26 songs

Every day for the last 26 days, I've posted an entry about one of the 26 songs attached to this project. Here's a blog entry that shows a single video for every one of those songs, and below are the links to all 26 blog entries devoted to each of the 26 songs. If you read these in order you will be gradually introduced to a number of the ideas from my book, which is an exploration of the ideas that extend out from my popular 11 minute animation.

i. Everything Fits Together
ii. Seven Levels
iii. Burn the Candle Brightly
iv. The Unseen Eye
v. Automatic
vi. Connections
vii. Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
viii. Big Bang to Entropy
ix. Senseless Violence
x. Addictive Personality
xi. The Anthropic Viewpoint
xii. The End of the World
xiii. Blind Faith
xiv. I Remember Flying
xv. What Was Done Today
xvi. Turquoise and White
xvii. Change and Renewal
xviii. From the Corner of My Eye
xix. Positive Vibes
xx. Hang a Left at the Lights
xxi. Making It Up as I Go
xxii. Insidious Trends
xxiii. Secret Societies
xxiv. See No Future
xxv. What I Feel For You
xxvi. Thankful


Of the 26 songs above, 18 of them were written in 2002 (a year when I wrote 53 songs!). Most of the other 8 were written prior to that, with the oldest written back in 1983. So, for me, this exploration began 25 years ago when I first came up with my unique way of visualizing the dimensions, proceeded through my continuing exploration of mainstream science and philosophy and how my way of imagining reality could be related to so many different schools of thought, moved to the book which I began writing in 2005 and published in 2006, and the animation and website which were the last part of the project. Most people who find out about Imagining the Tenth Dimension do so through the animation, of course, which means they are following the ideas in reverse order from how I originally conceived them. Does that matter? Not at all, I just find it interesting. I sincerely hope that people will enjoy reading through the above 26 blog entries, as they do provide another way into imagining how our reality is constructed, and what that means to us down here in the lower dimensions.

Enjoy the journey!

Rob

Song 26 of 26 - Thankful

All right, last song! The twenty-sixth of the 26 songs is called "Thankful". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video of Ron Scott performing the song can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfN1RM9X6I


A direct link to the above video can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NemPHMWm2KI


A direct link to this video of me sitting at my piano singing this song can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvROwf2KeOg

Life is any process that is interested in "what happens next" - in the causual worldlines sketched by our universe from planck length to planck length, from day to day, from big bang to entropy and the timeless indeterminacy which exists outside of all that, the most interesting parts are always going to be not in the biggest picture of all, but in following the connected threads and patterns in the information that becomes our reality. Since July 2006, I have had the pleasure of seeing this project reach a worldwide audience of deep thinkiers and big dreamers who enjoy my way of visualizing reality, and the "what happens next" for me has made me jump out of bed every morning, filled with ideas and inspirations about the ideas surrounding this project. For that, and for the millions of people around the world who have now been introduced to this project, I am very, very Thankful.

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton
Imagining the Tenth Dimension

THANKFUL
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

In this improbable world
In this impossible life
At the end of infinite happenstance
Leading back to the big bang

I am thankful for what I have
I am thankful for what I’ve been given
I am thankful for those I love
And for this life I’m livin

And in the multitude of paths
That could have ended before now
I am grateful for the unseen hand
Which led us here somehow

I am thankful for what I have
I am thankful for what I’ve been given
I am thankful for those I love
And for this life I’m livin

The universe is beautiful
More complex than we can believe
And praisable for what it holds within
A tapestry of threads
That each of us must weave
From each and every moment that we’re in

In this improbable world
In this impossible life
At the end of infinite coincidence
Leading back to the big bang

I am thankful for what I have
I am thankful for what I’ve been given
I am thankful for those I love
And for this life I’m livin

Song 25 of 26 - What I Feel For You

Almost there! The twenty-fifth of the 26 songs is called "What I Feel For You". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w06IRgChaMY

Let's think back to song 6, "Connections". The last verse of that song went like this:

I think I met myself today
I think I saw my eyes
Another me in another body
Livin another life

I must admit to glossing over that stanza back when we talked about this song then, but it relates very much to where we're headed now as we round the turn into the home stretch. Likewise, in song 3, "Burn the Candle Brightly", we made this bold statement, but spent very little time discussing how such a thing could be possible:

So when this journey is over
And that beautiful spark is finally gone
We can see that the vessel is empty
But we know that the light carries on

Song 7, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" also talks about this idea from the first person perspective.

One of the books I have referred to a number of times in these notes is Douglas Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop". Let me quote a few paragraphs from this enlightening and inspiring book, much of which is about the structures and forms that create the mysterious "I" of consciousness. In the latter part of the book, though, he expands these ideas into what it means to have a representation of other people - your spouse, your children, your parents, a very close friend - held within those same structures. Specifically, how much of that can be thought of as being an actual part of what it is that makes that person uniquely who they are? And if any part can be thought of in that way to any degree, then what happens when the real person dies? Hofstadter writes:

The bond created between two people who are married for a long time is often so tight and powerful that upon the death of either one of them, the other one very soon dies as well. And if the other survives, it is often with the horrible feeling that half of their soul has been ripped out. In happier days, during the marriage, the two partners of course have individual interests and styles, but at the same time a set of common interests and styles starts to build up, and over time a new entity starts to take shape.

And later on...

The following should be a much easier question (although I think it is not actually easier). What was the nature of the "Holden Caulfield symbol" in J. D. Salinger's brain during the period when he was writing Catcher in the Rye? That structure was all there ever was to Holden Caulfield -- but it was so, so rich. Perhaps that symbol wasn't as rich as a full human soul, but Holden Caulfield seems like so much of a person, with a true core, a true soul, a true personal gemma, even if only a "miniature" one. You couldn't ask for a richer representation, a richer mirroring, of one person inside another person, than whatever constitutued the Holden Caulfield symbol inside Salinger's brain.

In my own book, as we've discussed in working through these 26 songs, I suggest that what each of us think of as our unique "soul" is actually a large and interconnected set of memes, some of which rise and fall in prominence over a lifetime, and memes by their very definition are patterns of information that exist across space and time. This leads me to some conclusions that are related to what Mr. Hofstadter is talking about, but I go a little further out on the same conceptual limb:

Here’s another way to look at this idea: if each of us has a unique soul, where are all the new souls coming from? Our planet’s population has exploded in numbers, so there must be new “soul material” being created from somewhere (if there really are only a certain number of souls allocated to this planet, then the chances of any one of us being the reincarnate soul of a person who lived here in the last few thousand years are approaching the chances of winning a lottery!).
In the New Age community, theories abound regarding what that source of all those new souls might be. All of those theories may be held within the version of reality that we are advancing here: if our soul is a conglomeration of memes that exist outside of time, then other versions of that soul could exist in other universes, in other locations within our universe, in other parts of the history and future of our universe, and even right now in other parts of our own world. The idea that it’s possible to meet another incarnation of yourself right now may take some getting used to, but it is an important aspect of the version of reality we are exploring.

