JIM & KATHY OCEAN'S MUSIC IS ON BURNING MAN RADIO'S PLAYLIST
INSTITUTE OF NOETIC SCIENCE IS CONDUCTING
A COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS EXPERIMENT
It looks like we'll be attending this year's Burning Man vicariously through our music, as some of our tunes will be broadcast to the 70,000 in attendance at Black Rock City.
Plus our friends at the Institute of Noetic Sciences are conducting a rather interesting experiment for the third year running:
Burning Man 2014: A Kinoetic Experience
As you read this, our team of scientists and research assistants is
already trekking out to the Black Rock Desert once again to conduct the
third--and most comprehensive--collective consciousness experiment
ever at the Burning Man festival. From our Playa-based research center,
dubbed Camp Kinoetic, we will be setting up new, custom-built random
number generators (RNGs) at key locations around the city to measure the
synchronization of collective energy during the climactic moments of
the Burn.
This study, explains Dean Radin, IONS Chief Scientist, is an experiment
testing the hypothesis that mind and matter interact, and that this
interaction can be detected when a group of people focus their
collective attention toward the same object or event. Burning Man is an
ideal setting to test this hypothesis because the group is isolated, the
group is coherent in the sense that everyone at the festival shares the
same high motivation to be there (no one wanders in accidentally), and
because there are two periods during the week-long festival when all
70,000 people are focused on the same event: the burning of the man
effigy and the burning of the temple.
During these periods, when the collective mind associated with the crowd
becomes unusually coherent, we predict that a similar moment of unusual
coherence will arise in physical entropy. Based on previous pilot
experiments at Burning Man, we predict that within a 20-minute window
starting five minutes before the effigy burning ceremony, a
greater-than-chance degree of cross-correlation will be observed among
the outputs of our devices on the Playa (all of which are based on
quantum randomness via electron tunneling).
Thanks to the generous support of the Ray Benton Fund, we plan to place
between 34 and 50 RNGs all around Black Rock City, all recording
continuously from at least one day before the burning of the man effigy
to the morning after the temple burn for a total of up to three days and
producing hundreds of gigabytes of data to analyze.
We'll be posting updates to our Collective Consciousness experiment page on Facebook so you can follow along, and in the meantime, you can get a taste of what's to come from this TEDx video featuring Cassandra Vieten explaining the collective consciousness experiment to an audience at Burning Man:
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Friday, August 22, 2014
Sunday, August 3, 2014
"Super Earth!"
Have a listen to "Super Earth"
This song by Jim and Kathy Ocean was inspired by NASA's Kepler Mission to find habitable planets!
Listen to "Super Earth!" by Jim and Kathy Ocean
Find out more about the Kepler Mission
Super Earth
© 2011 jim ocean (Thank You Kepler!)
Hey everybody have you heard?
Someday we’re gonna have to leave this Earth
I mean this rock in space my friend
If we’re lucky to survive by then
When everything up to Mars
Will be melted like a snickers bar
We’ll have to find a place to run
And wave goodbye to that Big Red Sun
Time to take a look around in the neighborhood
Find a place to start again
Pack your bags we’re going someplace better
with our friends
We’ll travel far into the void
Like Christopher Columbus on steroids
We’ll find a star with stellar weather
A little diamond that’ll last forever
Our new home will blow your mind
There’ll be 27 moons and fourteen rings to shine
Bigger waves and bigger surf
Imagine surfin’ on a Super Earth!
Time to take a look around in the neighborhood
The grass ‘ll be much weirder there
Pack your bags it’s time to breathe
another planet’s air
So, hey everybody it’s our fate
If we survive we’ll have to migrate
You can watch the ‘the show’ from Mars
But I’ll be leavin' to go to the stars
I’ll take my chances out in space
Another story for the human race
We’ll find a place for pure adventure
Just like the Earth only…better!
Time to take a look around in the neighborhood
The Earth’ll be just a relic
Pack your board we’re going someplace
really psychedelic
10, 9, 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1…
Blast Off!!! Oh Super Earth!!!
Sunday, May 25, 2014
A "Surprise" for Astronaut Story Musgrave
In our continuing saga of singing for astronauts, Kathy and I had the honor of staging a surprise musical tribute to astronaut Story Musgrave. Dr. Story's list of accomplishments read on and on like
the exploits of a superman. This is the guy who repaired the Hubble
Telescope. Try doing that extremely technical work in a space suit with
the earth wheeling over your head at 17,000 mph. Screw up once and it's
"Game over man!".
