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laodan

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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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  • ScienceNOW -- Sign In

    Rated Mar 16 2009 • 1 review • science, reality, worldviews • sciencemag.org

    Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality
    in ScienceNOW Daily News by David Lindley


    What is reality? French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, 87, has spent a lifetime grappling with this question. Over the years, he has developed the idea that the reality revealed by science offers only a "veiled" view of an underlying reality that science cannot access, and that the scientific view must take its place alongside the reality revealed by art, spirituality, and other forms of human inquiry. In recognition of these efforts, d'Espagnat has won this year's Templeton Prize, a u00a31 million ($1.4 million) award sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research at the intersection of science, philosophy, and religion.

    Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality

    To have a clear understanding of reality supposes we have a clear picture of the whole in which we are such tiny particles.

    But the whole escapes us.

    We are looking at it from the inside. From the point of view of that tiny particle that we are inside of it. As far as scientific instrumentation allows us to see it fails to give us a description of the whole. It is as if the borders of the whole were always set further and out of reach. Scientists keep alive the hope that one day they will be able to attain the limits of the whole. Entering such a kind of debate has no merit, for, the optimistic scientific argument is based on faith. Faith that one day...

    There is another way to look at this conundrum. It is based on the acceptance of our limitations and the recognition that a particle has no way to leave its environment. Once this idea is accepted we understand that we 'll never get to see the whole or observe it from the outside. Being unable to observe the whole from a distance humanity is bound to be stuck in belief for ever. Whatever the belief, be it scientific or spiritual, it will never get us to see or understand the whole of our reality, but it gives us a vision that when shared with others gives us peace of mind ....




    507 views
    ScienceNOW -- Sign In

  • How art killed our culture | Art and design |...

    Rated Mar 06 2009 • 1 review • arts, art, reality, market, worldviews • guardian.co.uk

    How art killed our culture
    in The Guardian by Jonathan Jones

    All the shallowness of modern mass culture began in avant-garde art 40 years ago.

    What happened? How did art become the mirror of fraud?

    We're Warhol's ugly brood. Art has even fed the unsustainable appetites that are destroying the planet by constantly telling everyone cities are better than the countryside, culture more real than nature. It has become the enemy of truth, the murderer of decency.

    The modern world has screwed itself and art led the way.

    How art killed our culture
    Art as we know it is finished



    It's not art that killed late-modern culture, it's the logic of capital that used art as one of its vehicles at profit generation.

    It's a fact that while being used as a profit generation vehicle art died. It did not kill culture, for, it was dead before consumerism established its hegemony.

    Now we also have to be careful in our affirmation that art is dead. Art is only dead on the market because the market can't swallow art. It can only swallow something neutral or to say this otherwise something that is not containing profound truths about our reality. In other words the market consecrated acceptable and sterilized "interior decoration fashions"... But outside of the market, in real life, some artists were producing, perhaps some of the best artworks ever produced in history. It's a shame that such works are confined in the interiors of their creators.
    Perhaps Jonathan Jones could give a hand to the public at large by finding the pearls among contemporary artists? But is he able to distinguish between the wheat and the shaft?




    814 views
    How art killed our culture | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

  • Items | Taoism | Twine

    Rated Dec 25 2008 • 1 review • philosophy, reality, worldviews • twine.com

    Tao or the Way
    in Twine's Taoism category

    A twine on the Chinese philosophy of Taoism -- an ancient way of thinking and being.

    Tao T Ching. Index to comparative chapters by Lao Tze
    Zhuangzi
    Liezi
    Wang Bi
    28 lectures on meditation and spirituality by Dr. Tan Kheng Khoo An excellent reference archive.


    Philosophic Taoism, it seems to me, on many levels is confirmed by modern science. This encounter of Western rationalism with the Chinese traditional Way is going to have ripple effects that are bound to affect the citizens of the world in the coming decades of build-up of the post-modern historical area.
    If interested to learn more a good starting point is Twine's Taoism category




    718 views
    Items | Taoism | Twine

  • http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFKxfL7tV4

    Rated Dec 24 2008 • 1 review • philosophy, video, reality, worldviews • youtube.com

    The Way
    on You Tube by aladdin518

    Computer animation in Chinese ink-painting style. Created 2003 using Maya. The animation reflects an ancient Taoist view of the world as a constant changing ...

    youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
    Chinese CG (English Title: The Way )

    youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
    Guzheng: Breathing

    youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
    Last painting

    It's my hope that amidst those rapid societal changes the present feasting days bring you inspiration and contentment. The videos here above could help us all reattach our feet to the ground. Best this and that to all stumblers.
    Yin-Yang founds and unifies Chinese thinking. See this good introduction about the dominant concept shared by different schools throughout the history of Chinese philosophy.






