Conference hydra::dejavu

    
    
    
    That is _quite a lot_ to think about.  Very interesting.
    
    Carole
    

    It's an interesting approach, rather inverse/analogous to the Bonewits
    "Switchboard" theory, which posits something of a mental metastructure
    at the group-mind level.
    
    It's interesting that one of the Egyptian (Khemite) creation myths
    has the "world" (universe) brought into being by a ripple of the
    thoughts of the god Kephera across the _surface_ of Chaos.
    
    However, I suspect it's imprecise to speek of "going deeper" into
    a nonspace/nontime [non]structure such as your proposed "Void."
    
    However, if a symbol works, it makes a good tool.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Re: .2 (Bonewit's 'switchboard' meta-structure theory)

    I had read somewhere of a theory which suggested that when something
    is learned by some members of a species, the learning is transferred
    (with losses, of course) to other members. I don't mean through word
    of mouth, books, etc., but through some other channel.

    Some experiments were performed where one group was given the answer
    to a difficult puzzle, and the other control group, seperated from the
    first, solved the puzzle, whereas they could not solve it earlier.

    Not knowing what the meta-structure theory is, does this fit in anywhere?

    -- Rav Karwan

    Re: .0
    
    To your analysis of your bootcamp dejavu experience, I have to say
    "right on!"  There is an identical feeling in much modern humanistic
    astrology, that what we are within (as symbolized by our birth charts)
    shapes what we experience without.  And that if you deliberately
    ignore certain energies, you will find it arranged for you, whether
    you believe your subconscious, God or Fate is steering your course,
    to experience those energies, and not always in a pleasant manner.
    This is the main reason humanistic astrologers help people study
    their transits--not to tell them when they "should" do things, or
    how to live the details of their lives, or to beware of dark strangers,
    but to help them realize the energies within themselves that are
    struggling to manifest, so that they can court, and to a certain
    extent control, the manifestation.  
    
    My own astrologer believes that you can't avoid a transit, but you 
    have plenty to say about the manner in which it works out.  She also 
    believes in studying dreams very carefully when she is engaging
    in ongoing counseling with a client using his/her birth chart.
    
    Marcia

    re: .0
    
    I assume that this is part of the first chapter of a book you will
    write :-).  I really like your postulates.  They fit well with what
    I feel.  I look forward to reading your future entries to this
    conference. 
    
    		Dave

    Re .3:
    
    Part of something similar.  Bonewits feels that there's a (at least)
    human information pool that under certain circumstances we can
    all tap.  Sort of from the collective subconscious. 
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    This is the best note I have ever read and if any of you delete
    anything before I can get to an LA50 and print everything out, I
    will hire an assortment of disreputable characters to do bizarre
    things to your family car.  Re: basenote.0 author,  it's a real
    pleasure to meet you.
                   
    mary

    This discussion caused me to think back on a book I read about the 
    planet Pluto (Pluto - The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul - Jeff
    Green - Llewellyn Publications 1986).  The more I learn about the 
    symbolism of Pluto, the more I feel it has to do with our purpose and 
    where we are on the Wheel of life.  I believe that Pluto in the
    Twelfth House symbolizes the "Void" (as Wayne put it) and our journey 
    back to it. I would like to quote from this book:

    "Those with a Twelfth House Pluto have had an emphasized and direct 
    desire to dissolve all barriers preventing the merging of their
    individual power into the cosmic whole in order to experience or
    realize the Ultimate Source of power.

    The Twelfth House or Pisces Pluto produces the knowledge or realization of 
    the individual's immortality, of infinity from the Soul's point of view...
    these individuals will come into this life with a deep inner sense that
    they are standing upon a precipice.  Behind them is the light of the known
    world (their past, and that which symbolizes culture, time, and space);
    and in front of them lies the darkness of the abyss (their future, and 
    that which symbolizes timelessness and the Universe).  Standing upon the
    precipice, these individuals face choices as to which direction to go:
    backward, forward, or to remain upon the precipice itself, paralyzed from
    moving in either direction."

   -The author goes on to describe some experiences these individuals might
    have which I won't duplicate here.-

    "This process occurs to teach these individuals not only belief but also
    the awareness that they are connected to a much larger living whole, the
    universe.  They have been learning how to experience themselves as an
    individualized wave upon the sea.  This process is, and has been, teaching
    them about the areas or dimensions within that are preventing and limiting
    their personal identification with the cosmic whole; to shift their center
    of consciousness from the wave to the sea.  This process is teaching these
    individuals, willingly or unwillingly, to plunge into the abyss of 
    infinity rather than remaining paralyzed upon the precipice, or turning
    backward to the light of the past.

    In plunging into the abyss of infinity, Twelfth House Pluto individuals
    are learning the lesson of faith; that the fear of individual dissolution,
    or surrender to a higher power than themselves, is only a delusion of
    separating desires reflected through the ego.

    The Soul for all Twelfth House Pluto individuals is anchored in the 
    universal or cosmic whole.  While this is true for all of us, Twelfth
    House Pluto individuals are pulled into the Universal Source much more
    intensely than those with any other house position of Pluto; it is their
    emphasized and intensified "bottom line".  Consequently, many will
    experience this pull as a deep inner vortex, like a black hole in the
    universe, that threatens to consume them in the abyss.

