Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing

Slouching toward Big Brother | CNET News.com

Slouching toward Big Brother | CNET News.com
With what seems like a Government bent on making 1984 a reality in the 21st Century, it is important that people who believe in freedom begin to intelligently plan strategies for preventing such a scenario. The Island Foundation's Sanctuary Project is one attempt to hedge our bets.

John C. Lilly, M.D. and beliefs

John C. Lilly, M.D.
I spent a lot of time today talking and thinking about beliefs and how we know what we know. This site has a lot of links to things John Lilly, who's quote,
"In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits." sparked me to a defense of radical skepticism in the conversation. I spent some time afterward catching up on what I don't know about Epistemology -- the philosophical study of how we know things..

If the brain is the sexiest organ -- size does matter

 
Well this message hasn't come to you in spam email messages but has implications in your personal life. Scientists have discovered that the amygdala, a section of the brain seems to have an important role in sex drive. This Nature article then goes on to speculate that there is huge market market potential in this discovery "If researchers can nail down the roots of sex drive, they might ultimately hit on drugs that compensate for lack of arousal."
This article via Brainworld who also found the picture, Amygdala Rules by Helen Norton.

Brain size matters for sex.

You've heard of nanotech -- now there's quantum computing

Very proper and English, the Centre for Quantum Computing addresses big questions with the tiniest of particles. Explore a bit more and you may find yourself asking -- What's all this about parallel universes?

Update -- a Wikipedia entry for Quantum Computing.

Wired News: Social Nets Not Making Friends

Wired News: Social Nets Not Making Friends
Do you think social network software has turbocharged your social life and eliminated from your life stay-at-home weekend nights? You may be in the minority. Some people are down right annoyed by it. Read the story for more.

Social Software Blues

Social Software Blues
Discusses new social software set for release.

"Hallucinogens" could unlock mystery of the brain

"Long before Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey and the counterculture generation discovered hallucinogenic drugs, the Indians of western Mexico were using peyote to commune with their gods." This is the start of the Knight Ridder news item which comes by way of Peter Webster and the Media Awareness Project.

Brain Waves: Empathy: Our Survival Depends On It

Brain Waves: Empathy: Our Survival Depends On ItThe importance of empathy is a subject I wrote on extensively in my book, Ecstasy: The MDMA Story which I first wrote twenty years ago. Empathy -- the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of our fellow humans hints at the importance of two key issues to our future: ethics and aesthetics. Ethics -- what we consider good and how to do good -- and aesthetics -- what we regard as beautiful -- are the key to using our expanding technological powers to evolve rather than destroy the planet.

Google's Orkut cuts out | CNET News.com

Google's Orkut cuts out | CNET News.com
Yesterday I noticed Orkut but today it is gone -- at least temporarily. Let me know when it is back online and -- hey give me an invite! Social software almost sounds like artificial intelligence. Perhaps both are a contradiction in terms.

Thanks for the Memories

This amusing bit of nostalgia comes by way of David Pierce's Hedwab.

The Association for the Study of Dreams

The Association for the Study of Dreams
I attended a conference almost about 17 years ago at UC Santa Cruz by this same group, ASD. I remember spending time with Frank Barron and Stanley Krippner, both of them suggesting I return to psychology. Now, almost a generation later, I have. This link is via Hedweb

Is Blogging Easier Than Email?

FloBlogg
This blog entry on Floblogg starts out:
A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend told me that ...
A significant barrier to entry form many to use the Web as a means of interaction is the work to set up - and maintain - a Website. Weblogging tools have changed this - and creating a Weblog is becoming as simple - if not easier than writing emails.

Textism Takes Text to a New Level

Textism
Computers have become increasingly sophisticated, generating huge binary multimedia files. However, as a writer who is not so great with graphics or music or video production, I have always felt that text is my allay. This site has elevated text to a new level.

Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference

[object]
This conference announcement came via a new blog called molybdenum

How to Save the World

How to Save the World
There is so much on this blog that if you find yourself lingering on it too long, blame the the guy who did it, not me.

Nanodot: Search

Nanodot: Search
Nanotech speculative fiction online antholoogy. The things that dreams and machines are made of.

Tod Maffin's Future File

Tod Maffin's Future File
Nice site with lots of short and punchy synopsis's.

What Is A Micronation?

