Someone Blow My Mind Vol. Illuminati, 2012, Aliens, Life

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Not sure what took me so long to discover this thread, but the silver lining is that I have TONS to check out now.

Not really looking to have my mind blown, but I spend a disgusting amount of time on the internets just doing nothing. At the very least, I'll stumble upon things that'll challenge my perceptions and understandings of the world around me.

Long way of saying "subscribed."

Reps to everyone that contributes here.
 
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Super Producer J said:
Not sure what took me so long to discover this thread, but the silver lining is that I have TONS to check out now.

Not really looking to have my mind blown, but I spend a disgusting amount of time on the internets just doing nothing. At the very least, I'll stumble upon things that'll challenge my perceptions and understandings of the world around me.

Long way of saying "subscribed."

Reps to everyone that contributes here.
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Welcome brother, There is some good food for thought in here, enjoy the journey down the rabbit hole..

1000
 
Super Producer J said:
Not sure what took me so long to discover this thread, but the silver lining is that I have TONS to check out now.

Not really looking to have my mind blown, but I spend a disgusting amount of time on the internets just doing nothing. At the very least, I'll stumble upon things that'll challenge my perceptions and understandings of the world around me.

Long way of saying "subscribed."

Reps to everyone that contributes here.
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JohnnyRedStorm said:
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Ignore the fear mongering from Alex Jones and David icke and you'll be good fam.
 
DrKingSchultz said:
Watched the film predestination today, with Ethan hawke, I reccomend anybody who frequents this thread, to watch it, really good story, concepts, that will make you think.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535/

The life of a time-traveling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.

For a read up^

Pm for dvd stream. :nerd:
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Just watched it. Pretty crazy, definitely got me thinking. What were your thoughts?
 
FrankMatthews said:
Just watched it. Pretty crazy, definitely got me thinking. What were your thoughts?
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It was a pretty thought provoking deep film, I think everyone can take something unique away from the film, there are a few views on this film which I thought were all :pimp: I will share with you below.. Let me know what you think..

it'll help you a great deal to understand if you identify and separate the "split personalities" that exist within the entity of John/Jane.

What is interesting is that these split personalities never occur all at once, but are fractured throughout the heterarchy of the Predestination Paradox occurring in the movie.

To Quote Douglas Hofstadter,

And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind — a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is — here goes a first stab, anyway — not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (pp. 101-102)

Understanding the above notion will help you further enjoy the premise of this movie.

Further on, understanding that the entity of John/Jane is a stream of information cycling in the feedback loop through time will help too.

Basically, only as Fizzle Bomber does the entire information of who/what John/Jane is becomes whole, only Fizzle Bomber 'understands' that his existence is basically a self-sustaining relay race of information cycling infinitely in time as a strange loop.

It's a succession of events forming an heterarchy in which each crossings of himself (Himself kidnapping Baby Himself, Himself delivering Baby Himself to the Orphanage, Himself meeting and convincing Young Man Himself at a bar to commit murder, Young Himself chance meeting and falling in love with Young Woman Himself, Himself coming back to retrieve Young Man Himself and convince him that abandoning Young Woman Himself is for the best, etc. etc.)

is all predestined because it's a temporal paradox which creates a Strange Loop in the space-time continuum. Basically each event where Himself interacts with another 'version' of Himself is a hierarchy of events which end up creating, again to quote Douglas Hofstadter, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop."

What I meant by explicate the ending, is that you must try to consider Fizzle Bomber as the merging of all different 'states' of his being into one. Fizzle Bomber IS the culmination/beginning of the entire ordeal. Fizzle Bomber is the last piece of domino in the chain, which is predestined to fall and cause the fall of the first domino in the chain. As Fizzle Bomber dies(last domino), Fizzle Bomber is created(first domino) out of John, sustaining the succession of events to basically start over in it's new cycle.

In my opinion, beyond the whole paradox thing, this movie is actually a rather poetic, beautiful tragic love story. The paradox is the premise, but what truly makes this movie compelling, in my opinion, is that through the transgender/self-love twists, this movie not only illustrates well the Predestination Paradox, it gives a complex portrayal of an emotional strange loop so strong that it "Can't be paradoctored."

Purpose, Love and Hatred are the driving themes of this movie, time travel is only the premise.

I'll discuss the final scene and ending in (Spoilers): John: The snake that eats it's own tail.. Forever and ever.

It'll help if you understand that Fizzle Bomber acts out of absolute love for John/Jane. To simplify this, instead of seeing Ethan Hawke as the Fizzle Bomber, try to envision the face of Sarah Snook as the Fizzle Bomber. To simplify further, let's just call Fizzle Bomber Jane, and the one confronting him John.

Fizzle Bomber/Jane is desperately in love with John, but John is desperately driven by a desire to avenge Jane/John's suffering by murdering Fizzle Bomber.

When Older John meets Younger Jane in the park and they fall in love, John recognizes Jane, but Jane is unable to recognize John. The way the final scene is orchestrated, it's virtually the opposite of that encounter. Consider that Fizzle Bomber is an Older Jane finally being reunited with a Younger John, but this time, only Jane can recognize John, and John is unable to recognize Jane inside the Fizzle Bomber.

Jane/John's incredible love for John/Jane and John/Jane's incredible hatred for Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John is the essence of the loop, the moving force which sets every event in motion over and over.

So, understood as such, the final scene is a very poignant tragic love reunion of two lovers who are destined to always be blind-sided to 'the other'.

The final confrontation is a scene where both parties confess their emotions. Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John is confessing her utter love for John/Jane/Fizzle Bomber, while John/Jane/Fizzle Bomber is confessing his utter hatred for Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John.

Changing the name/faces in the script will help illustrate and I hope appreciate this:

[John enters the Laundrymat]
Jane: Oh my god.. You look good.. I missed you.
John: ..You're the Fizzle Bomber?
Jane: [Laughs] We always hated that name, remember?
John: [Astonished] ..You're a murderer.

Jane: ..You're disappointed in me, right? I remember that, I do. But when the dust settles.. I think you'll see that we did the right thing.
John: I will never become you.

Jane: Some people say that it's fate. But you and I, we know, some things are predestined. I made you who you are, you made me who I am. It's a paradox, right? But it can't be.. paradoctored. [Psychotic laughter]

Jane: [Overjoyed] And now you're free and you found me and we can finally be together!
John: .. I'll never become you.
Jane: Don't say that. Don't say that.

John: .. I will never become you and I will not let you kill those people!

Jane: [Angry/Feeling Betrayed] Wait Wait Wait, What, you're gonna live a regular life, with that *****, Alice, from the antique store? She has a stupid cat, she has a disgusting birthmark on her left hip, she's a lousy *beep* cook! Okay trust me, she can't handle our secrets! She can't, trust me! She's not right for us!

John: You have no idea what is right for me!

Jane: Okay, okay, listen. All we have is each other. It is ALL we've ever had. Now, if you shoot me.. You'll become me. You get it? That's.. how it happens. If you want to break the chain, you have to not kill me.. But try.. To love me.. Again..

John: [Tearing Up]..What if I put him in front of you.. ..The man who ruined your life..

Jane: Yeah yeah yeah... Forget all that. We can have a future together.

John: ..Would you kill him.. To save thousands?

Jane: ... You wanna know what we're gonna do tomorrow? [Excited]

John: [Breaking Down] No.

[Gunshots/Death and Rebirth of Fizzle Bomber/Beginning of a new cycle in the loop]

[A Younger John listens to a tape recorded by the new cycle Fizzle Bomber/Jane at the beginning of his career as a TTA]

New Cycle Fizzle Bomber/Jane: [Talking to a Younger John through a recording] Here you are.. At the beginning of your new life. It can be overwhelming, knowing the future you're about to create.. Knowing the purpose of that life. You know who she is. and you understand who you are. And now maybe you're ready to understand who I am.. You see I.. I love her too. You'll have to make tough choices. You'll influence the past. Can we change our futures? I.. I don't know.The only thing that I know for sure.. ..Is that you are the best thing that's ever happened to me. I miss you dreadfully.

