Tag: mind

ᴬ PORTAL ᵀᴼ ᴬᴺᴼᵀᴴᴱᴿ DIMENSION

(Animation from GIPHY.com)

I was falling asleep on a train, drifting in and out of consciousness. The cascading droplets of rain against the glass would momentarily catch my eye. The realest, truest thing in the world to me, in that moment, was the cold of the glass against the side of my forehead, the ice-cold collision came with the words of my inner-monologue, reminding me “don’t fall asleep”.

With each thud of my skull against the train window, with each jolt to my slipping consciousness, I found myself remembering, reliving similar moments. Different trains, different destinations, different times, different understandings of self. The blur of the outside world and the cascading droplets, rushing and colliding down and across the glass. Like the water droplets that form as one when they collide, when memories are so similar, the mind (under certain circumstances) might momentarily lose its bearing on exactly where, when, or (in some extreme cases) even who it is. A cascade of consciousness, altering, questioning the perceivable reality.

It’s like waking up in the middle of the night, and not knowing where you are. You’ve changed houses, changed beds multiple times but the subconscious mind can be caught off guard. Driving for five hours, with almost no recollection of how you actually got to your destination. For one moment, it’s as though a former self, by some miraculous means has taken the helm of a future/current self, bewildered by the changes that have come to pass. Until better senses return and you are living in the moment, once more (some of these experiences can be caused by serious conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia, Amnesia).

In my experience of human cognition, the mind doesn’t always want to live in the moment. Sometimes it seeks to traverse memories past, conjure events yet to come, or entertain some things that may never unfold in this reality. At this juncture in my existence, I’ve forgotten a great many details from my own life, let countless memories slip through the cracks of time. Even some of the chaotic, (relatively) cataclysmic moments, carelessly discarded. Yet strangely, sometimes I truly wonder, am I still falling asleep on that train to god-knows-where, soon to come to my senses, when my head next collides against the glass?

The ghost of a former self perpetually drifting in and out of consciousness?

Are we all essentially amalgamations of our many former selves?

To illustrate my point, you might ask yourself the following question:

Where are you right now? At this very moment?

You might tell yourself a geographical location, along with a juncture in time. But the relative geographical location, is fixed upon a planet that is moving (Earth orbits the sun at approximately 67,000 mph/107,000 km/h. 365 days for a full orbit. The sun and the solar system appear to be moving at 200 kilometers per second, or at an average speed of 448,000 mph/720,000 km/h —Space.com). The time you refer to, is also quite relative to where you are in this entropic universe. In fact, the relative time it’s taken to read to this point, the answer originally proposed, has already drastically changed.

Then there is the philosophical element, when asked where and when you are, your future self perpetually shed to join the amassing former selves, as every moment passes. Are the former selves, which for all of us, inevitably outnumber the current self, merely doomed to be lost to oblivion for all eternity? Outside of memory, outside of the physical implications, the footprints left behind, does/can anything truly last forever? Or is everyone, everything we’ve ever known like the particles of chalk temporarily marked on a blackboard, inevitably wiped astray?

As previously suggested in ᴛʜᴇ ILLUSION ᴏғ TIME, ᵀᴴᴱ WORMHOLE ᴬᴺᴰ ᵀᴴᴱ TIME PARADOX, TIME TRAVEL ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ 2ɴᴅ ʟᴀᴡ ᴏғ THERMODYNAMICS, I’ve slowly found myself veering further and further away from such an absolute, ultimately universal declaration.

So putting philosophy aside, putting psychology aside, removing the concept of a former-self “theoretically” returning (purely in the mind), due to some memory impairment etc. Is the past, the physical elements comprising what we consider to be a “past reality”, including our former selves, truly lost to oblivion?

Theoretically, no.

“Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, our comprehensible universe in its entirety existed in a fraction of time and space many, many times smaller than a single atom. Some have theorized the existence of parallel universes, a direct ‘shadow universe’ (connected/veiling our own and connected by gravity since and attributing to the beginning of our universe) and an entire multiverse linking/spawning universes and or dimensions. One theorized means of connecting two isolated points in space and time, universes, or junctures throughout the multiverse are naturally occurring ‘wormholes’.”

—ᵀᴴᴱ WORMHOLE ᴬᴺᴰ ᵀᴴᴱ TIME PARADOX

Theoretically, it would only take one single accessible ‘wormhole’ (located anywhere in this universe), even if it was only stable for a fraction of a second, for a highly technologically advanced being/machine to potentially have access to every single second of this universe, not excluding every moment that ever passed comprising the history of this planet (and your entire lifetime). If you could successfully get back to a starting point, the natural linear progression of the passing of time could be replayed over and over to access a certain event in history.

Such a wormhole could be a connection of time and space within this universe from the distant future, to the distant past (formation of earth). Or it could be a wormhole/portal naturally forming or technologically created connecting this universe (prior the formation of earth) to another dimension, where time as we understand it, may not exist.

The existence of inter-dimensional “portals” that have a constant or fixed entry point connected to a momentary conjuration in our universes history that collapsed in seconds, would still be a theoretical fixed portal to a very specific juncture in time (though problems would arise, if multiple objects arrive/exit at the narrow window of time output).

A highly advanced being/machine (some speculating UFOs to be traveling through time and dimensions, not just our atmosphere or space) may at some stage (or currently) possess the capability of creating dimensional portals at will, to travel through both dimensions and what we perceive as time relative to this universe (and beyond).

Immediately, traversing both dimensions and time would cause all kinds of theoretical temporal paradoxes to arise. The grandfather paradox, does an action committed by a (future) time traveling entity in the past, change the future from whence the traveler came? Does the Multiverse theory, allow for the possibility of so many (infinite) variations of universes/dimensions indistinguishably close to our own, that every single conceivable variation, is playing out in unison?

It’s so far removed from our understanding of time and reality, we come up with all sorts of answers to the paradox. If you travel back in time and assassinate yourself as a child, some might suggest you would immediately “vanish” or cease to be. But the physical being that committed the murder had to exist for the murder to take place. Perhaps, if time is a linear structure, played out like a game of chess, going backwards, every single time, has consequences that ultimately change the version of reality the time traveler left. Ultimately changing the arrangement of the pieces on the (shared) board. Meaning, while the individual entity of matter, and instrument of time alteration is unscathed in the past (now relative present), the future/time-line from whence the traveler came, no longer exists (connected to the current linear trajectory of time).

Aside from theoretically disconnected dimensions of the multiverse, there is also suggestions of a theoretical shadow universe/mirror universe, intrinsically linked with our own:

“If mirror matter is present in the universe with sufficient abundance then its gravitational effects can be detected. Because mirror matter is analogous to ordinary matter, it is then to be expected that a fraction of the mirror matter exists in the form of mirror galaxies, mirror stars, mirror planets etc. These objects can be detected using gravitational microlensing. One would also expect that some fraction of stars have mirror objects as their companion. In such cases one should be able to detect periodic Doppler shifts in the spectrum of the star.There are some hints that such effects may already have been observed.”

—R. N. Mohapatra, Vigdor L. Teplitz “Mirror matter MACHOs”, 1999

Right now, this very second, whenever that second may be, when whoever you are might be reading this. Is there currently, within this universe, a portal (naturally formed, or synthetically created) that leads to another dimension?

There isn’t currently, an authority on this Earth that could in all honesty give you a definitive answer to that question. But perhaps you could search yourself for the answer, in the form of yet another question.

Is there a limitation fixed upon infinity?

Posted on by ᵀᴴᴱ ARGONAUT 0

BEYOND ᴛʜᴇ ALGORITHM: ᴀɴ INVASION ᴏғ MINDS

(Animated by Pi-Slices)

“Compartmentalize your mind. Doubt what you know, know what you doubt. But the very moment you’re truly certain of anything, they’ll have you.”

