The Prison of Time

Wednesday, November 20, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments


According to the Tantric mystics of Tibet, our perceptions of a universe existing in time are incorrect. Above and beyond this illusory reality is the void -- a region where the concept of time itself ceases to have any meaning. The Buddhists also recognize a world which exists beyond time. As eminent Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki states, "In this spiritual world, there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense..."
Because of our apparently linear and sequential experiencing of past, present , and future, it is hardly surprising that we interpret time as an absolute as opposed to a construct. But the physicists are slowly destroying this last myth and are developing an approach to time which more closely resembles the view long held by the mystics. At the moment we are caught between the future and the past in the immeasurable interim of the present. Nothing ever happens in the past (or the future). Everything occurs in the present. These are things we assume without question. So when the physicist Richard Feynman suggests that a positron moving forwards in time is actually an electron moving backwards through time, we must pause. Our thinking cannot readily accommodate the possibility that part of our universe (and even part of our consciousness) might exist beyond the prison of time.

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Collective Unconscious

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments


A category of transpersonal experiences can take us into the realm of the collective unconcious that the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung called archetypal. This region harbors mythological figures, themes, and realms of all the cultures and ages, even those of which we have no intellectual knowledge. In its farthest reaches, individual conciousness can identify with the Universal Mind or Cosmic Conciousness, the creative principle of the universe. Probably the most profound experience available in holotropic states is the identification with the Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void (Sanskrit sunyata), primordial Emptiness and Nothingness that is concious of itself. The Void has a paradoxical nature; it is a vacuum, because it is devoid of any concrete forms, but is also a plenum, since it seems to contain all the creation in a potential form.

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[Review] House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Monday, November 18, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments




I had written a somewhat lengty review of this book, yet when I read what I had put down, I realized it's not really a review, but a wall of text with reasons why Alastair Reynolds is boss.

So instead of posting that I will simply state this: should you find yourself in search of a sci-fi book to read, consider reading House of Suns, it is quite The Shit!

 9/10

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Why Most People's Opinions are Bullshit

Saturday, November 16, 2013 K.Z. Freeman 6 Comments

No, your taste in music is irrelevant. 

I have recently made the mistake of opening up my facebook profile, where upon I was immediately assaulted by a particular brand of ignorance, one I can scarcely countenance.

It was the kind of venting that goes on quite regularly on facebook, and always seems to come from the type of friends we all have on the site. They're the ones you are at a loss to explain as to what they're still doing in your friends list, save perhaps to try and  hide the fact that you actually have more like 5 people (if that) in your life that you may call a friend, and not 200+.

So forget for a moment, if you will, that this post shall consist of me venting about someone else venting, and get yourself some fucking tea, coffee or cocaine and read on if you must.

I confess I am at once shocked and not at all surprised to see something like this come from a person in their mid twenties. I always assumed some things become clear to you by that point. Apparently, I was, and still am – as per usual – quite mistaken.

Alas, it would seem I too possess a great measure of ignorance, since at times I actually start to believe most people can think somewhat straight. Funny. Only it's not.

The argument I was met with is a tired one, and it goes precisely like this: Music is not what it used to be. This generation will never know what real music is and what it used to mean. I know this because my taste in music is perfect.

The last sentence is implied, but it could just as easily be written in bold, because what it suggests is absurd in itself.

Are people truly, truly?? this ignorant to subjective experience and that what they are professing is, in fact, the ridiculous notion of their opinion having any basis AT ALL.

The argument that, the way music made you feel will never be the same for others because music has changed, is ridiculous, and if you think this argument is valid, then you are in some way inept and perhaps mentally retarded.

It feels like I shouldn't even have to EVER explain this to anyone, and that I shouldn't bother, but goddammit some of us have to do it, so this shit stops (Although it never will, will it? It's like asking people not to be stupid). However, I suppose it's me being naive, when I hope that, should the person who said this direct but half an IOTA of thought towards their own ignorance, he or she might correct it. Because clearly they devoted some thought to this if they managed, in their infinite knowledge and understanding, figure out that MUSIC WILL NEVER BE THE SAME FOR THESE NEW PEOPLE, DERP.

The real reason why I am so annoyed by this is because the truth is so simple. It is this: The feelings you get from music, are you. There may be residual imprints that others have projected upon you ABOUT that music, and this may in fact make you consider or think about the music differently, perhaps even make you feel differently about it, but no matter what, it will always remain a thing of SELF. And that will happen no matter what the music becomes, who plays it and how. Music has no value save that which you give it. And why this is so difficult a concept to comprehend for some is a thing I refuse to think about, as I fear it may expose fresh layers of inept thinking and bullshitery.

When women discover how to make music with their butts I will call that a victory, but I digress.

This argument of MUSIC NOT BEING WHAT IT USED TO BE (as if the one who said this has lived for 150 years, as opposed to being a complete waste of resources and sustenance for roughly a sixth of that time) AND THAT THE NEW GENERATION WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO APPRICIATE THE OLDIES, is the same as devaluating a bushman pounding on drums and nullifying his inner experience as something lesser, because he does not have the sense to appreciate your indie fucking rock.

It is like me saying a word, and you thinking what that word means, then me not being happy about what you consider that word to imply. Bullshit.

Let’s use the word Love as an example. The images the word creates and the feelings of love or lack of love it produces is fully contingent upon the observer. We may draw two different feelings from the word, and we will inevitably draw similarities due to our INNER imagery being similar in relation to the word's concept, but that does not devaluate either of our experiences or impressions about that word. The same goes with music.

When we realize that what we see, especially in other people, will always be a caricature drawn from our feelings about that person (and in fact our projection of self upon that person), we may begin to realize that ALL experience is subjective, unfolding differently for each mind. We may look for others in ourselves and seek ourselves in others, but to deflate the experience of another mind because we do not understand a thing they profess they understand and feel, is heinosity of thought. And perhaps an even greater act of heinosity is me giving such cretinous thoughts any room in my head… But I did, and now I shall cease.


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