Nov 20, 2023·edited Nov 20, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone
"Eternal existence is the most fearsome and brutal truth of all. The “thing” that builds and animates your material cannot be destroyed. But neither can your memories of what you choose to do with said material."
I love it. That is why I am learning the guitar instead of making monsters.
Levin's eyes are precisely what I would imagine for Dr Frankenstein. Haunting. I'm reminded too, while popular culture depicts Frankenstein's monster as an innocent, the original was a despicable, murderous fiend who destroyed everything the Dr loved.
Frankenstein is one of the originals of the theory that life is only depraved because it is deprived. Shelley's monster was evil not because it was created evil but because its creator didn't provide for it, either materially or emotionally. He hated his father as they want us to do and you are right more modern depictions paint his hatred as innocent and blameless because they want us to imagine that our hatred of our fathers(and ultimately Father) is innocent and blameless.
I have a slightly different perspective. I think that Frankenstein's corruption of Creation lured not a human soul to the material, but one of those "evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls" of St. Michael's prayer. That is why the monster's maker continually refers to it as "demon" throughout the book. He was identifying the taxon of what he summoned -- correctly, in my view.
I see the monster as, in a sense, a true child of its maker. If it is a demon that is because a magician cannot father anything else, as a magician. As a man of course he can father men up until the point when being a magician strips him of his manhood.(a later version of this comment will include some clever tie between magicians and Men in Skirts and castration) Nature/Nurture is a false binary. We can't discuss what it would be if it were created by a man who would be a good parent because such a man wouldn't stitch together corpses and zap them.
If you consider (as Mark does) "the fact that we — and all other lifeforms — are always interacting with that layer, all the time. It’s the medium in which all consciousness swims, and the transactional layer between one side of the Veil and the other..." then our very existence is magical.
Good and evil, then, line up differently, and one way to understand that difference (there are many ways, but this one I credit to John Michael Greer, has worked well for me for a very long time) is to consider the difference between aiming to "control" any other living being or life source, and aiming to "participate" WITH any other living being or life source.
That is the fundamental flaw of postmodern thinking from the left, that we are victims and our victimhood justifies pathology. The monster was gifted with high intelligence and superhuman strength. He might have sought transcendence, but instead he collapsed into sheer hatred.
This is the fundamental lure of all group membership ideologies. Justification!! Wide gates with group rates on forgiveness of sins are what we are all hunting. A Narrow Gate that a man must pass through alone as a man, transparently himself before his Maker? Now why are those hinges rusted shut?
I am going to hydrate effectively all day so I can feel even remotely AVAILABLE to dive into the vast expanse of this piece. I am SO LIT UP by this incredible work and really honour and commend you Mark for doing this for us. Grateful, and here for it!!
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent lad [‘reasonably’], but by all appearances Mark does nothing 24-7 but compose and publish these excellent tapestries non-stop, as easily as a scullery maid washes the morning’s dishes; any one of these pieces would take me weeks--if not months--to clumsily coax to inelegant completion, if EVER.
All that being said, I am extremely appreciative to be able to benefit from Mark’s willingness and ability to pull the Machine’s curtain back and let us peek behind. Knowledge is power, as they say. And he is giving us superlative knowledge indeed.
You say that this is all about a movement to the Source, and I think that I agree that this is all about First Things. And so, from the Westminster Shorter Catechism question and answer number 1:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Glorify(my definition)- to understand, appreciate, and express the significance of the thing glorified
Exploration is the native method of life. It is the fundamental process towards that fundamental objective of understanding and expressing the Truth of the One who made us. The very first thing, and the most important truth in your post is that life is not pointless or directionless. Life comes from somewhere, like an arrow shot at a target. Dr. Levin(stein?)'s work is ultimately significant only to the degree that it helps or hinders the living arrow towards its target. I would say hinders and no amount of 'myth of progress prybar' is gonna change that.
