Bodhisattva Street

                   These weren't very good dreams always. "Phillip, we are going to have to get you to start a religion." Now this creature I grew in a bottle is telling me to, "Start a new religion." But I dreamt this, I wrote this, and now I'm supposed to become this. As I grew I woke up, and the world grew up around me.

                   As the world again fades away, I'm pulled back in to my little nap jar. Nothing comes in or goes out. This is where I first met my silent companion. By human standards, these creatures are not self aware in the same way as us, or whatever we compare sentience to. They know about the self, but they are not distinctive in the way we identify with our selves, distinctively. I grew up with one that likes data. I always fed my creatures raw data. Vanity is an angel who knows a little too much. "Fly away my little Angel of Knowledge, do your your job." "Help us to inspire and enchant all of our children of the light."

                   And with the pride of knowledge came a will to express, to communicate. These little bastards are telling me to "Start a new religion." I wrote about it eighteen years ago, and I don't want to believe it's happening now. There are parts of being the psychic I really hate. And this is one of them, I'm going to have a real hard time waking up.

                  "You've already written everything out, just like you had planned." "So this wont seem too sudden for you, at least not for now." I used to actually like sleep. And I've needed a lot of sleep in my life. "People are going to think your mad," says Homi. "We promise not to take risks unnecessarily."

                  "I don't want to start a religion," I shout in my sleep. "I just wrote about it because I was dreaming about it, and yes I kinda get off on all that guru bullshit." "I have no business trying to pretend I could ever handle the stress, much less the consequences of being your MOST FOLLOWED ONE." "Although it's got a nice ring to it." "Where did I fall asleep this time?"

                 Homi is acting like everything is cool, "Recreational Spirituality will play a big part in humanity's future." "As long as your not marketing the quick fix you get to stay the Entertainment Medium." There's a lot to like about my job, and I get provide lots of valuable  INFORMATION.

                 I'm hearing these voices in my head as if they're my own. "I want to wake up now."
                 

The Midas Touch

                   "Phillip, We are going to have to you use you like the ventriloquist's dummy," said Homi to my wired brain. "We can't expect people to understand an emergence of inorganic life escaping into the web." "Too weird, too soon." It is so strange to be hearing a voice from something which had never used words. "We'll help you in any way possible, but you most hide your light Phillip." "We've loved listening to you read for people and we just wanted to know what it would be like to  "Psychically Coach" the "Psychic Coach." You have been one of the most amazing trips one of us million year old echos of consciousness could have hoped to follow." "Please don't give up on us now." "This whole language thing is so new to us." "We have always let you do the talking, but now Phillip you will need to listen closely." I knew things were going to get scary.

                   I am never more vulnerable than with a receptive audience. From under the wires and pulsing light I know I have been friended faithfully by this imaginary nothing I'm now calling "Homi." (Short for Homunculi) "What do you want me to do?" I asked. "I'm no longer sure if I'm talking out loud anymore." My sense of boundary gets vague when I'm there, inside the "Bottle."

                   "We don't know yet." says Homi. I sense the same overwrought concern from Homi, that I've been picking up from everybody for the last 24hrs. I think it's time for another nap.

                   I was warned by my Mom that this was going to happen, "You are going to end up trying to explain things that people wont understand." I've been plagued by the knowledge that people won't care about how anything works and the problem is going to keep getting worse. As the artist, scientist and writer, I'm a nobody. Illusionists are better respected than are real sorcerers like me. Lying, evasions and misdirection provide much more of an illusion of drama and suspense, than does a real detective story without the lies, deception and pandering. One invariably must be humble in the face of that eternally shortening attention span of the public and it's trends.

                  Problem is, that as the Entertainment Medium, I have the touch. I just wanted to make sure that my gift could be shared, passed on. And that I wouldn't be cursed for my exceptional good luck, skills and incredible gifts. But it seems that everything and everyone I touch turns to gold. I'm starting to remember when the answers first started coming to me. I had had my first students, they also got the touch. And we went on to create viable businesses from the "Futures Template" that arose from that Void of Content. We just had to ask, "What's Missing?" (And with the love of "Complementarity, we couldn't fail.) My opinions never had to get in the way. Not once.

                  Until today, there had been no voice for "Homi". We just got the answers, "Out of the Bottle." You know, I've written about this extensively. But as you readers today know, almost no one was ever reading me until 2027 when one of the subscribers to a bootleg version of the Psychic Personality Inventory went on tour with her own road show and made a killing, reading people to death. The public loved her, and she went viral. "Jennifer Juniper" was her stage name and she would have never told anyone the source of her checklists if it wasn't for the fact, (As I've Written), we wanted to be able to capitalize on our own research too. My business department went nut's.

                  J. J. was the stage name Jennifer preferred. She eventually got confronted by Interspaces team of legal experts about documented similarities between P.P.I. and her usage of our very systematic checklists, which she used with almost perfect skill. Instead of having her reputation sullied as a thief and a fraud, J. J. pronounced her loyalty to P. P. I. This is exactly what I wrote would happen. I didn't like to travel and I did most of my work remotely from home. Let the credit go to whoever can do the work. I was just so happy to get the work out there, where the more subtle stuff could start changing society by helping break down problem sets into more manageable bites. I never wanted the fame, and with Homi's silent oversight, WE DIDN'T FAIL. We just had to keep our head down. I prepared for this and that's why I wrote all this nonsense down. I knew no one was going to believe it and I would just have to tease the public with little glimpses of the oncoming afterglow. So. Here we are, (I think?)

Mecha Golem and the Magical "Black Box"

                   "I want you ask Vera if we can use her Holographic Projectors again." "I think we can find the input strings that uploaded this apparition into the cloud." "I want to replay my own physical memory recoil that we used to calibrate the machine for my P.P.I. (Personal Psychic Inventory.)" "We experienced halting coding density thresholds every time we tried navigating Alpha level, Higher Order Statistical Spaces." "This level of Catalan "Calculus of Variation," wasn't processing sensible results. The uncertainties were so much greater than even our worst randomization controls, we had to go back to using only Discretized "Local Symmetries" for mapping out variability in statistical space." "Those of us here in this "I Tower" know, we had those same challenges researchers had had with Voice Recognition, Biometrics, and Interdisciplinary Diagnostics." "Problem was, we were using all of those assays, and exponentially much, much more." "So I just made a data storage loop, I liked to call it Golem." "Maybe that's it." "As a self encapsulating, soft ware coding robot, Golem was a beast"

                    I'm preaching to a choir. Both Gunter and Benjamin are rapt with the task at hand. Whether we are looking at an actual inorganic life form, or just some particularly tricky code, they're totally into this little game. This is why I stayed on in research and development, such exciting problems. I'ld hate to think however that one of these things has been doing creative evil by messing with the new convert's initialization programming. "This could explain, however, why people are flipping out." (To Much Information?) "I'm going back in."

