Sunday, October 6, 2024

Metaphase Typewriter 2.0: a Preposterous Proposition

Nick Herbert: who will be first to heed his proposition?


  Metaphase Typewriter 2.0: A Preposterous Proposition

In the early 1970s I designed and built the Metaphase Typewriter, a machine intended to communicate with spirits, based on the assumption that somehow consciousness, human or otherwise, arises at the quantum level and that an open quantum channel producing human speech or text might be able to be “possessed by some discarnate entity" in a manner similar to the way trance mediums can be taken over by alternate personalities. The Metaphase Typewriter was inspired.by Jane Roberts's Seth books. I actually communicated through a friend with Jane's Seth entity asking if Seth could recommend some physics-savvy beings on the other side that might be motivated to speak through my new quantum-based channel. Perhaps some discarnate physicist might even aid in improving the typewriter's design. Seth replied that he was interested only in people not machines. No help there. 
 
Metaphase Typewriter 1.0


Pictured above, the MT 1.0 consisted of radioactive Thallium 204 exciting a Geiger counter (both inside yellow plastic tube) plus hardware (and software) to link the Geiger counts to a Data General Eclipse minicomputer, vintage 1974 (not shown).

As recounted in my Elemental Mind and David Kaiser's How the Hippies Saved Physics, we operated the MT in several “high psychic energy” environments, inviting notable local psychics to influence its pseudo-random text outputs, inviting a few recently deceased friends who knew about the Typewriter to reconnect if they could. An all-day session on a borrowed computer at UC San Francisco Medical School on Parnassus Ave was held on the 100th anniversary of Harry Houdini's birth, inviting the famous escape artist to perform one final trick via the new quantum channel we had supposedly opened up. Several remarkable synchronicities occurred during some of our sessions which suggested we might be on the right track but never did any understandable text or speech appear in the hundreds of pages of MT output. A taste of our metaphase efforts can be found here and here. And a typical MT printout looked like this:

WIRN OF ACERIONINE SE IND BE B WHAD ATHE OROVESSOUNDRO MAT PIND ASPAS HESUN UR D T CORE G LVIDESPANOUMO BIMARNAGLES HSTEAF NNAN A AITHIDIF PUTAMSUBENES T QUALOA ASELOTNULARE INE T THAPE ALLIGACAZOF WANE HT F A T G R ATHE FOVA WHISERDEM INOT ACRYRYIVESSTHENEMBOFO OR W WO WOMAD FORDISP AS HE WHA CO T T PLE F T OWRUS INIAIDITHE COR NITAL PIS D BEANSTO ARERS THESITIVENOVERLASESTEWONM IST MIGHIPOF A DUNKISHENT ISEAD RIENDUBE THERROIN.

It almost looks here as if coherent text is just about to emerge. But nothing like that ever happened.

From time to time during the fifty years since the Houdini Breakout Challenge I had wondered how the Metaphase Typewriter might be improved. Recently I was inspired to take up this question again after reading Irreducible, a new book by Federico Faggin (FF) who is famous for designing and building one of the first computers on a chip. In this remarkable book, Faggin does not merely vaguely speculate that consciousness is somehow quantum, he devises an explicit system in which Consciousness Is First and creates both matter, living systems and everything else for the purpose of experiencing, expanding and loving the One Big Wholeness out of which emanate humans and all other conscious beings. A very ambitious book, Mr Faggin.

Irreducible by Federico Faggin

Faggin distinguishes two level of conscious being. There are simple beings that possess only subjective experience whom he calls “thought forms” that play little part in the cosmic drama. Then there are beings, called Consciousness Units, or CUs, who possess, in addition to subjective experience, Seity and Agency. Seity (rhymes with deity) is a sense of selfhood and Agency is the ability to freely act, primarily by exchanging symbols with other Seities. Such conscious beings, possessing selfhood and agency (of which you and I are examples) are busy putting this world together, bit by bit, each in our own particular way.

