Even in absurdity, sacrament. Even in hardship, holiness. Even in doubt, faith. Even in chaos, realization. Even in paradox, blessedness
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"Life expands or shrinks in proportion to one's courage." ~Anain Nin
Ad Infinitum: Mental processing is continuous, not like a computer "For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols -- like a digital computer," said Spivey. "More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties -- like a biological organism." jaybird found this for you @ 20:23 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
Everyone wants to do it: The Art of Public Miracle   In a sort of deliberate, cartoon-like visual language, Miracles & Co. is an ironic and critical exploration of a drifting theology that has spawned cults, rites, sects, creeds, superstitions, and faiths which are the seeds for confrontations and fanaticism. It is no secret in a world where tyranny masks religious faith why the idea of the "miracle" is relevant. The miracle "endorses a religion and exalts the individual endowed with the gift, making him or her a guide, a leader, a Messiah, a führer." At a time when religious differences form the root of serious international and global tensions, Miracles & Co. aspires to de-dramatize the irrational force behind religious feelings and actions, while exposing the accompanying economic commercialization and political manipulation of believers. jaybird found this for you @ 16:19 in Art, Music, Theater & Film | | permalink
I pray to simulacra of self-fulfilling prophecies in the trees: Islanders pray to Jesus image on plant pot Mexicans have set up a shrine at a plant pot on the grounds of a beach resort on the Caribbean island of Cozumel after an image said to depict Jesus appeared on it following Hurricane Wilma a month ago, A receptionist at the Occidental Grand resort noticed the image likened to Jesus' face as shaken guests emerged from a storm shelter after huddling for three days while the hurricane hurled rain and debris. Local media are calling it a miracle and draw a link between the apparition and the fact that none of the 200 guests had suffered so much as a bruise during the storm, which tore up other beach resorts on Cozumel, bit holes in concrete buildings, ripped up sections of highway and flattened trees. The image stands out clearly as a Jesus-like face on the side of the enameled terra cotta planter -- whose plants also survived the storm despite being outside for its duration. jaybird found this for you @ 12:14 in Radical Undertakings | | permalink
Dubya, the Obvious: Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from — and more competent than — the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon. For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins [via metafilter] jaybird found this for you @ 08:11 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Squick: A Place in the Desert for New Mexico's Most Exclusive Circles From the state that gave us Roswell, the epicenter of UFO lore since 1947, comes a report from an Albuquerque TV station about its discovery of strange landscape markings in the remote desert. They're etched in New Mexico's barren northern reaches, resemble crop circles and are recognizable only from a high altitude. Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology... The church tried to persuade station KRQE not to air its report last week about the aerial signposts marking a Scientology compound that includes a huge vault "built into a mountainside," the station said on its Web site. The tunnel was constructed to protect the works of L. Ron Hubbard, the late science-fiction writer who founded the church in the 1950s. The archiving project, which the church has acknowledged, includes engraving Hubbard's writings on stainless steel tablets and encasing them in titanium capsules. It is overseen by a Scientology corporation called the Church of Spiritual Technology. Based in Los Angeles, the corporation dispatched an official named Jane McNairn and an attorney to visit the TV station in an effort to squelch the story, KRQE news director Michelle Donaldson said. The church offered a tour of the underground facility if KRQE would kill the piece, the station said in its newscast. Scientology also called KRQE's owner, Emmis Communications, and "sought the help of a powerful New Mexican lawmaker" to lobby against airing the piece, the station reported on its Web site. jaybird found this for you @ 20:35 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Hersh: Where is the Iraq war headed next? Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose. The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer. “I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.” jaybird found this for you @ 16:32 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Tsunami Remembered: The Day the Sea Came For the earth, it was just a twinge. Last Dec. 26, at 7:59 a.m., one part of the planet's undersea crust made an abrupt shift beneath another along a 750-mile seam near the island of Sumatra. The tectonic plates had been grating against each other for millenniums, and now the higher of the two was lifted perhaps 60 feet. For a planet where landmasses are in constant motion across geological time, the event was of no great moment. But for people - who mark the calendar in days and months rather than eons - a monumental catastrophe had begun, not only the largest earthquake in 40 years but also the displacement of billions of tons of water, unleashing a series of mammoth waves: a tsunami. These surging mounds of water raced toward land with the speed of a jet aircraft and then slowed as they reared up to leap ashore at heights of 50 feet and higher. They were long as well as tall, stampeding inland and carrying