An excerpt from Waking Life discussing whether we really have any control over our actions, identity or advancement in life.
This is a clip from one of my favorite movies "Waking Life". A must watch movie!
Do We Really Have Free Will?
This is a clip from one of my favorite movies "Waking Life". A must watch movie!
An Interview With Milton Friedman:
This is an interesting interview with Milton Friedman, on the old PBS show 'The Open Mind". Well worth a watch!
13 things that do not make sense:
This is a fascinating article by Michael Brooks at NewScientist.com about 13 curiosities that defy what we think we know about the Universe. Well worth a read.
A Message to ALL !:
In 1992, at the age of 12, Severn Cullis-Suzuki (daughter of Dr. David Suzuki) raised money with some schoolmates to attend the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, where she received a standing ovation for a speech to the delegates.
Dangerous Knowledge:
Part 1.
Part 2.
" In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide.
The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death.
Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.
The film also talks to the latest in the line of thinkers who have continued to pursue the question of whether there are things that mathematics and the human mind cannot know. They include Greg Chaitin, mathematician at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, New York, and Roger Penrose.
Dangerous Knowledge tackles some of the profound questions about the true nature of reality that mathematical thinkers are still trying to answer today."
I thought that this was fantastic!! Well worth a watch. How much certainty is actually logically possible?
Quote of the day:
"You are the center of the mandala. You are not marginalized in any way. And the message that the culture gives us is that we are marginal... We are constantly told we are not special. So then when you look for guidance, direction, mentorship, we always look towards institutions. 'Well, I'll go to the University, or I'll go to the army, or I'll do something - somebody will tell me, give me a larger purpose.' But it's really yourself that is the final arbiter, and if you keep yourself as the final arbiter, you will be less susceptible to infection by cultural illusion. Now the problem with this is that it makes you feel bad to not be infected by cultural illusion, because it's called alienation. The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I am a parent, and I think anybody who has children comes to this realization: What will it be - Alienated cynical intellectual or slackjawed halfwit consumer of the horse shit being handed down from on high. There is not much choice. And we all want our children to be 'well adjusted' - unfortunately there is nothing to be well adjusted to. So that's a real problem..." - Terence McKenna
Buckminster Fuller - Lost Interviews - Part 1:
" Buckminster Fuller described himself as a "living verb." Holder of 48 honorary doctorate degrees, born in the 1890s, he was a philosopher and engineer whose experience and global view of humanity and science enabled him to transcend nationalism and temporary current conditions and foresee the direction of major events in the future.
He created the geodesic dome to show how much can be accomplished utilizing very little. In this program and series of interviews, he points out how mankind is moving from the tangible world which can be evidenced by sight, sound, smell and touch, into the invisible world of energy, ions, electrical forces, etc., so much so that "99.9999% of what affects our reality will be undetectable by our senses."
He states that "man must learn to think for himself, rather than follow blindly what he has been taught." "As the astronauts stated, the words 'up' and 'down' have no meaning. The correct words are 'out' and 'in'. This was confirmed when mankind learned the Earth was round, not flat." He expresses many fascinating theories in these interviews that conditions today confirm."
I thought that this was phenomenal!!! The best thing that I've seen in a while. A must watch!!
Terence McKenna - The World and Its Double:
"You are the center of the mandala. You are not marginalized in any way. And the message that the culture gives us is that we are marginal... We are constantly told we are not special. So then when you look for guidance, direction, mentorship, we always look towards institutions. 'Well, I'll go to the University, or I'll go to the army, or I'll do something - somebody will tell me, give me a larger purpose.' But it's really yourself that is the final arbiter, and if you keep yourself as the final arbiter, you will be less susceptible to infection by cultural illusion. Now the problem with this is that it makes you feel bad to not be infected by cultural illusion, because it's called alienation. The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I am a parent, and I think anybody who has children comes to this realization: What will it be - Alienated cynical intellectual or slackjawed halfwit consumer of the horse shit being handed down from on high. There is not much choice. And we all want our children to be 'well adjusted' - unfortunately there is nothing to be well adjusted to. So that's a real problem..."
This turned out to be excellent!! I really enjoyed it! Terence McKenna had a lot of really important things to say in the last half of this talk, and I recommend watching at least the last half of it. The first half was really good as well, but it was the last half that inspired me the most. Part two is pretty interesting as well.
Part Two
Dean Potter [solo] The Nose of El Capitan [Yosemite Valley]:
" Dean Potter soloing the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley"
Simultaneity - Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity:
In his day, Einstein pretty much took everything we knew about time and space and threw it in the garbage. What he gave us is one of the most mind wrenching revolutions in the history of science. Person A sees two flashes of light at the same time, while person B sees one flash before the second one. ...Both perspectives are correct and valid. ...Did that really happen at the same time?
Dr. Quantum Explains Double Slit Experiment:
Ahh yes. The infamous double slit experiment. This is where our understanding of the Universe gets weird! How much power does the observer actually have?
Earthlings:
Watch at your own risk. This was one of the saddest things that I've ever watched, although I do think that it is something that should be watched, and needs to be watched. This is how we treat the life around us. The life that we depend on.
Money As Debt:
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States
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