c/terence-mckenna
The largest collection of talks by Terence McKenna — visionary ethnobotanist and advocate for the mindful use of natural psychedelics.
61 mentions across 47 talks in Terence McKenna
More from Alfred North Whitehead…to know that we are like cells moving at the will of a larger system. Somebody once said, electrons blindly run. And Alfred North Whitehead said, yes, but inside the body, they blindly run across according to the body's plan. And I think that's what you…
…or tails, but it can't be both. So, out of the class of the posse, one outcome is selected for what Alfred North Whitehead calls the formality of actually occurring. The formality of actually occurring. Well, in a sense, science then, is revealed as the…
…to know that we are like cells moving at the will of a larger system. Somebody once said, electrons blindly run. And Alfred North Whitehead said, yes, but inside the body they blindly run according to the body's plan. And I think that's what you might…
…called forth by this. The laws of physics are going into crisis. This is why I urge people to look at Alfred North Whitehead, who was a very scientific and mathematically grounded thinker, and who talked about what he called sudden shifts of epochs. His…
…so unbounded that it gives me the opportunity to play and clay if I choose. Much of what I say is Alfred North Whitehead, his philosophy. And believe me, if you're looking around for a serious ontological foundation, you don't have to read Sanskrit.…
…his philosophy. And believe me, if you're looking around for a serious ontological foundation, you don't have to read Sanskrit. Alfred North Whitehead will serve very admirably science in the modern world process and reality. He was. He was and remains the…
…by the surrounding telos toward concrescence. A lot of the words that I use to talk about this are taken out of Alfred North Whitehead, who's to my mind, the great unread philosopher of the 20th century. And he wrote a book called process and reality,…
…of a Nano Technological breakout there's uh uh you know you've got her changes the I guess we probably talked about how Alfred North Whitehead said: uh the business of the future is to be dangerous. Well we're, we're doing good business uh boy it's a…
…do no right no matter what you do well so when looking at this I created a vocabulary actually, I borrowed it from Alfred North Whitehead but I think I'm on to something which science has missed, and it's this: it's that the universe or a human life…
…six months and who is, hands down one of the most powerful thinkers that Western man has ever produced and that's Alfred North Whitehead. Who's just? You know he understood we haven't gotten into anything that his method didn't anticipate. And I thought I…
…doing the Garden stuff obviously but what you can do is there's no end to understanding because understanding now this is Alfred North Whitehead understanding is a perception of pattern as such, I mean there are many, many patterns in this room. We could…
…this book. You can throw your sanskrit dictionaries away, folks, we don't have to tithe to folks in robes anymore just read Alfred North Whitehead he has it all and he has an idea which he called novelty. And he says there is something in the world…
…platonist. I'm a provisional platonist, I think you know. If you want to get this nailed down philosophically, then Alfred North Whitehead is your guy, because Whitehead is a platonist but he understands the danger of pure idealism. Pure idealism contains…
…pathways, more and more concrescent, more and more at the behest of the dynamics of emergent properties that are unpredictable. Alfred North Whitehead said it's the business of the future to be dangerous and of course as we approach the millennium, this is…
…The idea is novelty, and I use it as a technical term in the same way that it's used in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. The closest synonym to it is Dao. Dao, as we all know is this mysterious force which builds things up and pulls them…
…that way or where does he get this stuff to my mind the great unsung philosophical hero of the 20th century is Alfred North Whitehead. Alfred North Whitehead you can throw your sanskrit lexicons away, you can get rid of all of that stuff. It has been…
…where does he get this stuff to my mind the great unsung philosophical hero of the 20th century is Alfred North Whitehead. Alfred North Whitehead you can throw your sanskrit lexicons away, you can get rid of all of that stuff. It has been completely and…
…of that stuff. It has been completely and thoroughly and rigorously presented in Whitehead, and the great thing about Alfred North Whitehead is the man was a world class mathematician. With Bertrand Russell he wrote principia mathematica which is probably the…
…you must know that Bertrand Russell had an affair with Evelyn Whitehead, and so what Bertrand Russell would say about Alfred North Whitehead is inevitably colored with monkey business. No no I'm talking about how he would react to your explanation of the…
…forth by this but the laws of physics are going into crisis. This is why I urge people to look at Alfred North Whitehead, who was a very scientific and mathematically grounded thinker and who talked about what he called sudden shifts of epochs. His…
