A State of Flux

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

Marcelo Gleiser, from "The Mystery We Are," On Being, November 9, 2012: 

The way we understand the world is very much based on what we can see of the world. Science is based on measurements and observations. And the notion that we can actually come up and have a theory that explains everything assumes that we can know everything — that we can go out and measure everything there is to measure about nature and come up with this beautiful Theory of Everything. And since we cannot measure all there is to measure, since our tools have limitations, we are definitely limited in how much we can know of the world.

So you can even build a theory that would explain everything that we know now. But then two weeks from now, someone else will come and find something new that does not fit in your theory. And that's not a Theory of Everything anymore because it doesn't include everything that can be included.

When you look out into nature, everything is in transformation at all times. And we see this at the very small and we see this at the very large [scale]. When we look at the whole universe, it is expanding, it's growing, it's changing in time. And so I look at things much more as a state of flux, of becoming, of transformation, as something that has some static truth behind it. So the notion that we as humans could come up with a final answer to the mystery of nature it's pushing things a little too far for our capabilities.

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See also:

• "Limits," Radiolab, April 5, 2012
• "Amazing ISS Timelapse Photography Captures The Beauty Of Space," The Inquisitr, July 22, 2012 

The Substance of Several Things Not Seen

We don't know one percent of one millionth about anything.

~ Thomas Edison

"Nature's mysteries meet tack-sharp wit in this hilarious, 10-minute mix of quips and fun lessons, as comedian, writer and TV man John Lloyd plucks at the substance of several things not seen." From TEDGlobal, July 2009

Flat, Round, or Wavy

"Take your finger and draw this line: summer, fall, winter, spring...noon, dusk, dark, dawn...

Have you ever seen those stratus clouds that go on parallel stripes across the sky? Did you know that's a continuous sheet of cloud that's dipping in and out of the condensation layer?

What if every seemingly isolated object was actually just where the continuous wave of that object poked through into our world? The Earth is neither flat nor round; it's wavy."

~ Reuben Margolin

More videos of Reuben Margolin's waves.

Balance in Nature

Shinzen Young, in reponse to a Brain Pickings post on seventeen historically significant mathematical equations:

Just for the record, here's my all-time favorite equation:

First, let me admit that the way I just wrote it involves some abuse of notation. Properly, it should be written this way:

 

But I think the former form is justified for the visual effect.

To the eye, it seems to equate two closed curves that have symmetry: A regular triangle, with 3-fold rotational symmetry (the minimum possible) and the circle with infinite rotational symmetry (the maximum possible).

But as a mathematical formula, it represents the "generalized Laplacian equation."

This equation is one of the broadest statements of balance in nature. Phenomena as different as three-dimensional thermodynamic equilibrium and four-dimensional relativistic motion can be described by this equation.

To me, it's a reminder that "mutually-canceling polarities" play a fundamental role both in the physical world as described abstractly by scientists and in the spiritual world as described concretely by mystics. 

See also:

• The Joy of Mathematics (video lectures from The Teaching Company) by Arthur Benjamin
• The Joy of Mathematics: Discovering Mathematics All around You (book) by Theoni Pappas
• Why Does E=mc2? (And Why Should We Care?) by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
• Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

• Shinzen's Blog
• Phone-based retreats and classes
• Articles, CDs, onsite retreats
• YouTube Talks
• YouTube Interviews

What It Means to Be Human

Being Human 2012: The Science of Human Experience
Palace of Fine Arts / San Francisco, CA 

We live at the dawn of a scientific revolution. Every day brings new findings from a broad range of disciplines – behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, social anthropology, philosophy – that promise to overthrow long-held biases and stories about what it means to be human. 

The coming decades will bring a shift in our worldview as fundamental as any in the past five hundred years. As we use the tools of science to explore the nature of humanity, we are learning more and more about how our brains function and what motivates our behavior, built-in biases and blind spots. 

These fresh insights are interesting scientifically, but they also evoke significant questions about our lived experience. These perspectives challenge our basic assumptions of who we are, both as individuals and as a society.  

Being Human 2012 offered a multidisciplinary public dialogue led by the scientists, thought leaders, and philosophers pioneering this exploration to discover and experience: 

• How has evolution shaped our brains to construct a model of reality?
• How does the subconscious mind influence the decisions we make?
• What is the relationship between self and culture?
• Are you who you think you are, or is that just an illusion?
• What does science tell us about our interactions with fellow humans?
• Is humanity still evolving?

Speakers