The dangers of certainty. I thought it was pretty good. Worth a watch.
Quote of the day:
" 'Spirituality' is a particular term which actually means: dealing with intuition. In the theistic tradition there is a notion of clinging into a word. A certain act is regarded as displeasing to a divine principles. A certain act is regarded as pleasing for the divine - whatever. In the tradition of non-theism, however, it is very direct that the case history are not particularly important. What is actually important is: Here and now. Now's definitely the now. We try to experience what is available, there, on the spot. There is no point in thinking that a past did exist that we could have now. This is now. This very moment. Nothing mystical, just now. A very simple, straight forward...
And from that nowness, however, arises a sense of intelligence. Always. That you are constantly interacting with the reality one by one. Spot by spot. Constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision. Always. But we are threatened by the now, so we jump to the past or the future.
Paying attention to the materials that exist in our life, such rich life that we lead, all these choices takes place, all of the time. But none of them are regarded as bad or good per se, everything we experience are unconditional experience. They don't come along with a label saying this is regarded as bad, or this is good. But, we experience them, but we don't actually pay heed to them, properly. We don't actually regard that as that we are going somewhere. We regard that as a hassle. Waiting to be dead.
Death's problem- And that is: not trusting the nowness properly. That what is actually experienced now possessed a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can't face it. Therefore we have to borrow from the past, invite the future. All the time.
..And maybe, that's why we seek religion. Maybe that's why we march in the street. Maybe that's why we complain to society. Maybe that's why we vote for the presidents. It's quite ironic. ...Very funny indeed." - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
El camino del Rey:
" Originally built in 1901, this walkway now serves as an approach to Makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro."
Atom:
"In this three-part documentary series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever: that the material world is made up of atoms."
"Part 1. THE CLASH OF THE TITANS. Professor Al-Khalili takes us from the discovery of the atom to the development of quantum mechanics."
"Part 2. THE KEY TO THE COSMOS. This episode tackles world-changing discoveries such as radioactivity, the Atom Bomb and the Big Bang, and tries to answer the biggest questions of all - why are we here and how were we made?"
"Part 3. THE ILLUSION OF REALITY. In the last in the series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself. He discovers that there might be parallel universes in which different versions of us exist, finds out that empty space isn't empty at all, and investigates the differences in our perception of the world in the universe and the reality."
Just what is reality? I thought that this was quite interesting, well worth a viewing.
Janine Benyus: 12 sustainable design ideas from nature:
With 3.8 billion years of research and development on its side, nature has already solved problems that human designers and engineers still struggle with. In this inspiring talk, Janine Benyus provides fascinating examples of biomimicry -- the way humans mimic nature in the products we build and the systems we implement. And because the champion adapters in the natural world are, by definition, those that can survive without destroying the environment that sustains them, biomimicry can contribute to the long-term health of our planet.
Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?:
Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for."
Do We Really Have Free Will?
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!
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
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