Published on 11 Apr 2014
13.12.14
John Cleese on Stupidity - YouTube
Published on 11 Apr 2014
18.9.14
The Life of the Mind: Hannah Arendt on Thinking vs. Knowing and the Crucial Difference Between Truth and Meaning | Brain Pickings
The Life of the Mind: Hannah Arendt on Thinking vs. Knowing and the Crucial Difference Between Truth and Meaning | Brain Pickings
by Maria Popova
In 1973, Hannah Arendt
became the first woman to speak at the prestigious Gifford Lectures —
an annual series established in 1888 aiming “to promote and diffuse the
study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term,” bridging
science, philosophy, and spirituality, an ancient quest of enduring urgency to this day.
Over the years, the Gifford Lectures have drawn such celebrated minds
as William James, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Iris Murdoch, and Carl
Sagan, whose 1985 lecture was later published as a the spectacular
posthumous volume Varieties of Scientific Experience. Arendt’s own lecture was later expanded and published as The Life of the Mind (public library),
an immeasurably stimulating exploration of thinking — a process we take
for so obvious and granted as to be of no interest, yet one bridled
with complexities and paradoxes that often keep us from seeing the true
nature of reality. With extraordinary intellectual elegance, Arendt
draws “a distinguishing line between truth and meaning, between knowing
and thinking,” and makes a powerful case for the importance of that line
in the human experience.
Hannah Arendt by Fred Stein, 1944 (Photograph courtesy of the Fred Stein Archive)Arendt considers how thinking links the vita activa, or active life, and the vita contemplativa, or contemplative mind, touching on Montaigne’s dual meaning of meditation, and traces the evolution of this relationship as society moved from religious to scientific dogma:
to inhabit the world beyond sense-perceptions and appearances, while
science claimed the world of common-sense reasoning and perceptions
validated by empirical means. The latter is plagued by “the scandal of
reason” — the idea that “our mind is not capable of certain and
verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it
nevertheless cannot help thinking about.” (Four decades later, Sam
Harris would capture this beautifully: “There is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.”) But Arendt is most intensely concerned with the world we inhabit when we surrender to thought:
Illustration by Jean-François Martin from 'The Memory Elephant' by Sophie Strady. Click image for details.To begin solving this riddle, Arendt turns to Kant’s famous distinction between Verstand, or intellect, which seeks to grasp what the senses perceive, and Vernunft,
or reason, which is concerned with the higher-order desire for
understanding the deeper meaning behind such sensory input; while
intellect is driven by cognition, reason is concerned with the unknowable. He memorably wrote:
Hannah Arendt c. 1966 (Photograph courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust)This vital distinction between truth and meaning is also found in the
fault line between science and common sense. Arendt considers how
science’s over-reliance on Verstand might give rise to the very reductionism that becomes science’s greatest obstacle to tussling with the unknowable:
— the necessarily subjective values-based framework that, by its very
nature, transcends the realm of science and absolute truth, rising to
the level of relative meaning. Adding to history’s finest definitions of science, Arendt writes:
dispel ignorance with knowledge, but it is also, at its best, driven wholly by ignorance. In a sentiment that Carl Sagan would come to echo twelve years later in his own Gifford lecture — “If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.” — Arendt writes:
Illustration from 'The Lion and the Bird' by Marianne Dubuc. Click image for details.In considering this “illusion of a never-ending process — the process
of progress,” she returns to Kant’s crucial distinction between reason
and intellect:
quest for meaning, Arendt argues, reverts to the original question of
thinking and the limitations of “truth”:
Hannah Arendt by Fred Stein, 1944 (Photograph courtesy of the Fred Stein Archive)Arendt’s most poignant point explores what that enterprise might be, speaking to the power of asking good questions and the idea that getting lost is how we find meaning:
"Thinking aims at and ends in contemplation, and
contemplation is not an activity but a passivity; it is the point where
mental activity comes to rest. According to traditions of Christian
time, when philosophy had become the handmaiden of theology, thinking
became meditation, and meditation again ended in contemplation, a kind
of blessed state of the soul where the mind was no longer stretching out
to know the truth but, in anticipation of a future state, received it
temporarily in intuition ... "
by Maria Popova
“To lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking
and cease to ask unanswerable questions [would be to] lose not only the
ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but
also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every
civilization is founded.”
and cease to ask unanswerable questions [would be to] lose not only the
ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but
also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every
civilization is founded.”
In 1973, Hannah Arendtbecame the first woman to speak at the prestigious Gifford Lectures —
an annual series established in 1888 aiming “to promote and diffuse the
study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term,” bridging
science, philosophy, and spirituality, an ancient quest of enduring urgency to this day.
Over the years, the Gifford Lectures have drawn such celebrated minds
as William James, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Iris Murdoch, and Carl
Sagan, whose 1985 lecture was later published as a the spectacular
posthumous volume Varieties of Scientific Experience. Arendt’s own lecture was later expanded and published as The Life of the Mind (public library),
an immeasurably stimulating exploration of thinking — a process we take
for so obvious and granted as to be of no interest, yet one bridled
with complexities and paradoxes that often keep us from seeing the true
nature of reality. With extraordinary intellectual elegance, Arendt
draws “a distinguishing line between truth and meaning, between knowing
and thinking,” and makes a powerful case for the importance of that line
in the human experience.
