Category Archives: Books

Consciousness

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Conscious book cover“The idea that humans are special, that they are singled out by the gift of consciousness above all other creatures, stems from the deeply held Judeo-Christian belief that we occupy a privileged place in the order of things, a belief with a biblical but no empirical basis. We are not special. We are just one species among uncountable others.”

“Imagine a construction set of a thousand different types of LEGO bricks of distinct colors, shapes, and sizes. The human cerebral cortex has sixteen billion bricks chosen from these types, assembled according to fantastically elaborate rules, such as a red 2×4 brick is linked to a blue 2×4 but only if it is near a yellow 2×2 roof tile and a green 2×6 piece. From this is born the vast interconnectedness of the brain.”

“It is not the nature of the stuff that the brain is made out of that matters for mind, it is rather the organization of that stuff – the way the parts of the system are hooked up , their causal interactions.”

— Consciousness by Christof Koch

Name the Beatles (Carl Hiaasen – Skin Tight)

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One of my favorite bits of dialogue in Carl Hiaasen’s Skin Tight:

“But I don’t want to many you,” she said. “I promise. Even if you ask me afterwards, I’ll say no—no matter how great it was. Besides, I’m not a waitress. You said all the others were waitresses.”
He groaned and said, “Tina, I’m sorry. It just won’t work.”
“How do you know it won’t work?” she said to Stranahan
“I’m too old.”
“Bullshit.”
“And you’re too young.”
”Double bullshit.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then name the Beatles.”
“What?” Tina forced a caustic laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious” Stranahan said, addressing her from the edge of the roof. “If you can name all the Beatles, I’ll make love to you right now. ”
“I don’t believe this,” Tina said. “The fucking Beatles.”
Stranahan had done the math in his head: She was nineteen, which meant she had been born the same year the band broke up.
‘Well, there’s Paul,” Tina said.
“Last name? Come on! Let’s hear it.”
“McCartney, okay? I don’t believe this.”
Stranahan said, “Go on, you’re doing fine.”
“Ringo,” Tina said. “Ringo Starr. The drummer with the nose.”
“Good.”
“And then there’s the guy who died. Lennon.”
“First name?”
“I know his son is Julian.”
“His son doesn’t count.”
Tina said, “Yeah, well, you’re an asshole. It’s John. John Lennon.”
Stranahan nodded appreciatively. “Three down, one to go. You’re doing great.”
Tina folded her arms and tried to think of the last Beatle. Her lips were pursed in a most appealing way, but Stranahan stayed on the roof. “I’ll give you a hint,” he said to Tina. “Lead guitar.”
She looked up at him, triumph shining in her gray eyes. “Harrison,” she declared. ”Keith Harrison!

Reading habits

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“78% of Americans ages 16 and older say they read a book in the past 12 months. Urban (80%) and suburban (80%) residents are especially likely to have read at least one book in the past year. While rural residents are somewhat less likely to have read a book in the past year (71%), the book readers in rural areas read as many books as their counterparts in cities and suburbs.” (Pew Research)

I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Excerpts from I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

All your problems are your body’s problems. All these lose their meaning the moment you realize that you may not be a mere body. You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable.#

Memory creates the illusion of continuity.

Time, space, causation are mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

Nothing can happen unless the entire universe makes it happen. A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.

The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And it is entirely private. Take it to be a dream and be done with it.

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Be As You Are by Sri Ramana Maharshi

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Excerpts from The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Edited by David Godman)

There is a single immanent reality, directly experienced by everyone, which is simultaneously the source, the substance and the real nature of everything that exists.

The Self is not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness.

Sri Ramana’s God is not a personal God, he is the formless being which ustains the universe. He is not the creator of the univers, the universe is merely a manifestation of his inherent power; he is inseparable from it.

The mind turned inward is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world.

The thoughts are the content of the mind and they shape the universe.

To make room, it is enough that objects be removed. Room is not brought in from elsewhere.

Bliss is not added to your nature, it merely revealed as your true natural state.

Trouble and pleasure are only for the ego.

The state free from thoughts is the only real state.

It is the mind that veils our happiness.

