Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Who to Believe? by Louis Evan Palmer


What do we believe?
Why do we believe it?
Can our beliefs change?



Even as events of the first 5 years of the 21st century make us question who to believe, we can see more clearly how these types of manipulations have occurred not just in our times but throughout history in the various guises appropriate to a given period of time.

The things that drive us to believe or accept a version of events are many and include emotion, logic, intuition, current facts, our beliefs & desires, and our culture & mythology. If an explanation triggers one or more of these internal drivers strongly enough, we end up "believing" it and, more ominously, its associated conclusions and imperatives.

The proffered "logic" is typically not logic at all but a blend of emotion, suppositions, tenuous logic & lies. Why do we believe it?

We are lead to believe statements that are made by people in authority or who enjoy some type of prominence. Among other things, this is a measure of a society's deference (militarism is a form of deference) and also a measure of an authority figure's credibility. Someone's credibility can also derive from their status as an expert, their perceived independence, their integrity, etc. While some may decry the emergence of celebrities as factors in public debates, it is a way to crack the attempts of the more traditional power brokers at monopolizing the discussion and as such should be welcomed.

Unfortunately, we are also seeing a strong movement towards establishing credibility by attacking contending sources of information - Fox News leaps to mind. This is good when it uncovers actual conflicts of interest or misrepresentations but it's increasingly being used to confuse the issue and stifle valid dissent. It is also clearly advancing a political agenda. This is the mark of an intolerant society which is a step towards authoritarian rule. This and other examples of the merging of corporate and state interests is a hallmark of fascism and should be a warning sign to all concerned.

Why do we believe? Sadly, we are often seduced. The seduction can entail any of the following - the charisma of the leader, the appearance of a given group's public forums and media, the battle of the experts as presented by the "major" media, mass media support & perceived momentum and claims regarding secret knowledge or needs. The other more prosaic explanations for public acquiesance are fatigue, laziness, a feeling of helplessness, and the effects of the numerous variations on fear to which we are exposed - much of it deliberately fostered by the parties in power.

The repetoire of those in power appears simple and obvious but since it's subject to many permutations, it can give an impression of baffling variety and texture, more than enough to dupe most of the people most of the time.

Fortunately, there is the internet which so far in many countries is allowing for the expression of ideas and thoughts and reports that would have been easily suppressed in the pre-internet days. Otherwise, we would be back to secret printing presses, backroom meetings and whispered news - much less effective. Of course, this points to a major effort, now and into the future, to gain control of the internet and continuing campaigns to co-op and manipulate it so as to confound, confuse and incapacitate.

Any advice on who and what to believe will probably sound like platitudes but, here goes: read widely, support alternative news & views, distrust overly emotional purveyers of facts, nurture & trust your intuition, distrust appeals to secrecy, reject calls to supremacism in all its forms including rabid jingoism, wars of aggression regardless of the excuses for it, and my god is better than your god rantings.

Copyright Louis Evan Palmer

Who to Believe?, Louis Evan Palmer, The Way It Can Be, http://twicb.blogspot.com



BUY BOOKS BY LOUIS EVAN PALMER



Friday, August 25, 2006

Identification by Louis Evan Palmer


ID cards
will soon
be a thing
of the past


The debates and warnings and fears surrounding ID cards erupt regularly; sometimes triggered by government ruminations about a unique key to be used; sometimes, it's occasioned by an unholy combination of identifying factors - picture, number, description - or, picture, medical data, personal statistics.

The new truly scary kid on the block, the implanted chip, is something which no-one would have imagined as plausible even twenty years ago.

A wave of indignation and trepidation accompanies these speculations or trial balloons but, like the tide, they recede. Thankfully, alot of people are concerned.

There is a positive side to easy & reliable ID - just as many crimes are aided by inadequate ID as are aided by ubitiquous ID.

The privacy requirement continues to be only permitting authorized access to this data and ensuring it is only for authorized purposes. Simple to state and to understand but extremely difficult to implement and safeguard.

Sooner than we think biometrics will become so sophisticated that a Star Trek-like scanner will be available and it will be able to instantly identify us. It will be linkable to other databases that detail various facets of our lives, some more private than others, but all available to the persons who have, or can arrange, access.

