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Monday, January 31, 2011

Jan. 30 - The Pineal Gland -- The "Seat of the Soul"?

Dear Friends,
 
Click the link to view the images/access the links/videos.
 
http://www.viewzone.com/pineal.html
 
Be Well.
 
David
 
By Gary Vey
The Pineal Gland -- The "Seat of the Soul"?


After writing several articles on reincarnation and enlightenment, many readers asked me why I never mentioned the significance of the pineal gland -- a small structure about the size of a pea, located in the middle of the brain. For centuries this gland has been thought of by occultists and spititual masters as the "seat of the soul" -- a phrase made popular by Descartes (1662 AD).
Descartes was obsessed with understanding who we are. He questioned everything -- even the notion that we can know ourselves. He observed that the senses can be fooled, that most of what we think we know is really illusion and finally struggled with the possibility that our own identity as individuals was also not real. But in the end he concluded that if it was possible to doubt our own existence, there had to be some "thing" that was capable of experiencing this doubt. And that thing was our true self.
His famous statement endures: Cogno ergo sum -- I think, therefore I am.
"Although the soul is joined with the entire body, there is one part of the body [the pineal] in which it exercises its function more than elsewhere... [The pineal] is so suspended between the passages containing the animal spirits [guiding reason and carrying sensation and movement] that it can be moved by them...; and it carries this motion on to the soul ... Then conversely, the body machine is so constituted that whenever the gland is moved in one way or another by the soul, or for that matter by any other cause, it pushes the animal spirits which surround it to the pores of the brain." -- Descartes
Today, with an understanding of computers, we might take issue with Descartes. That "thinking" process could be part of the circuitry of neurons, synapses and neurotransmitters that exist in our material brains. The real self is much deeper. It uses the thinking process but it remains apart from it, observing the process. The real self is, in fact, consciousness itself.
Obviously the two phenomena are connected: consciousness interfaces with the thinking process. So the question really is about how this interface of material mind and spiritual consciousness happens. If we can understand how consciousness interprets our thinking self then hopefully we can reverse the process and become aware of our consciousness -- our true self. That is enlightenment.
As usual, in the process of doing research about the pineal gland, some amazing facts were revealed. Not only does this incredibly small gland seem to be associated with psi activity and paranormal abilities, but it is extremely vulnerable to the environment in ways that reveal our apparent materialism and pandemic depression.


The Pineal Gland in History Although commonly attributed to Descartes, the idea that the pineal gland was the interfacing organ where the spirit of man gained access and animated the human body was the idea of a Greek physician named Herophilus. Three hundred years before Christ, Herophilus [right] was dissecting corpses and documenting what he observed. His specialties were the reproductive system and the brain. Prior to Herophilus, people believed the "executive office" of human consciousness was the heart. Egyptian mummies had their hearts carefully embalmed and preserved while their brains were removed through their nasal passages and unceremoniously discarded. But Herophilus knew that the brain was the controlling center and he went on to discriminate between the various parts of the brain and assess the different behaviors associated with them.
Herophilus noticed that the small pineal structure was singular, unlike other brain features that are mirrored in the left and right hemispheres. It is the first gland to be formed in the foetus and is distinguishable at 3 weeks. It is also highly nourished. The pineal gland has been supplied with the best blood, oxygen and nutrient mix available in the human anatomy, second only to that of our kidneys (whose function is to filter the blood of impurities). Because of this unique and special anatomical configuration, Herophilus rightly concluded it had a major role in consciousness and was the gateway to our real self.
Herophilus is credited with the "invention" of the scientific method, the dogma of just about every scientific inquiry today, which consists of postulating theories and conducting experiments to prove or disprove them. It is ironic then that scientific inquiry of the pineal gland has been vigorously avoided because of its association with "spiritual" phenomena -- incapable of empirical scrutiny. Only recently have scientists become interested in knowing more about this mysterious gland.
Herophilus wrote many volumes about anatomy and illustrated them, much as Leonardo Da Vinci did centuries later, but sadly his work did not survive the destruction of the great library in Alexandria where they were stored.
The Third Eye
By 1884, the field of comparative anatomy was revealing evidence that human organs could be traced back to lower vertebrates. F. Ahlborn recognized that pineal gland was originally a photoreactive organ in fish and amphibians and was sometimes located outside the skull, just under the skin. Its function as a trigger for reproduction was noted some 70 years later. The pineal gland was responsible for evaluating the length of day and night, calculating the correct season to mate and turning up the sex drive. By 1958, Aaron Lerner discovered melatonin, a vital molecule produced in the pineal gland from another common neurotransmitter, serotonin. He also validated the fact that the production of melatonin varied, stopping during the daylight and ramping up shortly after darkness. Melatonin, it was learned, was responsible for making us relaxed and putting us to sleep.
For a while it was not known how this small gland, buried deep in the middle of human brain, could sense light or darkness. But it was later discovered that there was a link to the pineal gland from the retinas which, oddly enough, also contained melatonin. In no time the pineal gland was being called "the third eye" and, because of its location at one of the seven chakras, it was reputed to be the center of spiritual and psychic energy.
As hallucinogens became popular in the late 1960s, interest in altered states of consciousness, as a means to spirituality, peaked. Researchers discovered that LSD became highly concentrated in the pineal and pituitary glands. The altered state was produced by LSD's ability to imitate serotonin at the synapse (where the neurons communicate with each other). Since both serotonin and melatonin are also concentrated in the pineal gland, this "third eye" was considered a portal to consciousness -- what author Alduos Huxley called "the door of perception."
Even Gurus have commented on the pineal, equating it to one of the chakras:
"All psychic systems have their physical aspects in the body . . . With ajna chakra the physical equivalent is the pineal gland, which has long baffled doctors and scientists as to its precise function... Yogis, who are scientists of the subtle mind, have always spoken of telepathy as a 'siddhi', a psychic power for thought communication and clairaudience, etc. The medium of such siddhis is ajna chakra, and its physical terminus is the pineal gland, which is connected to the brain. It has been stated by great yogis ... that the pineal gland is the receptor and sender of the subtle vibrations which carry thoughts and psychic phenomena throughout the cosmos." -- (Satyananda, 1972).
But is any of this supported by Herophilus's "scientific method"?
Many experiments were conducted on so-called Psi (paranormal) phenomena in the 1970s. Dixon [1] found that the pineal gland was a prime focus of this activity. He noted that psi activity was most successful in a relaxed, drowsy state -- similar to those induced by melatonin. Other studies found correlations with melatonin and the practice of yogic meditation, thought to be a prerequisite for "enlightenment."

"Yogic practices for 3 months resulted in an improvement in cardiorespiratory performance and psychologic profile. The plasma melatonin also showed an increase after three months of yogic practices. The systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, and orthostatic tolerance did not show any significant correlation with plasma melatonin. However, the maximum night time melatonin levels in yoga group showed a significant correlation (r = 0.71, p < 0.05) with well-being score. These observations suggest that yogic practices can be used as psychophysiologic stimuli to increase endogenous secretion of melatonin, which, in turn, might be responsible for improved sense of well-being. -- [2]

More dramatic evidence comes from mystical and "near death experiences" induced by a chemical called Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The traditional "sacrament" of South American shamans, DMT closely resembles both melatonin and seratonin and occurs naturally in some tropical vegetation as well as the human body. It is thought that stored DMT is released from the pineal gland just prior to death, causing the out-of-body experience and mystical visions reported by NDE survivors. While there has been no empiricial evidence linking the pineal gland to the production of DMT, its association with melatonin (from which it is made) seems to strongly suggest this possibility.

