blogOPTICA

We just do not agree on this topic.

RHN: I did not write this, it's a quote, of sorts: 'When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years. At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth, after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. Genesis 6:1'

GHD: That all sounds like an 'alien encounter' episode.

RHN: Oh yeah, well, it's pretty 'alien' to me, too. I am fairly certain, however, recognizing the basic, yet, common, profoundly beautiful nature of sexuality (not at all 'alien' to most of us), that ages ago, humankind, and, supposedly, scifi-wise, myriad other interest groups (see above), did ‘it’,  mostly like we do, and for the same reasons.

So, she, woman, positions herself, and he, man -- almost semi-mindless, controlled 99% by hormones, empties himself within seconds, then heads out to meet with his fellow ‘seducers’ around the pulled-Mastodon barbecue fire pit, where, all present, after adequate rounds of grog and serious bragging about their ‘sexual prowess‘, fall quickly asleep -- snoring loudly.

And yet another Cro-Magnon is being genetically assembled in the womb, no doubt, evolving into ‘modern man’.

Without the presence of men, the women, most importantly, took care of the family, and themselves. Men, thus, became dependent on women. We agree here, do we not?

GHD: Now wait a minute, RH, societies are way more complex than that. It's not all sexually oriented. Humans are above self gratification, but for females, and ultimately females in power today, the concept's subtle.

RHN: Your point is?

GHD: Let’s go back, say, around 8,000 years, BCE, to Mesolithic Ireland (now called … Ireland), to a small community of about 150 people living on the banks of a winding, icy cold, glacier melt river, which, obviously due to global warming, no longer exists. This hardy pre-Celtic tribe called themselves the ‘Uppadownafoots’ (roughly translated from rock inscriptions). Today, this group is known to professional anthropologists, worldwide, as the ‘River Dance People’, (okay, okay, I’m taking a few liberties here).

Anyhow, the women of this extraordinary tribe were extremely beautiful: jet black hair, wide-set, big blue eyes, long black eyelashes, pouty lips, ample (in fact, more than ample) breasts, long legs, fair, flawless skin -- like peaches and cream, and the in-bred desire to raise large families. The men of the tribe, to a man, had flaming red hair and freckles all over, but otherwise, were really, really, well endowed. They also had, ‘attitude’.

When the men went out hunting (in truth, scavenging the remains of animal kills and fighting other ‘hunting‘ males for the spoils), the women of the tribe were left to their own means. This, is where the dildo comes in, (no pun here).

RHN: Yeah, right. Dildos.

GHD: No, really. Check this out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alun/29080210/

RHN: And, so, women got the upper hand over the men, so to speak.

GHD: Men were really not needed for the sexual act anymore, only for their genetic material -- even back then women suspected there was a connection between becoming pregnant and sex and what their babies would look like. Mostly, they trusted their own genetic contribution, instictively. But this instinct was only a side issue, initially, self gratification was not the point, ultimately, coition, focused on appearance and personality traits, prevailed. But they quickly perceived that they could achieve most of what they needed, without men.

As for the men? They had no clue that this 'absentee' process was, in fact, the beginning of 'politics' as we know it today. In other words, bargaining for position based on what candidates for success 'look like', became common knowledge for both sexes.

RHN: I suppose men then started to ‘buy’ women’s votes with promises of bigger and better dildos to get their 'genes' in the pool? The male offers could make the difference in the group's collective vote. GH, you’re full of it.

GHD: Well, I don’t know about that scenario, back then, of course, that interpretation of 'group' mentality (that's a modern thing), did not exist, but, you have to admit both men and women, even today, are whipped into a lather by the ‘appearance’ of a candidate ... we call it ‘charisma’.

RHN: True, nobody really votes for ‘values’ or ‘ideals’ anymore, maybe, never did, votes seem based on superfical attributes, and mostly physical, at that. But, I think your analogy between self-gratification and the political process is a stretch. Well, time will tell. As for me? I’m voting for Kucinich.

GHD: Pass the OJ, Henry.

G. H. Diel (GHD), and R. Henry Nigl (RHN), are uncle and nephew, respectively, separated by twenty years. GHD is a writer, RHN, an artist. They can be reached at ghdiel@exoptica.com and rhnigl@exoptica.com, or leave a comment here.