What Is A Micronation?
Micronation's are the latest trend. Hey, maybe we should start one.

headmap

headmap
What is headmap? The future of interface? Kinda cool ...
Hint, if your confused, look at the PDF I found on the site. Wow, its almost a book.

New Social Software Network from Google

Stories are starting to break about a new social software network from Google called Orkut. It is invitation only and so I picked up the story from Boing Boing but am still waiting for a direct invite (hint hint).

New Additions to the Psychedelic Library

New Additions to the Psychedelic Library
For those of you who have not visited this great resource in a while, here are what's new. For access to the complete Psychedelic Library, use this link instead of the one on their page.

Timothy Leary - Wikipedia

Timothy Leary - Wikipedia
Wiki, for those of you who have not heard of this newly popular form of social software, is a simple text-only presentation with group collaboration its main important feature. While looking for some material on Timothy Leary, I came across this page of an encyclopedia project using Wiki.

The Corporation: A Sundance Award Winner

The Corporation Review via kottke.org
"The Corporation, which just won an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, is a film that explores the following question:
In law, the corporation is a "person". But what kind of person is it?"
So starts this review of an interesting new film which this review at kottke.org points out has all sorts of implications.

The Psychedelic Review Archives 1963-1971 -- All Avaialble Online Now!

The Psychedelic Review Archives 1963-1971
The Psychedelic Review -- a publication that was published irregularly from 1963 to 1971 is now avaialble online. Started by the Harvard Psilocybn Research Project team which included Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner, Paul Lee and many others.
You can also get each of the issues as a complete PDF:
Issue 1 PDF Issue 2 PDF Issue 3 PDF Issue 4 PDF Issue 5 PDF
Issue 6 PDF Issue 7 PDF Issue 8 PDF Issue 9 PDF Issue 10 PDF
Issue 11 PDF

The Hip Santa Cruz History Project

S Cruz 1960s
Just having returned from Santa Cruz, I post this information site about the its hip history.

Mavericks of the Mind and Voices From the Edge

Mavricks of the Mind
This is not a new site but it is a site worth revisiting as there has been some new content added. Lots of great interviews and more.

Om Tao Lodge by Russ McClay

Tao Lodge Archives - Announcements
This is a site that has been on the Web for ten years now -- a creation of Russ McClay, a long-time friend of Timothy Leary and web artist. In exploring this site, you can join the leary-l mailing list.

Boogie Search Engine Conquers the Cyberseas

I was looking at a software program named Grokkster when I found this great search engine using the same technology. The clusters of ideas that it produces are an amazing technology.

Nano Nano

The NeoFiles
From the NeoFiles, here is another one of those RU Sirius interviews we love. This one is with Howard Lovy and the subject is those really small machines that populate the world of nanotechnology.

Do You Want to Live Forever?

The NeoFiles
RU Sirius's NeoFiles is out with a new issue. This is an interview with Brian Alexander, author of Rapure:

Visiting My Old Home Town Santa Cruz My Thoughts Turn to ...

... psychedelics and poetry and the many people who have passed away the last few years. These people were part of what I thought of as the psychedelic community, including Rosemary Woodruff better known as Rosemary Leary. You can also grab a copy of this article as a PDF.

The Psychedelic Sixites

At the risk of being called retro, my mind tonight turned to the Psychedelic 60's. Here is the exibit by the same name from the University of Virginia.

Download Your William Blake Illuminated Books

Grab a copy of these colorfully illustrated hypertext free William Blake Illuminated Books." The link arrived by way of Hedweb.

Happy Birthday to Albert Hofmann

Albert Hofmann celebrates his 98th Birthday, picture and story on the MAPS website. This story arrieved through Michael Shields.

Stanley Krippner: Tranforming Our Cultural Myths

Stanley Krippner is both one of the most important contemporary psychologists and one of the only authentic countercultural icons still living. I am currently in San Mateo, California -- taking a workshop with him as part of my doctoral program at Saybrook Insitute.

Bohemian Ink: Underground Writers Who Have Surfaced

Bohemian Ink spotlights a rich range of counterculture writers as well as being a portal to a rich range of other web resources of underground prose and poetry.

The Ecstatic Adventure and Poetry

Prose is talk, poetry is music. A book I read in the Sixties, The Ecstatic Adventure edited by Ralph Metzner looks at poetry to expess things that almost by their very nature are inexpressable. The limitations of words becomes clear.
I also realize that even as it seems the world has grown more accepting of people's individual differneces, that if Alan Ginserg were alive today, the entheogen enthusiasts of today would not be open to him.

