Craig Hamilton Attend Craig’s FREE 90-minute audio workshop: https://EvolveBeyondEgo.com Truth is a controversial word these days. Some others are convinced that their truth is the only truth, while others think it’s all relative. With the distortions of bias and ego, it’s extremely difficult to find objectivity as we navigate our lives. In this talk, Craig explores the cultural, philosophical, and spiritual roots of our relationship to truth, and offers practical wisdom about how to find clarity in a relative world.

T&H – Inspiration & Motivation It’s like he could see into the future. This amazing recording of Jim Morrison from 50 years ago feels like it could have been recorded yesterday. This CBC interview was recorded about one year before Jim’s death in 1971 If you enjoyed this video please support us by sharing the video and leaving a comment below! Speaker: Jim Morrison Interview: Jim Morrison & Tony Thomas June 27, 1970 CBC Archives To learn more about Jim Morrison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Mor…https://www.biography.com/musician/ji… ►Follow T&H: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/THinspiratio… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/tradgedy…

by Astro Butterfly (astrobutterfly.com

October 2020 has it all: tense cardinal squares, intense New and Full Moons, a Mercury retrograde – but also, Jupiter sextile Neptune and other supporting aspects that will help you come with creative solutions to old problems.

October is another memorable month of a memorable year. 2020 is far from being over. The 2020 saga continues.

In fact, in Q4, things get even more interesting. One thing is for sure, you won’t get bored in October.

But let’s take a look at the most important astrological events of the month:

October 2nd, 2020 – Venus Enters Virgo

On October 2nd, 2020 Venus enters Virgo. Your feelings become less dramatic and more down-to-earth.

Venus will make supporting aspects to Uranus in Taurus and Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn. During this transit, we will find it easier to contain our feelings and make them work in our favor.

October 4th, 2020 – Pluto Goes Direct

On October 4th, 2020 Pluto goes direct. Whenever a slow-moving planet changes direction, its energy is stronger than otherwise.

On October 4th the Plutonic energy will be at its peak. Expect intense, black-and-white thoughts, feelings, and events that will trigger your survival instinct, as well as your desire to win and have power and control.

October 8th, 2020 – Mars Square Pluto, Mercury Opposite Uranus

October 8th, 2020 is one of those intense days of the month. What else would you expect from Mars retrograde square Pluto AND Mercury opposite Uranus?

I’ll say it again: intensity. Mars is the planet of action. Pluto is the planet of collective action – if Mars is what you want, Pluto is what the Universe wants. When we have a square, we have a problem.

What you want (Mars) is at odds with what the Universe wants. A square is an intense aspect that requires resolution. You can’t just hide away from the square – you have to deal with it. Should you just push harder (Mars) or let go and surrender (Pluto)?

There is no ‘correct’ answer. For some people the answer is: slow down; you can’t have it all. For other people, the answer is: take action now; you can get much farther than you believed it was possible before.

The creative tension between Mercury and Uranus will help you see both sides of the story.

October 11th-18th, 2020 – Sun Square Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn

Between October 11th and October 18th, the Sun in Libra is square Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn. This is one of the last cardinal squares of the year. It’s you (the Sun) vs. the whole world (3 slow-moving planets in Capricorn).

This square can give you a feeling of spiritual claustrophobia. It’s like ‘being you’ is not acceptable anymore. You will of course resist change at first “This is who I am, I’m not going to change”.

Yes, the divine spark of light that is YOU will never change, and it will always shine bright. You are a divine child of the Universe.

But your self-concept, that mask you put on without even knowing it, MUST change. You don’t have to ‘submit’ to the world. You don’t have to give up who you are. But you must seek the more authentic version of yourself, and this is what this cardinal square is going to help you with.

October 12th – Jupiter Sextile Neptune

In the midst of Mars retrograde, and just before Mercury goes retrograde, what would the world need? Jupiter sextile Neptune, thank you, Universe!

Jupiter sextile Neptune is a supporting aspect. Think of it as a “helping hand”.

It will not necessarily bring a miracle (although when Neptune is involved, we cannot exclude this possibility), but it will be there for you, giving you the faith, hope, and the “6th sense intuition” when you need it the most.

Deep inside, we already have all the answers. We all have that inner compass; but when we live too much in our minds, we forget about it. We disconnect from our inner guidance.

