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Visar inlägg med etikett Mindshift. Visa alla inlägg

onsdag 24 oktober 2012

Rapture of the nerds: will the Singularity turn us into gods or end the human race?

A gathering of experts on artificial intelligence becomes a search for deeper meaning

Hundreds of the world’s brightest minds — engineers from Google and IBM, hedge funds quants, and Defense Department contractors building artificial intelligence — were gathered in rapt attention inside the auditorium of the San Francisco Masonic Temple atop Nob Hill. It was the first day of the seventh annual Singularity Summit, and Julia Galef, the President of the Center for Applied Rationality, was speaking onstage. On the screen behind her, Galef projected a giant image from the film Blade Runner: the replicant Roy, naked, his face stained with blood, cradling a white dove in his arms.

At this point in the movie, Roy is reaching the end of his short, pre-programmed life, “The poignancy of his death scene comes from the contrast between that bitter truth and the fact that he still feels his life has meaning, and for lack of a better word, he has a soul,” said Galef. “To me this is the situation we as humans have found ourselves in over the last century. Turns out we are survival machines created by ancient replicators, DNA, to produce as many copies of them as possible. This is the bitter pill that science has offered us in response to our questions about where we came from and what it all means.”
The Singularity Summit bills itself as the world’s premier event on robotics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies. The attendees, who shelled out $795 for a two-day pass, are people whose careers depend on data, on empirical proof. Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research, discussed advances in probabilistic first-order logic. The Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman lectured on the finer points of heuristics and biases in human psychology. The Power Point presentations were full of math equations and complex charts. Yet time and again the conversation drifted towards the existential: the larger, unanswerable questions of life.

lördag 18 augusti 2012

Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion

27th Jan 2012 - Rupert Sheldrake stopped by at Dunderry Park to talk to Network Ireland, the country's longest running holistic magazine, about his new book The Science Delusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn7zVlz1s7c

The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In this book, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls. Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun.

torsdag 26 juli 2012

HURT: An open letter to Christopher Nolan, Sean Penn and Warner Brothers

It is all so perfectly fitting that in the wake of a murderous rampage in which 70 people are shot —12 fatally, including a 6-year-old girl — and countless families are sacked with unspeakable grief, you would take the time to share with us your feelings.

Because, really, at this moment, all that matters to most of us is what a bunch of smutty purveyors of violent fantasy, half-rate actors and an industry of sick narcissism is feeling at this moment.

Director Christopher Nolan, speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of “The Dark Knight Rises,” you told us how much you love going to the movies and how they are “one of the great American art forms.”

You are devastated that such an “innocent and hopeful place” — here you are talking about the movie theaters that play your twisted movies — would be violated in such an “unbearably savage” way. I mean, really, who could think up such monstrous hatred and nihilistic violence? Umm, have you watched any of your own movies lately?

And, in the selfless modesty that is the hallmark of an Academy Awards ceremony, you tell us that your “feelings” about the massacre are so deeply profound that the mere words of the English language built up over hundreds of years are simply not up to the task of describing them. Wow. You do have a gift for fantasy.

But the real clue that you remain shrouded in guilt-free delusion is when you mention the “senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community.”

Senseless? Really? If by “senseless” you mean carried out almost precisely from the scripts of your own movies, then, sure, it was “senseless.”

As for you, Sean Penn, you paragon of endless moralizing, we would like to thank you, too, for underwriting last week’s ultra-violence and real-life carnage at the movie theater. One of the last scenes that 6-year-old saw in her precious life was a trailer for your movie.

In the final clip of a trailer filled with orgiastic bloodshed, you have some classy “actors” with machine guns unload from behind a movie screen into a crowd seated in a theater, watching a film. Ring a bell, Sean? Sound familiar?

I realize how busy you are, so loudly and obnoxiously jet-setting around to save the world, but do you have time to think about what you have done here? What your life amounts to at this moment?

No, you did not pull the trigger in this case. You did not don the gas mask. But you were the inspiration, and you are the architects.

Your celebrations of diabolical mayhem and pornographic violence prey on the fantasies of sick, fragile minds. You insulated them from the painful reality of bloodshed. You have inspired mass murder. You are the Osama bin Laden of this travesty.

This, of course, is all legal and has made you a fabulous fortune. But, never forget, this is who you are. It is what you do. This is your legacy.

When you die, your gravestones should read: Here lie men who created such horrific, meaningless violence in such realistic scenes that a sicko carried it out for real and shot 70 people, killing 12, including a 6-year-old girl.To be fair, you haven’t only inspired murderous rampages. It is true that you have also entertained. But is the fleetingness of that entertainment nearly so profound as the terror you inspired here? Will it outlast the irreversible permanency of 12 deaths, including that of a 6-year-old girl?

Which brings us to Warner Brothers, those titans of decency. You bankrolled “The Dark Knight Rises” and so many other pointlessly violent movies that infect feeble minds and bring hatred upon America. You, it is reported, are feeling really sad about those poor saps who paid to see your wicked movies — only to have the very scenes come alive and kill them in the dark, sticky rows between seats of a movie theater.