In the Darkness You have Found: Prescience

Prescience, the Journal of Radical Research and Cyberspacial Musings has been one of my favorite on-line magazines since its beginnings in the mid-Ninties. What I liked was the psychoactive content but also the simple yet elegrant design of each issue.

When I had the chance to host on the Island Web server, I jumped at the chance and it has been parked in our garage for several years now. It is the brainstorm of an inspired Englishman named Simon G. Powell and is worthy of your exploration.

2003 Year-End Google Zeitgeist

The most popular searches on Google during 2003 are found at 2003 Year-End Google Zeitgeist giving us an insight into what people in different cultures around the world are thinking about. This information comes via the Golden Sparrow Awards 2004 on Hedweb.com

The Venus Project Aims at Redesigning Our Culture

The Vennus Project has similar aims to the Island Sanctuary Project. Both believe that our culture is due for an upgrade. This site explains their goals and talks about their 25 acre research facility in Florida.

Ready for Memetic Engineering?

A new PHP Postnuke flavored web site -- memes.org -- answers basic questions about memes and memetics. There also is excursions into more esoteric areas including memetic engineering and the characteristics of a memoid (we all know some of these types do we not?).

Island Views Electrozine -- Sanctuary Update

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ISLAND VIEWS ELECTROZINE No.25

January 2004
Edited by Bruce Eisner
Associate Editor Will Penna
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--
Hot Links For This Issue

Sanctuary Call in Island Views Newsletter free online download

Aldous Huxley Meetings in your city or town

Join the Island Group on Tribe

Volunteer for Island Foundation

JCS, Journal of Consciousness Studies

JCS, Journal of Consciousness Studies
I found this tenth anniversary issue of the Journal of Conciousness Studies on the fantastic Mimestream directory.

Transtopia -- Island Project

Transtopia -- Island Project
Island Foundation's Sanctuary Project is not the plan to create an island sanctuary. Here is an effort by the Transtopian's take with a similar theme.

Somaweb: All Things Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World and other works - Extensive information including on line texts, discussion forum, links and articles.
For those who have followed my writings, it will come as no surprise that I consider Aldous Huxley to be the father of the counterculture. Along with Island Web which I have maintained for the last ten years, Somaweb has the best collection of all things Huxley around.

The Future According to Dr. Moravec

An Interview with Hans Moravec by David Jay Brown
My friend David Jay Brown interviewed the noted machine intelligence savant Hans Moravec and it is now available on Norlanto.net. Reading it sparked

CyberOctave Music: news

CyberOctave Music: news
I heard from my friend Michael Gosney tonight. He is coming into town for a televison executives conference. He told me that he as been dong a new project, CyberOctave Music. I visited his site and found his web log and calendar of events as well as the music worth a look.

Accessing Alternity

I've been doing some research for a friend on some historical matters around the work that the hypnotist Milton Erickson did with Aldous Huxley. In the process, I found an interesting unpublished manuscript by a fellow named Bruce Harrah-Conforth Ph.D called Accessing Alternity which references territory familiar to my searches though psychedelics and altered states stuff. I admit to not having digested this book but I'd like to hear from those who chose to read it. What is "alternity?" You gotta read the book to find out.

Nostalgia for the Nineties and Cyberia

I remember the first time I saw a copy of Cyberia by Douglas Rushkoff. I was sitting at an outdoor patio table in the back of Timothy Leary's Beverly Hills home and the book was passed around the table as if it were a sacred text. Well you can download the entire book if you click the link above or read it in html format. For me it provides both a glimpse into a part of my life that fled with the turn of the Millennium and a lesson in how writers should not read too much significance into youth social movements. Take a look yourself and tell me what you think. This information courtesy of the Cyberpunk Database.

Got Enlightenment?

I first met Jordon Gruber back in the mid-nineties on a street corner in Aptos California. He said to me, "Bruce Eisner, Bruce Ehrich" and I said, "Yes that's me." Jordon knew me under the assumed name I use for writing (Eisner) and under my real name I use to run the Mindware Catalog. Somehow he had put the two persona together. Jordon told me that he was a polyamorous pagan who lives in Palo Alto and invited me to one of his famous Solstice parties.
A few years after I met him, Jordon started enlightenment.com -- a site which has grown organically through phases of Internet bust and boom. You can also find out more about Jordon and his interesting friends on his Spiritblogs directory.