Included here is a description of a spontaneous vision which came to me around an hour before I received the news of Steve Job’s death. While I had not immediately realized it at the time, in retrospect, the vision now appears entirely related, and very likely synchronous with the actual last moment of Job’s life.

Before I describe the actual vision, some context to how prominent a figure Steve Jobs was in my own life is appropriate:

Steve Jobs inspired and influenced my life deeply. I was 8 years old when my father introduced me to the Apple II computer in 1978 (I was fortunate, as maybe only 1 in 2000+ households had any type of personal computer at that time). This was a seminal and significantly defining moment in my life. I quickly became immersed into a world of extraordinary possibilities, invested long days and nights over entire summers exploring a new type of creative expression, and I taught myself, and eventually mastered the BASIC computer programming language within a few years (before I even reached puberty). I’ve been an “Apple evangelist” ever since, and the entire spirit and philosophy of Jobs and of Apple has been a primary element woven into the background of my life.

During the rise of the internet culture in the 1990s (in my 20s), and then thru 14+ years as a successful creative professional and entrepreneur in new media, I’ve made my entire living, crafted an ingenious artistic style, conducted innovative research and development, and enjoyed the benefits of a tech-nomadic lifestyle … all in the wake of this one man’s extraordinary vision, character, and ingenious innovative contributions of delivering technologically-based magic to the world.

So I’ve always understood and generally stood behind the philosophies of quality design and paradigm leading innovation that Apple has been founded on–a philosophy that is spirited by the DNA of Jobs himself. And in some way that is perhaps also magical or not easily understood, these aspects of Job’s DNA were passed into me (and many of us).

This past week, on October 4, on the evening before Steve Jobs passed away, I had actually intended to watch the Apple Special Event video that had been released earlier that day. As I readied myself to click the “Play” button, however, I changed my mind … because I felt that I was not quite ready yet to watch the new CEO (Tim Cook) standing in place of Steve Jobs. Somehow, I was still letting go of the fact that Jobs had just stepped down as CEO only a month or so earlier. So I just told myself that I’d watch it maybe in a few days, or whenever I was ready.

The next day, October 5, 2011, was the day Steve Jobs passed away.  Around an hour or so before before this news hit the world, I was driving my car along a country road to the local market, and had a spontaneous imaginal vision came thru my mind:

I saw an older man, tho not too old, just between 50 – 60 years old, sitting quietly in a lush green field. He was sitting in a way that he was “looking back”, observing a vast space of earth and atmosphere, and he maintained a very calm tho highly attentive observation of what he was seeing and in consideration of. Along with the spontaneous arrival of the vision, I also experienced a felt sense for the character of the man himself, for what he was consciously considering, and a sense of his states of conscious awareness. He was reflecting on the immensity of his life, and doing so from an extreme vantage point of as if this moment being the very last moment of his life. In particular, he was reflecting upon the long stream of various innovative technological advents which he had seen emerge in magical ways … ways which have altered human culture during his life time. He thought: what an incredible life, what incredible progress in technological innovations and cultural change. This led him to then consider what new extraordinary wonders had yet to emerge just over the horizon of time.

Then something new came into the vision: in the middle of the green field, a new technology emerged–something even more extraordinary and wonderful that maybe did not quite exist yet: a whirling, spinning, floating, flashing, semi-transparent 3D field of multi-colored rainbow light emissions–some type of magical interface of extraordinary technology. Around this rainbow-light technology, a group of children gathered, holding hands, and dancing a ring around the phenomena in happiness, joy, and with a fresh perspective that only the very young have new eyes for. These children danced not just for the magical gift of this wondrous technology, nor just for the fresh moment of their generation’s time, tho even more, they danced the eternal dance of joy for the ever present origination which the future always promises. As the man observed this, he was enormously moved by the purity and innocence of the children, and moved by the always originating promise of the future unfolding into eternity.

