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LF103 Simon G. Powell - Darwin's Unfinished Business: The Self-Organizing Intelligence of Nature.

Simon G. Powell discusses his book Darwin's Unfinished Business - The Self-Organizing Intelligence of Nature.
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Darwin's theory of evolution is undoubtedly one of the most important scientific ideas of the modern age, explaining the existence of both life and consciousness without recourse to divine intervention. Yet how do we interpret evolution? How do we evaluate the ability of Nature to engineer something as exquisite as the genetic code or the human brain? Could it be that evolution is an intelligent process? Is Nature smart? According to most scientists, the answer is no. While humanity may be intelligent and purposeful, the natural processes that crafted us are deemed to be devoid of such attributes.
In a radical move away from orthodoxy, Powell extends Darwin's vision by showing that evolution is not just about the survival of the fittest but rather the survival of clever and sensible behaviour. Revealing the importance of the context in which things evolve, he explores the intelligent learning process behind natural selection. Rich with examples of the incredibly complex plants, animals, insects and marine life designed by Nature - from the carnivorous Venus flytrap and the fungus-farming leafcutter ant to the symbiotic microbes found inside the common cow - he shows Nature as a whole to be a system of self-organising intelligence in which life and consciousness are always destined to emerge.
Examining the origins of life and the failure of artificial intelligence to compete with natural intelligence, he explains how our scientifically narrow-minded views on intelligence are now acting as a barrier to our own evolution. As Darwin's unfinished business comes to light and Nature's intelligence is embraced, we learn that Nature's agenda is not simply the replication of genetic matter, but of expanding consciousness. By working with Nature's creative and innovative powers instead of against them, we can address today's social and environmental challenges with a new green science of evolution.
www.simongpowell.comwww.plantconsciousness.com
Simon's documentaries Metanoia and Manna
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez 'Traffic OST'Klaus Schulze 'Sense'

LF82 Gary Evans - Listening to the Past

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Many ancient sites such as the Great Pyramid in Egypt and Stonehenge in England appear to have unusual acoustic properties which suggest that these places had a purpose not yet recognised by mainstream archaeology. Resonating frequencies and other forms of sound have long been associated with altered states of consciousness and other spiritual and mystical experiences. Certain properties of many ancient sites indicate that they were designed to focus, concentrate and in some cases generate powerful energies including sound. Is it possible that they served a sacred ceremonial function intended to affect the brain and body, taking us beyond our crude intellect and into a more intuitive state of mind?
The building methods used on many ancient sites also remain a mystery to us. Is it possible that sound played a part in their construction? Were the massive blocks of stone used in places like the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge perhaps quarried, transported and lifted into place by some subtle technology now lost in the mists of time?
Although there appear to be more questions than answers, the evidence suggests that in high antiquity, humans thought very differently than they do now. Their entire worldview and concept of what was possible seems radically different from our own, based on a more integrated state of mind unburdened by the left brain dominance that is responsible for much of the chaos and destruction in the world today. In looking back, maybe can we learn how to move forward.
www.infinite-connections.co.ukConference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez 'Traffic OST'Stellardrone 'The Divine Cosmos'

LF81 Walter Cruttenden - Lost Star of Myth and Time

Walter Cruttenden discusses some of the ideas in his 2005 book Lost Star of Myth and Time.
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The myth and folklore of ancestral peoples around the world hints at a vast cycle of time, with alternating Dark and Golden Ages. Plato called it the Great Year. Long believed to be a fairy tale, there is now new astronomical evidence to show it has a basis in fact. Moreover, because it is caused by the acceleration of our Sun around another star, we learn that the Earth should soon be carried into a region of space that will have a beneficial effect on our atmosphere, nudging mankind into a higher state of consciousness.
Lost Star of Myth and Time weaves together some of the latest archaeological evidence with cutting-edge astronomy to reveal a history of the world that finally fits with myth, folklore and the archaeological record. While the book explores some of the most interesting aspects of a once advanced civilization that covered the Earth, it is really about what happens to the Earth and consciousness as our solar system moves through space in the mysterious motion known as the precession of the equinox. Since the days of Isaac Newton, this astronomical phenomenon has been attributed to local gravitational forces wobbling the Earth's axis. Lost Star now shows us in no uncertain terms that the Earth's axis does not change orientation relative to objects inside the solar system at the same rate as it changes orientation to objects outside the solar system, meaning precession must be due to our Sun's binary motion around another star.
Chapter by chapter it becomes clear that ancient cultures knew of precession, used it as the clock of the ages, understood it to be due to the solar system's motion through space, and realized this subjects the Earth to a cycle of waxing and waning stellar influences. It is these forces that affect our magnetosphere, ionosphere and indirectly create the larger seasons of the Great Year. This not only gives cause for a major rethink of human history and potential, but indicates we are approaching a tipping point in the awakening of consciousness.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez 'Traffic OST'Cwtch 'What Do Robots Dream About?'

