BunzBlog

Moving My Main Ideas to WordPress

2011-09-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks for following me on Blogger at BunzBlog. I’ve moved my philosophical stuff to a new WordPress blog.
If you like please read my new post(s) there and follow me.

I'm doing this mainly to consolidate my ideas and gather feedback to complete a book I am writing on my discoveries inside and outside my "Self" -- the book is called Intelligent Life: How Can the Meaning of Technology Transform Us? Please let me know if you're interested in learning more.

Thanks.

Food for Thought Amid Financial Confusion

2011-08-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here’s a logical extension of where we are headed with unbridled “free enterprise” capitalism, combined with computer technology:

In a few decades, after Steve Jobs dies, Apple as the most powerful company on the planet no longer needs a CEO or board of directors – it is run entirely by artificial intelligence in computers. Most if not all of the workers are in third world countries working for minimum wage.

It makes amazing profits – but there is no one to spend the money – no one to take vacations, send children to college, make love, read a poem or enjoy a sunset.

It’s just technology accumulating more money and tabulating it in spreadsheets – some shareholders may be pleased, but the few remaining wealthy families will die of depression, because there will be no one left to envy them.

On the other hand, if we use computers consciously we might be able to connect with some amazing higher energies—as suggested in this video. As I wrote last time—perhaps the Sun has feelings? It seems that there are energy patterns based on human emotions pervading our planet.

What If... The Sun Has Feelings?

2011-05-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

The following is a fictional “article”—one wonders, however, if the fields of biophysics and astrophysics evolve at their present pace, whether it might not one day be true…

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, May 26, 2011

Editors at the prestigious scientific journal Insight made a startling discovery today, when two papers they were about to publish from divergent fields overlapped in their findings.

Neuroscientists at UCLA had used Cranial Telemetry to measure brain waves of thoughts as they passed through synapses between neurons in the prefrontal cortex in the temporal lobe of the brain to a sensitivity never before attained, and come upon a wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum never before discovered—a higher frequency and shorter wavelength than even gamma rays--and simulating light in its combined wave/particle structure.

The lead scientist had named the new waveform Prometheus wave radiation and published its frequency at far less than even gamma rays. Gamma rays have a (wavelength) nanometer of .01 and a frequency of 3 x 109 Hz; the new wave found in the brain was measured at 0.001 nm 8 x 1011 Hz.

What is even more startling is that at the same time that the Cranial Telemetry findings were submitted to Insight, astrophysicists at the M.S. Observatorio Nacional in Brazil used a refined version to create an ultra sensitive Gamma Ray Spectrometer, and discovered a new level of radiation on the Sun at the same wavelength and frequency: 0.001 nm 8 x 1011 Hz. They named their new discovery Copernican radiation and also submitted their findings to Insight, which is the only way that the connection became apparent.

While the lead scientists from the two disparate laboratories had not communicated, as they were in far different disciplines, the synchronicity of the two discoveries startled the editors at Insight and a conference is planned online to discuss the relative similarities and perhaps differences in the two waves.

However, since the prefrontal cortex is the “executive” function of the brain, regulating emotion and thought, is it now fair to wonder, what is the Sun thinking (or feeling)?

After all, the Sun provides the executive function for our Solar System.

Why Corporations Aren't People

2011-03-21T11:57:00.001-07:00

Almost twenty years ago, when my mother passed away, I had occasion to do some transactions with various banks. Most were straightforward but one of the largest in California gave me a very hard time, and I determined not to do business with them again.

Then recently another bank credit card had a limit on its cash back rewards which I reached, and at the same time the large bank advertised a friendly no limits reward policy. So I signed up.

After my first two purchases I received a phone message with no identification from “Credit Card Services” asking me to call back. When I did they wouldn’t tell me which bank and said it was a “courtesy call.”

I wanted to know who it was and called back, finally learning that it was the new credit card bank, not a surprise, and they said my account had been flagged for security.

I asked for what purchases they needed a confirmation and they indicated a $20 grocery charge I had made that day. I suggested that if they continued to call me for every charge and didn’t identify themselves on the phone I would not be a customer, and the calls stopped.

Then I finally had a cash reward available for $52.55 and wanted my cash. To get the cash sent online was a very complicated process and it had to be in $25 increments, meaning I could not get the full amount.

So I called and was told that the reason for the $25 increment was simply their “policy”, which was repeated by an indifferent supervisor with no attempt to empathize or see my point of view.

I understand their—obviously by withholding some money they keep me using the card. But at least make an attempt to see the customer’s perspective—not even the usual saccharine “we apologize for the inconvenience” from the supervisor.

I chalked it up to business as usual until I got a Customer Service survey form in email. I thought, wow, maybe they really have some semblance of interest and I can comment on my experience. That’s when I saw this in the email:

When you reach the login screen, please enter the following information:

Your project ID is: y8234x

Your login ID is: 9823456

Your password is: nrtfs

(Information is changed in the above example)

I mean really, what human would come up with a procedure like this for providing feedback, presumably to show a level of concern for the customer?

Human life is complicated enough. But as motivated as I was to perhaps indicate to them how unfeeling and indifferent they had already been, this proved to me that they had no comprehension of just how inconsiderate this request is.

This is just a small but meaningful example of the hoops that institutions put us through that make our lives so challenging today—because if we fail to comply with these “arbitrary policies” which are always for the institution’s benefit and not for ours, we know that we are in for a nightmare of bureaucratic red tape to straighten out the inevitable mess.

What makes it even worse is to watch the commercials for these companies on TV, or God forbid, to read their mission statements. One would think that the needs of the customer and care and consideration would be uppermost in their priorities. We’re always “part of the family”, dysfunctional as that family might be.

Give me a company that tells the truth. They didn’t invent the product to make our lives better and because they care—they are in it to make money.

And that is of course the crux of the matter.

Companies aren’t human because that is their real purpose, to increase the digits on a balance sheet.

The fact that humans (more or less) set the policies that maximize profit is irrelevant; the reality is that corporations are an abstraction that exist for an abstract concept: profit.

One can hear arguments that they do community work (for PR to increase profits) and provide jobs (which pay very little these days except for the exalted policy-makers)—and some of this might be mitigating factors if it weren’t for one thing.

Technology.

The example of the log in procedure, the unwanted phone calls and the televised offer of a user friendly credit card all point to the unlevel playing field between corporations and humans.

Because of our humanity—we experience the fear that lack of compliance can engender and the overwhelming presence of their megalithic intrusion into our lives and find ourselves at the mercy of these figments of human imagination.

The power struggle that looms, now that the Supreme Court has qualified them as “human” entities with rights, may well mirror or rival the intensity of the current conflicts in the Middle East.

The central problem is the worship of money and the imbalance in power between these giant electronic entities and the humans that need to deal with them.

If humans don’t wise up, things will get worse. Of course we can always fill in a customer satisfaction form – then everything will be ok.

A Matter of Scale

2011-03-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been “wasting” a lot of time thinking about strange things. For example…

DNA has been on Earth for 3.5 Billion years – within the first bacteria.

Human software maybe for 60 (circa 1950 early mainframe computers).

As we know from geneticist Juan Enriquez, among others, speaking at TED, both programs work on the same basis—change the Code and the output changes. Change the code in MS Word, the font changes. Change the code in DNA, the species characteristics change.

If both are based on an intentional idea, perhaps we can put aside for a moment the idea that life began spontaneously in the oceans, and play with the notion that maybe DNA software was “downloaded” from somewhere, someone or something.

I know it begs the question where did it ultimately originate – but we can certainly sense that it’s been running its Evolutionary “program” for a lot longer than we’ve been running Microsoft Word.

When we consider how long we’ve been using technology, that span of time is dwarfed by almost everything even in the most recent era.

When we look at our civilization in comparison to the age of primates, everything human is pretty much flattened into a relative minute of time.

And, if we take a larger perspective than that even the entire span of human history becomes almost insignificant…

Based on longevity alone one might surmise that a much Higher Intelligence has been “at work” on Earth for a span of time that is almost infinite in comparison to our own Science.

One might ask if other cultures have been in closer touch with this intelligence. I would submit that the Egyptians, with their mathematically and astronomically precise pyramids and a philosophy that did not seem to distinguish between philosophy, science and religion, or spirit and matter, might have been so connected. This would be supported by renegade archeologists who claim that the Great Pyramid is an astronomical marker and observatory and that the source of Egyptian wisdom predates the pharaohs by centuries if not millennia.

One of these archeologists puts the actual date of the Sphinx at 5000-8,000 years BC—altering our sense of the span of civilization significantly. The basis for this is the apparent presence of water erosion at the base which would have presumably been caused when the area was still fertile (not a desert).

One might well speculate how a civilization that used a different set of symbols and deities to represent what we consider psychological and metaphysical concepts might have experienced life on earth—in many ways they could be considered to have been running an entirely different “operating system.”

Of course even more “far out” theorists, starting with Erik von Daniken, author of Chariots of the Gods, have speculated that ancient monuments around the globe are evidence of visitations by extraterrestrials that might have altered the course of evolution with scientific wisdom (genetics) that we are only now discovering.

These speculations have been derided by conventional science as unfounded – but if we consider that only 750 years ago everyone in the western world believed the world was flat and now we “know” that the universe is about 14 billion years old, we might wonder what else we don’t know.

Von Daniken himself has been exposed as unscrupulous, making him almost a modern day Trickster, whose methods might be questionable but whose beliefs and theories seem eerily provocative.

For example, if you think about the Bible as a historical account of humans without technology, and consider that perhaps beings with advanced technology were present, then the “chariots in the sky” of Ezekiel would suggest flying craft, while the concept of preserving species from extinction with an “Ark” might similarly suggest a genetic storage facility—like the seed banks that the government is now creating to store the genetic source of the earth’s food supply in case of disaster or war.

Why are these issues so intriguing?

We base so much of our beliefs on left brain science without questioning it.

We take a lot of things for granted—starting with Existence.

Where did a universe with billions of galaxies that is still expanding after 14 billion years come from?

Is it an accident or a matter of chance? What would that even mean?

One might ask if such knowledge is not as far beyond our comprehension as the difference between the span of time of our own species or civilization, and the span of time of life on Earth—or the age of the solar system or our own galaxy, the Milky Way?

It is interesting to consider that our own software development in the computer field often refers to matters of “scale” –which are influenced by physical storage and computing power but also can be a function of programming acumen; in other words, new concepts like an algorithm can exponentially scale the power of a program to perform its task.

In the case of genetic decoding itself, it wasn’t until we reached the capacity of a Supercomputer that storing all of the genetic information for an individual or a species (its Genome) was possible.

So, are “primitive” cultures that “worship”, or relate directly with something Higher really so backward, compared to us, or do they have a relationship with a reality that we have lost, in spite of our magnificent scientific progress?

What would it mean to have such a relationship with reality?

Might it mean changing our own inner programming in some way, as to be able to literally connect with something much Higher and greater than ourselves?

How would that be accomplished. Does meditation begin to open such channels?

That’s what I sometimes meditate on when I have twenty minutes to spare.

Thoughts on IBM Computer v. Jeopardy Champs

2011-02-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

IBM v. Jeopardy

I was amazed as I watched the PBS Nova program about how IBM has built a computer named “Watson” to play against Jeopardy champions, starting tonight.

The program followed advancements in artificial intelligence, competitions in chess, which is essentially entirely mathematical, and then the challenge of Jeopardy, where the “questions” are really answers and are filled with tricky language and idioms that are meaningful to humans but very difficult for a machine to “understand.”

The program describes how the IBM programming team solved various stages of the problem getting Watson to be able to process greater and greater levels of nuance and meaning. Some of the issues involved having the machine be able to “hear” the incorrect answers of other contestants so it doesn’t repeat their mistakes, and learning a strategy for wagering on Final Jeopardy.

The big realization is that the computer never really understands anything.

Computer “gets” nuance by performing incredibly complex searches through data, and it plays chess by analyzing a greater set of probabilities mathematically than a human can, but in both cases, what is apparent from these incredible feats is not what it can do, but what it isn’t capable of remotely doing – which is living as a natural organic life form.

While the human contestants on Jeopardy also have a huge processing unit in their brains, they are competing using their feelings, sensations and emotions, all of which are crystallized in their grasp of he language that represents reality in human terms.

Watson is using this language entirely differently, but performing calculations and searches on words and never really “taking in” the meaning.

To me, there are two aspects of this experience that are significant.

First, the human achievement of simulating language and human understanding is incredible, rivaling perhaps going to the moon, building the Internet or decoding the genome.

But Watson defeats its human competitors through brute data processing power and technology, reminding us in the process that our own logical mind is not the entirety of what we are—as authors like Eckhart Tolle point out to us when they suggest meditation to notice that our thoughts are only part of who or what we are.

Actual organic life, of which we are a part, is a vibrant expression of sensation and feelings including love, compassion, and a myriad of other emotions, all of which the human Jeopardy contestants call upon to understand the questions in the contest. Their processing of the information is slower than Watson, but their grasp of the meaning is infinitely deeper.

This should serve to remind us that what we are a part of, and what we take for granted as we worship at the altar of science and technology, is infinitely more complex and alive than the machines we create in our image.

Neuroscience, biology and quantum physics are only beginning to penetrate the previously unknowable boundaries of what life is.

In their hubris, scientists have suggested that they have created life by manufacturing DNA, but they have inserted the DNA into organic cells that were already energetic with whatever it is that animates ordinary matter as organic – call it spirit or what have you.

Watson for all of its mathematical power doesn’t have it.

Even the simplest life form does. My cat is connected to existence and the universe in a way Watson never will be. It understands a great deal of my behavior and possibly some of my language with its body, sense and perhaps intuition.

When we examine the complexity of our DNA and see that it works on the same principles as a computer—capable of being decoded symbolically—it suggests at least to me that there is also an intelligence at work within the very nature of life. And perhaps our development of computers, programming software like that which “animates” Watson, is a resonance with whatever it is (spirit, mind, energy) that is behind existence itself.

At its most basic the intention of life is simply to be--and to survive. That is the programming explained by Darwin in his theory of natural selection and evolution.

It is the belief of some scientists like Bruce Lipton, the author of Biology of Belief, that human evolution is the process of life becoming more conscious of a higher purpose through our own growth both individually and collectively. Perhaps technology itself and projects like Watson are lessons along that path, which may serve to hopefully educate us enough to evolve and survive as a species rather than use that same technology to make ourselves extinct.

The ultimate source of our own programming may not care whether the human expression of life survives or not—it may well have infinite variety of life forms to experience itself through.

Up until recently the concept of a higher intelligence has been the province of religion which has named it God, or perhaps science fiction.

Science has avoided this area for lack of evidence; and even the creation of a Watson does not speak to higher intelligence, except for the humans who programmed it to perform its incredible calculations.

But as we watch Watson compete against humans on Jeopardy we might get a vague sense that what Watson is showing us, and which we take for granted moment to moment, is precisely what Watson is NOT, and what we ARE – sensory beings capable of some of Watson’s processing power but also infinitely more in terms of love, touch, wisdom, grace and community.

Watson might win Final Jeopardy one or more of these nights, but it will never sense itself as alive. It will never have the capacity to connect to the source of its being on an organic level, because it is not a being but a thing.

I believe that this is at the root of much of the despair and isolation that people feel as they are literally overwhelmed and consumed by technology that seems to be its own reward, continually “upgrading” to achieve a level of perfection that can only come by being natural and human.

In my own life technology has reconnected me to many old friends and given me the means to pursue many human endeavors—in that way it has been immensely empowering. But I have to be careful that the allure of technology does not also make me deadened to what truly makes me human, and disconnect me from the very source of my humanity—my connection to a higher power—and perhaps my soul.

Emotional Freedom and Positive Energy by Judith Orloff

2011-02-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I was turned on to some great resources in the form of two books, Emotional Freedom and Positive Energy by Judith Orloff – her web site also has some excellent videos.

What I really like about Dr. Orloff’s work is its warmth along with its practicality.

While both books have the usual set of self assessment tests, and are filled with anecdotes and case studies from Dr. Orloff’s practice, they both also provide pragmatic and positive steps to achieve growth and a more fulfilling life, difficult and worthy goals in our current cultural climate.

In Emotional Freedom Dr. Orloff uses the concept of “transformation” of negative emotions as a basis for being happier and more fulfilled. This is a much better foundation in my opinion that beginning with the idea that something is fundamentally “wrong” with you; for example, you’re diagnosed or feel like you’re depressed.

The fact is that life is challenging and filled with emotional issues ; alternatively avoiding these issues leads to a disconnected existence of isolation which is equally challenging.

The impressive structure of the book addresses four dimensions of emotions that Dr. Orloff suggests must each be in balance for a harmonious existence: the physical biology, a spiritual meaning of one’s state of being, the energetic power that can deplete or revive you, and finally the psychology or sources of the various feelings that can overwhelm us at various times.

She deals with each of these aspects as she identifies seven main emotions, describes their effect on us, and provides concrete recommendations for transforming the negative states into their positive counterparts.

She refers to this as “alchemy” and for those who face challenging feelings in their daily lives, learning techniques to transform emotions is worth its weight in gold.

Particularly for men, who sometimes are not as adept at articulating or identifying what they are feeling, specifically naming both the negative and positive states is particularly helpful. Here are the seven transformations Dr. Orloff cover:

In each case, the negative conditions are thoroughly described and identified along with practical steps to transform them into their positive counterparts.

What I found particularly useful was merely the ability to pinpoint common causes or triggers for the negative states and then the payoffs that ensue when one successfully transforms them through positive steps.

In Positive Energy, and earlier book, Dr. Orloff covers similar ground but from the perspective of a series of therapeutic “prescriptions” which are actually best practices for daily life. This book also features interviews with famous people who have put these practices into action in their own careers or personal lives.

Another aspect of both books that I appreciated was the identification of how our energy or emotions can become sapped. Frequently I have thought “what’s wrong with me – why can’t I cope with what others seem to handle effortlessly?”

Dr. Orloff describes toxic people and relationships as “energy vampires” and provides suggestions for how to combat their negative effects.

She also identifies societal drains – such as “techno-despair” – which can overcome us as we feel overwhelmed by the complexities and demands of the many media with which we’re constantly assaulted. (My previous blog on the stresses of working with Microsoft software are a good example of techno-despair).

Part of the benefit of her descriptions is the “aha” moment when one realizes that one is not alone in feeling challenged by these kinds of experiences, and that there are solutions.

Though she is a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, Dr. Orloff also describes herself as an “intuitive” healer and strongly suggests that as we work with our emotions, we pay particular attention to what dreams may be telling us about our waking lives.

The way that I have used Emotional Freedom is to quiet myself when I feel agitated or overwhelmed and to notice the negative emotion that seems to have me in its grip; for example, as Dr. Orloff describes, the grocery store and a checkout line might frustrate me if I feel rushed. Taking a greater perspective, however, and focusing on being patient (and creating some space for myself internally) can allow me to not only negotiate the current circumstances, but feel better about my own capability to handle other issues going forward.

Either of these books provides a helpful set of practical suggestions for getting through challenging times and situations. Taken together, they are a resource a heartily recommend.

The Stress of Technology as Exemplified by Microsoft

2010-12-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

For many years I have been writing about Microsoft products and a great deal of my success has come in making difficult situations palatable for readers; however I have gotten to the point myself where the stress of using stuff that doesn’t improve over time has almost overwhelmed me.

It is interesting to note that as far back as January 2003 Bill Gates wrote a famous memo excoriating his subordinates for problems with Windows XP and MovieMaker software. Now XP is being clung to by many users for its relative stability.

Like many users I have come to depend upon the Office suite on a daily basis for doing my work; last year I wrote a book on Using Office 2010, the latest version and scratched my head over the added complexity in order to adopt a few new features (the exception is PowerPoint which was markedly enhanced).

But these days I rely mainly on Outlook for my email and calendar; on my laptop I am still using Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista.

Last week, from one moment to the next, the Outlook slowed down in sending out email and eventually just crashed every time I tried, bring up a pale white screen that informed me it wasn’t responding and had to be shut down.

The same symptoms started happening with Internet Explorer—I suspected a virus but I use a Microsoft security suite which showed nothing wrong, and also scanned the system with another service.

The problem occurred in the evening and I thought I might have solved it before going to bed, but then it began again in the morning and I realized that unless I did some serious troubleshooting I would be unable to send and receive email or surf the web normally.

I had already done several System Restores, each taking about 15-20 minutes to try to revert my system to a time when it worked properly. I went on Google and found many references to similar problems, and over the next day and a half, here is a partial list of things I did to solve the issue:

Uninstall and reinstall Office – twice.

Run Office Diagnostics and fix

Try alternative browsers and email programs – couldn’t connect properly and the browser crashed

Tried to use Google Gmail – didn’t retrieve all of my old email in timely manner

Install service packs 1 and 2 for Vista – each taking an hour to download and another hour to install
Try to replace faulty files in Windows folder

Try to fix several registry entries manually

Use Safe Mode for Outlook 2007 – this actually got me my email to send and receive but limited some other Outlook features

Installed two cleaning programs and purchased a license for Registry Mechanic to try to fix installation and registry problems

Got rid of my Outlook data file and replaced it with a smaller file

At each turn I considered the prospect of reinstalling Vista and all of my programs clean – something I used to have to do at least once a year just to keep Windows running – but which meant hours of restoring settings and looking for programs on disk and online.

Finally the second Vista service pack and running Outlook 2007 in Safe Mode – obviously not an optimal solution, stopped the crashes in Internet Explorer and enabled me to use my email with stability and reliability… finally.

Needless to say I was exhausted by the time I reached this point and was grateful for any solution—even one as unsatisfactory as using a scaled down version of my Outlook email program.

OK – I know many readers have had similar experiences. I know of many users how have taken computers to friends or places like Best Buy to get them to work properly—and frequently they simply break down from one moment to the next.

The question is why can’t a company like Microsoft get it right? (I know many readers will suggest using Apple, and that is an appealing option except that many people have invested in Microsoft software and compatible hardware, know the programs, and Apple does sometimes have its own issues).

They key point here is that Gates’ memo was written in 2003.

We all experienced the old hourglass when things froze much earlier—and now, with Vista and Windows 7, all that seems to have changed is the hourglass has been replaced with a spinning squiggly circle to let us know things are not happening – or sometimes a shiny green slider bar.
Most of us need to rely on Google or an IT department to provide answers, if they even exist. Typing something like “Outlook crashes when sending email” can get you hundreds of possible suggestions—and if you can understand the explanations you might even find a few on Microsoft’s own web site.

And this is almost 30 years since the operating system was first created, and about two decades into Microsoft Office.

And yet – “upgrades” to these products are foisted on us every two years! Each one is chock full of new features, but the one thing we all crave – stability and reliability –apparently cannot be achieved.

We can all joke about this stuff as they do in the Mac and PC ads on TV, and shrug and muddle through, but I believe that this lack of accountability and control is taking its toll on many peoples’ psyches – I know it did on mine last week.

First there is the stress of not being able to work properly and be responsive professionally.
Then there is the added stress of trying to fix the problem and wondering if it is even soluble.
At root is the sense of things out of control and beyond our capacity to fix.

This sense is exacerbated when watching TV news, and sensing that the same symptoms are happening on a larger scale planet wide, and certainly in Washington DC.

On a more mundane level, the Microsoft experience is repeated daily with things that have gotten more complicated each time they change – like ATMs, credit cards, cell phones, satellite and cable systems, remote control and now even parking meters which demand credit cards.
Is the answer denial, withdrawal, meditation, therapy – or just acceptance?

Perhaps it’s the reason one in nine people now suffer from depression.

Our corporations like Microsoft promise so much in their advertising—would it be too much to ask that they at least deliver on some of their promises and provide a product that works stably and reliably after it’s been on the market for nearly three decades?

I don’t know what the answer is—I need to “reboot” regularly with a nap and reach for my cat.
Sometimes I think about Maui or Costa Rica, but I wonder if I can count on an Internet connection.

A Blast from the Remote Past

2010-11-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

Sixty years ago when I was a tiny boy in Vienna my parents had a nanny named Elsie with a young daughter, Sylvie. We were playmates as Elsie was close to my mom, and recently I remembered how much it hurt to leave them behind when we began the long journey to the U.S.
Many years later when my parents retired Elsie and her husband came down from Canada and visited; I can barely remember the occasion but I do recall how much my mom savored the reconnection.

Then, a couple of weeks ago on Facebook I received a message asking, “Are you the Tom Bunzel who was born in Vienna?”

The profile showed the portrait of a horse, and I knew immediately who this was. Elsie had mentioned how her daughter her taken to horses when they moved to Canada. An hour or so later I was chatting with Sylvia, whom I had known as a young boy as Sylvie.
It was remarkable how our humor and attitudes ran parallel, although our lives c
ould not have been different. Sylvia runs a bookstore and manages a farm with 20 cats and livestock. She’s been married for 40 years and has three children; I never married.

My ego got stroked by how she found me; apparently she had seen one of my technology books in a Canadian bookstore.

Both of our memories of Vienna are dim but we both stirred some recollections out of the cobwebs.

For me the main memory is of a bombed out divided city where my Czech parents were afraid of being caught or dragged outside the American sector.

Sylvie later told me a funny story about getting punished for letting a bunch of caged rabbits loose in the countryside—she was an animal lover early. She mentioned getting spanked and I know that my bottom also got it on a few occasions.

Then we arranged a video call on Skype. I was both excited and apprehensive and it was a bit odd for two older people who hadn’t seen one another for decades to suddenly be face to face.
Sylvia had two cats crawling over her and with my recent adoption of a cat we had lots to talk about on that score.

As we described our respective pasts, I was struck about how similarly difficult her acclimation to her new country was from my own.

I described how my first day in kindergarten the well meaning students had been prompted by the teacher to “help me learn English”, and they held up objects yelling, “pencil,” “pen,” “eraser,” “chalk” and so on until I cried and was overwhelmed. It wasn’t until another teacher took an interest in me helped me learn how to read that I settled down and could go to school without crying.

Sylvie had had a similar experience – she had not been allowed to begin school for a year because she still spoke only German, which put her a year behind.

I was struck by how much this person who was a relative stranger on the one hand shared with me in terms of a common life experience during our formative years—experiences and feelings which wouldn’t have been similarly understood by many of my closest friends.

I tried to evoke memories of my parents and a connection to my distant past and felt bad that I couldn’t come up with memories that might help her. At times I felt a bit awkward and distant, and yet at others the reminder of a legacy that goes without attention for days or weeks at a time reminded me of who I am and where I came from.

Many of my more recent memories of my parents are from their time in retirement in California, and sometimes I can go back to my boyhood in New York.

But here was a link to a childhood that I know still affects me, and yet which I largely know mainly from my parents’ description.

But the kind and funny woman who I saw in the webcam made that personal history real in a way that no photograph or dim memory could. As we shared more of our parents’ early difficulties and our own experiences growing up, it was as though a new pathway reopened to my earliest years.

A day later the impact of this sudden opening is still with me. I can only wonder how the man I am today was formed by experiences that occurred when Sylvie and I were playmates, and which we can barely even recall together today.

For me, it’s interesting to consider how just a few years ago I might have resisted even opening this small door to my distant past, preferring to leave the comfort of my present circumstances undisturbed.

But now I saw the synchronicity as amazing and exciting, as I reflect more deeply on just exactly who I really am, where I came from and why I showed up here in the first place.

Toward a New Theory of Bio-Relativity?

2010-10-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

One of the most common phrases scientists have used when talking about a search of for other life is to possibly find “life as we know it.” This is a telling phrase because so much of what we can experience depends precisely on who and what we are.

As neuroscience advances, it is getting closer and closer to locating thought and ideas at the molecular level, and as such a field is evolving known as “bio-physics.”

It may be worth speculating then whether just as Einstein revolutionized Newtonian physics with his Special and General Theories of Relativity, it would now be appropriate to consider new theories that take into account the nature of the human being him/herself—and with it the very nature of consciousness.

If we assume that consciousness—whatever it is—manifests through our physical being while we live, it is obvious that the nature of consciousness is a function of at a minimum the circuitry of our brain, and as is becoming more and more apparent, also the entire physiology of our body/mind.

And we can probably surmise that consciousness is evolving. We know that embryos go through the various stages of evolution from single cell organisms, to reptiles, to mammals and finally humans.

We also sometimes talk about a “Reptilian” brain, which is presumably more primitive, reactionary and less capable of warmth or compassion than a mammalian brain. We might even presume that compassion evolved with warm blooded mammals, and among some humans at least, it is hopefully still evolving.

When I look at my cat, I can get a sense of warmth and love but I also know instinctively that if I try to “figure out what she’s thinking”, I am wasting my time. She is also reacting in many ways—and she is literally on a different frequency than I am—with some overlap which involves shared needs and a bond that can gradually develop.

I think where Eckhart Tolle refers in his writing to knowing some cats as “zen masters,” what he means is that because they don’t have an egoic mind like humans, they are always in the present, and so when they repose they exude a sense of calm that many humans would envy.

So again, while it may seem obvious to the point of irrelevance, what we know, experience and can see is a function of the frequency on which we’re operating. In fact, our eyes can see only a certain range of light; but through instruments we know other frequency are operating and influencing; for example gamma or x-rays which are beyond our ability to naturally perceive. Similarly dogs hear in a range beyond our own, and dolphins communicate with sound in ways we need instruments to monitor.

So as our study of consciousness and mind goes to the subatomic or quantum level, what does the Einsteinian model of relativity potentially suggest for being itself?

General Relativity as I understand it says that it is the geometry of space and time which is influenced by whatever matter is present – space is curved – and gravitational forces bend space so that time is relative and truly moves at a different rate depending upon where you are—it’s “relative.”

Special Relativity says that the laws of physics (nature) are the same for observers in uniform motion relative to each other and the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers.

