John Higgs
Under a different light than the post on Seraphina, I will talk here about the informal talk I had with John Higgs, author of "I have America surrounded - the life of Timothy Leary".
We met up outside the "Druids Head" pub in the north laines, went in and despite my efforts to buy him a drink he insisted on paying for both. Got a pint and sat down at a table where the first thing I thought was "damn, the speaker is there, I'm gonna find it hard to understand what he's saying". So I explained my idea to him, putting the whole Collective Unconscious, Web 2.0 into perspective. He immediately recommended the book "what the dormouse said". The book discusses how the American counter-culture of the 60's shaped the history of the personal computer. The title refers to one of the lyrics in the song "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, a homage to both Alice in Wonderland and the use of psychedelic drugs as food for the mind. This alone puts things into perspective. What was, after all, the main support of the hippies movement Peace, love, oneness. These ideologies derived from the use of hallucinogenics, psychedelics, entheogens which led to this common understanding that old religions such as Hinduism and esoteric Christianity have supported. But the overuse of drugs as a recreational activity pushed the counter-culture to its demise. Or did it? Most of the people who supported the ideologies, moved on to create Silicon Valley, the center of technological innovation responsible for both the dot-com bubble as well as Web 2.0. This serves as the counter-argument I needed for my essay. As I suggest that perhaps this mass-collaboration, web 2.0 ideology is nothing but an unconscious process trying to bring into conscious notions of the god - we are all one consciousness- archetype. With the Silicon Valley though, we clearly see that perhaps this approach to the use of personal computers could be a well-structured and organized plan by washed-out-hippies-turned-out-businessmen.
John also suggested I look into Timothy Leary's "8-circuit model of consciousness", especially on Level 6 that can be related to my argument. Level 6 - the neuroelectric circuit is concerned with the mind becoming aware of itself, independent of the imprints made by previous levels. Leary supported this Level is capable of telepathic communication. Now instead of viewing telepathy as a paranormal activity, simply look at how you are conversing with a friend over, say, MSN or Skype. This kind of activities were beyond comprehension not so long ago. Now they are everyday activities: posting, commenting on blogs, sharing videos and photos. There is a man-made, neuro-electric network of telepathic activity going on, that is nothing more than electrical currents switching on and off yet we perceive it as real as a conversation with a person face to face.
I asked John whether he thinks Web 2.0 is an actual development from previous states of the Internet, a continuation or simply a remediation of pre-existing structures. Although, he said, he is quite favourable of Web 2.0 as a great business model, quite more organized than its predecessor, which means that the general population is more accepting, it is not something new. Since 1997, he continued, networks were well up and running. You could see streaming video, you could post on forums, and send files. But going to the other end of the screen would probably lead you to a geek romanticizing the idea of cyber-culture. Transfers were slow, and most people involved with it were quite dedicated. Web 2.0 has brought about the redesign of that model to be more accessible by the general masses and is more user inclusive and allows for more freedom. The old Internet, he continued, was simply in its embryonic form. More money were put into it to create the ability of streaming, real-time activities where users started to exchange mp3's and went from there. It used to have certain types of control, in terms of difficulty of use for example, (hence restraint to the geek community) something that has been overcome now. Whether this is true freedom or not, John gave the example of the British Empire once having India as its colony. This comparison was made to explain, how all sort of new experiences came to Britain, instead of the colonizer managing to establish its own to the colony. How many people can be found now in Britain, practicing meditation, yoga, eating curry, drinking herbal teas? The correlation with the Internet is that it gives us the same openness of idea sharing. It allows for what once was impossible: learning and experiencing new cultures, ideas, belief systems, thought patterns - information once impossible to attain unless one was a traveller. Evidently, my question was, that even though this massive database of information is available to us, I don't see a lot of people changing, not in terms of their personal ideologies and beliefs but in terms of acceptance. There is still a huge amount of bickering (elephant talk?). The answer was simple. People head to extremes and become more prejudiced no matter what the counter-arguments. In essence, you form your own thoughts on the subject. People will always complain about what they don't perceive or understand. He used a quote by Terence McKenna, "if the truth can be said in a way that it can be understood, then it will be believed".
