[00:00:00 - 00:00:12]	 Oh, I know one other thought in assessing this year in science. I talked about omega,
[00:00:12 - 00:00:20]	 the cosmological constant, and that is really incredible. In fact, let me do a personal
[00:00:20 - 00:00:26]	 breast-beating thing and point out to you that this thing that they have come upon,
[00:00:26 - 00:00:34]	 omega, the cosmological constant, this absolutely, you know, 50 years ago or so Einstein called it
[00:00:34 - 00:00:40]	 the biggest blunder I ever made because he played with the necessity of this thing to
[00:00:40 - 00:00:47]	 keep the universe from falling in on itself and then he decided it was an unnecessary construct
[00:00:47 - 00:00:55]	 and that it led to such weird conclusions that it had to be gotten rid of and so that was all
[00:00:55 - 00:01:03]	 very well and good until these recent measurements of the distances of certain supernova carried out
[00:01:03 - 00:01:12]	 independently by several teams of astrophysicists brought the news that the universe is expanding
[00:01:12 - 00:01:19]	 faster than the laws of physics allow and when they looked at how much faster they realized that
[00:01:19 - 00:01:26]	 it called the cosmological constant back into existence well but here there are a couple of
[00:01:26 - 00:01:36]	 things about this cosmological constant that are very counterintuitive the first is that it it's
[00:01:36 - 00:01:47]	 it's it acts on empty space it isn't it does not require matter to manifest it is a property of
[00:01:47 - 00:01:56]	 space itself the cosmological constant the second thing is it's it's a repulsive force that is
[00:01:56 - 00:02:05]	 growing stronger and stronger forces don't grow stronger and stronger they grow weaker and weaker
[00:02:05 - 00:02:12]	 gravity grows weaker light grows weaker everything grows weaker this force as time progresses gets
[00:02:12 - 00:02:19]	 stronger and stronger well that means when you project it out toward you know billions of years
[00:02:19 - 00:02:26]	 into the future it becomes the dominant force it overcomes gravity it overcomes the strong force
[00:02:26 - 00:02:32]	 the weak force it overcomes all the forces it becomes the dominant force the other thing about
[00:02:32 - 00:02:43]	 it is that becomes stronger not on an even slope but asymptotically it becomes stronger well now
[00:02:43 - 00:02:52]	 this produces something very much like what I've been yakking about since 1971 the novelty wave the
[00:02:52 - 00:03:00]	 so-called time wave it too grows stronger and stronger through time and it too has this kind
[00:03:00 - 00:03:09]	 of built-in asymptotic acceleration where it experiences a kind of inflationary expansion
[00:03:09 - 00:03:17]	 in power the two map over each other very well but when you talk returning now to the cosmological
[00:03:17 - 00:03:24]	 constant when you ask when the astrophysical community realized the consequences of taking
[00:03:24 - 00:03:31]	 this on board they realized that it was dissolving the entire model of what cosmology has been
[00:03:31 - 00:03:38]	 throughout the 20th century because what it's really saying this discovery less than six months
[00:03:38 - 00:03:50]	 old is that space itself is in the act of exploding that the universe is is on the cusp of a an
[00:03:50 - 00:03:57]	 inflationary phase of expansion similar to the inflationary expansion that occurred at the time
[00:03:57 - 00:04:03]	 of the Big Bang what would this look like what would it feel like nobody can even imagine it is
[00:04:03 - 00:04:12]	 not upon us I don't mean that but I mean that in the near future of the universe in the next billion
[00:04:12 - 00:04:21]	 or two billion years things will change very very dramatically everything will begin to rearrange
[00:04:21 - 00:04:28]	 itself according to the expression of this asymptotic power so that that was the biggest
[00:04:28 - 00:04:35]	 news in astrophysics the other news which has psychedelic implications I think also comes
[00:04:35 - 00:04:42]	 from astrophysics as you may recall last August I think it was I can't remember exactly every
[00:04:42 - 00:04:51]	 man woman and child on earth got the equivalent of a dental x-ray when there was a thing called
