Jan
18
“Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.”
Malaclypse The Younger, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, “Principia Discordia”
карточный домик
Jan
3
“ A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possible imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and whenever we do it, we are not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn’t.
It’s the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.” e. e. cummings, “A Poet’s Advice”
This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possible imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and whenever we do it, we are not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn’t.
It’s the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.” e. e. cummings, “A Poet’s Advice”
“DAVID: A few scientists that I’ve spoken with told me that they don’t think that the HIV virus is responsible for causing AIDS. What do you think about this idea?
CANDACE: I can be a lot more definitive on this than I can on some of the other questions you asked me. These people are nuts. The evidence is clear, and it’s the most elegant scientific story. There was a movement against HIV research, and the main champion was Peter Duesberg. There was some personal animosities against the power and the money that the early AIDS researchers got, and there’s a lot of political aspects to this. But beyond a shadow of a doubt — and I’m speaking as somebody who studies data in the lab — there is just no doubt about the fact that HIV is the cause of AIDS. There’s just so much elegant science behind it. Just let me site one little tidbit that tells you how clean the whole thing is. There’s two primary receptors that the AIDS virus uses to enter and infect cells. One of them, which I mentioned earlier, is called CCR-5. It turns out that a small percentage Caucasian Europeans don’t have that receptor. They have a genetic mutation where the receptor should be, and it’s missing a major chunk of it in the middle. Now, those people who have that mutation, no matter what risky behavior they indulge in, they do not get HIV disease. Isn’t that interesting?
DAVID: Extremely. I didn’t know that.
CANDACE: Then, of course, you can show clearly in the test tube that you can artificially make cells that have this receptor and they will become readily infected with the viruses that use this receptor. And if the cells don’t have the receptor, then they don’t. That’s summarizing like hundreds and hundreds of papers that elegantly address this, so there’s no doubt that HIV causes AIDS. Duesberg may not like some of the HIV virologists, and their style and all, but it’s just so silly. And it’s sad, because they’ve created a movement that’s been very destructive. My understanding is that out in California some of these people are like Luddites. Some of the activists — not all of them, but some small percentage — have gotten this into their head, and have stormed research labs. They’ve gotten very angry and very crazy, and it’s complete rubbish. I have no doubt in my mind. I’m a 100 percent sure about this.” “Molecules of Mind and Body”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Candace B. Pert, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
CANDACE: I can be a lot more definitive on this than I can on some of the other questions you asked me. These people are nuts. The evidence is clear, and it’s the most elegant scientific story. There was a movement against HIV research, and the main champion was Peter Duesberg. There was some personal animosities against the power and the money that the early AIDS researchers got, and there’s a lot of political aspects to this. But beyond a shadow of a doubt — and I’m speaking as somebody who studies data in the lab — there is just no doubt about the fact that HIV is the cause of AIDS. There’s just so much elegant science behind it. Just let me site one little tidbit that tells you how clean the whole thing is. There’s two primary receptors that the AIDS virus uses to enter and infect cells. One of them, which I mentioned earlier, is called CCR-5. It turns out that a small percentage Caucasian Europeans don’t have that receptor. They have a genetic mutation where the receptor should be, and it’s missing a major chunk of it in the middle. Now, those people who have that mutation, no matter what risky behavior they indulge in, they do not get HIV disease. Isn’t that interesting?
DAVID: Extremely. I didn’t know that.
CANDACE: Then, of course, you can show clearly in the test tube that you can artificially make cells that have this receptor and they will become readily infected with the viruses that use this receptor. And if the cells don’t have the receptor, then they don’t. That’s summarizing like hundreds and hundreds of papers that elegantly address this, so there’s no doubt that HIV causes AIDS. Duesberg may not like some of the HIV virologists, and their style and all, but it’s just so silly. And it’s sad, because they’ve created a movement that’s been very destructive. My understanding is that out in California some of these people are like Luddites. Some of the activists — not all of them, but some small percentage — have gotten this into their head, and have stormed research labs. They’ve gotten very angry and very crazy, and it’s complete rubbish. I have no doubt in my mind. I’m a 100 percent sure about this.” “Molecules of Mind and Body”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Candace B. Pert, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
“DAVID: You mention Aldous Huxley’s book Doors of Perception in Molecules of Emotion. I’m curious — have you ever had a psychedelic experience, and if so, how has it influenced your perspective on science and life?
