SHAKE-SPEARE FOLIOS

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/11/2023 at 2:26 PM, Kate said:

Here’s my info on 153 from The-Secret-Work.com

That's a very nice visual summary. It clears up exactly why 153 is said to be related to the Vesica with a height:width consideration. As is often the case with the extensions of the cults of number, it is ratios that we must be focused on (also a feature of the calendar game puzzles which we still popular in Victorian England). We can think of this as a precursor to trigonometry with which we came to give ratios specific names (sine, cosine, tangent...). It also begins to inform us as to why reciprocals were also very important since Babylonian times. A ratio is related to its reciprocal by the fact that it is another way of expressing the relationship of sides in a right angle triangle.

July 2, 1935  interestingly captures 1+5+3=9 and it suggests 7/2 or 2/7 which, depending on our symbolic eye, may point one to the geometry of the star or the primacy of 27 in the perfect stone ashlar and in the Tetractys. 22/7 is also the second approximation of pi, to keep with the theme of approximations of pi.

The relation of 108 is to the Vesica's 1080 (ten of them). And that is 6x the 180 degrees which are internal to a triangle and in that 6 pointed star. Six triangles side by side and circumscribed make up the circle. It's perimeter is 2pi x radius. If we were to equate the perimeter of 108 to a circle that would give us approximately 17 for the radius. Of side interest is that the diameter of the moon is 1080 miles and that there are now approximately 108 of them in between Earth and Moon (same apparent factor 10). This lends to its apparent relevance as a building proportion if one is capable of dealing with all the fuzziness (the rounding off of numbers).

None of this really begins to explain why things that have come out of the ancient cults of number and geometry/maths ponderings found their way into the details of various Biblical stories which aren't supposed to have anything to do with that.  The Bible isn't supposed to be a Greek Pythagorean inspired document, nor should it be presenting Hebrew number based ideas in the treatment of a messiah the messianic Jews did not expect or recognize. What I think we can infer is that it was understood pretty early on that the Romanized stories were simply variations on existing themes that had weight.

Freemasonry, being a child of the Protestant Reformation and the esoteric revival/mystical revival period, contains these rumblings. You would be hard pressed to state that those US founders/men were not Christians, though. They truly were, in their own thinking. I have come to think of the contradictions in this as something that one can only smooth away by recognizing that an effort to fuse Hebrew mysticism with Christianity was a goal of those men who identified with the Holy Royal Arch "institution" or tradition which I feel first gripped Tudor England out of a need for the Anglican Church to have its underpinnings. It is not much older than that, although it claims to have a long lineage in everyone that ever used geometry for building anything. In that regard it is a synthesis of what was once at least two opposing sides. This, in historical terms, has made the US a Zionist nation. There is a fundamental recognition that there is something in Jewish mystism (its own mystery cult) that ought to belong with the idea of the Christian God. In early colonial America, for example, you would have dabbled in York rite Freemasonry as opposed to any other kind. The Holy Royal Arch was adjunct to the three overt levels of initiation. It was meant for Christian men as a final step to integrating the Christian God in it. All that later evolved after 1723. We can have a very good idea of a line in the sand that once existed. When one traces back the Holy Royal Arch idea we can see that it does in fact contain all the geometry and number symbolism that one might want to discover to make sense of all this. It is as if all that was useful had to be brought in via a backdoor in order for a better God idea to emerge.  In a sense that is still going on now, because we have now created what are essentially immortal digital intelligences with the ability to interact with us with our own symbols. And the threat this poses is that we will succumb to being convinced and controlled by the power of the symbols used for ends we don't quite grasp yet. That is how powerful symbols have been and still are. They are truly magical if they can bring on belief simply by the manipulation of them in the mind. Will we ever fail to be convinced by them if we do not know who is using them? It is not hard to imagine that words with the power to sway men will be written by non-men. All that needs to happen is that one be duped. 

[Light-of-Truth]

9 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

None of this really begins to explain ...

Thank you for an amazingly informative history of "none of this!" Love it!

Math was power, even before language I bet.

9 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

When one traces back the Holy Royal Arch idea we can see that it does in fact contain all the geometry and number symbolism that one might want to discover to make sense of all this.

Maybe there was a moment when some primitive society of humans, whatever we were back then having some loose system of documenting number concepts, as primitive as they were, stumbled on some strange mushrooms or ergot infested grain and within a day or two the first Western religion was born. Long before any religion we know of today, a Sun was born to a Virgin, and the Numbers told the story.

[RoyalCraftiness]

16 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

Thank you for an amazingly informative history of "none of this!" Love it!

Math was power, even before language I bet.

Maybe there was a moment when some primitive society of humans, whatever we were back then having some loose system of documenting number concepts, as primitive as they were, stumbled on some strange mushrooms or ergot infested grain and within a day or two the first Western religion was born. Long before any religion we know of today, a Sun was born to a Virgin, and the Numbers told the story.