…of closure. The person who has actually laid the firmest foundation for understanding this sort of thing philosophically is Alfred Whitehead. Nothing we have suggested is beyond the power of his method to anticipate Whitehead's Formalism accounts for minds and…
…pass out of three dimensional space and into some higher topological situation and when that happens there will be what Alfred North Whitehead called a shift of epochs. Whitehead had the notion that physical laws don't last forever they just reign over…
…even our own lives. And so I've developed something which I call novelty theory, and I use the vocabulary of Alfred North Whitehead because it's a pre existing vocabulary created by a very, very very reputable mathematician which, as this story will make…
…is. The meat is in process and reality, the great unread philosophical tome of the 20th century process and reality by Alfred North Whitehead. Tell your friends. Anyway this is time and this is habit going up. For instance, when the wave moves sharply…
…level, I don't know what would be. So what that means then, to me is that matter itself has what Alfred North Whitehead called an appetition for completion. Everything in the universe strives to transcend itself. Everything in the universe has what…
…like that but I wanted to anchor it in a metaphysic that I knew was mathematically secure so I adopted the vocabulary of Alfred North Whitehead who I think is one of the great neglected geniuses of the 20th century. I mean I think you can throw away…
…beings, ideas are all indicative of this enormous outpouring of creativity that immediately precedes what I call cribbing from Alfred North Whitehead: the concrescence. You see the idea of ordinary historians is that history is pushed from behind, that it's…
…pass out of three dimensional space and into some higher topological situation and when that happens there will be what Alfred North Whitehead called a shift of epochs. Whitehead had the notion that physical laws don't last forever they just reign over…
…the last thing. Now what was the other word? Concrescence? This is a little trickier concept. I took it from Alfred North Whitehead. Concrescence is the idea of something that grows together, it concresces, it becomes more dense, more connected, more defined…
…not. And most people won't be ready unless ideas like this are promulgated. I didn't develop this idea. This is what Alfred North Whitehead who I think is the great unsung philosopher of the West I mean you can throw your sanskrit dictionaries away and…
…art, which I call understanding. And I don't mean this in an intellectual sense. I mean it in the sense that Alfred North Whitehead intended when he defined understanding as the apperception of pattern as such. As such, there's nothing more to it than…
…and that what we need is a theory of what I call the ebb and flow of novelty. I take this word from Alfred North Whitehead, the idea that novelty is something which comes and goes on many temporal scales. It ebbs and flows within the context of a…
…is that the quality that this thing is describing is what I call novelty, and I take that term from the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. My idea is that time is a kind of struggle between two elemental impulses, if you will and one I call habit…
…where you can do no right which do well. So in looking at this, I created a vocabulary actually I borrowed it from Alfred North Whitehead but I think I'm on to something which science has missed, and it's this: it's that the universe, or a human life,…
…it a fractal I mean is it just in a margin? Novelty is the emergence of new states of connectedness. This is Alfred North Whitehead. Novelty is the emergence of new states of connectedness and that's all that it predicts. As an example, this past week I…
…this idea of the world soul and yet you know the fate of Bergson, his influence on modern philosophy is certainly minimal. Alfred North Whitehead is my great favorite. I mean I think Whitehead is just you know the cat's pajamas and he has this idea of…
…process and reality I mean that is the psychedelic metaphysic. You can throw away your sanskrit dictionaries, folks. Alfred North Whitehead, in very good English and on mathematically impeccable foundations, created the most psychedelic philosophy there is I…
…forth by this but the laws of physics are going into crisis. This is why I urge people to look at Alfred North Whitehead, who was a very scientific and mathematically grounded thinker and who talked about what he called sudden shifts of epochs. His…
…form of nihilism but I think ultimately it is in the most positive sense. But still I'm of the school that follows Alfred North Whitehead who said: say what you may, there are certain stubborn facts and you know that's not a very Buddhist point of view.…
…is a theory that explains to us how it is. Out of the vast class of possible things, certain things undergo what Alfred North Whitehead called the formality of actually occurring. We have no theory. I mean science can say well it's probable that it'll be…
