Coincidence, Chaos, & Archetypes: Eric Wargo will be our GUEST

[Christopher O'Brien]

I've been reading a series of articles written by Eric Wargo that includes an excellent thought-provoking look at many of the conundrums that are post on The Paracast by our worthy cast of "sci-fi" posters:

Coincidence, Chaos, & Archetypes in Our Science-Fictional World

We will be visiting Eric's trickster realm of self-fulling prophesy generated by us in the future (and other mind-warping what-if scenarios). Eric asks, were both Plato and Jung wrong to bark up their particular existential trees? Here is Eric's "Eureka" moment:

"[A]rchetypes” as such—as well as the Platonic world of “forms” ...are really an illusory or anamorphic effect produced by not seeing or recognizing...self-confirmatory time loops, these informational/emotional eddies in the spacetime continuum, and failing to see our own role in feeding them through our perceptions and actions. We ourselves make meaning, including the intensified meaningful nuclei in the collective unconscious that so fascinated Jung and that formed the centerpiece of Platonic metaphysics."

Sounds cool, don't you think? Read Eric's articles and get ready! We are taping Eric this THURSDAY May 30th, 10 - 12 noon [PT]

POST your QUESTIONS HERE:

 

[technomage]

1. Rather than time loops being the cause of archetypes and the world of forms, can't it be some link with a parallel universe instead in which the decisions made were slightly different than in our universe? This would eliminate time-loop paradoxes.
2. Is there any way to test your time loop theory so we can determine if you're on the right track or not?

 

[Jeff Davis]

Excellent! Eric is one of my absolute favorite thinkers with respect to the deeper aspects of consciousness and the paranormal. Brilliant. I first read this post last week and I also read the previous posts that that this post links to at the same time. After which, I went back today and re-read this post. I must say, it's very heavy and thought provoking material. Not sure if I honestly understand the concept of archetypes as Eric is using it here or not. Let me ask some basic questions to help myself to better understand the concepts involved.

1) In your hypothetical estimate, does the notion of how archetypes show up as coincidences, precognition, or as synchronicities, include the precept that we are creating our perceptions of these archetypes in our realities by projecting them into our day to day lives due to the reinforcing formative nature of these time loops? Further then, do we mistakenly believe these projections to be actual self confirming synchronicities as result of their coinciding with high levels of key interest within our lives? Or are you stating that we actually alter reality somehow? Are these emphasis then translated to a universal or collective language of archetypes? Is this as you state mistaken precognitions as synchronicity due to believing synchronicity as mysticism first, before and over routine instincts that more so point and direct us via our instinctual psi?

2) Eric, what do you think about the notion that synchronicity might represent future memories? The possibility that experience itself may be our memory's relevant translation or reflection of the language of information as demonstrated via consciousness, is pivotal to me. I too contend that information is retrieved by our cognitive faculties uniformly across the bi-directional freeway of time.

3) What do you think about the Holographic Universe Theory and how it's precepts might fit into the notion of time, physicality, psi, and ultimately, conscious experience. Does it speak to you of the entirety of what might be existent dualism's naturally precognitive informational staging?

Some thoughts that I would love to hear you reflect on, but there may in fact not be enough time within the scope of the show to do so in.

If we can call information a particle of sorts, it can possibly exist in two places at once. If time is a dimensional place, information can exist within time in two locations at once entangled. Possibly, our bioelectric physical cognitive abilities give our memories their linear signatures which results in a baseline perspective of "looking back/reflective" perceptual relevance. One that we routinely perceive as being just one way, when in all reality during times of synchronicity we are "remembering the future" of events yet perceived physically due to a phase relative informational displacement that gives it the memory illusion of not yet taking place, while being recognizably familiar. With respect to holographic universe theories, this might help to bolster the notion of the initial information's occurrent displacement prior to it's projected transfer into what would be the physically entrained realm we call day to day reality.

The second possibility in which PKD postulated that he was messing with, or haunting himself, is more so relevant to an overall theme of dualism that seems ever present in nature. It's both a natural and logical speculation. The positive/negative, black/white, day/night, of existence in which an ethereal double, or spirit self, comprises our own bi-localized quantum relevant polarized existence. A world in which all physicality is met with an equal and opposite ethereality. One that experiences the linear nature of time based decay, along with toil of experience, and one that forms an ongoing, time irrelevant akashic imprint or record of every informational potential that occurs from birth to death across the cyclic nature of existence. Of course Philip, loyal to his science fictional roots was contending that we as future time travelers were accomplishing as much in some manipulative, helpful manner.

Eric, I love your inspiring input on so many different subjects, and the thoroughly thought provoking insights you provide your readers.