"As an endogenous, or naturally-produced, human psychedelic, I believed it might mediate spontaneous psychedelic experiences such as near-death and mystical states. I also considered the pineal gland a likely source of this endogenous DMT; as such, the pineal might be a 'spirit gland.'" -- [3] Strassman, Rick J. (2001).
Medical researcher, JC Callaway (1988), suggested that naturally occurring DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain DMT levels are periodically elevated to induce visual images and possibly other paranormal states of mind. So, although empirical proof of the esoteric functions of the pineal gland have not been found, the idea seems worth pursuing.
Brain Sand
Anatomists have shown that the human pineal gland is most active in our youth, just before puberty. This would make sense if the gland were somehow in control of the reproductive system, turning on the necessary hormones that constitute adulthood. But after puberty the pineal gland seems to calcify, accumulating what is called "brain sand".
Although pineal glands show this calcification, it does not seem to diminish the production of melatonin. In fact, the calcification appears to have no significant effect. But some other factors have been shown to seriously inhibit pineal function. This is important because recent discoveries have shown that melatonin is vital for the immune system, with lower levels associated with prostate and breast cancer [4] -- two major causes of premature death. It also regulates blood sugar metabolism. Studies show that night-shift workers seem more likely to develop Type II diabetes than their day-shift counterparts. Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) is also linked to deficient levels of melatonin and serotonin, although the mechanism is not fully understood. With all these ill health effects, the possibility of achieving "enlightenment" with a depletion of melatonin seems a bit remote!
Environmental assaults on the pineal gland
Interference with the pineal gland from the environment is all pervasive. The two biggest antagonists are electromagnetic radiation and fluoride.
Studies with hamsters showed that exposure to a 60Hz field (exactly the type of current flowing through our electrical grid) significantly reduced the pineal glands ability to generate melatonin during night cycles [5].
"...the acute magnetic field exposure was again found to blunt the increase and suppress the duration of the nighttime melatonin rise. "
Studies with human subjects who were exposed to 60Hz magnetic fields also showed this anomaly [6]. This is distressing to learn, since we are all literally surrounded by 60Hz electrical fields in our homes, at work and outside where power lines tower over almost every street. There is no escape from this type of radiation except to flea to remote, unpopulated areas. But even there, the pineal could be under siege.
Remember HAARP? The ionospheric heater invented and patented by by Richard Eastlund which was quickly seized by the Department of Defense, given to Raytheon, and developed into a weapon system? Part of the patent describes how powerful Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radiation is capable of causing acute drowsiness and interfering with heat regulation --functions of the pineal gland [8]. No doubt this vulnerability has been exploited and refined in the decades since the technology was hi-jacked for an evil agenda. By now there may well be some global grid of "heaters" positioned to control the population and inhibit our spiritual evolution. We can only hope we are wrong. (We'll have more to say on this later.)
Until the 1990s, no research had ever been conducted to determine the impact of fluoride on the pineal gland. Fluoride is a routinely (and sometimes mandatory) additive to almost all drinking water, allegedly to prevent tooth decay. Its use has always been highly controversial and research on the side effects is often discouraged.
Melatonin, created in the pineal gland, not only helps regulate the onset of puberty but also helps protect the body from cell damage caused by free radicals. It is now known -- thanks to the meticulous research of Dr. Jennifer Luke from the University of Surrey in England -- that the pineal gland is the primary target of fluoride accumulation within the human body.
The soft tissue of the adult pineal gland contains more fluoride than any other soft tissue in the body -- a level of fluoride (~300 ppm) which is more than capable of inhibiting enzymes. The pineal gland also contains hard tissue (hyroxyapatite crystals), and this hard tissue accumulates more fluoride (up to 21,000 ppm) than any other hard tissue in the body (even the teeth, which it is supposed to protect).
Realizing that the pineal gland was the target of so much fluoride, Dr. Luke conducted animal experiments to determine if the accumulated fluoride could negatively impact the regulation of melatonin. She found that animals treated with fluoride had lower levels of circulating melatonin. This reduced level of melatonin was accompanied by an earlier onset of puberty in the fluoride treated female animals.
Luke summarized her human and animal findings as follows:
"...the human pineal gland contains the highest concentration of fluoride in the body. Fluoride is associated with depressed pineal melatonin synthesis by prepubertal gerbils and accelerated onset of sexual maturation in the female gerbil. The results strengthen the hypothesis that the pineal has a role in the timing of the onset of puberty ..." [7]
So far we've exposed two major environmental assaults on the normal functioning of our pineal gland. If this is truly the "seat of the soul" or the "gateway to enlightenment" then humanity has successfully scuttled this natural path to self-knowledge. The environment you are in right now -- sitting in front of your computer -- is having a negative effect on your pineal gland. So we ask the question: is there anything we can do to improve the health of this important brain structure? Perhaps there is.

Hope and the Pineal
Rhythmic Breathing and Chanting
The pineal gland sits on the roof of the 3rd ventricle of the brain, directly behind the root of the nose and floats in a small lake of cerebrospinal fluid. It doesn't have a blood-brain barrier like other brain structures, where certain molecules in the circulating blood are blocked. Instead it relies on a constant supply of blood delivered through a particularly rich vascular network.
Activities such as rhythmic breathing and chanting create an oxygen rich supply to the pineal gland. Many yogis describe the object of their breathing technique is to increase the heart rate while reducing the blood pressure. Ironically, this is what happens just before we die. It may be that the goal of this procedure is to release DMT, which many believe is stored in the pineal.
Remember, DMT is the body's own psychedelic. It's a neurochemical specifically created to allow the focus of our thinking to be directed inward. Although the exact chemical reaction is yet to be understood, DMT allows synaptic paths to escape from the routinely travelled pathways, allowing for novel thoughts and sensations to happen. The authority of specific hemispheres is suspended, allowing for what can be desribed as incommensurables -- factual realities that can not be rationally (cause-effect) explained, nevertheless are real. All of these prerequisites are needed to confront the elusive self.
Instant karma
While low frequency and magnetic radiation have been shown to reduce melatonin production, some other types of radiation seem to energize the pineal gland. In an article posted many years ago on viewzone, ESP and LST, it was shown that psi or paranormal abilities, such as remote viewing or ESP, were at their peak when the center of the Milky Way galaxy was in a certain position in the sky. The exact time was 13.30 LST (Local Sagitarius Time).
As the galactic map [above] shows, the center of the Galaxy is a rich source of radio emissions. This radiation could be something "seen" by the pineal in ways that we have not yet understood. The fact that the peak abilities were not at 12:00 LST, when the center and maximum radiation was directly overhead, may be either due to some delay in pineal response or could reflect some ideal angle at which the radio emissions are optimal in reaching the surface of Earth.
As I was writing this story, I received an interesting e-mail from a man named Drew Hempel, MA. Drew has an interesting theory about music, mathematics and consciousness that I hope we can share in future editions of viewzone. One of his theories described how ultrasonic vibrations can influence our consciousness. It's so relevent to this discussion on the pineal that I'd like to show you what he found.
It is already established that the pineal gland is reactive to light, radio frequencies and ELF radiation -- extremes on the electromagnetic spectrum. Sound waves are also part of this spectrum. The ability of something as simple as a sound to penetrate our skull and transform the function and structure of our brain is hard to imagine. I was a skeptic until I watched this video:
And if that wasn't amazing enough to make me re-think the power of sound, this most certainly was:
Certainly, sonic stimulation is the next frontier. As Drew described this phenomenon, he mentioned a recent patent, filed by Sony, which uses sound waves to create thoughts!
"Jenny Hogan and Barry Fox's article, Sony patent takes first step towards real-life Matrix, New Scientist, April 7, 2005, details plans for total sensory mind-machine interface relying on ultrasound pulses. 'The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non- invasive. It describes a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating sensory experiences ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. This could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear, the patent claims.' Magnetic fields can not be finely focused whereas ultrasound can be. That is the key difference for ultrasound. This ultrasound heard as the highest external tone ionizes our electrochemicals. Ultrasound also creates cavitation which turns into light! This cavitation has extremely high temperature which then enables alchemical results -- the transformation of matter! This cavitation of ultrasound into light is known in science as piezonuclear fusion or sonofusion -- 'cold fusion.'
Perhaps we will soon see a spiritual use of technology, capable of stimulating the pineal gland to re-energize it and facilitate a state of mind capable of experiencing the true self. The potential seems there. But is there the will?

