The Tao is empty
but inexhaustible,
bottomless,
the ancestor of it all.

Within it, the sharp edges become smooth;
the twisted knots loosen;
the sun is softened by a cloud;
the dust settles into place.

It is hidden but always present.
I do not know who gave birth to it.
It seems to be the common ancestor of all, the father of things.

–

Infinity is very difficult concept for humanity. Numerous mathematicians have sought to quantify it, and in doing so eventually lost their minds and committed suicide. When I read this verse, so many other fields of interest spring to mind; Zero Point Energy – the infinite power source the world desperately needs, the work of Marko Rodin, the Measurement Problem, it all seems to hang off these simple words, first written over two thousand years ago by Lao-tzu. I could write hundreds of words on these topics alone, but I have chosen to brush over them in the interest of spirituality.

If the Tao is the infinite source of creation, ever present and within us all, then it safe to assume that we are all products of the Tao. The Tao connects us, and though we may appear and feel separate, I think we all know deep down that we are all connected.

I’ve spoken about the Measurement Problem before, about the power of the observer in Quantum Mechanics. It has been shown that nothing exists in reality, until it is observed. As observers, that makes us all co-creators of this universe. This may not be exclusive to humans, it may be possible that the very energy that makes up the atoms that our bodies are made up of is conscious. That the brain is actually some kind of recording device allowing us to record observations made by the greater consciousness in the interest of physical survival.

If there was no observation, then everything we think of in reality – the ten thousand things referred to by Lao-tzu – would exist everywhere and nowhere. In the real reality, all of us, and everything does exist everywhere, and nowhere. The probable truth is that the universe we think of is a hologram, a projection of ourselves. We are the Tao. In this superposition there is no time, and no things, just an infinite realm of relationships between thoughts. It’s so difficult to get your head around that I’m waffling now, unable to grasp the infinite as so many before.

The frustration of man (or so it would seem) is this: Our hardware is ill equipped to sense the infinite. We are led by our senses, and our senses (in most cases) only perceive the manifestations of our observations.

Is the Tao the Chi, the Zero Point energy, the Spirit? Lost to science due to its immeasurability perhaps. But for how long?

Verse 3.

Putting a value on status
will create contentiousness.
If you overvalue possessions,
then people begin to steal.
By not displaying what is desirable,
you will cause the peoples hearts to remain undisturbed.

The sage governs
by emptying minds and hearts,
by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.

Practice not doing…
When action is pure and selfless,
Everything settles into its own perfect place.

—

Whilst seemingly obvious, there is a depth to this verse that is not immediately apparent. Overall, it is a verse about priority and contentment.

Lets start at the beginning:
We are prone to seeking out higher status, be it social, monetary or intellectual. But status ultimately leads to separation, and isolation from the eternal, spiritual, and from unity with all.
How many times has your judgment prevented you from getting to know someone who could have changed your life? You will probably never know.
By valuing status, we condemn ourselves to solitude. And limit the pool of positive experience available to us. After all, when the day comes that you are about to pass on, will your status or possessions really matter to you? Or is it the memories and experiences that will truly matter? I know I would rather look back on my life knowing that I did what was necessary to bond with all, indiscriminately, secure in the knowledge that I found happiness in places that superficial judgment may have prevented me from.

Consider this notion: Does desire condemn you to slavery? What happens when you want to buy something? You either spend, and need to replace the money it took from you, or you work your arse off – most likely doing a job that does not inspire you – until you have enough money to achieve your desire. Right up until something else comes along that you want, wherein the cycle starts over. You enslave yourself, in order to further your materialistic sense of status. And likely miss out on opportunities to share in the experiences of others, all because ‘you have to be up for work early’.

The notion of ‘practice not doing’ is not an advocation of laziness. Rather in acting – devoid of ego – in the interest of creativity. By ignoring ego and trusting your true self, the motivation will materialize to spend your time sharing, being creative, and inspired.

Wayne Dyer put it nicely in his book ‘Change your Thoughts, Change your Life’ when he said of this verse;
‘There is no way to happiness, rather happiness is the way’.

Trusting yourself and your instinct is important. Practice being happy and grateful that you have the chance to experience happiness, and start finding it everywhere! Don’t let your ego run the show.