A famous example is of an observer on the ground watching an airplane overhead, on which a flight attendance is walking. Her speed for the observer on the ground will be different than for someone seated on the plane; there is no objective motion—everything is linked to a frame of reference (of an observer).

How might we slightly adjust some of these concepts—speculatively—to a theory of being or consciousness?

Well, our frame of reference, besides being a function of where we are, is also a function of what we are.

If we begin with the fact of our existence and bodily nature, we can say that what we can know or experience is a direct function of our being; for example, we perceive in a space of three dimensions so that if other dimensions exist, they would be beyond our direct perception.
Science generally presupposes that what we are is all that there is, or is all that is knowable.

But though we might not be able to measure or completely comprehend it—we know that we have a mind; perhaps we can make a leap of faith that nothing can exceed the speed of mind.

If we consider that a mind functions through thought—where is a thought? Presumably in the quantum space between two neural cells as they “fire.” This may well make a thought outside of space/time in the same way that a subatomic particle may appear or disappear beyond cause and effect.

Perhaps not mathematically, but more poetically, we might then create a formula something like
M=C/P –

or Mind is the result of consciousness based on physiology – our software running through our hardware and expressed, as Epigenetics has suggested, through our genetic code responding to the environment.
These concepts would shift the assumption of science that nature is objectively knowable to a more reasonable position that it is only knowable based upon our observation of it—and the nature of the observer is a critical and generally ignored factor.

This concept was known as “being in the world”—seeing existence as a process by the philosophical school of Phenomenology and much of today’s “new age” thinking deals with the potential of knowing ourselves better so that nature becomes more understandable to us and we evolve in some way.

Certainly the absence of such a position is at the heart of scientific efforts to “control” nature with the assumption that we can know it objectively without taking into account our own being and participation in its processes, have yielded disastrous results and miscalculations.

As neuroscience delves more deeply into our brain and our “being”, however, if we begin to think in terms of relative scale to the subatomic and perhaps even the astronomical, we may begin to fathom and ultimately discern the true nature of mind or consciousness.

One effort along these lines is the trend toward meditation and its scientific basis—where we can change our nature (human alchemy) and thereby experience life differently—and alter our own reality.

And as we decode our genetic makeup (with vast areas of “junk DNA” that is simply not decodable or knowable at present) we can get a sense that higher levels of intelligence might become knowable and accessible—perhaps even intelligence that is not dependent on physical form for existence or influence.

Our very sense of life “as we know it” would expand—and with it we might get a more realistic sense of our true relative position in the universe, as sense of awe, reverence or purpose we may have of which we’ve been unaware, and strike a balance and harmony with existence/nature, instead of trying to control and manipulate it.

Such an opening and change in our attitude to existence may also, I would suggest, make it possible to connect with higher levels of life and intelligence which have to this point been largely hidden from us, as we’ve evolved from only the single cell organisms of eons ago to human beings at an evolutionary crossroads, and still largely unaware of our true nature, mind and purpose.

Reconcile or Perish

2010-09-30T12:07:00.001-07:00

The heartbreak of watching television, particularly the news, is seeing the apparent chasm of understanding between the two hugely polarized segments of society, here in the U.S. and also around the world.

To summarize the essence of the conflict as I see it:

On the one hand there are Traditionalists who adhere to a strict set of moral standards that they firmly believe come from a higher power that renders those ideas sacrosanct and immutable.

On the other side there are what we might call Progressives that believe we can "improve" the circumstances of human existence according to ideas that come from human beings and that scientific advancement, along with removing past moral divides among people, will create a better world.

The choice of terms or names is not meant to favor either of these camps over the other.

The heartbreak, for me, is to see both sides mauling one another verbally and sometimes even physically, and generally parroting the pronouncements of the most shrill and extreme proponents of their respective positions, without any compassion or understanding of the other side.

To watch cable news in particular is to never see spokespeople for either side actually listen, take in, weigh and appreciate the point of view of the other.

To allude to a Christian concept, or actually one attributed to a spiritual master named Jesus, the idea of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and thereby at least being open to his/her ideas, is absent from current dialog.

To see children thrust into these disputes, carrying placards and voicing ideas that they have gotten from others, is even more disturbing.

Clearly if these two camps cannot somehow be reconciled, our society is in serious peril. To his credit Obama mentioned this in his campaign but for various reasons his administration has so far been unable to effect a way of letting both sides hear the other and work out their differences.

I believe that a road to reconciliation may exist if we align the two camps to what they hold sacred; for the Traditionalists that would be God or Religion; for the Progressives that would be their God or Religion, namely science (or what man has discovered and achieved).

Perhaps the preeminent proponent of the Scientific perspective would be Stephen Hawking, who in his lastest book, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, has attempted to strip all mention of God out of any explanation of reality, claiming essentially that natural phenoma alone can explain existence and that a "multiverse" came into existence out of nothing.

On the surface, this point of view flies in the face of the Traditionalists and Religious community.

But what was interesting was to see these ideas discussed on of all things The Larry King Show, and to hear Deepak Chopra "take in" the Hawking/Mlodinow ideas and describe them lovingly as actually embracing both the sacred and the idea of higher consciousness.

What Chopra suggested as he questioned the co-author, Mlodinow (with whom he will now collaborate on a new book) is that the very natural laws on which Hawking bases is complete theory of everything are at their base… Intelligent –of an order of intelligence much higher and far vaster than what ordinary common sense would have us believe.

When Quantum Physics demonstrates that at the subatomic level particles behave or exist only according to how they are observed, that firmly places an 800 lb. gorilla into the domain of science—namely Consciousness.

Whether you use the term "God" or "Natural Law" to refer to higher levels of intelligence or consciousness that are being discovered at the macro and micro-cosmic levels makes no difference—clearly such energies, forces or realities are now accepted by both camps under different names.

From this perspective, with a sense of awe of the unknowable that seems to lie at the heart of smallest and the grandest scales of at least our portion of the "multiverse", I would submit that the Scientific Progressives might offer an olive branch to the Traditionalists by acknowledging that certain things are in fact sacred or simply "higher": for example, Life.

After all, for all of our advances we have still not managed to create life out of non-life; we can only manipulate life for our purposes.

Now before Progressives excoriate me for threatening womens' reproductive rights let me say that this doesn't necessarily mean the adoption of one extreme belief or another.

Rather, it should merely represent the first step for showing respect for one aspect of the beliefs of the Traditionalists; Life is not possible without a degree of Consciousness—whether we call that God or simply higher form of Intelligence or Energy.

One would hope that once the scientific community can come to this conclusion and become open to the concept of the higher or the sacred, that the less extreme members of the Traditional camp will similarly open and accept some of the tenets of the Progressives—namely that we are all expressing the same genes (or God's children) and worthy of respect.

In a nutshell, we are not better than them—we literally are them. We're all really the same stuff.

One would hope that this sort of reconciliation in the middle might lead to a way for new leaders to emerge and truly begin to solve the many problems facing our society by respecting the foundational beliefs of both sides, as they begin to come together.

Unfortunately this can only be achieved if we begin to re-examine and alter our attention and subjugation to the mass media, because clearly the FOX/Traditional and the CNN/Progressive channels have a vested interest in continuing to foster hostility and controversy.

I believe that this is where the Internet comes in. If the Internet and social media can foster a new paradigm of communication that is not based on advertising and conflict (and mass consumption) but rather participation and acceptance, reconciliation has a chance.

At its core, true social media is exactly that, embracing the social and cooperative and rejecting the zero sum concept of limited resources and winners and losers. It represents reconciliation through listening and understanding.

It's important that individuals embrace the values of openness and tolerance for other ideas and perhaps even change their own points of view if properly influenced, so that the social institutions that are currently unable to transcend sharp divisions can do so and begin to function effectively once again.

The essence of such an attitude is compassion; I happen to believe it is of a higher order of intelligence in the same way that consciousness or life is, and that if we don't begin to manifest it in significant ways we're in serious trouble, both domestically and globally.

Tools of Engagement: How the World of Communication is Changing

2010-09-27T12:16:00.001-07:00

I'm proud to announce that my new book, "Tools of Engagement: Presenting and Training in a World of Social Media," is now available at Amazon.com. As someone who has written extensively on video and presentation, I wanted this book to reflect the many changes that are impacting how we communicate with each other using technology.

The main theme of the book is that where presentations used to be targeted one-time events, they are now part of an ongoing conversation, and while authority figures may still claim the main podium, all presenters subject to a new democratic set of expectations of participation and engagement by their audience.

I strongly urge anyone with a message to avoid a "broadcast mentality" and simply give a PowerPoint presentation—and hope for the best. Such a strategy is doomed to failure today on many levels.

First there is the expectation of engagement and participation by any modern audience. Audiences expect a speaker or expert to have done a lot of research into their needs, and to be transparent and available online prior and subsequent to any presentation or event for interaction and feedback.

Whether the information is for internal or public consumption, a speaker today needs to have a presence, either through a blog, YouTube channel, Facebook group or event page, or some other interactive venue where the audience can get in touch and develop a sense of who they are—and often begin to interact with the speaker and become involved in the material directly.

There is also the phenomenon of the "Backchannel"; which is the reality that many of those attending any presentation are actively commenting and reacting with smartphones or PDAs, so that if the speaker is not aware of the sense of the audience, or engaged with the commentary, he or she will be tuned out.

Getting a sense of the reality of social media allows a presenter or trainer to be attuned to the needs of an audience and provide significant value. In terms of ordinary PowerPoint—it's the difference between trying to impress an audience with a spinning logo and information about YOU, as opposed to leading with insightful questions and foreknowledge of issues of importance to your audience.

For example, if a presenter has been active on blogs, monitoring and participating in Twitter and Facebook, or uploading video or images relevant to their field, they will generally find a receptive and knowledgable audience eager to hear more and open to calls to action.

These ideas have been well documented and presented in popular books like Groundswell, Tribes and Trust Agents, so what I've tried to do in my book is to provide some examples of the actual social and desktop tools and how to make them work effectively together.

For example, while PowerPoint is a staple for live presentations, its stale title and bullet slides are old hat, and professional speakers generally opt for more powerful visuals using image metaphors, analogies and diagrams. What I try to do is suggest how social tools like YouTube can set the stage for PowerPoint prior to an event, and then YouTube and its cousins SlideShare and AuthorStream (presentation hosting sites) can become powerful sources of additional content to maintain a connection with an audience.

I am also a big believer in the new web conferencing technologies which provide instant communication with a large group of attendees, but have the issues of maintaining a connection with an invisible audience, using just the power of the speaker's voice, message and visuals and graphics. In a world where getting anywhere is proving to be a challenge, going to a virtual event is proving very popular, but it has its own set of rules, risks and rewards.

What I want to do in Tools of Engagement is provide a reader with enough ideas and scenarios to spark the imagination in whatever his or her field may be—from an entrepreneur to a marketing executive at a large organization, to engage their colleagues and customers in ways that make the style of presentation effective and valuable.

I conclude the book with some speculation as to how social media and its impact on the organization may be evolutionary, in my hope that as a new "worldwide nervous system" the social Internet will either force or simply shift organizations to be more responsive to human and planetary needs, as opposed to simply making profits for shareholders.

Certainly it seems as though brands are having to listen more and more to customers online—we can only hope that this trend also translates into more than just public relations initiatives but eventually, with the instant involvement of customers and workers through the web—to a more natural and real awareness of higher values, like cooperation, philanthropy, compassion and wisdom.

If you're interested in discussing issues raised in the book, please feel free to comment here and perhaps we can demonstrate the power of social tools for engagement in a flourishing dialog.

Twitter and the Power of Now

2010-08-16T12:44:00.001-07:00

I've been intrigued for some time by the attraction of Twitter to the social media crowd, and more specifically the concept of @Jeff Pulver, the creator of the 140Conf, about the "real time Internet" and immediate communication.

Last week they had a reunion cocktail party at a trendy bar in Hollywood and you couldn't help but be impressed by the energy in the crowd. Everyone was upbeat and thrilled to reconnect in person with those with whom they'd been in touch electronically, and much of the time was also spent taking pictures together which were immediately posted online.

A cynic might well judge that much of these connections are superficial, but if one opens one's mind to what might really be happening, Pulver may be onto something.

Like many my age I had an initial aversion to the triviality of much of Twitter and the seeming irrelevance of much of what comes through. I got into trouble early on when I commented sarcastically when one of the Twitter heavyweights let everyone his plane was taking off, and I tweeted essentially, "So what?" It was later explained to me that while it may have been pointless to me, it had significance to some of his followers, and that's why he wrote it.

Beyond the spam and the "brand building" there is the sense of being ultimately connected in a world in which the soul is screaming out for being part of a larger meaningful whole.

While an older person like me might scoff at minions checking in and "connecting" endlessly on their iPhones and Blackberries, I got a profound taste of it today.

As I was thinking about this I received an email from a close friend letting me know that he had just had successful emergency surgery and was recovering well—I had had no idea.

My initial instinct was to email back, but instead I picked up the phone and was able to hear his voice and reassure him with mine—it was truly the power of now.

Eckhart Tolle of course wrote a book by that title, and while it may appear that tweeting is the antithesis to being in the moment—as it may appear an incessant distraction—from the perspective of many who are its adherents it seems to connect them in a larger network in which they know about earthquakes, as well as Michael Jackson's death, in the moment.

How this ultimately plays out is anyone's guess. When others ask me about Twitter I tend to suggest that the key is filtering those who you follow with Lists to keep it relevant—but who is to say?

One of the tenets of meditation and being in the "Now" is to focus on one's connection with all beings. Another is to sense compassion and understanding for others. Both of these are actually components of Twitter, where sometimes there seems to be compassion for people one doesn't even know.

That's why on another level it was refreshing to see people hugging at a cocktail party with those they'd only previously "met" as "@+identities" online.

Is the depth of connection between those who connect online comparable to that with an old friend from high school who has just faced a life crisis?

The ego would be quick to judge it as an emphatic no. But maybe it is precisely this aspect of connection—it's ability to transcend individual ego—that is most significant.

But what if evolution toward community is a real global phenomenon that is critical to the survival of our species? That's the thesis of one biologist, Bruce Lipton, who believes that we are literally learning to reprogram our own genetics toward cooperation from competition, in his book The Biology of Belief.

Then even if many tweets seem irrelevant, our exercising this new nervous system with which to stay connected might actually be meaningful in a larger context. Since we're only at the beginning, maybe opening our minds to the power of now, online, is something we should seriously consider.

We Really Don’t Know Very Much

2010-06-11T12:03:00.001-07:00

For the past year and a half I've been privileged to know a very prominent psychologist who combines her discipline with extensive work in the incredible field of neuroscience.

And, recently I experienced some profound changes—I recognized that I had shifted my outlook and way of relating to others in a way that probably was the result of a specific physiological change (possibly in my brain) and asked about it from a scientific perspective when she replied with the words that are the title of this blog: "We really don't know very much."

I was taken aback and shaken by this remark for a number of reasons—at first it was a shock because if anyone could give me an answer to why my life had changed by adopting a cat, it was her. She has advanced degrees, years of research and experience, and incredible insight. Yet that was her initial response.

But her subsequent explanation of my response was more poetic and metaphorical than one might expect from a scientist – she said that I had opened a door into another area with unknown results, and I was experiencing a depth of emotion I hadn't let in previously.

I couldn't argue with this description. The undeniable reality is that since I let another small living being into my life, and connected and let it attach itself to me and show mutual affection, many things that used to weigh me down seem less significant.

But does that mean the cat is like Prozac? Does it directly affect specific areas of the brain or emotions in ways we can document and understand?

My understanding is that the actual effects of chemicals like Prozac aren't entirely understood either; for one thing the results vary from person to person. Certainly there are volumes written about how drugs work with the brain chemistry and activate other chemicals like serotonin, or inhibit them.

And science goes on to unearth a tremendous amount of information about how we work, our world, and even the universe; for example, we seem to "know" that the universe is over 14 billion years old.

But returning to the psychologist's remark, I think what really troubles most thinking and feeling people is that yes – we really don't know jack about things that are really important.

That's because despite our worship of science and technology, the really big questions either cannot or will not be addressed by science.

For example, this 14 billion year old universe – what the heck is it? Why is it here? Why are we here? Where did it come from? Where did everything else come from? And so on.

The last time many of us raised these questions we were children and our parents and perhaps a teacher indulged us briefly but then gently patted us on the head and suggested we not concern ourselves with such matters.

When I studied philosophy in college I discovered that the prevailing school of thought in academia simply dismissed these types of questions as "unknowable" and redefined philosophy to those things we could know with conviction, narrowing its scope to a degree that make it, to my mind, irrelevant.

Other schools of philosophy did address areas of "being" and "existence", but these were excommunicated outside the bounds of holy science and thinkers like Sartre and Camus were seen more as novelists. Other philosophers in this realm, whom I read, remain relatively obscure even though they were courageous enough to attempt to introduce concepts only recently embraced by quantum physics: that knowing anything without taking the "knower" into account (namely that illusive thing we sometimes call consciousness) makes any attempted explanation of reality incomplete and erroneous.

Indeed even Einstein, who probably knew more than almost anyone else on the planet about how things may really be, made frequent mystical remarks about his own relative ignorance in the face of all that might be knowable.

Why is this so important?

Because when we think we really know stuff, individually and as a species, we really screw up.

For example, we know that more is better and more profit is best of all, so maximizing shareholder value is more important than taking into account the well being of the planet that sustains us.

This is only the most currently obvious example of our ignorance of our own ignorance.

Fortunately it may serve to make many more people raise the question of priorities and what is really important and at stake for our species.

At the same time many individuals and groups are engaged in various paths of "personal growth" similar to what ultimately led me to the conversation with the psychologist.

There are many different versions of what may be "other doors" that can be opened at various times that bring a different level of insight and experience beyond the logical.

At the same time, an attitude that must be nurtured to sustain these sorts of activities is one of comfort with "not knowing." Another psychologist I know uses the phrase "I don't know is a good place to be."

On the other hand, when we interact or particularly when we consume mass media, we are bombarded with people who seem to be very certain of a particular truth.

But only relatively recently has the prevailing attitude of the public turned to rampant cynicism, to the point where if you try to sell a product , service or idea, you'd better have more than just facts but the concrete experience of other people to back you up to sustain credibility.

What people are slowly discovering, I believe, is that what is really true is also a function of who and what we are – and as we study that we constantly fall into error, get in our own way, and come up against our own physical, mental and perhaps spiritual limitations in our quest.

Go back to the age of the universe. It's easy to say the words, "14 billion years" – but can you really grasp the meaning or scale of that span of time?

Is it not likely that anything that "lives" or exists for such a span is beyond the comprehension of a being that lives for perhaps 1200 months, with a brain that evolved over perhaps less than a million years?

And yet we can seem to connect with such an experience, sometimes briefly and fleetingly, but not with the part of the brain that "knows" the age of the universe, but rather the part of the brain that feels it.

That's why adopting a cat changed my life. It altered my daily experience in ways that are unfathomable without engaging the other part of the brain – that part that laughs at the cat's antics, loves the feel of its fur, and is constantly surprised by its independent being and vitality, and particularly relishes its love as it licks my hand or nose in greeting and warmth.

Perhaps in the next century geneticists and scientists will map the chromosomes and neural circuits that make these reactions possible, and graph them to within milliseconds of the response.

But they still will not touch the meaning of my connection with the cat, or with other humans, unless they take into account "the other doors" that we sometimes open– those parts of existence that defy our current logic.

Some branches of science – like quantum physics and astronomy are already there – coming up against incongruities in reality that are functions of our own limitations as beings.

14 billion years. Billions of galaxies as big as the Milky Way. Don't think about it—you can't. Just feel its meaning—we really don't know very much.

Human Hubris – “We Created Life (In a Lab)”

2010-06-03T12:18:00.001-07:00

Several weeks ago we were treated to the following headline on CNN, "Genetics pioneer J. Craig Venter announced Thursday that he and his team have created artificial life for the first time."

Under closer scrutiny, it turns out that Venter's team had used code created on a computer to sequence DNA that was then placed in an already living bacteria, and "reprogrammed" it – they used the term "booted it up."

This speaks again to two important points.

First, that there is an underlying aspect of natural life that follows logical laws and programs that can be altered genetically, just as we reprogram software in our PCs. If I change the code for a web page, for example, it displays differently in a web browser. Turns out if I change the genetic structure of a cell, it behaves differently.

But then the second question arises, where did the cell itself come from? – it turns out that it is life that was already in existence – it was not "created" in a laboratory.

And based on the genetic code, what is it really doing? It is interacting with an environment according to laws being unearthed daily by geneticists, biologists and even quantum physicists and more and more we discover that is doing so intentionally.

Bruce Lipton, in his book The Biology of Belief describes his own epiphany as a biological researcher when he discovered that the same single cell bacteria with identical DNA will behave differently in different environments (they don't really have brains). It led him to the conclusion that the brain of the cell is not the nucleus (or the DNA, which we can now sequence) but rather the cellular membrane, that exchanges energy with the environment and in effect decides what to do next.

In the computer analogy with life, it turns out that what we can replicate genetically is simply the code, which is amazing enough, but using the web page analogy, it means that we know how to rewrite the HTML, but we still have no idea of how to create a "natural" web browser (the organism that manifests the code and responds to input from the user and the Web (environment) -- or the intelligence behind it.

The problem for our civilization is becoming more and more apparent.

Our incredible scientific achievements have certainly given us what seems like mastery over our environment – until an event like the BP Oil Spill occurs.

I believe that the reason this is so troubling to so many people is that it is a stark reminder that we're not as smart as we think we are, and that when we follow our analytical minds at the expense of our emotional senses in the belief that "we know better", we get into some serious trouble.

I might add that it is not just BP that is at fault. Our entire culture has blindly followed the flag of "progress" and technology to this brink of self extermination—to the extent that we drive on the freeway and power our air conditioners, we are all part of the problem.

BP itself is an interesting phenomenon. It is a corporation comprised of organic beings but dedicated to an abstract concept – profit. One could say that its DNA (corporate bylaws?) program it one task – maximizing shareholder value.

Where does its lofty mission statement fit in? Probably in that part of the corporate brain that is similar to our own – dedicated to rationalization and self delusion.

The Oil Spill is just the latest in many events that dramatize our disconnection from the natural universe of which we are a part (and now technologically apart).

If you read the mission statements of credit card companies, tech firms, law firms and any other corporate entity, and compare them to their actual behavior you will see the same disconnect.

Watch commercials on television and you will think these are wonderful companies creating products and services for the benefit of mankind. Get into a conflict with any corporate entity and discover how human they are as you try to navigate through a voicemail menu specifically designed to keep you from talking to another human being.

The same technology that has provided so many real benefits to mankind, and many through corporations that have brought them to market, has also now separated many of us from our own natural feelings and better instincts in order to achieve what the mass media suggests will satisfy us – wealth, fame, a full head of hair, and so on.

No wonder so many people are on antidepressants and unhappy – even when they have attained many of the material rewards our culture can provide.

In his book (and upcoming film) Life Inc., Douglas Rushkoff maintains that "most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they're no longer even aware of it."

To me that is why the BP Oil Spill is a wakeup call. As we discover inevitably (as 60 Minutes has already reported) that the entire episode might have been avoided if safeguards and regulations had been put into place – but for the exigencies of profit and performance (getting the oil out faster), maybe people will realize the consequences of making real corporate values of pure profit (and not their mission statements) as priorities.

Of course in this case it is so dramatic and tragic how these values impact not only the human species, but all life on the planet and particularly the oceans. While global warming is in the headlines, the oceans have already taken many body blows with toxic chemicals and wastes and many "dead zones" where no life can exist. This will only make it much worse.

The question is whether this will truly wake us up? Many humans and animals will suffer, to be sure, and the extent is yet to be determined—every gallon that leaks into the sea increases the jeopardy for organic life on the planet.

It is interesting that many (and I include myself) see social media as a hopeful sign for calling corporate entities to account and reintroducing the voices of individual humans into the discussions of what matters most in our world.

So far, predictably, there is a movement to boycott BP on Twitter and that certainly has its place.

But I think we need to look much more deeply into our entire relationship with the natural world out of which we come, and in which we live. We need to realize that we still cannot "create life"; we can manipulate it and certainly threaten it and maybe even make ourselves extinct.

Or we can continue our evolution by reexamining our relationship with the natural world, with our scientific breakthroughs as a guide, and realize that whether you believe the natural world was created, evolved or just simply is – it represents a level of mind and intelligence far beyond our own, and when we think we know better, we do so at our peril.

Life, the earth, existence and indeed the universe itself is sacred in a way that transcends all of our arguments about religion or philosophy. We've shot a puny spacecraft out of the solar system; the universe is vaster than we can even comprehend or imagine.

We are better served by also feeling and sensing our rightful relationship with what is – and consciously proceeding based on a degree of reverence that it sometimes takes a disaster to make us understand.

Feline with Benefits

2010-05-26T12:22:00.001-07:00

It's been almost two weeks since I adopted my cat, Eva, and we've both needed to adjust and have learned more about each other.

Probably because of her sense of security, Eva is not as affectionate as she seemed to be when she first arrived. She basically conned me into thinking that she was going to be a real snuggly little beast; the first afternoon, possibly because she was unsure, she burrowed into my armpit and let me hold and stroke her.

This continued the next couple of nights, but then abruptly her nocturnal nature kicked in, and she decided that nighttime was for frolicking, not nuzzling. When I left the bedroom door open she would jump up when I was going to sleep, and accept a few strokes, but soon enough she had her own agenda.

Sometimes she wanted to hop on my chest and legs – not conducive to sleep – and then she brought her favorite toy, a little felt mouse, into the bed and wrestled with it. I decided to toss it out the door, which was a big mistake, because for Eva that became an invitation to a game of fetch, and the faster the mouse was tossed, the more rapidly she was back on the bed with it.

I felt bad but by the fourth or fifth night I knew I had to close the bedroom door to get some sleep, and let her explore the living room. I felt really guilty and worried that she would be crying outside the door or scratching to get in, but Eva doesn't seem to be the sentimental type – she accepted her exile gracefully and was none the worse for it the next morning when I opened the door at 5:30 (out of guilt) to let her in.

Unfortunately she came barreling in with her toy mouse expecting that I was eager to play.

Not so much.

It was at this point that part of me began wondering whether this had been a mistake. But I managed to extend the time before bedroom access until later and later in the morning with no reprisals on her part, and found that flinging the infernal mouse around the room was somewhat cathartic.

Mornings have always been a challenge for me and for better or worse the sudden presence of this other intelligence with its own needs has taken some of the focus off myself and made it easier to bear getting up.

And Eva trained me well, because she would then reward me with a bit of purring and licking, and actually allow me to stroke her very soft fur. Not that she would make this easy – I would have to leave the comfort of my pillow to lean down and pet her.

During the first few days Eva also seemed as she had been when I met her to be fairly nonverbal and quiet. But that also changed.

When she hops on the bed or careens into the bedroom, she announces her arrival with a distinctively shrill noise. She has also evidenced a very unique sound when she is annoyed – as when I reach to pick her up and she doesn't want to, or if the toy is suddenly placed in an unfamiliar location. As the weeks progressed I have actually noted difference nuances to these sounds to the point where I can almost image her saying, "Oh cool, he's in the bedroom, let's play fetch with the mouse!"

Her enthusiasm and energy are contagious, even for a curmudgeon like me.

One thing that intrigues me is how my rather mundane apartment is a source of constant stimulation, intrigue and curiosity. Any new cabinet I open, or closet that becomes exposed, is a journey into a new world for her – sniffing, looking, and inspecting.

Her favorite spots are currently an older desk chair near the balcony window, and the top drawer of my dresser, where she can lie and sleep with only her eyes staring out for hours at a time.

I find myself wondering what she is doing if I don't see her, and as I come home to the apartment I am already looking forward to hearing her chirping sound and seeing what she's up to.

I'm not enamored of sifting the litter box and cleaning up after the few times she missed was no pleasure, but I soon was able to balance these unpleasantries against the surge of pleasure I would feel when I was feeling dull, and suddenly a raised tail would glide by and I would realize I was no longer alone.

While the honeymoon is over with respect to nuzzling my armpit, Eva is still affectionate on her own terms. If I get down on the carpet I can sometimes rub her belly and neck – other times she will scoot away – it's like a mind game.

She will allow herself to get picked up most of the time and seems to enjoy being held briefly – but the fantasy of having her peacefully next to me while I watch the Lakers is not happening.

Maybe it's because everything is still so new. Birds fly by, the dishwasher churns on, a toilet flushes, and she needs to know what the heck that is.

I have to admit that I never understood or appreciated other peoples' stories about their pets, and how their cats did "funny" things. But now I've become one of those people – imagine that – almost 1000 effortless words about a creature with whom I now cohabitate.

The biggest adjustment for me has been not being in complete control of my environment for the first time -- and being subject to interruptions and distractions at odd moments. But I've begun to balance that against the feeling I get when she grooms and licks my hand and purrs as I gently stroke her.I wonder what she's doing now…

Why Is Everyone Angry?

2010-05-25T12:17:00.001-07:00

You can't watch CNN or the evening news without seeing a segment on "voter anger" with a poll and frequently interviews with disgruntled citizens. A great deal of focus has been given to the Tea Party movement which seems to be a festering, seething mass of pissed off people over various issues.

Certainly a lot of the anger stems from how many peoples' circumstances changed dramatically in the financial meltdown of 2008. Suddenly many families were under the gun, losing homes and jobs, through no fault of their own—but through the apparent greed and market manipulations of Wall Street speculators and the real estate bubble.

When emergency measures were taken to stem the economic collapse, anger focused on the massive debt that has been incurred nationally – and this has fueled the Tea Party in particular.

