Colin Andrews - Crop circles and New Age 'energy'

[trainedobserver]

For instance, as is typical with New Age thinking, his understanding of 'energy' is not how science understands energy. To explain briefly what I mean:
When a ball is kicked into the air, it has a certain amount of potential energy when it reaches the maximum height and starts dropping. That's because of gravity's pull on its mass. The ball does not have any tangible 'energy' in the sense that you could take the energy and put the energy in a box and give it to someone else to make an energy field or anything like that. That's pure science fiction.
Just like the 'energy vortices' of Sedona is fiction, and impossible to deal with in a scientific manner because, well, it's simply unscientific. Energy is a potential, it's not a 'thing'.

Yes, exactly. The way that the word"energy" is used in paranormal circles makes scientific consideration of whatever subject it is being sprinkled on literally impossible.

I suspect that most of the energy used to create crop circles comes from pretzels, beer, and the odd sausage.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Odd sausage? Maybe I'm eating the wrong food then.

 

[trainedobserver]

And we are now in touch with Matthew. So stay tuned.

Avoid any conversation about Apple or Apple products. Ah-hem.

Odd sausage? Maybe I'm eating the wrong food then.

It's whatever they are serving behind the bar at the local pub.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Apple or Apple products? Do tell.

 

[Rikki]

my appologys..I been out of it for a while did not 2 guys "doug and dave" admit to making circles?

 

[trainedobserver]

my appologys..I been out of it for a while did not 2 guys "doug and dave" admit to making circles?

Here is the first part of a 3 hour documentary by Williams in which Doug and Dave are interviewed. They are credited with starting the modern craze. They did not claim to make all of the crop circles that were made while they were active as some say. Other people started making them as well pretty early on.

 

[Rikki]

I am listening to the episode now! I want to hear what the gentleman says..then comment further!

 

[Wade]

I'm not really a "crop circle guy" which is to say I don't really have a strong opinion on their origin. Thanx to trained's diligence I am a lot less "woo woo," but I still don't think that every crop circle is the result of a planned playful prank or outright hoax and in that vein and knowing of colin's bent color me not surprised by his talking points. Having said all that I think I'm more troubled by his contact experience where at 30:50 when questioned by gene to quantify his experiences he equated his conscious contact from being in a dream state. Can anyone that had the experience of being in a dream state be of Conscious mind?

What was the dog barking at 5:10?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I enjoyed the episode and although I understand Trainedobserver's point about human-made circles having a paranormal input being the last refuge of the circle believers, I admire the fact that considering how much Andrews has always been at the forefront of circle research - research concluding many circles could not be made by humans - at least he was willing to do nearly a full 180 when presented with undeniable evidence of the extent of 'human' circles. It's refreshing to see someone admitting they were wrong and very wrong.
I also thought it interesting that, in a way, Colin provided a sort of 'out' for the BLT research in that -as he states - no real research had ever been done on growing crops being damaged in this way and some of the results, being 'man-made' might still have been so unexpected as to provide real reason to suspect something out of the norm was going on.

I was totally swayed by the BLT research a while back and it was Rik (Trained) who convinced me otherwise. I don't really know what to make of the idea that some circle-makers might be being 'guided' somehow in their decision to make circles and also in the designs they make.
There is no proof, as Colin himself says, about him saying he meditated a certain design and the very next day it appeared in an adjacent field. If true, then that would be astounding. If we are to believe that there is any truth whatsoever to remote-viewing, then many of the ideas Colin was talking about could at least be possible. It all comes down to the collective unconcious or 'everything is connected' theory I suppose.

I think we can guess what Colin thinks of Robbert Van den Broeke but unfortunately he couldn't really expand on that. Nancy too.

I was kinda disappointed to hear support for Greer, but to be fair, I've heard several people claim strange UAP experiences when out 'contacting' with him. I just don't know what to think of that exactly except that even if true, it doesn't excuse the obvious rubbish that Greer has spouted over the years.