—The Agitator, Deviation, C. M. Johnson

You finish buying an assortment of products online. Hours later you open up a different browser, an advertisement appears listing products similar to those you just purchased. Even though you might have opted out of data collection services, it isn’t a stretch of the imagination to understand what might be going on. So you go about your business.

You finish a conversation about a certain topic. Later on, recommendations, feeds, advertisements display the content of the topic of that very conversation. You’re very much aware that you possess (possibly many) devices that have the potential to monitor speech and correlate the recognized terms and phrases with what is virtually presented to you. But surely such a feature would only function if it were activated. You’ve grown awfully attached to said device(s), far too attached to want to entertain the thought that there are seemingly invasive agendas working behind the services they provide. So you put it out of your mind and you go about your business.

But every so often, you might find yourself wondering, in lieu of any restrictions, what WOULD an unscrupulous agency do, IF it had the means?

If you are of the inclination that this is already a reality, you are far from alone. In fact, the number of people harboring such a suspicion has been steadily growing across numerous countries as the value of data continues to rise (previously mentioned in ᵀᴴᴱ SYSTEM).

“According to a new survey by Nixplay, 60% of millennials think their phones are listening to them and then tailoring ads precisely to those conversations. Overall, 55% of Americans think that smartphones are spying on them, collecting data to customize ads.”

—John Koetsier, Forbes.com, 2019

But for some, their suspicions about the algorithm do not end there.

You have a spoken conversation, (to your knowledge) far from any technological device(s). Two (or more) organic lifeforms verbally exchanging information. Yet when you return to your device(s), again, there are indications, that the private conversation, far from the microphones, far from the cameras was seemingly heard all the same. In some instances, both (multiple) parties discovering that the topic of their “private” conversation, far from prying eyes and ears is somehow intrinsically linked with each their data-flow algorithms, on a number of digital services.

Finally, you think your private thoughts, as you often do. The mutterings of the inner-mind, utterly disconnected from the physical world beyond the cranium. Or so you would have thought, only you begin to notice that the same algorithm which once manipulated results from keystrokes and physical inputs, seems to now show indications that the private thoughts in your mind, are somehow being read. But that’s nonsensical. Absolutely impossible, isn’t it?

Surely it’s coincidental, or the correlations are misinterpreted, bouts of apophenia? Is this the evolution of ᵀᴴᴱ NOÖSPHERE?

“Facebook has assembled a team of 60 people, including machine learning and neural prosthetics experts, to enable such a system. Facebook is currently hiring a brain-computer interface engineer and a neural imaging engineer. Its goal? To create a system capable of typing one hundred words per minute – five times faster than you can type on a smartphone – straight from your brain.”

—Olivia Solon, The Guardian.com, 2017

Where there’s a will, there’s a way?

Such a brain-to-device concept would require localized hardware and technology, years of advancement from the currently available methods?

Not according to some.

Over the last few years, the belief in the (apparent and evident) invasions of privacy has begun to spread and increase so severely, that it has given rise to a concept known among some circles as, REMOTE NEURAL MONITORING (a means of electronic harassment/privacy invasion). There is a publicly available .pdf of the U.S. SUPREME COURT PETITION OF CERTORARI, Nov 10, 2018 (court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency) pertaining to the governmental use of such “mind reading technologies”.

NEWS HEADING: MICROWAVE WEAPON BLAMED FOR APPARENT ATTACK ON US EMBASSY IN CUBA

“Why did dozens of U.S. Embassy workers in Cuba hear loud sounds and suffer neurological symptoms in 2016? There’s a new, Cold War-era microwave explanation for the mystery.

The Havana-based diplomats reported hearing loud, strange sounds and feeling movement in the air around them. Those affected went on to experience months of concussion-like symptoms, including cognitive impairment, balance issues and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). And as recently as February, researchers reported that they couldn’t tell what caused the problems, but they ruled out the most common early explanation: sonic attacks.