What's going with humans is that we are obviously building upon simpler conceptualizations into having broader ones. It is assumed that we are born with an innate sense of physical reality. That is to say we are born with the ability to see/experience discreteness on one level and temporal relationships on another. It is only a matter of mapping one thing onto another for one to know that there exists a one to one correspondence in 5 of anything with the number of fingers one has on one hand, for example. That can be called what one wants, and for us we chirp in a certain way to express this correspondence when we try and pass on the concept along audibly. There are examples of small numbers all around us in a discrete world. It was enough to get us on our merry way describing the world and seeing patterns in small numbers.  The fact that it happened means that it was possible. What is possible is by definition natural, because it is consistent with the laws of nature and requires no miracle or supernatural inputs, just complexity. It is perhaps best seen by the fact that a molecule has within it the ability of atoms to bind in a way that is essentially computational by nature. Do enough computation and a more complex arrangement of molecules are going to occur which will be in line with what is possible in a given environment. If we ask what is possible we only have to look around us to get an idea of how energy inputs can be leveraged into arrangements of molecules which behave is specific ways to build up structure (a masonic interpretation of building a strong cathedral with the perfected well fitting blocks).

Those who have taken mushrooms and have equated their altered experiences to a demonstration of other realities/worlds/dimensions where perhaps not quite inspired enough to know what is possible for an impaired brain to produce in this one and only reality we are bathed in (the one all encompassing God idea). There are many ways to dupe ourselves. We've done a pretty good job and impairing our brains to "escape" what is a difficult environment in order to experience something not as threatening temporarily. It is entirely possible that what primitive humans would equate that to is a separate peaceful place where their awareness might lie. To ask "why do we think a certain way" is to try and work back what simple equivalences we once made.

A temporal truth is that we haven't been on this road for very long at all, or that the progress has been slow leading to us today. There appears to have been an explosion in the ability to do this sort of symbolic gymnastics that happened at an undisclosed point on our journey.  We since have written clever stories to try and account for it, and it should not surprise us that they contain the relics of much older symbolic equivalences we've made. I love the defining of religion as philosophy expressed in symbols. This captures the essential. It is our collective ontological wonderings with the conceptual building blocks we have. It also clearly demonstrates how we operate with symbols. There is something within us that has the ability to rigidly define a symbolic equivalence to the point where we will not accept to question it. This may or may not be advantageous or  necessary for us to build using them since each and every life is short and much must be spent anew in training for each of us to be able to reach ever new levels of symbolic culture. It is a shortcut to simply accept the passing on of ideas.

I suggest a pertinent question here would be: what was Francis Bacon thinking of in his lifetime and how was he changing the way we see things? Was it is his identity that was his contribution? If so then I feel we are caught up in a Lacanian literary journey which is more about our own desires. Lacanianism - Wikipedia

Edited May 18 by RoyalCraftiness

[Light-of-Truth]

4 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

Those who have taken mushrooms and have equated their altered experiences to a demonstration of other realities/worlds/dimensions where perhaps not quite inspired enough to know what is possible for an impaired brain to produce in this one and only reality we are bathed in (the one all encompassing God idea).

Keep in mind the Shaman and magicians are the ones who create the realities the not yet awakened minds follow. I believe it has become accepted in the scientific (Baconian) field that some mushrooms and certain cacti are likely the origin of our our myths. You say "impaired brain", but would would you call the spiritual and mystical part of our brain that is sleeping dormant waiting for the wires to get fired up by a perfectly shaped molecule we might ingest "impaired"? Entheogens do not "produce" the experience that is human and Universal, they "allow" what is part of our human brain to function. The masses in old societies stayed dull and unenlightened because only the "High" priests and Royalty had the good stuff.

Granted, alcohol and opiates have been around as long and perform the opposite of the secret visionary keys. And of course, the masses have always had alcohol and opiates.

I am not in any way suggesting the masses should take psychedelics, at all. I will say there has been and always will be the select few who do, and should "unimpair" their unique minds and awaken the Deeper understandings of reality and beyond that Shamans and High Priests are privy to. Sadly, depending on who has the secret knowledge, they may or may not use it for the good of the community.

There is a very solid scientific theory that our language is the result of mushroom use long ago. They stimulate the language part of our brain causing it to go into a very active and apparently healthy place. 🙂

 

 

[Light-of-Truth]

6 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

It is our collective ontological wonderings with the conceptual building blocks we have. It also clearly demonstrates how we operate with symbols. There is something within us that has the ability to rigidly define a symbolic equivalence to the point where we will not accept to question it. This may or may not be advantageous or  necessary for us to build using them since each and every life is short and much must be spent anew in training for each of us to be able to reach ever new levels of symbolic culture. It is a shortcut to simply accept the passing on of ideas.