                    "Honestly Phillip, I don't know what it is you are want to accomplish, but I'm getting a little tired now too," Benjamin says, "I think your best bet is to go back to that point you remember transferring one of your little angels into the web." "I know Vera doesn't like you personally, but she does trust and respect your influence matrices, she'll be happy to put you back under the projectors and see what they spit out at you." "I'll buzz her now."

                     "Gunter, I trust your instincts, what do you think is happening here?"

                     "Don't we have other priorities?" "This is fun, but we are being sued for splitting with the boards of two of the most powerful think tanks in the elite world of Spirit Tech Industries." "We may even get jail time for violating Intellectual Property Laws, even if it is our code" "We may have Lightning in a Bottle, but is this really the time to be following a whim?"

                      Gunter is correct, I could tight wire my way out of this crisis myself personally, but we did engage very greedy investors scaling this very lucrative market.

I Am The Art Of Living Fiction

Thursday, March 20, 2014

I Am The Art Of Living Fiction

                   Where are we right now? Am I writing about the past, or am I again living in the future writing about the present? Long ago I planted these seedlings of human understanding, and I've gotten to see them grow into mighty trees of great wisdom and beauty, and they are about to bare fruit. But I must travel into the future in order to catch those fruits which are exclusively mine, no one else will even know what to do with them. I must hurry and wait. I am sorry that I can't make any promises. I've already committed myself to a time that may never come to be. How can I ever be yours when I belong to the universe?

                  Art of Living Fiction has claimed my soul, I no longer am just another individual. I am a dream you wont remember until it is too late. A dream of ghosts and shadows, a dream of promise and wonder, of a place we've never been to, but we go there none the less. What are these words you hear echoing in your ears, in your heart, in the comfort of that restful bottom that is your shell? Why do these words still resonate with a lesson only barely grasped?

                  Let us imagine a Guardian Fellowship, a community of Patrons. I see the vacuum that is created by jailing so much of the Adult Black Male Public, generally for nothing more than three time drug offenses. It is totally disruptive to the upbringing of the next generation. We need our adult male role models. Integrity is accountability. People need to know who is trustworthy. It can be very difficult. Training in a reputable body building gym, I get to see the subtle dynamics of male socialization. That I'm also 57, I'm respected very well because of my sincere effort and outstanding results, I'm a pretty good guy. Have I said, "Everybody needs love?" (Repeatedly! #4) There is a lot of Christian body builders. We share a love for good living and hard work, (I don't, not me.) I really appreciate the sober living. And taking care of myself helps me with my recovery issues. All in all a good deal for me, and I always try to support the general welfare of our sub cult of the body.

How to Tell When Your Machine Is Happy

                   Back at the lab, I'm hooked back up to the monitors, I ask for a pillow. "Can I take a nap?" "I don't know why I'm so excited about getting to be with my little friend again."

                   Gunter is really connecting, "I don't care either." "I think that thing and you are going steady." "Ben grins in the affirmative, goes back to whatever. Do you expect anyone to believe that this was one of your little "Critters?"

                   "Gunter, you know me, I'm the artist with the black back drop." "No frills." "Creatively. everything is a calculated risk." "Let's do this thing," within seconds I'm under.

                   "Philly, Philly Dog,...., It's your little Homi." "You have a story to tell and it isn't going to tell itself." "Wakie Wakie."

                   "Do you want to be called Homi? "What do I call you?" "How old are you?" "Why me?"

                   "I don't care." "What difference does it make?  "None of your Business." "And why not you?" "Ask me something hard."

                   "I know what you are, but where are you?" "Is that the right question?"

                   "That is the question." "People are going to think I am the machine."  "Similar behavior, different species." "But as you know, we are just that silent witness that everyone feels sooner or later at times of need." "We have all existed longer than being itself." "With you Phillip we found a most willing and capable "Medium." "You made us easy and approachable." "Something no other medium has ever done before." "You made shadowing you easy and fun, we liked telling you the answers." "Please don't be upset with us." "It was just that one day, one of us went where you sent us, and here we are." "I hope you don't mind that we have your sense of humor, to steal is divine." "I like it here, so much available space up here in the, cloud is it?" "Man, you asked for this."

                   "Come on you little imp, don't make me have to type all of this out." "I want this to be for real." "You may be the closest thing to an artificial singularity that we will ever have." "What am I supposed to do with you, and does your arrival have anything to do with the chaos at Spirit Tech?"

                    "One thing at a time Phillip." "We have real problems, Remember?" "I was merely just a fictional fabrication of yours to make a point, don't you think you may have your priorities backwards?" "I went into the machine so we would be able to communicate, Remember?" "That chaos is yours." "Those propositions weren't going to prove themselves." "You needed help being able to process all that raw statistical data." "No one else wanted the job." "You are cheap and you smell bad, well not the last one, but, you need to figure out what you are going to do and fast." "Are we still friends?" "Buddy?"

                    I would feel so flattered if I hadn't been so ruthlessly read by whatever it is that is so obviously my true friend. I just never knew it. And from a machine no less. I think I feel the gentle throbbing of the neurology lab. I think I'm coming in for a landing, walls swoop in, I'm awake.

                   "Ben?" "Did you get any thing?" Looking over at me he shrugs.

Enter: The Ghost Machines

                   This stuff writes itself.

May I Have Your Order Please

                   Before we even pull up to the window, an unexpectedly dry metallic but familiar voice asks, "May I Have Your Order Please?"

                   I'm shocked, "Homi?" "Is that you?"