Thank you for reading x

Consider teleportation. If the vessel is demolecularised, sent via the internet or some other form of transport, and remolecularised at the destination then the individual is merely ‘copied’. The information or consciousness (in its current state) lives on, but the original vessel is quite dead.

If the human body is a vessel for information then is the vessel only as important as the information it is transporting at any given moment in time? If it was possible to assimilate the thoughts and experiences of others then what would be the value of one particular consciousness? Rather the value would be placed on the information carried, or the programs (or functions) processing that information and the further information resulting. Are we only special as individuals whilst we have limited interface capability? I have a strong feeling that the technology in question here would meet strong resistance from the vast majority of the human race should it come to fruition.

The other issue here is copying (or forking) consciousness. With the capability of total interface, a copy (or infinite copies) of an individual consciousness could be made and assigned to vessel anew. Of course the consciousness would not be a copy and more of a ‘fork’ due to its emergent nature – within a matter of seconds the consciousness would build new information based on new perceptions – of environment, and perhaps change of vessel – and over time the two consciousnesses would diverge and share only past memories in common. The new information would colour the old, resulting in changes of opinion and behaviour in the two (or more) subjects.
Unless of course some kind of synchronisation occurred at regular intervals between the copies in order to keep them as copies, rather than forks. At this point, no singular consciousness needs to exist. And the information is spread amongst many, significantly reducing the cost of vessel death.

On a more unfounded note. What if we were to discover in fact that ‘death’ as we know it was only the assimilation of our experience to an unseen consciousness. We become little more than reconnaissance drones. Do you still feel special?

The curious mind suffers a great imperfection. The curiosity generates the knowledge which perpetually changes the mindset of the individual, and leaves them with the constant nagging question; ‘Who am I?’ An empty feeling inside that we subconsciously attempt to fill. In some cases by seeking out others who might appear to know the answer to that one crucial question and bring us the inner peace we so desperately seek.

Is it so difficult to see why ignorance is so widespread amongst out kind, when this is perhaps the condition that allows us to find the answer to the question? Or does time show us the way to inner solace eventually. In calm desolation, in the ruins of failed relationships and long forgotten friendship – can the curious mind then find solace in isolation?

I’m a little confused as to why identity is something we cling to so desperately. Does it start with the naming? Or is it the defining? ‘What kind of person am I?’ – why do we ask these questions? As if its something permanent. Perhaps it is really a question of being able to trust yourself. Perhaps we don’t like the idea that we would be more inclined to engage in behavior that we currently dislike if we allow too much to change our perceptions. This would certainly enforce the idea that we learn more when we are unhappy.

Now to the problem – mouseover. I was attempting to add a mouseover event to every div on the page to mimic Firebug’s “inspect” functionality. The problem is that for every div I moused over, the event was triggered for every div up the DOM tree to the top most parent. This is actually intended behavior. Its called “Event Propagation”. It can be prevented however using the event.stopPropagation() function.

Hope this helps someone in the future

What the Internet is severely lacking is an infrastructure that allows for true freedom of speech by offering a networked web service for the collaborative review of all information available via the web. Simply put – forums and commenting systems suck! Scrolling down, reading post after post can be a nightmare. Having to sift through tonnes of data to get to the stuff that you are interested in. The truth is, the brain doesn’t work like that, it doesn’t store things in lists, it’s associative – it works in 3D!

What I propose is simple, yet powerful. A layer on top of the web browser that allows for the commenting of anything on the web. You could take a piece of content and comment on specific statements made within the content. Highlight the text and click comment. In doing so, you objectify (via respect, disdain, or evidence to either support, or debunk,) the thought or statement, and not the author of said statement. Content is safer broken into statements because it aids us in objectifying the content without any of the negative (and de-motivating), or positive (and ego boosting) connotations inherent in the review process. When others browse that content, as their mouse moves over the text. Little “nodes” gravitate towards the statement to indicate where someone has expressed an opinion on certain parts of the text. The web service that allows this is available to everyone and therefore opens the possibility to comment on any web based content, anywhere.