And later on:

It may appear, then, that if we imagine a particular meme that has existed since the perceived beginning of our universe, collapsing a specific version of reality out of the wave of potential universes through the act of its observation, that we are imagining an aspect of the Creator-God. But there is a second way to view this puzzle. Could the feeling of “self” that each of us holds within us also be “just geometry”? In other words, what if this interlocking web of memes were exactly like the interlocking web of physical realities implied by the Many Worlds theory? This would mean that the potential for all ways of viewing the world, and the potential for all the different systems that we think of as being our own soul, are also held within an indeterminate wave of potential at the tenth dimension that has always existed, and will always exist.

Sometimes this can all get so abstract that it's hard to see how any of it relates to what's important in the world around us. This song is my attempt to put that level of perspective back into the discussion: relating to others is what it's all about, and that's just as true when we put our heads together to imagine the underlying structures of the universe as it is when we spend quality time with family and friends, just hanging out and enjoying each other's company.

WHAT I FEEL FOR YOU
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton

Much greater minds than mine
Have tried to figure out
The secrets of the universe
And what it’s all about
Masters of the abstract
Seekers of the spell
That fits it all together
I know the quest so well

But it all keeps coming back
No matter what I do
The only thing that’s real for me
Is what I feel for you

And what I feel for you
Is what makes me carry on
My world would be so pointless
My reality so wrong
The secret gears and levers
That spin behind the scenes
To make what’s here before us
Must only do one thing

Cause it all keeps coming back…


Much greater minds than mine
Have tried to figure out
The secrets of the universe
And what it’s all about
Masters of the abstract
Seekers of the spell
That fits it all together
I know the quest so well

But it all keeps coming back
No matter what I do
The only thing that’s real for me
Is what I feel for you
The only thing that’s real for me
Is what I feel for you

Other blog entries that touch upon ideas from this blog entry and song:
Seeing Eye to Eye
Constructive Interference
FAQ 12 - Is This About Consciousness and the Quantum Observer?

(Edit: By request, here's a simple chord chart for this song. Unfortunately blogger throws out extra spaces when you insert them in a line so there isn't a way for me to place the correct chords over the correct syllables. Hopefully the song is simple enough that you'll still be able puzzle this all out)
WHAT I FEEL FOR YOU
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton

(verse - power chords, no third, so neither major nor minor)
E E D E
Much greater minds than mine
E E D E
Have tried to figure out
E D E F E E
The secrets of the universe
E E D E
And what it’s all about
A A G A Bb A
Masters of the abstract
A A A G A
Seekers of the spell
A A G A Bb A
That fits it all together
A A A G A
I know the quest so well

(chorus - normal major/minor chords. For instance B/D# = B major chord with D# bass)
(no chord)
But it
B/D# B/E B/F# G#m
all keeps coming back - No
B/D# B/E B/F# G#m
matter what I do - The
B/D# B/E B/F# G#m
only thing that’s real for me Is
E F#(add 4) B
what I feel for you

Third verse (which lyrically is first verse repeated) - okay to fill all of the power chords in as full major chords.

Next song: 26 of 26 - Thankful

Song 24 of 26 - See No Future

The twenty-fourth of the 26 songs is called "See No Future". Scroll down below the following video for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pUzwSONBc

I've proposed here that life can be defined as any process that becomes interested in "what happens next" - that would be true for the very first chemical processes on our planet that developed strategies for their own continuance and propagation, and could easily apply to other organized patterns of energy and matter elsewhere within the multiverse. With this project, we have also expanded that idea to include systems of memes that follow the sequential frames of a fourth-dimensional line being selected from a fifth-dimensional probability space: all that is required is a "chain of attention", a quantum observer in (as physicist John Wheeler liked to call it) a "self-excited circuit", observing one timeline or another out of Everett's Many Worlds. By allowing for this possibility, we have opened the door to there being voices of "god and conscience, ghosts and ancestors" which could also possibly be part of the nature of reality: and we have suggested that this fits nicely with the Julian Jaynes concept of an integrated state of mind being until relatively recently the normal mode of operation for humans, which may be the way in which those voices were once a part of the day-to-day human experience.

Thinking in terms of these really-big-picture ways of imagining reality, and the information that is our reality, shows us how within the timeless multiverse that our universe springs from there are shapes and patterns that reveal how our reality is constructed, and places within that multiverse of all possibilities where certain shapes and patterns start and end. There is a very large pattern representing our universe from its possible beginnings to its possible endings, but that pattern is still a tiny subset of the multiverse. There is a pattern that is a subset of our universe that represents the genes flowing from a "river out of Eden" that create all human beings, just as there is a connected web of ideas and ways of looking at the world that can be thought of as the memes that contribute to human consciousness.

And within that pattern there is another tiny subset, representing the set of genes and memes that make a particular person. Those patterns are connected together across time and geography, back to the first spark of life and out to the end of the human race. With ideas like Kurzweil's approaching Singularity, or the Mayan Calendar's predicted acceleration of time and consciousness, we can entertain the hope that the memes that make up a human being (or all human beings) may find a way to continue, and this idea relates very nicely to the discussions about the nature of consciousness and what carries on when a person dies that Douglas Hofstadter eloquently explores in "I Am a Strange Loop".

So even though the genes and memes that make a human being's body and consciousness are part of patterns that extend across eons and around the world, and the memes can be thought of as extending out to basic patterns for preferring one outcome over another that extend right out to the multiverse of possible universes, at the other end of the scale there is a particular human body, which is yet another even smaller subset of all these patterns and shapes in the information that is reality.

In the animation, I suggest we think of our bodies in the four-dimension as a long undulating snake, connecting our conceived self at one end to our deceased self at the other. In my book, I blend Marvin Minsky's idea of "Society of Mind" with the Richard Dawkins idea of memes to suggest that what we think of as a "soul" is a complex interaction of different memes that rise and fall over time, and in that sense your (or my) soul is not the same as it was twenty years ago, because we are always taking on new memes and discarding old ones.

But this is not to say that the body is unimportant: there is still something unique about the experiences and meme-set/gene-set of any one of us that are carried along in a physical body, and as an organized pattern within the timeless multiverse each of us really are a unique subset of all that could be. Unfortunately though, there can come a time in people's lives where, because of old age, depression, disease, bad choices, or bad circumstance, they give up. That's what this song is about: if life is about "what happens next", then death is what happens when we "see no future".


SEE NO FUTURE
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

You see no future on the road that you’ve been travelin
You see no reason to continue any more
Still you keep on keepin on
Cause it’s the way you’ve always gone
Won’t you tell me what the hell you do it for

Now if there’s one thing I can say – it’s you’re consistent
And you’re persistent to a fault, sure, some’d say
Are you stubborn or just dumb?
Why don’t you try to find someone
Who will help to turn you round the other way
When you see no future

No tomorrows
Just todays
Is that the way you wanna stay?
No wishes
No dreams
Can’t you find another way?