We later discussed the music industry making connections with the Internet. Those were in terms of the radical change of perception things have on people who experience them. I myself for example did experience the time when the Internet broke through, but I cannot begin to imagine the impact it had on previous generations who lived a time when hard disks did not exist (I also remember Micheal discussing this in class). The same goes for the music industry. John recalls when psychedelic music came out, it was something completely new, never happened before. Musicians of the 60's through the use of psychedelic drugs created a new form of expression. Later on the punk movement came in opposition to prog and psychedelic rock, again a sound very unique and new having a great impact on perceptions of the masses. Think of how a beat person would first view Rave music when it first appeared in the scene. John ended up to the fact that the music industry does not release anything new anymore. Musicians aren't given the chance to experiment since the popular styles are well established and they work in sales so why try something new? In a way this is quite sad, much like the fact that we live in a post-post modern art world. Does this mean we have reached the peak of our expression? Or is the world too preoccupied with other trivial matters to look at the bigger picture? How long has it been since a new style of music or artform has come out and embraced by the general public? In the same mannerism Web 2.0 is nothing new. It is a continuation of well-established, well-thought softwares that work, they simply improve with technology and are redesigned to fit with current times.
It was about here that our interview was going to finish. When we first met up John said "you have me for an hour, I have to be a good father and put the kids to bed tonight", and that hour had come to a close. I was either a good conversation partner or just got lucky, but he suggested that if I bought the next round he'd stay for another half hour. Which of course I did.
So the conversation went on, we discussed about William Burroughs and his cut-up techniques and the manipulation of mental networks. At first glance there is no clear connection as to why we were discussing mental networks and connections to my essay. But on further evaluation I think it becomes quite evident. The reason, the subject came about was my explanation as to why I had made the connection between Web 2.0 and Carl Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. John said that beyond each individuals connections more connections can be found. They might be true or false but connections nevertheless. The reinforcement of ideas, from conversation for example, create connections in the web of chaos. Everything is interrelated in some way or another. You're sitting at a pub and you if you strike up a conversation with a complete stranger you will find something, a person, an event, a hobby that connects the two. Compare it with an endless search on the Internet and you'll see that it is only a reflection of our own reality. One personal example would be when I first started listening to the band Tool, whose members were friends with Bill Hicks, hence me discovering the great man himself. It was from Tool that I had discovered one of my favourite artists Alex Grey. Through one of Tool's links I discovered "Spiral Eyes" a photography studio whose work I really admired only to find out that one of the two women in the company, married to the guitarist of Tool, has also been closely related (living in his basement) with Timothy Leary, and alongside others created one of the first public Internet website for Leary. I could go on for ages with these connections but I don't want to bore you.
So many people deny these connections, our conversation moved on. They claim these connections are mere coincidences and play no role whatsoever. Mainly because Sartre said so. We accept our social reality to the point of ignorance and blindness when everything points to something different, a more universal network of ideas and beliefs. What lies behind the scientific culture is that we have the same brain design. Therefore, these connections are there, and triggered by situations. Unlike Jung who supported that these archetypes of connections are pre-existing since primordial times. Robert Anton Wilson, took a leap from Sartre's belief that everything is meaningless in his book "the cosmic trigger". He supported that a belief system is nothing more but a map of the world, a model that should not be confused with objective reality. In conclusion, each individual looks at her own reality in a different matter/perception forms beliefs, that are still individual, and no man can relate his own belief to be the predominant view of reality. Yet the majority of people share a consensus that this is just how things are. Even the scientific world is filled with holes in their theories, unable to explain the vital questions, yet our new religion today is Science and the scientists our priests. Through them we find reassurance that there is nothing more to humanity than being born, eating, drinking, fucking, dying. We can barely begin to understand how civilizations like the ancient Egyptians and the Mayans could calculate planet distances and movements without todays equipment, we, the post industrial society believe we got it all figured out.
