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- :credits_core_team
- = 0.1
- The core development team of The Witness
- was comprised more or less as follows:
- = 5.7
- Design and Generally Steering the Ship,
- Jonathan Blow
- = 10.0
- Programming:
- Ignacio Castaño
- Salvador Bel Murciano
- Andrew Smith
- = 17.1
- Modeling and Texturing:
- Luis Antonio
- Orsolya Spanyol
- Eric A Anderson
- : credits_additional
- Additional contributions in modeling by
- = 2.8
- Shannon Galvin
- Alex Haworth
- = 5.9
- Andrea Blasich
- Eric Urquhart
- = 9.0
- and David Hellman
- = 11.0
- Additional contributions in programming by
- = 14.0
- Casey Muratori
- Andrew Hynek
- and Nicholas Ray
- : credits_audio
- = 0.0
- Audio by Wabi Sabi Sound:
- = 2.57
- Andrew Lackey
- Beau Anthony Jimenez
- = 6.5
- Geoff Garnett, Luca Fusi,
- Eric Lorenz
- = 10.5
- : credits_voicework_story
- = 0.0
- Voice Performances by:
- = 2.7
- Ashley Johnson,
- Phil LaMarr,
- = 6.0
- Terra Deva, and
- Matthew Waterson.
- = 9.4
- Voicework recorded at Warner Bros. Studios
- = 12.7
- Project Manager: Emma Weston
- Casting Director: Pierce O’Toole
- Voice Over Director: Liam O’Brien
- = 22.5
- Sound Engineers:
- Alan Freedman, C.A.S.
- R. Dutch Hill
- = 28.9
- Dialogue Editor – Goeun Lee
- = 32.2
- Director of Photography for the office shoot:
- Caroline Harrison
- = 36.5
- Early placeholder voicework by
- Trisha Miller, Andrew Burlinson, and Daniel Van Thomas.
- = 43.8
- Tom Bissell served as an early story consultant.
- = 47.2
- The quote from Augustine of Hippo
- was translated by Michael Nagler,
- and can be found in Eknath Easwaran's book
- “God Makes the Rivers to Flow”.
- : credits_architecture
- = 0.0
- Architecture:
- FOURM Design Studio:
- Deanna Van Buren, Rodrigo Lima
- = 7.2
- Fletcher Studio:
- David Fletcher, Nicolaus Wright, Beth Bokulich
- : credits_thanks
- Special thanks to
- Jeff Roberts
- and Daniel Maciel
- : credits_testing
- = 0.0
- In-House playtesting by:
- = 2.7
- Francis Dooling
- = 4.5
- Michael Calandra
- = 6.1
- Timothy Steen
- = 8.4
- Thanks to our friends who helped playtest:
- = 11.7
- Daniel Benmergui, Marc ten Bosch,
- = 15.7
- Vi Hart, Chris Hecker,
- = 19.5
- Brian Moriarty, Chris Butcher,
- = 23.7
- Erin Robinson, Jeff Roberts,
- Won Chun
- : credits_sony
- = 0.2
- Special thanks to our friends at Sony,
- = 3.0
- Nick Suttner,
- Adam Boyes,
- = 6.8
- Justin Massongill,
- Alessandro Bovenzi
- : feynman
- = 0.5
- And so,
- by a backhanded, upside-down argument,
- = 5.0
- was predicted that there is in carbon
- a level at 7.82 million volts;
- = 10.2
- and then experiments in the laboratory with carbon
- show indeed that there is.
- = 14.8
- And therefore the existence in the world of all these other elements
- is very closely related to the fact
- that there is this particular level in carbon.
- = 23.5
- But the position of this particular level in carbon seems to us,
- after knowing the physical laws,
- = 28.8
- to be a very complicated accident
- of twelve complicated particles interacting.
- = 33.3
- So I use to illustrate, by this example,
- that an understanding of the physical laws
- = 39.5
- doesn’t give an understanding in a sense of a —
- understanding significance of the world in any way.
- = 48.2
- The details of real experience are very far, often,
- from the fundamental laws.
- = 56.4
- There are, in a way of speaking in the world —
- = 59.1
- We have a way of discussing the world,
- which you could call a,
- we discuss it at various hierarchies, or levels.
- = 65.5
- Now I don’t mean to be very precise,
- there’s a level, there’s another level, and another level,
- = 70.0
- but I will indicate, by describing a set of ideas to you,
- just one after the other,
- what I mean by hierarchies of ideas.
- = 81.0
- For example, at one end, we have the fundamental laws of physics.
- = 85.5
- Then we invent other terms for concepts which are approximate,
- who have, we believe, their ultimate explanation
- in terms of the fundamental laws.
- = 93.7
- For instance, ‘heat’. Heat is supposed to be the jiggling,
- and it’s just a word for — a hot thing is just a word
- for a mass of atoms which are jiggling.
- = 101.9
- Thought out fundamentally, we should think of the atoms jiggling.
- = 105.0
- But for a while, if we’re talking about heat,
- we sometimes forget about the atoms jiggling —
- = 109.7
- just like when we talk about the glacier
- we don’t always think of the hexagonal ice
- snowflakes which originally fell.
- = 117.5
- Another example of the same thing is a salt crystal.
- Looked at fundamentally,
- it’s a lot of protons, neutrons, and electrons;
- = 123.5
- but we have this concept ’salt crystal’,
- which carries a whole pattern, already,
- of fundamental interactions.
- = 130.2
- Or an idea like pressure.
- = 133.7
- Now if we go higher up from this,
- in another level, we have properties of substances —
- = 139.2
- like ’refractive index’,
- how light is bent when it goes through something;
- = 142.8
- or ’surface tension’,
- the fact that the water tends to pull itself together,
- = 146.8
- is described by a number.
- = 148.4
- I remind you that we have to go through several laws down
- to find out that it’s the pull of the atoms, and so on.
- = 155.2
- But we still say it’s ’surface tension’, and don’t worry,
- when we’re discussing surface tension, of the inner workings —
- always — sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.
- = 161.8
- Go on — up — in the hierarchy.
- = 164.9
- With the water we have the waves
- and we have a thing like a storm,
- we have a word ’storm’ which represents
- an enormous mass of phenomena,
- = 173.0
- or ’sunspot’ or ’star’, which is an accumulation of things.
- And it’s not worthwhile always to think of it way back.
- = 181.9
- In fact we can’t, because the higher up we go,
- we have too many steps in between,
- each one of which is a little weak,
- and we haven’t thought them all through yet.
- = 190.4
- As we go up in this hierarchy of complexity,
- we get to things like frog, or nerve impulse,
- = 199.1
- which, you see, is an enormously complicated thing
- in the physical world, involving an organization of matter
- in a very elaborate complexity.
- = 208.3
- And then we go on, we come to things, words and concepts
- like ’man’, and ’history’, or ’political expediency’,
- and so forth,
- = 219.9
- which is a series of concepts
- that we use to understand things at an ever-higher level.
- = 224.7
- And going on, we come to things like evil, and beauty, and hope...
- = 232.0
- Now which end is nearer to the ultimate creator, or the ultimate?
- So if I make a religious metaphor, which end is nearer to God?
- = 244.8
- Beauty and hope, or the fundamental laws?
- = 248.4
- I think that the right way, of course, is to say
- the whole structural interconnections of the thing
- is the thing that we have to look at,
- = 257.8
- and that the sequence of hierar —
- = 259.0
- that all the sciences and all the efforts,
- not just the sciences but all the efforts of intellectual kinds,
- = 265.1
- are to see the connections of the hierarchies,
- to connect beauty to history,
- to connect history to man’s psychology,
- = 271.8
- man’s psychology to the working of the brain,
- the brain to the neural impulse,
- = 275.7
- the neural impulse to the chemistry,
- and so forth, up and down, both ways.
- = 279.8
- And today we cannot,
- and there’s no use making believe we can,
- draw carefully a line all the way
- from one end of this thing to the other,
- = 286.7
- in fact we’ve just begun to see
- that there is this relative hierarchy.
- = 293.0
- And so I don’t think either end is nearer to God’s.
- = 295.8
- And that to stand at either end,
- and to walk out off the end of the pier only,
- hoping out in that direction is the complete understanding,
- is a mistake.
- = 305.3
- And to stand with evil and beauty and hope,
- or to stand with the fundamental laws,
- = 312.0
- hoping that way to get a deep understanding of the whole world,
- with that aspect alone, is a mistake.
- = 318.7
- And it is not sensible either,
- for the ones who specialize at one end,
- and the ones who specialize at the other end,
- = 326.2
- to have such disregard for each other.
- (They don’t actually, but the people say they do. Sorry.)
- = 334.9
- But that actually,
- the great mass of workers in between,
- = 338.7
- connecting one step to another,
- are improving all the time our understanding of the world,
- = 343.4
- both from working at the ends and working in the middle.
- = 347.0
- And in that way
- we are gradually understanding this connection,
- this tremendous world of interconnecting hierarchies.
- = 356.4
- = 357.5
- If you expected science to give all the answers
- to the wonderful questions about what we are,
- = 361.5
- where we’re going,
- what the meaning of the universe is and so on,
- = 366.0
- then I think you could easily become disillusioned
- and then look for some mystic answer to these problems.
- = 371.5
- How a scientist can take a mystic answer I don’t know
- because the whole spirit is to understand —
- = 377.0
- well, never mind that. Anyhow, I don’t understand that,
- but anyhow if you think of it,
- = 383.0
- the way I think of what we’re doing is we’re exploring,
- we’re trying to find out as much as we can about the world.
- = 388.7
- People say to me, "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?"
- No, I’m not, I’m just looking to find out more about the world
- = 396.0
- and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law
- that explains everything,
- so be it, that would be very nice to discover.
- = 401.8
- If it turns out it’s like an onion with millions of layers
- and we’re just sick and tired of looking at the layers,
- then that’s the way it is,
- = 407.9
- but whatever way it comes out its nature is there
- and she’s going to come out the way she is,
- = 413.0
- and therefore when we go to investigate it we shouldn’t pre-decide
- what it is we’re trying to do
- except to find out more about it.
- = 420.2
- If you said your problem is,
- why do you find out more about it,
- = 423.4
- if you thought you were trying to find out more about it
- because you’re going to get an answer
- to some deep philosophical question,
- you may be wrong.
- = 430.7
- It may be that you can’t get an answer to that particular question
- by finding out more about the character of nature,
- = 436.3
- but I don’t look at it —
- = 438.8
- My interest in science is to simply find out about the world,
- and the more I find out the better it is.
- = 444.5
- I like to find out.
- = 446.8
- There are very remarkable mysteries
- about the fact that we’re able to do so many more things
- than apparently animals can do, and other questions like that,
- = 454.5
- but those are mysteries I want to investigate
- without knowing the answer to them.
- = 459.0
- And so altogether I can’t believe the special stories
- that have been made up
- about our relationship to the universe at large
- = 467.0
- because —
- = 469.9
- they seem to be —
- = 473.5
- too simple, too connected to —
- = 477.0
- Too local! Too provincial!
- The earth, he came to the earth!
- = 480.8
- One of the aspects of God came to the earth, mind you,
- = 485.3
- and look at what’s out there. How can you —
- It isn’t in proportion.
- = 492.5
- Anyway, it’s no use arguing, I can’t argue it,
- = 495.0
- I’m just trying to tell you why the scientific views that I have
- do have some effect on my beliefs. And also another thing
- = 504.8
- has to do with the question
- of how you find out if something’s true,
- = 509.5
- and if you have all these theories,
- the different religions
- have all different theories about the thing,
- = 515.2
- then you begin to wonder. Once you start doubting,
- just like you’re supposed to doubt, you ask me is the science true.
- = 520.0
- We say no no, we don’t know what’s true,
- we’re trying to find out, everything is possibly wrong.
- = 523.7
- Start out understanding religion by saying
- everything is possibly wrong; let us see.
- = 527.9
- As soon as you do that, you start sliding down an edge
- which is hard to recover from.
- = 534.0
- And so with the scientific view, well, my father’s view,
- that we should look to see what’s true
- and what may not be true,
- = 541.4
- once you start doubting, which I think to me
- is a very fundamental part of my soul,
- is to doubt and to ask,
- = 550.3
- and when you doubt and ask it gets a little harder to believe.
- = 555.5
- You see, one thing is,
- I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing.
- I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing
- than to have answers which might be wrong.
- = 570.2
- I have approximate answers and possible beliefs
- and different degrees of certainty about different things,
- = 575.0
- but I’m not absolutely sure of anything
- and there are many things I don’t know anything about,
- = 579.1
- such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here,
- and what the question might mean.
- = 585.0
- I might think about it a little bit,
- if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else,
- = 590.2
- but I don’t have to know an answer.
- I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things,
- = 596.5
- by being lost in the mysterious universe
- without having any purpose,
- = 600.8
- which is the way it really is so far as I can tell.
- Possibly.
- = 604.0
- It doesn’t frighten me.
- = 606.0
- : burke
- = 5.9
- Well, that’s no better a solution than any of the others, is it?
- = 11.1
- So, in the end, have we learned anything
- from this look at why the world turned out the way it did
- = 19.4
- that’s of any use to us in our future?
- Something, I think.
- = 25.2
- That the key to why things change is the key to everything.
- How easy is it for knowledge to spread?
- = 35.4
- And that, in the past, the people who made change happen
- were the people who had that knowledge,
- whether they were craftsmen or kings.
- = 45.8
- Today, the people who make things change,
- the people who have that knowledge,
- = 51.8
- are the scientists and the technologists
- who are the true driving force of humanity.
- = 56.8
- And before you say,
- "What about the Beethovens and the Michelangeloes,"
- let me suggest something with which you may disagree violently:
- = 65.7
- that at best the products of human emotion:
- art — philosophy — politics — music — literature,
- = 73.3
- are interpretations of the world,
- = 76.7
- that tell you more about the guy who’s talking
- than about the world he’s talking about.
- = 81.0
- = 82.9
- Secondhand views of the world
- made thirdhand by your interpretation of them.
- = 90.0
- Things like that:
- = 91.5
- As opposed to
- = 92.3
- this:
- = 93.5
- Know what it is?
- = 95.0
- It’s a bunch of amino acids,
- the stuff that goes to build up a —
- = 99.3
- a worm,
- or a geranium,
- = 101.7
- = 102.2
- or you.
- = 104.6
- This stuff’s easier to take, isn’t it?
- = 106.7
- Understandable; got people in it.
- = 110.4
- This, scientific knowledge,
- is hard to take
- = 114.3
- because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion, ideology,
- and leaves only what is demonstrably true about the world.
- = 125.4
- And the reason why so many people
- may be thinking about throwing away those crutches
- = 130.7
- is because, thanks to science and technology,
- they have begun to know that they don’t know so much
- = 138.5
- and that if they’re to have
- more say in what happens to their lives,
- = 142.4
- more freedom to develop their abilities to the full,
- = 145.6
- they have to be helped towards that knowledge
- that they know exists and that they don’t possess.
- = 151.8
- And by "helped towards that knowledge", I don’t mean
- give everybody a computer and say "help yourself!"
- = 157.6
- Where would you even start?
- = 159.0
- No, I mean,
- trying to find ways to translate the knowledge,
- to teach us to ask the right questions.
- = 167.9
- See, we’re on the edge of a revolution
- in communications technology
- that is going to make that more possible than ever before.
- = 175.4
- Or, if that’s not done,
- to cause an explosion of knowledge
- = 180.8
- that will leave those of us who don’t have access to it
- as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb and blind.
- = 187.5
- And I don’t think most people want that.
- = 190.0
- So what do we do about it?
- I don’t know.
- = 194.4
- But maybe a good start
- would be to recognize, within yourself,
- the ability to understand anything
- = 200.6
- because that ability’s there,
- as long as it’s explained clearly enough.
- = 205.3
- And then go and ask for explanations.
- = 209.4
- And if you’re thinking right now, "What do I ask for?"
- = 213.3
- Ask yourself if there’s anything in your life
- that you want changed.
- = 219.65
- That’s where to start.
- = 221.4
- : psalm46
- = 23.0
- How many of you here have personally witnessed
- a total eclipse of the sun?
- = 29.7
- To stand one day in the shadow of the moon
- is one of my humble goals in life.
- = 36.4
- The closest I ever came was over thirty years ago.
- = 40.2
- On February 26, 1979,
- a solar eclipse passed directly over the city of Portland.
- = 48.2
- I bought my bus tickets and found a place to stay.
- But in the end, I couldn’t get the time off work.
- = 55.4
- Well, anyone who lives in Portland can tell you
- that the chances of catching the sun in February
- are pretty slim.
- = 62.3
- And sure enough, the skies over the city that day
- were completely overcast. I wouldn’t have seen a thing.
- = 70.4
- That work I couldn’t get out of
- was my first job out of college:
- = 74.8
- A sales clerk at an old Radio Shack store
- in beautiful downtown Worcester, Massachusetts.
- = 82.6
- On my very first day behind the counter,
- a delivery truck pulled up to the front of the store.
- = 88.7
- They carried in a big carton,
- upon which was printed the legend TRS-80.
- = 95.8
- It was our floor sample
- of the world’s first mass-market microcomputer.
- = 102.3
- The TRS-80 Model I
- had a Z80 processor clocked at 1.7 megahertz,
- = 108.2
- 4,096 bytes of memory,
- and a 64-character black-and-white text display.
- = 114.8
- The only storage was a cassette recorder.
- All this could be yours for the low, low price of $599.
- = 123.7
- This store I was working in had seen better days.
- = 128.2
- At one time, it had been near the center
- of a thriving commercial district.
- = 133.1
- But like so many other New England cities,
- the advent of shopping malls had, by the early ‘70s,
- turned it into a ghost town.
- = 142.3
- Worcester’s solution to this problem was decisive,
- to say the least.
- = 147.3
- The city’s elders apparently decided
- that if they couldn’t beat them, they would join them.
- = 152.8
- And so several square blocks at the heart of the city
- were bulldozed into oblivion,
- destroying dozens of family businesses,
- = 161.2
- including the site of a pharmacy
- once operated by my great-grandfather.
- = 166.8
- In their place was erected
- a vast three-level shopping complex,
- with cinemas and a food court.
- = 173.4
- When the dust settled,
- only a few forlorn blocks of the old Worcester remained standing.
- = 179.8
- My Radio Shack store was in one of those blocks.
- = 185.6
- Then, to add insult to injury,
- Radio Shack opened a brand-new location inside the shopping center,
- less than 500 feet from my store.
- = 195.9
- So now patrons has a choice between a clean,
- well-lighted establishment with uniformed security
- and acres of convenient parking,
- = 204.3
- or a shadowy hole in a seedy old office building
- next to an adult movie theater.
- = 211.0
- Consequently, I had plenty of time to fool around
- with the new computer.
- = 219.4
- I taught myself BASIC programming.
- Then I learned Z80 assembly.
- Both, of course, so that I could write games.
- = 225.7
- I also created self-running animated demos
- which ran all night in the store window
- for the edification of the winos who peed in our doorway.
- = 235.6
- Strangely enough, the few customers we had
- didn’t seem to be interested in our new computer,
- even after the 16K memory upgrade.
- = 244.1
- In fact, most of the people who set off the buzzer
- on their way through the front door
- weren’t there to buy anything at all.
- = 250.9
- They were there to exploit a free promotion
- which was the bane of Radio Shack employees for over forty years:
- The Battery of the Month Club.
- = 261.7
- The idea of this promotion was simple.