To me, the underlying thread to all of this distrust and anger is one central theme – loss of control.

I believe it really started with 9-11, when people suddenly realized that there were hostile forces that threatened them—we were the target of predators.

This survival wakeup call triggered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which gutted our economy in many ways and made the financial meltdown worse than it was.

Combine this with natural disasters like Katrina and the many floods, and our inability to marshal all of the resources normally available to deal with such situations, and people became fearful.

Through the economic collapse and these disasters one heard and read of many families who had counted on our institutions and insurance companies to come through—and in so many cases they were thwarted and disappointed – so fear turned to anger.

On a deeper level, before 9-11 and through the economic prosperity of the 80's people felt secure and relatively safe economically and socially. Things seemed to work. Now suddenly it seems to many people that matters are beyond the capability of institutions and leaders to address.

Nowhere is this more dramatically brought out than in the oil spill in the Gulf. All of the worst aspects of the previous problems are coming to the surface in this situation: a multi-national corporation that cut costs for safety and lost eleven people through its negligence; an inadequate government and institutional response; and the suffering of millions of innocent people.

It is becoming apparent that BP was able to circumvent regulation of its activities due to its lobbying and connections in government, just as the coal industry was able to overlook safety standards in favor of profit.

In addition, on a daily basis, citizens are up against banks, credit card companies, and bureaucracies of all kinds that take advantage of their power to make profits at human expense. Medical insurance companies that throw older or unhealthy individuals off their books are just one example – we all know of many more.

Worse, cynicism abounds. As you watch television you see the advertising of many of these companies that promise so much, and how they care for you and you're like family; they have wonderful mission statements but then when you have a problem or need them to address a human concern, their procedures and bureaucracy is strategically designed to avoid communication and beat you down.

So is wholesale anger against corporations justified?

A conservative web site that I read, written by a friend, attackmachine.com, takes the position that corporations are responsible for much that is good in our country:

corporations are owned by free citizens, and are just a way we organize ourselves economically in the modern world
corporations provide the bulk of our employment
corporations produce the wealth that makes our lives easy: the plentiful food, the cars, the drugs and medical innovations that allow our longevity, the amusements that enrich us etc.

And that is what makes it complicated – we all want the benefits, but there is a suspicion that these behemoth entities, many of them multinational, are now running amok.

At the same time, many of us participate in an economy and use social media, for example, build our own brands and support the brands of corporations we use and even admire.

My father was born in 1900 and saw the entire 20^th century for better and for worse; he fled what was then Czechoslovakia in 1949 to escape from the Communists who stifled free enterprise and wanted to control all aspects of the economy and personal lives.

This is the anathema that the Tea Party folks are afraid of as government tries to fix health care and regulate Wall Street—they see government as threatening as others see multinational corporations.

Still, my father saw that the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction by the time he died in 1986; where corporations that had no loyalty to any nation or true ideal were plundering the planet.

The problem is that both extreme positions – that corporations are evil and the opposite, that free markets can be allowed to self regulate have been shown to be fraught with peril; as the pendulum swings between these extremes ordinary people find themselves tyrannized either by government or by corporations.

In a land where citizens pride themselves on self reliance and independence, our media trumpets all kinds of "freedoms" but we assume fewer and fewer responsibilities.

At this point, if you see things clearly, you must come to the conclusion that one's prime responsibility is to hold oneself and leadership accountable for the circumstances under which we live.

Unfortunately there is a lot that is beyond our control – nature imposes its will regularly. But at the same time we need to remain conscious of our reactions to the circumstances that affect us day to day.

Simply being angry is not a solution. Venting that anger in large venomous groups can become dangerous, as Germany discovered in the last century.

I believe we need to use the technology afforded us by corporations in particular to raise the consciousness of the consuming public – not just consumers of products but also of ideas and information – so that the powerful corporate entities must finally address human needs, even occasionally at the expense of profit.

Just as animals evolved from simple predators to what we now consider ourselves to be – more conscious thinking beings – we need to use the power of critical thinking to make our institutions more responsive to human needs—and also the needs of the planet.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Gulf of Mexico. What we all sense is that life and livelihoods are threatened because an entity that is out of control has had its way for only one purpose – profit.

If you remember, BP ran many commercials "branding" itself as an environmentally conscious oil company.

If the tragedy in the Gulf is good for anything, it must be that our corporations and institutions will need to evolve – with the technology of the Internet and our active participation – into structures that serve human needs and not just generate paper profits for a few of our most powerful people.

The Year of the Cat

2010-05-14T11:43:00.001-07:00

I've been living alone for the better part of 40 years; never married and never living with anyone for longer than the duration of a vacation.

Recently friends and colleagues suggested that I think about getting a pet—some suggested a dog while those that knew me best thought that a cat, with its more quiet nature and independence, would suit my lifestyle much better.

To say that I was resistant and scared is an understatement. While I love animals, and am particularly fond of dogs, the idea of having a living creature, unpredictable in temperament and needing my attention, always around and especially waking me up in the morning was inconceivable.

Close friends tried to convince me that until I experienced the payoff I wouldn't know what I was missing, and that I wouldn't feel the love until I took the plunge.

I was also told that the right animal would choose me and be obvious, and I doubted all of it, but knowing that I needed to expand in some areas, I started looking.

I checked ads on Craigs List and visited adoption events, getting more and more information. A good friend suggested that the Maine Coon breed of cat would be the best choice for its warmth and affection.

I went to pet stores with adoption events which depressed me; the pets were in cages and the shelves were stocked in ways that made it seem like the animals were an industry.

One morning I went the West L.A. Animal Shelter for the first time and hour the loud barking dogs and visited a few cats in an environment that made me feel awful and want to adopt them all.

I emailed about several animals an never heard back, some events which were scheduled never happened and a lot of flakiness made me wonder whether I was barking up the wrong tree.

I almost fostered a dog that I took for a walk but backed out at the last moment when it turned out it needed medication that had not been mentioned and that was a bit more than I wanted to take on.

Then I met a woman from an rescue organization that seemed very nice and she knew of a Maine Coon that she thought would be perfect for me. I visited the cat, liked it, but when a home visit was to come off the next day there was controversy between the rescue and the foster home, and it became a lot of drama that made me again wonder whether I was doing the right thing.

A close friends with two lovely cats told me I wasn't doing anything wrong but that I was still on the fence; when she knew she wanted a cat she just went to the pound and got one.

So the next afternoon I returned to the West L.A. shelter looking for a particular dog, and decided it wasn't right, and visited the cat room on the way out.

A wonderful volunteer told me of "the sweetest cat" and took her out of her cage; I noted that she had never been a stray and had come from a home. The cat pawed at me right away and nuzzled my chest; later I was able to hold her in my lap and she licked my hand.

I knew that it was time to take the fateful plunge – if I ever really wanted to grow and receive love in this way I needed to commit, so I went to the desk to do the paperwork.

Again a tech informed me that there was an infection on her wound from being neutered, and I would have to take her to a vet for antibiotics.

My stomach churned – part of me wanted to back out again, and just go home and keep things comfortable and the way they were – far from perfect but manageable.

But another voice said, "not this time – time to choose change and take a risk—you may suffer but it's the only chance to also feel the love you're looking for."

The volunteer came out with some toys for me to take home and promised to answer any email questions I might have.

I took Eva (named after my mom) over to a vet and fortunately they looked at her right away and I bought the medication and took her home. She also had to wear a cone to keep from licking the wound.

When we got home I figured she had enough to deal with and took off the cone. I got her set up with a litter box and some water and went out to get some food for her and for me.

When I got back and fed her, it was time for my nap. I opened the door to the bedroom not expecting much, since she was still kind of shell shocked from the trip.

Twenty minutes later she was lying blissfully in my arms, her nose in my armpit, purring and licking my hand, as I called my friend with the two cats to tell her what was going on.

Putting in the medication was a huge challenge. Eva did not want to sit still or open her mouth and kicked and fidgeted and I spilled a bit of the medication on my bedspread.

Later we watched the NBA playoffs together, and before bed I put the cone back on her head which kept my up as it banged around the bedroom throughout the night.

As someone who has had complete control over my environment for as long as I can remember, this was a bit of a challenge. As dawn approached I wondered if I had made a huge mistake.

But suddenly a wet nose was next to my cheek and two little paws were burrowing into my arm, and a warm furry snuggly body was pressed against my side. As I slept fitfully through the remaining hours until I got up, I realized that I was in a Brave New World—I don't know what the future will bring but it will represent a sharp departure from the status quo in which I had been mired.

After breakfast I went back to the pet store for a scratch pad; when I got home Eva was stretched out on her little pillow bed, her face pressed up to the window, soaking up the sunlight.

Owning Life

2010-04-05T12:03:00.001-07:00

When I was still in high school I wrote a paper in which I said that I defined religion as "the way one accounts for the existence of Life in the universe."

For that matter, if you look around and take a deep breath, how do you account for the existence of anything and everything at all?

Whether you believe in a divine Creator, a spiritual force, higher energy or intelligence or even nothing at all, you have to admit that stuff was here long before we got here, and may be here long after we're gone.

So it was with some amusement and a twinge of horror that I watched the 60 Minutes segment last night on patenting genes. It seems that women have been denied gene therapy for cancer because the rights to any gene that would need to be tested and manipulated for any cure is owned by a corporation.

This is not a new issue; it was addressed in mainstream fiction by Michael Chricton in his thriller, Next.

But the piece on 60 Minutes was not fiction – it involved real people with real lives who were being affected by a legal abstraction for profit over their wellbeing.

Attorneys for the corporation which owned the patent made the usual arguments that research would come to a halt or suffer if ownership is not granted to those who make discoveries in biology that would ensure their prosperity.

Still, it seems to me that the executives of the company which owns the genetic patent in question would still live quite well if they did not enjoy complete dominion over those who needed their discovery to live healthy lives.

But more obvious is the issue of ownership of life itself—or ownership of anything one has not oneself created.

We're still wrestling with the legitimacy of European colonists claiming lands on which they planted their flags as their own.

With respect to genes, this is the stuff or blueprint of life itself. Has any human ever created life from inanimate matter?

Science now speculates that life "evolved" from organic material, but where did the impetus or energy for living come from?

To me, it is the very height of arrogance and presumption for any person to claim ownership of something that was here before he or she ever arrived--based on its discovery rather than its invention or creation.

To be sure, those who make such remarkable discoveries are to be held in the highest esteem, and should be able to profit from their talents and insights.

But just as we are finally having a conversation over whether health care itself should be a profit-making activity, and insurance companies should be able to withhold care for the sake of their bottom line, it seems that it's time that we take a deep look at where we stand with respect (pun intended) to life itself.

There is certainly speculation that we are at the point in our scientific advancement where we might actually assume control over our own evolution. Our athletes are faster and stronger than ever, and our science is uncovering the secrets behind life and the universe.

But is getting richer, bigger, stronger and smarter the ultimate purpose of our existence?

Those with children, or believers in something higher, generally espouse another purpose—making life better for those around them and acknowledging their connection with life itself.

Patenting a gene enforces separation—I own this (life) and you can't have it unless you pay me.

Acknowledging connection brings in a higher level of intelligence and perhaps—love and reverence.

These are human values beyond accounting or a balance sheet.

Some countries do not recognize genetic patents while civil libertarians are challenging their validity in the courts.

But in an age when the Supreme Court has held that corporations have the same rights of individuals to contribute funds to candidates, I have my doubt how that will turn out.

At some point humans may have to appeal to a court higher than the one comprised of Ivy League grads and lawyers.

I have to wonder when the owners of genetic patents might actually meet a Creator. At that point would conscience and fear finally kick in, or would they try to buy their way into heaven with their stock options?

We can have legitimate disagreements about when life begins and even where it came from or what it is—but as to who or what it belongs to—that needs to remain an issue for something or someOne that hasn't been interviewed on 60 Minutes.

Making Peace with the Past

2010-03-17T12:08:00.001-07:00

I had been apprehensive about going to lunch with my two old friends from high school, but William was coming in from the Bay area, and we'd had a wonderful reunion two years earlier, and I looked forward to seeing him again.

Robert had live in L.A. for a long time and we had gotten together over the years a number of times, and he was always generous, warm and cordial. But through no fault of his own, he had had the career that I thought I always wanted. While I floundered as a screenwriter he went from one success to another and is now very successful in the entertainment industry. On a personal level too, he has a family, a house in a wonderful location, and seemingly everything anyone could want.

By many standards I have also done well for myself in high tech, but I couldn't help comparing myself to Robert.

And as Robert retraced his career for William and me, I realized that he had actually been well-connected in Hollywood when I was writing screenplays. He'd been bi-coastal, but if I'd been a bit more aware, I might have reconnected with him at that time, and things might have turned out differently for me.

We had worked together closely on the high school newspaper, almost as partners; surely if we had been in touch when I was first in L.A., other doors might have opened.

At one point Robert said that he had realized at the time that the movie business was not about writing or creativity so much as it was about deal-making, and that had been what he was doing.

I couldn't help but wonder, if we'd connected at that time, if one of those deals would not have been mine. But I was 35 at the time—I knew it all—I lived in my own world and was not open to many of the opportunities that the greater world afforded me.

As the lunch continued, instead of enjoying the vibe, questions churned inside me along with feelings of jealousy and regret.

And I did not like myself for these feelings either, so I castigated myself for having them, and after the lunch I told William about my feelings and how I wondered whether I had really missed the boat almost 30 years earlier when I didn't realize that an old friend was in a position to possibly help me with my career.

William was empathetic and said that one never knows what might have happened. Indeed, I have written in the past about my own demons and how if I had found great success early on, I might very well have succumbed to forces that would have damaged me badly or even killed me.

And there were many other reasons why I probably didn't connect with Robert sooner. For one thing I never felt comfortable with the entertainment crowd and made my feelings known in ways that often pushed them away – not a very good networking strategy.

I had also assiduously avoided the rat race of "making it", settling into a comfortable existence that allowed me to play tennis and enjoy my life in many other ways while others were climbing corporate ladders.

It didn't make a lot of sense for me now to try to reconstruct my choices and come up with alternative scenarios that simply did not come to pass, and wallow in regret, and yet that was what I was in jeopardy of doing.

And worse, I was watching myself doing it and knowing it was unhealthy.

Later when I reflected on this with other people, I remembered how warm and friendly both guys had been, and how much we still have in common.

William is also the child of Holocaust survivors and an immigrant, and he had shared with me at one point how much therapy had helped him understand and come to terms with his own unique background and challenges, and face many of the same demons that have plagued me.

For example, I realized sitting there that in many ways the success I envied in Robert is not something I wanted so much for myself, but for my father, who had struggled so hard for my benefit.

Now that I've been working on myself, it was so great to be reunited with William and feel his compassion as I revealed some of my feelings of regret. I also met his son who is graduating from college this year, and William said at one point how wonderful it would be if I moved to the Bay area so we could spend time together—and that we would be like brothers and his son could be my nephew.

I realized how incredibly loving that connection was and still is, and how fortunate I am to have found it now. Somehow I need to shift my focus from what might have happened 30 years ago, and didn't, to what actually happened just yesterday, and its great promise for the future.

And even my renewed connection with Robert, with all of its negative subtext—and again none of that is Robert's doing—can be a source of support and enjoyment if I just let it be what it is—an old friend who now lives in Malibu.

So much of the work I've been doing concerns a shift from the left brain and analysis and judgment-- to the heart and acceptance of love.

Perhaps this experience is a crucible---literally a necessary test for me to witness the folly of my attachment to dreams that never happened, and an ego that was outsized and out of control.

In many ways, thanks to the work I've been doing, I have come out of the isolation that kept me from connecting with Robert all those years ago, and now have some deep connections with people that love and accept me.

I know that I need to join those people in my own love and acceptance of myself, and have compassion for a young man that made many mistakes so long ago—and be grateful for the man that he can still be today. I need to finally let all of those burdens and expectations go, and accept the many blessings I currently have and the ways things are right now.

Can You Handle a (Cosmic) Truth?

2010-03-01T12:47:00.001-08:00

Two events that happened over the weekend impacted me on a deep level – the earthquake in Chile and the death of the trainer by the Orca at Sea World in Florida.

The troubling nature of both has everything to do with that word – "nature."

In my day to day life I am often content to concentrate on my important tasks – work, social connections, and maintaining the status quo.

Both these events made me realize that no matter how much I try to ignore it, my life is part of a much greater reality.

The earthquake, coming so soon after the one in Haiti, makes me realize that I live on a dynamic planet that is constantly shifting and changing, and transferring energy between its various parts and its inhabitants, along with other energy which we can only begin to suspect with the solar system and galaxy.

Given our own physical scale, and the length of time we spend on the planet, we may be spared these influences and blissfully remain oblivious to them. Because of the lights of our cities, we can ignore the fact that we live in an immense universe of unfathomable scale and power—until an event like an earthquake makes us confront, until the next political scandal takes over CNN, that we inhabit a physical universe of incredible power and with forces way beyond our control.

Nature has ways of getting our attention, and reminding us that we exist, physically here and now, and that our existence is in many ways precarious.

The Orca issue made me also cognizant of the fact that we humans are a species of animal exercising dominion over other species – for the time being – which has moral consequences.

While I felt good that a sizable number of commentators pointed out that an Orca should not be kept in confinement and made to entertain with dumb tricks for a living, the fact that this is not obvious to every human on a deep soulful level is troubling.

Our inability to hold other life, particularly intelligent life, in the its proper reverence has been evident for a long time, and it's nice that some folks are waking up and science for example has realized just how remarkable these sea mammals are—but one look at the depressed dorsal fin of the animal that killed that trainer would indicate to any sensitive soul that that animal was deeply troubled and if it was filled with rage, who could blame it.

My mother, who unfortunately would have known, once called Sea World a concentration camp for penguins.

But to sense all of this deeply and profoundly, you would need to no longer take your human-ness for granted – you would need to acknowledge that you're part of a natural order that has consequences, even if you are the "dominant species".

Both of those issues bring me back to the matter of scale. If the universe is truly 14 billion years old, life on this planet is quite a recent development, we (as a species) have only been here for the tiniest fraction of that time, and as individuals of course we live here for a split second of cosmic time.

Within that period of our lives, many of us think we are in control of circumstances – until an event like Chile or Haiti imposes the reality of the higher scale upon us.

But can we be conscious of our lack of control without such an event, or simply by taking it in?

And what if anything of consequence do we really control?

Some teachings suggest that the only thing we can really influence is our own attention.

If that is the case, then remaining oblivious to the matters of scale that could crush us at any instant is probably part of our survival mechanism – because otherwise we'd be terrified all of the time.

So how to balance the reality that may come into our senses, however briefly and frighteningly, when we watch CNN, with our day to day need to survive mentally and emotionally and yet try to be conscious and sensitive?

It's interesting to consider that other societies may have used various drugs to let these feelings in on a limited and traditional basis—with the guidance of shamans and priests—while we have science to provide us with frightening "facts" of scale to which we have little relation, and media to scare the crap out of us.

Lately there has been quite a bit of speculation about the Mayan calendar, and its ability to connect with a 26,000 year planetary cycle that some see as ending in 2012.

Not surprisingly books and movies have focused on cataclysmic events that may transpire.

But it would be interesting to know how the Maya really experienced this planet with their combination of science, art and religion—although it seems that if you were a slave in that culture interesting might not be the right word. Or exactly why the Egyptians (or someone) apparently decided to use a million blocks of stone to construct an almost indestructible scale replica of the earth and connect it to the Sun and perhaps even other stars.

But certainly our day to day existence totally denies the reality of the cosmos in a way the Maya and Egyptians apparently did not. Millions of us go through life hypnotized by media and with a certainty that we know what is going on and what our lives mean: a paycheck, a relationship, raising kids, and so on.

Then suddenly for a brief instant we are connected to realities of a much higher scale. Do we ignore them, and simply move on to the next event in our own lives, or can we take them in, connect to their power, and let them influence us in ways that are not merely terrifying, but speak to the potential for our own spiritual or higher purpose and evolution?

Tiger Woods and the Single Guy

2010-02-21T12:20:00.001-08:00

To me, the most interesting guest on the many talk shows about Tiger Woods, was John Gray, the author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus—because what is so clear is that both genders see the situation from a different perspective. Another guest discussed how hard it would be for Woods to repair his image with women.

I'm not sure women can understand the extent to which men are conditioned by a culture that demands that they succeed and win at all costs, and that their payoff is sexual gratification with the women in beer commercials and girls gone wild videos. For men, this fantasy is the same as the need for a perfect body is for women—a compulsion they know is self defeating but is deeply programmed.

So for many single men like me, there is a sense of compassion and understanding for Woods' situation. While his breaking of vows of marriage is indefensible, I can understand how it happened and I took his statement at face value.

What struck me the most was his discussion about Buddhism and his reference to "attachment." That is what leads me to feel that he is sincere—because only a sense of surrender to something higher can heal the illusions men carry of what will make them ultimately happy.

Let me admit that I have been in therapy for my own wounds, not nearly as dramatic as Tiger's but for me very powerful and difficult demons.

When I was in college I came home and told my dad, "money isn't important to me. I don't need it to be happy."

This was a blow to a man who had struggled his whole life to make it here in America after a horrific ordeal in Europe, and who saw money as freedom and the key to fulfillment.

Despite what I said to my dad in college, I eventually began to see things the same way, and embarked on a mission to "make it". Somewhere along the line I found myself with a nice bank account but it was never enough, and I had no idea of how to love and be loved.

I also bought into the notions of my peers, and my father, that seeking my own sexual pleasure was a worthwhile lifestyle. At a low point I tried to connect to women who I only believed would be with me for what I could provide or give them materially, and my feelings of unworthiness led me to dull my emotions in any way I could.

My romantic fantasies were such that I believed that only another person's love would complete me and make me a man among men. Women were a prize or possession, not human beings with energies and feelings with whom I could deeply connect. And many women I met ratified those feelings and fears by only granting me their attention and devotion if I fit the image they had in mind as a provider.

Now, in my own work on myself with a therapist, I am trying to ascertain exactly who I am and what will fulfill me—because I tried many of the things Tiger tried. While I wasn't outed by the media, I realized on my own that it wasn't working. In my case, I broke up a relationship to pursue my "independence" and deny my need for deep connection—and all it did was make me confront my own loneliness and isolation. I hit the wall and needed help.

And that brings me back to Woods.

From a very early age his own bond with his father made him need to prove himself and make it—and he certainly did.

I would not be surprised if like me he had to deny his childhood wants and desires and become a man very early—his obvious drive and discipline as well as the sense of control testifies to that.

Then his father died, and the main reason he had for living died too—but he kept doing the only thing he knew –competing and winning and he tried to fill the void with the traditional roles of a marriage and a family.

And at the same time he finally felt he had the right to try to satisfy the need to fulfill what he believed were desires that would make him happy—he said that he felt he had earned that right—regardless of the consequences. We can view that as narcissism to be sure, but it is also quite natural.

What Woods has discovered, I believe, is that in his ability to control others economically their love was completely false. Those that truly loved him, and he could not control, were now deeply hurt and distrustful and this sudden awakening left him more alone than ever.

His activities with women, while disgraceful for a married man, still seem to me the acts of someone desperately looking for meaning in his life. He seemingly had everything and it still wasn't enough. Certainly his confrontation with himself came only when he was discovered, but in his position that was inevitable.

As a single man, my own struggles in this area—mainly stuffing down my feelings and trying to make inappropriate women love me and fill me up—did not hurt anyone but myself.

Woods of course played with much higher stakes and his actions had far graver consequences.

But to me, and many people remarked how depressed Woods looked, Tiger seemed like a guy who finally realized he needed help. He had abruptly realized that what really mattered were the people whom he really loved and who loved him—and that he might lose them.

Unfortunately for him, his actions have driven these people away and created deep feelings of hurt and distrust. And then, when he was discovered, his own sense of shame was such that he began to doubt that he was worthy of their love.

To him right now, I suspect he doesn't know quite who he really is, and while others urge him to just play golf and win, it has temporarily lost its meaning for him. The self he worked so hard to build and sustain is no longer viable.

For a single guy in L.A., it is hard to develop and maintain a network of people to fill those deep needs of connection and mutual love. People come and go and they are best friends for the evening.

As an only child, like Woods, I was doted on and spoiled on one level, and very alone on another. I learned to meet my own needs in ways that proved to be empty and vacuous. I believed money and control could get me what I wanted and needed and that my own personal comfort was paramount.

And, like Tiger, I spent a long time trying to live up to a notion of manhood and achievement that I assumed would fulfill me, only to learn that it left me empty.

So much of my life was consumed by a fear that I might not make it, or measure up, or succeed and when I did I could not enjoy it or let it fulfill me. Now I am trying to learn to get filled up with love, not fear, and to accept it naturally instead of trying to seize or control it.

Like me, Woods needs to learn to trust others, ask for help, and yield control and become vulnerable.

That doesn't mean all of his sins should be forgotten or even forgiven—but he is still just a human being—and he deserves some measure of understanding and compassion.

Which brings me back to Buddhism. This week the Dalai Lama is here, and to me his message is, simply put: be compassionate with others and yourself. Observe your own tendencies, emotions, fears and beliefs, and don't fight them but accept that they make you human and be kind.

My own struggle is finding fulfillment outside of the roles that I took on unconsciously. Meditation and therapy has made me able to observe (but so far not completely change) how deeply ingrained these "scripts" or "programs" are, and how removed my real core self is from the compulsion to follow these impulses.

I'm trying to connect to the person I was before all that programming and conditioning, and it's hard.

For one thing, those beliefs came from and are connected to those I loved most in the world—my parents. Every act of going against many of these tendencies feels a bit like betrayal. My father's voice is there often telling me – be tough, keep working and struggling, don't show any weakness.

My former girlfriend once asked me what my mantra or central belief was, and I said, "don't screw up." She suggested I replace it with "let love in." But it is very difficult trust in love and lose what you think is a measure of control.

In fact, it's so hard that lots of times I want to go back to stuffing down those feelings or dulling them, or avoiding them with work and achievement.

What I've begun to discover is that I need to connect to the little boy I never really got to be because I was so determined to live up to what others wanted. I need to protect and stick up for that core part of me and connect on a deep level with those that truly love me---and not succumb to the pressures of a world that want me to be a winner while I lose my deepest self.

It's an ongoing battle, and fortunately I have gotten help--and I won't have to please millions of people by sinking a high pressure putt and selling products for large corporations.

I also have no pressure to be a role model for others. But I now believe that each person who awakens to the need to be loving rather than self serving is an integral part of human evolution. Tiger is no different—except that with his presence and fame, if he can transform he can also be a powerful force for the awakening of others.

Hopefully it won't be by taking on another role and pontificating, but rather by becoming a quiet and humble example of how compassion for others and oneself can lead to peace and contentment.

Joe the Burglar: Advice for Aspiring Criminals

2009-11-18T17:29:00.001-08:00

Joe is back with some tips on pursuing a successful life of crime.

Joe the Burglar on Social Media

2009-11-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

Joe the Burglar shares some insights as a self proclaimed social media consultant.

A Sense of Proportion

2009-11-11T12:53:00.001-08:00

On Saturday afternoon while picking up a prescription, the pharmacist told me that my doctor had asked to be called for a follow up. Before leaving I decided to check my blood pressure on the automatic machine, only to find the reading stratospheric and scary.

I walked around the store sorting it out, and realized that I had let the machine read the pressure through my sweatshirt. Surely that explained the high reading since I'd been normal for some time.

Without the sweatshirt I was lower, but still elevated. I took a few more readings, each one a bit lower, and decided it was heading down to the normal level and that I was okay.

The next morning, just before leaving for breakfast to meet a friend, I opened my laptop to check my nonexistent Sunday email, and found the screen completely white. I took a deep breath, turned it off and turned it back on, and it stayed completely dark; the hard drive light went on for a seconds and then stopped. This happened three times. I left for breakfast considering the consequences of losing my hard drive – data was backed up to my desktop but lot of stuff, like recent email in Outlook, would fall through the cracks.

At breakfast I completely forgot about the blood pressure, and was somewhat preoccupied with the laptop issue, but strangely accepting and detached.

After breakfast, I tried the laptop again, hoping it would magically reappear (maybe it overheated?) but it was dead.

I went to Fry's and bought a hard drive, returned, figuring the laptop would now work but I would have to reinstall Windows and a lot of other programs, but at least I'd have a laptop.

Unfortunately the same thing happened. The hard drive light went on briefly, then off.

I called Dell and determined that the cause of my problem was not the hard drive, but a defective failed graphics card or motherboard. I was lucky to get this information, because I was out of warranty.

By this time it was late afternoon and I had recorded all the football games. I decided to relax, take a nap and then have a normal dinner and watch sports.

After my nap I took a shower and tried a Google search on my graphics card and my laptop for problems, and found many pages of similar issues; it turned out that on the Dell forums several users had had their laptops repaired out of warranty because Dell had acknowledged this issue.

I called Dell back, and after talking to three reps from India, for over an hour while I watched the first football game muted, I got him to acknowledge that indeed I had the faulty graphics card or motherboard.

This came as we watched three diagnostic lights, one solid and two blinking, and it took me ten minutes of description with him misunderstanding and repeating the wrong sequence to get it right. Then another forty minutes with his supervisor to whom I sent the information from the web sites about those who had been helped out of warranty. He finally promised that he would try to help me but I needed to wait 48 hours for a return phone call.

That evening I relaxed and watched sports, but several times I reached for the laptop to check my email or go on Twitter, only to realize that it was upside down and dead on my coffee table (I turned it over to take out the hard drive).

That's when I realized the lesson: this machine was my constant companion and I was connected constantly when I was home.

Without it I could still go online and check email, but I would have to go into my office and use the desktop PC.