This reply sums it up quite nice:

The movie does actually stick to classical timespace continuum and laws of physics / relativity spot on, you just happened to not see it because it takes place before the movie. But: the movie is full of hints of the original events (the rooster, purpose, trancendence of the inevidable destiny no matter how much you change spacetime).

Before the paradox (call this iteration/loop 0), the child has a natural mother and father, and does not live in an orphanage. The child does have the dualsex anomaly though, and is raised as a boy/man having most visible traits of a male specimen.

The boy grows up to be a man, starts working for SpaceCorp as an agent, travels back in time doing missions, but starts doing it too much, gets disoriented / psychotic, and starts a relationship with his own natural (in iteration 0 before the paradox) unparadoxed mother (denmark-syndrome). He impregnates her, and at the time his sperm fertilizes her egg he ceases to exist in the original "version" - a paradox takes place and we are now in an alternate timeline (iteration 1), he will immidiatly become different.

The natural mother now never meets the original father, the child now is his own father, but not yet his own mother, child grows up - this time grown up as a girl, the older version from (iteration 1) travels back in time and starts a relationship with his younger girl-self iteration-2 (reversed denmark-syndrome), in which he - feeling guilty - kidnaps the baby (which no longer is a product of his natural mother/father, but the product of himself purely on both sides) in regret of the whole mess, so he tries to travel back to a totally different time (1945) to leave his baby-self at an unknown orphanage in hopes of making the paradox stop.

Now the movie starts, the rest you've seen. The rooster and the orphanage is the best clues that there is "something" before the whole chicken-and-the-egg paradoxial situation, namely the roosters "cum" which is the natural events before the paradox leading up to triggering the singularity of the endless loops. And the orphanage: There is no other reason for him to leave the child at an orphanage, other than to try to stop a mess he himself has made and feels regret about

It's only after the movie starts and the paradox has allready taken place that he continues to place the baby there each loop simply because if he doesnt continue to do so,he will cease to exist since he now longer is the product of a natural mother/father, but merely a product of two timetravel-imposed iterations of himself. From that point on if he doesn't continue to work as an agent, fails to deliver the baby, or fail to impregnate himself, he will stop existing alltogether.

PS: All the iterations/loops happens in rapid increasing exponential curve / as an infinite singularity event, so only the individuals caught in the loop will percieve it as "linear in time" but it all happens simultaniously when the paradox is triggered (when going from iteration 0 -> 1), like an event horizon: after that point there is no return from that paradox, and it's impossible to stop the loop by any means. Any attempt to kill the younger version will immediatly eradicate the older version who initially attempted to kill the younger version and so fourth, making any means - both non lethal or lethal to stop the iterations impossible.

Also, the first event at iteration 0, where he goes back to impregnate his own first natural mother isnt by coincidence, this is the actual experiment imposed by spaceCorp's mr. Robertson, to proove/disprove a number of theories they want to put to the test:

A: that its actually possible to create a paradoxal version of yourself with no possible return to your normal natural-born state.

B: Will the conciousness of the timetraveller survive the iterations / new alternate timelines, and

C: will two different beings (alternate versions of yourself) with similar destinies make the same choices (since john/jane from iteration 0 is actually a different person than john/jane from iteration 1,2 and any later iteration). Each iteration there is a new spermcell from a new iteration-version of himself impregnating a new egg in a new version of herself endlessly, meaning john/jane is actually a "cloned" individual when a new alternate timeline is created and the current john/jane ceases to exist along with the current timeline that was just alternated. (almost like in the movie "The prestige", he never teleports, he gets "cloned" by time&space itself, but in that movie he needs to kill of the "original" every time himself by force since the teleport is in reality a timetravel-device, but the time he travels is less than a second, so he ends up with two versions of himself in the same timeline, one original, and one timetraveller who traveled one second into the future). In that sense there are no real clones, both are actually the original, but from different timelines.

The movie could have just done that to make it easy to understand that all iterations of john/jane are the "original", but from different alternate timelines/realitites, but they chose to complicate it with putting in the impregnation/child into the mix.


spaceCorp wants to find out if their conciosness is somehow transferred into the new iterated version, if so - it is proof that conciousness/"soul" and even purpose is reincarnatable into new specimens and that they are not bound by timespace continuum.

spaceCorp is there the whole time in the background "pushing" in jane/john down a certain path making sure the experiment goes the way it should be in terms of events enforced by Mr. Robertson giving him "missions" all the time, which in reality are incentives. The bombings are just a sideeffect of jane/johns versions developing a psychosis due to all these strange / looped and paradoxial events, in which spaceCorp quickly uses as a bait to make sure jane/john stays on the path of conducting the experiment, which is also hinted throughout the movie "We have learned so much from the Fizzle bomber, and we wouldn't have been where we're at without him".

The movie could offcourse have included iteration 0 in the beginning, but then it would have become too clear what is actually happening and why, leaving out all the fun and thought for the viewer to ponder about afterwards, so instead it gives it away as subtle clues, which i favor over getting it "spelled out" in front of me in a patronizing way underestemating the intelligence of the viewer.

If i want movies / plots that are allready pre-drawn with the lines in the "connect the dots" I would go watch CSI,NCIS,NCSI,CSINCI florida, CSINICY washington or any tv-show with real peopl.. teenage-actors on ADHD-TV (disney XD, nick, cartoon network etc.)

This movie leaves most by subtle hints only to be discovered, which is what makes it intelligent and makes it a good watch, and will make me want to watch it again just to look for more clues and cameo hints. The movie relies on the hints and the plot instead of a 600.000.000 trillion FX-hollywood blockbuster budget, and would therefore probarbly bore the hell out of a 12-year old, which (imo) is a good thing.

I agree with you that the main driveforce to us the viewer is this sick lovestory, but to the plot itself (if you were one of the characters) then the loop wasnt created in order for them to have their lovestory. The purpose / motive for creating the loop in the first place I believe is to experiment on how much change you can get away with before it takes over concious memories, or to confirm / deny that destiny, purpose and memories trancends time&space itself. (survives the iterations of the loop).

Everything you say about the loveaffair, feelings and motivations though to keep driving the loop on its way makes sense, I just don't let that exlude the fact that the loop is infact created by some very complex events that are non-paradoxical.


I've mentioned earlier that I believe he is first born by natural parents and brought up as a boy, and goes back to first impregnate his natural mother to eliminate his natural father from the process, then he regrets the mess he's made and tries to undo it by fist taking the baby back to 1945 to prevent himself from immediatly getting 19 years younger (if baby is brought up in 1964 then future-him will be 19 years younger aswell, so baby has to be brought up in 1945). He also leaves baby at orphanage, with some baby-girl clothes hoping that he will be brought up as a girl to prevent her-himself to become a time-agent for spaceCorp.

When he later, in 1963 gets news of that the girl-himself gets into a program for spaceCorp after all, he hurries in making her-himself pregnant instead to get her cast out of the spaceCorp program hoping to break the loop. He has now effectively "breed" his own natural mother and father out of the picture, and the paradox takes place and will loop from that point on. He still has to kidnap the baby though and bring it back to 1945 - again to prevent himself from getting 19 years younger in a blink, since he is originally born in 1945 before the whole paradox started.

Later, when in the laundry-shop, shooting his other self will make no difference, the loop can't be broken either way, since the key issues keeping the loop is A: making himself pregnant, and B: putting the baby at the orphanage in the correct time and place to be able to impregnate that baby later on at the right age and time in order for him to not experience getting younger/older.

If he shoots old bomber-himself, the loop just ends there for the the older one, the shooter-himself lives on keeps using the device, travels more, become insane and becomes the bomber.