You 'freakin' reptile, you.

I suppose, right now, you are thinking: 'Exactly how can reptilian creatures, apparently with  extraordinary powers, control us, you know sentient beings that we are'?  I am too, (but, so is this guy. Check this: David Icke). 

I suppose, hypothetically, at very least, I could constuct a simplistic debunker answer and wax and wane vitriolic -- especially the part, the where, and how -- that allow these, the existence of any mythical 'being', and in the common argument, allow creatures to 'conceal' themselves -- but, I won't. Instead, I suggest, natural components of our physiological being, in other words 'reality' and myth, which, as we know easily lends itself to this interpretation, even without becoming science fiction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system, or science.

So, here, I am suggesting we all got ’lizard’ in us. And, it seems, in popular culture, ‘media’ if you will, only our leaders excel in letting loose some of those icy traits for us all to see, at least, this explanation doesn’t require an explanation regarding cold bloodedness, we all know it, this trait, all too well.

We don’t have to wait until ‘they, (the cold blooded ones’, everyone but ‘me’ of course), peel off their skin to reveal the reptilian inside. Look closely, however, it could be 'you' ... we just don't know.

From what we share in common, as humans, we also ‘know’ this, instinctively: ‘They‘, and maybe, any other 'entity' we can possibly conceive, other thant 'us', including those ‘reptiles’ of David Icke -- and by my definition, ourselves, and, the harsh judgements of our beliefs (oh, the judgemental and penalizing 'god'), which is the basis of our 'being', our 'reasoning' -- is a part of us from which we cannot disconnect ... and, think about it, it is a pretty 'alien' concept at that, and, maybe even 'reptilian' ... you see, it ain't 'alien' at all, it's us.

G H Diel

Alone.

Alone, really alone.

Our senses merge to define reality, but, our senses also can be misdirected. Held in solitary confinement without sensory experience, as some war prisoners have been, and then, the body revolts. The ultimate result: you will say anything to get out.

My personal exploration of ‘reality’ continues in spite of the possible alternatives, including, 'getting out'. Over the course of my life I have sometimes hallucinated, mostly, because I am a so-called, lucid dreamer. That is, my personal dream states and my waking state sometime overlap, actually, quite frequently. I experience these states without much trepidation because I am aware of what is happening. I hear my wife’s voice calling my name, I ‘see’ my wife walking into the room, my twenty-year old son walks into the house and calls out ‘Dad’? And, I have experienced apparitions of persons unknown that seem to jump out of the walls when I am in this half-awake state -- still not frightening, but, in a sensory sense, somewhat stimulating. But, still, hallucinations. When I experience the presence of my family members, I know the house is empty, save for me, but I still accept the halucination as part of my reality. A false 'reality'? Maybe. But I have learned to love these experiences. As a writer they are nothing less than a continuation of dreams and welcome fodder for story lines.

But, that is nothing, apparently, to the unwelcome effects of solitary confinement. We, are not wired for lack of experiential input. And, then, I’m thinking: what about those in permanent comas? What is their 'reality'? Set that thought aside for the moment. So, you find yourself in the 'black' nothingness of mere solitary confinement.

For reference, here’s a link to a BBC article regarding solitary confinement and sensory deprivation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7199769.stm?source=rss

The point I am making is this: So many religions, and now, especially in the arcane terminology of quantum mechanics, especially physics, reality is defined as an illusion, (there are myriad examples if you goggle ’reality’ -- here is one description found in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality). So, what is reality? 

That the 'definitions' of reality lead one to doubt the substance of daily experience, and that, may or may not be a good thing, well, maybe not for you, but it is for me.

My point: ‘reality’ is your only substantial life experience, the senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell; and your emotions, fear, hate, love, and everything else you feel; also, that intangible inner awareness of life, of being, found everyday awake, but, also in dreams, and maybe can also found in meditation and supernatural experience, as well, how does that experience relate to the 'false' reality of alternative states, like dreams and hallucinations? What is your definition of reality, and, to defind it, by contrast, your sense of 'aloneness'?