Hannah Arendt by Fred Stein, 1944 (Photograph courtesy of the Fred Stein Archive)
Thinking aims at and ends in contemplation, andThe disciplines called metaphysics or philosophy, Arendt notes, came
contemplation is not an activity but a passivity; it is the point where
mental activity comes to rest. According to traditions of Christian
time, when philosophy had become the handmaiden of theology, thinking
became meditation, and meditation again ended in contemplation, a kind
of blessed state of the soul where the mind was no longer stretching out
to know the truth but, in anticipation of a future state, received it
temporarily in intuition… With the rise of the modern age, thinking
became chiefly the handmaiden of science, of organized knowledge; and
even though thinking then grew extremely active, following modernity’s
crucial conviction that I can know only what I myself make, it was
Mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind
appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the Science of
sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe
that are concealed by appearances.
to inhabit the world beyond sense-perceptions and appearances, while
science claimed the world of common-sense reasoning and perceptions
validated by empirical means. The latter is plagued by “the scandal of
reason” — the idea that “our mind is not capable of certain and
verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it
nevertheless cannot help thinking about.” (Four decades later, Sam
Harris would capture this beautifully: “There is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit.”) But Arendt is most intensely concerned with the world we inhabit when we surrender to thought:
What are we “doing” when we do nothing but think? Where
are we when we, normally always surrounded by our fellow-men, are
together with no one but ourselves?
Illustration by Jean-François Martin from 'The Memory Elephant' by Sophie Strady. Click image for details.
or reason, which is concerned with the higher-order desire for
understanding the deeper meaning behind such sensory input; while
intellect is driven by cognition, reason is concerned with the unknowable. He memorably wrote:
The aim of metaphysics… is to extend, albeit onlyArendt unpacks Kant’s legacy and its enduring paradox, which plays out just as vibrantly in our ever-timely struggle to differentiate between wisdom and knowledge:
negatively, our use of reason beyond the limitations of the sensorily
given world, that is, to eliminate the obstacles by which reason hinders
itself.
The great obstacle that reason (Vernunft) puts in its own way arises from the side of the intellect (Verstand)
and the entirely justified criteria it has established for its own
purposes, that is, for quenching our thirst, and meeting our need, for
knowledge and cognition… The need of reason is not inspired by the quest
for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not
the same. The basic fallacy, taking precedence over all specific
metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth.
Hannah Arendt c. 1966 (Photograph courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust)
fault line between science and common sense. Arendt considers how
science’s over-reliance on Verstand might give rise to the very reductionism that becomes science’s greatest obstacle to tussling with the unknowable:
Something very similar seems, at first glance, to be trueThis sounds remarkably like the notion of moral wisdom
of the modern scientist who constantly destroys authentic semblances
without, however, destroying his own sensation of reality, telling him,
as it tells us, that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the
evening. It was thinking that enabled men to penetrate the appearances
and unmask them as semblances, albeit authentic ones; common-sense
reasoning would never have dared to upset so radically all the
plausibilities of our sensory apparatus… Thinking, no doubt, plays an
enormous role in every scientific enterprise, but it is the role of a
means to an end; the end is determined by a decision about what is
worthwhile knowing, and this decision cannot be scientific.
— the necessarily subjective values-based framework that, by its very
nature, transcends the realm of science and absolute truth, rising to
the level of relative meaning. Adding to history’s finest definitions of science, Arendt writes:
The end is cognition or knowledge, which, having beenAnd therein lies the paradox of science — the idea that its aim is to
obtained, clearly belongs to the world of appearances; once established
as truth, it becomes part and parcel of the world. Cognition and the
thirst for knowledge never leave the world of appearances altogether; if
the scientists withdraw from it in order to “think,” it is only in
order to find better, more promising approaches, called methods, toward
it. Science in this respect is but an enormously refined prolongation of
common-sense reasoning in which sense illusions are constantly
dissipated just as errors in science are corrected. The criterion in
both cases is evidence, which as such is inherent in a world of
appearances. And since it is in the very nature of appearances to reveal
and to conceal, every correction and every dis-illusion “is the loss of one evidence only because it is the acquisition of another evidence,
in the words of Merleau-Ponty. Nothing, even in science’s own
understanding of the scientific enterprise, guarantees that the new
evidence will prove to be more reliable than the discarded evidence.
dispel ignorance with knowledge, but it is also, at its best, driven wholly by ignorance. In a sentiment that Carl Sagan would come to echo twelve years later in his own Gifford lecture — “If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.” — Arendt writes:
The very concept of an unlimited progress, which
accompanied the rise of modern science, and has remained its dominant
inspiring principle, is the best documentation of the fact that all
science still moves within the realm of common sense experience, subject
to corrigible error and deception. When the experience of constant
correction in scientific research is generalized, it leads into the
curious “better and better,” “truer and truer,” that is, into the
boundlessness of progress with its inherent admission that the good and
the true are unattainable. If they were ever attained, the thirst for
knowledge would be quenched and the search for cognition would come to
an end.
Illustration from 'The Lion and the Bird' by Marianne Dubuc. Click image for details.
of progress,” she returns to Kant’s crucial distinction between reason
and intellect:
The questions raised by our thirst for knowledge ariseThis disconnect between the common-sense criteria of science and the
from our curiosity about the world, our desire to investigate whatever
is given to our sensory apparatus… The questions raised by the desire to
know are in principle all answerable by common-sense experience and
common-sense reasoning; they are exposed to corrigible error and
illusion in the same way as sense perceptions and experiences. Even the
relentlessness of modern science’s Progress, which constantly corrects
itself by discarding the answers and reformulating the questions, does
not contradict science’s basic goal — to see and to know the world as it
is given to the senses — and its concept of truth is derived from the
common-sense experience of irrefutable evidence, which dispels error and
illusion. But the questions raised by thinking and which it is in
reason’s very nature to raise — questions of meaning — are all
unanswerable by common sense and the refinement of it we call science.