If he does not shoot the bomber-himself, then they might end up in a gay-marriage, live happily ever after, but the loop will still restart, since by that time he has allready impregnated the girl in 1963, and allready brought the baby back to 1945. Whatever he does after delivering the baby wont break the loop, it will only break that current iteration and reset it to its original state.


Anyhow, I dont believe one possibility automatically excludes another, and I believe in both your logic, and mine. Your logic answers the whole "why continue doing this?"-question, while my logic answers "How did it start?", both are true and needed (imo).

I don't believe he wrote the plot to simply be a selfcreated paradox with no start, why do that when its been done so many times before when you can do something not done before in movies/plots: A paradox with an actual natural start, starts with possibility, and changes into impossibility, or maybe I give him to much credit.

There's too many hints about something natural and obvious before the whole situation of the paradox. The rooster is one clue. In the classical question of the chicken and the egg, the idea is that its a paradox, but the joke-version brings in a natural event that counters the whole paradox, the rooster and its sperm came first. Also, the fact that bartender-himself tells the joke to sex-operated-himself signals that they both know the answer and loves that they both have a love/hate relationship to that joke because they both know that they originally at one time came from a natural origin and not from themselves.

Also, the song on the jukebox "I am my own grandfather" is the best clue because he acutually is his own grandfather, but if there's no non-paradoxical start (a very first loop/iteration) then each iteration would be exactly like the first as far as babymaking goes, he would never become grandfather, because the previous version of him ceases to exist every time he impregnates himself again. in a self-created loop there will always only be the current loop/iteration, no "previous" one.

If it all starts with a natural father though that he needs to "breed" out of the picture, he will have to impregnate his real natural mother, then the offspring needs to impregnate itself. The baby in which the first girl-himself then gives birth to will then have itself as mother, itself as father and the bartender as grandfather and uncle.

The post-sex-op half-paradoxial offspring the bartender meets at the bar in 1970 is always the one sent by the bartender to impregnate itself back in 1963 since the bartender cant impregnate the half-paradoxed version because the half-paradoxed version isnt the same person and then the bartender would just be another natural father, and you would always just end up with a half-paradoxed baby and he would never become a grandfather.

Break down - self-created-loop (wrong way):

baby is born, becomes girl, meets self-post-op, becomes pregnant, baby is born, kidnapped, brought back to 1945, becomes girl, meets self-post-op etc. Loop just runs its current iteration over and over endlessly, the bartender never becomes a grandfather.

Break down - natural start, but doing it the wrong way:

natural (bartender) child has natural mother and father, goes back in time and makes own mother pregnant.

new baby has a natural mother, but is his own father, meaning the new baby isnt the bartender at all but a new person, like a brother and self-father-of at the same time. (for the baby to actually and fully be the bartender they would both need to have the same mother and father, in which they dont. The baby's father is the bartender, but the bartenders father is some natural random guy.)

You now have a bartender and a baby, two completely different persons. bartender kidnaps baby, brings baby to orphanage in 1945. The original bartender still grows up simultaniously with his natural mother and father in their house.

Now, bartender goes back again in 1963 to impregnate his sibling, the new baby will now be its own mother, but not his own father since the bartender is now the father, meaning it still has one natural parent, this time the father (the bartender) instead of the mother.

baby will never become fully self-created, and the bartender will never become a grandfather.

Break down - natura start, doing it the right way:

natural (bartender) child has natural mother and father, goes back in time and makes own mother pregnant.

new baby has a natural mother, but is his own father, meaning the new baby isnt the bartender at all but a new person, like a brother and self-father-of at the same time. (for the baby to actually and fully be the bartender they would both need to have the same mother and father, in which they dont. The baby's father is the bartender, but the bartenders father is some natural random guy.)

You now have a bartender and a baby, two completely different persons. bartender kidnaps baby, brings baby to orphanage in 1945. The original bartender still grows up simultaniously with his natural mother and father in their house.

Now, bartender goes back to 1970 to talk the now grown up post-sex-op male-"sibling" impregnating his pre-sex-op girl-self, the new baby will now be its own mother, aswell as its own father, with the bartender being the grandfather.

You end up with three different individuals.

1: The bartender with a natural mother and father.

2: The male/female-half-natural child of the bartender and their natural mother, same mother as the bartender has.

3: The baby made by the the male/female-half-naturals, grandchild of the bartender, and its own mother and father.

The three of them knows this, and they dont have split personalities, they are infact different persons and in love intertweened exept for the half-naturals from 1963, 1964 and 1970, they are the same person and in love with themselves.
 
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FrankMatthews said:
Crowley, Blvatsky and the Luciferian crowd seem to be on this same bit.
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Ahh okay. I thought you meant Thoth specifically. I don't really vibe with Crowley or the Luciferian crowd. I have found some very knowledge people within Blavatsky's later created Theosophical Society. You might find this article interesting in regards to the name Lucifer.

This Link contains many more articles available online written by members of the Theosophical Society. I have found many of them to contain interesting, thought provoking material.
 
FrankMatthews said:
Crowley, Blvatsky and the Luciferian crowd seem to be on this same bit.
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Although Crowley himself participated in sex magick and dark sorcery his works had a lot to do with "the law" in which he speaks on some real **** about divine principles. This is an instance where I wouldn't "throw the baby out with the bath water" the general consensus is that Crowley was an evil man but there's a lot that can be learned from his work. I personally think Crowley was possessed at times and u can tell the difference in his writings from when he is or isn't. And Blavatsky same thing although I think she was slandered by a lot of critics who didn't understand the occult. She's the godmother of theosophy and gets a bad wrap because hitler used some of her occult teachings. Hermetic principle is just a translation of the teachings of Thoth or tehuti to be more precise.
 
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My grandpa is a 33rd degree mastee mason.

Every Christmas eve I try to get the most information out of him as possible and he always plays dumb. No matter what questions I bring up.

Turns out I've been asking the wrong questions.

Lately I've been reading the seven hermetic principles, the I ching, the gnostic scriptures and doing some Internet illuminati research on my own. Every day I study it it unlocks something useful for me and really broadands my perspective along the path of absolute truth and understanding.

Apparently it helped me say the right thing or something last night because my gramps brought in his back room alone, closed the door and pulled out his cock (haha hahaha sorry man I couldn't resist I'm stoned as **** right now).

Seriously though he ended up showing me all the pictures of him at the temple in his master mason gear with the rest of his brother hood. He explained how they are different levels of masonry. He told me how you don't just get to these levels as a goal of sorts because they never even tell everyone in the masonry about these levels. You reach these levels upon your understanding. Apparently most freemasons only get through the secomd degree and receive their ring and that's it. But they only stopat that point because they think that ring is the achievement, which means they didn't truly understand masonry, thus the reasoning why they don't get to the higher levels.

He also gave me his freemasonry monitor and officers manual. Claimed they don't just give that book to just anyone in the brotherhood.

Haven't got into the book yet but from the very first page it speaks of subjects and knowledge that is the same vein as the books I mentioned earlier.

Also leads me to believe that a lot of the material on Armageddonconspiracy.com is real.
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ben roethlisberger ben roethlisberger very interesting, looking forward to your future insights.

I watched the film

Transcendence, now this film poses a lot of intriguing questions whilst also touching on some great subject matter, I reccommend anybody who frequents this thread to give it a watch, let me know your thoughts, pm for DVD stream.

"Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed-to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can...but if they should. Their worst fears are realized as Will's thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to what end is unknown. The only thing that is becoming terrifyingly clear is there may be no way to stop him."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209764/
 
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DrKingSchultz said:
FrankMatthews said:
Just watched it. Pretty crazy, definitely got me thinking. What were your thoughts?
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It was a pretty thought provoking deep film, I think everyone can take something unique away from the film, there are a few views on this film which I thought were all :pimp: I will share with you below.. Let me know what you think..

it'll help you a great deal to understand if you identify and separate the "split personalities" that exist within the entity of John/Jane.