The city of Petaluma had made a formal declaration that Saturday, May
17, 2014 be "Story Musgrave Day" and Mayor David Glass and other dignitaries were on hand to give him a plaque honoring his many
years of service.
Kathy and I were stealthily positioned in the Walnut Park gazebo waiting as he and as his entourage came around the corner. As he approached the stage unaware, we launched into "Rocket Man" with everyone around joining on the chorus. A big smile spread over his face like a kid at his own surprise birthday party.
Kathy and I were stealthily positioned in the Walnut Park gazebo waiting as he and as his entourage came around the corner. As he approached the stage unaware, we launched into "Rocket Man" with everyone around joining on the chorus. A big smile spread over his face like a kid at his own surprise birthday party.
The guy has nerves of steel and a very warm
heart. He hugged everybody before he was presented the plaque. It was a
thrill to give him a disk our original "space rock" songs, and he accepted the gift like we
gave him the keys to the city.
After years of opening for astronauts I've
noticed some things they have in common. A light-hearted enthusiasm and
politeness seems to animate them.
All those hours of circling the Earth
seems to whittle away at the human ego. They have internalized how rare and
vulnerable we all are in the vastness of space.
While we were talking with Story Musgrave a thought
occurred to me...he should run for president.
What a great leader he
would make!
Monday, May 12, 2014
Paying Musical Tribute to Dr. Timothy Ferris
On May 10th, Kathy and I opened for renowned scientist and author Dr. Timothy Ferris at the Santa Rosa Junior College in Petaluma. He
was given an award for all his achievements, and Saturday, May 10th,
2014 was declared Timothy Ferris Day in Petaluma.
What a thrill to sing to him the song we wrote that was inspired by his book 'Coming
of Age in the Milky Way'. We sang the chorus with the audience waving
their books to the rhythm of the song. I'll always remember
that!
So here's a guy who worked on one of the top
missions NASA ever did: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were all young men
in those days including the late great Carl Sagan. Dr. Ferris was in
charge of producing the "Golden Record" which compiled descriptions of the human
race, our location in the galaxy, and a fascinating collection of music
including Mozart, World music, some blues by Blind Willy Johnson, and rock n
roll Chuck Berry's "Johnny Be Good". I guess Carl didn't want that one in
there. I'm glad he was outvoted on that one.
If I had my way, and since it was 1977, I would have
put the Moody Blues "Question", or some of Dark Side of the Moon on it.
How about you? Here's a link to read more about what's on the discs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Voyager_Golden_Record
The Voyager spacecraft (which are the size of small
semis!) were hastily put together when a NASA scientist realized that a
rare planetary line-up was about to happen that would make it possible
to send a probe up--that would not only take amazing photographs--but would be flung
by Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn at tremendous speeds...a million miles a
day! Washington blew their minds when they funded not one, but two
probes!
So that's a combination of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter
giving the thumbs up on this one. We gotta work together folks!
Voyager
1 and 2 are currently leaving the Solar System on their immortal
journey across the galaxy. They are expected to outlive the Earth. Now
that's a hit song!
I sat with the Ferris' after the event, and Carolyn
Ferris confided with me that she really liked my lyrics and expressed
relief that we weren't hokey. I understand that! Writing about this
stuff requires the songwriter to find out how things feel on an authentic emotional level. 'No feeling and you get hokey'; it's a law of
songwriting.
At the end, I thanked Dr. Ferris for all his hard
work and inspiration. I also said that for me the Voyager missions were a
metaphor for all the higher instincts of our species. Think of it, in
1977 at the height of the Cold War, when a nuclear war seemed almost
inevitable, these two spacecraft were launched with a hope for a more
peaceful future and a general view of a friendly universe. Now that's inspirational!
Metaquizzically yours,
Jim Ocean
Jim Ocean
p.s.
Monday, March 17, 2014
"Screamin Hey"
Check out this music video reminder to "stay in the moment" by hip-hop, rapper Aaron Young shared with us by our friend Theris Coats
More on Aaron Young at http://www.reverbnation.com/aaronyoung
More on Aaron Young at http://www.reverbnation.com/aaronyoung
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