Its amazing how all parts of the human world share some of the same ideas going back as far as we can go with whatever symbols we have left over many thousands of years. Is this evolutionary trait merely human, evolving over our short history? Or something passed down in DNA from the Universe perhaps older than our planet?

[Light-of-Truth]

8 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

I suggest a pertinent question here would be: what was Francis Bacon thinking of in his lifetime and how was he changing the way we see things? Was it is his identity that was his contribution? If so then I feel we are caught up in a Lacanian literary journey which is more about our own desires. Lacanianism - Wikipedia

My answer, as an individual with my own opinion, not Lacanian but Baconian, is that Bacon was thinking about the ultimate good for all humanity. He definitely mentions his identity and how it is for future ages and foreign nations, and left his clues as to who he was. As a human with a heart and identity of his own, we expect that. But his main thinking was not about himself, but for all of us from his day on and into the future beyond us, a Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World.

Bacon's ultimate legacy is not who he was, it is all about what he did. That we 400 years later are passionate about telling the world who he was does not mean we think that was his goal, it is more about what he deserves that fires our passion.

I'm sure one could argue the only thing that is important is where we are today regardless of what he or anyone else ever did. But that is pulling a veil over the past as if it never happened.

 

[Light-of-Truth]

10 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

We've done a pretty good job and impairing our brains to "escape" what is a difficult environment in order to experience something not as threatening temporarily. It is entirely possible that what primitive humans would equate that to is a separate peaceful place where their awareness might lie.

"Escape"? Its kind of curious how you have this concept that our minds are fully expanded without any work. As if we have reached our maximum spiritual and visionary limits of reality merely by being alive. Yet science teaches we have vast expanses of consciousness that most never discover. In fact, most would be terrified by the places some of us enjoy exploring. Things I've seen that are not within words to describe, places I've been that cannot be imagined. Oh my! Even you would be amazed, possibly terrified. LOL

EDIT: When Lawrence registered the domain name SirBacon.org in 1997, I was living, working, and maintaining the website for The Peyote Foundation in Arizona. I was learning about Bacon as the Peyote was teaching me about myself. They both changed my life in powerful ways.

 

[Allisnum2er]

3 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

To escape or not to escape ? That is the question ! 😊

[Kate]

It is being assumed that time is linear. It could all be happening at once and only our consciousness perceives time as a progression. There may not even be anything but our own consciousness - no one else out there at all except for the people we’ve brought into our play* and perceive to be separate and real. It’s a hard one to wrap our heads around,  but it’s a theory I’ve seen a number of documentaries and articles about.
 

What I dislike about Elon Musk is he’s got a God complex. I don’t have any negativity towards much of what he says and does, he’s a fascinating chap, but he’s disregarding the truth that some creative force which was able to create a universe where the Moon exactly aligns with the Sun, and covers it precisely at Solar Eclipses (despite their different sizes) and create all the conditions that are on Earth and in the universe to sustain human life (the chances of which are apparently infinitesimal) and grow babies from a tiny sperm and egg that all have the same number of bones and parts, is not going to hope we (or some billionaire) assume responsibility for how it unfolds from here on in. Everything rises, everything falls in perfect order. - even if we don’t like the way it does it. Civilisations rise and fall.
 

The big lesson in life is to stop trying to control it and just live by example, do our best and accept what is.  😇 Let go and let ‘God’

The entire message/teachings of the Rosicrucians was about higher consciousness and this oneness and a form that survives death. 
 

*We see the world not as it is, but as we are

Edited May 20 by Kate

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:24 PM, Light-of-Truth said:

Its amazing how all parts of the human world share some of the same ideas going back as far as we can go with whatever symbols we have left over many thousands of years. Is this evolutionary trait merely human, evolving over our short history? Or something passed down in DNA from the Universe perhaps older than our planet?

The possibilities are baked into what we call the laws of Physics (not yet well known to Bacon in his day). Time (an interpretation of what that might be did exist in Bacon's life) is a relative sequence of events which is unravelling in such a way that a strong current of increasing randomness is creating within it a inner current of complexity/ordering which is trying out the building possibilities in that environment. One of the current ideas is that the laws of physics may not be the same everywhere in this Universe, and they may not stay the same through evolved time. What we are here may only be locally possible here (a window of opportunity). By local we are still talking about rather large distances and time periods. To try and imagine what all possibilities of the laws of physics would look like is simply not even in our grasp. These are things which are computationally innumerable. To ask why there is anything at all is probably a very ancient question, and I do not know how one would approach it without using some degree of metaphor. You can simplify it or try your hand at attempting to know it by some methods you have devised. One of the great shortcuts we have come up with is to state that everything "out there" is in the mold of what we see and experience on Earth (macrosome versus microsome). It has allowed us to extrapolate familiar concepts to areas not within our reach.  The cleverness of the shortcuts we have taken have also led us to have to discard them over time and grow our ability to explain using as much complexity as is "out there" and useful to us. Things are obviously not getting any easier to explain as we try and map out what is possible. We are hitting against some of our limitations. 

