The Superbrain Quorum's topics - tribe.net

Interesting Architecture on Staten Island

2008-09-28T16:57:20Z

At the following hyperlink is a selection of photos of an orphanage on Staten Island that has some strangely beautiful architecture . The room with the stylized image of the sun on the wall is especially haunting and dreamlike :http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oboylephoto.com/girls_school/hillview1_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.oboylephoto.com/girls_school/girls_school2.htm&h=398&w=600&sz=81&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=8-iukSAyMc9NhM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorphanage%2B%2522mt.loretto%2522%26as_st%3Dy%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26ie%3DUTF-8

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 13 replies

Beautiful description of a forest

2008-09-18T19:22:05Z

Here is a beautiful description of a forest .

“the branches of the trees are like dark lines that have followed the movements of the silence; the leaves thickly cover the branches as if the silence wanted to conceal itself. . .The forest is like a great reservoir of silence out of which the silence trickles in a thin, slow stream and fills the air with its brightness.”

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Paper mimics light !

2008-07-29T04:22:54Z

Here at the following hyperlink is (among other works of art) conceptual paper art by Dutch artist Caroline Reichart that mimics beams and shafts of light :http://www.designboom.com/weblog/index.php?CATEGORY_PK=10

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 19 replies

Roman Dodecahedrons

2008-07-27T04:36:29Z

Lately I've become entranced by yet another little Zen koan involving Sacred Geometry in a archaeological artifacts.
84 small dodecahedrons have been found at many different Roman sites across Britain and the continent which are bronze dodecahedrons.
No one seems to have any clear insight as to what these objects were used for.
They are all between 4 cm and 11 cm in size making them quite small.
Most are in bronze but several are made of carved stone as well.
Most date from the 1st to the 4th cent AD.
Most were found in France and Germany.
Here;s a link to Wikipedia which has a little animation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedra
But note:
The animation is an inaccurate rendering because it shows all the holes to be the same size.
On all the artifacts the holes are all of different sizes...

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 6 replies

Exotic links

2008-07-24T16:14:30Z

Here is a hyperlink to a links page that reviews a wide variety of unusuals :http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/pc/realityarchive3.html

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 90 replies

Realignment: An Alternative To Punch versus Judy

2008-07-23T04:28:19Z

The following is a summary that will be hopefully brief , succinct .

A kind of outline, if you will, of the sort of social outllook that is an alternative to the contemporary social /political ideologies that whether "liberal" ---in the fake contemporary sense or conservative ....or libertarian party or moderate . So much of the doctrines that come from both so-called liberals , conservatives, moderates , and libertarians ---is incongruous (riddled with weird internal contradictions ...some direct others indirect contradictions) and/or superfluous .

(The superflous adds nothing of intrinsic good to a civilization) . So to get to the main topic of what this present essay is all about---let me just briiefly describe the positions that are the elements of a sound , reasonable, wholesome outllook on life and ideological matters .
Here below are many of the positions of the reasonable approach to societal matters and politics .

The reasonable outlook is :

Totally *against* abortion on demand (with exceptions if the child in question could be likely to be horribly deformed to the point of suffering if carried to term , ect ) .

Abortion does not liberate women and unborn women also should have rights . Abortion on demand is totally incongruous with the ethos of compassion and nurturance that liberals are supposed to support .

Favors generous social programs for the poor, and is on the side of the poor , downtrodden .Pro-union .

Opposes subsidies for wealthy coprorations. If a corporation cannot run its business without goverment sponsored corporate welfare handouts and bailouts , than the CEOS and company president ought to go back to business school and start over .

Supports clean , renewable and laternative energy .

Fervently and extremely in favor of preserving wilderness in all its beauty. Fervently and extremely in favor of clean water, soil, air ect. Beautiful landscapes (like forest, deserts, mountains, praries, oceansides) edify and uplifts a nation. Ugly , mundane Mc Mansions and yuppie subdivisions do *not* edify, they do *not* instill a sense of the civic commonweal in the minds of citizens ...they foster instead tedium of mind and vapidness ..

Supports wholesome family farmers, as well as organic farmers and their wholesome vegetables and products , instead of the hi tech junk food offered by souless companies like Monsanto, and other junk food companies .

Supports the abolition of income tax in favor of a national sales tax and/or other ways of raising revenue for the federal goverment .

Is totally against racism, anti-semitism and/or any form of maligning or oppreession of ethnic groups . Pro-civil rights .

Supports equal rights for women / equal pay for equal work...is totally intolernat of wife beating . Is totally against the exploitation of women by the evil sexist and ghastly adult film industry, though does not favor censorship .

Is totally against liberated sex , totally against sexual promiscuity "being open about sexuality" . After all, such tendencies are contrary to true humanitarian, nurturing sentiment --such sexually liberated proclivities foster a crass , murky, acquisitive, shallow- minded approach to living .

Totally *against* lurid , sinister mass news media spectacle . Desires the mass television and television related news media to just go out of business ---though it does not advocate censorship .

Against NAFTA, GATT and all those evil globalistrade programs that erode the soverengty of nations .

ADDENTUM : Running through all the positions above is an acknowledgement that relativism/postmodernism/ ambivalent thinking is totally wrong without even any partial merit. Rejects the inchoate desire that there be any sort of balance ; rejects any middle ground between that which is inherently contrary to virtue and that which is intriniscally virtuous. It is based on the acknowledgement that intrinisc virtue should be taken to extremes --NOT tempered nor balanced with a little selling-out .

It is based on the acknowledgement that intrinsic virtue when taken to extremes does NOT somehow become a vice. Rejects the weird non-consistant doctrine of "the golden middle" ! Acknowledges that taking virtue to extremes takes careful analysis ---and that requires strictly linear thinking . Acknowledges that it is a lazy mind that *refuses* to split hairs . Is totally *agaiinst* any equivocation in thought .

An ointment without any flies is long overdue . The word 'purist' is NOT a dirty word !

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Former Oil man has a Good Notion

2008-07-20T18:33:02Z

Former oil man: T. Boone Pickens, presents what is apparently a darn sensible proposal to end the disasterous liason that the goverment has with petroleum fuel and proposes wind power and natural gas, and explains the specifics on how to set about it.

The naysayers will probably put forth a lot of misplaced or at best hastily cynical scoffing at the proposal . But the proposal is worth looking into . Read about at the following hyperlink (if the hyperlink takes) : www.pickensplan.com/

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 1 reply

open source think tank please help

2008-06-24T11:39:35Z

superbrain quorum is of course an interesting set of memes. I joined cuz i was looking for an open source think tank environment.
Theres not really enough room on this single forum and the interests here are diverse but not focused.

On the other hand, in some ways this is just taking the super brain quorum to the next logical step of its evolution.

I could even add a forum called super brain quorum.

Anyways, i am working on an open source think tank. to tackle all of the highest order problems our civilization faces.
The harder the problem, the better. Keeps me entertained.

I hope that you will come join me over there and help in the problem solving process.
thanks!

http://mytalktoday.com/forum/forum.php
http://mytalktoday.com/forum/index.php

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

The Botany Photo of the Day

2008-05-29T03:18:18Z

The website titled , ' Botany Picture Of The Day ' has some amazing photos of plants in sharp detail .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

The Sound of the Solar Eclipse ?

