The Science & Philosophy Thread

[MarkW]

sweeeet: Quantum Levitation

Sweet indeed.  There's some explanation here for you Meissner effect fans;

http://io9.com/5850729/quantum-locking-will-blow-your-mind--but-how-does-it-work

[Sticky Icky Green Stuff]

sweeeet: Quantum Levitation

Sweet indeed.  There's some explanation here for you Meissner effect fans;

http://io9.com/5850729/quantum-locking-will-blow-your-mind--but-how-does-it-work

awesome, definitely added some insight to video.  thanks

[Sticky Icky Green Stuff]

serious science going down: http://www.health24.com/Graphics/Graphics_About_Men_/3561-3585,32493.asp

[touchingmept2]

Niiiiccccceeee!

[Sticky Icky Green Stuff]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120104-time-cloak-invisibility-harry-potter-light-optical-fiber-science/

[woodnymph]

The Real You - Alan Watts

[woodnymph]

So THIS is what's been missing!!!  Bump bump bump

A comfortable space for an occasional clip from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

"We may say, and even half-believe, that compassion is marvelous, but in practice our actions are deeply uncompassionate and bring us and others mostly frustration and distress, and not the happiness we are seeking.

Isn't it absurd, then, that we all long for happiness, yet nearly all our actions and feelings lead us directly away from that happiness? Could there be any greater sign that our whole view of what real happiness is, and of how to attain it, is radically flawed?

What do we imagine will make us happy? A canny, self-seeking, resourceful selfishness, the selfish protection of ego, which can, as we all know, make us at moments extremely brutal. But in fact the complete reverse is true: Self-grasping and self-cherishing are seen, when you really look at them, to be the root of all harm to others, and also of all harm to ourselves.

Every single negative thing we have ever thought or done has ultimately arisen from our grasping at a false self, and our cherishing of that false self, making it the dearest and most important element in our lives."

[MamaKel]

This is becoming my favorite thread. (:

I read this quote by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and it reminded me of the spiritual pipeline...

"If each dead person became a ghost, there'd be more than 100-billion of them haunting us all. Creepy, but cool."

[woodnymph]

I knew you'd dig, Mama K! 

[darkglow]

Alan watts recordings are awesome but sometimes I just wish people would skip trying to put overpowering and motivational music behind it on youtube vids. It's not necessary

[woodnymph]

Alan watts recordings are awesome but sometimes I just wish people would skip trying to put overpowering and motivational music behind it on youtube vids. It's not necessary

Yeah the music comes on a bit strong.

[MamaKel]

So awesome, Woodnymph!!! The Alan Watts is the best, but I TOTALLY had to turn it down at one point...it was getting a little Wagner-esque for me. 

Sometimes, a little music can add an element of depth to a philosophical treatise, but sometimes it starts to scare me...like Carmina Burana...like, settle down...why are we getting so intense?

[woodnymph]

So awesome, Woodnymph!!! The Alan Watts is the best, but I TOTALLY had to turn it down at one point...it was getting a little Wagner-esque for me. 

Sometimes, a little music can add an element of depth to a philosophical treatise, but sometimes it starts to scare me...like Carmina Burana...like, settle down...why are we getting so intense?

I did feel like I could fly by the end, tho 

[woodnymph]

From Hermann Hesse, "The Glass Bead Game:"

I would like to say something more to you about cheerful serenity, the serenity of the stars and of the mind.

You are averse to serenity, presumably because you have had to walk the ways of sadness, and now all brightness and good cheer strikes you as shallow and childish, and cowardly to boot, a flight from the terrors and abysses of reality into a clear, well-ordered world of mere forms and formulas, mere abstractions and refinements.

But, my dear devotee of sadness, even though for some this may well be a flight, even if the majority among us were in fact of this sort--all this would not lessen the value and splendor of genuine serenity, the serenity of the sky and the mind. Granted there are those among us who are too easily satisfied, who enjoy a sham serenity; but in contrast to them we also have men and generations of men whose serenity is not playful shallowness, but earnest depth.

To achieve this cheerful serenity is to me, and to many others, the finest and highest of goals. Such cheerfulness is neither frivolity nor complacency; it is supreme insight and love, affirmation of all reality, alertness on the brink of all depths and abysses; it is a virtue of saints and of knights; it is indestructible and only increases with age and nearness to death. It is the secret of beauty and the real substance of all art. The poet who praises the splendors and terrors of life in the dance-measures of his verse, the musician who sounds them in a pure, eternal present--these are bringers of light, increasers of joy and brightness on earth, even if they lead us first through tears and stress.

Perhaps the poet whose verses gladden us was a sad solitary, and the musician was a melancholy dreamer; but even so their work shares in the cheerful serenity of the gods and the stars. What they give us is no longer their darkness, their suffering or fears, but a drop of pure light, eternal cheerfulness...  (sound familiar?)

This kind of cheerful serenity is what I have been concerned with ever since I began dimly to sense its meaning during my student days, and I shall never again relinquish it, not even in unhappiness and suffering.

[MamaKel]

How I love Hermann Hesse, Woodnymph.  Thank you so much for posting that this morning.  It seriously made my morning.

Well...until my mind went in the gutter with that version of "Nobody"...

[woodnymph]

Careful with that Axolotl, Eugene.

[MamaKel]

Walking down this pathway of meditation lately.  Ridding oneself of opinion, or a sense of rightness, is a difficult undertaking.  I was watching Living In The Material World earlier...about how George always seemed to have an awareness that all human entanglements are the stuff of Mara/The Devil...the desire to be right...the desire to be the victim...the desire to control...the desire to possess...Desire for anything but unity, really.  This desire is what keeps us from consciousness.  It is what hides our purpose.  The Devil/Mara often came disguised as the 'thought that lingered'.

Beware of Darkness, gang.  Also, dudes on elephants.  Never trust a man with a proclivity for elephant-based travel.  That's not an opinion. That's a fact.   
      <----note: ironic emoticons.

http://www.intu.org/lotus_4.html

[MamaKel]

Cool Meditations
http://www.intu.org/imagery.html