The quest for meaning is “meaningless” to common sense and common-sense
reasoning because it is the sixth sense’s function to fit us into the
world of appearances and make us at home in the world given by our five
senses; there we are and no questions asked.
quest for meaning, Arendt argues, reverts to the original question of
thinking and the limitations of “truth”:
To expect truth to come from thinking signifies that we
mistake the need to think with the urge to know. Thinking can and must
be employed in the attempt to know, but in the exercise of this function
it is never itself; it is but the handmaiden of an altogether different
enterprise.
Hannah Arendt by Fred Stein, 1944 (Photograph courtesy of the Fred Stein Archive)
By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, menThe Life of the Mind is an absolutely remarkable feat of intellectual grace in its entirety. Complement it with the art of reflection and fruitful curiosity, then revisit these animated thoughts on wisdom in the age of information.
establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive
questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones
that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is
more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for
meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would
lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call
works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions
upon which every civilization is founded… While our thirst for knowledge
may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the
activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is
retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of
its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise
required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this
particular world.
10.9.14
Bliss point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bliss point - Wikipedia
In economics, a bliss point is a quantity of consumption where any further increase would make the consumer less satisfied.[1][2]
It is a quantity of consumption which maximizes utility in the absence of budget constraint.
In other words, it refers to the amount of consumption that would be
chosen by a person so rich that money imposed no constraint on his or
her decisions.
In the formulation of food products using food optimization, the bliss point is the amount of an ingredient such as salt, sugar, or fat which optimizes palatability.[3]
In economics, a bliss point is a quantity of consumption where any further increase would make the consumer less satisfied.[1][2]
It is a quantity of consumption which maximizes utility in the absence of budget constraint.
In other words, it refers to the amount of consumption that would be
chosen by a person so rich that money imposed no constraint on his or
her decisions.
In the formulation of food products using food optimization, the bliss point is the amount of an ingredient such as salt, sugar, or fat which optimizes palatability.[3]
See also
References
- B. Binger and E. Hoffman (1997), Microeconomics with Calculus, 2nd ed., page 113. Addison-Wesley Publishers.
- J. Nason (1991), 'The permanent income hypothesis when the bliss point is stochastic'. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Discussion Paper 46.
- Michael Moss (February 20, 2013). "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
8.9.14
6.9.14
Masters Training Course - WRITTEN BY LEE APPERSON with Dan Burke.
Masters Training Course
WRITTEN BY LEE APPERSON with Dan Burke.
REVISED
2004, 2005
WRITTEN BY LEE APPERSON with Dan Burke.
REVISED
2004, 2005
5.9.14
Law of attraction (New Thought) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Law of attraction (New Thought) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The law of attraction is the name given to the belief that "like attracts like" and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.[1][2][3][4]
This belief is based upon the idea that people and their thoughts are
both made from "pure energy", and the belief that like energy attracts
like energy.[5]
One example used by a proponent of the law of attraction is that if a
person opened an envelope expecting to see a bill, then the law of
attraction would "confirm" those thoughts and contain a bill when
opened. A person who decided to instead expect a cheque might, under the
same law, find a cheque instead of a bill.[6]
Although there are some cases where positive or negative attitudes can produce corresponding results (principally the placebo and nocebo effects), there is no scientific basis to the law of attraction.[7]
The law of attraction is the name given to the belief that "like attracts like" and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.[1][2][3][4]
This belief is based upon the idea that people and their thoughts are
both made from "pure energy", and the belief that like energy attracts
like energy.[5]
One example used by a proponent of the law of attraction is that if a
person opened an envelope expecting to see a bill, then the law of
attraction would "confirm" those thoughts and contain a bill when
opened. A person who decided to instead expect a cheque might, under the
same law, find a cheque instead of a bill.[6]
Although there are some cases where positive or negative attitudes can produce corresponding results (principally the placebo and nocebo effects), there is no scientific basis to the law of attraction.[7]
31.8.14
'Out of Africa' theory of human evolution under fire
'Out of Africa' theory of human evolution under fire:
Graphic: Jamie Brown
The fragmented remains of ancient permanent teeth, unearthed in China and parts of south-east Asia, reveal that the popular "out of Africa" hypothesis – which suggests that our modern human ancestors, known as hominins, migrated from Africa about 60,000 years ago – needs revising.
Elaborate dating tests and investigations of the teeth, including one right upper second molar and one left lower second molar, reveal that our ancestors departed their African homelands as much as 120,000 and perhaps even 130,000 years ago.
The teeth, discovered in a cave, called Lunadong, in China's autonomous region of Guangxi Zhuang, may be as old as 126,000 years. At least one tooth is almost certain to have belonged to a member of modern Homo sapiens, the species of bipedal primates to which modern humans belong.
(Among other things, Homo sapiens have a brain capacity averaging 1400 cubic centimetres and rely on the use of language and relatively complex tools.)
"The Lunadong modern Homo sapien's teeth contribute to growing evidence that modern and/or transitional humans were likely in eastern Asia … [during] a period that some researchers have suggested no hominins were present in the region," the research team, led by anthropologist Christopher Bae of the University of Hawaii, writes in the respected journal Quaternary International.