CANDACE: I can say that I’ve had some unusual experiences. I basically missed the ’60s, and even the ’70s in terms of experimenting with drugs at the normal time, because I was a young mother, and I was always in a very responsible authority figure role from a very young age. But later on I experimented with marijuana and some of the psychedelics. I think the biggest influence was marijuana, which I didn’t even try until I was like thirty-five years old. I think that had an impact on me, because it erases boundaries and gets you into interesting altered states. I’ve experimented with that, and less with some of the psychedelics. Has this influenced me? Sure. Spending time in an alternative reality, which is noncompetitive and loving, must have taken away my East Coast competitive nature. Of course, now I am convinced that marijuana should be avoided since it wreaks havoc with one’s endocannabinoids.
DAVID: What type of potential do you see for new types of psychoactive drugs in the future?
CANDACE: I’m never moving in that direction. In my book I talked about not using drugs with an almost puritanical insistence. This is at least where I am now — that we’re at our best when we have our natural drugs. It’s like our own natural chemicals, unadulterated, are just totally amazing. But this a great ideal. I mean, I’m a major user of supplements, vitamins and things like that.
DAVID: I thought the primary point that you were making in your book was that using any type of psychoactive drug on a regular basis will cause the brain to compensate for the drug’s continued presence by reducing the number of receptors that bind to it.
CANDACE: Exactly. Anything you take changes your brain, because there’s a law that a natural system will always compensate when you perturb it. So in some very romantic idealized way I see our perfection is like, let it all hang out. Let it be what it is. But yet that’s an ideal. I smashed my arm playing on the ski slopes four weeks ago, and I’m now taking Vicodin for my broken arm. I’m trying not to take it. But, heck, it helped me, and it’s okay.” “Molecules of Mind and Body”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Candace B. Pert, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
CANDACE: I can say that I’ve had some unusual experiences. I basically missed the ’60s, and even the ’70s in terms of experimenting with drugs at the normal time, because I was a young mother, and I was always in a very responsible authority figure role from a very young age. But later on I experimented with marijuana and some of the psychedelics. I think the biggest influence was marijuana, which I didn’t even try until I was like thirty-five years old. I think that had an impact on me, because it erases boundaries and gets you into interesting altered states. I’ve experimented with that, and less with some of the psychedelics. Has this influenced me? Sure. Spending time in an alternative reality, which is noncompetitive and loving, must have taken away my East Coast competitive nature. Of course, now I am convinced that marijuana should be avoided since it wreaks havoc with one’s endocannabinoids.
DAVID: What type of potential do you see for new types of psychoactive drugs in the future?
CANDACE: I’m never moving in that direction. In my book I talked about not using drugs with an almost puritanical insistence. This is at least where I am now — that we’re at our best when we have our natural drugs. It’s like our own natural chemicals, unadulterated, are just totally amazing. But this a great ideal. I mean, I’m a major user of supplements, vitamins and things like that.
DAVID: I thought the primary point that you were making in your book was that using any type of psychoactive drug on a regular basis will cause the brain to compensate for the drug’s continued presence by reducing the number of receptors that bind to it.
CANDACE: Exactly. Anything you take changes your brain, because there’s a law that a natural system will always compensate when you perturb it. So in some very romantic idealized way I see our perfection is like, let it all hang out. Let it be what it is. But yet that’s an ideal. I smashed my arm playing on the ski slopes four weeks ago, and I’m now taking Vicodin for my broken arm. I’m trying not to take it. But, heck, it helped me, and it’s okay.” “Molecules of Mind and Body”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Candace B. Pert, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
Jan
2
“DAVID: What sort of difference do you think the Internet has made politically? Do you see it as a tool for improving human rights and democracy?
NOAM: The appearance of the Internet has had a big effect. So a good deal of the organizing and activism of the past say ten years has been Internet-based. Now, that’s true inside particular countries. So, for example, the overthrow of the dictatorship in Indonesia was very much facilitated by Internet contact among people, many of them students, who were able to organize and overthrow the dictatorship. Now we’ve just seen it in South Korea very dramatically.
