Minding The Planet is Nova Spivack’s weblog on emerging technologies and trends. It focuses ways in which the Web is becoming more present, personalized and precise.
Nova Spivack is a technology futurist, entrepreneur, and angel investor, and a leading voice on search, collective intelligence and the Semantic Web. More...
DRAFT 1 — A Work in Progress
Introduction
Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about: it’s a concept for a new philosophy, or perhaps just a name for a grassroots philosophy that seems to be emerging on its own. It’s called “Nowism.” The view that now is what’s most important, because now is where one’s life actually [...]
(DRAFT 7. Work-In-Progress)
What is the universe and where does it come from?
There are two major schools of thought on this question:
Science: One is modern-day science, which takes the position that universe is strictly a physical phenomenon and that everything about can be explained by repeatable physical measurements, testable scientific theories, and the rules of math [...]
You have to see this image.
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I got this picture from a friend who received it from a friend who is on the ground in Lhasa right now. Please redistribute, especially to the news media.
Things are much worse for the Tibetans than has been reported. Can we help to avoid another Tainanmen?
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Only now the full horror of the situation in Burma is emerging.
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I’ve been tracking the progress of my Burma protest meme. In just under one week it has spread to almost 17,000 web pages and it continues to grow. (For the latest number, click here). It’s great to see the blogosphere pick this up, and I’m glad to be able to do something to help raise [...]
The situation in Burma is far worse than the mainstream media has reported so far. Watch this video that was just smuggled out showing soldiers beating unarmed protesters. There are now reports coming in from eyewitnesses of young school students being shot by the army, masses of injured protestors being cremated alive, and thousands of monks [...]
A very cool experiment in virtual reality has shown it is possible to trick the mind into identifying with a virtual body:
Through these goggles, the volunteers could see a camera
view of their own back – a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that
appeared to be standing in front of them.
When the researchers stroked the back of [...]
This just in. The Chinese Government, in their ongoing campaign against the Dalai Lama and Buddhism in Tibet, have announced a new law making it illegal for a Buddha to reincarnate without a state permit. This law is designed effectively to put an end to the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet within one generation. [...]
NOTES
Master Copy can be found at this URL or http://tinyurl.com/yynb93
Last Update: Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 10:17AM PST
License — This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Deed. If you would like to distribute a version of thisarticle, please link back [...]
This is a surprisingly good article on the nature of consciousness — providing a survey of the current state-of-the-art in cognitive science research. It covers the question from a number of perspectives and interviews many of the leading current researchers.
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From the Fringe Department… This article is making the rounds today. It’s about a 15 year old boy in Nepal (see the picture) who is said to have been meditating under a tree without food or water, or even moving or going the bathroom, for 6 months. Interesting. Although unfortunately, now that he has been [...]
Researchers in Europe have completed the first phase of what may be the largest computational physics experiment in history: They built and ran a simulated universe through 14 billion years of development. The experiment used up 25 million megabytes of memory, and the biggest supercomputer in Europe for a month. The result was a “Cube [...]
A recent article on Boing Boing reports the most recent round of Chinese cyberattacks on the Tibetan government in exile.
China has increasingly aimed its sophisticated cyberwar teams at the low-tech, peace-loving Tibetans. I know dozens of Tibetan lamas and their staffs and they all use PC’s — and none of them know anything about [...]
Dr. Ian Stevenson has amassed 3000 documented cases of children remembering events from past lives.
In each case of children’s past life memory, Dr. Stevenson methodically documents the child’s statements. Then he identifies the deceased person the child remembers being, and verifies the facts of the deceased person’s life that match the child’s memory. He even [...]
Well, I’m finally doing it — I’ve started studying Classical Tibetan. After many years of procrastinating I’ve taken the leap. You may wonder why anyone would need to know Classical Tibetan — the answer is that it is the language used in all the classical Tibetan Buddhist texts. One of my main interests in life [...]
I was goofing around in Google Groups today, looking up ancient conversations I had in USENET in the long gone days of the 1990’s and I came across a quote of mine which is “I don’t care how many levels of reality you posit, as soon as you posit even one, it’s turtles all the [...]
Here’s an article about an interesting modern theory that purports to “prove” that “reality” is not just an illusion. It’s a bit of a complicated appeal to the basis of language, but makes some good points. However, I think there may be a fundamental flaw at the very root of the argument.
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A Buddhist monk of the Tendai Zen sect in Japan just completed a rare 7-year running ritual. Many who attempt this die in the process. Those who fail to finish were traditionally required to commit suicide. Fortunately, this monk finished! You’ve got to read this article to see what this guy went through — it’s [...]