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Summary by TK
Jan Cox Talk 0229 - Oct 9, 1986 - runtime 1:40
[Particle physics and the paradoxes of observer interaction with the observed: 1. the particle doesn't exist until observed ("Copenhagen convention") and 2. the non-local character of particle-level events,i.e., trans-light speed, unseen connection. Relation to consciousness turning verbs into nouns; the separating of the "Infinite Statement" of Life into sequential sentences/comments; the adding of periods and capitalization. All attempts at transcendence are efforts to extract oneself from the infinite statement in order to see it; refine the conscious sentences. Life is an infinite statement and cannot remember everything it ever said. Ordinary gods always excel at what YOU can't do --i.e., control your violent temper. Consciousness is a "collating and folding machine in the great seamless infinite office". The Few need to remove all periods and commas while simultaneously remembering to continue to do so. Consciousness as the "folded map" of I + Not-I where the + is the fold. The payoff of This thing, so-called enlightenment, is the unfolded map; creases removed. No comparisons are possible. Human emotions = creases in the map. In a sense The Few don't"feel" anymore, or at least can't talk about it. Relation to not telling people what you feel. Example of teams or armies in competition where there is a change of momentum, one army suddenly grows weak for inexplicable reasons and the other army instantly smells it and takes advantage and the tide of battle turns. This is the ordinary sensed understanding, but from the unfolded map view it is all an internal readjustment of an integral, singular system --not isolated conflicting groups where one suddenly triumphs due to seeming supernatural turn of fortunes. J.goes one better on Shakespeare's "all of life's a stage and men but poor players thereon": "all of Life is life and we are but some of its internal processes". Notice that he won't get famous with this however,yet it's the all and everything of Reality for The Few.]
[Consider a TV quiz show like "Let's make a deal" where there are only 2 doors instead of 3 doors (behind one is the Grand Prize, behind the other the Booby Prize). You should be able to feel the absolutely quantum difference between these two conceptions--2 doors vs. 3. Like 2 different universes almost.]
[The fear ofJ. --Consider: is it a fear of what he might say? ]
[Re: dilution of AMV12. Fear is one of the most debilitating emotions possible. Even to the point of being "inhumane". The ordinary take fear to be a "psychological" malfunction, but it is a real, literal biochemical condition; physical. ]
[The question of being "not wired for accuracy" --this from one who is of an artistic interest and accomplishment.]
[The corollary to the Tough Shit cannon: "Hitch up your pants, smile up your face and cry out "tough shit!". This cry should have the qualities of: futuristic; militaristic, almost silly and secret. ]
[1:08 Message to tape viewers re: ATL property (EVOTECK building). Group to present a more or less full fledged Broadway-like show. Solid theater --not a revue. Must have a storyline. J. suggests a play about church using it for god, This thing and religion etc. Don't be secretive or mysterious--treat as a theater production group effort when people are curious. Of course, it goes without saying, it must involve This thing --but for The Few, they're covered everywhere in such.
Transcript
AN UNFOLDED MAP
Document: 229, October 9, 1986
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1986
For three or four decades there have been two areas in particle physics debated among physicists, one being that of trying to determine the effect of observation upon the thing being observed. How does the act of observation affect this particle? How do we know what it would have been had we not observed it, had we not participated in its existence? A partial answer to this problem, there's now a theory that a particular atom or particle does not actually exist until it is observed, which of course to the ordinary sequential mind is irrational. It is the hypothesis that a particle does not possess characteristics in and of itself. Whatever is observed is what it is; so it is the act of observation that creates it.
Another aspect physicists keep wrestling with, has been referred to as the nonlocal theorem: that even the attempt to observe a particular atom is not a localized endeavor -- everything in the universe is connected with that one observation.
Taking these two approaches, these two attempts to explain the very curious nature of the sub-observable, particle world, let me expand into my own greater theorem: The Infinite Statement. That is what Life is. It is an unfolded map, a seamless fabric. Ordinary consciousness can only deal with and be aware of separate pieces. To be conscious of something is in fact to isolate that thing, to extract it from the seamless fabric. And further, in order to remember anything, you have to be able to compare it to something else. Memory operates on a binary basis. You cannot remember something without a simultaneous perception of its apparent opposite.