Like just about every mayor element of capitalist society, the media are highly concentrated and very business-run. But South Korea is the most wired-up country in the world, I think, and through the use of the Internet, it was possible to develop what amounted to alternative media, independent media, which were on a very substantial scale. And they a were major factor in the political victory of the current president, who was reformist — a party which had plenty of popular support, and was able to organize it through Internet-based media.
The same is true much more generally. So, for example, international organizing that blocked the multilateral agreement on investments was done almost entirely by Internet. The media simply wouldn’t cover the issue. Groups — like, say, the World Social Forum, which is now a huge organization, like a hundred thousand people show up at the meetings, and many more are involved from all over the world — are almost entirely Internet organized. The mass media won’t permit any information to appear about it. There are many other examples.” “Language, Politics, and Propaganda”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Noam Chomsky, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
NOAM: The appearance of the Internet has had a big effect. So a good deal of the organizing and activism of the past say ten years has been Internet-based. Now, that’s true inside particular countries. So, for example, the overthrow of the dictatorship in Indonesia was very much facilitated by Internet contact among people, many of them students, who were able to organize and overthrow the dictatorship. Now we’ve just seen it in South Korea very dramatically.
Like just about every mayor element of capitalist society, the media are highly concentrated and very business-run. But South Korea is the most wired-up country in the world, I think, and through the use of the Internet, it was possible to develop what amounted to alternative media, independent media, which were on a very substantial scale. And they a were major factor in the political victory of the current president, who was reformist — a party which had plenty of popular support, and was able to organize it through Internet-based media.
The same is true much more generally. So, for example, international organizing that blocked the multilateral agreement on investments was done almost entirely by Internet. The media simply wouldn’t cover the issue. Groups — like, say, the World Social Forum, which is now a huge organization, like a hundred thousand people show up at the meetings, and many more are involved from all over the world — are almost entirely Internet organized. The mass media won’t permit any information to appear about it. There are many other examples.” “Language, Politics, and Propaganda”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Noam Chomsky, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
Dec
18
“ Одним из самых впечатляющих открытий было открытие источника энергии звёзд, благодаря которому они не гаснут. Один из тех, кто сделал это открытие, гулял со своей девушкой вечером того дня, как понял, что на звёздах происходит ядерная реакция, чтобы они горели. Она сказала: «Посмотри, как чудесно сияют звёзды!» Он ответил: «Да, а ведь сегодня я единственный человек в мире, который знает, почему они сияют». Она просто рассмеялась в ответ. Её совсем не впечатлило, что рядом с ней единственный человек, понимающий, почему горят звёзды. Ну что ж, грустно быть одиноким, но такова жизнь.”
Ричард Фейнман, «Шесть простых фрагментов», из сборника «Дюжина лекций: шесть попроще и шесть посложнее»
Nov
30
Гип-гип-уран
Президент Федерации американских ученых Чарльз Фергюсон развенчивает мифы о дороговизне, общедоступности и опасности атомной энергетики.
Nov
21
“Марихуана — это преступление, но преступление без жертвы. Каждый волен распоряжаться своим телом и здоровьем так, как ему хочется. Это и есть свобода. И если у меня есть мечта размозжить себе голову кувалдой, то никто не вправе эту мечту у меня отнимать.”
Вуди Харрельсон, в интервью журналу «Esquire».
Nov
19
“DAVID: A lot of people claim from their experience with psychedelics that they’ve had religious or mystical experiences, which caused them to suspect that there might be some kind of intelligence operating in nature.
KARY: Yeah, and after a six-pack of beer a lot of people think they’re invincible, which they’re not. I’m not discounting the fact that psychedelics might open you up to see things that are true, which you wouldn’t have seen without them. But a couple of six-packs might also show you something. It doesn’t prove anything. You don’t assume that what you see while your mind is under the influence of some drug is truer than what your mind sees when it’s not.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
KARY: Yeah, and after a six-pack of beer a lot of people think they’re invincible, which they’re not. I’m not discounting the fact that psychedelics might open you up to see things that are true, which you wouldn’t have seen without them. But a couple of six-packs might also show you something. It doesn’t prove anything. You don’t assume that what you see while your mind is under the influence of some drug is truer than what your mind sees when it’s not.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
Nov
6
“DAVID: Has your use of psychedelics influenced your scientific work, and how has it affected your perspective on life in general?
