livejournal feels like a ghost town. I'm going to be posting more on wordpress.

my current entry there is about Psychoanalysis as art.

There are so many things I like about this Jason Mraz performance. Just the stage is harmonious-- the side banners with their Japanese woodblock wave motifs; the persian carpets on stage; the mystico-Pop emblem of the winged heart over the stage ( Read more... )

From Robert Fogel's article about how China will dominate the world economy:

...Europe's culture confounds economists. Citizens of Europe's wealthy countries are not working longer hours to make higher salaries and accumulate more goods. Rather, European culture continues to prize long vacations, early retirements, and shorter work weeks over ( Read more... )

So I am watching this lecture on Heidegger, in French, by François Fédier.

This is from Fédier's Khâgne class, which prepares students aspiring to sit the entrance exam for the literary section of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, training grounds for writers and thinkers from Sartre to Foucault.

It is a very unusual teaching style for me, but maybe ( Read more... )

I found an interesting analysis by Caleb Crain of the wishful thinking behind the film Avatar:

on Pandora, all the creatures have been equipped by a benevolent nature with USB ports in their ponytails...

In order to ride a horse-like creature, for instance, Sully is instructed to first connect his ponytail-USB port to the horse's. Same with various ( Read more... )

Reading A Viable Way reminded me that, yes, expressions of truth are dependent on human language. (and hence constrained by the expressive range of language).

It would be difficult to express the truth of Hamlet using mathematical notation.

We may have developed a "good enough" system of musical notation, but nothing comparable exists for dance ( Read more... )

 This week's web browsing brought with it three references for my learning projects.

Tim Ferriss attempts to learn Samurai Horseback Archery in five days, acquiring skills it takes others years to master.

You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com

Tim Ferris has also been a Kickboxing champion and a Tango record-holder. When asked if his "learn a new skill and move on to the next" approach ( Read more... )

I enjoyed this video.

Click to view

It takes us far beyond the space-time scales we are biologically hardwired to perceive in. (links to a previous post of mine)

Indeed, for a moment it even takes us outside space and time, so that we see the universe as this expanding sphere, from some floating, abstract, external viewpoint.

Of course, this is just a pictorial ( Read more... )

Hahaha... my sister just sent me back some life-advice I'd sent her in 2002! This was before Gmail existed, so I sent it from my Yahoo account, which has been deleted long since due to inactivity, resulting in the loss of my only copy ( Read more... )

Meditation involves paying attention to attention; being aware of awareness; sensing sensation.

It does not involve, however, thinking about thinking, which would more properly be called philosophy or cognitive science ( Read more... )