‘Sound in the audible range (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz) is not known to cause persistent injury to the central nervous system,’ they wrote in the journal JAMA.

Now, those same researchers have told The New York Times that microwave weapons may have been the cause.

Allan Frey, an American biologist, showed in the early 1960s that microwave beams can create the sensation of hearing noises when they hit the brain’s temporal lobe. The Times reported that Soviet researchers took a keen interest in the discovery after it was announced, going so far as to invite Frey to speak and then bring him to a military laboratory.”

—Rafi Letzter, LiveScience.com, September 04, 2018

On October 17th, 2017:

TRUMP SAYS CUBA ‘RESPONSIBLE’ FOR ALLEGED SONIC ATTACKS, BUT OFFERS NO EVIDENCE

“The state department has still not identified a culprit or even what weapon mysteriously injured 22 American government workers on Cuban soil.”

—The Guardian.com

December 7th, 2017:

MYSTERY ATTACKS CAUSED BRAIN DAMAGE IN US EMBASSY WORKERS IN CUBA.

—Tia Ghose, LiveScience.com

As suspicions and speculations have grown, so too have the numbers of individuals believing to be victims of various forms of electronic harassment.

“Electronic harassment, electromagnetic torture, or psychotronic torture is a conspiracy theory that government agents make use of electromagnetic radiation (such as the microwave auditory effect), radar, and surveillance techniques to transmit sounds and thoughts into people’s heads, affect people’s bodies, and harass people. Individuals who claim to experience this call themselves “targeted individuals“. They claim they are victims of gang stalking and many have joined support and advocacy groups.”

—Wikipedia

Sadly, as the gap between technology and imagination narrows, individuals afflicted with various forms of paranoia (often undiagnosed) can become consumed by this very idea, that minds are being invaded. Where once such a claim could be easily dismissed as impossible, with technological warfare the likes of the (alleged) voice of god (long range audio producing non-lethal weapon, developed by the U.S. military) and sonic warfare, dispelling fears as impossible is becoming increasingly difficult.

Unfortunately, as ways of life change and as new technologies are developed (or refined), once inconceivable dangers WILL emerge. Systems of control/surveillance that we might currently consider dystopian, immoral or terrifying may very well become a reality.

Could our global future be a new world, fighting one of the oldest battles to be fought, time and time again, throughout the ages. The struggle for freedom from tyranny. Sometimes it can take people quite awhile to realize their freedom is under attack, but when they do, they start to understand how valuable it truly is.

Until then, perhaps the invasion of minds has only just begun?

Posted on by ᵀᴴᴱ ARGONAUT 0

ᴛʜᴇ LENS ᴛʜᴀᴛ CHANGES WORLDS

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

—C. S. Lewis

Visualize, if you a can, a stranger.

Maybe they’re walking toward you on a street you’ve traveled many times before?

What does their face look like? What are they wearing? How old are they?

Try to hold that image in your mind.

They say all strangers look alike, but that isn’t actually true, is it? You’re a stranger, I’m a stranger. We’re all utterly unfamiliar to the vast majority of fellow homo sapiens scattered around this planet. How we imagine a fictitious stranger, can reveal a great deal about ourselves, our society at large. For instance, if you imagined an intimidating and seemingly menacing stranger, leering at you as you pass one another. For whatever reason (justified or not), you have cultivated a negative representation of a variable that could have been anything, it was up to you. So why then, did you create this specific depiction?

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s Third Law). Throughout the course of your existence, whether you like it or not, every experience impacts you in some way. A momentary childhood interaction with an aggressive dog (for some) is enough to lead to a lifetime fearing them. In fact that can be a common cause for cynophobia (fear of dogs).

A single event can reshape our entire worldview. The shop attendant knows that robberies often take place, but it isn’t until he/she is staring down the barrel of a gun that they truly comprehend the reality and seriousness of the crime. It’s these experiences (along with other factors) that shape our choices, form our judgements.