    13 views
    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFKxfL7tV4

  • Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

    Rated Apr 21 2008 • 3 reviews • philosophy, religion, reality, worldviews • stanford.edu

    Truth
    via the NYT / Stanley Fish, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Michael Glanzberg

    Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

    It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current theories.

    Truth
    French Theory in America

    Many theories about what truth is all about. But all those theories only present hypotheses about what it is and those hypotheses leave us as hungry as ever before for its true meaning.

    We are able to say the truth about facts happening within our close environment but when we speak about "the truth" in its philosophical sense it relates to something a lot vaster that our environment. Truth relates to our understanding of the global reality in which we are such tiny particles. But we don't understand what is this "whole". We could even add that there is a structural impossibility for a particle to reason its way through the whole and even if such a feat was feasible it would still be a "view" from within or better a "view" seen through the lense of an inside observer.

    The "truth" about reality, or to say this otherwise, about the "whole in which we are such tiny particles" is conceivable only from the viewpoint of an outside observer one who could relate this "whole in which we are such tiny particles" to its own environment. In other words if we could per any chance induce or deduce that this "whole in which we are such tiny particles" were a pink elephant how would we ever be able to know something about the family of this pink elephant?

    What I mean to say is that there is a systemic impossibility for us particles to ever reach the truth about this "whole in which we are such tiny particles". What we can reach is an understanding of how we particles relate to the environment within the realm of what is observable to us (in our Island-Universe as per Villenkin). This kind of understanding has a functional value for us but it does in no way qualify as truth about reality.

    We intuitively understand that our "functional understanding" does not account for the impact on our Island-Universe of all that lays outside of it. But we most often brush away that thought, for, life continues and we know no better.

    In conclusion our grasp of reality is physically flawed by our impossibility to see further than the boundary of our Island-Universe and it is furthermore systemically flawed by our insider observation.

    What is presented as truth, by philosophers, logicians, religious thinkers and others, is thus no more than a viewpoint about something that is unattainable. When the men of knowledge of the day share such a viewpoint among themselves it will then be shared further down in a simplified form with all the citizens in their societies. That's when the viewpoint becomes a worldview. The history of man witnessed 3 classes of worldviews: the animist, the religious and the modern. From all possible accounts we are presently witnessing the slowl transitioning from late modernity into early post-modernity. That means that the men of knowledge of our days are debating the contours of a new viewpoint. Once this debate settles a new worldview will eventually be shared globally by all. But patience this takes time...




    48 views
    Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

  • Reality Sandwich | Could Science and Art Become One...

    Rated Apr 15 2008 • 2 reviews • science, art, reality, worldviews • realitysandwich.com

    Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?
    in Reality Sandwich by Greg Wendt

    Reality encompasses that which is beyond science as we know it, or at least beyond that which the current scientific mindset can explain.

    Is it possible that art can be used in a scientific way to create a more accurate expression of reality and a greater understanding of human experience?

    Capra points out that Da Vinci's genius came from his ability to use art as a way to be scientific, hence throwing the whole distinction between science and art into question.

    Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?
    To answer our most fundamental questions, science needs to find a place for the arts. by Jonah Lehrer in Seed
    The Science of Leonardo new book of by Fritjof Capra
    Artsense by myself


    Acrylic n#39 of my "artsense collection".

    In summary Jonah Lehrer posits that "If we want to get an answer to our deepest questions - the questions of who we are and what everything is - we will need to draw from both science and art, so that each completes the other".

    Unfortunately this is a position that is founded on a confused understanding of what is knowledge and what is art.

    1. Knowledge:
    Humans, since times immemorial, tried to understand reality in the sense of "the whole in which we are such tiny particles". We distinguish 3 ages in the history of human understanding of reality or of human knowledge and those 3 ages are driven by the sharing of a common "worldview" that is a vulgarization of the understanding attained by the men of knowledge of the day:
    - the animist age: all parcels of the whole are inter-related: the shaman is the man of knowledge.
    - the religious or philosophic age: god or wisdom: the priest or the wise man are the men of knowledge.
    - the modern age: the logic of capital and its ideology of rationality: the capital holder and the scientist are the men of knowledge.