KARY: I would say that it was a mind-opening experience. It showed me that it might be a lot weirder here than I thought it was. So pay attention. Know what your assumptions are, and which of those are just arbitrary. Notice that things might be a little bit different than you think they are. I wouldn’t say that it led to any particular developments in my thought, except that it just expanded it a little bit. I think almost anyone who’s had those experiences would say that this place might be a little weirder than it appears. I’m not so certain anymore that the world is exactly the way I think it is. Most people get fairy stuck in ways of thinking that really are the current fashion, the current theory — like Newtonian mechanics seemed to be the way that things were for two hundred years.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
KARY: I would say that it was a mind-opening experience. It showed me that it might be a lot weirder here than I thought it was. So pay attention. Know what your assumptions are, and which of those are just arbitrary. Notice that things might be a little bit different than you think they are. I wouldn’t say that it led to any particular developments in my thought, except that it just expanded it a little bit. I think almost anyone who’s had those experiences would say that this place might be a little weirder than it appears. I’m not so certain anymore that the world is exactly the way I think it is. Most people get fairy stuck in ways of thinking that really are the current fashion, the current theory — like Newtonian mechanics seemed to be the way that things were for two hundred years.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
60 Second Adventures in Thought
Can a cat be both alive and dead? Can a computer think? How does a tortoise beat Achilles in a race? Voiced by comedian David Mitchell, these fast-paced animations explain six famous thought experiments, from the ancient Greeks to Albert Einstein, that have changed the way we see the world. Subjects as vast as time travel, infinity, quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence, are squeezed into 60-second clips that will tickle your funny bone and blow your mind.
Oct
29
“KARY: […] If you think about yourself as something going through time, how thick are you? You’ve got to have a certain finite “thickness” in time, or you wouldn’t exist. So you might be a fraction of a second, or a second wide, or five, sliding through time.
DAVID: And your “thickness” may change, depending on your neurochemistry at the time. (laughter)
KARY: Yes.
DAVID: Perhaps our conscious experience of “now” has a thinner “thickness” than other unconscious aspects of our brains? I’ve wondered if this possibility might be an explanation for what people have described as precognition. What do you think?
KARY: It might be that certain part of you are weeks, months, or years wide. Or maybe some part of you is “now” all the time — from your birth (or maybe even before birth) to your death. Some part of you is in the future at any moment, and some parts of you is in the past, because you couldn’t possibly be just in this infinitesimally thin thing we call “now” — because there wouldn’t be room for you in there. (laughter)
That’s using a lot of concepts that come out of physics and maybe don’t belong in that context, but I’ve always thought that a little bit of me has got to be in the future.
DAVID: Or part of your brain can be processing information about an aspect of “now” that you’re not quite conscious of.
KARY: Not yet conscious of, or maybe you won’t ever be. Maybe it sticks out in lots of directions. (laughter) I mean, there’s no need for this place to be just three-dimensional space and time.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
DAVID: And your “thickness” may change, depending on your neurochemistry at the time. (laughter)
KARY: Yes.
DAVID: Perhaps our conscious experience of “now” has a thinner “thickness” than other unconscious aspects of our brains? I’ve wondered if this possibility might be an explanation for what people have described as precognition. What do you think?
KARY: It might be that certain part of you are weeks, months, or years wide. Or maybe some part of you is “now” all the time — from your birth (or maybe even before birth) to your death. Some part of you is in the future at any moment, and some parts of you is in the past, because you couldn’t possibly be just in this infinitesimally thin thing we call “now” — because there wouldn’t be room for you in there. (laughter)
That’s using a lot of concepts that come out of physics and maybe don’t belong in that context, but I’ve always thought that a little bit of me has got to be in the future.
DAVID: Or part of your brain can be processing information about an aspect of “now” that you’re not quite conscious of.
KARY: Not yet conscious of, or maybe you won’t ever be. Maybe it sticks out in lots of directions. (laughter) I mean, there’s no need for this place to be just three-dimensional space and time.” “Chemistry and the Mind Field”, David Jay Brown’s interview with Kary Mullis, quoted from “Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse” by David Jay Brown
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