Thankfully, Jupiter and Neptune (the 2 spiritual, benevolent, and intuitive planets of our solar system) will help us reconnect with that inner guidance. And from that place, we will know what to do.

October 13-14th, 2020 – Mercury Goes Retrograde; Sun Opposite Mars

October 13th-14th are some of the most eventful days of the month. Not only does Mercury go retrograde (at 11° Scorpio), but the Sun is also opposite Mars, which means we are right in the middle of the Mars cycle.

When in the middle of its retrograde cycle, Mars is at the closest to Earth as he is ever going to be in the next 2 years. Right now, Mars is at his brightest – he cannot be ignored. Y

our wants and needs can no longer be ignored either. Sun opposite Mars gives you a strong clarity and desire to succeed, but Mercury retrograde suggests that you may not have found the best solution yet.

Don’t worry, you will eventually find it. This is not a time to take quick action – this is a time to take the right action. Give it time and listen to what Mercury retrograde is trying to whisper to you.

October 16th, 2020 – New Moon In Libra

On October 16th, 2020, we have a New Moon at 23° Libra. The New Moon is square Saturn and Pluto.

This is one of the more difficult New Moons of the year, but it is one of the most action-packed also. Nobody said it will be easy. We need stress, we need adrenaline, we need a little push to take action.

October 18th, 2020 – Venus Opposite Neptune

On October 18th, 2020 Venus (at 18° Virgo) is opposite Neptune in Pisces. This is one of those romantic, but confusing inferences that will ask you to question your value, feelings, and relationships.

Questioning doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your feelings, values, or relationships. It means there are better answers, better paths, and better solutions out there, that reflect the person you’ve become. Being confused is a necessary part of the process.

October 22nd, 2020 – Sun Enters Scorpio

On October 22nd, 2020 the Sun enters Scorpio. Happy birthday to all Scorpios out there! This is the time of the year when we start seeking deeper, more intimate connections with other people and with the world in general.

The Scorpio season is usually one of the most intense times of the year, but believe it or not, this particular Scorpio season is less intense than the lovey-dovey Libra season. No more difficult oppositions to Mars retrograde. No more squares to the planets in Capricorn.

Just some good quality Scorpio time.

October 27th, 2020 – Venus Enters Libra

Great news! On October 27th, 2020 Venus enters one of her favorite signs, Libra. And when Venus is happy, everyone is happy.

The first 2 weeks of the transit are the most fortunate, with the last week being a bit more tense and challenging, when Venus will square Pluto and Saturn, thankfully, not for long.

October 28th, 2020 – Mercury Re-enters Libra

On October 28th, 2020 Mercury retrograde re-enters Libra, engaging into, yet another square with Saturn.

This is a sobering, frustrating transit that will ask you to revise some old thinking patterns that no longer serve you. This is a time to be really honest with yourself. What is that thing that is no longer working?

When you admit there is a problem, you’re half-way through the solution. Saturn is tough, but it is also solution-oriented – and it will help you to come with some well-thought-through plans to get you unstuck.

October 31st, 2020 – Full Moon In Taurus

October started with a BANG – a Full Moon in Aries – and it will end with a BANG – a Full Moon in Taurus.

The Full Moon is at 8° Taurus is one of the most “interesting” Full Moons of the year, since it is exactly conjunct Uranus, the planet of surprises. In fact, the Moon-Uranus conjunction is so tight (the Moon is at 8°40’, and Uranus at 8°41’), that literally anything can happen.

While you may find the Full Moon developments quite disrupting, keep in mind that Uranus is the planet of the sky/ higher guidance. At this Full Moon, the Universe will be speaking directly to you. It will tell you a very important message. However strange or odd it may seem.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

The Plot Against America

by Philip Roth 

In an astonishing feat of narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America – and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

(Goodreads.com)

Erin Allday Sep. 30, 2020 (SFChronicle.com)

Timothy Ray Brown, the man known as the Berlin Patient who was the first person to be cured of HIV, and who was widely respected in the global but close-knit AIDS community, died Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs.

Brown moved to San Francisco not long after revealing that he was the “Berlin Patient,” the man whose leukemia was treated with a bone marrow transplant that also eliminated his HIV infection. He stopped taking HIV medications and had shown no sign of the virus for more than 12 years.

But the leukemia returned earlier this year, according to his longtime partner. Brown died after a five-month illness. He was 54.