Consciousness turns the non-ending verb, the continual action of Life into a noun. What consciousness does is take The Infinite Statement and rend it into sequential comments, into sentences. To perceive and deal with anything -- whether it be physics or morality, whether it be material or "spiritual" -- consciousness must break The Infinite Statement of Life itself into sentences. Consciousness must have periods first, and then capital letters. It's gotta be able to see the end of what went before; and then it believes it can see the beginning of a new sentence. This is the basis of apparent, sequential information. This is the basis of the usable food for ordinary consciousness, for the mind, for the Yellow Circuit.
I suggest to you that what everyone seeks is what they're in the midst of -- everyone, from the physicist to the guy who reads occult books. Everyone seeks The Infinite Statement, and there is no beginning or end to it. Anything you want to know is right here. Where we are alive in the statement is where the most potent, the most current information lives.
If you could distance yourself from the isolated sentences, if you could extract yourself from the sentence or series of sentences, you could see that all the sentences were arbitrarily, or in a sense artificially, combed out of The Infinite Statement. Also, every sentence, whether it apparently has a scientific, religious, or psychological basis, has some validity. It is a mistake to say any sentence is completely invalid, since all are extracted from The Infinite Statement. If the sentence came from The Infinite Statement, it's got some validity. It may prove that this particular sentence was extracted in the wrong time and place, or had a period in the wrong place, or Man stopped the sentence too soon or let it run on too long and it proved less than profitable. It may be that in the horizontal run of time, ten sentences down the line, somebody will come along and say, "Wait! If we move the period, if we put a semicolon back where there was a period between sentences and put them together, then what they were attempting to look at back in such and such time now makes sense, a new discovery, a new breakthrough!" It is all part of The Infinite Statement. It is the continual comment of Life itself.
You should find it curious that in particle physics, scientists are attempting to find the basic building block of "reality." But all they're ever going to find, all ordinary consciousness can find, is further refined sentences. Some old ones stuck together, imaginary new ones of tomorrow stuck with an old one, some periods removed, some commas put in, some commas removed, some periods put in, some semicolons turned upside down. The Infinite Statement is what everyone seeks -- mystics and scientists alike. The Infinite Statement is what Life is talking to about itself, but Life cannot remember everything it has ever said or thought. Can you? Can you remember everything you've ever thought all at one time? If you could, that would be your Infinite Statement. If you could, you would have a moment that would make the word epiphany sound like it came out of a cornflakes box as some kind of prize. But you cannot.
Ordinary folks still believe their gods can do anything, but I assure you their gods cannot. If people reminded their gods of covenants and promises they had made, the gods would have to say, "Well, I don't remember doing that." If the people say, "Well, here it is. You signed it 2200 years ago," he might look and say, "Well, o.k. I forgot about it. What else is new?" People expect their gods to be a lot better than that. You should Consider: Why do humans believe their gods to be so gifted? Ask any group, any tribe, any neighborhood, any congregation on this planet, "Can you do all the things you attribute to your god? Such as never forget anything you ever said?" "Why, certainly I can't do that!" "But that's one of the attributes of your gods. What about these stories of how gods make promises of revenge, or that they're going to repay some good deed and it takes thousands of years and the gods never forget?" "That's right!" "But you can't do that? You can't remember what you said last week?" "No." You should find it curious that everything people imagine about their gods are things they can't do. Of course, if you are simpleminded in a non-enriched sense, you may say, "Well, certainly. That's the whole purpose of being a god!" If you say that...you missed it!
How come gods are not great at something you can do? That's not the way it works. But then, if you can hear this, I suggest to you there is something rotten not necessarily in the Scandinavian area, but in the world of sequential events. Everything you find to be lacking, such as your memory, is suddenly turned into one of the absolute, incontrovertible talents of your god, your neighborhood's gods. That should tell you something. All of humanity's gods do not excel in anything that you can do. For example, suppose you come from a neighborhood, a community, a country, a race, some little tribe that is known for having terrible tempers. Do you think your tribesmen would have gods known for tempers worse than yours? Let's make it cruder. Let's take it down to the level of physical characteristics. What if your tribe has gargantuan noses? You know your god doesn't have an even bigger nose. Your god will have a little tinny-weeny nose, a cute little button nose, and he's going to be the most passive, non-hostile god you can imagine.
