"The greater the doubt, the greater the awakening; the smaller the doubt, the smaller the
awakening. No doubt, no awakening." ---Zen master Po Shan, in regards the "doubt sensation" Had a "visit" from Alan Watts yesterday ... as happens on many Sundays - especially to receptive and contemplative hikers on the trails around his beloved and cloud-hidden shrine - Mt Tam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts Without getting too far off-topic and opening another can-of "holier-than-thou" worms from various true-believers, there is this underlying connection (albeit strained to some observers) between spirituality, as experienced from a scientific perspective, and the science behind and the quest for finding "free energy", which BTW is often called a "holy grail". And no, Terry, this goes way beyond Watts and Amperes... as the clever EE is sure to quip. The premise of this interconnection is in found in quantum mechanics - and specifically in the alteration of "probability" of QM interactions, and of so-called 'randomness' changing into a 'stochastic process.' It has been the contention of many of the more insightful observers of LERN (cold fusion) that the phenomena is basically an enhanced QM effect, a type of quasi-BEC in which the "time" constraint, which would normally make the fusion reaction of deuterium of extremely low probability - has been warped somehow by the parameters of "nano-confinement" (loaded metal matrix simulating a BEC) leading to both to an increased rate of reaction - but equally importantly leading to a profound difference in how the energy is transduced. IOW - by speeding up the rate of reaction from QM time-rarity, symmetry is maintained by a correspondingly slow "dump" of excess energy, in which time is stretched out enormously so that it occurs gradually in 'phonons' - instead of suddenly in photons. As an alternative analogy of "self-ordering" in LENR, there is also the connection to the BEC on which much has been written. Here is more on the strained sci-phi connection (science & philosopy this time), with 'strain' becoming an operative word - on many levels. Alan Watts died a decade before science (in the personage of James Glick) began to get a handle on what he was trying to convey. But there is one word which epitomizes everything. And this analogy of science-based spirituality emerging from the clouds of mysticism is a perspective best seen from "high places" aka the literal perspective of El Shaddai - in that that the vast surrounding lowlands always seem to have a derivative higher "focus" (or else by definition they are not low). *Emergence* - is the word. This one idea could be the most important generalized concept in all of human understanding! And this is especially true for any scientist trying to grasp his inner "need" for spirituality in a society where bigotry is so extraordinarily entrenched (in the anti-science mentality of organized religion). And perhaps equally true for the fringe-scientist trying to grasp what experimental parameters can accelerate QM probability to such a degree - but in a world ruled by another kind of bigoted mainstream establishment. The fact that so few observers are able to grasp all of the implications and nuances of this term "emergence" is only indicative of how little genuine understanding is 'out-there' even among educated observers. Before the advent of "Chaos science" popularized in James Glick's seminal book "Chaos" (1987) - that is - this concept of *emergence* was just another arcane philosophical term. of passing relevance. Nowadays in all aspects of science: including biology, computer science, science of philosophy, systems theory, even political science and religion --"emergence"-- has become the key way of understanding the development of organized systems. But underlying it all is a "moral" dilemma - in htat simple "addition" or the additive processes, will find a way to self-organize... and yet this duality is the epitome of the moral conflict within the hedonism of "more is better" set against the elegance of Ockham's razor simplicity. Built-in strain. As many observers now appreciate -- in honing down this conflicting duality: "more" is NEVER better unless it portends "emergence," and yet, in the context of complex systems, "more" almost always portends "emergence" given adequate time. "Time" (or lack thereof) now becomes the great deceiver - the nexus of evil if we wish to cast it into the notion of bifurcation of moral forces. This is not a blanket invitation to "super-size-it" at McDonald's however.... And speaking of religion, until one understands how the concept of divinity is itself an emergent property of the "hunting pack" imperative in baseline human mentality, and the biochemical chemicals which give us that mental imperative, then it is impossible to move beyond the glib notion that "faith" is always the primary necessity of belief. Emergence refers to "the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems." In Jeffrey Goldstein's rewording of Glick - the common characteristics are: (1) Radical Novelty - the new feature was not previously observed in the underlying systems (2) Underlying "dynamical processes" which self-organize (3) coherence or correlation - meaning that the "integrated whole" will emerge from similar systems under widely divergent circumstances (monotheism in Judaism, Islam and Christianity) (4) The property of "wholeness" being simplicity deriving out of complexuity (5) Goldstein throws in the idea of "downward causation" which has interesting nuances. To close out this "thinking aloud" soliloquy in a rather profoundly complicated way- consider the HMC - which is perhaps a correlate to Grimer's hierarchic aether model: "Hierarchic model of consciousness: from molecular Bose condensation to synaptic reorganization" by Alex Kaivarainen http://www.emergentmind.org/kaivarainenI2.htm ...or maybe that hierarchic 'climb' is best delayed till the next hike up Mt. Tam and a flash of Watts from on high, so to speak. Jones BTW - in case the 'strained connection' to LENR was not well-made above (it wasn't) and to link it to the Kaivarainen paper - suffice it to say that 'cold fusion' may well involve a hierarchic model of "small scale reordering" deriving from molecular Bose quasi-condensation (deuterium in a matrix) to the nuclear reorganization of 2D--> He.
