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This video is a wonderful example of the process of enlightenment in action. It shows in slow motion a transformation from one state to another. The process of emergence is whats interesting. The popped state always existed in the kernel as metadata but it took specific environmental circumstances to bring about the new form. Contained within those circumstances are the things that had been overcome, things taken for granted. (dryness of the air) Plus the energy that needed to be put into the kernel (heat). Its conditions plus energy that bring about the radical change of form. This is true for us humans as well. I call it getting out of our own way. Setting the conditions. Tuning your perceptions. Simply living in a state of awareness. If our common end point is that transformation, its in our interests to create the conditions that would allow it to manifest. The only thing that keeps us from achieving the enlightened transformation is the noise of the karmic process that living eventually overcomes. I have said it before, our actions feed back and create who we are. We must live through actions that produce the conditions needed to bring about enlightenment. The energy is in the universe around us but its up to us to focus on creating the pathways for that energy. Hence the innate stress that wrong action brings. We are like compasses with our direction built into our structure. Learning how to read your own personal compass is a life time lesson.

This topic is for me one of the most difficult thoughts to put into words. To begin simply, I have noticed that “fun” is not related to money and consequently the value of the experience engaged in is dissociated from the “price of admission”. I know this seems obvious. However, I think it is an excellent entrance into the critique of value in culture and an illustrative point highlighting the glossy sheen of mediation that mentally separates us from direct experience.

In the post, “peacefulness is the dark matter of the mind” I learned that states of being exist whether we perceive them or not. In the water of the pond all states exist from stillness through wave form all the way into gaseous atomization. The states manifest in relation to the amount of energy put into the system. Although not visible at all times the potential for manifestation does exist. Its as though the information of how to behave is stored in the very structure of the water itself. Then, in reaction to the environmental conditions (energy) those states appear. What is important are the three variables, stored information (potential characteristics), environmental influence (energy put into the system) and the reception/perception of the viewer (for which we need to consider as an affecter).

The classification of experience is like the continuum of states that the water moves through. Experiences are quantifiable using the three parameters outlined above. The characteristics of the given experience, its verbness. ie eating, playing, swimming, listening, conversing etc… is what guides our engagement through time. How we perceive those characteristics determines the amount of energy we put into the experience and again the amount that we receive as it accelerates through its states of being, like the water. This then feeds back into us and is a natural amplifier moving us through our states of being in the process of living. If you engage experiences that have limited range of manifestation you can only amplify them and yourself to a limited state of being. Seeking the most fulfilling experiences is a universal quest that makes embodiment more pleasurable. The food you eat, the friends you have all feedback into your verbness, who you are. “Find the best, except the rest”. Is the neopostmodernist adage.

Its looking like the best might be the simplest as we emerge through the arse of postmodern devolution. Bread not baked by the corporations but by your friend has less stuff in it but has more value because of the energy put into the process of changing the states of flour yeast and water. See the Japanese ritual culture for other examples. What we used to think was primitive, in the future will be seen as advanced because we will have gone through, tested and found to be in error what we believed were advances. The residual “Space aged” ingredients baked into our culture will be illuminated and seen as the garbage they are, unnecessary waste. And so with our experiences…we need to connect ourselves as agents in the manifesting of accelerated consciousness. The End…result of our lives spent in effort of what? If not improving our relative situation and ourselves within it.
Which brings me to the quality of experience. I think Christopher Alexander is on the right track. Most philosophical architects recognize that space is more about the quality of the human experience in relation to the container than the container of space itself (most times the container is simply the expression of ego) Valuing money is like valuing the container and an ego gratification of the builder/owner/holder. Energy in that example flows in one way. Creating the illusion of power for the owner. The error in assigning value to money and money to experience is that the money becomes the value filter and the experience comes second. If this gets repeated enough it becomes a glossy illusion that keeps us pursuing the value of money instead of valuable experiences. Its like our focus is off by one click. Your own internal “fun” barometer is a great way to begin separating valuable experiences from their cost. One word..”PLAY”.

I think this is getting a bit long so in closing, Your living breathing self is an amplifier for the environment around you and your environment is the potential characteristics to be amplified by you. Find good environments that give you good experiences as measured by your internal fun meter. The process of living is the dynamic integration of yourself within your environment. Begin recognizing the experiences that make you feel more alive and be aware of consistencies between them. Then practice “Finding the best and excepting the rest” Yes I spelled excepting that way on purpose. D

Techgnosis as a process is easy to see in the arts. In every artistic endeavor, the intention of the creator to express a non tangible idea through some physical medium is what creates its value. The medium is the technology. Paints, instruments, light, fabric, cameras, ect… nature didn’t make these things we did. Why would we develop the technology to express ourselves if it didn’t in some way feedback into the whole of society. This is where technology can be seen to steer the creation process. What we create is an expression of ourselves but a projection of the technology. This is easy to understand in an art like painting. It appears to be more abstract in manufacturing an automobile for example but it is not. The conceptual cognitive processes are the same for both. In fact I believe that the creation process is probably similar across all fields. It is the intention of the creator that differs.