- = 264.9
- Customers got a little red card
- upon which was printed a square for each month.
- = 270.2
- Twelve times a year, the lucky sales clerk
- got to punch out a square and give the customer
- one brand new triple-A, double-A, C, D or 9-volt battery.
- = 281.5
- Of course, customers weren’t allowed to choose
- just any grade of battery.
- = 286.5
- At the time of my employment,
- Radio Shack offered three different levels of battery excellence.
- = 293.3
- First were the alkalines, powerful, long-lasting and expensive,
- hanging behind the counter like prescription medication
- in gold-embossed blister packs.
- = 304.1
- These were most certainly not available
- through the Battery of the Month Club.
- = 309.3
- Next were the high-end lead batteries,
- sturdy, dependable batteries, moderately priced,
- and prominently displayed near the front of the store.
- = 318.5
- These were also not available
- through the Battery of the Month Club.
- = 323.0
- Finally, at the bottom of the barrel,
- were the standard lead batteries.
- = 327.9
- These were literally piled in barrels,
- cunningly located way at the back of the store,
- in a dark corner near the TV antennas.
- = 337.4
- Remember TV antennas?
- = 341.0
- Customers who came in looking
- for their free Battery of the Month
- had to walk the entire length of the premises,
- = 346.4
- past the CB radios and stereo headphones
- and remote-controlled racing cars.
- = 352.5
- Nothing would stop them.
- = 355.4
- On the first day of every month, like clockwork,
- those customers come in waving their little red cards.
- = 362.5
- I would look up from my programming
- and wave them to the back of the store.
- = 367.0
- It didn’t matter that the batteries
- were only worth twenty-nine cents.
- = 371.0
- It didn’t matter that most of them
- were already half dead.
- = 374.3
- They came. They grabbed.
- And, as far as I can remember,
- not one of them ever paid for a damned thing.
- = 383.2
- I was such a crappy salesman. I was young and foolish.
- = 389.1
- I thought my education in game design
- was happening at the keyboard.
- = 394.4
- I almost missed the lesson coming through the front door.
- = 400.0
- Fortunately, I wasn’t the only person
- fooling around with games on micros.
- = 405.3
- All over the country, people like me were experimenting.
- = 409.7
- Scott Adams was coding what would soon become
- the world’s first commercial adventure game.
- = 415.3
- Remember adventure games?
- = 418.6
- My future employer, Infocom, was being founded,
- along with other legendary companies
- like On-Line Systems, Sirius, Personal Software and SSI.
- = 430.6
- Those were exciting times.
- = 433.0
- Teenagers were making fortunes.
- = 436.2
- Games were cheap and easy to build.
- The slate was clean.
- = 444.3
- But in 1979, the biggest news in gaming had nothing to do with computers.
- = 452.5
- On the morning of the autumn equinox, September 20th,
- a new children’s picture book appeared in the stores of Great Britain.
- = 461.7
- This picture book was rather peculiar.
- = 464.8
- It consisted of 15 meticulously detailed color paintings,
- illustrating a slight, whimsical tale
- about a rabbit delivering a jewel to the moon.
- = 477.3
- On the back jacket of the book was a color photograph
- of a real jewel shaped like a running rabbit, five inches long,
- = 485.3
- fashioned of 18-karat gold, suspended with ornaments and bells,
- together with a sun and moon of blue quartz.
- = 494.8
- According to the blurb underneath,
- this very jewel had been buried somewhere in England.
- = 501.8
- Clues pointing to its location were concealed in the text
- and in the pictures of the book.
- = 509.0
- The treasure would belong to whoever found it first.
- = 513.9
- The book was called Masquerade.
- It was created by an eccentric little man with divergent eyes
- and a talent for mischief named Kit Williams.
- = 525.4
- Within days, the first printing was sold out.
- And the Empire That Never Sleeps
- found itself in the grip of Rabbit Fever.
- = 535.2
- Excited readers attacked the paintings with rulers,
- compasses and protractors.
- = 540.4
- Magazine articles and TV specials dissected the clues,
- floated theories, and followed with keen delight
- the reckless exploits of the fanatics.
- = 550.8
- One obscure park, unfortunately known by the nickname Rabbit Hill,
- was so riddled with holes excavated by misguided treasure seekers
- = 561.2
- that the authorities had to erect signs assuring the public
- that no gold rabbits were to be found there.
- = 568.8
- Some hunters ended up seeking psychological counseling for their obsession.
- = 574.0
- The craze lept over the Atlantic Ocean and invaded
- America, France, Italy and Germany.
- = 581.7
- It sold over a million copies in a few months,
- a record unrivalled by any children’s title
- until the advent of Harry Potter.
- = 590.9
- Over 150,000 copies were sold in foreign translations,
- including 80,000 copies in Japanese,
- despite the fact that the puzzle was only solvable in English.
- = 604.0
- It didn’t matter that the Masquerade jewel
- was only worth a few thousand dollars.
- = 609.0
- Many seekers spent far more than that
- in their months of exploration and travel.
- = 614.7
- It was the thrill of the chase.
- The possibility of being The One.
- = 621.8
- Treasure hunts, secret messages and hidden things
- seem to exert an irresistible appeal.
- = 629.9
- They’re fun to look for, and to talk about.
- = 632.8
- And this fact of human psychology
- has been exploited in computer games since the earliest days.
- = 640.8
- It finds expression in the hidden surprises we call Easter eggs.
- = 648.4
- Atari’s Steven Wright is credited with coining this term
- in the first issue of Electronic Games magazine.
- = 658.4
- The first Easter egg in a commercial computer game
- appeared in an early Atari 2600 cartridge
- called, simply enough, Adventure.
- = 667.6
- By a sequence of unlikely movements and obscure manipulations,
- players could discover a secret room where the words
- “Created by Warren Robinet” appeared in flashing letters.
- = 680.5
- Over the decades, Easter eggs and their evil twin, cheat codes,
- have become an industry within an industry.
- = 688.2
- Entire magazines and Web sites are now devoted
- to their carefully orchestrated discovery and dissemination.
- = 696.0
- They’re part of our toolkit, our basic vocabulary,
- the language of computer game design.
- = 703.1
- Computer gamers may have been the first to refer
- to hidden surprises as Easter eggs,
- but we certainly weren’t the first to use them.
- = 711.4
- Painters, composers and artists of every discipline
- have been hiding stuff in their works for centuries.
- = 719.0
- The recent advent of VCRs
- and laserdisc players with freeze-frame capability
- exposed decades of secret Disney erotica.
- = 728.8
- Thomas Kinkade, the self-appointed “Painter of Light,”
- amuses himself by hiding the letter N in his works.
- = 736.8
- A number beside his signature indicates how many Ns
- are hidden in each painting.
- = 742.9
- Picasso, Dali, Raphael, Poussin and dozens of other painters
- concealed all kinds of stuff in their paintings.
- = 751.3
- A favorite trick was hiding portraits of themselves,
- their families, friends and fellow artists in crowd scenes.
- = 759.5
- El Greco loved dogs. But the Catholic Church forbid him
- from including any in his sacred paintings.
- = 766.7
- So he hid them, usually within the outlines of celestial clouds.
- = 772.7
- Composer Dmitri Shostakovich chafed under the political censorship
- imposed by the Soviet Ministry of Culture.
- = 780.7
- His symphonies and chamber works are loaded with hidden signatures
- and subversive subtexts which, had they been recognized,
- would have sent him to Siberia.
- = 791.9
- Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute is filled with musical allusions
- to the rituals of the Freemasons, the ancient secret society
- of which he and his mentor Haydn were members.
- = 805.5
- But the most famous purveyor of Easter eggs is that champion
- of the late Baroque, the ultimate musical nerd, Johann Sebastian Bach.
- = 816.6
- Bach was a student of gematria, the art of assigning numeric values
- to letters of the alphabet: A=1, B=2, C=3, et cetera.
- = 829.1
- By comparing, sequencing or otherwise manipulating these numbers,
- secret messages can be concealed.
- = 836.8
- Bach took particular delight in the gematriacal numbers 14 and 41.
- = 844.0
- 14 is the sum of the initials of his last name: B=2, A=1, C=3 and H=8.
- = 854.5
- 41 is the sum of his expanded initials, J S BACH.
- = 860.2
- These two numbers show up over and over again in Bach’s compositions.
- = 866.4
- One of the better-known examples is his setting
- of the chorale “Vor deinen Thron.”
- = 871.6
- The first line of the melody contains exactly 14 notes,
- and the entire melody from start to finish contains 41.
- = 881.0
- Another of Bach’s favorite games was the puzzle canon.
- = 885.4
- A canon is a melody that sounds good when you play it
- on top of itself, a little bit out of sync.
- = 891.8
- “Frère Jacques” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
- are familiar examples of simple, two-voice canons.
- = 898.6
- But a canon can employ any number of voices.
- = 902.4
- And you don’t have to play each voice the same way, either.
- = 905.7
- You can change the octave, transpose the key,
- invert the pitch, play it backwards, or any combination.
- = 913.3
- Finding melodies that make good multi-voice canons
- is a fussy and difficult art, of which Bach was an undisputed master.
- = 923.5
- Now, in a puzzle canon,
- the composer specifies the basic melody and the number of voices,
- but not the relationship of the voices.
- = 932.5
- The student has to figure out the position and key of each voice,
- and whether to perform them inverted and/or backwards.
- = 941.1
- Bach wrote quite a number of puzzle canons.
- The most famous, BWV 1076, is part of a fascinating story.
- = 950.8
- One of Bach’s students was a fellow by the name of Lorenz Mizler,
- founder of The Society of Musical Science.
- = 958.5
- This elite, invitation-only institution
- devoted itself to the study of Pythagorean philosophy,
- and the union of music and mathematics.
- = 969.4
- Its distinguished membership reads like a Who’s Who of German composers,
- including Handel, Telemann and eventually Mozart.
- = 979.0
- Applicants for membership in the Society
- were required to submit an oil portrait of themselves,
- along with a specimen of original music.
- = 988.4
- With nerdly efficiency, society member number 14 decided
- to combine these admission requirements into a single work.
- = 997.9
- He sat for a portrait with Elias Haussmann,
- official artist at the court of Dresden.
- = 1004.0
- This portrait, which now hangs in the gallery
- of the Town Hall in Leipzig,
- is the only indisputably authentic image of Bach in existence.
- = 1016.7
- The Haussman portrait shows Bach dressed in a formal coat
- with exactly 14 buttons. In his hand is a sheet of music paper
- upon which is written a puzzle canon for six simultaneous voices.
- = 1034.5
- In 1974, a manuscript was discovered which proved
- that this canon was the thirteenth in a series of exactly 14 canons
- based on the ground theme of the famous Goldberg Variations.
- = 1049.5
- As if these musical gymnastics weren’t enough,
- Bach liked to hide messages in his compositions
- by assigning notes to the letters.
- = 1059.0
- His initials B-A-C-H correspond to the pitch sequence
- B-flat, A, C and B-natural in German letter notation.
- = 1070.1
- This theme makes its most memorable appearance
- in the last bars of his final composition,
- The Art of Fugue, published soon after his death in 1750.
- = 1081.8
- The word “fugue” comes from the Latin fuga,
- which means flight (as in running away).
- = 1089.0
- So the art of fugue is the art of flight,
- the art of taking a theme and running with it.
- = 1096.0
- Bach wrote hundreds of fugues,
- but none as sublime as this sequence of 14.
- = 1103.3
- In the last and most complicated fugue in the series,
- the first and second sections develop normally.
- = 1109.8
- This is followed by the B-A-C-H signature,
- and then suddenly, without any warning or structural justification,
- the fugue stops dead in its tracks.
- = 1122.0
- One of the composer’s 20 children,
- his son Carl Philipp Emanuel,
- claimed that Bach died moments after those last few notes were written.
- = 1132.0
- This story is probably apocryphal.
- = 1135.6
- The Easter eggs in Bach’s music are a pleasant obscurity,
- known chiefly to professors and students of Baroque music.
- = 1144.4
- But in March of 2002, when this lecture was first delivered,
- those Easter eggs were the talk of the entire classical music industry.
- = 1154.6
- Sitting near the top of the classical music charts that month
- was a compact disc on the ECM label called Morimur.
- = 1162.7
- It is performed by the Hilliard choral ensemble
- together with a talented but, until then,
- little-known violinist, Christoph Poppen.
- = 1171.9
- The music on Morimur is based on a gematriacal analysis
- of Bach’s Partita in D Minor for solo violin.
- = 1180.4
- This analysis, by German professor Helga Thoene,
- assigns numeric values to the duration of notes,
- the number of bars, and the German letter notation of the Partita.
- = 1192.2
- In doing so, she claims to have discovered the complete text
- of several liturgical ceremonies encoded in the notes.
- = 1200.6
- The CD presents these hidden texts,
- superimposed over the original music.
- = 1206.8
- The result was strangely melancholy,
- dark, haunting, and very, very popular.
- = 1214.3
- Quite a few music critics attacked this disc.
- = 1217.8
- They didn’t buy Professor Thoene’s analysis,
- dismissing it as a combination of numerology and canny marketing.
- = 1225.5
- Their caution was not without basis.
- = 1228.8
- Numerology is a slippery slope
- down which many a fine mind has slid to its doom.
- = 1236.3
- Allow me to offer an amusing anecdote from my own experience.
- = 1241.0
- Back in the early ‘90s, before the Internet took off,
- one of the more popular online bulletin board systems
- was a service called Prodigy.
- = 1250.7
- I bought an account on Prodigy
- so I could join a fraternal interest group,
- and gossip with fellow members around the country.
- = 1258.4
- One day, a stranger appeared on our bulletin board.
- Right away, I knew we were in trouble.
- = 1267.0
- This fellow, whose name was Gary,
- began spouting all kinds of apocalyptic nonsense
- about worldwide conspiracies, secret societies and devil worship.
- = 1280.1
- At first we tried to be polite.
- = 1282.4
- We questioned his sources, corrected his histories,
- logically refuted his claims, and tried to behave in a civilized manner.
- = 1291.3
- But instead of soothing him, our attention only made him worse.
- = 1295.7
- His conspiratorial warnings became urgent, approaching hysteria.
- He began to threaten people who disagreed with him.
- To coin a phrase, Gary went All Upper Case.
- = 1307.5
- But his most urgent warnings weren’t about the gays,
- the Jews, the Rockefellers or the Illuminati.
- = 1314.3
- According to Gary, the greatest enemy of mankind was Santa Claus.
- = 1320.8
- Gary claimed to possess a secret numerical formula
- that “proved” beyond a shadow of a doubt
- that Santa Claus was an avatar of the Antichrist.
- = 1332.1
- Intrigued, we pressed Gary to reveal his formula.
- In doing so, we walked right into his trap.
- We should have known he had a book to sell.
- = 1343.4
- I fell for it. I sent him the fifteen bucks.
- Less than a week later the book arrived.
- = 1349.5
- Above an ominous photograph of the Washington monument
- was emblazoned the title: 666: The Final Warning!
- = 1359.5
- Inside this privately printed 494-page monster,
- Gary reveals a simple gematriacal formula
- which he claims was developed by the ancient Sumerians.
- = 1372.2
- This formula assigns successive products of 6
- to each letter of the alphabet: A=6, B=12, C=18, etc.
- = 1384.3
- Imagine my dismay when I applied this ancient formula
- to the name “Santa Claus,” and obtained the blasphemous sum of 666,
- the Biblical Number of the Beast!
- = 1397.8
- I went on Prodigy and reported
- to the stunned members of our interest group
- that Gary was right, after all.
- = 1405.3
- There could be no doubt that,
- according to the unimpeachable wisdom of ancient Sumeria,
- Santa Claus was the AntiChrist.
- = 1414.0
- I then went on to point out several other names which,
- when submitted to Gary’s formula, also produced the sum 666.
- = 1422.6
- Names like “Saint James,” “New York” and “New Mexico.”
- = 1428.8
- Soon the bulletin board was filled with discoveries
- like “computer,” “Boston tea” and, most sinister of all, “sing karaoke.”
- = 1440.5
- Gary left us alone after that. I got my $15 worth.
- = 1445.8
- But Gary is hardly the first person
- to connect secret codes to the Bible.
- = 1451.7
- People have been looking for Easter eggs in the Bible
- for hundreds of years.
- = 1457.2
- The Hebrew mystical tradition of kabbalah
- can be described as a gematriacal meditation on the Pentateuch,
- the first five books of the Old Testament.
- = 1467.7
- The advent of computers
- has made the application of numerology to the Bible
- fast and efficient.
- = 1474.7
- The latest spate of Bible-searching
- was instigated by a book published in 1998 by Michael Drosnin,
- a former Wall Street Journal reporter.
- = 1485.2
- His book, The Bible Code, applied a skip-cypher,
- in which every nth character in a text is combined to form a message.
- = 1497.2
- By applying his skip-cypher to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament,
- Drosnin claimed to have discovered predictions of World War II,
- the Holocaust, Hiroshima,
- the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and both Kennedys,
- = 1511.6
- the moon landing, Watergate, the Oklahoma City bombing,
- the election of Bill Clinton, the death of Princess Di
- and the comet that collided with Jupiter.
- = 1522.8
- He also found predictions of a giant earthquake in LA,
- a meteor hitting the earth, and nuclear armageddon,
- all scheduled to occur before the end of the last decade.
- = 1534.6
- The Bible Code spent many weeks on the bestseller lists,
- spawning several sequels and dozens of imitators.
- = 1542.9
- The Bible has certainly attracted its share of crackpots.
- = 1546.9
- But for the real hardcore egg hunters,
- nothing can rival the ingenuity, the tenacious scholarship,
- the stubborn zeal of those who seek the answer
- to the ultimate literary puzzle.
- = 1560.9
- A poisonous conundrum that has squandered fortunes,
- destroyed careers, and driven healthy,
- intelligent scholars to the brink of madness, and beyond.
- = 1574.4
- Who wrote Shakespeare?
- = 1578.6
- The essays and books devoted to the Shakespeare authorship problem
- are sufficient to fill a large library.
- = 1587.0
- Several such libraries actually exist.
- = 1590.9
- Not even a day-long tutorial, much less an hour lecture,
- can begin to do justice to this complex,
- bizarre and dangerously tantalizing story.
- = 1603.1
- Nevertheless, for the unacquainted,
- I will attempt to summarize the issue in a few paragraphs.
- = 1610.4
- The undisputed facts of Shakespeare’s life and career
- could be scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin.
- = 1618.0
- We know for a fact that a man named William Shakespeare
- was born in 1564 in or around the village of Stratford-upon-Avon.
- = 1628.8
- We know that he had a wife and at least three children.
- We know he bought property in Stratford,
- = 1635.3
- was involved in several lawsuits with his neighbors,
- and died there in 1616, aged 52.
- = 1643.3
- We also know that during those same years,
- a man with a last name similar to Shakespeare
- worked as an actor on the London stage,
- eventually becoming co-owner of some of the theaters there.
- = 1656.3
- We also know that, about the same time,
- a number of most excellent poems and plays
- were published in London under the name Shakespeare.
- = 1666.3
- We do not know for a fact
- that the landowner in Stratford
- and the actor in London with a similar last name
- were one and the same man.
- = 1675.9
- We do not know for a fact
- that either man had anything to do
- with the poems and the plays.
- = 1682.5
- All we know is that those poems and plays have,
- in the four hundred years since their composition,
- come to be regarded as a pinnacle of Western culture.