Those who knew him said he was a humble man who wasn’t eager to embrace the strange fame that came from his experience with HIV, but who recognized that he could play an important role in drawing attention to the global battle to end AIDS.

The bone marrow transplant that cured Brown was incredibly risky and not practical for widespread application. But it provided the first evidence that a cure was possible for a disease that was devastatingly stubborn.

“He changed the entire field of HIV research. He made the impossible possible. He made it possible to use the C-word: cure,” said Dr. Warner Greene, an HIV scientist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. “It really is difficult to overstate what he represented to the field and how transformative it was.”

Brown was raised in Seattle and in 1993 he moved to Berlin, where he worked as a translator. He became infected with HIV in 1995, just as drugs to fight the virus were developed and people began to live with the disease instead of facing the imminent death sentence of AIDS.

But the drugs then, and still now, can’t defeat the virus, so Brown remained HIV-positive. In 2007, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and eventually required treatment with a bone marrow transplant. His doctor thought the procedure, which involves wiping out a patient’s immune system and replacing it with donor stem cells, could take care of the HIV infection, too.

The premise is to use stem cells that come from donors with a rare genetic mutation that makes them naturally resistant to HIV infection. The recipient’s immune system therefore is replaced with HIV-resistant donor cells, effectively stopping the virus’ ability to spread in the body.

Since Brown, another man has been cured of HIV with a bone marrow transplant. The so-called London Patient was announced at an AIDS conference in Seattle last year.

Dr. Steven Deeks, a longtime HIV cure researcher at UCSF, met Brown shortly after he’d moved to San Francisco in 2011, about a year after he’d revealed that he was the Berlin Patient. Brown showed up at Deeks’ clinic, “and he was just so humble, he wasn’t running around being Mr. Cure,” Deeks said.

Over the next few years, Deeks and dozens of scientists around the world asked Brown to participate in countless studies to understand how he was able to fend off the virus, and Brown was always eager to help, offering his time but also his body — blood and tissue samples, over and over again.

“I said, ‘The world is dying to know what happened. We want some of your blood,’” Deeks said, recalling one of their first visits. “And he said, sure. And then I said, ‘Can we take a piece of your gut? Your lymph node? Can we get a spinal tap? And he said, yes, yes, yes. He gave up big pieces of his body for research, and he was doing it for pure altruism.”

“He was genuinely a rock star in the HIV cure world,” Deeks said.

Brown similarly volunteered his time in the laboratory of Dr. Jay Levy, a UCSF scientist who has been studying so-called elite controllers — people like Brown’s bone marrow donor who are able to fend off HIV infection without drugs — since the mid-1980s. Levy said Brown showed up in his lab one day and asked if he could be of use.

“Timothy was adored by my research group. He was like a member of the lab,” Levy said. He said Brown was sometimes troubled by people who didn’t believe he’d been cured — who argued that he must still carry some of the virus in him.

“But, in the end, he was cured,” Levy said. “No one can take away from the fact that he gave great hope to the field.”

Brown was a bit of a local celebrity in his time in San Francisco, Levy said. During one visit in Levy’s lab, Brown told him that he’d been to a bar with friends, and the entire crowd had raised their glasses to toast him. Deeks recalled Brown regularly being asked to pose for photographs at AIDS meetings around the world.

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In a Chronicle interview in 2011, Brown said he’d been invited to attend an AIDS activist panel in San Francisco shortly after naming himself as the Berlin Patient. He was there just to listen, but an organizer who knew who he was asked if Brown would mind being introduced. Brown was applauded when he stood up, and he said he turned bright red in embarrassment.

“Afterward, all these people kept coming up to me and shaking my hand, and wanting to have their picture taken with me,” Brown said. “People tell me I give them hope. That if this happened to me, it could maybe happen to everyone.”

Gregg Cassin, a longtime HIV survivor who leads programs for other survivors through the Shanti Project in San Francisco, said Brown’s cure was profoundly meaningful to the community of people living with HIV and AIDS.

“It turned HIV from being absolutely invincible, this bogeyman, this monster that can never be conquered. Here was one example that HIV can be conquered, that we may actually find a cure one day,” Cassin said. “It was helpful to have that little shining beacon.”

Five years ago, Brown published a personal essay about his experience, and his hope that one day he wouldn’t stand so alone with his cure. This was before the London Patient, and those who knew Brown said he was troubled to remain the only person cured.