Scanners, smart cards, RFIDs, implants and other to-be-determined devices will add to the available means of identifying and tracking individuals. That's a given. The question, as always, will be how to ensure that the information is protected and only used for authorized purposes by authorized persons.

There will, of course, be ways around any new identification techniques which will be increasingly out of the reach of ordinary citizens. These circumventions will be evident more in the realm of criminal syndicates and corporations and secret organizations both inside and outside the government. To the extent those techniques are used, the anticipated benefits of fast identification will be diminished. We could end up worse off - innocent citizens completely exposed and exploitable, offenders with more power and impunity.

However, as with much of what the swirling powers do, it will be used selectively and, in that way, it will create the illusion that things are on the up and up. It's damned effective.

Massive spying operations may not be a thing of the past but the necessary enforcement is on a greatly reduced scale compared to the vast apparatus put in place in the old USSR and its satellites.. unless and until, the resistance becomes so massive that the response must be equally massive. Then the so-called "free world" will be into internment camps and quick, reliable identification.

However, for now, the focus on trying to stop using this or that piece of data ; or, on not calling it a national ID; or, on not using some other card, like a driver's license, as one; is misguided. We must assume that this will all happen and devise ways and means of circumscribing it and controlling it and policing it.

If our whole defense is in stopping it then when it happens whether due to incredible advances in technology or unstoppable events or propaganda (catapulted or otherwise) then we have nothing.. then we are fighting a rear-guard action, then we are setting ourselves up for heavy losses and, potentially, defeat.

Identification, Louis Evan Palmer, The Way It Can Be, http://twicb.blogspot.com
Copyright Louis Evan Palmer

BUY BOOKS BY LOUIS EVAN PALMER




Monday, August 21, 2006

2nd Hint - You might be in a Holographic Universe if ... by Louis Evan Palmer


How
Do
We
Think,
Perceive,
Remember?



Most explanations of how we think involve the brain. Most explanations of how we perceive involve the brain - in fact, one type of blindness concerns a malfunction in the neo-cortex; the person's eyes see properly but because that part of the brain has been damaged, they're blind. Most explanations of how we remember involve the brain as well.

In Science, a well-founded exception to any given rule invalidates it. The more deeply entrenched the rule or theory is, the more opposition is generated. We then see Science's supposed impartiality and coolness fall away like icebergs from a melting ice sheet.

When John Lorber, a British neurologist, perfomed CAT scans on various individuals for conditions like spina bifuda, he came across several hundred who were missing various percentages of their brains. The most amazing case was that of a young man who not only had above average intelligence but, in fact, was a mathematics scholar although he had almost no brain.

What complicates things is that a certain number of the persons with no brain were impaired in various ways. But the salient point is that according to standard theories the expectation was that they would all be impaired to different degrees. However, a substantial percentage were normal or above normal in intelligence and ability.

This is a stunning finding, and yet, much of the scientific world, just continues on its pre-established way, making comments about how it is "interesting" or how it merits "more study", but not much more than that, at least on the surface.

It's a certainty that secret programs are underway to explore this phenomenon, but when, or if, any new knowledge they discover will be revealed is up for debate. The enormous danger and damage these secret programs entail will be the subject of other articles.

Getting back to the smart young man with no brain, how does he think with no brain? It is vaguely reminescent of the search for the ultimate particle - even candidate turns out to be composed of other more nebulous particles. Now, the search for the seat of intelligence which had supposedly ended with the brain is back on again.

A Holographic Universe allows for brainless thinking because it posits that our entire body and the universe itself are the projection of thoughts of one and many minds. It's almost as if the appearance of our universe, while near perfect, can't account for everything all the time and so these dissonances, as it were, are the cracks and fissures through which the illusion is exposed.

2nd Hint - You might be in a Holographic Universe if, Louis Evan Palmer, http://twicb.blogspot.com
Copyright Louis Evan Palmer

BUY BOOKS BY LOUIS EVAN PALMER

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Debit, Credit, Karma by Louis Evan Palmer

Continued
Desire
Equals
Continued
Debt &
Credit


What if this existence is something that we entered at some far distant point in the past and it has proved to be so entrancing, engaging & electrifying that we can't seem to get out. In fact, we can't remember entering because part of the process submerges our past memories deep enough that most people can't consciously sense them.

