Benoit Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb Discuss The Perilous State of Our Financial System

Excellent discussion about our current financial situation from the point of view of two people who really understand chaos theory, fractal geometry and the nonlinear basis our economy. According the late Mandelbrot “everything is possible.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLFkQdiXPbo

The Powers of Ten

This is an oldie but goodie precursor to the more recent “The Known Universe.” Thanks to Stephan for finding this.

Opening Minds Audio Book now on iTunes

Yes, it’s finally happened. The Opening Minds Audio Book is now on iTunes. This is the unabridged version of Opening Minds: A Journey of Extraordinary Encounters, Crop Circles, and Resonance read by myself with original music. It includes all the chapters from the original book.  Click here to listen to the Opening Minds Audio Book on iTunes. Get more information at the Opening Minds Audio Book info page. This is still one of the most accurate books ever written about the crop circle phenomena. It also includes information about UFOs, remote viewing and real accounts of human/alien sexual encounters. (Recommended for adult readers.)

Random Matrix Networks–More Evidence for Order Out of Chaos

New research in the mathematics of randomness gives more support for  the idea that universe is based on fundamental underlying patterns of order. One type of research looking at random matrix networks shows that even completely random patterns give rise to coherent waves, called “open channels,” that can pass through opaque surfaces more than would be expected from randomized light.

Another outcome of this research is that it can be shown even completely randomized data sets give rise to statistical correlations. This is known as the “curse of dimensionality.” It seems to particularly affect economics by creating the illusion of patterns in long-range historical data.

The larger implication of this research is that even quantum structures can be approximated very accurately with random numbers suggesting that there are deep, underlying patterns in nature that are hidden from view. See New Scientist, 10 April 2010.

Another similar type of research recently mentioned in the magazine Science suggests a related idea. Randomly arranged networks of materials seem to be able to create organized patterns of energy called “Anderson-localizations.”  Even the highly disordered materials create coherent photon waves including infinite-range correlations. The authors refer to this phenomena as a type of “engineered disorder.” These phenomena suggest that spontaneous ordered energy systems are the norm in our universe, rather than the exception. See Science, 12 March 2010.

This research, taken together, provides more evidence for the type of phenomena we continue to see around crop circles and remote viewing: spontaneously organized information arising out of seemingly random patterns.

Read more about randomness and Black Swan events here.

Toyota, Chaos Theory, and Crop Circles

For the last century or so, technology has been a great driving force behind much global economic growth. Businesses have seen technology as a pathway to success and profits. The recent unexplained behavior of some Toyota cars with electronic throttle controls calls this belief into question. While many of us see technology as something that brings predictability and comfort into our lives and have a great deal of faith in it, there is also another side to technology: that of unexpected consequences and uncertainty.

The sociologist Charles Perrow pointed out several decades ago that “tightly-coupled” systems were prone to unanticipated failures as the result of the close proximity of many sensitive and interactive parts. Examples include Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, and the Space Shuttle Challenger disasters. Then, in the ’80s and ’90s, chaos theory and fractal geometry showed us that highly complex systems are likely to experience unintended consequences as a result of the non-linear interactions that erupt in many types of “non-equilibrium” systems (i.e., weather, living things). In certainly could be argued that modern automobiles, while not quite living things, are also tightly-coupled systems that are sometimes subject to non-linear behavior.

The incidents of Toyota cars with unintended acceleration events seem to confirm both chaos theory and Perrow’s ideas. Mainly, that as systems get more complex, new unexpected interactions are likely to occur. GM engineers originally snubbed the idea of making their own hybrid vehicle on account of the many extra thousands of parts and miles of wire needed beyond that of a conventional car. They just thought it was too complicated and instead aimed for a fuel-cell car (which is still in the design stage, by the way).

No one now seems to know exactly what is causing these acceleration issues and Toyota claims that the software is fine. And that is precisely the point. As electronic systems are created in ever new and complex ways, unintended consequences are increasingly likely to happen. One is reminded of the crash of several U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters in Germany in the 1990s that were allegedly caused by them getting too close to radio towers. And the Airbus plane has had its share of automated mishaps; crashes that some suspect could have been avoided if the plane were not run by computerized “fly by wire” systems which can sometimes override pilots own flight control. New Scientist magazine recently suggested that the Toyota incidents were a product of electrical interference from the likes of cell phones and similar devices.

Whatever the cause turns out to be, it reminds me of the strange phenomena witnessed in the presence of UFOs and crop circles. In the 1970s, Ford motor company even issued a bulletin on the effects of UFOs on cars including failed electrical systems and stalled engines. And I’ve seen a lot of weird electronic events in crop circles in the last few decades including shorted-out cameras and batteries. Even the National Geographic film crew, with which we worked in the summer of 2009, said their professional video camera completely and inexplicably failed while visiting a crop formation that season–it froze up so severely they had to call their London office for instructions how to reboot it. One wonders whether the Toyota experience is similarly related in the sense that new, advanced technologies may engage previously unexplored electronic phenomenon including such possibilities as room-temperature superconductivity or other similarly mysterious quantum effects.

One of the German sociologist Max Weber’s favorite themes was the “irrationality of rationality.” By that, he meant how the very efficiency of modern organizations could make them so cold and depersonalized that they no longer served a human purpose and so had become irrational. However, the same concept can be applied to modern technology: mainly that systems can become so complex, tightly integrated, and precisely controlled that bring forth new quantum or nonlinear properties that previously had no impact or relevance to our level of existence.  So in a sense, our efforts to control technology nature necessarily and paradoxically brings forth “Black Swan” events.

Nature’s Quantum Field is Fractal

Startling new research reported in Science Magazine suggests that the quantum field of the universe has a fractal distribution. Fractals are objects that appear increasingly detailed the closer you look like galaxies, mountains, rivers, and the human cardiovascular system, for example. Measurements of a commonly found semiconductor show that electron waves, under certain circumstance, in this case near the metal-insulator boundary, appear as fractals. It was previously thought that the waves would localize in a uniform, regular way. This new research shows that waves are fractally distributed according to a power-law.

The significance of this finding is that supports the idea that many different types of systems, at various scales, are capable of self-organization. This is because systems with fractal distributions often possess chaotic dynamics which in turn support self-generating evolutionary-processes. As discussed in Opening Minds, and elsewhere on this blog, it is highly likely that chaotic, self-organized processes are found in remote viewing phenomena and also the unexplained effects of crop circles.

Scalar-Energy and Scalar-Wave Technology–Cool Video

This fascinating, “must-see” video by John Michael Mallon presents some amazing information and pictures about the relevance of scalar-wave energy to our lives. More information at The Healing Universe website. (Thanks to Shar for finding this.)