- = 1695.7
- The works attributed to Shakespeare
- appear to have been written by a man or woman
- who knew something about just about everything.
- = 1704.5
- They’re filled with references to mythology and
- classic literature, games and sports, war and weapons of war,
- = 1712.4
- ships and sailing, the law and legal terminology,
- court etiquette, statesmanship, horticulture,
- = 1719.6
- music, astronomy, medicine, falconry and, of course, theater.
- = 1726.0
- Therein lies the problem.
- = 1728.9
- How could a farmer’s son of uncertain schooling
- from a mostly illiterate country village,
- = 1735.6
- a man of practically no account at all,
- wield such encyclopedic learning
- = 1741.7
- with so much eloquence and wit,
- so much wisdom and human understanding?
- = 1747.8
- For the first 150 years,
- nobody questioned the traditional history of the Bard.
- = 1754.5
- Then, in the late eighteenth century, Reverend James Wilmot,
- a distinguished scholar who lived just a few miles north of Stratford,
- decided to write a biography of the famous playwright.
- = 1766.7
- Dr. Wilmot believed that a man as well-educated as Shakespeare
- must have owned a fairly extensive library,
- despite the fact that not a single book or manuscript is mentioned in his will.
- = 1779.8
- Over the years, he speculated,
- some of those books must have found their way into local collections.
- = 1786.6
- And so the good Reverend Doctor scoured the British countryside,
- taking inventory of literally every bookshelf within 50 miles of Stratford.
- = 1797.7
- Not a single book from the library of William Shakespeare was discovered.
- = 1803.3
- Neither were there found any letters to, from or about Shakespeare.
- = 1808.9
- Furthermore, no references to the folklore,
- local sayings or distinctive dialect of the Stratford area
- could be found in any of Shakespeare’s writings.
- = 1820.2
- After four years of painstaking research,
- Dr. Wilmot concluded, to his own dismay,
- = 1826.7
- that only one person contemporary with Shakespeare of Stratford
- had ever demonstrated the wide-ranging education and expressive talent
- needed to compose those poems and plays.
- = 1840.8
- That man was the multilingual author, philosopher and statesman,
- inventor of the Scientific Method, Chancellor to the Courts
- of Queen Elizabeth and King James, Sir Francis Bacon.
- = 1854.6
- Dr. Wilmot never dared to publish his theory.
- But before he died he confided it to a friend, James Cowell,
- who, in 1805, repeated it to a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical Society.
- = 1869.1
- The members of the society were suitably outraged,
- and the scandalous matter was quickly forgotten.
- = 1875.8
- Then in 1857, a lady from Stratford — Stratford, Connecticut —
- published a book called The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded.
- = 1887.2
- In this book, Miss Delia Bacon, no relation to Francis,
- claimed that the works of Shakespeare were written
- by a secret cabal of British nobility
- = 1897.4
- including Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Philip Sidney
- as well as Sir Francis Bacon.
- = 1903.3
- Delia Bacon’s book electrified the world of letters.
- = 1907.7
- Battle lines were drawn
- between the orthodox Stratfordians and the heretical Baconians.
- = 1913.7
- Literary societies and scholarly journals were formed to debate the evidence.
- = 1918.9
- Hundreds of pamphlets, newspaper articles and essays
- were published defending each side,
- and ridiculing the opposition with that self-aggrandizing viciousness
- peculiar to tenured academics.
- = 1932.5
- Armed with her explosive book,
- Delia Bacon journeyed to Stratford-upon-Avon and, unbelievably,
- obtained official permission to open Shakespeare’s grave.
- = 1945.5
- However, when the moment came to actually lift the stone,
- Delia’s self-doubt precipitated a catastrophic nervous breakdown.
- = 1956.6
- She later died penniless in a madhouse.
- = 1960.6
- Around 1888, things began to get a bit out of hand.
- = 1965.3
- U.S. Congressman Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota
- became interested in the Shakespeare controversy.
- = 1972.0
- One day, browsing through his facsimile copy of the First Folio of 1623,
- he noted that the word “bacon” appeared on page 53 of the Histories
- and also on page 53 of the Comedies.
- = 1987.7
- He also noted that Sir Francis Bacon
- had written extensively on the subject of cryptography.
- = 1995.0
- Donnelly began counting line and page numbers,
- adding and subtracting letters,
- drawing lines over sentences,
- circling words and crossing them out.
- = 2005.3
- The result was a complex and virtually incomprehensible algorithm
- which he claimed was invented by Bacon
- to hide secret messages inside the First Folio.
- = 2017.2
- The greatest Easter egg hunt in the history of Western civilization had begun.
- = 2023.4
- Here are just a couple of the sillier highlights.
- = 2027.1
- A doctor named Orville Owen of Detroit
- constructed a bizarre research tool he called the Wheel of Fortune.
- = 2035.9
- This wheel consisted of two giant wooden spools
- wrapped with a strip of canvas two feet wide and a thousand feet long.
- = 2045.4
- Onto this canvas he glued the separate pages of the complete works
- of Bacon, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Greene, Peele and Spenser,
- together with Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.
- = 2059.8
- By cranking the spools back and forth,
- Dr. Owen could quickly zip across the pages
- in search of clues and cross-references.
- = 2068.1
- Employing a large team of secretaries and stenographers,
- Owen claimed to have uncovered
- a complete alternative history of Elizabethan England,
- = 2078.4
- as well as several entirely new Shakespeare plays and sonnets.
- = 2083.5
- Listen to this hidden verse,
- supposedly penned by the mighty Bard himself,
- which inspired Dr. Owen to build his Wheel of Fortune.
- = 2094.4
- Take your knife and cut all our books asunder
- And set the leaves on a great firm wheel
- = 2102.6
- Which rolls and rolls, and turning the fickle rolling wheel
- Throw your eyes upon Fortune
- = 2110.8
- That goddess blind, that stands upon a spherical stone
- that, turning and inconstant, rolls
- in restless variation.
- = 2122.9
- After publishing five thick volumes of this rubbish,
- Owen announced the discovery of an anagram indicating
- that Bacon’s original manuscripts were buried
- near Chepstow Castle on the river Wye.
- = 2137.3
- Owen spent the next fifteen years and thousands of dollars
- excavating the bed of the river with boat crews and high explosives.
- = 2147.8
- He died before anything was found.
- = 2150.95
- A fellow named Arensburg wrote an entire book
- based on the analysis of the significance of a suspicious crack
- in the tomb of Bacon’s mother.
- = 2162.5
- A ray of sanity finally appeared in 1957.
- = 2167.8
- To those familiar with the science of cryptology,
- the name William Friedman needs little introduction.
- = 2174.4
- During World War II, Colonel Friedman was the head
- of the US Army’s cryptoanalytic bureau.
- = 2180.2
- He is credited with cracking the Japanese Empire’s
- most sensitive cipher.
- = 2185.7
- After the war, the Colonel decided to apply his expertise to the study
- of the Shakespeare ciphers.
- = 2192.6
- He interviewed several of the experts in the field,
- and prepared a detailed scientific analysis,
- which he published under the title The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined.
- = 2203.3
- His conclusion? In a word, bunk.
- = 2207.3
- According to the standards of cryptologic science,
- not one of the hidden messages purportedly discovered in Shakespeare’s works
- was plausible.
- = 2216.2
- The rules used to extract these messages from the texts were non-rigorous,
- wildly subjective, and unrepeatable by anyone except the original decypherer.
- = 2227.4
- The people involved were not being dishonest.
- = 2230.8
- They were channeling their preconceptions.
- = 2233.9
- They were trapped in a labyrinth of delusion, mining order from chaos,
- “Angler[s] in a lake of darkness.” Lear III.6.
- = 2246.7
- You would think that Friedman’s cold and ruthless exposure
- would be enough to silence the heretics once and for all.
- = 2254.9
- Not a chance. The books and TV specials and Web sites
- and conferences and doctoral dissertations keep right on coming.
- = 2265.7
- I should point out that the Shakespeare authorship issue
- is not only the preoccupation of cranks and weirdos.
- = 2272.9
- A substantial number of respected authors and Shakespeareans
- have expressed serious doubts about the traditional origin of the plays.
- = 2283.2
- The list includes Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
- Walt Whitman, Henry James, Sam Clemens, Sigmund Freud,
- Orson Welles and Sir John Gielgud.
- = 2297.7
- Living skeptics include the artistic director of the New Globe Theater,
- Mark Rylance; Michael York, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh,
- = 2307.1
- and even that most revered and scholarly
- of contemporary Shakespearean actors, Keanu Reeves.
- = 2314.7
- The current leading candidate for the authorship is Edward de Vere,
- the seventeenth Earl of Oxford,
- = 2321.5
- a theory first proposed in 1920 by an English schoolmaster
- with the unfortunate name J. Thomas Looney.
- = 2331.6
- What is it about Bach, the Bible and the works of Shakespeare
- that inspires this intense scrutiny?
- = 2340.3
- Nobody’s looking for acrostics in Chaucer or Keats.
- = 2344.8
- There are no hit CDs of the secret chorales of Wagner or Beethoven.
- = 2351.2
- For the answer, we need to recognize the unique roles
- which the Bible and Shakespeare have played
- in the development of Western culture.
- = 2361.0
- No other single work of literature
- has influenced Modern English
- more than the translation of the Holy Bible published in 1611
- under the auspices of King James I.
- = 2374.4
- The King James Bible exemplifies the meaning of the word classic.
- = 2380.7
- It has been called the noblest monument of English prose,
- the very greatest achievement of the English language.
- = 2389.5
- It has served as an inspiration for generations
- of poets, dramatists, musicians, politicians and orators.
- = 2398.9
- Countless people have learned to read by repeating the phrases in this,
- the only book their family possessed.
- = 2408.7
- Our constitutions and our laws have been profoundly shaped
- by its cadences and imagery.
- = 2417.3
- But even the glory of the King James Bible,
- compiled by a committee of 46 editors over the course of a decade,
- pales before the dazzling legacy of the Swan of Avon.
- = 2431.8
- The lowest estimate of Shakespeare’s working vocabulary
- is 15,000 words, more than three times that of the King James Bible,
- and twice the size of his nearest competitor, John Milton.
- = 2446.2
- His poems and plays were written without the aid of a dictionary
- or a thesaurus. They didn’t exist yet. It was all in his head.
- = 2456.9
- When Shakespeare had a thought for which Elizabethan English had no word,
- he invented one.
- = 2463.5
- The Oxford English Dictionary lists hundreds of everyday words and phrases
- which made their first appearance in the pages of the Bard.
- = 2473.9
- Addiction. Alligator. Assassination. Bedroom. Critic. Dawn. Design.
- = 2483.2
- Dialogue. Employer. Film. Glow. Gloomy. Gossip. Hint. Hurry.
- = 2492.8
- Investment. Lonely. Luggage. Manager. Switch. Torture.
- = 2499.6
- Transcendence. Wormhole. Zany.
- = 2504.7
- Hamlet alone contains nearly forty of these neologisms.
- = 2510.2
- Who today would have this audacity, this giddy exuberance of invention?
- = 2516.7
- Only one other English author even approaches Shakespeare’s facility
- for coining new words: Sir Francis Bacon.
- = 2527.7
- In the modern era, the record holder is Charles Dodgson,
- better known as Lewis Carroll, who, interestingly,
- also happens to be the second most quoted author in English, after Shakespeare.
- = 2540.8
- Everyone has been profoundly molded
- by the influences of the King James Bible and Shakespeare.
- = 2548.8
- Like it or not, all of us peer at the world
- through the lenses of these great works.
- = 2556.4
- They are the primary source documents of modern English thought,
- the style guides of our minds.
- = 2565.8
- Contemplating these dazzling jewels of wisdom and eloquence
- gives rise to an extraordinary feeling.
- = 2574.4
- A potent, rare and precious emotion
- with the potential to completely upset your life.
- = 2582.9
- An emotion powerful enough to make a man abandon his wife and children,
- forfeit career and reputation,
- lay down his possessions and follow his heart without questioning.
- = 2596.7
- That sweet, sweet fusion of wonder and fear,
- irresistible attraction and soul-numbing dread known as awe.
- = 2610.8
- Awe is the Grail of artistic achievement.
- No other human emotion possesses such raw transformative power,
- and none is more difficult to evoke.
- = 2625.9
- Few and far between are the works of man
- that qualify as truly awesome.
- = 2634.8
- It is awe that convinces a rabbi
- to spend a lifetime decoding Yahweh from the Pentateuch.
- = 2644.2
- Awe that sends millions of visitors each year
- to the Pyramids of Giza, Guadalupe and Mecca.
- = 2653.2
- It was awe that drove poor Delia Bacon to her doom.
- = 2659.8
- Now, please don’t come away from this lecture thinking
- that the key to awesome game design is the installation of Easter eggs!
- = 2667.8
- Ordinary games, with their contrived Easter eggs and cheat codes,
- are like the Battery of the Month club.
- = 2675.0
- You have to trudge down to the back of the store
- to get what you really came for.
- = 2679.7
- If super power is what people really want, why not just give it to them?
- = 2684.8
- Is our imagination so impoverished
- that we have to resort to marketing gimmicks
- to keep players interested in our games?
- = 2692.9
- Awesome things don’t hold anything back.
- = 2696.9
- Awesome things are rich and generous.
- = 2701.2
- The treasure is right there.
- = 2705.7
- One afternoon, I was sitting alone behind the counter
- at that old Radio Shack store.
- My boss had stepped out for some reason.
- = 2715.5
- An elderly woman walked through the front door.
- = 2719.4
- Like most of our customers, she was shabbily dressed.
- Probably on a fixed income.
- = 2726.1
- I assumed she was there for her free battery.
- = 2729.4
- But instead, she placed a portable radio on the counter.
- = 2734.7
- This radio came from the days when they boasted
- about the number of transitors inside on the case.
- = 2742.2
- It was completely wrapped in dirty white medical tape.
- = 2747.4
- The woman looked at me, and asked, “Can you fix this?”
- = 2751.9
- Slowly I unwrapped the medical tape,
- peeling away the layers until the back cover of the radio fell off,
- accompanied by a cloud of red dust.
- = 2763.7
- The interior of the radio was half eaten away by battery leakage and corrosion.
- = 2770.8
- I looked at the radio. I looked at the old woman.
- I looked back at the radio.
- = 2778.4
- I reached behind me, where the expensive alkaline batteries
- were hanging like prescription medication,
- and removed a gleaming nine-volt cell from its gold blister pack.
- = 2790.2
- Then I pulled a brand-new transistor radio from a box,
- installed the alkaline and helped the lady find her favorite station.
- = 2799.6
- No money changed hands. She left the store without saying a word.
- = 2806.9
- Awesome things are kind of like that.
- = 2818.3
- Bach offered his students very specific insight into the source of awe.
- = 2827.4
- In addition to B-A-C-H, two other sets of initials
- are also associated with Bach’s music.
- = 2836.0
- These initials are not hidden in the notes.
- Instead, they’re scrawled right across the top of his manuscripts
- for the whole world to see.
- = 2847.5
- The initials are SDG and JJ.
- = 2854.1
- SDG stands for the Latin phrase Soli Deo Gloria, “To the glory of God alone.”
- = 2864.6
- JJ stands for Jesu Juva, “Help me, Jesus.”
- = 2872.3
- Bach wrote all of his great masterpieces sub specie aeternitatis,
- “under the aspect of eternity.”
- = 2882.9
- He did not compose only to please his sponsors,
- or to win the approval of an audience.
- His work was his worship.
- = 2894.8
- Bach once wrote,
- “Music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God
- and the recreation of the soul.
- = 2905.0
- Where this is not kept in mind there is no true music,
- but only an infernal clamour and ranting.”
- = 2915.5
- The name of the power that moves you is not important.
- = 2921.2
- What is important is that you are moved.
- = 2926.6
- Awe is the foundation of religion.
- = 2931.0
- No other motivation can free you from the limits of personal achievement.
- = 2939.2
- Nothing else can teach you the Art of Flight.
- = 2945.8
- Computer games are barely forty years old.
- = 2950.9
- Only a few words in our basic vocabulary have been established.
- = 2956.8
- A whole dictionary is waiting to be coined.
- = 2961.8
- The slate is clean.
- = 2965.75
- Someday soon, perhaps even in our lifetime,
- a game design will appear
- that will flash across our culture like lightning.
- = 2977.9
- It will be easy to recognize.
- = 2980.8
- It will be generous, giddy with exuberant inventiveness.
- = 2985.7
- Scholars will pick it apart for decades, perhaps centuries.
- = 2991.4
- It will be something wonderful.
- = 2994.3
- Something terrifying.
- = 2997.4
- Something awe-full.
- = 3001.4
- A few years ago I was invited to speak at a conference in London.
- = 3007.0
- My wife joined me, and we took a day off for some sightseeing.
- = 3012.3
- We decided to visit England’s second-biggest tourist attraction,
- Stratford-upon-Avon.
- = 3020.1
- It was cold and rainy when our train arrived.
- = 3023.9
- Luckily, most of the attractions are just a short walk from the station.
- = 3029.3
- We visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, a charming old house
- along the main street which attracts millions of pilgrims every year,
- = 3038.5
- despite the complete lack of any evidence that Shakespeare was born there,
- or even lived anywhere near it.
- = 3046.4
- We went past the school where Shakespeare learned to read and write,
- although no documents exist to prove his attendance.
- = 3055.2
- We visited Anne Hathaway’s cottage,
- the rustic country farm where his wife spent her childhood,
- although no record shows anyone by that name ever having lived there.
- = 3068.0
- Finally we came to the one location undeniably associated with Shakespeare:
- Trinity Parish church, on the banks of the river Avon,
- where a man by that name is buried.
- = 3083.9
- This beautiful church is approached by a long walkway,
- between rows of ancient gravestones, shaded by tall trees.
- = 3094.0
- The entrance door is surprisingly tiny.
- No cameras are allowed inside.
- = 3100.8
- The interior is dark and quiet.
- Despite the presence of busloads of tourists,
- the atmosphere is hushed and respectful.
- = 3111.4
- A few people are seated in the pews, deep in prayer.
- = 3116.1
- An aisle leads up the center of the church.
- = 3120.0
- The left side of the altar is brightly illuminated.
- On the wall above is a famous bust of the Bard,
- quill in hand, gazing serenely at the crowd of pilgrims.
- = 3132.8
- On the floor beneath, surrounded by bouquets of flowers,
- at the very spot where Delia Bacon lost her mind,
- the gravestone of William Shakespeare bears this dire warning:
- = 3147.8
- Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear
- To dig the dust enclosed here
- Blest be the man who spares these stones
- And curst be he that moves my bones.
- = 3166.7
- Every year, three million pilgrims arrive from every nation on Earth
- to approach this stone and consider the likeness of a man
- whose body of work can only be described as awesome.
- = 3185.5
- By contrast, the right side of the altar is dark and featureless.
- = 3191.8
- Nobody of any consequence is buried there.
- = 3195.4
- The only point of interest is a wooden case, of simple design,
- carved of dark oak.
- = 3203.6
- Inside the case, sealed beneath a thick sheet of glass,
- lies a large open book.
- = 3211.7
- A plaque on the case identifies this book
- as a first edition of the King James Bible,
- published in 1611, when Shakespeare was forty-six.
- = 3224.3
- Not many pilgrims visit this side of the altar.
- = 3228.0
- Most of those that do simply glance at the book,
- read the plaque and move along.
