Feedback is central to this philosophy
The Octagod is a thought symbol that connects Life to Non-Life. Life and Non-Life are very different. Everything that lives has found a way to survive and reproduce. Reproduction is a form of feedback. Non-Life is different. Everything in the world of Non-Life is dying, it's moving toward minimum energy and maximum entropy. Life lives on the death of the Universe. Life is like a purpose filled water wheel driven by the flow of time.
Feedback is life
The trial and error of life's evolution and the trial and error of human life are driven by the same process. The process of feedback. When you look at your hands and watch what you do, this is feedback There is a kind of enlightenment that comes with seeing yourself as a feedback loop. Feedback loops that interacts with a larger reality. Without feedback there would be no ego. Feedback is a kind of essence. An essence from which many different things emerge.
Feedback loops have bottlenecks
Life in general and your existence in particular emerges from feedback loops. For you the loop goes through your senses and body. It goes in through you senses. It goes out through your body. Goes into the world through you actions and back into your senses. The key part of the loop is your brain. Reproduction, through the generations, is an extended feedback loop. Babies come out, grow up and then try to reproduce. The bottle neck comes with mate selection, sex and family. And that whole thing is obviously the bottle neck that gets all the attention.
Feedback and morality
Larger loops generally have more moral standing than smaller loops. Simply compare addiction to long range planning. Or patience verses an angry outburst. Think of what it takes to raise a child, or create a political movement.
The psychology of a feedback loopÂ
In active living your feedback loop is continuous and generally unacknowledged. And this unconsciousness comes with implications. The inside and outside can not be fully separated. So when the outside goes in we can imagine concrete things in our minds. And when the inside goes outside we get the opposite. We can imagine beings without bodies, ghosts and the remembered spirits of loved ones. We look for values in the non-living world. We can even imagine empty space as if it were living. As well as other things that extend the realm of being far outside the living body.
When the artist’s medium is feedback itself
 Mine is the way of the artist. I discover and explore the world in terms of art and art projects My inclination is to do art about physics. I made balanced buildings in a gravitational field. Then as an exploration of electricity and electromagnetism, I made radios into sculptures. Then at some point in the early nineteen eighties, I started an ambitious project in Video Art. I was going to set up a video studio with various forms of image making systems. Where each image system would be based on a different scientific principal. I had video microscopes, various motion devices. But more importantly I got into Video Feedback.
Video feedback is compelling way to make art. And I built a number of machines for that exact purpose. I also began to make the leap from Science and Art to Science and Religion. You can see this in the flyer and studio pictures I made at the time. In the end the project didn’t work out as I would have liked. And that’s life. But I did get to see, work with and experience something that few people get to. I got to experience pure feedback. Art and technology allowed me a clear view of this magic loop. I saw feedback in its pure form. And with time I began to see this as a kind of religious revelation. And something to share.
Feedback is the I of creation 1
Feedback is the I of creation 2
Feedback is the I of creation 3
Feedback is the I of creation 4
Feedback is the I of creation 5
Feedback is the I of creation 6
Feedback is the I of creation 7
You are a strange loop. But you don't know it.
The eternal flame of feedback.
Religion as seen through the eyes of feedback
For the purposes of religion feedback implies a lot. It implies; self awareness, self reflection, self knowledge and conscience. You know who you are. Here empathy is seeing people as alternate feedback loops. Each with their own personal history, experience and point of view. Here the self is a dynamic loop. Here feedback is the sustaining soul. The fundamental process behind all things.
Feedback comes in many forms; For example a child learns religion. Then they grow up and teach it to there children. And so the cycle returns. In another example, DNA makes copies itself. This is life. And again the cycle repeats. Because without these loops, there would be no life. These loops could be loops of self reflection, or loops of reproduction. They could be primary loops, or derivative loops. But the fact remains, feedback is the glue that connects life to the energetic flow of the universe.
Like a waterwheel in a stream. Or an engine powered by gasoline. The flow of energy makes for things that go round and round. But feedback is more than simple rotational movement. Feedback involves information moving through many forms. For example; DNA makes RNA. Which is transformed by the ribosome into the proteins that help DNA function and reproduce. For another example; When there's an object in your hand, there's an image in your eye. Then there's a thought in your brain. Muscles move, and again it's back to your hand, and the object.
Every part of the loop contributes to the loop. And in this way feedback extracts information from the non-living world. Feedback loops survive because, in one way or another they reflect, or know about, the world in which they live. The survival of the loop certifies the loop, and everything it stands for.
Seeing yourself as a kind of feedback loop is not an obvious thought. It's more natural to identify with the wants and needs of the body. And obviously, being inside the loop makes it hard to see.
This dynamic process of self-creation, is all around us. The Octagod is a system of thought based on the Big Bang and its cultural implications. So when comparing life to the outward flow of energy, and the degenerative qualities of entropy, feedback and it self sustaining properties immediately stands out as a key player. Feedback is the linking system that connects life, to the world of non-life.
The processes of life are circular. They go to return, While the things of the Universe are more liner. They move to decay. As time moves forward feedback returns. Feedback gives the world its meaning. By its very nature it knows its own local future. By its very nature it creates itself. Born from the Universe, by its very nature, it is the silent eternal creator of life.
If The Big Bang had a temple. The temple's eternal light would be made of feedback loops.