    With the bottom line anchored in the universal, some who have positively
    responded to the prior evolutionary intent will come into this life as
    natural psychics, channels or mediums.  Others will plunge totally into
    the abyss of infinity with faith and will have an almost exclusive focus
    upon the Source.  A few in this group will have experienced absolute
    revelations as to the nature of creation.  They will experience themselves
    as Cosmic Beings.  Others...will come into this life not understanding
    why they are here, the Earth being sensed as a foreign environment...A
    common problem of these types is a frustration at being unable to express
    to others how they feel and experience themselves.

    In general, then, all Twelfth House Pluto individuals have been attempting
    to learn how to expand the center of their awareness to encompass the 
    universal whole: to become Cosmic Wholeness, to see themselves and all
    others as extensions or reflections of the Source of Creation itself.

    This process required redefining themselves relative to time and space,
    culture, groups of like-minded Souls, anything that conditioned their
    sense of separate and personal identity that did not accommodate their
    timeless and immortal identity in the Source, the Cosmic Sea....the
    individual must learn how to let go of everything that pertains to
    their past in order to prepare, once again, for a brand new
    evolutionary cycle.  This new cycle is represented by Pluto in the
    First House.  All of us keep going around and around until the
    Twelfth House archetypal intent is fully realized."

    -This chapter contains much more information than I have quoted here,
    and the remaining chapters for Pluto in each of the other Houses are
    just as powerful.  It says to me that each one of us is journeying
    back to the "Void" consciously, and it is truly inspiring to grasp 
    just how much courage every one of us has.  I love you all.

Carole

RE: .3
    
    I'm pretty sure that you are refering to Rupert Sheldrake's theory
    of Formative Causation.  I'm writing this from memory so I can't
    guarentee that all the details are accurate.
    
    Sheldrake's theory is much more extensive than simply a theory of
    learning -- it is, very simple, a theory about the essential nature
    of reality.  The tests that have been performed on it so far, however,
    all involve learning.
    
    Formative Causation is meant as an alternative to the philosophy
    that the universe was created with physical laws.  Rather, Sheldrake
    proposes that physical laws, as we now discover them, were invented
    by the universe and new ones are being invented now.
    
    Sheldrake uses crystals as an example (I believe that he may be
    a crystalographer, but I'm not sure).  When calculations are made
    about the form that a crystal should have, it is frequently found
    that there are multiple possibilities, each seemingly equally likely.
    In reality the crystal only forms one way.
    
    This is usually taken to mean that very small differences, too small
    to measure accurately, tilt the balance between one crystal form
    and another.
    
    Sheldrake proposes that instead it *really* is random though fixed.
    The first time (ever!) that the substance was crystallized one choice
    occured randomly (this is called symetry breaking in modern physics).
    Immediately that choice propogated everwhere via a universal field
    (I forget Sheldrakes name for the field).  It became a new physical
    law that crystals of that substance would form in that way.
    
    The strength of the effect of that new physical law would depend
    on the similarity of the new system to the original one.  Simple
    chemical compounds of the same composition as the original are very
    close and so are quite rigidly bound by it.  Another *similar* chemical
    compound (though not quite the same), about to crystalize for the
    first time, would be biased but not rigidly determined by the first
    crystal's "choice".
    
    Sheldrake proposes that *all* observable physical law came to exist
    by this mechanism -- random chance when the first time that there
    was a choice.
    
    A consequence, according to Sheldrake, is that when one member of
    a species learns something, other members find it slightly easier
    to learn.  If enough learn it, the difference in learnability becomes
    measurable.
    
    Several tests have been proposed based on this claim.  At least
    two have been tried (or is it three).  All publicly known tests
    of Formative Causation have been successful.
    
    The first test involved special "hidden pictures".  These are seemingly
    random arangements of abstract shapes and lines.  If you look at
    it long enough, however, you eventually realize that it is a "high
    contrast" picture of something concrete.  Once you've "decoded"
    the picture, the subject is obvious and stays obvious every time
    you look at it -- seemingly for years.  It takes various amounts
    of time to "decode" each picture.  Some people never can get some
    pictures.
    
    Anyway, two pictures were used.  A number of small groups in the
    US were used as test subjects.  Each such group was shown one of
    the two pictures, and the amount of time it took each individual
    to find the hidden picture was recorded (some groups were shown
    one of the pictures, others the other).  A week or so later, one
    of the pictures was shown on a popular prime-time, BBC program in
    England.  The "correct" answer was then pointed out.  The next week
    the same groups in the US were shown the picture they hadn't seen
    before.  The prediction was made, on the basis of Formative Causation,
    that there would be a distinct improvement in the average time to
    "solve" the picture who's solution had been seen by hundreds of
    thousands of Brits, but little or no improvement for the other picture.
    This is indeed what happened.  Although amazing, this experiment
    is not airtight -- it would have to be repeated a number of times
    to be conclusive, and that would not be practical -- its not easy
    to get something like that done over and over again on the BBC (by
    the way, the reason I know so many details of this experiment was
    that I was asked to be one of the American "proctors" (supervisors)
    for the experiment, which I had to decline because I was going to be
    traveling during the key period).
    
