A Little Weird

reality bizarres the standard

August 28th, 2009 by Sean
“Virtual Out of Body Experiences”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQAc_Z2OfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xWowv7Qryc

I applaud scientists for investigating the brain and how our vision plays a role in sensing the location of our body parts.

However.

I do not applaud their use of the term “out of body experience”. What they are investigating is not the same thing as the traditional out of body experience.

The term “out of body experience” is broad enough to describe both phenomenon, but using it for these studies implies a relationship between the two phenomenon. There is no relationship between the optical illusion the scientists are playing with, and the OBE state of mind that Monroe and others have investigated.

What bothers me more is that the second video uses terms like “flashes of light” and “vibrations” - however, they’re just talking about the lights and motors attached to the subjects back! Not visions of flashing lights experienced during meditation (thought to be synapses firing in the eye-lids), or the classical vibrations people feel while having an OBE (which have no scientific explanation yet).

The blurring of terminology will create confusion. This means that if someone is genuinely curious about OBEs, they might read scientific articles about this optical illusion, and mistakenly conclude that OBEs are an optical illusion - for no logical reason… just because the terminology is the same.

OBEs might be an illusion - I’m ok with that. But let that discovery come from investigation of OBEs!

Optical illusions are cool - I’m ok with that too. But let’s stop calling this line of work “out of body experiences” because we already have a separate collection of phenomenon that already uses that term.

>:-|

Posted in Science, Dream Phenomenon | 2 Comments »

August 15th, 2009 by Sean
Neural Networks pt. 1

Background

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a really cool subject. It combines two things I love - programming, and the mind. It’s interesting to read about psychology and biology… but for me, programming is more real. A psychologist or biologist studies the mind/brain. An AI programmer attempts to create a mind/brain.

In AI, a popular technique is to use something called a Neural Network. Basically, the programmer first attempts to write code to mimic a single neuron. Then, the programmer creates a network of these individual neurons, and watches them interact. This technique comes from the belief that our brain’s power comes from the billions of networked neurons inside of it.

AI programmers first came up with the idea of making a digital Neural Network from talking to biologists. After all, if you want to build a digital brain, why not talk to people who study real brains? Biologists taught programmers how neurons actually worked - programmers took the concept, and create a simplified digital counter-part.

There is another way to arrive at the conclusion that a Neural Network is a good idea, though. We can arrive there just using logic and math, without any knowledge of how real brains work. Granted, this line of reasoning only became clear in hindsight - but it explains why evolution might have naturally created the brain in the first place:

The Neural Network’s Purpose

A Neural Network is awesome at one thing - detecting relationships.

Imagine you have a series of numbers… 12, 4, 0, 4, 16, 3, 7, 6, 9, 11. Just with that series of numbers, you have no clue about any meaning behind it. It could be a random sequence, or some parts might be random, but other parts might have meaning. Some formula might determine the numbers. Or it might represent money, or time, or butterflies, or word counts, etc. As it stands right now - you simply don’t know.

Now imagine I feed you a stream of numbers, like so:

1. 12, 4, 0, 4, 16, 3, 7, 6, 9, 11

2. 13, 6, 0, 3, 18, 2, 7, 4, 10, 12

3. 14, 8, 0, 2, 16, 1, 7, 2, 11, 13

4. 15, 10, 0, 1, 10, 0, 7, 0, 12, 14

If you’re clever, you’ll notice there are a lot of patterns in that stream. The first number always increases by one, the second increases by two, the third is always zero, the fourth decreases by one, the fifth is the second number times the fourth number, etc.

You can see the pattern because you have a brain, and I just told you what the patterns are. Imagine you are a computer, with zero knowledge, and your job is to figure out the pattern from scratch. How would you go about it? How would you conclude that the fifth number is the second times the fourth?

Since you have no prior knowledge, what you have to do is try every combination. Is the first number the second times the third? No. Is the first number the second times the fourth? No. Is the first number the second times the fifth? No. Eventually, while trying everything out, you find that the fifth number is the second times the fourth.

The only way the computer can detect a pattern is by trying every possible combination, and see if it finds anything. In fact, this is what humans do too - if you look at a sequence of numbers, and attempt to find a pattern, you’ll sit there and try different things out… searching for something that makes sense.

