That, and have fun.

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/wp-c...loads/2009/01/adam-greenfield-mit.jpg

Google Alerts does actually scan keywords in images. It’s not always on time though, you may get it days later

what actually brought you here?

At Justin - maybe he was scrying!

But if you’re interested in getting things done (other than making money from the gullible), ESP, magic, etc. is a black hole. The ganzfeld experiments are very interesting. And who am I to say that they won’t yield verifiable results eventually? But a 38% or so success rate at being able get a few sketchy details of a picture or whatever isn’t particularly useful. So perhaps this research could eventually lead to something more useful eventually, but the application isn’t there yet.

So I don’t know what the hell you guys are even trying to do - other than string words together a la Kenji Siratori or Francis E. Dec (which is fine if that’s what you’re going for), so I can’t really say that the occult isn’t what you should be studying to make the thing work. But I have a hunch there are probably more direct paths to accomplishing whatever it is you’re trying to do.

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” ~ Oscar Wilde

But then I was thinking that usually peoples alternate personas are more brash, outspoken and flamboyant than they are in real life not the reverse.

Probably just a weird coincidence…

woowoo….

I just find it remarkable that such a small variation of your goateed likeness set off any alarm bells. So much imagery is cycled through here in the space of a week, I doubt any potential employers would balk at…well, perhaps I’m not giving your employers enough credit for paranoia and due diligence.

I’m curious now that I reflect on it — what actually brought you here? I don’t remember any specific mention of your name and I don’t see how a .jpg scan of magazine page would set off google alerts. Are you a regular reader?

I think the occult angle may be a good way to keep it vaporware instead of #whatworks.

People say vaporware like its a bad thing!

In any event, just for the record, you are or aren’t the same Speedbird who left really insightful and valuable comments on this site, like this one, over the years? I believe that person’s first name (or alias) was Adam as well, and may be in the UK.

http://hetdex.org/images/dark_energy/universe_made_of.jpg (thanks Tim)

Is the bulk of the pie “outside” the system? I would say ‘no.’ But if someone were to say “yes.” I could see their point too.

If someone were to say “I only want to concern myself with the narrow band of “normal matter” then thats fine also unless they add:

“..and anyone who wants to concern themselves with the rest of the pie is a whack job!” Then I would have a problem with them.

But anyway you “slice it” the bulk of the Universe is made up of energy and thats what the occult line of inquiry concerns itself with.

To me, looking for a mechanism outside that is the real reductionism, and the real breach of faith with possibility. It’s like my beef with Christians whose god is so puny s/he can’t possibly have devised a mechanism like evolution to account for the complexity of the human eye: your “paranormal,” your “spooky action at a distance,” and yes, even your magick are so much shallower and shabbier than simply coming to terms with the Big Is.

I think its more like nested hierarchies. So your argumant is a straw man. There doesn’t have to be anything “outside” There are just, basically differences in scale.

I think it will turn out that our brains are quantum computers. So thought is “nonlocal” and basically doesn’t have to follow physics on a macro scale.

Just because this line or inquiry starts to sound “woo woo” is no reason to bury ones head in tha sand.

Maybe “paranormal” is the wrong word. Because to me a lot of this woo woo stuff is a normal part of my everyday life and its the same for everyone else even if their cognitive dissonance can bring them to admit it.

But go to any bar and star at the back of a girls head untill she turns around and notices you…anyone can do it and its psychic.

Or you could, y’know, just go up and talk to her, like a normal human being. I dunno - works for me.

Klint alludes to pragmatism, and my treating sites and discussions like this as anathema stems from a simple and highly pragmatic realization: being seen as someone who takes this stuff at all seriously is death to your credibility among anyone who does not already Want To Believe. I got out in the world some, and realized most ricky-tick that citing TOPY or Rupert Sheldrake or Timewave Zero or Robert Anton WIlson does not exactly earn you the respect or sustained attention of rigorous thinkers.

So you’re damn right I don’t want people thinking of my work as paranormal, even by happenstance, even by the flimsiest tissue of proximity.

Ted, I don’t think your strawman distinction between “totally materialistic” thought (which you characterize as sterile and reductionist) and more enlightened awareness is going to hold up. It’s unsophisticated, old-fashioned, predicated on (at best) a profound misunderstanding of the science you mention. I, at least, don’t see the need for anything other than emergence in the large-scale interaction of relatively simple systems to generate all the mystery, wonder and beauty of the universe.

To me, looking for a mechanism outside that is the real reductionism, and the real breach of faith with possibility. It’s like my beef with Christians whose god is so puny s/he can’t possibly have devised a mechanism like evolution to account for the complexity of the human eye: your “paranormal,” your “spooky action at a distance,” and yes, even your magick are so much shallower and shabbier than simply coming to terms with the Big Is.

To be rigororous enough to be respected by scientists is hard. I end up getting a little bored reading the ones that are responsible and rigorous, because they end up painstakingly making a case for some thing thats ends up more or less like preaching to the choir.

But anyway one possible school of thought is that everything really is mechanical including all the psychic stuff.

Physical explanations for all of it.

That aregument doesn’t bug me. Its the burying of the head in the sand that bugs me. Things they pretend aren’t there hoping they go away.

But go to any bar and star at the back of a girls head untill she turns around and notices you…anyone can do it and its psychic.

Maybe engineers really can’t do it…dunno.

Then there are lots of people still totally materialistic, that are right in the thick of string theory and whatever..

There was even a real hard nosed guy on “what the bleep do we know” It was a good contrast.

But what it bolis down to is a really niave view of the world, IMO.

That they still hold out for this idea of a clock work universe that just goes according to pre-ordained plan once you wind it up, and with no room for free will.

But the Discrodian in me can’t resist pointing out this little detail about Adam: he used to be a PSYOP sergeant in the Army. http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/t...Adam-Greenfield-Everyware-page01.html

CONSPIRACY?

(Sorry Adam, I couldn’t resist)

http://speedbird.wordpress.com/about/

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/05/04/jung-on-signs-symbols/

In neither case should they be taken literally, for they are not to be understood semiotically, as signs for definite things, but as symbols. A symbol is an indefinite expression with many meanings, pointing to something not easily defined and therefore not fully known. But the sign always has a fixed meaning, because it is a conventional abbreviation for, or a commonly accepted indication of, something know. The symbol therefore has a large number of analogous variants, and the more of these variants it has at its disposal , the more complete and clear-cut will be the image it projects of its object.

Destructive to what? There’s a huge, multi-cultural wealth of human ideas and imagination here — occult or not, this is a goldmine of material for future telecommunications technology design.

People should grow phones in their backyard and hatch them by the kitchen sink. Airwave, patent and bandwidth monopolies all depend on unsustainable, resource-intensive infrastructure and the homegrown solutions will be cheaper and more powerful than anything Chinese workers can assemble for Western consumers.

I appreciate what you’re doing to raise RFID awareness and generate discussion. That’s probably the best thing that could come out of this — more awareness.

#codechant

Bonus LULZ: The way he reacted, you’d think he got quoted on Stormfront or something.

Open memo to all living and dead authors: all of your work is fair game. Yeah, sorry.