It was inevitable not to ask why Timothy Leary is not academic material. John made a startled look as he said "no,no,no". Was it because he was coined "the most dangerous man in America" by then president Nixon? I laughed as I asked. "Tim was the trickster archetype" he said. "His ideas are not understood now, and as Burroughs said maybe they will appreciate him in a 100 years time". Although an acclaimed psychologist at the start of his career, the academic community feared him, his colleagues 'disowned' him. Even though a great admirer of Marshall McLuhan and supporter of his ideas, Leary was still undermined by most, and some point even by his hippy fans. After his imprisonment and escape, Leary begun preaching about personal freedom and liberation through the use of the Internet and personal computers. Although looking up the term "interweb" on wikipedia will say it's a sarcastic expression for people who don't know much about the Internet, the term was coined before the word Internet in 1977 by Timothy Leary, along with other terms such as mind connect. As McLuhan's prophetic essays on media, Leary followed his footsteps, yet his ideologies and theories were shunned by academia, much like William Blake was at his time. Blake was viewed as an insane personality, obsessed with occultism, mysticism and magic. John told me he had an antagonist during his lifetime, I tried finding out his name, as he didn't remember, but failed to do so. Any input here is more than welcome. The story goes, John continued, that Blake was not accepted as an artist, while his antagonist at the time was making a lot of profit out of his paintings. Flashback to 2008 and you ask anyone about Blake and everyone knows him, ask about his antagonist, no-one ever heard of him. Evidently my research to find out more about him and its failure might be a strong argument.
Another example given by John was Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley. Both belonging to the refined, upper class of the time, considered up until now as great thinkers, philosophers, and well respected in the academic world. Both very well known for their psychedelic drug use. Makes sense? It didn't to me. It reminded me of a paragraph I was reading about, then argued in class about it, on how Walter Benjamin's drug taking was not our drug taking. Meaning, that it was alright for Benjamin to write his theories while being up in the clouds, whilst if I attempt the same thing will probably get thrown out of University. This dichotomy of academia is quite peculiar. It is almost like a work out of a conspiracy theory book. Huxley was known as a heavy user of mescaline, even on his death bed. Leary who preached about the correct use of L.S.D under guidance, preparation and so on, was considered as 'the most dangerous man in America'. Food for thought or merely planting a seed there.
John suggested I look up on the theory of 'idea-space' as a link to Web 2.0. It can be found in the comic book by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell "The disease of Language".
And with that we ended our conversation.
I tried to write the above in as much a comprehensible way as I could. Maybe that's a reason I delayed putting them down earlier; as I was taking time to put them in order in my head, while at the same time drowning my enthusiasm to be as objective as possible in a subject that I feel strongly opinionated. Well it was all good fun and we all had a jolly good laugh
We met up outside the "Druids Head" pub in the north laines, went in and despite my efforts to buy him a drink he insisted on paying for both. Got a pint and sat down at a table where the first thing I thought was "damn, the speaker is there, I'm gonna find it hard to understand what he's saying". So I explained my idea to him, putting the whole Collective Unconscious, Web 2.0 into perspective. He immediately recommended the book "what the dormouse said". The book discusses how the American counter-culture of the 60's shaped the history of the personal computer. The title refers to one of the lyrics in the song "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, a homage to both Alice in Wonderland and the use of psychedelic drugs as food for the mind. This alone puts things into perspective. What was, after all, the main support of the hippies movement Peace, love, oneness. These ideologies derived from the use of hallucinogenics, psychedelics, entheogens which led to this common understanding that old religions such as Hinduism and esoteric Christianity have supported. But the overuse of drugs as a recreational activity pushed the counter-culture to its demise. Or did it? Most of the people who supported the ideologies, moved on to create Silicon Valley, the center of technological innovation responsible for both the dot-com bubble as well as Web 2.0. This serves as the counter-argument I needed for my essay. As I suggest that perhaps this mass-collaboration, web 2.0 ideology is nothing but an unconscious process trying to bring into conscious notions of the god - we are all one consciousness- archetype. With the Silicon Valley though, we clearly see that perhaps this approach to the use of personal computers could be a well-structured and organized plan by washed-out-hippies-turned-out-businessmen.
John also suggested I look into Timothy Leary's "8-circuit model of consciousness", especially on Level 6 that can be related to my argument. Level 6 - the neuroelectric circuit is concerned with the mind becoming aware of itself, independent of the imprints made by previous levels. Leary supported this Level is capable of telepathic communication. Now instead of viewing telepathy as a paranormal activity, simply look at how you are conversing with a friend over, say, MSN or Skype. This kind of activities were beyond comprehension not so long ago. Now they are everyday activities: posting, commenting on blogs, sharing videos and photos. There is a man-made, neuro-electric network of telepathic activity going on, that is nothing more than electrical currents switching on and off yet we perceive it as real as a conversation with a person face to face.