"The primary point of our paper is that the human evolutionary record, particularly when accounting for increasing finds in eastern Asia, is a lot more complicated than generally believed," Associate Professor Bae says. "There were probably multiple dispersals of modern humans out of Africa and into Eurasia, with some degree of interbreeding occurring."
The finding also gives a clearer idea of the route our ancient forebears took after leaving Africa, he points out.
"Most research currently suggests that modern humans took a southern route once they left Africa and travelled more or less along the Arabian Peninsula before arriving in south-east Asia," Associate Professor Bae says.
"There may have been a second later dispersal into north-west Asia, where those groups eventually moved into Europe and along the northern Asian route eventually arriving in Siberia and then on to the Americas."
Do the team's findings support claims that Australia's Aborigines might have been here for 100,000 years or longer?
"Unfortunately, no," he replies. "Current data indicates that Australia was probably only peopled sometime after 60,000 years ago – although one occasionally comes across an Australian find supposedly dated much earlier than that."
Reactions
Fellow experts have reacted with interest to the latest research. "The early colonisation of Australia, now documented at between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, makes more sense if the movement of humans out of Africa was substantially earlier," says Peter Hiscock, the Tom Austen Brown Chair of Australian Archaeology at the University of Sydney.
The latest find, he explains, is part of a broader revision of the chronology of the "out of Africa" dispersion. "Anatomically modern humans found in caves in Israel, and dated to more than 100,000 years ago, have long suggested either multiple migrations out of Africa or else a need to revise the chronology of the dispersion," Professor Hiscock says.
In perspective
Very roughly 25 million years ago, the family of primates known as the hominoids, or human-like animals, first surfaced in Africa. The particular line to which humans belong diverged from that of the gorillas and chimpanzees between five and seven million years ago – although we still share 98.4 per cent of our make-up with modern chimps.
Roughly 200,000 years ago, modern humans, who are anatomically indistinguishable from us, emerged in Africa. Then, as most textbooks would have it, about 60,000 years ago, humans hunted and gathered their way out of Africa and on to other parts of the world.
The latest discovery of teeth in China means that the textbook version of events almost certainly needs re-writing.
It is thought by 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans had replaced more archaic populations, such as Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, to become a globally distributed species, says Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, a University of London college.
Based on analyses from around the world, it had been suggested that modern humans moved into Arabia and southern Asia sometime after 65,000 years ago.
Why so long?
Assuming the latest finding that modern humans left Africa between 120,000 and 130,000 years ago is correct, why would they have taken more than 100,000 years to reach other regions?
Between about 75,000 and 55,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, a series of remarkable technological and cultural innovations occurred in southern Africa. They included personal ornamentation, such as perforated shells, art in the form of engraved ochre pieces, for instance, and more effective hafted hunting weapons – and perhaps the systematic exploitation of marine fish.
Such innovations, it has been suggested, probably helped modern humans to survive in less familiar environments – and to out-compete pre-existing archaic populations.
Previous research
An earlier study, led by Professor Hans-Peter Uerpmann of Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany, and published in the journal Science, describes findings from an eight-year archaeological excavation at Jebel Faya in the United Arab Emirates.
The researchers analysed the Palaeolithic stone tools found there and concluded that they were technologically similar to instruments produced by early modern humans in east Africa. But they were notably different from tools created to the north, in the Levant and the mountains of Iran.
This provides compelling evidence that early modern humans migrated into Arabia directly from Africa and not via the Nile Valley and the Near East, as usually suggested, Dr Armitage says. The direct route from east Africa to Jebel Faya crosses the southern Red Sea and the flat, waterless Nejd Plateau of the southern Arabian interior, both of which present major obstacles to human migration.
Another team member, Professor Adrian Parker of Oxford Brookes University, studied detailed records relating to sea levels and climate change for the region and concluded that the direct migration route may have been passable for brief periods in the past.
Between 140,000 and 130,000 years ago, the Red Sea was about 100 metres lower than today – due to vast quantities of water being stored on land as ice during the second to last Ice Age. "So the seaway that separates east Africa from Arabia – the Bab-el-Mandab Straits – would have shrunk to roughly five to 10 kilometres in width," Dr Armitage explains. "By about 130,000 years ago, southern Arabia was much wetter than it is now."
Dating game
"Archaeology without ages is like a jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed," Dr Armitage explains. "You have lots of individual pieces of information – but can't fit them together to produce the big picture."
He calculated that stone tools at Jebel Faya were about 125,000 years old using a technique called luminescence dating. This measured the time since sediment surrounding the artefacts was last exposed to light, allowing him to determine when the artefacts were buried.
The dates obtained revealed that modern humans were at Jebel Faya about 125,000 years ago, immediately after the Bab al-Mandab seaway and Nejd Plateau were passable.
The evidence suggests modern humans left Africa, crossed the Bab-el-Mandab Straits and occupied southern Arabia by roughly 125,000 years ago. They left because the Bab-el-Mandab Straits were passable and southern Arabia was wet enough to be habitable. These conditions only occur together at the transition from the penultimate glacial to the present interglacial – that is, about 130,000 years ago.
Once modern humans reached Jebel Faya, they would have needed to cross the Straits of Hormuz to reach Asia.