And then he reflected briefly on what was next for him–not an easy perspective: his time is now ending, and the part of him that wants to stay to see the promise of the future unfolding–that part must rest now. He must go … it’s never been more certain. For a brief moment, he felt a certain natural sadness around this fact … a sadness that also began to naturally contract his mind and distract his full awareness from the more glorious and whole perspective which he had just been sharing in the scope of today’s children and with all future generations. He then became aware of this contracting distraction itself, and then skillfully allowed for those thoughts to dissolve. He saw again that the perspective that he is able to have now, “looking back” from the extreme end of life–is utterly unique in its gifts of wisdom, and only possible from the perspective at the end of life now. And then he realized that the fact of his life’s ending is as natural as the beginning of life also was, and always will be. Finally, he realized and settled into a state of complete acceptance that it’s okay: the end of life and the beginning of life are natural and right as the stream of life itself in its entirety. This is as things are … and it is all so awesome.

Then the imaginal vision dissolved from my mind’s eye. And I found myself continuing to drive along in my car thru the beautiful country side …

At the time that this vision had spontaneously and (seemingly) involuntarily arrived thru my imagination, I had not really considered it anything too unusual (as I am a person in constant engagement with my creative imagination). Tho, even as it did occur, it did seem subtly unordinary, for I had never really experienced anything exactly like it before. And somehow, the character of the man seemed somewhat familiar to me, tho I could not quite place who it was. Also, I did acknowledge to myself at the time that the empathic insights derived, particularly about how the man was coming to terms with some profound and subtle nuances which may naturally occur at the end of one’s life time … these nuances of realization were new to me. And it was only by my empathically “borrowing” the conscious perspective of this other man coming thru my imagination that I was able to arrive to these insights myself (insights that moved me as they happened, and that I can now apply to the inevitable ebbs and flows of my own life). This was interesting and unusual to me, and especially caught my attention … as if this imaginal vision was somehow coming from beyond my own autonomous cognitive faculties, via some relationship beyond just myself.

In any case, I soon arrived to my destination at the local market, and the experience completely left my mind for the time. I generally let it go without too much more consideration for its greater significance or meaning.

About a half-hour later, I made the return drive, and arrived back home again. There (at 1:49 pm HST), I got the news of Steve Job’s passing while browsing the social network on FaceBook via my MacBook Pro laptop. The news came by my casual discovery of a very early post made by my friend Sara who just happens to work at the Apple store in downtown San Francisco. Within the first few minutes, I had tears welling up in my eyes. As the day continued, and the reality of the news set in, it actually felt like I lost someone I knew personally somehow.

That first night, I barely slept at all. While I did not make the connection at first, the news of Steve Job’s passing was stirring in me more deeply than my conscious mind was yet aware of. And it was not until the next morning, after just a bit of sleep, and then freshly awakening with a blank mind … that I realized the potential connection with the spontaneous vision which occurred the day before (again, it happened sometime around an hour *before* I received the immediate news of Steve Job’s death, which would place it around the actual time of his passing). While I can’t claim to be certain of what the meaningful coincidence of this event means exactly … I also can’t deny that it did happen, and that it is synchronistic, fantastic, and memorable.

Now for several days and nights since then, I’ve invested several hours (usually in the late evenings) immersing myself into the extraordinary life and now absence of Steve Jobs. I’ve reviewed his wise quotes many times over, the entire history of his personal life, read thru many of the extraordinary stories involved in his origination and founding of Apple, and his involvement over the years in delivering his vision and the Apple corporation to such awesome actualization of its potentials. In my on-going research and contemplations, the significance has been seeping into me (in many ways both personally meaningful, and mutually meaningful for our collective) . It’s been really profound (and positive) in ways that I never expected.

Finally, last night (after first watching Steve Job’s last keynote video released in June), I watched the Apple Special Event video that I had previously delayed watching on the night before Steve Job’s passing. Overall, the video appears strikingly iconic of the poignant junction and juxtaposition of that 24 hour period between October 4 – 5, around the time of the actuality of Steve Job’s passing. The video is very interesting in many ways: such as the single and empty front-row seat marked “Reserved” that the camera passes directly over several times (which, if I had watched the video the previous evening, that alone may have seemed foretelling and even symbolic to the next day’s news). Then there is the relatively low-key and slightly somber atmosphere of the event and of its executive presenters. There is the expected tho always super impressive statistical reports of how enormously (now globally) successful Apple is constantly becoming as a business corporation: breaking records of sales and distribution, awards for unprecedented innovation, and charts which show how Apple is not just leading several key markets (computers, phones, music, books, etc), but also inventing (and leading) new markets (iPad / app paradigm). Such reports are now even beginning to suggest trends of potentially monopolizing many of these huge and emerging global markets! And then finally, they introduce several truly groundbreaking and extraordinary advents: the new iPhone 4S, iCloud services, and Siri (Artificially Intelligent) personal assistant.