Notes:
[1] Dixon, N. F. (1979). Subliminal perception and parapsychology: Points of contact.
[2] Kasiganesan Harinath, Anand Sawarup Malhotra, Karan Pal, Rajendra Prasad, Rajesh Kumar, Trilok Chand Kain, Lajpat Rai, Ramesh Chand Sawhney. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. April 2004, 10(2): 261-268..
[3] Strassman, Rick J. (2001). DMT: The Spirit Molecule. A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences.
[4] R.P. Liburdy, T.R. Sloma, R. Sokolic, P. Yaswen. "ELF magnetic fields, breast cancer, and melatonin: 60 Hz fields block melatonin's oncostatic action on ER+ breast cancer cell proliferation."
[5] Yellon SM. Acute 60Hz magnetic field exposure effects on the nucleation rhythm in the pineal gland and circulation of the adult Djungarian hamster. J. Pineal Res. 1994; 16: 136–144.
[6] James B. Burch, John S. Reif, Michael G. Yost, Thomas J. Keefe and Charles A. Pitrat. Reduced Excretion of a Melatonin Metabolite in Workers Exposed to 60 Hz Magnetic Fields, Am J Epidemiol 1999;150:27–36.
[7] Luke J. (1997). The Effect of Fluoride on the Physiology of the Pineal Gland. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Surrey, Guildford.[pdf]
[8] The Pineal. Volume 4. Russel J.Reiter. 213pp. Eden Press Inc., Wes

Jan.29 - Film: A Thin Skin or Membrane part 3‏

Dear Friends,
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQETWuUMmMQ
 
Be Well.
 
David
 
 

jAN. 29 - Hidden Dimensions

Dear Friends,
 
Click the link to view the images/access the links.
 
http://plus.maths.org/content/node/5388
 
Be Well.
 
David

 

 

Hidden dimensions

by Marianne Freiberger

Shing-Tung Yau.
That geometry should be relevant to physics is no surprise — after all, space is the arena in which physics happens. What is surprising, though, is the extent to which the geometry of space actually determines physics and just how exotic the geometric structure of our Universe appears to be.
One mathematician who's got first-hand experience of the fascinating interplay between physics and geometry is Shing-Tung Yau. In a new book called The shape of inner space (co-authored by Steve Nadis) Yau describes how the strange geometrical spaces he discovered turned out to be just what theoretical physicists needed in their attempt to build a theory of everything. Plus met up with Yau on his recent visit to London, to find out more.

Curvature and gravity

An artist's impression of the Sun warping spacetime and the Cassini space probe testing relativity by measuring how signals are delayed by the warping. Image courtesy NASA.
An early indication that space is more than just a backdrop for physics came in 1915 when Albert Einstein formed his theory of general relativity. Einstein was working with a four-dimensional spacetime, made up of the three spatial dimensions we're used to and an extra dimension for time. His revolutionary insight was that gravity wasn't some invisible force that propagated through spacetime, but a result of massive bodies distorting the very fabric of spacetime. A famous analogy is that of a bowling ball sitting on a trampoline, which creates a dip that a nearby marble will roll into. According to general relativity, massive objects like stars and planets warp spacetime in a similar way, and thus "attract" other bodies that pass nearby.
Einstein's idea to unify space, time, matter and gravity in this way was completely new — the physicist C.N. Yang has described it as an act of "pure creation". What wasn't new, however, was the mathematics Einstein used to describe the curvature of spacetime. This had been around since the 19th century, when the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and after him his brilliant student Bernhard Riemann had come up with ways of measuring the curvature of an object from the "inside": they no longer needed to refer to a larger space the object might be sitting in. This intrinsic concept of curvature was just what Einstein needed.
"[At the time of Riemann] no-one believed that his new geometry would be useful," explains Yau. "But it turned out that it exactly suited Einstein's purpose. Without Riemann, Einstein would have taken much longer to develop general relativity. This then became an important reason for people to study geometry: geometry motivates physics and physics motivates geometry."

Gravity in a vacuum?

When Yau first learned about general relativity he realised that it posed an interesting theoretical question: could there be a spacetime which contains no matter, a vacuum, in which there still is gravity? The spacetime we live in is not the only one that's possible in terms of general relativity. Einstein's field equations, which describe relativity, also permit other solutions, for example a spacetime without matter and without gravity, in which nothing happens at all. The question was whether a vacuum spacetime which still had some curvature and therefore gravity, was also possible. "In such a spacetime, gravity would be there because of the topology [the shape of the space], rather than because of matter," explains Yau.
 A doughnut mug A doughnut mug
Yau later realised that a geometric version of this question had been asked by the mathematician Eugenio Calabi in the 1950s. Calabi was interested in the interplay between the geometry of an object, that is precise features including size, angles etc, and its topology. Topology is blind to exact measurements and only captures the overall form of an object. A sphere and a deflated football, for example, are very different geometrically, but they are topologically the same because one can be transformed into the other without any tearing or cutting. Similarly, topology regards a doughnut and a coffee cup as equivalent, because one can be morphed into the other. What differentiates the doughnut from a sphere is the fact that it has a hole.
An object with a given topology can be morphed into many different geometric shapes: a sphere into a deflated football, a pyramid, or a cube, etc. Calabi asked himself whether a shape with a certain kind of topology would admit a certain kind of geometry. And it turned out that if the answer was "yes", then the resulting object could be interpreted — in a general relativity setting — as a vacuum in which there was gravity.