I wish some happiness could join you on your journey
I hope that fortune finally finds you on your way
But tell me how will you ever win
When that big wheel that you’re in
Has you runnin the same circle every day
You see no future

No tomorrows....

You see no future on the road that you’ve been travelin
You see no reason to continue any more
Still you keep on keepin on
Cause it’s the way you’ve always gone
Won’t you tell me what the hell you do it for
When you see no future
When you see no future
When you see no future
When you see no

EDIT - here are those lyrics written out again with chords
SEE NO FUTURE
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

B (open, no third)
B (open)
You see no
E (add 9)
future on the road that you’ve been
B/D#
travelin --- You see no
E (add 9)
reason to continue any
F#sus F#
more --- Still you
B -- B/D# -- E
keep on keepin on Cause it’s the
B -- B/D# -- E
way you’ve always gone Won’t you
B -- B/D# -- E
tell me what the hell you do it
F#sus F#
for ---- Now if there’s

A (add 9)
one thing I can say – it’s you’re con
E/G#
sistent --- And you’re per
A (add 9)
sistent to a fault, sure, some’d
Bsus B
say --- Are you
E -- E/G# -- A
stubborn or just dumb? Why don’t you
E -- A/G# -- A
try to find someone --- Who will
E -- E/G# -- A
help to turn you round the other
Bsus B
way --- When you see no
A (open 9)
future


A (open 9)
--- No tomorrows
G
--- Just todays
G/F
--- Is that the way you wanna
C#m7
stay?
A(open 9)
--- No wishes
G
--- No dreams
F/G
---- Can’t you find another
Asus A
way? --- I wish some

E
happiness could join you on your
B/D#
journey --- I hope that
E
fortune finally finds you on your
F#sus F#
way --- But tell me
B -- B/D# -- E
how will you ever win --- When that
B -- B/D# -- E
big wheel that you’re in --- Has you
B -- B/D# -- E
runnin the same circle every
F#sus F#
day --- You see no
B
future

No tomorrows....

You see no future...


....When you see no
A
future --- When you see no
E
future --- When you see no
A
future --- When you see no

(silent pause, then: B)

Next song: 25 of 26 - What I Feel For You

Song 23 of 26 - Secret Societies

The twenty-third of the 26 songs is called "Secret Societies". Scroll down below the following video for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Br3lpVmids

Here we have a little more fun with the idea that was dealt with in song 15, "What Was Done Today" (has our current world been created by "just a bunch of stuff that happened", or by deliberate manipulation?), and by extension song 11, "The Anthropic Viewpoint" ("Here we are in the Hydrogen Conspiracy"). Here's a couple of excerpts from my book where I touch upon this idea, first from chapter six:

Conspiracy theorists should love the anthropic viewpoint, because it implies that a very specific set of choices have been made to get us to the reality we currently live in. The reason certain families have money and power, the reason certain societies have been able to exert control over our destinies, is because of a long list of backroom deals and hidden skulduggery leading back through the ages. The fact that human beings evolved to become the dominant species might be a result of the “Secret Plan for the Advancement of Mammals”. The fact that hydrogen became the most common element in our universe is, of course, because of the “Great Hydrogen Conspiracy”, which stretches back to a mere 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when atoms first started to form. And most mysterious of all, the fact that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are by far the most predominant forms in the universe may be part of a plot that stretches out much further than our own Big Bang! In all of these examples, the anthropic viewpoint tells us that there are other universes where those conspiracies failed, and other factions rose to dominance. We just don’t happen to be in those universes.

And from chapter 11:

From dimensions seven through nine, we find the other physically incompatible universes which physicists have told us must also exist. These are the universes in which other big-picture memes will have risen to dominance, and there would be particular universes for which certain memes will have a strong affinity. Like the child who takes joy in knocking over a tower of blocks, or a person taking joy in blowing things up or shooting them, there would be a universe just made for the memes that prefer destruction over creation. There would also be universes where very little changes over eternity, and the memes that are drawn to stability at all costs would naturally tend to interact with those physical universes. The fact that our consciousness tends to block out things that don’t change would seem to be a clue about how much the “stability at all costs” meme holds sway in the universe we are living in at this moment.

In our discussion of the anthropic viewpoint, we suggested somewhat in jest that conspiracy theorists should love its implications. Now we’re looking at an interpretation where we’re giving that idea some more weight: there really are other universes where other big-picture memes have “gotten their way”. To the extent that any conspiracy can also be looked at as being just a description of the chain of events that led to a certain outcome, we can apply that same thinking to our own universe that we’re in, and to the other universes we’re not.

SECRET SOCIETIES
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)
(originally written for Globe Theatre’s Resuscitation of a Dying Mouse, 1986)

I believe in secret societies and underground confederacies
That move in my life
I believe in sisterly sororities and brotherly fraternities
And they’re part of my life

And there are signals, and there are signs
Right before us all the time
But we stumble deaf and blind
Cause we never realize

There are wheels that turn, that we never see
There are eyes that are watchin you and me
There are tears people cry cause they’ll never be free
Trapped in the arms of a secret society

I believe the guy sittin next to me waits for a sign from me
To show him I know
What he needs, or maybe what I need from him, but he won’t ever let me in
It’s a common tableau

Yes it happens all the time
We’re all sendin out signs
Cause we all need to know
Who are friends are, who’s the foe

Cause there are deals that are struck that play with our dreams
And there are figures who move in places unseen
And pinocchios who dance as if they live and breathe
Tugged from above by a secret society

Oh, I believe it’s true

Other blog entries that touch upon the ideas from this song:
FAQ 12 - Is this about consciousness and the quantum observer?
How to Make a Universe
Facebook and Secret Societies
Conspiracies and Quantum Mechanics
The Anthropic Viewpoint

Next song: 24 of 26 - See No Future

Song 22 of 26 - Insidious Trends

The twenty-second of the 26 songs is called "Insidious Trends". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCMe9uGs8iA

Way back in Song 4, "The Unseen Eye", the lyrics to that song touched upon the idea of all of us as quantum observers, each operating within our own observer-region, but also participating in a consensual reality:

But deep within us in every living creature
There’s a connection
To this shared consensus, of the world we know

The blog entry for song 9, "Senseless Violence", touched on this idea as well - we all recognize, and can even be drawn to, what we recognize as important cusps where an individual's life has been changed, and that is just as true whether we're looking at the latest jackpot winner or the latest car crash.

In the blog entry discussing song 15, "What Was Done Today", we took those ideas not in terms of the universe, not in terms of individuals, but in terms of our shared consensual reality here on planet earth. That song ended with these (inspiring/controversial depending upon your point of view) lyrics:

Big Money
Can’t hear you
Big Power
They don’t care
Big reasons
To change the system
Revolution’s in the air

In my book I expand on this idea a bit more:

So, in practice, consensual reality tends to be a binding force for each of us rather than a liberating one: there’s just too many quantum observers with their own idea of what reality should be, and as a result any really fantastical shifts are virtually impossible to happen at this present time.

