Infinite Consciousness and the Subjective Experience – Eastern Mysticism-cum-Phenomenalism by another name

As section titles go, the one that belongs to this section is both very long and very very wanky. It is, however, much shorter than Icke’s three hour introduction to his philosophical (not necessarily, at this stage conspiratorial) position and, despite the wank inherent in the language I have used (and will continue to use in this post), it is, I think, a succinct and accurate take with respect to the general tenor of Icke’s thesis about how the world is (and why it looks different).

Now, if you’re reading this series of posts expecting talk of reptilian shape-shifters, Zionist conspiracies and why the Moon is both a spaceship and a radio amplifier, then you might want to skip to the next part. That exciting material was the subject of sections two and three of Icke’s eleven hour talk, and they will be the subject of the next two posts.

If you only like reptiles and don’t like philosophy, skip ahead.

I won’t be offended, honest.

And what teachings they are. Icke’s philosophical thesis about what constitutes human identity and potential is a kind of co-opted Eastern mysticism, of the type that littered other such conspiracy and UFO theories in the 60s and 70s (such as the Hidden Masters thesis). It’s also similar to the phenomenalism that was popular at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century.

Icke believes the world in which we live is illusory and that there are multiple levels of existence:

1. The Vibrational,
2. The Electrical,
3. The Digital and
4. The Holographic/Hologrammatic (Icke used both terms interchangeably)

Each level of existence sits on top of another, so the hologrammatic is above the digital, the digital is a level above the electrical and so forth.

These levels have different vibrational frequencies and densities (ala the theory that drives most of the Hidden Masters thesis) and having limited access to just one of these levels means we cannot see how the world is really constituted. For example, we are stuck, perceptually, in the holographic level of existence.

The different (nested) levels of reality allows Icke to tell a story about the existence of other entities, life on other planets, the non-existence of resource scarcity and the like, as well as explain how some entities can control how we perceive the world.

For example, the hybrids (more on them next time) can look both human and reptilian due to the holographic nature of the reality in which we live. Paranormal activity, for example, is activity from one reality being decoded by entities in this reality.

Icke’s use of terms like “hologrammatic,” “digital” and the like seem like buzzwords designed to add a technologic gloss to what is a rather old-fashioned perversion of Eastern-style mysticism, but they do play a functional role in his theory. Icke’s theory of the prison planet (the limited holographic perception of reality we labour under) is based upon us not being able to see the more fundamental layers of reality/what is real. He argues that the physical world is illusory and everything is just the expression of an infinite consciousness which is engaged in having subjective experiences. We are all one but we do not realise that we are all one because we are imprisoned in a holographic version of reality controlled by outside forces (those pesky lizards and their kin).

What is real (which is a problematic concept for Icke, as we will see), is energy, pure and simple.

Energy comes in many forms, but fundamentally it’s a vibration (or so it is alleged), and a more limited form of that kind of vibrational energy is electrical, and so forth, eventually producing the holographic (and illusory) world in which we live.

These vibrations makes up the appearance of an external world, in which we live.

Now, it’s hard to reconcile his talk about there being an external world which is illusory and thus the result of an act of willing (i.e. a subjective experience) by some aspect of infinite consciousness with his constant talk about particular scientific claims supporting his views (such as the smiliarity between the arcs of lightning in a plasma ball and the structure of some nebulae). If the external world is illusory, why should:

a) it be so consistent and

b) “facts” about an illusory world provide support for Icke’s ontology about how the real world functions?

Indeed, the problem seems to be even more fundamental: people like Icke, who are holistic thinkers, can piece together the information present in the illusory world to discover the truth of how things really are. But how? We live in not just an illusory world, but one that is a sensory prison? Why think that anything in the illusion resembles a fundamental truth?

Now, Icke has an answer to this, which is based in his quite archaic and frankly weird physio-epistemological theory, about hearts and minds.

