The Third Man Factor

"For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science, such as psychology, or even to that kind of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence."

-Niels Bohr

The Eye of Centripetal Entrapment

The encapsulation of the mind in relation to a vast field of information that surrounds it and informs it by largely reference points of physicality, is considered here in terms of other reference points that have no visibility in the sense of physicality but exist and inform in ways that defy rationality.

In our daily lives our minds are abuzz with outwardly directed activities which are multi-tasking in nature toward the present and the future, with a corresponding lack of space to direct ourselves toward our past history. The engagement or entanglement on a variety of fronts with these errands consumes our analysing abilities all of which are directed to a multitude of relationships that are proverbially an expression of perpetual motion in action. One could say this whirlwind of directed consciousness is keyed to the self to the extent it forms an expression of tunnel vision or to use an analogy, it forms a membrane or moat around a field of information and most importantly, it is framed in sequential, sidereal time. A follows B in relation to C and then of course there is the unanticipated that we must analyse and adjust these behavioral acts of awareness toward. Another consideration is that we are social animals and a component of this whirlwind are the others in our lives that perform in a feedback process, exchanging information, varying perspectives and opinions become engaged in this situational orientation of constant stimulation's from without.

If this were not complex enough we carry and process all this through the tonality of emotions that act as carrier waves to others as a viral phenomenon as the old saying goes, it’s not what you say, but how you say it that makes an impression. As my old friend Larry Berg would say, modality precedes communication in this situational entanglement of processing our orientation like a boulder rolling down an endless hill at a high rate of speed. We exist in a multitasking and outwardly directed cocoon so to speak.


The What If

This is where I insert a “what if” situation and removed you physically from your predictable environment, isolated you from all others, gave you a single task that your continued existence depended upon, and made all of this virtually impossible to cope with in any real manner?

Whether it is mountain climbing, arctic exploration, solo sailing across the oceans, being irrecoverably lost in a featureless plain, losing your sense of time by losing your references to it’s passing….your mind would become focused in an extraordinarily single minded contest that narrows your field of stimulation to nearly non existence, yet…..you must continue or perish.

All of this is further narrowed..into a slit which arrives with your being on death’s doorstep and your efforts are failing and your level of physiological stress is unprecedented...has no comparison and you are failing, psychologically, physically and in effect..are dying and you are keenly aware of this as a focal triangulation of irrecoverable loss.

Now we add another another situational factor, this one comes from without as an unseen companion to your situation, either sensed, seen, or heard or all three. This sentience can present itself as a dead relative, or associate, or be entirely anonymous..unknown to you that provides you with information or assistance that is essentially unknown to you and yet accurate, and assists you to the extent that you survive.

This is what is known as the Third Man Factor…and from a certain perspective it bears a kindred set of key features that fall closely into the realm of near death experiences, which initially drew my curiosity toward exploring this aspect of experiential anomalies within a spectrum.

Sidereal Versus Spacetime

If we step back from this experiential anomaly of unseen companions aiding one’s survival and consider physics, in particular that aspect that recognises that time is an illusion based on referencing and that there is no “now” in what is left, which is space, what we seem to find in these many, many cases, is information carried from a future state to the present by another who is also outside the boundaries of sidereal time, astonishingly enough from a state of what we term “death” So you have a dead companion in the present providing you with information from the future….or so it seems with an appropriate degree of wariness to this possibility that even more oddly can be confirmed by the act of survival allowed by the provision of this inexplicable information.

Whether it was an unseen pilot informing the lone navigator where to steer in relation to breaking waves that could not be seen in the pitch blackness of the ocean during a storm or the pilot being given specific bearings to follow to return to base when hopelessly lost….or the astronaut being counselled inside of a failing space station on fire...or the lost arctic explorers being lead by a party of apparitions urging them onward to following in their paths...so close as to shout out at them...

There are key situational characteristics which are precursors to this phenomenon which essentially are physical isolation from others, monotony and stress. And if one dwells on this aspect of these strange events, I think of the proposed and impossibly lengthy isolating trip to Mars...and the probability of something quite similar occurring during that voyage.

I highly recommend “The Third Man Factor” by John Geiger which is gripping, chilling and harrowing in its accounts as well as providing a multitude of theoretical explanations, of which , none completely suffice as potential explanations.

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Man-Factor-Surviving-Impossible/dp/1602861293/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426187199&sr=1-1&keywords=third+man+factor