Suddenly, the intrusiveness of the Internet was no longer a constant reality. Until I fixed or replaced my Dell, I would be forced to be with myself, or with television, but no more multi-tasking.

I observed myself throughout the evening and noted my discomfort, and the frequency with which, during commercials, I went into the office and checked my email, which again, for Sunday, was virtually nonexistent.

The next morning when I awoke I was anxious, but not about the computer, but I was thinking about my doctor and my blood pressure. Shouldn't I go in and have it checked; after all he had requested me to call.

I managed to get a late morning appointment and went in, only to find that the pharmacist had misunderstood and I had not been summoned. But I told him about my experience with the public blood pressure test, and he took me into the examining room and tested me right away.

"You're perfect," he said.

Waves of relief gushed through my body. I had let myself foresee doomsday scenarios based on others' misfortunes and my own misgivings about my health. Now I had a new lease on life. It was almost a shock to realize that all was well.

It also became clear to me that this piece of news rendered my laptop problem insignificant.

I returned to Fry's and exchanged the hard drive for an external USB powered enclosure.

Back home I was able to put my Dell hard drive into the enclosure, connect it to my desktop PC, and recover almost all of my important email and calendar information, and other stuff that I had feared would be lost.

I began looking at other laptops online, and also at a few stores, but was overwhelmed by the number of new features, different processors and the potential pitfalls of the new Windows 7 operating system.

I watched Monday Night Football, and again realized the void caused by the lack of Internet connectivity from my easy chair. Very weird.

Dell called me that night, and my supervisor's assistant informed me that my issue was being looked into. It took me several tries to understand exactly what he was saying.

By the next day the discomfort of not having the laptop made me go out and look at replacements and check Craigs List, but nothing really clicked.

Then I got another call from Dell – a social media and forum miracle – they are sending me a box to return my laptop for repaid and they would send it back to me in a few days after they received it. Wow. Kudos to Dell when that is accomplished. I'll be tweeting their praises from my easy chair.

Now I am sitting back in the recliner and wondering – what will a week without my computer companion be like?

And what does it say about me that I might find it difficult?

And what about the millions of text messaging and web connected iPhone and PDA users who need their electronic fix everywhere, not just in their easy chair?

Perhaps this is a lesson I should really take to heart (pun intended).

First, my health is good, so nothing is wrong on the most important level.

Second, I can unplug from the Internet while I watch television – maybe – or maybe I should just unplug from the television as well. Could I do it? I meditate daily but apparently there is still a strong pull for my attention from all sorts of sources that don't really leave room for me, or my "self" while they're being accessed.

My Fascination with Ancient Wisdom

2009-10-14T13:24:00.001-07:00

A close friend of mine with whom I often talk about esoteric subjects once commented on how I get to positions that require leaps of faith. He said I work from a place of rationality first, and go as far as I can with scientific or factual notions, and then I extrapolate inside to a place that cannot necessarily be validated scientifically, but which grows within me truth.

That's why I loved the Da Vinci Code and am looking forward to reading Brown's latest work, The Lost Symbol. Last night I watched Stargate for the first time in years, and had forgotten the beginning, where a discredited Egyptologist (James Spader) suggested that the Great Pyramid had no hieroglyphics, wasn't a tomb at all, but instead a repository of ancient wisdom inspired by visitors from somewhere—when someone said the word "Atlantis" everyone walked out of his lecture.

My own fascination with these notions began in my early twenties. When I worked in Cancun a bellman at my hotel actually turned me on to a book about the Great Pyramid by a Mexican writer, Rudolfo Benavides. This was incredibly ironic since I was daily dispatching my tourist clients on tours to see the Mayan pyramid, and the Pyramid of the Sun (Aztec) was in a nearby state.

My young friend fascinated me with speculations about the various mathematical and astronomical relationships encoded in the massive structure, which I later supplemented by reading the incredible Secrets of the Great Pyramid, by Peter Tompkins (author of The Secret Life of Plants and also Secrets of the Mexican Pyramids).

By now of course there has been massive publishing on this topic and notions of the pyramid shape as doing everything from sharpening razor blades to serving as a power plant in ancient Egypt and supplying some sort of electricity of light bulbs that let them work in the dark.

For those who don't know the various measurements that Egyptologists have taken over the centuries and what they imply, here are a few examples of what the various dimensions of the Great Pyramid may represent:

The perimeter divided by 2 x the height of the pyramid is equal to pi - 3.1416
The number Phi – or Golden Mean (used in the work of Michelangelo and the basis for the Da Vinci Code) - Φ equals 1.618 and represents a series of numbers (Fibonacci sequence) – 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89 and so on where each number is the sum of the previous two. This famous sequence is also found in nature and is the basis for much of biomimicry – engineering that replicates these relationships in human structures.
Aligned to North – knew mass and circumference of the Earth – latitude and longitude
Set in the precise center of earth's continental landmass
Accurate measurement of the day, year, Great Precession (almost 26,000 years for axis of earth to realign)
Measure of foot and cubit based on earth's rotation and actual scale

And on and on. Tompkins' book has an Appendix by a noted mathematician expounding on these relationships, and there is additional reference material suggesting that the 3 pyramids represent the constellation Orion, and that the Great Pyramid is aligned with various stars including Sirius, the North Star, and the constellation Pleiades.

At around the same time as I discovered Tompkins' work, Erik von Daniken became a worldwide sensation with his book Chariots of the Gods, which went through a long series of ancient monuments and speculated that all of them must have been built or inspired by greater intelligence of space visitors; in many cases they only made sense when viewed from the sky.

Not long thereafter von Daniken was discredited in the mainstream media for various financial shenanigans, and both he and Tompkins, along with their many more recent authors about the pyramids and similar subjects have been the butt of ridicule by conventional scientists and archeologists—just as James Spader's character was at the beginning of Stargate.

But very little of this really mattered to me—I used my travel privileges to go to Cairo and see the Great Pyramid and regardless of its actual measurements, its scale blew me away.

The fact that it is just THERE is enough to make you gasp. It's like when you take a deep breath and stop to think, why is all this here? What is the point of existence itself?

This experience was described by Jacob Needleman, a philosopher and writer, at the beginning of his book, A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth. He describes walking past a news stand and seeing a photograph on the cover of National Geographic taken by the new (at the time) Hubble Space Telescope. He briefly read the caption and walked away, but returned a moment or two later when he realized that these weren't stars – they were galaxies with each tiny speck representing billions of stars. (Also credit Carl Sagan…)

Needleman writes if you stand out at night in a place where you can actually see the stars, and look up, you simply cannot get your "head" around this at all. He responds with the notion that "we need to rediscover how to join the attention of the heart to the powers of the mind and the perception of the senses." This becomes a stimulus or a pointer to a higher level of being or understanding.

It's like following the Fibonacci series out to infinity, or trying to conceive of the largest prime (indivisible) number – which it took a supercomputer to calculate but which obviously cannot "really" be the largest…

When you do this, you reach the limits of your left brain – your analytical mind – which science has made the ultimate arbiter of what is "real" in today's culture.

But at this point you sense in your gut with complete certitude that you've just scratched the surface of something far vaster and ultimately incomprehensible to our limited set of senses and neurons.

It is my feeling that by getting "a taste" of these kinds of experiences that our own capacity to know beyond reason can expand – not so much to explain something that our logic cannot truly comprehend – but perhaps to connect with it on some level.

What makes Dan Brown's books so entertaining is that he fits these puzzles into a genre where the supposition is that there are humans who possess this knowledge today, and who use it, and do not share it with everyone else. This is the basis of esotericism and it is impossible to prove one way or another.

In The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown introduces a character who works with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (an actual organization in northern California). Of course she is ridiculed by conventional scientists.

According to IONS, "Noetic Sciences are explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing—including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses. Noetic sciences explore the 'inner cosmos' of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) and how it relates to the 'outer cosmos' of the physical world".

What was so fascinating about Stargate was that a particular alignment of symbols could pierce the physical universe as we knew it, and open a dimension into its other side.

Today's renegade Egyptologists (the James Spader character) propound theories of the time of the Sphinx pointing to the existence of human wisdom far before recorded history. Writers like Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval and John Anthony West suggest that striations at the base of the Sphinx prove erosion—so that it existed in "pre-sand Egypt" – before the area became a desert.

(The DVD version of television special on West's theories was narrated by Charlton Heston).

Their work has been greeted with the sort of derision by conventional Egyptologists as the lecture by the James Spader character at the beginning of Stargate—but it is literally mind-boggling in its implications.

And now that there are numerous books and movies about the Mayan calendar and the significance of December 21, 2012, many peoples' minds are being boggled—albeit with catastrophic predictions of the End of Days that make great fodder for special effects.

I still remember an incident when I was travelling in Europe and fainted. While I was "out" I remember inhabiting many worlds and strange places but somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to get back to my parents and friends in the present – and this desire enabled me to reconstruct a "set of facts" which constituted my location in space (Copenhagen) and time (a date in the 1970's) and when those facts clicked together like the tumblers of a huge combination lock – my eyes opened, and I was back.

Immediately my rational mind reinterpreted this experience so that it "made sense" as being simply "unconscious".

It is my belief that these ancient monuments and the wisdom behind them provide the means for us to explore and experience consciousness itself—by taking us beyond what we "know" to be real to a place beyond "knowledge as we know it"—in a space of breathtaking silence and awe when confronted with an immensity and yet a factual existence that we cannot rationally explain or comprehend, but which is simply there and speaks to us at a much deeper level of meaning.

This is the boundless space of existence itself—of nature, mathematics, music, symbol and true wisdom—manifest physically for our senses to experience briefly but for our limited rational minds to ultimately recognize their limitations to comprehend, and leap off into place or time we cannot as yet explain, and perhaps never will.

Is Wireless Just a Metaphor?

2009-09-24T14:05:00.001-07:00

There are so many things we tend to take for granted. For me, sitting with my laptop in the living room and transferring files or accessing my desktop, or going online through a wireless network is so routine that I seldom consider what it entails.

Energy is flowing through what appears to be empty space.

What scientific evidence do we have that it's happening? Well, obviously if the files open or the web page loads, we know that wireless technology is real.

But what about or own technology? Neuroscience has shown that electrical energy actually moves through the brain as we think.

In fact, the stimulation of such energy can occur in surprising ways. There is a phenomenon known as "mirror neurons" that fire not by direct stimuli, but rather just by observation. The Fast Company blog describes the findings of Dr. Marco Iacoboni at the Brain Research Center at UCLA who believes that we are actually "wired for storytelling."

His research is based being able to measure the differences in mirror neuron activity when individuals were shown images or told stories by people with whom they empathized or identified; the greater the sense of connection the higher the mirror neuron activity.

This is fascinating on many levels, not the least of which is that it is literally a tangible measure of a quality we might term "emotion" in the brain.

In some personal matters I had occasion to connect with an individual in a professional setting, but one which was highly charged with emotional energy—and to feel our connection we held hands. Then I moved back across the room, and was asked whether I still felt the connection, and I joked, "I don't really believe in wireless."

But actually I do, and you probably do too.

How many times have had the phone ring just as you "happened to" think about who called?

Where this leads me is to the issue of what science considers "real" -- like mirror neurons – and what it considers irrelevant do to an apparent absence of evidence.

While we may certainly believe in wireless with respect to our laptops, we may not readily admit to such a belief with respect to our own technology – our minds and our bodies.

But the more we connect with either – through meditation, body work or some other "New Age" (and apparently unscientific) method – we can determine the reality directly based on our own concrete experience.

Do you miss someone who died or you no longer have contact with?

Have you ever identified that feeling in your body?

Is it any less real to you than your wireless connection to the Internet?

What about compassion, for others or for yourself?

Do you experience it when you meet certain people, or even when you see a posting on Twitter or Facebook? Do you sense it inside yourself, can you sometimes feel yourself shutting it off, or denying its reality in order to numb yourself to a painful reaction?

In a recent blog entry I wrote about Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation by Douglas Rushkoff as a particularly powerful description of why social media is growing as a response to the pursuit of profit at the cost of humanity. ("A shrill condemnation of how corporate culture has disconnected human beings from each other.")

But there is an undeniable movement toward reconnection—from the election of Barack Obama to the growth in social technologies—more and more people are accepting the reality of how important the energy of love and compassion is – and its reality as a physical, psychological and real force of nature.

One might speculate as I have that in some ways the Internet is an evolutionary nervous system in its ability to transmit this energy (wirelessly?).

But as many have noted, the key to conducting the energy of compassion, love or any emotion is belief. In another blog I mentioned a book by biologist Bruce Lipton, actually titled the Biology of Belief. (Its new subtitle is "Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles")

Such a concept and much of Lipton's work is enough to give many traditional scientists heartburn.

What about you?

Can you make the connection between the undeniable reality of wireless energy that performs in our computer technology to the presence of a different flavor of energy (organic but no less real) that permeates our own being?

To me the recent advancements in neuroscience, psychology and quantum physics easily let me accept it intellectually—which can be the first step. But in my own experience, through meditation and sensation, I am finally beginning to know it, profoundly in my depth.

Unfortunately there is no real manual to troubleshoot our own technology – or perhaps there are too many conflicting manuals – from medical textbooks to religious works.

And so there are also no clear answers. But just as my web page loads, and my laptop's inner state is changed, so too, if I connect with the cells, tissues, organs and senses within me, I can sometimes feel and observe my own state changing.

Who performs the observation? That's a tough call. But the reality of wireless emotion and thought is no longer open to question, at least for me.

Social Media: The New Humanism?

2009-09-10T13:06:00.001-07:00

This morning I briefly insinuated myself into a Twitter discussion between Marsha Collier and Chris Brogan, co-author with Julien Smith of the best seller about social media, "Trust Agents."

The topic was a story about a lame video posted on YouTube to address concerns by many irate users on social sites about the messaging shortcomings of AT&T's network for the iPhone.

The video featured a geek called "Seth the Blogger" (not to be confused with Joe the Plumber) using charts and graphs to explain the technical problems AT&T faces in trying to implement messaging properly for the iPhone.

Brogan and Collier discussed how ineffective this approach is at a time of social media, and Collier suggested actually responding substantively to issues raised on the social sites and demonstrating that the company is really listening as a more viable response.

Brogan, an evangelist for social media, has written often about how suspicious people are of corporations and institutions, so that the more influential people on the web, in social media, are dubbed "Trust Agents". They come by this status not because they are CEO's or spokespeople but because their actions, over time, have demonstrated competence, credibility and compassion in terms of sharing information and building relationships with others (through blogs and "tweets" and so on).

More recently Brogan recommended "Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back" by Douglas Rushkoff as a particularly powerful description of why social media is growing as a response to the pursuit of profit at the cost of humanity. ("A shrill condemnation of how corporate culture has disconnected human beings from each other.")

If you watched President Obama's speech on health care last night, perhaps you were particularly struck, as I was, by his description of frank testimony by an executive for a health insurance company in which he admitted that depriving people of coverage was a policy in line with what Wall Street demanded for the sake of shareholders, in spite of the fact that people were dying and suffering.

This is another blatant example of the corporate trend in customer "disservice" that is perhaps exemplified by the inability in many cases to call a company on the phone and talk to a human, and if one does, the human is reading a script and sounds like a robot.

To me, the growth of social media is, as Brogan and Collier also point out, a movement in opposition to this trend, to reimpose real and tangible human values over those of abstractions like profit and financial gain.

Wikipedia defines "Humanism" as "a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to authority."

In my lifetime the distrust of authority has grown from a soft whisper to a bellowing roar as we have seen the growth of multi-national corporations and the pervasive power of influence in Washington.

While many might still scoff at Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social sites, the fact is that their rapid growth speaks to the need for people to locate and connect with similar sensibilities both for their own nourishment and sanity, and also to counteract the megalithic powers that threaten to snuff out humanistic values.

When United Airlines broke a musician's guitar and ignored him, his video on YouTube went viral, and suddenly he had power as an individual and the company had to take note and respond.

In this way the democratic aspect of social media is in complete harmony with American values of fairness and individual responsibility and autonomy.

Corporations and governments are certainly not all or intrinsically bad; many of our blessings would not exist without them. But we must not lose sight of the fact that these institutions are frequently run at cross purposes to the needs of many of our citizens.

There was a time when money represented the value inherent in tangible labor, goods or services. Now it has become a blip on a computer screen and an abstraction so that the recent prosperity came at the expense of huge debts amassed by financial wizards with no direct relationship to actual labor, goods or services. Instead financial instruments which leveraged debt at ratios as high as 40:1 on the dollar have made a few wealthy and many destitute.

Some like the Dalai Lama have suggested that this economic crisis was a wake-up call for humanity to reassess its most basic values.

And Social media is in many ways a natural response to these inequities, both in terms of the need for anyone and everyone to be heard and listened to, and also to reclaim the disproportionate power of institutions that abuse their might.

We have seen even more dramatic evidence of the power of social media to inspire and motivate disenfranchised people in places like Iran. The fact is that human needs trump abstractions like a balance sheet, and will be recognized, one way or another. It has become a global phenomenon.

Of course some people will use their own concept of humanism to assert their views over others, but what social media has shown (and Brogan's term is "social capital") is that people inherently recognize truth and decency over time, so that those with influence on the Internet generally earn it.

Human ingenuity has given birth to a new global nervous system, the Internet, through which humanity may be coming to its senses--with social media leading the way to a new recognition and reevaluation of priorities--so that people and decency matter more than power and greed, as we connect with one another in networks of community and renewed understanding.

The alternative is not pretty.

Is Technology the Ultimate Answer?

2009-08-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve posted about Juan Enriquez before and his talks on the TED web site. His latest talk about the future of our species is both troubling and exciting on a number of levels.

What Enriquez posits is that we are in the midst of a “reboot” in which our entire civilization will be transformed by developments in genetic reprogramming, tissue regeneration and robotics. He suggests that the developments in these fields will be able to overcome the current economic problems with long term solutions to both human health, and generate a new boom economy. In his talk he suggests that without these developments our current economic situation is direr than we even imagine.

The examples that Enriquez points to are amazing—including a fully mobile robot on four lets that moves elegantly and can carry 350 pounds called “Big Dog” from Boston Dynamics. (Don’t bother looking up the stock listing, I did and the company seems to be private).

Toward the conclusion of his talk Enriquez goes through a brief history of the universe and points out, once again, how brief the tenure of homo sapien is on the planet and suggests that any concept that we are the apex of evolution is “a bit arrogant.” Nonetheless, he suggests that the reboot that is taking place is evolutionary, and will result in the ability of humans to control their own evolution (homo evolutus) and that of other species (which is already happening).

Of course it can be argued that we are currently controlling other species mainly by exterminating them at an incredible rate, and that the same may happen to us. Eckhart Tolle, for one, thinks the jury is out on our ultimate survival or extinction, particularly if we fail to respect Life itself.

And that is where I think Enriquez again poses some amazing questions, but falls a bit short with the answer.

It was Enriquez’s original talk at TED on genomics that profoundly influenced me in my current belief in the existence of higher intelligence; the analogy between computer programming (devised by our intelligence) and the genome (DNA programming based on logic and not random events), when considered on the level of a scale much higher than we can imagine, indicates to me that existence is not chance.

In fact, genetic programming is part of the reboot that Enriquez describes.

But science has also found that while Enriquez may certainly be right and we are on the verge of “managing” our own evolution, that evolution itself may not be a random occurrence. Bruce Lipton, in Biology of Belief describes how microbes will change their cellular biology (evolve) to become immune to toxins and survive.

To him as well, and to a growing group of scientists, this is evidence that Life evolves intelligently and not randomly.

So is this impending ability to manage our own evolution just a lucky break for humans (our brains got really big at the right time), or something that is influenced by a higher level of understanding?

My contention would be that the ultimate outcome of homo evolutus will be determined not on the basis of how smart he/she becomes, but on how wise.

It is certainly foreseeable (one need only look at Nazi Germany) that these amazing scientific advances will be used not only for good, but to control and conquer.

It is also fascinating to note that the scientific advances Enriquez touts come at a time when parts of science (quantum physics, biology, neuroscience) are being stretched and teased to venture beyond former materialistic boundaries.

So it would seem to me that concentrating only on mechanistic evolution in terms of reengineering our species is a miss. Without the simultaneous psychological and perhaps moral evolution, our species will still be in big trouble, even if Enriquez’s “reboot” is successful.

The technologies Enriquez describes would fall under the heading of a currently popular buzzword – they are “disruptive.’

In the currently popular social media space, disruptive technologies are hailed as those that revolutionize industries and culture and lead to new opportunities and perspectives; however, the concept of disruptive as inevitably good is misguided.

The worship of disruption has taken over our culture to the point where dark and violent films are incredibly popular, and its opposite – harmonious – is viewed with scorn and derision as “boring.”

Unfortunately, it would seem that being disruptive to life as opposed to harmonious with its innate intelligence has already gotten us in a lot of trouble. Our oceans are dead, our air is polluted, and toxins are everywhere. If anything, it would appear that for the reboot of technology to succeed in revitalizing not just our economy but our civilization, it will need to be accomplished in alignment with the principles and intelligence of life, and not just for profit or the sake of materialistic science.

The ideas that come out of conferences like TED are incredibly exciting, and I find Enriquez’s work in particular thought provoking and inspiring, but if anything it points to the inescapable conclusion that for our evolution to be truly intelligent, it cannot be based only on the ideas in our human left brain, but in harmony with the higher level of intelligence at work in the 13.7 billion year history of the universe. If we continue to celebrate our disruptive capabilities we do so at our peril.

Taking a Twitter Ego-Trip?

2009-08-01T11:06:00.001-07:00

In my blog on Social Media as a Woman's World, I mentioned the shift from considering social media as a standard marketing and self promotion platform to making a commitment to active participation and building relationships.

I still think that this is where Facebook and Twitter are taking us—the well known concept is "don't sell the dogfood, talk about dogs", and when we share our ideas and passions about dogs then out of that community a sense of connection, growth and well being can develop which is really powerful.

On the other hand, as we all know, a big part of Twitter and Facebook, is just people telling the world what they're doing and how great it is.

I may get in trouble here, and I am certainly open to comments, but there is a fine line between sharing something of deep interest to yourself, your art, your passions, your ideas and interests, and talking about the fabulous parts of your life is in a way that may convince others and yourself of your importance.

When our use of social media crosses over into this "I can top what you're doing" area, it becomes, I believe, what Eckhart Tolle calls "compulsive doing."

He describes in his books how the ego is constantly trying to be first, to be better, to be more, and how this is such a trap to any peace of mind, because anything you achieve in this state is so transitory.

This kind of grasping is an automatic escape from your conscious self and any effort to be mindful, present and aware, and to listen and respond to the real concerns of others around you.

How many people do we know or see that make a show of how busy they are – frequently as an excuse for not keeping one commitment or another?

I suspect that this treadmill of constant achievement is a big part of what led to the financial meltdown and literal "slowdown" that is taking place today. It is an absolute requirement that people finally take a deep breath and consider what is really important in life.

This was brought home to me by an experience I had during the past couple of weeks.

There is a person who had been on the periphery of my circle of acquaintances whom I finally met at an event, and we spoke for a fair amount of time.

About a week later, I saw this person and our eyes met as we approached but there was not the slightest recognition in their eyes, and we did not acknowledge each other. I had been on the verge of saying hello but pulled away.

Immediately I began thinking about other similar experiences where I had met people on more than one occasion, and they had acted similarly, and I had judged them as either being rude or oblivious.

Then a few days later this person friended me on Facebook.

Now I reexamined the situation and decided that I could have easily lifted the veil between us and spoken up, and reached out to this person, rather than expecting the opposite.

The bottom line is that we were both unconscious in our own way, and in many ways in the grip of a set of fears, not the least of which was being overlooked, being insignificant and probably most important, being completely wrapped up in our own drama and not open to other influences. We were both "busy".

My ego had made me right as I judged our encounter.

But we were both wrong—actually I may have been more wrong because at least I was present enough to recognize this person and I pulled away.

The same thing happens online.

Some of us broadcast on social media. We ego trip on Twitter and Facebook. But more and more people are learning to engage—to listen and to respond—and even in what some men like me may perceive as idle chatter, this channel is opening up between people as they share things of personal significance.

Of course, no one really knows the motivation behind someone else's post or update, just as no one knows the motivation behind the blank look.

And we can post online and go a long time without acknowledgment, and then the sheer amount of chatter and information can easily overwhelm us. We can feel more isolated as we begin to think we're alone in this vast sea of information where everyone else is connected.

That's the fear again.

The alternative is to participate openly and without expectation of immediate reward or gratification-- which the "experts" tell us is the essence of social media.

Can we truly feel community through an electronic device? I'm not sure and I'm still inclined to view the online world as a conduit for something more "real"—connecting in person (not romantically but humanly).

But if we pay attention to what others post, and our own reactions to it and the motivation in our own online efforts--we can make some amazing connections, not the least of which, to ourselves.

We can begin to observe our own fears and motivations and perhaps grow beyond them, evolving from a space of service rather than the fear that separates us from one another.

On a more mystical or philosophical level, I recently tweeted "What if everyone followed everyone? Then there would only be one Mind—the meaning of Twitter?" No one responded. Oh well.

The Illusory Life of Michael Jackson

2009-07-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking lately of the amazing effect Michael Jackson’s death has had on so many people, and while the sheer volume of media attention has surely contributed to the phenomenon, other factors are clearly at work.

For me, I had musical favorites in my life but their personal lives never really affected me. But I can recall the circumstances under which I heard most of the Michael’s songs – I was generally “looking for love in the wrong places.”

Michael’s songs were dance numbers that went on for quite a while, so I remember that I would either be dancing with someone and wondering when the song would end, or waiting for the song would end so I could screw up my courage to ask someone else to dance.

The routine epitomized the emptiness that probably contributed to Michael’s demise. I remember dancing with women who never made eye contact seldom asked my name or much else about me.

While deep inside of me I realized that these venues were not where I was likely to find any kind of real depth, connection or love, I was drawn to them by the surface sensuality of the women, the lure of quick and casual sex, and of course the music.

When I connected with someone, it was invariably these surface qualities that became paramount; first of all I would not show interest in anyone who did not appeal to me on the surface, and then that personal would want to know what kind of job I had, where I lived, and what I drove.

Since I was ultimately dissatisfied with my status in these areas, struggling in my own way for the fame and fortune that Michael had in abundance, I told myself that I could be happy and fulfilled in the future – when I “make it” I will have lots of friends, fall in love, and there will be no more loneliness.

I also was convinced that if I “made it”, I would finally be among the elite of society who would fully appreciate my talents and insights. Certainly in the coveted inner circle of others who had “made it” there would be peace and happiness.

Where did these concepts come from? If I am honest, they came from my father, my peers and the culture, which placed “making it,” particularly in material terms, at the top of the hierarchy of personal requirements. In thinking about it, with my dad it was actually kind of contradictory, because on a personal level my father was extremely loving and warm, but in “preparing me for life” he stressed being tough minded and making it to the top.

It seems that Michael’s father drove him particularly hard for success, and presumably held out the same promise that when Michael made it, all would be well.

The tragic irony of course for Michael is that he really “made it”, and yet all of that fame and fortune could not fulfill his need for real love, and he needed the continuing adulation of millions to make him feel satisfied.

His life manifest the ultimate disconnect between outer success and inner yearnings for true connection and love.

All of the descriptions of his personal life talk about his loneliness and isolation, and the anxiety he felt on many levels probably led to the sleeplessness that ultimately cost him his life.

Yet the millions who are flocking to memorialize him generally have the same aspirations and values; their consumption of his music and identification with a “legend” that they never personally knew speak to their need to find fulfillment in areas that Michael discovered – when he had them in abundance – could not fill him up.

The lucky people are the ones who discover that you’d better find connection, peace and happiness before you make it because if that’s how you expect to get it, you’re in for a rude awakening.

One man who wrote about this discovery is a scientist, Mani Bhaumik, who came from one of the poorest areas of India, got a scholarship, and made a fortune as one of the developers of the laser eye surgery procedure that is now so popular.

Living in Los Angeles, Bhaumik describes his ascendancy to the fast lane in his book, Code Name: God, and its culmination at a pool party at his resplendent home in the hills where he ultimately came face to face with the meaninglessness of his materialist existence, and his ride to fame and fortune.

Bhaumik’s experience led him back to his Indian roots, and his scientific background made him look closely at quantum physics as a basis for a connection with a higher level of intelligence through meditation.

He went from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous to a personal journey of self discovery, and many of his friends disappeared from his life.

There are many stories of Michael Jackson’s (true) friends with his real interests in mind who urged him to get off the insanely self indulgent and materialistic ride that led to his isolation and his death. (If you object to my characterization, take a look a the special on Neverland on CNN, or recall the excesses that were routinely the focus of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous).

It might be postulated that Michael’s ego and his appetites overwhelmed his better inner wisdom and nature, to the point where he could not control them.

With deaths like Michael’s and the many other famous people who have passed recently, I have begun to reflect on where I might be if I had “made it” to the extent that I once so yearned for.

It would have taken an amazing amount of good fortune to enable me to avoid many of the same pitfalls; the fact is that I looked for material and sensory gratification at my own level of success for years. In terms of a deep relationship, fame or great success would most likely have allowed me to attract women whom I was much better off having reject me, as it turned out.

At this point in my own life I am reassessing my true nature, and discovering that my sensitivity to a different set of values certainly serves me better than the one I took on earlier in life.

Sometimes that path leads to its own kind of isolation and loneliness. When I watch commercials on televisions, for example, I am constantly conscious of how they appeal to my sense of lacking something that I really don’t need, and that if I had would not fill me up. When I watch others around me I sometimes feel disconnected from many of the things that they value and hope to get.

There is a growing sense of power and inner satisfaction in finding your own way and making up your own mind that I am only now beginning to discover. It’s sad that Michael could never jettison the adopted values of the world he wanted so desperately to embrace him, and find the strength and path to accept and love himself as he was, not as others would have him be.