Links
Read the article "Modern human teeth from Late Pleistocene Luna Cave (Guangxi, China)" in the journal Quaternary International at:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061821400425X
Find out more about how modern humans emerged in Eastern Asia at:www.pnas.org/content/107/45/19201.full.pdf
Study the Science article "The Southern Route 'Out of Africa': Evidence for an Early Expansion of Modern Humans into Arabia" at: www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/453.abstract?sid=35a77a75-e066-43b0-acd8-a8d496a12089
Discover what Associate Professor Christopher Bae works on at:www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/bae/index.html
Learn more about early modern humans at: http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_5.htm
What does it mean to be human? Read what the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has to say about this at: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis
Watch the IMAX Melbourne movie Australia Land Beyond Time. Details at:www.imaxmelbourne.com.au/movie/australia_land_beyond_time/education
VCAA links
AusVELS Science: Biological sciences: ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Science/Curriculum/F-10
F-10 Physics (under sub-strand "physical sciences" in AusVELS):ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Science/Curriculum/F-10
15.7.14
"Higgs Boson: The Final Piece of the Puzzle - HowStuffWorks
HowStuffWorks "Higgs Boson Evidence":
"Higgs Boson: The Final Piece of the Puzzle
As it turns out, scientists think each one of those four fundamental forces has a corresponding carrier particle, or boson, that acts upon matter. That's a hard concept to grasp. We tend to think of forces as mysterious, ethereal things that straddle the line between existence and nothingness, but in reality, they're as real as matter itself.
Some physicists have described bosons as weights anchored by mysterious rubber bands to the matter particles that generate them. Using this analogy, we can think of the particles constantly snapping back out of existence in an instant and yet equally capable of getting entangled with other rubber bands attached to other bosons (and imparting force in the process).
Scientists think each of the four fundamental ones has its own specific bosons. Electromagnetic fields, for instance, depend on the photon to transit electromagnetic force to matter. Physicists think the Higgs boson might have a similar function -- but transferring mass itself.
Can't matter just inherently have mass without the Higgs boson confusing things? Not according to the standard model. But physicists have found a solution. What if all particles have no inherent mass, but instead gain mass by passing through a field? This field, known as a Higgs field, could affect different particles in different ways. Photons could slide through unaffected, while W and Z bosons would get bogged down with mass. In fact, assuming the Higgs boson exists, everything that has mass gets it by interacting with the all-powerful Higgs field, which occupies the entire universe. Like the other fields covered by the standard model, the Higgs one would need a carrier particle to affect other particles, and that particle is known as the Higgs boson.
On July 4, 2012, scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced their discovery of a particle that behaves the way the Higgs boson should behave. The results, while published with a high degree of certainty, are still somewhat preliminary. Some researchers are calling the particle "Higgslike" until the findings -- and the data -- stand up to more scrutiny. Regardless, this finding could usher in a period of rapid discovery about our universe.
"Higgs Boson: The Final Piece of the Puzzle
As it turns out, scientists think each one of those four fundamental forces has a corresponding carrier particle, or boson, that acts upon matter. That's a hard concept to grasp. We tend to think of forces as mysterious, ethereal things that straddle the line between existence and nothingness, but in reality, they're as real as matter itself.
Some physicists have described bosons as weights anchored by mysterious rubber bands to the matter particles that generate them. Using this analogy, we can think of the particles constantly snapping back out of existence in an instant and yet equally capable of getting entangled with other rubber bands attached to other bosons (and imparting force in the process).
Scientists think each of the four fundamental ones has its own specific bosons. Electromagnetic fields, for instance, depend on the photon to transit electromagnetic force to matter. Physicists think the Higgs boson might have a similar function -- but transferring mass itself.
Can't matter just inherently have mass without the Higgs boson confusing things? Not according to the standard model. But physicists have found a solution. What if all particles have no inherent mass, but instead gain mass by passing through a field? This field, known as a Higgs field, could affect different particles in different ways. Photons could slide through unaffected, while W and Z bosons would get bogged down with mass. In fact, assuming the Higgs boson exists, everything that has mass gets it by interacting with the all-powerful Higgs field, which occupies the entire universe. Like the other fields covered by the standard model, the Higgs one would need a carrier particle to affect other particles, and that particle is known as the Higgs boson.
On July 4, 2012, scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced their discovery of a particle that behaves the way the Higgs boson should behave. The results, while published with a high degree of certainty, are still somewhat preliminary. Some researchers are calling the particle "Higgslike" until the findings -- and the data -- stand up to more scrutiny. Regardless, this finding could usher in a period of rapid discovery about our universe.
28.6.14
Scientists simulate time travel using light particles
Scientists simulate time travel using light particles
We may never see practical time travel in our lifetimes, if it's possible at all. However, a team at the University of Queensland has given the Doc Browns of the world a faint glimmer of hope by simulating time travel
on a very, very small scale. Their study used individual photons to
replicate a quantum particle traveling through a space-time loop (like
the one you see above) to arrive where and when it began. Since these
particles are inherently uncertain, there wasn't room for the paradoxes
that normally thwart this sort of research. The particle couldn't
destroy itself before it went on its journey, for example.
As you might have gathered from the "simulation" term, sci-fi
isn't about to become reality just yet. The scientists haven't actually
warped through time -- they've only shown how it can work. It could
take a long time before there's proof that whole atoms and objects can
make the leap, let alone a real-world demonstration. Should you ever
step into a time machine, though, you'll know where it all started...
and ended.