Even the humble flatworm has praises to sing and the strange goal of those who claim that life has no goals or directions is to turn that praise into an incomprehensible cacophany spewed from two mouths.(like the second theme of the Ainur led by Morgoth since you mentioned Eru)
But the power of the Third Theme, which is actually before the First Theme, does not come from climbing or making progress, but for reaching for the lowly, the last, the least, the little, the certainly lost. And even the poor polycephalic creatures have a true Head who will revenge and redeem them. And what's better than the beginning of the Westminster Divines? Why only the beginning of the Heidelberg:
'Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong body and soul,
in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil....'
I would only add that Tolkien's holy genius made the compelling case for the cruelty and ultimate stupidity of Morgoth, in his attempts to emulate God's creation. He found he could only corrupt and degenerate it into broken, monstrous shapes like trolls and orcs.
Did you find anything on how Dr. Levin is doing this? Is there some direct application of current? Some placed inside of a field? I am curious what the actual process is.
So, regarding Levin. At first I reacted to the sanpaku eyes, but after watching him for 15+ minutes I realized that he is a tortured soul. I think he started out wanting to do something good in the world (regenerative medicine, "cure cancer", etc.) but then the fame twisted him. I went down kind of a similar path, there was a time when I was "curing cancer" and had achieved a modest level of fame, but I could see well enough into the future to understand the futility of the line of research in which I was participating -- it would only ever be twisted into something horrible, it could never really be used to heal, only to harm. So I found a way to get off that ride. Levin's still on the ride and can't figure out how to get off.
I've never been down the "curing cancer" road, but I still think I know what you mean. I maintain hope that Levin can get off that road to Hell, if only for his own sake.
But even if he were to see the light, there are other Levins out there, who will be happy to carry the ball forward (and perhaps in secret). So, even as he hope for the best, we must prepare for the worst.
I think part of what disgusts normal people about the cruelty towards animals is that the victims are essentially mutes. They can't explain their torments in any language we can understand. We also innately understand that those who torture animals grasp this limitation, and that they use it as a form of camouflage while they practice torturing humans at some future date.
Anyway, I agree. A good measuring stick of character is how someone treats a creature at their mercy, and most animals qualify as living "at our mercy."
"Because I suddenly realized why the Enemy was almost certainly doomed to lose, no matter what shape it ultimately took."
Well, if to "win" looks like gaining control of The Source (from which position to be able to use or destroy), then yes, the Enemy (and also ourselves, when we fall into such feeble "control" fantasies) is doomed to lose.
The Source is hardly likely to reveal itself to any seeker aiming to control it, now is it? ;)
The Source invites us, always, to make the OTHER choice... to eschew all attempts at control, and instead to embrace participation. :)
"The Source is hardly likely to reveal itself to any seeker aiming to control it, now is it? ;)"
I think God reveals what He wants to reveal, and for reasons that are beyond my ken. On the road to Damascus, Saul was essentially on a murder mission. Murder (and its threat) could be said to be the ultimate form of materialist control fantasy. But it was deemed important that he see, and so he was shown.
For all I know, Levin will also be shown the truth, struck blind by it, then become a great ally in the battle ahead. But what he is doing right now is pretty obviously evil, and the path he's following leads into the final darkness. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything.
Levin, like all of us, is always invited to take the other choice - at every single moment it is open to him, as it is to us all, to choose differently.
But the choices he is making - those that involve messing about with other living beings WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT... that involve treating other living beings as mere instruments for the carrying out of HIS purposes, with plain disregard for theirs... I agree, those are evil choices.
"“If genes don’t build structure, then what does?” And my answer to that has always been something like: “Electricity.”"
I love this. Genes build the physical body in the physical world, but consciousness builds the soul; it's the state of the soul which dictates the 'monstrousness'/beauty of the corporeal structure, and they're electrical phenomena alright. This can be changed and tweaked only in the corporeal world, so you're right; what we do and how we use our consciousness in one life dictates the next rebirth (so to speak).