The Big Split (2)

2009-06-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

I recall reading that Einstein himself was very mystical, and would tap into an intuitive source when working on his theories. You might think that scientists are all left brain, but it turns out (as Ken Wilber wrote in “Quantum Questions”) that many of the quantum physicists were mystics in private.

Ironically I stopped reading the book, because I was so disappointed that Wilber says that these scientists refused to make a connection between their mystical feelings and their theories; since their feelings led to the unknown, they refused to speculate on the connection of consciousness with their findings. That has been left to “New Age” thinkers like Gary Zukav and producers of “What the Bleep”, and it’s usually oversimplified.

For me the connection is apparent in the discovery of how Epigenetics (the environment) triggers both mental and physical reactions according to the programmed intentions of our DNA, just as a computer acts according to the programmed intentions of its software, and neither one would exist without a higher mind to have somehow conceived their workings and actualized them materially.

(My own speculation -- where this is different from an argument for Creationism is that I believe that beyond our ability to “understand” creative forces are at work according to strict mathematical principles (higher mind) and that when one is in alignment with such forces they may act through you and leave your logical mind (ego) aside.

Unfortunately there also appear to be counter evolutionary (devolutionary) forces at work resisting the growth of higher intelligence. These are unconscious forces that we sometimes call evil. The reconciliation of these two forces is the One source, which some of us worship as a monotheistic entity called God. Whatever it is it is ultimately unknowable and I suggest more about it below.)

It is Eckhart Tolle who has suggested that it is the ego (left brain) that humans have identified with falsely as the self, which causes so much suffering because it is separate from a higher source or intelligence which can be connected to as intuition and fights to justify its positions.
According to Tolle and others, those that "awakened" from the trap of the ego were the early masters, Buddha, Jesus and others who are not as well known.

The problem with accessing this source or dimension is that it is difficult to do deliberately and in many cases it does lead to letting things remain a mystery – there are no finite comfortable answers and this leads to a sense of loss of control.

Bruce Lipton puts forth an amazing theory that just as individual cells eventually organized into lower and then intelligent organisms (us) to support higher intelligence (creative force at work), so too are we as a species in the process of having individual organisms wake up and connect to each other into a higher planetary organism that supports higher intelligence – and perhaps forge a deeper connection to the higher intelligence or consciousness that we (on this blog) sense is “out there” or “in here.”

Of course there is a lot of egoic resistance to this impulse. We are programmed by our culture for individuality, and self (egoic) fulfillment. We have trouble trusting others and we have seen collective experiments result in a lot of misery.

In my view technology serves us potentially on two levels in this evolutionary effort – first as a metaphor for how life works and through the genome and neuroscience, and second through the new human nervous system that has evolved as the Internet.

It’s amazing to see how Iran is “waking up” using Twitter. It takes enormous courage to fight the forces of control and I hope obviously that they succeed. What may emerge is, again, unknown.

We’ve had a similar upheaval here in our financial crisis. Suddenly our foundation of safety has been shaken and we’ve been forced to reexamine our priorities and many have found a new connection to other people and their families.

This brings me to what I believe is the ultimate leap—the realization that compassion and love is a real force in the universe and the main guiding principle, and knowing it deep in our heart and not intellectually. That is a leap I am still hoping to achieve and by breaking down the barriers I have personally erected to “protect” me from others, I hope to get there. Thanks to all of you for your energy and encouragement.

The Big Split

2009-06-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the market and a chance comment sparked a conversation with another guy in the salad area. He seemed like the kind of neurotic, Jewish guy I usually relate to, and he was probably in his fifties. He mentioned to me that he was in his first true long term relationship and that the woman had just told him that he was the first guy who didn’t bore her.

“You’d better dump her,” I said sardonically, “You definitely don’t want to be with anyone who really appreciates you.”

He laughed knowingly as we both intuitively understood our respective natures, in which our perennial voice in the head judges every person or situation--and we don’t know whether we can find a level of comfort with another human actually invading that persistently pervasive and negative, yet comfortable (in the sense of knowing nothing else) space.

Then he asked me if I minded if he did some networking, and whether I ever needed some help with my PC. I told him I write articles and books on Windows and Office software and basically earn my living by solving the many irregularities and annoyances that the software presents.

We exchanged cards and since older neurotic Jewish guys are a dying breed, we kept talking and he mentioned an interest in neuroscience. I ventured my interest in the work of Candace Pert and Bruce Lipton, which I've mentioned here before, who suggest that a higher intelligence is at work in our brains and in our cells—a force which has also quite likely shaped evolution.

He shook his head and said something like that there are always "isolated scientists and theories like that, but in general there is no real evidence for that sort of thing."

I said I was intrigued because of my interest in computers, and I asked him how he could imagine computer software existing without (human) consciousness to create it (and implying if genetic software is similar, where else did it come from?).

He said that he believe that computers would evolve consciousness through artificial intelligence in the foreseeable future—a common assumption among technologists. I shook my head, because based on my internal experience I sense what consciousness is, and it lives through organic life and tissue, not through computer chips and silicon. It’s beyond code—it’s what created code.

I gestured around the store and suggested a wider frame of reference and asked him if he ever thought about where all of this (existence) came from, and if it’s just “random.”

He shook his head and just said, there’s no way of knowing and it’s probably too complex for us to understand.

I nodded and said that we’d probably never agree on this anyway, but it was nice meeting him.

We exchanged a few emails later that day and maybe our paths will cross again. Nice guy.
I have long since given up trying to convince anyone else of the possibility of higher intelligence or any other things that I muse about but that can’t be proven as “facts.”

Later on that day I visited Clara Berta’s art studio and of course, she’s an artist, and a female, and she understood my own propensity for being “in my head” and yet realizing the limitations of such a perspective.

Her home is like a little museum and we chatted as she gave me a tour and sat down later over tea.

Having read some of the works of Eckhart Tolle, Clara has done some work on getting out of her head, as have I, in terms of connecting with the body, heart and whatever else is in there or out there through mediation.

While I didn’t happen to mention my friend at the market, I admitted that my own method of trying to “figure things out” is left brain first; my epiphany regarding the possibility and in fact the likelihood of higher intelligence came when I watched geneticist Juan Enriquez explain how the genetic code is not like computer code – but works exactly the same way.
(So where did it come from, I wondered).

Apparently its implications did not cause Enriquez any second thoughts either—he just calmly explains the economic and scientific consequences of genetic engineering, but skips any discussion of the meaning because, presumably, “it’s just too complicated” and cannot be factually ascertained.

So that’s the split—between a belief system that suggests that whatever is not scientifically knowable “factually” (left brain) is not relevant to our lives, and should be ignored, and another belief system that can accept the “unknowableness” (mystery) of higher intelligence but posit its existence based on what the left brain has already found—that life itself works in a way that implies the existence of consciousness.

To beat a dead horse—could Microsoft Word exist without consciousness (i.e., an intentional mental effort to create a specific utilitarian, systematic set of code) and if not, how could life (which we have found works exactly the same way) be any different?

Right-brained beings—artists, women and others who have no trouble “trusting their feelings” have no problem embracing such ideas.

But as Tolle says, our civilization is run by left-brained (egoic) analytical beings who trust only their thoughts—so unless their thoughts can shift and suggest to them that something else (higher) is out there and accessible and ultimately significant, they will continue to dodge the big questions and see existence as largely random.

I was there too, until I saw Enriquez’s video; Bruce Lipton describes a similar experience when he discovered individual cells are intelligent and intentional. (A key experiment showed two bacterial cultures with identical genetic code behaving differently and even mutating differently under different environmental conditions—suggesting to him that there was “intelligence” or “consciousness” at work on some level directing their activities).

So how can this split be resolved?

Well the left-brain beings can continue to build more crap until civilization crumbles or we blow ourselves up, and then it can begin all over again (as Lipton believes it has already happened six times in earth’s history), thereby decreasing the influence of our thinking brain to basic survival matters and putting the rest of the organism back in touch with our natural environment and the source of our being.

Or, more and more people can figure out the fallacy of relying exclusively on our thoughts and identifying with the egoic mind, and experiment with another point of view and experience the results.

I can tell you from my own experience that going against what the ego is yacking at you is not easy and it can lead to issues, not the least of which is feeling a bit isolated from more “normal” people.

(But there are more crazies waking up all the time).

The thing that happens is that when you observe the internal chatter and disengage from it, you feel better for first short bursts (which you distrust) and then longer and longer.

Whether to experience the discomfort of the split and continue or stay in your head is personal choice; one which my friends at the market and many others like him have already made.

I make no judgment about it. He may be right; existence might be a bunch or random molecules doing things that can’t be understood so let’s just make a pile of money and drive big cars.

But as my friend Freeman Michaels, a spiritual psychologist asks, “How is that working for you?”

For many people, it has stopped working. For many, it took the economic rug being pulled out from under them to recognize that their love, fulfillment and their families are more important than their incomes—a lesson that the Dalia Lama suggests is the reason and the lesson of our current financial turmoil.

The random theory wasn’t working for me. I saw no meaning in anything before my left brain suggested something else might be going on, and I was pretty unhappy and spending my time either trying to earn enough to feel fulfilled and safe, or spending it on things and experiences that never satisfied me.

I was operating largely on automatic, subject to a set of beliefs and assumptions about the world and other people that I had never examined or questioned, and which I began to see were a big part of my unhappiness.

I can’t say that beginning to experience a shift has been a panacea and my life is beautiful and perfect; it doesn’t seem to work that way.

Connecting to your heart and emotions is a big shock at first, and you tend to interpret the sensations as things being “wrong.” It’s scary and those sensations can’t be controlled—they need to be accepted.

But ultimately once you get a sense that higher intelligence must exist, there sometimes grows a need to connect to it, even in a fragmented, mysterious and uncontrollable way, because if the universe isn’t random, connecting to its source and meaning is probably the only real game worth playing.

Experience suggests that there are a different set of rules at work than those that your analytical brain has concocted for you to follow—and they don’t make logical sense—but little glimmers of experience and how you sometimes feel inside suggest that coming from compassion and forgiveness (the right-brain/heart perspective) is what Freeman calls “a better bargain”, and worth a shot.

The Insane Ordeal of Roger Federer

2009-06-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve loved tennis all of my life. As a kid I went to Forest Hills with my pals and my mom to watch the matches in an intimate setting, and I took lessons when I got older to the point where I could compete, teach and appreciate the game.

At one point I had a party for my closest friends and looked at the people gathered there and realized that with but a few exceptions, I had met all of them through tennis.

In recent years I watched with some dismay as the game grew in lockstep to mass media requirements, and champions like McEnroe and Connors were idolized for their “emotion” on the court, which I saw mainly as a vulgar spectacle in which they whipped a bloodthirsty crowd into a frenzy.

While I admired their artistry, I particularly loved to watch players like Borg and then Sampras who competed powerfully but were not sucked into the egomaniacal requirements of puffing themselves up to “show emotion.”

But my favorite player in this regard is Roger Federer. As a corporate conglomerate in his own right, he has come to recognize the expectations and requirements of the mass media, but when he pumps his fist after winning a point it seems to be almost an apologetic gesture – like “I don’t need this, I have inner resolve, but if this is what you want, knock yourselves out.”

His combination of excellence and gentility have made him immensely popular, but at a steep price.

This past week, having already won an amazing 13 Grand Slam titles and appeared in a record 20 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals, he was presented with an incredible opportunity to win one more, matching the great Pete Sampras, and also winning the French Open, giving him a “career Grand Slam.”

(The career Grand Slam consists of winning all of the four major championships, an achievement that was glamorized by the media when Andre Agassi won the French Open.)

Federer’s arch rival Rafael Nadal, who had denied him the French Open championship on three occasions and also beaten him at Wimbledon and in Australia, was upset in the quarter finals of the French this year.

Suddenly the pressure on Federer grew to unbelievable proportions, as he had “fallen short” so often recently, almost eclipsing his many accomplishments by his “failure” to win another championship.

To me it was almost painful to watch him play, his joy for the sport completely overwhelmed by the disproportionate egoic expectations of the fans, the media, and most important, himself.

This great person and champion suddenly found himself terrorized by the task so many had set for him as a benchmark for success—he struggled to win two matches in which in any other situation he would have probably prevailed quite easily, against opponents who seldom gave him any trouble.

Finally, within reach of the championship in the final match, somehow he remained in the moment, but even in the final game, you could see the anguish on his face. This was something he had to do because of his own and the world’s unbelievable expectations—not because it was natural or exhilarating as sport or self expression.

I had watched with horror as Federer, who had just lost a final to Nadal in Australia, broke down and cried in frustration and anguish after failing to tie Sampras’ record, and sensing that he might actually “fail” to deliver on a destiny that so many had set before him as a birthright.

How had this happened, I wondered?

How had such an accomplished individual been allowed to feel that unless he achieved this one additional feat, all of his past records would be rendered almost meaningless?

How had the imaginary benchmarks of millions who had never even played a professional match managed to dwarf this great champion’s personal qualities of humility and generosity?

And how had the media circus, corporate hierarchy, conventional wisdom and collective consciousness managed to create for this one humble man such an overreaching burden and set of expectations?

I pondered these questions as I thought about my own feelings of failure for expectations I had not managed to achieve in my lifetime—how my own ego and the internalized expectations of others has set a series of hurdles for me that I needed to clear and never could in order to feel fulfilled.

My heart fell when Federer lost the first point of the final game. And then the situation, the crowd, the weather and his own overwhelming skill took him home.

It was clearly an achievement of incredible will and mindfulness that let Federer finally slay his own demons and win the last point. Having tried and often failed to serve out a match where all that was at stake were bragging rights at Rancho Park, I could not even imagine how difficult it must have been to put the crowd and situation out of his mind and let his body perform.

I was happy as Federer was embraced by Agassi, applauded by past champion Borg, and praised by McEnroe, and graciously accepted the accolades of the crowd, addressing them flawlessly in both French and English.

And I could understand his tears. They were the tears of immense relief that in the court of public consciousness he had achieved what was expected, and now he could have peace.

Then I wondered – what if Nadal had won again? Would this great man stand here broken, after all that he has done in and out of the sport?

If he had lost, would his friend Tiger Woods, think any less of him, and call him less frequently?

Would his marriage and impending fatherhood be threatened by his own self doubts, after all he’d done?

Fortunately this one man was strong enough not to have to face these challenges. Now all he needs to do is win Wimbledon, so he can surpass Pete Sampras…

But in my life I haven’t “won” what I thought I would and should—and I still manage to beat myself up for the many things I felt I should have accomplished and never have, and I try each day to quiet the mental gymnastics that emerge to remind me of my supposed failures.

I think about a story Bruce Willis told of getting the job on Moonlighting and seeing the other actors and bartenders in the waiting room as he left, wondering what would have happened if one of them had been anointed by the producer to star opposite Cybil Shepherd.

I wonder how much whoever came in second to Willis (and might still be a bartender) might have spent on therapy.

Finally I wonder whether these mythic expectations of Herculean achievement are the basis of a life force within us, or its curse.

My recent reading of the works of Eckhart Tolle leads me to attempt to observe the workings of my mind -- and hopefully come to terms with such egoic fantasies and expectations in order to be in the moment -- and finally drop those unbearable burdens that have haunted me throughout my life.

But how would civilization fare if we all did that? Would mindfulness allow us greater freedom, personal expression and happiness? Or would it come at a price we would not want to pay – of less achievement, personal comfort, technology and God forbid, no professional sports?

To use sports vernacular, it’s a tough call. But at this point in my life I am happy for Federer that he will be spared any personal self doubt at his current age or when he reaches mine.

For me I want to finally achieve a sense of personal worth and fulfillment that doesn’t require external measurement, but only inward knowledge of having been the best I could be when I finally woke up.

What Computers Can Teach Us about Intelligence, Logic and Life

2009-06-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

If you’re reading this blog you use computers, so I suspect that perhaps you’ve had this experience:

You’ve downloaded or installed a new program and you’re too headstrong to open the manual, so you plunge in and begin to do some cool stuff until you get stuck. Some button is grayed out or some dialog box doesn’t pop up as you expect and for the life of you, you can’t figure it out.

Then, after hours of fiddling, you open the manual, click Help or consult an online resource, and the problem is explained—you have an “ah ha” moment and the process which led to the stuck point is completely clear and you get it.

Not only that, suddenly the logic behind the program makes sense, and your own prior assumptions and way of thinking are revealed as flawed.

So what just happened?

You were able to connect to the logic of the programmer(s) as opposed to your own and an entirely new set of goals and means of attaining them was exposed to you as equally valid—or in fact even more valid than your own previous perspective.

I believe that this is what happens when you meditate: you distance yourself from your own assumptions about how life and universe should be, and open yourself up to a different set of possibilities and influences.

Just as you ultimately have to accept a program’s logic over your own preferences (or uninstall it), at some point you also need to accept what life is offering rather than continue to think that your conceptions of how things ought to be must unfold.

This latter misconception is sometimes called ego and leads to much suffering.

Literature is filled with stories of kings and warriors who learned this the hard way (often running afoul of the Gods which basically mirrored their own arrogance back at them), and you’ve probably experienced a more mundane version of the same reality, perhaps at the bank, market or the dry cleaners.

On a planetary level our species is also learning this lesson, and hopefully it will sink in before it’s too late.

In Jacob Needleman’s “A Sense of the Cosmos”, he describes attending a medical lecture where a doctor claimed that in some aspect of human bodily function, “nature had made a mistake.”

Oh really?

That’s sort of like geneticists saying blithely that because they haven’t yet discovered its meaning, that a large part of our genetic code is “junk DNA.”

Oh really?

There is a field emerging in biology and life sciences called biomimicry that goes in the opposite direction, and embraces and models the designs in nature to create more successful products—for example, I think that a bullet train in Japan is based on the aerodynamic beak of a hummingbird (or something like that).

But of course most of what we are doing (mainly as governments and multinational corporations) is trying to bend nature to how we think it ought to behave. In our hubris, we are not reading the manual, not giving due respect to the obvious intentions of the designer or master programmer, and ultimately we may find that we are the odd humanity out of a system that expels us.

We’d better get with the program and realize that we are a part of nature, and that our ideas and beliefs are hopelessly flawed when compared to the big “What Is.”

Meditation, I think, is a great start. Reading the manual for humanity, like our genetic code, might enlighten our species some, but only if we recognize that before we start tinkering, we need to understand its ultimate objective, rather than our own (like patenting genes)—and consider whether comprehending such higher truth is even remotely possiblef or a limited organism and brain like ours .

But the best way to start is to observe ourselves closely and recognize the common fallacy of assuming we know better in any specific instance. Because if you’ve ever upgraded any software, you know that “the way you always did something” may no longer be valid, and that someone, somewhere, has a different idea of how things ought to be—and they may be running the show—not your monkey mind.

The Wisdom of Your Cells

2009-05-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Bruce Lipton is the author of “The Biology of Belief” and narrates an audio book titled: “The Wisdom of Your Cells.” He was teaching medical school when he realized that the “dogma” he was forcing on his students was wrong: DNA does not control life—genes have no ability to turn themselves on or off or “self-actualize”—instead genes are a blueprint for life.

He based this conclusion on several experiments. First, when a cell is enucleated (the DNA is removed along with the rest of the nucleus), it continue to live until it needs to manufacture more proteins (which requires a blueprint for production) or it needs to reproduce (which again requires the chromosomes containing the DNA).

He also found that when identical stem cells were placed in different solutions, they behaved differently despite having identical genetic material. This alerted Lipton to the reality that the environment is a heavy influence on how cells and organisms behave and live.

So then, DNA is only a blueprint for the cells’ behavior and activity.

Furthermore, the effects of environment are not only chemical but also energetic, and energetic influences that are only now being understood, and apparently these energetic influences are more powerful effects, and are often their cause through the intervention of the cell membrane.

By way of example Lipton says, of DNA being falsely recognized as the command and control of cells, if that were true of a blueprint (which is all that DNA apparently is), then you could drive by a housing site and throw the blueprint into the foundation and return a while later and find a completed house. But the reality is that you need a contractor (and a host of other intelligent life forms) to complete the project.

So , Lipton asks, “then who is the architect?”

First, again, the influences of the environment affect the cell, but they apparently do so through (the intelligent) processing capability of the cell membrane, which had previously been considered to be an inert container of the cellular material.

Instead, it turns out that this incredibly thin membrane is truly the “brain” of a cell—all cells have it and without it they would die—not only because their physical structure would collapse but equally important because their interactivity with the environment—their actual “life” processes—would no longer be controlled.

Lipton uses the example of a wafer (akin to a computer processor) to explain how the membrane allows for and controls the exchange of information with the environment – which he says constitutes life.

Life, according to Lipton, is movement, and without this exchange of information, there could be no life.

Many of us know that information is exchanged in the body chemically, but what Lipton’s research has shown is that it also happens on the quantum level—as energy.

So the question becomes, if this energy and information is coming from outside of us as well as inside, what are its origins and what does it mean?
For one thing it means that we are not living in a dead, random universe—there is intelligence manifest everywhere, not just in our craniums.

Perception controls Behavior – according to Lipton the information that comes into the organism through the cell membrane and is interpreted by the brain (in the case of humans), along with our pre-set subconscious scripts – influences and controls our behavior.

Mutation responds to environment and proceeds differently under stress. John Cairns, a noted biologist and whose work inspired the new field of epigenetics, published an experiment that didn’t fit the established belief system and was almost not published, but for his reputation. He found that organisms that were unable to digest lactose and were put into an environment with only lactose for sustenance, actually mutated to be able to digest the substance – seemingly intentionally.

This harkens back to the French biologist Lamarck, whose theories influenced Darwin, and who was ridiculed for first suggesting that evolution is intentional and based on a response to the environment – he was lambasted erroneously for a story in which fish looked at land at longingly until they evolved to grow legs and go ashore.

According to Lipton the human organism begins to process information from the environment before birth through the connection with the mother, and before the age of 6 there is no conscious mentation going on, only the “downloading” of information about the world, mainly through the observation of the attitudes and actions of the parents.

This forms the subconscious scripts by which most of us live 90% of the time automatically, and according to Lipton the subconscious processes a million times faster than the conscious mind, so that if we internalize feelings of inadequacy then no amount of conscious positive thinking will overcome them.

Instead these beliefs need to be “reprogrammed”, possibly through energy psychology, hypnosis or other methods.

The bottom line for me about Lipton is that he uses a biological and genetic approach to come to a similar conclusion or epiphany that I had when comparing genes to computer software—namely that the evolution and intentionality of these processes point to a higher level of intelligence and meaning than what we can attribute to ourselves through our own limited logic and understanding.

Conscious Capitalism: Still an Oxymoron?

2009-05-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Conscious Capitalism is a new buzz word for companies to incorporate into their mission statements; the link is to an Amazon list of books on that topic.

To me, this is a wonderful concept, except for the fact that most corporations, their mission statements aside, are built on the mantra competition and not cooperation.

While this is a trend that might be changing (at least according to Conscious Capitalist proponents) and it may also be reflected in the growth of social media, which is also based on cooperation, the sad reality of dealing with large institutions today is that any contact with them is invariably frustrating and stressful.

In the last day or so I have had three interactions with corporate or bureaucratic entities with which many of you will identify and relate:

1. A credit card company that decided to change my number because of a “merchant breach”, causing me massive inconvenience in terms of checking my online statement and re-entering the information into my direct payment accounts. They claim to have a commitment to customer service, but from my perspective true customer service would mean better security and no merchant breach, and a way of preserving my credit card number in the event of such an event.
2. A government agency that I need to call to change an appointment I cannot keep, but the phone message says they don’t answer any more calls because they’re overwhelmed.
3. A phone company web site that informs me I need a pin number to activate one of their services but whose customer service rep has a different story. I need to go through a maze of voice prompts to miraculously get a human, when I finally just say “agent!” out of exasperation.

I also detailed a horrific experience with another technology company that “values customer service” in a March blog about Vonage and how their pride in customer service is truly manifest.

What do all of these incidents, which are unfortunately still the rule rather the exception, tell us about the complexity of corporations and institutions?

First, to call any of their efforts “customer service” is to indulge in Orwellian double-speak.

These companies are not committed to providing service – they are committed to avoiding service to contain costs.

For example, if you have ever heard the message, “due to unusually high call volume, there may be a delay in answering your call…” or “your call is very important to us”, the translation is “we won’t commit money to more personnel because we don’t give a crap.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about spending a morning struggling with my computer. The main point was the consistent intervention by technology into a human endeavor—in that instance, writing—and how the problems were compounded by the software’s complexity at the cost of its functionality.

Why was it complex? Without new features users wouldn’t see a need to upgrade. The result of the upgrade? Complexity and frustration.

The Apple genius bar aside, there is no real way to get help on a computer issue from a human resource; if you’ve called a help line recently you surely experienced something like the three scenarios above, with the added annoyance of answering a gazillion questions before the person says “Can I help you?”

Then there are a gazillion more questions and no substantive answers, until you want to scream, like John McEnroe, “just answer the question! Can you please just answer my question (jerk)!”

So to follow up on the main issue raised by the conscious capitalists – what is the meaning of all this? (The presumed trend after all is that conscious corporations will focus on meaning rather than – profits)

Well one meaning may be that if cooperation at the expense of counting beans is actually practiced, lots of shareholders won’t be happy.

But perhaps there will be a new generation of conscious shareholders.

For now, however, the meaning is that any attempt to actually communicate with a large institution is at best stressful and at worst completely futile.

This may be a Zen lesson on a global scale in accepting what is as opposed to what should be, but if corporations don’t evolve to a conscious state soon, the humans on the planet will go insane (if they haven’t already).

Eckhart Tolle talks about this in his book, “A New Earth”, in which he calls corporations “giant egoic entities” committed only to profit. The problem of course that corporations generally don’t have the potential for evolution in that they do not have a conscious observer or sense of awareness (at least not yet).

How would a corporation meditate? Perhaps if all of its employees did so together this would lead to a shift; there is a video on YouTube of Jon Kabat-Zinn teaching a group of Google employees meditation and mindfulness. (Kabat-Zinn has appeared on Bill Moyers and many other programs as an expert in mind-body connection).

It’s been a while since I suggested the possibility that corporations are a new dominant life form, but it must be obvious to even the least conscious corporate entity that without humans to clean up the washrooms at night, they won’t last very long.

So why is it taking so long for companies to truly embrace what the experts are trying to teach them – that cooperation is a better long term strategy than bean counting competition?

So, why is customer service so nonexistent? Why is there still such a disconnect between large corporations’ mission statements and their actual performance?

My guess is that it ultimately comes down to us, the humans, and until we evolve, the corporations we build and work in will continue to be a reflection of our human nature, which at this point is still competitive and largely unconscious.

Maybe social media and a sense of cooperation can take root and sprout before it’s too late.

The Toilet Seat Thing

2009-05-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been intrigued by the depth and importance that women attribute to a man’s putting the toilet seat back down after finishing in the bathroom.

When I first encountered this mandate, it was explained to me that when a woman goes in the middle of the night, she doesn’t want to suddenly find herself trapped in an icky basin instead of perched on a comfortable seat.

But even when I’m not in a woman’s bathroom in the middle of the night, I still find that the imperative to maintain this discipline is no less powerful.

Being preoccupied with more weighty matters I have left a woman’s bathroom at various times recently in the middle of the day or evening, only to be reminded once again of this sacred obligation.

So what’s it all about?

Obviously it’s not solely about a woman finding herself with a wet and gross tush.

Most women I know will make the first request with a touch of humor and fairly low key, but I am well aware that if I continue to lapse the reminders will become more forceful and less humorous.

So the real issue here is about respect and being heard. Women want access to your brain in terms of paying attention, and nowhere is the potential for lapsing into daydreaming as great as on the toilet. Often the process is enhanced by needing a newspaper or magazine to take one’s mind off the task at hand.

So there is a two step process for leaving the toilet that lets a woman know that you are not completely self-absorbed and that her needs are equal to your own in your mind.

First she needs to hear water in the faucet so that she knows that you’re washing your hands.

Then she needs to know that between the time that you’ve washed your hands and left the bathroom, she has returned to your consciousness sufficiently to prompt you to remember to lower the toilet seat.

Think of this as an exercise in mindfulness. You need to retain a portion of your attention on something other than yourself, the Lakers, or what you’re having for dinner/breakfast, and if you want to stay connected to a female, part of that attention will need to be on her.

It’s amazing how infrequently, during the course of the day, we consciously control our thoughts and become present. So let the toilet seat be your new mantra, remind yourself by washing your hands, and your social life will be easier and much less stressful.

Intelligent Life? (Speculations on Genetics and Software)

2009-05-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this topic for some time and want to share my latest thoughts on the relationship and implications of computer software and findings in genetics. Inspired structurally by the Ignite PowerPoint concept it's under five minutes in length.

Social Media as a Woman’s World

2009-05-14T12:19:00.001-07:00

BlogHer, the women’s blog network, found that 42 million women in the United States (roughly 53% of the 79 million adult women in the United States who use the Internet) participate in social media at least weekly. That doesn’t surprise me, because the more I become familiar with how social media works, the more I am reminded of conversations I’ve had with women and about women.

And I don’t say that critically—on the contrary. It’s just a matter of evolving or adapting to a different mindset.

Let me explain—as a male my focus online has generally been goal-oriented—to get things done.

My main website is like most, a corporate brochure of who I am and what I can offer to clients, along with a way to see what I’ve written and perhaps purchase a book or eBook.

Then when I got on Facebook, and eventually Twitter, I was disinterested at first by what I perceived to be mindless drivel, minutae and chit chat; if this sounds like something an honest male might say about having to listen to a lot of stuff about “a woman’s day” I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.