Self-realisation could be brought about merely by giving up the idea that there is an individual self which functions through the body and the mind.

The aim of self-enquiry is to discover, by direct experience, that the mind is non-existent.

The mind and the ego are one and the same.

When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. The mind is merely thoughts. The mind is only they thought ‘I’

The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is pure consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient.

The essence of mind is only awareness or consciousness. When the ego, however, dominates it, it functions as the reasoning, thinking or sensing faculty.

Realisation is nothing new to be acquired. It is already there, but obstructed by a screen of thoughts.

Reality is simply the loss of ego.

As the practice develops the thought ‘I’ gives way to a subjectively experienced feeling of ‘I’, and when this feeling ceases to connect and identify with thoughts and objects, it completely vanishes. What remains is an experience of being in which the sense of individuality has temporarily ceased to operate.

It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. … From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be. … Ultimately, the Self is not discovered as a result of doing anything, but only by being.

If you are vigilant and make a stern effort to reject every thought when it arises you will soon find that you are going deeper and deeper into your own inner self.

You have to ask yourself question “Who am I?’ This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems.

One must be completely free of the idea that there is an individual person who is capable of acting independently of God.

(The) final destruction of the ‘I’ takes place only if the self-surrender has been completely motiveless.

If one surrenders oneself there will be no one to ask questions or to be thought of.

You must be satisfied with whatever God gives you and that means having no desires of your own. You can have no likes or dislikes after your surrender.

It is the higher power that does everything, and man is only a tool.

The Self does not move, the world moves in it.

Pleasure or pain are aspects of the mind only. Our essential nature is happiness. But we have forgotten the Self and imagine that the body or the mind is the Self.

So long as there is thought there will be fear. #

The ego is the source of thought. #

Because you identify yourself with the body, you think that work is done by you.

We must play our parts on the stage of life, but we must not identify ourselves with those parts. #

Many a man would be only too glad to be rid of his diseased body and all the problems and inconveniences it creates for him if continued awareness were vouchsafed to him. It is the awareness, the consciousness, and not the body, he fears to lose.

One first creates out of one’s mind and then sees what one’s mind itself has created.

Clearly the world is your thought. Thoughts are your projections. The ‘I’ is first created and then the world. The world is created by the ‘I’ which in its turn rises up from the Self. (We) must admit that the world is (our) own imagination.

The universe is real if perceived as the Self.

You do not know what you were before birth, yet you want to know what you will be after death. Do you know what you are now?

Experience takes place only in the present, and beyond experience nothing exists. Even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental. Space is similarly mental. Therefore birth and rebirth, which take place in time and space, cannot be other than imagination. Real rebirth is dying from the ego into the spirit.

Birth pertains to the ego, which is an illusion of the mind.

God never acts, he just is. He has neither will nor desire. … The totality of all lthings and beings constitutes God.

Whatever this body is to do and whatever experiences it is to pass through was already decided when it came into existance.

As long as individuality lasts there is free will. … Only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self.

Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or than from the Lord.

Race Against The Machine

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Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, by Erik Brynjolfsson

“Terry Gou, the founder and chairman of the electronics manufacturer Foxconn, announced this year a plan to purchase 1 million robots over the next three years to replace much of his workforce. The robots will mke over routine jobs like spraying paint, welding, and basic assembly. Foxconn currently has 10,000 robots, with 300,000 expected to be in place by next year.”

“If technology exists for a single seller to cheaply replicate his or her services, then the top-quality provider can capture most—or all—of the market. The next-best provider might be almost as good yet get only a tiny fraction of the revenue.”

“…the top 0.01% of households in the United States—that is, the 14,588 families with income above $11,477,000 — saw their share of national income double from 3% to 6% between 1995 and 2007.”

“About 90% of Americans worked in agriculture in 1800; by 1900 it was 41%, and by 2000 it was just 2%.”

The Intention Economy

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The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge by Doc Searls

I’m only about one-third of the way into the book but finding no shortage of notable and quotable nuggets. In no particular order:

“Likewise, rather than guessing what might get the attention of consumers —or what might “drive” them like cattle—vendors will respond to actual intentions of customers. Once customers’ expressions of intent become abundant and clear, the range of economic interplay between supply and demand will widen, and its sum will increase. The result we will call the Intention Economy.”