This scenario triggers many other dependencies like the primacy of mind; if mind is the base of this existence then matter and everything else is a product of mind and, even further, it is mind or consciousness.

And whatever exists must emerge out of something, be of something, be sustained by something. This "something" being referred to by various sages as "the Void" or "the Great Beyond" or "God" or "Allah"...

What would be the nature of this ultimate source? Perhaps, a good way to think of it is as a wellspring of potential, where nothing exists and everything exists, where the difference between one apparent aspect of consciousness is indistinguishable from another aspect.

This aspect, our universe and ourselves, being the expression of a potential. Then the question becomes, how is a potential actualized? Is it intent and motivation? Why does a sentient being have intent or motivation? Perhaps, this is the descent mentioned in myth and culture, the original sin?

If we originate from the ultimate source, the great beyond, and we, and everything else, are actually part of god, and, in fact, are god, then, how did we end up here?

Is there really anything for us to learn as offered by the "we're here to learn" school? Is there really anything for us to become or to be as offered by the "we're here to advance" school?

No.

We're here because we and others wanted to be here. Our free will allowed us to enter this existence and it keeps us here because we've allowed ourselves to get immersed in the debit and credit cycle of this universe.

Part of the "rules" of this existence is that you have to "pay" your debts - you can walk away from your "credits" - but if you're hooked on the game and can't see that's it's a game then you'll never walk away. Heaven & Hell are temporary - one is cashing in your chips after a big win, the other is debtor's prison where the payment is your suffering. Either way, you're in deeper.

Meeting others on the other side - more of the game. Everything you can see and feel and think is part of the game. As the sages advise, it is the Great Beyond to which we should strive.

It's amusing that we strive for something we have. Maybe that's why the seekers who experience the breakthrough into the Great Beyond frequently let out the most enormous of laughs.

Debit, Credit, Karma, Louis Evan Palmer, The Way It Can Be, http://twicb.blogspot.com
Copyright Louis Evan Palmer

BUY BOOKS BY LOUIS EVAN PALMER



Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Division by Louis Evan Palmer






When
you
go
back
all
the
way...




The thing about creation the way we see it now is that we're looking at the end result of a massive, possibly infinite, amount of prior creation. Or that is what it appears to be.

Physics is the only realm of science where we seem to be seeking the original cause or the original creation. However, even that arduous search is only focused on the universe in which we appear to exist. It does not venture into what might have existed before. Or other potential universes.

Mathematics and Philosophy are the endeavors which seem to apply the most in this pursuit. The primal source usually being cast as a single fabric, a single emanation, a single something out of which everything else derived. The single something being either out of nothing or always existing.

The question being - if you have only one single something out of which to create, how can you create anything which is not made of that something. This is above what it might be made of, if anything. This is, can one single thing ever end up being more than that one single something?

If the answer is no, which aligns with what every mystic from time immemorial has stated, then everything that we perceive as separate and different is some kind of contrivance and that, in fact, it is all the same something and always has been. Time is as much a contrivance as anything else and could not exist in an undivided universe.

The question then morphs again into exactly how does creation take place? Creation in the sense of creating something new. How does one thing which is everything ever produce anything which is different from itself. Especially, when all it has with which to create is its own single something.

Then we have to wonder, if that's true, if everything is the one something then why do we seem to see a world of separate somethings set in motion through time and space? Or, how do you make a single something appear to be many somethings?

By limiting perception and memory. Somehow you allow parts of yourself to shield and buffer themselves from the rest of yourself and experience and live in what appears to be a world of multiplicity. Why do you do that?
Is it an experiment in free will gone bad? Is it a way to differentiate experiences through myriad creations?

If it's a disguise then why do we wear it? How did we apparently split off from the original single something?

Maybe this is what Parmenides was getting at when he said, it was an error to think that "things exist at one time and not another" or "at one place and not another" or "to a greater or lesser degree" and that Time and Space were illusions.

And what his pupil Zeno was trying to manifest in his paradoxes. That you could not divide your way into understanding this existence. That the greatest insight was that no division was possible - no space, no time, no movement, no separate entities.

Division, Louis Evan Palmer, The Way It Can Be, http://twicb.blogspot.com
Copyright Louis Evan Palmer

BUY BOOKS BY LOUIS EVAN PALMER