Boltzmann, who developed statistical mechanics and the ‘heat death’ vision of a world degenerating into ultimate randomness committed suicide.

Bingo!

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/09/10/suicide-genocide

A horror of entropy is based in mistaking probabilities for real things. A probablity is a quantitative description of a state of knowledge, nothing more.

Exactly! And this is one of my main points of contention against primitivism, Peak Oil, etc: they are mistaking their own extrapolations of what will happen for actual reality. They are ignoring the purpose of prophecy and of extrapolation: to warn people about what will happen if they don’t heed God’s word, and to encougare them to avoid the wrath of God. The purpose of prophecy is warning and a resultant change of action, not to plunge headlong into destruction

PS. Connie, thanks so much for bringing this back home to gnosticism! Awesome

The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is
expressed in the second law of thermodynamics — perhaps the most
pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought.

-Principia Discordia

Boltzmann, who developed statistical mechanics and the ‘heat death’ vision of a world degenerating into ultimate randomness committed suicide.

A horror of entropy is based in mistaking probabilities for real things. A probablity is a quantitative description of a state of knowledge, nothing more.

“Randomness” is always present, but always relative. Given any transcendental number and some integer offset of digits, read out the digits to a genius, they will appear completely random to him. Not just due to lack of computational power, but fundamentally, he cannot reverse-engineer the very simple formula which produces these numbers.

If you mistake abstractions for reality, then you will be forced to a pessimistic conclusion, you have placed faith in non-existence. There are no atoms, forces, mass, energy, these are all recipricolly defined and have no meaning outside of statistical prediction. A wonderful technical book that can be found online is by ET Jaynes, “Probability Theory: The Logic of Science”. It proves definitively that probabilities (and therefore entropy) cannot be given the ontological status that entropy-pessimists believe.

So why does randomness increase as time increases? All that means is that Nature escapes our predictive abilities, simply because something is random to you does not mean it is random to any possible observer. The order that underlies creation is a transcendental order that escapes description or capture, it is the same order that underlies our being, how can we continue to ignore it?

Nevertheless, I am very interested in many crash-bloggers’ efforts to redefine their lives: the world is not outside of us, the world is inside of us, and tending to it tends to our selves.

Backster was in his office one day and, on a hunch, decided to attach the polygraph censors to a nearby plant. His goal (at the time) was to see if watering a plant would get a reaction (from the polygraph machine). With no luck at first, he thought hard about how a polygraph works — “on the principle that when people perceive a threat to their well-being, they physiologically respond in predictable ways”

So I began to think about how I could threaten the well-being of the plant. First I tried putting a neighboring leaf in a cup of warm coffee. The plant, if anything, showed what I now recognize as boredom–it just kept trending downward.

Then at thirteen minutes, fifty-five seconds chart time, the imagery entered my mind of burning the leaf I was testing. I didn’t verbalize, I didn’t touch the plant, I didn’t touch the equipment. The only new thing that could have been a stimulus for the plant was the mental image. Yet the plant went wild. The pen jumped right off the top of the chart.

I went into the next office to get matches from my secretary’s desk, and lighting one, made a few feeble passes at a neighboring leaf. I realized, though, that I was already seeing such a saturation of reaction that more change wouldn’t be noticeable anyway. So I tried a different approach: I removed the threat by taking the matches back to the secretary’s desk. The plant calmed right back down.

Immediately I understood something important was going on. There were no alternate explanations. There was no one else in the building, nobody else in the lab suite, and I simply wasn’t doing anything that would provide a mechanistic explanation. From that split-second my consciousness hasn’t been the same. My whole thought process, my whole priority system, has been devoted to looking into this.

That is just the beginning. Aside from Jensen’s book (which spends an entire chapter talking about this), you can read an interview between Jensen and Backster here. Backster continued his research with plants in this regard, discovering some fascinating things. I cannot recommend this story enough!

I post at a little out of the way forum that’s filled with a nice bunch of odd ball types. And we recently were discussing plants and their psychedelic qualities.