Even now, how you respond to this article of text, is based on how it appeals to your taste. If you have read something covering the same topic, which was simpler to understand, more insightful, then your opinion of my attempt would be justifiably low. Alternatively, it could strike all the right chords with someone else. The subject could also bore, offend, annoy, make some people sad, some happy. The possibilities for interpretation are as numerous as there are people.

We can attempt to be objective in our interpretation of the world around us, but it appears that our subjective worldview is often the dominant and default setting in our day to day lives. Which overall, is a good thing. Having different views, different opinions is paramount for the survival (and quality of life) of our species. Otherwise we face stagnation. The exploration of thought should never be restricted to some set standard. Often the most memorable things in our lives, are the shocking things that no one expected, because they deviate so far from the norm. Unhindered thought evolves and adapts to a changing world. After all, change is the only certainty.

We can all appreciate the value of perspective when it comes to the viewing of a performance or sporting event. Generally, the closer you are to the event, the more you will witness and enjoy. As opposed to those who are further away, whose seating in some instances is sold at a reduced price, due to the visual and audible losses.

Consider this hypothetical scenario:

Five individuals could walk down the same street, yet embark on five separate journeys. One woman notices the scattered rubbish lining the street, she hates filth. One man catches a glimmer of something shining on the ground, he’s pleased to have found a coin. One woman, stumbles and feels momentarily embarrassed. The woman behind her, tries not to laugh. Lastly, a blind woman cautiously makes her way through the crowd, she hasn’t left her home in some time, but she must force herself to face the unforeseeable mayhem, so she pushes herself to do so.

Anger, Contentment, Embarrassment, Amusement and Heroism. These five could be five out of a tide of five hundred that travel the same street in the course of an hour. Each with their own interpretation of the world around them. Their own view of the world, themselves and the things that matter.

Understanding how your own experience is effected by the things that directly implicate you is a useful tool in better coping with the changing vicissitudes that life hurls at you. Like for instance the common belief that many individuals hold (for countless varying reasons) leading them to believe strangers dislike them. Partly due to something known commonly in the modern world that in lack of a better description has been termed “resting bitch face”. Where the default facial expression of an individual is seemingly displeased. Leading others to express a cold expression back at them, perpetuating a cycle of defensive and cold individuals. To break this cycle, you need only smile at a stranger and in the majority of interactions, the stranger will immediately smile back at you.

So many people are purely receptive to their environment and others, they fail to realize that the lack of engagement in itself is an outward projection. Often shy and aloof individuals can be interpreted as rude, arrogant or dismissive due to their wilful segregation from others.

There is a great deal of power in perception. If you can somehow empathize with an individual and present an understanding of their perception, they will value you above others. All human beings have an innate desire to be understood. It’s a common romantic trope that an ideal partner knows what their spouse truly desires, even if they verbally fervently deny it. Most commonly seen when someone says that they’re “O.K” but their body-language, behavior etc says otherwise. Perception (along with a level of care) determines whether you would leave it at the verbal cue or pursue the perceived dissatisfaction.

So when you feel as though you’ve had a bad day, rather than leave that assessment as it stands, why not wonder why? What made the day a “bad” day? Things not going your way or being simple is only enough to upset or annoy you if you deem it to be. It’s the same sentiment people have when they hold a grudge against the world. It’s estimated that if you live to 80 years old, you may have a brief meeting with around 100, 000 other human beings.

At the time of writing this, there are approximately 7,346,235,000 people on this planet. So it could be estimated that most people will meet less than 0.001361% of the world population. Yet through the news, media and their own experience they believe they have a perfectly rendered opinion of humanity at large.

So when it comes down to it, if you could adapt your perspective, what sort of world would you be capable of seeing? Would you lead a happier life? Or is your current perspective just too convenient?

Posted on by ᵀᴴᴱ ARGONAUT 3