Creating the Network

Why create a network of neurons? You can think of a neuron as a little detector. It takes in input, and spits out a “yes” or “no”. Then, more neurons take in a collection of yes’s and no’s, and spit out their own yes or no. So there’s a bunch of these yes’s and no’s flying around.

The part that makes this work is that a neuron learns which neighboring neurons it should listen to, and which ones it should ignore. You can think of the neuron as being networked with the neighbors it listens to. Likewise, there are neighbors that listen to it. This creates a web of neurons.

Network Complexity

Back to our random number example - you need a neuron at every spot you want to detect a relationship. Is the first number the second times the third? Stick a neuron there. You’ll need a network of neurons capable of performing multiplication, but you’ll need one neuron at the top that fires off a “yes” or “no” if the first number is the second times the third.

We have a lot of different relationships we want to test… so we’ll need a lot of neurons. And what if we want to test really complicated relationships? For example, maybe we want to test the fifth number is the second, plus the third, times the sixth. We’ll need a neuron for that.

So, the more complicated the relationships, the more neurons we’ll need. Really, there’s no limit… because there could be an insanely complicated relationship behind two numbers. If we don’t have enough neurons to detect the relationship, then our neural network won’t be able to figure it out.

Conclusion

There is a lot of information on Neural Networks, and I’ve glossed over a lot of the details. The important point to recognize is that you can use a network of neurons in order to detect relationships. The more neurons, the more complicated the relationships it can detect. Each individual neuron performs a simple task, but when networked intelligently (from learning over time which neighbors to listen to, and which to ignore), the network is capable of extracting meaning from a stream of input.

Stay tuned for part two…

Posted in Consciousness | 2 Comments »

August 8th, 2009 by Sean
OBE + Lucid + Monroe

I’ve been focusing on OBEs lately. I have equipment set up in my room, but I haven’t been able to get out of my body in order to experiment with it. Instead, I’ve been having pretty amazing/insane lucid dreams. Last night I slept about 10 hours, and just about all of it was lucid… it was so much fun :-).

Normally, it’s hard to remember dreams because they’re just blurry and fleeting. Lately, my problem has been the opposite - I have so many unique and highly detailed experiences, that it’s too much to remember everything. Waking life is incredibly repetitive, so it’s very easy to remember weeks of information, but dreams are individually unique moment to moment - one night can feel like the equivalent of five years of information. It’s just too much :-).

I’ve also been watching OBE videos on YouTube. One awesome channel is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MonroeInstitute

They’ve recently posted videos of seminars with Robert Monroe. It’s very cool to see and hear him talk. Check it out.

I’m also still working on getting a new project up and running, dedicated to researching paranormal phenomenon. I have a lot of ideas, and I’ve talked with other folks who have great ideas too… so now it’s a matter of trying new things out, and documenting our progress. I don’t expect to figure everything out in a month - this is more of a long term project - but I hope it eventually turns into a useful resource. We shall see - I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in Website, Dream Phenomenon | No Comments »

July 15th, 2009 by Sean
Timelessness

I’ve been trancing out before falling asleep lately, in an attempt to get back into OBEs. I haven’t escaped my body yet, but I’ve consistently hit a timeless state of mind.

I can’t pinpoint when I enter the state, but snapping back to reality is very distinct. I wake up with a sense of panic, completely oblivious to how long I’ve been in the state. The time is… lost. There is no sense for how long I’ve been laying there, stuck in this loop of non-awareness.

It’s not like dreaming, because I still have a sense of time while dreaming. My sense might be wrong (a five minute dream can feel like an hour), but the sense is there. Even with deep sleep, when I’m not in R.E.M., I still wake up with a sense of time. It’s not like an OBE, where everything might be blurry, but I still have a sense of time. This trance state is without this sense.

The reason this intrigues me so much is because the next question is: where am I while in this state? Which of course is a leading question. If I can be in a state of non-awareness, is it such a large jump to reason that death is just perpetual non-awareness?

Let’s say I’m a devout religious person who believes in life after death, heaven, hell, etc… I still can’t deny that this non-awareness state exists (because I’ve experienced it). So now I have an experience of non-existence. I have felt what not-existing feels like. How can I sit here and rationalize the existence of life after death when I’ve experienced death after death? Sure, life after death might exist, but what necessity is there for it? Not-existing already exists.