    2. Art:
    Since time immemorial visual arts served at giving visual signs of the understanding of reality by the men of knowledge of the day. This societal functionality of art was lost upon all sometime around 1900 when thinker-artists experimented in devising something else than the first degree image that projects on the retina. But those experimentations concluded in the absurd when everything the artist was positing as being art was deemed to be art.
    The societal functionality of art was lost because rationality and science don't offer a global model of understanding of reality. Rationality and science are following a path of questioning that pushes till later the discovery of the answer. This model does not supply the artist with a knowledge of everything to illustrate and the artist is most often in no position to devise his own knowledge base, for, he never was given the tools for such an exercise.

    I agree with Jonah Lehrer that science left on its own will never come to the end of its mission to understand reality. But I disagree that art has to produce knowledge. This should be left to the philosophers and researchers of humanity's early cultures and most importantly animism. As Fritjof Capra mentioned in his "The tao of physics" the most advanced physics, chemistry, and other sciences often rediscover the fundamental truths expressed in animism and the later philosophies built over it. My take is that a new worldview for artists to illustrate will emerge out of the contact between science and animism.




    195 views
    Reality Sandwich | Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?

  • If Martians curated an exhibition, what would it...

    Rated Mar 06 2008 • 1 review • arts, art, reality • guardian.co.uk

    If Martians put together an exhibition of Earth art, what would it contain?
    in The Guardian by Adrian Searle

    ... the Martian view of things is curiously narrow. Perhaps it is the humans doing their bidding who are having the problem. Many people, including critics and curators, have as much problem with art as your average alien. I, for one, am happy to admit that I do not know exactly what art is: I know what is called art, but that's not the same thing. Talking about what's good and bad art gets us into even more trouble.

    Art performs different functions, and not only at different times and in different places. We squabble and quibble and fight over it, beat each other over the head with it, and shove it in places it was never meant to go. Art appears to be central to our various human cultures, but to frequently masquerade as marginal, uncategorisable, and even useless.

    If Martians put together an exhibition of Earth art, what would it contain?
    The curse of the blockbuster


    Meteorite Lands on Buckingham Palace, 1998, by Cornelia Parker. 54 x 69 cm. Maple boxed frame map of London revealing burn mark left by a meteorite
    Photograph: British Council

    I don't believe one instant that aliens reaching earth could be so dumb as humans not to know the function that art exercises in societies. At least Adrian Searle is honest to recognize that ".... I do not know exactly what art is: I know what is called art, but that's not the same thing." But an alien specie that reaches earth could not be so ignorant, for, without art it could not have survived the negative consequences of the rational and mechanistic thought otherwise necessary to devise the tools and machinery to reach earth.

    If humanity is to survive the totalitarian destructiveness of modernity I believe that this can only occur by solving the question "what is art". This question reflects on who we are and how we are interrelated with all life and everything under the whole in which we are such tiny particles...

    If interested to read more about my take on "what is art" click here:
    Artsense




    33 views
    If Martians curated an exhibition, what would it contain? Adrian Searle finds out | Art and design | The Guardian

  • http://www.avantgame.com/McGonigal_WhyILoveBees_Feb2007.pdf

    Rated Feb 12 2008 • 1 review • reality, postmodernity, worldviews, modernity • avantgame.com

    Why I Love Bees:
    A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming
    via Metafilter / Kattullus; in avantgame.com by Jane McGonigal, PhD game designer, a games researcher, and a future forecaster.

    Jane McGonigal, one of the lead designers of I Love Bees writes about collective intelligence, the phenomenon of massive groups of people gathering online to solve problems, as it played out in I Love Bees.

    Can a computer game teach collective intelligence?
    The term "collective intelligence", or CI for short, was originally coined by French philosopher Pierre Levy in 1994 to describe the impact of Internet technologies on the cultural production and consumption of knowledge. Levy argued that because the Internet facilitates a rapid, open and global exchange of data and ideas, over time the network should "mobilize and coordinate the intelligence, experience, skills, wisdom, and imagination of humanity" in new and unexpected ways. As part of his utopian vision for a more collaborative knowledge culture, he predicted: "We are passing from the Cartesian cogito" - I think, therefore I am - "to cogitamus" - we think, therefore we are.
    The result of this new "we", Levy argued, would be a more complex, flexible and dynamic knowledge base.

    Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming
    Alternate Reality Gaming

    The polarities ( ) of humanity are:
    - the individual ( + )
    - the societal ( - )

    The polarities of any unity are permanently striving to attain harmony. Little moves from one of the polarities destabilize the harmony within the unity and provoke a chain of interactions that will reset harmony at a new level.