Things are created out of a perceptual lacking. We believe we are missing something. Out of what came before us we work to fill that void within. Which is why so much undeveloped art is focused on the expression of pain. Artists, just starting out with art as a technology to express themselves tend to produce very raw interpretations of the easiest thing to express, their pain. This type of creation although personal is very selfish. The viewer is asked to engage in a misery that is not their own. Not something you would want to put on your wall. Here we can already start to see the connection between technology, intention, content creation, projection, viewer, and communication. The technology is the medium; so while you might not want to hang a sad painting on your wall you would like to see two cars crash into a giant flaming heart in the middle of a downtown intersection as an expression. The good artists are the ones who understand the harmony of all of the above mentioned connections. They also create new technologies if one doesn’t already exist through which they can express themselves.

Once you have become adept at listening to the harmony of the components and knowing how to communicate in subtler ways even more complex intentions then you have the ability to manifest the change you want through your art. Then you are creating mirrors and engaging Techgnosis. In the process of practice you will see yourself change through the creation of your ideas and your ideas will change the world around you. Essentially the reasons for creation change. There is a trinity of expression between yourself yourmedium and youraudience. When you are creating from that harmonic place you are imbuing your art with the spirituality that creates artifacts. Because of what they give to the world, artifacts have real value. What you become in the process of creating artifacts effects everyone you meet. Aside from your art you have become more valuable. This value is transposable. It then is not about the artifacts, it is about the expression of your highest potential at all times through all things. At this point the technology can fall away and the next round of creation begins.

Observe how the intentions change the outcome. If you are using your artistic ability to produce things with the intention being to sell those things at a specific price; your goal is the price not value. This goal feeds back into the technology used and the intention of the creation. What you get is a product that reflects its actual value. Realistically most consumable products then have a short usable lifespan and degrade as the perception of them shifts into refuse. This is a mistake. The people that have interacted with this product have not been encouraged to move in a natural direction towards their own success. The disposable culture reflects poorly on every one of us. It is time that we recognize our power as creators to affect the entire world and its people. There is value in creating artifacts not just economic value but the value within us that when shared uplifts all of humanity. It is our challenge to create only the things that better remind us of our opportunities to climb to the next rung of evolution. Everything else is just in the way. D

The famous philosopher George Carlin used to say, “anyone who drives faster than you is crazy and anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot.” When you stand in a crowd and look at other people, what do you see? Crazies or idiots? Where does that leave you? Have you ever considered what the actual action of seeing really is? The mechanics, i’m sure are complex, but in its essence our eyes take in light. They absorb the light that carries data to our brain. Notice that I said “data” not information. Thats because in its raw state before it is processed it is nothing more than potentiality. If you were unable to process the light signal you would just see chaos or noise. The same thing would happen if you were in a white or black room. A very interesting set of things occur between reception and perception. First we know that light vibrates at different rates bringing color information to our eyes. In this case it is information because it has been preprocessed by whatever has absorbed and reflected, essentially filtered a portion of the spectrum. That object has its own frequency as well. When the light gets to our eyes more information is lost as our eyes shave the spectrum or filter again into what we call visible light. What was once a chaotic flood of light bouncing around the environment has now lost both data and information to become processable by our brain.

Crazies or idiots? That is a lot of information to lose. Things like, how old their car is, fuel consumption awareness, worn out tires, or German engineering and tons of traction all contribute. The point is that our generalizations have shed more information than they have gained. Information entropy occurs everywhere. Consider the information lost in a solid set of conservative values. What happens then at the point of perception? The tools we have created to manufacture generalizations and decrease the processing burden on our brain work like exactly so many other things around here, they filter. Filters separate and polarize the infinite into digestible bits.
Vision is a two part process. The act of seeing is as much about giving as receiving. Once the light has entered our eyes it gets processed by the brain. Somewhere in there the information bounces around connecting to memories and actions. This set of past experiences creates the perceptual filters of what we are observing. It is at this point that the information reverses direction and begins heading back out of our eyes carrying the processed information of our filters back into the environment. Windows of the soul they say. More like mirrors of our environment. In quantum physics this act of observation is what collapses superposition. We can see that perception does in fact create changes in the environment.

The best cameras in the world are known for their sharp optics. The clearer the lens the less distorted the image on the film. The more “real” we would say. Why would this be valued? The more accurate the reproduction the more valuable the lens. If a lens shaves off certain details the image is lacking “truth”. I think its the same for people. The more light/information you can receive without discoloration the more likely to be “true” or “real” your actions.
Techgnosis is about retaining as much information as possible and acting through direct experience with as unmediated of a perception as you can. I call this “the flow” Its a conversation with the world around you. Your ability to listen and articulate truth should represent your actual value. You can actually create filters within yourself that amplify the light back out. I call this “polishing you mirror” I will write about this next time.