So far, these conjectures are all fairly abstract but then Faggin gets specific by identifying each CU with its own quantum state. FF's conjecture reminded me of my own speculations along these lines inspired by Heisenberg's description of the quantum wavefunction as a “possibility wave”, half way between an idea and a fact. Consciousness does seem to feel like fuzzy waves of possibility that now and then condense into a definite fact. Faggin compares quantum statistics with the letter statistics of a language and notes that the meaning of an utterance is not in the statistics but in the unique utterance itself. In Faggin's model, the world is, in effect, spoken into being by many little quantum minds, which was the exact notion I invoked as inspiration to build a quantum-operated typewriter.

The quantum part of the MT is a sample of radioactive Thorium 204 emitting beta rays (fast electrons) into a Geiger counter. The statistics of the intervals between counts are combined with second order English language statistics to generate something that approximates English text. But I have often wondered whether my source was really “quantum enough” to connect with souls. 

First of all, a collection of decaying Thorium atoms is not a coherent quantum system such as the brain might be but is merely an accidental collection of independent actors who say one word on stage and then die. Better (more quantum?) would be some complex system that stayed on stage and could be interrogated again and again.

Secondly, the decay of an isotope does not fit the textbook model of a quantum measurement of how something (still mysterious) called a "measurement" turns quantum possibility waves into a single classical actuality.

A textbook measurement works like this. Given a particular unobserved quantum system you simply cannot simply ask “what's happening now?” because many quantum attributes cannot be simultaneously known. To do a quantum experiment you must choose a particular question: asking for position means you can't ask for momentum, and most other quantum attributes are as equally mutually exclusive or more so, than position and momentum. Choosing to measure this means you can't measure that. This necessary choice of what to measure is called the Heisenberg Choice.

Now that you've chosen what question to ask (and deployed the physical machinery necessary to ask it), then Nature's response to your question is called the Dirac Choice. If you asked about position, the wavefunction contains many possible positions, only one of which can be actualized, in a still mysterious (to physicists) process we call “the collapse of the wavefunction.” 

The decay of a collection of radioactive isotopes does not seem to follow this two choice format except perhaps in the sense that Nature might have already asked the Heisenberg question: At what particular time will this Thallium atom decay into Lead? And Nature answers the Dirac question  too by choosing, for each atom, one particular decay time. In the literature also, "time" is regarded by some as a dubious quantum attribute.

Borrowing Faggin's terminology, I was inclined to regard radioactive atoms as mere "thought forms" rather than small quantum souls possessing seity and agency. 

So for several such reasons, I remained unhappy about my choice of a radioactive source as the “quantum part” of the spirit typewriter. Atomic decay, I suspected, was simply "not quantum enough" to connect with the quantum souls that underlie ordinary reality. But I was never so imaginative to concoct a better quantum alternative nor so lucky to find a ready-made source that consisted of several coherent quanta that could be treated as a "seity" in Faggin's sense--a single quantum seity that could be interrogated (measured) again and again in the textbook style of making Heisenberg and Dirac Choices.

Until just a few days ago. Then motivated by reading the words of Federico Faggin, I suddenly realized that there already exists a perfect example of a system that precisely fits my specifications, a system that appears "quantum enough" to drive a very much improved metaphase typewriter.

Here is a photograph of such a real and presently operating physical system located not far from where I (NH) live, which houses a beautiful, robust and “fully quantum part” seemingly made in heaven to work as the “beating quantum heart” of Metaphase Typewriter 2.0. Thank you, Google, your plasmon-based 53-qubit Sycamore quantum processor is about as "quantum" as you can get in 2024.

Coogle's quantum computer

Nick's preposterous proposition is the conjecture that today's quantum computers are not really computers at all (sure, they can--noisily--compute) but these systems may actually be better suited to operate as easy gateways to new kinds of quantum soul to soul connections. connections that are difficult today for us to even imagine, so deeply hypnotized are all of us by the materialism-is-everything trance. The interfacing will certainly be a bitch, but your children will appreciate the essential part you played in transforming their humdrum lives into complex experiences beyond present human recognition.