2008-05-24T17:20:12Z

Click on the following hyperlinked address and read about how it has been claimed that when the shadow of the moon of a (total?) solar eclipse falls on the earth's atmosphere that it causes a cooling of the upper air to such an extent that the convection of the air particles causes a sound .:http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/22/solar-sonic-boom-eclipses-may-generate-atmospheric-shocks/

If such a claim is right then could it be that some people and or other creatures could have sensitive enough ears to hear that sound ????

Annie Dillard would probably love that anecdote . If she ever writes a sequel to Pilgrim At Tinker Creek , one could imagine her including that anecdote .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

The Euphoria of Outer Space

2008-05-24T16:50:49Z

At the following hyperlink address is a fascinating article about reports from astronauts of the past and present--- who when leaving earth's atmosphere in space craft to the reaches of interplanetary space , describe feelings of euphoria--feelings of a numinous sort .:http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/22/the-human-brain-in-space-euphoria-and-the-overview-effect-experienced-by-astronauts/#comment-21554

There is some discussion among people from various discplines in the scientific community as to whether or not the experience might be a result of freeing the synaptic connections in the brain cells of the astronauts from the effects of immanent gravity , or whether it has some other cause or causes .

I tend to think it may be a combination of factors .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Actress Hillary Swank

2008-05-24T16:21:38Z

She gives the impression of being quite a remarkable and beautiful young woman.

Yours truly recently saw a televized airing of the film 'Steel Jawed Angels' where she played an early feminist /suffragette during the World War I era ...and I have to say that she is amazing. (Maybe it was just acting, but she seemed so authentic in the portrayal. The character in addition to being a woman of great fortitude was a very nurturing person ) .

She looked so cute in that long late Edwardian era dress and her modest ladies hat !

She fosters the impression as an actress of being a kind of intellectual tomboy ---strong and austere in some ways , yet still quite beautiful and NOT at all butch .

She is an amazing lady .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 1 reply

The Cauchy Horizon (Here there be dragons? An Academic Bluff ? )

2008-05-17T18:24:40Z

At the following hyperlink address is an article on Wikipedia, which puports to describe the hypothesis of the cauchy horizon ---a "feature" (if one can even call it that) predicated by some physicists of black holes in outer space . :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_horizon

In the write-up on Wikipedia, the upshot of what the cauchy horizon reportedly is: is a boundary separating space- like geodesic trajectories from time- like geodesic ones . But let us ask in an earnest, does such a use of language make any sense ? Though time is believed by some to be a scalar property of events in space , even if one accepts that premise it seems to stretch the metaphorical likening of time to space beyond the point of making sense even as a metaphor , to claim there is a spatial barrier in physical space that on the other side of which are trajectories of time .

Note that we're not talking about time-travel (which is a somewhat other conceptual affair).... but instead the notion that one one side of a horizon in space is somehow trajectories of time that are posited to be somehow "apart" from space though realated and yet those trajectories of time "apart" from space are thus affirmed to be "located" in space "on the other side" of a spatial boundary .

That sort of postulating hearkens back to what has been a quite legitimate concern for years now...

THE CONCERN IS :that many of the physicists have overstepped their bounds into areas of philosophy where they do badly in (due to a lack of a fully systematic ontology and epistemology) and are bluffing , resorting to academic mystification of having venerated credentials and so on ...to cover up that quite frankly (in some areas of what they propose) they really don;t know what the heck they are talking about !

Sometimes bad notions can (if they are unpacked more carefully and deconstructed with sound linear thinking ...though not in the postmodernist sense of he word deconstruction) be used as stepping stones (in a very limited sense) to get to other better notions .

If the physicists who set forth murky notions like the "Cauchy horizon" would answer dialectical questions (and linear follow up questions) *without swerving* into gloss-overs and peripheral but merely sort of related reponses , then maybe we could get at the beginnings of something quite fascinating behind the botched cogitations of notions like the cauchy horizon .

We live in a fascinating time for physics and astronomy , where the ontological implications of discoveries make a person brim with curiousity ..

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

The Fire Salamander

2008-05-04T00:23:02Z

It is hard not to wax doxological when gazing at an image of such sublime beauty that looks not of this earth ...though it is the markings and well wrought frame of a terrestrial creature called the fire salamader .

Ladies and gents, click on the follwing hyperlink address and gaze upon the photograph of the fire salamander (apparently it lives in Czechoslavakia) :www.richard-seaman.com/Travel...der.jpg

Yours truly must wax doxological and type that the marvels of nature are the Creator's Art .

Apparently, the coloured pigments in the skin of the salamanders are caused by chromatophores centers of melanin granules and perhaps other chemicals below the immediate surface of the salamanders skin .

Nature abounds in marvels . Marvels such as white roses in all their granduer (one of the most beautiful of flowers), to desert turtles , to rivers, and black tourmaline crystals , to the night blooming cereus that grows in the Arizona desert, to humingbirds, and tektites, to neutron stars . From the eye-eyes of Madagascar to the Atlas Moth of the American southeast ---nature abounds in marvels .

Just today in a library book, I read that octopi that live in the ocean can reportedly see polarized light and , thus, be able to spot tranparent shrimp (on which they feed). What strange and beautiful visual qualia do they see with their quasi-sight ? Furthermore, what dispensations of spatial paths (which lightbeams take) can they see that we-- as of yet cannot---opening up perhaps a larger milleu of topography and cosmography ???

I read recently about reported case studies of newly sighted patients who have had cateracts spatially removed that report intriguing visual qualia . One apparently reported (in retrospective comparison perhaps) that the small light on the doctor's headgear looked like the light from an atomic bomb blast (in terms of its incandescent brilliance ) .

With all such marvels ...presented by the
One who as the book of Job declares 'gave goodly feathers to the peacocks' (some of the atheist citizenry would argue that one !) why would anyone fritter away a second of their time on such mundane banalities of repectible mediority as sexual cheap thrils (including the merely *cosmetic* levels of novelty found in new sex positions), finding out who a celebrity or politician is having sex with, who won the lottery , or pursuing such puerile amusement as farting and dirty jokes ???? Earthiness is cheap grace ! Earthiness, in all its meat and potatoes respectible mediocrity, is NOT only a waste of time but a waste of thought .

One is reminded of Jacob: the Isrealite of ancient fame, sleeping in the desert at Bethel and awaking from a busy , yet numinous dream to exclaim ,

'The Lord was in this place and I knew it not. '

POSTSCRIPT : The visual vividness of the salamander : its dashes of firey colour coupled with sleek visual texture (that might remind one of the sort of visual showing- forth of a large baloon used for travelling ...though not in shape, but in terms of texture and colour) serves as reminder that it is often the visible things and phenomenon that are often the most numinous . It as if the visible is that which is charged with the more active , more immanent plentitude that the invisible holds in store .

In one of the New Testament gospels when Jesus appears after his resurrection he entreats his disciples with the following words ,

' Behold my hands and feet. '

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 6 replies

Glass Jellyfish

2008-04-26T03:28:46Z

Click on the following hyperlink and see beautiful glass sculptures of jellyfish :http://www.pangalactictrading.com/Jellyfish/index.html

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 7 replies

The Waterbears

2008-04-26T01:36:01Z

Here below is a text from Wikipedia that goes into detail about unusual small organisms known as waterbears (or alternately 'tardigrades') :

Tardigrades (commonly known as water bears) comprise the phylum Tardigrada. They are small, segmented animals, similar and probably related to the arthropods. Tardigrades were first described by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 (kleiner Wasserbär = little water bear). The name Tardigrada means "slow walker" and was given by Spallanzani in 1777. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm, the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched larvae may be smaller than 0.05 mm.