We may never see practical time travel in our lifetimes, if it's possible at all. However, a team at the University of Queensland has given the Doc Browns of the world a faint glimmer of hope by simulating time travel
on a very, very small scale. Their study used individual photons to
replicate a quantum particle traveling through a space-time loop (like
the one you see above) to arrive where and when it began. Since these
particles are inherently uncertain, there wasn't room for the paradoxes
that normally thwart this sort of research. The particle couldn't
destroy itself before it went on its journey, for example.
As you might have gathered from the "simulation" term, sci-fi
isn't about to become reality just yet. The scientists haven't actually
warped through time -- they've only shown how it can work. It could
take a long time before there's proof that whole atoms and objects can
make the leap, let alone a real-world demonstration. Should you ever
step into a time machine, though, you'll know where it all started...
and ended.
23.6.14
The Cult of Ken Wilber
The Cult of Ken Wilber
What can be a conclusion to all this? That Ken Wilber is an
undoubtedly interesting and stimulating author, with an interesting
Edifice. But that it is no substitute for reading primary material,
other competing interpretations, but most of all, one's own spiritual
and intellectual, and moral development. That it is not a fully critical
and emancipatory theory, and has increasingly become 'politically
reactionary', elitist, and used as a system of instrumental manipulation
for the leadership of large organizations (that's how Beck's SD is
marketed to corporations and politicians). That it is already now used
to justify spiritual oppression (Da Free John), war and occupation
(Bush), stifling internal debate, and creating an environment of cultic
adhesion. These are not trivial matters!
Can anything be salvaged? I must admit I personally still use the
four quadrant system, as it is a comprehensive system for a
phenomenology of the world. I believe it is of interest to grapple with
Wilber's interpretations, even the wrong ones. In this, he functions as a
'great author', despite the lack of acceptance in academia. Most of
all, I believe that the integrative impulse is a worthy enterprise. In a
world of such diversity to look at structure and developmental
processes (which are a feature of the natural , social and personal
worlds) is necessary. But the integrative, integral impulse does not
belong in any way to Mr. Ken Wilber; it is a general feature of
contemporary consciousness (one trend battling the fragmentation of
postmodernity), with many different pioneers and alternatives to Wilber.
Thus a first thing to do is to liberate yourself to a univocal adhesion to Wilber's form of it.
Furthermore, such impulse has to be seriously balanced with a
recognition of irreducible diversity. That some things, like differences
in a marriage, are just 'different', and have to be respected as such,
while seeking commonality in action. It has to be balanced with serious
attention to immanence, to the processes within, rather than to the
static forms sought out by nondual mystics. It has to be balanced by
serious attention to the participative nature of the universe, to the
co-creation of it by human beings and our partners in the natural world.
And that this requires participative, dialogic, co-creative processes.
And politically, we need attention to the concrete suffering and
injustices of the many, which requires action and our own moral
development, aided or not, by meditation or other spiritual practices.
This practice is best undertaken by a group of peers, as described by
John Heron in his Sacred Science, not in a traditional authoritarian
religion, and I would venture, be even more wary of the charismatic lone
leader who does not even have a tradition to balance him. We must
really guard ourselves of the very bad habits developed in the integral,
but especially SD milieus, to brand everyone with colored epiteths,
corresponding to their purported lack of cognitive development.
If divorced from the particular interpretations of Ken Wilber, the broad
integral four-quadrant scheme has still some usefulness as a broad
scheme to develop a understanding of the world, at least it does for me,
it is a very useful heuristic tool in my own work. Wilberism is a
particular world perspective grown out of the humanistic and
transpersonal psychology movements, which was an important moment of
intellectual and human history, but it is time to move on. My own way to
move on is to be on the lookout for the participative, egalitatarian
impulse, which is getting a new lease of life today, as described in my
own essay on peer to peer, which I'll gladly send to anyone who requests
it. It is one man's attempt to go 'beyond Wilber'.
What can be a conclusion to all this? That Ken Wilber is an
undoubtedly interesting and stimulating author, with an interesting
Edifice. But that it is no substitute for reading primary material,
other competing interpretations, but most of all, one's own spiritual
and intellectual, and moral development. That it is not a fully critical
and emancipatory theory, and has increasingly become 'politically
reactionary', elitist, and used as a system of instrumental manipulation
for the leadership of large organizations (that's how Beck's SD is
marketed to corporations and politicians). That it is already now used
to justify spiritual oppression (Da Free John), war and occupation
(Bush), stifling internal debate, and creating an environment of cultic
adhesion. These are not trivial matters!
Can anything be salvaged? I must admit I personally still use the
four quadrant system, as it is a comprehensive system for a
phenomenology of the world. I believe it is of interest to grapple with
Wilber's interpretations, even the wrong ones. In this, he functions as a
'great author', despite the lack of acceptance in academia. Most of
all, I believe that the integrative impulse is a worthy enterprise. In a
world of such diversity to look at structure and developmental
processes (which are a feature of the natural , social and personal
worlds) is necessary. But the integrative, integral impulse does not
belong in any way to Mr. Ken Wilber; it is a general feature of
contemporary consciousness (one trend battling the fragmentation of
postmodernity), with many different pioneers and alternatives to Wilber.
Thus a first thing to do is to liberate yourself to a univocal adhesion to Wilber's form of it.
