HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/self.metaprogramming

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           Author's Note & Second Chapter from the book:

      PROGRAMMING AND METAPROGRAMMING IN THE HUMAN BIOCOMPUTER

             written in 1967, 1968 by John Lilly, M.D.

    Published by The Julian Press, Inc., a member of the
    Crown Publishing Group, distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc.,
    225 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003 and represented
    in Canada by the Canadian MANDA Group.

    Library of Congress Catalog Number 72-189950
    ISBN 0-517-52757-X
    1987 Edition

    John C. Lilly, M.D., has studied and conducted research
    in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics,
    and neuroanatomy. Best known for his groundbreaking work
    in human-dolphin relations, Dr. Lilly is the United States's
    leading authority on the states of solitude, isolation, and
    confinement and their psychological effects on the human mind.


^L

    Author's Note

      This work has a curious history. It was written as a final
    summary report to a government agency (National Institute of
    Mental Health) concerning five years of my life work. (The
    agency paid my salary for the five years.)

      It was conceived from a space rarer these days than it was
    then: the laws suspending scientific interest, research,
    involvement and decisions about d-lysergic acid di-ethyl
    amide tartrate were passed just as this particular work was
    completed; the researchers were inadequately consulted
    (put down, in fact). The legislators composed laws in an
    atmosphere of desperation. The national negative program
    on LSD was launched; LSD was the big scare, on a par with
    War, Pestilence, and Famine as the destroyer of young brains,
    minds and fetuses.

      In this atmosphere (1966-1967) Programming and Metaprogramming
    in The Human Biocomputer was written. The work and its notes are
    dated from 1964 to 1966. The conception was formed in 1949, when
    I was first exposed to computer design ideas by Britton Chance.
    I coupled these ideas back to my own software through the
    atmosphere of my neurophysiological research on cerebral cortex.
    It was more fully elaborated in the tank isolation solitude
    and confinement work at NIMH from 1953 to 1958, run in parallel
    with the neurophysiological research on the rewarding and
    punishing systems in the brain. The dolphin research was
    similarly born in the tank, with brain electrode results as
    parents in the further conceptions.

      While I was writing this work, I was a bit too fearful to
    express candidly in writing the direct experience, uninterpreted.
    I felt that a group of thirty persons' salaries, a large
    research budget, a whole Institute's life depended on me and
    what I wrote. If I wrote the data up straight, I would have
    rocked the boats of several lives (colleagues and family)
    beyond my own stabilizer effectiveness threshold, I hypothesized.

      Despite my precautionary attitude, the circulation in 1967
    of this work contributed to the withdrawal of research funds
    in 1968 from the research program on dolphins by one government
    agency. I heard several negative stories regarding my brain
    and mind, altered by LSD. At this point I closed the Institute
    and went to the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center to resume
    LSD research under government auspices. I introduced the ideas
    in work to the MPRC researchers and I left for the Esalen
    Institute in 1969.

      At Esalen my involvement in direct human gut-to-gut
    communication and lack of involvement in administrative
    responsibility brought my courage to the sticking place.
    Meanwhile, Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Truck Catalog
    (Menlo Park, Calif.) reviewed the work in the Whole Earth
    Catalog from a mimeographed copy I had given W.W. Harmon
    of Stanford for his Sufic purposes. Stewart wrote me asking
    for copies to sell. I had 300 printed photo-offset from
    the typed copy. He sold them in a few weeks and asked
    permission to reprint on newsprint an enlarged version
    at a lower price. Sceptical about salability, I agreed.
    Book People, Berkeley, arranged the reprinting. Several
    thousand copies were sold.^L

      I had written the report in such a way that its basic
    messages were hidden behind a heavy long introduction
    designed to stop the usual reader. Apparently once word
    got out, this device no longer stalled the interested
    readers. Somehow the basic messages were important enough
    to enough readers so that the work acquired an unexpected
    viability. Thus it seems appropriate to reprint it in full.

      On several different occassions, I have been asked to rewrite
    this work. One such start at rewrite ended up as another book.
    (The Center of the Cyclone, The Julian Press, Inc., New York,
    1972.) Another start is evolving into my book number five
    (Simulations of God: A Science of Belief). It seems as if this
    older work is a seminating source for other works and solidly
    resists revision. To me it is a thing separate from me, a
    record from a past space, a doorway into new spaces through
    which I passed and cannot return.