Calabi's question

There's no end to the variety of topological shapes you could think of, but topologists usually restrict their attention to what are called manifolds. These are objects that when viewed from up close, look like the ordinary "flat" space (called Euclidean space) we are used to. Spheres and doughnuts, for example, locally look like the flat 2D plane. If you're small enough, you won't notice their curvature, or whether there's a hole in them. You can easily draw a map of a patch of the sphere or doughnut on a flat piece of paper. So these are both 2D manifolds, also called surfaces.
The sphere is a 2D manifold because locally it looks like the Euclidean plane. However, the sphere's curvature means that angles of triangles add up to more than 180 degrees. Image: Lars H. Rohwedder.
Another thing the sphere and doughnut have in common is that they're compact: you'd only need a finite number of 2D maps to cover them. This means that they are finite in extent. Given a doughnut or sphere, you can always find a box to fit it into, even if it has to be a very big box.
But manifolds don't have to be two-dimensional. There are also 3D manifolds, which viewed from close up look like the familiar 3D Euclidean space given by three perpendicular coordinate axes. And since it's mathematically possible to think of Euclidean space in any dimension you like (just use $n$ coordinates rather than just three), there are manifolds of any dimension, too.
Calabi wanted to know what kind of geometry certain compact manifolds could exhibit, in particular, he was interested in curvature. Once you've given a topological manifold (say a sphere) a particular geometric structure (a deflated football), you can measure the curvature of the manifold at every point. This isn't entirely straight-forward: an ant walking around on a saddle will feel upward curvature when it walks up the length of the saddle and downward curvature when it walks down the sides. In this example of a 2D manifold (which is what we consider the saddle to be), you can associate a notion of curvature to various 1D curves passing through a given point.
An ant walking around on a saddle will feel different curvature depending on its path. Image: Eric Gaba.
Similarly, in higher dimensions you can associate a notion of curvature to certain 2D surfaces that sit within the larger manifold and contain your point. Taking the average of all the curvatures associated to these 2D surfaces gives what's called the Ricci curvature at the point you're looking at. Since it's an average, Ricci curvature only captures one component of the full notion of curvature as defined by Riemann. This means that a manifold can have zero Ricci curvature at every point without being flat (or having zero Riemannian curvature) overall. In terms of physics, the component captured by Ricci curvature happens to be just the one that describes the curvature of spacetime that's induced by matter being present. So a space with zero Ricci curvature corresponds to a space with no matter — a vacuum in other words.
But Calabi was interested in Ricci curvature for purely geometrical reasons. The mathematician Shiing-shen Chern had shown in the 1940s that a manifold whose Ricci curvature is zero at every point can only have a certain kind of topology. In two dimensions, this corresponds to the rather boring topology of a doughnut. In higher dimensions the topology implied by zero Ricci curvature is a little harder to describe. Mathematicians say that manifolds which have that topology have a vanishing first Chern class.
Calabi turned Chern's question on its head: if you've got a compact manifold with a vanishing first Chern class, can you morph it into a geometric shape which has zero Ricci curvature at every point? Basically, what Calabi was asking is whether a certain type of topology guarantees that a certain type of geometry is possible. However, Calabi was not looking at any old manifold, but restricted his attention to so-called Kähler manifolds. These are easier to deal with because they deviate from Euclidean space in a limited way. They are also what's called complex manifolds: the maps that chart them preserve angles and the manifolds display a certain local symmetry. (The term complex refers to the fact that locally the manifolds look similar not just to plain old Euclidean space, but to something called complex space. In two dimensions this is just the complex plane you might be familiar with if you've studied complex numbers.) Being Kähler makes a manifold accessible to powerful mathematical machinery and also endows it with a special kind of symmetry.

Yau's answer

A 2D cross-section of a 6D Calabi-Yau manifold. Image: Lunch.
When Yau first started working on this question in the early 1970s he was primarily motivated by geometry, though, as he tells us, "it was always at the back of my mind that this would be interesting for physics: the construction of a closed universe [the compact manifold] that has no matter [since Ricci curvature is zero] but still has gravity [because of the curvature due to its topology]. But the existence of such a structure would also mean a lot to geometry: Calabi's conjecture provided the clearest way to understand Ricci curvature."
At first Yau, like most other experts, believed that the answer to Calabi's question was "no". Since topology is a much looser concept than geometry, it seemed too much to expect that topology alone could guarantee such a special type of geometry. "For many years I tried to prove that the kind of manifold Calabi was after doesn't exist," he says. "But whatever I tried, I encountered difficulties. So I decided that nature cannot fool me so badly and that there must be something wrong with my reasoning."
In 1977 Yau finally proved that Calabi had been right. To state his result in its full glory, he proved that any compact Kähler manifold with a vanishing first Chern class could be endowed with a geometry with zero Ricci curvature. The kind of manifolds that fit this bill, and they exist in all dimensions, have since become known as Calabi-Yau manifolds.

Hiding dimensions

In 1982 Yau received the Fields medal, the highest honour in mathematics, for his resolution of Calabi's conjecture, which has had a major impact on geometry, as well as for other work. What he didn't know until a little later was that Calabi-Yau manifolds were just what some physicists were looking for. "I was in San Diego with my wife one day [in 1984], looking out at the beautiful ocean," he recalls. "The phone rang and it was my friends Andrew Strominger and Gary Horowitz. They were excited because string theorists were building up models of the Universe and needed to know whether [Calabi-Yau] manifolds really existed. I was happy to confirm that they did."
String theory is an attempt at a "theory of everything" which can explain all the physics in the Universe. Such a theory was, and still is, the holy grail of physics because the two major theories in existence, general relativity (which describes the macroscopic world) and quantum field theory (which describes the world at the sub-atomic scale) contradict each other. String theory resolves the mathematical contradictions by proclaiming that the smallest pieces of matter and energy aren't point-like particles, but tiny little strings. These strings can vibrate, just as guitar strings can vibrate, and the different types of vibration correspond to the fundamental particles and the physical forces we observe.
In the early 1980s string theory was in its infancy. One of its problems was that it needed ten dimensions to work in. Particles and forces were supposed to come from all the different ways in which the strings can vibrate. With less than ten dimensions there simply wouldn't be enough modes of vibration, not enough directions for a string to wriggle in, to produce all the physics we observe. With more than ten dimensions, on the other hand, string theory produced non-sensical predictions. So exactly ten dimensions it had to be. But then how come we can only perceive four of them, three for space and one for time?
Another cross-section of a Calabi-Yau manifold. String theory claims that every point in spacetime is actually a tiny 6D world with the structure of a Calabi-Yau manifold.
String theory's answer to this riddle is that the six extra dimensions are rolled up tightly in tiny little spaces too small for us to perceive. "At each point of the 4D spacetime we observe there is in fact a tiny six-dimensional space," Yau explains. These tiny worlds that live at every single point in 4D spacetime are so small, we just can't see them. And what kind of six-dimensional geometrical structure can harbour this hidden world and also satisfy other requirements of string theory? You've guessed it: it has to be a six-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold. "[Calabi-Yau manifolds] finally provided a concrete geometrical model for string theory," says Yau.
One reason that makes Calabi-Yau manifolds attractive for string theory is their compactness: the manifolds are extremely small, with a diameter somewhere around 10-30cm. That's more than a quadrillion times smaller than an electron. But there are other reasons too. To be consistent with the understanding of physics at the time, the manifolds harbouring the hidden dimensions had to have zero Ricci curvature. What is more, string theory assumes a special kind of symmetry, called supersymmetry, which makes special demands of the geometry of spacetime. These demands make Calabi-Yau manifolds (with their special Kähler symmetry) excellent candidates for string theory, although we still don't know whether they are the only possible solution to the dimensional conundrum.