At any point we should be able to discount information from sources or networks that we have reason to distrust, and that distrust will be echoed in the luminescence of the node in question for all users.

The goal is to encourage the populous to place more value in self discovery, than indoctrination. To encourage research, objective and critical thinking, with the hope that a new internet, that shows in 3D the bigger picture, will emerge. With the hope that the prevalent perception of reality is based in reality, and not illusion. By empowering the people to broaden the foundations of their thoughts with observations that have been validated through the scientific method – unobstructed by vested interest.

The uses of this technology expand far beyond commenting. People may use this tool for education purposes, linking together pieces of content from different sources and allowing for the user to see the bigger picture. Another use may be interviewing. Often during a conversation, you may have and handful of questions for a single statement made by the person being interviewed and have to select one to ask. The resulting answer may raise another handful of questions, and so masses of information is being lost due to the linearity of the communication.

I will be writing more about this idea in the near future, but for now one thing is clear to me. If I’m going to make this a reality I am going to need the input of others, if you find this intriguing, please write to me, comment this post or follow this topic on my blog. I look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for reading.

The release of the 2.X series of One Theme, or more specifically – One Panel has presented many issues. Much arising from the move towards an entirely AJAX driven control panel, forcing me to review all my previous JavaScript knowledge and come up with a JSON based mini framework for a standardized approach to delivering data via this medium. To this point, there have been numerous bugs in the modules that allow embedding of code due to my some minor oversight in the encoding department (duly fixed in the 2.0.1 release). The slow release cycle of One Theme has also been an issue, with customers becoming frustrated waiting for bug fixes and forcing refunds. I have decided to remedy this by offering nightly SVN builds of One Panel to the members system.

The biggest issue in resolving these bugs has been the reporting and data gathering process. Bugs occasionally get posted with little or no information that assists me in replicating the problem. I hope to resolve this in 2.0.2 by adding a test harness that will actively request that the user send the error data to our servers for investigation.

With an Ajax interface, it can be difficult to catch php errors in a usable fashion. This is where the use of PHP’s register_shutdown_function() comes in handy. We can use this method to squeeze in that last bit of functionality before PHP die’s and takes its much valued debug data with it. In this case I may want to use it to store my debug data in a database table before throwing a terminal error, or to do the aforementioned and then devliver via Javascript the relevant error data to a dynamic element on the page.

Obviously the debug harness needs to behave differently depending on which environment the code is running in. If I am loading the initial page, then the data needs to be printed to the screen before the interface is displayed – this can be done with output buffering. On the other hand if I am operating inside AJAX triggered code I need to return data via my JSON interface that can be interpreted my the JavaScript in an appropriate manner.

Its also important that the code needed to add log entries be as simple as possible, as adding entries to an existing code base on 10,000 lines is not a quick task. For this reason I have decided to use the age old:

Debug::Log( $message );
Debug::Warn( $message );
Debug::Error( $message );

I’ve also added “$success = Debug::Track( $msg )”. My implementation is rather sloppy at the moment, but I’ll be sure to post at a later date with further details and improvements as I haven’t been able to spend that much time working with this as of yet. Stay tuned!

This wasn’t immediately obvious to me. But it really did get my head going. Regardless of what you have seen or heard of David Icke, the man speaks a lot of sense. And I personally have a great respect for him and the way he seeks to open the minds of the masses.

Lets just have a think about what is being said here.The number one limiting factor in human life is insecurity. This is true for so many aspects of human life, but it has devastating effects for society on the whole when applied to philosophy and science. I yanked this from Wikipedia:

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three “laws” of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Point 3 is one that I always keep in mind when thinking of possibilities that I may hesitate to share with friends and family. It may seem harmless when you quickly dismiss ideas based on the fact that people might laugh at you. But imagine what kind of world we might be living in right know if people were not so quick to ridicule the ideas that have brought us the greatest technological advances of our time. I have to admit that a great deal of my own experiences in the esoteric field go unsaid for this exact reason! For worry that a potential employer or friend with a particular mindset will think less of me because my thoughts and ideas are well beyond the line of what is deemed as mentally stable.