Furthermore, such impulse has to be seriously balanced with a
recognition of irreducible diversity. That some things, like differences
in a marriage, are just 'different', and have to be respected as such,
while seeking commonality in action. It has to be balanced with serious
attention to immanence, to the processes within, rather than to the
static forms sought out by nondual mystics. It has to be balanced by
serious attention to the participative nature of the universe, to the
co-creation of it by human beings and our partners in the natural world.
And that this requires participative, dialogic, co-creative processes.
And politically, we need attention to the concrete suffering and
injustices of the many, which requires action and our own moral
development, aided or not, by meditation or other spiritual practices.
This practice is best undertaken by a group of peers, as described by
John Heron in his Sacred Science, not in a traditional authoritarian
religion, and I would venture, be even more wary of the charismatic lone
leader who does not even have a tradition to balance him. We must
really guard ourselves of the very bad habits developed in the integral,
but especially SD milieus, to brand everyone with colored epiteths,
corresponding to their purported lack of cognitive development.
If divorced from the particular interpretations of Ken Wilber, the broad
integral four-quadrant scheme has still some usefulness as a broad
scheme to develop a understanding of the world, at least it does for me,
it is a very useful heuristic tool in my own work. Wilberism is a
particular world perspective grown out of the humanistic and
transpersonal psychology movements, which was an important moment of
intellectual and human history, but it is time to move on. My own way to
move on is to be on the lookout for the participative, egalitatarian
impulse, which is getting a new lease of life today, as described in my
own essay on peer to peer, which I'll gladly send to anyone who requests
it. It is one man's attempt to go 'beyond Wilber'.
The Wild West Wilber Report: Looking Back on the Wyatt Earp Episode, Frank Visser
The Wild West Wilber Report: Looking Back on the Wyatt Earp Episode, Frank Visser
Monday, June 23, 2014
Frank
Visser founded IntegralWorld.net in 1997 (back then under the name of
"The World of Ken Wilber"). He is the author of the first monograph on
Ken Wilber and his work: "Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion"
(SUNY Press, 2003), which has been translated into 7 languages, and of
many essays on this website. He currently is Service Desk Manager at the
Dutch divison of the global online marketing agency DigitasLBi.
work, and invited those who "did" to come to his integral "sanctuary".
His main complaint was the low level of the criticism he had received so
far, especially from Integral World authors.
Well, even if that were true, make sure you get better critics
then, I would say. Start playing the game by the rules. Behave yourself.
Enter the academic arena. Start debates with people who really
matter in the fields of science and philosophy, instead of either
preaching to the converted, or abusing those who don't seem to "get it".
It was an attack on reason and free enquiry, basically, which was
applauded by the closest of his followers.
Obviously, this alerted some cult-watchers to reflect on what on
earth is currently going on in the integral scene. Here's a listing of
most of the relevant blog postings and articles, including my three
personal replies to Ken Wilber. Compiled for future historians,
Wilberologists – and psychiatrists!
Monday, June 23, 2014
FrankVisser founded IntegralWorld.net in 1997 (back then under the name of
"The World of Ken Wilber"). He is the author of the first monograph on
Ken Wilber and his work: "Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion"
(SUNY Press, 2003), which has been translated into 7 languages, and of
many essays on this website. He currently is Service Desk Manager at the
Dutch divison of the global online marketing agency DigitasLBi.
The Wild West Wilber Report
Looking back on the Wyatt Earp Episode
Frank Visser
In June 2006 Ken Wilber embarrassed himself in front of the world by"Having just read Jeff Meyerhoff’s rebuttal to Wyatt Erpy on Integral World, “INTELLECTUAL TRAGEDY”,
I’m quite surprised, frankly. The dunderheaded Neanderthal Meyerhoff,abusing and insulting those of his critics who did not "understand" his
as I was lead to expect by Erpy, turns out to be quite reasonable,
cogent, pithy, and well balanced in his presentation.
In fact, I’d have to say, if I’d never heard of either of them before,
and “simply” read the entire Erpy blog series and this one response by
Meyerhoff, I’d mistake Meyerhoff for the world famous philosopher, and
Wilber for the unbalanced critic."
– Colmar3000.blogspot.com.
work, and invited those who "did" to come to his integral "sanctuary".
His main complaint was the low level of the criticism he had received so
far, especially from Integral World authors.
Well, even if that were true, make sure you get better critics
then, I would say. Start playing the game by the rules. Behave yourself.
Enter the academic arena. Start debates with people who really
matter in the fields of science and philosophy, instead of either
preaching to the converted, or abusing those who don't seem to "get it".
It was an attack on reason and free enquiry, basically, which was
applauded by the closest of his followers.
Obviously, this alerted some cult-watchers to reflect on what on
earth is currently going on in the integral scene. Here's a listing of
most of the relevant blog postings and articles, including my three
personal replies to Ken Wilber. Compiled for future historians,
Wilberologists – and psychiatrists!
Ken Wilber's blog postings:
- Ken Wilber, What We Are, That We See, Part I: Response to Some Recent Criticism in a Wild West Fashion, www.kenwilber.com, June 8, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, What We Are, That We See, Part II: What Is the Real Meaning of This?, www.kenwilber.com, June 11, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, Take the Visser Site as Alternatives to KW, But Never as the Views of KW, www.kenwilber.com, June 27, 2006
Follow Up Postings
- Ken Wilber, The Unbearable Lightness of Wyatt Earpy, Follow-Up #1, June 11, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, On the Nature of Shadow Projections in Forums, Follow-Up #2, june 13, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, What Would Wyatt Do?, Follow-Up #3, June 22, 2006.