String future

With the discovery of Calabi-Yau manifolds and other major advances, string theory experienced a landmark year in 1984. But the story didn't end there. A minor blow came in 1986 when it was discovered that string theory needed a slightly amended version of Calabi-Yau manifolds, whose Ricci curvature wasn't zero, but only very nearly zero. What's more, there are many different 6D Calabi-Yau manifolds that could fit the string theory bill and, disappointingly, no-one was able to work out which was the "right" one. All this somewhat undermined the manifolds' standing in physics. However, another boost came when it was discovered that pairs of different Calabi-Yau manifolds can give rise to a theoretical Universe with the same physics. This pairing of manifolds sparked new interest and gave rise to a new notion of symmetry, called mirror symmetry (rather misleadingly, since it's much more complicated that its name suggests).
The precise physical meaning of mirror symmetry is still a mystery, but, as Yau says, it led to "a spectacular new understanding of Calabi-Yau manifolds. It also had lots of rich mathematical consequences that were completely motivated by string theory intuition." In particular, the new notion of mirror symmetry provided a solution to a century-old problem in a nearly forgotten branch of geometry. We won't go into the problem here, but only say that it concerned counting the number of curves that live in particular geometric spaces. Mirror symmetry led to the formula which provided the answer, and its correctness was later proved by Yau and colleagues. (You can find out more about further developments in string theory and Calabi-Yau manifolds in Yau's book.)
Today, string theory is still far from complete. There are many physical quantities it can't yet describe and it has not, and currently cannot, be tested in the lab. Yau, however, believes that its sheer mathematical coherence means that it's not just a red herring. "Mathematicians have been able to prove formulas that were motivated by the physical intuition from string theory. And there are many other spectacular contributions string theory has made to maths. Because of string theory many apparently different areas of maths have merged together in a smooth but totally unexpected manner. This means there must be some truth to string theory. Will it eventually lead to a fundamental theory of matter? It's too early to say, but we believe that there must be some truth to the intuition it provides."

About the author

Marianne Freiberger is co-editor of Plus.

Jan. 29 - Exotic spheres, or why 4-dimensional space is a crazy place

Dear Friends,
 
Click the link to view the images/access the links.
 
http://plus.maths.org/content/richard-elwes&src=fpii
 
Be Well.
 
David
 
 

Exotic spheres, or why 4-dimensional space is a crazy place

by Richard Elwes

The world we live in is strictly 3-dimensional: up/down, left/right, and forwards/backwards, these are the only ways to move. For years, scientists and science fiction writers have contemplated the possibilities of higher dimensional spaces. What would a 4- or 5-dimensional universe look like? Or might it even be true, as some have suggested, that we already inhabit such a space, that our 3-dimensional home is no more than a slice through a higher dimensional realm, just as a slice through a 3-dimensional cube produces a 2-dimensional square?
Just as a 3-dimensional object can be projected onto a 2-dimensional plane, so a 4-dimensional object can be projected onto 3-dimensional space. This image comes from the projection of a 4-dimensional hypersphere. The curves are the projections of the hypersphere's parallels (red), meridians (blue) and so-called hypermeridians (green). Image by Claudio Rocchini, via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the early 20th century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, these higher dimensions do indeed exist, and are home to all manner of evil creatures. In Lovecraft's mythology, the most terrible of these beings goes by the name of Yog-Sothoth. Interestingly, on the rare occasions that Yog-Sothoth appears in the human realm, it takes the form of "a congeries of iridescent globes... stupendous in its malign suggestiveness".
Lovecraft had some interest in mathematics, and indeed used ideas such as hyperbolic geometry to lend extra strangeness to his stories (as Thomas Hull has discussed in Math Horizons). But he could not have known how fortunate was the decision to represent Yog-Sothoth in this manner. Strange spheres really are the keys to higher dimensional worlds, and our understanding of them has increased greatly in recent years. Over the last 50 years a subject called differential topology has grown up, and revealed just how alien these places are.

Higher dimensions and hyperspheres

Do higher dimensions exist? Mathematics provides a surprisingly emphatic answer to this question. Just as a 2-dimensional plane can be described by pairs of coordinates such as (5,6) with reference to a pair of axes, so 3-dimensional space can be described by triples of numbers such as (5,6,3). Of course we can continue this line of thought: 4-dimensional space, for a mathematician, is identified with the sets of quadruples of real numbers, such as (5,6,3,2). This procedure extends to all higher dimensions. Of course this does not answer the physicist's question, of whether such dimensions have any objective physical existence. But mathematically, at least, as long as you believe in numbers, you don't have much choice but to believe in 4-dimensional space too.
Well that is fine, but how can such spaces be imagined? What does the lair of Yog-Sothoth actually look like? This is a much harder question to answer, since our brains are not wired to see in more dimensions than three. But again, mathematical techniques can help, firstly by allowing us to generalise the phenomena that we do see in more familiar spaces.
An important example is the sphere. If you choose a spot on the ground, and then mark all the points which are exactly 1cm away from it, the shape that emerges is a circle, with radius 1cm. If you do the same thing, but in 3-dimensional space, we get an ordinary sphere or globe. Now comes the exciting part, because exactly the same trick works in four dimensions, and produces the first hypersphere.
What does this look like? Well, when we look at the circle from close up, each section looks like an ordinary 1-dimensional line (so the circle is also known as the 1-sphere). The difference between the circle and the line is that when viewed from afar, the whole thing curves back to connect to itself, and has only finite length. In the same way, each patch of the usual sphere (that is to say, the 2-sphere) looks like a patch of the 2-dimensional plane. Again, these patches are sewn together in a way that leaves no edges, and has only finite area. So far, so predictable, but exactly the same thing is true for the first hypersphere (or 3-sphere): each region looks just like familiar 3-dimensional space. We might be living in one now, for all we can see. But just like its lower dimensional cousins, the whole thing curves around on itself, in a way that flat 3-dimensional space does not, producing a shape with no sides, and only finite volume. Of course we do not stop here: the next hypersphere (the 4-sphere), is such that every region looks like 4-dimensional space, and so on in every dimension.

From geometry to topology to differential topology

Like geometry, topology is a branch of mathematics which studies shapes. One of the fundamental questions to ask is when two shapes are really the same. This does not have a unique answer, it depends on the aspects of the shape that you are most interested in. At a basic level, if two shapes are identical, but are situated in different places, then for most purposes we will count them as being "the same".
 A doughnut mug In topology a doughnut and a mug are the same because one can be morphed into the other.
Topology has a much broader notion of sameness than geometry. Here, two shapes are deemed "the same" if one can be pulled, stretched and twisted into the form of the other. So, to a topologist, triangles, trapeziums, septagons, and so on are all the same: they are all just circles. On the other hand, a figure of 8 is a genuinely different shape, because the topological definition of sameness never extends to cutting or gluing the shape. So an 8 can never be pulled into the shape of a circle as cutting is forbidden, and neither can a lower case i, as the two parts cannot be glued together.
If you are interested in things like angles, lengths, or areas, then the topological viewpoint is the wrong one. But a lot of important data is retained at this level: a famous example is the London tube map. Here, it is not the lengths or precise routes of the tunnels which matter, but things like the orders of the stations, and the ways that different tube lines intersect. These phenomena are topological in nature, and survive topological morphing. This is convenient, as it allows Londoners to use the famous simplified schematic map, rather than a detailed map of the whole city, incorporating the exact routes of all the tube lines.
Some shapes, such as the donut-shaped torus, have holes in them. These holes are essential; they cannot be removed by topological twisting or stretching. But which are the shapes with no holes? The most famous theorem in topology, the Poincaré conjecture, provides an elegant answer to this question: it says that the only such shapes are the spheres. This is not true from a geometrical viewpoint, as cubes, pyramids, dodecahedra, and a multidue of other shapes all have no holes. But, of course, to a topologist, all these exciting shapes are nothing more than spheres.
We have known since 2002 that the Poincaré conjecture is indeed true (find out more on Plus). Henri Poincaré's original question concerned the 3-sphere, but in fact exactly the same thing applies in all higher dimensions too. The fact is that, when viewed topologically, spheres are beautifully simple and unique objects in every dimension. However, in 1956 the first evidence arrived that a slight change in perspective would make the story hugely more complicated. When approached through the new subject of differential topology, higher dimensional spaces began to reveal some of their extraordinary secrets.