I think of the elegant EU Van der Leyen and wonder how she'll cope on judgement day...
"In death, we will also have a chance to see and experience the Source firsthand. But will we recognize it for what it is?"
I didn't, it took all the metaphysics of Guénon, Sufi poetry and the Vedas to make sense of it. We expect to see a man or God as an old fellow, but it's not like that. This is also why your electrical idea is so spot on. We can 'die' while still alive too which is what Christ consciousness is all about. It's our esoteric western take on the Eastern Kundalini (which has never been hidden, unlike ours).
"If you can communicate across the bioelectric layer with sufficient clarity, you can essentially “speak” any structure into existence."
He who understands *words* understands the universe.
"But consider the fact that we — and all other lifeforms — are always interacting with that layer. It’s the medium in which all consciousness swims, [...] In fact, it may require nothing more than mental concentration."
This is brilliant, it's exactly so. The Bible is esoteric, and 'Jesus' says it all through the book: 'meditate'. There is a genuine physiological practice to go with the stories but the method has been corrupted. It's all true, but in code. Just 'believing' or having faith isn't the key. It has to be practiced. Loved the Scooby-doo mask-reveal line too.
"For now, imagine a vast, Cthulhu-like ouroboros that hovers in a lightless void, perpetually eating and defecating its own body for all eternity. You’re welcome."
Lol. But it's the Ouroboros that, once beheaded, gifts the mortal hero immortality. The 'Get out of Samsara free' card.
Sorry to write such an epic, self-indulgent response, but Sasha Latypova was right, this was a neat piece.
Excellent article, and the phrase "vast, Cthulhu-like ouroboros that hovers in a lightless void, perpetually eating and defecating its own body for all eternity" certainly made me lose my appetite! I think you have definitely hit on something with the idea that the morphogenetic field is downstream from the Source of consciousness, as well. One question that occurred to me was: if Levin's little 'xenobot' creature was considered a useful vehicle for a simple consciousness to explore with, does a viable morphogenetic field create a sort of 'vacuum' that consciousness always tries to fill, or does consciousness still 'select' from contexts that suit its purposes? For example, if a clone of a person was created, would the clone just exist comatose, or have a mind like a newborn infant?
I think if such things are possible, the Creator already knows all possibilities and ensures that, regardless of how the morphogenetic field is manipulated, the possibility always exists for souls to return to Him/Her. Fascinating read; thanks!
These are all interesting questions. I don't know the answers, but maybe we could do some thought experiments in the future to help gain insight on them. I also suspect we can find similar questions and answers in past stories and accounts. For instance, Percy Shelley claimed to have met his own doppelganger (the existence of which was apparently supported by a credible witness). He seemed to include a reference to this meeting in "Prometheus Unbound":
"Ere Babylon was dust, / The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, / Met his own image walking in the garden. / That apparition, sole of men, he saw. / For know there are two worlds of life and death: / One that which thou beholdest; but the other / Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit / The shadows of all forms that think and live / Till death unite them and they part no more"
Food for thought, at least. Both Mary and Percy were particularly farseeing artists.
Oh, and one other thing I found interesting was the extent to which both Anderson and Levin tried to talk around the idea of Intelligent Design during the video, which is obviously implied by Levin's findings. Freakin' annoying how much supposedly 'rational' people will pussyfoot around acknowledging the possibility that there might be a Creator, even when the evidence clearly points in that direction!
I suspect they're more frightened of those implications than any of us can imagine, so they avoid mentioning them at all costs. Sort of the way some people are scared to mention demons and monsters, for fear of summoning one.
Either that, or they're too stupid to see it. This is also a pretty good bet; intellect has become very atomized and domain-specific. A person could show major smarts in one domain, but be a total moron in all others.
"Rest assured you will keep your memories forever, although you may discover you’d prefer not to."
Not to be a Debbie downer, but memories and flesh are the two things that *do* die.