[00:04:51 - 00:05:01]	 a star quake on a on a magnetar a magnetic neutron star 20,000 light-years away experienced a
[00:05:01 - 00:05:09]	 catastrophic collapse and there was a wave of gamma rays that were that were well turned on
[00:05:09 - 00:05:16]	 every light in the system when it hit the planet and there's no an event like that had never been
[00:05:16 - 00:05:22]	 observed before and I got to thinking about this and I realized you know well we've only been looking
[00:05:22 - 00:05:28]	 for this kind of thing for 30 years there's probably quite a bit of this kind of anomalous
[00:05:28 - 00:05:39]	 high-energy short duration fluctuation of radiation going on in the galaxy and then I had a kind of
[00:05:39 - 00:05:51]	 an image I wouldn't say a vision but kind of an image of how things are really arranged on the
[00:05:51 - 00:06:00]	 larger level in terms of the galaxy and I the image was of a donut and you know we're accustomed
[00:06:00 - 00:06:06]	 to being told that we're at the out at the edge of the Milky Way where stars are few and far
[00:06:06 - 00:06:13]	 between that this is the boonies in other words but I'll bet you the boonies are where biology
[00:06:13 - 00:06:20]	 thrives because the low star density and the distance from the galactic core and these extremely
[00:06:20 - 00:06:29]	 energetic events at the core would create a kind of donut situation where it's the toroidal area
[00:06:29 - 00:06:37]	 out near the rim where stars are slow burning and they don't collide with each other and plants can
[00:06:37 - 00:06:46]	 form and you get the five billion years run you need to get to a civilization but you know our a
[00:06:46 - 00:06:53]	 rule of biology and strategy and everything and religious practice as far as that's concerned is
[00:06:53 - 00:07:03]	 seek the light well the light is at the core and so then I saw aha maybe the true seeking of the
[00:07:03 - 00:07:12]	 light requires biology to go into partnership with something beyond biology because the environment
[00:07:12 - 00:07:19]	 at the core is so energetic and I'm not suggesting the the actual core that's beyond contemplation
[00:07:19 - 00:07:28]	 that's a black hole no technology imaginable and can get even near the event horizon of an object
[00:07:28 - 00:07:34]	 like that but I mean in the vicinity of the galactic core where you know there are star
[00:07:34 - 00:07:42]	 the star density is two to three hundred times greater than it is in our vicinity those kinds
[00:07:42 - 00:07:49]	 of environments are so fraught with peril far for biology that probably downloading ourselves into
[00:07:49 - 00:07:58]	 machine symbiotes of some sort is the only is the only way to go to those places in one of Greg
[00:07:58 - 00:08:07]	 Egan's novels he pictures a human future where this is one option you confuse yourself with a
[00:08:07 - 00:08:18]	 starship and set out to check out the neighborhood or you can join the omni until rye Pennsylvania
[00:08:18 - 00:08:22]	 actually I think you can't do that because something's happened to the earth but some
[00:08:22 - 00:08:34]	 Hamish possibility is still available well this is not like the sort of thing the other faculty
[00:08:34 - 00:08:42]	 members will be talking to you about which is an intense and and primarily important download of
[00:08:42 - 00:08:52]	 the in the the homework the chemistry the botany the behavioral impact the archaeology the ethnography
[00:08:52 - 00:09:01]	 of these substances I asked myself all the time you know how are we different from other people
[00:09:01 - 00:09:10]	 are we morally superior are we smarter are we richer are we kinder to the people we meet and
[00:09:10 - 00:09:20]	 actually the longer I look the less I can tell there are extraordinary examples of all of these
[00:09:20 - 00:09:28]	 things in and outside of our community and extraordinary nudinix and jerks inside and
[00:09:28 - 00:09:40]	 outside our community but we have in our hands tools that I think if people were correctly
[00:09:40 - 00:09:49]	 presented with them and understood without hype and hysteria and hyperbole what this psychedelic
[00:09:49 - 00:10:00]	 enterprise is about that we would win them to our cause because our cause is the human cause the