                                                     J.C.L.

                                              February 1972
                                    Los Angeles, California
^L


     'All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood in the
    world today are programmed biocomputers. No one of us can
    escape our own nature as programmable entities. Literally,
    each of us may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less.'

    Chapter 2.

    SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTS IN SELF-METAPROGRAMMING WITH LSD-25

      In order to test the validity of some of the basic assumptions
    implicit in the theory of the human computer, a series of
    experiments were designed and carried out in the LSD-25 state,
    in physical isolation, and solitude. One point of primary
    interest during these experiments was to find out what level
    of intensity of belief in a set of assumptions could be achieved.
    The assumptions tested in this set of experiments are not those
    of current science: they are not in the conscious working
    repertory of this scientist; nor were they consciously acceptable
    to him.
      In this short account it is not intended to give all of the
    details of either the self-metaprogramming language that was used
    or the details of the elicited phenomena. The account is
    purposely sparse, condensed, and compressed. Abstracted from
    the complexity of the totality of the experiments and their
    results are only those formal descriptions which may serve as
    guide posts to others attempting to reproduce these or similar
    experiments. It is not intended to complicate this account with
    the personal aspects of the metaprogramming, the elicited
    phenomena, or difficulties encountered. For those researchers
    who are interested in this work's reproduction in themselves,
    these assumptions (or similar ones) and these results can be
    translated into their own metaprogramming language and such
    workers can obtain their unique results.
      To claim validity of details beyond myself is not my aim.
    There probably are those men who are prepared well enough to
    attempt reproducing what has been done here in themselves.
    The descriptions are given so that the sources of the human
    computer theory are available to professionals.
      This particular set of existence theorems is selected for
    experiment for a number of reasons. There are a number of
    persons (Blum, 1964) who experimented with the LSD-25 state
    who write as if they believe implicitly in the objective
    reality of causes outside themselves for certain kinds of
    experiences undergone with these particular beliefs.
      I do not think it wise to espouse either the existence or
    the non-existence theorem for this set of basic
    supra-self-metaprograms (Fig. 1). To become impartial,
    dispassionate, and general purpose, objective, and open-ended,
    one must test and adjust the level of credence in each of his
    sets of beliefs. If ever Man is to be faced with real organisms
    with greater wisdom, greater intellect, greater minds than any
    single man has, then we must be open, unbiased, sensitive,
    general purpose, and dispassionate. Our needs for phantasies
    must have been analyzed and seen for what they are and are not
    or we will be in even graver troubles than we are today.
      Our search for mentally healthy paths to human progress in
    the innermost realities depends upon progress in this area.
    Many men have floundered in this area of belief: I hope this
    work can help to find a way through one of our stickiest
    intellectual-emotional regions.^L
      Most of these beliefs are ones which have been abandoned in
    the fields of endeavor called science. Such beliefs continue
    to be found in the field known as religion. Some of these beliefs
    are labeled in modern psychiatric medicine and anthropology as
    superstitions, psychotic beliefs, etc. Other persons present
    these beliefs in the writings called science fiction.
      This set of basic postulates (or beliefs) is conceived and
    used to program several sessions with LSD-25 plus physical
    isolation in solitude. Above all these metaprograms to be
    experimented upon is one metaprogram of value to this subject:
    his overall policy is the intent to explore, to observe, to
    analyze. Hence there is an important additional basic
    metaprogram: analyze self to understand one's thinking and
    true motives more thoroughly. This is the conscious motivational
    strategy. At times this metaprogram dominates the scene, at
    times others do. The resolve exists, however, to generate
    a net effect with this instruction uppermost in the computer
    hierarchy.