Gone forever at the point of death.
The part that stays and accrues as one lives in bodily form is *consciousness*.
They are two different things.
Memories die with the egoic body but consciousness lives on.
In the ancient esoteric doctrines like the Tao and the Vedas, one can develop their consciousness in different ways throughout a lifetime with the understanding that eventually they will be released from the birth-death-rebirth cycle.
It is a moral way of life; the esoteric Tao has the lifestyle of Confucianism for example.
The lifetime is temporary, but the accrual of consciousness is not.
Thanks for this thought-provoking comment, Aria. If you don't mind, I'm going to respond to it in my next post. It seems like the sort of topic that deserves a bit more than an off-the-cuff reply.
Just dropping some appreciation your way for bringing this to my attention, as well as for doing what you're doing how you're doing it. Love your posts both for the writing and for the message they convey.
What does the rage that you felt when you saw the monster imprisoned in his own unnatural flesh mean? Feelings are never wrong. In the coming years, we are going to start telling a new story about human origins. We are the monsters who have been created unnaturally. We are imprisoned in an an ungodly and unnatural flesh. I disagree with the idea that what we choose to do with our flesh with stay with our souls forever. It will stay with our souls until we deal with it during our metempsychosis, which happens after our deaths and before our long sleep. To me it doesn't seem like we are in novel territory here. Our Romantic ethical sensibilities are less developed than they were in the person of a 16-year-old girl (she was a smarty) in 1816, when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. There is a fascination and a thrill to horror literature and film. It's the thrill of learning the truth. It's horrifying and exhilarating.
When I looked inward (to the best of my abilities), the rage I felt was a variant of the general anger I feel when witnessing a particularly evil crime. The monster suffers at Levin's hands to further some phantom end (in his case AGI, apparently), and his flippant attitude toward that suffering compounds my anger.
As for metempsychosis. I guess I disagree. I suspect the concept of drinking from the River Lethe was just another variant of our general fear of an eternity of consequences for our choices. I admit that I don't know exactly what happens after death, but the multiple overlapping layers of memory optimization on the lower levels suggest that they emanate from and reflect the higher ones. In that sense, it may be that we even have "better" memories (clearer, sharper) after death, when removed from all the clutter and noise of the realm of material structure/action.
"Our Romantic ethical sensibilities are less developed than they were in the person of a 16-year-old girl (she was a smarty) in 1816, when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. There is a fascination and a thrill to horror literature and film. It's the thrill of learning the truth. It's horrifying and exhilarating."
I agree. "Frankenstein" endures because it was art of the highest caliber. Shelley was given a peek behind the Veil, and generously shared it with the rest of us. We ignore such artworks at our peril.
Super interesting, deep, and thought provoking article. Thanks for the acknowledgement. There is also an interesting series of discussions between Levin and Iain McGilchrist. One of the things they talk about, which also reveals that patterns are not stored in the genes is that if deer get damage to their antlers during the rutting season, once the rut is over and the antlers drop off, the damage is recapitulated in the antlers when they grow back. It can take years before this is worked out of the shape of the antlers...
Mark...puh-leeze. Genes are the ultimate level of intelligence. Just as Lego creates itself into wonderful shapes. The fact I share 80% of my genes with a Douglas Fir means genes are soooo intelligent they can become a kidney in one place and a fir needle in another. By their own intelligence. If we learn to manipulate them we can also become intelligent.
"Eternal existence is the most fearsome and brutal truth of all. The “thing” that builds and animates your material cannot be destroyed. But neither can your memories of what you choose to do with said material."
I love it. That is why I am learning the guitar instead of making monsters.
Levin's eyes are precisely what I would imagine for Dr Frankenstein. Haunting. I'm reminded too, while popular culture depicts Frankenstein's monster as an innocent, the original was a despicable, murderous fiend who destroyed everything the Dr loved.