I felt there could have been hours more of talk with Colin but as Jim H said, it could be very new-agey indeed.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I'm not really a "crop circle guy" which is to say I don't really have a strong opinion on their origin. Thanx to trained's diligence I am a lot less "woo woo," but I still don't think that every crop circle is the result of a planned playful prank or outright hoax and in that vein and knowing of colin's bent color me not surprised by his talking points. Having said all that I think I'm more troubled by his contact experience where at 30:50 when questioned by gene to quantify his experiences he equated his conscious contact from being in a dream state. Can anyone that had the experience of being in a dream state be of Conscious mind?

What was the dog barking at 5:10?

Yes. They are all over the neighborhood.

 

[technomage]

Mr. Andrews pushed all my New Age-radar buttons, and not in a good way, I'm afraid.

First of all, he didn't get anything scientific right.

For instance, as is typical with New Age thinking, his understanding of 'energy' is not how science understands energy. To explain briefly what I mean:
When a ball is kicked into the air, it has a certain amount of potential energy when it reaches the maximum height and starts dropping. That's because of gravity's pull on its mass. The ball does not have any tangible 'energy' in the sense that you could take the energy and put the energy in a box and give it to someone else to make an energy field or anything like that. That's pure science fiction.
Just like the 'energy vortices' of Sedona is fiction, and impossible to deal with in a scientific manner because, well, it's simply unscientific. Energy is a potential, it's not a 'thing'.
...
Yes, I admit I get annoyed by frivolous argumentation and ask myself: how can someone investigate for years and years and claim to be scientifically oriented but then not get the most basic scientific concepts right? Answer: Because it's science from a New Age viewpoint. But the truth is, New Age is decidedly anti-scientific, while it arguably exploits and perverts scientific language. If they just said 'God', that's fine, that's honest, but distorting the scientific language to speak about energy, in its broadest sense, is uncool.

In quantum theory, energy is contained in bundles called "quanta". Photons are light particles that have energy. It seems to me that the concepts of potential and kinetic energy are classical concepts which are useful, but are not the only ways of defining energy; just like we can look at light as both a wave and a particle. Even in classical electrodynamics, the field concept was introduced and energy was present throughout a region in space.

I have no idea what Colin Andrews said, since I haven't gotten to this episode yet, so his usage of the concept energy may be unscientific from any perspective. I am just not sure the concept of energy is so narrowly defined (e.g. as only a potential) as you seem to imply here.

 

[Han]

I suspect that most of the energy used to create crop circles comes from pretzels, beer, and the odd sausage.

I think they probably ate Liquorice "Bootlaces"(1), danish "Swirls"(2) and or "Swiss Roll"(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

coincidentally "BLT" means a Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich to me. (well it used to I am a veggie now)

Please don't be angry the Trickster made me do it

 

[trainedobserver]

...but are not the only ways of defining energy; just like we can look at light as both a wave and a particle. Even in classical electrodynamics, the field concept was introduced and energy was present throughout a region in space.

In both quantum and classical physics "energy" is the capacity to do work and not a separate "thing."

 

[technomage]

In both quantum and classical physics "energy" is the capacity to do work and not a separate "thing."

So then a photon isn't energy, it's a particle that contains energy? What makes a photon a bundle of light energy and a proton a bundle of matter, other than the fact that a proton contains mass and a photon doesn't?

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Just going to listen to the show and now that I have read some of the comments will make the show even more interesting ! Yes I been wondering about the "Energy" terminology which is used and Colin being a Engineer would understand its meaning. Therefore more depth conversation on what types of "Energy" does the so called crop circles create? or does it draw from farmers and electrical power lines above or below the areas ?? Also not into new age BS rather open mind to the emerging scientific investigation of remote viewing and physic abilities does this play into Colin's theory on Crop Circle's . Could the late Ingo Swan teams able to transfer of communications of thought into crop circles during the 1970s studies ?

 

[trainedobserver]

So then a photon isn't energy, it's a particle that contains energy? What makes a photon a bundle of light energy and a proton a bundle of matter, other than the fact that a proton contains mass and a photon doesn't?

Well, a photon (which is theoretical mind you) is not "a bundle of light energy." A photon is defined as "a particle representing a quantum of light or other electromagnetic radiation. A photon carries energy proportional to the radiation frequency but has zero rest mass."