Process this: Everything you experience in your life that you consider to be ‘external’ to yourself is nothing unless it is processed by the brain. Therefore reality is a construct that has been put in place by your limited five senses. If there is something out there – and there is a hell of a lot of stuff that is scientifically proven that humans have absolutely no way of sensing – that you can’t smell, see, touch, feel, or hear then it goes unprocessed by the brain and initially falls into the category of mystisicm. Therefore it is left to thoughts and ideas to give us a better understanding of how the universe ‘really’ exists. Your thoughts are your most powerful tool, draw your security from this. For the people who are laughing are the ones who are missing something.

I will be focusing for the most part on the research conducted by Dr Glen Rein Ph.D of the Quantum Biology Research Lab, Northport, NY. I find his research fascinating. Particularly the paper I’ll be talking about today, and the work he has done regarding the storage of retrievable information projected by human intent in water, electronic cicuits, and even paper (for the duration of up to seven months?!) How this stuff isn’t well known is absolutely absurd to me. The implications of the research strike me as deeply profound.

If you are as excited as I am by that introduction, then you probably want to jump right in. But just in case you have absolutely no idea what the implications of this are, I will first provide a little background into how I stumbled into this. In the hope that you may pick up the jelly bean trail along the way somewhere.

A popular topic that often crops up when searching with keywords like ‘the science of consciousness’ is 2012. Whilst I won’t delve into this today, it was initially this topic that led me to the work of a young fellow known as David Wilcock. David works with Project Camelot often and if you have been through the recommendations on my website, you may have stumbled across him once or twice yourself. David talks a lot about the human consciousness, ESP, and the ‘Law of One Series‘. All of which are topics worth looking into. I also recommend checking out the ‘Science of Peace‘ videos. The forum on his website Divine Cosmos is full of interesting links. And often whilst reading threads I would see passing references to a movie called ‘What the Bleep Do We Know!?‘, a docu-film that deals specifically with the relationship between human consciousness and the quantum field. The movie itself is regarded by some as a masterpiece.The DVD quickly shot to the top of Amazon’s best seller list, with sales to date passing a million. It was also awarded Amazon’s number 1 DVD surprise of the year. The movie is quite astounding, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who finds the content of this blog thought provoking. I would like to note at this point that the movie also inadvertently led me to the book Quantum Enigma by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. A fantastic book. Far more scientific in nature than What The Bleep, but it deals with the same subject material.

Now to Dr. Rein. In ‘What the Bleep’, there is a scene set in a subway. Wherein the protagonist is presented with the results of an experiment that tests the effect of the human conscious intent on water. If memory serves, the results showed beautiful snowflake patterns depending on the emotion projected into the water by the human mind. Due to the massive amount of information in the movie, this scene was lost in my long term memory for a while whilst I processed the rest of the data. But eventually it jumped back at me and I decided to do some poking around to see if I could find the research online. I found Dr. Rein, and one paper in particular jumped right out at me. It is titled Effect of Conscious Intention on Human DNA (click for link), published in ‘Proceeds of the National Forum on New Science’ in 1996. I really do recommend downloading the PDF and reading it yourself, as I am worried that with my crude knowledge of biology I may misrepresent this in some way.

The paper goes into detail on three different experiments:

1. The effect of human intent on cancer cells.
2. The effect of human intent on the structure of the DNA molecule.
3. The effect of human intent on the electrical properties of the DNA molecule.

The experiments used numerous different ‘healers’. So, a guy with supposed healing powers walks into a lab and is presented with one or more petri dishes containing either cancer cells, or DNA (depending on the experiment), and is asked to focus his mind on the contents of the petri dishes with a feeling of unconditional love, and an intent to perform some kind of action on a microscopic level with nothing more than the power of his mind… And the results were astounding. In the case of the tumor cells, a reduction of 39% was observed. Thats 39% less cancer, through the power of intention alone!

In the second experiment the author explains that they also observed the healer having the power to ‘wind’ or ‘unwind’ the DNA molecule itself. Interestingly enough, three or four petri dishes could be placed infront of the healer at a time, and when asked to do so the healer could simultaneously project different intentions into each of the dishes with observable results. Sounds like magic right? Well the paper is there, and the guy is a respected biologist, so I am inclined to indulge him.

