This is a clip from a 2017 Manning Centre Conference (February 23-25 in Ottawa), where I spoke along with Professor Gad Saad and John Carpay, President of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms about the political turmoil on university campuses and in broader society, and the role of postmodern theory in producing that turmoil. The full clip is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30U1A…
I’m indebted to the YouTube channel Philosophy Insights for cutting this clip.
There are many forms of government. The word “GOVERN” comes from the Latin word gubernare which meant “TO STEER”. Individuals do not necessarily need to be steered when they are going about their own personal business. However, people do need to be steered when there are a lot of them in the same place, sharing the same air, water, land, resources, etc.
Democracy is a form of government in which the POWER of “steering” the issues, is in the hands of the people and they express their power through voting.
There are many other forms of government where power is NOT in the people. For example: Theocracy (priests rule), Autocracy (absolute power in one person), Fascism (total control of people, promotion of cultural values and eradicating foreign influence), Oligarchy (power in hands of a few families or corporations), Plutocracy (power in the hands of the wealthy), Dictatorship (Power in one person, usually oppressive), Monarchy (power in hereditary figure such as a king), Communism (the state owns and operates industry for the people).
The POWER to steer (govern) your own life lies deep within you. Come take a Prosperos class and learn more about your True Identity as Consciousness. Contact Heather Williams.
Her website: www.drawingtogether.com. Her email: heather@drawingtogether.com
International travelers arrive at John F. Kennedy international airport in New York City, U.S., February 4, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
May 22, 2017
“In the deep end, every stroke counts.”
“Best not flirt with disaster, lest it decide to commit.”
“Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line.”
These are a few of the pithy wisdoms included in “Where Epics Fail,” an upcoming book of aphorisms from Egyptian-American poet Yahia Lababidi.
The aphorism, an ancient art form that’s part poetry and part philosophy, often consists of just a single line; it’s intended to be both memorable and illuminating. For many years the aphorism was considered archaic. But Lababidi — whom Obama’s inaugural poet, Richard Blanco, calls the form’s “modern-day master” — said the 140 character age of Twitter has turned many of us into aspiring aphorists. And he believes the form is more important in a confusing political time than ever.
“In this moment where it seems the grand narratives are failing to hold our attention, maybe the humble epigram can do its work,” he said. “While deceptively slight and slender, then you sit with it, and perhaps it liberates you somehow, or reminds you of what you’ve forgotten.”
Poets, thinkers and artists, he said, do not really teach, but remind us of what we already know.
Yahia Lababidi. Credit: Jeremy Johnson
Growing up in Egypt, Lababadi was surrounded by aphorisms; wit and verse were regularly shared between people on the street, he said, as a way of passing on inherited wisdom. Today, he hopes they can be used by his adopted, and politically polarized, country. His aphorism “Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line,” for example, is meant to suggest that the differences we see in one another may not be irreconcilable — that we have more in common than we think.
The other aphorisms in “Where Epics Fail” exhort us to pay attention, believe we can make a difference, keep our hearts open in the face of pain, take responsibility for our actions, avoid ego and do the hard work that comes with sticking to ideals.
Lababadi’s aphoristic style also makes its way into his more traditional poetry; in the poem “Hard Days,” which appears in his 2016 poetry collection “Balancing Acts,” he writes: “These are the hard days / like uncrackable nuts / break your teeth trying.”
But many of Lababadi’s poems feel more personal than they do philosophical, addressing head on the concerns of being an immigrant and feeling like you’re living in a state of exile.
In his poem “Speaking American,” Lababidi writes about struggling to fit in after immigrating to the United States, particularly trying to adapt to the cultural contradictions. Though he wrote the poem 11 years ago, when he first came to America from Egypt, he said it feels even more relevant today, “with the mounting fear and loathing directed at ‘others’” in the current debates around immigration.
But while the poem is critical of his adopted country, Lababadi said it comes from a place of love.
“If you love someone or love a nation … you want to remind them of their best version,” he said, noting he’s critical of Egypt too. “You sometimes want to say: ‘tell me this isn’t really you.’”
Read “Speaking American,” or listen to Lababidi read it, below.