“This new economy will outperform the Attention Economy that has shaped marketing and sales since the dawn of advertising. Customer intentions, well expressed and understood, will improve marketing and sales, because both will work with better information, and both will be spared the cost and effort wasted on guesses about what customers might want, flooding media with messages that miss their marks. Advertising will also improve.”

“The volume, variety, and relevance of information coming from customers in the Intention Economy will strip the gears of systems built for controlling customer behavior or for limiting customer input. The quality of that information will also obsolete or repurpose the guesswork mills of marketing, fed by crumb trails of data shed by customers’ mobile gear and Web browsers. “Mining” of customer data will still be useful to vendors, though less so than intention-based data provided directly by customers.” — Page 2
…
“It’s an eyeball bubble. Investments in tracking-based advertising assume impossibly high values for customers attention.” — Pg 41
…
“Now imagine you’re back in 1982. Somebody tells you that in twelve years, the world will adopt a new communications system that nobody owns, everybody can use, and anybody can improve. The system will be all-digita and will provide ways for anybody ro communicate with anybody, anywhere in the world, and to copy and share anything that can be digitized—including mail, print publications, music, radio streams, TV programs, and movies at costs that approach zero. Would you believe it?” — Page 94
…
“Like the universe, there are no other examples of it (the Internet), and all our understandings of it are incomplete.” – pg 96
…
“To become totally personal, advertising needs to cross an existential bridge, to become a different corporate function. It must become sales – without the human sound or the human touch.” — pg 41
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“We can’t ignore the huge numbers of people who live within our on the shores of the fast money river that flows through advertising, especially online. And it won’t stop until the bubble pops.” -pg 39
…
It’s easy to forget that the term branding was borrowed from the cattle industry. The idea was to burn the name of a company or product on to the brains of potential customers.”
…
“In the United States, the typical hour-long American TV drama runs forty-two minutes. The remaining eighteen minutes are for advertising. Half-hour shows are twenty-one minutes long, with nine left for advertising. That’s 30 percent in each case. The European Union sets a limit of twelve minutes per hour for advertising on TV, which comes to 20 percent. Ireland holds broadcasters to ten minutes per hour, or 16.7 percent.”
…

Free Will by Sam Harris

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Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape. Mr. Harris is a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

A lot of my reading over the last few years has touched on the idea of free will. Real or illusory? I’ll confess that it sure feels as though I have free will. But the more I read about the subject… and think about it… the less certain I am.

The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness — rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it.

Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next — a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please — your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become conscious of this “decision” and believe that you are are in the process of making it.

I cannot decide what I will next think or intend until a thought or intention arises.

You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

Unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions — and are themselves determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively unaware.

The next choice you make will come out of the darkness of prior causes that you, the conscious witness of your experience, did not bring into being.

You are no more responsible for the next thing you think (and therefor do) than you are for the fact that you were born into this world.

You can decide what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

My choices matter — and there are paths toward making wiser ones — but I cannot choose what I choose.

What I will do next, and why, remains, at bottom, a mystery — one that is fully determined by the prior state of the universe and the laws of nature (including the contributions of chance).

Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime — by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this?

You will do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise.

 

Jesus, Interrupted

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The full title of the book is: Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them). The author, Bart D. Ehrman, began studying the Bible and its original languages at the Moody Bible Institute and is a 1978 graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. He received his PhD and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied under Bruce Metzger. He received magna cum laude for both his BA in 1978 and PhD in 1985.

I have not read the Bible and — before reading this book — knew almost nothing about it from an historical, scholarly perspective. Here are a few excerpts I highlighted:

The New Testament, consisting of twenty-seven books, was written by maybe sixteen or seventeen authors over a period of seventy years.
…
A Christianity dependent on the inerrancy of the Bible probably cannot survive the reality of the discrepancies.
…
Since the nineteenth century, scholars have recognized that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, around 65-70 CE. Continue reading →