with them all they were destroying. People caught in the waves became small ingredients in an enormous blender, bludgeoned by concrete slabs and felled trees, stabbed by jagged sheets of glass, tangled up in manacles of wire. The number of the dead and missing is now estimated at 232,000. And while this includes victims from a dozen nations, more than two-thirds - some 169,000 - came from a single place, the Indonesian province of Aceh. And of Aceh's mortal toll, more than half - some 90,000 - came from a single city, Banda Aceh, and its immediate surroundings. This provincial capital was a place of large government buildings, two major universities, a historic mosque, stores and restaurants, a harbor and a fishing fleet. It sits in the northwest nub of Sumatra, where converging sea lanes from the Malay Peninsula, India and Arabia once sustained a flourishing trade in aromatic spices. The location, for centuries so favorable, was a mere 155 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. Banda Aceh was swamped by the tsunami within 30 minutes of the tremor. The devastation left its own peculiar boundaries. Roughly a third of the city - the two miles nearest the Indian Ocean - was flattened and denuded, with only an occasional tree or shank of cement escaping the sledgehammer strength of the waves. A mile or so farther inland, the destruction was more erratic, its effects less a consequence of battering than of flooding. The rest of the city entirely evaded the water's horrific reach; hours went by before some of its residents even knew the day was anything other than sunny and serene... That morning, as usual, Jaloe, who was 46, was out the door soon after sunup. His wife, Yusnidar, and their three children, Mukhlis, 15, Mutia, 14, and Azarul, 5, were left at home. Their rented wooden shack - just a 12-by-12-foot space diced into three tiny rooms - was but 50 yards from the Aceh River, near where it meets the sea. Jaloe carried breakfast with him - coffee as well as a bar of sticky rice sweetened with coconut milk and packed in banana leaf. In an hour, he was four miles off the coast, within sight of the tree-covered Breueh Islands. The water was remarkably tranquil. Barely a bird arced across the deep blue sky... jaybird found this for you @ 12:29 in News, Opinion & Politique | | permalink
Click of life: Living camera uses bacteria to capture image  A dense bed of light-sensitive bacteria has been developed as a unique kind of photographic film. Although it takes 4 hours to take a picture and only works in red light, it also delivers extremely high resolution. The “living camera” uses light to switch on genes in a genetically modified bacterium that then cause an image-recording chemical to darken. The bacteria are tiny, allowing the sensor to deliver a resolution of 100 megapixels per square inch. To make their novel biosensor, Chris Voigt’s team at the University of California in San Francisco, US, chose E. Coli, the food-poisoning gut bacterium. One of the reasons for that choice is that E. Coli does not normally use light - photosynthesising bacteria could have used light to prompt other, unwanted, biological processes. The researchers used genetic engineering techniques to shuttle genes from photosynthesising blue-green algae into the cell membrane of the E. coli. One gene codes for a protein that reacts to red light. Once activated, that protein acts to shut down the action of a second gene. This switch-off turns an added indicator solution black. As a result, a monochrome image could be permanently “printed” on a dense bed of the modified E. Coli. jaybird found this for you @ 08:26 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Boo: Can We Cure Fear? So what can be done about irrational fear? There is no one standard treatment in part because symptoms vary from one individual to the next. A person may feel destined to a given bad outcome and have a greater sense of foreboding because of a certain family tendency. Some people's bodies more easily release the ght-or-ight hormones than others. Time-consuming therapy and the resulting reeducation, to avoid triggering our fears, have been the chief solution to date. Now research also suggests therapy could be supplemented by a simple pill that blocks the reception or production of fear signals or even by a fear "vaccine." The fear research does not seek a traditional vaccine--in which the immune system develops protective capabilities in response to the presence of an injected (inert) disease agent. Rather the immune system might be chemically primed with a shot so that it is as healthy as possible--making the body less susceptible to hyperreacting to threats. jaybird found this for you @ 20:11 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
Hayao Miyazaki: Forest Spirits, Giant Insects and World Trees Representations of kami and the natural world in Miyazaki’s films express an underlying belief of the early Shinto worldview, that is, continuity between humanity and nature. This concept is also encapsulated by the Japanese word nagare, meaning "flow," and leads to the conception of vital connections between the divine nature of the kami, and by extension the natural world, and humanity (through respectful rituals); between post-mortem souls and the living (such as the ie construct, or ancestor/descendent link); and between the inner and outer worlds (as expressed through ideas about pollution and purity). The ancient Japanese did not strictly divide their world into the material and the spiritual, nor between this world and another perfect realm. Miyazaki is very much aware of this in his work, saying in an interview about Princess Mononoke that "I’ve come to the point where I just can’t make a movie without addressing the problem of humanity as part of an ecosystem." jaybird found this for you @ 16:09 in Art, Music, Theater & Film | | permalink