    Along the history of humanity we observe successive stages that are characterized by given forms of harmonization between societal and individual:
    1. animism: individuals belong to the group. They are glued in the understanding of reality transmitted to them by their man of knowledge. The shaman is a free man!
    2. religious and/or philosophic: individuals are coerced into submission to the king or emperor. They are glued in the understanding of reality transmitted to them by the priest or wiseman. The priest and the wiseman are at the service of the king or the emperor.
    3. modern and rational: shared collective belief systems are eroding and individuals are free to believe whatever they want. In this context of societal atomization the reason of capital imposes its logic upon all.
    4. postmodern: In late modernity we are witnessing a string of parameters that are emerging simultaneously and interacting upon one another:
    SIDE-EFFECTS OF MODERNITY:
    Environmental Chaos: Climate Change, loss of bio-diversity, poisoning of land, water and air,
    Resource Collapse: Oil. Water. Topsoil. Fisheries. Seeds. Arable land. Minerals. Copper. Food.
    Societal Atomization
    +
    ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION: Financialization, Outsourcing, Institutional lag, ).
    Those interactions most probably are shaping the contours of a new paradigm of reality out of which will emerge a new form of integration of the individual within the societal.

    Jane McGonigal's thesis is that the internet will "mobilize and coordinate the intelligence, experience, skills, wisdom, and imagination of humanity" from where will emerge a "Collective Intelligence".

    Another vision is that of a collapse of modernity.




    19 views
    http://www.avantgame.com/McGonigal_WhyILoveBees_Feb2007.pdf

  • http://www.livingthefield.com/

    Rated Feb 01 2008 • 3 reviews • science, video, reality, worldviews, animism • livingthefield.com

    Lynn McTaggart
    via BurkinaLoveFaso , on an interview of Lynn McTaggart on Google Video

    Video interview with journalist and author Lynn McTaggart. She and her publisher/husband Bryan Hubbard are directors of a public company called What Doctors Don't Tell You Ltd, which publishes newsletters which scientifically critique mainstream medicine. As well as continuing to write about alternative medicine and editing the What Doctors Don't Tell You publications, McTaggart has also developed a program called Living The Field, based on an understanding of the zero point field that is not accepted by the scientific community. She is heading The Intention Experiment, a large scale web-based investigation to discover if intentions can affect the physical world.

    Living The Field the scientific exploration of spirituality, offering a bridge between science and spirit.
    The Intention experiment
    wddty.com [wddty.com]

    video.google.com/videoplay [video.google.com/videoplay]
    an interview of Lynn McTaggart on Google Video

    youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
    Lynne McTaggart, author of the Field, talks about her vocation, the basis of happiness and the power of intention.


    Specialization leads to separation, dependency and sickness. Freedom and health come with autonomy.

    What we know for a fact:
    1. We are particles of the whole we live in (humans, all other animals and all matter).
    2. All particles are interconnected within the whole.
    3. Healthy particles are open to the others and also to the resonance of our global interconnectedness.

    Willpower separates us. Willpower results out of greed, the search for prestige and more generally the effects of individualism that tend to collapse the societal polarity of humanity. Holistic health systems are thus concentrating on relaxation, meditation and "letting go" as techniques to "stop the mind" in order to allow the self to open to the other particles.

    Two schools of thoughts are thinking along the lines of what I describe here above.
    - the top to bottom school of specialists who try to impose their truths on the individuals. Lynn McTaggart falls in this category and makes a living from her status of specialist.
    - the bottom to top school that rejects the truths of any top to bottom specialist. Buddha, Lao Tze and others fall in this category. This was also the case of the "men of knowledge" or shaman under animism.




    511 views
    http://www.livingthefield.com/

  • http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8961434816683857494

    Rated Jan 28 2008 • 5 reviews • art, reality, worldviews • google.com

    Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within
    via my friend BurkinaFasoLove. 1 hr 9 min 54 sec video on YouTube

    The film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstacy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and ... all \u00bb evolutionary awareness,electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds. Within a narrative framework that imagines consciousness itself to be evolving, Entheogen documents the emergence of techno-shamanism in the post-modern world that frames the following questions: How can a renewal of ancient initiatory rites of passage alleviate our ecological crisis? What do trance dancing and festivals celebrating unbridled artistic expression speak to in our collective psyche? How do we re-invent ourselves in a disenchanted world from which God has long ago withdrawn? Entheogen invites the viewer to consider that the answers to these questions lie within the consciousness of each and every human being, and are accessible if only we give ourselves permission to awaken to the divine within.

    automatic video embedding with GreaseMonkey's "video embed" script
    video.google.com/videoplay [video.google.com/videoplay]


    Excellent video about the emergence of a new "global worldview".

    It is as if the present cycle of societal evolution that is closing with late modernity were mutating into a revisiting of animism.

    Watch it.




    279 views
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8961434816683857494