This is a man, who as a child has neither experienced nor been trained in the three ingredients of emotional life: Attention, Love and Affection. The word "Golem", in mediaeval Jewish legend, describes a sort of machine man, a robot. Some 50 years ago it was the subject of a famous novel, by Gustav Meysink, made into a film.
A man who has lived such a life as a child has not developed the "emotional antenna" or the "love-receiving apparatus", to be able to receive or to acknowledge emotional signals. Such men go from woman to woman and are often considered to be excellent lovers. These women do not realise that they receive not love but hate, not compassion but revenge, not commitment but a desire to escape, that it is not a mutual emotional experience of beauty but a one-sided desire to hurt, and even to kill.
You can read more about the idea of Golem atThe Neurocritic.
2. "Google Maps Charged With Unfair Competition In France For Daring To Be Free" fromThe daily irrelevant
3. Science that will save humanity:
Eighteen elementary school children assessed the pleasantness and perfumed aspect of familiar peers’ odors, sampled through tee shirts worn without modification of hygienic habits.
A 27-year-old Monroe College graduate is suing the New York school, seeking refund of the $70,000 worth of tuition she paid for a bachelor's degree because the college did not equip her for gainful employment following her graduation.
"She's angry," Thompson's mother told the Post. "She's very angry at her situation. She put all her faith in them, and so did I. They're not making an effort."
8. A catholic church banks in North Rhine-Westphalia invests its money in tobacco, arms and birth control pills- via The Daily Irrelevant
9. The Minnesota's Democratic Party issued a release challenging Pawlenty, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, for criticizing President Barack Obama at a Republican National Committee meeting- and linked it to the video: unfortunately, the link led people to a profane YouTube video of an elderly Chinese woman repeating obscenities.- Yahoo! News
10. And, finally, a Wal-Mart employee was bitten on the arm by a 44-year-old woman while confronting her about shoplifting- Yahoo! News
1. Death is very much the pivot about which life revolves, so to say. Interested to listen to some stuff about death and afterlife? Great talking points, too- Downloadable MP3 discussions are at Radio Lab.
2. Life of St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain:
"At the end of his life, St Nicodemus returned to the Cell of the Skourtaioi. He received Holy Unction and the Holy Mysteries, and after taking the latter, ‘he crossed his hands, stretched out his legs, became quiet and tranquil, and prayed continuously. When the brothers who were present asked him: “Teacher, are you resting?” he replied: “I have placed Christ within me, how is it possible for me not to be at rest?”’ (p. 94). St Nicodemus fell asleep in the Lord on 14 July 1809, at the age of sixty."
3. Music is so uplifting- and what gives strength to music is meaning, because it adds context: please read this from In the Dark and then listen to the music, you will see what I mean:
"Although it is basically about death, I find this piece immensely uplifting and joyful. The setting of the last verse in particular reaches parts of me that other music doesn’t reach. The voice floats freely as if suspended in mid-air over the first line (O weiter, stiller Friede!) while the orchestra circles beneath it. The voice then soars away like a majestic bird over the second line of text (So tief im Abendrot) while the orchestra gathers again. The exquisite countermelody rises up to meet the vocal line and they fly together for a while before the words are finished and it all eventually subsides into a quiet but wonderful sense of fulfilment."
4. "If we believe in a loving God it can have a positive effect, even prolong our lives. But believing in a judgmental, authoritarian God can produce fear, anger, and stress, and that’s not healthy."
Discussion about the Brain and religion- we need more of this.
5. This is about the kind of life we lead, right? Not the kind of life we ought to lead- this is, as we must remind ourselves again and again, we are what we are- not we ought to be what we are- this is not about self-improvement: okay, here is a Bus Driver in Teheran- Woman:
Feminist Philosophers write, "She also gives hell to male drivers who are rude to her. She’s utterly determined and fearless, and very impressive". So, you know what this is about.
6. Ahem!
"We Would Enter a Triathlon-
If the three events were griping, smoking and McDonalds."
1. Constructed like a three-dimensional book, these temples, 100 feet under ground, are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Daily Mail
2. You don't like to be around places where people are talking loudly and laughing, okay, you don't like being laughed at, is that it? Don't worry, you don't have to feel guilty about it- you have gelotophobia. You can read about this latest avatar of the naming disease at Science News
4. "We can create a consciousness to be whatever we want.'- Really?