More than 1000 species of tardigrades have been described. Tardigrades occur over the entire world, from the high Himalayas (above 6,000 m), to the deep sea (below 4,000 m) and from the polar regions to the equator.

The most convenient place to find tardigrades is on lichens and mosses. Other environments are dunes, beaches, soil and marine or freshwater sediments, where they may occur quite frequently (up to 25,000 animals per litre). Tardigrades often can be found by soaking a piece of moss in spring water.[3]

Water bears are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. They can survive temperatures close to absolute zero[4], temperatures as high as 151°C (303°F), 1,000 times more radiation than any other animal[5], nearly a decade without water, and can also survive in a vacuum like that found in space.

Contents [hide]
1 Anatomy and morphology
2 Ecology and life history
2.1 Feeding ecology
3 Physiology
3.1 Extreme environments
4 Evolutionary relationships and history
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Anatomy and morphology
Tardigrades have a body with four segments (not counting the head), four pairs of legs without joints, and feet with claws or toes. The cuticle contains chitin and is moulted. They have a ventral nervous system with one ganglion per segment, and a multilobed brain. Instead of a coelom they have a haemocoel. The only place where a true coelom can be found is around the gonad (coelomic pouch). The pharynx is of a triradiate, muscular, sucking kind, armed with stylets. Although some species are parthenogenetic, males and females are usually present, each with a single gonad. Tardigrades are eutelic (all adult tardigrades of the same species are believed to have the same number of cells) and oviparous. Some tardigrade species have as many as about 40,000 cells in each adult's body, others have far fewer. [6][7]

[edit] Ecology and life history

[edit] Feeding ecology
Most tardigrades are phytophagous or bacteriophagous, but some are predatory[8] (e.g. Milnesium tardigradum).[9]

[edit] Physiology

[edit] Extreme environments
Tardigrades are very hardy animals; scientists have reported their existence in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under layers of solid ice and in ocean sediments. Many species can be found in a milder environment like lakes, ponds and meadows, while others can be found in stone walls and roofs. Tardigrades are most common in moist environments, but can stay active wherever they can retain at least some moisture.

Tardigrades are one of the few groups of species that are capable of reversibly suspending their metabolism and going into a state of cryptobiosis. Several species regularly survive in a dehydrated state for nearly ten years. Depending on the environment they may enter this state via anhydrobiosis, cryobiosis, osmobiosis or anoxybiosis. While in this state their metabolism lowers to less than 0.01% of what is normal and their water content can drop to 1% of normal. Their ability to remain desiccated for such a long period is largely dependent on the high levels of the non-reducing sugar trehalose, which protects their membranes.

Tardigrades have been known to withstand the following extremes while in this state:

Temperature — tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151°C or being chilled for days at -200°C, or for a few minutes at -272°C. (1° warmer than absolute zero).[10]
Pressure — they can withstand the extremely low pressure of a vacuum and also very high pressures, many times greater than atmospheric pressure. It has recently been proven that they can survive in the vacuum of space. Recent research has notched up another feat of endurability; apparently they can withstand 6,000 atmospheres pressure, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench. [11]
Dehydration - tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly one decade in a dry state.[12] Another researcher reported that a tardigrade survived over a period of 120 years in a dehydrated state, but soon died after 2 to 3 minutes.[13] Subsequent research has cast doubt on its accuracy since it was only a small movement in the leg.[14]
Radiation — as shown by Raul M. May from the University of Paris, tardigrades can withstand 5,700 grays or 570,000 rads of x-ray radiation. (Ten to twenty grays or 1,000-2,000 rads could be fatal to a human). The only explanation thus far for this ability is that their lowered hydration state provides fewer reactants for the ionizing radiation.
Recent experiments conducted by Cai and Zabder have also shown that these water bears can undergo chemobiosis — a cryptobiotic response to high levels of environmental toxins. However, their results have yet to be verified.[15][16]

[edit] Evolutionary relationships and history
Recent DNA and RNA sequencing data indicate that tardigrades are the sister group to the arthropods and Onychophora. These groups have been traditionally thought of as close relatives of the annelids, but newer schemes consider them Ecdysozoa, together with the roundworms (Nematoda) and several smaller phyla. The Ecdysozoa-concept resolves the problem of the nematode-like pharynx as well as some data from 18S-rRNA and HOX (homeobox) gene data, which indicate a relation to roundworms.

The minute sizes of tardigrades and their membranous integuments make their fossilization both difficult to detect and highly unlikely. The only known fossil specimens comprise some from mid-Cambrian deposits in Siberia and a few rare specimens from Cretaceous amber.[17]

The Siberian tardigrades differ from living tardigrades in several ways. They have three pairs of legs rather than four; they have a simplified head morphology; and they have no posterior head appendages. It is considered that they probably represent a stem group of living tardigrades.[17]

The rare specimens in Cretaceous amber comprise Milnesium swolenskyi, from New Jersey, the oldest, whose claws and mouthparts are indistinguishable from the living M. tartigradum; and two specimens from western Canada, some 15–20 million years younger than M. swolenskyi. Of the two latter, one has been given its own genus and family, Beorn leggi (the genus named by Cooper after the character Beorn from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and the species named after his student William M. Legg), however it bears a strong resemblance to many living specimens in the family Hipsiblidae.[17][18]

Aysheaia from the middle Cambrian Burgess shale might be related to tardigrades.

[edit] References
^ Budd, G.E. (2001). "Tardigrades as ‘stem-group arthropods’: the evidence from the Cambrian fauna". Zool. Anz 240: 265-279. doi:10.1078/0044-5231-00034.
^ Tardigrada (TSN 155166). Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
^ Goldstein, B. and Blaxter, M. (2002). Quick Guide: Tardigrades. Current Biology 12: R475.
^ Bertolani, R. et al (2004). Experiences with dormancy in tardigrades. Journal of Limnology 63(Suppl 1): 16-25.
^ Radiation tolerance in the tardigrade Milnesium tardigradum
^ Seki, K & Toyoshima, M. (1998). Preserving tardigrades under pressure. Nature 395: 853–854.
^ Ian M. Kinchin (1994) The Biology of Tardigrades, Ashgate Publishing
^ Lindahl, K. (2008-03-15). Tardigrade Facts.
^ Morgan, Clive I. (1977). "Population Dynamics of two Species of Tardigrada, Macrobiotus hufelandii (Schultze) and Echiniscus (Echiniscus) testudo (Doyere), in Roof Moss from Swansea". The Journal of Animal Ecology 46 (1): 263-279.
^ Ramel, G. (2005-11-11). The Water Bears (Phylum Tardigrada).
^ Seki, K & Toyoshima, M. (1998). Preserving tardigrades under pressure. Nature 395: 853–854.
^ Guidetti, R. & Jönsson, K.I. (2002). Long-term anhydrobiotic survival in semi-terrestrial micrometazoans. Journal of Zoology 257: 181-187.
^ Manga Science Volume VI by Yoshitoh Asari, ISBN-05-202039-1, 1998
^ Guidetti, R. & Jönsson, K.I. (2002). Long-term anhydrobiotic survival in semi-terrestrial micrometazoans. Journal of Zoology 257.
^ Franceschi, T. (1948). Anabiosi nei tardigradi. Bolletino dei Musei e degli Istituti Biologici dell'Università di Genova 22: 47–49.
^ Jönsson, K. I. & R. Bertolani (2001). Facts and fiction about long-term survival in tardigrades. Journal of Zoology 255: 121–123.
^ a b c David A. Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel (2005). Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press, 96–97. ISBN 0521821495.
^ Kenneth W. Cooper (1964). "The first fossil tardigrade: Beorn leggi, from Cretaceous Amber". Psyche – Journal of Entomology 71 (2): 41.

