Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake
PROGRAM NOTES:
(Minutes : Seconds into program)
04:18 Ralph begins by describing “Terence to himself”.
05:46 Ralph Abraham: “So in our process of trialoging we find it very much enriched by Terence’s phenomenal knowledge of history, and not only that, but his special way of saying it is sort of a, you’re familiar with this here, a bardic skill. So that whatever he says will have [long pause]more effect than it actually deserves” [added with humor that was followed by laughter].
08:36 Terence “shares his view” of Rupert.
09:12 Terence McKenna: “And my intellectual method has always been to seek out the heretical. And so when I heard that Nature had called for the burning of a book [insert title], I burned up my tires on the way to the store to see if I couldn’t obtain a copy.”
16:38 Rupert introduces Ralph.
19:41 Rupert Sheldrake: “His [Ralph Abraham’s] ability to visualize mathematics, I’m sure, is innate. But I think it was enhanced in the late 60s and early 70s by certain inner experiences, which would fall into the category of what Terence calls hands-on pharmacology.”
22:54 Ralph begins his introduction of Rupert.
27:21 Rupert tells the story of his first meeting with Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham.
32:00 Rupert Sheldrake: “Part of him [Terence McKenna] is a millenarian prophet. Part of him is a Dominican. He professes to be a pagan, but his Catholic upbringing, his Dominican reasoning, and his experience as an altar boy have never left him.”
34:16 Terence tells about when he first heard of Ralph.
36:43 Terence McKenna: [Speaking about Ralph Abraham]“It’s impossible not to fall in love with the man. He’s the teddy bear of advanced mathematics.”
45:07 Rupert Sheldrake: “[In science,] if you can do things cheaply, you’re completely free, because the only control that they have is through money and giving out funds. And if you don’t need the funds you can do what you like.”
1:13:39 Terence McKenna: “What do I think? Well, not that.”
1:14:20 Terence McKenna: “I’ve always felt that what biology is is a strategy, a chemical strategy, for amplifying quantum mechanical indeterminacy into macro-physical systems called living organisms, and that living organisms somehow work their magic by opening a doorway to the quantum realm through which indeterminacy can come. And I imagine that all nature works like this, with the single exception of human beings, who have been poisoned by language.”
1:19:36 Terence McKenna: “The real question I’m raising is, to what degree does language create the assumption of an unknown future.”
1:24:03 Terence McKenna: “We alone, I think, are tormented by the anxiety of the unknowable future. And it’s an artifact, I maintain, of culture and language.”
1:28:28 Terence McKenna: “And I don’t believe that time is invariant. I didn’t intend to open this up as a general frontal attack on the epistemic methods of modern science, but, in fact, the idea that time is invariant is entirely contradicted by our own experience, and it’s merely an assumption science makes in order to do its business.”
1:29:36 Terence McKenna: “As a practical matter, I don’t think we should confuse our ideologies with our sinuses.”
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Comments from original blog page: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=223
Analogue
Hi Lorenzo,
Just a note – the “download” and “subscribe” links seem to be broken on the front page for this and Bruce Damer’s talk. FYI
Keep up the great work you’re doing, it’s much appreciated!
Lorenzo
Well, it’s not exactly broken, what’s going on is that to keep Google from thinking we’re trying to cheat by having the same content in the database twice, I’m only showing the full post for the most recent one. If you look closely (and I’m trying to figure out how to make it more prominent) there is a “Continue reading” link after all but the first post. If you click on that link you’ll be taken to the full post, and that is where those links will work again. . . . I’ll try to hack a better solution sometime soon. . . . Thanks for pointing this out, as I’m sure it has confused others too.
Felix
This talk very much amused me. I thought the introductions were a very interesting exercise, and nice and light. I also found Rupert’s long-winded explanation of those bird experiments to be a nice change of pace, and kind of funny. I thought to myself “Why am I listening to this?.” But I continued listening, and I’m glad I did, overall.
However, I thought this had Terence at his worst. He certainly sounded great, and was thought provoking. But the immediate jump to a transcendental, mystical answer to what is a question of biology and one specific oddity seemed very drastic. This is not to say that Terence’s ideas don’t have any validity – I think that that view of time and the unique sort of “prison” idea of human experience is great, and perhaps even correct.
But it was a strange and almost impolite jump to make – it basically broke down discussions concerning an actual answer as to a mechanism for the birds’ actions. For, even if Terence is right, and I think in some ways he is, everything within the purview of time does seem to operate on some mechanism we can uncover. Even if the bird only has “one moment,” that moment is still composed, in our view, of parts, events, incidents. If it is one cohesive event, all details included, there cannot be a gap.
And on another note: Lorenzo, I thought one thing when you spoke of how little we knew about the universe. “Of course we know little – we haven’t even stepped outside the solar system.” For as we all know, pictures and mathematics can only tell us so much. A great deal, yes, but experience is a whole other ball game…
Lorenzo
I agree with what Felix says about Terence seeming to be a little off the mark this time. But I’m about to post podcast 109, and in that one I think he is back at the top of his form once again. I’ll be interested to read what you think about it.
ehmick
oh man.. i was psyched about listening to more Terrence, so i stayed up late anticipating a thought provoking discussion about the nature of the universe, time, the human mind, and the psychedelic experience and was a little caught off guard by the content of part one being mainly composed of a 40 minute introduction followed by a lesson about homing pigeons.. oh well i’m sure terrence is just saving his steam for later in this trialogue. I’ll check out part 2 tomorrow..but for now i’ off to bed to dream about machine elves.. goodnight fellow “saloners”.
bledges
as an expat, i found the homing pigeon stuff to be pretty interesting. not that i have a great sense of direction or anything, but i do know that our past experiences, friendships, and living places can sort of tug us at times. i think i remember these guys having a discussion about family morphogenetic fields in the last batch of trialogues (also maligned by some, perhaps deservedly), and i thought this was a good continuation of some of those points. in the end, terence’s discussions of the transcendental object at the end of time, and it’s ‘role’ as an attractor should ultimately be reflected in the morphogenetic ‘bonds’ or ‘forces’ that are holding things together throughout all points at all times. i guess the idea is that the shape of things to come will be ‘drawn’ by the patterns that things are being drawn into (dragged into, attracted into) now. i think the force that rupert suggests is drawing the pigeons home would essentially be the same one that might be nudging us as we make choices and find our place in the world.
actually, i haven’t listened to the podcast in a couple weeks, so i can’t remember terence’s contribution too well, but it did seem to abandon the thrust of what rupert was working on, and i remember wincing at some things that he has said better at other times. but still, i wanted to cheer a bit for the pigeon stuff. but yeah, it was maybe a bit too much… the next couple podcats have been wonderful doses of mckenna, however!
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