Thoughts?

Posted in Consciousness, Belief Systems, Dream Phenomenon | 14 Comments »

July 9th, 2009 by Sean
Dreaming and Expectation

There are a few different theories on what dreams are, and how they work. I imagine that the various theories each have their own nugget of truth. One particular theory that has served me well comes from Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., in his book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.

LaBerge believes that expectation drives the dream experience. By exploiting and controlling our expectations, we can take control of our dreams.

For example, suppose you are dreaming that you are walking down a hall. What do you associate with walking down hallways? Perhaps you subconsciously expect to see someone in the hall. Ok, who do you see? As you walk towards the stranger, details become more clear… this stranger has dark hair, slightly shorter than you, and a little heavy. Who fits this description? Who do you expect at this point? Maybe I expect to see my father… and the moment my mind expects an outcome, the outcome materializes seamlessly in the dream.

The important point is that the dream is built while you are experiencing it, moment by moment, based on your immediate expectations. My father wasn’t in the hallway at first… his presence was created during the experience, by stringing together a series of expectations.

It has been my personal experience that dreams aren’t solely controlled by expectation, because sometimes unexpected things happen. But for the most part, this theory rings true with me.

One way to exploit this expectation mechanism is to create unknowns in your dream, and then fill in the unknown areas with whatever you choose to expect. For example, suppose you are dreaming that you’re in a building… but you’d rather be in a meadow during the Middle Ages. First, look for a door. Nothing has been created behind the door, because you haven’t opened it. Move to open the door, but first convince yourself that a meadow is behind it. Have confidence! YOU are in control.

Open the door, and let that confident expectation create the environment.

You can apply this concept many different ways… one popular method is to spin in circles in your dream, until the scenery blurs. This spinning essentially makes the entire environment an unknown. Then, while spinning, expect to be transported elsewhere. When you slow your spin, the environment is regenerated based on your expectations… building the new location for you.

So: create an unknown, expect an outcome, and investigate the unknown while holding this expectation. Works every time. Happy dreaming!

Posted in Dream Phenomenon | No Comments »

May 25th, 2009 by Sean
Do Dogs Have Souls?

I’m (still) grappling with the concept of consciousness. Not just for fun (even though it is fun), but to conjure up methods for investigating OBEs.

There are some obvious questions about the idea of a “soul” and life after death. The largest evidence against the soul is that we can alter consciousness by altering the brain. An amazing demonstration of that is in experiments with people who have a severed corpus callosum, which is the part of the brain that connects the left hemisphere with the right hemisphere. In this video, a man without hemisphere communication has the word “phone” flashed to his left eye (which gets processed by his right hemisphere), and doesn’t know the actual word until he draws a phone on a piece of paper, and recognizes the picture on the paper.

We can do our own experiment. Drink a twelve pack of beer, and tell me if your consciousness is altered :-).

If consciousness exists as an entity separate from the body, we would expect it to be unaffected by physical and chemical fluctuations in the brain. However, if consciousness arises from the complex neural network in the brain, then we would expect consciousness to be altered by physical and chemical intrusions. The evidence shows that altering the brain alters consciousness. So the conclusion is that consciousness arises from the neural network… the soul doesn’t exist.

If consciousness can exist outside the body, then we are forced to confront the question: why does altering the brain alter consciousness?

-

I was debating with my friend about the difference between the human mind, and the bird mind. He argued that our human mind was better in some way… that we were doing something different that made us more intelligent, or more conscious, or self-aware. I argued that our minds were equivalent - the only difference being the number of neurons. More neurons, more processing power.

Do dogs have souls? How different are we really from any other animal? And where do you draw the line — chimps? Fish? Insects? Cells? Atoms?

If consciousness exists outside the body, then aren’t atoms capable of consciousness, even though they may not be able to exercise their awareness in the physical world?

-

Is it one or the other? Is there no middle path?

Posted in Consciousness | 15 Comments »

May 15th, 2009 by Sean
Non-existent Existence

A brief update: Thank you to everyone who has e-mailed me concerning the call for volunteers. We’re working on getting something going, so stay tuned. With that said…

A lot of what I think about is abstract and without evidence. Forgive me if this is yet another post that indulges my hypothetical self.

