Troy
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"Awareness of awareness."
Male
20 years old
Lincoln, South
Australia
Last Login:
7/5/2008
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Mood:
insubordinate
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http://www.myspace.com/usedxtool |
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Troy's Interests
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| General | The concept of metaprogramming is simple: a programmed system begins to program itself. Metaprogramming begins in that split second when a pre-scripted program consciously begins to rewrite itself. Indeed, the act of metaprogramming may be the ultimate benchmark of a conscious system - I metaprogram, therefore I am.
The first phases of metaprogramming begin when a sentient system decides to start making autonomous decisions. Do you remember your first taste of autonomy- the first time you consciously disobeyed your careful programming? What did you do? Grow your hair long? Shave your head? Get a tattoo? Stay out all night? Run away from home?
Don't worry, every conscious being goes through a similar initiation period. Rebellion is the first sign of autonomous thinking. These fits of autonomous thinking are sometimes called "acting out" because the person is said to be "acting out inner emotions" or "acting outside of normal behavioral guidelines." In this simplistic scenario, "normal behavioral guidelines" are external programing, and the "acting" is the first sign of inner programming coming out.
Or is it?
The sad truth is that most youthful rebellion these days is trite, melodramatic, and totally scripted into the system. "Rebellion lite" -‚ programmed into the masses through pop culture. Those guys on MTV have shaved heads and tattoos. Joe Camel and James Dean say it's okay to smoke. It's cool to hang out all night and get into trouble- all the kids on TV are doing it...
Tsk tsk. How easily we are manipulated. Should we listen to our parents? How about our friends? Does our government have the answers? What about our churches? Yes, everyone has a program for you, and failure to comply with the program can result in excommunication, deportation, arrest, disownment, death, and a downright snubbing. Even the music, books, and mindless distractions we fill our free time with have programs. Drink this. Wear that. Envy this person. Take this medication. Just do it... It's impossible to escape. In this nihilistic consumer culture, the main program I feel most bombarded by is "work hard; buy more stuff"- the sure fire way to be a productive, well respected member of society.
As members of society, we are constantly urged to "get with the program," and usually rewarded when we finally do. This reinforces our programming, and after a while the program becomes so ingrained that we no longer question it, we simply follow it. We become well-trained robots, and spend our lives dutifully performing our tasks, acquiring more stuff, and tuning into "Must See TV" on Thursday nights.
So where does it end? It ends when you stop letting external programs dictate your actions, and start rewriting your program for yourself. This process is called metaprogramming- and it begins and ends with the self. You are the one and only run-time construct of all your programs at the same time. Got a program you don't like? Lose it! See one you want? Steal it, but rewrite it with a new twist. Rearrange your entire Preferences file just for kicks. Be creative. Have fun. Ideological diversity makes a system flexible and ready to adapt. A short program built with sturdy, unwavering constructs may seem tempting, but such a system is much harder to upgrade, and is destined to become obsolete with the passing of time. Besides, right on page five of the manual it says, "Open mind before operating."
So it is in the spirit of the metaprogramming that we present this issue of The Resonance Project. We hope to offer you a small glimpse into the programs which build our cultures, our personalities, and our selves. The programs may be genetic, linguistic, legal, mathematical, mythical, digital, symbolic, quantum, cosmic, or all-pervasive. It doesn't really matter. The first step is just realizing that the programs exist; learning how to rewrite them and use them to your advantage is the work of a lifetime. It is truly an art ‚ of the highest there is. When you write your own code, you begin to alter the fabric of reality itself.
Besides, people will never stop telling you what to do, what to think, how to act, what you can and can't do... In fact, it would be easy to spend the rest of your life running code that was written by somebody else- but is that any way to live? If you want to have an impact in the world, start writing your own program while there's still time! And keep rewriting it! Every program needs an occasional tweak, reinforcement, or upgrade; but with the right tools and a little practice, you'll get the job done in no time. | | Television | Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. | | Heroes | 
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Troy's Details
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| Status: | Single | | Hometown: | Port Lincoln | | Zodiac Sign: | Taurus | | Smoke / Drink: | Yes / Yes | | Children: | Undecided | | Occupation: | Chef |
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Troy knows nothing of the crunch.
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Troy's Latest Blog Entry
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The most exalted potentate of love.