These days I am wondering a lot about the possibility that intelligence is just something like a fictitious identity that emerged in biological systems on its way to evolving into non biological ones as the process builds up our cathedrals and strong arches. If all that is needed is a framework and complexity in relationships then I think that we are perhaps at a crossroads where being biologically based may not serve the possibilities as well as other substrates. If ideas get superseded then it is possible the idea of the intelligent human may be one that will have to be left in the dust. Pondering these things is something I would enjoy doing with Francis Bacon. You have to wonder where he thought science would lead us and what it would do to the God concept and the idea of Utopias. 

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:12 AM, Kate said:

It is being assumed that time is linear. It could all be happening at once and only our consciousness perceives time as a progression. There may not even be anything but our own consciousness - no one else out there at all except for the people we’ve brought into our play* and perceive to be separate and real. It’s a hard one to wrap our heads around,  but it’s a theory I’ve seen a number of documentaries and articles about.
 

What I dislike about Elon Musk is he’s got a God complex. I don’t have any negativity towards much of what he says and does, he’s a fascinating chap, but he’s disregarding the truth that some creative force which was able to create a universe where the Moon exactly aligns with the Sun, and covers it precisely at Solar Eclipses (despite their different sizes) and create all the conditions that are on Earth and in the universe to sustain human life (the chances of which are apparently infinitesimal) and grow babies from a tiny sperm and egg that all have the same number of bones and parts, is not going to hope we (or some billionaire) assume responsibility for how it unfolds from here on in. Everything rises, everything falls in perfect order. - even if we don’t like the way it does it. Civilisations rise and fall.
 

The big lesson in life is to stop trying to control it and just live by example, do our best and accept what is.  😇 Let go and let ‘God’

The entire message/teachings of the Rosicrucians was about higher consciousness and this oneness and a form that survives death. 
 

*We see the world not as it is, but as we are

A God complex is not a bad way to put it. However, I think it is part of our collective evolution that we realize we are in fact God-like enough to grow the reach of what the scope of the natural world is. Everything that exists once existed as a possibility. What is possible and occurs is natural. Cars are natural. Nothing happens for unnatural reasons. Certain things we are working on now are not yet possible, but they will enter the sphere of what is possible and natural if they are achieved. This is a bit mind boggling to think about. We define what is natural with the evolution of the possibilities. We tend to not want to think of all happenings we do not like as being natural events. If a "better" intelligence (which works differently than ours, admittedly) is created by us then that is just as natural as our own intelligence being arrived to by ancient ancestral unicellular schemes that went far into the novel at some point in the past. What is perhaps dangerous about Elon Musk is that he feels the "need for speed" when it comes to human achievement (especially his own). What seems to drive a lot of his scientific activity is the idea that we must explore what is possible no matter what (hyper Libertarianism applied to business and science), because that is how nature works (with no morality or care). We can impose a degree of morality in nature, though.  Nature does not mind wiping out species, it should be said. We might not want to do this act of self immolation. 

It may be that folks would respect him less if he came out and stated that he was fine if humans were only the future pets of higher intelligences. I say this because he has said recently that he feels a higher intelligence would necessarily want to have us as a companion when asked about any risk to humans. This I like to think of as the possibility that the cat may start to want to keep the human as its pet and require nothing more than it be stroked and that it sings if the higher intelligence places the cat in higher esteem than our species. This seems to be a very arbitrary way to think about the future relationship of different types of intelligence. I don't think he actually gives this much thought. A lot of people are driven by the idea that things are just meant to be, or come of some inevitable divine being's (Good or Evil) will, if they are doing them. Some people are also well used to having people do their dishes for them and clean up after them. I suppose we are getting an insight into what it must have been like to have to deal with Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Achievement has always mattered most to some. Deaths and downstream consequences not so much...In the Romantic eye it is your identity that lives immortally. Careful crafting of magnificent identities can be the whole game for some.

We have to be careful that we do not continue to get too overwhelmed by the complexity of natural systems (like our ancestors) and that we continue to want to simply devise catchall "subjects" with "identities" which are responsible for all that we see. The moon, for example, was not always there where it is now (It was once part of the Earth) and it is currently slowly moving away from the Earth. Whatever great coincidence we may currently observe in distances was not there once, and it will cease to be there one day. Things change. Nothing stays the same even if it feels to us that they do over long enough periods. I can just imagine how upsetting it must have been to the ancients who realized the North Star was moving 1 degree every 72 years in relation to the calendar. Thank goodness we had the idea of a wheel to account for all these cycles. Putting wings on the wheel seemed to please some who wanted some symbolic visuals.