Gaps, kinks, and corners

The difference between plain topology and differential topology seems very subtle, but turns out to have astonishing consequences. It hinges on the precise type of pulling and stretching which are allowed during the morphing process. This has a dramatic impact on the shapes which are deemed to be "the same".
This is a fractal called a Julia set. Its outline is continuous, but nowhere smooth.
The divide is between processes which are continuous, meaning that they do not jump or tear, and others which are smooth. Smoothness is a much stronger condition than mere continuity. The same distinction applies to shapes themselves: circles and spheres are examples of smooth shapes, while squares and cubes are not smooth because of their sharp edges and corners. All of these are continuous, however, because their edges do not have any gaps or jumps. (A discontinuous line is one which comes in two separate pieces.) There are even fractal patterns which are continuous everywhere, but not smooth anywhere.
In the same way, we can distinguish between morphing which is truly smooth, and that which is merely continuous, but potentially very jerky and violent. It is not at all obvious, however, that this distinction should really matter very much. Might it really be possible that two shapes (also called manifolds by topologists) could be the same from a topological perspective (in technical terms, be homeomorphic), but not the same from a differential perspective (they are not diffeomorphic)? In other words, can we have two shapes that can be morphed into each other without cutting, but for which the morphing can't be smooth, it requires jerks and jumps? This is certainly difficult to imagine, not least because it never happens in dimensions 1, 2, or 3.

Exotic spheres

In 1956, John Milnor was investigating 7-dimensional manifolds when he found a shape which seemed very strange. On one hand, it contained no holes, and so it seemed to be a sphere. On the other hand, the way it was curved around was not like a sphere at all. Initially Milnor thought that he had found a counterexample to the 7-dimensional version of the Poincaré conjecture: a shape with no holes, which was not a sphere. But on closer inspection, his new shape could morph into a sphere (as Poincaré insists it must be able to do), but - remarkably - it could not do so smoothly. So, although it was topologically a sphere, in differential terms it was not.
Milnor had found the first exotic sphere, and he went on to find several more in other dimensions. In each case, the result was topologically spherical, but not differentially so. Another way to say the same thing is that the exotic spheres represent ways to impose unusual notions of distance and curvature on the ordinary sphere.
In dimensions one, two, and three, there are no exotic spheres, just the usual ones. This is because the topological and differential viewpoints do not diverge in these familiar spaces. Similarly in dimensions five and six there are only the ordinary spheres, but in dimension seven, suddenly there are 28. In higher dimensions the number flickers around between 1 and arbitrarily large numbers:
Dimension1234 56789101112131415161718
Number of spheres111 ?112828
69921321625621616
The realm which remains the most mysterious, even today, is 4-dimensional space. No exotic spheres have yet been found here. At the same time no-one has managed to prove that none can exist. The assertion that there are no exotic spheres in four dimensions is known as the smooth Poincaré conjecture. In case anyone has got this far and is still not sure, let me make this clear: the smooth Poincaré conjecture is not the same thing as the Poincaré conjecture! Among other differences, the Poincaré conjecture has been proved, but the smooth Poincaré conjecture remains stubbornly open today.

The weird world of four dimensions

This is the projection involving a 4-dimensional object called a dodecaplex. Image crated by Paul Nylander.
So, is the smooth Poincaré conjecture true? Most mathematicians lean towards the view that it is probably false, and that 4-dimensional exotic spheres are likely to exist. The reason is that 4-dimensional space is already known to be a very weird place, where all sorts of surprising things happen. A prime example is the discovery in 1983 of a completely new type of shape in 4-dimensions, one which is completely unsmoothable.
As discussed above, a square is not a smooth shape because of its sharp corners. But it can be smoothed. That is to say, it is topologically identical to a shape which is smooth, namely the circle. In 1983, however, Simon Donaldson discovered a new class of 4-dimensional manifolds which are unsmoothable: they are so full of essential kinks and sharp edges that there is no way of ironing them all out.
Beyond this, it is not only spheres which come in exotic versions. It is now known that 4-dimensional space itself (or R4) comes in a variety of flavours. There is the usual flat space, but alongside it are the exotic R4s. Each of these is topologically identical to ordinary space, but not differentially so. Amazingly, as Clifford Taubes showed in 1987, there are actually infinitely many of these alternative realities. In this respect, the fourth dimension really is an infinitely stranger place than every other domain: for all other dimensions n, there is only ever one version of Rn. Perhaps after all, the fourth dimension is the right mathematical setting for the weird worlds of science fiction writers' imaginations.

About the author

Richard Elwes is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds. He was the winner of the Plus New Writers Award 2006 and has since published articles in New Scientist and Daily Telegraph, and regularly talks about maths in public and on the radio. He is the author of the book Maths 1001, reviewed in Plus, and How to build a brain and 34 other really interesting uses of mathematics (March 2011)

JAN. 29 - ANALYSIS: The Timewave, the Webbot and the Massive Tipping Point of November 2010‏

Dear Frinds,
 
Click the link to view the images/access the links.
 
http://emergent-culture.com/analysis-timewave-webbot-tipping-point-november-2012-mckenna-synchronicity-mayan-calendar-tzolkin/
 
Be Well.
 
David

Road to the Great Awakening? The Timewave and the Massive Tipping Point of November 2010

Making waves
Whew…  the last two and half months have been fast and furious with happenings of every sort.  And this is supposed to be the slow time of year in the northern hemisphere.
This report serves as a review of my pilot study to test the premise of the TimeWave Zero software program as a measure of novelty or change in our world.
If you are new to the TimeWave material then I suggest you review my introductory article on the subject and then the first TimeWave report to make sense of and appreciate what I relate in this report.
I must emphasize that I am not “trying to prove” the TimeWave right or wrong—I am testing its premise. But I will add that the results are provocative enough to continue with further studies. The implications are enormous should the TimeWave be validated.
My first Timewave report was sparked by the announcements of Clif High, developer of the Alta Program aka the Webbot. Near the end of October 2010 reports began to circulate about an impending “tipping point” in mid November 2010.


Clif High and His Webbot
The specifics made by Clif High in his latest futures report refer to dates and times pertaining to the beginning and ending of periods of “tension releasing” and “tension building” . Clif derives the phrases tension releasing and tension building from his analysis of the emotional content of the words prepondering on the internet.
Clif’s method for predicting future events is based on the linguistic analysis of emerging web content. It is as if the reverberations of mounting future events are able to bleed through humanities collective unconscious and be expressed in the words we chose today.
This is not as far fetched as it may seem. The CIA and Google have partnered to create a venture whose purpose is to predict the future based on content that is emerging now.  The scientific establishment has also lent credibility to this notion and I have also written a paper showing how this is possible.
click to enlarge. This part of the report refers to the emergence of a Frenchman and of revolutionary thematics. Indeed Frenchman and famed soccer star Eric Cantona was in the media spot light for his call to revolution via bank runs. A bank run was organized in Europe for Dec. 7th 2010 but the turnout was anticlimactic.
Clif analyzes his data and issues reports giving his take on what it could mean in terms of events and windows of time. His last 36 page report is for the most part long winded, garbled and cryptic. Rather ironic when he purports to be deciphering meaning.