In other words, “consensual reality” is why the wonderful options that might seem to be implied through the fifth dimension can be so difficult to achieve. Although each of us has a substantial amount of control, no one person can eliminate world hunger (as one example of many). With the odd exception of the psychopathic actions of a few notable smaller groups or individuals, most huge changes to our world reality require the participation of a large number of people on the planet, all participants in our consensual reality. Some are arguing now that mass merchandising of “brand images” is an insidious way of steering consensual reality on a path that will profit the investors and owners of those brands the most. While some may dismiss this viewpoint as paranoia, there is no question that any factor which changes the way of thinking of a large number of people must be significant. With the approach to the dimensions we are now exploring, we can easily imagine how these influences will cause our consensual reality to drift into a different fifth-dimensional path than it would have without that factor’s introduction.

Is it a big revelation to say that McDonald's has caused many generations of kids to clamor for burgers and fries and not some healthier alternative? Is it startling news that when Wal-Mart comes to town the local mom-and-pop retail operations are in trouble because Wal-Mart is going to undercut their prices? Of course not. Big money and big advertising budgets can mold public opinion, and change the probabilities of certain upcoming fifth-dimensional paths for our consensual reality.

"Insidious Trends" is about those insidious tools that are always being sharpened to try to figure out ways to manipulate public opinion to help generate a profit. In the twenty-first century, as modern consumers have become increasingly cynical about advertising, advertisers have gone more viral with their marketing ploys and more entertainment-driven with their campaigns. "Insidious Trends" is the oldest song of the 26 that we're looking at here, and in the 25 years since it was written there have been many many changes in the media landscape, but the cat and mouse game between the manipulators and the manipulated is just as strong as ever. The other thing that has changed, though, is that our modern world is allowing anyone with computer access to contribute their own insidious trends, and my own project is a perfect example of that - millions of people have seen my animation around the world, and are continuing to discuss and debate the ideas presented in my book, the website, and yes, even this blog. All of this has happened through the internet equivalent of word of mouth, and almost no advertising.

So. As it infers in the last line of "Insidious Trends", this process is not always bad: it's our nature to want to share experiences with each other, and sometimes when a new commercial or a new YouTube clip gets everyone talking it can add to our enjoyment of life, as much as some of us may hate to admit that. In the 60's, when people's media choices were much more limited, a large percentage would show up to work or school on Monday morning with opinions about what Hoss had done on Bonanza, or what Topo Gigio had said on Ed Sullivan. In modern terms, social networking through digg, stumbleupon, facebook, etc. allows a similar "word of mouth" experience, but across a much more geographically diverse web of connections through sets of shared interest.

Is there, as the last line of "What Was Done Today" suggests, a "revolution in the air" where big money may actually have to do more good to continue to generate its desired profit margins? There are signs that is coming true. Is there a revolution in the air where big money is no longer able to control the populace because social networking has become so pervasive and integrated that it operates independently of media manipulation? That dream, too, is gaining strength.


INSIDIOUS TRENDS
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)
(originally released on the Rob Bryanton album “Alcohol and Other Drugs”, 1983)

Step right up and try a few
These ones sure look good on you
Take one home and try it for a week
They’re the very latest fashion now
You can do without’em but I don’t know how
And of course they carry our money back guarantee

Yes there’s always somethin new
Tryin to get a hold on you
Yes there’s always somethin new
Tryin to sink its teeth in you

You can see it on your TV set
You can hear it on the radio
You can play it on your stereo
And you probably will (you know that you will)
And in every magazine and paper
They’ll play you the same old song
It’s big and new and made for you
And it’s the best thing to come along

Yes there’s always somethin new
Tryin to get a hold on you
Yes there’s always somethin new
Tryin to sink its teeth in you

They will break down your resistance
Like they were breakin down a door
They’ll just hit you again and again and again
Till you can’t take no more (you’ll give in for sure)
It’s a million dollar gamble for a billion dollar prize
Who can keep you the latest on the longest artificial high?

(Instrumental with collage of commercial clips/hype)

Hey!

Yes there’s always something new
Tryin to get a hold on you
Yes there’s always some big deal
Sayin nothing else is real
Yes there’s always something new
Tryin to get a hold on you
Yes there’s always something new
Tryin to get a hold on you
(Step right up and try a few
These ones sure look good on you
Take one home and try it for
They’re the very latest fashion now
You can do without em but I don’t know how
And of course they carry our money back guarantee)
Money back
Money back guarantee, money back
Money back guarantee, money back
Money back, money back

Oh, insidious trends are creepin through my life
Insidious trends are creepin through my life
Insidious trends are creepin through my life
Insidious trends are keeping me alive


Here are some other blog entries that touch upon ideas related to this song:
The Wii World
Conspiracies and Quantum Mechanics
What Do You Want to Change?
Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes
Facebook and Secret Societies

Next song: 23 of 26 - Secret Societies

Song 21 of 26 - Making It Up As I Go

The twenty-first of the 26 songs is called "Making It Up As I Go". Scroll down below the following video for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpkehQ97ltA

At first blush this song just appears to be about improvising, and how we go through life mostly without scripts, reacting moment by moment. And, like some of the other songs in this collection, this is a simple enough truth that the song can be appreciated just for that uncomplicated idea. But as the 21st song in this collection, there are a lot of swirling currents beneath that seemingly smooth surface. Let's pause here for another review:

In his marvelous book "I Am a Strange Loop", Douglas Hofstadter makes the persuasive argument that looking at the activities of a single neuron tells us nothing about consciousness - there is a higher-level emergent property of symbols and patterns, from the combined action of a great many neurons for the "I" of consciousness that each of us experiences to arise. It should be readily apparent that any single neuron that is firing must be in some tiny way part of the process that is creating consciousness, but the higher-order effect of our awareness is not going to be found by looking at a single neuron. It's a question of scale - there is a continuum from one neuron to many, which includes the connected web of squirting chemicals and zapping electrical charges within our brain, and eventually if you back out far enough you begin to see how memory, thought, and external input combine with the component parts and activities of the brain to create the emergent "I" that each of us experiences.

The same question of scale happens from the quantum level out to the universe: looking at our line of time as being created by one quantum frame after another, each frame no less than one planck length or unit of planck time away from the next, gives us what we experience as the perceived continuous reality of spacetime. But zooming in on any one of those quantum frames is not going to tell us much at all about the emergent properties of how a universe is created, and how it changes from moment to moment or frame to frame.