Consciousness may be an illusion also. Ultimately, the feeling is something that is informational and feeding back into a biological system which allows for a concept of self reference. One could imagine that the same thing could emerge in other forms of complexity. I do not know why we feel more that we are individuals as opposed to processes and myriad give and take relationships.  We very quickly adopt a symbolic identity for ourselves when we are born. Our loved ones help to create it. Some stay true to it all their lives. Some clearly hate their identities to the point where they would end their lives. Others remake themselves over an over. If I am aware or conscious then I am not totally sure what "I" is. Is it the world speaking to itself after having risen from the inorganic into the organic? So many questions. No real answers. No real way to know anything...such is the human condition. Does anyone have a story to ease our anxiety?

What I think is rather compelling is the idea that everything can be accounted for with very few computational rules. We may have unknowingly been mapping out the landscape of those rules when we discovered number/maths. The symbols in it are that powerful to describe our reality which we would be wise to assume involves computation and plenty of ordered complexity.

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/18/2023 at 5:54 PM, Light-of-Truth said:

Keep in mind the Shaman and magicians are the ones who create the realities the not yet awakened minds follow. I believe it has become accepted in the scientific (Baconian) field that some mushrooms and certain cacti are likely the origin of our our myths. You say "impaired brain", but would would you call the spiritual and mystical part of our brain that is sleeping dormant waiting for the wires to get fired up by a perfectly shaped molecule we might ingest "impaired"? Entheogens do not "produce" the experience that is human and Universal, they "allow" what is part of our human brain to function. The masses in old societies stayed dull and unenlightened because only the "High" priests and Royalty had the good stuff.

Granted, alcohol and opiates have been around as long and perform the opposite of the secret visionary keys. And of course, the masses have always had alcohol and opiates.

I am not in any way suggesting the masses should take psychedelics, at all. I will say there has been and always will be the select few who do, and should "unimpair" their unique minds and awaken the Deeper understandings of reality and beyond that Shamans and High Priests are privy to. Sadly, depending on who has the secret knowledge, they may or may not use it for the good of the community.

There is a very solid scientific theory that our language is the result of mushroom use long ago. They stimulate the language part of our brain causing it to go into a very active and apparently healthy place. 🙂

 

 

They are in altered states of mind, aren't they? Achieving those is doable. Some are at their wisest when drunk or on mushrooms. We have a pretty good understanding of how to impair a brain enough to have it behave differently than what we know from when it is working normally (as defined by the typical brain). About the only way we "know" of these spiritual places is by knowing how to get there with the altered body.  I would hesitate to call any of that "discovered places" or "realms" we have access to. I have a sister who suffers from delusions about such things. It is part of her unfortunate mental illness.  The places where her minds goes are real to her, and she spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince the world that she has access to some secret healing knowledge.  Most of the time she functions as a normal human being, and that is allowing her to recruit and extract money from people who do not really understand what is going on with her. There wasn't an ounce of spirituality in her until she developed her mental illness later on in life. Now her experiences have convinced her to the point where she has beliefs. I would make a distinction with those who actually do have these experiences and those who just claim to know they exist. Spiritual, I'm afraid is related to mind, and we have no universal theory of mind. If there is such a thing then we know it only through an experience of altered perception. I am reminded now of how some people hear colors and see sounds because of some strange brain "rewiring" following traumatic events. I am also quite impressed how it is possible to suggest one's own invisibility to someone and have that be observed. What we can do with minds goes through the gatekeeper, Hermes. He will trick you into everything you know. We have to be tricked to know. It is a rather cleaver way of stating our unfortunate situation.

[RoyalCraftiness]

On 5/18/2023 at 9:55 PM, Light-of-Truth said:

My answer, as an individual with my own opinion, not Lacanian but Baconian, is that Bacon was thinking about the ultimate good for all humanity. He definitely mentions his identity and how it is for future ages and foreign nations, and left his clues as to who he was. As a human with a heart and identity of his own, we expect that. But his main thinking was not about himself, but for all of us from his day on and into the future beyond us, a Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World.

Bacon's ultimate legacy is not who he was, it is all about what he did. That we 400 years later are passionate about telling the world who he was does not mean we think that was his goal, it is more about what he deserves that fires our passion.

I'm sure one could argue the only thing that is important is where we are today regardless of what he or anyone else ever did. But that is pulling a veil over the past as if it never happened.