He claims the heart, for example, is the vessel for knowing things (well, the true nature of things) intuitively, whilst the limited brain/mind (which is not consciousness, which is infinite and unlimited) merely believes things. This is an interesting model because Icke buys some version of the justified belief model with respect to knowledge, in that the mind can be justified in its beliefs but cannot know in the sense that the heart, which is an intuition-pump (a philosophical joke. Thank you), can know. Icke’s argument must be, if his notion of being able to know the truth of what is beyond the mental prison of our five-sense reality is in any way meaningful, that intuitive knowledge (of the heart) gives us knowledge claims about the other realities, whilst the justified beliefs of the mind are limited to beliefs about the holographic level (the prison planet).

His notion of the heart intuitively knowing is some kind of notion that the heart has direct connection to the truth. You could say that Icke is a Foundationalist (in re epistemology) about the heart and a reliabilist about the mind ((Knowledge is not just located in the brain and heart, however: Icke also claims that we can inherit information via organ transplants (and presumably blood transfusions), which either means the mind or heart is extended over the body or organs store particular information (Does the liver, say, store cocktail recipes? The feet your favourite walks? The hand your favourite crushes?).)).

Icke extends his skepticism of the external world to belief in the existence of temporal states: he believes only the present exists (he is a presentist, in Philosophy of Time style talk) but he allows that some entities can see how future present states will be because the present extends to all moments in time. Icke extends the now to encompass all events at all times, which is how he can reconcile the claim that the past and future do not exist yet refer both to past events as suggesting his thesis is true and claim that the Illuminati (those shape-shifting reptiles I keep promising to talk about) can see the future. His analogy (and he is fond of illustrative analogies masquerading as arguments from analogy) is that of a movie on a DVD: all the information is encoded on the DVD but we only see it frame by frame. The Illuminati (and their ilk) can see it all at once (for time, in a future/past sense, is an illusion of the holographic layer of reality).

In essence, Icke’s thesis about time is both functional and consistent (because it fits in with his notion of infinite consciousness: the experience of time as a linear thing is a limitation of our experience rather than a fact about how the world is) but also useless: his thesis about time does not tell us anything particularly interesting because all he has done is move the past and the future into a vague notion of the “present.”

You could ask how Icke knows any of this? Well, aside from being a holistic thinker of the heart, Icke also believes that synchronicity is an important factor in working out how to break free of the prison planet. Icke places a lot of importance on events being meaningfully connected: he reads a book on psychics and then have a vision. He wonders whether the moon is a spaceship and then reads an article the ext day which says that it must be: these events are not just coincidental but connected in a meaningful way.

Icke’s thesis of synchronicity is hard for a skeptic like me to comprehend, because coincidences are meaningless if you don’t have a theory which connects them to the truth or reliability of some process. Icke, admittedly, has such a theory (intuition gives us knowledge beyond that of the prison of our five-sense reality), but I’m not convinced by this theory, so the synchronicity between Icke having an idea and then finding out more about it (or that someone has been there first) is not, in itself, a case for the idea being true (nor is is proof that there is something linking the two events: you can’t use synchronicity to prove the existence of synchronicity as that is viciously circular reasoning).

There is another issue: Icke seems to be satisfied to find one supporting reference for his idea as being reason to consider the idea seriously. There are multiple problems with this. The first is that he often finds quite old supporting literature (his anthropological support for a universal snake worship in early human societies comes from the 1930s: surely if the idea has merit there would be more recent publications?), he often finds one dissenting view (which shows, it seems, that everyone else was either told to shut up or actively engaged in shutting up the dissenter), he’s inconsistent with his use of science (anything which support his view must be true and anything which goes against his views must be scientists either engaging in or having the conspiracy used against them) and he often misrepresents (I think unwittingly) positions (his theory of there being no physical existence and everything being EMF is only superficially similar to the quantum story about the existence of physical objects in the realm of the macro). For example, he presents the results of stage hypnotism as proof positive that hypnotists can change our perception of reality, which would support his theory if there weren’t a fairly good rival explanation, which is that stage hypnotism isn’t hypnotism in the sense of mesmerism but rather people pretending to be persuaded they are a chicken because acting up under the guise of being hypnotised.

He tries to have it both ways: science fails to see the whole picture and is part of the plot to dumb us down but this bit of science here… that shows that what he is saying must be true.