I suggest to you there is something that can be learned from this. Not sequentially, because it doesn't make sequential sense. It's as if there is a seamless office of universal awareness somewhere, and ordinary consciousness is like a collating and folding machine. That is what ordinary awareness is: you're not dealing with a seamless universe, you're dealing with a folded map. If the map did not have creases in it, torn places, or places where the map had been folded over and over and over -- were it not for that, you'd not know where you were. You'd not be able to tell the difference between things. It would be as if the ants (from my story) were on an infinite napkin. There would be no boundaries. They could not even tell the difference between a drawing of a chocolate cake and potato salad. How can you draw anything in a 3-D world if there are no lines to it? How can you draw a cartoon of a chocolate cake without drawing its outline?
That would be an infinite map; that would be The Infinite Statement. If you attempt to hear it with ordinary consciousness, you would either hear everything at once, or you would hear nothing at all. By and large, people hear nothing. You can say, "Listen!" People say, "Well, what?" "Listen, just listen. Can't you hear what's going on?" "I don't hear anything." They didn't hear anything until they said that. They were not even aware they didn't hear anything until they said, "I don't hear anything." Does that sound familiar? Doesn't it harken you back to the physicists' hypothesis that particles don't exist until we measure them? "Well, listen!" "I'm listening." "What do you hear?" "Nothing!" Until you attempt to measure it, observe it with ordinary consciousness, fold it, crease the map, stop the sentence somewhere by saying, "But I don't hear anything," you heard something. You heard a sentence out of The Infinite Statement. The sentence you heard was you saying, "I don't hear anything."
In a sense, everybody knows everything. You know everything you need to know, which is one reason everybody believes all secret information is out there somewhere. Everything they want to know is somewhere, but it's all in the folds and creases of consciousness. It's as though everybody has a piece of paper containing all the information, but it's all folded up. So you look down and see little pieces here and there and say, "Well, I believe I know this and I believe I know this." And when you turn it over, you forget the part on the other side of the crease. It's all in bits and pieces. You get to a certain point and think, "I've almost got something. I almost understand why people mistreat each other." Then you get to the place where the map has been folded, turn it over and it says something else. You can't remember where the sentence started so you have to make a new sentence. If you take out all the periods, all the commas, and turn it into your own Infinite Statement, I suggest again, you would certainly have something. You would have everything that you had ever said -- of course, I'm being magnanimous -- you would have everything that has been said through you, every passion that has ever flowed through you, every act done physically through you -- with no period. If they were all strung out into an Infinite Statement and you had the ability to be aware of it with no commas, no question marks, no periods, you'd be in, shall we say, a very unusual condition. You would not be fit to drive heavy machinery at that time. You would not be willing to call your mother and ask, "How is everything going?"
All my varied descriptions of the Yellow Circuit point very closely to the fact that there is no "out there." Ordinary consciousness, though, folds its awareness, and the fold is the plus sign in my equation I + Not-I = Everything. It's your skin -- the boundaries of your awareness. You turn the map over and sure enough, it's a different part. It's "out there" and it's Not-I. Turn the map back over, and it's I; it's me, it's everything you think, feel, remember and (turn the map) oh, and then there is everybody else that makes you mad and afraid. That's your Not-I. Ordinary consciousness can't straighten the map out, much less realize it's all one thing. Even if it could, it wouldn't make any sense. To ordinary consciousness it would be some kind of irrational babble. The payoff of This, in a sense, is in being able to smooth the map out and see you plus not you, plus everything that has flowed through you. The creases are gone. You unfold the map and there it is. You realize that it starts and there are no commas, no periods and that's it. You must understand that you would see no opposites. There would be neither time nor room for comparisons. You can't compare without punctuation. To compare things you have got to have punctuation, that is, a crease. You've got to fold the map. If it's unfolded, if you're dealing with a seamless map of your life, there's nothing to compare. There is no way to compare how you've been treated as opposed to mistreated, whether the whole world seems intent in making you a receptacle for its collective urinalysis. There is no way to compare it.
If you followed that, you might also see that a seamless perception would infringe upon your individual civil rights to feel as an ordinary human. Because you would have to be able to punctuate, you'd have to break down this unfolded map, the Infinite Statement of you in order to detail, to lend human experience, feelings, emotions. You must have folds, punctuation for example, to describe ordinary passions. If there is no punctuation, you could not describe how you felt as an ordinary human. It's impossible to describe ordinary human emotions without punctuation. You've got to be able to fold the map somewhere.