We keep returning to this: quantum physicists like Seth Lloyd have eloquently shown us how Information Equals Reality, and the team of scientists at Oxford under the direction of quantum physicist David Deutsch have now offered a proof that shows us how the quantum and the macro world are equivalent. What can we draw from this? That it's not relevant to claim that quantum indeterminacy and free will are separate concepts, any more than it's relevant to claim that neurons and consciousness are separate. Does my conscious decision to get up from my chair now cause me to consciously collapse one quantum wavefunction or another? Does it cause me to consciously cause one neuron to fire and another one to remain dormant? In both cases no, but there are still very definitely higher order patterns that my conscious decision to get out of my chair will cause to happen, and to the extent that it matters that will cause one quantum wavefunction to be observed over another, and that will cause one neuron to fire while another does not.

It's all part of a continuum, from quantum frame to atom to the universe, and from quantum frame to atom in the brain to consciousness. But looking at each individual quantum frame, it's virtually impossible to see the emergent possibility of a universe or a mind. For both the universe and any living creature, we are moving down our fourth dimensional line of time, selecting from a fifth-dimensional probablity space, making it all up as we go.

MAKING IT UP AS I GO
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)
I’m just making it up as I go along
Making it up as I go
Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong
But I keep making it up as I go along

Never been slow with an answer
Even when I didn’t have a clue
I’d go with what my heart told me
Usually I’d muddle through

I’d plow so brazenly forward
Never lacked for confidence
With just my first gut reaction
Some kind of common sense

And I’m still making it up as I go along
Making it up as I go
Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong
But I keep making it up as I go along

Some people say it’s the bible
Some people say it’s the mind
Some think it’s technology
That will finally show the sign

Point me in the right direction
Tell me which is the way
How will I know if my life is blessed
By the path I choose today?

I’m just making it up as I go along
Making it up as I go
Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong
But I keep making it up as I go along

For other blogs discussing these ideas, please go to FAQ 12 - Is this about consciousness and the quantum observer?

Next song: 22 of 26 - Insidious Trends

Song 20 of 26 - Hang a Left at the Lights

The twentienth of the 26 songs is called "Hang a Left at the Lights". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTkcMADHk4

This song and song 21, "Making It Up as I Go", have similar ideas behind them. Both also share a lyrical approach which is more pop music oriented, no unusual words like "anthropic" or "entropy" to clue us in that these are about anything more than the subjects that are usually dealt with in popular music. This song also harkens back to song 10, "Addictive Personality" - and the idea that each of us are choosing from a fifth dimensional probability set to create the fourth dimensional line we look back upon as the life we have experienced. Those important cusps need not be so momentous as breaking out of a destructive loop of addiction - which is why this song is more fun, but really is expressing a similar idea.

Simple ideas like this one are, of course, not unique to this set of 26 songs. Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten", for instance, expresses a very similar concept in a finely crafted pop music confection. But in a world where people can believe they are trapped and unable to change when that is not the case, this is a very important message for artists to keep delivering: yes, sometimes people through no fault of their own are trapped in a bad situation. But it's also important to remember that sometimes it really can be just that easy, to say "now I will choose a better path than the one I've been on".

HANG A LEFT AT THE LIGHTS
words and music (C) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

As you’re headin down your highway
You know you gotta read the signs
You gotta watch the other drivers
You gotta stay between the lines
You gotta listen to your wheels
Cause they’ll tell you bout the road
You gotta watch out for distractions
And think about where you’re goin

Maybe it’s time to hang a left at the lights
And choose another way
Maybe it’s time to put on the brakes
Cause sometimes it’s okay
To hang a left at the lights

Are you writin big fat cheques
That your body just can’t cash
Burned your candle at both ends
Well it’s never gonna last
Are you surfin on the top
Or are you draggin in the dirt
Are you headed for a fall
Are you headin for some hurt

Maybe it’s time to hang a left at the lights…

Gimme that roadmap, where the hell’s that star sayin “you are here”
Gimme some directions, this time try to make ‘em clear

Time for a tuneup
Time to change the oil
Top up my fluids
Check my sparks and coil
Thanks to the pit crew
I’m ready for another lap
But this time will be different
If things start to turn to crap

I’ll be sayin maybe it’s time to hang a left at the lights
And choose another way
Maybe it’s time to put on the brakes
Cause sometimes it’s okay
To hang a left at the lights

Next song: 21 of 26 - Making It Up as I Go

Song 19 of 26 - Positive Vibes

The nineteenth of the 26 songs is called "Positive Vibes". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzUIpJzCjNI


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMWDdOkWkQU


A direct line to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZp1KYboC3Q

In "Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means", physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi shows us how everything from epidemics to internet fads to consciousness can be thought of as networked nodes that are interacting in complex ways. In "Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order", Steven Strogatz shows us how entrainment and synchrony can be viewed as an underlying explanation for order, from the origins of the universe to pendulum clocks, from fireflies to the stock market. Again and again we are reminded of our overriding theme introduced in song 1: Everything Fits Together.

By now, as we've worked through these songs, we have come to think of each living thing as being a part of a pattern across the dimensions, and we have also thought about how actions as simple as our physical stance and our mental attitude can have profound effects on the branching set of possibilities available to us, or the fifth-dimensional trajectory that we're on. This is how so many self-help techniques are able to be effective, including deep breathing and positive visualization. And this is how one person can enter a room and change the way everyone else is feeling, simply by the positive or negative "vibe" they are giving off. Is this the kind of entrainment Steven Strogatz is talking about in his book? Only peripherally: I am taking his ideas and making a slightly larger leap than he does. But it is less of a leap to move from my ideas to another book I love, Daniel Levitin's "This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession". How does music affect us so deeply, and how is so much of what can be encoded into a song able to communicate universally? I propose that this is the same kind of entrainment that we are thinking about with the (admittedly hippy-dippy) concept of this song, "Positive Vibes".

Is it possible to help someone else just by sending good thoughts their way? Is it possible that saying a prayer for a friend in need might cause some good fortune to come their way? Hey, even if you don't believe in such things, as the song says "it sure can't hurt". If all we are is patterns in the information that is reality, then there are certainly far stranger possibilities than this one to consider.


POSITIVE VIBES
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

Positive vibes, I will be sending
Positive vibes your way
Sure can’t hurt, and it just might help
To send you positive vibes - every day

And isn’t it a mystery
How it all goes together
Looking back through history
Have you ever wondered whether
When a country falls
Or somebody succeeds
What was causin it all
Was it just their deeds?
Or was there something more in behind?