Pilgrims flock to see 'Buddha boy' said to have fasted six months  Thousands of pilgrims are pouring into the dense jungle of southern Nepal to worship a 15-year-old boy who has been hailed as a new Buddha. Devotees claim that Ram Bomjon, who is silently meditating beneath a tree, has not eaten or drunk anything since he sat down at his chosen spot six months ago. Witnesses say they have seen light emanating from the teenager's forehead. "It looks a bit like when you shine a torch through your hand," said Tek Bahadur Lama, a member of the committee responsible for dealing with the growing number of visitors from India and elsewhere in Nepal. [more: watching a mythology develop] jaybird found this for you @ 12:05 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
...Perhaps, as Marx suggested, we have adopted religion as an opiate, to soothe the pain of existence. As the philosopher Susanne K. Langer has put it, man "cannot deal with Chaos"; supernatural beliefs solve the problem of this chaos by providing meaning. We are not mere things; we are lovingly crafted by God, and serve his purposes. Religion tells us that this is a just world, in which the good will be rewarded and the evil punished. Most of all, it addresses our fear of death. Freud summed it all up by describing a "three-fold task" for religious beliefs: "they must exorcise the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them." Religions can sometimes do all these things, and it would be unrealistic to deny that this partly explains their existence. Indeed, sometimes theologians use the foregoing arguments to make a case for why we should believe: if one wishes for purpose, meaning, and eternal life, there is nowhere to go but toward God. One problem with this view is that, as the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker reminds us, we don't typically get solace from propositions that we don't already believe to be true. Hungry people don't cheer themselves up by believing that they just had a large meal. Heaven is a reassuring notion only insofar as people believe such a place exists; it is this belief that an adequate theory of religion has to explain in the first place. Also, the religion-as-opiate theory fits best with the monotheistic religions most familiar to us. But what about those people (many of the religious people in the world) who do not believe in an all-wise and just God? Every society believes in spiritual beings, but they are often stupid or malevolent. Many religions simply don't deal with metaphysical or teleological questions; gods and ancestor spirits are called upon only to help cope with such mundane problems as how to prepare food and what to do with a corpse—not to elucidate the Meaning of It All. As for the reassurance of heaven, justice, or salvation, again, it exists in some religions but by no means all. (In fact, even those religions we are most familiar with are not always reassuring. I know some older Christians who were made miserable as children by worries about eternal damnation; the prospect of oblivion would have been far preferable.) So the opiate theory is ultimately an unsatisfying explanation for the existence of religion. jaybird found this for you @ 08:02 in Spirituality, Religion & Mythos | | permalink
Sunday Check-In A still night, and thank goodness it's raining. I'm doing alright, preparing to make a leap of faith and leave the job without necessarily having anything else lined up. It's a situation that's a result of a "kill or be killed" environment, and rather than resorting to figurative manslughter, I'm going to claim apathy to the game and walk away with a larger scrap of dignity than most of the mucky-mucks in the whole kooky operation. Y'know, fight the vituperative ambience with disinterested non-chalance. I wrote that just so I could rhyme two French words becuase I'm over it. Very, very little else is new in the newsworthy sense. The romantic possibilities which were brewing on those two separate fronts are on pause for now, mostly because I don't have time to analyse, much less pursue, the startlingly opposite opportunities. I'm feeling the writing edge slowly, slowly returning after an autumnal hiatus (when I needed it most). It's nice to have words at my dizzy fingertips again, even if they still take their sweet time to emerge at their own convenience. At least they're there. Otherwise, there's so little of front page import that's underway that this check-in is a pretty light session. I could always descend into gossip or banal details of my glazed-eye saunter through the eleventh month of the year, but I'll try to keep my bloggy head somewhat high above the idle chatter that makes the mundane so mundane. The most of all that claptrap I'll say is that I really need to get some dishes done and rudimentary bacheloresque apartment care completed, but time seems to tick in a way that the matieral world is swept off the clock face by an eager second hand, and suddenly hours have passed and it's time, once again, to be curled with the ratty sleeping bag and succombed to that lovely biological built-in break in the seemingly endless stream of consciousness. It's almost tomorrow, anyway. jaybird found this for you @ 23:09 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
Little silver cup I've left this empty cup out on the stairs. We do these things without knowing why, Maybe I want the cup to be seen, or filled, or drunk by lips invisible, Who knows what elixer, what mad wine, shall be vinted from on high In many traditions, the cup symbolizes receptivity- jaybird found this for you @ 19:31 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