The quote, “the only constant is change” applies when thinking in terms of the infinite. Infinity itself being a state of superposition. The constant change of state between being and not being looks very much like chaos. This chaos, from a techgnostic perspective, is opportunity for movement forward. Existing in the infinite chaos is like floating in space. Suddenly all that matters is navigation and moving forward. What you are moving towards can only be answered uniquely within each individual. The secret is that once we start sharing our direction with each other we find ourselves on similar trajectories. What becomes special is how we get there. Each person creates their own tunnel reality out of experiences and perceptions. Every expression is a manifest of individual understanding (ego). Every book, a single voice. Every movie, couch, table, anything made by man is a symbol of our likeness to the creator. Not by what it is but because it is. This is the great understanding of freewill. “You can create anything, What are you going to create?”

The television is a window into the minds of the masses. It takes huge numbers of people to create the spectacles and even more to absorb them. It is like a very sensitive consciousness measuring device. The feedback in the tool is the ratings system. The less attention given to a particular show the quicker it withers and dies. What makes a show “sticky“? Very low frequency, usually circuit1, biological and circuit2 territorial stimulus with brief spikes to circuit4 social/sexual. Explosions and material possessions, sexual interlude blah blah blah we’ve seen it. Why do we keep feeding this stuff to ourselves? We can create anything! Yet we stay locked on the same formula of crap. Its because we lack the development of the tools needed to perceive uniquely.

So lets tear into this. Popular culture is a huge bank of energy. A force that supersedes religion because it thrives on our biological embodiment and rarely engages the immune/defense system of our consciousness. Popular culture inspires passivity while religion asks you to participate. What happens if we attempt to become like the images we see? You would be thrown in jail. The cultural immune system would suppress you. You are not allowed to act out the things you see on the tv. A good thing for all of us. Examine the power structure for a moment. You have a huge amount of energy going into image creation that no one is allowed to achieve in their own lives. The pinnacle of success is dangled just out of reach enough to keep us locked in a cycle of striving but never really able to have. The proverbial “carrot on a string” trick. The hierarchical power structure loves it. We are so busy striving for something we cant have that we don’t notice we have lost ourselves in the process. If we don’t know who we are its easy to tell us anything. Here is the magic though. The power of content creation is finding its way back into our hands. We are slowly moving off the treadmill into ourselves as the creators that we are. The trick is going to be keeping people mindful of their creations.

This is where the overwhelming decentralization of power that we see is leading us. Unfortunately we don’t have a solid infrastructure to catch and guide the newly found creators. All of our past systems were focused on getting us here. Now that we have made it, those systems seem so antiquated. I don’t believe we are the first people on this planet this close to freedom though. There have been past civilizations that have gotten here and failed. Buried by their own capacity and inability to manage their creations. We have to leapfrog the coming collapse.

The thing to be learned in the framework of popular culture is what success feels like. This is tricky so let me explain. When you are successful it leads you to perceive opportunities and create more success. Success becomes a headspace that you carry into new experiences. However success is just a headspace. It is not hiding in the material somewhere. When a successful headspace is stimulated by the material it is something that occurs inside you. Headspaces or perceptions are the software we carry around with us. The material reminds us of what our goal feels like. It stimulates those feelings. So within the framework of pop culture, take from its huge efforts the reminder of yourself as a successful creator. You can hold the frequency in your mind as you go into the world and take action. You will find happening more and more that you will be successful. With your new headspace you will find yourself asking, “How will what I am about to create help other people find success within themselves?”

Reality cannot not be televised.
The drawbridge to the spectacle opens upon those thoughts. Like a mystery school that doesn’t allow you entry until you deny its existence. You can not enter the spectacle until you find its nodes within yourself. Its entryway mobius strip could keep you busy for years. My attempt through the techgnostic institute is to bring you inside the spectacle. Once inside we can read its DNA. A dichotomy between two poles that carries the signal. One pole, reality or negative ground the other, content, positively accelerating increasing in mass. The screen surrounding us like a holographic tilt a whirl receptive to the projected images spraying out the top. An army of minds sitting at its base contributing its collective creativity to the production. We see all of the standard images throughout time, the classics the moderns. We see beautiful people and think to ourselves how not beautiful we are. Trying to maintain our selfhood while our beliefs erode. Feeling the pressure of the illusion bare down on us we feel our minds breaking into pieces, chasing after every spark of light. The words are now our words coming out of our mouths filling each others ears with made up truths. Ill perceptions of ourselves as workers and peasants keeping the electricity flowing. We made this place and forgot about the door. Surrounded by what we are not and in despair we think of a tree. What its doing today? The spectacle gets louder trying to drown out our thoughts. But we focus on that tree. And as the images pour into our minds they continue to get absorbed into that tree. We start to notice that the tree has become the ground in the machine and now we have become the the electricity between the two poles. Bridging the gap using ourselves as the conductor we complete the circuit. Movement becomes our priority. To carry within ourselves all of this information out into the universe.