Positive vibes, I will be sending
Positive vibes your way
Sure can’t hurt, and it just might help
To send you positive vibes - every day

Not tryin to get all mystical
But I’ve always had a suspicion
That there’s more than just the physical
Hidden in the composition
Of the things we do
What we think and feel
I believe it’s true
I believe it’s real
That we can help to make things all right

With positive vibes, I will be sending
Positive vibes your way
Sure can’t hurt, and it just might help
To send you positive vibes - every day

There are things that we can never know
There are places we can never go
There are things we have to just believe
And this is what works for me:

Positive vibes, I will be sending
Positive vibes your way
Sure can’t hurt, and it just might help
To send you positive vibes - every day


Here are some other blog entries about the ideas behind this song:
Vibrations and Energy
Waveform in the Ten Dimensions
Living in the Fifth Dimension
Gravity and Light
What Do You Want to Change?
Constructive Interference

Next song: 20 of 26 - Hang a Left at the Lights

Song 18 of 26 - From the Corner of My Eye

The eighteenth of the 26 songs is called "From the Corner of My Eye". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP5jxFe5Po



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f8IBDXv_xI


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34A8mfxtzu0


FROM THE CORNER OF MY EYE
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)
From the corner of my eye, I saw it
Thought I caught a glimpse at the edge of sight
Just a tiny inkling
Very hard to see
A flutter like a thousand wings in flight

In a corner of my mind, I questioned
How could there be more than this world of ours
Just a trick of vision
Disorder of the mind?
A pattern of tiny twirling stars
At the corner of my eye

From the corner of my eye
I saw the dance and spin
Of other worlds within
Such a mystery
From the corner of my eye
Hidden in the folds
Those other worlds untold
How can it be

In a corner of my heart, I felt it
There’s so many worlds that we cannot see
Just around a corner
Hard for us to turn
Angels dancing endlessly
At the corner of our eyes

From the corner of my eye
I saw the dance and spin
Of other worlds within
Such a mystery
From the corner of my eye
Hidden in the folds
Those other worlds untold
How can it be

One of the most commonly posed criticisms of any theory of reality involving higher dimensions or parallel universes is that they are invisible to us, inaccessible, decoherent to our current wavefunction. While scientific research continues that might finally give us provable evidence of higher dimensions (with the Large Hadron Collider currently receiving attention for that possibility), could there be other things about our current perceptions that are actually giving us hints of the fifth-dimensional probability space our fourth-dimensional line of time is being constructed from? Here are a couple of sections from my book where I get into the ideas behind this song:

Here is a useful saying in discussions of life and consciousness: “that which ceases to change ceases to exist”. When the brain processes input from the auditory nerve, it tends to reject any continuous noises which do not change–like, for instance, the noise of the air molecules in the room banging into each other, or the sound of an air conditioner. In other words, for our consciousness, the noises (or smells, or continuous aches and pains, and so on) which cease to change, will cease to exist because the brain stops them from being considered for processing. When we listen back to the tape recording, we are hearing what’s really in the room, without the phase reversed noise cancellation the brain uses to remove those continuous noises. Now, when the internal mechanisms of the ear are damaged, usually through exposure to excessive sound levels, we end up with an imbalance, where the brain is correcting for frequencies that are no longer coming in. This manifests itself as tinnitus, or “ringing of the ears”. It turns out that the ringing we hear is not from the ears, but from the brain itself, as it attempts to cancel out particular frequencies that are no longer coming in from the auditory nerve.

This is an example of how the brain is processing a huge amount of data, while our conscious minds are completely unaware of the process. It is only when things are not functioning normally that we start to see evidence of what’s going on “behind the curtain”.

...Nothing ever really happens in the tenth dimension, because as soon as anything “tries to”, it immediately collapses out a reality in the dimensions below which we, as quantum observers, are witness to.

What would it feel like to have the brain not efficiently processing the quantum data that we are suggesting it is also having to deal with? Could it be that the loss of peripheral vision that happens when people are tired or sick is a function of the brain looking down the long tunnel of coming quantum timelines and not having time to provide all of the visual data currently coming in? Could the experience of an ocular migraine–where the vision becomes overlaid with fast-rotating little dots and circles, or fluttering vibrations (often triggered by stress or overwork)–actually be a glimpse into this behind-the-scenes processing of quantum indeterminacy that the brain is doing?

There are drugs which seers and mystics have used to trigger visions which they claimed showed them the secrets of the universe. Could such drugs as peyote or LSD offer ways of opening doors into the quantum nature of reality, revealing the fluid nature of time to those who partake? And systematic re-ordering of the senses as a pathway to enlightenment need not be drug-induced either: chanting, drumbeats, meditation, exercise, and many other repetitive actions are often touted as a way for the seeker to find a different plane. Could that plane be outside of our limited fourth dimension?

There are also perceptual effects that some people describe as having occurred only the first time they ingest a particular drug or go through a particular first experience. Could the minor hallucinations some people experience with their first marijuana high be a glimpse of the swirling eddies that represent their near-future realities spinning off from their current moment, reminiscent of the shapes on a three-dimensional paisley fabric? Could the spots before the eyes and light-headedness of the “first cigarette” that some people describe, and which they then spend decades trying and failing to re-create be more than just a side effect of lowered oxygen supply to the brain, and actually be a perception of their possible futures that are now being cut off by their decision to smoke? Could part of the exhilaration and heightened sense of their surroundings that some persons experience the first time they successfully achieve a particular physical task be because of their connection to new physical futures that are now possible for them because of their reaching this particular milestone?

Hopefully you are reading these blog entries in order. If not, please keep in mind that all of the above is part of the overarching discussion of how Information Equals Reality, and that absolutely everything about our reality can ultimately be thought of as patterns within that information. Hopefully, those of you who have worked through these songs one after the other are now feeling comfortable with thinking about our universe (and all other possible/impossible universes within the multiverse) in those terms.

Here are some other blog entries that touch upon ideas connected to this song:
Tuning Into Reality
Constructive Interference
Music and the Dance of Creativity
Boredom and Consciousness Part Three

Next song: 19 of 26 - Positive Vibes

Song 17 of 26 - Change and Renewal

The seventeenth of the 26 songs is called "Change and Renewal". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blVNWkbPlII

CHANGE AND RENEWAL
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

Water of life, flow through me
Water of life, renew me
Water of life, surround me
Water of life, astound me


Every minute of every day
I keep changing, I keep changing
Nothing ever stays the same
All replacing, rearranging
Every cell that’s in me now
Was not the same when I was born
In an endless constant flow
Renewing when they’re old and worn

Every minute of every day
We are water, we are water
Swimming in an endless sea
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
Molecules of H-2-O
That move around and move between
In an endless constant flow
Connecting us in ways unseen

Change and renewal
Incarnations
Change and renewal
Inspiration


Every minute of every day
All around us, all around us
There’s a sea of new ideas
Waiting out there to astound us
Innovation coinciding
Simultaneous discovery
Flowing out there, waiting for us
Just as easy as can be

Change and renewal
Innovation
Change and renewal
Inspiration


Every minute of every day
Pay attention, pay attention
Open up to what’s around you
Endless paths to new invention
When you hit a roadblock
It’s as easy as can be
You can drink a glass of water
Find a new idea

Change and renewal
Imagination
Change and renewal
Inspiration
Change and renewal


Water of life, flow through me
Water of life, renew me
Water of life, inspire me
Water of life, rewire me
Water of life, surround me
Water of life, astound me

Quite frankly, the opening lines of this song started out as a reminder to myself. I have spent so much of my adult life dehydrated and sleep-deprived, a workaholic drinking too much coffee slaving through the night to meet the latest crazy deadline in my career as a composer and sound designer (and don't get me wrong, I love my work and that's why I have always been willing to stay up all night if that's what it took). Every time I manage to get additional water into my daily routine I feel better, my brain works better, I'm more creative. Old habits die hard though, and making sure I drink enough water just doesn't seem to come naturally to me, for whatever reason.