Of course, that could be considered unfair: Icke can have it both ways. It is possible that some scientists, thinking in part with their hearts, can see the bigger picture. Some scentists might, albeit it unwittingly, be seeing the bigger picture. However, this does seem to make Icke’s unfalsifiable thesis all the more unfalsifiable, as I will talk about later. He wants to use science when science serves his purpose and he criticises any science which doesn’t adhere to how he thinks the world works.

I am certain that Icke not only believes that his theory sounds mad, bad and crazy to know, but that if you bothered to investigate it, you’d agree with his many weird assumptions, because he is sure, because of the synchronic connection between all things, that the only way to explain such connections is because they are meant to be that way (as opposed to my thesis, which is that you can always connect two events if you are creative)NAND thus they are axiomatically true. Scientists, who think with their heads and rarely with their hearts, are unable to connect the dots: they are not holistic thinkers. Indeed, science solely exists to control, manipulate and eliminate imagination (except when it describes findings consistent with Icke’s views).

One thing I should note (and perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier): Icke made a point very early on in the lecture that he was only presenting what he suspects to be the truth. This is important, because prior to seeing Icke speak I assumed he was a mere aggregator of conspiracy theories but now I see that he has a research programme (albeit a degenerating one) and he is willing to admit (like he does about his views expressed in that famous Wogan interview) that he might (and has been) wrong.

Icke spent nearly three hours on this material, and the basic thesis is fairly simple: the physical world is illusory and what really exists is just an aspect of an infinite consciousness which is having/undergoing individuated and subjective experiences. Whilst he also talks about there being levels of existence/reality, these just exist to explain why it is people, like me, can’t see what is really happening behind the scenes. I am a prisoner of five-sense reality, a slave to the hologrammatic representation imposed upon us by the Illuminati.

More on them, a lot more on them, next time.

Presented for your pleasure with little comment:

Al-Qaida calls on Ahmadinejad to end 9/11 conspiracy theories

I have to say, this is essentially an Onion article writ large. I can’t wait ton see what the 9/11 Truthers make of this.

Aid agency withdrew Pakistan staff after CIA fake vaccination scheme

The consequences of the assassination of Osama bin Laden continue.

Occupy Wall Street movement begins to gain critical mass

I might have to cover this on the radio next week: there is something very odd about how the Wall Street protests are getting very little attention in the media.

Before we get to the main attraction: I’ve submitted my PhD for examination. I am now a man of leisure (a man of leisure who is trying to stop Saren from taking over the galaxy). I’ll probably write something about the whole “Submitting a PhD” in a few weeks when the nervous tension has subsided.

The main attraction. On Sunday (UK time) this piece by Nick Cohen saw print in The Guardian. It’s a critique of both WikiLeaks as a movement and Julian Assange as an individual, and it concludes with the following character assassination:

We need also to question the motives of the wider transparency movement. Anti-Americanism is one of its driving inspirations and helps explain its perfidies. If you believe that the American “military-industrial complex”, Europe or Israel is the sole or main source of oppression, it is too easy to dismiss the victims of regimes whose excesses cannot be blamed on the west. Assange’s former colleagues tell me that the infantile leftism of the 2000s is not the end of it. Never forget, they say, that Assange came from a backwater Queensland city named Townsville. He’s a small-town boy desperate to make the world notice.

The grass or squealer usually blabs because he wants to settle scores or ingratiate himself with the authorities. Assange represents a new breed, which technology has enabled: the nark as show-off. The web made Assange famous. It allows him to monitor his celebrity – I am told that even the smallest blogpost about him rarely escapes his attention. When he sees that the audience is tiring, the web provides him with the means to publish new secrets and generate new headlines. Under the cover of holding power to account, Assange can revel in the power the web gives to put lives in danger and ensure he can be what he always wanted: the centre of attention.

Now, I’m no fan of WikiLeaks (like the general idea, but hate the execution) and I think there’s an awful lot of WikiLeak apologetics (and excuses for Assange’s behaviour in general) which rest upon appeals to claims like “America is the Great Devil.” However, criticising WikiLeaks and Assange with the kind of pop or folk psychology Cohen has engaged in is really not helping.