On the day before Steve Job’s passing, he has passed along the foundations for both a globally distributed, cloud-based wireless network for automated content back-up and distribution, as well as the voice-activated Artificially Intelligent public assistance service. Each of these advents, of course, is fully integrated into the already established legacy of Apple’s global consumer technology base, and is ground-breaking its own rite. Put it all together, and one can sense how Jobs has laid down the final elements of a rock-solid (tho actually electronically ephemeral) foundation for an extraordinary new level of technological synergy on a global scale.

The future is looking bright indeed. What a time to go.

And what a time to be alive … and have these extraordinary gifts of magic living thru us … ~

~ ONE INFINITE LOOP ~

Thank you for everything, Steve Jobs. Your life was as revolutionary and magical as your products, and the world is a better place because of your passion, innovation, and vision. We will miss you ~

Here’s to the crazy ones …

________________________________________

This article is re-posted here:

http://dreamcatcher.net/gaio/8596

One example of archetypal semiotic transference is the case of strong association between the mathematical symbols h-bar (ħ) and psi (Ψ) with the astrological symbols for the planets Saturn (♄) and Neptune (♆).  This example is best illustrated by taking note of the famous Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics (below).  In this case, h-bar traditionally represents Plank’s constant, which is essentially the “smallest” boundary limit of an energy quanta (such as a photon), and psi represents the wave function, which is essentially the diffuse probability amplitude, and behaves like a wave.  H-bar (Planks’s constant) represents the extreme concrete and particular aspect of the quantum event, and psi (the wave function) represents the extreme abstract and non-particular aspect of the quantum event.

Clearly, the mathematical symbols have nearly identical visual morphology with the astrological symbols.  And even more, the meaningful interpretations for the symbols are nearly identical, and at least very similar.  In archetypal astrology, Saturn essentially represents boundaries, limits, contraction, and restriction; Neptune essentially represents the formless, intangible, invisible, diffuse, undifferentiated, and rules all forms of water and waves.  The direct association is actually quite perfect: as the planetary archetypes of Saturn and Neptune represent the tangible/physical and intangible/non-physical aspects of reality–and the mathematical quantum equations which use h-bar and psi typically involve descriptions of material and energetic aspects of reality.

Thus both the visual morphology of the symbols and the interpretive meaning of the symbols are semiotically very similar.  The question is: how did this happen?  Was the transference consciously intentional, or non-intentional and thus a literal “meaningful coincidence” (synchronicity)?  Certainly, the planetary astrological symbols were around (thousands of years) before quantum mechanics, and also well before the invention of these modern mathematical symbols and the corresponding mathematical functions.  If we look to the broad trend of western cultural history, it’s clear that the alchemical tradition borrowed from the symbols of astrology.  The alchemical tradition then ultimately lead into more contemporary chemistry, mathematics, and physics.  So it is feasible that the symbols made a gradual transfer from the astrological tradition, thru alchemy, and then into more contemporary expressions in modern science.  If this is the case, in the gradual transference thru time, the application of the symbols and their assigned meaning are made applicable in entirely different domains of knowledge, yet they maintain (and even augment) generally the same archetypal significance.

Interestingly, psi is also used in psychology to refer to the paranormal, supernatural, and extrasensory perception.  Again, this psychological interpretation of psi is directly associated to the archetypal meaning of symbolic Neptune: as a planetary archetype (of all the planetary archetypes) it is most strongly representative of the spiritual and psychic (commonly associated to dreams, fantasy, delusion, mysticism, telepathy, etc).

I intend to research the specifics of these instances of archetypal semiotic transference more … and will post updates here (along with other examples of archetypal semiotic transference).