[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
TardigradaTardigrada Newsletter
Tardigrades - Pictures and Movies
The Edinburgh Tardigrade project
NJ Tardigrade Survey
Tardigrade Appreciation Headquarters
Tardigrades (English/German)
The incredible water bear!
Tardigrade Reference Center
Tardigrades in space
Tardigrade data and analysis

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade"
Categories: Extremophiles | Tardigrades

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

Redwood Trees

2008-04-25T23:17:12Z

Redwood Trees are amazing creations . They stand as reminders that the Creator is the Ultimate Artist . It is tremendous how they can pull water with their roots from the underground to a great height . See a photo of some redwoods by clicking on the following hyperlink : http://www.fotosearch.com/bigcomp.asp?path=NGF/NGF006/73614359.jpg

AND another photo of a single redwood at : http://florida.tribe.net/template/CreateMessage.vm?tribeid=1c3a157f-2daa-4d2a-975d-ee5874338294

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

A Castle of Daniel Merriam

2008-04-09T07:44:57Z

A review is never as good as the picture itself (unless the review is polemical) .

Thus it is best to see the photo of the following illustration and know the OH YES ! of a image that demands an infinite: OH YES !

That having been said .

Here if one clicks on the following hyperlink address is an image that might give one (it does the author of the present post) something like unto deja vu --but not quite: a kind of proto deja vu .

The contrast between the ice blue (that almost looks like periwinkle blue) and the arboreal , brown (and sometimes black) amber- like shade of the surrounding tree canopies (which flank the castle with its cupolas and spires) is impeccable . The budding, yet still preliminary, symmetries hint at some sort of very ordered other space teeming with other tableaux ---other sharp , vivid concatenations of damn good space !!! The color and shape and texture ( the last of the three like unto frosted cake ) makes one think of the music of harpsichords . Take a long glance at the image behind the following address : http://www.visionsfineart.com/merriam/telestic_tea.htm

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 9 replies

Phantom Cities ?

2008-02-26T15:21:16Z

Here is a hyperlink to an article on the phenomenon of people seeing translucent images of cities in the sky . The one that was chiefly highlighted was reported to be seen near Mt.Fairweather in Alaska in the 1880'shttp://www.resologist.net/art06.htm.:

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

Rigid Designators and Flaccid Designators

2008-02-22T15:14:58Z

At the following hyperlink is a wikipedia article that gives a good overview to the work of Saul Kripke and the fascinating concept of rigid designators (which are the same identity for all possible worlds) and on an adjoining wikipedia page that can be clicked on from there --flaccid designators which are not necessarily the same in every possible world :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigid_designator

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Forgotten Sages And Philosophers I : D'Arcy Thompson

2008-02-12T18:08:44Z

Decided to start a message thread on the work of forgotten philosophers and sages . Not that they are forgotten by everyone , but that the work they did has apparently not received as much commentary by various historians and anthologies as that of others has .

The one for today is D'Arcy Thompson .

Probably the next one after him will be the German Renaissance scientist philosopher : Johann Kepler .

Here is a wikipedia overview (lets hope it's accurate on all references ---wiki can be good but it isn't infalliable) at the following hyperlink : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Arcy_Thompson

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 18 replies

A Musical Group called 'The Weather Report' .

2008-01-26T23:36:51Z

The music of the musical band called the 'Weather Report' ---could be likened to a kind of jazz . After all it has some jazz-like characteristics . Yet it has other characteristics ---characteristics of other schools of musical practice (schools of musical practice that in the present day and age are often called genres---yet the use of the term 'genre' thus applied seems a rather dubious use of language) ---that make it something of a rare species of musical taxonomy .

The band 'Weather Report' has made music spanning several decades . It's members: Chic Corea, Joe Zwainiul , Wayne Shorter, and other members , are musical pioneers .

The use of a Fender Rhodes piano by Joe Zwainul ---offers a wellspring of sound that coupled with the slow geysers of other harmonies and the upwellings within the geysers of melodies (or melodic lines) stratified and subordinated in turn , by the harmonies ---is amazing .

The early work from the early 1970's is amazing . But so is the work they did in 1980 ---notably the song 'Dream Clock' , and a number of the songs on the album where the song 'Dream Clock' appears . The song titled 'Dream Clock' is music that is indeed characteristic of a dreamlike (though even that adjective seems an understatement) experience . To say that it is hard or impossible to describe , and that one must hear it for oneself to know what is like ---is an old hat sort of statement . Nevertheless, what words on a computer screen---- that barring some new orthographic symbol system being cobbled forth that can give the reader enough synesthesia to prefigure sounds that (usually) words give only a hint of (if even that) ---cannot presently express ---going to the albums (preferrably Viny l LP , or cassette tape----but MP3 " burned" CDs are a tolerable consolation prize) and hearing it with your own ears is the best option . Reading reviews about it alone is not enough .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 4 replies

Boats, ships, and a breton girl

2008-01-26T23:35:17Z

Please click on the following hyperlink and see a fanasmically vivid painting of the shipbuilding along Breton coast of France by Henry La Thargue !

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/ViewLargeImage.cfm?ID=BHC4184

There is a strange comprehensiveness to the painting revealed in the ability of the painter to include both the gritty physicality of the shreddings and boards of wood AND also the airy iridescent blue of the very spiritual looking seascape with its ethereal sails .

According to one commentator, there are shown boatbuilding instruments like the : pit-saw , pitch-ladle, side axe, and adze in the painting .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 4 replies

Eyes of the starfish and new technology

2008-01-24T15:22:57Z

There if one clicks on the hyperlink there is a fascinating article on the calcite eyes of the brittlestar and a mentioning of the prospect for new technology .

Please read : http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010823_starfish.shtml

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

Amplified Contact Lenses

2008-01-22T01:21:32Z

Here at the following hyperlink to science daily is an article on electronic circuits being fitted to contact lenses for amplified vision and more lifelike virtual reality :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080117125636.htm

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

HOLOGRAM OF WATER ?

2007-12-29T01:42:04Z

Holograms use constructive diffraction patterns caused by the superimposition of an interference waves with reference waves . There are holograms of light and holograms of sound , and electron holograms.

Could jets of water channelled and ejected in the right way (perhaps under exotic conditions) make holograms of water ? And what properties that could be witnessed via the senses would such potential holograms have ?

If not water then perhaps some other liquid ?

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 6 replies

Where is everyone ?

