*tim boucher effect

Getting The Word Out

Noise is defined as any unwanted electrical or magnetic phenomena that corrupt a message signal. Noise can be categorized into two broad categories based on the source-internal noise and external noise. While internal noise is generated by components associated with the signal itself, external noise results when natural or man-made electrical or magnetic phenomena influence the signal as it is being transmitted. Noise limits the ability to correctly identify the sent message and therefore limits information transfer.

While we’re fiddling around with radio analogies in our on-going quest to understand the mind and human experiences, I wanted to share another idea that’s been bouncing back and forth inside mine. I haven’t actually had the time to develop this into a full-fledge post, but I thought I’d put the idea out there and see where it took us. Let’s start with the second chapter of the Book of Acts, which describes the origin of the Christian holiday of the Pentecost:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

The Holy Spirit is often identified with the Logos in Christian theology. The Logos is the creative Word of God, that one described in the Gospel of John as being with God and also God himself. So, in a sense, we could perhaps view the Logos/Holy Spirit as being the Original Signal that God sent out at the beginning of the universe, the waves of which actually formed the universe into its current shape. Perhaps the universe only endures so long as God’s Word is echoed down successfully through the ages.

But in the world of information transmission, signals become degraded over time and distance by something called noise. Noise is basically errors and miscellaneous mish-mash which creep in and diminish the potency of the original signal. Gnostic analogies about the world as we know it being corrupt (Black Iron Prison, the two Forms etc), begin to take on new richness when viewed through the lens of information transmission. Jesus too, as the Word-made-flesh, could be looked at as a renewal of that original signal transmitted by God at the beginning of time. Same goes for the Holy Spirit coming down to the Apostles at Pentecost. The fact that they are heard as speaking simultaneously in many languages (and that they then go around healing, casting out demons, etc) might attest to the possibility that they tapped in once more to the Original Source, the primary pulse or signal which created the universe.

In any event, this is sort of a half-formed idea for me at the moment. I’m adopting some basic ascetic tendencies in an attempt to clear away the debris, minimize some of the noise, and get back to the Original Source myself, whatever that may be, whatever you want to call it. I don’t believe that this world is a distraction, or to be avoided, but I do believe that there must be ways to clean off and renew our rusty corroded connections, so that when we speak and act, everyone hears us and sees us as though we’re speaking their language, sharing the one language which created us all and sustains us.

• Telepresence Jamming Frequencies, Preventing Future Time Travelers from Taking Your Memories to Sell In The Future
• “The Epistemology and Technologies of Shamanic States of Consciousness”
• Harner on Spiritual Reality
• Heyoka, Backwards Day
• MAIL COUPON and PAY POSTMAN WHEN HE ARRIVES