A final point in closing: by the term “archetypal semiotic transference”, I intend “transference” to signify both literal transfer thru time, across physical space, and across conceptual or knowledge space, as well as refer to the traditional meaning of “transference” in psychology: how original psychological complexes from deep within an individual person’s past  can tend to be transfered (even projected) toward another person. Tho in this sense, the psychological transference is of archetypal nature and is thru the collective psyche.

The Art, Design, and Technology Exhibition

The PolyTech University Design School Gallery

The CogSpace navigation console

People Navigating CogSpace

People Navigating CogSpace

CogSpace screen

Visualizing Collective Intelligence

Digital Synchronicity

More photos here by David Chalmers: http://consc.net/pics/hongkong.html

I’ve been developing this interactive, 3-dimensional model, and it was just recently accepted to be exhibited and presented at the Asian Consciousness Festival in Hong Kong this June.  You can see, interact, and read all about the model here:

www.cogspace.net

You can also download the entire abstract and descriptive paper here:

www.cogspace.net/docs/CogSpace.pdf

An excerpt from the abstract:

This model is an examination of consciousness through an interactive visual representation of the interdisciplinary knowledge domains of Cognitive Science and Consciousness Studies. As a visualization of the various scientific and academic approaches toward understanding mind and consciousness, a unified and comprehensive overview is achieved that orients our collective approach in the field of consciousness research as a whole.

The model is based on a 3-dimensional conceptual framework that assigns six (6) formally established primary knowledge domains of interdisciplinary Cognitive Science (namely: Psychology, Anthropology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Linguistics) to the geometric Cartesian coordinate system (x, y, z), and to a correlative color system (based on gradient scales of red, green, and blue), resulting in a semantic-color-space matrix for ontologically representational coordination of the topic contents. More specific knowledge areas are plotted within this axiomatic framework as sub-domains (such as Analytical Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Semantics, etc). The precise positions of subdomains are determined by metric averages derived by consensus survey of a diverse group of people, and is therefore also a representation of a collective perspective of consciousness research (not just the perspective of a single individual or isolated disciplinary field).

With this dynamic arrangement of organizational factors, the model renders a unique integral perspective and informative cartography of the “terrain”, and provides a “navigational instrument” for our explorative traversing across the frontier of consciousness research. By plotting each sub-domain in scope of the relative positions of all other domains, areas of knowledge and research concentration and lack of concentration (“unexplored regions”) become apparent. When referencing any particular disciplinary sub-domain within the manifold model, where it is at and what color it is can suggest something about it’s qualitative proximity to either more discrete and concrete or more continuous and abstract types of knowledge and research. For example, a sub-domain that is extremely neurobiological will be far less philosophical, and is placed on an extreme exterior boundary of the model (color saturation is more additive toward extreme hues). Inversely, a sub-domain that is a hybrid, somewhat balanced in interdisciplinary collaboration between linguistics and computer science, psychology and anthropology, and philosophy and neuroscience, is placed closer to the center of the model (color saturation is subtractive toward gray). The exterior of the model therefore represents the diverse areas of the more discrete and concrete–portrayed as the bright “rainbow” spectrum of colors. The interior of the model represents hybrid areas of the more continuous and abstract–portrayed figuratively and literally as the “gray area”. The closer a sub-domain is to the exact center, the closer it is to blending and fusing with an absolute, unified, and direct knowing and application of consciousness itself.

The overall result of the model is a “mind map” of the collective processes involving the differentiation and unification of interdisciplinary oppositions–the amalgamation of Interior and Exterior, Science and Art, Matter and Spirit, East and West–toward a realization of a coalescent whole.

A key element of this developing project is that the shape of the model is determined by a consensus formulation of the ontological constituents.  Among preparations and continuing development of this model, a survey will be made of a diverse group of people over the next few weeks.  In order to derive some “collective intelligence” in this formulation, some principles of “crowd wisdom” will be applied.  The more diverse the crowd, the better … so anyone can apply.  If you or someone you know is interested in participating in this survey, please contact me with the following information:

1. Name
2. Gender
3. Occupation
4. Education
5. Date of birth and age
6. Where you live
7. Any comments on why you want to be involved, or something special about yourself …

Within a week or so, the group will be selected, and the survey conducted.

Please forward this to anyone.

The CogSpace model will continue to evolve in various ways …

Thanks and happy cognitions!