Keep it up my friend, a loyal and thoroughly entertained reader/fan,
Jeff Davis

 

[Eric Wargo]

Thanks much, Jeff!--and thanks for your great comments on my blog.

I think (I hope) that the interview will answer your question #1, so I'll be curious to hear your reactions.

If I understand your question #2, whether we are "remembering the future," I'd have to say no, I don't think that. I believe that is basically the argument that Anthony Peake has made in his books--essentially that our whole experience is a memory and we just keep re-living the same existence over and over. I disagree; I don't think there's an etched-in-stone (or etched-in-glass) time stream, but that it is radically open-ended not only temporally but also spatially; that is, history is different depending on where you are, and even within our own mind/brains there are multiple versions of reality competing with each other. What this means for precognition is that we are not remembering some future immutable event that has "already happened" in some larger Minkowski glass block universe, but that we are receiving more or less vague information about future historical contours, not unlike the way the future timescape is represented by Frank Herbert in his Dune novels. Future information is subject to alteration by our actions, thus much of the "information" received from the future is negated or nullified by our actions that fail to conform to it or, occasionally, taken to actually prevent it (as in the case of a premonitory warning we heed), and thus our actions turn that information into noise.

As for #3 and the Holographic Universe theory, I honestly don't know. I think it's a cool theory and a cool metaphor, but in the end that's what all these theories are: metaphors. In some ways, maybe the universe is like a hologram, but the hologram is already 1980s technology; I'm eager for the next pictorial revolution that will really blow our minds as a metaphor for how the universe and information are structured. I have no idea what that will be. I will say that one of my favorite cosmological models is that of t'Hooft (I'm probably misspelling his last name), who suggests that there are just two dimensions of spacetime, and that the "higher" dimensions are a kind of special effect or perceptual distortion created at low energies. See my post on "UFOs and Anamorphosis" for a more detailed explanation, but this seems intuitively right to me based on my non-physicist's understanding of Relativistic physics: Basically, the universe is flat but on that flat surface an illusion of spatial and temporal depth can be produced, not unlike perspective in a photograph or painting. It's wild to think we may be living in a true Flatland after all.

Re: PKD, I wish I could give you an intelligent-sounding answer but I can't. People will be wrestling with PKD and his Exegesis for centuries I think (as probably the most important religious/spiritual text of the 20th century). I do love your characterization: "A world in which all physicality is met with an equal and opposite ethereality." This sounds much like "the Imaginal" in Henri Corbin's work, and that's basically how I've always viewed his experience of 70AD Syria overlaid on 1970s Orange County. Do I think he was living in both times at once? Much as I love the idea and the image, I guess I don't, in the end. I think his brain was creating a waking dream of Syria out of his vast unconscious storehouse of knowledge. One could argue, though, that he could have been seeing into the past somehow, perhaps because something in his brain created a short circuit with symbols linking him to that past--which I guess would be an "archetype" (which I just argued against on the show ... so maybe I'd better shut up! ).

Cheers,
Eric

 

[Eric Wargo]

Technomage, great questions. Alternative universes as you suggest in question 1 would I guess be another way of expressing what I'm saying. I tend not to like "alternative universes" terminology because to me it suggests those universes don't interact. On the other hand, if they do interact, why call them universes at all? But yes, I do think it is key that multiple versions of history is that they aren't quite exactly the same but do coexist/overlap. As for (#2) testing it ... I don't know how you would test this. The biggest obstacle is the idiosyncratic, personal nature of the symbols (not to mention emotions) involved in "carrying" psi phenomena. Personal meanings can't be quantified and standardized--they are an "n of 1." In fact this is the basic problem that has rendered standard psychoanalytic theories of dream interpretation 'persona non grata' in the scientific world too, right along with the paranormal; personal meanings and symbols are very hard to test in the lab.

 

[Constance]

Very interesting discussion. I'll need to listen to the Paracast interview and also look up some of your written work. What would you recommend (and link) as the clearest exposition of your thinking at this point?

 

[Eric Wargo]

Hi Constance, actually the interview managed to sum up a lot of my thinking pretty well! We covered a lot of ground in two hours. Regarding psi and synchronicity, I think my Nightshirt blog post linked at the top of this thread, "Coincidence, Chaos, and Archetypes..." is probably the clearest and most concise statement of my theory that synchronicity is simply misrecognized precognition, although the several posts leading up to it (which you can see in the "Recent Posts" on my blog homepage) have a lot of concrete examples that support the argument (ranging from precognitive phenomena around the Titanic and 9/11 to various less famous synchronicities).

In the first half of the interview we also got to address ufology, which was a pleasure to discuss even though I haven't been writing much about that recently. My post "No Visitors" sums up my thoughts on the ETH. Let me know what you think.