Another interesting point in this for me was the fact that the projection of unconditional love was entirely ineffective on its own. However the projection of ‘returning to the natural order’ – willing the cells to return to their natural form – was. Also the fact that the conscious focus dramatically influenced the results of the experiment, that visualization of the results massively increased the success rate. Quote:

“By changing the thought and image content of a given state of consciousness, it was possible to distinguish these parameters from intentions. The results indicated that different biological effects could be observed by just changing the intent or the imagery associated with the healing process but non-focused thought had no effect. Thus, while Laskow was in the microcosmic orbit state of consciousness, the mental image of visualizing only three cells remaining in the petri dish after the experiment caused an 18% inhibition of cell growth. On the other hand, switching the mental image to one where many more cells were visualized in the dish resulted in an increased growth of tumor cells (15%). The results are remarkable since not only could a different biological response be observed by changing the mental image, but an actual reversal of the biological process of cell growth was achieved.”

Now you may think by reading this that the electromagnetic field projected by the body comes from the brain. But the evidence shows that the heart is actually responsible for the projection itself. Here’s another quote:

“Specific thoughts and intentions are generated by the brain/mind and are used to frequency modulate the coherent bio-fields from the heart. When one is in a state of love the coherence is enhanced and the bio-fields become stronger.”

And it gets better:

“Such an interaction allows the frequency information associated with the original intention to manifest as a physical change in the DNA”

I can hardly contain my excitement at all this. The paper also mentions the fact that the healer does not have to be in the locality of the DNA. Sometimes with observable results from over half a mile away (and in some cases half way across the globe). Rein expresses the view here that hyper-dimensional forces may responsible for this, also making reference to the ‘Zero Point Field’ which is something else I spend a lot of time pondering. I couldn’t help feeling like I was reading something that could truly change the way we think about our place in the universe, and wondering why more research isn’t being conducted in this area. After all, if we are all capable of projecting our conscious intent on matter, then what else is there for us to experiment with? Perhaps materials synthesis, now that would be something! Of course it would probably mean the end of the monetary system aswell, but who can seriously say they would miss it?

Verse 2.

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low.
Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.

Nurturing things without possession,
she works, but not for rewards;
she competes, but not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever.

–

The first two paragraphs of this verse lay the groundwork by offering real life examples of paradoxical unity. Definitions that oppose each other require each other to be defined.
The introduction of good and evil is perhaps the most important thought. If we continue from verse one, the notion of definition reducing or limiting the ‘thing’ applies just as much to adjectives as it does to nouns.

Our society is (supposedly) built on the ideals of justice; therein judgment is a prerequisite. We cast judgment every day, when we see another as fat we judge them instantly, attaching the negative almost as if as a conditioned response, limiting the person and reducing their other qualities. Can we as human beings – live in harmony with duality, see that fat could not exist without thin, that all is part of a greater whole, accept that oneness is devoid of judgment? This belief system of black and white is blinding us from unity.

I envy the sage, who is enlightened enough to live openly with duality. The sage that can see all of the particular as smaller parts of the eternal. Yet I wonder whether this reflects a personal desire to live a more stoic existence. But while this verse to me, sometimes conveys a less emotional – perhaps even cold – world view it also conveys warmth, acceptance, and unconditional love.

The part of this verse that never truly spoke to me is ‘effort’. As a man who suffers from a severe lack of general motivation – laziness some might say, and who has suffered the judgment (self directed as well as otherwise) of this term. This is the part I really wanted to find an answer in. I started to ask myself ‘what is effort?’. And of course, only when drawing upon Verse 1 the notion that desire is limiting did I realize that I was asking the wrong question all along.
Something becomes an effort to me when the work does not justify the reward, when the results do not justify the action. If we are to work not for reward, then what is it that we are to work for?
It was Andy who lead me to this thought in an earlier note – ‘the result is the hunger, but the enjoyment is in the eating’. Perhaps it is time for me to start enjoying the ‘eating’ (an appropriate metaphor, but a metaphor non the less) without being hungry.

Will letting go of the results (or rewards) allow me to act without effort, to teach without words, to find my motivation in the absence of motivation?

Perhaps I just found my answer.

Thank you for joining me today