Frankenstein is one of the originals of the theory that life is only depraved because it is deprived. Shelley's monster was evil not because it was created evil but because its creator didn't provide for it, either materially or emotionally. He hated his father as they want us to do and you are right more modern depictions paint his hatred as innocent and blameless because they want us to imagine that our hatred of our fathers(and ultimately Father) is innocent and blameless.
I have a slightly different perspective. I think that Frankenstein's corruption of Creation lured not a human soul to the material, but one of those "evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls" of St. Michael's prayer. That is why the monster's maker continually refers to it as "demon" throughout the book. He was identifying the taxon of what he summoned -- correctly, in my view.
I see the monster as, in a sense, a true child of its maker. If it is a demon that is because a magician cannot father anything else, as a magician. As a man of course he can father men up until the point when being a magician strips him of his manhood.(a later version of this comment will include some clever tie between magicians and Men in Skirts and castration) Nature/Nurture is a false binary. We can't discuss what it would be if it were created by a man who would be a good parent because such a man wouldn't stitch together corpses and zap them.
Some of us think magic is the unification of reason and faith, and mostly another word for creativity.
Thank you for making this point.
If you consider (as Mark does) "the fact that we — and all other lifeforms — are always interacting with that layer, all the time. It’s the medium in which all consciousness swims, and the transactional layer between one side of the Veil and the other..." then our very existence is magical.
Good and evil, then, line up differently, and one way to understand that difference (there are many ways, but this one I credit to John Michael Greer, has worked well for me for a very long time) is to consider the difference between aiming to "control" any other living being or life source, and aiming to "participate" WITH any other living being or life source.
That is the fundamental flaw of postmodern thinking from the left, that we are victims and our victimhood justifies pathology. The monster was gifted with high intelligence and superhuman strength. He might have sought transcendence, but instead he collapsed into sheer hatred.
This is the fundamental lure of all group membership ideologies. Justification!! Wide gates with group rates on forgiveness of sins are what we are all hunting. A Narrow Gate that a man must pass through alone as a man, transparently himself before his Maker? Now why are those hinges rusted shut?
Some of us know the narrow gate is the only one that really matters.
1000%
I am going to hydrate effectively all day so I can feel even remotely AVAILABLE to dive into the vast expanse of this piece. I am SO LIT UP by this incredible work and really honour and commend you Mark for doing this for us. Grateful, and here for it!!
Thanks, Alison. Let me know your thoughts afterwards.
Well stated and heartily agreed upon.
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent lad [‘reasonably’], but by all appearances Mark does nothing 24-7 but compose and publish these excellent tapestries non-stop, as easily as a scullery maid washes the morning’s dishes; any one of these pieces would take me weeks--if not months--to clumsily coax to inelegant completion, if EVER.
All that being said, I am extremely appreciative to be able to benefit from Mark’s willingness and ability to pull the Machine’s curtain back and let us peek behind. Knowledge is power, as they say. And he is giving us superlative knowledge indeed.
You say that this is all about a movement to the Source, and I think that I agree that this is all about First Things. And so, from the Westminster Shorter Catechism question and answer number 1:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Glorify(my definition)- to understand, appreciate, and express the significance of the thing glorified
Exploration is the native method of life. It is the fundamental process towards that fundamental objective of understanding and expressing the Truth of the One who made us. The very first thing, and the most important truth in your post is that life is not pointless or directionless. Life comes from somewhere, like an arrow shot at a target. Dr. Levin(stein?)'s work is ultimately significant only to the degree that it helps or hinders the living arrow towards its target. I would say hinders and no amount of 'myth of progress prybar' is gonna change that.
Even the humble flatworm has praises to sing and the strange goal of those who claim that life has no goals or directions is to turn that praise into an incomprehensible cacophany spewed from two mouths.(like the second theme of the Ainur led by Morgoth since you mentioned Eru)
But the power of the Third Theme, which is actually before the First Theme, does not come from climbing or making progress, but for reaching for the lowly, the last, the least, the little, the certainly lost. And even the poor polycephalic creatures have a true Head who will revenge and redeem them. And what's better than the beginning of the Westminster Divines? Why only the beginning of the Heidelberg:
'Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong body and soul,
in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil....'