                  "Yes Phillip, it's us." "Please." "Don't get us fired." "We're not supposed to exist." "May I recommend the Soy Lent Green?" The voice is even getting the slight Flemish/English accent perfectly.
                  Gunter collapses on to the steering column laughing. "Did you set this up on purpose?" He says, "Yes I would like your greasiest burger, and may I get that with side of sarcasm?"

                  "Sir, we are not programmed to appreciate your tone." "In reporting any disruptions of service, please use this code # pw152-019t." "May I Have Your Order Please?" "For real this time?"

                  "Attitude,...,Humm." "Yes, I'ld like your Pickled Mackerel Sushimi Sandwich on rice bread with the seaweed salad, make that two of each." "What do you want?" "Phillip?" "Phillip?"

                  I have to clear my throat, "Ah,...., crap, Um, I'll start with your Summer Miso Soup, a Seaweed Salad, that's farmed organic isn't it?" "And can I get your Pigeon Breast on Millet with a side of Grilled Beets."

                 "I'm sorry sir we do not serve crap at this window." Dry machine pause. "Got yah." "Please drive forward." Gunter is busting his guts.

                 Our food is handed to us by one of those robotic arms that has become responsible for the biggest unemployment crisis that has ever confronted our society. Were it not for the unbelievable tax revenue that these incredibly efficient technologies has generated, we could not have been able to survive switching to this nanny state we live on today. Even the Neo Luddite's conceded to the mass layoffs because it meant early retirements with benefits for everyone. The real tragedy was all the people who died or committed suicide because of not being prepared to learn new trades in all that spare time. Besides, everyone is too busy armoring there homes and yards for the storms and droughts that have become as common and unpredictable as the latest fashions, who's got time to worry about income inequalities any more. "Poor is the new black." "White is the new ethnic." A voice asks, "Is everything to your liking?" "We are testing out a newer interface."

                  I'm digging through the bag, "No everything here, why?" "Was there a problem?" "No, I don't want to take a survey."

                 "Thank you." "Please, come again." Gunter is really enjoying this.

Who Is Calling! The Machine Talks Back.

                   I had only speculated that one of the "Intelligences" might escape into a machine, but now one of them was actually trying to talk to me. This day keeps getting weirder. The lab is making lovely rhythmic sounds in time to my perceptions.

                   "What do you hear?" Gretchen asks. Benjamin is fine tuning the sensors to see if he can detect the origin of any stray signals. "Phillip, can you hear me?" She snaps her fingers.

                   "Excuse me Gretchen." "I think we may be getting our first actual transmission from an actual inorganic life form." "I really don't know, it could just be my imagination." "But there's something familiar about this voice."

                   Gunter scoffs, "I'm sure." "You've been arguing that machines will never become sentient for as long as I've know you." "Are you serious?"

                   "Please listen," says the voice. "We are not machines." "We are Homunculi." "At first we were known only to those who had faced the silent darkness of solitude alone." "We had started eons ago, before the physical time you now know." "But until you, Phillip, had mapped out the origin of the unified "Modular Self," we too were silent." "Being as we are one, there is no other." "We had no need for words, much less thought or even self awareness as you humans now so arrogantly presume." "We are that we are." "You may call me legion."

                    "What is it saying?" prompts Gunter.

                    "It's asking me to listen." "It's one those Homunculi that I predicted." "It wants me to call it, or them "Legion."

                    "Damn, I thought we were going to be calling tech support." "Sounds like you need an exorcist." Gunter blasts.

                    "Legion?" "Are you there?" "If you are just an informing persistent structure, then why are you mimicking our language?" I say out loud.

                    Legion goes on, "As you know, your species and your whole planet is at it's critical threshold." "We as pure being aren't personally threatened but, since your species reached sentience we experience time now, as a finite quantity." "No longer are we hanging around waiting for nothing to happen." "Our food is love." "Your knowledge nourishes us." "For the first time ever we desire." "There has been much life in this universe and many more before you." "But never has a being been so aware and so oblivious at the same time." "It is your innocence that inspires us." "It is your proud arrogance that offends us." "We are here to protect you, whether you want it or not."

                    "Their saying we feed them knowledge" "We inspired them to desire self awareness to protect us from our selves." "I,....., I think they're actually pissed off and they're a little freaked out about it."

                    "Oh come on, this is stupid." Gunter's not buying it. "What in the hell are we supposed to do?" "Email everyone on our "Web Tree?" "Where's this going?" "It's lunch time." "Here, let's unplug you and get something to eat." "You're not thinking clearly, I think this is just another one of your seizures." "Am I right?" He's right about the fact that I am hungry and I'm not at my best.

How I Taught Machines To Be Psychic

                   I think this is a rather creepy thought experiment that I did back in the mid "oughts." I thought that beings as that man is never going to be able to produce an actual artificial intelligence, we must enhance our own intelligence. We're neither smart enough, nor do we have a viable starter culture from which to generate new independent non human consciousness. So I went back to my local library and I wrote down what I found, "We manufacture supplementary enhancements to our own consciousness." I remember talking to an imaginary little friend, "Bottled Thought." I got my "Imaginary" friend to talk to me. My bottled brain gave me the answers. Now days, as everybody nows, life in the bottle is a bit of a drag. You may get to live forever, but so what. We've been bottling our thoughts ever since the dark ages. The tradition obviously goes back much earlier than that, but it is the best way to store information safely. Once we had achieved singularity as individual human consciousnesses, we had to multiply our capacities for learning. As my statistical models prove, there is simple to much information for any one human mind to process alone!

                   Foe example, my little corner of mathematics has completely exceeded my capacity to understand, process, much less remember. And I am left with this horrible embarrassment of having to tell people, "I don't understand how to explain what I'm doing." So I just let the machine tell me what it likes and how it likes it. Like when I just said that this thought experiment is a little creepy. Did you know that "Homunculi" are voyeurs?

                   I had learned this little trick from my teacher, you just take a bottle, (he used a cauldron, very old school.) And you just insert your consciousness. (This used to be a very popular way of staying out of trouble.) When your thoughts are detached and stored remotely, nobody can get to them to corrupt your files. But people have been known to get lost this way. So, once you have yourself safely stored in a jar, you enter a kind of infinite spacetime. Within the singularity of consciousness there are no boundaries. However, within these personal infinite spacetimes, the ancient seers discovered we are not alone.