That thinking was a large part of why he decided to reveal his name and his face to the public.

“I was not ready for the publicity,” Brown wrote. But “I did not want to be the only person in the world cured of HIV. I wanted other HIV-positive patients to join my club. I want to dedicate my life to supporting research to search for a cure or cures for HIV!”

Brown is survived by his partner, Tim Hoeffgen of Palm Springs, and his mother.Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday

Erin Allday

Follow Erin on: https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/erinallday

Erin Allday is a health reporter who writes about infectious diseases, stem cells, neuroscience and consumer health topics like fitness and nutrition. She’s been on the health beat since 2006 (minus a nine-month stint covering Mayor Gavin Newsom). Before joining The Chronicle, Erin worked at newspapers all over the Bay Area and covered a little of everything, including business and technology, city government, and education. She was part of a reporting team that won a Polk Award for regional reporting in 2005, for a series of stories on outsourcing jobs from Santa Rosa to Penang, Malaysia. Erin started her journalism career at the Daily Californian student newspaper and many years later still calls Berkeley her home.

©2020 Hearst

By Matthew Fox | 23 hours ago (tikkun.org)

Photo by Chelsea Umberger on Unsplash

Dear Ms. Barrett,

With the nomination of a new supreme court judge, some are being accused of “anti-catholicism” for posing questions about your religious beliefs.*  I however, think questions like the following are important and I am sure that you are open to discussing them with the American public whose job it is to serve.

1) Since you are a practicing Catholic, have you studied Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment (“Laudato Si”)?  What are your positions on environmental justice?  On climate change?  Are you as passionate about them as you are about opposing abortion?  Are you aware that climate change is currently killing more people (who are fully people) than are abortions killing fetuses?  It has killed 200,000 people in the US alone and has maimed tens of thousands more and migrations to come will displace and kill millions more.

2) Have you studied Pope Francis’ statements on the “idolatry of money” that dominates so much of our economic system?  Where do you stand on that subject and on unbridled Wall Street power?  And on tax breaks for the very rich vs. for the poor and middle class?  (Revelations on President Trump’s non-taxes being very relevant to the question.)  

3) Where do you stand on the long-standing teaching of the right for unions to organize that are embedded in papal documents dating all the way back to Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century?  

4) As for abortion, surely you know the distinction in Catholic philosophy between what makes good law and what makes good morality.  They are not always the same.  Since women are going to have abortions (and not all American women are Catholic, by the way), isn’t it preferable to make abortion as safe as possible than to make abortion go underground?  

And, as a woman, do you believe it is preferable to turn decision-making about your sacred body over to zealous male law-makers?  Why would you think that?

Are you aware that saint and doctor of the church, Thomas Aquinas did not believe the fetus was human until very late in its development?  That only then did the fetus receive a “human soul” (it was first a vegetative soul and then an animal soul according to Aquinas.)  And NOTHING in contemporary science has bothered to disprove this teaching (since contemporary science rarely even uses the word “soul”).

5) Where do you stand on birth control?  Doesn’t it seem that the swelling of the human population has much to do with rendering other species extinct, who lose their habitats because of human expansion?  Is it wrong to render God’s creation extinct? 

Are you aware that the Dalai Lama, on being asked about birth control, said this.  Traditionally, we have always been conservative about birth control, but look around and see how rising human populations are killing other species so we must change our position on birth control given today’s situation.

Do you consider human population explosion a serious problem? 

6) How can you, calling yourself a serious Christian (or just a fellow human being), seriously want to end health care for many millions of Americans?  How will you look yourself in the mirror or dare to go to church?  

7) Does your version of Christianity support separating children from parents and locking them up in cages?   (See Matthew 25.)  And hiring a white supremacist as an adviser to the president with an office inside the White House?

8) Former US attorney Barb McQuade has informed Americans that in 2016 you argued against filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election time, specifically when it meant shifting the ideology of the justice bring replaced.  (In this case, Justice Ruth Ginsburg).  “When the court is seen as a political tool, it loses its legitimacy to announce the laws of the land.”  Do you still believe this?  

Do you consider hypocrisy of numerous Republican senators who said something similar in 2016 and have reversed themselves in 2020 to be a solid ground for “announcing the laws of the land?”  What about your nomination on a rushed schedule?  Wouldn’t it be better for the court and its legitimacy to await the judgement of the next president?  If you believe your position as stated four years ago above, does accepting this nomination not mark you as a hypocrite also?  How do you balance that with Jesus’ teachings against hypocrisy?