Three of Clif’s Predictions were Met
I did find three themes in his report that did indeed manifest within the time period he indicated. One theme pertained to “precious metals”, another to a “Frenchman” and the last to the epic flooding that affected many parts of the world from mid December through mid January. I have included snap shots of the report pages where those references are found.
What intrigued me about Clif’s last report was the mention of specific dates and time periods and how uncannily precise those specifics correlated with dating features on the Timewave. In my initial report I gave some scenarios as to how that could be so.
But at this point I feel inclined to say that Clif is more than likely using the TimeWave to give his reports a timing backbone and thus enhance the value of his reports, but without giving credit to the TimeWave.
I’ve been aware of the TimeWave’s existence for many years, but until now I had not studied it intensely to see if I could discern any utility or patterns from its form and properties.
The TimeWave’s basic premise is that novelty will reach some sort of zero point or singularity near the December 21, 2012 date….yes the day the Mayan Long Count cycle restarts.
The Timewave was developed independently of Mayan Calendar knowledge… interesting huh.
Terrece Mckenna, the TimeWave’s developer began work on the TW during the late 70′s.  Information about 2012 did not come out until the publication of the Mayan Factor in 1987

Click to Enlarge. On this page Clif mentions gold and precious metals. Gold did reach its all time high and and silver rose to a 30 year high. Max Keiser has created a wordwide stir with his Buy Silver Crash JP Morgan Initiative.
The Approaching Singularity
So what does a zero point or singularity mean? The most broad based definition of a singularity points to a set of conditions within any kind of system where complexity and/or intensity aggregate to such degrees so as to make predictions about how the system will behave and/or look like near impossible.
The systems in question are the world system that governs the vast majority of the super organismic system known as humanity.
Technologists and technophiles speak of a “technological singularity” near 2030, but I don’t care much for their half-brained, no heart vision of a self absorbed cyborg humanity oblivious to everything else.
Humanists on the other hand have been speaking about a cultural singularity and they have hitched their wagons to the December 21, 2012 Mayan Calendar convoy.
The hopes of the humanist community is a cultural singularity that will hopefully result in a course correction that will begin to transform the prevailing culture of insanity and exploitation into a culture of real problem solving, anti-exploitation and eco-sensitivity.
Such an event would indeed be novel in the history of humankind where brutality, cultural primitivism and exploitation have ruled since the birth of imperially fueled civilizations over 6000 years ago.  The current world system seems to have reached its maximum potential and the majority of humanity would like nothing more than to see it transformed.
Indeed… a functional analysis of every aspect of the current world system points to system failure and unsustainability.  And quite bluntly a scourge that must be transformed if we have any hopes of salvaging humanity and the biosphere from a fate worse than death.
Click to Enlarge. Floods/ Catastrophic weather receive lots of mention in Clif's report. A proportional amount I would say given the actuality of epic rains, mudslides and flooding that were felt around the world in Dec. and Jan.

SOC it to’em
The question of a cultural singularity is not a matter of will it happen, but of when.
The development of singularities are best modeled by what is known as the principle of self organizing criticality (SOC). SOC is a well defined property of systems and it is driven by the sheer dynamics of growth, accretion and complexification.
As a system grows or accretes and develops over time it reaches points where organizational instabilities are inevitably reached. The critical point is commonly known as the tipping point. The tipping point leads directly into a period we commonly call chaos or the more technical—a phase transition.
Chaos is another word for extreme novelty or the frenzied reorganization that eventually leads to the restabilization or collapse or some combination thereof, of the system in question. Think bankruptcies, avalanches, revolutions, earthquakes, divorces, outgrowing and finding a new home, waste elimination and the simple act of decluttering.
My questions are… does the TimeWave actually and accurately map and measure of the ebb and flow of change or novelty in the system known as humanity and if so then how does the concept of SOC fit in with the TimeWave?


Expansion and Contraction
Clif’s use of the terms tension releasing and tension building are appropriate to growth dynamics. Each of the examples given above must accrue growth as in the accumulation of snow for an avalanche or tension as in the build up of strain along an earthquake fault.
The stage leading up to the tipping point of any system maybe characterized as the tension building phase. Once the critical tipping point threshold is breached the boundaries of the system are dissolved and energy is released in its many forms, reorganized and eventually resettled into some novel configuration.
The very principle of motion insures that growth or accretion will continue and the cycle continues ad infinitum. Humanity has all the properties of a system and is therefore subject to all of the dynamics of self organization.
Click to Enlarge: Notes on reading the TimeWave
If the TimeWave is an accurate map and measure of the degree and rate of novelty then we should be able to see this. To test this I selected and plotted the events that have captured the most attention on a global scale over the last two and half years.  If I missed any events that you think should be included then please leave a comment to that effect.
A single graph is by no means a way to measure all of the novelty that is unfolding, but it gives us a measure of what and how much is happening at the Planetary scale.


Reading and Riding The TimeWave
The TimeWave plots a waveform with its attendant landscape of inclines, declines, peaks, troughs and flat spots. The bullet points listed below apply to the example in fig. “Notes on reading the Timewave”  above and to your right.
  • Degree of uphill movement on any segment of the waveform means a corresponding  decrease in the rate novelty.
  • Degree of downhill movement denotes a corresponding increase in novelty.
  • Tension building phases would correspond with shifts toward uphill movements and uphill movements themselves.
  • Release activity would correspond with shifts toward downhill movements and downhill movements themselves.
  • Flats spots would correspond to a steadier rates of novelty.
We must bear in mind that since October of 2008 the tendency of the TimeWave is entirely downhill until it reaches zero value or maximum novelty on December 21, 2012. Along the way there are minor uphill periods here and there. See fig. “It’s all downhill” below left.
We must also consider that each increase or decrease in novelty is relative to the increases and decreases that have come before.
While overall rate of novelty (frequency of novel events) should begin to slacken slightly as depicted by the incline of decreasing of novelty that starts on or about Jan. 18th, the magnitude of novelty characterizing events is maintained by the relative depth of the waveform.  Please see graph 2 for visuals and more details.
Click to Enlarge: It's all Downhill
Clif High did NOT mention in his reports that we should expect big 9-11 like events to necessarily happen on the dates he calls out. Many people have mistakenly assumed that something big was was supposed to happen on the dates he called out.
According to Cliff the November 14th 2010 tipping point was to signal the start of a tension releasing period and January 18th 2011 was to signal the start of another minor tension building phase.
It is very important to understand that even though January 18 signals the start of a minor tension building phases the rate of novelty slackens only relative to what has come before. See  graph 2


Study Highlights:
Below I note the most significant events of the last two years as they relate to the most significant features on the Timewave of the same period—the tipping points of October 2008 and November 2010.  I distinguish between the first events that signal the tipping point’s arrival and the cascade of events that may follow for months after the overturning moment of the Tipping Point.
The Tipping point of October 2008 was characterized by
  • Major Stock Market Failure, Lehman Bankruptcy and World Economy in a tailspin.
  • The release of billions of dollars to “save” Wall Street and the World Economy in general.
  • The Election of the Western worlds first Black man to the office of President (people released their votes after a long tension building campaign period)
  • Israel releases a deluge of fire power on Gaza
The Tipping point of November 2010 was characterized by
  • The 2nd release of billions of dollars to “save” Wall Street and the World Economy in general.
  • The failure of the Korean G20 meeting
  • The launch of Max Keisers Initiative to Crash JP Morgan
  • The release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from prison Nov 13
  • The release of a couple held by pirates for over 1 yr released on Nov. 14
  • Hostilities unleashed on the Korean Peninsula
  • The release of the Great Wikiflood


The Anomalous Feature on the Jan. 2011 portion of the TW decline and the Arizona Assassinations.
Clif made it a point to identify a two day period in January where the rate of emotional release would sharply increase. One of those dates coincided with the Arizona Massacre. Click here to see graph in question.