The Shadow Series
- Ken Wilber, The Shadow Series. Part 1: How to Spot the Shadow, June 15, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, The Shadow Series. Part 2: Integrating the Shadow, June 18, 2006.
- Ken Wilber, The Shadow Series. Part 3: A Working Synthesis of Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy, June 23, 2006.
My Responses to Wilber
- Frank Visser, Games Pandits Play, A Reply to Ken Wilber's Raging Rant, June 14, 2006.
- Frank Visser, Not So Fast, Cowboy, A Plea For Some Dispassion, June 25, 2006.
- Frank Visser, For The Record, Final Comments to Wilber's Recent Blog Postings, July 3, 2006.
Other Blog Commentaries (A-Z)
- Jay Andrew Allen, Wilber and Visser Work it Out on the Floor, jayandrewallen.com
- Jay Andrew Allen, Attack of The Visser: Academic Rigor vs. Practicality in Integral, jayandrewallen.com
- Michel Bauwens, Ken Wilber Is Losing It, p2pfoundation.net
- Michel Bauwens, On the logic of cultism at the Integral institutes, p2pfoundation.net
- Jim Chamberlain, Sorry, It's Just Over Your Head, www.integralworld.net
- Jim Chamberlain, Ken Wilber on Evolution, www.integralworld.net
- clocke, Ken Wilber would like you to suck his dick, mysticbourgeoisie.blogspot.com
- Colmar, Disingenious Duplicity, Colmar3000.blogspot.com
- Colmar, Safe for Whom?, Colmar3000.blogspot.com
- Colmar, Intellectual Tragedy, Colmar3000.blogspot.com
- Colmar, True Blue Wilberism, Colmar3000.blogspot.com
- Colmar, Which 2% Anyway?, Colmar3000.blogspot.com
- ebuddha, More Fallacies from the Ken Rant, integralpractice.blogharbor.com
- Matthew Dallman, Ken Wilber, www.matthewdalman.com
- Dashh, Rainbowland, dashh.typepad.com
- Geoffrey Falk, Integral Gunslinging, www.geoffreyfalk.com
- Geoffrey Falk, K-K-K-Ken's K-K-K-Kidding, www.geoffreyfalk.com
- Geoffrey Falk, Integral Narcissism, www.geoffreyfalk.com
- Geoffrey Falk, (Not) Not A Cult, www.geoffreyfalk.com
- Tuff Ghost, Wilber Criticism, part 1, vomitingconfetti.bogspot.com
- Tuff Ghost, Wilber Criticism, part 2: Turn In Your Badge, vomittinconfetti.blogspot.com
- William Harryman, The Ken Wilber Rant Fallout: My Projections and Shadows About Spiritual Leaders, integral-options.blogspot.com
- William Harryman, Frank Visser responds to Wilber, integral-options.blogspot.com
- Mushin, Abuse in spiritual circles, www.mushin.eu
- Nagarjuna, Visser on Shadows vs Core Qualities, nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com
- Nagarjuna, Is THIS Enlightenment?, nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com
- Sean, An Authoritarian Cult?, deepsurface.net
- spiritofnow, Ken Wilber Disappoints Me Yet Again, spiritofnow.livejournal.com
- Victoria, The Ballad of Ken (My Critics Just Don't Understand Me), www.victorialansford.com
- Frank Visser, Criticism: Shadow or Challenge?, wilberwatch.blogspot.com
- Frank Visser, Integral Ideology, wilberwatch.blogspot.com
- Frank Visser, The Narcissim of "Mr. Know-All", wilberwatch.blogspot.com
- Frank Visser, Integral Without Hype, wilberwatch.blogspot.com
- Umguy, Wilber, Wilber, Wilber, rant, rant, rant , ideologicalputty.blogspot.com
- Zen Unbound, The Rattlesnake post was A TEST, zenunbound.com
- Zen Unbound, Ken Wilber ... Madness , zenunbound.com
Longer Reflections (A-Z)
- Jeff Arnold, Open Letter to the Integral Community, www.integralworld.net
- Elliot Benjamin, On Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, www.integralworld.net.
- Chris Cowan, Observations on Ken Wilber's June 8th Rant, www.spiraldynamics.org
- Chris Cowan, Of Pandits and Bandits: A Meanderin' Ride in Ken Wilber's Wild West, www.spiraldynamics.org
- Geoffrey Falk, Bald Narcissism: The Dis-Integration of Ken Wilber, www.geoffreyfalk.com.
- Geoffrey Falk, Pandits and Prisoners, www.integralworld.net.
- Geoffrey Falk, Ex-Integral Scholars and Expert Opinions, www.integralworld.net.
- Jeff Meyerhoff, An Intellectual Tragedy: A Reply to Ken Wilber's "What We Are, That We See", www.integralworld.net
- Jeff Meyerhoff, Dismissal vs. Debate: A Reply to Ken Wilber's Audio Rebuttal, www.integralworld.net
- Alan Kazlev, Wilber's rant, and responses, www.kheper.net
- Alan Kazlev, The Decline and Fall of Ken Wilber, www.kheper.net
- Mushin Schilling, Transforming Spirituality: Moving Beyond the Patriarchal Temptation, www.integralworld.net
Early Warning Signs
- Matt Dallman, On Ken Wilber: Hopelessly New Age, Hopeless For the Humanities, www.matthewdallman.com, 2005.
- Michel Bauwens, The Cult of Ken Wilber, www.kheper.net, 2004.
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