LF211 Mark Olly - The Life & Times of the Real Robyn Hoode

Mark Olly discusses his book The Life & Times of the Real Robyn Hoode, a detailed investigation of a character who represents resistance to powerful and corrupt authority the world over.
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Robin Hood is a heroic outlaw in English folklore who, according to legend, was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. Traditionally depicted as being dressed in Lincoln green, he is often portrayed as 'robbing from the rich and giving to the poor' alongside his band of Merry Men. He became a popular folk figure in the late-medieval period and continues to be widely represented in literature, film and television.
Delving deep into the history and archaeology of people and places, we attempt to separate fact from fiction in the possible or probable lives of Robin and the familiar cast of characters such as Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Maid Marion, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and King Richard the Lionheart. Along the way we visit locations such as Sherwood Forest and the city of Nottingham, exploring the momentous change, conflict and power struggles of Medieval England. Although Robin's true identity may never be known, the tale which emerges is every bit worthy of the high adventure and wild romance of a centuries old legend that lives on to this very day.
 
Previous interviews with Mark Olly: Revealing the Green Man The Disappearing Ninth Legion
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LF206 John Michael Greer - Dark Age America: Part One

John Michael Greer discusses his book Dark Age America - Climate Change, Cultural Collapse, and the Hard Future Ahead.
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As we lurch on into the early part of the 21st Century, converging crises in energy, economy, and environment are rapidly undermining the foundations of industrial civilization and the materialistic way of life which so many of us take for granted. Energy - because cheap, easily accessible fossil fuels are running out and industrial civilization as we know it simply cannot be sustained by renewables. Economy - because at almost every level, global, national, corporate, and personal, we are drowning in debt that cannot and therefore will not be repaid but whose unravelling will cause mass destruction of governments, banks, entire industries, and millions of lives. Environment - because centuries of industrial civilization have wreaked havoc on the biosphere, triggering catastrophic climate change while poisoning the ecosystems on which life on Earth depends.
Factor in population growth, mass migration, and escalating terrorist threats, and you have a dangerously unstable situation. Despite the protestations of puppet politicians, elite economists, and utopian scientists, no amount of wishful thinking, money printing or shiny new technology will ride to the rescue. The Prius of our dreams is heading straight for the brick wall of reality, and the current convulsions such as the Brexit referendum in the UK, the impending implosion of the European Union, and the election of Donald Trump as US President are but the latest wave of woes crashing on the shore of a fantasy future we fashioned for ourselves in a brief moment of gas guzzling madness. Under the illusion of invincibility we still tell ourselves that 'this time it's different' but as we shall soon discover, forces far beyond our control have other ideas. In his most uncompromising work to date, John Michael Greer maps possible futures for America during the hard times ahead and it's clear that before things get better, they're going to get a lot worse.
The Archdruid Report
Previous interviews with John Michael Greer: The Truth About Brexit After Progress The Long Descent The Ecotechnic Future Green Wizardry Decline and Fall
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LF209 Doug Lain - Can Human Beings Live Forever?

Douglas Lain discusses Advocate for an Indefinite Human Lifespan, a new Zero Books title exploring the life extension techniques and technologies of Aubrey de Grey and the SENS Research Foundation.
Human beings are perhaps unique among Earth's sentient beings in that, from a relatively young age, we know that we are going to die. Despite this knowledge, and the fact that life and death are but two facets of the great cycle of creation and destruction, as a species we live in dread and denial of death, which remains one of the last great taboos. Some say we need to set death aside in order to live, while others claim that only acceptance of death allows us to truly come alive. Whatever the case, most of us are consciously or subconsciously terrified by the thought of our own annihilation. The religious cling to the hope held out by the promise of an afterlife, while the secular place their faith in a life well lived, free from comforting delusions.
Medical and material advances have extended human life expectancy well beyond what it was in centuries gone by, but de Grey's radical vision is of humans living longer - much longer - and in good health. Beyond the contested limits of sometimes controversial medical interventions, de Grey's plans have already drawn many moral and ethical objections: What would we do with a thousand year life? How would it affect love, family, work, and culture? And what of population and natural resources on an already groaning planet? Technology, we are assured, offers answers to all such doubts, and if the transhumanist wing of the life extension lobby have their way, a millennium of existence may one day seem like the blink of an eye. Augmented, upgraded, downloaded - for the man machine of the future, death may be but a distant dream. But are we becoming God or merely playing God?
Previous interview with Doug Lain: The Dream of Reality
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LF210 Dmitry Orlov - Shrinking the Technosphere

Dmitry Orlov discusses his book Shrinking the Technosphere: Getting a Grip on the Technologies that Limit our Autonomy, Self-sufficiency and Freedom.
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Over the past two centuries we have witnessed the wholesale replacement of most previous methods of conducting both business and daily life with new, technologically advanced, more efficient methods, but what exactly is progressive or efficient about this new arrangement is hardly ever examined in depth. If the new ways of doing things are so much better, then we must all be leading relaxed, stress-free, enjoyable lives with plenty of free time to devote to art and leisure activities. But a more careful look at these changes shows us that the rapidly evolving brave new world of gadgets, gizmos and constant connectivity is instead a metastasising matrix of manipulation and control in which we have become slaves to money and machines. Creeping ever closer to outright omniscience, the Technosphere is an emergent intelligence in its own right.
The harm to the environment, society, and our individual lives is plain to see, but is brushed off amid hollow mantras about productivity, progress, and the graven idol of economic growth. Shrinking the Technosphere guides readers through the process of bringing technology down to a manageable number of carefully chosen, essential, well-understood, and controllable elements. It is about regaining the freedom to use technology for our own benefit, and is critical reading for all who seek to get back to a point where technologies assist us rather than control us. The endgame of the Technosphere is total domination; the outcome will be total destruction. But can humanity take back control before digital Armageddon finally dawns?
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez 'Traffic OST'Yuri Morozov 'Human Extinction'