    The second test, also successful, involved showing that people speaking
    no Turkish found it easier to learn a nursery rhyme known to thousands
    of Turkish children than a similar "nonesense rhyme."  I forget
    how they compensated for the possibility that the rhyme may *be*
    a popular Turkish nursery rhyme because of rhythmic or sound qualities
    that make it particularly memorable.  I do remember that I thought
    that the solution was clever, however.
    
    I think that there was a third test, successful once again, but I don't
    remember the details.
    
    In my opinion the tests of the Formative Causation theory provide
    a severe challenge to conventional physics.  I think, however, that
    alternate *paranormal* interpretations of the results are possible.
    They are quite interesting from that viewpoint, though.
    
    					Topher
    
    PS: Sheldrake has a book on the subject, which I believe is called
    Formative Causation, but I have not read it.

   Here are some interesting quotes from the latest Scientific American (June
   91) 'Profile: Physcist John A. Wheeler' PP 36-38:

     ...

     "In the 1950s Wheeler grew increasingly intrigued by the philosophical
     implications of quantum physics. According to quantum theory, a particle
     such as an electron occupies numerous positions in space until we observe
     it, when it abruptly "collapses" into a single position. Wheeler was one
     of the first prominent physicists seriously to propose that reality might
     not be a wholly physical phenomenon. In some sense, Wheeler suggested,
     reality grows out of the act of observation and thus consciousness
     itself: it is "participatory.""

     "...another Princeton physicist, Robert H. Dicke, introduced the
     anthropic principle: it asserts that the universe is the way it is
     because if it were not, we would not be here to observe it. Although many
     physicists recoiled from such ideas as untestable and therefore
     unscientific, Wheeler urged that they be taken seriously."

     "At the same time, Wheeler began to draw his colleagues' attention to
     some intriguing analogies between physics and information theory, which
     was first proposed by Claude E. Shannon of Bell Laboratories in 1948.
     Just as physics builds on an elementary, indivisible entity that depends
     on the act of observation - namely, the quantum - so does information
     theory. Its "quantum" is the binary unit, or bit, which is a message
     representing one of two choices: heads or tails, yes or now, zero or
     one."

     "In addition, information theory provided a new way of viewing entropy,
     one of the most important, and confusing, concepts in physics. Entropy is
     defined as the disorder, or randomness, or "shuffledness," as one
     physicist has put it, of a system. Shannon had proposed that the
     information in a given system - is a function of its entropy; as one
     increases, so does the other. Wheeler pointed out that entropy, like a
     quantum event, is thus tied to the state of mind of the observer. The
     potential information of a system is proportional to one's ignorance, and
     so, therefore, is the entropy of the system."

     ...

     "The lead chapter of the book is based on Wheeler's address to the
     meeting, [a meeting of physcists held in Sante Fe, New Mexico] and it is
     vintage Wheeler. Over the course of 16 pages, he cites 175 sources,
     including the Greek poet Parmenides, Shakespeare, Leibniz, Einstein and
     graffiti in the men's room of the Pecan Street Cafe in Austin, Tex.,
     which states: "Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening at
     once." Wheeler also spends some time establising what reality is not: it
     is not a "giant machine, ruled by any pre-establised continuum physical
     law"; at its most fundamental level, it even lacks dimension, such as
     space or time."

     "What is reality, then; Wheeler answers his own question with the
     koan-like phrase "it from bit." Wheeler explains the phrase as follows:
     "Every it - every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime
     continuum itself - derives its function, its meaning, its very existence
     entirely - even if in some contexts indirectly - from the
     apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits."

     "Elaborating on this idea, Wheeler evokes what he calls the "surprise"
     version of the old game of 20 questions. In the normal version of the
     game, person A thinks of an objecet - animal, vegetable or mineral - and
     person B tries to guess it with a series of yes-or-no questions. In
     surprise 20 questions, A only decides what the object is *after* B asks
     the first question. A can then keep choosing a new object, as long as it
     is compatible with his previous answers. In the same way, Wheeler
     suggests, reality is defined by the questions we put to it."

     ...

   Or to quote another source, maybe, "Ask and you shall receieve." Enter the
   Information-consciousness-void of reality, the Twilight Zone of the mind,
   the samadhi of voidness, emptiness, dimensionless potential ectesy. Then
   come back and ask: Just what is this reality anyway? :-)

   Wayne

    Yes, yes, yes, yes.
    
    Thank you for entering this.
    
    mary

    Keep in mind however that Wheeler would get absolutely furious at any
    attempt to interpret this in the ways many of us would like to.  If you
    try to take any implication of this for any special role of
    consciousness in the physics or suggest any possible explanation
    for "psi phenomena" implicit in any of his thoughts he will get red in
    the face, sputter and start impugning your understanding, intelligence
    and motives.  It has happened.

				Topher

    
    Who cares if Wheeler can't take a joke. ;-)

    Topher,
    
    Sounds like Wheeler wants to find a way to have his cake
    and eat it? 
    
    Joel