“Probing Process & Reality” is a six-week course, John B. Cobb, Jr. and Tripp Fuller provide an introduction to Alfred North Whitehead’s masterpiece. In this introduction to the course, Dr. Cobb responds to the question of why Whitehead’s work worth exploring today.
Philosopher Roman Krznaric discusses his most recent book “The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking”. Krznaric explores six ways we can expand our time horizons to confront the long-term challenges of our age— from the threats of climate change to the lack of planning for a global pandemic. Do we have what it takes to become the good ancestors that future generations deserve?
Roman Krznaric writes about the power of ideas to change society. Named by The Observer as one of Britain’s leading philosophers, his writings are widely popular amongst political and ecological campaigners, education reformers, social entrepreneurs and designers. His books, including Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 20 languages. His new book, “The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking”, was published in July 2020, and has been described by U2’s The Edge as ‘the book our children’s children will thank us for reading’.
As our civilization careens toward a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview tells us we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world. This worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings.
In this talk, author Jeremy Lent will discuss themes from his new book, The Web of Meaning, revealing how another worldview is possible—based on our deep interconnectedness with all of life. Showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures, the presentation weaves together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous wisdom.
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age”, is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, and flourishing future. He is the founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute and writes topical articles exploring the deeper patterns of political and cultural developments at Patterns of Meaning. Author website: https://www.jeremylent.com
Moss is as unlikely to fascinate philosophers as, say, cockroaches or dust. But if we scratch the surface of that indifference, something else entirely seems to be hiding just beneath it. Each in his own way, Francis Bacon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche tell us one and the same thing: moss is inassimilable to metaphysics. Condensing in miniature the entire kingdom Plantae, these tiny plants comprising approximately 14,000 species throw a formidable challenge to thinking based on oppositions, to linear chronologies, and to conventional theorizations of energy. From the outside, they support projects that aim to revolutionize philosophy, to convert philosophy back to life from its obsession with death. Seen through a child’s eyes, moss becomes as cognitively fresh and refreshing as it is vividly, dazzlingly green.
Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz. His work spans the fields of environmental philosophy and ecological thought, political theory, and phenomenology. He is the author of many books and countless academic articles that engage with a critique of anthropocentrism in philosophy accounting for non-human types of existence especially with respect to the ontology of plants and their modes of being. His most recent publications include: Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); “The Philosopher’s Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium” (2014); “Pyropolitics: When the World Is Ablaze” (2015); “Dust” (2016); “Grafts” (2016); with Luce Irigaray, “Through Vegetal Being” with Luce Irigaray (2016); and “Energy Dreams: Of Actuality” (2017), Political Categories: Thinking beyond Concepts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019)
This public talk from 19 April 2018 was held at the London School of Economics Old Theatre in London, England, UK.
Joy of Living Meditation Program: Learn meditation under the skillful guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at your own pace. https://joy.tergar.org/
Vajrayana Online: Study and practice of the Tibetan Buddhism with Mingyur Rinpoche. https://learning.tergar.org/
Emerging technologies have unprecedented potential to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. Among the most powerful — and controversial — is the gene-editing tech, CRISPR-Cas9, which will improve agricultural yields, cure genetic disorders, and eradicate infectious diseases like malaria. But CRISPR and other disruptive technologies, like brain-machine interfaces and artificial intelligence, also pose complex philosophical and ethical questions. Perhaps no one is better acquainted with these questions than Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder of Singularity University and Human Longevity Inc. In this session, Peter will give a state of the union on the near future and explore the profound ethical implications we will face in the ongoing technological revolution.
The perceptions we observe may well be coming from an artificial source. Suppose we could take our brain out of our body and keep it alive in a glass jar. Put a computer in which all kinds of information can be recorded. Transmit the electrical signals of all the data related to a setting such as image, sound and smell into this computer. Connect this computer to the sensory centers in our brain with electrodes and send the pre-recorded data to our brain. As our brain perceives these signals it will see and live the setting correlated with these.
This is a documentary about Immanuel Velikovsky’s discoveries by Henry Zemel. First telecast on February 22, 1972 by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Immanuel Velikovsky proposed in his 1950’s book “Worlds in Collision” that many myths and traditions of ancient peoples and cultures are based on actual events: worldwide global catastrophes of a celestial origin, which had a profound effect on the lives, beliefs and writings of early mankind.
Ken Wilber expands on the nature of “I amness” or the pure “Self”; ultimate identity – while also describing the role of development in spritual growth.
The Tao Te Ching (pronounced Dao De Jing) was a book of wisdom written for kings by a sage named Lao-Tzu, circa 500BC China. Much like the book of Proverbs found in the Biblical canon, the truths found in the Tao Te Ching are universal and timeless. But it’s not just the east which was, and still is influenced by this great work. The Tao Te Ching resonates deeply with many of the Christian mystics as well, from antiquity to modern times. The Tao is not a religion. Its literal translation is The Way. A way of seeing, a way of being. In the Chinese translation of the New Testament, when Christ refers to “The Way,” their word for it is The Tao. “Ritual and religion is the husk of true faith.” These are one of the proverbs found in the book. So regardless of your religious background, or whether you believe in God or not, you will still find wonderful truths about life put into the simplest of words. Truths about leadership, patience, love and creativity. So share this link with those you love. It is a gift to the world, and we are lucky to be living in a time like this where such things can be shared. The world needs healing. The healing begins with the metanoia–the transformation of the mind.