Here’s a little of some strange information that I ran across

Re: The Psychedelic/Entheogenic Experience
« Reply #25 on: June 09, 2006, 12:35:11 PM »

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Now that makes it even more interesting. I have been kicking around this little thought ever since I started reading the Gnostic Gospels. There is a parable where Jesus is speaking to the disciples and he holds up a handful of grass and tells them that all the mysteries of the universe are contained in this little plant. The disciples have no idea what he is talking about. Grass, is just grass. How could that be important. This little passage has been bugging me, you know how someway you read something and your sub-concious just won’t let it go, but like the disciples, I am just it’s just grass. Well something tells me that Jesus was trying to tell us something very important.

Just went back and read Genesis and the first life that God creates is plants.

And found this very interesting article on plants and electricity -

http://www.borderlands.com/newstuff/research/plant.htm

Quote
Plants are in a state of absolute fusion with their environment. When connected to audio monitors, plants behave as extremely sensitive thermal, barometric, hydrologic, chemical, and electromagnetic sensors. Responding to every nuance of natural expression, plants are sensory beings whose capacity exceeds the expectations of orthodox science.

Plants respond to energetic applications not normally detected in conventional measuring devices. Because plants are living things, they are privy to biodynamic vectors which do not resolve into combinations of simple inert forces. In well controlled settings, plants evidence responses which are remarkably complex. In these responses, plants reveal themselves as far more developed beings than orthodox botany leads us to believe

And a quote from the Essene Gospel of Peace
THE GIFT OF LIFE IN THE HUMBLE GRASS

It was in the month of Thebt, when the earth was covered with shoots of young grass after the rains, and the covering of emerald green was tender as the fine down of a baby chick. And it was on a bright sun-filled morning that Jesus gathered the new Brothers of the Elect round about him, that they might hear with their ears and understand with their hearts the teachings of their fathers, even as it was taught to Enoch of old.

And Jesus sat beneath a gnarled and ancient tree, holding in his hands a small earthen pot; and in the pot was growing tender grass of wheat, the most perfect among all seed bearing herbs. And the tender grass within the pot was radiant with life, even as the grass and plants which covered the hills far into the distant fields and beyond. And Jesus stroked the grass in the pot with the hands, even as gently as he would touch the head of a little child.

And Jesus said: “Happy are you, Sons of Light, for you have entered into the deathless way and you walk in the path of truth, even as did your fathers of old, who were taught by the Great Ones. With the eyes and ears of the spirit do you see and hear the sights and sounds of the kingdom of the Earthly Mother: the blue sky where dwells the angel of Air, the foaming river where flows the angel of Water, the golden light which streams from the angel of Sun. And I tell you truly, all these are within you as well as without; for your breath, your blood, the fire of life within you, all are one with the Earthly Mother.

But of all these, and more, that most precious gift of your Earthly Mother is the grass beneath your feet, even that grass which you tread upon without thought. Humble and meek is the angel of Earth, for she has no wings to fly, nor golden rays of light to pierce the mist. But great is her strength and vast is her domain, for she covers the earth with her power, and without her the Sons of Men would be no more, for no man can live without the grass, the trees and the plants of the Earthly Mother. And these are the gifts of the angel of Earth to the Sons of Men.

“But now I will speak to you of mysterious things, for I tell you truly, the humble grass is more than food for man and beast. it hides its glory beneath a lowly aspect, as it was told of a ruler of old that he visited the villages of his subjects disguised as a beggar, knowing they would tell many things to such a one, but would fall down in fear before their King. So does the humble grass hide its glory under its coat of humble green, and the Sons of Men walk on it, plough it, feed it to their beasts, but know not what secrets are hidden within it, even those secrets of everlasting life in the heavenly kingdoms.

“But the Sons of Light will know what lies hidden in the grass, for it is given to them to bring comfort to the Sons of Men. Even so are we taught by the Earthly Mother with this -little handful of wheat in a simple pot, even the same earthen pot you use to drink milk and gather the honey of bees. Now the pot is filled with black soil rich with old leaves and moist with the dew of morning, even that most precious gift of the angel of Earth.

Sorry if I am totally off base, out of whack, but your post filled me with hope and the mystery of “life”.