Comments on: Alan Watts on No Separations

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:30:34 +0000

Yup, total agreement here.

By: speedbird

speedbird — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:04:22 +0000

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

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:35:28 +0000

Yeah, that surprised me as well…

By: jackson

jackson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:12:14 +0000

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.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:55:57 +0000

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…

By: speedbird

speedbird — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:38:48 +0000

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.

By: speedbird

speedbird — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:17:37 +0000

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… :)

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:18:42 +0000

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...

By: jackson

jackson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:50:04 +0000

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

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:15:23 +0000

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.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:09:52 +0000

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.”

By: speedbird

speedbird — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:02:12 +0000

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) :)