9) Saint Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the church, says that “a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.”  This is why he spent his whole life bringing the best scientist of his day (Aristotle) into the understanding of the Christian faith.  The church made huge mistakes condemning science in the time of Copernicus and Galileo and we were promised, 500 years later by Pope John Paul II, that it wouldn’t happen again.  And yet it has happened clearly in the discussion of gays and lesbians and their rights.  

Over 50 years ago, scientists spoke up to inform us that any given human population will have and 8-11% gay population.  Being gay is perfectly natural for gay people, though it is a sexual minority.  Why, then, would any thoughtful Catholic deny gay and lesbians and transgender people their rights as human beings?  (Including the right to marry, at least civilly?)  Surely you do not want to succumb to old religious tropes that mistake God for a bad understanding of creation, do you?

10)  Our constitution promises a separation of church and state.  Since 80% of the American population is not Catholic but something else—Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, indigenous, atheist and more—you would not foist your particular religious beliefs on to all these others, would you?  

11)  Your religion is a bit odd.  It is not Catholicism as such or Catholicism as the Pope practices it, for example, it is a mélange of Protestant and Catholics in a small charismatic community.  Speaking anecdotally, in my interactions with charismatics over the years, I have hardly ever met one who considered the struggle for justice for the poor and oppressed as part of their religious consciousness.  In fact, it was precisely the charismatic groups in South America who were financed to oppose and replace base communities and liberation theologies, while buttressing right wing political fanatics.  

My question is this: What does the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero mean to you and your community?  How does his struggle on behalf of the poor resonate with your version of Christianity?  

12)  Does the ecumenism which you practice in your small charismatic sect extend to other religions and will you respect them and their values in all your court decisions?  Rights of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Native Americans, Atheists, and others?

Does your ecumenism also extend to members of the Roman Catholic Church who do not share your ideology including presidential candidate Joe Biden?  House minority leader Nancy Pelosi?  Supreme court judge Sonia Sotomayor?  And many other public figures?  Will you come to their defense when certain noisy media pundits accuse Democrats of being “anti-Catholic”?

13) Do the recent revelations of how we ordinary and modest citizens pay far more taxes than millionaire presidents and also how vast international corporations pay no taxes and how the 2017 tax “reform” let many billionaires reduce their taxes affect your religious sensibilities about justice for the poor?  

And does a promise that ours is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people?” correspond to the kind of economic system that is currently running our country?  How do you put into practice Pope Francis’ warnings about Wall Street and the idolatry of money?  

Thank you for your attention to these questions.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

ABOUT MATTHEW FOX

Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian, and author of 38 books on spirituality and culture.  He was a Dominican priest for 34 years in the Roman Catholic church and is now an Episcopal priest.  His latest books are The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times; and Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond.

ADAM BEAM, Associated Press

Sep. 30, 2020 (SFGate.com)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will develop a detailed plan for reparations under a new law signed on Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, making it the first state to mandate a study of how it can make amends for its role in the oppression of Black people.

The law creates a nine-member task force to come up with proposals for how the state could provide reparations to Black Americans, what form those reparations might take and who would be eligible to receive them.

“This is not just about California, this is about making an impact, and a dent, across the rest of the country,” Newsom said moments after signing the bill during a ceremony broadcast on his YouTube channel.

The law does not limit reparations to slavery, although it requires the task force to give special consideration for Black people who are descendants of slaves.

California never had a government-sanctioned system of slavery. It entered the Union in 1850 as a free state after gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains. But the state did let slave-owning whites bring their slaves to California. The Legislature even passed a law making it legal to arrest runaway slaves and return them to their owners.

“California has come to terms with many of these issues, but it has yet to come to terms with its role in slavery,” said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, a Democrat from San Diego who authored the bill.

The law does not say the reparations must be cash payments. Other options could include forgiving student loans and paying for public works projects or job training. In July, the City Council in Asheville, North Carolina, approved reparations by pledging to make investments in areas where Black people face disparities.

Reparations are not without precedent in the United States. The U.S. government partially funded German reparations to Holocaust victims following World War II. And in 1988, the federal government set up a reparations program for Japanese-Americans who were held in concentration camps during World War II.