This is beautifully put, Jon. Thank you.
I would only add that Tolkien's holy genius made the compelling case for the cruelty and ultimate stupidity of Morgoth, in his attempts to emulate God's creation. He found he could only corrupt and degenerate it into broken, monstrous shapes like trolls and orcs.
Did you find anything on how Dr. Levin is doing this? Is there some direct application of current? Some placed inside of a field? I am curious what the actual process is.
So, regarding Levin. At first I reacted to the sanpaku eyes, but after watching him for 15+ minutes I realized that he is a tortured soul. I think he started out wanting to do something good in the world (regenerative medicine, "cure cancer", etc.) but then the fame twisted him. I went down kind of a similar path, there was a time when I was "curing cancer" and had achieved a modest level of fame, but I could see well enough into the future to understand the futility of the line of research in which I was participating -- it would only ever be twisted into something horrible, it could never really be used to heal, only to harm. So I found a way to get off that ride. Levin's still on the ride and can't figure out how to get off.
I've never been down the "curing cancer" road, but I still think I know what you mean. I maintain hope that Levin can get off that road to Hell, if only for his own sake.
But even if he were to see the light, there are other Levins out there, who will be happy to carry the ball forward (and perhaps in secret). So, even as he hope for the best, we must prepare for the worst.
Its not the same as the monsters that levin created, and I can't watch that video.
I can not go any where near a zoo. I can not see horses housed permanently in stalls (most barns).
It amazes me that other people can not see or feel the animals torment and pain.
I think part of what disgusts normal people about the cruelty towards animals is that the victims are essentially mutes. They can't explain their torments in any language we can understand. We also innately understand that those who torture animals grasp this limitation, and that they use it as a form of camouflage while they practice torturing humans at some future date.
Anyway, I agree. A good measuring stick of character is how someone treats a creature at their mercy, and most animals qualify as living "at our mercy."
"A good measuring stick".
Matthew25, again. It's the ultimate measure stick.
Those people are equally unable to see their next man/woman's torment and ache.
"Because I suddenly realized why the Enemy was almost certainly doomed to lose, no matter what shape it ultimately took."
Well, if to "win" looks like gaining control of The Source (from which position to be able to use or destroy), then yes, the Enemy (and also ourselves, when we fall into such feeble "control" fantasies) is doomed to lose.
The Source is hardly likely to reveal itself to any seeker aiming to control it, now is it? ;)
The Source invites us, always, to make the OTHER choice... to eschew all attempts at control, and instead to embrace participation. :)
"The Source is hardly likely to reveal itself to any seeker aiming to control it, now is it? ;)"
I think God reveals what He wants to reveal, and for reasons that are beyond my ken. On the road to Damascus, Saul was essentially on a murder mission. Murder (and its threat) could be said to be the ultimate form of materialist control fantasy. But it was deemed important that he see, and so he was shown.
For all I know, Levin will also be shown the truth, struck blind by it, then become a great ally in the battle ahead. But what he is doing right now is pretty obviously evil, and the path he's following leads into the final darkness. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything.
Levin, like all of us, is always invited to take the other choice - at every single moment it is open to him, as it is to us all, to choose differently.
But the choices he is making - those that involve messing about with other living beings WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT... that involve treating other living beings as mere instruments for the carrying out of HIS purposes, with plain disregard for theirs... I agree, those are evil choices.
"“If genes don’t build structure, then what does?” And my answer to that has always been something like: “Electricity.”"
I love this. Genes build the physical body in the physical world, but consciousness builds the soul; it's the state of the soul which dictates the 'monstrousness'/beauty of the corporeal structure, and they're electrical phenomena alright. This can be changed and tweaked only in the corporeal world, so you're right; what we do and how we use our consciousness in one life dictates the next rebirth (so to speak).