2007-12-27T02:18:24Z

Well if people are busy with a crisis --then that is a completely empathizable reason to take a hiatus from posting. My mother's present home that she loves sadly is riddled with termites .I never wanted that to happen to her home ...

However, if there isn't anything drastic and the folks are not on vacation , sleepy (as I often am these prersent days) then please come and keep this present message board lively with posts .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 5 replies

THIS DREAM OF TIME

2007-12-22T02:29:46Z

NOTE FROM THE TYPIST : The text that appears below is so amazing I'm instantly floudering as to how to do a good enough 'note from the typist' as a preface. And Heavens To Jessup as a hunt and peck typist, I hope I won't mangle it with typos .
The excerpt from the story from early 20 th North Carolina writer Thomas Wolfe --is amazing for the majesty of language and also for the mood it presents of a question-- that is waiting to be asked a question almost overloked--a question that seeks to illumine a streak of some long mined for ontological ore . The mood of the question is a kind of alembic . (A further disclaimer ...since Thomas Wolfe lived and wrote during the early 20th century ...he uses the word 'queer' *NOT* to mean somebody given over to sexual practices with those who are of the same gender sort but ---INSTEAD he uses the word 'queer' to refer to the uncanny---- or merely unlikely) .

THIS DREAM OF TIME

'For a moment as the gouty old rake had spoken of the boy's dead brother the boy had felt withim a sense of warmth: a wakening of dead time, a stir of grateful affection for the gross old man as if there might have been in this bloated carcass some trace of understanding for the dead boy of which he spoke--an understanding for the dead boy of whom he spoke--an understanding faint and groping as a dog who bays the moon might have of the sidereal universe, and yet genuine and recognizable .

And for a moment present time fades out and the boy sits staring blindly out at the dark earth that strokes forever past the train , and now he has the watch out and feels it in his hands...And suddenly Ben is standing there before his vision, smoking, and scowls down through the window of the office at the boy .

He jerks his head in a peremptory gesture : the boy , obediant to his brother's command, enters the office and stands there waiting at the counter . Ben steps down from the platform in the window, puts the earphones on the table and walks over to the place where the boy is standing .For a moment, scowling fiercely , he stands there looking at the boy across the counter. The scowl deepends, he makes a sudden threatening gesture of his hard white hand as if to strike the boy, but instead he reaches across the counter quickly seizes the boy by the shoulders , pulls him closer, and with rough but skillful fingers tugs, pulls and jerks the frayed string of neck tie which the boy is wearing into a more ordely and presentable shape.

The boy starts to go .

"Wait!" says Ben, quietly, in a deliberately off hand kind of tone . He opens a drawer below the counter, takes out a small square package, and scowling irritably, and without looking at the boy, he thrusts it at him ."Here's something for you", he says, and walks away .

"What is it?" The boy takes the package and examines it with a queer numb sense of expectancy and growing joy .

"Why don't you open it and see?" Ben says, his back still turned, and scowling down into a paper on the desk.

"Open it?" the boy says , staring at him stupidly.

"Yes, open it, fool ! ". Ben snarls. "It's not going to bite you!"

"While the boy fumbles with the cords that tie the package, Ben prowls over toward the counter with his curious, loping, pigeon- toed stride, leans on it with his elbows and scowling, begins to look up and down the want- ad columns , while blue, pungent smoke coils slowly from his nostrils. By this time, the boy has taken off the outer wrapping of the package, and is holding a small case, beautifully heavy, of sumptuous blue velvet, in his hands .

Well did you look at it? Ben says, still scowling up and down the want ads of the paper, without looking at the boy .

The boy finds the spring and presses it , the top opens, inside upon its rich cushion of white satin is a gold watch, and fine gold chain . It is a miracle of design , almost as thin and delicate as a wafer. The boy stares at it with bulging eyes and in a moment stammers .
It's-it's a watch!
Does it look like an alarm clock ? Ben jeers quietly, as he turns a page and begins to scowl up and down the advertisements of another column.
It's- for me ? the boy says thickly, slowly as he stares at it .
No, Ben says, it 's for Napolean Bonaparte, of course !...You little idiot! Don't you know what days this is? Have I got to do all the thinking for you? Don't you ever use your head for anything except a hat rack ?...Well, he goes on quietly in a moment, still looking at his paper, what do you think of it?...There's a spring in the back that opens up, he goes on casually, . Why don't you look at it ?

The boy turns the watch over, feels the smooth golden surface of that shining wafer, finds the spring , and opens it .The back of the watch springs out, upon the inner surface is engraved , in delicate small words, this inscription:

' To Eugene Gant
Presented To Him On His Twelfth Birthday
By His Brother
B.H. Gant
October 3, 1912

Well, Ben says quietly in a moment. Did you read what it says .?
I'd just like to say--the boy begins in a thick, strange voice, staring blindly down at the still open watch .

Oh, for God's sake! Ben says, lifting his scowling head in the direction of his unknown demon, and jerking his head derisively towards towards the boy , ' Listen to this, won't you?...Now for God's sake, try to take care of it and don't abuse it! he says quickly and irritable. You've got to look after a watch the same as anything else. Old man Enderby--this is the name of the jeweler from whom he has bought the watch --told me that a watch like that was good for fifty years if you take care of it...You know he goes on quietly, insultingly , you're not supposed to drive nails with it or use it for a hammer. You know that, don't you ? He says , and for the first time turns and looks quietly at the boy. Do you know what a watch is for ?
Yes.
What is it for?
To keep time with, says the boy.
Ben says nothing for a moment, but looks at him .

Yes, he says quietly at length , with all the bitter weariness of a fathomless resignation and despair, the infinite revulsion, scorn, disgust which life has caused in him. That's it. That's what it is for. To keep time with . The weary irony in his voice has deepened to a note of passionate despair and I hope to God you keep it better than the rest of us! Better than Mama or the old man -better than me ! God help you if you don't ! ...Now go on home, he says quietly in a moment, before I kill you.

To keep time with !
What is this dream of time, this strange and bitter miracle of living ?Is it the wind that drives the leaves down the bare paths fleeing? Is it the storm- wild flight of furious days, the storm swift passing of the million faces, all lost, forgotten, vanished as a dream ? Is it the wind that howls above the earth , is it the wind that drives all things before its lash, is it the wind that drives all men like dead ghosts fleeing? Is it the one read leaf that strains there on the bough and will forever be fleeing? All things are lost and broken in the wind: the dry leaves scamper down the path before us , in their swift winged dance of death the dead souls flee along before us driven with rusty scuffle before the fury of the demented wind . And October has come again, has come again .

What is this strange and bitter miracle of life ? Is it to feel, when furious day is done, the evening hush, the sorrow of lost, fading light, far sounds and broken cries, and footsteps, voices, music, and all lost --and something murmurous, immense and mighty in the air?

And we have walked the pavements of a little town and the passages of barren night, and heard the wheel , the whistle and the tolling bell, and lain in the darkness waiting, giving to silence the huge prayer of our intolerable desire . And we have heard the sorrowful silence of the river in October--and what is there to say? October has come again, has come again, and this world, this life are stranger than a dream .