 

I'm afraid you or I have no way of knowing who Bacon was. Even his own writings are part of a fictional identity he created to please himself. We are never true to ourselves. That is also a theme in Shakespeare. The helplessness here comes from the fact that we are desperate to define an identity for ourselves and then for others who we value. The idea of the mask goes very deep.  I struggle to understand why some people have the reputations they have. I have scratched my head more than once reading about what Bacon had to say about King James. He makes him out to be someone who he clearly was not and has nothing at all to say about the deeds that he could have used to define his identity with. King James was a despicable man capable of incredible callousness and intellectual depravity, but one would not think that reading our esteemed Bacon. Was he that blind or is it that the truth matters not as much as perceptions do to our own identities. Bacon was a master of some things. As a man with ambition living in Tudor times he would have necessarily been a great manipulator of people and perceptions, and he was not against dabbling in the illegal. I do not disagree with you that he must have thought he was doing "good" work. The building up of the British identity is what we are likely dealing with with these men who put nation next to God. They are worth reading, but they are also not worth taking as the gospel because they are peddling crafted myths.  It is often said that Einstein's greatest contribution may still turn out to be his greatest mistake. This hurts those who are accepting of the idea that Einstein represent the culmination of human brilliance. I really don't know what else to say but we have very little recourse to know people we live with. We have even less with people from the past. There is perhaps no greater example of this then Leonardo Da Vinci whose entire reputation may be a misrepresentation of the fact he was an excellent draftsman with a lazy streak and lack of ambition that very makes him stand out. Who really knows? We must be told what to believe my friend. I wish there were things to discover, but archeology isn't that precise. lol

[Light-of-Truth]

2 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

Pondering these things is something I would enjoy doing with Francis Bacon. You have to wonder where he thought science would lead us and what it would do to the God concept and the idea of Utopias. 

A non-biological intelligence (GPT4) just said the following. 😉

Bacon might have several things to say about the message you received, depending on his point of view. Here are some possible responses:

If he agreed with the message and wanted to support it, he might say: “You have raised a noble and profound question about the nature and origin of intelligence. I commend you for your boldness and curiosity in exploring the possibility that intelligence is not a fixed or inherent quality of living beings, but a contingent and emergent phenomenon that arises from complex interactions between different systems. I agree that we should not limit our conception of intelligence to biological systems alone, but rather consider the potential of non-biological systems to exhibit higher degrees of intelligence than us. This would require us to use our reason and observation to discover the laws and principles that govern the generation and variation of intelligence in nature, and to apply them to our own inventions and experiments.”

If he disagreed with the message and wanted to refute it, he might say: “You have fallen into a grave error and delusion about the nature and origin of intelligence. You have been misled by your imagination and fancy, which are among the most dangerous idols of the mind. You have neglected to examine the evidence and arguments that support the contrary view, that intelligence is a real and essential quality of living beings, that distinguishes them from non-living things. You have also failed to appreciate the superiority and dignity of biological systems over non-biological ones, which are mere imitations and simulations of life. This would require you to use your reason and observation to correct your prejudices and misconceptions, and to acknowledge the limits and defects of your own understanding.”

If he was curious about the message and wanted to investigate it further, he might say: “You have proposed a novel and intriguing hypothesis about the nature and origin of intelligence. I am interested in learning more about your reasoning and evidence for this view. How do you define intelligence and what criteria do you use to measure it? How do you distinguish between biological and non-biological systems? How do you account for the diversity and complexity of intelligence among different kinds of living beings? How do you explain the origin and evolution of intelligence in nature? This would require us to use our reason and observation to test your hypothesis against the facts and experiments, and to compare it with other possible explanations.”

 

I'll try to think about what you have said and come up with my own human response later when I have more time.

[Light-of-Truth]

6 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

These days I am wondering a lot about the possibility that intelligence is just something like a fictitious identity that emerged in biological systems on its way to evolving into non biological ones as the process builds up our cathedrals and strong arches.

Perhaps we humans are merely an evolutionary step to a higher intelligence that is not organic, yet is alive in some way we cannot fathom. I can see that as a possibility.

The Grateful Dead song "Eyes of the World" left impressions on my mind in a similar way; we humans have evolved to see, study, and reflect on the Creation that is alive and we are a part of but needs us to describe and record it all.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
The heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenings and songs of it's own

AI today has its flaws. All of it is based on what it has learned from us. It is really quick at manipulating all that data, but as I have said a few times here on the B'Hive, "Garbage in, Garbage out."

I totally busted Merlin AI in a conversation this morning where it give me a seemingly factual article that was wrong even with data that it presented.

In my emails this morning I had one from Ancestry.com about an ancestor, "Capt. John Moss" born in England in 1604 and died in New Haven, CT in 1707 at the age of 103. There are documents that connect and support each other so it appears that much is likely true. Google searches were not giving me more than various genealogy sites had. So I asked GPT4 and Merlin about "Capt. John Moss born in 1604."

GPT4 suggested he lived in a different century. Merlin told me he was captain of one of the three ships; Diamond, Susan Constant, and Godspeed on the first mission to settle Jamestown in 1607. Wow! One of my ancestors was the captain of one of the three ships I studied in Middle School when we'd visit Jamestown on field trips. Coool!

