Reclusland

December 15, 2009

- Alan Watts on No Separations -

“What you do is what the whole universe is doing, at the place you call here and now”

from the research feed —

  1. Very cool. Y’know, in relativistic spacetime, /here & now/ and /everything we can see from here & now/ are actually the same place (in that there’s zero distance between them) :)

    Comment by speedbird — December 15, 2009 @ 12:02 pm


  2. I’ve been trying to find a way to say that to myself for quite some time, thank you!

    There is something profoundly deep there, something about being able to embody and live from that perspective that’s very important.

    Brings to mind the old saying “God is a circle who’s center is everywhere and who’s circumference is nowhere.”

    Comment by Ian — December 15, 2009 @ 12:09 pm


  3. here & now/ and /everything we can see from here & now/ are actually the same place

    Apply that to images like this and it really boggles the mind.

    Comment by Ian — December 15, 2009 @ 12:15 pm


  4. I love me some Watts. I used to write a tribute blog in his honor… Seeing Through The Net.

    Great quote.

    Comment by jackson — December 15, 2009 @ 7:50 pm


  5. Yeah, I’m a huge fan as well, Watts was a REALLY interesting guy. I’ll have to check out that blog. Funny you called it “Seeing Through the Net”. There’s been talk on this site before about the difference between (inter)nets and oceans, and how seeing through the ‘net is an important thing to do…

    I take it you probably know about the Alan Watts animations the south park guys are (were?) doing? If not, its a safe bet to say you’d probably like them. :)

    Prickles & Goo
    Alan Watts Animated
    various flash animations

    He definitely knew his shit. I could listen to him talk about this stuff all day…

    Comment by Ian — December 15, 2009 @ 10:18 pm


  6. Love that Hubble Deep Field photo. Apparently they just pointed it at a piece of sky that ‘looked’ completely black and just left the shutter open for like a month to see what happened.

    As an aside, the question of ‘why is the sky black when the Universe is infinite?’ is actually a significant astronomical question. Redshift and dustclouds, I believe.

    If ‘here and now’ is the same place as ‘everything we can see from here and now’, what about the times & places you can see from ‘everything we can see from here and now’? THAT’s quantum entanglement… :)

    Comment by speedbird — December 16, 2009 @ 4:17 am


  7. There’s also a theory that something can only emit light if that light will be absorbed at some point in the ‘future’ (actually, still zero distance in spacetime). As far as we know, all directions are equivalent for light so therefore there must be /something/ in all possible directions in the future. If you can get your head round that you’re doing better than me.

    Comment by speedbird — December 16, 2009 @ 4:38 am


  8. If you can get your head round that you’re doing better than me.

    I tried, but my head turned inside-out…

    I was listening to an interview with Andrew Cohen today, where he was talking about how “the creative force” brought something out of nothing however many billion years ago (the Big Bang or whatever you want to call it). He said that because there was a beginning, there’s an ongoing process, with the implication that there would be an end to it (although I could have misunderstood him; I haven’t even finished the interview).

    Either way, it got me thinking. What if there isn’t an end? What if everything just continues to expand and expand outwards, with the dead matter collecting back in the middle and exploding outwards again? E=MC2, right? Energy is never lost, it just changes.

    Endless ripples of form and energy through space…

    Comment by Ian — December 16, 2009 @ 9:55 am


  9. I take it you probably know about the Alan Watts animations the south park guys are (were?) doing? If not, its a safe bet to say you’d probably like them. :)

    Yes, I have seen them. They’re fantastic. I didn’t know the South Park guys were involved, though. It makes sense now that I think about it.

    Comment by jackson — December 16, 2009 @ 12:12 pm


  10. Yeah, that surprised me as well…

    Comment by Ian — December 16, 2009 @ 12:35 pm


  11. OK, I’s home now so I can YouTube…

    MAN, that guys’ VOICE is fantastic! You could bottle that and sell it. It’s like the kind of voice they had narrating kids TV programmes in the UK way, way back in the h’early 70′s…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDWk0BCeblQ

    Comment by speedbird — December 16, 2009 @ 3:04 pm


  12. Yup, total agreement here.

    Comment by Ian — December 16, 2009 @ 3:30 pm



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