May it not be that some day from this dream of time, this chronicle of smoke, this strange and bitter miracle of life in which we are the moving and phantasmal figures, we shall wake? Knowing our father's voice upon the porch again, the flowers, the grapevines, the low rich moons of waning August, and the toling bell--and to know we live, that we have dreamed and have awakened, and to find in our hands some object like this real and palpable, some gift out of the lost land and unknown world as token that it was no dream -that we have really been there ? And there no more to say .

For now October has come back again, the strange and lonely month that comes back again, and you will not return .
Up on the mountain, down in the valley, deep, deep, deep in the hill, Ben--cold, cold, cold .
To keep time with!

And suddenly the scene, the shapes, the voices of the men about him swam back into focus, and he could hear the rythmned pounding of the wheels below him, and in his palm the frail-numbed visage of the watch stared blank and plain its legend. It was one minute after twelve o'clock , Sunday morning, October the third 1920, and he was hurtling across Virginia, and this world, this life, this time were stranger than a dream. '

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Artic Poppy

2007-12-20T03:51:41Z

At the following internet address is a close-up of an Artic Poppy :http://www.mattbl.com/images/20070716140301_arctic_poppy.jpg

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Athanasius Kircher and The Cabinet Of Curiousities

2007-12-16T19:12:07Z

See images and commentary on Athanasius Kircher and The Cabinet of curiousities where the work of the 17th century scientist and artists serves as a backdrop for contemporary artists and collectors of curios at the following internet site :http://www.turntablebluelight.com/2007/04/athanasius_kircher_the_cabinet.html

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Photos of Juilan Soulard

2007-12-16T19:03:46Z

Juilan Soulard manages to take some amazing photographs of city vistas :http://www.turntablebluelight.com/2005/10/julian_soulard.html

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Actress Drew Barrymore

2007-12-14T07:31:57Z

She is indeed very ,very cute with a radiant grin . She gives the impression of someone who would be a nice person if one met her off the set and she wasn't acting, also ..

Let us hope that the Hollywood scene of Emmys , and Oscar's and the like does NOT corrupt her . Let us hope that goofy reporters that ask actresses and actors "who are you wearing" stay away from her .She is cute !

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 8 replies

PRECISING DEFINITIONS OF SPACE AND SO ON (beginning notes)

2007-12-02T19:46:42Z

PREFACE : Here are some beginning notes for an ontology of physical space as it relates to ontology at large, cosmology, causality, and epistemology and perhaps other fields of study .

SOME BEGINNING NOTES FOR PRECISING DEFINITIONS

SPACE---is the presence range of causal extention in terms of either efficient cause, material cause, or final cause .

INSTANTIATION --Is the manifestation of an instance from a set, class, or meta-set, or class---or a principle governing any such categories-- into a domain of efficient, material , or final causation .

(A lot of seeming conrudrums ...vexing problems.... in philosophy notably ontology , and epistemology can be cleared up with more precise definitions . So let not the proverbial chips fall where they may . Let us guide them to fall into the right slots !)

SOME FURTHER OBSERVATIONS :

Reading Adventures of Ideas by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and notably the commentary that Whitehead makes on the concept of space as a Receptacle as the expanse where the transcendent Platonic pre-existent Idea-forms are in varying degrees manifested in particular instances that arise from time to time (a notion that Plato records in the book Timaeus) ---has given ballast for still further insights into how space operates .

An empty space devoid for some span of time however long would be possible---but space---even empty space-- in light of the precising definition above should be thought of as involving *the potential for movement* be the movement of discrete objects or a para-object like light . The manifold of space carries with it as a co-concept the notion of some sort of potential or actual alignment of objects in reference to one another . If one imagines an expanse of space and one imagines say the direction ' north ' one then latently as part of that conceptual operation also imagines some object to which a 'pointing' of one object towards that other can be done (and recursively a line of sight that can go back from that pointed at object --- that is thought of as being to the north ---back at the object that does the pointing) . Conceptually implicit to such an exercise is the prosepct of potential motion . One could imagine the object that points at the object ahead of it in the expanse as moving through the expanse and touching (physically interacting with) the object ahead of it . It does NOT have to actually do so---the potential is there conceptually to imagine such a travel and impact of the pointing object with the pointed at object.

Conceptually implicit to such a visualization is the potential prospect of objects to the sides of the originally visualized reference object. This holds true regardless of whether such objects however many units of distance removed are actually visualized or not. The very conceptions of the directions East and West ---as well as ancillary designations (such as northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest and so on) implicitly involve the *potential for such visualization* regardless of whether they are visualized during a particular moment of visualizing objects in a sparse open expanse of space (or whether such objects to the sides are not visualized) .

Going further into the unpacking of the conceptual characterisitcs of space itself it is worth noting that there is an mutual causal interactiveness between the even the largely empty space and the particular objects whose material cause , efficient cause, and /or final cause occur amidst it .

Whitehead writes of the idea of the expanse of space as a Receptacle as it is described in the writings of Plato ,

' It is part of the essential nature of each physical actuality that it is itself an element qualifying the Receptacle, and that the qualifications of the Receptacle enter into its own nature . ' (Adventures of Ideas p.134)

The manifold of space thus acts as a kind of clay receiving a mold from the motions of objects and forces given off by objects and yet it also plays an active role in terms of its structural boundaries to effect *zones of proximate causal influence* (with the varying degrees of causal potency as applied to varoius types of material , and efficient cause) . in agreement with that observation, space helps to distribute and redistribute causal lines of force from various moving objects .

There is a kind of co-given pointing or a co given referentiality with space itself and the objects that move amidst space . The causal directedness of objects (as instances of types of objects ) are directed at the open space in which they deploy their efficent, material,and/or final causes as providing a specifying causal *content* for the potentiality of space. The space in turn provides causal *disributions* of that specified content .

(Objects amidst space also have a referentiality with each other as well as the space between them, but it was important to highlight the relation they have with the space between them more directly in order to better spell out that very relation that objects have with the space between them) .

By the way, when this present essay refers to space, it does NOT only exclusively refer to outer space where astronauts go and galaxies spin , but , instead , refers to locational space in general in all its myriad realms .

Further commentary is yet to come .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 1 reply

PRECISING DEFINITION OF THE WORD TRUTH

2007-11-24T06:26:48Z

Below is a precisng defintion of truth . Yes, it is long-winded but bear with it ---it isn't just a bunch of jargon . I wish I knew a shorter way of explaining it without compromising accuracy . It is a crock of STEAMING TRUTH ! Now those who would say--it's a crock of something allright--save it. It is a crock of TRUTH !

TRUTH : Is the condition whereby the use of significance (in a particular moment--or over a span of several moments) is thoroughly subordinated (in terms of relevance of content) to the requisite *significant form* that pertains to it (be that use of significance be presented only in the internal dialogue of an individual being OR be that use of significance be expressively presented to another) .
posted by:

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

An Ethical First Principle

2007-11-23T00:44:11Z

An objective ethical first principle

David Hume was quite wrong when he claimed that all statements regarding ethics/morality merely reflected emotional preferences and denied that there could be any purely rational , intellectual , NON-emotive basis for ethics .

There, indeed, can be and are ethical first principles and precepts NOT based on emotion (though the right uses of emotion can be welcomed as a secondary overlay) ...which are objective and are based on the entailments of sound reason .

Often , however, the demonstration of such objective , rational precepts is rather attenuated , involving lengthy long-winded arguments . There is though at least one ethical first principle that can be demonstrated without as many long-winded sentences and paragraphs .