What about the future of free will? We know that consciousness drives behavior. New neuromodulation techniques will increasingly become available so as to allow us to shape our consciousness to anything we desire. You could identify the neural correlates of beauty in the brain and then amplify them, applying them to any external object. You could theoretically make the average 90 year old woman appear more stunningly attractive to a male than any young female supermodel. The only reason that this isn't the norm now is because it would have been maladaptive in the past. By understanding how consciousness motivates behavior you can possibly predict how a specific change in brain function will alter the way you act. So in some sense this is improving free will, as we are uncoupling our consciousness from our evolutionary past. We can create a consciousness to be whatever we want.
5. The power of vision, or, how to make a white peacock, or why you should be afraid to look where you should not:
He then moved on to discuss other examples, including a recipe for making white peacocks: So the imaginative powers of Pea-Cocks, and other Birds, whilest they be coupling, impress a colour upon their wings. Whence we produce white Pea-Cocks, by hanging round the places where they couple, with white Clothes. (p.146) The peacocks see our white clothes and their imaginations imprint the notion of whiteness onto the offspring they conceive. This process is imagined to be like contagion:
1. Amazing: "T. Rex Proteins Survive for 68 Million Years"- Softpedia News - Global. Some of the blood vessels and other types of soft tissue in the T Rex fossil have been discovered in a preserved condition.
2. Being half-brain is not half-bad. This should not happen- but a 10-year old girl with a half of her brain missing has normal vision. Her brain has rewired itself.
“Despite lacking one hemisphere, the girl has normal psychological function and is perfectly capable of living a normal and fulfilling life. She is witty, charming and intelligent.”
6. Secret of survival? Keeping away from Man's eyes: misfortune- "An odd songbird with a bald head living in a rugged region in Laos has been discovered by scientists "-EurekAlert!
7. Whales change their singing voice, and also change their tunes year to year-Science Daily
8. Thanks to climate change, frogs are changing their mating behaviour-
"...healthy frogs are likely to be mating more often with other healthy frogs, leaving diseased frogs to mate with each other. These frogs could also be selecting mates based on their Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) type; a group of genes directly involved with the animal's immune system"- EurekAlert!-
so clever of the frog.
9. The world's largest cave, more than 4.5 km in length, is in Vietnam,- where else!
1. A man in New York allegedly threw a dog from the sixth floor- the dog is expected to recover from his injuries and walk away, but the man probably will be jailed-WPIX
2. Man sees too many MGR Films and goes to rob a bank in disguise (the brown wig):
"The robber was described a black man in his mid-30s. He is 6 feet tall and weighs about 185 pounds. He has a goatee and was wearing a brown wig, black sunglasses, a full-brim hat, a white T-shirt, shorts with a Michael Jordan emblem and tennis shoes."- KMBC-TV
3. How is this for revenge?- Man Kills Himself on His Supervisors Front Porch in Santa Cruz- Central Coast News
4. Man finds pizza and believes it was intended as an object of harrassment- calls police:
"Police described the pizza slice to the Pioneer Press: "The man had found a piece of pizza that was three-quarters eaten, with bite marks in it."- City Pages
5. Teller chases down bank robber and is dismissed for... possible dereliction of duty?
"FBI say they advise tellers against acting against robbers. Instead, police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb says, they should be good witnesses and comply with demands unless their personal safety is in jeopardy."- Fox News
6. "Car thief beaten mercilessly in Bangalore after being caught trying to steal a car stereo."-Live Leak
7. Hindlu fundamentalism has nothing to do with this- A gunman sprayed automatic fire at an Israeli club for gay teenagers on Saturday, killing two people and wounding at least eight- Reuters
8. "That time of the year again in India for throwing your baby of a tall building for its well being."- Live Leak
9. I don't know who Glenn Beck is, bu he is amazing:
Beck declares that funds to protect turtles and otters would only be worthy if they carried guns to protect The United States, and proceeds to start screaming about whether there's a powerful turtle and otter lobby.- Huffington Post
Here's the video in case you don't believe it:
10. And finally, if philosophers fought now through the media:
...Not knowing constancy, one recklessly causes trouble
Knowing constancy is acceptance
Acceptance is impartiality
Impartiality is sovereign
Sovereign is Heaven
Heaven is Tao
Tao is eternal
The self is no more, without danger.
The essence of it, seems to me, is that contemplative tranquility through self-acceptance liberates us from the chaotic consequence of our actions and places us firmly in our self-nature. I might be wrong, of course, it is worth reading the entire post, because the author quotes relevant passages from a wide variety of texts.
...The tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering —ours and that which is all around us— everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be.