 

[Constance]

Thank you for the information. I'll try to catch up with the interview and the linked blogs in the next few days. May I ask now what you think regarding veridical cases of remote viewing? What is happening in those cases?

 

[Eric Wargo]

I don't know, but I do think it is possible that remote viewing is precognizing the "scene of feedback" in the future, rather than seeing something in one's own timeframe at a distance. I'm not the first to have suggested this; in fact just this past week I read a new article by Sonali Marwaha and Edwin May in which, among other things, they argue that ALL psi is precognitive, although I confess I didn't fully follow their argument on my quick read. Some cases would not fit this model however, including some of the classified stuff the SRI viewers saw, and particularly the remarkable case reported by Russell Targ in which Pat Price erred in one of his RV sessions by seeing a structure that was only built after he'd died. That pretty much would go against my model (unless you bring the afterlife into it ).

 

[storge]

I'm pretty sure the plural of conundrum is conundra, but don't ask me the plural of paradox, I'm not certain!

OK Eric what if coincidences seem surprising to us (and there's an argument to be made that coincidences only exist in our perception of them I'm sure) because we misinterpret the nature of reality on a continuing basis, assigning everything to a cause-and-effect model, whereas things actually sort of break as quantum waves deciding upon a probability, or as a reflection of the light which is the thought of a vast but single mind masquerading as many separate individuals? So like you're thinking about a plate of jumbo shrimp, and then Beavis calls Butthead an oxymoron.

 

[Constance]

I don't know, but I do think it is possible that remote viewing is precognizing the "scene of feedback" in the future, rather than seeing something in one's own timeframe at a distance. I'm not the first to have suggested this; in fact just this past week I read a new article by Sonali Marwaha and Edwin May in which, among other things, they argue that ALL psi is precognitive,

@Eric Wargo, if you're still reading this thread do you have a link to that article? I've searched for it and reached this page, which includes a number of references and links relevant for a discussion of this topic:

Retrocausality: Physicists Ponder Whether the Future Can Influence the Past | The Daily Grail

although I confess I didn't fully follow their argument on my quick read. Some cases would not fit this model however, including some of the classified stuff the SRI viewers saw, and particularly the remarkable case reported by Russell Targ in which Pat Price erred in one of his RV sessions by seeing a structure that was only built after he'd died. That pretty much would go against my model (unless you bring the afterlife into it ).

What would your model look like if you do bring the afterlife into it? There is considerable veridical evidence that individual consciousness does survive the death of the body. If so, it seems to me that the temporality and historicity of embodied existence in local worlds might present no bar to a capacity of embodied consciousness to obtain information from the future and even from an atemporal dimension of being that 'contains' or encompasses all existence. The Pat Price viewing you cite seems to require something like what I'm suggesting. Also can you describe some of the other still-classified RV sessions experienced by the SRI viewers that you refer to above?

 

[Burnt State]

Do you think retro causality plays a role in UFO experiences/sightings as per Boomerang's comments on the Doped up Ufologists thread?

 

[Constance]

Do you think retro causality plays a role in UFO experiences/sightings as per Boomerang's comments on the Doped up Ufologists thread?

I'm not sure you addressed that question to me, but I'll respond anyway. I didn't actually understand that post by Boomerang, and I don't understand the grounds for proposing retrocausality. I don't think that precognition suggests retrocausality, but as I said I don't actually have any understanding of what is meant by that term. I hope @boomerang will respond and clarify this concept and whatever supports it.

 

[Eric Wargo]

@Eric Wargo, if you're still reading this thread do you have a link to that article?

Hi Constance, yes, the article is here: http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/spsgo/5/1/2158244015576056.full.pdf

@Eric WargoWhat would your model look like if you do bring the afterlife into it? There is considerable veridical evidence that individual consciousness does survive the death of the body. If so, it seems to me that the temporality and historicity of embodied existence in local worlds might present no bar to a capacity of embodied consciousness to obtain information from the future and even from an atemporal dimension of being that 'contains' or encompasses all existence. The Pat Price viewing you cite seems to require something like what I'm suggesting. Also can you describe some of the other still-classified RV sessions experienced by the SRI viewers that you refer to above?

Great question re: the afterlife. What you're suggesting could be true--I'm not as up on the evidence for survival. However, one of the crucial pieces of my model is excitement and emotionality, which I really think of as very embodied phenomena. Whether one's future disembodied or reincarnated soul could transmit that excitement back in time to one's present incarnation ... who knows. It just seems like we're very much in the realm of speculation here.

As for RV sessions that were only verified way after the fact, indirectly or by accident, see Paul Smith's memoir Reading the Enemy's Mind. He gives a couple examples of RV sessions whose accuracy he only (indirectly) verified long after the fact because they had been classified for a long time. I can't remember specifically what they were. But much of the classified RV work with the military seems like it could disconfirm my theory, or else show how advanced RV-ers might key in on a different source of future signal than an exciting scene of confirmation.