Personally, it’s all ‘reality’ to me, whether my senses are hallucinations, or, ‘deprived‘, or, alone, or not.

G. H. Diel   ghdiel@exoptica.com

Planet Serpo, Deep Sea Aliens and the Pirahãs

A most interesting part of a previous post regarding an alleged expedition of a group of Earth-Human’s extended visit to an extraterrestrial planet, so-called, ‘Serpo’, is the author's detailed descriptions of the inhabitant's odd language. A language that seems to be constructed of a rather singing-like, almost whistling, tonal structure. If invented as a fiction, kudos to the author. This kind of detail is somewhat unique in scifi, but, to my mind, makes for a more plausible suspension of disbelief for the reader, an essential component of the genre.

In the third part of my trilogy, 'Beth, A Story of Travel and Colonization, The Tranlator's Journal', (shameless plug here), I created a unique ‘alien’ language not unlike that described in the expedition member’s diaries, a language made up of the sounds of ‘nature. I have no idea the genesis of the concept of the language in my story -- 'like the sound of wind moving through a forest' -- came from, but, in retrospect, and somewhat to my surprise, it’s there, complete and fairly detailed, but, still, pure fiction.

I have, for most of the time of my adult intellectual and introspective life, believed that Earth to be a wonderful test bed consisting of empirical ‘proofs’ of everything that exists in the universe. In other words, this is world represents 'the' example of ultimate reality, we just have not descovered everything yet.

Not a strange enough concept for your personal concept of reality? Consider these: ‘Dark matter’ so recently defined by cosmologists, if it permeates every where, 'it' should also be here, on Earth, right around the corner, doesn't seem to be the case, however. No, want more? Can do. How about the interior of our sun, or any sun for that matter, plasmas, or thermonuclear explosions, not here on Earth? Wrong. In a lab somewhere, right here on this planet plasmas exist at unbelievably high temperatures, or, a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean, in our all too recent past, thermonuclear reactions ... just like the sun. Want to see alien species? Take a dive to the deepest depth’s of the oceans -- life forms cannot get much stranger than this (though they do), right here on Earth. Anti-gravity? Just 250 miles straight up, and you're floating.

The reference link to this point is the recent article in Spiegel Online - International, about the culture and language of Brazil's Pirahãs tribes.

The language of this people has no, or a very limited, concept of numbers -- not even counting -- and, apparently no art, a difficult time remembering anything past, including no ‘creation myth‘ (common to most cultures), in fact, no stories are told, at all. The Pirahãs seems to be a culture that exists purely in the ‘now’, (see Julian Barbour’s book, ‘The End of Time’.

To further complicate alighment with our culture and language, the Pirahãs tribe's language exists without subordinate clauses, much to the chagrin of linguists like Noam Chomsky. Thus, quoted from the article in Spiegle: "Instead of saying, "When I have finished eating, I would like to speak with you," the Pirahãs say, "I finish eating, I speak with you."

Sounds like a few of my relatives at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a pretty alien world around here, and probably 'out there', but also, right here on Earth.

If you seek answers, look about you. It is all there...right here.

G. H. Diel ghdiel@exoptica.com

Project Serpo: Creepy-scary, just plain false ... or?

I’m not much of a true believer. According to conventional wisdom some things seem immutably true, death, taxes, etc. Yet, even science, history, human intelligence and emotion, governments, and world permeating religions, the Earth itself, all are susceptible to change and continuing re-takes of our understanding.

I'm also not a hardcore skeptic ... I want to believe, and I will suspend disbelief to wallow in possibilities. I don’t take naturally to worshiping things, or kings, or wealth, or influence, or 'gods' unknown -- or believing in sketchy facts. All that said, I am not going to be too surprised, if, one strange day, a provable exception happens to come along. In the mean time, probably just like you, I’ll go along believing in everyday 'reality', unevenly distributed between our beginning and end, birth and death, as our inevitable tumultuous state of existence. But, as a writer I’m always on the look out for that exception, it makes great source material.