The two-fold first principle being referred to in this present essay is none other than the precept that teaches (number 1 ) that one should always at least attempt to find some justification for a belief or disposition and , concurrently, that it is always wrong for a being (barring the being in question is greatly addled by severe stress or neurological problems which would rightly excuse them) --- to reject the duty to at least try to find a consistent /rational justification for persisting in some belief or disposition ,and (number 2.) that it is always wrong to refuse to *specifically evaluate* (when one has the spare time to do so) any new arguments presented against that belief or disposition, in terms of the previous attempt at justification (or any supplermentary justification or supplementary attempts at justification) .

In light of that first principle statements made by people when asked why they are watching some particular t.v. show who say , "there's nothing else on " are always totally wrongheaded .

Similarly if a person affirms that they dislike some other person (or other consicous agent like an animal ) and then when asked why they don't like them respond with , "I just don't like them" --and make no effort to evaluate whether or not such dislike for that person ect. is justified or not ---the person who expresses such arbitrary dislike is guilty of a totally wrong disposition .

Similarly, if a person when asked why they dislike another person or being responds , "there's just something about them I don't like", yet does NOT set about to find any consistent criteria that they can clearly define as to why they dislike them ---is also guilty of a totally wrong disposition if they persist in disliking that person or being without any attempt at rational evaluation and justification .

For a basic law of epistemic logic (epistemic logic which is an enterprise that seeks to find which beliefs and dispositions of thought are justified ) is an *epistemic duty* (a normativity) basic to the very enterprise of epistemic logic as an enterprise, that one should attempt to find out if beliefs and dispositions of thinking are justified or not before one chooses to continue supporting those beliefs and ways of thinking .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Brain Quirks

2007-11-19T18:25:39Z

I have a lot of them. One thing having such a dynamic and dramatic relationship to consciousness has done for me is to teach me the value and the limitations inherent to perspective; that is, I understand, having had a lot of brain quirk events, how compelling and significant they can be, and how that affects behavior.

Has anyone else experienced such alternative realities as NDEs, OOBEs, visions, hallucinations, nightmares, clicks, pops, flashes, squeaks, purrs? I've brought this up on religious fora and been heavily criticized for suggesting certain experiences are rooted in neurophysiology, but I see reality as being a phenomenon of the brain, essentially...

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 34 replies

Hail the Chief

2007-11-12T03:16:07Z

The Quorum has a new mod, and I think he's right perfect for this place.

My modding is taking place on a few less serious / topic-driven boards and due to my health problems it's probably better for me to stay in arenas that don't require any real controversy or overly brainy taxing work, but I look forward to Jason's tenure and always enjoy following his line of thought.

Please give him respect and attention; it's well worth it.

Your friend;
Lokifreign

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 1 reply

More strange beauty

2007-09-24T06:48:21Z

Here is a hyperlink to some paintings by one of the Belgian Symbolist painters :

http://www.kilidavid.com/Art/Pages/Artists/khnopff.htm

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

Skyscape

2007-07-01T03:43:34Z

At the following hyperlink you can see a photo of a rare skyscape painted by one of America's finest : William Merrit Chase :http://www.illusionsgallery.com/Sunlight-Shadow-Chase.html

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 0 replies

Ocean Mist

2007-07-01T02:52:36Z

Click on the following hyperlink and see a beach in Namibia whose color , texture, and light can only barely be described ! : http://www.maion.com/photography/_photos/nami1289.jpg

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 2 replies

Why does she do it ?

2007-05-31T01:16:09Z

This past week, my dog, in her fenced in, area picked up a chewing object that she often treats as a toy and did what i had seen her on other occasions do . She would grab the object with her teeth and then throw it about in her fenced in area. Then she would look at me a nd bark a short but loud bark .she looked at me with a gleam her gaze and would grab it again with her mouth --sometimes shaking it and then cast the object into the air again . She would then attempt again to grab the object often turning to the side to gaze at me and then set about barking again . Funny thing, when I slowly move my hand as if to grab the object she would make a snarling bark and I would withdraw my hand out of fear that if I proceeded to grab it , in her fervent excitement she might bite me on reflex .

Yet if I do nothing she stares at me expectantly as if she expects me to try and grab the object ! Why does she do that ?

(She is a half -bassett hound half German shepherd ) .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 2 replies

CHANGELING:An illustration

2007-05-26T22:36:04Z

At the following web address: http://www.philsp.com/data/images/n/new_love_195006.jpg is the cover of a magazine-like book from the early 1950's in reference to a story called 'Love is a Changeling' . The illustration is very surreal and strangely beautiful in its colors which remind one of day glow psychedelic art .

Granted I haven't yet read the story to know if the story itself is anywhere near as superlative as the cover....and , hence, having not yet read the story itself do not know if the story sends the right or the wrong message .

However , the illustration with it's almost heraldic, dreamy poster- like appearance is amazing .

The image was found by looking up the word changeling on an image search .The concept of the changeling in folklore is quite fascinating and has fascinated me for a number of years . Like the unicorn, the concept of changelings calls forth a deep curiousity .

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

random mailbox day

2007-05-24T17:06:22Z

for atheists who are around;

really, if you don't like the taste of this, just imagine it doesn't matter whether or not the halo phenomenon
is real. Its the ability to halucinate at will thats important.
------

ote #24 from pan prometheus to HALOS AND AURAS:

>
>We have had some very useful notes and observations on the subjects of
>Halos and Auras. I want to bring a focus to my own thinking on this
>topic, one I have come fresh to.
----
oh good, i was wondering whod start.
-----
>
>
>
>I have been studying theology since 1965, both in Vancouver and in a
>German University. It now surprises me to state that nobody has ever
>mentioned the subject of "Halos" in all those lectures, and in all the
>theses and dissertations. I now wonder why.
-----
Its not a mainstream concept,it lost traction for a few centuries there.
----

>I thought of the subject of "Halos" as a matter of ancient history.
>Also as matter of esoteric art work.
-----
yes, it is those things, but it is also as modern as the people you know
who've
got the glow.
----
>
>
>
>I've always known the word "Halo" - there is even a halo over a house
>in an ad by a local real estate person whose first name is "Faith".
----
vanity halos in advertising seems like a poor taste rip off to me.
----
>
>
>
>But I never thought there were actual little white circles over
>people's heads in real life.
-----
well, there are, tho they are immensely more complicated as an anatomical
feature than a simple
white circle.
----
>
>
>
>I am coming to understand that halos represent something special about
>a person.
----
Specifically, that person is open to spirit enough that they aren;t just
themselves in a body.
They are CONNECTED. They are "plugged in" to the "force."
----

Not only about Jesus and Mary, and in some instances the
>Disciples. What is represented is a special quality of the person,
>which some other people may actually see as a light surrounding the
>body of the person, or perhaps just the head.
----
depending on how big and how much activity of the halo in question, and how
well observers can perceive subtle reality.
----
>
>
>
>There is energy, or a genius, or love, emanating from some people. A
>Halo is a way of acknowledging that.
---
love is a good word, because it is the love relationship between that person
and
spirit which forms the halo. Genius is a good word because once the Halo is
open,
that person is incessantly "inspired" with potentially whatever information
the mind
of god wants to impart to them.
----
>
>
>
>And everyone connected to that person may not see anything special
>about the person. Only a honoured few may see the "eminence" from the
>person.
----
That really depends on the people and how open THEY are to subtle reality.
Most people in our society can't see subtle reality AT ALL. But then again,
a very strong
Halo event might be enough to be seen even by those who are normally blind
to that
level of reality.
----

It may take many forms. And so I think "Aura" is a good
>connection.
----
The Halo is one part of the Aura.
---

It may appear to some who have an unusual gift or vision,
>as an aura. It may be white it colour, but it can be many other
>colours as well. It may surround the head only, or the whole body.
>It may take many shapes.
----
generally, its 3-5 inches above the head and between 8 and 20 inches in
diameter.
----

>There may be a connection here with the traditions of native people.
>We can probably learn a world of knowledge and insight from them.
----
errr.
You know its funny i just got into an argument over that. You see, some
people claim
that Halos originate with sun worship. This is false. Halos originate with
judiaic mysticism,
and artists drawing circles around peoples heads were not always drawing
halos.