Out of your “respect” for these people, you declared you would not announce box-office receipts from this weekend’s snuff film. Instead, you will count your $150 million in bloody money — privately.

One day, you will meet the original Joker, the inventor of all evil who is diabolical and depraved so far beyond your furthest, sickest imaginations and there, in his lair, you will spend the rest of eternity wishing you had had a little decency back when you had the chance.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/24/hurt-letter-christopher-nolan-sean-penn-warner-bro/?page=1

lördag 21 juli 2012

Dominionism, Evangelicalism And The New World Order

Paul and Phillip Collins join Dr. Future and Tom Bionic in this episode of Future Quake, in which Dominionism, Evangelicalism and the New World Order (among many other things) are discussed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiNhrAqTCaQ

torsdag 19 juli 2012

The Element

How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

The element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. It is here that people feel most themselves, inspired and able to achieve at their highest levels. In this ground-breaking book, world renowned creativity expert Ken Robinson identifies a crisis in education and business: whether it's a child bored in class, a disillusioned or misused employee or someone who feels frustrated but can't quite explain why, too many people don't realize what they are capable of achieving. Through stories of people - like Vidal Sassoon, Ariana Huffington and Matt Groening - who have recognized their unique talents and been able to make a successful living doing what they love, Robinson argues that age and occupation are no barrier and explains how it is possible for each one of us to reach our element. With a wry sense of humour, Ken Robinson inspires us, above all, to reconnect with our true self - it could just change everything.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Element-Finding-Passion-Everything/dp/0670020478

http://www.bokus.com/bok/9780141045252/the-element/

onsdag 18 juli 2012

Who was John Allegro?

Dead Sea Scrolls Cover Up
Discussion about the Dead Sea Scrolls with John Marco Allegro and Ian Walker, 1984.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRixkHH56_A&feature=related

John Marco Allegro was a member of the international team of scholars working to discifer the Dead Sea Scrolls. What did Allegro discover in the those scrolls that ruined his career when he dared write a book about it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTrp5-UJpbg
This book is the first to fully explore the life and ideas of John Marco Allegro (1923-1988), freethinker and rebel, whose work on the Dead Sea Scrolls led him to challenge the church, the team of scholars in charge of editing the Scrolls, and most conventional assumptions about the development of Christianity. / As the first British member of the Scrolls editing team, Allegro shared the excitement, the insights, and the eyestrain of deciphering these invaluable ancient fragments. He made it possible for the Copper Scroll, a mysterious listing of treasure, to be opened in Manchester and did much to focus worldwide attention on the Scrolls as a whole. But he made his name - or gained his notoriety - by questioning orthodox assumptions about the Christian church's origins and authority. / Allegro went on challenging the establishment all his life, and he relished the arguments he provoked. For over thirty years he campaigned for open access to the Scrolls and for wider debate about their significance. To him it was a campaign for free speech and free opinion. Judith Anne Brown's John Marco Allegro is a fascinating, probing, inside account of this irrepressibly original man. Making extensive use of Allegro's letters, lecture notes, draft manuscripts, and other previously unpublished writings, Brown brings to life afresh the extraordinary discoveries and debates that began in the caves by the Dead Sea over half a century ago.
http://www.amazon.com/John-Marco-Allegro-Maverick-Literature/dp/0802863337/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1342628178&sr=8-4&keywords=the+dead+sea+maverick

Red Ice Radio, interview by Henrik Palmgren. - theduderinok's archive - "Jan Irvin who is behind the DVD "The Pharmacratic Inquisition" and co-author of "Astrotheology & Shamanism" joins us on the program to talk about his latest book "The Holy Mushroom - Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity". The Book is a critical re-evaluation of the schism between John Allegro and Gordon Wasson over the theory on the entheogenic origins of Christianity that is presented in John Allegro's book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. We begin to discuss the work of John Allegro and we then move on to talk about Gordon Wasson's work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OT3xJ0M5DA&feature=related

The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross: A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East
Where did God come from? What do the bible stories really tell us? Who or what was Jesus Christ? This book challenges everything we think we know about the nature of religion. • The ancient fertility cult at the heart of Christianity • The living power of cultic rites and symbols • The sacred mushroom as the emblem and embodiment of divinity • The secret meaning of biblical myths • The language of religion that links us to our ancestors The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross sets out John Allegro's quest through a family tree of languages to find the truth about where Christianity came from.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sacred-Mushroom-Cross-Christianity/dp/0982556276/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

lördag 14 juli 2012

Paul Stamets at Bioneers

Presenting solutions for cleaning up petroleum spills and nuclear accidents, replacements for antimicrobial drugs; treatment against flu, pox, herpes, cancer, etc. and pest control that effectively renders chemical pesticides obsolete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPAMbxlJUy8&feature=related