- = 3234.3
- A few, more observant, note that the Bible happens to be opened
- to a page in the Old Testament: the Book of Psalms, chapter 46.
- = 3246.5
- No explanation is given for this particular choice of pages.
- = 3252.2
- For the initiated, none is necessary.
- = 3256.7
- If you are of inquisitive bent,
- if you are intrigued by English history and literature,
- if you value your peace of mind, cover your ears, now.
- = 3272.9
- In the year 1900, a scholar noticed something
- about the King James translation of Psalm 46.
- = 3283.5
- Something terrifying. Something wonderful.
- = 3291.8
- The 46th word from the beginning of Psalm 46 is “shake.”
- = 3299.8
- The 46th word from the end is “spear.”
- = 3307.1
- There are only two possibilities here.
- = 3311.0
- Either this is the finest coincidence ever recorded
- in the history of world literature.
- = 3319.2
- Or, it is not.
- = 3322.0
- = 3324.0
- The Earth revolves around only one sun, and has only one moon.
- = 3331.7
- The moon happens to be four hundred times smaller than the sun.
- = 3337.3
- The sun happens to be four hundred times farther away.
- = 3342.0
- And the apparent paths of the moon and sun in our sky
- happen to intersect exactly twice every month.
- = 3351.1
- Which means that every now and then,
- at long yet precisely predictable intervals,
- = 3357.9
- the lunar disc slips across the face of the sun
- and just barely conceals it for a few wonderful, terrible minutes.
- = 3368.8
- = 3369.9
- A fine coincidence, no?
- = 3373.0
- = 3375.0
- In June of 1977, a little man with divergent eyes and a talent for mischief
- ascended a hilltop in the British village of Ampthill.
- = 3389.4
- At the summit of this hill is a tall, slender cross,
- a memorial to Catherine of Aragorn, the first wife of Henry VIII.
- = 3399.9
- The sun, high in the south,
- cast the shadow of the cross upon the grassy hillside.
- = 3407.8
- At exactly 12 noon, the man removed from his pocket a bar magnet.
- He turned the magnet so its north pole was facing south,
- and buried it under the shadow of the cross.
- = 3425.0
- Two years later, a few hours before the publication of his first book,
- the man returned to that hillside, this time in the dead of night.
- = 3437.8
- He used a compass to locate the magnet he had buried.
- = 3442.8
- In that same place, he dug a hole in the ground
- and placed inside a ceramic container inscribed with the following words:
- = 3455.0
- “I am the Keeper of the Jewel of MASQUERADE,
- which lies waiting safe inside me
- for You or Eternity.”
- = 3470.0
- : rupert
- = 36.8
- Know yourself as the open, empty, luminous presence of awareness.
- = 51.5
- = 58.0
- Open because you say yes
- unconditionally and indiscriminately
- to all appearances of the mind, body, and world.
- = 75.3
- Like empty space, you have no mechanism inherent within you
- that can resist any appearance.
- = 95.8
- We don’t have to make this the case;
- it is already the case.
- = 102.8
- = 105.7
- Empty because although you, I, this aware presence
- is aware of thoughts, sensations, and perceptions
- it is not made out of a thought, a sensation, or a perception.
- = 136.5
- It is made out of pure knowing or awareness.
- = 142.5
- = 151.5
- And luminous because just like the sun, relatively speaking,
- that renders all objects seeable
- = 170.5
- so you, I, this open empty presence
- renders all experience knowable.
- = 181.5
- = 186.6
- In fact we don’t really see objects, relatively speaking,
- illumined by the sun;
- we just see reflections or modulations of the sun’s light
- appearing as a multiplicity and diversity of color.
- = 208.3
- In the same way, we don’t really know
- the objects of the mind, body, and the world;
- we just know our knowing of them.
- = 222.0
- = 223.3
- All we know, all that is known, is the knowing of experience,
- and you are that knowing.
- = 236.5
- = 242.4
- All that is ever known is a modulation of our own knowing presence,
- modulating itself in the form of thinking, sensing and perceiving,
- and seeming to become a mind, a body, and a world.
- = 264.4
- But we never actually know a mind, a body, and a world
- as they are normally conceived.
- We just know our knowing of them.
- = 275.3
- And this knowing, this substance of our experience,
- the only substance of our experience,
- is our self. In other words, we know ourself alone.
- Awareness knows nothing other than itself.
- = 296.2
- Be knowingly this open, empty, luminous presence of awareness.
- = 306.8
- We don’t need to do anything special to make this happen.
- Above all, we don’t have to manipulate the mind
- in any way whatsoever
- to be this presence of awareness.
- = 323.0
- = 326.3
- This presence of awareness which is simply our self, what we refer to
- when we say "I", is ever-present.
- = 336.5
- = 345.9
- Just check this in your own experience.
- = 348.9
- Nothing that I am saying this evening,
- there is nothing that cannot be checked
- in your own direct experience right now.
- = 358.4
- I bring no special knowledge to this meeting.
- I don’t have a store of knowledge
- which I am disseminating.
- = 368.2
- I’m just, within the limits of language, trying to describe
- the current experience.
- = 378.3
- Ask yourself, do I know anything other than now?
- = 385.0
- = 392.3
- Try to experience the not-now.
- Try first to experience the past.
- = 404.5
- = 406.5
- It’s easy to experience a thought about the past.
- But what about the actual past
- to which this thought refers?
- = 416.7
- Try to experience that.
- = 420.0
- = 423.0
- Can you step into the past,
- can you go one second into the past?
- Or one second into the future?
- = 430.9
- Thought can go there,
- but what about you?
- = 436.5
- = 443.3
- Really try to go there, to make sure that this is
- not just an interesting philosophical conversation,
- = 451.7
- but that it is actually your experience
- that the past and the future are never experienced.
- = 463.0
- = 468.0
- And if the past and the future are never actually experienced,
- they are only thought about, and that thought
- about the past and the future is always now,
- = 480.3
- if this past and future are never experienced,
- what does that say about time?
- = 488.0
- = 491.3
- Time is a movement between a nonexistent past
- towards a nonexistent future.
- = 498.3
- It’s a theory. A necessary and valid theory,
- but a theory that doesn’t refer to the reality of our experience.
- = 509.3
- Nobody has ever or could ever experience time.
- When I say "nobody" I mean yourself, awareness,
- the only one that knows or is aware.
- = 522.0
- = 537.7
- When I arrived off the plane from London
- in Washington D.C. last weekend before coming here
- = 550.5
- the friend who picked me up asked me how the flight was,
- and she said, "How long did it take?"
- = 560.2
- and I experienced thought being cranked up like an old motor,
- a little resistant to get going.
- = 575.0
- = 576.8
- And for a moment I could feel the cogs of thought almost moving,
- trying to work out how much time the flight had taken.
- = 590.0
- Because in my experience it had been now all the way.
- = 596.0
- = 600.6
- I had never left London.
- London had left me.
- = 608.5
- I had never got onto an aeroplane.
- A flow of sensations and perceptions that thought abstracts,
- and calls a body in an aeroplane,
- flowed through me.
- = 624.8
- And I never arrived in Washington D.C.
- Washington D.C. arrived in me.
- = 631.3
- Or at least the cluster of perceptions
- that thought calls Washington D.C.
- arrived in me.
- = 642.5
- In the same way
- nobody ever walked into this room
- and nobody is sitting on a chair
- and nobody is listening to a talk.
- = 654.3
- A colorful flow of sensations and perceptions appears in awareness,
- but awareness never goes anywhere or does anything.
- = 669.1
- It is always here and now.
- = 671.0
- Not here a place and now a time. Here, this dimensionless,
- now, this timeless presence of our own being.
- = 682.5
- That is our experience whether we recognise it or not.
- = 690.0
- = 699.0
- Now the mind may feel a little rebellious when it hears this.
- It may say yes, yes, yes, that’s true, but there is an undeniable
- continuity to my experience.
- = 719.4
- And this undeniable continuity would seem to be evidence of time.
- = 726.4
- = 732.1
- Where does this felt sense of continuity come from?
- = 740.3
- All we know of the mind is the current thought or image.
- And thoughts and images are intermittent.
- = 751.3
- The body is known through sensation.
- And all sensations are intermittent.
- = 760.1
- All we know of the world is perception,
- that is sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells;
- = 768.2
- in fact nobody has ever experienced a world as such,
- a world as it is normally conceived to be,
- = 774.8
- we just know the current perception.
- And all perception is intermittent.
- = 784.4
- So if the so-called mind, body, are intermittent,
- from where does this felt sense of continuity come from?
- = 801.6
- It comes from the only thing, if we can call it a thing,
- that is truly continuous, or in fact not continuous but
- ever-present now in our experience,
- and that is our own being, the presence of awareness.
- = 820.2
- The presence of awareness is the only thing
- that is known to be ever-present.
- = 828.0
- Now the mind knows nothing of awareness
- because the mind only knows apparent objects.
- = 835.7
- So when the mind looks at experience to find
- what it is that accounts for continuity,
- = 844.6
- it cannot see awareness,
- and so it manufactures a substance called "time"
- to account for the continuity of experience.
- = 856.4
- In other words, continuity in time is what eternity looks like
- when viewed through the narrow slit of the mind.
- = 868.0
- = 875.5
- Permanence in space
- is what the infinite, unlimited nature of awareness looks like
- when viewed through the narrow slit of the mind.
- = 890.90
- Continuity and permanence are pale reflections
- at the level of the mind
- of the true eternal and infinite nature of awareness,
- that is, of our self.
- = 908.8
- = 930.6
- What else can we say about our self from our actual experience?
- Which means right now, what can we know for certain about our self?
- = 942.6
- Not what thought may tell us about our self,
- but what we actually know, in this moment,
- derived only from our experience of our self?
- = 958.2
- Ask yourself, "Can I, this open, empty, knowing presence,
- can I be agitated?"
- = 972.2
- = 973.7
- Thought can be agitated. Sensations, or the body, can be agitated.
- The world can be agitated. But what about you, the one that knows
- the apparent mind, body and world?
- = 992.7
- Can you, this open empty presence, be agitated?
- = 998.5
- = 1005.2
- See, in your experience right now, that you are —
- = 1012.7
- and this of course is just an image —
- are like an open, empty space such as the space of this room.
- = 1019.7
- Nothing that appears within this room
- can agitate it.
- = 1024.6
- We are all sitting peacefully now, but if we were to stand up
- and start dancing, or fighting,
- would the space of this room become agitated?
- = 1036.7
- You are like that.
- You, I, the presence of awareness, are undisturbable, imperturbable.
- = 1049.0
- = 1050.5
- We don’t need to become imperturbable
- and this undisturbability of ourself
- is not dependant upon the condition of the mind.
- = 1062.9
- Right now you, awareness, are utterly imperturbable,
- and for this reason another name for our self is "peace".
- = 1077.5
- Peace is not a quality that our self has,
- it is what our self is.
- = 1085.6
- Not peace of mind. Minds are more or less agitated.
- = 1095.1
- This "peace that passeth understanding", that is not of the mind,
- = 1103.3
- it doesn’t have to be sought,
- it is not hiding the background of experience,
- = 1109.8
- This very awareness that is seeing, hearing, knowing,
- is pure peace itself shining in all experience,
- however apparently agitated that experience may be.
- = 1131.5
- = 1138.3
- Ask yourself,
- "Can I, this presence of awareness, ever lack something?"
- Thoughts can say that something is missing; feelings can say that
- something is missing, but what about you?
- = 1166.0
- = 1173.0
- Without referring to thought or feeling,
- is there the slightest motive in you to avoid the now
- and replace it with the not-now?
- = 1185.0
- = 1189.7
- See that in yourself, this presence of awareness,
- there is not the slightest impulse or possibility to avoid the now.
- = 1203.0
- = 1204.3
- And what do we call this absolute absence
- of resistance to the now?
- = 1213.7
- The absolute absence of resisting what is and seeking what is not?
- What is the common name we give to this?
- = 1225.3
- = 1227.6
- It is called happiness.
- = 1232.6
- We all know that when we are happy we are, by definition,
- not resisting the now and seeking in the past or the future.
- = 1244.7
- By "happiness", of course, I do not mean
- a pleasant state of the mind or the body.
- = 1252.7
- I mean this absolute impossibility of our self ever to resist or seek.
- To resist what is and to seek what is not.
- = 1270.7
- So happiness, like peace, is just another name for our self.
- = 1278.4
- It is not a quality that our self has; it is what our self is.
- = 1286.0
- = 1291.7
- What else can we say for certain
- based on this current experience about our self?
- = 1303.0
- = 1311.9
- When I was driving here, or being driven here,
- the day before yesterday, from the airport in San Francisco,
- = 1322.9
- I was looking in the wing mirror of the passenger’s seat,
- and I noticed the words inscribed at the bottom of the wing mirror,
- = 1340.5
- and they said:
- "OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK."
- = 1347.5
- A statement of pure nonduality.
- = 1352.0
- = 1358.0
- Objects that appear in the mirror of consciousness
- are closer than we think.
- = 1367.5
- How close to a mirror are the objects that appear in it?
- = 1373.5
- = 1378.7
- Are there in fact two things,
- one, the objects that appear in the mirror,
- and two, the mirror?
- = 1388.8
- Or is it all just mirror?
- = 1395.0
- = 1399.7
- All we know of the apparent mind
- is the experience of thinking,
- and thinking is just a modulation of your self,
- a modulation of knowing or awareness.
- = 1412.4
- All we know of the apparent body
- is the experience of sensing,
- and sensing is a modulation of your self, awareness.
- = 1424.4
- All we know of the apparent world
- is the experience of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.
- These are all modulations of knowing,
- modulations of our self.
- = 1441.5
- In other words,
- we never truly know a mind, or a body, or a world.
- These labels are just abstractions that thought superimposes
- on the intimacy of our experience.
- = 1456.1
- From the point of view of experience,
- which is the only real point of view,
- experience is much closer, much more intimate.
- = 1466.8
- So close as to not admit the possibility of two things,
- one, myself, awareness,
- and two, the object that I know.
- = 1483.4
- Even that is an abstraction.
- It may be a useful stepping-stone, a halfway understanding
- = 1492.8
- to conceive of thoughts, sensations, and perceptions
- arising in awareness, but nothing arises in awareness.
- = 1502.8
- The only substance of all experience, the only substance
- of thinking, sensing, and perceiving, is already awareness.
- = 1514.0
- = 1518.3
- What do we call this absolute absence of two things?
- = 1527.4
- A subject that knows and an object that is known?
- = 1534.0
- = 1538.4
- Take now the experience of hearing.
- Go to the sound of the air conditioning.
- = 1546.5
- Forget about the labels "sound" and "air conditioning".
- Our only knowledge of the apparent air conditioning
- is the experience of hearing.
- = 1556.8
- How close does hearing take place to you?
- Five meters away? Ten meters away?
- = 1568.4
- Refer only to your experience,
- not to what thought tells you about sound.
- Where is hearing?
- = 1577.0
- = 1578.2
- Is it close? Intimate?
- = 1584.7
- And in the experience of hearing,
- can you find two parts,
- one part that hears,
- and another part that is heard?
- = 1596.4
- Or is it just one seamless, intimate substance called my self?
- = 1603.0
- = 1610.8
- And what about this room?
- Thought says I, the inside self in here,
- sees the room, the outside world, out there.
- = 1624.4
- But what does experience say?
- All we know of the apparent room is the experience of seeing.
- = 1634.6
- Remove seeing and the room vanishes.
- In other words, we don’t know a room.
- We just know the experience of seeing.
- = 1649.5
- Does seeing take place five, ten, fifteen meters away from your self?
- Or is seeing utterly intimate?
- = 1662.5
- = 1664.8
- And can you find two parts to the experience of seeing,
- one part that sees, and another part that is seen?
- = 1675.5
- Or is it just one seamless, intimate substance?
- = 1681.2
- = 1688.1
- And what is the name, the common name we give to the absolute
- intimacy of all experience? It is called love.
- = 1704.4
- Love is the most familiar experience that we all know,
- the collapse or dissolution of the sense of a self in here
- and an object, other, or world out there.
- = 1724.8
- The collapse of this sense of separateness, distance, otherness,
- not-me-ness, is what we call love.
- = 1738.0
- = 1742.2
- Love is just another name for nonduality.
- = 1746.9
- If we call it nonduality, there’s just a few thousand of us in the world
- that are interested in it.
- = 1757.8
- But if we call it love, or peace, or happiness,
- then all seven billion of us are interested in it.
- = 1768.0
- = 1772.4
- So why is it, if love, peace, happiness are the natural condition
- of all experience, the substance out of which all experience is made,
- how is it that it seems not to be experienced?
- = 1793.5
- = 1797.3
- It is because of a single thought that rises in awareness,
- made only of awareness,
- = 1805.7
- which imagines that awareness shares the limits
- of the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that appear within it.
- = 1819.8
- It is like imagining that a mirror shares the limits
- of the objects that appear in it.
- = 1827.3
- With that thought alone,
- the ever-present, unlimited awareness, which is what we are,
- seems, seems, to aquire or take on the apparent limits
- of the body and the mind,
- = 1849.5
- just as the screen seems to take on the limits of an image
- when a film begins.
- = 1860.7
- As a result of this imaginary collapse or contraction of our self,
- unlimited, eternal awareness, into a body and a mind,
- these qualities of love, peace and happiness are seemingly veiled,
- = 1884.7
- and it is for this reason that the self,
- the separate self that thought imagines us to be,
- = 1893.7
- is always by definition on a search
- in the imaginary outside world
- for the apparently lost love, peace, and happiness.
- = 1910.0
- = 1911.8
- However, this imaginary inside self cannot, by definition,
- find the love that it seeks because its very presence,
- its apparent presence, is the veiling of that love.
- = 1936.3
- All the separate self seeks is love; in fact, the separate self
- is not an entity that searches, it is the activity
- of resisting the now and seeking the not-now.
- = 1951.7
- All this seeking ever wants is love,
- but love is the dissolution of this seeking,
- the dissolution of this imaginary self.
- = 1966.5
- In other words, the separate self that seeks love
- is like a moth that seeks a flame.
- = 1977.2
- The flame is all the moth wants,
- but it is the only thing it cannot have,
- = 1985.4
- because as the moth touches the flame, it dies.
- That is its way of knowing the flame.
- = 1996.0
- = 1999.4
- It becomes the flame as it touches it.
- That is the separate self’s way of finding love,
- by dying in it.
- = 2011.9
- The death or dissolution of the separate self
- is the experience of love.
- = 2023.0
- = 2044.9
- So, simply be knowingly
- this open, empty, luminous presence of awareness
- whose nature, whose inherent nature, is love, peace, and happiness.
- = 2066.4
- Not a love, peace, and happiness
- that is in the background of experience,
- that has to be sought,
- = 2075.6
- but that is shining in full view at the heart of all experience.
- In fact experience is made out of
- this substance called peace or happiness.
- = 2094.5
- : gangaji
- = 2.6
- So it’s absolutely simple
- what I have to say to you.
- = 10.6
- It’s what my teacher said to me.
- And I’m still deeply discovering the reverberation of that.
- = 21.9
- And it’s simply, "Stop looking for what you want."
- = 29.8
- Not cynically stop looking for what you want,
- because there’s a way of stopping looking for what you want
- in resignation and cynicism and closing down.
- = 43.0
- But innocently, openly, stop looking for what you want,
- in this moment, not tomorrow when you have it;
- = 53.4
- but in this moment, to take one moment,
- = 57.6
- whatever it is you want, however mundane or profound,
- and just stop looking for it.