…only one closure and all others are false closure. Closure isn't really the word I would use. I steal shamelessly from Alfred North Whitehead and probably others as well but I'm willing to cop to that. He has this notion called concrescence, which I think…
…an interesting notion that any discussion of reality will tend to come back to. It wasn't until the 1930s that Alfred North Whitehead, in his book process and reality, created the great phrase that has now entered the language: the fallacy of misplaced…
…escaped my lips tonight by accident is novelty. Novelty is the concept that I've elaborated over the years, taking it from Alfred North Whitehead but as I see it being the cosmos whatever you want to call it is a struggle between two implacable forces:…
…There's the gray goose scenario of a nanotechnological breakout. You've got earth changes. I guess we've probably talked about how Alfred North Whitehead said the business of the future is to be dangerous. Well we're doing good business, but boy it's a…
…you and I, and perhaps to some degree Ralph, come out of the influence of the school called organismic philosophy that Alfred North Whitehead and Joseph Needham and l l white put forth. Clearly the reason that organism you know Rupert made the very…
…because what I want to concentrate on is what I call the short epoch, and my terminology here is largely drawn from Alfred North Whitehead who I think is the great unsung hero of British 20th century philosophy, and he had a notion of a progression of…
…bear that in mind. What is a concrescence? Ah, concrescence. Concrescence is a word that I cribbed from the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, and in fact much of what I say Whitehead provides the foundation for he, like myself, had the idea that…
…by the surrounding telos toward concrescence. A lot of the words that I use to talk about this are taken out of Alfred North Whitehead, who's, to my mind, the great unread philosopher of the 20th century and he wrote a book called Process and Reality in…
…because what I want to concentrate on is what I call the short epoch, and my terminology here is largely drawn from Alfred Whitehead I think is the great unsung hero of British 20th century philosophy, and he had a notion of a progression of epochs…
…level I don't know what would be. So what that means then, to me is that matter itself has what Alfred North Whitehead called an appetition for completion. Everything in the universe strives to transcend itself. Everything in the universe has what Whitehead…
…not recognize, western science a quality which in the east is called tao but which I chose to call after Alfred North Whitehead, Novelty. And it's an invisible something in the world which causes investments to succeed, movies to do well, relationships to…
…enough and that it really should be looked at as a totality symbol which haunts human history in the same way that Alfred North Whitehead thought that the color dove gray haunted human history. In other words it's a thing always present it is the symbol…
…theory of time is not a predictive theory of events. I've just quantified one quality which I call novelty, following Alfred North Whitehead, and talk about how history is the career of novelty ingressing into time, and sometimes novelty comes fast and…
…little bit of hyperdimensional vision, show you this cohering process, which I call concrescence using the terminology that Alfred North Whitehead popularized the universe is growing toward concrescence. This is an interesting idea because it's very counter what…
…is preceded by the next at an ever greater rate of what I call ingression into novelty. This is a phrase out of Alfred North Whitehead so what does that mean? It means in the early universe it took a long time for things to get interesting, for things…
…cultural functioning over to machines that operate according to criteria but dimly perceived by their designers. So I think the future, Alfred North Whitehead said it is the business of the future to be dangerous, and so it is but never more dangerous than…
…umm. One of the quotes that I'm fond of using vis a vis this and the psychedelic experience is something that Alfred North Whitehead said about understanding. He said understanding is a perception of pattern as such. That's all as such. So if you look…
…don't think we can just be platonists I mean there's been some developments since 530 BC. Take a look at Alfred North Whitehead. The problem is the eternality of the ideas and their supraordinary the supraordinary optos of their existence as a philosopher…
…it up it may be in other people's minds the reason I use the word novelty is because I'm a great fan of Alfred North Whitehead, who was probably the last and greatest of the platonists, and he has a theory which is put forth in process and reality…
…is paid at every step of the way. First of all because we are concrescent entities of feeling. This is Alfred North Whitehead. We are concrescent entities of feeling, yet our language prepares us to describe a world of three dimensional spatial…
…That was all a horrible misunderstanding: the idea that we should understand reality and then somehow make something of it. Alfred North Whitehead said that understanding is the apperception of pattern as such, as such. That's all. So here we have a room…