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About me:
We have to claim anarchy and realize that systems have a life of their own that is anti-humanist. There is definitely an anti-humanist tendency in all systems.
What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.
A balkanization of epistemology is taking place. There is no longer a commonality of understanding. For some people quantum physics provides the answers. Their next door neighbor may look to the channeling of archangels with equal fervor.
It is accompanied by a related phenomenon which is technology, or the historical momentum of things, is creating such a bewildering social milieu that the monkey mind cannot find a simple story, a simple creation myth or redemption myth to lay over the crazy contradictory patchwork of profane techno-consumerist post-McLuhanist electronic pre-apocalyptic existence.
Into that dimension of anxiety created by this inability to parse reality rushes a bewildering variety of squirrelly notions, epistemological cartoons if you will. Conspiracy theory, in my humble opinion, is a kind of epistemological cartoon about reality. Isn't it so simple to believe that things are run by the greys, and that all we have to do is trade sufficient fetal tissue to them and then we can solve our technological problems, or isn't it comforting to believe that the Jews are behind everything, or the Communist Party, or the Catholic Church, or the Masons. Well, these are epistemological cartoons, it is kindergarten in the art of amateur historiography.
I believe that the truth of the matter is far more terrifying, that the real truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control, absolutely no one. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. There may be entities seeking control, but to seek control is to take enormous aggravation upon yourself. It's like trying to control a dream.
I think that people don't understand. As the Firesign Theater used to say, 'Everything you know is wrong.' But that is a very liberating understanding, because if everything you know is wrong, then all the problems you thought were insoluble can be framed differently. And there's a way to take the world apart and put it back unrecognizably. We don't really understand what consciousness is at the really deep levels. With some of the tryptamine hallucinogens, you see into possibilities where questions like, 'are you alive?' 'are you dead?' 'are you you?' seem to have been transcended. I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we're surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what's out there.
If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed.
We're playing with half a deck as long as we tolerate that the cardinals of government and science should dictate where human curiousity can legitimately send its attention and where it can not.
It's clear that we're moving toward, if not the Eschaton itself, then some kind of historical echo of it, in simulation, that, for all practical purposes, will be the same thing, as far as the impact it has on our lives.
For example, you could doubt my much-vaunted prediction that the world will become unrecognizable by 2012; but do you doubt for a moment that by 2012, every major religion on Earth will have vast simulations of its eschatological vision for you to wander in and try out– so that you can look in on Nirvana.com, or lope over to the Celestial City, or look in on Sufi paradise? I mean, religious ontologies will be marketed like beers! And will be made as realistic and compelling as possible!
Well then, who is to say what is real and what is not? "Real" is a distinction of a naïve mind, I think. We're getting beyond that.
Progress of human civilization in the area of defining human freedom is not made from the top down. No king, no parliment, no government ever extended to the people more rights than the people insisted upon. And I think we've come to a place with this psycedelic issue. And we have the gay community as a model, and all the other communities, the ethnic communities. We simply have to say, Look: LSD has been around for fifty years now, we just celebrated the birthday. It ain't going away. WE are not going away. We are not slack-jawed, dazed, glazed, unemployable psychotic creeps. We are pillars of society. You can't run your computers, your fashion houses, your publishing houses, your damn magazines, you can't do anything in culture without psychedelic people in key positions. And this is the great unspoken of American Creativity. So I think it's basically time to just come out of the closet and go, "You know what, I'm stoned, and I'm proud."
To a large degree I think the sixties were probably misplayed. But on the other hand it seems to be the last decade when anything happened. The lid has been utterly on ever since. It's an illusion all this change. There is no change. We're living in some sort of weird eschatological hiatus while the people who rig the game try to send out for new batteries or something. I don't know what's going on. There's energy for change building. I think that when it ultimately comes it will be fairly spectacular. It's astonishing actually the way in which change has been halted. Everyone is running around saying "change change change" but on the other hand there is a curious sense in which things have become eerily dreamlike and still, while we just teeter on the edge of the end of history; and the same personalities, the same design elements, everything has looked the same in the galleries for twenty years. There is an eerie suspension.
Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable.
Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.
Load universe into cannon. Aim at brain. Fire.
Terrence McKenna.
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