What is interesting is that these split personalities never occur all at once, but are fractured throughout the heterarchy of the Predestination Paradox occurring in the movie.

To Quote Douglas Hofstadter,

And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind — a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is — here goes a first stab, anyway — not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (pp. 101-102)

Understanding the above notion will help you further enjoy the premise of this movie.

Further on, understanding that the entity of John/Jane is a stream of information cycling in the feedback loop through time will help too.

Basically, only as Fizzle Bomber does the entire information of who/what John/Jane is becomes whole, only Fizzle Bomber 'understands' that his existence is basically a self-sustaining relay race of information cycling infinitely in time as a strange loop.

It's a succession of events forming an heterarchy in which each crossings of himself (Himself kidnapping Baby Himself, Himself delivering Baby Himself to the Orphanage, Himself meeting and convincing Young Man Himself at a bar to commit murder, Young Himself chance meeting and falling in love with Young Woman Himself, Himself coming back to retrieve Young Man Himself and convince him that abandoning Young Woman Himself is for the best, etc. etc.)

is all predestined because it's a temporal paradox which creates a Strange Loop in the space-time continuum. Basically each event where Himself interacts with another 'version' of Himself is a hierarchy of events which end up creating, again to quote Douglas Hofstadter, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop."

What I meant by explicate the ending, is that you must try to consider Fizzle Bomber as the merging of all different 'states' of his being into one. Fizzle Bomber IS the culmination/beginning of the entire ordeal. Fizzle Bomber is the last piece of domino in the chain, which is predestined to fall and cause the fall of the first domino in the chain. As Fizzle Bomber dies(last domino), Fizzle Bomber is created(first domino) out of John, sustaining the succession of events to basically start over in it's new cycle.

In my opinion, beyond the whole paradox thing, this movie is actually a rather poetic, beautiful tragic love story. The paradox is the premise, but what truly makes this movie compelling, in my opinion, is that through the transgender/self-love twists, this movie not only illustrates well the Predestination Paradox, it gives a complex portrayal of an emotional strange loop so strong that it "Can't be paradoctored."

Purpose, Love and Hatred are the driving themes of this movie, time travel is only the premise.

I'll discuss the final scene and ending in (Spoilers): John: The snake that eats it's own tail.. Forever and ever.

It'll help if you understand that Fizzle Bomber acts out of absolute love for John/Jane. To simplify this, instead of seeing Ethan Hawke as the Fizzle Bomber, try to envision the face of Sarah Snook as the Fizzle Bomber. To simplify further, let's just call Fizzle Bomber Jane, and the one confronting him John.

Fizzle Bomber/Jane is desperately in love with John, but John is desperately driven by a desire to avenge Jane/John's suffering by murdering Fizzle Bomber.

When Older John meets Younger Jane in the park and they fall in love, John recognizes Jane, but Jane is unable to recognize John. The way the final scene is orchestrated, it's virtually the opposite of that encounter. Consider that Fizzle Bomber is an Older Jane finally being reunited with a Younger John, but this time, only Jane can recognize John, and John is unable to recognize Jane inside the Fizzle Bomber.

Jane/John's incredible love for John/Jane and John/Jane's incredible hatred for Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John is the essence of the loop, the moving force which sets every event in motion over and over.

So, understood as such, the final scene is a very poignant tragic love reunion of two lovers who are destined to always be blind-sided to 'the other'.

The final confrontation is a scene where both parties confess their emotions. Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John is confessing her utter love for John/Jane/Fizzle Bomber, while John/Jane/Fizzle Bomber is confessing his utter hatred for Fizzle Bomber/Jane/John.

Changing the name/faces in the script will help illustrate and I hope appreciate this:

[John enters the Laundrymat]
Jane: Oh my god.. You look good.. I missed you.
John: ..You're the Fizzle Bomber?
Jane: [Laughs] We always hated that name, remember?
John: [Astonished] ..You're a murderer.

Jane: ..You're disappointed in me, right? I remember that, I do. But when the dust settles.. I think you'll see that we did the right thing.
John: I will never become you.

Jane: Some people say that it's fate. But you and I, we know, some things are predestined. I made you who you are, you made me who I am. It's a paradox, right? But it can't be.. paradoctored. [Psychotic laughter]

Jane: [Overjoyed] And now you're free and you found me and we can finally be together!
John: .. I'll never become you.
Jane: Don't say that. Don't say that.

John: .. I will never become you and I will not let you kill those people!

Jane: [Angry/Feeling Betrayed] Wait Wait Wait, What, you're gonna live a regular life, with that *****, Alice, from the antique store? She has a stupid cat, she has a disgusting birthmark on her left hip, she's a lousy *beep* cook! Okay trust me, she can't handle our secrets! She can't, trust me! She's not right for us!

John: You have no idea what is right for me!

Jane: Okay, okay, listen. All we have is each other. It is ALL we've ever had. Now, if you shoot me.. You'll become me. You get it? That's.. how it happens. If you want to break the chain, you have to not kill me.. But try.. To love me.. Again..

John: [Tearing Up]..What if I put him in front of you.. ..The man who ruined your life..

Jane: Yeah yeah yeah... Forget all that. We can have a future together.

John: ..Would you kill him.. To save thousands?

Jane: ... You wanna know what we're gonna do tomorrow? [Excited]

John: [Breaking Down] No.

[Gunshots/Death and Rebirth of Fizzle Bomber/Beginning of a new cycle in the loop]

[A Younger John listens to a tape recorded by the new cycle Fizzle Bomber/Jane at the beginning of his career as a TTA]

New Cycle Fizzle Bomber/Jane: [Talking to a Younger John through a recording] Here you are.. At the beginning of your new life. It can be overwhelming, knowing the future you're about to create.. Knowing the purpose of that life. You know who she is. and you understand who you are. And now maybe you're ready to understand who I am.. You see I.. I love her too. You'll have to make tough choices. You'll influence the past. Can we change our futures? I.. I don't know.The only thing that I know for sure.. ..Is that you are the best thing that's ever happened to me. I miss you dreadfully.

This reply sums it up quite nice:

The movie does actually stick to classical timespace continuum and laws of physics / relativity spot on, you just happened to not see it because it takes place before the movie. But: the movie is full of hints of the original events (the rooster, purpose, trancendence of the inevidable destiny no matter how much you change spacetime).

Before the paradox (call this iteration/loop 0), the child has a natural mother and father, and does not live in an orphanage. The child does have the dualsex anomaly though, and is raised as a boy/man having most visible traits of a male specimen.

The boy grows up to be a man, starts working for SpaceCorp as an agent, travels back in time doing missions, but starts doing it too much, gets disoriented / psychotic, and starts a relationship with his own natural (in iteration 0 before the paradox) unparadoxed mother (denmark-syndrome). He impregnates her, and at the time his sperm fertilizes her egg he ceases to exist in the original "version" - a paradox takes place and we are now in an alternate timeline (iteration 1), he will immidiatly become different.

The natural mother now never meets the original father, the child now is his own father, but not yet his own mother, child grows up - this time grown up as a girl, the older version from (iteration 1) travels back in time and starts a relationship with his younger girl-self iteration-2 (reversed denmark-syndrome), in which he - feeling guilty - kidnaps the baby (which no longer is a product of his natural mother/father, but the product of himself purely on both sides) in regret of the whole mess, so he tries to travel back to a totally different time (1945) to leave his baby-self at an unknown orphanage in hopes of making the paradox stop.