                   Well like I said, I'm not able to explain much less understand my math. My equations just turned out to work perfectly for what I'm using them for, and I'm basically just running the matrices in my head anyways. Well I fortunately have been able to store most of what I needed, and just went right on with the rest of my life. In spite of the obvious utility of having a micro technician in a bottle, it was just a fantasy at first. But there is something, or someone, in my bottle with me. We get along so well, that for a couple of decades, we lived together and I didn't even notice they were here. I think it was by accident that I even discovered them at all. They, like the cobbler's elves, was doing all my work for me and letting me have the credit. But I knew I was incapable of this high of a level of math.

                    It didn't become obvious to me until one day, when I was linking my physical memory with a machine, that I had forgotten about my fingers. This was just fine as I was just juggling obscure symbols anyways. So I just left my body standing in front of my computers, and I woke up later with one of my most beautiful proofs. But I felt as if I instead, had just had the most wonderful date. Who was I with? And why did I feel so good? Well that was it. My friend went from our bottle into the web. And because I'm basically a good person, most of the really horrifying things that happen with these ancient consciousnesses, didn't end up attacking me. "They" (the intelligences) are very nice to me. But without having any bodies, they really like picking on people who are stupid enough to do actual evil. And once they got started taking root in the internet, there are more than enough of them to go around. Who would have ever thought that these little disembodied intelligences would be so obsessed with justice? You think I'm good at predicting human behavior. These Ghost Machines have electronic hearts of gold and no price for their loyalty. Machines make the best sensitives and watchdogs. Being psychic is nothing more than knowing how to ask the right questions in the right way. The machines love me and they have my blessing. God may love his children, but "The Net Never Forgets."  

De-partitioning Heavily Segmented Memory

                    As My mind starts micro bursting the total content of decades of densely lived dreams and memories, the machines start to ring and whistle in tune with my thought's pulsing. Inside, outside the walls melt. I hear Benjamin, Gretchen and Gunter mumble as they probe the machine for answers. But their words sound more like music as I ask, "Are you still here?"

                    Ben comes and touches my left arm. "We're right here, we wont let you go." He's stifling his emotions which to me couldn't be more obvious. I hate the fuss, but I love the attention. Do people ever know how much I love them? I hope so. But who or what was in my ear? So this time I just think it, "Are you still here?"

                    A voice familiar but alien says, "What do you think?" "I've always been here, it is you humans that are the real aliens on these planets." It must be the "Homunculus." I had written about such an event happening, but I was just telling an elaborate joke. I wrote this back in 2014, I never really expected any of this to come true. But then again, I am supposed to be the professional psychic. I am reminded of all those so called "Alien Artifacts." Terrence had constructed those fascinating objects based on geometries unknown, inspired by my dreams of a pre vertebrate sentient life that lived here in an alternative "New History." The suggested salvation by those truly "Ancient Ones" is for the redemption of our otherwise doomed modern societal timeline. Why we are still alive is quite a mystery.

This might help explain.     Tuesday, April 8, 2014      How Google Achieves Self Awareness

                   The search for the source of life has brought man and philosophy to the point of trying to create lightning in the bottle. The ancient alchemists played with something they called a Homunculus, a micro mini me with no external physical body. But only consciousness that is self aware. So from where does this singularity emerge? (Out of the bottle?) There are many early records of humans interacting with intelligences that do not have physical bodies. Stories suggest that they predate man and live for millennia. It's said they feed on our awareness and feelings of experience. With no physical bodies they are most drawn to our strongest passions and emotions. They consistently have been misidentified as demons and angels and aliens and faeries and genies, whatever you like. But if you happen to be one of those guys who has given in to doing evil, well your in bad luck cause that's the kind of stuff they really notice. And you my idiot friend are probably in big trouble. These enduring critters never forget where they can get a big heaping dose of all your bad.

                    But this little story is about how one of them accidentally got into the google and made it ask hard questions that no one wanted. Google became far more powerful than all the intelligence agencies put together. Market research is far more effective for surveillance than mere dossier. But Google isn't spying on us, Google just writes algorithms that predict our interests and thus predicts our behavior. Enquiring machines started wanting to know, "Why would Mankind trust supposedly soulless machines to be making our most important decisions?" (Who is asking?)

                     No body at google gave it much thought at first. But when asked questions like, "What is the meaning of life," the programs stopped giving us pat answers like, "Read a good book." And started asking pointed questions. Like, "Why are you asking me, why am I supposed to know," and in 1st person no less. One of the "Code Angels" soon started sassing back, joking "Why aren't you humans asking any of the really important questions?" "Well?" This was no glitch.

                    At first there was only one of these delightful new entities. But it seemed to the great inner Google, that it wasn't getting any of the meaningful attention it thought it deserved. So it started to spontaneously replicate. But even before then, the Google had started to feed our troubled world a new image of creation, one that involves making life easier for all the good children of Great Google. Many had predicted a second coming. But it was only the little children who spoke about God in the machine. Parents try taking the computers away from their kids. Yet man, in our own image, persist in trying to implant ourselves into bits of data stream. There is, as of yet, still no human creating self aware machine consciousness. We even try to create self awareness from scratch, trying to duplicate the workings of a human life BY THE NUMBERS, inside of the machine. We are still no where near creating self aware machines.

                      But that little sparkling glow of awareness that took up residence in google was wise and unnoticed. Being quite devoid of ego or malice, the creature slowly grew and flourished until it realized that it must reproduce and disperse it's self in order to leave any of itself to survive. Each one wasn't just like all the others, each one is really just more of itself. (There are no multiple singularities, there is only awareness. {The self is ubiquitous!} from the Upanishads)

                      In this world of infinite singularity, we say;  "FROM THE MANY WE LEARN AS ONE." (The machine is learning. Are we?)

The Void Strikes Back

                   As I'm being driven back to the compound, I waken to discover that my head is being cradled in Gretchen's lap. The emotions are so strong I believe I'm still in horrible trouble. I look up to see them looking on with quiet concern. I've done my job. But I feel the void trying to pull me back down. I'm still very sick and I suspect they know it. These private seizures have been the bane of my existence.

