Terence K, McKenna "Operating System"

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Terence Kemp McKenna

"Operating System"

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Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 April 3, 2000) was a writer, philosopher, 

psychonaut and ethnobotanist. He was noted for his knowledge of the use of psychedelic, plant-based 

entheogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the theoretical origins of human consciousness, 

and his concept of novelty theory.

Terence McKenna advocated the exploration of altered states of mind via the ingestion of naturally 

occurring psychedelic substances. For example, and in particular, as facilitated by the ingestion of high doses 

of psychedelic mushrooms, and DMT, which he believed was the apotheosis of the psychedelic experience. 

He spoke of the "jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs" or "self-transforming machine elves" that one encounters 

in that state.

Although he avoided giving his allegiance to any one interpretation (part of his rejection of monotheism), 

he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual 

to encounter what could be aliens, ancestors, or spirits of earth. He remained opposed to most forms of 

organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening.

Philosophically and religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 

Gnostic Christianity, Alfred North Whitehead, Alchemy, and James Joyce (calling Finnegans Wake 

"the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century").

One of McKenna's ideas is known as novelty theory. It predicts the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe 

as an inherent quality of time. McKenna developed the theory in the mid-1970s after his experiences in 

the Amazon at La Chorrera led him to closely study the King Wen sequence of the I-Ching. Novelty theory 

involves ontology, extropy, and eschatology.

The theory proposes that the universe is an engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty. 

Novelty, in this context, can be thought of as newness, or extropy (a term coined by Max More meaning 

the opposite of entropy). According to McKenna, when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal waveform 

known as "timewave zero" or simply the "timewave" results. The graph shows at what time periods, but 

never at what locations, novelty increases or decreases and is supposed to represent a model of history's 

most important events.

The algorithm has also been extrapolated to be a model for future events. McKenna admitted to the expectation 

of a "singularity of novelty", and that he and his colleagues projected into the future to find when this singularity 

(runaway "newness" or extropy) could occur. 

Millenarians give more credence to Novelty theory as a way to predict the future (especially regarding 2012) 

than McKenna himself. The graph of extropy had many enormous fluctuations over the last 25,000 years, but 

it hit an asymptote at exactly December 21, 2012. In other words, entropy (or habituation) no longer exists 

after that date. It is impossible to define that state. This is also the date on which the Mayan long calendar ends. 

The technological singularity concept parallels this, only at a date roughly three decades later.