Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake

PROGRAM NOTES:


(Minutes : Seconds into program)


04:18 Ralph begins by describing "Terence to himself".

05:46 Ralph Abraham: "So in our process of trialoging we find it very much enriched by Terence’s phenomenal knowledge of history, and not only that, but his special way of saying it is sort of a, you’re familiar with this here, a bardic skill. So that whatever he says will have [long pause]more effect than it actually deserves" [added with humor that was followed by laughter].

08:36 Terence "shares his view" of Rupert.

09:12 Terence McKenna: "And my intellectual method has always been to seek out the heretical. And so when I heard that Nature had called for the burning of a book [insert title], I burned up my tires on the way to the store to see if I couldn’t obtain a copy."

16:38 Rupert introduces Ralph.

19:41 Rupert Sheldrake: "His [Ralph Abraham's] ability to visualize mathematics, I’m sure, is innate. But I think it was enhanced in the late 60s and early 70s by certain inner experiences, which would fall into the category of what Terence calls hands-on pharmacology."

22:54 Ralph begins his introduction of Rupert.

27:21 Rupert tells the story of his first meeting with Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham.

32:00 Rupert Sheldrake: "Part of him [Terence McKenna] is a millenarian prophet. Part of him is a Dominican. He professes to be a pagan, but his Catholic upbringing, his Dominican reasoning, and his experience as an altar boy have never left him."

34:16 Terence tells about when he first heard of Ralph.

36:43 Terence McKenna: [Speaking about Ralph Abraham]"It’s impossible not to fall in love with the man. He’s the teddy bear of advanced mathematics."

45:07 Rupert Sheldrake: "[In science,] if you can do things cheaply, you’re completely free, because the only control that they have is through money and giving out funds. And if you don’t need the funds you can do what you like."

1:13:39 Terence McKenna: "What do I think? Well, not that."

1:14:20 Terence McKenna: "I’ve always felt that what biology is is a strategy, a chemical strategy, for amplifying quantum mechanical indeterminacy into macro-physical systems called living organisms, and that living organisms somehow work their magic by opening a doorway to the quantum realm through which indeterminacy can come. And I imagine that all nature works like this, with the single exception of human beings, who have been poisoned by language."

1:19:36 Terence McKenna: "The real question I’m raising is, to what degree does language create the assumption of an unknown future."

1:24:03 Terence McKenna: "We alone, I think, are tormented by the anxiety of the unknowable future. And it’s an artifact, I maintain, of culture and language."

1:28:28 Terence McKenna: "And I don’t believe that time is invariant. I didn’t intend to open this up as a general frontal attack on the epistemic methods of modern science, but, in fact, the idea that time is invariant is entirely contradicted by our own experience, and it’s merely an assumption science makes in order to do its business."

1:29:36 Terence McKenna: "As a practical matter, I don’t think we should confuse our ideologies with our sinuses."

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