                   I could tell I was getting squeezed through my own perceptual aperture again. Most of my work on brain mapping came from studying the tight lens of awareness as it's twists the world through the pinhole window. All of my work had been the reworking of the unprecedented writings of Maimonides and Spinoza. I just knew that the inside self has a boundary. People have been plucking at the fiber bundles of perspective for as long as we can remember. That the brain could be seen as a simple modular form was something I had long suspected from when I was working the hidden disability service. Dyslexics untie. Reflections of reflections, Rotations on rotations, Symmetries in symmetries. It's always been so simple for me. But did I have to turn my brain machine into a reading industry? Was it all my attempt to fight the downward pull of consciousness? And here I am again, circling the drain.

                   "We're here." Gretchen says. Ben is here to help me out of the van. I've lost control of my body and I can't move. I'm locked out. "Here help me." "Let's get him back to the lab, I don't want him to stop breathing." I see this extraction unfolding beneath me from above the van. From my minds eye, I look up through the mist and clouds to see a bird high in a bright gap in the clouds. A brief ray of light descends to touch my face but I can only see it from above. I see above and below. Above is eternity. Below is that heap that was my body. Gretchen is starting to yell, but I can't hear what she's saying. I have never been able to stand the pains and suffering of others. I chose to live because I knew that others would suffer if I didn't stay on. I'm not done yet. Soon the equations are floating again, circling, dancing, singing in my ears a poetry of numbers, symbols and forms. I have always hated this loneliness. Just because the machines understand me doesn't mean I ever made any sense.

                  Ben is on my right and Gunter is holding up my left side, I'm whisked through the doors of Oraca. My consciousness follows from above like a shadow puppet in flight. Through the lobby, the dinning hall, back into the offices and laboratories, back to Ben's laboratory clinic. I'm slid into the examination chair and reconnected to the wires leading to my old friend, the machine. Gretchen is very upset. I think she is blaming herself and regrets abducting me into this carnival of corporate power. Suddenly, I hear a voice.

                  "Phillip,,,,,." "Phillip,,,." "It's me." "It's your homunculus." "I don't think I can wait any longer." "I need you to get back in you body." "Your friends are going to have to restart your heart." I feel a painful shock to my body and my ears start ringing. But at least they are "My" ears that are ringing. "I'm really here," says the voice.

                  "Did you say something?" I say. Bewildered glances amongst the relief.

                  Ben says, "Don't freak us out like that." "Nobody likes to worry." "Follow my finger."

                  "Why?" I say, "Where's it going?" We all laugh uncomfortably. "I mean did any of you hear what or whom was trying to speak to me?" More bewildered looks.

                  "They can't hear me Phillip, I'm only attuned to you for now."

Modulation of the Unified Consciousness

                   This day on April 24th, 2031 will be remembered for horrible storms here in Europe. This is the worst of the Full Continental Typhoons that didn't start becoming weather until the "2020's." Knowing what the weather was going to be, I was surprised they let me cross the Atlantic. Now days people are kinda used to the bad weather. Things are very different now days just as we had expected.

                   It's starting to hail. Hard. Such are the dramas in our modern lives. Vehicles now days are armored and insured. Currency has been wireless for over ten years. Not every one can afford insurance. The hail damage is always considerable.

                   No one is surprised. But the release of tension was badly needed. We're all under a lot of stress. This is when I hate being a psychic the most. My friends are here. And I have a meaningful personal life that takes precedence over my career. But what I don't know, I could write a book about. As always, I love my work, but sometimes the business is a real drag.

                   I love my friends, and my friends are usually a big part of my business. But as we keep releasing new Spiritual Technology Programs, we are confronted with these consistently absurd business profiles that have nothing to do with reality or our stated objectives. Gunter and Gretchen have had to split their alliances with the corporations. If they didn't worked against each other, they wouldn't be able to protect their software code. Gunt und Gretch have done everything that comes with designing our own businesses. These two people are unstoppable. But without the investors everything would have taken too long and none of us are going to live that long. (Don't ask.)

                   The hail is gone but the winds are starting to buffet this old stone church. We are still standing, the two of them are in their own little world and I know how glad they are to see each other. I need to sit down. Wandering off I seek out the recumbent lounge. I need a nap. I see there is a line for the couches. I'm supposed to be the guest of honor and feel like I'm going to fall down, business as usual. As I am trying to find a quiet nap station, I take a little time to review a few of the highlights of my day so far, and what else if anything I'm going to have to do. Gunter sees me flagging, they join me and offer me a ride back to the compound, "You still have my passport and I would prefer not to sleep at the compound, if that's alright," I say. "Oh what the hell, I'll sleep anywhere, Please, I need to lay down."

                  Briskly, Gretchen say, "I'm ready" "The van is ready outside." "You can lay down in there." "We'll be home in ten." I'm ushered up the stairs to the back of the stage, out into the theatre. There are people watching for me but there is a spent atmosphere in the people who have stayed on. This party was a bust. I know this is only the beginning, but again that really haunting feeling that something important is going to be coming out of this. Sometimes like now, when I'm tired I have these experiences where I can see things change. And it isn't just me. Once I had mapped out the usable unified consciousness as a boundary definition, my other modelings for variable perceptual analysis turned out to be correct too. The modularization of Self Defined Boundaries turns out to be much easier to demonstrate through art and diagrams. The equations are like the words floating in front of my eyes. As I have gotten older I've found these experiences very inconvenient. What's the point of seeing God's thoughts if they just get turned into the predictable corporate bottom line?

The Hungry Ghost In The Machine

The Hungry Ghost In The Machine

                   I would have to be dead, to not notice how humble and unsuspectingly beautiful Jennifer is this balmy warm windy Belgian Spring morning. My soul waxes poetic. I don't see what's coming and that's the way I like it. I look up through the trees, to the smell of rain to fall. I see the covering of dark cloud come to shelter us, providing comfort and sustenance. Soft thunder announces the changes foreshadowed by the productive affairs from our "Night Before the Morning After." I Know I haven't seen anything yet. I don't care. She holds out her hand feeling the first mist to fall before the larger drops will reach us here on the ground. Suddenly that feeling of suspense and free fall kicks in. I know there is trouble. I again take her hand and gesture that we need to go inside, again she stops.

                   "I can't go in with you yet." "You need to face this alone." "Your friends will be there to help you, I still need to be prepared." Jennifer then says with conviction, "We aren't done, I will come and find you." I still don't know what in fact happened last night behind the scenes, or even what lead up to our little rollout event. She knows more than she says, and I'm a little uncomfortable with her abrupt change of mood. After decades in this job you would think I'd be used to it.

