Pietro

Granted! Global Warming makes the ice on dries the ice in greenland, which in turn stops the sea convector belt. The next year rhere is no summer, and soon we are in full ice age. The weather turns cold, The poles expand and a 1km hight mountain of ice covers Everything from Canada north. Now everything is equally green. Well done! I wish women were not jelous of each other. For what it's worth I think this is a great exercise in looking at the other side of what we wish, their futility and ego-based. In fact I think this thread is about the best idea we had from a looong time

The global weather is a chaotic dynamical system, lying in a strange attractor; and we do ignore how many other strange attractors are there. Nothing in this claim is applying words liberally; it is a precise statement, which I absolutely meant.

My use of the word attractor is absolutely rigorous, and mathematically based.

Thanks, yes I remember seeing the first one. And also a video at Ted.com , Unfortunately it seem to be always the same results. They are keeping the attention high but we are not seeing other results, yet. Yet. I wonder how much will each regenerated tooth cost. And how to convince them you do seriously want a third eye, but looking backward from the back of the neck ;-)

Hi Mal, nice analysis. I like Victor Mair best. In particular I like of his analysis how he seem to try to summarise the whole chapter in few lines at the beginning. It gives a sense and a suggestion of how the whole chapter is about one thing. I remember when I started reading Mair I tended to read the same chapter over and over and over. Not moving to the next chapter until I felt I got that one chapter. Maybe we could set up some space to discuss Chuang Tzu chapter by chapter.

Four tweets I wrote: ADDENDUM: oops, sorry, I thought I was writing in my own practice log.

can't find you. Friend me, or join group: The Tao Bums :-D

The whole playlist. Is a set of 15 movies of 10 minutes on youtube. It is worth seeing it all. He is trying to convince the Senate, so he is bringing out the best of himself, with enough time. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AA1657A7C7F28443 EDIT: added the word "Yesterday"

And one scientist debunks them EDIT: grammar

Phore, you touch a very important topic, and one that I cannot enter without discussing it in details. I do not believe in global warming. Not more than I believe in gravity. We need to distinguish what we know, what we can know provided we investigate, what we ignore, but potentially we could know, and what will forever be beyond our grasp. Our believe abilities should be our best guess given the limited amount of data we have about the world. And before throwing the arrow or believeing in something we should always every reasonable effort to ascertein the facts. Only then do we have the ethical right to finish off the job by believing the rest. To act in a different way is not just stupid and nonsensical. It is dangerous, and criminal. It is dangerous because you put your life at risk (suppose you decide to believe you can fly), or the life of others at risk (you might convince them that they can fly. If they jump from the bridge and die, how would you feel?). Think about the students of Jasmuheen. One of the went on the Darwin awards. Well given, I would say. But it is also more dangerous than this, if you start to believe when you should instead investigate, you are essentially giving a bad example to everybody else. Soon people will follow your example, and believe the most crazy things. William Crifford in his the ethics of belief called this behaviour "a crime against humanity". He was just survived a ship that sank because the owner believed that it was in good conditions, and so did not pay the extra money needed to check it. Our society is particularly open for this kind of dangerous-borderline to criminal behaviour. Because we have chosen some time ago to try to avoid too many confrontation by claiming that everybody was free to believe whatever they wanted. And now we are paying the consequences for that foolish decision. I think your teacher should not have used to term "believe". There are four books I would like to point out on this topis: On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfur On Truth by Harry G. Frankfur The End of Faith by Sam Harris The Ethics of Belief by William Kingdon Clifford

I was not aware of this invitation. I think you should go. I suspect not many people are invited.

Max, you worry me, sometimes I don't know when you are joking and when you are serious. Plus we need mustard! I know many people who are having children because they want to have children, but they know their window of opportunities will close soon.

As I said, some effects are produced by a single gene or by few genes.

