I am going to just say one thing about remote viewing.
I am currently writing an article about remote viewing in relationship to military intelligence and competitive intelligence. I spoke at length with Joe McMonegale for that article but I also had access to the authors of the study (from the American Institutes for Research) that evaluated remote viewing for the CIA in 1995. I spoke with one of the three authors of the report in detail as well as reviewing all of the documents.
The ONE THING that everyone agreed on was that the remote viewing evaluated for the study - which was only the last few years of a many-year program, and not the best years of the program - provided results thatwere better than chance. I'll repeat that - the one thing both critics and advocates agreed on was that the results were statistically significant in a positive direction.
That does not mean there are not charlatans in current entrepreneurial remote viewing operations. But there are charlatans in every field. I have even met a programmer or two who did not know how to write elegant code.
There is a lot more to be said about RV but I'll save it for the article. It will appear in the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professional's Magazine.
I am going to just say one thing about remote viewing.
I am currently writing an article about remote viewing in relationship to military intelligence and competitive intelligence. I spoke at length with Joe McMonegale for that article but I also had access to the authors of the study (from the American Institutes for Research) that evaluated remote viewing for the CIA in 1995. I spoke with one of the three authors of the report in detail as well as reviewing all of the documents.
The ONE THING that everyone agreed on was that the remote viewing evaluated for the study - which was only the last few years of a many-year program, and not the best years of the program - provided results that were better than chance. I'll repeat that - the one thing both critics and advocates agreed on was that the results were statistically significant in a positive direction.
That does not mean there are not charlatans in current entrepreneurial remote viewing operations. But there are charlatans in every field. I have even met a programmer or two who did not know how to write elegant code.
There is a lot more to be said about RV but I'll save it for the article. It will appear in the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professional's Magazine.
Gordon, I agree that computers are complex tools - just like brains, throats and tongues, printing presses, televisions and telephones etc etc -
and every one of those is a "symbol manipulating machine." The machine is indifferent to the content of the symbols it manipulates. We provide that content.
Life online has a spiritual dimension because of what we bring to it. Books are no more inherently spiritual than computers. Nor were writing tools.
One of the points made in this article is that it is what people bring to the entire enterprise of computing that animates the enterprise and determines where it will go. What I call intentionality. Every human endavor has a spiritual dimension, but when we are talking about complex symbol manipulating systems, there is no way it can NOT have a spiritual dimension.
The content of what is out there in cyberspace is what we project on it. That's why it's a "space" or field for perception. If programmers don't know that, they will project what is unconscious, including the way they invent computer languages and write code. If they become aware of it, they can make more intentional decisions about what to create. I think computer programs are like bookshelves that we don't even see, we just project the contents of ourselves onto them. But at one point, a guy named Bernays convinced architects to start including built-in bookshelves in new houses and apartments (he worked for the publishing industry at the time in PR (a term he invented)). Now when people enter rooms with bookshelves, they simply buy books and put them on. That's how projections work.
And that's why everything we project includes everything about us, including our spiritual dimensions.
I really understand this concern. My experience though is that nothing stays the same, and it always amazes me how fast things do change. Like Wired itself. Since being bought by Conde Nast (the magazine, anyway - the rest was sold elsewhere), the new mantra at Wired is, "we can't be revolutionaries forever." Each of the last 3 issues has had inserts from - Gentlemen's Quarterly, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, which says who they think their crossover market has become. The truth is, Wired is not interested (any more) in publishing visionary stuff. Take away the "bullshit" from "new age enlightenment bullshit" and you're left with what I think is a legitimate quest: how do we relate how we are being changed by our interaction with new technologies to authentic quests for real spirituality - not religion, but spirituality? The forums for really exploring that are few.
I think we're all both. Warden and prisoner. Like the great description of modern society in My Dinner With Andre, that New York city symbolizes the new concentration camp, where the guards and the prisoners are the same people. They're proud of this thing they've built so they won't let anyone escape. The irony in this particular column was intended to indicate that this is our inescapable condition, that these columns are no more trustworthy than anybody else's... and yet, we can't help building a Big Picture when we write or read them. That's why deconstruction and Building the Big Picture - which seem mutually exclusive - are two sides of the same coin. That's what I meant by the double-edged blade.
The column was written for a broader audience for whom the cracker/hacker distinction is not a matter of religious orthodoxy, just a fuzzy area. I was aware of what I meant every time I used the word "hacker," and think I do think I know the difference, but the fact is, many ARE both hackers (in the true sense of the term) AND crackers. Last year's speech for the Black Hat Briefings was focused on the fact that in the past,people were given permission by the nation-state to be spies, but today, permission comes from the technology. Everybody lives in a world of fluid identities and strings together segments or modules of a self-invented life. That was not the case a generation ago.
Networks designed to be open invited exploration, but that's exactly what some people mean by "cracker," i.e. people who explore in violation of laws that were invented for older technologies. The distinction is just not that black/white.
Anyway, if you want my take on hacking/cracking, there are several things at the web site www.thiemeworks.com under "writing" in "Hacker Culture and the Passion for Knowledge." "Hacking Chinatown," "Zen and the Art of Hacking," and the piece on Chris Lamprecht.
And... in the future I'll spell it out with greater clarity.
re: "the audience you're targeting" and "be more risky." - the columns have been written for a much more general audience than slashdot. They have gone to a subscription list and to a number of republishers. If this conversation bends the focus -which can't help happening, at least some, because the responses really clarify the issues - that will happen. But there are others out there for whom a broader context made sense.