    EXPERIMENTS ON BASIC METAPROGRAMS OF EXISTENCE

      Preliminary to the experiments in changing basic beliefs, many
    experiments with the profound physical isolation and solitude
    situation were carried out over a period of several years. These
    experiences were followed by combining the LSD-25 state and the
    physical isolation state in a second period of several years.
    The minimum time between experiments was thirty days, the
    maximum time several months. [Tables 1, 7 and 8]

    Basic Belief No. 1
      Basic Belief No. 1 was made possible by the early isolation
    results: Assume that the subject's body and brain can operate
    comfortably isolated without him paying any attention to it.
    This belief expresses the faith that one has in one's experience
    in the isolation situation, that one can consciously ignore the
    necessities of breathing and other bodily functions, and that
    they will take care of themselves automatically without detailed
    attention on the part of one's self. This result allowed
    existence metaprograms to be made in relative safety.
      Succesful leaving of body and parking it in isolation for
    periods of twenty minutes to two hours were succesful in sixteen
    different experiments. This success, in turn, allowed other
    basic beliefs to be experimented upon. The basic belief that
    one could leave the body and explore new universes was
    succesfully programmed in the first eight different experiments
    lasting from five minutes to forty minutes; the later eight
    experiments were on the cognitional multidimensional space
    without the leaving the body metaprogram (see previous section
    on Projection for the cognition space phenomenon).
 ^L
    Basic Belief No. 2
      The subject sought beings other than himself, not human, in
    whom he existed and who control him and other human beings.
    Thus the subject found whole new universes containing great
    varieties of beings, some greater than himself, some equal to
    himself, and some lesser than himself.
      Those greater than himself were a set which was so huge in
    space-time as to make the subject feel as a mere mote in their
    sunbeam, a single microflash of energy in their time scale, my
    forty-five years are but an instant in their lifetime, a single
    thought in their vast computer, a mere particle in their
    assemblages of living cognitive units. He felt he was in the
    absolute unconscious of these beings. He experienced many more
    sets all so much greater than himself that they were almost
    inconceivable in their complexity, size and time scales.
      Those beings which were close to the subject in
    complexity-size-time were dichotomized into the evil ones and
    good ones. The evil ones (subject said) were busy with purposes
    so foreign to his own that he had many near-misses and almost
    fatal accidents in encounters with them; they were almost
    totally unaware of his existence and hence almost wiped him
    out, apparently without knowing it. The subject says that the
    good ones thought good thoughts to him, through him, and to one
    another. They were at least conceivably human and humane. He
    interpreted them as alien yet friendly. They were not so alien
    as to be completely removed from human beings in regard to their
    purposes and activities.
      Some of these beings (the subject reported) are programming
    us in the long term. They nurture us. They experiment on us.
    They control the probability of our discovering and exploiting
    new science. He reports that discoveries such as nuclear energy,
    LSD-25, RNA-DNA, etc., are under probability control by these
    beings. Further, humans are tested by some of these beings and
    cared for by others. Some of them have programs which include
    our survival and progress. Others have programs which include
    oppositions to these good programs and include our ultimate
    demise as a species. Thus the subject interpreted the evil ones
    as willing to sacrifice us in their experiments; hence they are
    alien and removed from us. The subject reported with this set
    of beliefs that only limited choices are still available to
    us as a species. We are an ant colony in their laboratory.

    Basic Belief No. 3
      The subject assumed the existence of beings in whom humans
    exist and who directly control humans. This is a tighter control
    program than the previous one and assumes continuous day and
    night, second to second, control, as if each human being were a
    cell in a larger organism. Such beings insist upon activities in
    each human being totally under the control of the organism of
    which each human being is a part. In this state there is no free
    will and no freedom for an individual. This supra-self-metaprogram
    was entered twice by the subject; each time he had to leave
    it; for him it was too anxiety-provoking. In the first case he
    became a part of a vast computer in which he was one element.
    In the second case he was a thought in a much larger mind: being
    modified rapidly, flexibly and plastically.
      All of the above experiments were done looking upward in
    Fig. 1 from the self-programmer to the supra-self-metaprograms.
    A converse set of experiments was done in which the
    self-metaprogrammer looked downward towards the metaprograms,
    the programs and the lower levels of Fig. 1.
^L