Reparations for slavery have been debated for decades in the United States. A similar proposal to study reparations for Black Americans was first introduced in Congress in 1989. It has never passed, but Congress held a hearing on the proposal last year.

Momentum has been building once again for similar proposals in state and local governments across the country after the May police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota reignited a national movement for racial justice. State legislatures in Texas, New York and Vermont have considered studying reparations, but none have passed measures.

Newsom would appoint five members of California’s task force. The other four would come from the Legislature, with two each appointed by the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly. The law says the task force must include at least two people from “major civil society and reparations organizations” and at least one person from academia who is an expert in civil rights.

The task force must have its first meeting no later than June 1. It must submit its recommendations to the state Legislature one year after its first meeting.

#HackingYourMindPBS

NOW STREAMING

This four-part series examines how easy it is to hack your mind and what you can do.

• The Wings of Angels 09/30/2020 | 55m 55s
• Us vs. Them 09/23/2020 | 55m 55s
• Weapons of Influence 09/16/2020 | 55m 56s

Hacking Your Mind is a production of Oregon Public Broadcasting. OPB executive in charge of production, Steven M. Bass and executive producer, David Davis. Producer, writer and director, Carl Byker; …MORE

Sponsored By:

Episodes

• The Wings of Angels09/30/2020 | 55m 55s
• Us vs. Them09/23/2020 | 55m 55s
• Weapons of Influence09/16/2020 | 55m 56s
• Living on Autopilot09/09/2020 | 55m 57s

Buy Now:

• DVDs (opens in new window)

Extras

• How Can You Save the Planet? Clip: S2020 | 1m 47s
• How Do Governments Hack Your Mind? Clip: S2020 | 4m 30s
• What New Discoveries Are Being Made In Behavioral Science? Clip: S2020 | 4m 23s
• How Do Police Treat Black And White People Differently? Clip: S2020 | 4m 51s
• What Do People And Monkeys Have In Common? Clip: S2020 | 3m 28s
• Hacking Your Mind Preview: S2020 | 30s
• How Can Police Overcome Their Biases? Clip: S2020 | 2m 29s
• What Did Scientists’ ‘Rise Of Trump’ Study Reveal? Clip: S2020 | 4m 34s
• How Is This Dog Smarter Than This Boy?Clip: S2020 | 4m 30s
• Why Can’t We All Get Along?Clip: S2020 | 3m 33s

About the Series

THIS OREGON PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERIES IS NOW STREAMING, CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR REBROADCAST DATES

Follow host, Jacob Ward, (The TODAY Show), from the farthest corners of the globe to the inside of your mind as he sets out to discover we are not who we think we are. We imagine our conscious minds make most decisions but in reality we go through much of our lives on “autopilot”. And marketers and social media companies rely on it. Hacking Your Mind offers you the autopilot owner’s manual.Read more

Link at: https://www.pbs.org/show/hacking-your-mind/

(Contributed by Janet Cornwell, H.W., m.)

The most complete, compelling, and accessible series on Cosmos, Consciousness and Meaning ever produced for television is now available online. 

Closer To Truth explores fundamental issues of universe, brain/mind, religion, meaning and purpose through intimate, candid conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, scholars, theologians and creative thinkers of all kinds. The shows are a rich visual experience, shot entirely on location in high definition with multiple cameras generating rich production values.

Each season, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, consists of 13 episodes on Cosmos, Consciousness, and Meaning. Episode titles are listed below.