Now the movie starts, the rest you've seen. The rooster and the orphanage is the best clues that there is "something" before the whole chicken-and-the-egg paradoxial situation, namely the roosters "cum" which is the natural events before the paradox leading up to triggering the singularity of the endless loops. And the orphanage: There is no other reason for him to leave the child at an orphanage, other than to try to stop a mess he himself has made and feels regret about

It's only after the movie starts and the paradox has allready taken place that he continues to place the baby there each loop simply because if he doesnt continue to do so,he will cease to exist since he now longer is the product of a natural mother/father, but merely a product of two timetravel-imposed iterations of himself. From that point on if he doesn't continue to work as an agent, fails to deliver the baby, or fail to impregnate himself, he will stop existing alltogether.

PS: All the iterations/loops happens in rapid increasing exponential curve / as an infinite singularity event, so only the individuals caught in the loop will percieve it as "linear in time" but it all happens simultaniously when the paradox is triggered (when going from iteration 0 -> 1), like an event horizon: after that point there is no return from that paradox, and it's impossible to stop the loop by any means. Any attempt to kill the younger version will immediatly eradicate the older version who initially attempted to kill the younger version and so fourth, making any means - both non lethal or lethal to stop the iterations impossible.

Also, the first event at iteration 0, where he goes back to impregnate his own first natural mother isnt by coincidence, this is the actual experiment imposed by spaceCorp's mr. Robertson, to proove/disprove a number of theories they want to put to the test:

A: that its actually possible to create a paradoxal version of yourself with no possible return to your normal natural-born state.

B: Will the conciousness of the timetraveller survive the iterations / new alternate timelines, and

C: will two different beings (alternate versions of yourself) with similar destinies make the same choices (since john/jane from iteration 0 is actually a different person than john/jane from iteration 1,2 and any later iteration). Each iteration there is a new spermcell from a new iteration-version of himself impregnating a new egg in a new version of herself endlessly, meaning john/jane is actually a "cloned" individual when a new alternate timeline is created and the current john/jane ceases to exist along with the current timeline that was just alternated. (almost like in the movie "The prestige", he never teleports, he gets "cloned" by time&space itself, but in that movie he needs to kill of the "original" every time himself by force since the teleport is in reality a timetravel-device, but the time he travels is less than a second, so he ends up with two versions of himself in the same timeline, one original, and one timetraveller who traveled one second into the future). In that sense there are no real clones, both are actually the original, but from different timelines.

The movie could have just done that to make it easy to understand that all iterations of john/jane are the "original", but from different alternate timelines/realitites, but they chose to complicate it with putting in the impregnation/child into the mix.


spaceCorp wants to find out if their conciosness is somehow transferred into the new iterated version, if so - it is proof that conciousness/"soul" and even purpose is reincarnatable into new specimens and that they are not bound by timespace continuum.

spaceCorp is there the whole time in the background "pushing" in jane/john down a certain path making sure the experiment goes the way it should be in terms of events enforced by Mr. Robertson giving him "missions" all the time, which in reality are incentives. The bombings are just a sideeffect of jane/johns versions developing a psychosis due to all these strange / looped and paradoxial events, in which spaceCorp quickly uses as a bait to make sure jane/john stays on the path of conducting the experiment, which is also hinted throughout the movie "We have learned so much from the Fizzle bomber, and we wouldn't have been where we're at without him".

The movie could offcourse have included iteration 0 in the beginning, but then it would have become too clear what is actually happening and why, leaving out all the fun and thought for the viewer to ponder about afterwards, so instead it gives it away as subtle clues, which i favor over getting it "spelled out" in front of me in a patronizing way underestemating the intelligence of the viewer.

If i want movies / plots that are allready pre-drawn with the lines in the "connect the dots" I would go watch CSI,NCIS,NCSI,CSINCI florida, CSINICY washington or any tv-show with real peopl.. teenage-actors on ADHD-TV (disney XD, nick, cartoon network etc.)

This movie leaves most by subtle hints only to be discovered, which is what makes it intelligent and makes it a good watch, and will make me want to watch it again just to look for more clues and cameo hints. The movie relies on the hints and the plot instead of a 600.000.000 trillion FX-hollywood blockbuster budget, and would therefore probarbly bore the hell out of a 12-year old, which (imo) is a good thing.

I agree with you that the main driveforce to us the viewer is this sick lovestory, but to the plot itself (if you were one of the characters) then the loop wasnt created in order for them to have their lovestory. The purpose / motive for creating the loop in the first place I believe is to experiment on how much change you can get away with before it takes over concious memories, or to confirm / deny that destiny, purpose and memories trancends time&space itself. (survives the iterations of the loop).

Everything you say about the loveaffair, feelings and motivations though to keep driving the loop on its way makes sense, I just don't let that exlude the fact that the loop is infact created by some very complex events that are non-paradoxical.


I've mentioned earlier that I believe he is first born by natural parents and brought up as a boy, and goes back to first impregnate his natural mother to eliminate his natural father from the process, then he regrets the mess he's made and tries to undo it by fist taking the baby back to 1945 to prevent himself from immediatly getting 19 years younger (if baby is brought up in 1964 then future-him will be 19 years younger aswell, so baby has to be brought up in 1945). He also leaves baby at orphanage, with some baby-girl clothes hoping that he will be brought up as a girl to prevent her-himself to become a time-agent for spaceCorp.

When he later, in 1963 gets news of that the girl-himself gets into a program for spaceCorp after all, he hurries in making her-himself pregnant instead to get her cast out of the spaceCorp program hoping to break the loop. He has now effectively "breed" his own natural mother and father out of the picture, and the paradox takes place and will loop from that point on. He still has to kidnap the baby though and bring it back to 1945 - again to prevent himself from getting 19 years younger in a blink, since he is originally born in 1945 before the whole paradox started.

Later, when in the laundry-shop, shooting his other self will make no difference, the loop can't be broken either way, since the key issues keeping the loop is A: making himself pregnant, and B: putting the baby at the orphanage in the correct time and place to be able to impregnate that baby later on at the right age and time in order for him to not experience getting younger/older.

If he shoots old bomber-himself, the loop just ends there for the the older one, the shooter-himself lives on keeps using the device, travels more, become insane and becomes the bomber.

If he does not shoot the bomber-himself, then they might end up in a gay-marriage, live happily ever after, but the loop will still restart, since by that time he has allready impregnated the girl in 1963, and allready brought the baby back to 1945. Whatever he does after delivering the baby wont break the loop, it will only break that current iteration and reset it to its original state.


Anyhow, I dont believe one possibility automatically excludes another, and I believe in both your logic, and mine. Your logic answers the whole "why continue doing this?"-question, while my logic answers "How did it start?", both are true and needed (imo).

I don't believe he wrote the plot to simply be a selfcreated paradox with no start, why do that when its been done so many times before when you can do something not done before in movies/plots: A paradox with an actual natural start, starts with possibility, and changes into impossibility, or maybe I give him to much credit.

There's too many hints about something natural and obvious before the whole situation of the paradox. The rooster is one clue. In the classical question of the chicken and the egg, the idea is that its a paradox, but the joke-version brings in a natural event that counters the whole paradox, the rooster and its sperm came first. Also, the fact that bartender-himself tells the joke to sex-operated-himself signals that they both know the answer and loves that they both have a love/hate relationship to that joke because they both know that they originally at one time came from a natural origin and not from themselves.

Also, the song on the jukebox "I am my own grandfather" is the best clue because he acutually is his own grandfather, but if there's no non-paradoxical start (a very first loop/iteration) then each iteration would be exactly like the first as far as babymaking goes, he would never become grandfather, because the previous version of him ceases to exist every time he impregnates himself again. in a self-created loop there will always only be the current loop/iteration, no "previous" one.

If it all starts with a natural father though that he needs to "breed" out of the picture, he will have to impregnate his real natural mother, then the offspring needs to impregnate itself. The baby in which the first girl-himself then gives birth to will then have itself as mother, itself as father and the bartender as grandfather and uncle.

