From: mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mitchell Porter)
Subject: Blurb for McKenna's "Timewave Zero"
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 05:41:46 GMT

This is some information on the software "Timewave Zero", which is
meant to demonstrate Terence McKenna's theory of time (which was in
turn inspired, in part, by his psychedelic experimentation). I still
haven't seen the program myself.


    MS-DOS Version of Timewave Zero Software Released

In recent years a few visionary thinkers have collaborated with some
talented computer programmers to produce software illustrating one or
another radical or unusual theory.  Tim Leary's Mind Mirror  is an
example.  Another is the software illustrating Terence McKenna's theory
of time, history and the end of history.

As related by McKenna in his talking book, True Hallucinations, the
theory of Timewave Zero was revealed to him by an alien intelligence
in the wake of a bizarre quasi-psychedelic experiment conducted by him
and his brother in the Amazon jungle in Colombia in 1971.  McKenna was
instructed in the art of manipulating numbers derived from a
traditional ordering of the sequence of I Ching hexagrams.  The
eventual result was a rigorous mathematical description of what
McKenna calls the timewave, which, he claims, correlates time and
history with the ebb and flow of a quantity called "novelty".  A
peculiarity of this correlation is that at a certain point in history
a singularity is reached which McKenna claims is the end of history,
or a transition to a supra-temporal order of things in which our
ordinary conceptions of time and history will become obsolete and
personal experience will be radically transformed.  He claims that
this end point coincides with the winter solstice of 2012 A.D.
(December 21, 2012) and with the precise end of the current era in the
Mayan calendar (those Mayans must have known something).

The primary function of the software is to display any portion of the
timewave as a graph of novelty against time.  You can display the
timewave for the entire four-and-a-half-billion-year history of the
Earth or inspect parts of it as small as ninety-two minutes.  The
software provides several ways of manipulating the wave display.

A remarkable quality of the timewave is that it is a fractal.  Once a
part of the wave is displayed the software allows you to expand any
smaller part. This usually reveals a complexity of structure which
persists however much the wave is magnified, a property typical of
fractals.  The perception that time itself has a fractal structure (in
contrast to the Newtonian conception of time) may be the single most
important aspect of the theory.

The documentation to the software is detailed and consists partly of
material by McKenna describing the origin, construction and
philosophical significance of the timewave, and partly of material by
Meyer describing the use of the software, the mathematical definition
of the timewave and certain curious numerical properties.  It seems
clear that McKenna is the proponent of the theory and Meyer's role has
been to formalize the mathematics and to create a tool for the
exploration of the theory.

An interesting part of the theory is the assertion of historical
periods "in resonance" with each other.  It seems that, resonantly, we
have just completed the fall of the Roman empire and have entered the
Dark Ages.  Judging from the intellectual ferment observable at
present it may be truer that we have actually entered a new
Renaissance.  This happy event, however, is scheduled by Timewave Zero
for around 2004.

The software at last permits a scientific examination of McKenna's
long-standing claim to have discovered the root causes of the ups and
downs of historical vicissitude.  If his theory is confirmed then we
can look forward to a rough ride (but a highly interesting one) in the
twenty-three years leading up to the climactic end- point of history
in December, 2012.  As the documentation says, it will at least be the
occasion for a memorable party.

Timewave Zero  is available for $64 + $4 shipping from
Dolphin Software, 48 Shattuck Square #147, Berkeley, CA 94704