I’ve been thinking about life after death, along with emergence, and the problems of Atheism. I had a thought: what if emergent properties, which don’t exist in their own right, actually do exist?

Let me give you an example. Suppose you take a rubik’s cube, and mix it up. After about a hundred random spins, it’s reached the maximum “mix” - you could mix it more, but it doesn’t really add complexity. In this mixed up state, there exists a certain sequence of moves that will solve it in the least amount of steps. Perhaps you are only 15 spins away from the solution. The problem is that you don’t know what those 15 spins are. The point is that those 15 spins exist.

In order to find those 15 spins, you would have to do quite a bit of calculation. It’s not a simple problem. A brute force strategy (where you try every possible combination) might take you a couple thousand years on a modern computer. Of course, at the end of that 5,000 year period, you would be certain the final solution is the fastest possible sequence… you’ve tried every possibility! (There are smarter ways to go about solving this problem, but we’ll save that for another day :-P)

When you hold a mixed up rubik’s cube in your hand, a fastest solution does exist. Not in reality, though… you can’t grab it. It’s a numbers game. It exists as a concept, independent of reality. If we imploded the universe, the mathematical concept still exists. There may not be any minds around to understand the concept, but it still exists, as a mathematical truth.

…Now for the real question:

Can a mathematical concept be conscious?

It doesn’t really make sense, at first. Math is abstract. Consciousness is an emergent property of organized brain cells (right?). Math exists in the sense that the idea exists in our head… but it doesn’t exist like a rock does. Math is intangible - not physical. Immortal. No beginning or end.

Let’s take it from another angle: We know that consciousness exists, because we are conscious, and we exist. So there must be a mathematical model for consciousness. Even if you believe in a magical unexplainable soul, you still have to recognize that we can do some cool neural-net stuff with artificial intelligence, and it’s only a matter of time before we make a computer program smart enough to simulate more advanced forms of awareness. The math is there.

The mathematical concept of consciousness exists. The numbers, and their movement, exist as a concept. If the universe implodes, the concept still exists… it isn’t dependent on physical reality. It’s a self-contained, independent, idea. That idea can be implemented in carbon-based lifeforms, or electrical circuitry of a computer, or rocks in sand, or any Turing-complete system.

So am I this immortal concept? Is reality?

8-|

Posted in Philosophy | 16 Comments »

May 1st, 2009 by Sean
New Way Forward

The time has come…

ALW has served as an open meditation for me. It has allowed me to express bizarre theories, test them against reality, share interesting information, and preach a little bit too. It has been a nice corner for myself and a solid group of members to talk about weird stuff. The members have shown patience in entertaining my thoughts, and expressed themselves honestly, whether to show agreement, or challenge my ideas on their merit alone, without special treatment. For that, I am profoundly grateful.

But we know where this is going… it’s time for an upgrade in collective purpose.

I hereby announce my intention to organize and create a coalition of passionate individuals, focused on one primary goal:

Proof.

What does “proof” mean? It means intelligent research into paranormal phenomenon, focused on collection of evidence (whether that evidence is in support of the phenomenon, or not). If possible, this also means providing demonstrations (online, or in person), and/or instructions for reproducible experiments.

I am seeking volunteers willing to join me in leading this effort. I only want serious, passionate leaders, who have a history of honest, intelligent, and open experimentation with the paranormal. I also recommend the volunteer has a long history with a particular phenomenon they plan on investigating, in order to give them a good starting point. I personally will be focusing primarily on out-of-body experiences (but may branch into other skills as well).

I cannot stress enough that - while I definitely plan on having fun - this is a seirous venture. You must be 18+ to volunteer as a leader. As a leader, you will be held to high expectations. With that said, I have a full-time job just like everyone else, so I don’t expect daily updates. But I do expect progress to be made.

What can I offer volunteers? 1. A platform for posting results. 2. Equipment. 3. Research material. 4. Possibly further funding in the future. 5. A community of like-minded people, passionate about discovering truth.

If you have questions about this effort, feel free to ask in the comments, on the forum, or e-mail me directly (via the “Contact” button). If you would like to volunteer, please contact me with your history, and what areas you would like to investigate.

I plan on creating a new site for this, but would first like to get a list of volunteers to discuss details with.