Thankful Now, the cat under the desk ponders the ribbon I've hung for her amusement as out the window, an entire world is awash in a bright, blue day, as starlings flock in movements I cannot possibly understand. I'm thankful for this moment. Today, we'll laugh and toast the season as frost begins to overtake the year's misgivings and regrets, and the chill wind prepares a feast of newness before us. I'm thankful for the tangy ripeness of change and the rock of friendship. Tonight, under the stars and amid the dance of winter-teased trees, I will be warm, and quiet, and receptive to the dreams that seep from tomorrow's unknown design. On this Earth, an impossible place, I will sleep folded in wonder that we live at all, and have a time to exist, together. I'm thankful to simply be, for however long and for whatever reason. Tomorrow is mystery, and I'm thankful for that. jaybird found this for you @ 12:30 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
There are so many words for persistence The question is... The answer is as simple as stalking a rainbow, "By and by, Lord, by and by." You eclipse dualities with the guile of a starling "There's a better home a'waitin', Those birds which have written themselves jaybird found this for you @ 12:15 in Journaling the Infinite | | permalink
Leary: DIGITAL POLYTHEISM The baby boom generation has grown up in an electronic world of TV and personal computing screens. The cyberpunks offer metaphors, rituals, life styles for dealing with the universe of information. More and more of us are becoming electro-shamans, modern alchemists. Alchemists of the Middle Ages described the construction of magical appliances for viewing future events, or speaking to friends distant or dead. Writings of Paracelsus describe a mirror of ELECTRUM MAGICUM with telegenic properties, and crystal scrying was in its heyday. Today, digital alchemists have at their command tools of a precision and power unimagined by their predecessors. Computer screens ARE magical mirrors, presenting alternate realities at varying degrees of abstraction on command (invocation). Aleister Crowley defined magick as "the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with our will," and to this end the computer is the universal level of Archimedes. The parallels between the culture of the alchemists and that of cyberpunk computer adepts are inescapable. Both employ knowledge of an occult arcanum unknown to the population at large, with secret symbols and words of power. The "secret symbols" comprise the languages of computers and mathematics, and the "words of power" instruct computer operating systems to complete Herculean tasks. Knowing the precise code name of a digital program permits it to be conjured into existence, transcending the labor of muscular or mechanical search or manufacture. Rites of initiation or apprenticeship are common to both. "Psychic feats" of telepathy and action-at-a-distance are achieved by selection of the menu option. jaybird found this for you @ 20:09 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
Message in the Sky: Cosmic background radiation in our universe could hide a code from a higher power If you could make a universe, would you leave a message for its inhabitants to find? Putting the fight between evolution and creationism aside for a moment, a pair of theoretical physicists says it might be worth looking for such a transmission in our universe. "It's a crazy assumption that there's a supreme being that wants to send us a message," said Steve Hsu, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, admitting that believing in a message involves a leap of faith. "But, if you could create a universe in your laboratory, wouldn't you want to leave a message inside?" A recent paper that Hsu coauthored suggested that fluctuations in cosmic microwave background radiation found throughout the universe could house a communiqué from our universe's creator. The microwave background is a relic of the Big Bang forged during "decoupling," the early point in the universe's history when matter and energy became distinct. jaybird found this for you @ 16:07 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Are We All Aliens? The New Case for Panspermia Nestled safely inside the belly of a comet orbiting some unknown star, a microscopic alien sits dormant. Somewhere in this vast universe -- perhaps a place like Earth -- a greater destiny awaits the microbe. A place to flourish, become a nematode or a rose or a teenager. Life, after all, is tenacious and thrives on change. Over time, gravity performs a few plausible, but not routine tricks, and the comet is ejected from its stellar orbit like a rock from a slingshot. For more than a 100 million years it slips silently across the inky vastness of interstellar space. Then gravity goes to work again. Another star tugs at the comet, pulls it in. A few giant gaseous planets whiz by, their bulks tugging at the comet, altering its course slightly. Ahead now, growing larger, looms a gorgeous blue and brown marble. Water and land. Maybe some air. Then with the force only the cosmos can summon, the comet slams into the third rock from a mid-sized, moderately powerful star. The alien microbe survives, emerges from its protective shell and spreads like the dickens. Thus began life on Earth, 3.8 billion years ago. jaybird found this for you @ 12:06 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Mystical and Psychotic Perceptions of Reality How do people think when they are insane? What is the stream of consciousness like in a psychotic mind? Even, say, for a minute or two? Since, sadly, I have been there myself nearly twenty years ago I can tell you. The memory of psychotic thinking indeed is quite vivid, I can even now play at recreating it whilst remaining perfectly sane, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else! In psychosis everything seems to 'mean' something; nothing