- = 67.6
- = 68.7
- And you will find more than what you could ever want.
- Because more than what can be wanted is already who you are.
- = 82.3
- = 84.9
- Too simple to be grasped,
- but absolutely, completely realizable.
- = 94.5
- = 95.8
- If, and it is a huge ’if’ of course,
- you are willing to give up your hope
- = 103.1
- that what you want will be found
- in the next thought, or the next activity, or the next day,
- = 112.8
- or the next man, or the next woman,
- or the next teaching, or the next experience.
- So that’s huge. That’s the challenge.
- = 125.4
- = 127.3
- And I’ve blessedly travelled to Australia to challenge you
- in that direction. That directionless direction.
- = 143.6
- = 146.8
- It’s so simple that it has to be said over and over
- because it just slips right by the mind
- = 153.5
- and if it’s said over and over and in enough ways
- and then not said ...
- = 161.0
- it can just be revealed.
- Not as something new, but as something absolutely fresh.
- Not new but fresh.
- = 177.5
- = 179.7
- Who you are is not new,
- but it is always fresh.
- = 187.1
- = 189.5
- Who you think you are is old and dead.
- We just keep trying to think, think it a little better,
- squeeze some life.
- = 206.0
- = 212.9
- Is that clear?
- = 215.0
- = 216.8
- It is?
- Because that’s really the basis of what I have to say.
- = 222.5
- = 225.3
- It’s not a teaching.
- It’s not a belief system.
- = 233.5
- It’s not a way to live your life.
- It’s not a ’should stop’.
- = 244.5
- It’s not an "if you stop, you will
- be rich and famous and universally loved
- and never have a sad moment."
- = 254.8
- None of that, I promise.
- = 258.4
- = 260.6
- If you’re willing to investigate for yourself
- without believing it, or learning it,
- or hoping to get something from it,
- = 269.3
- just a pure investigation
- out of the natural curiosity of the human mind,
- = 276.7
- just to investigate for yourself,
- "What is here when I stop trying to get anything?"
- = 286.5
- "And how much of that is here?
- And where does that begin and where does that end?"
- = 298.6
- = 299.5
- And then the question, "Am I willing to trust that?"
- Then the challenges get very big.
- = 309.3
- But we’ll get to that later.
- = 312.0
- = 316.5
- Any questions about what I just said?
- Want me to say it again?
- = 325.9
- = 326.8
- You already are everything you want,
- only maybe not in the way you imagine what you want.
- = 336.6
- And it’s that imagination itself
- that keeps you from discovering that you already are
- everything you want.
- = 344.5
- So if you just take this evening as an experiment
- to give up any imagination, any image of what you need
- to be totally fulfilled —
- = 360.5
- just give it up!
- It’s just an image, just a thought.
- = 364.0
- Maybe a spiritual thought, maybe a worldly thought,
- a relationship thought, a career thought, just give it up.
- = 373.5
- = 373.8
- And directly discover what’s here unthought, unimagined.
- = 381.0
- How’s that?
- Good. Good.
- : cusa_clock
- = 0.9
- The concept of a clock enfolds all succession in time.
- = 5.8
- In the concept the sixth hour is not earlier
- than the seventh or eighth,
- = 11.1
- although the clock never strikes the hour,
- save when the concept biddeth.
- = 16.0
- = 17.8
- Nicholas of Cusa, 1450
- : abbad_wine
- = 0.5
- The glass is transparent,
- the wine transparent —
- = 5.0
- the two are similar,
- the affair confused.
- = 10.0
- There seems to be wine
- and no glass,
- or glass
- and no wine.
- = 16.9
- = 18.7
- Sahib bin Abbad, circa 990
- : einstein_cosmic_religious_feeling
- = 0.7
- I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling
- is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.
- = 8.8
- Only those who realize the immense efforts
- and, above all, the devotion
- = 14.4
- without which pioneer work in theoretical science
- cannot be achieved
- = 19.2
- are able to grasp the strength of the emotion
- out of which alone such work,
- remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.
- = 30.5
- What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe
- and what a yearning to understand,
- = 37.0
- were it but a feeble reflection
- of the mind revealed in this world,
- = 40.8
- Kepler and Newton must have had
- to enable them to spend years of solitary labor
- in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!
- = 50.4
- Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived
- chiefly from its practical results
- = 55.8
- easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality
- of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world,
- = 62.3
- have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide
- through the world and through the centuries.
- = 69.0
- Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends
- can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men
- = 77.1
- and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose
- in spite of countless failures.
- = 84.4
- It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength.
- = 88.8
- A contemporary has said, not unjustly,
- that in this materialistic age of ours
- = 93.8
- the serious scientific workers
- are the only profoundly religious people.
- = 99.8
- = 100.9
- Albert Einstein, 1930
- : augustine_silence
- = 0.1
- Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down,
- along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air;
- = 8.7
- if the very world should stop, and the mind cease thinking about itself,
- go beyond itself, and be quite still;
- = 18.2
- if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease,
- and there be no speech, no sign:
- = 27.8
- Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still –
- for if we listen they are saying,
- = 36.3
- We did not make ourselves; he made us who abides forever –
- imagine, then, that they should say this and fall silent,
- = 46.9
- listening to the very voice of him who made them
- and not to that of his creation;
- = 53.0
- so that we should hear not his word through the tongues of men,
- = 56.8
- nor the voice of angels,
- nor the clouds’ thunder,
- nor any symbol,
- = 62.8
- but the very Self which in these things we love,
- = 67.4
- and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash
- of that eternal wisdom which abides above all things:
- = 74.8
- And imagine if that moment were to go on and on,
- leaving behind all other sights and sounds
- = 81.0
- but this one vision which ravishes and absorbs
- and fixes the beholder in joy;
- = 89.44
- so that the rest of eternal life
- were like that moment of illumination
- which leaves us breathless:
- = 97.0
- Would this not be what is bidden in scripture,
- Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?
- = 103.0
- = 105.0
- Augustine of Hippo, circa 400
- : tashih_gate
- = 1.0
- One nature, perfect and pervading,
- circulates in all natures;
- = 6.8
- One reality, all-comprehensive,
- contains within itself all realities.
- = 13.2
- The one Moon reflects itself
- wherever there is a sheet of water,
- = 18.1
- And all the moons in the waters
- are embraced within the one Moon.
- = 23.4
- The Absolute of all the Buddhas
- enters into my own being,
- = 28.0
- And my own being is found
- in union with theirs....
- = 32.8
- The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame;
- Like space it knows no boundaries,
- = 40.4
- Yet it is even here, within us,
- ever retaining its serenity and fullness.
- = 47.7
- It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it;
- = 52.0
- You cannot take hold of it,
- but equally you cannot get rid of it,
- = 56.8
- And while you can do neither,
- it goes on its own way.
- = 62.85
- You remain silent and it speaks;
- you speak, and it is dumb.
- = 69.5
- The great gate of charity is wide open,
- with no obstacles before it.
- = 75.0
- = 76.5
- Yung-chia Ta-shih, circa 700
- : ryonen_autumn
- = 1.2
- Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing
- scene of autumn
- = 5.8
- I have said enough about moonlight,
- Ask no more.
- = 9.8
- Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
- wind stirs.
- = 15.0
- = 16.5
- Ryonen, 1711
- : dhamma_153
- = 1.1
- Through many births
- I have wandered on and on,
- = 5.6
- Searching for, but never finding,
- The builder of this house.
- = 12.3
- : einstein_library
- = 1.0
- Your question is the most difficult in the world.
- = 4.4
- It is not a question I can answer
- simply with yes or no.
- = 8.5
- I am not an Atheist.
- I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.
- = 14.4
- The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.
- = 19.5
- May I not reply with a parable?
- = 23.2
- The human mind, no matter how highly trained,
- cannot grasp the universe.
- = 30.6
- We are in the position of a little child
- entering a huge library filled with books
- in many languages.
- = 37.9
- The child knows someone must have written those books.
- It does not know how.
- = 43.7
- It does not understand
- the languages in which they are written.
- = 47.5
- The child dimly suspects a mysterious order
- in the arrangement of the books
- but doesn’t know what that is.
- = 55.2
- That, it seems to me,
- is the attitude of the most intelligent human
- toward God.
- = 63.0
- = 64.7
- Albert Einstein, 1930
- : einstein_mystical
- = 1.0
- The most beautiful experience we can have
- is the mysterious.
- = 5.9
- It is the fundamental emotion
- that stands at the cradle
- of true art and true science.
- = 12.2
- Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder,
- no longer marvel,
- = 17.2
- is as good as dead,
- and his eyes are dimmed.
- = 21.4
- It was the experience of mystery —
- even if mixed with fear —
- that engendered religion.
- = 27.8
- A knowledge of the existence
- of something we cannot penetrate,
- = 31.4
- our perceptions of the profoundest reason
- and the most radiant beauty,
- = 36.0
- which only in their most primitive forms
- are accessible to our minds —
- = 40.8
- it is this knowledge and this emotion
- that constitute true religiosity;
- = 47.0
- in this sense, and in this alone,
- I am a deeply religious man.
- = 53.0
- I cannot conceive of a God
- who rewards and punishes his creatures,
- = 56.8
- or has a will of the kind
- that we experience in ourselves.
- = 60.1
- Neither can I nor would I want to conceive
- of an individual that survives
- his physical death;
- = 65.8
- let feeble souls,
- from fear or absurd egoism,
- cherish such thoughts.
- = 71.3
- I am satisfied with the mystery
- of the eternity of life
- = 75.8
- and with the awareness
- and a glimpse of the marvelous structure
- of the existing world,
- = 81.3
- together with the devoted striving
- to comprehend a portion,
- = 85.0
- be it ever so tiny,
- = 87.8
- of the Reason
- that manifests itself in nature.
- = 91.3
- = 92.9
- Albert Einstein, 1931
- : jeans_eos_1
- = 1.0
- Looked at on the astronomical time-scale,
- humanity is at the very beginning of its existence —
- = 8.4
- a new-born babe,
- with all the unexplored potentialities of babyhood;
- = 13.8
- and until the last few moments
- its interest has been centred,
- = 17.5
- absolutely and exclusively,
- on its cradle and feeding-bottle.
- = 23.1
- It has just become conscious of the vast world
- existing outside itself and its cradle;
- = 28.9
- it is learning to focus its eyes on distant objects,
- and its awakening brain is beginning to wonder,
- = 34.8
- in a vague, dreamy way, what they are
- and what purpose they serve.
- = 40.9
- Its interest in this external world
- is not much developed yet,
- = 45.9
- so that the main part of its faculties
- is still engrossed with the cradle and feeding-bottle,
- = 52.6
- but a little corner of its
- brain is beginning to wonder.
- = 57.6
- = 59.3
- James Jeans, 1928
- : jeans_eos_2
- = 1.0
- In any case, our three-days-old infant
- cannot be very confident of any interpretation
- = 6.9
- it puts on a universe which it only
- discovered a minute or two ago.
- = 10.9
- We have said it has seventy years of life before it,
- but in truth its expectation of life
- = 16.1
- would seem to be nearer to 70,000 years.
- = 19.5
- It may be puzzled, distressed, and often irritated
- at the apparent meaninglessness
- and incomprehensibility of the world
- = 27.1
- to which it has suddenly wakened up.
- But it is still very young;
- = 32.8
- it might travel half the world over
- before finding another baby
- as young and inexperienced as itself.
- = 38.9
- It has before it time enough and to spare
- in which it may understand everything.
- = 46.0
- Sooner or later the pieces of the puzzle
- must begin to fit together,
- = 51.4
- although it may reasonably be doubted
- whether the whole picture can ever be comprehensible
- = 57.3
- to one small, and apparently quite
- insignificant, part of the picture.
- = 63.0
- = 64.4
- James Jeans, 1928
- : niffari_sea
- = 0.55
- God bade me behold the sea,
- and I saw the ships sinking
- and the planks floating;
- = 7.7
- then the planks too were submerged.
- = 11.2
- And God said to me,
- “Those who voyage are not saved.”
- = 17.3
- And He said to me, “Those who, instead of voyaging,
- cast themselves into the sea, take a risk.”
- = 26.6
- And He said to me,
- “Those who voyage and take no risk shall perish.”
- = 34.5
- And He said to me,
- “In taking the risk there is a part of salvation.”
- = 42.3
- And the wave came
- and lifted those beneath it
- and overran the shore.
- = 47.3
- = 47.4
- = 48.5
- And He said to me,
- “The surface of the sea is a gleam that cannot be reached.
- = 54.8
- “And the bottom is a darkness impenetrable. And between
- the two are great fishes, which are to be feared.”
- = 63.8
- = 64.9
- Niffari, circa 970
- = 73.8
- What?
- : sandwich
- = 0.55
- God bade me behold the sea,
- and I saw the ships sinking
- and the planks floating;
- = 7.7
- then the planks too were submerged.
- = 11.2
- And God said to me,
- “Those who voyage are not saved.”
- = 17.3
- And He said to me, “Those who, instead of voyaging,
- cast themselves into the sea, take a risk.”
- = 26.6
- And He said to me,
- “Those who voyage and take no risk shall perish.”
- = 34.5
- And He said to me,
- “In taking the risk there is a part of salvation.”
- = 42.3
- And the wave came
- and lifted those beneath it
- and overran the shore.
- = 47.3
- = 47.4
- = 48.5
- And He said to me,
- “The surface of the sea is a gleam that cannot be reached.
- = 54.8
- “And the bottom is a darkness impenetrable. And between
- the two are great fishes, which are to be feared.”
- = 63.8
- = 64.9
- Niffari, circa 970
- = 73.8
- What?
- = 75.4
- I'm going to the store, do you want a sandwich or something?
- = 80.3
- You've been standing there for like an hour.
- = 83.2
- I didn't want to interrupt.
- = 84.5
- And I don't like sandwiches. Have you ever seen me with a sandwich?
- Why would you think I'd want a sandwich?
- = 91.9
- Sorry.
- = 97.0
- I need some sleep.
- = 99.1
- It's okay, we're all working hard.
- = 102.3
- I just want to read it right.
- We're going to be hearing this _a lot_ of times.
- Every little thing matters because it gets so multiplied.
- = 113.0
- It's good. It's already good.
- = 117.9
- Thanks. Yeah. But we've kind of picked high goal posts.
- Every little bit matters.
- = 130.4
- Can you get me a coffee?
- : arabi_veils
- = 0.8
- There is nothing in existence but veils hung down.
- = 6.2
- Acts of perception attach themselves
- only to veils,
- = 9.954
- which leave traces in the owner
- of the eye that perceives them.
- = 14.9
- = 16.1
- ibn Arabi, 1231
- : tagore_voyage
- = 1.0
- I thought my voyage had come to its end
- at the last limit of my power —
- = 6.7
- that the path before me was closed,
- the provisions exhausted,
- and the time come to take shelter in silent obscurity.
- = 17.3
- But I find that thy will knows no end in me
- = 21.3
- And when words die out on the tongue,
- new melodies break forth from the heart;
- = 27.2
- And where old tracks are lost,
- New country is revealed with its wonders.
- = 32.7
- = 32.71
- : tagore_end
- = 1.0
- Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs.
- It was they who led me from door to door,
- = 8.8
- and with them I have felt about me,
- searching and touching my world.
- = 14.4
- = 14.9
- It was my songs that taught me
- all the lessons I ever learnt;
- = 18.9
- they showed me secret paths,
- they brought before my sight many a star
- on the horizon of my heart.
- = 25.5
- = 26.1
- They guided me all the day long
- to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain,
- = 32.5
- and, at last,
- to what palace gate have they brought me
- in the evening at the end of my journey?
- = 39.3
- : tagore_boast
- = 1.0
- I boasted among men that I had known you.
- = 4.3
- They see your pictures in all works of mine.
- They come and ask me, "Who is he?"
- = 10.9
- I know not how to answer them.
- I say, "Indeed, I cannot tell."
- = 16.8
- They blame me and they go away in scorn.
- And you sit there smiling.
- = 23.5
- = 24.7
- I put my tales of you into lasting songs.
- The secret gushes out from my heart.
- = 31.0
- They come and ask me,
- "Tell me all your meanings."
- = 34.9
- I know not how to answer them.
- I say, "Ah, who knows what they mean!"
- = 40.5
- = 41.0
- They smile and go away in utter scorn.
- And you sit there smiling.
- = 48.0
- = 49.5
- - Rabindranath Tagore, 1910
- : endgame
- = 4.0
- a star at dawn
- : bubble_in_stream
- a bubble in a stream
- : flash_of_lightning
- = 0.76
- a flash of lightning in a summer cloud
- : flickering_lamp
- a flickering lamp
- : a_phantom
- a phantom
- : and_a_dream
- and a dream.
- : hofstadter_activation
- = 1.0
- Our hangnails are incredibly real to us;
- = 4.7
- whereas to most of us, the English village of Nether Wallop
- and the high Himalayan country of Bhutan,
- = 11.0
- not to mention the slowly swirling spiral galaxy in Andromeda,
- are considerably less real,
- = 18.1
- even though our intellectual selves might wish to insist
- that since the latter are much bigger and longer-lasting
- than our hangnails,
- = 26.3
- they ought therefore to be far realer to us
- than our hangnails are.
- = 31.5
- We can say this to ourselves till we’re blue in the face,
- but few of us act as if we really believed it.
- = 39.3
- A slight slippage of subterranean stone
- that obliterates 20,000 people in some far-off land,
- = 45.9
- the ceaseless plundering of virgin jungles in the Amazon basin,
- = 50.0
- a swarm of helpless stars being swallowed up
- one after another by a ravenous black hole,
- = 56.0
- even an ongoing collision between two huge galaxies
- each of which contains a hundred billion stars —
- = 63.7
- such colossal events are so abstract to someone like me
- that they can’t even touch the sense of urgency and importance,
- = 71.8
- and thus the reality, of some measly little hangnail
- on my left hand’s pinky.
- = 78.0
- We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the
- end, is ourself.
- = 85.6
- The realest things of all are
- my knee, my nose, my anger, my hunger,
- my toothache, my sideache, my sadness, my joy,
- = 95.3
- my love for math, my abstraction ceiling, and so forth.
- = 100.0
- What all these things have in common, what binds them together,
- is the concept of "my",
- = 105.7
- which comes out of the concept of "I" or "me",
- and therefore,
- = 109.5
- although it is less concrete than a nose or even a toothache,
- this "I" thing is what ultimately seems to each of us
- to constitute the most solid rock of undeniability of all.
- = 122.8
- Could it possibly be an illusion?
- Or if not a total illusion, could it possibly be less real
- and less solid than we think it is?
- = 130.8
- Could an "I" be more like an elusive, receding,
- shimmering rainbow
- than like a tangible, heftable, transportable pot of gold?
- = 140.5
- = 141.9
- Douglas Hofstadter, 2007
- : heisenberg_on_pauli
- = 1.0
- The physicist Wolfgang Pauli once spoke
- of two limiting conceptions,
- = 5.8
- both of which have been extraordinarily fruitful
- in the history of human thought,
- although no genuine reality corresponds to them.
- = 13.8
- At one extreme is the idea of an objective world,
- pursuing its regular course in space and time,
- = 20.7
- independently of any kind of observing subject;
- this has been the guiding image of modern science.
- = 27.9
- At the other extreme is the idea of a subject,
- mystically experiencing the unity of the world
- = 34.5
- and no longer confronted by an object
- or by any objective world;
- = 39.7
- this has been the guiding image of Asian mysticism.