I ask my friends reading this that, even if you don’t want to volunteer, but know someone who might, please pass this invitation along to them. Thank you! More to come.

Posted in Website | 22 Comments »

April 29th, 2009 by Sean
Full Circle, Injustice of Science

I have two thoughts to express:

1. In identifying the unknown in the Atheist belief system, I realize I haven’t really accomplished anything, and have just come full circle. My conclusion is that the best way forward is to experiment with reality in order to convert unknowns into knowns… which is what I thought before I started this line of reasoning. The only benefit I’ve gained is deflating the ego and arrogance of the Atheist… but that doesn’t get me any closer to truth.

This makes me think that all belief systems have a realm of the unknown. In the Theist belief system, “God” is used to catch a lot of these unknowns. In the Atheist belief system, the edges of science showcase the unknowns. Particularly for our time period, quantum physics. Rewind a hundred years, and it was the atom. Fast-forward another hundred, and we’ll have unknowns about the things we invent to explain quantum physics.

At this point, even if we discover the theory of everything, it operates at such a low level that we cannot predict what is possible and what isn’t. And I don’t think we’ll ever discover a theory of everything!

Pursuit of knowledge and understanding is important… but it is never ending. And I don’t mean “never ending” in the poetic sense… I mean it in the literal sense! Hmmmmmm.

Moving on to my second thought…

2. My biggest complaint about science is how inaccessible it is. If I wanted to contribute, I would have to make a career out of it. Stay in college, study under a professor, learn advanced math, draft articles for peer review, etc. And even then, I could work my whole life, and never discover anything of worth. I feel as though it would take me a decade or two just to get up to speed with what’s currently going on.

I think that’s a shame. I think it’s great that people do do that… because I certainly enjoy hearing what they have to say about things. But I hate that “truth” and “unknown” has been sectioned off from the public, and isolated to a select few nerds, speaking a foreign language.

Why is it that I can’t study reality? Why do I have to hold certain qualifications? It’s both science’s strength and weakness. By rejecting laymen, they can search further and more accurately… but in doing so, distance themselves.

We all live in reality. Not just the scientists.

It doesn’t make sense that I need to be smart to understand reality. I am reality. Here I am. Intelligence is just a particular organization of reality… It doesn’t make sense that reality has to be in a particular organization to understand itself. In fact, it seems as though if we force understanding to exist on an intellectual level, then we are destined to never understand reality completely, because it will always be in organizational form. Never direct knowing.

That is the injustice of science. We are reality… everyone. You can’t monopolize understanding. You can’t deny our existence. You create a world that doesn’t include us, and pull out your devices and instruments that we created, and assert dominion! Back the fuck up, buddy!

I wonder how often it occurs to the scientist that they aren’t solving some math problem with billiard balls bouncing everywhere…

The microscope is pointed in the wrong direction. “Learning is not the path.”

Posted in Belief Systems, Science | 5 Comments »

April 26th, 2009 by Sean
Hacking Reality

I’ve really been struggling lately, trying to piece together a consistent view of reality. With the introduction of emergence, I’ve finally understood the Atheist belief system. It sounds a little silly, because I can look up Atheism in Wikipedia, and I should be able to just understand the idea instantly. But I’ve discovered that I need to really immerse myself in an idea to truly understand what it’s saying - and this process can take weeks or months. These past months I’ve been focusing on Atheism, and a few minutes ago I feel I’ve finally graduated it.

Let me start by paying respect to this belief system. This Science+Emergence+Evolution concept is beyond revolutionary. I hold deep respect for people who truly study, understand, and apply this belief system in their lives. (Perhaps this “deep respect” is just a way to inflate my own ego, since I still use this belief system!)

The issue I had with Atheism is that I’ve experienced paranormal phenomenon. The modern Atheist would argue that such experiences are delusions. After all, if these experiences are real, then it really flies in the face of what Science and naturalism tells us.

I see that line of reasoning… and 20 minutes ago, I had no way to counter it. I felt utterly confused; unable to reconcile my experiences with such a strong belief system. Atheism offers so much explanation to what we experience, using reason, logic, and evidence, that it is an insurmountable beast. In the world of Atheism vs. Theism, Atheism wins. Sorry folks. The personal God simply does not exist - or at least - the things we witness do not need a personal God to explain. We can explain 99% of modern experiences using naturalistic lines of reasoning.