I asked John whether he thinks Web 2.0 is an actual development from previous states of the Internet, a continuation or simply a remediation of pre-existing structures. Although, he said, he is quite favourable of Web 2.0 as a great business model, quite more organized than its predecessor, which means that the general population is more accepting, it is not something new. Since 1997, he continued, networks were well up and running. You could see streaming video, you could post on forums, and send files. But going to the other end of the screen would probably lead you to a geek romanticizing the idea of cyber-culture. Transfers were slow, and most people involved with it were quite dedicated. Web 2.0 has brought about the redesign of that model to be more accessible by the general masses and is more user inclusive and allows for more freedom. The old Internet, he continued, was simply in its embryonic form. More money were put into it to create the ability of streaming, real-time activities where users started to exchange mp3's and went from there. It used to have certain types of control, in terms of difficulty of use for example, (hence restraint to the geek community) something that has been overcome now. Whether this is true freedom or not, John gave the example of the British Empire once having India as its colony. This comparison was made to explain, how all sort of new experiences came to Britain, instead of the colonizer managing to establish its own to the colony. How many people can be found now in Britain, practicing meditation, yoga, eating curry, drinking herbal teas? The correlation with the Internet is that it gives us the same openness of idea sharing. It allows for what once was impossible: learning and experiencing new cultures, ideas, belief systems, thought patterns - information once impossible to attain unless one was a traveller. Evidently, my question was, that even though this massive database of information is available to us, I don't see a lot of people changing, not in terms of their personal ideologies and beliefs but in terms of acceptance. There is still a huge amount of bickering (elephant talk?). The answer was simple. People head to extremes and become more prejudiced no matter what the counter-arguments. In essence, you form your own thoughts on the subject. People will always complain about what they don't perceive or understand. He used a quote by Terence McKenna, "if the truth can be said in a way that it can be understood, then it will be believed".
We later discussed the music industry making connections with the Internet. Those were in terms of the radical change of perception things have on people who experience them. I myself for example did experience the time when the Internet broke through, but I cannot begin to imagine the impact it had on previous generations who lived a time when hard disks did not exist (I also remember Micheal discussing this in class). The same goes for the music industry. John recalls when psychedelic music came out, it was something completely new, never happened before. Musicians of the 60's through the use of psychedelic drugs created a new form of expression. Later on the punk movement came in opposition to prog and psychedelic rock, again a sound very unique and new having a great impact on perceptions of the masses. Think of how a beat person would first view Rave music when it first appeared in the scene. John ended up to the fact that the music industry does not release anything new anymore. Musicians aren't given the chance to experiment since the popular styles are well established and they work in sales so why try something new? In a way this is quite sad, much like the fact that we live in a post-post modern art world. Does this mean we have reached the peak of our expression? Or is the world too preoccupied with other trivial matters to look at the bigger picture? How long has it been since a new style of music or artform has come out and embraced by the general public? In the same mannerism Web 2.0 is nothing new. It is a continuation of well-established, well-thought softwares that work, they simply improve with technology and are redesigned to fit with current times.
It was about here that our interview was going to finish. When we first met up John said "you have me for an hour, I have to be a good father and put the kids to bed tonight", and that hour had come to a close. I was either a good conversation partner or just got lucky, but he suggested that if I bought the next round he'd stay for another half hour. Which of course I did.
So the conversation went on, we discussed about William Burroughs and his cut-up techniques and the manipulation of mental networks. At first glance there is no clear connection as to why we were discussing mental networks and connections to my essay. But on further evaluation I think it becomes quite evident. The reason, the subject came about was my explanation as to why I had made the connection between Web 2.0 and Carl Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. John said that beyond each individuals connections more connections can be found. They might be true or false but connections nevertheless. The reinforcement of ideas, from conversation for example, create connections in the web of chaos. Everything is interrelated in some way or another. You're sitting at a pub and you if you strike up a conversation with a complete stranger you will find something, a person, an event, a hobby that connects the two. Compare it with an endless search on the Internet and you'll see that it is only a reflection of our own reality. One personal example would be when I first started listening to the band Tool, whose members were friends with Bill Hicks, hence me discovering the great man himself. It was from Tool that I had discovered one of my favourite artists Alex Grey. Through one of Tool's links I discovered "Spiral Eyes" a photography studio whose work I really admired only to find out that one of the two women in the company, married to the guitarist of Tool, has also been closely related (living in his basement) with Timothy Leary, and alongside others created one of the first public Internet website for Leary. I could go on for ages with these connections but I don't want to bore you.