 

[Eric Wargo]

Do you think retro causality plays a role in UFO experiences/sightings as per Boomerang's comments on the Doped up Ufologists thread?

I do very much think it is possible that precognition (equivalent to retrocausality) or retrocognition could play a role in UFO experiences, as well as other manifestations/apparitions--in other words, the witness isn't seeing something happening then and there, but seeing something that happened in the past or might happen in the future.

I didn't read the whole thread, but it seems like most of us agree that UFO phenomena involve some complex interaction of a bizarre, real stimulus with our own unconscious filters and cultural and personal beliefs, which radically distort what "really happened" and give it a unique symbolic density. It's highly plausible that certain altered states open up the doors to perceiving such things, yet they seem just as capable of distorting them. But I do think that in understanding the phenomenon we also need to include precognition as a real and constant part of our unconscious interaction with the world, which alters all the familiar equations about causality and common sense. Many UFO encounters have a tricksterish component, and I like John Alexander's term "precognitive sentient phenomena" to describe this We shouldn't forget that WE are not only sentient but also precognitive, so many paranormal phenomena may derive some of their strangeness from our own misrecognition of our precognitive/psychic nature.

 

[boomerang]

Eric, thanks for your great interview and also for weighing in. Reviewing the history of the UFO, do you sometimes get the impression it ("it" taking in a wide range of phenomena) is at liberty to "disobey" time as a linear sequence of events and also the concept of space as we know it? I'm not claiming answers. But I cannot shake the feeling that the UFO--whether it is generated from outside our consciousness or in conjunction with it-- is in (complete?) control of space and time.

 

[Eric Wargo]

Eric, thanks for your great interview and also for weighing in. Reviewing the history of the UFO, do you sometimes get the impression it ("it" taking in a wide range of phenomena) is at liberty to "disobey" time as a linear sequence of events and also the concept of space as we know it? I'm not claiming answers. But I cannot shake the feeling that the UFO--whether it is generated from outside our consciousness or in conjunction with it-- is in (complete?) control of space and time.

Thanks, Boomerang. Yes, I do think disobedience/control of time and space is intrinsic to the phenomenon. If you think about it, it would have to be, even on the most "nuts and bolts" level: The ability to defy gravity/inertia must (according to Einstein) be a defiance of time, and vice versa. Time is really the nut we have to crack if we're going to get any handle on UFOs, consciousness, the works.

 

[Burnt State]

So if UFO's are trying to teach us something about time, and they keep involving themselves in the lives of witnesses, inserting themselves into dreams and memories, even stretching deeply and persistently into our culture, then what is it about time we need to know that we don't know?

 

[Eric Wargo]

So if UFO's are trying to teach us something about time, and they keep involving themselves in the lives of witnesses, inserting themselves into dreams and memories, even stretching deeply and persistently into our culture, then what is it about time we need to know that we don't know?

I'm not saying UFOs are trying to teach us, just that we need to understand time better. I think most physicists would agree that we really don't have a handle on what time is. The old Minkowski/Einstein idea that it's a dimension like any other doesn't hold up, I don't think. And time is bound up with how we think about consciousness, self, ego, etc. It's been suggested it's a linguistic illusion. I don't know the answer.

 

[Burnt State]

I'm not saying UFOs are trying to teach us, just that we need to understand time better. I think most physicists would agree that we really don't have a handle on what time is. The old Minkowski/Einstein idea that it's a dimension like any other doesn't hold up, I don't think. And time is bound up with how we think about consciousness, self, ego, etc. It's been suggested it's a linguistic illusion. I don't know the answer.

as an invention it's a powerful one. what part of the history of human culture has it not defined. imagine living in a paradigm without time as the dominant feature of how we think of ourselves. some languages deal with tense in a more elaborate or even less defined manner than English and it would definitely be worth studying to determine larger effects cross culturally. a running joke I would imagine in some cultures without a future tense would be, "that's the reason why nothing gets done around here." in cultures where the past is also present I would expect to see a very different type of morality and work flow. but on the whole, as the earth moves around the sun and the moon moves around us, it seems that what has driven early human culture has been counting time and making predictions about these markers as seen in our megalithic structures. this has given us a sense of stability and place in the cosmos.

The UFO on the other hand is unpredictable - messes with our paradigms and helps to rearrange time for the witness/experiencer. Some may be trapped or even haunted by memories. There is a dislocating process at work here and as much as language may have constructed time I can't get over how we have such a limited vocabulary to help us understand the UFO. Maybe, in time (apologies), we will have better words to helps us with this problem.