    Basic Belief No. 4
      One set of basic beliefs can be subsumed under the directions
    seek those beings whom we control and who exist in us. With this
    program the subject found old models in himself (old programs,
    old metaprograms, implanted by others, implanted by self,
    injected by parents, by teachers, etc.) He found that these were
    disparate and separate autonomous beings in himself. He
    described them as noisy group. His incorporated parents, his
    siblings, his own offspring, his teachers, his wife seemed to be
    a disorganized crowd within him, each running and arguing a
    program with him and in him. While he watched, battles took place
    between these models during the experiment. He settled many
    disparate and nonintegrated points between these beings and
    gradually incorporated more of them into the self-metaprogram.
      After many weeks of self-analysis outside the experimental
    milieu (and some help with his former analyst), it was seen
    that these beings within the self were also those other beings
    outside self of the other experiments. The subject described
    the projected as-if-outside beings to be cognitional carnivores
    attempting to eat up his self-metaprogram and wrest control from
    him. As the various levels of metaprograms became straightened
    out in the subject, he was able to categorize and begin to
    control the various levels as they were presented during these
    experiments. As his apparently unconscious needs for credence in
    these beliefs were attenuated with analytic work, his freedom to
    move from one set of basic beliefs to another was increased and
    the anxiety associated with this kind of movement gradually
    disappeared.
      A basic overall metaprogram was finally generated: For his own
    intellectual satisfaction the subject found that he best assume
    that all of the phenomena that took place existed only in his
    own brain and in his own mind. Other assumptions about the
    existence of these beings had become subjects suitable for
    research rather than subjects for blind (unconscious, conscious)
    belief for this person.

    Basic Belief No. 5
      Experiments also were done upon movements of self forward and
    back in space-time. The results showed that when attempting
    to go forward into the future the subject began to realize his
    own goals for that future, and imagine wishful thinking solutions
    to current problems. When he put in the metaprogram for going
    back into his own childhood, real and phantasy memories were
    evoked and integrated. When he pushed back through to the in
    utero situation, he found an early nightmare which was reinvoked
    and solved. Relying on his scientific knowledge, he pushed the
    program back through previous generations, prehuman primates,
    carnivores, fish and protozoa. He experienced a sperm-egg
    explosion on the way through this past reinvocation of
    imaginary experience.^L
      The last set of experiments (see Use of Projection section)
    was made possible by the results of the previous set. Progress
    in controlling the projection metaprogram resulted from the other
    universes experiments. Finally the subject understood and had
    become familiar with his need for phantasied other universes.
    Analytic work allowed him to bypass this need and penetrate
    into the cognitional multidimensional projection spaces.
    Experiments in programming in this innermost space showed
    results quite satisfying to a high degree of credence in the
    belief that all experiments in the series showed inner happenings
    without needing the participation of outer causes. The need for
    the constant use of outer causes was found to be a projected
    outward metaprogram to avoid taking personal responsibility
    for portions of the contents of his own mind. His dislike for
    certain kinds of his own nonsensical programs caused him to
    project them and thus avoid admitting they were his.
      In summation, the subjectively apparent results of the
    experiments were to straighten out a good deal of the "nonsense"
    in this subject's computer. Through these experiments he was
    able to examine some warded-off beliefs and defensive structures
    accumulated throughout his life. The net result was a feeling of
    greater integration of self and a feeling of positive affect for
    the current structure of himself, combined with an improved
    skepticism of the validity of subjective judging of events in
    self.
      Some objective testing of these essentially subjective
    judgments have been initiated through cooperation with other
    persons. Such objective testing is very difficult; this area
    needs a great deal of future research work. We need better
    investigative techniques, combining subjective and behavioral
    (verbal) techniques. The major feeling that one has after such
    experiences and experiments is that the fluidity and plasticity
    of one's computer has certain limits to it, and that those limits
    have been enlarged somewhat by the experiments. How long such
    enlargement lasts and to what extent are still not known of
    course. A certain amount of continued critical skepticism about
    and in the self-metaprogram (and it its felt changes) is very
    necessary for a scientist exploring these areas.