We begin the practice by taking on the suffering of a person we know to be hurting and who we wish to help. For instance, if you know of a child who is being hurt, you breathe in the wish to take away all the pain and fear of that child. Then, as you breathe out, you send the child happiness, joy or whatever would relieve their pain. This is the core of the practice: breathing in other's pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open, and breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever you feel would bring them relief and happiness.
Again, this is a text that is well worth reading and thinking about, because compassion is the bridge between hearts, as they say.
3. On a lighter vein, this is aDuhism useful to keep in mind:
Trying to improve yourself wastes the time you could use to steal the identity of someone who is already much better.
As we say, we are what we are, and there is no point in trying to improve what we are- it is not going to work.
4. Why should we know what we are? This is a classic passage that I love:
As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one's self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one's nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one's self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form "Who am I?", is the principal means.
6. Sorry, there is lots of stuff of Ramana Maharshi in this post- I try to keep it as diverse as I can, but today I got some really good posts:
Mr. C. R. Wright, his secretary asked: How shall I realise God?
M.: God is an unknown entity. Moreover He is external. Whereas, the Self is always with you and it is you. Why do you leave out what is intimate and go in for what is external?
D.: What is this Self again?
M.: The Self is known to everyone but not clearly. You always exist. The Be-ing is the Self. ‘I am’ is the name of God. Of all the definitions of God, none is indeed so well put as the Biblical statement “I AM THAT IAM” in EXODUS (Chap. 3). There are other statements, such as Brahmaivaham, Aham Brahmasmi and Soham. But none is so direct as the name JEHOVAH = I AM. The Absolute Being is what is - it is the Self. It is God. Knowing the Self, God is known. In fact God is none other than the Self.
Having stopped believing in a God who does not exist, I may be able to trust in a God whose "existence" is not so much an issue (as hinted at by Williams in Tokens of Trust).
People lose their heads quite often in Hindu mythology. On a father’s whim, a son cuts off his mother’s head; demons are decapitated to expel the chaos-threatening poison lurking in their throats; the fidelity of wives and the faith of devotees are tested by beheading; and, in the rituals myth sustains, animals lose their heads to satisfy sacrificial imperatives. But, as Wendy Doniger reassures us in her courageous and scholarly book, in Hindu myth “beheading is seldom fatal”. Nor is it without meaning and purpose, for decapitation proves a means of achieving a creative fusion between apparently incongruous parts. Heads are restored, but they are also misplaced...
1. Remember what I've been saying? Life is about turning up at odd corners: taking chance after chance after chance: probability is insurance against impossibility- this is the most basic law of the universe- widzieć: A mobile phone was lost in the seas off Taiwan, four days after which, it washed up in perfect condition in a beach 37 km away- and the phone was restored to the owner by the parkranger who found it- Reuters.Impossible? Yes. Improbable? Not.
2. So is this: A California man picked up a handful of old records at an antique shop, and shocked himself by learning that they had once belonged to his mother, who died in 1979-UPI
3. Survival tactics of lazy ants: Among all the parasitic ants, Formicoxenus nitidulus, the 'shining guest ant', is a formidable one- it tastes so bad, no ant will clamp its jaw over it- hence it walks about ant colonies with impunity-Not Exactly Rocket Science
4. When given a choice, a lemon shark will hang out with other lemon sharks, and then juvenile sharks would rather be in the company of other similarly sized lemon sharks than to be alone.- "Sharks Choose Friends Based on Two Key Qualities"- you would think this is not exactly rocket science, but wait, this is in Discovery News "Born Animal," which finds, not surprisingly, sharks are brainy.
5. The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus infects Camponotus leonardi ants that live in tropical rainforest trees. Nothing surprising about that. But, once infected, the spore-possessed ant will climb down from its normal habitat and bite down, with what the authors call a "death grip" on a leaf and then die. And where they die, aye, there's the rub- '"The death grip occurred in very precise locations," the authors write'. And the why- "the fungus was transported via the zombie ant to its prime location". Read a real-life horror story at Scientific American- "Fungus Makes Zombie Ants Do All the Work"
7. Among animals, who has more intelligence? No doubts there, but it helps when you have data- "Study finds mammals, birds, fish are evolution's winners; crocodiles, alligators are losers."-Live Science
9. "People say, You can remove it and still live. But you have to be careful with that logic," he said. "You could remove your left leg and still live. But whenever a body part is moved or changed, there's a price to pay."-National Geographic News
Spleen (helps the heart) and Appendix (stores beneficial bacteria that help us digest food) are not really reduntant- it is just that we don't know where they come in.
10. And finally, what a long post!, a beautiful picture: "Insect Flight Patterns- Video composed of long-exposure photos of bugs buzzing around a streetlight" via Kottke