With new orifices, apertures, holes, 
new meanings, new purposes, goals, 
we've opened our hearts
and our new private parts
to an invisible network of souls 
 
with our tantric antenna array 
we find new things to hear and to say 
to our lovers in bed
to the recently dead
to old minds with new kinds of play.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

The Caveman's Lament


 THE CAVEMAN'S LAMENT
 
me think about her when sun rises
me think about her when sun sets
me say to her how much me love her
she tell me love invent not yet

me make cave all warm and cozy
me lie bearskin on cave floor
me play song of love on bone flute
she choose cave of Tim next door
 
me no more go out hunt mammoth
me throw spear too short or long
me sit in cave me paint her picture
she say me get perspective wrong
 
me cook meal to show me love her
diplodocus with fried beans
she say food anachronistic
me not know what this means
 
stone age mighty hard for lovers
you rub two flints look what you get
small sparks lead to big inferno
but she say love invent not yet

                         BRIAN BILSTON
 
Brian Bilston has gained a reputation as "the poet laureate of Twitter". This gem appears in his "Alexa, what is there to know about love?" (2021)

Monday, July 22, 2024

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Bold Alice was keen to explore
Reality's sweet inner core
Her doors of perceiving
Completely receiving
She found out what Nature is for.

Monday, June 10, 2024

CHURCH OF THE ORDINARY

Breakfast Eucharist

THE CHURCH OF THE ORDINARY

When you sweep the floor
Gather your daily regrets into the pan
Release them into the afternoon sun
And let the dust of sorrow plant new dreams
When you wash the dishes
Scrub away the debris of mind
Let each bubble reveal the emptiness
Of your original face
When you cook food
Let your whole heart pour into every simmer and stir
Let every spice and kernel and grain
Contain
Your holy devotion
To this brief human Life
When you eat
Chew your own Love
Swallow the arms of the Mother
Let them wrap around your belly
With infinite compassion
Let every bite
Be an act of worship
When you bathe
Let your hands become healers
Strip the body of its tensions and confusions
Pour the water of suppleness back into your bones
Baptize yourself into holy presence
Let your skin drink the nectar of open delight
Let your fingernails scratch open 
Your tired old wounds
Until your wholeness is revealed
Beneath the static
When you walk
Let each toe pressing into earth
Be a thank you note
To the gift of ground
When you breathe
Let each inhale be a love letter to God
And every exhale a blessing to the trees
This is the sacred mundane
You are living prayer
And magic in motion
The church of the ordinary
Is the secret of secrets
For it is in these tiny places
That kindness lives
And this kindness
Is the doorway
To God.
 
 
----Maya Luna

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

The Art of Parting


 THE ART OF PARTING

Even tho there are parts of the Earth
I never would have seen
Were it not for you
 
Even tho there are parts of the Music
I never would have heard
Were it not for you
 
Even tho there are parts of the Sea
I never would have smelled
Were it not for you

Even tho there are parts of me
I never would have tasted
Were it not for you
 
Even tho there are parts of you
I never would have touched
 
Were it not for you
 
Were it not for you
I never would have learned

Were it not for you
I never would have learned
I can live without you.


Friday, March 29, 2024

Two Moods: Eclipse and Emergence

Heart eclipse projected onto a frame drum.

ECLIPSE
 
One of the ways
August expressed her sorrow
after her marriage
fell apart.
 
Eclipse of the Heart
San Francisco 1983 

ECLIPSE OF THE HEART 1983

EMERGENCE

On the other hand
August's Knotted Hare 
Capitola 2002
expresses her fondness for every kind of animal,
Spring flowering,
one more joyous Easter:
our good Lord emerging from the tomb.
 

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The Discovery of Anti-time

Jim Rintoul

THE DISCOVERY OF ANTI-TIME

This being the tale
of the future discovery
of what was at first assumed to be
counter-reality,
(and as such did not matter),
but which soon came to be known as anti-time.
 
Because anti-time could be surfed
like any wave,
the implementation
and subsequent proliferation
of anti-time devices
for the home and workplace
made anti-time big business
if you could just get your board
in the water in time
moving forward
against a headwind of the future
rushing into the past,
to ride the wave till it crashed
and let time (the undertow of anti-time)
reel you back into the present.

The discovery of anti-time
anti-mattered so much
that time began to matter again,
until it became so cheap to produce
that everyone spent it freely.