I know … SO MANY SOCIAL NETWORKS … SO LITTLE TIME!  Isn’t FaceBook more than enough already!  Who has time to keep up with it all?  Plaxo keeps us all connected while also helping us save some time while doing so.

Here is a description of what Plaxo offers (from the website itself):

Plaxo keeps you in touch with people you care about.

When fellow Plaxo members you’re connected with move to a new home, change their cell phone number or change jobs, you’ll know… and your address book will be updated automatically.

So, if everyone gets on Plaxo, it can actually save time by keeping us all up-to-date on each other’s contact information.  We all know 100s even 1000s of people within our own networks, and most of those 100s and 1000s also know each other (this is the “plexus”).  How many times do we all get emails from somebody saying, “I just changed my phone number, please update your records”.  So then you might feel obligated to take a moment out of your busy day to open your address book, copy the new number over, etc.  Or how many times do you get an email from someone asking for your mailing address or fax number because they “lost it”, or even more–they ask if you just happen to have the information for someone you both may know.  This is not sustainable information management.  

As an alternative: what if everybody’s contact information updated itself everywhere automatically?  Plaxo aims to provide this for us with a service called “Pulse”.  Plaxo will also automatically make recommendations to you of people who you are already interacting with in email and/or other social networks … so, over time, it’s fairly straight forward to build up our shared social plexus.  I actually don’t use Plaxo much for general social interaction (I save that mostly for FaceBook).  Yet, it is good to be on Plaxo so that my social contact information is updated regularly.

It’s the 21st century.  We have the technology to move beyond the aggradation of trivial inconveniences that come with greater social connectivity–and get down to better uses of our time, energy, and attention!  Let’s focus less on establishing and maintaining connections, and more on the processes and qualities of being in connection!

Join the Plaxo plexus!

I also recommend that you download an extension toolbar that will keep your computer’s address book in sync with your Plaxo Pulse account.

See you on the Plaxo Pulse people plexus!

Palantir

Some crafty engineers over at FaceBook recently created the Palantir open-source computer application (named after one of the powerful “seeing stone” orbs in Lord of the Rings) that visualizes live activity on the FaceBook social network. See a video of the application here.

Lexicon

The FaceBook Lexicon is an application that presents key word usage on member’s post pages, with all types of options for comparative demographics. Below is a sample image from Lexicon that shows the number of keyword posts for “Obama” from June 6 – Nov 31, 2008.  Accordingly, the “Obama” posts peak around election day.  Although males show a slight majority of keyword “Obama” posts in this graph, I had also done a different comparative graph that shows females posting “Obama” nearly twice as much as males around election day.

People Power

Here is a report on FaceBook’s greatest energy source: people power.  Literally speaking, the amount of energy people use burning calories while interacting with the social network (more than 2 billion minutes per day) exceeds the amount of electricity used to power the computer server network.

All together and more, these advents of information technology are literally beginning to bring increasing definition and expression to the multitudinous aspects involving the living, breathing, thinking, seeing body, mind, and spirit of the global collective.

I also appreciate the insertion of ideas around a necessary and fundamental shift in consciousness.  For a shift in consciousness is preeminent to establishing a funamental change in economy, and correspondingly, in society. I can see how the selection of Krishnamurti’s words is a good choice in articulating this point (at the beggining and end of the film), as he generally proposes that it is the responsibility of each individual to catalyze a shift in consciousness within themselves.

Here is an opportunity to actually make the fundamental change of converting the economy to debt-free money.  You can vote for ideas such as these at Change.org, and the most popular ideas will be presented to Obama just as he enters office in January, 20th 2009:

Regarding the Zeitgeist movie, it was synchronistic and significant for me to have had someone remind me to watch this film last night–as yesterday, the planet Pluto had moved from Saggitarius into Capricorn (where it will transit for the next 16 years). A general interpretation of this transit is: that the mode of global transformation we have been in while Pluto was in Sagitarius was collective visioning, philosophies, and theories of global transformation. With Pluto in Capricorn, the mode of transformation is more down-to-earth, manifest, and structural.  For sixteen years, Pluto will engage in a process of breaking down and then rebuilding the structures on which we depend for a successful experience in the material world.  We can expect the transformation of all things ruled by that sign: such as our religious institutions, halls of government and political structures, construction techniques and buildings, and how we handle ownership of property. The point is: this day marks the point when we can say that we have the over-arching vision and theory we need, and it’s time to get down to actually manifesting the transitions.