The Graphs
The enclosed graph plots the above noted events and many others. I have plotted those events with worldwide significance and/or implications. If you make it an effort to stay informed then you know that the novelty factor is off the hook.
At every scale we are experiencing an increase in novelty (qualitative change) and in the number of events per unit of time (frequency of events). The Timewave plots a graph of ever increasing novelty that culminates in some sort of singularity near the end of 2012.
My next report on the TimeWave will delve into the relationship between certain events plotted on the Timewave graph in this report and their relationship to the thematics predicted by Tzolkin cosmology. You will note that I have plotted the start of each Tzolkin cycle since November 4 of 2008.
The thematic connections between key events and the start of each Tzolkin cycle are unmistakable.zietgiest or spirit of the times since 2006, through 2012 and until 2019 is accurately identified by Tzolkin cosmology….stay tuned!! I will also show how the overall

Graph 1: Series of Events Plotted Against the Backdrop of the Timewave
Click to Enlarge: Plot of events from September of 2007 thru January of 2011


Graph 2: The 4 Scales of Novelty Between 10/2008 and 12/2012
Click to Enlarge: Here is a look at the 4 scales of novelty and some of the implications.

Graph 3: The Arizona Massacre and the Corresponding TimeWave Feature
Click to Enlarge: It is here that Clif makes mention of an acceleration of release factors for a 2 day period in January. One of those dates Jan. 8 coincides with the Arizona massacre. Clif also mentioned two other dates, Jan. 1st-2nd and interestingly enough there was a 7.0 earthquake on each day. He did mention earthquakes in his report. There was another major 7.2 earthquake in Pakistan on Jan. 18th---day of peak novelty. Three 7.0 earthquakes in less than 3 weeks is very uncommon. I will later release a study I'm working on where I plot all of the earthquakes over 7.0 that have occurred from 2000 thru 2010. I have found that it is very rare for earthquakes to happen on the steep uphill climbs of the graph which would make sense if the inclines point to times of increasing tension.
For a closer look at the Timewave graphs themselves itself I suggest a look at my introductory report on the TimeWave.


TW Founder Terrence Mckenna Describes the Timewave

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MUFON

How to Digitally Record/Video a UFO sighting:


Como registar digitalmente ou gravar um vídeo de um avistamento de um UFO:




Stabilize the camera on a tripod. If there is no tripod, then set it on top of a stable, flat surface. If that is not possible lean against a wall to stabilize your body and prevent the camera from filming in a shaky, unsteady manner.

Estabilize a camera com um tripé. Se não tiver um tripé, então coloque-a em cima de uma superfície estável. Se não for possível, então encoste-se a uma parede para estabilizar o corpo e evitar que a camera registe de maneira tremida e instável.

Provide visual reference points for comparison. This includes the horizon, treetops, lampposts, houses, and geographical landmarks (i.e., Horsetooth Reservoir, Mt. Adams, etc.) Provide this in the video whenever is appropriate and doesn’t detract from what your focus is, the UFO.

Forneça pontos visuais de referência para comparação. Isso inclui o horizonte, cimo das árvores, postes de iluminação, pontos de referência geográficos (como o Reservatório de Horsetooth, Mone Adams, etc) Forneça esses pontos no vídeo sempre que for apropriado e não se distraia do que é o seu foco, o UFO/a Nave.

Narrate your videotape. Provide details of the date, time, location, and direction (N,S,E,W) you are looking in. Provide your observations on the weather, including approximate temperature, windspeed, any visible cloud cover or noticeable weather anomalies or events. Narrate on the shape, size, color, movements, approximate altitude of the UFO, etc and what it appears to be doing. Also include any unusual physical, psychological or emotional sensations you might have. Narrate any visual reference points on camera so they correlate with what the viewer will see, and thereby will be better able to understand.

Faça a narração do vídeo. Forneça pormenores sobre a data, hora, local e direcção (Norte, Sul, Este, Oeste) que está a observar. Faça observações sobre as condições atmosféricas, incluindo a temperatura aproximada, velocidade do vento, quantidade de nuvens, anomalias ou acontecimentos meteorológicos evidentes. Descreva a forma, o tamanho, a cor, os movimentos, a altitude aproximada onde se encontra o UFO/nave, etc e o que aparenta estar a fazer. Inclua também quaisquer aspectos pouco habituais de sensações físicas, psicológicas ou emocionais que possa ter. Faça a narração de todos os pontos de referência visual que o espectador irá ver e que, deste modo, será capaz de compreender melhor.

Be persistent and consistent. Return to the scene to videotape and record at this same location. If you have been successful once, the UFO sightings may be occurring in this region regularly, perhaps for specific reasons unknown, and you may be successful again. You may also wish to return to the same location at a different time of day (daylight hours) for better orientation and reference. Film just a minute or two under “normal” circumstances for comparison. Write down what you remember immediately after. As soon as you are done recording the experience/event, immediately write down your impressions, memories, thoughts, emotions, etc. so it is on the record in writing. If there were other witnesses, have them independently record their own impressions, thoughts, etc. Include in this exercise any drawings, sketches, or diagrams. Make sure you date and sign your documentation.

Seja persistente e não contraditório. Volte ao local da cena e registe o mesmo local. Se foi bem sucedido uma vez, pode ser que nessa região ocorram avistamentos de UFOs/naves com regularidade, talvez por razões específicas desconhecidas, e talvez possa ser novamente bem sucedido. Pode também desejar voltar ao mesmo lugar a horas diferentes do dia (durante as horas de luz)para ter uma orientação e referência melhor. Filme apenas um ,inuto ou dois em circunstâncias “normais” para ter um termo de comparação. Escreva tudo o que viu imediatamente após o acontecimento. Logo após ter feito o registo da experiência/acontecimento, escreva imediatamente as impressões, memórias, pensamentos, emoções, etc para que fiquem registadas por escrito. Se houver outras testemunhas, peça-lhes para registar independentemente as suas próprias impressões, pensamentos, etc. Inclua quaisquer desenhos, esbolos, diagramas. Certifique-se que data e assina o seu documento/testemunho.

Always be prepared. Have a digital camera or better yet a video camera with you, charged and ready to go, at all times. Make sure you know how to use your camera (and your cell phone video/photo camera) quickly and properly. These events can occur suddenly, unexpectedly, and often quite randomly, so you will need to be prepared.

Esteja sempre preparado, Tenha sempre uma camera digital, melhor ainda, uma camera vídeo consigo, carregada e pronta a usar sempre que necessário. Certifique-se que sabe como lidar com a sua camera (ou com o seu celular/camera fotográfica) rápida e adequadamente. Esses acontecimentos podem acontecer súbita e inesperadamente e, por vezes, acidentalmente, por isso, necessita estar preparado.

Look up. Be prepared. Report. Share.

Olhe para cima, Esteja preparado, Relate, Partilhe.

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