It’s that remaining 1% that is of interest to me, though. The modern Atheist will simply ignore it, because it’s such an asshole. It ruins everything. If that 1% didn’t exist, Atheism would rein supreme. But it does exist. And I finally have a framework for accepting its existence.

Atheism shows us that - given a system with certain characteristics - life will naturally emerge. Numbers self-organize, on their own. All that’s required is a system flexible enough to sustain it. For example, we already create digital life using computers. It’s not as complex as life in this reality, but as time moves on and computing power increases, we will be able to create more stunning simulations.

The point here is that: Given a flexible enough system, life will naturally emerge.

So, the reality we live in is currently flexible enough to sustain life (obviously). So, we witness life. The atoms have formed molecules, which have organized themselves into viruses and cells, and further organized into community of cells, and multi-cellular organisms, and evolved via natural selection and other undiscovered mechanisms, until finally it’s you sitting in front of your screen, reading this sentence.

All of that. Sitting on top of this flexible system.

Where does the paranormal fit into this? Simple. It’s experiences specific to this particular system.

The best example I can give is to think back to the digital life. The programmer creates a flexible system, runs the simulation, and then life naturally emerges from it. Now, imagine that the programmer has a bug in his code. The life could literally find ways to hack the underlying system, and experience things that would seem “paranormal” to the digital inhabitants. However, these “hacks” are very specific to the system.

The point here is that: The specific system that OUR life is built on might have some neat features that we are unaware of.

So… in conclusion. The Atheist belief system is a perfect model for describing how life is created, how it just follows natural laws, and self-organizes on its own. The Atheist model is simply true - given a system with enough flexibility, life WILL evolve. It’s a mathematic truth.

However, in our particular instance, we aren’t really talking about any willy nilly flexible system. We are talking about our specific system, that has life built on top of it. The Atheist model is correct, but it still doesn’t say anything about our specific system. It can’t. All it says is that our particular system is an example of a system flexible enough to support life.

Just like the digital life could “tap into” the system that is beneath it, so too can we tap into the system we are built on. Who knows what lies beneath the surface.

Atheism has solved a profound problem of thought concerning life and nature. It has provided us with an amazing ability to explain the vast diversity of our experiences. However, beneath the surface, there still exists the dark corner of the unknown. Perhaps I do exist after all.

Posted in Belief Systems, Science | 18 Comments »

- ## Pages

  - Welcome!
  - Blog
  - Forums
  - Games
    - Emergence Game
    - Geiger Game
    - Lottery Game
  - Contact

- ## Experiments

  - Lottery Project, Part 1
  - Lottery Project, Part 2

- ## Categories

  - Belief Systems (28)
  - Books (7)
  - Consciousness (4)
  - Conspiracy (5)
  - Dream Phenomenon (24)
  - ESP (17)
  - How-To (11)
  - Lottery (32)
  - Note to Self (21)
  - Personal Development (17)
  - Philosophy (31)
  - Random Stuff (11)
  - Science (26)
  - Subconscious (14)
  - Uncategorized (1)
  - Video (16)
  - Website (13)

- ## Archives

  - November 2011
  - November 2010
  - June 2010
  - February 2010
  - December 2009
  - November 2009
  - October 2009
  - August 2009
  - July 2009
  - May 2009
  - April 2009
  - March 2009
  - February 2009
  - January 2009
  - November 2008
  - October 2008
  - September 2008
  - August 2008
  - July 2008
  - June 2008
  - May 2008
  - April 2008
  - March 2008
  - February 2008
  - January 2008
  - December 2007
  - November 2007
  - October 2007
  - September 2007
  - August 2007
  - July 2007
  - June 2007
  - May 2007
  - April 2007

- ## Links

  - A State of Mind
  - Dreaming to Infinity
  - Monroe Institute on YouTube
  - Shifted Perspectives
  - UC Berkeley on YouTube

- ## Meta

  - Login
  - Valid XHTML

All Content, Images, Video, Text, and Software is © Copyright 2007-2009 Sean Connelly and their respective authors. All Rights Reserved.
Best viewed with Firefox, with minimum resolution of 1024 x 768. Microsoft can suck my balls.
A Little Weird is proudly powered by WordPress - Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).