So as I continued to track the social media juggernaut and saw how it enabled many to thrive online, I began to realize what I was missing. Where I had attempted to use my social networks and status updates in a traditional way—by simply promoting myself and asking people to buy or go to my site(s), I began to study the trend and noted that this was not the point.

Every social media commentary I have read, including the very excellent book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff , the J.A. Jones Blog, and the Mack Collier Blog - @mackcollier have led me to the realization that social media constitutes an evolutionary shift in consciousness in the online business world.

All of these books, and many more, stress the fact that if you are goal oriented in social media or heavy handed in your self-promotion, you are self defeating. On the other hand, if you listen to the ideas and concerns of others, contribute to a community of ideas, and generally participate without looking only for self gratification, you will see significant rewards in all areas of your endeavors, particularly in self fulfillment, over time.

In other words, social media is not a one night stand—it’s a long term relationship.

Mack Collier, for example, makes it a point to inform his followers on Twitter and his blog that he will simply ignore pitches of any kind from those with whom he hasn’t communicated already; those who pitch him “on the first date” don’t qualify for his attention.

If this sounds an awful lot like the current trend in dating and relationships as “friends first”, preferred by so many women, it is.

As a supposed computer expert I was surprised when I first confronted this reality in discussions with a great friend who happens to be female. At the time I had discovered Ning, and was writing an eBook which I intended to self publish.

I was concentrating hard on the nuts and bolts of Ning—how to upload content, construct the interface, and generally “get things done” when she told me the secret of Ning, or any social network.

“Make sure you welcome all of the new members,” she said, “and acknowledge their birthdays. You need active moderators on the discussion forums to ensure that every post is given a sincere response.”

Wow, I thought to myself, I’ve been teaching her what I thought was technology, but she showed me what I had always prided myself on knowing – why this software is important.

In my tech writing about Microsoft products I had always tried to accentuate its practicality and how it was used, and if possible its human application (communicate visually with PowerPoint, for example).

But in trying to “master” this new phenomenon of Social Media, I had completely missed the point. Either I had dismissed it as chit chat and drivel; or I had tried to force it into a role that it was not meant to fulfill.

While I try to resist wholesale generalizations, what I needed to do was listen to what social media was telling me, the same way I sometimes need to learn to listen, and not try to fix or control, women I know.

As a guy, I still tend to measure my success in quantity—like my followers on Twitter—with each new add I get a little, well, twitter.

But more and more my thrill comes from a sense of contribution. I’ve begun to shift my focus, and while I still may pitch and promote I try to do so judiciously, and mainly with those with whom I’ve established a connection.

More important, when I see something of value, I try to put it out there and share it without trying to figure out how it’s going to get me something reciprocal right away.

What I’m getting is that Twitter, Facebook and other social media are really a giant pot luck or Tupperware party, and in order to get nourished you need to bring something to the table – preferably without too much concern with short term gain.

And again, this brings me back to how it resembles dating—if you’re always worried about who’s going to pick up the check, or how the evening is going to end, you’re missing the point.

Just Another Microsoft Morning

2009-04-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Maybe this has happened to you. You woke up inspired, with a project in mind and you turned on your computer hopefully. You did this prior to your shower, or as you prepared breakfast, because you knew that Windows Vista would take about ten minutes to start up.

But then, maybe you got preoccupied; the phone rang, there was noise outside, or something else distracted you, and you forgot to get to the log on screen in time, and there was the screensaver already running. Damn!

(This occurs despite the fact that you know that you’ve disabled the screensaver innumerable times).

Now you’ve experienced this before, so you get a sick feeling in your stomach, because you already know that if you log in now, you may lose all of your Desktop settings (logging in as a new blank user).

You know the files would still be available, but you also don’t remember quite how you restored your desktop last time; oh yeah, by running System Restore, which took about another fifteen or twenty minutes.

At this point your great idea, and your inspiration, are slowly starting to fade into the recesses of your gray matter, but you are determined to persevere… You turn off the computer, and turn it on again.

You eat your breakfast, getting excited again about your project or idea, and this time when you see the log on screen, you spring up and sign in well ahead of the screensaver. Success—Windows is loading your user information.

You return to finish breakfast because you know that there are still another ten minutes at least before the computer is remotely usable. You’ve sat through the log in and you know that several dialog boxes will open that you have dealt with many, many times: The Adobe updater, the System Configuration utility (which you’ve tweaked in a vain effort to boot up and log in faster), the Windows OneCare, nagging you about doing a backup (but you have your own backup system because you don’t trust Windows to do it), Windows Update, telling you that there are updates to download and install…

But you have a project in mind, so you decide to wait with the updates. Windows tells you that you can keep working while the updates are installed, but you’ve taken that ride before, and you don’t want or need a sudden reboot or any surprises.

What’s this, another freaking balloon pops up, telling you that there is somewhere Microsoft can take you where you can get solutions to all of your Windows problems.

“OK, what about that log on screensaver?” you shout to yourself, but you are determined to remain calm, and you ignore the pop up because you know in your heart of hearts that there are very few solutions to problems with Windows, and what solutions there are seldom if ever found through Microsoft.

You remember all too well your experience with setting up your wireless network, when Windows promised to “diagnose and repair” whatever was screwed up, only to tell you to check with your System Administrator (which of course is you), or it returned you to the same opening page of a Help File loop you’d been through several times already.

So now, Windows is finally loaded, and it seems ready for you to get into your really great project. You keep a wary eye on Windows Update and OneCare, because they could pop up at any moment, but it’s time to get to work.

So you open Microsoft Word, to a new blank document, and then you remember, damn!

It’s that same default Word template that has the screwed up right margin!

Now, how did you fix that?

You try to remember the last document you created where this happened, and you fixed it, and saved a new blank template with the correct right margin, but you open a couple of more templates and each time you get the same freaking screwed up right margin!

So you drag the margin where you know it should go and you type your first paragraph and you’re feeling good because the juices are starting to flow.

You hit Enter and are about to begin the next paragraph when – crap – it’s the same bleeping right margin staring back at you.

Then you remember something you did once that worked for the current document. You hit CTRL +A selecting the entire document and then adjust the margins again. You hit Enter a few more times and it seems to work. You think, maybe I should save this as a Style or something, but then you realize that styles are really complicated and you don’t want to go there. You’re on a roll.

So you keep typing and thinking and the project is coming along really well until you’ve gone into a zone and an hour or two later you have the document finished.

You take out your flash drive and back it up immediately because last week Windows scared the crap out of you with a bogus “hard drive might be failing – back up immediately” message that almost gave you a heart attack.

Since you have a laptop, you figure you’ll move it there to upload it to your blog and share it on your social networks with the millions of people who will probably ignore it. But, at least that way it will be in three different places and your masterpiece will finally be safe.

You know you shouldn’t but you leave your laptop leave turned on all the time, just letting it go to sleep when not in use, despite the guilt you feel about wasting power but you like to use it to “relax” while watching TV, so you rub the mouse and it comes to life.

You put in the flash drive and a pop up window comes up asking if you want to defragment the flash drive; you decide no, not yet, and move the file to your desktop and open it in Word.

Holy crap – the file is read only again! You remember that that sometimes happens and it makes it impossible to edit and save under the same name but it really doesn’t matter because the project is done – it just has to be uploaded.

But you notice a typo and you don’t want to fix it online because you might want to upload it to multiple places and you might forget so you fix it in Word and try to save it and it reminds you – it’s read only, pal, you need to rename it.

You sigh and resave and rename the file and go to your blog and sign in and put in the title, and then you copy the Word document to the clipboard and paste it into your blog (even though there is a way to do the blog in Word and upload it directly but you don’t remember the password right this minute) and--crap!

It took out all of the spaces between the paragraphs you just typed in Word. You know there’s a solution but you forgot what it was and to do it because you fixed the freaking margins and you were so inspired you actually wanted to start typing—so, sigh, you manually put in the paragraph spaces, and copy that file back to your clipboard before posting it to your blog.

You open Notepad, the generic word processor that never screws up because it’s so freaking simple and you paste the document in there and save it because you can post that version online again without going through and repairing all of the paragraph spacing…

But for a moment you feel good, you did it, you wrote the blog and it’s up there but then you realize—you’d better back up the Notepad version of the file to your flash drive and move it back to the other computer… just in case.

But that can wait, so you go on your social networks and link to the blog item, which is sort of like this article, complaining about Microsoft and Windows and Word, and pretty soon you get a bunch of messages that all say the same thing: get a Mac.

But you know what, you’ve worked on freaking Macs and you know damn well that they have their own set of problems. Besides you want a tool you can use, not a religious experience, and now you’re upset because every time you bring stuff like this up the Mac-heads come out of the woodwork and make you feel cheap and dumb for not buying something really cool.

You were determined not to buy a computer where a streamlined mouse costs $100 so you invested in a PC back at Windows 3.11 and you wonder – why does it still suck so bad?

But you find Macs overpriced and pretentious; you’ve used them and they have another way of thinking that isn’t necessarily simpler or better but just, as they say, different. A good friend has a Mac and you’ve had to get him out of pickles because he’s relatively new to computers (which is why he bought a freaking Mac) and you’ve been able to help him over the phone because, after all, you’re your own System Administrator, for Christ sake!

(But you can’t remember how to get the margins right in Word, or to log into Windows before the damn screensaver comes up).

You resist the urge to write all this in response to the Mac comments, and you wonder why no one with Windows has responded to your blog until you realize… they’re waiting for Vista to boot up before they can get online, and then they have had the same experience themselves and don’t find it all that unusual.

So you decide to run some errands and turn off your PC, because after all you do feel guilty about using up all that power, and you grab your car keys and get the hell out of the house, realizing that tomorrow morning, it will all start again.

Epilogue: You are not alone. Read this email Bill Gates wrote to his staff about his own “usability” experience back in 2003.

Try New Technology? VOIP? Thanks, But No Thanks!

2009-03-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

For a while a friend had been touting the advantages of VOIP, saying he was paying $25/mo. for unlimited local and long distance phone service.

Since I have been looking to cut costs, like everyone else, the prospect of not paying AT&T for those services was enticing.

I called AT&T and confirmed that I could keep my DSL service going if I stopped my local and long distance features. They said yes; I should have asked them what the charge for just DSL would be, but I assumed (horrible idea ever) that my monthly DSL payment would cover it.

Then I looked at Vonage and saw that for $18 a month I could get 500 free minutes, which I figured would work for me since I also had the cell phone. I signed up online when I looked at their web site and saw that they could handle either a broadband cable or DSL connection—and they made installation sound like a breeze.

My first inkling of trouble came when I opened the package and noticed that in the middle of the easy installation instructions there was a blue square that said “DSL users, see other side…”

There it indicated that if the easy installation didn’t work, and the Vonage box couldn’t connect through the Internet, I should go t a V-Configure web page to sign on…

My Internet connection is fairly straightforward and common; I have a DSL modem connected to the Internet, and it also connects to my computer through a very reliable Belkin wireless router.

Again, Vonage suggested just connecting my router to the box and everything should be fine.

But predictably, it could not connect and I could not get a dial tone; the LED on the Vonage box indicated there was no connection yet. I opened my web browser, as the instructions suggested, put in V-Configure.com, and was greeted with a page that had no log on, but instead told me that I had a lot more work to do: my Internet connection wasn’t functional.

At this point I was tired, but I made a few more attempts, this time bypassing my router (and thereby also removing wireless access from my network) and I still could not connect.

I tried a few more different ways, following the instructions carefully, to no avail. At one point I even had an Internet connection through the Vonage box, but still could not connect to the fabled V-Configure.com.

Forty minutes later I had restored my old Internet connection and my wireless network.
I was supposed to get another “welcome” phone call the next day, and perhaps an installation expert, but I contacted tech support by email, detailing my problems.

The first response referred me to the generic web support page, all of which I had already read and reread.

Three emails later, after a cryptic message about :
"I see that we have come up with an issue while transferring your number.
There is a feature (Internet) associated with your number. Hence, I would suggest you to contact your previous telephone carrier and have the feature (Internet) removed from your number. Once it is done, please reply to this email with the confirmation so that I will be able to assist you further."

After requesting translation service, here is what I received as an explanation:
“Your current phone company has placed Dry Loop DSL on your transfer number; The Dry Loop DSL must be separated from your transfer number. Please contact your current phone company to move your DSL service to a separate line, so that the number transfer process can be completed. Be sure to get a confirmation number that indicates your account has been updated with the change. We will need this confirmation number to continue your number transfer process. “

Easy, huh?

So in other words, the “seamless transfer” of my old phone number to Vonage now necessitated a call to AT&T to get them to separate it from my DSL, which obviously meant I needed another phone line for the DSL – cost? $35/mo.

Since my Vonage service for $18 really cost $25 (with fees and tax), this mean that the fiasco of moving service would yield little or no real savings.

Add to this the fact that on the Vonage site they have pages on “how to restore service after a power outage” and they barely acknowledge the existence of Microsoft Vista (support lists Windows 2000 and XP), except to say that one of their phones doesn’t work with it—and I was ready to cancel.

After all, I had a working DSL/local/long distance plan, at a pretty favorable rate, and a WORKING wireless network. Even if I got Vonage working, I still had no assurance that my router would keep broadcasting, not to mention the potential nightmare of resetting the network again after a power outage (summer is almost here).

Not surprisingly, my next “welcome” call never came.

I tried to cancel my “service” by email, but was told I needed to call, which I did right after the weekend. (Customer service is closed Saturday and Sunday).

After they tried to talk me out of it, they did cancel the service, but not before adding another $39 charge for return of the equipment, which would be refunded when my stuff arrived (not like they didn’t already have enough of my money for set-up of a nonworking service).
By the way, the confirmation email informed me that the $39 return charge was really $43—fees and taxes. Corporations are full of surprises, aren’t they? Tax and fees on something I didn’t buy, but was trying to return?

Of course now I will have to make sure the credit is put on my credit card for all of my charges.

I am not entirely sure that the rage focused on the banks and financial institutions is just about the credit swaps and economic crisis they allowed to occur. Truthfully, I think it is there beneath the service against all corporations and technology companies in particular, who promise something new and “easy”, and misrepresent the issues involved and end up costing us money, time and amazing stress.

Think about how “easy” it was to cancel AOL, to set up high definition TV for the first time, or to set up a home network after XP changed to Vista, and you’ll know why people are pissed off.
As for me, I am angry at myself for falling for the latest and greatest once again—from now on I will think not twice but four times before trusting anything a corporation promises—especially if it’s “easy.”

Why Is Software Getting Worse?

2009-03-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Just as there seems to be a class struggle in the political world between “Main Street” and Wall Street, so too is there an emerging conflict between end users and software publishers.

As usual, the main target is probably Microsoft; I’ve mentioned several issues in these blog posts relating to Vista and Office 2007, the gist of which is that once users are “programmed” to work efficiently on a given platform or suite of applications, pulling the rug out from under them with a new interface and removing features they’re used to is not cool.

Two quick frustrating Vista examples come to mind. During log in, even if you have de-activated your screensaver, you must log in promptly or the screensaver loads anyway. Then, when you do decide to log in, your Desktop configurations along with many of your user settings may be simply wiped out (you can retrieve them by running System Restore, if you’re lucky). More frustrating are the inconsistent View options in Windows Explorer; You can set the Date Modified option as many times and even in some default option screens as you want, but the view seldom comes up as the default, and it’s a crapshoot whether Date Modified will appear in any given window—you need to right click on the categories and add it manually in order to find files in a window by this very important parameter.

For both of these issues there is probably a very dangerous Registry fix or all-day workaround that might address the issue--for a couple of days--until Vista (or Office) revert to some default because they've been "updated."

Oh well.

But it’s not just Microsoft. Today there was a headline: 94% of Facebook users hate new design.
Combine that with the uproar over the Terms of Service recently, and users are not that happy with the world’s major social network.

For me, another painful example is Yahoo Maps. I loved the old maps and was able to go back to the “dial-up” version when the “new and improved” Maps were introduced. I preferred the ease of finding hotels and restaurants, and the new Maps really suck—the location is off in a corner if it is even found at all (it misses a lot) and zooming in and locating points of interest is an exercise in frustration. Finally Yahoo completely discontinued the old maps, and I found a lot of dissatisfied folks online. A Yahoo Customer “Care” rep told me the new maps were now the only maps.

Fortunately one dissatisfied user let out the knowledge that the UK/Ireland “beta” maps are still the original, and putting U.S. Addresses into them works just fine (but for how long)?

It goes all the way down to my Wells Fargo ATM. Out of the blue, without warning, a new “system” for scanning in checks was implemented, causing lots of delay at the ATMs and promising to “save thousands of trees” because deposit envelopes were eliminated. Given that the truth-telling record of banks is a bit suspect these days, I suspect the real reason was… money.

And that goes right back to the software publishers—if they don’t “upgrade”, what are they going to sell, particularly the shrink-wrapped dinosaurs like Microsoft? Marketing clamors for new features, even if they are irrelevant and destroy the sanity and productivity of end users.

Programmers need to come up with something different to justify their existence; product managers need an excuse to say the word “really” over and over again, as in “the new version is really, really scalable.”

The mission statement on the wall talks all about customer satisfaction, and focus groups and beta testing is supposed to address the end users’ concerns, but with the crap that is being foisted on us lately, one has to wonder whether anyone in the main office is really using these products?

(Don’t they notice that they can’t find files by the last dates on which they were modified? Do they really think that a slick “Aero” interface where you can see the open windows sideways is cool and more useful than finding the last saved version of a real file?)

Now again there is lots of talk about Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8, with Office 14 due out a bit later next year (if they manage to make it work “in the Cloud”), but the only ones really excited about these prospects, I dare say, are the tech journalists who make money reviewing the new versions and figuring out their features and explaining them to frustrated end users.

The end result of all of this is alienation, discontent and inevitable rebellion on the part of end users. There may not be a guillotine in store for software publishers, but there are a lot of people running clandestine installations of Windows XP, and web-based versions of Office like Open Office and Zoho are definitely gaining market share.

I know you Mac-heads are claiming a religious experience that insulates you from this trend, but I know people frustrated with Macs just like others are with Windows and Linux.

It’s the nature of the beast, upgrade, change or die.

And you can make the point that change is not welcomed in our society, particularly by old fogies like me. But change for the sake of change is a recipe for frustration and disenchantment.

I particularly dread my next cell phone, which will come with a manual of 12 pages printed in tiny fonts with the 12 pages divided into four languages, and I will have to figure out a new software platform when all I want is a consistent dial tone.

This is the real Terminator and Matrix—machines taking over and driving their creators (us) literally insane.

Do Your Own Ning Thing Now Available

2009-03-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

A bit of shameless self promotion: my new eBook on creating your own social network is avalable on my web site. Or click the widget in the right panel.

How is Computer Programming the Same as the Genome—And What Does It Mean?

2009-03-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

From my first blog on the topic of genetics, based on an amazing video on TED by Juan Enriquez, I speculated that the presence of programming as an underlying feature of Life means that an intelligence is ultimately the source of all being.

In the video, Enriquez uses the analogy of an apple, which executes code (DNA) when it receives enough energy from the sun, and drops from the tree. He adds that by modifying the code we can change the nature of the apple, or any organic life form.

The genetic code itself is being sequenced (decoded) according to the patterns of four letters, AGTC—which represent the names of the nucleotide bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, in a molecule of DNA. (Wikipedia).

As Gina Smith explains in her book, The Genomic Age, “Scientists figured out, in 1967, how DNA specifies the building of protein... Recall that in every life-form, the letters A, C, T, and G (i.e., the bases) perform the same function. They build proteins by instructing another chemical, called RNA, to put the proteins together one building block after another… The building blocks are called amino acids, and there are precisely twenty of them.”

So there is a code that gets executed that can be represented symbolically that underlies all of our life functions—physiologically and presumably also psychologically.

More recently there have been advances in the field of epigenetics, which is the study of the chemical reactions that turn the genes on and off, and do so apparently on the basis of complex interactions with the environment.

Now bear in mind that Enriquez merely doesn’t use the apple as an analogy—he states literally that the code in the apple is the same as in files or programs you can move on a flash drive.

But even if you are viewing this blog in a web browser, you may not be aware of what code or programming really represent.

For example, if you click on the setting in your browser that lets you “View Source”, under Page in Internet Explorer, you see a symbolic representation of this blog page that informs the browser on how to display it.

It’s pretty obvious that a conscious mind had to create the program that does this, at least to me.

A billion monkeys, even if they had a Windows PC each, would not produce the code or the program that could enable this to happen in a trillion years.

Let’s look at one more example—a macro in Microsoft Word. This macro runs the commands upon the click of a mouse that creates a red rectangle in a document.

Notice in this macro that if you change the language by changing the numbers representing the RGB (color) values, you change the nature of the rectangle—it changes color.

This is precisely like the Enriquez example—if you change the genetic structure (code) of its DNA, its nature is changed.

In programming this is called the object’s properties. In life it might be called the qualities of the life-form. What it is capable of doing is called its method in programming; again in life it may be called its being or nature.

So what does this mean?

Well for one thing, it means that we created computer software "in our own image"—consciously writing its code according to various intentions we had predetermined as meaningful and significant (displaying a web page, writing and editing a document, running a macro).

The internal logic of both the genetic code and our computer code is precise; if I change the code of the macro I change the rectangle, or if I screw up, I put a bug in the program and the result is an aborted macro and an error message.

In life, this might be deemed a mutation, or in the case of cells that don’t know what they should be doing, or do the wrong thing, cancer.

But we know how the computer and software “evolved”—it was no accident. No lightning bolt hit a bog or pile of primordial sludge and shot it awake like Frankenstein. Many brilliant scientists created increasingly sophisticated ways of switching on and off (zeroes and ones) various devices to make calculations and run programs, and increasingly sophisticated programs (instructions) were consciously created to run on these hardware devices, after being translated (compiled) from symbolic (English) language into machine language.

So based on the evidence, how and why do any of us presume that life is any different?
Increasingly all branches of science are coming up against the barrier that what is knowable must account for the presence of us—that the observer or consciousness is intimately involved in not only our perceptions of reality, but literally in what reality is. From quantum physics, to bio-physics, to particle physics, there is nothing (literally) that does not ultimately come up against the reality of consciousness.

But what is consciousness? We know it as we experience it—it courses through our brains or more likely through our entire mind/bodies—and informs our perceptions and as biology has recently found, our thoughts and our health.

But suppose that the meaning of our science (and computers are our signpost or living metaphor) is that our deeper consciousness may literally connect us to whatever may be our programmer.

If we call the programmer God, it doesn’t explain anything—in the parlance of computer programming God is simply a variable for an unknown value—a mystery or a container for a value that is manifest through our existence.

But if we put aside our theories about God, or the programmer, what we can still say is that there are two ways for our program to run—programmed externally according to principles we barely understand, or possibly programmed by our “Self”.

But what is our Self?

If we meditate or self observe, we might reach the conclusion that it is not the bundle of thoughts that comprise our ego.

Rather, our true Self, at least in my humble opinion, is that part of us which is increasingly conscious of our connection to whatever (or whoever) is our programmer. While that connection is difficult if not impossible to define in words we can and do try (remember what there was “In the beginning”--the Word), but to the extent that we recognize that we are not in charge (our own programmer) and align ourselves with Life, Being, God, Higher Intelligence, Energy or whatever we might call it, we can manifest Its intentional higher consciousness through us.

This then would point to a split in what we do. If we act in alignment with what our higher intelligence suggests is true, we do good. If we remain oblivious to and disconnected from higher intelligence, and act unconsciously, that may be a pretty decent definition of evil.

And when we try to judge one or the other logically, with our left brain, we are caught up in paradoxical loops. The only way to truly know is through a higher center, probably in the right brain, that connects us with a higher logic—to our essential program and its Creator.

(In that sense, prayer or meditation might literally be "logging in...")

I remember when I first came to L.A. and needed a job, I worked at night at a law firm where an IBM word processing machine literally “trained me” in its internal logic, by going through a series of disks. Not surprisingly there was a bug in the program, and I needed to supersede it in order to get from disk 5 to disk 6. I got angry at the fallibility of the programmer, and yet I was in awe of the “mind in the machine.”

A similar insight can happen when you get pissed off at Windows. You can’t figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing—or what you’re doing “wrong.” Then through tech support, a friend, or by a miracle, you see the answer—and what’s clear is that by its internal logic—its “meaning”—the program is doing exactly the right thing. Now that you “get it”—you recognize the logic. But the intelligence behind it, until you got it, was literally “alien.”

We as a species are clearly at a crossroads. We can stay disconnected to the apparent higher source of our consciousness (unconscious) and become increasingly automated and mechanistic. As a recently heard, when Treasury Secretary Paulsen asked for the first TARP appropriation, and he was asked how he knew it was necessary, he replied, “the computers said so” [that without the funds the economy would collapse.]

Or through our science, technology and realization of the link between our creation (computers) and ultimate creation there is a higher intelligence (true consciousness) which we can connect with through our entire being (mind-body), and that by aligning ourselves with its truths (instead of our own imagined inferior (logical/ego) truths, we can not only survive, but truly evolve.

Now that's a program I'd like to download.

New Thoughts on Intelligent Life

2008-12-10T12:49:00.001-08:00

It's now been nearly three months since my last post. Those have not been easy months for many people, and I combined the stress from the business pages with some personal issues to fall into a deep hole of my own.

At this point I see myself climbing out of my hole but only perhaps having reached eye level. I still need to get out completely, see the hole for what it was, fill it up with love, and plant a tree.
Friends have told me that my low period (that’s actually an understatement) will result in a new approach to life, and I am finally at a point where I can accept and embrace that possibility and view it as inevitable.

Continuing this blog is now part of that process.

In my previous post about Epigenetics, I addressed the apparent presence of “software” in our bodies that interprets environmental factors and switches our genes on and off.

This process, as it turns out, is explained and extrapolated in a fascinating book by Bruce Lipton, “The Biology of Belief”. In it he identifies the cell membrane as the “computer chip” that literally processes the information from the environment and comprises a conduit for the subconscious or automatic (autonomic) functions in our bodies – mainly functions like breathing, sensing and other parts of the so-called parasympathetic nervous system (right brain) that we literally don’t think about.

According to Lipton and many developments in biology and neuroscience, we are not the determined result of our genetic makeup but rather an evolving organism continually replacing our cells and interacting with an environment that switches our genes on and off and affects our inner process through our parasympathetic nervous system.

Beyond the identification of the process as literally data processing like a computer chip, Lipton goes on to state that this subconscious part of our existence, which processes information at an exponentially faster rate than our conscious mind – consider how quickly you blink if an object is thrown at your eye – is also the storage area for our assumptions about the environment - programmed into us by our parents and peers at an early age (and even before birth itself – in the womb).

The book ends with an Addendum on one technique for reprogramming these assumptions in a way that reduces automatic fear (in my case unquestionably a big factor in the intensity of my “low period”) and suggests that a more positive set of assumptions can be adopted that will have beneficial impact throughout the body, based on seeing the environment as not hostile, but rather essentially neutral, and infusing an attitude of self-acceptance and love into one’s subconscious thoughts.

Neuroscience and psychology have come together in a number of new developments to embrace mindfulness (focused attention on the body) as a practice (meditation) that literally reprograms the prefrontal lobe of the brain to effectively integrate the right and left – so that past grief and negative “programs” can be overridden with a corresponding physical re-energizing of the body and in effect, spirit.

Spirit as an element of biology, psychology or indeed neuroscience. Who would have thought?

As Lipton suggests, it happened with quantum physics and it’s inevitable in biology, psychology and neuroscience.

It was about a year ago when my own discovery of the science of programmability of the genome of all life – with its analogous implications in terms of how human software is created (with a conscious intention) suggested to me that life was by no means a random occurrence, but was in fact a reflection of a much higher mental energy or entity, indeed that the universe was conscious.

I suggested that just as Microsoft Word could not have accidentally “evolved”, but rather came about through the conscious efforts of humans, it now seemed that even the complexity of a single celled organism (with a genome not much smaller than that of humans) -- which is controlled by a set of software instructions from the environment (now identified as epigenetics) -- must be the result of not random occurrence but rather intentional intelligence.

While some would make the immediate leap to intelligent design – I don’t – cognizant that our intellectual capacities and very being might be inadequate to truly comprehend the magnitude of such an intelligence and label it in any meaningful way.

In fact, the mystical experiences that assert a connection to such an intelligence inevitably suggest that it is beyond language or our ability to verbally or intellectually describe or identify it.

To me, this confirms the reality that an idea (Plato’s forms would be my humble analogy) exists just as material exists – and indeed Lipton and neuroscientific work in psychology has confirmed that our thoughts are part of an environmental system that affect our very being. Unfortunately again, our conscious intellectual thoughts are inadequate to compete with the subconscious (with its superior processing power) to effect change.

Lipton says that “positive thinking” is insufficient. We need to reprogram our subconscious or at a minimum observe its effects through our body and sensation – the practice often referred to as mindfulness and sometimes called meditation.

We need to either learn experiential processes that allow us to communicate and reprogram the subconscious to change our own nature – or at a minimum begin to observe (rather than react automatically) to the input of our environment and our own negative conditioning, and reintegrate our connection between our right and left brains (notice our automatism and by observing it, slow down and reduce its negative aspects).

Remember that it is the automatic part of the brain that connects through our entire bodies with the environment using the cell membrane to process the information, and it apparently cannot be consciously controlled by our “intelligence”. It literally takes place on the level of software and data processing.

There is another interesting concept in Lipton’s work that I can connect with computers in a literal way.

He says that humans are a community of cells, and suggests that human evolution, now at a crossroads between transformation and extinction, must lead to seeing humanity as a community in harmony with an intelligent environment rather than trying to impose control.