As I was working on my book, I was spending a lot of time visualizing the shapes and connected patterns that would be created by a branching set of parallel universes resulting from choice, chance and circumstance for our own universe, now and throughout all of its possible timelines. Here's one of the relevant sections:

Sounds also can trigger memory and even instinct. We have already mentioned the squealing sound of chalk on a chalkboard being commonly reviled. Could this because it resembles the cry of some prehistoric predator which our distant ancestors learned that they should retreat from as quickly as possible? Or, as another example, could the desire to urinate at the sound of running water be a racial memory that connects us to our ancestors who chose to urinate in a place where their urine would be carried away? That would mean the potential ancestors we could have had who constantly chose to urinate in their own standing drinking water supply died of disease, did not become our ancestors, and therefore we have no connection across time to them. As we discussed before, these ideas can also tie into the work of Richard Dawkins, who proposed a new way of looking at genes and how their “desire for continuance” connects them from the past to today in a “river out of Eden”.

Water is particularly interesting when considered as a medium across time, since we as human beings are mostly water. Do you recall imagining ourselves four-dimensionally, as a snakelike creature with the embryonic self at one end and the dead self at the other? Now imagine the water that we are mostly made up of in four-dimensional terms. Obviously, some of the water that is in us now is not the water that was in us a week ago, as there is a constant depletion and replenishment taking place (by the way, keep in mind that we’re not just talking about urination here: water leaves our bodies as vapour in our breath, as perspiration, as evaporation). Parts of the water that was in us today could have been in someone else last month, or up in the sky, or inside a plant, or in a reservoir, and so on. Imagining the interconnected fourth- and fifth-dimensional paths of water that flow in and out of each of us creates a gloriously interconnected web that surrounds the earth. What if it were really true that water molecules are able to respond to emotion and carry information? Here is an internet that our current world of technology can only dream of.

The same is true of all the molecules in our bodies. We are constantly going through a process of exchange and renewal, so that in the passing of ten years many of the molecules inside our body are not the same as the ones that were there previously. Imagine the fourth- and fifth-dimensional net connecting the carbon that was in your body ten years ago with where it is today. Imagine the connections across time and space back to the creation of that carbon in the dying of other stars billions of years ago, since that is where all carbon in our universe comes from originally. Once again, the image of a fantastically huge new web of connections is made, and those connections are invisible and unknown to us within our limited viewpoint travelling along our narrow fourth-dimensional line.

Here are some other blog entries that touch upon the ideas from this song:
Welcome the Fifth Dimension
Boredom and Consciousness Part Two
Death?
Gravity and Light
Music and the Dance of Creativity
The Universe as a Song

Next song: 18 of 26 - From the Corner of My Eye

Song 16 of 26 - Turquoise and White

The sixteenth of the 26 songs is called "Turquoise and White". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89oKPEmMT_k


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4dkYKxP4aM


A direct link to the above karaoke version is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv71WUtI3lY

At first glance, this song appears to be about taking a holiday, not much more! Here are some blog entries that talk about the ideas behind the tenth dimension way of visualizing reality which tie into this song:
FAQ 10 - Is this about kabbalah, chakras, meditation, hallucinogens, etc.?
Boredom and Consciousness Part Three
Your Sixth-Dimensional Self
Information Equals Reality
Seeing Eye to Eye

There are a growing number of studies that show markedly different brainwave patterns in people who are meditating. As I write this entry in February 2008, another one was mentioned in a recent issue of New Scientist magazine, this time showing a correlation between meditation and increased activity in the brain's pineal gland. Here's two excerpts from what I say about meditation in my book:

chanting, drumbeats, meditation, exercise, and many other repetitive actions are often touted as a way for the seeker to find a different plane. Could that plane be outside of our limited fourth dimension?

and...

Meditation is a particularly interesting example of how people can use the power of the mind to change their health and circumstances. Researchers analyzing the EEGs of persons in a meditative state have seen that the parietal lobe, which processes incoming data to give a person the sense of their location in time and space, becomes much less active during meditation. If the parietal lobe would be what anchors us in the first-through-fourth dimension (time and space), then, could suppressing that part of the brain be what opens the person who is meditating up to the healing paths available to them in higher dimensions? This leads us to our next chapter.

Why should meditation cause things to change about our physical reality? Why should ritualized physical activities like Tai Chi cause people to think more clearly, become more "centered"? Why should changing our physical stance, or breathing more deeply, or even just making a conscious effort to smile more be able to change so much about the mind? These ideas are all part of the larger concepts we've been exploring here: what does it mean to be a quantum observer, occupying a physical body, navigating through the information that is our reality? Thinking back to song 5, "Automatic", reminds us of the possibility that the more "integrated mind" (where our narrator voice is quieted and we exist within the moment) might be the more natural state for we living creatures to be in. This also leads to the idea that young children may naturally exist within that state as well, and that supernatural/metaphysical experiences could well be part of their world until our culture (i.e. negative feedback from adults) trains it out of them. Here's one of the paragraphs from my book that has been quoted several times by reviewers:

The beautiful blossoming potential we see in a newborn child is an immensely attractive thing. The angels of possibility that swirl around a toddler’s head can be breathtaking if we catch even a fleeting glimpse. And there is nothing as sad as the tragedy of a child who has been mistreated or abused, and whose life may never be the same because of it. Even from our limited window in the lower dimensions, it is easy for us to intuitively understand what is magical and wonderful about the promise of a child, a promise that is held within the sixth dimension.

We'll be thinking more about that "angels of possibility" concept when we get to song 18, "From the Corner of My Eye". Those "angels", despite their possible religious connotations, have another way they could be described: they could also be part of the patterns in the information that is our reality, the really-big-picture memes that we've been talking about since song one.

Finally, in my blog entry entitled "Everything", I sum up the song Turquoise and White like this:

Sometimes you just have to find a way to relax, because tension and fear and hatred are your enemies. Even a short five minute meditation once a day can help to tune you into your own internal voices, let them be heard or let them be quiet, and can help to move you to a better place in the ten dimensions. Turquoise and White is my song about getting away, even if it's only for a few minutes in your mind. Indirectly, it's also about physical stance and how something as simple as adopting a more alert or a more relaxed posture can change mental attitude, and changing your mental attitude can instantly put you on a trajectory to a better part of the multiverse, even though your location down here on our limited fourth dimensional line doesn't change one bit.

What is reality? All we are is a set of ideas across the dimensions. And that is a beautiful and wondrous thing.