One of the topics I didn’t cover in my PhD is “conspiracism” (mostly because it’s a psychological thesis rather than an epistemic one ((You could, I suppose, construe it as a form of fallacious reasoning, at which point you could provide an epistemic analysis as to why conspiracism is a pathology of reasoning, but that would have been a slightly different thesis to the one I wrote and I’m not even sure that conspiracism is as big a problem as some of my peers believe. I might write about that in the next week or so.))). “Conspiracism” is a thesis about seeing conspiracies everywhere and that such conspiracies are the explanation of notable events in the world in which we live. Many conspiracy theorists are dismissively labelled as suffering from conspiracism (Daniel Pipes, for example, does this) and thus the explanations of such conspiracy theorists are taken to be unwarranted and symptomatic of some kind of paranoia. This move by many conspiracy theory skeptics is often problematic because charges of conspiracism are sometimes politically-driven rather than derived from an understanding of the agent’s psychological states and sometimes even a paranoid person is going to be right about the existence of some conspiracy. Making claims about the psychological state of an agent does not, necessarily, speak against their particular beliefs or actions.

Cohen is playing the psychological card against Assange: the notable founder of WikiLeaks is a small-town boy and thus he’s an upstart with ideas above his station. Cohen’s piece confuses an argument against WikiLeaks as lead by Assange with an ad hominem argument. Maybe Assange is a small-town Australian with grandiose ideas not in keeping with his origins (although, I have to say, only an Englishman would actually think that was an argument, seeing how class-based that criticism seems to be) and maybe he does note every pass reference on the ‘net (in which case: “Hello, Julian. I’m not sure we could ever be friends.”) in a way that some might find ego-centric, but Cohen doesn’t know this. He might be able to infer some of it and, if he’s a qualified psychologist, then maybe he can even remote analyse Assange, but, and “buts” like these are big ((I’m so, so sorry about that joke.)), it still doesn’t speak against the work Assange has done (especially since, as Cohen admits, the push to release the unredacted cables came not just from Assange but also other senior members of WikiLeaks.

What’s worse, I think, for Cohen, is that if you remove the appeal to Assange’s psychological states from the column, then Cohen is not saying anything new or interesting at all. Everything prior to those two paragraphs is simply rehashed information we already knew.

Poor form, Nick Cohen. Poor form.

As Lew from Kiwipolitico wisely said earlier today, “the best remedy for bad speech is more speech.” He said this in response to some bizarre claims Dr. Paul Buchanan (who prefers not to be known by his academic title, so I shan’t mention it again), one of the authors at said blog and the man behind “Buchanan Strategic Advisors,” has made about me. I am talking about this particular comment thread and specifically this particular comment (Update: Buchanan has deleted the offensive comments now, so these links are merely historical):

Good bye Matthew:

Your sense of importance is inversely proportional to your intellectual worth (oh, and BTW, I know your supervisors and lets just say that…the examiners shall decide).

Although the version he originally wrote (which, unluckily for him, was sent out by e-mail as soon as he entered it) was slightly different:

Good bye Matthew:

Your sense of importance is inversely proportional to your intellectual worth (oh, and BTW, I know your supervisors, who agree with me).

Now, what Buchanan has claimed here (in both versions) is simply not true.

Let me emphasise that: Buchanan is spreading false information about me.

Neither of my supervisors know him and they have definitely never discussed my PhD with him (as one of them said, the fact that she has never met him or had contact with him effectively precludes her discussing my work with him). Paul Buchanan has either confused me with someone else or he is lying. Normally I’d extend the principle of charity and assume that he’s been foolish, but given the invective of his earlier comments in that thread, I’m inclined to believe that he thought he could lie about having spoken with my supervisors and get away with it. Luckily for me (and not so luckily for him) I have a very good relationship with both of my supervisors and speak with them regularly.

It was very easy to verify that Paul Buchanan was not telling the truth.

I’m making a point about this here on my blog (sorry, foreign readers, who don’t know who Paul Buchanan is) for the sheer fact that Buchanan has blocked me from commenting in the thread and thus my only recourse is to signal here that Buchanan is passing himself off as someone who knows about my project (and its academic merit) when, in fact, he does not.

As to why he has taken against me… Well, I don’t rightly know. I have some theories but I’m not going to make matters worse by speculating openly as to why he thinks heaping abuse upon me is in anyway justified. Indeed, if he wasn’t against robust debate I’d be discussing this with him over at his blog.