- = 43.5
- Our thinking moves somewhere in the middle,
- between these two limiting conceptions;
- = 48.6
- we should maintain the tension resulting
- from these two opposites.
- = 52.8
- = 54.3
- Werner Heisenberg, 1974
- : zen_points_beyond_language
- = 1.0
- In a sense, what modern physics is to the history of Western thought,
- Zen is to the development of the Eastern worldview:
- = 9.9
- the ultimate refinement of more than two thousand years
- of incisive debate, discussion, and critical development.
- = 17.9
- Yet the difference between the two could hardly be more marked.
- = 22.3
- Whereas physics is interested above all
- in theories, concepts, and formulas,
- Zen values only the concrete and the simple.
- = 32.25
- Zen wants facts — not in the Western sense of things
- that are measurable and numerical (which are, in fact, abstractions!)
- but as living, immediate, and tangible.
- = 44.0
- Its approach to understanding is not to theorize
- because it recognizes that previously accumulated ideas and knowledge —
- = 51.9
- in other words, memories of all kinds —
- block the direct perception of reality.
- = 58.4
- Therefore, Zen adopts an unusual approach.
- Its buildup involves language — which is unavoidable.
- = 65.5
- Any method, even if it turns out to be an antimethod,
- has first to convey some background in order to be effective.
- = 73.8
- But the way Zen uses language is always to point
- beyond language, beyond concepts to the concrete.
- = 81.0
- = 82.9
- David Darling, 1996
- : zen_physics_intellectual_catastrophe
- = 1.0
- Two major schools of Zen exist in Japan:
- the Rinzai and the Soto.
- = 6.7
- Both have the same goal, of seeing the world unmediated,
- but their approaches are different.
- = 12.5
- In the Soto school, the emphasis is on quiet contemplation
- in a seated position without a particular focus for thought.
- = 20.6
- The method in the Rinzai school, however,
- is to put the intellect to work on problems
- that have no logical resolution.
- = 28.5
- Such problems are known as koans,
- from the Chinese kung-an meaning “public announcement.”
- = 36.0
- Some are mere questions, for example:
- = 39.0
- “When your mind is not dwelling
- on the dualism of good and evil,
- what is your original face before you were born?”
- = 46.5
- = 46.9
- Others are set in a question-and-answer form, like:
- = 50.0
- “What is the Buddha?”
- = 52.6
- Answer: “Three pounds of flax”
- or “The cypress tree in the courtyard”
- (to name but two of the classic responses).
- = 59.9
- According to tradition
- there are seventeen hundred such conundrums
- in the Zen repertoire.
- = 65.5
- And their common aim is
- to induce a kind of intellectual catastrophe,
- = 71.1
- a sudden jump
- which lifts the individual out of the domain of words and reason
- into a direct, nonmediated experience known as satori.
- = 82.0
- = 82.5
- Zen differs from other meditative forms,
- including other schools of Buddhism,
- = 86.8
- in that it does not start from where we are
- and gradually lead us to a clear view
- of the true way of the world.
- = 94.0
- It is not a progressive system in this respect.
- = 97.5
- The sole purpose of studying Zen is to have Zen experiences —
- sudden moments, like flashes of lightning,
- = 106.5
- when the intellect is short-circuited
- and there is no longer a barrier
- between the experiencer and reality.
- = 113.8
- = 115.7
- David Darling, 1996
- : feynman_wine
- = 1.5
- A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine."
- = 6.8
- We will probably never know in what sense he meant that,
- for poets do not write to be understood.
- = 12.2
- But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine
- closely enough we see the entire universe.
- = 19.8
- There are the things of physics:
- the twisting liquid which evaporates
- depending on the wind and weather,
- = 25.6
- the reflections in the glass,
- and our imagination adds the atoms.
- = 31.2
- The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks,
- and in its composition we see the secrets of the
- universe’s age, and the evolution of stars.
- = 40.9
- What strange array of chemicals are in the wine?
- How did they come to be?
- = 45.9
- There are the ferments, the enzymes,
- the substrates, and the products.
- = 51.0
- There in wine is found the great generalization:
- all life is fermentation.
- = 60.6
- Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering,
- as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease.
- = 68.6
- How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence
- into the consciousness that watches it!
- = 75.8
- If our small minds, for some convenience,
- divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts —
- = 83.0
- physics, biology, geology, astronomy,
- psychology, and so on —
- = 87.8
- remember that nature does not know it!
- = 90.9
- So let us put it all back together,
- not forgetting ultimately what it is for.
- = 96.7
- Let it give us one more final pleasure:
- drink it and forget it all!
- = 103.3
- = 104.5
- Richard Feynman, 1963
- : feynman_uncertainty_of_science
- = 1.0
- If we were not able or did not desire to look in any new direction,
- if we did not have a doubt or recognize ignorance,
- = 12.0
- we would not get any new ideas.
- There would be nothing worth checking,
- because we would know what is true.
- = 20.3
- So what we call scientific knowledge today
- is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty.
- = 28.0
- Some of them are most unsure; some of them are nearly sure;
- but none is absolutely certain. Scientists are used to this.
- = 37.8
- We know that it is consistent to be able to live and not know.
- = 43.0
- Some people say,
- “How can you _live_ without knowing?” I do not know what they mean.
- = 49.5
- I always live without knowing. That is easy.
- How you get to know is what I want to know.
- = 56.5
- This freedom to doubt is an important matter in the sciences
- and, I believe, in other fields.
- It was born of a struggle.
- = 65.2
- It was a struggle to be permitted to doubt, to be unsure.
- = 68.4
- And I do not want us to forget the importance of the struggle
- and, by default, to let the thing fall away.
- = 76.1
- I feel a responsibility as a scientist
- who knows the great value
- of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance,
- = 84.5
- and the progress made possible by such a philosophy,
- progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought.
- = 93.4
- I feel a responsibility to proclaim the value of this freedom
- and to teach that doubt is not to be feared,
- = 100.3
- but that it is to be welcomed
- as the possibility of a new potential for human beings.
- = 106.1
- If you know that you are not sure,
- you have a chance to improve the situation.
- = 111.9
- I want to demand this freedom for future generations.
- = 115.5
- = 116.9
- Richard Feynman, 1963
- : feynman_atoms_with_curiosity
- = 0.7
- It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man,
- to contemplate what it would be like without man,
- = 8.3
- as it was in a great part of its long history
- and as it is in a great majority of places.
- = 14.8
- When this objective view is finally attained,
- and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated,
- = 22.4
- to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter,
- to view life as part of this universal mystery
- of the greatest depth,
- = 31.8
- is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting.
- = 37.8
- It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility
- of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is,
- = 45.7
- this thing — atoms with curiosity —
- that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders.
- = 54.8
- Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery,
- lost at the edge in uncertainty,
- but they appear to be so deep and so impressive
- = 66.4
- that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch
- man’s struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.
- = 76.5
- = 78.4
- Some will tell me
- that I have just described a religious experience.
- Very well, you may call it what you will.
- = 85.0
- Then, in that language I would say
- that the young man’s religious experience is of such a kind
- = 91.5
- that he finds the religion of his church inadequate to describe,
- to encompass that kind of experience.
- = 101.0
- The God of the church isn’t big enough.
- = 104.9
- = 105.9
- Richard Feynman, 1963
- : einstein_searchers
- = 0.8
- Of all the communities available to us,
- there is not one I would want to devote myself to,
- = 8.0
- except for the society of true searchers
- which has very few living members at any time.
- = 16.55
- = 17.8
- Albert Einstein, 1924
- : cezanne_motif
- = 1.35
- “You see, a motif is this...”
- = 5.3
- (He put his hands together, drew them apart, the ten fingers open,
- then slowly, very slowly brought them together again, clasped them,
- squeezed them tightly, meshing them.)
- = 18.6
- “That’s what one should try to achieve.
- If one hand is held too high or too low, it won’t work.
- = 25.5
- Not a single link should be too slack, leaving a hole through which the emotion,
- the light, the truth can escape.
- = 33.6
- You must understand that I work on the whole canvas,
- on everything at once.
- = 38.8
- With one impulse, with undivided faith,
- I approach all the scattered bits and pieces.
- = 46.9
- Everything we see falls apart, vanishes, doesn’t it?
- Nature is always the same, but nothing in her that appears to us, lasts.
- = 56.9
- Our art must render the thrill of her permanence
- along with her elements,
- the appearance of all her changes.
- It must give us a taste of her eternity.
- = 69.7
- What is there underneath? Maybe nothing.
- Maybe everything.
- Everything, you understand!
- = 78.0
- So I bring together her wandering hands.
- I take something at right, something at left,
- here, there, everywhere,
- = 85.8
- her tones, her colors, her nuances,
- I set them down, I bring them together.
- = 91.3
- They form lines. They become objects,
- rocks, trees, without my planning.
- They take on volume, value.
- = 99.4
- If these volumes, these values, correspond on my canvas,
- in my sensibility, to the planes,
- = 107.2
- to the spots ... which are there before our eyes,
- then my canvas has brought its hands together.
- = 113.8
- It does not waver.
- The hands have been joined neither too high nor too low.
- My canvas is true, compact, full.
- = 124.8
- But if there is the slightest distraction,
- if I fail just a little bit, above all if I interpret too much one day,
- = 132.2
- if today I am carried away by a theory
- which runs counter to that of yesterday,
- = 136.8
- if I think while I paint, if I meddle,
- whoosh! everything goes to pieces.
- = 142.5
- = 143.7
- Paul Cezanne as related by Joachim Gasquet, 1921
- : eddington_entering_a_room
- = 1.4
- I am standing on the threshold about to enter a room.
- It is a complicated business.
- = 7.9
- In the first place, I must shove against an atmosphere
- pressing with a force of fourteen pounds
- on every square inch of my body.
- = 16.1
- I must make sure of landing on a plank
- travelling at twenty miles a second round the sun —
- = 21.0
- a fraction of a second too early or too late,
- the plank would be miles away.
- = 25.7
- I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet
- head outward into space,
- = 30.8
- and with a wind of aether blowing
- at no one knows how many miles a second
- through every interstice of my body.
- = 38.0
- The plank has no solidity of substance.
- To step on it is like stepping on a swarm of flies.
- = 44.3
- Shall I not slip through?
- = 46.0
- No, if I make the venture one of the flies hits me
- and gives a boost up again;
- = 51.8
- I fall again and am knocked upwards by another fly;
- and so on.
- = 56.8
- I may hope that the net result will be that I remain about steady,
- but if, unfortunately, I should slip through the floor
- or be boosted too violently up to the ceiling,
- = 67.5
- the occurrence would be, not a violation of the laws of Nature,
- but a rare coincidence. These are some of the minor difficulties.
- = 76.7
- I ought really to look at the problem four-dimensionally
- as concerning the intersection of my world-line
- with that of the plank.
- = 84.5
- Then again, it is necessary to determine
- in which direction the entropy of the world is increasing
- = 89.9
- in order to make sure that my passage over the threshold
- is an entrance, not an exit.
- = 97.0
- Verily, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
- than for a scientific man to pass through a door.
- = 104.9
- And whether the door be barn door or church door
- it might be wiser
- = 109.0
- that he should consent to be an ordinary man and walk in
- rather than wait till all the difficulties involved
- in a really scientific ingress
- are resolved.
- = 118.5
- = 120.0
- Arthur Eddington, 1927
- : eddington_eyes
- = 1.1
- As scientists, we realise that colour is merely a question
- of the wavelengths of aethereal vibrations,
- = 8.9
- but that does not seem to have dispelled the feeling
- that eyes which reflect light near wavelength 4800
- are a subject for rhapsody
- = 16.4
- whilst those which reflect wavelength 5300
- are left unsung.
- = 21.4
- We have not yet reached the practice of the Laputans, who,
- “if they would, for example, praise the beauty of a
- woman, or any other animal,
- = 28.2
- “they describe it by rhombs, circles,
- parallelograms, ellipses, and other geometrical terms.”
- = 34.1
- The materialist who is convinced that all phenomena
- arise from electrons and quanta and the like
- controlled by mathematical formulae,
- = 42.0
- must presumably hold the belief
- that his wife is a rather elaborate differential equation,
- = 47.8
- but he is probably tactful enough
- not to obtrude this opinion in domestic life.
- = 53.0
- If this kind of scientific dissection
- is felt to be inadequate and irrelevant
- in ordinary personal relationships,
- = 60.7
- it is surely out of place
- in the most personal relationship of all —
- that of the human soul to a divine spirit.
- = 68.15
- = 69.7
- Arthur Eddington, 1927
- : eddington_humor
- = 1.3
- We have two kinds of knowledge which I call symbolic and intimate.
- = 6.1
- I do not know whether it would be correct to say
- that reasoning is only applicable to symbolic knowledge,
- = 12.8
- but the more customary forms of reasoning
- have been developed for symbolic knowledge only.
- = 18.8
- The intimate knowledge will not submit to codification and analysis,
- or, rather, when we attempt to analyse it
- the intimacy is lost and replaced by symbolism.
- = 31.5
- = 32.7
- For an illustration let us consider Humour.
- = 37.8
- I suppose that humour can be analysed to some extent
- and the essential ingredients
- of the different kinds of wit classified.
- = 45.4
- Suppose that we are offered an alleged joke.
- We subject it to scientific analysis
- as we would a chemical salt of doubtful nature,
- = 54.5
- and perhaps after careful consideration
- we are able to confirm
- that it really and truly is a joke.
- = 62.6
- Logically, I suppose, our next procedure would be to laugh.
- = 67.8
- = 68.8
- But it may certainly be predicted
- that as the result of this scrutiny
- we shall have lost all inclination we ever had
- to laugh at it.
- = 77.6
- It simply does not do to expose the workings of a joke.
- = 82.0
- The classification concerns a symbolic knowledge of humour
- which preserves all the characteristics of a joke
- except its laughableness.
- = 92.0
- The real appreciation must come spontaneously,
- not introspectively.
- = 98.4
- = 99.4
- I think this is a not unfair analogy
- for our mystical feeling for Nature,
- = 104.7
- and I would venture even to apply it
- to our mystical experience of God.
- = 109.4
- There are some to whom the sense
- of a divine presence irradiating the soul
- is one of the most obvious things of experience.
- = 117.1
- In their view, a man without this sense
- is to be regarded
- as we regard a man without a sense of humour.
- = 124.5
- The absence is a kind of mental deficiency.
- = 128.4
- We may try to analyse the experience as we analyse humour,
- and construct a theology,
- or it may be an atheistic philosophy...
- = 138.5
- But let us not forget that the theology is symbolic knowledge,
- whereas the experience is intimate knowledge.
- = 146.3
- And as laughter cannot be compelled
- by the scientific exposition of the structure of a joke,
- = 152.8
- so a philosophic discussion of the attributes of God
- (or an impersonal substitute)
- = 158.8
- is likely to miss the intimate response of the spirit
- which is the central point of the religious experience.
- = 166.0
- = 167.8
- Arthur Eddington, 1927
- : eddington_generation_of_waves
- = 0.0
- One day I happened to be occupied with the subject of
- “Generation of Waves by Wind.”
- = 5.7
- I took down the standard treatise on hydrodynamics,
- and under that heading I read —
- = 10.1
- If the external forces p’ yy, p’ xy be given
- multiples of e ** (ikx + at), where k and a are prescribed,
- the equations in question determine A and C,
- and thence, by (9) the value of eta....
- = 26.9
- And so on for two pages. At the end, it is made clear
- that a wind of less than half a mile an hour
- will leave the surface unruffled.
- = 35.6
- At a mile an hour the surface is covered
- with minute corrugations due to capillary waves
- which decay immediately if the disturbing cause ceases.
- = 43.7
- At two miles an hour the gravity waves appear.
- As the author modestly concludes,
- = 49.0
- “Our theoretical investigations give considerable
- insight into the incipient stages of wave-formation.”
- = 55.5
- = 55.6
- On another occasion the same subject
- of “Generation of Waves by Wind”
- was in my mind;
- = 61.4
- but this time another book was more appropriate,
- and I read —
- = 65.9
- There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
- And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
- = 73.6
- Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
- And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
- = 80.8
- Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
- A width, a shining peace, under the night.
- = 86.8
- = 88.0
- The magic words bring back the scene.
- Again we feel Nature drawing close to us,
- uniting with us,
- = 95.1
- til we are filled with the gladness of the waves
- dancing in the sunshine,
- with the awe of the moonlight on the frozen lake.
- = 103.0
- These were not moments when we fell below ourselves.
- We do not look back on them and say,
- = 109.3
- “It was disgraceful for a man with six sober senses
- and a scientific understanding
- to let himself be deluded in that way.
- = 116.0
- “I will take Lamb’s Hydrodynamics with me next time.”
- = 118.9
- = 119.4
- It is good that there should be such moments for us.
- = 123.5
- Life would be stunted and narrow
- if we could feel no significance in the world around us
- = 128.6
- beyond that which can be weighed and measured
- with the tools of the physicist
- or described by the metrical symbols of the mathematician.
- = 135.8
- = 136.4
- Of course, it was an illusion.
- We can easily expose the rather clumsy trick
- that was played on us.
- = 143.5
- Aethereal vibrations of various wavelengths,
- reflected at different angles
- from the disturbed interface between air and water,
- = 151.0
- reached our eyes, and by photoelectric action
- caused appropriate stimuli to travel along the optic nerves
- to a brain-centre.
- = 159.0
- Here the mind set to work
- to weave an impression out of the stimuli.
- = 164.5
- The incoming material was somewhat meagre,
- but the mind is a great storehouse of associations
- that could be used to clothe the skeleton.
- = 173.4
- Having woven an impression, the mind
- surveyed all that it had made
- and decided that it was very good.
- = 179.9
- The critical faculty was lulled.
- We ceased to analyse and were conscious
- only of the impression as a whole.
- = 187.4
- The warmth of the air, the scent of the grass,
- the gentle stir of the breeze,
- = 192.0
- combined with the visual scene
- in one transcendent impression,
- around us and within us.
- = 199.0
- Associations emerging from their storehouse grew bolder.
- Perhaps we recalled the phrase “rippling laughter.”
- = 207.0
- Waves—ripples—laughter—gladness—the ideas jostled one another.
- Quite illogically, we were glad,
- = 215.9
- though what there can possibly be to be glad about
- in a set of aethereal vibrations
- no sensible person can explain.
- = 223.0
- A mood of quiet joy suffused the whole impression.
- The gladness in ourselves was in Nature,
- in the waves, everywhere.
- That’s how it was.
- = 235.5
- It was an illusion. Then why toy with it longer?
- These airy fancies which the mind,
- when we do not keep it severely in order,
- = 244.0
- projects into the external world
- should be of no concern to the earnest seeker after truth.
- = 249.7
- Get back to the solid substance of things,
- to the material of the water moving
- under the pressure of the wind
- = 255.3
- and the force of gravitation
- in obedience to the laws of hydrodynamics.
- = 260.6
- But the solid substance of things is another illusion.
- It too is a fancy projected by the mind
- into the external world.
- = 268.4
- We have chased the solid substance
- from the continuous liquid to the atom,
- from the atom to the electron,
- and there we have lost it.
- = 276.7
- But at least, it will be said,
- we have reached something real at the end of the chase —
- the protons and electrons.