The post-sex-op half-paradoxial offspring the bartender meets at the bar in 1970 is always the one sent by the bartender to impregnate itself back in 1963 since the bartender cant impregnate the half-paradoxed version because the half-paradoxed version isnt the same person and then the bartender would just be another natural father, and you would always just end up with a half-paradoxed baby and he would never become a grandfather.

Break down - self-created-loop (wrong way):

baby is born, becomes girl, meets self-post-op, becomes pregnant, baby is born, kidnapped, brought back to 1945, becomes girl, meets self-post-op etc. Loop just runs its current iteration over and over endlessly, the bartender never becomes a grandfather.

Break down - natural start, but doing it the wrong way:

natural (bartender) child has natural mother and father, goes back in time and makes own mother pregnant.

new baby has a natural mother, but is his own father, meaning the new baby isnt the bartender at all but a new person, like a brother and self-father-of at the same time. (for the baby to actually and fully be the bartender they would both need to have the same mother and father, in which they dont. The baby's father is the bartender, but the bartenders father is some natural random guy.)

You now have a bartender and a baby, two completely different persons. bartender kidnaps baby, brings baby to orphanage in 1945. The original bartender still grows up simultaniously with his natural mother and father in their house.

Now, bartender goes back again in 1963 to impregnate his sibling, the new baby will now be its own mother, but not his own father since the bartender is now the father, meaning it still has one natural parent, this time the father (the bartender) instead of the mother.

baby will never become fully self-created, and the bartender will never become a grandfather.

Break down - natura start, doing it the right way:

natural (bartender) child has natural mother and father, goes back in time and makes own mother pregnant.

new baby has a natural mother, but is his own father, meaning the new baby isnt the bartender at all but a new person, like a brother and self-father-of at the same time. (for the baby to actually and fully be the bartender they would both need to have the same mother and father, in which they dont. The baby's father is the bartender, but the bartenders father is some natural random guy.)

You now have a bartender and a baby, two completely different persons. bartender kidnaps baby, brings baby to orphanage in 1945. The original bartender still grows up simultaniously with his natural mother and father in their house.

Now, bartender goes back to 1970 to talk the now grown up post-sex-op male-"sibling" impregnating his pre-sex-op girl-self, the new baby will now be its own mother, aswell as its own father, with the bartender being the grandfather.

You end up with three different individuals.

1: The bartender with a natural mother and father.

2: The male/female-half-natural child of the bartender and their natural mother, same mother as the bartender has.

3: The baby made by the the male/female-half-naturals, grandchild of the bartender, and its own mother and father.

The three of them knows this, and they dont have split personalities, they are infact different persons and in love intertweened exept for the half-naturals from 1963, 1964 and 1970, they are the same person and in love with themselves.
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Thanks for those, I had read some similar things after watching it as well. I'll put my initial thoughts in the spoiler just in case.

I was thinking more along the lines of allegory in relation to a universal consciousness and/or reincarnation. In essence every interation was allegorical for rebirth and/or reincarnation. In every day life we are interacting with previous/future iterations of ourselves and how we treat others/ourselves is the type of energy our lives are filled with. We can choose to hate ourselves or love ourselves but at the end of the day what we do to others is what we get ourselves.

Transcendence is breaking the cycle of death and rebirth and realizing everything is one and the same. Maybe if he learned to love himself at the end of instead of killing himself he could have transcended or became enlightened. His physical experience on earth would have ended, had the cycle been broken at any point he would have ceased to exist but maybe that's the point, to be able to break the cycle of emotion and desire to move to a different realm.

Also I think the snake eating it's own tail is central to the meaning of this movie. It's symbology I have seen in numerous places in the past and relates to the things I brought up. I need to refresh my memory on that particular symbol because I think it will definitely offer some perspective on this movie.


PurpleClouds said:
FrankMatthews said:
Crowley, Blvatsky and the Luciferian crowd seem to be on this same bit.
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Ahh okay. I thought you meant Thoth specifically. I don't really vibe with Crowley or the Luciferian crowd. I have found some very knowledge people within Blavatsky's later created Theosophical Society. You might find this article interesting in regards to the name Lucifer.

This Link contains many more articles available online written by members of the Theosophical Society. I have found many of them to contain interesting, thought provoking material.
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Yes I am familiar, and I agree the Theosophical Society is an interesting bunch. But you highlight my point about the name Lucifer. The light bearer. I always got this feeling they were devil worshipers trying to put an appealing twist on the devil, or more accurately, the personification of evil. God forbids knowledge of good and evil while lucifer is the "enlightener". The luciferian path is the enlightend path. God = Bad Lucifer = Good. The thing about it was it all made perfect sense. I had never seen such an argument and it fascinated me. At the same time it seemed like trickery, like I was being persuaded to open myself up to something I didn't fully understand. The same with hermeticism.

doublemesh96 said:
I personally think Crowley was possessed at times and u can tell the difference in his writings from when he is or isn't. And Blavatsky same thing although I think she was slandered by a lot of critics who didn't understand the occult. She's the godmother of theosophy and gets a bad wrap because hitler used some of her occult teachings. Hermetic principle is just a translation of the teachings of Thoth or tehuti to be more precise.
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This is exactly my concern about this line of study. You start entertaining the fact that lucifer is the bearer of enlightenment and that some of these unseen forces are actually there to help you with your development you start letting things in. Next thing you know you're possessed. I've heard satanist speak of gaining "power" and knowledge through their "worship" of particular forces or idols. The black magician uses black entities to manipulate the environment around him but the magician also feeds and becomes beholden to these entities.

I was reading one particular book on hermeticism and it spoke of keeping your fear in check when meditating. Cloaking yourself in white light was a common thread I saw many of these people mention. And Lucifer is the light bearer. Yeah, I'm good.


DrKingSchultz said:
"Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself" - Plato
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I've heard many times, not to believe that thinking thing inside your head, is you. It' is your "mind", controlling you. Your ego is there to fool you into believing you are it and it is you.

I posted a video about this a few pages back but scientific study has shown that the average person has 50,000 "self-talks" per day, that is your mind thinking or talking to you. Of those 50,000 self-talks per day, the most aware people only consciously observe about 5% of those, or 2500. But a full 80% of your daily self talks are negative and/or self defeating in some way. 2000 thoughts out of the 2500 you are aware of are negative. Your brain is literally holding you down every single day.
 
Circuits Five Through Eight: Continuing Evolution

Note: The following description of the circuits is a somewhat paraphrased summary of Robert Anton Wilson's material on the upper four circuits from his Prometheus Rising (Falcon Press, 1983). Quotes from Lao Tsu are from the Vintage Books Tao Te Ching, translated by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English; Zen parables are from Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. The day-to-day applications are my own.

While Circuits One through Four are present and operative in every adult human, activation of the next four circuits is not nearly as widespread. In some, none of these circuits may have ever been accessed, while others may occasionally have experiences of one or more of the upper circuits. In any case, as Circuits Five through Eight represent newly emerging evolutionary trends, they are at present operative only in a relatively small percentage of the population. The CyberNaut seeks to increase that percentage.

Circuit Five: The Holistic Neurosomatic Circuit

This circuit is typified by ecstatic or blissful feelings, sensory enhancement, sensual pleasure from even ordinary experiences and activities, and a generally blissful, laid-back 'high' of contentment with the state of things in general. Gurdjieff referred to this circuit as the True Magnetic Center. Triggering devices include isolation tanks, the Hindu technique of pranayama, or controlled breathing, zero-gravity environments, and, for the adventurous, Cannabis drugs.