Speaking American
O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength,
But it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
– Shakespeare
I’m learning to speak American
(I thought I had it, ages ago)
but the dialects throw me off
each like a language in itself
There’s the official tongue:
addressed to the better angels
of our nature, the huddled masses
all yearning to breathe free
But no one speaks such Shakespearean English
in the streets, there you are treated
to a more familiar manner of speech
the unguarded snarl known as slang
Unlike that poetic flourish on its tiptoes,
this dialect is flat-footed and suspicious
of the very tired and poor that it invites
preferring the right to bear arms in bars
Stray violence or casual hate of shifting shapes:
racial slur, ethnic insult or what specialists term
linguistic xenophobia…
you fill in the blanks, I’d rather not
I’m learning this fickle colossus
and the Big Friendly Giant are one
so, if you want to run with either
best to watch both don’t squash you
Having made a show of separating
church and state, they still Bless you
at every turn, but will also curse you
if you do not bless their troops, in return.
Yahia Lababidi, an Egyptian-Lebanese-American, is the author of six books of poetry and prose. Lababidi’s last book “Balancing Acts: New & Selected Poems (1993-2015)” debuted at No. 1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases under Middle Eastern poetry. His first book, “Signposts to Elsewhere,” a collection of original aphorisms, was selected as a 2008 Book of the Year by The Independent (UK). His forthcoming book, “Where Epics Fail: Aphorisms on Art, Morality and Spirit,” is being published by Unbound in partnership with Penguin Random House, and is now available for pre-order.
“But Universe isn’t depending on this little team on this little planet. There are probably quadrillion-times-quadrillion planets with men aboard them, and this little team might not make good, just as some of the seeds coming off the tree don’t make good. If we think of ourselves as things, as China dolls that get smashed in the end, we don’t do very good thinking. But if we think of ourselves as absolutely continuous process itself, we might begin to get some idea of our true situation. We’re the most complex problem-solving part of the universe. We have the job of sorting and rearranging, and the ability to build structures to increase production, increase efficiency, to do continuously more with less. And when man’s not doing that, he’s just anti-Universe, he’s anti-human.”
–Bucky Fuller from Life Magazine, February 26, 1971
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as “Spaceship Earth”, ephemeralization, and synergetic. Wikipedia
Autism activist Temple Grandin talks about how her mind works — sharing her ability to “think in pictures,” which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.
Be PLAYFUL. You take yourself too seriously. One cannot enter a spiritual state, unless you are playful, and let in the Love. The Spiritual EGO wants to be SERIOUS. Bad idea. That is exactly what does not work. Laugh at yourself. Learning happens then…if you are open to new fresh ways with an open mind. Experience is the best teacher.
There is no purpose for fear, so it melts away in the presence of playful learning and expansion. There is no thought of it. All possibility is available in the totality of consciousness unfolding infinitely. Say good bye to your fears or you cannot enter this play ground of Love…and creation. Learning is fun. Laugh and play?
Nature has intention yes, to expand. One expands through risk and trial and error only. You and the universe is an experiment of infinite variety. Experimental and exploring infinite optional choices. Mind has choice. Growth is not thought out it is trial and error explore and experiments, and this includes you!
Cosmic Intention has only one purpose, which is to EXPAND!
The school of hard knocks is what is truly expansion of consciousness! Watch a baby walk. They fall down and hit their head lots. Just is. To protect a baby from this will not allow the baby to learn to walk. Same with your playful growth. I learn by doing, hitting my head, and getting back up and trying at it again 😉 Living life freely. Learning requires listening and applying experience. What not to do and what works. Learn as you go for you are a work in progress. There is no instruction manual. Live your life freely. Let others hit their heads too….then real growth for everyone happens….fun!
A lively account of Judaism, its distinctive traits, and its revolutionary message of unity, freedom, and compassion. The reader will find that the history of Israel is not a mere succession of events, but an unfolding moral process. Google Books
I just got finished reading the remarkable book, Where Judaism Differed, by Abba Hillel Silver. In it I found this quote from Maimonides:
“The sole object of wisdom is to know more. The sole object of seeking Truth is to know truth.”
And this from Silver himself:
“The one universal God does not require one universal church in which to be worshiped, but one universal devotion. In the realms of ascertainable facts, uniformity can be looked for. In the realms of art and philosophy there can only be sincerity of quest and expression – only dedication. Religion is the supreme art of humanity.”