- = 283.8
- Or, if the new quantum theory condemns these images
- as too concrete and leaves us with no coherent images at all,
- = 291.6
- at least we have symbolic coordinates and momenta and Hamiltonian
- functions devoting themselves with single-minded purpose to ensuring
- that qp-pq shall be equal to ih/2π.
- = 305.8
- = 306.2
- I have tried to show that by following this course
- we reach a cyclic scheme which, from its very nature,
- can only be a partial expression of our environment.
- = 316.6
- It is not reality but the skeleton of reality.
- = 320.5
- “Actuality” has been lost in the exigencies of the chase.
- Having first rejected the mind as a worker of illusion
- we have in the end to return to the mind and say,
- = 331.9
- “Here are worlds well and truly built
- on a basis more secure than your fanciful illusions.
- But there is nothing to make any one of them an actual world.
- = 341.9
- “Please choose one and weave your fanciful images into it.
- That alone can make it actual.”
- = 349.6
- We have torn away the mental fancies
- to get at the reality beneath,
- = 354.4
- only to find that the reality of that which is beneath
- is bound up with its potentiality of awakening these fancies.
- = 362.8
- It is because the mind, the weaver of illusion,
- is also the only guarantor of reality
- that reality is always to be sought at the base of illusion.
- = 373.4
- Illusion is to reality as the smoke to the fire.
- I will not urge that hoary untruth “There is no smoke without fire”.
- = 382.0
- But it is reasonable to inquire whether,
- in the mystical illusions of man,
- there is not a reflection of an underlying reality.
- = 391.5
- = 392.8
- Arthur Eddington, 1927
- : schweickart_eva
- = 1.0
- Up there you go around every hour and a half,
- time after time after time.
- = 8.3
- You wake up usually in the mornings.
- And just the way that the track of your orbits go,
- = 14.3
- you wake up over the Mid-East, over North Africa.
- = 18.1
- As you eat breakfast you look out the window as you’re going past
- and there’s the Mediterranean area,
- = 24.4
- and Greece, and Rome, and North Africa,
- and the Sinai, the whole area.
- = 30.6
- And you realize that in one glance that
- what you’re seeing is what was the whole history of man for years —
- = 39.0
- the cradle of civilization....
- = 41.9
- = 42.2
- And you go around down across North Africa
- and out over the Indian Ocean,
- = 47.7
- and look up at that great subcontinent of India
- pointed down toward you as you go past it.
- = 54.0
- And Ceylon off to the side, Burma, Southeast Asia,
- out over the Philippines,
- and up across that monstrous Pacific Ocean,
- = 63.0
- vast body of water —
- you’ve never realized how big that is before.
- = 69.3
- And you finally come up across the coast of California
- and look for those friendly things:
- Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and on across El Paso
- = 79.5
- and there’s Houston, there’s home,
- and you look and sure enough there’s the Astrodome.
- And you identify with that, you know —
- it’s an attachment.
- = 89.9
- And down across New Orleans and then looking down to the south
- and there’s the whole peninsula of Florida laid out.
- = 96.8
- And all the hundreds of hours
- you spent flying across that route,
- down in the atmosphere,
- all that is friendly again.
- = 104.7
- And you go out across the Atlantic Ocean and back across Africa.
- = 108.6
- = 109.2
- And you do it again and again and again.
- = 113.0
- = 113.7
- And that identity - that you identify with Houston,
- and then you identify with Los Angeles,
- and Phoenix and New Orleans and everything.
- = 122.6
- And the next thing you recognize in yourself,
- is you’re identifying with North Africa.
- = 128.0
- You look forward to that, you anticipate it.
- And there it is.
- = 132.5
- That whole process begins to shift
- of what it is you identify with.
- = 138.4
- When you go around it in an hour and a half
- you begin to recognize
- that your identity is with that whole thing.
- And that makes a change.
- = 147.8
- You look down there and you can’t imagine
- how many borders and boundaries you crossed
- again and again and again.
- And you don’t even see ’em.
- = 157.0
- At that wake-up scene — the Mid-East —
- you know there are hundreds of people killing each other
- over some imaginary line that you can’t see.
- = 166.8
- From where you see it, the thing is a whole,
- and it’s so beautiful.
- And you wish you could take one from each side in hand
- and say,
- = 176.8
- “Look at it from this perspective.
- Look at that. What’s important?”
- = 183.8
- And so a little later on, your friend, those same neighbors,
- another astronaut, the person next to you goes out to the Moon.
- = 191.8
- And now he looks back and sees the Earth not as something big,
- where he can see the beautiful details,
- = 198.6
- but he sees the Earth as a small thing out there.
- = 202.4
- And now that contrast between
- that bright blue and white Christmas tree ornament
- and that black sky, that infinite universe,
- really comes through.
- = 214.6
- The size of it, the significance of it —
- it becomes both things,
- = 219.7
- it becomes so small and so fragile,
- and such a precious little spot in that universe,
- that you can block it out with your thumb,
- = 229.2
- and you realize that on that small spot,
- that little blue and white thing
- is everything that means anything to you.
- = 237.8
- All of history and music and poetry and art
- and war and death and birth and love, tears, joy,
- games,
- = 247.0
- all of it is on that little spot out there
- that you can cover with your thumb.
- = 253.95
- And you realize that that perspective ...
- that you’ve changed, that there’s something new there.
- = 261.3
- That relationship is no longer what it was.
- = 265.0
- And then you look back on the time
- when you were outside on that EVA
- and those few moments that you had the time
- because the camera malfunctioned,
- = 272.9
- that you had the time to think about what was happening.
- = 276.2
- And you recall staring out there at the spectacle
- that went before your eyes. Because now
- you’re no longer inside something
- with a window looking out at a picture,
- = 286.85
- but now you’re out there
- and what you’ve got around your head
- is a goldfish bowl and there are no limits here.
- = 294.7
- There are no frames, there are no boundaries.
- = 297.8
- You’re really out there, over it, floating,
- going 25,000 mph, ripping through space,
- a vacuum, and there’s not a sound.
- = 307.5
- = 308.4
- There’s a silence
- the depth of which you’ve never experienced before,
- and that silence contrasts so markedly with the scenery,
- = 317.8
- and the speed with which you know you’re going.
- = 320.9
- That contrast, the mix of those two things,
- really comes through.
- = 327.4
- And you think about what you’re experiencing and why.
- Do you deserve this? This fantastic experience?
- Have you earned this in some way?
- = 339.9
- Are you separated out to be touched by God
- to have some special experience here
- that other men cannot have?
- = 347.8
- You know the answer to that is No.
- There’s nothing that you’ve done that deserves that,
- that earned that.
- = 354.8
- It’s not a special thing for you.
- You know very well at that moment,
- and it comes through to you so powerfully,
- that you’re the sensing element for man.
- = 365.9
- = 366.2
- You look down and see the surface of that globe
- that you’ve lived on all this time
- and you know all those people down there.
- = 373.8
- They are like you, they are you,
- and somehow you represent them when you are up there —
- = 380.8
- a sensing element, that point out on the end,
- and that’s a humbling feeling.
- It’s a feeling that says you have a responsibility.
- It’s not for yourself.
- = 392.8
- = 394.3
- The eye that doesn’t see does not do justice to the body.
- That’s why it’s there, that’s why you’re out there.
- = 402.7
- And somehow you recognize that you’re a piece of this total life.
- = 407.4
- You’re out on that forefront
- and you have to bring that back, somehow.
- = 411.5
- And that becomes a rather special responsibility.
- = 414.4
- It tells you something about your relationship
- with this thing we call life....
- = 418.9
- = 419.4
- And when you come back, there’s a difference in that world now,
- there’s a difference in that relationship
- between you and that planet,
- = 427.5
- and you and all those other forms of life on that planet,
- because you’ve had that kind of experience.
- = 434.1
- It’s a difference,
- and it’s so precious.
- = 438.0
- And all through this I’ve used the word “you”
- because it’s not me, it’s not Dave Scott,
- it’s not Dick Gordon, Pete Conrad, John Glenn,
- it’s you, it’s us, it’s we, it’s life.
- = 452.6
- It’s had that experience.
- And it’s not just my problem to integrate,
- it’s not my challenge to integrate, my joy to integrate —
- it’s yours, it’s everybody’s.
- = 465.5
- = 467.2
- Russell Schweickart, 1975.
- : skinner_autonomy
- = 1.0
- In the traditional view a person is free.
- He is autonomous in the sense that his behavior is uncaused...
- = 9.3
- That view, together with its associated practices,
- must be re-examined when a scientific analysis
- = 15.3
- reveals unexpected controlling relations
- between behaviour and environment....
- = 21.3
- = 21.4
- By questioning the control exercised by autonomous man
- and demonstrating the control exercised by the environment,
- = 28.3
- a science of behavior also seems to question dignity or worth.
- = 34.5
- A person is responsible for his behavior,
- not only in the sense that he may be
- justly blamed or punished when he behaves badly,
- = 42.8
- but also in the sense that he is to be given credit
- and admired for his achievements.
- = 49.8
- A scientific analysis shifts the credit as well as the blame
- to the environment,
- and traditional practices can then no longer be justified.
- = 59.8
- These are sweeping changes,
- and those who are committed to traditional theories and practices
- naturally resist them....
- = 67.2
- = 67.5
- As the emphasis shifts to the environment,
- the individual seems to be exposed
- to a new kind of danger.
- = 74.8
- Who is to construct the controlling environment
- and to what end?
- = 80.8
- Autonomous man presumably controls himself
- in accordance with a built-in set of values;
- he works for what he finds good.
- = 91.0
- But what will the putative controller find good,
- and will it be good for those he controls?
- = 97.6
- = 99.0
- Answers to questions of this sort are said, of course,
- to call for value judgements.
- = 105.8
- = 107.0
- B.F. Skinner, 1971
- : skinner_reciprocal
- = 0.9
- The relation between the controller and the controlled
- is reciprocal.
- = 6.6
- The scientist in the laboratory,
- studying the behavior of a pigeon,
- designs contingencies and observes their effects.
- = 14.5
- His apparatus exerts a conspicuous control on the pigeon,
- but we must not overlook the control exerted by the pigeon.
- = 22.0
- The behavior of the pigeon
- has determined the design of the apparatus
- and the procedures in which it is used.
- = 29.3
- Some such reciprocal control is characteristic of all science.
- As Francis Bacon put it,
- nature to be commanded must be obeyed.
- = 38.0
- = 38.9
- The scientist who designs a cyclotron
- is under the control of the particles he is studying.
- = 45.3
- The behavior with which a parent controls his child,
- either aversively or through positive reinforcement,
- is shaped and maintained by the child's responses.
- = 55.7
- A psychotherapist changes the behavior of his patient
- in ways which have been shaped and maintained
- by his success in changing that behavior.
- = 65.0
- A government or religion prescribes and imposes sanctions
- selected by their effectiveness
- in controlling citizen or communicant.
- = 74.8
- An employer induces his employees
- to work industriously and carefully
- with wage systems
- determined by their effects on behavior.
- = 83.5
- The classroom practices of the teacher
- are shaped and maintained
- by the effects on his students.
- = 89.5
- = 90.5
- In a very real sense, then,
- the slave controls the slave driver,
- the child the parent,
- = 97.5
- the patient the therapist, the citizen the government,
- the communicant the priest, the employee the employer,
- and the student the teacher.
- = 107.2
- = 108.7
- B.F. Skinner, 1971
- : gangaji_silence
- = 1.3
- When we choose silence,
- we choose to give up the reasons not to love,
- = 6.7
- which are the reasons for going to war, or continuing war,
- or separating, or being a victim, or being right.
- = 14.8
- = 15.8
- In a moment of silence,
- in a moment of no thought, no mind,
- = 21.4
- we choose to give those up.
- This is what my teacher invited me to.
- = 27.6
- Just choose silence. Don't even choose love.
- Choose silence, and love is apparent.
- = 36.8
- = 37.7
- If we choose love we already have an idea
- of what love is.
- = 42.5
- = 43.1
- But if you choose silence, that is the end of ideas.
- You are willing to have no idea,
- = 51.6
- to see what is present when there is no idea,
- past, present, future.
- = 57.8
- = 58.7
- No idea of love, no idea of truth, no idea of you,
- no idea of me. Love is apparent.
- = 69.5
- = 70.8
- Gangaji, 2009
- : kingsmill
- = 1.0
- What is divine in man is elusive and impalpable,
- and he is easily tempted to embody it in a concrete form –
- = 9.0
- a church, a country, a social system, a leader –
- so that he may realize it with less effort
- and serve it with more profit.
- = 17.8
- Yet the attempt to externalize the kingdom of heaven
- in a temporal shape must end in disaster.
- = 24.9
- It cannot be created by charters or constitutions
- nor established by arms.
- = 30.0
- = 31.2
- Those who seek for it alone will reach it together,
- and those who seek it in company will perish by themselves.
- = 41.3
- = 42.9
- Hugh Kingsmill, 1944
- : denck_nobody_finds
- = 1.0
- O my God, how does it happen in this poor old world
- = 7.3
- that Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee,
- that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee,
- = 16.0
- that Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee,
- that Thou givest Thyself to everybody
- and nobody knows Thy name?
- = 25.5
- = 26.35
- Men flee from Thee and say they cannot find Thee;
- they turn their backs and say they cannot see Thee;
- = 35.0
- they stop their ears and say they cannot hear Thee.
- = 38.8
- = 40.7
- Hans Denck, circa 1520
- : chuang_tzu_boat
- = 0.79
- Suppose a boat is crossing a river,
- and another empty boat is about to collide with it.
- = 7.3
- Even an irritable man would not lose his temper.
- = 11.0
- But supposing there was some one in the second boat.
- Then the occupant of the first
- would shout to him to keep clear.
- = 17.8
- And if the other did not hear the first time,
- nor even when called three times,
- bad language would inevitably follow.
- = 26.9
- In the first case there was no anger,
- in the second there was;
- = 32.8
- because in the first case the boat was empty,
- and in the second it was occupied.
- = 39.3
- And so it is with man.
- If he could only roam empty through life,
- who would be able to injure him?
- = 47.5
- = 49.3
- Zhuangzi, 4th century B.C.
- : mitchell_ttc_11
- = 0.0
- We join spokes together in a wheel,
- but it is the center hole
- that makes the wagon move.
- = 6.5
- = 7.0
- We shape clay into a pot,
- but it is the emptiness inside
- that holds whatever we want.
- = 13.8
- = 14.8
- We hammer wood for a house,
- but it is the inner space
- that makes it livable.
- = 20.4
- = 20.8
- We work with being,
- but non-being is what we use.
- = 25.8
- = 26.3
- Lao Tzu, 6th century BC
- : wordsworth_peak
- = 1.0
- Lustily
- I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
- = 5.7
- And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
- Went heaving through the water like a swan;
- = 12.5
- When, from behind that craggy steep, till then
- The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
- = 21.0
- As if with voluntary power instinct,
- Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
- = 30.3
- And growing still in stature, the grim shape
- Towered up between me and the stars. . . .
- = 37.0
- = 37.5
- But after I had seen
- That spectacle, for many days my brain
- = 42.5
- Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
- Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
- = 51.3
- There hung a darkness, call it solitude,
- Or blank desertion.
- = 59.4
- = 61.5
- William Wordsworth, 1888
- : clifford_shipowner
- = 1.1
- A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship.
- He knew that she was old,
- and not well built at the first;
- = 8.9
- that she had seen many seas and climes,
- and often had needed repairs.
- = 14.5
- Doubts had been suggested to him
- that possibly she was not seaworthy.
- = 19.4
- These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy;
- he thought that perhaps he ought to have her
- thoroughly overhauled and refitted,
- even though this should put him at great expense.
- = 32.1
- Before the ship sailed, however,
- he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections.
- = 38.5
- He said to himself that she had gone safely
- through so many voyages and weathered so many storms
- that it was idle to suppose
- she would not come safely home from this trip also.
- = 49.8
- He would put his trust in Providence,
- which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families
- that were leaving their fatherland
- to seek for better times elsewhere.
- = 60.6
- He would dismiss from his mind
- all ungenerous suspicions
- about the honesty of builders and contractors.
- = 67.2
- In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction
- that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy;
- = 75.7
- he watched her departure with a light heart,
- and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles
- in their strange new home that was to be;
- = 84.3
- and he got his insurance-money when she went down in
- mid-ocean and told no tales.
- = 90.8
- What shall we say of him?
- Surely this, that he was verily guilty
- of the death of those families.
- = 97.8
- It is admitted that he did sincerely believe
- in the soundness of his ship;
- but the sincerity of his conviction
- can in no wise help him,
- = 107.0
- _because he had no right to believe
- on such evidence as was before him_.
- = 111.9
- He had acquired his belief
- not by honestly earning it in patient investigation,
- but by stifling his doubts.
- = 119.8
- And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it
- that he could not think otherwise,
- = 125.3
- yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly
- worked himself into that frame of mind,
- = 131.1
- he must be held responsible for it.
- = 134.0
- = 135.9
- William K. Clifford, 1874
- : clifford_busy
- = 0.7
- If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood
- or persuaded of afterwards,
- = 6.8
- keeps down and pushes away any doubts
- which arise about it in his mind,
- = 11.2
- purposely avoids the reading of books
- and the company of men
- that call into question or discuss it,
- = 16.5
- and regards as impious
- those questions which cannot easily be asked
- without disturbing it —
- = 22.3
- the life of that man is one long sin against
- mankind....
- = 26.8
- = 27.8
- “But,” says one, “I am a busy man;
- = 31.1
- “I have no time for the long course of study
- which would be necessary to make me in any degree
- a competent judge of certain questions,
- = 38.8
- “or even able to understand the nature of
- the arguments.”
- = 41.7
- = 42.4
- Then he should have no time to believe.
- = 45.55
- = 47.05
- William K. Clifford, 1874
- : brooke_the_dead
- = 0.75
- These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
- Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
- = 10.0
- The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
- And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
- = 18.4
- These had seen movement, and heard music; known
- Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
- = 27.7
- Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
- Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
- = 39.0
- = 40.4
- There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
- And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
- = 49.3
- Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
- And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
- = 59.8
- Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
- A width, a shining peace, under the night.
- = 71.0
- = 72.4
- Rupert Brooke, 1914
- : cusa_impossible
- = 1.0
- Therefore, I thank you, my God,
- because you make clear to me
- = 5.3
- that there is no other way of approaching you
- = 8.0
- except that which to all humans,
- even to the most learned philosophers,
- = 12.5
- seems wholly inaccessible and impossible.
- = 17.7
- For you have shown me that you cannot be seen
- elsewhere than where impossibility confronts and obstructs me.
- = 24.7
- O Lord, you, who are the food of the mature,
- have given me courage to do violence to myself,
- = 31.7
- for impossibility coincides with necessity,
- and I have discovered that the place where you are found unveiled
- = 38.5
- is girded about with the coincidence of contradictories.
- = 43.8
- This is the wall of paradise,
- and it is there in paradise that you reside.
- = 50.0
- The wall's gate is guarded by the highest spirit of reason,
- and unless it is overpowered, the way in will not lie open.
- = 59.1
- Thus, it is on the other side
- of the coincidence of contradictories
- = 63.8
- that you will be able to be seen
- and nowhere on this side.
- = 68.5
- If, therefore,
- impossibility is necessity in your sight, O Lord,
- = 73.2
- there is nothing which your sight does not see.