I am a highly eclectic world religions studier, and i can tell you its
wonderful to find
crossovers and assorted proofs that some native culture was doing something
first.
However, Halos are indigenous to Judaic mysticism, don't let anybody tell
you different.

What the traditions of native people help with is the addition of Chakras,
so that we
can understand that the Halo is an operational condition of seventh chakra.

The rest of the most useful information comes from esoteric Judaism.

peace and light
prometheuspan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tTpow2fLo&mode=related&search=
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction holding me fast, how
Can I escape this irresistible grasp?
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted Just an earth-bound misfit, I
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to guide my way home
Unladened, empty and turned to stone
A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night
There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, A state of bliss
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I

Pink Floyd Lyrics

The number of times this song has been viewed:

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posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 3 replies

An artificial language

2007-05-16T05:22:46Z

The following article appeared at a website called 'Damn Interesting '.

The Birth of a Language
Written by Marisa Brook on November 3rd, 2006 at 5:12 am
Languages are thoroughly organic entities. Each one is complex and versatile, constantly shifting according to the needs of those who use it. When social, political or environmental changes create a gap in a language, its individual speakers use creativity and problem-solving skills to generate a solution. Successful changes to the language are spread quickly and often intuitively.

Another example of creativity influencing language is when small groups of children invent their own languages; however these do not tend to be languages in the fullest sense. They are typically simple, and based on the structures and/or vocabularies of languages that the children already know; they tend to function more as secret codes than anything else.

In at least one case, however, a group of children was able to spontaneously invent a totally new language out of necessity. The children in question were deaf, illiterate, and devoid of all but the most basic language skills, yet they were able to devise an intricate method of communication to use amongst themselves. Nicaraguan Sign Language (or ISN, for either Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua or Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense) is a unique and remarkable linguistic phenomenon of recent years.

After the Sandinista revolution of 1979, Nicaragua opened a school program for deaf children at a special-education center as part of a nationwide campaign to increase literacy. A second school started operating in 1980, and by 1983 the two schools had 400 students between them.

However, progress proved hard to come by. There was no access to any of the hundreds of established sign languages from around the world; instead, the students were instructed in lip-reading and alphabet finger-spelling. Overall, though, the children seemed to retain very little of what they were taught. Because the young students had virtually no language skills, the finger-spelled letters meant nothing to them.

This was unsurprising. Prior to these attempts at teaching them to communicate, deaf children in Nicaragua had interacted with their respective families via idiosyncratic systems of very rudimentary gestures (known as mimicas in Spanish). This meant that deaf children from different families couldn't even understand each other, let alone form friendships.

But an interesting effect appeared once the many deaf children had begun interacting in the group setting of the schools. The children started learning and elaborating on one another's mimicas, and the resulting system of signs rapidly grew. The amazed teachers watched as their students began to communicate quite successfully among themselves. This was immeasurably more than any little 'secret code' based on an existing, spoken language; these children were inventing the entire structure of ISN along with the vocabulary. They were, in a sense, teaching themselves to use language in general.

When the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education became aware of ISN, its members found themselves baffled by the phenomenon. They asked for help from sign-language specialist Judy Shepard-Kegl, then of Northeastern University in Boston. Intrigued, she set out for Nicaragua to document and analyze the fledgling language. She boldly started out by directly interacting with deaf teenagers at a vocational school. There, she was able to figure out a handful of the more straightforward signs - such as "house" and "what's up?" - but found herself confounded by the majority of the communication. Frustrated, Kegl moved on to a school for younger children.

The difference between the teenagers' and the children's language was striking. The younger speakers of ISN included many more subtleties - for example, verb agreement, in which the number, gender, and/or location of the subject(s) is indicated with verb inflection. It was obvious that the children were using their language at a substantially more fluent level than the teenagers, a finding which coincided with the theorized "critical period" for language acquisition. The idea holds that, in general, young children can rapidly absorb and master new languages until the age of six; the ability declines quickly until age twelve, and after that any acquisition of a new language requires substantially more effort.

In the case of ISN specifically, Kegl suggests that the gestures exchanged by the older students were interpreted by the younger ones as language input. The younger children learned the gestures and very naturally began to add to them, filling in any linguistic gaps encountered along the way. This was what allowed ISN to become a language, rather than a mere set of signs. At this point the older children learned ISN from their younger classmates; their less fluent usage was akin to any second-language acquisition in adulthood. Of course it is still possible that the language could change over time, but it has developed enough that the process would be no different from the gradual shifts of any language.

Kegl and her husband, James Shepard-Kegl, went on to found two experimental schools - the Escuelita de Bluefields and Escuelita de Condega - to teach and observe ISN directly. Teachers at the schools are careful not to introduce any elements of other sign-language systems; these could possibly contaminate the development of ISN. The language now has an estimated 900 to 1200 signers.

The implications of a spontaneously-created language are numerous. Prominent linguists such as Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker have interpreted ISN's birth as evidence supporting their respective theories that human beings possess an innate capacity for complex language. Obviously it would be unethical to perform an experiment to see whether a group of children left to grow up completely isolated will develop a language, but the circumstances under which ISN was born were similar.

Late prominent American Sign Language researcher William Stokoe, however, believed that the development of ISN may have been helped along by the children's limited exposure to Spanish and to other forms of signing. Either way, it is incredible that such an elaborate language was improvised and refined by a group of children who had never truly read or heard a single word. ISN's origins - along with the fact that it is still thriving after twenty years - stands as a testament to the human mind's natural ambition to express complex ideas, even in the face of serious obstacles.

Article suggested by David.

More information:
Article: "A Linguistic Big Bang"
Wikipedia article
Article and video clip from PBS
Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects, Inc.

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 2 replies

Anomaly in a minor "key"

2007-05-11T13:31:09Z

Just the day before yesterday , I was out walking my dog in the area around the pond, when I saw an amazing anomaly of a non-dramatic sort. I saw a very small antbed (like a small crater with a rim of Folrida sand somewhere in hue between a beige and a tan) that had a hole in it that resembled a keyhole in an old era door --the kind of minature shape like unto a three dimensional rendering of an upside down exlamation point with the dot area joined to the base .

I mused inwardly what it would be like if one were to have inserted an actual key into the hole in the antbed and turned it ?

posted in The Superbrain Quorum - 4 replies