I think of the elegant EU Van der Leyen and wonder how she'll cope on judgement day...
"In death, we will also have a chance to see and experience the Source firsthand. But will we recognize it for what it is?"
I didn't, it took all the metaphysics of Guénon, Sufi poetry and the Vedas to make sense of it. We expect to see a man or God as an old fellow, but it's not like that. This is also why your electrical idea is so spot on. We can 'die' while still alive too which is what Christ consciousness is all about. It's our esoteric western take on the Eastern Kundalini (which has never been hidden, unlike ours).
"If you can communicate across the bioelectric layer with sufficient clarity, you can essentially “speak” any structure into existence."
He who understands *words* understands the universe.
"But consider the fact that we — and all other lifeforms — are always interacting with that layer. It’s the medium in which all consciousness swims, [...] In fact, it may require nothing more than mental concentration."
This is brilliant, it's exactly so. The Bible is esoteric, and 'Jesus' says it all through the book: 'meditate'. There is a genuine physiological practice to go with the stories but the method has been corrupted. It's all true, but in code. Just 'believing' or having faith isn't the key. It has to be practiced. Loved the Scooby-doo mask-reveal line too.
"For now, imagine a vast, Cthulhu-like ouroboros that hovers in a lightless void, perpetually eating and defecating its own body for all eternity. You’re welcome."
Lol. But it's the Ouroboros that, once beheaded, gifts the mortal hero immortality. The 'Get out of Samsara free' card.
Sorry to write such an epic, self-indulgent response, but Sasha Latypova was right, this was a neat piece.
Thanks again. See my other reply to you below.
Excellent article, and the phrase "vast, Cthulhu-like ouroboros that hovers in a lightless void, perpetually eating and defecating its own body for all eternity" certainly made me lose my appetite! I think you have definitely hit on something with the idea that the morphogenetic field is downstream from the Source of consciousness, as well. One question that occurred to me was: if Levin's little 'xenobot' creature was considered a useful vehicle for a simple consciousness to explore with, does a viable morphogenetic field create a sort of 'vacuum' that consciousness always tries to fill, or does consciousness still 'select' from contexts that suit its purposes? For example, if a clone of a person was created, would the clone just exist comatose, or have a mind like a newborn infant?
I think if such things are possible, the Creator already knows all possibilities and ensures that, regardless of how the morphogenetic field is manipulated, the possibility always exists for souls to return to Him/Her. Fascinating read; thanks!
Thank you, Ryan.
These are all interesting questions. I don't know the answers, but maybe we could do some thought experiments in the future to help gain insight on them. I also suspect we can find similar questions and answers in past stories and accounts. For instance, Percy Shelley claimed to have met his own doppelganger (the existence of which was apparently supported by a credible witness). He seemed to include a reference to this meeting in "Prometheus Unbound":
"Ere Babylon was dust, / The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, / Met his own image walking in the garden. / That apparition, sole of men, he saw. / For know there are two worlds of life and death: / One that which thou beholdest; but the other / Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit / The shadows of all forms that think and live / Till death unite them and they part no more"
Food for thought, at least. Both Mary and Percy were particularly farseeing artists.
Oh, and one other thing I found interesting was the extent to which both Anderson and Levin tried to talk around the idea of Intelligent Design during the video, which is obviously implied by Levin's findings. Freakin' annoying how much supposedly 'rational' people will pussyfoot around acknowledging the possibility that there might be a Creator, even when the evidence clearly points in that direction!
I suspect they're more frightened of those implications than any of us can imagine, so they avoid mentioning them at all costs. Sort of the way some people are scared to mention demons and monsters, for fear of summoning one.
Either that, or they're too stupid to see it. This is also a pretty good bet; intellect has become very atomized and domain-specific. A person could show major smarts in one domain, but be a total moron in all others.
