Podcast 158 – “Can the Human Lifespan Be Extended”

Comments from original blog page: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=788

terranhealer
Just some assertions:

For most of human history populations have been distributed in age that takes on the shape of a pyramid – with a broad base of young people and a very small cap of older people. Now recently, since 1970, populations have been getting older and thus the pyramid begins to look more like a square – an equal distribution of ages. People in developed countries are now having fewer children and thus the bases of the population pyramids are narrowing. If this continues, some say the population pyramids could turn upside down, for a few countries. While I do think life span can be increased, I do not think it will be adopted. Aubrey de Grey tells a nice story of how we can extend our life span – filled with all the biological and medical details (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/aubrey_de_grey…

I think these life extension procedures would only be utilized by a few selected people. This raises ethical questions that were raised before with the eugenics movement. Lets distill this assertions a bit more….assume you are the Minister of Health in Cuba or France. Also assume the procedures named by Aubrey could be encapsulated into one or two pills. If these were made available to everyone, then people would age, they might still become frail, would probably still suffer from the epidemics of chronic disease (assuming they did not change any of their behaviors that influence health outcomes), and would still be subject to reproductive age limitations (assuming people did not adopt surrogates as a major source of reproduction). So in this outcome, there would be many old and frail, possible sick people, with a small younger population. It seems likely the burden on health care systems would be great. So maybe only a few people would get the pills – but whom? Would we want people like G.W Bush to live longer and continue to influence our world’s gene pool? Until we have a major paradigm shift, the prospect of age extension seems to me highly unethical. And why are we so scared of death anyway?

bledges
I left a note for Jaime explaining that I think he made a mistake. Perhaps many listeners of this podcast would’ve donated some money to his website if he had resisted his old-school marketing instincts and, instead, expressed an appreciation for Lorenzo’s efforts to help spread the “products” of RAW’s thoughts.

Another key point, (that I didn’t mention, unfortunately) is that this is podcast Number 158, and this has never happened before. Lorenzo has been very careful about this sort of thing. In fact, many of the podcasts are given to Lorenzo by the same people who give the lectures. I think there is no better place for this sort of stuff to be on the internet. Mr. Schwalb’s email is written in the sort of tone a distracted lawyer might use when trying to scare some kid, as if the Salon were crowded with “illegal” file-sharing. I suspect Lorenzo had no idea about the property-rights situation, and to kick the email off with a blunt declaration of illegality, and end it with a patronizing offer of assistance would be insulting if it weren’t for the fact that such a large number of people can now bear witness to such ham-handedness.

DrPurple
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of RAWs; although, he was funny as hell. He’s about as close-minded as most fundamentalist Christians. How someone can have entheogens and deny the existence of our oneness and multiplicity? He is similar to Bill Maher. Religulous was quite funny at parts, but the overall refusal to see the beauty and goodness in so many of those he interviewed was very sad. The Italian priest perhaps had the best attitude, one RAW and Maher could learn from if they are ever to meet in some other dimension.

BTW, the last Psychonauticas (52 & 53) contain some amazingly serendipitous stuff; the communication cross species especially between trees, plants, mushrooms, serpents, and people. I’ve been talking and listening to mint plants, and was recently “talked to” by numerous individual Birch trees followed by the experience of a singleness-unity between themselves and myself, and then myself and them and all other existence. Also, the animism statements perhaps worked on my sensing inputs, because I found myself feeling thankful to cement, street signs, and little signs which mimicked the earlier communications from the Birch trees. Namely, that health, humor, and happiness were connected. Laughing cures quickly if not instantly. And I laughed and laughed when I watch the moonrise.

DrPurple
which reminds me of RAWs Illuminatus and the hillarious character of the talking squirrels. (Thought I think the squirrel was a symbol in RAWs book).

amic
Well that sucks! no more podcast 158… i mean, sure i’ve already heard RAW explains everything but thats not the point… what’s next? are they going to threaten the dopefiend network for constantly playing copyrighted music etc… where does it end.?

l337mofo
It does piss me off. I tried to formulate an email that would make them regret their decision but I’m sick as a dog and simply trying to make coffee is something of a mental chore right now. Here is what I sent them…

understand that Soundstrue is in fact a company that is profiting from the sales of “spiritually enlightening” material. I for one am appalled by the harassment of Lorenzo for podcasting excerpts allegedly taken from soundstrue. Lorenzo is providing a not for profit service to the spiritual community at large. He is a pioneer and grandfather of the psychedelic podcasting movement with more potential customers than you could have dreamed of. It would be in your best interest to have allowed him to use “your” material, if in fact he was, in his podcast and to maybe request a mention, acting as a advertisement, to your website. You have just turned countless thousands of potential customers from your website/business. I for one will make sure that no one from my very large circle of friends will ever purchase anything from you. I hope you’re satisfied with your actions.