Now available: Seasons 10-19

Coming soon: Seasons 1-9

SEASON 19

• #1913 – Salvation – A Philosophical Inquiry It’s intended as ultimate purpose: salvation means eternal life with God. For believers, what actually happens, what kind of life? For non-believers, what can we learn about how religion works? Contributors: Oliver Crisp, Eleonore Stump, Alan Torrance, N.T. Wright
• #1912 – Atonement – A Philosophical Inquiry Can atonement absolve sin? For believers, how could The Atonement work? What’s the process? For non-believers, what does The Atonement say about the kind of God that supposedly designed it? Contributors: Eleonore Stump, Alan Torrance, Oliver Crisp, N.T. Wright
• #1911 – The Incarnation – A Philosophical Inquiry It’s a staggering idea: God became flesh. Why would the Creator become human? For believers, how could Divine and Human natures interact? For non-believers, how do beliefs reflect the psyche? Contributors: Ian McFarland, Timothy Pawl, N.T. Wright, John Hick
• #1910 – The Trinity – A Philosophical Inquiry It seems the ultimate riddle: How could One God be Three Persons? How could One be Three? Or Three be One? And why three? Non-believers and believers can both enjoy the logic and linguistics. Contributors: Peter van Inwagen, Oliver Crisp, Michael Rea, Brian Leftow, Richard Swinburne
• #1909 – Jesus as God – A Philosophical Inquiry Why the astonishing claim that Jesus is God? Not like God. Not representing God. But literally God? One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to appreciate the arguments. Contributors: Sarah Coakley, N.T. Wright, Oliver Crisp, Eleonore Stump, C. Stephen Evans, Ian McFarland
• #1908 – Epistemology: How Can We Know God? Can humans have knowledge of God? Between humans and God, between finite and infinite, there seems an unbridgeable gap. So what can it mean to “know God”? There are multiple meanings. Contributors: Robert Audi, Meghan Sullivan, David Bentley Hart, Menachem Fisch, Bas van Fraassen
• #1907 – Why Anything at All II? It’s the ultimate puzzle. It’s the haunting question. Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? It seems impenetrable, uncrackable, unfathomable. But are there ways?Contributors: Tim Maudlin, Mario Livio, George Ellis, David Bentley Hart
• #1906 – What Exists II? What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible — the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified? Contributors: Barry Loewer, David Albert, Luke Barnes, Raymond Tallis, George Ellis
• #1905 – What’s Strong Emergence? Here’s the claim: each level of the scientific hierarchy — physics, chemistry, biology, psychology — has its own special laws that can never be explained by deeper laws (physics). How can this be?  Contributors: George Ellis, David Albert, Barry Loewer, Tim Maudlin
• #1904 – Is the Anthropic Principle Significant? Here’s the claim: conditions of the universe relate to the presence of observers. Does the Anthropic Principle convey deep insights? Or thwart science? For sure, it’s often misunderstood and controversial.  Contributors: Bernard Carr, Pedro Ferreira, John Peacock, Luke Barnes, Abraham Loeb
• #1903 – What’s Fine-Tuning in Physics? Why do the “constants of nature” — masses of subatomic particles and strengths of forces like gravity and electromagnetism — have the values they do? Does fine-tuning “cry out” for explanation? Contributors: Bernard Carr, Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis, George Ellis, Abraham Loeb
• #1902 – What’s Fine-Tuning in Cosmology? Here’s the claim: cosmic conditions that allow complex structures — galaxies, stars, planets, people — depend on a few “constants of nature” lying within tight ranges of values. But is fine-tuning valid? Contributors: Geraint Lewis, Luke Barnes, Fred Adams, Joseph Silk, Abraham Loeb
• #1901 – What is Philosophy of Cosmology? We search deepest levels of cosmic reality, the big picture of the puzzle of the universe — beginning, size, structure, future, far future. We seek significance in cosmology, if there’s any to be. Contributors: Barry Loewer, Mario Livio, George Ellis, David Albert

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Link: www.closertotruth.com

(Recommended by Janet Cornwell, H.W., m.)

Brian BirdwellFollow · Mar 11, 2016 · Medium.com

Maybe you know Buckminster Fuller from the iconic images of the friendly old man with his signature horn-rimmed glasses. Or perhaps you know him as the “bucky balls guy” or the “geodesic dome guy.” If you know the word synergy, you can thank Bucky for that, but more on synergy in another post. While it is true that he invented many remarkable artifacts and held 28 US patents, his inventions are not the primary reason you should be interested in him. In fact, his inventions and prototypes, and his personal success are side effects of a particular choice that he made in 1927.

At that time he was 32 years old and had a newborn daughter and a dependent wife. He was flat broke, unemployed, and un-creditworthy. Desperate to provide for his family and somewhat ashamed of his apparent inability to do so, he decided to commit suicide so that his wife could cash his life insurance policy and make a new life for herself and their daughter. Standing on a cliff above Lake Michigan, Bucky prepared to jump. Just as he did so, he had a realization that was to dramatically change the course of his own life, and eventually the lives of countless others.

In committing suicide, I seemingly would never again have to feel the pain and mortification of my failures and errors, but the only-by-experience-winnable inventory of knowledge that I had accrued would also be forever lost — an inventory of information that, if I did not commit suicide, might prove to be of critical advantage to others, possibly to all others, possibly to Universe.