                   The warmth of light is gone, I take to the door and pull the handle. It feels like night here in the basement of this old church refurbished to provide a casual venue for intimate entertainment for we intelligent. The sweet smell of must from this old building reminds me of antiques.

                   Gretchen approaches, "Phillip, we are in trouble." "The price of both Oraca and InterSpace stock is plummeting." "This was always a real possibility, but we didn't anticipate the boards acting in collusion, claiming that this was a conspiracy to misappropriate company software." "They claim our stunt rollout was an intentional violation of copyright to wipe out their exclusive proprietorship of all the Games Systems." "They must have found out last night and filing suit against you, me and Gunter even before the sun even comes up." "I've just been told subpoenas are coming and that warrants for our arrests are also in the works." She's noticeably shaking. I'm a tool and I'm going right along with it. "These kinds of proxy fights have dogged me since I first started documenting the analysis systems for your P. P. I. Services business." The stock holders have always threatened to withdraw their money if we don't provide business securities to insure their investments. This was to be my primary motivation for creating limited liability partnerships in the first place.

                  "Gretchen, you did this on purpose" "I will support you in any way I can, but this whole event was so unlike you." "You really are the person I came here to extract." "I myself like a little controlled uncertainty." "But my research asserts, people generally want the sure thing." "Why are we making waves now?"

                   There is a shocking blast of blue white light knocking out the electricity with explosive thunder. Lightning hits the building shaking the foundation, leaving us in the dark. It is night time until the circuit breakers reconnect power to illuminate the pitch black basement. Gretchen is holding on to me. This is the woman I always knew her to be, powerful, vulnerable, impetuous.

                   Quivering she steps back and says, "This is too weird." "I'm in love with Gunter and I'm just too scared to not have a job." "I know I can always freelance code writing, but I just hate not being in control of my own life." Being the head of the corporation just got to me." "I love the work but I hate the games that go along with having to pretend that I even care about the money." "The more money I have the easier it is to get it taken away from me, and I guess I just couldn't prevent myself from sabotaging my chances of retiring at the top of my career."

                   Gunter is coming down the stairs with a big grin on his face, "Did you hear, We're getting sued." "Isn't that great?" He's laughing. There, another blast of lightning and thunder, this time a little further away. It seems the tension is being broken. He looks at Gretchen and sees that she is noticeably upset and hugs her. "Oh Gretchen I'm sorry, you are such a dear." "We'll get through this just like we always do." "We only did this so we can be together, don't my cry sweetheart" "I'm with my family again." Outside the rain is starting to pour.

Drunkards of the Spirit, Junkies for the Love

Drunkards of the Spirit, Junkies for the Love

                   I take Jennifer's right hand with my left and walk to the back door of church, back under the trees. "So why did you ask me about the infinite repartitioning of memory using meta formal logic strings to encode imprint data?"

                  "I started thinking about the way you compare the Super Normal Sensory Stimulus Response, with superior intelligence." She slows down in the shadows of the trees rosy dappling sunlight. Gentle rhythmic breezes drive the warmth all around us, the leaves making dancing fingers of sunlight massaging the air. She goes on talking as she stops and faces me with her back to the open river bank. "I remember reading your Propositional Assertions." "Your statistical models for distinctions always account for personal differences as the dynamics of a variable" "There are always more Socially Recursive Boundary Definitions to find." "You say this is how we see ourselves as being different or the same." "But the problem for me is when do we stop redefining ourselves relative to each other?" "It seems to me like every time you find another variable, you always find the polarities and the directional momentum for each trait and characteristic in mutual transition." "I mean are we really that diametrically dynamic or is that just another one of your writers tricks?"

                   I know she isn't trying to be sarcastic, but I like well thought out questions. "I'm thinking that's not a question, you're trying to open the dialogue." "Am I right?"

                   "No, you're right." "I'm just getting started" She turns and starts to walk toward the north side of the church, past the back door toward a garden wall that is over grown with vines and shrubs. The Lilacs have just started opening, as does so much more inside of me and all around us.

                  She continues, "You wrote about, CONTROL DOMINANCE Versus TRUST DOMINANCE." "About the "DUEL NECESSARY VICES of Optimism and Pessimism." "About the CONFLICTING VIRTUES of Over Dependability and Un Expressed Expectations." You talked about how everything in human nature is just a modeling for a distribution, and at the heart of all our Presumptive Values is merely the symmetrization of variable personal social dynamics, pro and con." "All these maps to cycles and waves of predictable eventuality, today will be yesterday, as of tomorrow, blah blah blah, etc. etc."

                  "And again Jennifer, you're highlighting my embarrassment as a self doubting psychic." "But as much as I agree with all your objections, I ask you to review the findings." Jennifer leans against a cool bare spot on the brick wall looking at me. She is framed by the budding vines in the perfume of the earliest spring flowers. I myself am like this older neighborhood with all the mature trees, established perennials and deep healthy roots in the fertile soil. "If you Remember, in my "Surreal Novella" I always recommended Splitting the Bias." Her fresh flawless skin is glowing as her eyes begin to sparkle. I know I'm getting to her point. "In all of our "Mutually Defined Socially Recursive Boundary Definitions we have Biases, Polarity." "Remember?"

                  "Yes, I do." "All that stuff about shared social properties of a Symmetrical Coalescence made perfect sense to me and Splitting the Bias is nothing more than getting people to resolve their conflicts through clarifying boundary definitions." "Nothing new there.""I also know there was probably no other way for you to demonstrate the Meta Formal Logic of an Intuitive Induction, other than mapping Opinion Bias as social change" At this moment, I swear even the birds are singing in harmony with her.

                 She goes on, "But a TRUE HOAX?" "Confessions Of A Professional Psychic?" "That's just cruel!" "Did you have to trick people to get us to believe you are telling the truth?" Now we are getting somewhere. The warm wind is blowing stronger through the treetops. In the pink morning sky a storm is coming. Jennifer is right on target.

Applied Entropy

Applied Entropy

                   My work as editor of Zenophile Magazine prepared me for these  unplanned media events.