Both the proton and the photon have capacities to do work expressed as energy. See this discussion on Scientific Principles which may help.

 

[Burnt State]

I felt this episode did not get deeper into what value, if any, can be taken from the crop circles by way of purpose or message. Andrews seemed to qualify human circlemakers as being guided by secret, mysterious forces as opposed to calculating artists as Jimi identified, and as suggested by my question in the question bank. This type of weird spin on the circlemakers seems to serve Andrews well and may not be in keeping with reality. Speaking of which, it seems that the level of interest in circles, be ye skeptical or believer, is on a high end if the Qbank is any judge of a topic's merits. It will be interesting to see what shakes through on this thread in the next week.

I think that getting better qualifications of the circles in terms of their features, beyond the diatonic scale, and ratios that may well be just a function of the design, especially if the same artist is designing a lot of these, was missing. Other issues such as commonalities regarding water or archeological sites also didn't leave me convinced, as these was no hard fast data accompanying this statement, or any clear sense as to any connection at all between the circle features and archeological features. It sounds more like that around these sites there are fields and the type of people that create situational art would make use of those specific fields - right? Isn't that the point of the art in the fields in the first place?

The initial critique of this topic as "new agey" still stands as i didn't hear anything here that took us into any real critical understanding of the circles. Colin's work in the field has gone on for so long that the connections now are parsed out based on sheer familiarity with the data and the patterns he makes seems to be a design of his own making more-so than anything we can point fingers at and name.

If anyone's getting tuned it's about tuning into the message of the interpreter that is promoting a peace and love agenda, along with a lot of conincidence. I was hoping to get something less wishy washy and something more purposeful. At least BLT really tried to throw a lot of science at the exploding nodes on the wheat and all those distorted genetic mutations that had nothing to do with people with boards and ropes. But then when we found out that was all invention, just like the human made circles they said had phenomenal scientific implications present, we also found out that those claiming scientific interpretations don't take us too far either (see alien implants). What's always needed with these phenomenon is not an individual vision of what is taking place, but critical competing voices that clearly state, independent of each other, what real features, purposes and evidence are actually present.

 

[boomerang]

Up front, I have not yet listened to the Colin Andrews interview. But this sounds like a good time to do so.

On the the discussion of energy as as tangible "thing" vs a potential, this is an example of where we get into trouble in defining physical concepts in verbal language. The energy of the elevated ball is obviously potential. But we also know that mass and energy are in some underlying sense the same "stuff". So hypothetically, potential energy could be converted into some measurable amount of tangible matter.

The same power of verbal language that allows us to describe matter and energy as the same thing, in this case as a phenomenon experimentally verified, may also lead us down paths where we are bogged down in word-processing. That there is a freewheeling New Age abuse of verbal analogy is obvious. For instance, whenever I hear some 90 day pundit (often on "that other show") invoke "vibrational energy" or "frequency" as an explanation for the existence of higher beings (usually but not always angels for some reason) I scramble to change channels. "Energy" happens to be one of those concepts that can be a verbal all-purpose tool to explain virtually everything from room lighting to nuclear fusion to super-beings hiding in one's bedroom closet.

But I think there can be a kind of fuzzy upside to frolicking in free association or loose logical connection. It can be analogous to the brain's own internal search engine--typing a term or concept into a conversation among individuals to see where it leads can be interesting and even productive. Or it can likewise prove nothing. Or it can prove whatever we want it to prove.

 

[Psychedelic_Alchemist]

I think they probably ate Liquorice "Bootlaces"(1), danish "Swirls"(2) and or "Swiss Roll"(3)

(1)

(2)

(3)

coincidentally "BLT" means a Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich to me. (well it used to I am a veggie now)

Please don't be angry the Trickster made me do it

I like the look of those Danish swirls. Such a pity I no longer eat cakes. Damn you Trickster!

 

[Psychedelic_Alchemist]

I enjoyed the interview overall. The crop circle enigma is such a huge field of study (pardon the pun), that it deserves a lot more time in my opinion. Did I hear right near the end when Colin said he doesn't believe the circles have any message? If so, I find that puzzling.

Thanks for asking two of my questions Chris.