One could make a case that the Internet is evolving as the nervous system of such a community of human cells living in cooperation rather than competition, and that perhaps even social networks (even the annoying ones like Twitter or those that keep pestering you with new connections and friends) are part of this evolution.

As this evolution proceeds, according to Lipton and many others, humanity must drop its own subconscious programming of the primacy of competition and perhaps even rethink our concept of individuality – not as a single cell in a hostile environment but as part of an organic intelligent whole with which we can connect in a loving and cooperative way.

And getting back to my low period, the key understanding that I need to organically embrace (and not just intellectually think I understand) is that as an individual I need to give up the illusion of control over my environment on a deep and fundamental level.

While my conscious mind has been able to think through many problems and create a reasonably comfortable existence, this existence has never been guaranteed, and at bottom, we all are subject to the vagaries of an environment that is likely neutral as far as individual humans are concerned, and possibly intelligently loving and benign with respect to our species itself, particularly if humanity can evolve to respect the environment and ultimately live in harmony (and not opposition or control) of it.

The inevitable results of our struggle for control are becoming readily apparent – both on a global and in my case on a personal scale. While this blog is an intellectual endeavor, hopefully my inner processes are also changing organically to reduce the need for a sense of control and I can effect a reintegration of my conscious thoughts and subconscious programming.

We’ll see.

Genetic Software Identified

2008-09-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

In a recent blog posts(please see "Humanity 2.0 – It’s the Software, Stupid "), I speculated about how "decoding the genome" may inevitably lead to the widespread realization of how we literally function with an "operating system" and "software" - and if this is indeed the case, I wonder whether that does not inevitably lead to a sense of an intelligent intention to our very being. We need not argue about a "Creative Designer" but perhaps begin to suspect that beyond ourselves as the so-called "dominant species" at the apex of creation, that there certainly exists a higher mind behind our existence and purpose.

If we contemplate that we are essentially software manifest organically, we might wonder whether a program like Microsoft Word would exist without humans (who created it in our image) - and who had fulfilled an intention to do word processing?

In a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (May 2008) titled "A Paradigm Shift in Genetics", the focus was on the so-called epigenome - a system of inner functions referred to as a "chemical switchboard", responsive to the environment (input), which turns our genes on and off.

Here are two relevant paragraphs:

"Ehrlich is referring to the emerging field known as epigenetics. The epigenome is the elaborate chemical switchboard that can turn genes on and off like flipping a light switch. Our genes encode instructions for the building of proteins. On its own, DNA is nothing but an inert biological handbook, but chemicals in each cell actively read and transcribe the instructions, then use them to build our bodies cell by cell. Every cell in your body contains an identical genome, and yet a brain cell is quite different from a skin cell.

"How do the differences arise? Because different genes are expressed from one cell to the next. How does a cell know which genes to implement and which to ignore? That set of instructions is contained in the cell's epigenome. Whereas the genome is static - its sequence of base pairs unchanging except in the rare and often detrimental case of a mutation - the epigenome is dynamic, busily deciding which genetic instructions should be put into action and which should be chemically strangled into silence."

In other words this is a dynamic set of instructions carried out in response to stimuli from the physical environment and other (possibly as yet unknown) influences. According to these inputs a series of responses or instructions are carried out.

Are these random events? That can certainly be argued in terms of who or what determines the influences - but they occur according to a set of cause and effect materially determined laws - not by chance.

To me, this is another powerful indicator that life itself (for which this is indeed the "software") did not evolve from a random event, but is also a result or effect of some cause - and beyond the apparent complexity of the epigenome and the genome - its obvious purpose and intentionality - points a supremely higher mental process behind Life (as there is behind all human-created software).

Humanity 2.0 – It’s the Software, Stupid

2008-08-04T12:44:00.001-07:00

A truly thought provoking video on TED is headlined: Kwabena Boahen: Making a computer that works like the brain. Boahen is a computer scientist who actually grew up Ghana, where he was fortunate enough to get a computer as a child; in the video he quotes a fellow researcher Brian Eno who said in 1995, “The problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them.”

Boahen takes that to mean more creative conception of computer hardware, and proposes a restructuring of the CPU along the lines of neural networks to permit more efficient processing of information.

What I find incredible is that neither Boahen, with his fresh viewpoint on computer science from his unique perspective, nor seemingly any of the speakers at TED (with the possible exception of Jill Bolte Taylor’s “My stroke of insight” – a phenomenal investigation of neuroscience of mystical proportions) make any attempt to truly grasp the significance of the analogies between advances in computing and the human brain.

More specifically, if we can use Biblical language allegorically, it seems clear that consciously, subconsciously or indeed completely unconsciously we’ve created computers in our own image.

In my humble opinion, there is deep meaning to this, and indeed the birth of the computer and with it the Internet are major potential milestones in the evolution of our species – perhaps to a Humanity 2.0 – but only if we grasp their essential meaning.

What do I mean?

To my mind the missing dimension to all comparisons between the human brain, neuroscience and the computer is the incredible avoidance of these endeavors to acknowledge the key component of all computers – namely software.

From the amazing description of an apple as an application that can be genetically reprogrammed by Juan Enriquez (again on TED) to Boahen’s concept of a chip based on neural networks no scientist seems comfortable venturing into the area that is the very key to understanding any computer system: what program is running and where did it come from?

In the scientific community this is relegated to “soft” sciences – psychology, sociology and perhaps philosophy – but it is remarkably absent, or so it seems to me, as a matter of serious inquiry, in the fields of genetics or neuroscience.

Evolution is the obvious "scientific" answer to such questions – and that’s fine – but we need to recognize that if we exist in a universe of cause and effect laws, the process that we term evolution is very unlikely to be the result of haphazard chance or accident. It is too well programmed for that.

Clearly, if the brain is the basis for our development of the computer and then the Internet -- the issue of what may be the “operating system” and what sorts of software it is running are probably the most significant issues facing us if we are to understand its true functions.

From the first personal computer I ever purchased, this was the key point: what was I going to use it for (its purpose) and then, which programs did I expect to run. In my case I would never have bought my first Eagle if I could not run a program called WordStar and write screenplays of questionable quality.

And even now I would never invest in a new computer, or load a new operating system (sorry Vista) unless I was confident that the tasks I intended to perform could be effectively completed by the software I intended to run.

The problem, of course, is that as soon as you begin to speculate on software in the brain you come across two potentially troublesome terms – either “Mind” or “Consciousness” become unavoidable factors.

Science refuses to seriously address these two concepts (except in the “soft” sciences) because they do not easily yield solely (or soul-ly) to data analysis and require deeper investigation and thought.

Indeed in the realm of quantum mechanics, the key component of the observer as a critical aspect of any phenomena that can be investigated on the subatomic level has already presented this same barrier – the presence of an embodied mind or consciousness it seems effectively determines the observable data and without an observer the result either doesn’t exist or as Heisenberg suggested, it is in reality uncertain. To our materialistically oriented mentality uncertain data doesn’t really qualify as data at all.

But I digress. When as I wrote before, Juan Enriquez describes both the computing power necessary to decode (sequence) the genome, and the ability of our geneticists to reprogram what has been discovered (and yet not create it out of nothing), this begs the question: Where did the program come from and what about the immense scale of its apparent complexity?

If you consider the brain or genetic material hardware only – as seemingly inanimate things – then certainly it could have evolved over eons from other inanimate things – perhaps stimulated by electrical energy when it is perceived as yet another inanimate thing.

But if you remain true to the computer model then there has to be an investigation of the true nature of software, both as we know it and as it has apparently come to exist in nature itself.
Taking the analogy a bit further, perhaps simplistically, but truly sincerely, we can see that for example, Microsoft Word, the evolutionary offspring of WordStar, the software for which I purchased my original Eagle, is the result of only one thing – human ingenuity and a meeting of thousands of Minds.

It could not exist otherwise.

The zeroes and ones that constitute the program that is Word or was WordStar were created by human minds with a purpose: to communicate more efficiently and connect human minds through language, sound and images.

The Internet evolved similarly, out of a human capacity for creating a system of programs that could connect us electronically – but the Internet too would never exist just to constitute a network of cables or wireless connections.

The Internet as hardware would never have evolved.

It exists only to move messages and meaning.

So again, working backwards, if the model for all of this is our own brain, and by extension, our nervous system and even our more automatic or autonomic physiology that is programmed genetically – we probably need to ask – what’s the software?

Unfortunately if we ask this question sincerely, answers do not come easily, and they are open to much debate, but at least they are the result of serious questions and not the obvious and deliberate avoidance of deeper issues.

My own suggestion would only be a self conscious pointer in two possible directions where we might look for more answers.

First inside ourselves, because deep self examination of one’s own programming is the only real access we currently have to our software. Observing others is possible at this point only in terms of their outward manifestations, verbal descriptions, and the data of brainwaves which is at present inconclusive in terms of that troublesome concept: meaning.

The second direction might be the same road some aspects of quantum physics have taken – namely East. The descriptions of meditative states and the reality of consciousness described by Eastern thought seems to dovetail nicely with the observations or “data” of quantum physicists, to their everlasting dismay.

The apparently dualistic state of light as simultaneously both wave and particle phenomena is a real paradox, just as we might argue about the “cause” or primogenitor of evolution.

It is quite possible that both neuroscience, and very likely astrophysics and astronomy, will have to be led kicking and screaming into both of these new directions – directing their investigations inside ourselves as organisms comprised of hardware (physiology) and software (essence, spirit, soul or mind) -- with a perspective broadened by the meditative practices of the East.

Only then will we perhaps be receptive to a download from somewhere or an upgrade of something that we ultimately evolve into Humanity 2.0, or failing to connect successfully and log in to something higher -- our species may degenerate into a lower life form, or become extinct, like WordStar and the Eagle computer.

Whose PC Is It Anyway?

2008-08-01T14:07:00.001-07:00

Has this happened to you? You return to your Vista PC and find that either the screensaver is running or you have the log on screen on your monitor, and you realize that the computer has rebooted in your absence?

If all you have to do is log back in, it’s a mild inconvenience but it’s still a bit creepy…

But if after you log in, your entire desktop is GONE? That happened to me recently. Being fairly experienced, I located the actual files in my Desktop folder under my user name, so I knew the data was safe. But suddenly Vista had given me a whole new blank desktop with the default wallpaper.

And, for good measure, when I opened my browser, I found that my start page was back on MSN and my history was gone. Cool, huh?

Obviously this was the result of an update, necessitated by Microsoft’s well founded security concerns.

But it’s a lot like the manager of my building coming into my apartment and rearranging the furniture while I’m gone – or locking the doors and windows.

I don’t like it, and combined with the other inconveniences of Vista, I’m sure lots of other people don’t like it either.

What are those other inconveniences? They are too numerous to mention but how about incompatible hardware and software, new CD and DVD formats that don’t work, and interminable file transfer times?

What makes it worse is that as always, there are no solutions. I recently had a data dump, otherwise known as the blue screen of death, and when Windows returned I was told it had recovered from a serious error (it had used System Restore – the same way I got my desktop back from the other incident) and did I want to know more details…

Sure I clicked Yes, figuring I’d get the usual inscrutable information that told me nothing but this time NOTHING is exactly what I got. Nada. Zilch. No explanation whatsoever is available for a “serious error.”

How long has Windows had a blue screen problem – how about EVERY INCARNATION? Maybe it’s impossible to correct given the disparate hardware on which the platform is located, but how about providing a clear and understandable EXPLANATION of how it happens and what you can do to recover?

Here is what I mean by clear and understandable. NOT “you had a fatal error or system exception at memory base 4M60XQIC0M;’T.XOM.”
No – here is what I mean: the last program you used was _____________________________.
When you clicked ___________________________ it conflicted with ______________________.
To prevent this from happening you should uninstall ______________________________ or reconfigure ______________________________.
Alternatively you could delete _________________________ from StartUp under MSConfig.

System Restore is nice but scary. It’s like you’re waiting for the patient to come out of the ER. And there is no chance to talk to the surgeon afterwards – “Oh, we took out some malware and now the system is fine.”

I would feel a whole lot better with a clear and concise explanation of using System Recovery and Safe Mode – I know they exist but they are documented only for IT professionals. When a “normal” user crashes he may as well invoke a voodoo chant to get his system back.

It is wholly inexcusable for Vista to reboot and destroy your desktop on the one hand, requiring System Recovery, and provide no clearly understandable information on how to protect your system or bring it back from a data dump.

"Windows 7" promises a whole host of new features, including a touch screen "coffee table" interface -- I have a better idea, how about an understandable, reliable system that just works consistently?

Our New and Improved (?) Digital Washer/Dryer

2008-07-25T11:00:00.001-07:00

Several weeks ago I left my apartment only to discover that our building had replaced our perfectly functional “analog” washer/dryers with new digital models. What sets these apart are black LCD screens with digital read-outs that show the exact length, in minutes, of the remaining wash or dry cycle.

The display also goads you into forking up an extra quarter for a “bonus” rinse cycle, but it’s optional. The only thing it doesn’t do is send a message saying, “hey– take out your clothes, another tenant needs the dryer!”, or tell you to have a nice day.

Is there a message here – besides the digital read-out? Well the old washers worked pretty well as I recall, although the lint screen on the new one is a lot nicer – but that’s because it’s new. A lint screen alone might have cost what, two bucks?

It is nice to know exactly how much time is left in a cycle, but if you’ll pardon the pun, it’s fluff.

It’s excess for its own sake. Like the SUVs and mini-vans that are now extinct, it speaks to an insatiable need, now completely programmed into our brains, to see lack where there might be satisfaction.

It also makes one think of the perfectly functional and beautiful homes that get knocked down for newer, bigger mansions, whose owners might have made do with what they had.

And it speaks to the message of the Dalai Lama, on the east coast this week and probably being largely ignored, who chastises us for always wanting more, more and more.

As you may know, his country, Tibet, is being mauled by the country that is emulating us in the more, more and more sweepstakes – China, along with also fast growing India. But both of these countries are raising extremely low standards of living a bit higher, while we are generally raising generally very high standards of living (by global comparison) higher and higher.

But the problem really isn’t us, is it? The company that built the new and improved digital washer/dryer is considered innovative, and is manned by a marketing team hell bent on convincing the world that knowing the exact length of the rinse and dry cycle is critical.

That need has flowed down the electronic synapses and dendrites of our society to the point where we need to check our email every hour, or more, and keep up with the news, while being programmed to buy more digital washer/dryers.

There may have been a lesson to be learned from the older analog washer/dryers – from that inexact interval between the end of the cycle and the time you actually remember to take out your clothes.

In that ten or fifteen extra minutes, if you aren’t checking your email or scheduling your next appointment, you might actually sit back and reflect (as the Dalai Lama might) on what the heck you’re doing anyway?

Instead of checking your email, check your reality.

In case you missed it, CNN ran a story the other day with the headline: Scientists: Humans and machines will merge in future.

No, they weren’t talking about a Yahoo-Microsoft type of merger. They were suggesting that you and I might be made new and improved with digital read-outs. Optimally, email might be downloaded directly into our brains, bypassing the laptop or iPhone entirely. According to the piece:

“Transhumanists… anticipate an era in which biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being.”

And the proponents weren’t worried about this scenario, they seemed to welcome it as an inevitable improvement in human “efficiency” (my interpretation).

When I think about how entities like credit card companies, utilities, software manufacturers and others take advantage of new technology to pad my bill and increase my customer dissatisfaction, I have to wonder about the ultimate advantage of becoming “transhuman.”

Most of the people I see walking around shouting into their cellphones barely qualify as human.

I’d hate to reach the voicemail system of a “transcorporate customer” support center. I am sure they’d have a sensational mission statement, but the underlying reality would be far less benign.

And I’m not sure that a new and improved version of my brain or my body, complete with digital read-outs and a wireless connection to an ATM, would improve my life very much.

When I look at the other “transhuman” byproducts of a digitally improved emerging Humanity 2.0 I also have to wonder: dead birds, dying bees, beached whales and dolphins, poisoned oceans, unbreathable air at the Olympics – perhaps what we’ll be digitally replacing won’t be our brains but our lungs.

Maybe I’m making too much of the digital washer/dryer – after all, I haven’t had to wait for the dryer since they installed it. And the lint screen is impeccable. But for some reason I can’t quite fathom, I find myself checking my email more and more frequently. I think I’m becoming – transhuman.

The Meaning of Sofware?

2008-05-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

My old Webster’s dictionary (1960) does not even list the term “software” in its entries. As recently as 50 years ago in the “development” or apparent evolution of man the concept was not widely known.

Today millions of us use software, and many humans are even well versed in the concept of “programming” – designing or directing a series of symbols to perform intended tasks using electricity and silicon.

At the same time another industry is using the most powerful computers on the planet to decode the complex set of instructions in our genetic code – the genome. It has discovered not that the genetic code is “like” software (an analogy) – but that it is in fact exactly that. Genticist Juan Enriquez has stipulated that organic life is literally an “application” – behaving according to a programmed set of instructions in its DNA.

While we still cannot create life (although scientists predict it will happen) we can reprogram it.

Here an interesting puzzle is presented.

Could software have come into existence without man – or at least intelligent life? Hardly. It is difficult to imagine software appearing in an inanimate, mechanical universe devoid of life and intelligence. Clearly in a world without humans (or intelligent life) there would be no technology.

But if Life is actually software – programmed intentionality in organic matter – is it reasonable to think that it could have “evolved” out of inanimate, mechanical stuff?

Certainly the implications are troubling – wherever the original intention behind Life’s programming – whatever its ultimate “source” – what might have created or caused that? An infinite paradox for theologians, scientists and seekers.

But the problem may not be the paradox, but the language framing it.

In posing this puzzle, we assume a level of linear causality that we have recently discovered may be entirely missing in another area of scientific inquiry – quantum physics.

Without stooping to the level of simplicity that says that all physical law is “mental” or connected to the observer or consciousness at the subatomic level (which is hard to fathom much less explain intelligently) – although it can be “felt” –

...we may nonetheless also “feel” the possibility that if our own “nature” is in fact decodable based on a set of symbols (numbers, letters, zeroes, ones), then concepts of reality pointing to the primacy of Mind over Matter – which are the basis of many ancient teachings – may be onto something very deep and true.

The decoding of the genome, for example, points quite directly to a “meaning” and “intention” in our Being – first survival – then replication – and perhaps ultimately – what? Evolution or transformation?

The development of software is a double edged sword. On the one hand it provides the potential for unparalleled control over humanity in a 1984-like scenario. What some may term degeneration of free will or involution.

On the other, it points the way toward a different level of meaning. By introducing the concept and the actual experience of an “application” – something artificial (man made) that performs intended tasks according to a [human] mental directive – an electronic being – based on human intelligence and intention – it shows how mind can shape materiality in a direct way. How a mind can exist through electrical impulses and silicon to perform intelligent, intended tasks on the human scale.

One may well ask, on what scale or in what realm of creative mental space might whatever have placed the intention or meaning within Life – our genetic code – exist?

It (God, She, He) need not exist on a material level at all. We experience the realm of thought within whatever software coexists in the operating system of our brains.

Might not a living, sentient level of thought be galvanizing the material realm, and Life on our planet, for purposes that we can barely fathom and are at a loss to explain with our feeble logic?

More Vista Stupidity

2008-05-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while - one reason being that maintaining my Vista "home network" is such a joy. It goes out willy nilly for no apparent reason, keeping me from moving files, accessing the web, or both.

This weekend I spent an hour resetting the network instead of watching basketball - the key point to remember is when this happens - nothing has changed - it just stops working.

I have finally learned to use the wonderful Network and Sharing Center which has the typical Microsoft circularity of diagnose and repair, which of course solves nothing.

Some of these issues are covered in the Annoyances.org website - not surprisingly the Vista Annoyances book is 664 pages long. Besides the obvious stuff I've covered here like files taking forever to move or burn to a DVD (if they even do that), and the idiocy of never having a consistent set of options in the Explorer Window (why would ever NOT want the Date Modified to appear for finding and/or sorting - yet it is NEVER there even after it's been added previously) - not being able to access the Desktop folder in Explorer in less than five clicks - the most flagrantly ridiculous aspect of Vista has to be networking.

I have been networking my PCs with Windows since 3.11.

Finally I decided to go thru the Vista web site and try to find explanations to some of my "issues" - amazingly the duplicate IP address came up as a common problem with an apparent solution - which I clicked on -- mind you this is from the Vista web site --

Forget about the inscrutable text - note the "relevant" Applies to section - it's all about Windows NT and 3.11! From the Vista web site!

Can there be any clearer testimony that this company does NOTHING to increase the stability of its product from iteration to iteration? I don't need the AERO interface - I need a networking infrastructure that WORKS CONSISTENTLY - even on Sunday morning when I want to watch basketball.

Here is a clue - if the network is working Saturday night and I DO NOTHING - it should still be working Sunday morning.

Moreover, is it too much to expect, as a home business user, that in the decades since Windows 3.11, or the five years since the initial post of this "knowledge base" article - that Microsoft might deign to actually fix the problem if IP conflicts - and perhaps make the fix transparent to the user.

...Or - failing that - at least clearly explain what the heck an DHCP server even is -- is that too much to ask?!?!

Instead they concentrate on new "features" - leaving a hole in a service that every business or even home user has a right to expect will work and perform stably.

Could a problem be the router? Of course -- since Vista needs all kinds of hardware and software upgrades to work properly.

I also saw a link for a listing of Vista supported Routers - great, another peripheral I need to upgrade for no reason. But I ran the diagnostics for my older router in Vista and it passed - so that is not the reason for my problems.

Finally, the symptom of my problem (which is nowhere covered in the Vista web pages even in the section on Win 3.11) is the sudden appearance of a duplicate network. This requires me to get rid of it by restarting my network adapter. Doubtless Windows tech support would inform me that this is a "hardware" issue -- but let's face it -- if they haven't solved the IP conflict issue since Windows 3.11 then apparently the modus operandi of making excuses instead of creating a stable working environment is not going anywhere any time soon.

Do the Math - the Meaning of Technology

2008-04-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

Technology is often considered an indicator of the evolution of humanity, freeing it of many physical struggles and evidencing the progress of the species.

But if we grant that the essential nature of man (and woman) has not changed much in thousands of years, could the meaning implicit in technology not also be a catalyst for more profound level of evolution?

What if technology is a teaching?

Jacob Needleman, in his book “A Sense of the Cosmos”, suggests that the outer world (the physical world and the universe) is considered within many ancient religions to be the lever for the transformation of human beings from unconscious to conscious.

How might technology, as 21st century humans experience it, be instrumental in that process?

From personal experience I resisted technology early in life. As an English major I had disdain for the engineers on my college campus who had multiple pens in their breast pockets and merely tabulated, calculated and later collected sizable salaries.

Later in life I had occasion to have a number of significant experiences.

First in my reading I became fascinated by theories that the ancient Egyptians (or perhaps others who had visited Egypt) had encoded mathematical principles of the highest order in the pyramids and other ancient structures.

These structures were also speculated to have been temples (not in the modern sense) of initiation, where human consciousness might have been transformed to a higher level.

I intuitively appreciated how mathematics – the simple perfection of absolute Law (2+2=4 must be true everywhere and anywhere) might somehow be connected to such higher consciousness. On the physical plane such perfection is barely possible – exact measurement is rarely achieved – although the architects of the pyramids certainly came closer than many modern builders.
Then later in life I became fascinated by computers. My first experience was with a series of disks programmed into an IBM work processor that “taught” me how to use it.

Later I loved the process of teaching myself new “programs” – essentially active verbs or possibly even virtual life forms within the silicon that could do things and accomplish amazing feats of calculation and even graphics.

Occasionally I would hit a glitch and something “would not work.” When I was able to solve the problem it often happened that the computer had been “right” – whoever had designed the program had programmed according to a logic or math that I had not grasped – with which I was out of tune.

This alerted me to the possibility of higher impersonal intelligence. What was right was not morally right in the normal sense of the term, but rather correct in its alignment with principles of which I was yet unaware.

Becoming aware was literally enlightenment.

Now as I struggle with the meaning of my own waning physical existence I have become exposed to teachings that take a similar view of the cosmos.

They interpret the teachings of sages like Jesus, Buddha and others as not teaching insights in line with a higher personal Creator or God, but rather being in line with Nature or Life’s innate higher intelligence, as Eckart Tolle writes so eloquently in "A New Earth."

As “modern” beings we are not likely to understand the notion of physical objects as intelligent.

But what about energy?

What do we truly understand about the nature of energy?

We know that electricity is in our brains as impulses of our own thought. And we have now programmed similar electrical impulses

We know that unimaginable bursts of energy emanate through the universe and from stars like our sun.

Astronomers have speculated that remnants of the Big Bang (perhaps the first real conscious event that initiated all evolution of consciousness) still resonate throughout the universe.

If one broaches the subject of higher intelligence today the label one is given is a proponent of Intelligent Design, which is usually a front for institutional or evangelical Christianity as proof of a personal and angry or beneficent deity.

But there is a reasonable alternative – one that is being approached in science at the molecular and interstellar level.

I have written that my problems with religion began with the horrific experiences of my parents in the holocaust. My mother lost her faith while my father attributed his survival to his beliefs.

I can now take a new perspective on my father’s point of view. One winter we went to services for Yom Kippur at a congregation where we were not members. We were sent to the basement and all during the service, piped into a cramped room on speakers, we were solicited for cash.

My father left very angry, and later in life when he retired he avoided synagogues saying instead that he can commune with God just as well at sunset by the ocean.

While he never lost his belief in an anthropomorphic deity, I believe that he sensed a connection to nature and Life, based on his experiences, and of an intelligence and power of a much higher order and sought solace by connecting to it intuitively.

Technology shows us that logic and mathematics are of that higher order – they approach perfection in their certitude and also point to the inevitable fallibility of human nature.

Technology shows the potential presence of increasingly complex systems which our own ego driven and emotional natures can only dimly comprehend.

If you don’t believe this, watch the video of geneticist Juan Enriquez on the TED web site that explains how life behaves like a computer application, executing its genetic code with exquisite perfection and according to predictable mathematical principles. Of course, the ultimate complexity and level of these principles is still a mystery and withheld from our knowledge, and the subject of continued scientific inquiry.

It goes back to the experience of not understanding something about a computer but when the mystery is solved, realizing that the solution points to a system of logic that makes complete sense when understood from a perspective different, and perhaps far more advanced, than our own limited intelligence.

Ultimately technology, logic and mathematics point the way to the inevitability that life has meaning on a scale well beyond our own level of existence - where things may make sense in ways that humans cannot understand without evolving from their present state of inhumanity.

Vista Ultimate (Yeah Right)

2008-04-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

I booted back into Vista on my desktop yesterday because it is the Ultimate version and I needed to run Virtual PC 2007, which won't run on Vista Home on my laptop. Not surprisingly after being dormant for about a month, the OS choked and on the first boot up nothing worked, including my mouse (it froze on almost every icon). I tried again and the OS came back -- I did my work (amazingly Virtual PC worked nicely) and then I figured what the heck, reward the OS with an update and its Service Pack. I got into Windows Update, saw the updates ready to download (all 398 megabytes worth) and left it alone. Several hours later I got this dialog box.

I returned to the site and tried the update again. Twelve hours later this window was still opening. How long does it take to 'prepare' to install updates. And were they ever downloaded?

The problem with Vista is it's a full time job. So I rebooted back to Windows XP. Let the sucker hibernate for another month til I need it again.

Corporate Predators

2008-03-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I attended the premiere of "Burning the Future", a documentary with which an old friend is associated that provides a disturbing overview of how corporations are raping the environment of West Virginia, Kentucky and other states by cutting off the tops of entire mountains and destroying the land, killing wildlife, and poisoning the water. Here is the trailer:

This harkens back to an earlier blog entry speculating that corporations are literally the dominant life forms on the planet. That they are also predatory is no longer in question, as this film shows -- the big problem is that since they are basically etherial and virtual life forms they permit their human components to function without conscience.

Interestingly these life forms worship science and materialism as the highest value, so that their efforts induce their human components to act in a way that is pro-science, and against their conscience. The quality of conscience has atrophied in the "humans" that speak and act on behalf of these corporate monstrosities.

Unfortunately their actions also affect the livelihoods and lifestyles of millions of other humans, who must turn off their consciences in order to go along with the choices that these corporations manifest and promote through the corporately controlled mass media.

In the Q&A following the premiere the film maker made a point that in all of the CNN debates among candidates this issue was never raised, and even global warming was barely mentioned and never addressed with specificity (as a result of coal mining, for example). At the same time "Clean Coal" was a major sponsor of the debates.

Finally it is my view that the most imminent ecological disaster facing humans and all life on the planet currently has not been addressed with any sense of alarm since the days of Jacques Cousteau. The pollution and death of our oceans is almost certainly a condition from which our species will never recover and is no longer a matter of conjecture or debate. The fact that our beaches are spoiled is the least of our problems. When the reefs and sea lifeforms are dead we will starve and perhaps most profoundly higher life forms (cetaceans) will also become extinct.

Life will go on but homo sapiens may not survive. There may be some justice in that, since it is homo sapiens who triggered the evolution of the corporation -- basically a soul-less entity that is having disastrous effects on all life on this planet.

(Please see "Thoughts on the Holocaust" - February 11, 2008 in Archive)

It may well be as some have speculated that corporations and other similar institutions are harbingers of our (de)evolution into less conscious life forms like ants and bees whose identity is no longer individualized but manifest in a hive or colony.

Perhaps that is what Life has in store for us because of the threat we pose, in our corporate and institutional structures, to the totality of life on earth.

While we may see technology and the Internet, for example, as evolutionary quantum leaps forward, to the extent that they enable the continued atrophy of individual conscience and compassion, these aspects of "progress" may well result not in human empowerment, but in the control of the masses by the most venal and power hungry among us.