Sometimes what a person says, how they phrase a question or a response, suggests something new is coming along, sometimes suggesting truth even when attempting to conceal an outright lie. I believe we are hard wired to tell the difference between truth and lies, and often, what a single person, or a small group of people can accomplish in the face of falshoods astonishes me for its revelation of the beautiful compassion, resourcefulness and creativity of human nature. As I age, though, those moments seem to become more rare, but, fundamentally my trust in humankind remains intact, 'trust', is pretty much all we have when making decisions.

Here is something that caught my eye the other day while searching the internet (I may have read about it earlier, but had set it aside, or this may have been the first time I read it, I don't remember), in any event, it may be true or not. If only a fractional part is true, it would be an astounding event. The quantity of factual accuracy, in this case, does not matter so much for me as the document's strangely plausible details, even if a fiction, or, fabrications and hoax, if you are a debunker, or, conspiracy to conceal, if you are a true believer. One wag responded that the story was not even very good science fiction. I beg to differ, this story is very good at many levels, and mostly, at 'thumbing its nose' at both intransient science and formulistic fiction.

Project Serpo

‘Project Serpo’, the 'secret' reports released on the internet by an 'anonymous' source sometime in 2006, describe human contact with extraterrestrials allegedly occurring in 1947 at a crash site in New Mexico of an ET space craft and the recovery of one of the occupants, alive, and the subsequent exchange program between humans and the ETs (called EBE‘s -- Extraterrestrial Biological Entities, in the documents).

From Wikipedia:

"The first mention of a 'Project Serpo' was in a UFO email list maintained by enthusiast Victor Martinez. Various versions of the conspiracy theory circulated, and were later detailed on a website(serpo.info, now serpo.org). According to the most common version of the story, an alien survived a crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in the later 1940s ... This alien was detained but treated well by American military forces, contacted its home planet and eventually repatriated. The story continues by claiming that this led to the establishment of some sort of relationship between the American government and the people of its home world – said to be a planet of the binary star system Zeta Reticuli. Zeta Reticuli has a history in ufology, having been claimed as the home system of an alien race called the Greys(despite repeated debunking by noted UFO skeptics). The story finally claims that twelve American military personnel visited the planet between 1965 and 1978 and that all of the party have since died, from 'after effects of high radiation levels from the two suns." 

A portrayal of a transcript of President Ronald Reagan being briefed on the event in 1981 (http://www.serpo.org/release27a.php), if fabricated, is amazing, if only in its detail; and if true, is just plain creepy-scary.

More to the point of my comments here, are selected, so-called, 'diary' entries of some of the members of the group of military personnel sent for the extended stay on the planet, called SERPO (or some name that sounded like that when spoken by its inhabitants).

As a story-teller of special interest to me is the 'TEAM COMMANDER'S JOURNAL', and various other team member accounts, while on the 'alien' planet. There are 29 page links on the home site Serpo.org, at the top and bottom of the pages. Links 6-19 are fascinating in their detailing of the strange culture we found there (or perhaps, more accurately, in keeping with the spirit of the story -- Earth, where 'they' found us). If you have time read the whole thing.

If the entire account is a fabrication, the descriptions of the alien planet, its technology and a cursory description of it's culture, geology, dual sun solar system, and even its un-earthlike laws of physics, is almost too real in its detail forcing 'unreality'. Stereotypical science fiction storys are not written with detail like this. In this context, this is better reading than any science fiction I've seen in a long time.

If any part of the document is true, well, that's a whole other story -- you could make a movie of it.

G H Diel                                                                                                                 http://www.exoptica.com/diel

Merry Christmas

I don't say this lightly.

I believe the profound message of Christmas is simple: Love. That is, love one another as you love yourself (here, insert your concept of 'love', apply it to yourself' then to others).

Express this message however you wish; but fundamentally, love, not its opposite, is the essence of our being.

Merry Christmas,

Love, RHN / GHD

Mbranequarkquantumquirkyatomicmolecularcellularhuman-planetsolarsystemgalaxiesnebulauniverseinfinitygod. Yep, that pretty much sums it up in a word.

At some point even the most abstract of symbolic solutions and models demand verbal or written explanation. Getting from the quantum state to our macro world seemed to resist interpretation in any meaningful way, to me, especially using advance mathematics as proof--well, at least not meaningful to me, but, perhaps, to you. In general, I trust the experts, I cannot say the opposite is true.