Such experiences as spontaneous regeneration or 'faith healing,' feelings of eternal youthfulness, and rapturous acceptance of others/events involve at least a temporary activation of this circuit. Circuit Five control techniques have been employed by yogic and Tantric practices, Zen, ancient Greek psychedelic drug-assisted rituals at Eleusis, Dionysians, Mithraic cults, Christian Scientists, Sufis,and probably early Christianity as well. Occasionally attempts to activate Circuit Five will result in a temporary, although disconcerting, period known as the 'Dark Night of the Soul' or 'crossing the Abyss,' characterized by painful ordinary physical sensations, generalized bodily discomfort, distorted, nightmarish perceptions, anxiety, and an aversion to or fear of light. However difficult such a state may become, it does pass eventually into the ecstatic bliss of positive Circuit Five experience.

The fifth circuit, centered largely in the right cortex, 'thinks in Gestalts' -- that is, fifth-circuit processes are not linear progressions but holistic, simultaneous perceptions. Neurologically wired to the genitals and the limbic system (associated with the first circuit) and often working through endorphins, the circuit is often triggered by relaxed, playful sex. One who has activated and imprinted this circuit is radiant, cheerful rather than depressed, energetic rather than sluggish, in exceptional health, and almost seems to 'sparkle.' The various complaints of the lower circuits -- first-circuit physical sickness, second-circuit aggressive power-over, submissive no-power, and the associated turbulent emotions, third-circuit bewilderment over how to improve the quality of life, and fourth-circuit guilt -- are resolved quickly and dramatically by the advent of fifth-circuit consciousness. An accurate description of life by fifth-circuit adepts is 'floating one foot off the ground.'

Circuit Five Application

It seems to me that one of the most effective ways to integrate Circuit Five experience into daily life is to work on focusing the consciousness intensely in space-time. Being 'here-now' transforms even the most mundane tasks into a set of hedonic sensations and virtually wipes out boredom from the working vocabulary. Paul Reps relates such an ancient tale in his Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:
Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked:
'I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs.' Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.

When this Circuit Five 'every-minute Zen' is achieved, one can't help remembering where the umbrella is! At the moment that he placed the umbrella, Tenno would have been so absorbed in the interplay of colors and shapes between the umbrella, clogs, and the decor of the vestibule, for instance, that those sensory images would have been vividly stamped in his mind and readily accessible to memory. In this state, the environment becomes a whirling miasma of such vivid sense data that just walking down the sidewalk becomes a 'retinal circus': the texture of the sidewalk is a profound sculpture of perfect randomness; the sprays of grass coming up through the cracks are delightful explosions of soft green against the tan concrete; wildflowers along the sides smear their luscious pastels across the visual field, seeming to blossom into the brain itself; trees a few feet away leap into the mind with every gully and protrusion in the bark relieved in vast detail; the blocks in the sidewalk seem crazily tilted and hilariously three-dimensional; the sudden whooshing of a sprinkler in the adjacent yard seems a delicately balanced symphony of sound; the sky is impossibly blue against the wispy clouds -- the whole body tingles and lightens, seeming about to lift off the ground and fly! Needless to say, life becomes a fluid, hedonic experience in which boredom is unheard of.

But what about when your bank screws you over, your camping trip gets rained out, your car throws a rod, and your best friend announces she is no longer speaking to you? No amount of cursing the local deities and trying to force things into your elegantly prepared scheme will do a bit of good. With that approach, you stomp around the house muttering all day until you've muttered yourself blue in the face. At such times the most expedient thing to do is to stop in your tracks, screw your eyes tight shut (assuming you're not driving), jump up and down, screaming madly a few times, then do some deep breathing until you feel relatively stable. Hopefully, during the course of the breathing your face (and other muscles) will have relaxed somewhat. Now, you can open your eyes to a calmer world and proceed to plan your next step.

First priority must be relieving any physical pain you may be in, if the means are at hand, so that you can think more clearly. Slow down, tense and relax all of your muscles in turn; breathe deeply and slowly, filling your lungs and expanding your abdomen with air; hold for a few moments, then release, still slowly, pausing with all of the air released before inhaling again. Meanwhile, slowly tell yourself 'Calm, calm, calm,' lingering on each sound within the word as you breathe. Now, take stock of your situation. Exactly what has changed, and what are the immediate implications for you? Never mind futuring; many possible complications may never develop. Accept complete responsibility for your perceptions! The importance of the last sentence cannot be emphasized enough. Through experience I have found that usually a problem isn't a problem unless you perceive it as one. If all else fails, a simple shrug and a decision to go with the flow, to do whatever is necessary and try to learn from the situation, seems to be the best approach. Struggling against the reality bumping you in the nose accomplishes nothing and is extremely frustrating, to say the least.

As Lao Tsu said,
It is not wise to rush about....
If too much energy is used, exhaustion follows.
....
The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.
--Tao Te Ching
Finally, yet another hint from a Zen parable:
Buddha told a man in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Circuit Six: The Collective Neurogenetic Circuit

Circuit Six is operating when the information archived in our DNA becomes consciously accessible in the waking state. The RNA-DNA 'dialogue' begins broadcasting messages to the central nervous system from within each neuron. Descriptions of experiences of this circuit typically include 'past-life memories,' reincarnational themes, concepts of immortality, the idea of akashic records, or a realization of something like the Gaia hypothesis, which views our entire planet as a conscious organism, with all life upon it inextricably linked. The music of Beethoven paints quite an accurate picture of this realization; large doses of LSD inevitably trigger a temporary similar awareness. Gurdjieff called this circuit the True Emotional Center.

Various cultures have given different names to sixth-circuit states throughout the ages -- Hindu 'Atman consciousness,' Greek 'vision of Pan,' Chinese idea of the Tao, etc. When Circuit Six is initially activated, personified archetypes usually arrive in the personal philosophy, interpreted as 'Gods,' 'Goddesses,' and/or 'Demons.' Jung's theory of archetypes from the collective unconscious describes this phenomenon well. These archetypes commonly appear in the world of dreams; they become more immediate still when Circuit Six is flipped on, often humanizing the circuit as an image of the 'Higher Self' such as the cosmic Fool, the Holy Guardian Angel, dwarves, the Green Man, etc. If the circuit remains activated, the perceptions usually move into more direct visions of a consciously evolving, unfolding evolutionary scheme of increasing self-awareness, including awareness of the entire Gaia biosphere, past developments and future possibilities alike. Death is no longer to be feared, since not a single life but a continuous framework of lives and deaths becomes the operating reality.

Circuit Six processes, probably operating from the right neo-cortex, use the many-layered language of endless associations and connotations conjured up by each concept -- language similar to that used by James Joyce in his Finnegans Wake. When a plethora of synchronicities emerges in daily life, the sixth circuit is definitely alive and well, mirroring this language of simultaneous concepts in everyday events.

The basic experience of Circuit Six is communion or conversation with the ancient genetic 'architect' behind all physical organisms. Whether personified as a divinely intoxicated male or female archetype or defined as an impersonal, amorphous force, the realization is that of a vast life force becoming increasingly self-aware and exploring the infinite possibilities that lie ahead.

Circuit Six Application

Enmeshing Circuit Six consciousness into your everyday format can be quite an adventure! First of all, we'll consider working with the genetic archetypes. The most useful application of these archetypes, in an everyday sort of way, seems to be the practice of 'aspecting' or 'drawing down,' 'invoking a god(dess)-form,' etc. Let's say you're on your way to deliver a particularly complex presentation, and you're understandably jittery. Take a minute or two to select an appropriate archetype or assemble your own from the genetic archives, then construct a brief, empowering fantasy in which you, as the archetype, demonstrate your eloquence, your balance, your unruffled assurance, or whatever else it is you need for this particular occasion.