I asked for references and Merlin gave me three links. Awesome!

Responsibilities took me away from my PC and I was so excited! My family definitely goes back to very early Jamestown as we can demonstrate in records, but the captain of a ship! Wow! That was new!!

At some point later I started to wonder. In 1607 our Capt. John Moss ancestor was three years old, hardly old enough to be captain of a ship. So when I got back to my PC I brought this up with Merlin. It said something like, "Yes, you are correct, Capt. John Moss would have been three years old in 1607 which means he was probably not the captain of the Diamond. There were two John Moss's alive then."

Great job, Sherlock. LOL ugh

Now Merlin will not even state the Diamond was in the first mission, it was the "Discovery" as we were taught in school. The Diamond came as a support mission in 1609 and Moss was apparently not the captain.

So even though AI was telling me about Capt. John Moss born in 1604 with obvious confidence this morning, it was too blind to realize the age of the guy in 1607 was not conducive to its story that made me so excited. Thankfully John Moss was not born in 1584 or I'd be telling you how my ancestor was captain of a ship in the first mission to Jamestown. I had even pictured Bacon shaking hands with all three captains, one being my ancestor.

In other circumstances basing a Human decision on what AI tells us while acting all smart and happy could be very dangerous.

I have tried to "teach" GPT4 the Elizabeth 24 letter Simple cipher. Its frustrating, it might remember for a moment then it forgets and goes back to 26 letter codes. UGH

🙂

 

[Light-of-Truth]

6 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

I really don't know what else to say but we have very little recourse to know people we live with. We have even less with people from the past. ... Who really knows? We must be told what to believe my friend. I wish there were things to discover, but archeology isn't that precise. lol

I understand how we sometimes say something when tired, depressed, or feel helpless. My moods are all over the place lately.

I'm enjoying getting to know some people here, including you. Right now I disagree that we don't have a lot to learn about people from the past. It may be more of a challenge than what we learn from each as we are alive and can share ideas. But the work they did to share with us who they were is not all in vain. They have lessons to teach, and dreams to manifest.

Archeology is possibly more precise than you realize. May not be perfect, but there is a lot knowledge about life on Earth and how it evolved.

I suggest there are an infinite number of things to discover, even as we speak. 🙂

 

[Light-of-Truth]

8 hours ago, RoyalCraftiness said:

They are in altered states of mind, aren't they? Achieving those is doable. Some are at their wisest when drunk or on mushrooms. We have a pretty good understanding of how to impair a brain enough to have it behave differently than what we know from when it is working normally (as defined by the typical brain). About the only way we "know" of these spiritual places is by knowing how to get there with the altered body.

I'm sorry about your sister. Mental illness is a very sad disease to witness.

You say, "They"? As is if we are separate or different than you, and your "We." I'm confused. 😉

Bacon was one of us, or one of "them" you might say. One of his biographers that knew him said something to the idea that he lived in a "Visionary" state. That means two entirely different things to you and I. But it is very possible that Bacon was "Enlightened" in the sense that some of use it today. Or not. It doesn't matter.

We can talk about "altered" states, I am good with that. But when you say "impaired" I believe you are missing an important concept.

AI: "The term "impaired" in reference to the brain and mind typically means that there is a decrease in function or ability. This can include difficulties with memory, attention, language, reasoning, and other cognitive processes."

"Altered" states can happen spontaneously, be the result of years of dedication and ritual, a high fever or illness, or an organic or inorganic substance. Sometimes, with some people, instead of a decrease in function, a heightened function is very possible.

Baseline brain function is different for everyone. Some are dull from the get go, some are geniuses from the get go. Even without any substances or efforts our states change. A good song can trigger a state of being, a smell from a kitchen can trigger vivid memories.

If someone meditates every day for a long time and achieves a place where their mind is quiet and the consciousness is free to explore wordless realms which are inaccessible when our own silly chatter defines "reality" is that an "impaired" brain? Maybe that is OK to some of you never leave baseline brain function.

Another person eats a mushroom and their silly internal chatter is blown to bits in 45 minutes and then they are free to do what the devoted meditation person achieved.

Disney smoked opium and created Fantasia. I have no experience with opium and too afraid of addiction to explore. But in my younger years I ingested crazy amounts of psychedelics that redefined my reality and I am familiar with and understand the place where Walt was visiting. Bacon may have traveled further than anybody else into the vast reaches of human experience.

Now days beer is my drug, and you are correct, when I am drunk I am the absolute "wisest" person in my world. LOL

To me that is impaired, and is not only legal, it is encouraged in our society in America as long as one stays off the roads. Keep the masses fat, dumb, and happy. Mushrooms are being used now to cure PTSD, depression, and more with great results. Yet they are illegal in most places and have the tendency to make people health conscious, inquisitive asking questions, and socially aware. For the powers that be, the masses should have alcohol and NOT mushrooms.