- = 76.5
- = 78.2
- - Nicholas of Cusa, 1453
- : cusa_invisible
- = 0.7
- Formerly you appeared to me, O Lord,
- as invisible by every creature
- = 6.1
- because you are a hidden, infinite God.
- = 10.3
- Infinity, however, is incomprehensible
- by every means of comprehending.
- = 18.8
- Later you appeared to me as visible by all,
- for a thing exists only as you see it,
- = 27.5
- and it would not actually exist unless it saw you.
- = 32.5
- For your vision confers being,
- since your vision is your essence.
- = 39.0
- Thus, my God, you are equally invisible and visible.
- As you are, you are invisible;
- = 50.1
- as the creature is,
- which exists only insofar as the creature sees you,
- you are visible.
- = 57.8
- You, therefore, my invisible God, are seen by all,
- and in all sight you are seen by everyone who sees.
- = 69.0
- You who are invisible,
- who are both absolute from everything visible
- and infinitely superexalted,
- = 77.5
- are seen in every visible thing
- and in every act of vision.
- = 83.9
- Therefore, I must leap across this wall of invisible vision
- to where you are to be found.
- = 92.9
- But this wall is both everything and nothing.
- For you, who confront
- as if you were both all things and nothing at all,
- = 103.9
- dwell inside that high wall
- which no natural ability can scale by its own power.
- = 110.4
- = 112.0
- - Nicholas of Cusa, 1453
- : cusa_name
- = 0.7
- O Lord God, helper of those who seek you,
- I see you in the garden of paradise,
- = 8.9
- and I do not know what I see,
- because I see nothing visible.
- = 14.9
- I know this alone
- that I know that I do not know what I see
- and that I can never know.
- = 21.9
- I do not know how to name you,
- because I do not know what you are.
- = 26.0
- Should anyone tell me
- that you are named by this or that name,
- = 29.9
- by the fact that one gives a name
- I know that it is not your name.
- = 34.8
- For the wall beyond which I see you
- is the limit of every mode of signification by names.
- = 40.9
- Should anyone express any concept
- by which you could be conceived,
- = 45.4
- I know that this concept is not a concept of you,
- for every concept finds its boundary
- at the wall of paradise.
- = 53.8
- Should anyone express any likeness
- and say that you ought to be conceived according to it,
- = 59.0
- I know in the same way that this is not a likeness of you.
- = 63.3
- So too if anyone, wishing to furnish the means
- by which you might be understood,
- = 68.0
- should set forth an understanding of you,
- one is still far removed from you.
- = 74.7
- For the highest wall separates you from all these
- and secludes you from everything that can be said or thought,
- = 82.5
- because you are absolute from all the things
- that can fall within any concept.
- = 89.5
- = 91.1
- - Nicholas of Cusa, 1453
- : dirac
- = 0.6
- I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion.
- If we are honest — and scientists have to be —
- = 7.6
- we must admit that religion is a jumble
- of false assertions, with no basis in reality.
- = 13.7
- The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.
- It is quite understandable why primitive people,
- = 21.6
- who were so much more exposed to the overpowering
- forces of nature than we are today,
- = 27.5
- should have personified these forces in fear and trembling.
- = 31.4
- But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes,
- we have no need for such solutions.
- = 39.3
- I can't for the life of me
- see how the postulate of an Almighty God
- helps us in any way.
- = 46.7
- What I do see is that this assumption
- leads to such unproductive questions
- = 52.3
- as why God allows so much misery and injustice,
- the exploitation of the poor by the rich
- = 57.9
- and all the other horrors He might have prevented.
- = 62.7
- If religion is still being taught,
- it is by no means because its ideas still convince us,
- = 68.5
- but simply because some of us
- want to keep the lower classes quiet.
- = 73.1
- Quiet people are much easier to govern
- than clamorous and dissatisfied ones.
- They are also much easier to exploit.
- = 81.2
- Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation
- to lull itself into wishful dreams
- = 86.8
- and so forget the injustices that are
- being perpetrated against the people.
- = 92.5
- Paul Dirac, 1927
- as related by Werner Heisenberg
- = 97.8
- = 99.0
- So you see what I'm saying here.
- = 102.0
- Yep. This one doesn't fit either.
- = 105.3
- How would you characterise the way in which it doesn't fit?
- = 108.8
- It's ... about arguing, and it's about being greatly disturbed
- by issues that are relatively small.
- = 116.7
- It's not aiming high,
- it's not about ultimate truth, not really.
- = 120.9
- It's mostly about what some stupid people are doing
- that is wrong, compared to what I am doing that is right.
- = 128.0
- But Paul Dirac was definitely a truth-seeker ...
- in the domain of physics at least.
- = 132.6
- Yeah but I don't feel that attitude in this piece at all.
- If a belief is just formed in opposition to other beliefs,
- = 140.0
- ... it can't be fundamental? It can't be that deep.
- = 145.5
- But you know, where he says the thing about natural processes,
- he starts to outline an actual philosophy.
- = 152.5
- = 152.51
- = 152.65
- Hmm, interesting. There's something that could stand on its own,
- that isn't just rejection and opposition.
- But then he drops it.
- = 162.8
- Well, this isn't the atheist manifesto we need.
- I'll keep looking.
- = 169.8
- You know, at one point Dirac also wrote this:
- = 173.8
- "One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that
- God is a mathematician of a very high order,
- and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe."
- = 183.8
- I think he meant God in an Einstein kind of way.
- = 187.7
- He said that? Same guy?
- = 190.2
- Same guy. Later in life though.
- People are strange. Scientists are stranger.
- = 199.0
- Yes they are.
- : dreams
- = 1.0
- Then the occupant of the first
- would shout to keep him clear.
- = 4.8
- And if the other did not hear the first time,
- nor even when called three times,
- bad language would inevitably follow.
- = 14.1
- In the first case there was no anger,
- and in the second there was;
- = 19.7
- because in the first case the boat was empty,
- and in the second it was occupied.
- = 26.0
- And so it is with man.
- If he could only roam empty through life,
- who would be able to injure him?
- = 33.5
- = 35.0
- Zhuangzi, 4th century B.C.
- = 39.5
- = 39.8
- So how'd it go?
- = 43.5
- I don't know.
- = 45.5
- I don't remember.
- = 46.5
- What?
- = 48.0
- Oh, it's not — it's normal for me.
- I never remember my dreams.
- = 53.7
- If I try right when I wake up, I can just barely remember
- fragments. Later in the day, even 20 minutes later,
- = 60.4
- those fragments are gone. Unless I wrote them down —
- then if I read them later, it's like,
- = 66.0
- _these are the ramblings of a crazy person_.
- = 68.8
- Yeah, but, then, how do we know there aren't side effects,
- I mean, do you remember everything else? About your life?
- = 75.0
- It's fine! We're just doing suppression, not —
- lobotomies. Everything's still there.
- = 81.0
- In dreams we often take on personalities
- that are a little different;
- = 85.5
- we forget details of our waking life
- and 'remember' fictions in their place.
- = 91.6
- How does that happen?
- Well ... we're just using the same pathways. It's fine.
- = 97.8
- = 98.2
- But really, how should I know if something's missing?
- If you forget a few random little things,
- = 107.4
- how would you remember that you forgot?
- Nothing big is missing. I don't think.
- = 114.8
- = 116.0
- Wait. Who are you, again?
- = 118.4
- Oh God, why did we let you go first.
- = 123.5
- First hasn't happened yet!
- I was just dipping my toes into the pool.
- = 128.0
- _Real_ first happens when someone dives right in
- and gets to decide for themselves when to come out.
- = 135.7
- Who's _that_ going to be? You?
- = 138.8
- Ugh. I long for the days when we weren't so sure
- we'd be doing anything this scary.
- = 144.5
- It'll be fine! It's not scary. It'll be fun.
- = 148.5
- So fun you don't even remember.
- = 151.0
- Okay now. Shoo. I want to re-record this one before I go home.
- I have some new ideas about it.
- = 158.8
- = 160.0
- What, because of the test?
- = 163.4
- Yes, because of the test. Possibly.
- = 167.9
- I thought you didn't remember anything.
- = 170.0
- = 171.1
- Hmm. Interesting.
- = 175.0
- Yeah. Have a good night. I'll see you tomorrow.
- : mine
- = 0.3
- The concept of a clock enfolds all succession in time.
- = 5.5
- In the concept the sixth hour is not earlier
- than the seventh or eighth,
- = 10.9
- although the clock never strikes the hour,
- save when the concept biddeth.
- = 16.0
- = 17.4
- Nicholas of Cusa, 1450
- = 21.0
- = 21.8
- That's mine, you know.
- = 23.4
- Yeah. Well — I have some ideas about it.
- I just wanted to give it a try. See how it goes.
- = 32.8
- Next thing I know, you'll be taking over all the Cusa pieces.
- = 35.9
- = 37.2
- What kind of ideas?
- = 39.0
- I don't know! Subconscious drives, right?
- Like with anything creative.
- = 46.5
- Did you feel this way before your trip to the island,
- or after?
- = 51.6
- Well ... I think ... after. Mostly after.
- I had a seed of it before,
- = 62.9
- even back when I first heard the piece,
- when you first picked it out,
- = 66.0
- but I didn't really notice then.
- Now it's like the Princess and the Pea.
- = 73.8
- = 74.5
- I don't mean to be stepping on your toes though.
- Really the drive is personal —
- = 78.8
- I wanted to record this one,
- so I can hear it the way I want to hear it,
- = 85.3
- just to set something right. For myself.
- = 90.9
- I'm going to file this under the category "Good Problems to Have".
- = 95.8
- So your attitude to the piece changed, or clarified,
- maybe based on the trip. That means it's working.
- = 103.6
- Something's working. Maybe.
- = 106.9
- Back when we started,
- I would have counted us lucky to ever get this far.
- = 111.9
- But here we are.
- = 114.9
- Here we are. Record away, and I will take my leave,
- thanking you for this opportunity
- to introspect on my aversive feelings.
- = 126.9
- You're welcome!
- : authenticity
- = 0.0
- ... just reading these well,
- picking the right takes, placing them.
- = 4.3
- I don't think it pays to be too neat.
- = 7.5
- I want to leave some traces of us.
- For the intrepid to find.
- = 11.8
- What do you mean? Any visitor to that island
- is going to hear quite a lot of us, if they poke around.
- = 18.5
- Sure but I mean showing what's happening
- behind the scenes a little bit.
- = 21.7
- To ensure we keep some authenticity.
- = 25.5
- Because if we get too concerned
- with saying a bunch of wise things
- = 28.9
- in the least personally-revealing way,
- = 31.3
- then we're basically putting up a front,
- in danger of becoming a false front.
- = 38.3
- It's a slippery slope,
- and you know how easily we could slide into pomposity.
- = 42.7
- Nobody wants that, but would we notice if it happened?
- Or are we too close to the project?
- = 51.0
- If we include some of our interactions,
- show that we aren't transcendent perfect beings,
- = 58.5
- that we get stuck sometimes,
- that we get into arguments,
- or get depressed,
- = 63.0
- then at least it's not a false front.
- At least we're not hiding.
- = 72.0
- Authenticity is good. Yes.
- But you can find human drama anywhere.
- = 78.0
- We're drowning in it from day to day.
- = 80.8
- We're supposed to be building a quiet environment,
- _away_ from drama, not ... celebrating it.
- = 88.8
- Look. These are objects of contemplation.
- These are about focus and clarity.
- We agreed at the outset.
- = 96.4
- I know, and I don't want to change any of that.
- Just a little added twist, tucked away deep.
- = 104.0
- It doesn't have to be drama. Just reality.
- = 108.7
- Reality? So, what? We should record a meeting and stick it in?
- = 114.4
- Maybe! But we already have some good stuff, for example,
- = 118.5
- a little encounter the other week
- where you offered to buy a girl a sandwich.
- = 121.5
- = 124.5
- Her mic was running, so it's in the archive.
- But look, it's fine. In context it's perfect.
- = 131.8
- Because we're not lecturing from on high.
- = 134.7
- These recordings are part of an endeavor
- built by human beings,
- = 139.9
- and they aspire to Truth-with-a-capital-T
- but we must also remember that they cannot actually get there.
- = 148.0
- We should be clear to the intrepid that we know this.
- It'll make it all better!
- = 156.1
- Okay, sure. We'll at least see how it feels.
- = 159.9
- = 162.0
- On that island we are going to be in _very_ susceptible states.
- Be careful with it.
- = 173.5
- It seems I get to be the pioneer of being mildly embarrassed.
- = 178.5
- Also, I should probably let you know, I am recording this conversation right now.
- = 184.0
- Oh, come on.
- = 185.5
- I'm serious.
- = 191.5
- It will make it better. Trust me.
- : conference
- = 0.0
- ... it's just the new teapot beeping.
- It boils fast but that beep bothers me. Moving on?
- = 5.0
- So next I want to raise this problem,
- which is that I think we don't have
- = 8.5
- enough smart representation from materialist atheists,
- physicalists, anything in that neighborhood of ideas.
- = 15.5
- And I've been trying to do something about that but it's hard.
- = 18.8
- The problem is that most coherent atheist screeds
- are focused on defeating some specific idea of God
- = 25.8
- or are angry about the historical activities
- of organized religions —
- = 29.7
- rather than, say, from first principles,
- making a good case for the impossibility
- = 33.9
- of any concept of God,
- which would be more like what we're after.
- = 38.7
- I'm having the same problem.
- = 40.9
- So many justifications of atheism devolve
- into assertions of the implausibility of Bible stories.
- = 47.7
- Someone like Bertrand Russell, a very advanced thinker,
- but his commentary on religion
- = 53.9
- all seems to be like 'Why I am not a Christian',
- very limited in scope.
- = 59.3
- It is way too small compared
- to the vision of God in the pieces we're juxtaposing.
- = 65.1
- Can you —
- = 66.6
- Can you repeat that last part? You dropped out a bit.
- = 69.9
- Oh, just that it's a very provincial idea of God
- that's usually advanced in those arguments,
- = 75.5
- sometimes even a straw-man God,
- and doesn't have much in common
- = 79.7
- with the God visualized by Cusa or Spinoza
- or the great Sufis, or even Einstein, whoever.
- = 87.7
- So it just doesn't play on the same field.
- = 92.5
- When people are explicitly pushing materialism they're
- usually philosophers or writers ...
- = 97.9
- not physicists, not people who actually
- do the front-line work
- of understanding the physical world.
- = 104.7
- With the heavy hitters in physics, it's very hard.
- = 108.0
- It's hard to find good statements
- that aren't just arguing against straw men.
- = 113.5
- And it's strange because in the modern age
- a reasonable portion of working physicists are atheists,
- = 119.5
- not all by any means, but a reasonable portion;
- but it's hard to get strong and articulate statements
- from that sector.
- = 128.0
- Yeah, the closest you get is somebody like Feynman,
- where science gives us a great degree of certainty
- about certain things,
- = 136.0
- but outside those it's not a good idea to tell ourselves nice stories,
- = 140.1
- and speculate, it is just best to realize we don't know yet
- about the bigger questions, etc.
- = 145.5
- But we have a lot of Feynman already.
- = 149.0
- = 149.4
- Paul Dirac was at least a staunch atheist, at one point in his life,
- but I don't know if he has direct statements on record.
- = 156.2
- I'll keep an eye out.
- = 158.1
- Dirac was far from a materialist though —
- he believed the universe is made out of math.
- = 164.0
- That's an oversimplification of course.
- = 166.7
- He even mentioned God a few times,
- in an Einstein kind of way.
- = 170.0
- This is all so crazy because among scientifically-educated people
- ... it's the cultural default, right?
- = 178.5
- If you are a scientist
- or a computer programmer kind of person,
- = 181.6
- materialism is supposed to be the basic belief —
- If you're not a materialist you're stupid.
- = 188.7
- But if we can't find anyone who makes a good case for it,
- how does that happen?
- = 194.0
- Well, it's easy to be convinced of the absurdity of stories in
- common Christianity, Judaism, whatever ...
- = 201.0
- so if that's your picture of spiritual beliefs,
- = 203.7
- and you have an aversion to digging too hard
- into your own worldview, which most of us do,
- = 208.5
- then there you go — anything that seems religious
- is goofy bible stories,
- = 213.4
- and materialism is anti-religious,
- and it's the general impression
- that smart people are materialist,
- = 220.9
- and I want to be smart, so ... case closed!
- = 225.0
- Also, there are all those so-called spiritual people
- who will believe basically anything
- = 230.8
- and try to convince everyone ...
- = 233.0
- In addition to goofy bible stories, did I forget to mention
- ghost stories, astrologers, spoon benders
- = 238.8
- and all kinds of frauds.
- = 240.3
- ... it's a ton of noise, it makes it almost impossible
- for an outsider looking in to see high-quality thought
- = 247.5
- in the world of spirituality.
- If I can even generalize "spirituality" to one thing.
- = 254.0
- So it's easy if you're already leaning toward materialism
- to see these flaky spiritual people,
- = 260.0
- extrapolate that to _all_ spiritual people,
- and say all that stuff is garbage.
- = 266.3
- That's how it worked for me. For a while.
- = 268.5
- Okay. But despite all this
- there's a large contingent of present day real scientists
- = 275.9
- who believe in some form of atheist materialism
- and whose beliefs have been carefully considered.
- = 282.0
- So we need to ensure we respect that viewpoint.
- = 285.9
- = 286.2
- I remember there's —
- It's so frustrating —
- = 288.15
- Sorry.
- = 288.7
- No, you go.
- = 291.0
- Oh, I was just going to say,
- Carl Sagan has a good piece in, umm, Demon-Haunted World?,
- = 298.7
- where he talks about science
- as a profound source of spirituality.
- = 304.4
- But he doesn't mean mystical spirituality,
- he means ...
- = 308.0
- this pure dedication to truth,
- and the development of a wise perspective
- on our place in the world.
- = 315.3
- It's nice. And it's a picture of atheism
- that isn't hostile or contemptuous.
- = 321.3
- Yeah, I read that,
- and what you're talking about is a beautiful piece,
- = 323.9
- and I tried to get it,
- but Sagan's people want too much money.
- = 327.7
- Can't we just pay more?
- = 329.2
- No, it would trigger a bunch
- of 'most-favored-nation' clauses,
- = 333.1
- then we have to pay everyone a lot more,
- and we go broke.
- = 336.5
- So no Sagan for us.
- = 340.7
- It's a shame since he was such a great thinker,
- and eloquent too.
- : credits_ios
- = 0.2
- Additional iOS programming by
- Amandine Coget
- : credits_shield
- = 0.1
- Android/Shield port developed by NVIDIA:
- = 4.25
- Development:
- Sheikh Abdul-Ajees
- Denis Barkar
- = 9.9
- Ilya Bukalov
- Shaveen Kumar
- Peter Lapko
- = 16.0
- Alexander Potylitsin
- John Ratcliff
- Seth Williams
- = 22.2
- QA:
- Joseph Astillero
- David Bean
- = 26.8
- Amanda Bott
- Eric Cameracci
- Adam Chamberlain
- = 32.8
- Andre Faiman
- Benjamin Feuerstein
- Trevor Holm
- = 37.7
- Whitney Kitchur
- Willy Lau
- = 40.9
- Lindsay Moore
- Andrew Park
- Harsh Patel
- = 45.3
- Jeremy Patterson
- Joel Sansait
- = 49.5
- Sunny Thakkar
- Zichen Wang
- Yuvin Weerasinghe
- : credits_xb1
- = 0.1
- Additional programming for the Xbox One
- by Aaron Melcher
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