Though very unlikely, he decided that if there was even a “one-in-an-illion” chance that his unique human experiences might be of “evolutionary value” to others, then his life was not merely worth living — it might be said not to belong to him at all, but in fact, to belong only to others. This was the moment when he steered his ship into uncharted waters and began living his very own kind of life with an intention both admirably courageous and exceptionally disciplined.

If I take oath never again to work for my own advantaging and to work only for all others for whom my experience-gained knowledge may be of benefit, I may be justified in not throwing myself away. This will, of course, mean that I will not be able to escape the pain and mortification of being an absolute failure in playing the game of life as it has been taught to me.

From this moment forward, Bucky committed himself to doing his own thinking and to rigorously questioning everything he had previously been taught to believe. He theorized that the organizing principles operative in our Universe would provide for his material sustenance aboard Spaceship Earth if he were properly contributing to the continuance of those principles. He assumed, and this is important, that humans existed for a reason, that humanity was the product of an unfathomably intricate design. And if humans existed for a reason, that is, if the human mind was an essential development in the Universe’s evolutings, then the principles that govern the behavior of Universe would naturally support those actions that supported humanity’s continuance.

He then set out to live his own life as an experiment to prove these beliefs. For if they were true, and he were to commit himself to solving those of humanity’s problems which he could, then he would no longer have any need to “earn a living,” in the traditional sense — he could do his thing and trust the Universe to provide.

I sought to use myself as my scientific “guinea pig” in a lifelong experiment designed to discover what — if anything — a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability, with an economically dependent wife and child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done be great nations or great private enterprise to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives.

Imagine for a moment the conversation he had with his wife when he got home. ‘Honey, I’ve decided to stop trying to get jobs altogether. Instead, I’m gonna do my best to think of ideas that would help all of humanity raise its standard of living. Don’t worry — I’m fairly confident the Universe has my back on this.’ And she went with it. Wow. She, Anne Hewlett, who would ultimately be married to Bucky for 66 years, must have been as bold and bodacious as he was.

The early road, as one might imagine, was a little bumpy.

Friends would say, “You are being treacherous to your wife and child, not going out to earn a living for them. Come over here and we will give you a very good job.” When, persuaded by their obvious generosity and concern, I did yield, everything went wrong; and every time I went “off the deep end” again, working only for everybody without salary, everything went right again.

Over time, Bucky’s hypothesis began to prove itself and the bumps got smoother and smoother as his experience multiplied and his faith in the integrity of his mission steeled. Predictably unpredictable patterns began to emerge.

So we — my wife and family — have for 56 years realized a series of miracles that occur just when I need something, but not until the absolutely last second. If what I think I need does not become available I realize that my objective may be invalid or that I am steering a wrong course. It is only through such nonhappenings that I seem to be informed of how to correct both my grand strategy and its constituent initiations.

During all these last 56 years I have been unable to budget. I simply have to have faith and just when I need the right-something for the right-reasoning, there it is — or there they are — the workshops, helping hands, materials, ideas,money, tools.

Not only did Bucky and his family survive the experiment, they thrived. Without any kind of public relations or marketing support, he would eventually be mentioned in over 100,000 articles, books, and broadcasts. In his last twenty years of life he circled the globe 47 times and spoke to 30,000 students. He published 24 books and funneled $20 million into prototyping and design of dozens of artifacts, from domes to cars to prefab bathrooms. Though his annual earnings eventually rose to $250,000, he never made a profit; he always spent every dollar on research and development, “always operating in proximity to bankruptcy without going bankrupt.”

Now that you know bit of the backstory, I hope you are as blown away and inspired by Bucky’s life as I am. Of course, Bucky’s personal expression of helping humanity succeed was to design physical artifacts to help us efficiently accommodate ourselves physically on Earth. And he proved that an unknown individual could do so and be taken care of. My question is this: beyond the design of physical artifacts, what other disciplines does this “mechanism” of Universe support? Can an artist who is wholeheartedly working to solve humanity’s problems expect the same kind of support from Universe? A programmer? A farmer?

What do you think about all this?

(all quotes from Critical Path and one of my favorite little books, Guinea Pig B, both by R. Buckminster Fuller)

WRITTEN BY

Brian Birdwell

Teacher. Father. Prognosticator. Optimist, mostly.