I would suggest to you, if you're double or triple sharp and if I haven't given you a headache already, that the creases are what pass for human emotion. They are crinkly and textured -- never smooth and always distinguishable. You're going along and suddenly there is a wrinkle in your map. You can feel it, "Oooh, I don't feel good. I've been mistreated. Look what somebody did to me." But if you get the map all smoothed out, how would you know how you felt? You wouldn't be able to say it. I've encouraged you to never tell anybody how you feel -- and what if you could do it? How would you know how you felt if you didn't tell someone -- including yourself. If you were aware of anything at all; it would simply be, "I don't feel the way I did." And what if you could ignore -- be non-aware -- of even that fact? What if, what if...
I want you to get a good picture of The Infinite Statement as a seamless universal office where ordinary consciousness is a collating and folding machine. And along those lines, I'm going to point out a few other things. In areas all the way from battlefield confrontations between armies to football games to chess matches to debating teams, Life has had ordinary people make such observations along the following lines. During any adversarial confrontation -- a football game, two guys shooting pool -- it is as though one team -- or one person seems to suddenly sense a kind of weariness, a tiredness, a weakness in some aspect of the other team's defense or offense, in their ability to play. Without any great comment, the opposing team begins to move to that area and the tide of battle changes, whether it be a football game or actual warfare. You, whether you're aware of it or not, have all experienced this. You have been through it shooting pool, shooting baskets, even in conversations with people.
Let's say you're shooting pool for a sum of money that would almost hurt you if you lost. Things are going along, you feel the pressure and it seems to be a tug of war, rocking back and forth. Then the other guy seems to suddenly weaken. Perhaps he exposes a weakness, or he seems to have tired. And you know it immediately. It's as though a vacuum were created and you step right into it. That is a correct observation, but there's more: what ordinary consciousness cannot perceive is that it is looking at the normal internal workings of a complete system readjusting itself. It is in the realm of The Infinite Statement, in a realm where there is no beginning and end of a sentence.
Ordinary consciousness must take this information, this external observation, and fold it to where apparently all of this is something taking place between you and an "out there." In some way there are two separate systems, two organizations, two teams, two armies, two groups of people, two countries, in conflict, in a dance. One party seems to trip, his legs begin to give out and the other guy jumps on it. Again, what ordinary consciousness cannot see is the seamlessness of it: it is the internal readjustments of one complete system. Something gives over here and something takes over there. But it is not two isolated entities -- two separate armies, groups, or people. If you begin to see this you realize that history cannot be written down on pages, not as long as you've got punctuation. Ordinary consciousness cannot perceive history without punctuation.
Let me redo the quotation "All the world is a stage and all men are but players." Let me bring it up to date: "All of Life is Life and we are but some if its inner processes." That doesn't make much sense. The quotation "All the world is a stage and all men are but players," makes sequential sense, allegorically and otherwise, because it is something that you can fold and separate. You can separate the allegorical pictures from the literal pictures of a stage and what men do. Plus it is all apparently observable as a phenomenon out there. My quote, my update, can't make that kind of sense. To begin with, the opening of my sentence is too encompassing. The beginning of it is, "All of Life is Life," that's it. That didn't make enough sense to be remembered. It won't make me famous because, to ordinary consciousness, it is either absolutely insane, irrational, or else, so plebeian as to be meaningless. "Hey, what else is new, that's true, but so what?" But in both cases those sentences, those comments, those reactions are punctuated, but all of Life is Life and we are but some of its inner process. All the observable phenomena I've mentioned such as one team apparently weakening and almost in a mystical manner the other team senses it -- you could have made the same observation hundreds of years ago. If you were in a plane above the troops of two armies, you'd have seen two great organisms running at each other -- all the blood and guts, noise, smoke and dust -- then you'd see one army weaken in one spot, and an almost magical flood from the opposing army. It's as though there were a transmission of information, that one army in some magical way were telling another one, "Hey, here is where to get me, we are giving out over here."