Slashdot Mirror
I am going to just say one thing about remote viewing.
I am currently writing an article about remote viewing in relationship to military intelligence and competitive intelligence. I spoke at length with Joe McMonegale for that article but I also had access to the authors of the study (from the American Institutes for Research) that evaluated
remote viewing for the CIA in 1995. I spoke with one of the three authors of the report in detail as well as reviewing all of the documents.
The ONE THING that everyone agreed on was that the remote viewing evaluated for the study - which was only the last few years of a many-year program, and not the best years of the program - provided results thatwere better than chance. I'll repeat that - the one thing both critics and advocates agreed on was that the results were statistically significant in a positive direction.
That does not mean there are not charlatans in current entrepreneurial remote viewing operations. But there are charlatans in every field. I have
even met a programmer or two who did not know how to write elegant code.
There is a lot more to be said about RV but I'll save it for the article. It will appear in the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professional's Magazine.
I am going to just say one thing about remote viewing.
I am currently writing an article about remote viewing in relationship to military intelligence and competitive intelligence. I spoke at length with Joe McMonegale for that article but I also had access to the authors of the study (from the American Institutes for Research) that evaluated remote viewing for the CIA in 1995. I spoke with one of the three authors of the report in detail as well as reviewing all of the documents.
The ONE THING that everyone agreed on was that the remote viewing evaluated for the study - which was only the last few years of a many-year program, and not the best years of the program - provided results that were better than chance. I'll repeat that - the one thing both critics and advocates agreed on was that the results were statistically significant in a positive direction.
That does not mean there are not charlatans in current entrepreneurial remote viewing operations. But there are charlatans in every field. I have even met a programmer or two who did not know how to write elegant code.
There is a lot more to be said about RV but I'll save it for the article. It will appear in the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professional's Magazine.
Gordon, I agree that computers are complex tools - just like brains, throats and tongues, printing presses, televisions and telephones etc etc -
and every one of those is a "symbol manipulating machine." The machine is indifferent to the content of the symbols it manipulates. We provide that content.
Life online has a spiritual dimension because of what we bring to it. Books are no more inherently spiritual than computers. Nor were writing tools.
One of the points made in this article is that it is what people bring to the entire enterprise of computing that animates the enterprise and determines where it will go. What I call intentionality. Every human endavor has a spiritual dimension, but when we are talking about complex symbol manipulating systems, there is no way it can NOT have a spiritual dimension.
The content of what is out there in cyberspace is what we project on it. That's why it's a "space" or field for perception. If programmers don't know that, they will project what is unconscious, including the way they invent computer languages and write code. If they become aware of it, they can make more intentional decisions about what to create. I think computer programs are like bookshelves that we don't even see, we just project the contents of ourselves onto them. But at one point, a guy named Bernays convinced architects to start including built-in bookshelves in new houses and apartments (he worked for the publishing industry at the time in PR (a term he invented)). Now when people enter rooms with bookshelves, they simply buy books and put them on. That's how projections work.
And that's why everything we project includes everything about us, including our spiritual dimensions.
I really understand this concern. My experience though is that nothing stays the same, and it always amazes me how fast things do change. Like Wired itself. Since being bought by Conde Nast (the magazine, anyway - the rest was sold elsewhere), the new mantra at Wired is, "we can't be revolutionaries forever." Each of the last 3 issues has had inserts from - Gentlemen's Quarterly, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, which says who they think their crossover market has become. The truth is, Wired is not interested (any more) in publishing visionary stuff. Take away the "bullshit" from "new age enlightenment bullshit" and you're left with what I think is a legitimate quest: how do we relate how we are being changed by our interaction with new technologies to authentic quests for real spirituality - not religion, but spirituality? The forums for really exploring that are few.
I think we're all both. Warden and prisoner. Like the great description of modern society in My Dinner With Andre, that New York city symbolizes the new concentration camp, where the guards and the prisoners are the same people. They're proud of this thing they've built so they won't let anyone escape. The irony in this particular column was intended to indicate that this is our inescapable condition, that these columns are no more trustworthy than anybody else's ... and yet, we can't help building a Big Picture when we write or read them. That's why deconstruction and Building the Big Picture - which seem mutually exclusive - are two sides of the same coin. That's what I meant by the double-edged blade.
The column was written for a broader audience for whom the cracker/hacker distinction is not a matter of religious orthodoxy, just a fuzzy area. I was aware of what I meant every time I used the word "hacker," and think I do think I know the difference, but the fact is, many ARE both hackers (in the true sense of the term) AND crackers. Last year's speech for the Black Hat Briefings was focused on the fact that in the past,people were given permission by the nation-state to be spies, but today, permission comes from the technology. Everybody lives in a world of fluid identities and strings together segments or modules of a self-invented life. That was not the case a generation ago.
... in the future I'll spell it out with greater clarity.
Networks designed to be open invited exploration, but that's exactly what some people mean by "cracker," i.e. people who explore in violation of laws that were invented for older technologies. The distinction is just not that black/white.
Anyway, if you want my take on hacking/cracking, there are several things at the web site www.thiemeworks.com under "writing" in "Hacker Culture and the Passion for Knowledge." "Hacking Chinatown," "Zen and the Art of Hacking," and the piece on Chris Lamprecht.
And
re: "the audience you're targeting" and "be more risky." - the columns have been written for a much more general audience than slashdot. They have gone to a subscription list and to a number of republishers. If this conversation bends the focus
-which can't help happening, at least some, because the responses really clarify the issues - that will happen. But there are others out there for whom a broader context made sense.