^L

    METAPROGRAMMATIC RESULTS OF BELIEF EXPERIMENTS

      The metatheoretical consideration of these experiments and the
    the results are as follows: One supra-metaprogrammatic assumption
    about these experiments is the formalistic view of the origins
    of mathematics and of thinking. As was said in the preface, at
    one extreme of the organization of human thinking is the formal
    logical basic assumption set of metatheories. These experiments
    were done with this view in mind and the results were interpreted
    from this point of view.
      Obviously this point of view does not test the "objective"
    validity of the experiences. It merely assumes that, if one plugs
    the proper beliefs into the metaprogrammatic levels of the
    computer that, the computer will then construct (from the
    myriads of elements in memory) those possible experiences that
    fit this particular set of rules. Those programs will be run
    off and those displays made, which are appropriate to the basic
    assumptions and their stored programming.
      Another way of looking at the results and at the metaprogramming
    is that we start out with a basic set of beliefs, believe them
    to be "objectively" valid (not just "formally" valid) and do the
    experiments and interpret them with this point of view. If one
    proceeds along these lines, one can quickly reach the end of
    one's ability to interpret the results. One finds that one cannot
    grasp conceptually the phenomena that ensue. With this metatheory,
    this type of experience is not just the computer operating in
    isolation, confinement and solitude on preprogrammed material
    being elicited from memory, but is really in communication with
    other beings, and the influence on one's self by them is real.
      Thus in this case one is assuming the existence theorem in
    regard to the basic assumptions, i.e., there is objective
    validity to them quite outside of self and one's making the
    assumptions. This epistemological position can also be
    investigated by these methods. This is somewhat the position
    that was taken by Aldous Huxley and by various other groups.
    For example, pursuit of certain non-Western philosophies as
    the Ultimate Truth was generated by these persons.
      One cannot take sides on these two widely diverse
    epistemological bases. On the one hand we have the basic
    assumptions of the modern scientists and on the other hand
    the basic assumptions of those interested in the religious
    aspect of existence. If one is to remain philosophic and
    objective in this field, one must dispassionately survey
    both of these extreme metatheoretical positions.
      One basic lesson learned from these experiments is that, in
    general, one's preferences for various kinds of metatheoretical
    positions are dictated by considerations other than one's ideals
    of impartiality, objectivity, and a dispassionate view. The
    metatheoretical position held by scientists in general is
    espoused for purposes of defining the truth, for purposes of
    understanding in their particular compartment of science, for
    acceptance among other scientists and for each one's own internal
    security operations with respect to his own unconscious programs.
    It is to be expected that anxiety is engendered in some
    scientists by making the above assumptions as if true (even
    temporarily) in an experimental framework. One can easily be
    panicked by the invasion of the self-metaprograms by automatic
    existence programs from below the level of one's awareness,
    programs which may strike at the existence of self, at the
    control of self, at the origins of self, at the destinations
    of self, and of the relations of self to a known external
    reality.^L
      Possibly one of the safest positions to take with regard to
    all of these phenomena is that given in this paper, i.e., the
    formalistic view in which one makes the assumption that the
    computer itself generates all of the phenomena experienced.
    This is an acceptable assumption of modern science. This is
    the so-called common sense assumption. This is the assumption
    acceptable to one's colleagues in science.
      Such considerations, of course, do not touch upon nor prove
    the validity of invalidity of the assumptions nor of the results
    of the experiments. In order to leave this theory open-ended
    and to allow for the presence of the unknown, it is necessary
    to take the ontological and epistemological position that one
    cannot know as a result of this kind of solitudinous experiment
    whether or not the phenomena are explicable only by
    non-biocomputer interventions or only by happenings within the
    computer itself, or both.
      I wish to emphasize that there is a necessity not to espouse
    a truth because it is safe. Being driven to a set of assumptions
    because one is afraid of another set and their consequences is
    the most passionate and nonobjective kind of philosophy. Too
    many intellectuals and scientists (almost unconsciously) use
    basic assumptions as defences against their fears of other
    assumptions and their consequences. Until we can train ourselves
    to be dispassionate and accept both the assumptions and the
    results of making them without arrogance, without pride, without
    misplaced enthusiasm, without fear, without panic, whithout
    anger, hence without emotional involvement in the results or
    in the theories, we cannot advance this inner science of Man
    very far.
      Those who wish to embrace the truth of an alternative set of
    assumptions as an escape from the basic assumptions of modern
    science are equally at fault. Those who must find a communication
    with other beings in this kind of experiment will apparently
    find it. One must be aware that there are (as in the child)
    needs within one's self for finding certain kinds of phenomena
    and espousing them as the ultimate truth. Such childlike needs
    needs dictate their own metaprograms.
      I am not agreeing with any extreme group in interpreting
    these results. It is convenient for me to assume, as of this time,
    that these phenomena all occurred within the biocomputer. I
    tend to assume that ESP cannot have played a role. At the
    moment this is the position which I find to be most tenable in a
    logical sense. I do not wish to be dogmatic about this. I wish to
    indicate that this is where I stand as of the writing describing
    this particular stage of the work. I await demonstrations of the
    validity of alternative existence theorems.
      If ever good, hard-nosed, common sense, unequivocal evidence
    for the existence of currently unaccepted assumptions is
    presented by those who have thoroughly attenuated their childish
    needs for particular beliefs, I hope I am prepared to examine it
    dispassionately and thoroughly. The pitfalls of group interlock
    are quite as insidious as the pitfalls of one's own phantasizing.
    Group acceptance of undemonstrated existence theorems and of
    seductive beliefs adds no more validity to the theorems and to
    the beliefs than one's own phantasizing can add. Anaclitic group
    behavior is no better than solitudinous phantasies of the truth.
    Where agreed-upon truth can exist in the science of the
    innermost realities is not and cannot yet be settled. Beginnings
    have been made by many men, satisfying proofs by one.