Scientists studying the brain have discovered that the organ operates on up to 11 different dimensions, creating multiverse-like structures that are “a world we had never imagined.”
By using an advanced mathematical system, researchers were able to uncover architectural structures that appears when the brain has to process information, before they disintegrate into nothing.
Their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, reveals the hugely complicated processes involved in the creation of neural structures, potentially helping explain why the brain is so difficult to understand and tying together its structure with its function.
The team, led by scientists at the EPFL, Switzerland, were carrying out research as part of the Blue Brain Project—an initiative to create a biologically detailed reconstruction of the human brain. Working initially on rodent brains, the team used supercomputer simulations to study the complex interactions within different regions.
In the latest study, researchers honed in on the neural network structures within the brain using algebraic topology—a system used to describe networks with constantly changing spaces and structures. This is the first time this branch of math has been applied to neuroscience.
“Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to find hidden structures—the trees in the forest—and see the empty spaces—the clearings—all at the same time,” study author Kathryn Hess said in a statement.
In the study, researchers carried out multiple tests on virtual brain tissue to find brain structures that would never appear just by chance. They then carried out the same experiments on real brain tissue to confirm their virtual findings.
They discovered that when they presented the virtual tissue with stimulus, groups of neurons form a clique. Each neuron connects to every other neuron in a very specific way to produce a precise geometric object. The more neurons in a clique, the higher the dimensions.
In some cases, researchers discovered cliques with up to 11 different dimensions.
The structures assembled formed enclosures for high-dimensional holes that the team have dubbed cavities. Once the brain has processed the information, the clique and cavity disappears.
The left shows a digital copy of a part of the neocortex, the most evolved part of the brain. On the right is a representation of the structures with different dimensions. The black hole in the middle symbolizes a complex of multi-dimensional spaces, or cavities.BLUE BRAIN PROJECT
“The appearance of high-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means that the neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner,” said one of the researchers, Ran Levi.
“It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates,” he said.
Henry Markram, director of Blue Brain Project, said the findings could help explain why the brain is so hard to understand. “The mathematics usually applied to study networks cannot detect the high-dimensional structures and spaces that we now see clearly,” he said.
“We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to eleven dimensions.”
The findings indicate the brain processes stimuli by creating these complex cliques and cavities, so the next step will be to find out whether or not our ability to perform complicated tasks requires the creation of these multi-dimensional structures.
In an email interview with Newsweek , Hess says the discovery brings us closer to understanding “one of the fundamental mysteries of neuroscience: the link between the structure of the brain and how it processes information.”
By using algebraic topology, she says, the team was able to discover “the highly organized structure hidden in the seemingly chaotic firing patterns of neurons, a structure which was invisible until we looked through this particular mathematical filter.”
Hess says the findings suggest that when we examine brain activity with low-dimensional representations, we only get a shadow of the real activity taking place. This means we can see some information, but not the full picture. “So, in a sense our discoveries may explain why it has been so hard to understand the relation between brain structure and function,” she explains.
“The stereotypical response pattern that we discovered indicates that the circuit always responds to stimuli by constructing a sequence of geometrical representations starting in low dimensions and adding progressively higher dimensions, until the build-up suddenly stops and then collapses: a mathematical signature for reactions to stimuli.
“In future work we intend to study the role of plasticity—the strengthening and weakening of connections in response to stimuli—with the tools of algebraic topology. Plasticity is fundamental to the mysterious process of learning, and we hope that we will be able to provide new insight into this phenomenon,” she added.
The ego is always thirsty, hungry and horny. For approval, praise, love and then that is not enough and wants more. I am special and bow down to me! The key is to give. Wanting: It is endless wanting. Suffering from separation and arrogance.
Stop.
To let go of ego is to let go of all these problems. Take a minute and let go now please…give and receive it to yourself now.
You are not cluttered with thoughts about your history. Not attached and identified from past memory of this or that. That is all baggage. Consciousness is free with no birth or death.
Be Space.
Just space.
Don’t fill it up with ideas about this or that and chatter of what you think. There is no room for new friends. Accept the infinite space. Enjoy the freedom of space. Room to move.
–Robert McEwen, H.W., M.
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