 
Jim Rintoul lives in Santa Cruz, 
was a prominent member of 
and has just published  
It Only Laughs When I Hurt 
Aquarian Moon Productions (2024)

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Len Anderson (1944 -- 2024)

Len Anderson

LEN ANDERSON (1944 -- 2024)
 
Len Anderson passed away in his own bed on Mattison Lane in Santa Cruz early Tuesday morning, January 30, tended by his wife, Elke Maus.
 
Len earned a PhD in physics from UC Berkeley, worked in experimental high-energy physics at Berkeley and in Europe, then switched to industry where he designed sensors for paper-making machines. 

Moving to Santa Cruz in the early 90s, Len developed his talents as a poet, co-founding Poetry Santa Cruz and Hummingbird Press, organizations which sponsored poetry readings, encouraged and published the work of local poets including three books by Len himself: Affection for the Unknowable (2003), Invented by the Night (2011) and The Way Home (2019).

In 1992, Len laid down a memorable mark on the poetry scene with his clever parody of Allen Ginzberg's Howl, the infamous anthem of San Francisco's Beat Generation. Len called his work BEEP crafting it as an anthem of the "BEEP Generation", in which he caricatures the behavior of the programmers and entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley whose efforts gave birth to today's personal computers.

BEEP's opening line

A large part of Len's work deals poetically with spiritual and metaphysical themes. Like myself, Len was for a long time a practicing Roman Catholic.
 
Invented by the Night    p 28

And next, Len imagines for us a back-alley encounter between Science and Mysticism:
 
The Way Home   p 42


 
Modern quantum physics, consciousness and mysticism are not so easy to comprehend. These regions of experience are subtle, obscure, elusive and call out for a correspondingly subtle and sophisticated courtship. One example:
 
Invented by the Night   p 48
 
 Philosophically Len Anderson was a passionate agnostic who flirted playfully in public with the boundaries of human knowledge (as per the title of his first book Affection for the Unknowable). And in Len's books and readings he shamelessly reveals himself as a faithful lover of the Great Mystery. For his wife Elke,  his friends and community, and for fellow seekers after the Mysteries, the death of Len Anderson has left a big hole in the fabric of being.

Affection for the Unknowable   p 11

Invented by the Night   p 68

 



 


Monday, October 16, 2023

it's time to face this sex thing

August O'Connor

 it's time to face
this sex thing
 
It makes us men.
It makes us women.
It makes a joke
to please us
to see us smile.
It makes Beauty
to open our hearts.
It makes Love. 
 
            August O'Connor 
 

Friday, September 29, 2023

Fulton-Bennett Woodblock Prints

Kim Fulton-Bennett: Boulder Creek Library

Kim Fulton-Bennett is a man of many talents, marine biologist, science writer, composer and performer in several musical genres, primary traditional Celtic music where for several years he was half of the Dobhran ("otter" in Gaelic) duo with August O'Connor which entertained at coffee shops, festivals, weddings and private parties in the Santa Cruz area. More recently he performed with Blarney, a larger Celtic band. Inspired by his work at MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) he is currently authoring a website Seasons in the Sea which recounts the life stories month by month of conspicuous plants and animals living in and around Monterey Bay. Inspired by his contact with nature through marine bio;ogy, through hiking in the California wilderness and by surfing off the coast of Santa Cruz, Kim has been producing a series of woodblock prints some of which are now on display (Sept--Oct 2023) at the Boulder Creek branch of the Santa Cruz Library.

"I live in the redwood-covered hills behind Santa Cruz," writes Kim, "and spend my free time hiking the mountains and surfing along the wild North Coast. That's where I get the inspiration for most of my wookblock prints."

"My first woodblocks were simple designs for friends and relatives. But I soon fell in love with the magical process of carving a design into a block of wood, inking the block, and then seeing the design on a piece of paper."

"I carve my woodblocks by hand and make prints in small editions of 5 to 15 prints. Each print is signed, numbered, and dated. Because they are hand made, each print is unique."

Mt Lassen from Spirit Lake




Point Sur

 
Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Rockview: Moonlight

Plum Blossoms