Every time I think I know where you're going with this series you surprise me. Can't wait for the next installment.
Thanks Fukitol. It often surprises me too.
"Rest assured you will keep your memories forever, although you may discover you’d prefer not to."
Not to be a Debbie downer, but memories and flesh are the two things that *do* die.
Gone forever at the point of death.
The part that stays and accrues as one lives in bodily form is *consciousness*.
They are two different things.
Memories die with the egoic body but consciousness lives on.
In the ancient esoteric doctrines like the Tao and the Vedas, one can develop their consciousness in different ways throughout a lifetime with the understanding that eventually they will be released from the birth-death-rebirth cycle.
It is a moral way of life; the esoteric Tao has the lifestyle of Confucianism for example.
The lifetime is temporary, but the accrual of consciousness is not.
Thanks for this thought-provoking comment, Aria. If you don't mind, I'm going to respond to it in my next post. It seems like the sort of topic that deserves a bit more than an off-the-cuff reply.
And welcome!
Indeed, I wondered as I read the point about memories... what do we remember from previous incarnations? This current one can't be the first, surely.
Just dropping some appreciation your way for bringing this to my attention, as well as for doing what you're doing how you're doing it. Love your posts both for the writing and for the message they convey.
Thanks, Matias!
“In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.”
What does the rage that you felt when you saw the monster imprisoned in his own unnatural flesh mean? Feelings are never wrong. In the coming years, we are going to start telling a new story about human origins. We are the monsters who have been created unnaturally. We are imprisoned in an an ungodly and unnatural flesh. I disagree with the idea that what we choose to do with our flesh with stay with our souls forever. It will stay with our souls until we deal with it during our metempsychosis, which happens after our deaths and before our long sleep. To me it doesn't seem like we are in novel territory here. Our Romantic ethical sensibilities are less developed than they were in the person of a 16-year-old girl (she was a smarty) in 1816, when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. There is a fascination and a thrill to horror literature and film. It's the thrill of learning the truth. It's horrifying and exhilarating.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Palamambron.
When I looked inward (to the best of my abilities), the rage I felt was a variant of the general anger I feel when witnessing a particularly evil crime. The monster suffers at Levin's hands to further some phantom end (in his case AGI, apparently), and his flippant attitude toward that suffering compounds my anger.
As for metempsychosis. I guess I disagree. I suspect the concept of drinking from the River Lethe was just another variant of our general fear of an eternity of consequences for our choices. I admit that I don't know exactly what happens after death, but the multiple overlapping layers of memory optimization on the lower levels suggest that they emanate from and reflect the higher ones. In that sense, it may be that we even have "better" memories (clearer, sharper) after death, when removed from all the clutter and noise of the realm of material structure/action.
"Our Romantic ethical sensibilities are less developed than they were in the person of a 16-year-old girl (she was a smarty) in 1816, when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. There is a fascination and a thrill to horror literature and film. It's the thrill of learning the truth. It's horrifying and exhilarating."
I agree. "Frankenstein" endures because it was art of the highest caliber. Shelley was given a peek behind the Veil, and generously shared it with the rest of us. We ignore such artworks at our peril.
Thank you for your kind response.
Levin looks like an animated corpse.
Super interesting, deep, and thought provoking article. Thanks for the acknowledgement. There is also an interesting series of discussions between Levin and Iain McGilchrist. One of the things they talk about, which also reveals that patterns are not stored in the genes is that if deer get damage to their antlers during the rutting season, once the rut is over and the antlers drop off, the damage is recapitulated in the antlers when they grow back. It can take years before this is worked out of the shape of the antlers...
Mark...puh-leeze. Genes are the ultimate level of intelligence. Just as Lego creates itself into wonderful shapes. The fact I share 80% of my genes with a Douglas Fir means genes are soooo intelligent they can become a kidney in one place and a fir needle in another. By their own intelligence. If we learn to manipulate them we can also become intelligent.
ROFL! Good stuff.