Mind Meld 21 | HYPER-REALITY with Erik Davis and Michael Garfield

Erik Davis has a PhD in Religious Studies, hosts the Expanding Mind podcast and is the author of the fantastic book Techgnosis. Michael Garfield is an artist, writer, speaker and Tasmanian Devil of creativity and handsomeness.

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I’m not a fan of absolutes (I made that pretty clear in my first mind meld with Erik and Michael). People seem to forget you can fornicate with a philosophy without putting a ring on it. 

Sometimes it’s hard sticking to that mindset. Existing in a multidisciplinary, subjective, reality-tunnel-acknowledging mind-scape isn’t all agnostic bubblebaths. When shit hits the fan, or somebody passes away, it’s hard not having solid beliefs to hang your hat on. That and if someone comes up to you and says, “hey did you know Earth’s molten core is actually hell and the devil really does live there?”, you’ve gotta be comfortable with only being 99% sure that that person is a nut.

On the upside, (I have no rational evidence for this, mind you) it sure does seem like when you leave your mind open to possibilities, you open up a portal for the cosmic giggle to worm its way into your subjective reality. After you become absolutely sure that there are not absolutes, (aside from the fact that that’s absolutely true) you save a little room for whimsy. You also get to embrace paradox. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “Paradox is the way of truth. To test reality, we must see it on a tightrope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.” It’s a beautiful thought, the idea that truth is like an acrobat on a tightrope doing all sorts of contortions and inversions. It also leaves plenty of room for subjectivity, just the way I like it. 

Musings in this mind meld –

• Michael’s techno-shamanism talk
• The story of the first trans-Atlantic communication wire and the film Proteus
• William Irwin Thompson and the beauty of the the multi-disciplinary approach to knowledge
• Augmented Reality, Pokemon GO and merging with technology
• Is Pokemon GO a government psy-op?
• The unrivaled power of cuteness
• Can the torrent of technological innovation be resisted and should it?
• The fantastic short film, Hyper-Reality
• Wild views of self-designed futures
• A possible example of psychic phenomena among gamers
• Is the “third wave” psychedelic movement going far enough?
• Terence McKenna’s “novelty wave” theory

HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.