioned 2012-67 is 1945 (the end of WW II). OK, so far it roughly fits, but that is about it. The next period must be 64 times longer: 2012-4,306 (67×64) is 2294 BC, when historical time is assumed to have begun. Not really, historical figures and dates are known several centuries earlier in Sumer and Egypt. The next date is 2012-(4,306×64) and here we reach the date of 273,572 BC, supposedly when Homo sapiens emerged. Current estimates place the emergence of Homo sapiens to around 200,000 BC. McKenna’s estimate is over 70,000 years wrong. The next phase is 64 times longer and here we end up at roughly 17,6 million years ago, which he claims is the height of the age of mammals. But, why is such a “height” of relevance? How do you measure this height? The age of mammals is for sure a mammalcentric perspective. There are and were far more species of birds, fish, not to mention insects than there were mammals 17,6 million years ago. Would not the extinction of dinosaurs 64 million years ago be a more relevant “date” since it has number 64 in it? Anyway, the next fractal began 1,128 billion years ago and this he claims is when life began on Earth. This is not even near…

Why do these prophets of nonsense not fit the actual major “events” in the universe or on Earth into their numbers? Why is not the Big Bang included, the formation of the Earth, the Cambrian explosion of life forms, the first terrestrial tetrapods, the first mammals, the extinction of dinosaurs, early hominids, emergence of Paleolithic art,  agriculture, urbanization, industrialization, etc.? Some prophets may include one of these “events” but will exclude others since they may not fit their formula. 

One could of course argue that at the time when McKenna wrote this nonsense, some of the dates mentioned above were accepted knowledge by science (which they were not, but let us just believe so for a moment). But since he based his fractal timewave on ancient wisdom, he should have gotten it right from the start, and not adjust it. The ancients are always right, remember that…


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OfflineSolomon Ash
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14477321 - 05/19/11 07:51 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Yeah I remember laughing at Mckenna's time wave chart showing spikes in "novelty"... seems to me novelty is constant, constantly new beings are being born, incredible dramas are playing out in the jungles and under the sea... and he thinks novelty spikes when some silly war happens or nuclear bomb is set off.

His attempt to map history over his time wave was pretty unconvincing, in my opinion.


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14477457 - 05/19/11 08:48 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:

McKenna choose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the starting point for his last 67.29 year cycle (as you know, all prophets believe they live in the final era, so it is and has always been).





Why do these prophet of nonsense critics always use the wrong verb tense?


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14477462 - 05/19/11 08:50 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Why is not the Big Bang included




Why do they talk like yoda?


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Invisiblemillzy
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983] * 2
    #14477663 - 05/19/11 09:40 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

from a purely entertainment standpoint, i find mckenna to be captivating. i take his wild theories and predictions with a grain of salt.


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I'm up to my ears in unwritten words. - J.D. Salinger


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: millzy]
    #14477674 - 05/19/11 09:44 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I liked reading about druggies running around the amazon, but I never cared about his philosophy or predictions.


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InvisibleSlashOZ
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14477880 - 05/19/11 10:42 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

If you take the number of posts by OrgoneConclusion this week multiply it by 64 then divide by 6 and add 4 to the number you'll get the exact date and time of the end of the world. I thought of this formula on DMT and LSD so it must be true, right?

Terrance Mckenna for the :facepalm:


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"Life sucks but in this really beautiful way" - Axl Rose
"Life's a bitch and then you die that's why we get high cuz you never know when you're gonna go." - NAS
"When people don't know what you're about they put you down and shut you out" - Black Sabbath
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi
"Look up at me I am God, look down on me and I am evil, look at me I am you." - Charles Manson.
"Don't question my reality." - Me (as far as I know)


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14478000 - 05/19/11 11:12 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

1983 said:
Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Why is not the Big Bang included




Why do they talk like yoda?




I did not write that as is obvious to any reader. As to his tense, the man does very well for a non-native English speaker. How is your Norwegian?


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Invisibledustinthewind13
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: millzy]
    #14478031 - 05/19/11 11:19 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

millzy said:
from a purely entertainment standpoint, i find mckenna to be captivating. i take his wild theories and predictions with a grain of salt.




Same.


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"It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and forget his own." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14478059 - 05/19/11 11:27 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

1983 said:
Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Why is not the Big Bang included




Why do they talk like yoda?




I did not write that as is obvious to any reader. As to his tense, the man does very well for a non-native English speaker. How is your Norwegian?




I know you did not write it as is obvious to any reader. I merely asked a question, now I know the answer is "because they are Norwegian".

How's your reading comprehension?


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14478093 - 05/19/11 11:33 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said: Why is not the Big Bang included




Quote:

I know you did not write it as is obvious to any reader.




Uh huh.


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14478139 - 05/19/11 11:41 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said: Why is not the Big Bang included




Quote:

I know you did not write it as is obvious to any reader.




Uh huh.




I am sorry that these things are confusing. The website software adds the OrgoneConclusion said:. This should not imply I think you authored the article.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14478143 - 05/19/11 11:43 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

OK, I forgive you. :pope:


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14478152 - 05/19/11 11:45 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I would rather have a cookie.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14478166 - 05/19/11 11:47 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I will meet you in the middle and give you a two-shroom rating.


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Invisible1983
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14478180 - 05/19/11 11:49 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
I will meet you in the middle and give you a two-shroom rating.




:thumbup:


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InvisibleEternalCowabunga
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: 1983]
    #14479116 - 05/19/11 03:02 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I like Mckenna but he was insane


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14480529 - 05/19/11 07:35 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I covered more or less the same thing here four years ago:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/6662223#6662223

--

Here's an excerpt of Peter Meyer, the guy who WROTE Kenna's software:

Peter Meyer: I regard the time wave as having no explanatory or predictive power at all, and so is useless as a cognitive aid. It can, however, be entertaining, as long as one doesn't believe it gives any knowledge of any kind. Unfortunately (as I suspect) a lot of people do believe it, so they're fooling themselves (as people tend to do).

Peter Meyer: The problem is that the construction of any of the sets of 384 numbers is arbitrary. That would not be a fatal objection if the theory could be used to explain or predict, but it can't (in a way which withstands criticism). It doesn't predict or explain anything at all.

And from "Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination?", even McKenna discounts his own nonsense 'theory':

McKenna said: "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'."

And a few key excerpts from Watkins' mathematical 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.


--------------------
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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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OfflineAnglerfishM
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: Diploid] * 1
    #14488568 - 05/21/11 06:53 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Wasn't McKenna projecting himself as much as a jester, as that of a 'prophet'?

He acknowledged quite frequently throughout his 'speeches' that it was only
a theory, and that implies it a failure until proven...


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OfflinexFrockx
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Re: McKenna: Prophet of Nonsense [Re: Anglerfish]
    #14488599 - 05/21/11 07:08 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

His "doubt" probably just made him able to talk to people. If he was certain of the stuff he wrote he'd be in some moonbat colony somewhere.


Edited by xFrockx (05/21/11 07:08 AM)


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