Sincerely distressed,

Eliazar Salvinorin E
I recommend tracking down a copy of Jim Stafford’s classic “Wildwood Weed” (the song, that is, not the weed itself) for some perspective on this matter.

And I’m not quite sure what Dr. Purple is on about; RAW always struck me as a person who was more than willing to think outside of any and all boxes, including the ones in his own head. Takes lots of heads to make up a universe though, I guess.

dervishmadwhirler
I have to agree with Dr. Purple here.

Raw is one of the people that; as I said in my response to Lorenzo’s latest post here “A gigantic unplanned experiment…”, one of the people that try to ‘psychologize’ the psychedelic experience.

Firmly rooted in the head and as a result of that, firmly rooted in the ego.

I guess not everyone will meet the entities and spirits on a psychedelic journey, or, maybe more accurate, will wish to meet them.

If anything, the psychedelic experiences I have had have led me away from the psychological, head-based view of this reality; which is as diverse as the eyes or minds perceiving it.

I have recently had an encounter with the entities of the higher layers of consciousness on DMT again and am firmly reassured of the existence of unlimited dimensions and levels of consciousness and reality. Strangely enough, they do not speak of the necessity of rationalizing everything away into a neat package of easily understood symbols and do not speak of the need for keeping unconscious fears as a guideline in life; but they speak of the unlimited ability of the mind to understand and navigate the universe, as created by consciousness. Nor do they speak of the need for scientific laws and explanations; they rather abhor these things as they tend to limit the soul to a 3d cartoon of the boundless universe.

They speak of the necessity for souls to confront and get rid of (unconscious) fears, of letting go of the limits of unstable emotional life. Of not falling for the trap of believing the reality-construct to be true and the only possible one. They feel sorry for us in our cage of flesh, of our endless struggle to rationalize what cannot be rationally grasped.

As they are us, and even more so than we ourselves are in this body; they enable us to consciously BE and experience the WHOLE of the universe as our ‘physical body’; of having the ‘god’ experience- consciousness/the universe as a single being; self-creating and all-one, alone, unbroken and the totality of everything.

This physical body and this mind of ours; this ‘personal’ consciousness can and does contain the whole of the universe/reality. Shamans understand this; understand that we as the extensions of totality are in direct connection with all levels of reality; with all beings and phenomena. Time doesnt exist; and from that comes the realization that space doesnt exist; there is only consciousness; creating the moment. Projecting fractions of the self as mirrors of it’s/his/her existence.

But anyway, this will become apparent soon enough to those who ditch the ego and pride.

Extensive and fearless use of Plant-teachers will make us aware of this.

As Terence said before; it is absolutely necessary to take that third toke; to go beyond the strange, to contact the spirits and have them communicate with you.

Work on you. Thru you.

They are, after all, ourselves, on a higher level of understanding.

We are talking really really really go outside of the boxes; of going beyond anything that can be contained in boxes…of going beyond your ego to meet your SELF.

No bla bla can ever compare to that experience. It must be HAD, not talked about.

Love,

Dervish Mad etc.

spidermiranda
Thanks for the interesting thoughts everyone. You folks draw some nice pictures in the mind. As I listen to more and more of these podcasts, I find myself chasing down various streams of ideas, historical moments and characters of all sorts after hearing them referenced by the speakers. It leads to other info and–well you know how it goes; following curiousity to revelation. It’s a beautiful thing. Anyway, one stream that ended before it began concerns the character of Erik Jaensch (sp?) Terence often remarks that he–and I think Ralph as well–were “mentored” by this figure, and the way he says it leads me to believe that he did it in person. However, the only info I can find on this person suggests that he died before Terence was born. Does anybody know anything about this person or can lead me to info?