Did you know tobacco is one of the most powerful hallucinogens known to man? But the tobacco companies entice the users with just enough of the dangerous drug to get them addicted.

CJ, you shared why you fear altered states and consider anything that is not baseline, whatever that is as it changes throughout the day every day, is "impaired." I'll go along with "altered"..

Mental illness is horrible and it can happen to innocent people who never drink a drink, and of course drugs and alcohol can lead to mental illness with too many people. War and trauma is a terrible source of mental illness as well.

EDIT:

A correction, the quote about Bacon living in a Visionary state was by Lord Macaulay in 1837, I think (?):

In truth, much of Bacon’s life was passed in a visionary world, amidst things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian Tales, or in those romances on which the curate and barber of Don Quixote’s village performed so cruel an auto-da-fe, amidst buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of Fierabras.

EDIT AGAIN:

Maybe it was Mark Twain who said it?

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:1909._Is_Shakespeare_Dead%3F_From_My_Autobiography.djvu/137

In truth much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world—amid things as strange as any that are described in the "Arabian Tales" … amid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was nothing wild nothing but what sober reason sanctioned.

[Eric Roberts]

3 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

I'm sorry about your sister. Mental illness is a very sad disease to witness.

You say, "They"? As is if we are separate or different than you, and your "We." I'm confused. 😉

Bacon was one of us, or one of "them" you might say. One of his biographers that knew him said something to the idea that he lived in a "Visionary" state. That means two entirely different things to you and I. But it is very possible that Bacon was "Enlightened" in the sense that some of use it today. Or not. It doesn't matter.

We can talk about "altered" states, I am good with that. But when you say "impaired" I believe you are missing an important concept.

AI: "The term "impaired" in reference to the brain and mind typically means that there is a decrease in function or ability. This can include difficulties with memory, attention, language, reasoning, and other cognitive processes."

"Altered" states can happen spontaneously, be the result of years of dedication and ritual, a high fever or illness, or an organic or inorganic substance. Sometimes, with some people, instead of a decrease in function, a heightened function is very possible.

Baseline brain function is different for everyone. Some are dull from the get go, some are geniuses from the get go. Even without any substances or efforts our states change. A good song can trigger a state of being, a smell from a kitchen can trigger vivid memories.

If someone meditates every day for a long time and achieves a place where their mind is quiet and the consciousness is free to explore wordless realms which are inaccessible when our own silly chatter defines "reality" is that an "impaired" brain? Maybe that is OK to some of you never leave baseline brain function.

Another person eats a mushroom and their silly internal chatter is blown to bits in 45 minutes and then they are free to do what the devoted meditation person achieved.

Disney smoked opium and created Fantasia. I have no experience with opium and too afraid of addiction to explore. But in my younger years I ingested crazy amounts of psychedelics that redefined my reality and I am familiar with and understand the place where Walt was visiting. Bacon may have traveled further than anybody else into the vast reaches of human experience.

Now days beer is my drug, and you are correct, when I am drunk I am the absolute "wisest" person in my world. LOL

To me that is impaired, and is not only legal, it is encouraged in our society in America as long as one stays off the roads. Keep the masses fat, dumb, and happy. Mushrooms are being used now to cure PTSD, depression, and more with great results. Yet they are illegal in most places and have the tendency to make people health conscious, inquisitive asking questions, and socially aware. For the powers that be, the masses should have alcohol and NOT mushrooms.

Did you know tobacco is one of the most powerful hallucinogens known to man? But the tobacco companies entice the users with just enough of the dangerous drug to get them addicted.

CJ, you shared why you fear altered states and consider anything that is not baseline, whatever that is as it changes throughout the day every day, is "impaired." I'll go along with "altered"..

Mental illness is horrible and it can happen to innocent people who never drink a drink, and of course drugs and alcohol can lead to mental illness with too many people. War and trauma is a terrible source of mental illness as well.

EDIT:

A correction, the quote about Bacon living in a Visionary state was by Lord Macaulay in 1837, I think (?):

In truth, much of Bacon’s life was passed in a visionary world, amidst things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian Tales, or in those romances on which the curate and barber of Don Quixote’s village performed so cruel an auto-da-fe, amidst buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of Fierabras.

EDIT AGAIN:

Maybe it was Mark Twain who said it?

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:1909._Is_Shakespeare_Dead%3F_From_My_Autobiography.djvu/137

In truth much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world—amid things as strange as any that are described in the "Arabian Tales" … amid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was nothing wild nothing but what sober reason sanctioned.

"But it is very possible that Bacon was "Enlightened" in the sense that some of use it today. Or not. It doesn't matter."

Well said!

[Allisnum2er]

https://archive.org/details/sylvasylvarumorn00baco/page/210/mode/2up

[Kate]

Interesting conversation!