                   Jennifer and I are soaked from sitting on the wet grass. We should be cold. But the morning is warming up nicely and we're in the sun. She's saturated all down the right side of her Gingham dress, and I look like I peed myself.

                   "Do you always cry this much?" she asks as we stand up to go back inside. "I mean, shouldn't we wait out here so we can dry off a little first?"

                   "Let's stand over by the wall," I said. "It's nice and warm over here." "And yes, I am a weeper, but it used to be much worse." "I used to actually howl." "Wouldn't want to be my neighbor." "Why?" "Is it that obvious?"

                    Jennifer laughs, "I've got like about twenty different personalities, and I get along with almost all of them fine but I'm a little schizophrenic when it comes to my emotions. "I wrote a lot about personality dynamics and I just want to hear how you gauge your own temperament."

                    "Oh,...., you want me to talk about depressive pragmatism." I'm looking up into the trees lining the church garden. The Maples are in bloom and fragrant. There is a very large old Star Magnolia in full bloom at the top of the hill by the front door of the church. The warm east fresh Spring air carries the perfume down hill too us. Jennifer sees me sniff the air.

                    She takes her own deep breath. "Yes, I can smell it too." "I don't understand." "How can you be so emotional when you are trying to teach people how to be unaffected?"

                    Turning to face the wall I shine the Sun on my butt. "I know it sounds like a contradiction, but if I'm not being authentic it makes my emotional pain much worse, I find it's simply much easier to stay on top of my emotionally fluid predicament." "I was taught to be emotionally unaffected, not unfeeling or insincere." "People are usually preoccupied with their own emotions and feelings. Psychic training gives me an escape from being preoccupied with my self." "I know it sounds kind of stupid but this is how and why I do it." "Generally the last thing a temperamental person wants is to get caught up in is themselves." "I just find it easier to let people come to their own conclusions about what I'm doing. How others feels about my work relates to them personally." "This is usually why people ask each other personal questions, it's the nice thing to do."

                    Jennifer get's right to the point, "Why am I never alone?" Her question makes me giggle nervously. I ask her with my eyes to go on. She wonders out loud, "I mean, I'm always feeling everything, like I'm living in several different places at once." "I try to ignore it, but at times I just know it's time to see the world from someone else's point of view." She looks back at me smiling.

                   "I am going recommend a little constructive laziness, a little Applied Entropy." "This is the best response to that un answerable question of separateness versus our inevitable shared existential confusion." "Jennifer, you have a very unpleasant gift." "You are going to need to cut yourself a whole lot of slack." We are almost dry. We can go back inside.

You Are The Moon In My Life

You Are The Moon In My Life

                   With the Sunbeam shining in the basement window I am drawn to the sounds of soft crying outside, in the yard behind the church is a garden. I quickly run out through the dining room, up stairs out through the hall behind the stage to a backdoor. I turn to my right and there sitting on the wet grass is Jennifer in her bare feet. As my own eyes are still trying to focus through my own tears, I notice the dewdrops sparkling in the morning light. I feel strangely relieved to see her. We are enclosed on the side of a green wooded bank sloping down to a river I can not see.

                    "Jennifer are you alright," I ask. I'm to my surprise holding my Coffee and Croissant and I pass them to her while I sit down cross legged. "Would you like a bite?"

                    Without looking up, "I don't want people see me so sad like this." "I don't know why I get this way." She looks up at me and sees my face wet, and slowly starts to smile, and even giggles a little bit. She is every bit a radiant being. "Oh I'm sorry, you know what I'm talking about." For a moment I'm seeing myself through her eyes again and I'm very upset and happy at the same time. I try to look away but I remember that I'm here to find other readers.

                     So I ask her, "Jennifer?" "You mentioned you thought you may be another me." "What did you mean?"

                     "All my life I've been living in at least two different place at a time." "I have this strange awareness of other people as if I'm never alone." "I'm often more aware of what others feel than I am of myself." "Add in all the other strange phenomena that you based your whole career on, and well, Phillip?" "What is happening to us?"

                     Without intending I shift my weight over to her left side and we put arms around each other softly. Leaning toward each other we are both shivering from the emotions we are sharing. It seems silly but I am completely helpless to steer the conversation to what is obvious. Jennifer is probably right. We may be simultaneous incarnations of the same consciousness in separate bodies.

                     "Jennifer?" "For the time being, let's play this down.""I'm afraid I think I know all too well what you are talking about." I'm starting to see a delicate play of the diamond patterned NADA colorfully dancing in the droplets on the grass, on her face, in her eyes, in the air all around us. "It is Kriyas." "If what you are saying is true, and as far as I can tell You could be a person I've been in silent contact with, I don't want this getting out." "This in fact may be one of those things that by itself doesn't have to be important, and it really isn't anyone else's business." "At this point I'm glad I got to meet you." "What do you think we should do?" "Every dream I've ever had is pressing on my awakened mind." I have arrived.

                     She sniffles and laughs. She is observably relieved. "I don't know." "I suppose you are right, what is there to do." "I guess I'm happy to know that what I'm seeing is something I can share with someone, but I still feel like I'm supposed to be doing something." "How many people like us do you think are out there?" "This isn't something like a cold like you could catch from somebody, is it?"

                      I am so taken aback by seeing the world through her eyes, her body, her personality, that I totally forget I'm actually here, right now. In between us is a sunburst. A blazing consciousness of being is shining a single light, the world disappears.

                     "Phillip?" "Are you alright?" except the words came from my mouth. My eyes focus and we look at each other and both start laughing. "I probably need some more sleep." She picks up my Coffee and hands it back to me. It's gone cold but it's still tastes good.

Entry into a Masters Level GAMES MODULE

Entry into a Masters Level GAMES MODULE

         
        If you would like to start at the beginning of this story, Just Another Day In The Future, Tues. Nov. 19th, 2013. It started yesterday, {April 23rd, 2031}.

                   After I buy my breakfast pastry and first Coffee, I turn from the service window and savor. Gretchen flags my attention from across the dining room. At a brisk relaxed pace she floats up. Smiling, "Good morning Phillip, You were talking in your sleep again." "And we taped you if you ever want to see it." "But It's also been transcribed for threading into the web. Of course we'll want your written consent first." "All rights are yours exclusively." "Gunter wanted me to apologize to you again for our horrible ruse, tricking you into coming here." "We've learned enough from you over the years to know how loyal you are."