In any event, there now seems be research drawing a line between the quantum and classical worlds. Apparently It's higher up in the macroscale than previously thought placing the boundary at the scale of the Hydrogen molecule.

How about that?

Here is the link to the ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) , report:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071109090639.htm

Near Death Experience (NDE)

Have you experienced 'near death'? Post a comment here, we'll start a discussion of the topic.

Reference link http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

GHD

Mind v. Soul

Could it be that memory precedes reality?

If the information the mind collects is mere illusion, then, perhaps the soul reliant on this same 'state' of illusion, but also reliant on memory, which--also, by some definitions--may be seen as components of identity and change, may translate illusion into our total understanding, that is, 'mind', or more commonly, reality.

Ordinary wisdom, our intellectual perceptions, suggests the contrary is the truth. If, however, 'mind' is natural and 'soul' supernatural, I might hypothesize the opposite regarding the observation and experience, the sensory experience, of our world reality.

A metal shelf against the wall in my studio, laden with various items, tools, boxes, themselves full of myriad items, books, what have you, to my sensory experience remains constant minute-to-minute, day-to-day, yet according to our laws of physics, I am told this is not strictly true, on a grander scale called 'quantum' the reality is an illusion. All is in motion. In the time it takes for us to observed the phenomena, it has changed many times over, if not in gross structure, certainly at the atomic level. The shelf will be there tomorrow if memory serves me well, even though micro/macro/cosmic motion is a quantum whirlwind. The Earth, the stars, the moon, all have progressed in their orbits this very nano-second. Our 'perception' is reliant on mere memory, so enters the 'soul'.

Those aspects of 'soul-ness', happiness, fear, faith, those aspects of 'being' which we feel, are not easily defined as 'intellectual' states. Again, we rely on experiential memory--does it feel 'right' or 'wrong', will I proceed with choices based on intellectual resolutions? Say, I am hungry for a baked potato with butter and sour cream. I 'remember' enjoying this food in the past, and that 'memory', that sensation 'recall', is what I use to select my dinner, not an intellectual evaluation at all. We do not take an algorithm to the market, nor is it required to choose our next meal.

Is this to suggest memory is a priori to reality? Could be. At the least, 'memory', is a nuanced a priori subtle in hiding, and our 'now' is essentially identical to the memory, incrementally advanced, that is progressed, yet still, for the most part, experience beyond our senses. It is the so-called 'present, and once more--this is all that we observe: only 'memory'. Replace ‘memory’ with 'faith'--and, that which 'was there’, will be there again in the 'now'--in the present. Or, returning to the soul, that which is hoped, faith if you will, will ’be’'.

GHD

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=AJPIAS000073000002000101000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes

The Onion God and the Universe

This metaphor should not take very long.

The universe is like God and an onion.

Perhaps, more accurately, more like God holding an onion, that's the way it would be for us, but, for God, there is no separate state. God is God, God is the universe, and God, is the onion.

Imagine that! And you thought it impossible to comprehend infinity. I mean, once you know what's inside, it's so simple to visualize the concentric spheres of an unpeeled, uncut union. But this comparison does not allow for onion rings--for as God does not play dice, he also does not chop or slice, for he would be doing this unto himself. This God, himself the onion--spherical layer upon spherical layer--has a tightly curled 'heart', prone to sprout as the onion dies.

Each onion layer, let’s say, is a universe, each onion cell a galaxy, the molecules, complete solar systems. And if each onion atom were a world, would we be subatomic particles?

Under a microscope, onion cells look strangely similar to human skin, but that organic comparison is not the point. Which is simply this: the whole onion is like a part of God--the universe, within and without. God’s vantage point is separated from the meat of the onion by a thin, coarse, tough skin. The Old One can hold the onion if he chooses, or not, doing with it as he pleases. So too can you.

Hold the Allium; bounce it, squeeze it, smell it, contemplate its essence, toss it high and watch it sucumb to the force of gravity. Play God for a moment, cradle the onion lovingly, but use caution, do not peel it … unless, of course, you wish to cry--and, God forbid, some say, the 'onion' stinks.

G H Diel BlogOptica