LF212 Mari Swingle - iMinds: Total Technology and Human Evolution

Dr. Mari Swingle discusses her book i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing Our Brains, Our Behaviour, and the Evolution of Our Species.
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We live in a hi-tech age, an era in which almost every aspect of our daily lives is mediated by some form of technology. The worlds of work, education, leisure, food, transport, health, communication and many, many more are now not only augmented and enhanced by technology, increasingly, they are impossible without it. But while some of the unwanted side effects of technology are recognised and well-known, are we too quick to dismiss them as a temporary phase affecting a lonely minority?
The advocates of 21st Century technology themselves are quick to point to an array of benefits, many undeniable, but at what point does our second life take over our real life, social media become anti-social? In our headlong rush towards techno-utopia, are we inadvertently breeding a generation of alienated, dysfunctional loners paralysed by endless choice and lost in a fantasy world of gaming, pornography, and all manner of virtual reality? Delving into the dark side of this brave new world, we examine the dangers of technological addiction and abuse, the debilitating psychological and physical fallout, and the potential to affect even the evolutionary future of the human race itself.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez 'Traffic OST' Dynatron 'Escape Velocity'

LF183 Frank Joseph - Our Dolphin Ancestors

Frank Joseph discusses his book Our Dolphin Ancestors - Keepers of Lost Knowledge and Healing Wisdom.
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Wild animals avoid contact with humans, but wild dolphins seek us out to play and socialize, even going so far as to voluntarily rescue people from drowning. What explains this remarkable natural affinity? Revealing the evolutionary basis for our special relationship with dolphins, Frank Joseph explains how we are both descendants of the same ancient branch of humanity. Building upon the aquatic ape theory, he details how we both began on land but devastating floods forced our distant ancestors into the seas, where humanity developed many of the traits that set us apart from other primates, such as our instinctive diving reflex and our newborns' ability to swim. But while some of the aquatic apes returned to land, later evolving into modern humans, some remained in the cradle of the ocean and became our dolphin cousins.
Integrating scientific research on dolphin intelligence, communication, and physiology with enduring myths from some of the world's oldest cultures, such as the Aborigines, Norse, Greeks, and Celts, the author examines our physical commonalities with dolphins, including their vestigial thumbs and legs, birth processes, and body temperature. He explores dolphins' uncanny ability to diagnose disease such as cancer in humans and how dolphin therapy has had miraculous effects on children with autism, victims of stroke, and those suffering from depression. He provides evidence for dolphins' different attitudes toward men, women, and children, their natural affinity with cats and dogs, and their telepathic communication with other species, including ours. He explores dolphins' mysterious role in the birth of early civilization and their connections with the Dog Star, Sirius, and Atlantis and Lemuria - a bond still commemorated by annual gatherings of millions of dolphins. If we can learn to fully communicate with dolphins, accessing their millennia-old oral tradition, we may learn the truth about humanity's origins and our shared future, when humankind may yet again quit the land for a final return to the sea.
http://www.ancientamerican.com/
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LF194 John Michael Greer - The Truth About Brexit

John Michael Greer discusses the origins and potential outcome of the European Union's ongoing meltdown.
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The recent Brexit referendum in the UK was never meant to happen. The result of a miscalculated attempt by former British Prime Minister David Cameron to neutralize the right wing UK Independence Party, Brexit has plunged the nation into a constitutional crisis. While 48% of the electorate voted for the UK to remain within the European Union, 52% voted to leave. As a result, the country is now deeply divided, and the rancour of a bitterly fought campaign has merely intensified since the outcome became clear. The total lack of planning for a vote to quit the EU is also starkly evident in the chaotic in-fighting and back-stabbing that has marred the political aftermath. So just how did this unintended mayhem come about?
At the core of the crisis but unacknowledged by the political class, mainstream media, and society at large are serious systemic problems affecting the economy, the environment, and the very foundations of our industrial society. These problems existed before Brexit, and they exist now. They would have remained exactly the same whether we voted 'leave' or 'remain'. The problems are global and they are not going away. They are, in fact, getting worse. If you need any evidence for this, one need only observe the utter farce masquerading as the current US Presidential election or, closer to home, the ominous rise of the far right in most, if not all, European Union countries. Until these harsh realities are fully faced, the pundits, pollsters, and politicians will continue to get it wrong. The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, and the sky is black with birds coming home to roost. When they do, they will reorder this world.
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