^L


FIGURE 1.
SCHEMA OF THE LEVELS OF THE FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HUMAN BIOCOMPUTER


LEVELS

XI    UNKNOWN                                 (above and in Biocomputer)

X     SUPRA-SPECIES-METAPROGRAM               (beyond metaprogramming)

IX    SUPRA-SELF-METAPROGRAMS                 (to be metaprogrammed)

VIII  *SELF-METAPROGRAM* - awareness          (to metaprogram)

VII   METAPROGRAMS    METAPROGRAM STORAGE     (to program set of programs)

VI    PROGRAMS        PROGRAM STORAGE         (detailed instructions)

V     SUBROUTINES     SUBROUTINE STORAGE      (details of instruction)

IV    BIOCHEMICAL ACTIVITY - NEURAL ACT. - GLIAL ACT. - VASCULAR ACT.
                                              (signs of activity)

III   BIOCHEMICAL BRAIN - NEURAL BRAIN - GLIAL BRAIN - VASCULAR BRAIN (brain)

II    BIOCHEMICAL BODY - SENSORY BODY - MOTOR BODY - VASCULAR BODY    (body)

I     BIOCHEMICAL - CHEMICAL - PHYSICAL....EXTERNAL REALITY (external reality)


    Each part of each level has feedback-control relations
    with each part, indicated by the connecting lines. Each
    level has feedback-control with each other level. For
    the sake of schematic simplicity, many of these feedback
    connections are not shown. One example is an important
    connection between Levels VI through IX and X; some
    built-in, survival programs have a representative at the
    Supra-Self-metaprogram Level as follows: "These programs
    are necessary for survival; do not attenuate or excite
    them to extreme values; such extremes lead to non-computed
    actions, penalties, illness, or death." After construction,
    such a Metaprogram is transferred by the Self-metaprogram
    to the Supra-selfmetaprograms and to the Supra-species-
    metaprograms for future control purposes.
    The boundaries between the body and the external reality
    are between Levels I and II; certain energies and
    materials pass this boundary in special places (heat,
    light, sound, food, secretions, feces). Boundaries
    between body and brain are between Levels II and III;
    special structures pass this boundary (blood vessels,
    nerve fibers, cerebro-spinal fluid). Levels IV through XI
    are in the brain circuitry and are the software of the
    Biocomputer. Levels above Level X are labeled "Unknown"
    for the following purposes: (1) to maintain the openness
    of the system, (2) to motivate future scientific research,
    (3) to emphasize the necessity for unknown factors at all
    levels, (4) to point out the heuristic nature of this
    schema, (5) to emphasize unwillingness to subscribe to any
    dogmatic belief without testable reproducible data, and
    (6) to encourage creative courageous imaginative
    investigation of unknwon influences on and in human
    realities, inner and outer.

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