is trivial; the most innocuous item is quite portentous. And the level of fear is beyond anything a sane mind has ever entertained. it is as if the world 'has a message', as if trivial things have been 'put there' as a sign - in this context it is hardly surprising that psychotics think they are being persecuted by the Mafia or the CIA. Cognitions change with every eye movement; five minutes is a very long time in an acute psychotic episode. The following eye movement/psychotic thought sequence is not atypical: I notice, for example, a dead moth on the window sill - 'a life extinguished' I think, 'like yours may be soon' I also think; I then notice a packet of mints with one left in it ('you have one chance left' I imagine my persecutors saying); then a half onion ('the layers of your mind and character are revealed for all to see' they snidely state); then my eyes alight on Quink ink ('drink you queer'), on painted flowers on the curtains ('your beauty is only painted on'). I turn on the radio, but the first words emitted (in a song) are, 'You can't hide!'. I turn it off immediately and abruptly - but this is curtly 'reacted' to by laughter from the street outside - as if I am being mocked for my evasiveness by some strange all encompassing power that can orchestrate such events. I turn the radio back on - but now the DJ is laughing too. I turn it off again. I cannot get away from the torment. The sound of a car window being smashed rips through the air ('they're breaking through' I fear). The sound of police sirens quickly follows ('help is near'). I relax, And as I relax the 'sequence' seems to stop. My 'galloping paranoia', at least for a few minutes perhaps, is over. Notice that the above is a kind of verbal window on an episode that may last several months in duration! One can see here why patients are in the dreadful state they are on admission: Sometimes every single audible line of a song on the radio can seem 'meaningful' in this way and produce what patients do call 'galloping' of this kind. jaybird found this for you @ 08:04 in Consciousness, Psychology & Philosophy | | permalink
The Big Man's always happy to see ya: Kid From Brooklyn 
I would like to take the time to introduce myself to you. My name is Michael Caracciolo. I am the president of a ticket company in New Jersey. However, although I have been in the ticket business for many years, I am certain that I am in the wrong profession. I should be an actor instead. I believe that I possess all the qualities necessary for success as an actor. I am a very conversational person, my voice easily projects, via my six foot six inch 400 pound amplifier! I also sing. My unique background, persona and life’s experience truly qualify me as one of a kind .The material recorded here is ad-libbed, improvisational and spontaneous. It contains profanity which is offered only in support of demonstrating my dramatic intensity and the context of the material. I am certain that after watching it once you will immediately want to contact me. jaybird found this for you @ 20:30 in Interesting People | | permalink
Philip K. Dick: How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe -- and I am dead serious when I say this -- do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new. [via metafilter] jaybird found this for you @ 16:27 in Authors, Books & Words | | permalink
Boo: The Universe is Only Pretending In quantum physics, nothing is as it seems. As physicists continue to study the universe they continually run into new questions that shake how humans understand the universe's intricate mechanics. UC Berkeley physics professor, Raphael Bousso, is trying to break down the mysteries of the universe with a concept called the holographic principle. Physicists stumbled on the idea while studying black holes. It is a concept, which ultimately questions whether the third dimension exists. "There's a real conflict between the way that we're thinking about the world right now, which is a very local way where everything happens independently in different regions of space and the way that we're going to have to think about it," said Bousso in an interview. The holographic principle uses the optical concept of holograms to try to visually explain the complex idea. Holograms are most often used on credit cards and are images that look three dimensional, but they exist on a two dimensional surface. "You have to keep in mind that we're just using that name as a sort of metaphor for something that we're specifying quite precisely when we're talking about how much information there is relative to certain areas... One way of quantifying the complexity of matter is to ask how many different states can it be in? How many things can you wiggle in? How many different ways?" Bousso said. jaybird found this for you @ 12:22 in Science, Quantum & Space | | permalink
Isadore Upinsky: On Religion and Mysticism "The main purpose of most religion is to prevent people from killing themselves for the sheer thrill of it, unless that suicide lends a regime some degree of political credence. The main purpose of most mysticism, however, is to encourage people to completely and utterly annihilate their sense of self in order to view the whole of the Universe--- which is quite possible, literally. They do so in a way that does not prop up human institution, but the creative institutions of love, passion and freedom that humans can so barely grasp these days." ~From "Falling through a Whole" jaybird found this for you @ 08:28 in Authors, Books & Words | | permalink
Send in the Clowns: The Darwin exhibition frightening off corporate sponsors  The Turtle says... "meh." An exhibition celebrating the life of Charles Darwin has failed to find a corporate sponsor because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution.</ |