This video is BBC’s special broadcast as part of the “Horizon” series.  It features an engaging narrative that introduces various ideas about the singularity and human enhancement.

Today, Homo sapiens is faced with a rapid modification of his environment, a transformation for which he is the involuntary collective agent. I am not implying that our species is threatened with extinction or that the “end of the world” is approaching. I am not preaching millenarianism. Rather, I would like to point out an alternative. Either we cross a new threshold, enter a new stage of hominization, by inventing some human attribute that is as essential as language but operates at a much higher level, or we continue to “communicate” through the media and think within the context of separate institutions, which contribute to the suffocation and division of intelligence. In the latter case we will no longer be confronted only by the problems of power and survival. But if we are committed to the process of collective intelligence, we will gradually create the technologies, sign systems, forms of social organization and regulation that enable us to think as a group, concentrate our intellectual and spiritual forces, and negotiate practical real-time solutions to the complex problems we must inevitably confront. We will gradually learn … to collectively invent ourselves as a species.

- From Pierre Levy’s principle work Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace

With the emergence of collective intelligence via the advents of the internet (web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, etc), an augmentation of symbolic language can be realized within the unfolding of a collectively engineered medium and universally orchestrated message.
[ originally published here: http://spacecollective.org/MichaelGaio/4258/The-OverLanguage ]

OpenSoundControl (OSC) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that are optimized for modern networking technology. Bringing the benefits of modern networking technology to the world of electronic musical instruments, OSC’s advantages include interoperability, accuracy, flexibility, and enhanced organization and documentation.

OSC integrates within the set of other standard internet protocols.

Internet Protocol Mandala

 
It appears that OSC is intended to supersede MIDI in multiple aspects. For one, OSC uses standard ethernet cable to transfer more information, with more flexibility and control of the types of information, with much less latency (operating at broadband speeds). Since it uses TCP/IP Ethernet, various types of data can be transfered and synchronized between an assortment of devices and applications, and more—such transfers can happen over any network, local or non-local—including the internet. This could make for some very interesting and novel capabilities in group multimedia collaboration, and in multimedia interaction with internet data and APIs (such as real-time multimedia data interpretations of collective processes).

OSC is implemented with a wide arrangement of audio and multimedia creation software (such as CSound, Max/MSP, Quartz Composer, and Pure Data). There are also some interesting devices emerging that use the OSC protocol—such as the incredible multi-touch screen control interface, the Lemur, and an iPhone application.

The Lemur multi-touch screen control interface.

What is the extent of possibilities with this new technical protocol? Pierre Levy, in his principle work, Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace, speaks of the necessity of some type of new collective language:

We are thus in the situation of a species whose members … have not yet achieved the state of collective intelligence of the culture for lack of an articulated language. How do you invent a language that no one has spoken, for which there are no records, no examples, and when we lack even an idea of what such a language might be?

My sense is that OSC is yet another key technical advent in the gradual crossing of the threshold into the realization of such a language, the awakening of collective consciousness, and the first coherent articulations of collective intelligence.    

Now we may begin to collectively utter the early instances of an “over-language“. Such a language will not be on the same level as English, Chinese, or French. This meta-language, as a universal language of consilience, will transcend and include all preceding cultural contexts, and synthesize the diversity of our human strands. It will extend from our established media and data bases, yet somehow also surpass rational associations to the semiotic. It will engage us directly with an authentic immediacy and novelty that mimics the impulse of evolution itself. It will orient us, reflect our comprehension of ourselves, our reality, and our purpose in a type of synaesthesic hyper-poetry that continuously describes the nexus where each individual traverses the multitudinous terrain of collective being. It will arch like a rainbow across the noosphere, sprouting spontaneously upon the fresh and tender tongue of the collective psyche in astonishing response to sensing ourselves as a symphonic orchestration in participation with cosmic evolution.

Global IP feedback visualization.

[ Originally published here: http://spacecollective.org/MichaelGaio/4263/MetaLanguage-Technique-OSC ]