If that happens, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Hijacking Intelligent Design

2008-03-03T12:34:00.000-08:00

Since 9-11 it is commonly asserted that fundamentalist Muslims have “hijacked” their religion from presumably more reasonable and mainstream believers in their faith.

Anyone who has followed the news in science recently might say exactly the same thing about the concept of Intelligent Design, and once again the culprits are fundamentalists who have co-opted a set of beliefs, in this case scientific findings, to virulently promote their own narrow interpretation.

Particularly in the fields of quantum physics and genetics, there is an increasing awareness on the part of scientists that natural phenomena cannot be explained or predicted without taking into account the presence of an underlying mental component. Heisenberg and even Einstein first introduced these concepts in physics; in genetics the implications are more subtle.

We are increasingly told about the genetic code; the genome (which is the code underlying an individual or species) has been sequenced (interpreted as a series of alphabetic letters) and at the TED conference in Monterey last year, geneticist Juan Enriquez described the apple as “an application.” When it receives enough energy from the sun the apple “executes” its code (just like a computer program) and falls from a tree.

If you’ve ever worked with computers you’ve had an experience that points to what this means (and I acknowledge that scientists are uncomfortable with the notion of meaning). You’re working on a new computer program or application, or even installing a peripheral, and it doesn’t work. You reread the manual or maybe even call a help desk, and the problem gets solved – and here’s what happens: You realize that the computer was right.

What you then realize is the device or the program functioned exactly as it was supposed to, but you misunderstood something in the instructions. The malfunction was not some random event – when you understand it from a higher perspective it makes total sense from the vantage point of your new understanding. When you can align yourself with the system that conceived the program or device, suddenly everything about the incident becomes clear – it is no longer seemingly random – it is the obvious result of comprehensible intelligence.

This is precisely the current predicament of science. As it tries to decipher nature its findings are incomplete, but in every nook and cranny they point to something unmistakable – previously the province of mystics and pantheistic religions – there is an unmistakable order, a plan and symmetry at work in nature.

But when they venture forth with these findings the results are not pretty.

Ben Stein is addressing this issue in an upcoming film, “Expelled the Movie”, in which he asserts that scientists who question some of the theories of Darwin are being expelled from universities and ostracized by their peers for being religious kooks. This is of course a frightening prospect; if findings can be empirically verified they should be allowed into science and if alternatives to Darwin’s theories are rational they should be taught.

But it’s a false conundrum. The problem isn’t Darwinism or even Evolution – it’s the issue of what originally started the ball rolling. Strict scientists believe that random acts like lightening could have triggered evolution and hence life is a random event with no meaning or mental component at work. Mystery solved.

But is it? Some geneticists claim they are years away from creating life in a test tube – but have they? It seems so far they have only created one life form from another.

If their scientific colleagues who are brushing up against the evidence of paradox in the form of a mental or intelligent component at work in nature are being unfairly banished from their positions as scientists, that is an absurdity that results from only one thing – the fact that this concept which is entirely legitimate for scientific exploration has been hijacked by fundamentalists in this country.

They want Intelligent Design taught in schools as a theory of the existence of God – essentially an anthropomorphic construct with obvious problems. We do not know anything about the existence of a God, much less which God is the right one, or what His or Her motives may be.

But we cannot allow earnest scientific investigation into a mental component of nature to be torpedoed by such a fundamentalist interpretation when it may yield immense breakthroughs in the area of medicine, space exploration and fields as yet unforeseen.

The finite human mind seems incapable of accepting an effect without a cause, and yet science is coming up against that paradox inside the atom and at the edge of the known universe. Scientists like Mani Bhaumik, inventor of Lasik and author of “Code Name God” have already begun to compare and even reconcile findings in their fields with ancient religious theories – but totally within the context of accepted scientific discovery. But such scientists do not necessarily contend, and in fact Bhaumik would surely not believe, that locating the presence of intelligence in nature proves that the earth was created in less than a week, or that a puppet master was pulling the strings in the universe or directing the lives of individuals on this planet.

Freeing ourselves from the constraints of this dichotomy, between limiting the scope of scientific inquiry or accepting beliefs based only on faith, is very likely a key to the next great quantum (pardon the pun) leaps in both science and health and we must grant our greatest minds the freedom to explore nature in its fullness, even if it leads to the conclusion that far greater minds exist.

Memories of a Survivor - Part 3

2008-02-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

Video of my mother's recollections from her unpublished memoir,
"The Next Chapter." Her focus is not only the Holocaust, but the psychological toll of trying to readapt to a "normal" society. She also speculates about the Nazis' use of mind control and experiments in psychological terrorism on captives.
Mind games, returning to a hostile home, and reflections on God.

Memories of a Survivor - Part 2

2008-02-19T20:14:00.001-08:00

More of my mother's recollections, focusing on techniques she observed by the Nazis for breaking down human will and ego and creating a slave labor force.

Memories of a Survivor

2008-02-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

My mother wrote an unpublished memoir about her experiences under the Nazis called "The Next Chapter", because it mainly focused on the psychological difficulties of "readjustment" to a "normal" life. These are some portions of a video interview I conducted before her death.

Thoughts on the Holocaust

2008-02-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

The central issue of my life has been how - if God exists - two people as incredibly loving and wonderful as my parents could have been subjected to the horrors they experienced.

Jewish thinkers like Dennis Prager have addressed this point - Prager --- argues that Jews that use the Holocaust as a reason not to believe in God are intellectually dishonest because other similar atrocities have happened throughout history . So what? I don't see that as an explanation - that nonJewish-related evil also existed so the Holocaust is what, nothing special? Hardly an explanation likely to make me embrace an angry anthropomorphic God.

And besides, as my mother told me many times, Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust - generally free thinkers - homosexuals, communists, gypsies, Catholics - anyone who resisted "the program" were subject to extermination.

Interestingly my father still attributed his survival to his Jewish faith, while my mother completely lost her belief in any human-like higher being or power.

I have struggled with this for decades and have come to the point, like many of my contemporaries, of abandoning organized "religion" entirely.

Recently I have become exposed to a new set of ideas which have led me to the certainty that higher levels of intelligence and Life exist, and that we are subject to these forces.

I believe that technology has given us both the tools to understand, and serves as a metaphor for the existence of such higher forces - as we decode the genome we get a sense of the level of powerful intelligence required for the forces of evolution to work as they have over eons of time.

But how do we reconcile the existence of higher powers of Intelligence and Life with human barbarity? I think the answer may lie in animals as another metaphor.

When I think of the horrific world of the Nazis and the experience of my parents, I am taken by the image of ANTS. When I see nature programs of the ravages of army ants and similar insect populations slaughtering and enslaving others, I cannot see EVIL.

But is the ant barbarism genocide? Perhaps, but I see an automatic (programmed) lower form of life doing what it does.

As a child I watched with horror Disney's Living Desert where a wasp stings a spider, renders it paralyzed, and lets its babies devour the helpless spider alive.

Is this evil? No this is what Life has programmed it to do with incredible levels of intelligence beyond human comprehension.

Man, however, is the animal that can choose, can love or hate, or can revert to an automatic barbaric subhuman level of animalistic inhumanity.

Man is more and more responsible (with the growth of technology) for the environment in which animals and humans coexist.

Man may develop a conscience and act lovingly if he raises his or her level of being and influence life around him to evolve and thrive, or revert and die.

For example, man has allowed certain animals to live in his environment. In their native state, cats and dogs might be tigers or wolves. In a nurturing human environment they respond to the conscious and conscience in humans and act lovingly, manifesting in many ways the higher aspects of human beings.

But in the wild, they simply do what they were programmed to do, survive, unable by their lower nature to be receptacles and purveyors of Life energy or love. That is why killing a cougar that has ventured into "civilization" in order to survive, is appalling to many of us. We recognize that it is doing simply what Life has programmed it to do.

But humans have the ability to go either way. Their nature is determined elsewhere - be it will, conscience, heart, heredity, environment, genetics - the complexity of possibilities is endless.
Experiments in which subjects have applied torture to others simply because they were told to do so by an "expert" or "authority" show that man can either embrace a higher level of being - perhaps it takes a level of discipline or intellect and love - or be an animal - refuse responsibility, deny a conscience, and simply perform automatically - be an ANT.

Nazis learned how to program their people in this way. On a certain level they were responsible for their horrific actions but in their low level of being they were simply insect life forms inhabiting human bodies.

So how do we change ourselves to become higher life forms, incapable of genocide?

The answer to me may be in the concept of evolution. We must use technology as a lesson for how programming can lead to de-evolution (loss of responsiblity or conscience) while at the same time using the connections and immense power of technology to continue to evolve, and share the higher levels of being within us with others of our species.

The survival of our species is by no means guaranteed.

My reading has convinced me that the secret, if there is one, to such evolution is in a recognition of levels of consciousness that literally affect a reality we create through our lives and exchanges of energy with our environment and other beings.

Perhaps our task on earth is to be the intermediary of evolution so that wolf energy becomes dog energy (loving), and similarly cougar energy may evolve into cat energy - metaphorically or literally - alternatively leading to the absence of life - extinction - darkness and lack of light (evil, hate, or whatever human terminology or language may apply).

If you are interested in these ideas I highly recommend Mani Bhaumik's book Code Name God. Dr. Bhaumik is a man who went from the lowest caste in India, met Ghandi, and became a co-inventor of the Lasik laser technology, among other things. Acquiring immense wealth, he realized the shortcomings or a materially based life and investigated eastern thought from the perspective of a brilliant scientific mind. I find his analysis and suggestion that a unified field theory which may have existed at or prior to the beginning of Time (Big Bang) is analogous to the monotheistic concept of One source of Creation, and the scientific evidence that its vibration is still audible and present throughout the universe, quite an impressive synthesis of scientific and religious thought.

Another book that I have found immensely powerful is Jacob Needleman's "Why Can't We Be Good?". Needleman is a subtle proponent of some powerful ancient ideas and in this book he uses a classroom environment and his own impressive scholarship to make them accessible to readers and students.

These books and others have led me to the threshold of reconciling the paradox of a conscious and loving universal law with the reality of human cruelty. The task of man is to mediate between the animal and higher levels by living in harmony with higher levels of being, and not reverting to the programming of his physical and mental components. The higher center in man does exist, but it must be nurtured and fed with the right types of energy, and only in this way can humanity truly become human, and not live according to its insect nature.

The important thing to realize is that these are not metaphorical or figurative concepts - they are actually what is taking place on this planet through us at this moment in Time.

Attack of the Updates

2008-02-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

Got Flash? Everyone does but it still requires a new update and occasional reboot.
Today my Vista Dell box choked on my wireless, and during my reboot my Flash update wanted to be installed - again. Then my system crashed completely.

Vista went into some kind of Restore thingee - which did not go to an option to restore to a former point as promised - and instead promised to "fix" my problem. Cancel was NOT an option. While it did its thing I mentally calculated where all my latest versions of backup were.

Miraculously it came back, offering to tell me what happened. Alas, the screen was the same useless set of files that XP used to offer, but then - shazzam - a dialog box informed me that the culprit was --- my LogiTech webcam - which needed - an UPDATE!

I clicked the link and instead of going to the proper location (which I know I could go to if I just did the update all programs thingee) I went to the main Logitech and of course the have a gazillion different web cams. I guess I will do this later - after I actually get to do - my work?

Meanwhile Flash is a mystery. Is it updated and does it need a reboot? Go figure. And then, on the desktop, come the periodic windows begging me to update/install iTunes/QuickTime.

You would wonder what the 'founding fathers' who wrote the Constitution would make of all this?

The Real Meaning of "Survivor"

2008-02-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

While watching football I could not help but be assaulted by promotions for the finale of the hit show, Survivor.

For me the term survivor has always had special significance because my parents were both actual survivors of the Holocaust. My father somehow made it through World War II, and my mother was selected to live by Mengele at Auschwitz and managed to be liberated after building airplanes as a slave laborer.

But sometimes when I am watching TV and reference to survivors of the Holocaust is mentioned, I can almost hear the collective groan in the audience – no one wants to hear about it anymore. Not the Jews again.

Still, my mother often pointed out how in her horrific past, it wasn't just the Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies, dissidents and Communists who were systematically exterminated.

So why are people in general so tired of hearing about the Holocaust – and why is anti-Semitism so clearly on the rise? Just this week there was a brawl in the NY subway when someone said “Happy Hanukkah” in response to “Merry Christmas”, and a house in Miami was covered with Nazi graffiti.

The question remains: why are the Jews targets and why are they so despised? Certainly the perpetuated story of our killing Jesus is one reason but remember that Jesus himself was a Jew. And of course a great deal of the tension in the world can be attributed at least superficially to the presence of Israel in the midst of hostile neighbors.

So my alternative theory came about while watching "Survivor" for the first time. It occurred to me how surprised I would be if a Jew had ever actually participated in that show.

I could almost hear the dialog, “You want me to jump into that swamp? Are you insane?" Are the worms and cockroaches kosher?

Of course Jews might have written the show, but if they did, they went on strike. But the fact that I can write this openly and that Jews can be satirized in this way, and everyone will laugh, is what makes them targets.

We can take a joke. We have had no choice.

Sure, if someone says we like to Jew down the price, we may get offended. And we have the Anti-Defamation League for serious abuse – like cross burnings and murder. But most of us will shrug a stupid Jew joke off as ignorance. Plus we don’t like to fight (except the Israelis) – we’d rather go out and eat Chinese. Seriously stupid remarks by the likes of Jesse Jackson years ago will ruffle some feathers, but most of the Jews remain socially liberal and let’s face it, we love basketball.

Everyone else takes themselves very seriously and they become offended if their group is ridiculed for even its most innocuous foibles or stereotypes. Evil and hostile blacks and Arabs are hard to find on politically correct media, and even though uptight Christians have taken their lumps lately, they are quick to respond with evangelical alacrity. Look at the lawyers – they tried to pass legislation against jokes at their expense.

The Jews? They write the stuff themselves. At a comedy course I took years ago the teacher said, “Think Jewish, write gentile” – in other words, take full advantage of all of the neuroses and annoying traits you see in your (fellow) Jews and attribute them to non-Jews. People will laugh.

Name a character Finkelstein or Goldstein and you can make him the butt of almost anything.

But people who identify strongly with interest groups don't quite get it. What is it with the Jews - don't they understand that existence is serious business?

Gays can make fun of other gays, but no one else can. Ditto blacks, women, muslims, latinos – you name it.

Which brings me back to that “reality show” - Survivor. Isn’t anyone laughing at this show? These people are in “tribes”? They have serious psychological strategies? I’ll do this so they’ll think that and then this person will no longer be friends with her. I got past most of this stuff in high school.

Come to think of it, that’s why the show is obviously a success. Many of us peaked in high school.

But let’s face it, any Jew on that show is behind the camera. Wherever it’s being shot, we’re staying at the Holiday Inn.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why everyone else is pissed off.

Modern Life - Part 2

2008-01-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

It started with noticing a charge for LA Times delivery on my credit card that seemed excessive. Like many I suppose I don't go through my bills as much as I might, and as it turned out, a phone call and long hold later, I discovered that I had in fact two subscriptions - one at a promotional rate that I knew about, another at the full rate I did not.

But as I explained to the person on the phone -- I only have one paper. She cancelled the correct subscription and arranged a credit for several similar charges. Great.

Only the next morning - no paper arrived. So another call, another hold, another explanation.

Such is life in the information age where getting a live human on the phone is a mixed blessing.

This morning I got an email from my cellular carrier telling me that the credit card where I had autobilling set up was not working anymore. That is because my credit card provider, in its infinite wisdom, had "upgraded" me to a better class of disservice.

So I tried to take advantage of this to combine my cell bill with my main phone provider (think AT&T) into one convenient bill. 45 minutes later and 2 wrong transfers to the wrong department and this was actually arranged, although it means ignoring my cell phone bill in the mail for 2-1/2 months and then paying a larger amount pro-rated. Why? Because that's their system... I had him explain it twice but there was really no fighting it. I need the phone.

And I may need a second blood pressure pill to get through the day.

But while waiting on hold I watched an episode of Cranky Geeks from PC Magazine that confirmed that I am not alone with my experience with Vista (You Cannot Be Serious - see below).

Serenity now?

Intelligent Life?

2008-01-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

The impact on organized religion from extra-terrestrial visitation may not have materialized - yet - but the same impact can be gleaned from recent developments in computer science, nanotechnology and biotechnology/genetics.

Why does the idea that neuroscience, genetics and perhaps other fields - with their incredible complexity -have programming at their core, and show evidence of our brain or our DNA having been "intelligently designed" - buoy conventional fundamental religions?

If anything, this evidence would suggest that our anthropomorphic concepts of an angry (or loving - evidence of that?) gray bearded all knowing guy in the sky is flawed and outdated.

What this evidence might indeed suggest, instead, is that the natural universe is not an accident but that its source of creation and the laws that govern it are far beyond our comprehension.

What it may well indicate is that our senses are constrained and limited in their ability to comprehend reality, or that we must rethink our very concept of mind, matter, spirit, energy and particularly intelligence.

Humanity's invention of the computer (which has led us to the concept of programming and its mathematical principles as a living metaphor) may just be a fundamental step in our evolution from primitive mob driven religions to a deeper understanding of our true place in life -- with the realization that its mysteries are far deeper than previously thought.

As we discover evidence of programming (i.e., conscious reproducible instructions) in genetics and neuroscience (which would have made no sense before the Enlightenment and advent of technology) we need to expand our cosmology and religious concepts accordingly.

For one thing, the level of sophistication of the "program" that suggests that all life is indeed intelligent (or created) makes it obvious that the level of knowledge and power of whatever created life (since we can't) and programmed it in ways we are just beginning to comprehend is of an order of magnitude higher than anything we can even remotely fathom.

Calling this God without a scientific definition based on empirical evidence in line with modern science is ultimately meaningless. It is like assigning it an ultimate variable for which we have no value.

From this perspective, organized religion seems to be like the musings of an ant living in a giant garden or a huge estate in pontificating about the true nature of the king or president of the country in which the estate is located - so far removed in level and knowledge that all of its prattling is idle chatter.

What the presence of a mind (or an incomprehensible intelligent energy or force) behind life at its core (in the brain and in the genes) suggests instead is that our brain is limited in its capacity to even understand a fraction of its true nature.

If you have any doubt about this, go outside at night and look at the stars and try to comprehend the vast distances they represent. Then try to think outside of that space.

You can't. If you could, you might begin to understand the meaning of an intelligence behind life.

Why I Skipped CES

2008-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

If you go to CES you can look at a billion bluetooth headsets, not learn how to create programs for cell phones or really find anyone who knows what Bluetooth is and can explain it in english. Ditto InfoComm. PowerPoint LIVE thrives because it still captures some of that energy. People are solving content creation and delivery problems but basically that whole community is in the Presentations Council, PowerPoint LIVE, the PowerPoint MVP/Newsgroup and that's it.

So the Post COMDEX InfoComm/CES world is devoid of real emergent software issues - it's truly dumbed down plug and play with only three major players left in the interactive software space - Microsoft, Adobe and arguably Apple (apologies to TechSmith-anyone remember Ulead?). They have their own conferences for their own developers and high end users and there is no overlapping conference for people trying to make sense of the whole thing (because that is no longer remotely possible -anyone here use Vista?).

The Flash/Macromedia/Apple people look down on PowerPoint (and the rest of the Presentations world) and have their own conferences and inhabit different solar systems. Programmers and Game Developers are in different galaxies.

While AV has merged with IT, the IT is now redefined as web/security/network/telcomm-hardware oriented. There is not the same intellectual challenge in terms of mastering new software or techniques - there is security and dealing with the muddle of Vista/Office 2007 but everyone does video now, everyone uses PowerPoint, everyone makes animated GIFs, sets up projectors and makes web pages and blogs. Even though Microsoft tries to pretend that there is really new stuff in Office, it's mostly window dressing and it's not significantly growing or expanding in scope and features (only in frustration).

The real experts creating breakthroughs do it in isolated silos of software and by our nature, as generalists, we are becoming obsolete. That is until someone needs to connect a projector to a laptop. Then they call us or read archived editions of Presentations or figure it out on Google.

The train has left the station as far as all encompassing venues where people from different technology worlds and tracks interact, grow and learn. Chances are we're all doing our own blogs and reinstalling Windows but it you want to see the future get a satellite set top box/DVR - it's dummy proof, you can figure it out without a manual, it rarely crashes and when it does you call a guy in India who hangs up on you. That's the future of computing.

19 Years to Move 3 Folders?

2008-01-23T09:38:00.001-08:00

... I'm not sure if my battery will make it that long. This is in addition to the time it takes to "calculate" how long it will be. Apparently Microsoft has a Vista patch to take care of this issue, but you need to contact Tech Support.

Vista - You Cannot Be Serious

2008-01-20T14:14:00.001-08:00

This is how Vista burns a DVD! Your options are to purchase an upgrade to a burning program because the ones that worked with XP don't work with Vista. You also need to check your settings because if you choose incorrectly the disc will only be readable on Vista... maybe...

YouTube Video Posted - Intelligent Life

2008-01-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

A New Dominant Life Form?

2007-12-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Whales and dolphins aside, humans have long considered themselves the dominant life form on the planet. But is this really still the case?

In the insect world, which of course has outlived humans by eons, it is probably more realistic to see an ant colony or the bee hive as the actual living organism. Individuals in these species do not really count for much; instead it is the survival of the colony/hive that is paramount.

It may be worth considering that in the human world, with the advent of technology and particularly worldwide networks, that the dominant life form is now... the Corporation.

It could well be that human evolution, particularly in terms of survival of the fittest, has taken a turn toward the insect world and is embracing the colony/hive.

Think about an entity like AT&T -- it is more powerful than any amagam of humans or even most countries and other institutions like religions.

It is certainly committed to its own survival and will fight its enemies by whatever means necessary.

Occasionally, as in the case of Enron, a corporate entity may run afoul of its human subjects and be destroyed by the laws of its host country -- but particularly in the realm of multi-nationals, many corporations are above the law of any single country.

And let's face it, most humans who can participate in the output or growth of a corporation, as stockholders, revel in its power. Humans who are part of Microsoft, either as employees or stockholders (or both) may well have more allegiance to the company's priorities and are more vested in its survival than they may be in that of their actual physical community.

It may be time to re-evaluate the path of evolution, to the extent that we are still able to influence it one way or the other, or else the way of the hive may well be the way of our own future.

As we wrestle with these issues it may also be time to change the laws of at least this country to hold a company liable as a complete entity for its transgressions, instead of simply prosecuting its officers (or lower level managers). After all, even if the individuals responsible for wrong-doing are sent packing or jailed, the company in most cases will continue to flourish, and its shareholders will continue to reap rewards.

Another issue to consider is the power of corporations, as opposed to individuals, in shaping our laws through the use of bribes -- otherwise known as lobbying.

Influence peddling was bad enough when it was just the richest and strongest individuals who could throw their weight around. As we have seen from Halliburton to Exxon the corporate hives can do almost anything they want, and although their drones or even their officers can move on or be replaced, they continue to thrive and evolve as entities in their own right.

A New Low in Customer Disservice?

2007-11-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

Can it really get any worse? After not calling to confirm my appointment and showing up over an hour late, my satellite installer wanted me to sign off on a glowing evaluation, making it look like I was just signing a delivery confirmation. I opted out.

But the kicker was the next morning when I received an automated phone call from the company in which a computerized voice told me of their commitment to excellent service, and that if my service was not perfect in any way, to push "1" so that I could talk to what was supposedly their very concerned customer service rep.

I decided what the hell, and pushed "1", only to be put on hold for tech support...

Thanks but no thanks. That's like being told how important my call is before being put on hold, or that my wait is due to extraordinarily high call volume, which of course, is the normal call volume because it happens every freaking time - and then being put on hold.

Or being put on hold for a supervisor who amazingly never picks up.

I would like to find a company that tells it like it is: "We don't give a shit - if you get what you need count yourself lucky."

Their mission statement should read: We're in it to make money. That's a company I would trust because they actually tell the truth about something.

A Day in the Life (or Semi-Life) of a Windows Home Business User

2007-11-29T12:17:00.000-08:00

It began like any normal day for me, except that I have learned the hard way that no day is completely “normal” for someone who uses a computer for business.

I generally turn on my laptop, loaded with the nifty new Vista OS, to check my email. It is connected wirelessly to a router that is connected by wires to my main desktop. My Internet connection is DSL from AT&T/Yahoo/SBC or whatever they are called this week. It works very easily most of the time…

On this morning, however, I couldn’t get a web page or my email and noticed on a big fat exclamation point on the Internet icon in my “system tray”. This is never good but I have learned, as any Windows user who actually gets word done has, how to repair the connection.
I dutifully went to my desktop and tried to connect to my router through my browser. This is a 50-50 proposition and if it works, I can repair my network in a few seconds. Unfortunately it was a no go.

So I went over behind my desk, turned off my router (taking out the power plug) and connected by DSL directly to the desktop. I returned to my seat and instantly connected to AT&T/Yahoo/SBC or whatever they are called this week. This told me that the Internet connection was okay and that a call to AT&T/Yahoo/SBC or whatever they are called this week and their representative in Bangladesh would be fruitless, which I already knew.

This meant that if I wanted to permanently “fix” the problem I would need to call either the customer service for my router company (in China) or Microsoft (in Redmond, WA) – neither was a reasonable option as I have tried both.

So okay, I had Internet on my desktop and could work there and get my email there but I am a perfectionist and I wanted to work on my laptop (where most of my files are – except that I move them to my desktop to protect them whenever the network connection cooperates).
So I decided to get “up and running” normally before beginning to work.

So I loaded the router setup “wizard” to reestablish a connection and go wireless so I could work from my laptop. The wizard is also 50-50 – it sometimes works flawlessly but sometimes jams in the middle and gives you the hourglass – which means you have two choices. You can open the browser and hope it’s working anyway or start over. Miraculously it went all the way through and re-established my connection.

So I could have left well enough alone and gone to work but no – I decided to take care of some other annoying stuff, which included my anti-spyware popping up with boxes telling me something in my browser was changing something in my registry and it was DENIED.
I had conspicuously disregarded these pop-ups but now they were driving me crazy – and of course my anti-popup blocker did nothing to discourage them.

Then of course there is my anti-virus program that needs to be updated every few minutes. So I decided get rid of the whole lot of them and use a license for OneCare – the Microsoft anti-virus, anti-spyware anti-popup blocker that I had to buy because I couldn’t use the other 3 separate programs on Vista.

I installed OneCare, rebooting three times and then decided to activate. Naturally I got the hourglass and it crashed my browser so I figured, the heck with it – I don’t have to take care of that for 90 days – that’s the free trial…

I made sure my Internet was working and went to my notebook to check email.

This was after two hours of troubleshooting the desktop and reconfiguring the router and anti-virus, spyware and popup protection for OneCare.

Everything was now working, or so it seemed, and I read and responded to some email but then I wanted to move a file over my network to my desktop.

Suddenly I was blocked. The network which had been functioning fine between laptop and desktop suddenly gave me an error message. So I had to return to the desktop where I knew what to do – disable the Firewall for OneCare – since I knew that my router was already a firewall.

Naturally OneCare did not care for that at all and started popping up warnings to turn ON MY FIREWALL, but I ignored it and was able to go back to work and my network was intact. Miraculously so was my Internet and email.

Then I remembered I had printed a document the previous evening to my network printer. Naturally when I went to look at it, it hadn’t printed. That was really no big surprise since that printer hadn’t printed for a while – I was down in ink in my “Cyan” cartridge.

My other printer, also on the network, hadn’t worked since I went to Vista on my laptop. I mean it worked directly from the desktop, but not over the network like it was supposed to.
So I went back to my “network” printer – so called because it was directed by cable to my router. I had bought and replaced the empty Cyan cartridge and now the printer was telling me my “Yellow” cartridge was low and needed to be replaced. Either cartridge, as you probably realize, costs almost as much as a new printer.

So I figured the heck with it, I was going to watch my new big screen TV that I had recently bought after studying up on 720p, 1080i and 1080p, not to mention contrast ratios and 120hz refresh rates. I had set it up over the weekend and had spent half my Sunday ordering high definition on my satellite, which was coming in a few days.

That had taken several hours after I ordered online but realized that I should have set up automatic bill pay on my credit card to get a $50 VISA card for free. But when I re-checked the sign up page it showed me that the installation I had scheduled for Thursday was no longer scheduled. So I called the company and stayed on hold for twenty minutes til the lady told me she couldn’t arrange the bill pay for me to get the VISA card but she could reschedule the unscheduled appointment for Wednesday. But I had to cancel the whole deal to get the $50 VISA card and order it again, so I cancelled and reordered, but I had to use a different email address because the system kept remembering my cancelled order on my regular email address.

So I did it hoping that I wouldn’t be billed twice, which I am sure I will be, and then I will have to call again, but this time I got a scheduled installation and should get the VISA card too, except that it seems the small print says I need to keep my HD-DVR for a year at $5/ mo., except that the service I signed up for told me my HD-DVR is free for a year. So who knows if I will be getting the VISA card.

But I do have high definition from a powered antenna I bought at Radio Shack, so I turned it on but then there was a knock at the door. No one there but UPS had left a package. It was my new cell phone, which had instructions that warned me not to turn it on until it was activated, or something completely indecipherable. I also wanted to move my phone numbers from the SIM card on my present phone but there were no instructions, much less diagrams, to explain how.
Instead there was an upside down section of the manual with the same incomplete set of instructions but this set in Spanish.

But this time I decided to go to the store that sold the cell phone, which was, coincidentally a AT&T/Yahoo/SBC or whatever they are called this week store, to help me with the SIM card and activation.

But I am afraid to leave the house because if I do, I think my wireless network will go down again…