Absolutely no. Sorry to delude you. There are some traits that are being generated by a single (or few) genes. For example resistance to cold, or ability to have a certain pigment. The DNA produced the RNA, the RNA the protein, and the protein does the job. Simple, straightforward and easy to reproduce. Similarly there are some illness that are being generated by a single mutation in a key DNA sequence. Those are the cases where if you could repair that single part of DNA (or just select for a newborn that does not have the defective trait) you will have a healthy individual. But, understand me, those are the weird cases, not the norm. Most of traits are generated by the jointed work of many, many genes. We are still failing to understand how they work together (that is, finding a shorted description). Some people even think that there is no shorter description, which would mean, it is not possible to understand them. Now, the case of the jellyfish is quite obviously a case where many genes would need to be involved. Can you think of the complex set of inter relation that need to be in place for something like that to occur. Yes, you might find a gene that is responsible, in the sense that is an ON switch. You turn that off, and the miracle does not occur. But this does not mean that adding that switch to an animal that does not have the complex interrelational DNA in place, would bring to anything meaningful. It would be like taking the plastic switch that is on the wall of your house, put it into a hut with no electricity whatsoever and expect it to work. In fact there are probably many ON OFF switch, in the sense that there are many genes that need to be in place for it to happen. But again, even if you find them all (a daunting task, but gene therapy is progressing exponentially), you still would not be able to do it in a different animal. Why because those DNA can rever that animal, with those cell types, to pre-differentiation. But most humans are not jellyfish. We have more cell types. At the best you could be able to extend that ability to their nearest DNA relatives, whatever they are. But to us? No, not until you have really understood what is going on, and you have re engineered the whole human DNA. And this have huge issues, in many many disciplines. Out on the spot I can think of medical, ethical, social, moral, technical, scientific, computational, biological and mathematical issues.

DOn't be vicious, this is already very good. Plus the right is to avoid being ruined to a point where it is not possible to recover. Taking some, and giving back some is not unacceptable. Merely part of the continuous exchange process. Said that I would love to know where can we find more info & links EDIT: added the to give a better sense of the spirit. Oh, yes, and this line

Read and apply the hexagram 6, Conflict

hmmm, maybe we could produce a pill of immortality, and sell it to all the chinese shops around the globe. I can see wonderful economical opportunities opening up. I bet it would not work unless you are using the animals while they are rejuvenating. Rejuvenation hormones, extracted from the only immortal creature. 500$ enough pills for one month We could get advertisments up and running, on TB, Max website, Lin website, Tao in Nature. I mean if we get together we can really revolutionize the market.

Being able to reach something on the mat does not mean being able to reach it while you move. But if you are able to do ti during a whole tai chi form, with all its movements, and shapes, then you can more esily bring it in every day life. Example: If you close your armpits consciousness breaks. It is easy to keep the armpit open while you are basically not moving. But do it while you are doing a form. And then you will be ready to do it while you walk home from work. Once you have that you can do it while you are interacting (speaking, having sex, same thing). And then you can do it while you are sleeping. Plus it keeps your body fit.

you got no idea, man! but a wide spectrum of what? If this means that I am present across a wide spectrum of myself at once, then yes, this is part of the integration process. If instead it is just self restrain, as you suggest, it would not feel like being present across a wide spectrum of myself, but across a narrow spectrum of myself. And a wide spectrum of society. And that would indeed feel different.

Hello Ian, at some point you need to rely on feelings. Self censorship does not feel pleasent. It never does, at least to me. Of course restrain can feel good. If you are restraining yourself from what is unreal. This is why the monks path is a path of renunciation, but not a path that leads to pain and despair. On the other side Integration to me always gave a sense to wholeness. Very different from self censorship and generally pleasent. It is not a matter of censoring my edges, but finding a way in which a part can operate in the presence of another. You see, if I make a claim, here, that I know through my academic work to be false, I am surely saying something false. Because reality is One. Thus if some part of my experience (or of anyone experience, for that matter) have discovered something as false it cannot be true. Similarly, if I make a claim in my academic world, which contradicts my spiritual experience, I feel something is not ok. But if I am in a context where I have to make sure that my claim honor both sides of my self, I might make some restrain, but I am only restraining myself from what is unreal. And the resulting is pleasent. Feels pleasent. Now, understand me, there is of course the pleasure to be in touch with so many of my friends. A sort of happy light hearted feeling, like light bells, or sparkling lights (are you visual or auditory, Ian?). But this is not the feeling I am refering to. The feeling is more an internal sense of wholeness. Like a long warm note of saxophone. Like a general diffuse background light. Very different. A feeling of becoming one (not of becoming the One, just one ); of completion. How could I confuse them? Yes, I have to say I find that behind every addiction, there is often an important need that needs to be satisfied. Once you identify the need, if you can satisfy it in other ways, it is often easier (and less harmful) to solve the addiction.

Just a quick note, to make people aware that I added an article in the Article Section: Facebook as a spiritual tool. Unfortunately the articles posted do not appear on this page, and most people only read this page, so this little reminder. Please feel free to write your comments there.