So many people deny these connections, our conversation moved on. They claim these connections are mere coincidences and play no role whatsoever. Mainly because Sartre said so. We accept our social reality to the point of ignorance and blindness when everything points to something different, a more universal network of ideas and beliefs. What lies behind the scientific culture is that we have the same brain design. Therefore, these connections are there, and triggered by situations. Unlike Jung who supported that these archetypes of connections are pre-existing since primordial times. Robert Anton Wilson, took a leap from Sartre's belief that everything is meaningless in his book "the cosmic trigger". He supported that a belief system is nothing more but a map of the world, a model that should not be confused with objective reality. In conclusion, each individual looks at her own reality in a different matter/perception forms beliefs, that are still individual, and no man can relate his own belief to be the predominant view of reality. Yet the majority of people share a consensus that this is just how things are. Even the scientific world is filled with holes in their theories, unable to explain the vital questions, yet our new religion today is Science and the scientists our priests. Through them we find reassurance that there is nothing more to humanity than being born, eating, drinking, fucking, dying. We can barely begin to understand how civilizations like the ancient Egyptians and the Mayans could calculate planet distances and movements without todays equipment, we, the post industrial society believe we got it all figured out.
It was inevitable not to ask why Timothy Leary is not academic material. John made a startled look as he said "no,no,no". Was it because he was coined "the most dangerous man in America" by then president Nixon? I laughed as I asked. "Tim was the trickster archetype" he said. "His ideas are not understood now, and as Burroughs said maybe they will appreciate him in a 100 years time". Although an acclaimed psychologist at the start of his career, the academic community feared him, his colleagues 'disowned' him. Even though a great admirer of Marshall McLuhan and supporter of his ideas, Leary was still undermined by most, and some point even by his hippy fans. After his imprisonment and escape, Leary begun preaching about personal freedom and liberation through the use of the Internet and personal computers. Although looking up the term "interweb" on wikipedia will say it's a sarcastic expression for people who don't know much about the Internet, the term was coined before the word Internet in 1977 by Timothy Leary, along with other terms such as mind connect. As McLuhan's prophetic essays on media, Leary followed his footsteps, yet his ideologies and theories were shunned by academia, much like William Blake was at his time. Blake was viewed as an insane personality, obsessed with occultism, mysticism and magic. John told me he had an antagonist during his lifetime, I tried finding out his name, as he didn't remember, but failed to do so. Any input here is more than welcome. The story goes, John continued, that Blake was not accepted as an artist, while his antagonist at the time was making a lot of profit out of his paintings. Flashback to 2008 and you ask anyone about Blake and everyone knows him, ask about his antagonist, no-one ever heard of him. Evidently my research to find out more about him and its failure might be a strong argument.
Another example given by John was Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley. Both belonging to the refined, upper class of the time, considered up until now as great thinkers, philosophers, and well respected in the academic world. Both very well known for their psychedelic drug use. Makes sense? It didn't to me. It reminded me of a paragraph I was reading about, then argued in class about it, on how Walter Benjamin's drug taking was not our drug taking. Meaning, that it was alright for Benjamin to write his theories while being up in the clouds, whilst if I attempt the same thing will probably get thrown out of University. This dichotomy of academia is quite peculiar. It is almost like a work out of a conspiracy theory book. Huxley was known as a heavy user of mescaline, even on his death bed. Leary who preached about the correct use of L.S.D under guidance, preparation and so on, was considered as 'the most dangerous man in America'. Food for thought or merely planting a seed there.
John suggested I look up on the theory of 'idea-space' as a link to Web 2.0. It can be found in the comic book by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell "The disease of Language".
And with that we ended our conversation.
I tried to write the above in as much a comprehensible way as I could. Maybe that's a reason I delayed putting them down earlier; as I was taking time to put them in order in my head, while at the same time drowning my enthusiasm to be as objective as possible in a subject that I feel strongly opinionated. Well it was all good fun and we all had a jolly good laugh
wow, lots of info, brilliant, im jealous.
ReplyDeletewe'll have to talk in class, but im curious where did Sartre say everything is meaningless? and if so, surely it wasnt as cut and dry as that?! we create our own meaning, blah blah. anyhoo we have many things to discuss.
You write very well.
ReplyDelete