TURQUOISE AND WHITE
Music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

A dream of turquoise and white
Water and sand
A dream of fragrance and light
You take my hand
A dream of warmth and water
Suspended in the air
My tropic getaway
I’m there

A dream of laughter and sun
Swimming in blue
A dream so languid and soft
I turn to you
A gentle breeze, a whisper
A day without a care
My tropic getaway
I’m there

Turquoise and white, I close my eyes
And see it in my mind
Turquoise and white, a melody
A calm and peaceful time

A dream of turquoise and white
Water and sand
A dream of fragrance and light
You take my hand
A dream of warmth and water
Suspended in the air
Our tropic getaway
We’re there
We’re there
We’re there


Many of the videos for my songs are also available at YouTube, if you search for videos by 10thdim. You can audition and buy a high-quality mp3 of this song (and others by Rob Bryanton) at amiestreet.com. Included at amiestreet are 6 channel "stems" of this song and some of the others for remixing and mashups (and you can click here to play with a six-channel mixer that lets you audition and play with those stems). There is also an instrumental track of this song (and others) available from amiestreet for karaoke purposes. Finally, you can also download this song and other items from the tenthdimension digital store, and the items at that store are released under a Creative Commons license.

Next song: 17 of 26 - Change and Renewal

Song 15 of 26 - What Was Done Today

The fifteenth of the 26 songs is called "What Was Done Today". Scroll down below the following videos for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUrIeyUUICI


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ikj7ozGMQM


A direct link to above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmbbTkgij-Y

Now we start to get back to the "real" world, the world that all of us live in every day. We've been thinking about all these really-big-picture ideas of the nature of reality, explored dreams of flying and connections across space and time, all part of a grand design of intricate interactions and unimaginable scales that ultimately takes us back to the first song, where we can see that all of it fits together into an underlying fabric of quantum indeterminacy, the enfolded zero of absolute symmetry.

There's a middle section to that first song, "Everything Fits Together", where we hear a repeated chant. Let's review those lyrics:

Soon there’ll come a day when you’ll see the way
And you’ll know (there’s a reason why, there’s a reason why)
And you’ll know (there’s a reason why, there’s a reason why)
There’s a reason why, there’s a reason why
There’s a reason why you feel the way you do
There’s a reason why you do the deeds you do
There’s a reason why you feel the needs you do
There’s a reason why, there’s a reason why
(There’s a reason why, there’s a reason why)

With "What Was Done Today", we return to this complicated idea again. Why is our world the way it is? And more to the point: if we're each a quantum observer creating our own reality (and thoughts become things and like attracts like, etc. etc.), then why are we not all beautiful or powerful or wealthy or healthy, whatever our own particular ultimate-fantasy-life might be?

The answer, I believe, is in the phrase "consensual reality". It relates to the distinction between the multiverse (all possible universes), and the parallel universes related to the spacetime tree of our own particular universe (and the fact that each of those other universes within the multiverse will have their own spacetime tree which is just as real, but separate, distinct, and inaccessible from our own spacetime tree). If each of us is a quantum observer, operating within our own o-region, why does our meandering timeline for each of us within the fifth dimension never wander into one of those other different-initial-conditions universes within the multiverse? It's because our universe is "pinned in place" by a seven-dimensional brane, or in the way of visualizing that we're playing with here, it's because our universe is at a particular position within the seventh dimension.

That position defines, for each of us, the limitations that keep us from moving into those other universes, no matter how much choice, chance, and circumstance come into play. Our "consensual reality" then, is the combined observer effect of every quantum observer within that seventh-dimensional constriction. Each of us has our own observer-region, but we are also part of that shared observer-region that some physicists (John Wheeler, for instance) like to say is the universe observing itself as a "self-exciting circuit". Here are a few blog entries about this idea:

Song 4 of 26 - The Unseen Eye
Is God in the Seventh Dimension?
Boredom and Consciousness Part One

This means, then, that each of us is in a tug-of-war between the constricted choice resulting from our seventh-dimension position, our own free will, and the consequences of other actions that have already happened or that are happening now from our own choices, the choices of others, random chance, and accumulated circumstance. In my book, this complicated interaction is the subject of an entire chapter: "How Much Control Do We Have?".

At the tenth dimension forum, debates about the ramifications of all this have generated tens of thousands of words. Do we even have free will or is that an illusion? Are there deliberate conspiracies that have created horrible imbalances of poverty and wealth, or is this all the result of (as Homer Simpson likes to say) "just a bunch of stuff that happened"? And then we get to an even more startling idea: is our world starting to change as people all over the planet now begin to wake up from their long slumber and realize how much power over their own reality they really have?

Imagining the probability space of possible branches our fourth-dimensional line could select right now from the fifth dimension is something we've talked about many times in this blog, as it's a central idea of the project. With "What Was Done Today", imagining that there are branches no longer available for our current reality (unless we some day figure out how to fold our reality through the sixth dimension, a tall order indeed) is what this song is all about. In various places (the forum, this blog, and in my book) I've portrayed fanciful tales imagining the parallel universes that must exist for our universe where it's 2008 and Elvis Presley or Kurt Cobain are still alive, and how those timelines are not available to us because of events that have already taken place earlier in our spacetime tree, our bush-like-branching structure of choices available to us at both the quantum and the macro level. This song takes that fanciful Kurt/Elvis idea and puts it in a more serious light: there are possibilities that could have existed for our world right now which have been made inaccessible by what has come before... and whether you believe that is the result of the deliberate actions of an influential few, or whether that is the result of "just a bunch of stuff that happened" has more to do with your own point of view than the information at hand.

In song 11, "The Anthropic Viewpoint" I take this idea to an extreme: "here we are in the hydrogen conspiracy, that's the way that it certainly appears to be". With "What Was Done Today" we paint a more realistic picture, but again, whether you believe or don't believe the last stanza about big changes coming in our consensual reality has an awful lot to do with your own point of view. Some people are very excited about "what happens next", which, as we've already explored in these songs, is what life is all about.

WHAT WAS DONE TODAY
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

All the tiny little hurts, All the sad little tales
All the wounds that turned to scars That never went away

All the evil in the world, All the bad turns of fate
All the ignorance and sloth That never let things change

They steal something precious
They open up a hole
In the lines of possibility
To keep us from our goals
They steal something precious
I see it drain away
Tomorrows that can never be
Because of what was done today

Now if all things are possible
It still must be clear
Because of chance or circumstance
Sometimes you can’t get there from here

And it’s nice to have your wishes
And it’s great to have your dreams
But for a starving child in Africa
They hardly mean a thing
How can they mean a thing?

We’ve all got something precious
A wondrous tiny spark
That drives us to continue
And to fight against the dark
But they’re stealin something precious
I see it drain away
Tomorrows that can never be
Because of what was done today

Big Money
Can’t hear you
Big Power
They don’t care
Big reasons
To change the system
Revolution’s in the air

Next song: 16 of 26 - Turquoise and White