I've mentioned -- springing from physics again -- that scientists have found that two particles travelling away from each other seem to be in communication. Let me update and particularize it for your personal enjoyment: everything a man accepts and rejects is in continual secret communication. Everything you apparently know and do not know is in continual, instantaneous, unrecognized communication. Everything you believe and disbelieve -- same story. Instead of talking about two football teams or two armies, look inside of you. There is always unrecognized, instantaneous, continual communication between those factions that seem to be at war. How else do you explain when any reasonable human decides to stop a particular habit, and forthwith goes out and indulges in the same habit. "I wasn't going to do it anymore. I know what it is, I am convinced it does me no good, I am going to stop it." Simplicity itself. How else can you explain that a person cannot decide to do one little thing? Of course there is no sequential explanation as long as you have to punctuate the question, as long as you have to punctuate the response, as long as you have to punctuate the observation. "I keep doing the same thing over and over and over. I've got to stop it, period."
How about a little more? We are still talking about a seamless universe. How about something from television quiz shows. You're familiar with the setup of having prizes behind doors. Imagine there are two quiz shows. One show has three doors and the host says, "Alright, since you answered question so and so correctly, you can choose from one of the three doors. Behind one door is a world tour, behind another door a brand new car, and behind a third door, a pack of Exlax covered raisins. You have ten seconds." And people would go, "Oh, I don't know, which door, which door?" Now imagine another show, same setup with a big prize and a booby prize -- except this show has two doors. Now listen, ponder, try to really Neuralize the difference between having a three-door and a two-door quiz show. It is one door's worth of difference. Go on, think about it. You should be able to feel something. The possibilities in one case are three doors with two prizes and one booby prize, and in another case, you've got two doors with one prize and one booby prize. You have got to feel that it makes almost all the difference in the world. And it is only one door. It has nothing to do with odds, nothing to do with your chances being better or worse. The consideration of this lies at a right angle to any normal question, such as odds. It's simply a totally different feel. The feel is absolutely incomparable. It is almost as though they existed in two different universes. If you can get a feel at all for what I am saying, then my question to you is, what's up? What's going on?
Fear, in the ordinary sense, is one of the most debilitating human emotions possible; it's an off-folded crease. Some people are wired up, if we tried to describe them in one word, to be fearful, like a whipped dog. That is one of the most, from an ordinary viewpoint, inhumane passions and it can just almost strip people of the ability to live. But both ordinary people and you, when you're working with ordinary consciousness, take fear as being something other than it is. You take fear as being something psychological and nonmaterial. It's a personality flaw, some kind of unprofitable reaction you've carried over from your childhood, (those good old traumas and mistreatments). But it's not. It's not psychological or nonmaterial, and it's not induced. What is it? It's a chemical reaction. Those words themselves may not put an end to your fear(s), but until you see it correctly, you can't beat out some of the creases. You must stop adopting every explanation that comes from your mechanical collator. You've got to look beyond the folds. I'm talking about a chemical reaction -- the same thing as having a susceptible stomach. Whether your digestive tract is prone to react violently to spicy foods, whether you're prone to feeling enslaved by fear -- it has the same basis. Fears that are describable, fears that are indescribable are horrible, but don't make fear any worse than it is. Fear is a chemical reaction and as such, it can be dealt with. Believe it or not.
Outside the seamless universal office, over in the cafeteria, which is covered in seams and folds or you wouldn't be there, everybody has their life dished out to them. What you've been handed, the size of your nose, the size of your other parts, (we won't go into that), how tall, how short, how talented, how personable, what you apparently are at the ordinary level -- it's all just served to you. Ordinary people fret over what's on their tray. They whine, they hang themselves slowly, they commit suicide at the same rate they're living, but a few other people -- this is not THE answer -- but a few other people as a stopgap measure, (which you shouldn't discount because a stopgap measure might carry you 10 or 12 years), could be to hitch up your pants, smile, and cry, "Tough Shit!" Inside, you've got to have your pants hitched up and you've got to smile and holler, "Tough Shit!" Do with it what you will, but your cry of "Tough Shit" should be futuristic, militaristic, and ofttimes silly and irrelevant. That is the proper cry of "Tough Shit!" Plus, it should be secret because you're not hollering "Tough Shit" at Life. You're not hollering "Tough Shit" at your plate, at your tray, at your neighbor. You've got to know, "Tough Shit" may be a secret cry.
Until we meet again, "Tough Shit."
