Terence McKenna and his idea of extropy is explained through the
window of opportunity we can call novelty. One of Terence McKenna’s
most widely promulgated ideas is known as Novelty theory. It predicts
the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe as an inherent quality of
time. McKenna developed the theory in the mid 1970s after his
experiences in the Amazon at La Chorrera led him to closely study the
King Wen sequence of the I-Ching. Novelty theory involves ontology,
extropy, and eschatology. The theory proposes that the universe is an
engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty.
Novelty, in this context, can be thought of as newness, or extropy (a
term coined by Max More meaning the opposite of entropy). According to
McKenna, when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal waveform known
as “timewave zero” or simply the “timewave” results. The graph
shows at what time periods, but never at what locations, novelty
increases or decreases. Considered by some to represent a model of
history’s most important events, the universal algorithm has also
been extrapolated to be a model for future events. McKenna admitted to
the expectation of a “singularity of novelty”, and that he and his
colleagues projected many hundreds of years into the future to find
when this singularity (runaway “newness” or extropy) could occur.
The graph of extropy had many enormous fluctuations over the last
25000 years, but amazingly, it hit an asymptote at exactly December
22, 2012.
8.32
Rating: 8.32/10 based on 44 votes cast.
Advertisement
Join The Conversation
What a great source of audio information on Terence McKenna. As a college student this archive will help me with my audio research project on Terence McKenna. One great source of information on Terence McKenna in general that I stumbled on is this website https://terencemckenna.co/
Hey guys, i was wondering if any of you can help me. I feel i have been on a journey this last year of my life, understanding the cultural context of my upbringing, the society i live in, the nature of existence and appearance of reality, through an intellectual breakthrough thanks to psychedelic substances, I think Mckenna is pretty awesome and I can thoroughly relate to a lot that he talks about. In this video at the start of it, he talks about connecting with the “animal soul” which is “write in the language of the flesh itself”. I have done some travelling and spent time in a tropical jungle smoking marijuana where i feel i can relate to what he is describing, a certain sense of oneness with the environment and nature, and understanding my place within this great ecological system. Does anyone have any more information about this experience, it was very deep and eye opening and Mckenna seems to describe the experience very well. A link to a website or title of an article/book would be fantastic.
Cheers
No one can beat Mr Mckenna for original thought or pushing the boundaries. The man was truly a remarkable thinker and speaker.
Great stuff! Lots of Alex Gray paintings 😀
I, personally, think it’s about time that we evolved. Stop your job, take some drugs and learn how to grow your own food. 😛 but seriously… if you take all the money and time and energy that is used for war and oil and stuff, all just to bring us all the special things we need from everywhere around the world… if we took all that, we could instead use it all to feed and clothe the hungry people of the world. Every person would never have to worry about food or shelter and we can use all that free time to build spaceships to get ourselves onto other planets! Some Bill Hicks right there 🙂 haha
I love this.
I particularly like the sampling of stereotypes example. That a cultures stereotypes are made out of bad sampling rate. Just as you will get a low resolution image for the same reason. high samples makes less stereotypes or “equal pixels in an image”
Just love how he looks at the world, Very refreshing!
Omg this is idiotic…
This guy took too much acid
I did not!
that assessment is oversimplified as well as the result of a lack of understanding of Mckenna’s ideas
you don’t have to agree with him but if you are going to take a stance that is the opposite of his atleast take the time to figure out why you really disagree with him
saying merely that it’s idiotic and that he took too much acid shows me that you really have a fundamental lack of understanding of what he was talking about as well as a deep and fundamental lack of understanding of the psychedelic experience
before you throw an insult you should understand what you are insulting
those who insult while in ignorance of that which they insult are shallow fools