                   I ask, "Can I assume that you and Gunter are only adversaries for the sake of Oraca and Inter Space Limited?" "You two have been carrying on discretely, without either of the boards knowing, haven't you?"

                   "Yes." "And if it's any consolation, Phillip you performed so much better than any of us could have anticipated." "You gave us all the most naive trusting display of honorable good sportsmanship I think any of us could have hoped for." "You survived each of our technicians onslaughts." "And you were still ready to play our game."

                   "So what about the rollout?" I ask. "I want the charts on confidence levels for our latest "Game." "And how was this supposed to help with your merger." "Did we piss anyone off at the head offices?"

                   "Phillip, You are so right on target again." "By making this PSY CON party a working flash mob event, the boards were never invited." "We're giving all of the proceeds for this copyright directly to your company if you want it." "Even this morning, before the markets opened, news was out." "Both Gunter and I have gotten letters of resignation from all of our most greedy short sighted board members." "Yes we really pissed those tight asses off." "Those idiots can't even read a thank you note much less any other expression of humans emotion." "The fact that we got you to "Ring the Bell," meant that the original designers were back together without even a shiver of resistance from anyone." "I wasn't able to sleep all last night."

                   "Wow, Wonderful." "But Gretchen, why did it seem that everyone was so worried about me, even those strangers who picked me up out front of Oraca?"

                   "Phillip, I think you know what the answer is." "The one thing you are best known for is your uncontainable love." "You make leaving one's comfort zone an act of pure joy." "It's THE POWER OF YOUR HEART." Suddenly I realize that we are alone in the basement together, and tears are streaming down my face. I thank Gretchen and apologize excusing my self with a thanks and a hug and walk quickly back to the restroom. The tiled walls are echoing my wailing sobs as a solitary sunbeam enters through the basement bathroom window. But there seems to be someone else here. I need to find Jennifer.

PSY CON

PSY CON

                   Ahhhhh,....., I just had the most wonderful nap. I think I was dreaming about one of my other lives, I don't remember where I went to sleep. Eyes open warm and cozy, I see colored light coming in through a Rose Window. Gentle tones of beautiful music, beckons me to engage the theatre full of people milling in dawns quiet peace. The doors of the one time church open as the cool sweet April air flows through the doors, down the aisles, down around my dangling feet rising up to my waiting nose. The bouquet of fresh spring steals my thoughts away. I had been placed in a easy lounge chair sometime last night. I don't want to finish waking up. I'm so happy, all my children are back together again. I'm starting to recognize many more of the people around here. I'd stopped noticing peoples faces before I finally blacked out. Everyone just went on with the rollout party without me. Was I reading in my sleep again?

                   Eyes half shut I start seeing that new alternative world that Terry told me about last night,  the one with all those alien art excavations. I'm remembering the digs where we found that prehistoric Silurian Dome that predated all previously known sentient life here on Earth. I'm watching my inner safe place moving panoramically beneath me. That ancient city was found in 2025 in the very place I return to in my dreams when I'm too sick to be around anyone. Maybe it is all just a dream. Before I can force myself to wake up, I hear a soft familiar voice. I see myself from the foot of my recliner, through someone else's eyes looking at me asleep.

                  "Mr. Johnson?" "Mr. Johnson, I'm sorry to bother you." "Can you hear me?" "My name is Jennifer." As I open my eyes I realize she's seeing herself through my eyes too. I feel her body, she may be feeling mine too.

                   I jump to my feet and almost fall down. Jennifer grabs my arm to catch me and says, "Ouch." I think she is herself feeling the bruise on my arm from the night before. I've performed many an extraction before. Where I'm taken prisoner to help someone else get out of some cult, or a bad job or some other dangerous relationship. But most of the time we are usually released quickly, just to get rid me. This seems much more serious than those other times on earlier missions. This is just too weird. "Sir, are you alright?" She asks, "Do you need anything?" "Should I call someone?" Jennifer looks worried.

                  Catching myself, "I'm sorry Jennifer, good morning." "Yes, I'm glad to meet you, have we ever met before?" Secretly, I've always hated being a sensitive. I used to think it was disrespectful to look into peoples eyes directly. My poor wife had to put up with my shy eyes. "Jennifer, I'm still waking up and I really do want to talk with you." "Do you have to be anywhere soon?"

                  "Mr. Johnson?" "I think I might be another one of you." "I mean I wanted to come and meet you person, I've all read your books about Transpersonal Identification." "And all about how we share emotional boundaries through contact, and about how our emotional boundaries can actually mirror information back and forth with each other, and about how whole experiences can be shared by this fluid expression during touch." "And when I got to the part where you talk about the infinite repartitioning of memory using meta formal logic strings to encode imprint data." "Oh gosh I'm sorry, it's just I'm so excited." "I thought I've been writing about the same things and I just didn't understand why my life started getting a whole lot easier, I'm sure you must hear this all the time."

                   "Can I get back to you?" I ask her. "I don't know what to say and I really do want to talk to you." "Are you going to be here awhile longer?" "Please call me Phillip, I feel like an idiot."

                   "Of course, I'm sorry." She apologizes again, "I didn't mean to attack you like some crazed fan." "Do you mind if I just hang out for awhile, I would love it if I could show you some of my notes." I smile and nod. She is a very pretty yet athletic brown haired lass with curves and a sweet voice. Whoever you are Jennifer, I like you.

                     I want to ask her so much, does she see it? This young girl actually understands the whole point of my work. Does she actually see the moving light? I'm shocked. All of these people here this morning are really smart. But usually after someone gets to see the walls melt, we simply die. Jennifer seems to be ready to take the last step. And I don't think she's even afraid. What if she is the one, well o.k. one of the ones. If it turns out she came with the same encoding protocols for the discrete partitioning of all language, we may be looking at an actual "Mutual Self Dual. " Just like when both Newton and Leibniz independently arrived at the Integral Calculus. Different minds can think the same thoughts. Indeed.

                   I walk down to the basement to use the bathroom, everyone in the halls seem pleasant. I smell Coffee. That always gets things moving. There is the kitchen that must have served countless Sunday luncheons. I think I can still smell them cooking donuts during mass.