2 Comments

Naomi

October 24, 2011 at 6:37 pm

For the copyrighted talks that had to be taken down, do you know where we can find them for purchase or something? I really like the RAW talk on Podcast 153, it seemed like it was incomplete, though, and then so many of these are copyrighted!
Thanks *^_^*

Hopefully we’ll have some more RAW soon. But for the one you refer to you can find it at the Internet Archive in the Psychedelia collection:

http://www.archive.org/details/PsychedelicSalon153-raw-cons8ckt01

In fact, all of the salon podcasts are backed up there by friend of the salon Raymond Soulard Jr the host of SpiritPlants Radio. You can catch his radio programs at:

SpiritPlants Radio Online: http://radio.spiritplants.org
High speed listen at: http://spiritplants.org:9000/listen.pls

… and a huge THANK YOU goes out to Raymond for doing this for us.
admin

June 4, 2010 at 4:44 pm

Comments from original blog page: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=788

terranhealer
Just some assertions:

For most of human history populations have been distributed in age that takes on the shape of a pyramid – with a broad base of young people and a very small cap of older people. Now recently, since 1970, populations have been getting older and thus the pyramid begins to look more like a square – an equal distribution of ages. People in developed countries are now having fewer children and thus the bases of the population pyramids are narrowing. If this continues, some say the population pyramids could turn upside down, for a few countries. While I do think life span can be increased, I do not think it will be adopted. Aubrey de Grey tells a nice story of how we can extend our life span – filled with all the biological and medical details (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/aubrey_de_grey…

I think these life extension procedures would only be utilized by a few selected people. This raises ethical questions that were raised before with the eugenics movement. Lets distill this assertions a bit more….assume you are the Minister of Health in Cuba or France. Also assume the procedures named by Aubrey could be encapsulated into one or two pills. If these were made available to everyone, then people would age, they might still become frail, would probably still suffer from the epidemics of chronic disease (assuming they did not change any of their behaviors that influence health outcomes), and would still be subject to reproductive age limitations (assuming people did not adopt surrogates as a major source of reproduction). So in this outcome, there would be many old and frail, possible sick people, with a small younger population. It seems likely the burden on health care systems would be great. So maybe only a few people would get the pills – but whom? Would we want people like G.W Bush to live longer and continue to influence our world’s gene pool? Until we have a major paradigm shift, the prospect of age extension seems to me highly unethical. And why are we so scared of death anyway?

bledges
I left a note for Jaime explaining that I think he made a mistake. Perhaps many listeners of this podcast would’ve donated some money to his website if he had resisted his old-school marketing instincts and, instead, expressed an appreciation for Lorenzo’s efforts to help spread the “products” of RAW’s thoughts.

Another key point, (that I didn’t mention, unfortunately) is that this is podcast Number 158, and this has never happened before. Lorenzo has been very careful about this sort of thing. In fact, many of the podcasts are given to Lorenzo by the same people who give the lectures. I think there is no better place for this sort of stuff to be on the internet. Mr. Schwalb’s email is written in the sort of tone a distracted lawyer might use when trying to scare some kid, as if the Salon were crowded with “illegal” file-sharing. I suspect Lorenzo had no idea about the property-rights situation, and to kick the email off with a blunt declaration of illegality, and end it with a patronizing offer of assistance would be insulting if it weren’t for the fact that such a large number of people can now bear witness to such ham-handedness.

DrPurple
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of RAWs; although, he was funny as hell. He’s about as close-minded as most fundamentalist Christians. How someone can have entheogens and deny the existence of our oneness and multiplicity? He is similar to Bill Maher. Religulous was quite funny at parts, but the overall refusal to see the beauty and goodness in so many of those he interviewed was very sad. The Italian priest perhaps had the best attitude, one RAW and Maher could learn from if they are ever to meet in some other dimension.

BTW, the last Psychonauticas (52 & 53) contain some amazingly serendipitous stuff; the communication cross species especially between trees, plants, mushrooms, serpents, and people. I’ve been talking and listening to mint plants, and was recently “talked to” by numerous individual Birch trees followed by the experience of a singleness-unity between themselves and myself, and then myself and them and all other existence. Also, the animism statements perhaps worked on my sensing inputs, because I found myself feeling thankful to cement, street signs, and little signs which mimicked the earlier communications from the Birch trees. Namely, that health, humor, and happiness were connected. Laughing cures quickly if not instantly. And I laughed and laughed when I watch the moonrise.

