In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph

Bled Welder bledwelder at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 15 10:56:23 CDT 2012


For one reason or another a couple days ago someone mentioned a recent dream to me in which she saw a bright white robed figure named Michael etc. and something about her description reminded me of PKDick's Radio Free Albemuth so I suggested it to her then later yesterday pulled down one of my three Dick's, the one that I've not read, A Maze of Death, and tossed it onto bed with The Republic and Kaufmann's Preface and notes to Zarathustra, which I don't feel like reading in itself.
No clue what A Maze of Death was about.  I read up on the latest quick arriving fifteen or so p-list mails, and regarding this one below and your previous one I was reminded about how upon making first coupla contacts with the psilocybe about a month ago I mentioned here about a black hole at the base of the brain that technology will eventually plug into--although I didn't say the term I don't think, a type of Singularity.
Anyway two minutes later not thinking in the least about any possible connection with Dick's mind with any of this stuff I opened Maze of Death and in the first paragraph, second sentence:
"he...attached conduits to the permanent electrodes extending from his pineal gland..."
So much for having an original thought, ever.  Not that plugging our brains into a comp cable is original or the least bit clever or imaginative, but the transdimensional black hole there might be, as well as true, and anyway Dick penning that in 1970 must have been one of the first.  And of course Dick was very fond of the psilocybe.  Well, I don't know about fond, like I am.  Familiar anyway.
I will have to look into scientific evidence about any archetype/instinct-amygdala/pineal connection besides what the psilocybe indicated, although my man who brought me fully into the fold of paranoia, not that I was any stranger to my share of overwhelming paranoia beforehand, the great Ronald Siegel and his Whispers, from which I had the insight that Grandiose Rationalists often become Grandiose Delusional Paranoids, is who may have first indicated to me that paranoia was based in fear, which resides in the amygdala which was our first pre-human or ancient (archetypal) human brain which was then layered over by rational-consciousness (and my idea, concurrent time-consciousness) which is no fan of Dionysian archetypes--

Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:15:16 -0500
Subject: Re: In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph
From: fqmorris at gmail.com
To: bledWelder at hotmail.com
CC: igrlivingston at gmail.com; markekohut at yahoo.com; pynchon-l at waste.org

Current SciFi anticipates an advent they call The Singularity.  It means the moment when an AI computer achieves consciousness, AKA humanity, with or without the pathology of concience.  Shelley's creature breached this threshold long ago.


So did Adam when he reached the age of reason, judgement.

Breach, here, is the theme.  The alternative is continuity of evolution.  But I'd say the bottom of Luddittism follows Shelly's and the Singularity fears.  A very conservative fear :  freedom is loss.  Others' freedom happens with our own, and our own freedom means big responsibility.


Yes, the fear is valid.  But, transfering our pathology onto overlord computers of the future says so much about our roots.  And I think Pynchon has this edge of culture central to his thinking.

On Wednesday, March 14, 2012, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, March 14, 2012, Bled Welder <bledWelder at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Isnt it the amygdila where our archetypes lie? And wouldnt Jung be proud to learn this? Surely any sprit he spoke of was physical--

>
> Interesting, but please cite evidence.  Emotional center for archetypes memory may be valid as a pre-thinking source.  But I think animals think rationally more than we credit them.
>
> David Morris 		 	   		  
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