[00:10:00 - 00:10:11]	 cause of thinking and communicating and building and bringing into existence new forms of beauty
[00:10:11 - 00:10:20]	 new possibilities for being and this can be done without psychedelic certainly but with psychedelic
[00:10:20 - 00:10:30]	 it is accelerated and it has a feeling not only of immediacy but of the only way I can put it is is
[00:10:30 - 00:10:38]	 correctness it isn't the it isn't the lonely neurotic artist thrashing towards some kind of
[00:10:38 - 00:10:49]	 self-reflection it's the firm guiding hand of a greater mind the logos the earth I'm not sure but
[00:10:49 - 00:11:00]	 a greater mind I mean art true art truly is truly inspired and and the the muse I don't think was
[00:11:00 - 00:11:08]	 more real for Homer than it is for each and every one of us when we're in presence of the mushroom
[00:11:08 - 00:11:20]	 or Iowa or a DMP or LSD or something like that so you know I suppose I will go to the grave with
[00:11:20 - 00:11:29]	 life as mysterious to me as I found it when I came to consciousness around six or seven but
[00:11:29 - 00:11:40]	 I think life is whatever it is it's an opportunity of some sort and the things I have been most
[00:11:40 - 00:11:52]	 grateful for were the things that I mapped at the frontiers of knowledge of sexual experience of
[00:11:52 - 00:12:06]	 psychedelic experience knowing feeling and being one with being or how I would categorize that
[00:12:06 - 00:12:15]	 break down so I think the future is bound to be very confusing and demanding for most people and
[00:12:15 - 00:12:24]	 there are many claims on on each of us and our intellectual loyalties and where we put our energy
[00:12:24 - 00:12:31]	 should we tolerate relativism should we be Mahayana Buddhist what's our position on the
[00:12:31 - 00:12:46]	 we chill how do you relate to Monica all these things but I feel I feel actually like the thing
[00:12:46 - 00:12:59]	 that I always dreamed of in my early youth was a miracle I didn't particularly like the Spensky's
[00:12:59 - 00:13:06]	 book in search of the miraculous but I loved the title and I used to just sort of chant it as a
[00:13:06 - 00:13:14]	 mantra in search of the miraculous just one I knew the rules just one is enough because one secures
[00:13:14 - 00:13:21]	 the possibility of an infinitude of miracles whether you have observed them or not well now
[00:13:21 - 00:13:34]	 I'm 52 and I've seen I don't know four or five which is four more than necessary to make me a
[00:13:34 - 00:13:44]	 lifetime optimist but the recurrent the enduring miracle however it's achieved is the the psychedelic
[00:13:44 - 00:13:53]	 rush you know that giddying moment when all all bets are off all boundaries dissolve the machinery
[00:13:53 - 00:14:06]	 of language fails the adjectival wheel wells burst into flame orbital velocity are in the
[00:14:06 - 00:14:16]	 presence of of the thing and I cannot believe that that is not a solitary experience and you've heard
[00:14:16 - 00:14:22]	 me say many times that how itchy it makes me feel to think that somebody could go from birth to the
[00:14:22 - 00:14:30]	 grave without having that experience they can make of it what they want they can denounce it they can
[00:14:30 - 00:14:40]	 deify it but one should have it because it's it's one of the compasses the primary compasses of being
[00:14:40 - 00:14:47]	 and it's larger than the historical context I mean the point of this talk tonight was to talk about
[00:14:47 - 00:14:56]	 linearity and idea systems and the nonlinear impact of these drugs and the way they break
[00:14:56 - 00:15:11]	 down media bias but the all these intellectual ideas exist in the light of the son of this
[00:15:11 - 00:15:22]	 unspeakable primary experience and we can we can draw it paint it sculpted after dance it drama
[00:15:22 - 00:15:32]	 and never take anything away from it never define it never occlude it it's like it is a miracle it's
[00:15:32 - 00:15:41]	 like having the presence of a deity it's I think very hard for me to open myself up at any given
[00:15:41 - 00:15:54]	 moment to the full implications of how fortunate I am and how good life is in in the shadow of this
[00:15:54 - 00:16:01]	 particular tree anyway that's the formal talk for tonight thank you very much
[00:16:01 - 00:16:06]	 [Applause]