DrPurple
which reminds me of RAWs Illuminatus and the hillarious character of the talking squirrels. (Thought I think the squirrel was a symbol in RAWs book).

amic
Well that sucks! no more podcast 158… i mean, sure i’ve already heard RAW explains everything but thats not the point… what’s next? are they going to threaten the dopefiend network for constantly playing copyrighted music etc… where does it end.?

l337mofo
It does piss me off. I tried to formulate an email that would make them regret their decision but I’m sick as a dog and simply trying to make coffee is something of a mental chore right now. Here is what I sent them…

understand that Soundstrue is in fact a company that is profiting from the sales of “spiritually enlightening” material. I for one am appalled by the harassment of Lorenzo for podcasting excerpts allegedly taken from soundstrue. Lorenzo is providing a not for profit service to the spiritual community at large. He is a pioneer and grandfather of the psychedelic podcasting movement with more potential customers than you could have dreamed of. It would be in your best interest to have allowed him to use “your” material, if in fact he was, in his podcast and to maybe request a mention, acting as a advertisement, to your website. You have just turned countless thousands of potential customers from your website/business. I for one will make sure that no one from my very large circle of friends will ever purchase anything from you. I hope you’re satisfied with your actions.

Sincerely distressed,

Eliazar Salvinorin E
I recommend tracking down a copy of Jim Stafford’s classic “Wildwood Weed” (the song, that is, not the weed itself) for some perspective on this matter.

And I’m not quite sure what Dr. Purple is on about; RAW always struck me as a person who was more than willing to think outside of any and all boxes, including the ones in his own head. Takes lots of heads to make up a universe though, I guess.

dervishmadwhirler
I have to agree with Dr. Purple here.

Raw is one of the people that; as I said in my response to Lorenzo’s latest post here “A gigantic unplanned experiment…”, one of the people that try to ‘psychologize’ the psychedelic experience.

Firmly rooted in the head and as a result of that, firmly rooted in the ego.

I guess not everyone will meet the entities and spirits on a psychedelic journey, or, maybe more accurate, will wish to meet them.

If anything, the psychedelic experiences I have had have led me away from the psychological, head-based view of this reality; which is as diverse as the eyes or minds perceiving it.

I have recently had an encounter with the entities of the higher layers of consciousness on DMT again and am firmly reassured of the existence of unlimited dimensions and levels of consciousness and reality. Strangely enough, they do not speak of the necessity of rationalizing everything away into a neat package of easily understood symbols and do not speak of the need for keeping unconscious fears as a guideline in life; but they speak of the unlimited ability of the mind to understand and navigate the universe, as created by consciousness. Nor do they speak of the need for scientific laws and explanations; they rather abhor these things as they tend to limit the soul to a 3d cartoon of the boundless universe.

They speak of the necessity for souls to confront and get rid of (unconscious) fears, of letting go of the limits of unstable emotional life. Of not falling for the trap of believing the reality-construct to be true and the only possible one. They feel sorry for us in our cage of flesh, of our endless struggle to rationalize what cannot be rationally grasped.

As they are us, and even more so than we ourselves are in this body; they enable us to consciously BE and experience the WHOLE of the universe as our ‘physical body’; of having the ‘god’ experience- consciousness/the universe as a single being; self-creating and all-one, alone, unbroken and the totality of everything.

This physical body and this mind of ours; this ‘personal’ consciousness can and does contain the whole of the universe/reality. Shamans understand this; understand that we as the extensions of totality are in direct connection with all levels of reality; with all beings and phenomena. Time doesnt exist; and from that comes the realization that space doesnt exist; there is only consciousness; creating the moment. Projecting fractions of the self as mirrors of it’s/his/her existence.

But anyway, this will become apparent soon enough to those who ditch the ego and pride.

Extensive and fearless use of Plant-teachers will make us aware of this.

As Terence said before; it is absolutely necessary to take that third toke; to go beyond the strange, to contact the spirits and have them communicate with you.

Work on you. Thru you.

They are, after all, ourselves, on a higher level of understanding.

We are talking really really really go outside of the boxes; of going beyond anything that can be contained in boxes…of going beyond your ego to meet your SELF.

No bla bla can ever compare to that experience. It must be HAD, not talked about.

Love,

Dervish Mad etc.

spidermiranda
Thanks for the interesting thoughts everyone. You folks draw some nice pictures in the mind. As I listen to more and more of these podcasts, I find myself chasing down various streams of ideas, historical moments and characters of all sorts after hearing them referenced by the speakers. It leads to other info and–well you know how it goes; following curiousity to revelation. It’s a beautiful thing. Anyway, one stream that ended before it began concerns the character of Erik Jaensch (sp?) Terence often remarks that he–and I think Ralph as well–were “mentored” by this figure, and the way he says it leads me to believe that he did it in person. However, the only info I can find on this person suggests that he died before Terence was born. Does anybody know anything about this person or can lead me to info?

Comments are closed.

REMOVED per REQUEST by alleged copyright holder.

2 Comments