[FRIAM] Ralph Abraham, Rob and Chris Shaw (was: Re: Zoom Friam)

Fri Oct 14 22:33:00 EDT 2022

Thank you, Stephen.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 8:16 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
wrote:

>
> *On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:*
>
>> *THE Ralph Abraham
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Abraham_(mathematician)>?  Or the
>> OTHER Ralph Abraham
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Abraham_(politician)>?  Or Yet
>> Another... ?*
>>
> Yes, the first :-)
>
>
> *On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:*
>
>> *The Trialogues
>> <https://www.sheldrake.org/videos/trialogues-at-the-edge-of-the-millennium>
>> comes to mind...  I didn't realize how young McKenna was when he passed
>> just a few years later.  I still can't get past most of Sheldrake's
>> hyperbolic-woo-pseudoscientific framing, and do wonder at how Abraham sorts
>> all that out internally.   It isn't surprising to find a pure Maths guy
>> engaged in very mystical thinking, no fundamental contradictions required I
>> don't think.*
>>
> Ralph credited some high-dimensional math insights to hallucinatory
> experiences with DMT - an interest shared with McKenna. As you know my
> interest in Transactional Intepretation of QM
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation> with
> "advanced" reverse-time waves "handshaking" time-forward "retarded" waves,
> Sheldrake's morphic resonance fields aren't too many nodes of crazy away
> from me - though, I prefer the duality of woo-oow science :-)
>
>
> *On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:*
>
>> *I don't think I've ever met Ralph and I could never quite suss out how
>> much influence he had directly (certainly indirectly?) on
>> Shaw/Farmer/Packard/Crutchfield's "Chaos Cabal"...   *
>>
> UCSC Faculty Bill Burke and Ralph were supporters of the Cabal as they
> worked on their PhDs with some shared pub credits.  Rob refers to Burke as
> the Godfather to the group. (mentioned in the Gleick's chapter on Santa
> Cruz that you linked to).
>
> Last time I saw Ralph in Santa Fe, I asked him about the group and
> that Rob was with us at SFx. He said "Rob was the smartest one" - high
> praise given the other three :-)
>
> Full disclosure: I once slept with Ralph's brother, Fred, director of the
> Blueberry institute <http://www.blueberry-brain.org/>. They were out of
> hotel rooms at the SCTPLS 2002 Portland conference, and Fred asked to bunk
> with me :-)
>
> *On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote: *
>
>> *Does anyone know how to find Julia Landau's strange documentary
>> tangenting "Strange Attractors <https://vimeo.com/129239092>"? *
>>
> Such a cool project.You can see it trying to get off the ground in 2008.
> <http://reelchanges.org/projects/show/ef3718b0-4176-012b-7345-005056c00008/>  I
> emailed Rob in 2013 to find out status and he said Julia was still looking
> for funding to complete. Beyond the trailer, did you notice:
> Clip 1 Intro <https://vimeo.com/344238322>
> Clip 2 - Imagining Rob, Meeting Howard <https://vimeo.com/344238191>
> Clip 3 - Finding Rob in Chaos Theory <https://vimeo.com/344238021>
> Finding Rob in the Chaos  <https://vimeo.com/136946323>
>
> I ran into Rob in Honolulu in 2017 - I asked him about it again and still
> the same status.
>
> BTW, check out the other couple of clips on Julia's Vimeo. I found her
> father's "will the real terrorist standup <https://vimeo.com/125292604>"
> somewhere online about the Cuban Five. When I was in Havana with Tom
> Johnson for ABM Workshops he helped organize, I learned more about the
> Cuban Five and for a couple years followed all news stories and histories I
> could find on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles and
> Americam-sponsored terrorism in Cuba. Pretty f&#ked up.
>
>
> *On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:*
>
>> *Gleick's book <https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.4822680> was
>> the first time I realized that Doyne and Norm came from Silver City, and
>> then I discovered that my sister with to Kindergarten with Norm's brother
>> Vance...   Rob used to hang out at SFx from time to time and his brother
>> Chris would drop through and talk about his Haptek-sponsored
>> "chatterbot"/avatar/PeoplePutty work:
>> https://aidreams.co.uk/forum/haptek/chris-shaw-talk-at-chatbots-3-2/
>> <https://aidreams.co.uk/forum/haptek/chris-shaw-talk-at-chatbots-3-2/>
>> which was pretty advanced, considering what we are getting excited about
>> with deepfakes/AI-art these days.   I knew Haptek when it formed originally
>> to develop haptic hardware interfaces for VR a decade earlier... *
>>
> Cool, hadn't seen Chris's chatbot video. And in addition to illustrating
> Rob's papers and books, I think you know about Chris and Ralph Abrham's
> collaboration on the four volume classic Dynamics: Geometry of Behavior
> <https://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Geometry-Behavior-Ralph-Abraham/dp/0201567172> with
> Chris providing beautiful technical illustrations of attractors and
> dynamical flow fields.
>
> On 10/14/22 12:56 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
>>
>> What did everyone think about this last hearing?  I watched it with Ralph
>> Abraham, whom some of you might know of.  He is visiting me for a week here
>> in Santa Fe and had some interesting perspectives on our present politics.
>>
>> Of course Ralph and I are also having fun conversations about the
>> ever-present and unknowable electromagnetic field.  Life is good, despite
>> the possibility that I am but a hologram in a random universe heading down
>> a Black Hole.
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 13, 2022 at 10:56 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Several people, including me, want to watch the hearing.  When I left
>>> Dave West and Jon Z were the only ones there.
>>>
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
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