Marshall McLuhan rightfully saw our technological advancements as extensions of our biological structure. The wheel as an extension of our foot, the page as an extension of our eye. Later he would describe the television as an extension of our nervous system. Mcluhan was interested in the effects of hardware changes upon society. In the techgnostic era we will become focused on the content of that hardware. Its operating systems. The software. The content is an expression of our collective unconscious. Using McLuhan ’s theory where do religions come from? Where do governments come from? Why have these things manifested? What part of us did they evolve from? In regard to media programmers that have studied our psychological code extensively, we will be able to study the patterns they employ and illuminate the walls of our content cell. Once we see the framework of the cage we can devise a strategy for escape.

If you know who you are not, you are closer to becoming who you are. Only in a deficit of self do you perceive yourself as lacking. This deficit is the cage we are in. An open door for external motivations to enter, insecurities. Products offered to fill that void. Beliefs offered, scripts written describing who you think you are. Always mediated to you through something else. What your friends think you should do. Like the tourist who spends his vacation seeing everything through the viewfinder only to validate his experience later on the screen. Separating the illusion of the spectacle from yourself is much like unplugging a toaster from the wall that shocks you every time you touch it. Or tearing your own face off, its had to do cause it hurts. You can start by stepping back and finding nature’s frame of reference or ground. This is where you’ll get your leverage from. Hang out outside and watch a tree grow. Pack a lunch and go find a tree. Ask yourself what its motivations are? Why does it get up every morning? What does it desire? Ask it any question you can think of. Play with it, trees love people. Its answers are from the natural world. If you can learn to hear and translate its answers you can apply those to yourself once you remember that you too are part of the natural world. Our problem is that we have lost our frame of reference for our placement on the earth. The spectacle of culture has made itself our only concern. The secret is that it does this through creating an unstable vacuum in us. However luckily for us, nature abhors a vacuum. Now that we have oriented ourselves to the ground lets take a look at that content again.

If the software was a creation of our collective unconscious, what are we trying to tell ourselves? Sit with a television and ask it the same questions you asked the tree. What is your motivation? TVs are very tricky, don’t take their first answer. They don’t know what they are saying most of the time anyway so you have to listen carefully and change channels often. Come to your own conclusions. I don’t want to think I’m the only person that has to talk to the tv to find out what it wants. Jokes aside, after spending a lot of time with it you will find that it is not what is saying thats important but what its what it is omitting. All the people focused on the violence and sex imagery are simple minded. Those are the shinny that grab our attention. Through misdirection the content shows us what we are not. However if we can create a new way of watching we may see things never intended. This is what the techgnostic institute is about. Creating new ways of engaging content. Giving you the tools to actively perceive instead of being a vanishing point. Creatively re interpreting the environment.

The Post Modern era has come to an end. We content creators are the free agents in the kitchen of culture that season the meals for us on this planet. The real secret is that every person living is creating content. It is up to us to ask ourselves what is the quality of that content. If we let the market dictate what the content of our lives should be, we have moved deeper into the swamp. The market is a zero sum game of lowest common denominators. Is that the quality we want in our lives? While our government struggles to adapt, employing the dogmas of centuries past we see here on the ground that things are moving at the edge of control. Our ideas are no longer our handlers. Through the abundance of information at our fingertips we have the ability to design the content of our lives in the ways that best fit our highest conceptions of ourselves. We are a new postmodern. We have become Techgnostic.

Seeing the dinosaurs of our recent past struggle through the decentralized power structures of post modernism we can imagine that this is the same fate for the content of our current system. The ephemeral banality of popular culture siting on its alter in our living rooms mocking our thoughts, mocking our interactions, teaching us what activities to pursue and offering nothing of any real value to us as viewers. The media’s content creators want stickyness. The business of the state is to maintain control. Different words same outcomes. Control of our residual self image. History is a good example. If you control the information about where we’ve been you can define our perceptions of where we stand now. Really, show me nature’s walls, show me where my limitations are. I will show you that the less I use other peoples structures to define myself the more free I become. Information finds its life through my actions. What is the quality of my content?

The point of this website is to create that quality content. Within ourselves we must tune our media diets to resonate with the image of the unified whole that we hold in our minds which is our biological heritage. As well as reproduce the quality content we find within ourselves for the people around us. We are not alone in feeling that there is a new system coming. I think this system will be based on our content. Become the content you wish to see in the world.