In this instance, you might select Connor MacLeod from the movie Highlander to impress dynamic, determined poise and confidence -- for the next few minutes, you might feel the ancient sword in your hands like the touch of an old friend, feel the power and excitement of the Quickening--feel the relaxed alertness as you circle your foe, feel the empty space at the center of the peace as you act effortlessly and fluidly, every nerve tingling to the same pulse--feel the quantum-leap-spiralling-upwards zoom as the power of self-actualization explodes into you -- as you claim the Prize. (Fade to black....) Now you speed on winged boots through memory circuitry, tangled neural gardens, finding the best words, the most effective gestures, just the right degree of enthusiasm to come out shining.... Now you play the Concertmaster, bringing in each element of a magnificent dawn just at the right time with the perfect dance of your baton, while the sky lightens, animals stir, buds open and the surface looks up in unison as the sun appears over the horizon.... I bet you're a lot less jittery now. Good luck!

In addition to archetypal fantasy, Circuit Six has other advantageous uses--namely, peeping at the genetic blueprints for 'future' possibilities. At the very least, such excursions will expand your perspective and serve to remind you that nothing is static--that we are not at the end of an evolutionary trend but are constantly designing new pathways into the 'future.' After contemplating some of the eye-opening realities we can look forward to cultivating, it's often a lot easier to appreciate our current position in the Universing of our choice.

Circuit Seven: The Metaprogramming Circuit

The Metaprogramming Circuit is activated when the brain becomes aware of itself as engineer of experience. When you think of your mind as mind, then think of the mind that contemplates that mind as mind, then think of the mind that thinks of the mind contemplating mind as mind, you have discovered the path to metaprogramming consciousness. Most methods of 'enlightenment' function by leading the student around and around in circles until he is struck by the realization that he is himself responsible for everything he experiences.

With the aid of this circuit, one becomes self-programmer, then programs the self-programming, then programs the programming of the self-programming, etc.--cybernetic consciousness has been attained. Suddenly one is struck by the humorous, completely relative nature of all third-circuit reality maps; rigid, dogmatic systems claiming to have the only 'One True Way' become cosmic jokes to be laughed at heartily. The Grand Game becomes visible all at once; creating your own rules, changing them at will, even manufacturing different gameboards for entertainment and edification is what Circuit Seven is all about.

Apparently operating from the frontal lobes, the metaprogramming circuit has been called the Gnostic 'soul,' the Chinese 'no-mind' (wu-hsin), the Tibetan Buddhist White Light of the Void, the Hindu Shiva-darshana, Gurdjieff's True Intellectual Center. When you ultimately realize that the 'self' is not constant but constantly shifting and that the 'soul' (Circuit Seven) has no form precisely because it dons all forms and sheds them at will, playing every role conceivable--you find you have entered a Strange Loop no less perplexing, dramatic, and funny as a Zen koan. All that remains to be done is to constantly figure out new ways to create reality-maps that are even funnier, sexier, more inclusive, more delightful, and more entertaining than the ones you were using yesterday!

Circuit Seven Application

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot one can say about applying Circuit Seven day-to-day, due to the nature of the circuit itself; the application in this case is discovering and remembering that as you watch Universe Universing itself, you are seeing your own circuitry in action. Once realized, this discovery frees you to adopt any metaphors you wish or none at all, to drop them at will, to pick useful elements from each reality-map and to discard non-functional ones immediately. The possibilities from this point are endless. With the staggering realization of total self-responsibility and self-determination comes the creative tension needed to construct, edit, and destroy new worldviews for fun and profit.

There is much to be learned by dispensing with reality- maps entirely, if only for limited periods of time. As Lao Tsu knew,
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
And, from the Zen tradition:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a
university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup
full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no
longer could restrain himself. 'It is overfull.
No more will go in!'

'Like this cup,' Nan-in said, 'you are full of
your own opinions and speculations. How can I
show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?'
-- Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Such a refresher course in objectivity can, of course, be quite startling -- if there is one thing that can be reliably expected from experimentation with this circuit, it is the element of surprise. Situational ethics, relativity, and agnosticism are useful tools indeed; the CyberNaut makes good use of them.

Circuit Eight: The Non-Local Quantum Circuit

Also called the Metaphysiological Circuit, this type of consciousness involves recognizing the model as a model and proceeding to escape the model itself. For instance, the circuits we have been discussing theoretically are based in the brain; however, in out-of-body experiences (OOBE's), consciousness appears to escape the confines of the nervous system completely and operate independently of it. The OOBE -- sometimes triggered by very large doses of LSD or ketamine, various yogic practices, shamanic techniques, and sometimes occuring spontaneously -- is one of many liberation-of-consciousness phenomena which point ultimately to the type of experience variously known as union with all consciousness, communion with the Cosmic Mind, Oneness with God, etc.

Circuit Eight experience may best be explained by Bell's Theorem, which demonstrates the impossibility of isolated systems in a universe where each and every particle is constantly in 'instantaneous' communication with every other. 'The Whole System is a Whole System,' in other words. However, Special Relativity says that energy cannot travel faster than light, so what medium carries this 'instantaneous' communication? Dr. Edward Harris Walker says it is 'consciousness'; Dr. Jack Sarfatti states that it is 'information' and explains his theory with the following metaphor: If the whole universe can be likened to a mega-computer, then the sub-quantum realm is composed of mini-mini-computers. The hardware of each computer (universe, individual brain, sub-quantum mechanisms, etc.) is local in space and time. However, the software is non-local, both spatially and temporally. Since information is not energy but is what orders energy, there is no conflict with Special Relativity.

In any case, encounters of the Ultimate kind seem practically beyond description. Words appear completely inadequate; in Wilson's opinion, perhaps Beethoven said it best of all in the fourth movement to his Ninth Symphony.

Circuit Eight Application

Language typically proves inadequate for describing non-local phenomena, but there are some helpful methods of viewing Universe through a non-local perspective. One most rewarding technique is focusing first on one's own heartbeat, then expanding the focus to include a similar heart or pulse beating in unison within every human heart, every animal heart, then merging with the pulsings of plant life, and so on down to the slow, thunderous pulse of the earth itself and out as far into the cosmos as imaginable, linking with other planets, stars, quasars, etc. The scope of the imagination is the only limiting factor. This exercise, performed often and vividly, is a great way to feel connectedness with Universe. Empathy seems to be a vital key to opening up Circuit Eight; therefore, exercises involving perceiving events/emotions simultaneously from the vantage points of several different people at once are highly useful. As links are forged more readily between people who share an intimate bond, reverent sex is an excellent opportunity for expanding the awareness to include multiple sensations.

Since Circuit Eight is non-local in time as well as in space, such time-bridging abilities as precognition and retrocognition come into play. Often, precognition is a matter of trusting your own perceptions more than anything else, rather than dismissing them as 'only' imagination or fantasy. Indeed, neither the future nor the past can be described as fixed, since each person's reality differs so widely, and many possibilities in the running may or may not materialize at any given point. With activation of this circuit, comes the increasing awareness that various realities are more or less arbitrary and equally valid depending on the framework being used, a logical progression from the metaprogramming discoveries of Circuit Seven. Finally, the most obvious indicator of Circuit Eight in operation is an expansive, 'cosmic' feeling that defies description but feels utterly marvelous.

Conclusion

The CyberNaut's goal must be to permanently activate and incorporate each of the upper four circuits into everyday life. These expanded modes of consciousness can and should work with the realization of interconnectedness and relativity of all mindschemes to produce a greater satisfaction with life and a greater sense of humor towards the playing of The Game. Once these circuits are in healthy operation, every moment becomes a dizzying spiral of intoxication with life and a creative endeavor to conjure even more fun from the ever-unfolding processes at work.
 
Last edited:
FrankMatthews said:
DrKingSchultz said:
Watched the film predestination today, with Ethan hawke, I reccomend anybody who frequents this thread, to watch it, really good story, concepts, that will make you think.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535/

The life of a time-traveling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.

For a read up^

Pm for dvd stream. :nerd:
Click to expand...

Just watched it. Pretty crazy, definitely got me thinking. What were your thoughts?
Click to expand...

reminds of project pegasus
 
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